THE CHARLOTTE MESSENGER
VOL. IV. NO. 21.
THE
Charlotte Messenger
IS PUBLISHED
Every Saturday,
AT
CHARLOTTE, N. C.
In the Interests cf the Colored People
of the Country.
Able and well-known writers will confcrib
nte to its columns from different parts of the
country, and it will contain theglatest Gen
eral News of the day.
This Messenger is a first-class newspaper
and will not allow personal abuse in its col
umns. Itis not sectarian or partisan, but
independent—dealing fairly by all. It re
serves the right to criticise the shortcomings
of all public officials—commending the
worthy, and recommending for election such
men as in ite opinion are best suited to serte
the interests of the people.
It is intended to supply the long felt need
of a newspaper to advocate the rights and
defend the inter.sts of the Negro-American,
especially in the Piedmont section of the
Carolinas.
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Address,
W.C. SMITH Charlotte WC,
The most novel scheme ever adopted :
for increasing the circulation of a news
paper is that of a Detroit daily, which ;
advertises that its publishers will give !
SIOO to the next of kin to any person I
who is killed in a railway accident in
the United states or Canada, provided a
late copy of the paper be found on the
person of the deceased.
m . . i'Jg
The United States heads the world in
the mutter of locomotive engines, with a
horse-power of 7,500,000. Then ome j
England, with 7,000,000, Germany with
4,500,000, France with 3,000,000 aad
Austria with 1,500,000. The horse*
power of the steam engines of the world
represent? the work of 1,000,000,000
men, or more than double the man
power of the whole working population.
This nt'ans that steam ha? trebled man's
working powers.
The march of progress is shown by il»c
following statement: It is now possible
to construct a complete sewing machine
in a minute, or sixty in one hour; a
reaper every fifteen minutes or less;
three hundred watches in a day, com
plete in all their appointments. More
important than this even is the fact that
it is possible to construct a locomotive
in a day. From the plnnsof a draughts
man to the execution of them by the
workmen, every wheel, lever, valve ami
rod may be constructed from the metal
to the engine intact. Every rivet may
be driven in the boiler, every tube in the
tube sheets, and from Ihe smokestack to
the ashpan a locomotive may be turned
out in a working day, completely
equipped, ready to do the work of a
hundred horses.
The cost of the ditches of Colorado,
constructed for irrigating crops, is esti
mated at $11,000,000. More than two
million of acres are irrigated by them.
About five million acres of the whole
6tate are tillable. The mining country
takes up more than the Western half of
Colorado. The High-line Ditch, built
by foreign capital, is eighty-three miles
long, forty fret wide and seven deep,
and its capacity is such that it will irri
gate five hundred and twenty hundred
acre farms. There arc three other large
irrigating canals in the State, tie: The
Grand River Ditch, with a capacity of
sixty-five thousand acres and a cost cf
$l7O ,000; the l’ncompi(jhreCanal,which
water* 75,000 acre,, anil coat $11)0,000,
and the Uitir.cn,' Ditch and (.and ( anal,
which cost $310,000, and can irrigate
100,000 acre,. There are ,till three
other companies, which hire canal, that
coat half a million in the aggregate, and
irrigate manj thousand, of acre,. TlieM
lanrin were originally bought cheap, and
are now held at high pricea. Thu, it ia
Men where portiona of ‘‘the people',
money go,' 1 like bread on Ihe water,, to
be fottnd with im tease in the lutu.e,
•WHEN CHRISTMAS COMES.
When Christmas comes, and ’nenth the snows
The barren ground lies deop, there grows
A softer beauty o’er the earth
And where before there wns a dearth
Os Good, there doth the Pure repose.
And where before all selfish rose
Honk weeds of Greed and Hate, now those
Are covered, at Love's snowy birth
When Christmas comes.
Broadcast the choir of angels strews
Good will; and to hard hearts bestows
A kindly softness that is worth
A life to men. Wild rings the mirth
And earth's great soul with gladness glows,
When Christmas conies.
Christmas on ‘‘Old Windy.”
BY CHARLES EGBERT C RADDOCK.
The sun had barely shown the rim of
his great red disc above the sombre
woods and snow-crowncd crags of the
opposite ridge, when Dick Herne, his
rifle in his hand, stepped out of his
father's log-cabin, perched high among
♦he precipices of ('ld Windy Mountain.
He waited motionless for a moment, and
all the family trooped to the door to as
sist at the time-honored ceremony of
firing a salute to the day.
Suddenly the whole landscape catches
a rosy glow, Dick whips up his rifle, a
jet of flame darts swiftly out, a sharp re-1
port rings all around the world, and the j
sun goes grandly up—while the little
tow-headed mountaineers hurrah shrilly
for “Chris’mus!”
As he I egan to re load his gun the ,
••mall boys clustered around him, their |
hands in the pockets of their baggy 1
jeans trousers, their heads inquiringly ]
askew.
"They air a goin* ter hev a pea fowe/ 1
fur dinner down j under ter Birk's Mill,” j
Dick remarked.
The smallest boy smacked his lips— ‘
not that he knew how pea-foweZ tastes, I
but he imagined unutterable things.
“Somehows I hate fur ye ter go ter j
eat at Birk’s Mill—they air sccli a set o’ j
drinkiu* men down thar ter Malviny's |
house,” said Dick's mother, as she stood !
in the doorway, and looked anxiously at !
him.
For his elder sister was Birk ; s wife,
and to this great feast lie was invited as
a representative of the family, his father
being disabled by “rheumatics,” and his
mother kept at home by the necessity of
providing dinner for those four small
boys.
“Hain't I done promised ye not ter
tech a drap o’ liquor this Chris mus day?’’
asked Dick.
“I hat's a fne',” his mother admitted.
“But boys, an’ men folks ginerally, air
scandalous easy ter break a promise whar
whisky is in it.”
“Til hev ye ter know that when I gin
my word I keeps it!” cried Dick, pride
ful Iv.
lie little drcimed how that promise
was to be assailed before the sun went
down.
He was a tall, sinewy l»oy, deft of foot
as all these mountaineers are, and a sev
en mile walk in the snow to Birk's Mill
he considered a meic trifle. He tramped
along cheerily enough through the silent
solitudes of the dense forest. Only at
long intervals the stillness was broken
by the cracking of a bough under the
weight of snow, or the whistling of a
gust of wind through the narrow valley
far below.
All at once—it was a terrible shock of
surprise- he was sinking! Was there
nothing beneath him but tbo vague
depths of air to the base of the mountain?
He realized with a quiver of dismay that
he had mistaken a huge drift tilled fis
sure. between a jutting crag and the wall
of the ridge, for the solid, ar.ow-covered
ground. He to-sed his arms about
wildly in his effort to gra*p something
liim. The motion only dislodged the
drift. He felt that it was falling, and he
was going down—down —down with it.
He saw the trees on the summit of Old
Windy disappear. He caught one
glimpse of the neighboring ridges.
Then he was blinded and enveloped in
this cruel whiteness. <)ne last thought of
the and he seemed to slide
swiftly away from the world with the
snow.
He was unconscious probably only for
a few minutes. When he came to him
self he found that he was tying, half
submerged in the great drift, on the
slope of the mountain, and the dark
icicle-begirt cliff towered high above.
He stretched his limbs—no bones broken!
He could hardly believe that he had.
fallen unhurt from those heights. He
did not appreciate how gradually the
j inow hud slid down. Beiug so densely
| packed, too, it had buoyed bi n up, and
| kept him from dashing against the'-harp,
jagged edges of the lock. He had lost
i consciousness in the . r when the moving
i m*** was abruptly arrested by a knoll ol
earth. He was still a little dizzy and
i faint, but otherwise uninjured.
Sow a great perplexity took hold on
j him. How was he to make his way
bick uo the mountain he asked himself,
j *s he looked at the inaccessible cliffs
I looming high into the nr. All the
I world around him was u.'familiar. Even
his wide wanderings had never brought
him into this vast, snowy, tr.ckhs.l
wilderness, that stretched out on every
| side. He would be half the day in find
ing the valley road that led to Birk’s
Mill. He rose to his feet and ga'ed
i about him in painful indecision. The
next moment a thrill shot through him,
to which he was unaccustomed. He had
lever before shaken except with the
ro!d—but this was fear.
For he heard voices! Not from the
cliffs above, but from below! Not from
i the dense growth of young pines on the
slope of the mountain, but from the
depths of the earth beneath! He stood
motionless, listening intent!/, his eyes
dLiendcd. and his heart bearin'* fast.
I AM siltucc! Not even the wiut| stirred
CHARLOTTE, N. C., SATURDAY, DEC. 10, 1887
in the pine thicket. The snow lay heavy
nmong the dark green branches, ancl
every slender needle was encased in ice.
Dick rubbed his eyes. It was no dream.
There was the thicket—but whose were
the voices that had rung out faintly from
beneath it?
A crowd of superstitions surged upon
him. He east a fenrful glance at the
ghastly, snow covered woods and sheeted
earth. He was remembering fireside
legends, horrible enough to raise the hair
on a civilized, educated boy’s head; much
more horrible, then, to a young barbarian
like Dick.
Suddenly those voices from the earth
ngain! One was ringing a drunken catch
—it broke into falsetto, and ended with
an unmistakable hiccup.
Dick’s blood came back with a rush.
“I hev never hearn tell o’ the hoobies
git tin’ boozy!” he said, with a laugh.
’‘That’s whar they hev got the upper hand
o’ humans.”
As he gazed ngain at the thicket, he
saw now what he had been too much ag
itated to observe before, a column of
dense smoke that ro-e from far down the
declivity, and seemed to make haste to
hide itself among the low-hanging boughs
of a clump of fir trees.
“It’s somebody’s house down thar,”
was Dick’s conclus : ou. “I kin find out
the way to Birk’s Mill from the folkscs.”
When he neared the smoke he paused
abruptly, staring once more.
There was no house! The smoke rose
from among low pine bushes. Above
were the snow-laden branches of the fir.
“Es that was a house hyar l reckon I
could sec it!” said Dick, doubtfully, in
finitely mystified.
There was a continual drip, drip, all
around. Yet a thaw had not set in. Dick
looked up at the gigantic icicles that
hung to the crags, and glittered in tho
sun—not a drop trickled from them. But
this fir-tree was dripping, dripping, and
the snow had melted away from the pine
bushes that clustered about the smoke.
There was heat below certainly, a strong
heat, and somebody was keeping the fire
up steadily.
‘‘An’ air it folksesez live underground
like foxes an’ scch!” Dick exclaimed, as
tonished, as became upon a large, irregu
larly-shaped rift in the rocks, and heard
the same reeling voice from within, be
ginning to sing onee more. But for
this bacchanalian melody the noi-e of
Dick’s entrance might have given notice
of his approach. As it was, the inhabi
tants of this strange place were even more
surprised than ho, when, after groping
through a dark, sow passage, an abrupt
turn brought him into a lofty, vaulted
apartment. There was a great flare of
light, which revealed six or seven muscu
lar men grouped about a large copper
vessel built into a rude stone furnace, and
all the air was pervaded by an incom
parably strong alcoholic odor. The boy
started back with a look of terror. That
pale terror was i elected on each man’s
face, as on a mirror. At the sight of the
young stranger they all sprang up with
the same gesture—each instinctively laid
his hand upon the pistol that he wore.
Poor Lick understood it all at last.
He had stumbled upon a nest of distil
lers, only too common among these
mountains, who were hiding from tho
officers of the Government, and running
their still in defiance of the law and
whisky tax. He realized that in dis
covering their stronghold he had learned
a secret that was by no means a Fafe one
for him to know. And he was in their
power, at their mercy!
“Don’t shoot,” he faltered. “I jes’
want ter a\ the folkscs ter tell me the
way ter Birk’s Mill.”
What would lie have given to be on
the bleak mountain outside?
One of the men caught him as if antici
pating an attempt to run. Two or three,
after a low toned colloquy, took their
rifles and crept cautiously outside to re
connoiter the situation. Dick compre
hended their suspicion with new quak
ings. They imagined that he win* a spy,
and had been sent among them to dis
cover them plying their forbidden voca
tion. The penalty of their still was im
prisonment for them. His heart sank as
he thought of it; they would never let
him go.
After a time the reconnoitcring party
came back.
“Nothin* stirrin’,” raid the leader,
tersely.
“I misdoubts,” muttered another, cast
a look of deep suspicion on Dick. ‘Thar
air men out thar, I’m a-thinkin’ hid
some whar. ”
“They air furder ’n a mile off, enny
how,” returned the first sp aker. “We
never lef’ so much ez a bush ’thout
sarehin’ of it.”
“The offVeis can’t find this p’ace no
ways ’thout that thar chap fur a guide,”
said a third, with a surly nod of his head
at Dick.
“We’re safe enough, boys,safe enough!”
cried a stout-built, red-faced, red bearded
man, evidently very drunk, and with a
\o?oe that b oke into quavering falsetto
as Ire spoke. “This chap can’t do
nothin*. We hev got him hound hand
an’ foot. Hyar air the Philistine, boys!
Mighty little l it listine. though! hi!”
He tried to point jccriuglv at Dick, and
forgot what lie la I intended to do
before he could fairly extend his hand.
Then his rollicking head sank on hii
breast, and he began to troll again,—
‘‘Old Adum he kern loafin' round.
He spied the peel in * on the ground!’’
One of the more sober of the men had
extinguished the tire, in order that they
might not he betrayed by the smoke out
side, to the officers whom they fancied
were seeking tin m. The place, chilly
enough at best, was growing bitter cold.
Dick observe*l that they were making
preparations for flight, and once more
the fear of what they would do with him
clutched at his heart. He was something
of a problem to them.
“This hyar cub will go blab,” was the
first suggest inn.
“lie will keep mum,” said the vocal-
ist, glancing at the boy with a jovially
tipsy combination of leer and wink.
“Hyar is the persuader!” He wrapped
sharply on his pistol. “This’ll scotch his
wheel. ’
“Hold yer own jaw—ye drunken ’pos
sum!” retorted another of the group.
“Es yc fire off that pistol in hynr we’ll
hev all these hyar rocks”—he pointed at
the walls and the long collonadcs—“an
swerin’ back an yowin’ like a pack o’
hounds on a hot scent. Es thar air folks
outside, the noise would fotch ’em down
on us fur true!”
Dick breathed more freely. The
rocks would speak up for him! He
could not be harmed with all these tell
tale witnesses at hand. bo silent now,
but with a latent voice Rtrong enough foi
the dread of it to save him!
The man who had put out the fire,
who had led the reeonnoitering party,
who had made all the active preparations
for departure, who seemed, in short, to
be an executive committee of one—a
long, lank, lazy-looking mountaineer,
with a decision of action in startling
contrast to his whole aspect, now took
this matter in hand.
“Nothin’ easier, 1 * he said, tersely.
“Fill him up. Make him ez drunk ez a
fresh b’iled owel. Then lead him to the
t’other eend o’ the cave, an’ blindfold
him, an* lug him off five mile in the
woods, an’ leave him thar. He’ll never
know what he hev seen nor done.”
“That’s the dinctum!” cried the red
bearded man, in delighted approval.
Then singing in his high quavering
“ ’Twixt me an’ you I really think
It’s almost time ter take a drink!”—
he broke into a wild hiccoughing laugh,
inexpressibly odious to the boy.
In the preparations for departure all
the lights had bccAcxtinguishcd, except
a single lantern, 'and a multitude of
shadows had come thronging from the
deeper recesses of the cave, in the faint
glimmer the figures of the men loomed
uft indistinct,gigantic, distorted. They
hardly seemed men at all to Dick;
rather some evil under ground creature,
neither beast nor human.
And he was to be made as besotted,
as loathsome, even more helpless than
they, in order that his senses might be
sapped away, and he should remember no
6tory to tell. Perhaps if he had not had
before him so vivid an illustration of the
malign power that swayed them, he
might not have experienced so strong an
aversion to it. Now, to be made like
them, seemed a high price to pay for his
life. And there was his promise to his
mother! As the long, lank, lazy-looking
mountaineer pressed the whisky upon
him, he threw it off with a gesture so
unexpected and vehement that the
cracked jug fell to the floor and wns
shivered to fragments.
Dick lifted an appealing face to the
man who seized him with a strong grip.
“I can't—l won’t,” the boy cried
wildly. “I—l—promised my mother!”
He looked around the circle deprccat
ingly. He expected first a guffaw and
then a blow, and he dreaded the ridicule
more than the pain.
But there were neither blows nor ridi
cule. They all gazed at him. astounded.
Then a change, which Dick hardly < om
prehended, flitted across the face of the
man who had grasped him. He turned
away abruptly, with a bitter laugh that
startled all the echoes.
“/•—I promised my mother, too!” he
cried. “It air good that she's whar she
can’t know how I hev kep’ it.”
And then there was a sudden silence.
It seemed to- Dick, strangely enough,
like the sudden silence that comes after
a prayer. He was reminded, as one of the
men rose at length, andthekegon which
he had been sitting creaked with the mo
tion, of the creaking benches in the little
mountain church wneu the congregation
started from their knees. And had come
feeble, groping sinner’s prayer filled the
silence and the moral darkness!
The “executive committee” promptly
recovered himself. But he made no
further attempt to force the whiskey upon
the boy. Under some whispered instruc
tions which he gave the others, Dick was
half-lea, half-dragged through im
mensely long black halls of the cave,
while one of the men w ? ent before carry
ing the feeble lantern. When the first
glimmer of daylight appeared in the dis
tance, be understood that the cave had
an outlet other than the one by which he
had entered, and evidently miles distant
from it. Thus it wns that the distillers
were well enabled to baffle the law that
sought them.
They stopped here and blindfolded
the bov. How far and where they
dragged him through the snowy mount
ain wilderness outside, Dick never knew.
He was exhausted, when at length they
allowed him to pause. As he heard their
steps dying away in the distance, he tore
the bandage from his eyes, and found
that they had left him in the midst of a
wagon road to make his way to Birk’s
Mill as best he might. When he reached
it the wintry suu was low in the western
sky, and the very bones of the “pea
fowl” were picked.
On the whole, it seemed a sorry Christ
mas Day, as Dick could not know then—
indeed, he‘ never knew—what good re
sults it brought forth. For among those
who took the benefit of the clemency ex
tended by the Government to the “moon
shiners” of this region, cn condition that
they discontinue illicit distilling for tho
future, was a certain long, lank, lazy
looking mountainerr who suddenly be
came sober and steady and a law abiding
citizen. He had been reminded, this
Christmas Day, of a broken promise to n
dead mother.— Y<»dh\t Co>nr*/nion.
Just That
Mrs. Crimsonbeak —“I’m so tired that
I should like to retire and sleep for the
rest of my.life.”
Mr. Crimsonbeak—“Well, that’s just
what you will do, for sleep is just that
tiling. ”
“Just what thing?”
“The rest of your life,”- Yonkers
Bin iceman,
WISE WORDS.
A coxcomb is ugly all over with the
affectation of the fine gentleman.
There is nothing so valuable, and yet
so cheap, as civility; you can almost buy
land with it.
Give every man thine car, but few thy
voice. Take each man’s censure, but re
serve thy judgment.
The wise prove and the simple con
fess, by their conduct, that a life of em
ployment is the only life worth leading.
Were wc determined resolutely to
avoid vices, the world foists them on us,
as thieves put off their plunder on the
guiltless.
If. doing what ought to be done be
made the first business, and success a
secondary consideration, is not this the
way to exalt virtue?
The great duty of life is not to give J
pain, and the most acute rcasoncr cannot
find an excuse for one who voluntarily
wounds the heart of a fellow-creature.
Few of our errors, national or indi- >
vidual, come from the design to be un- j
just—most of them from sloth or in- !
capacity to grapple with the difficulties \
of being just.
It is best to strive to cultivate an in- 1
terest in simple, innocent and inex
pensive pleasures. We may thus aid in
diffusing that spirit of contentment which
is of itself rich and a permanent posses
sion.
If the way in which men express their
thoughts is slipshod and mean, it will bo
very difficult for their thoughts to
escape being the same. If it is high
flown and bombastic, a character for
national simplicity and thankfulness
cannot long be maintained.
“Feeling the Enemy.”
Colonel William W. Lang, the Consul j
at Hamburg, has a characteristic remin- !
iscenceof Southern fighting methods dur- I
ing the war. Colonel Greene, of Texas, I
was a dashing, invincible cavalry officer, j
who rushed precipitately into battle with
out any plans or preconceived notions. 1
He had a simple way of firing his com
mand with reckless enthusiasm. When
ever old Greene tugged his wide-brimmed
hat down oyer his eyes and shouted,
“Boys, I want a few volunteers,” every
one knew it was to do or die. In antici
pation of General Wetzel’s march Irom
New Orleans to Port Hudson with 4,000
troops and supplies for the relief of the
beleaguered garrison, Colonel Lang
scouted the intermediate country, and
with General Taylor, of the Confederate
infantry, planned an interception and
battle. Greene was called to the council
and ordered to move out with his 1,500
cavalry to “feel” the advancing
Unionists and then retreat to draw them
into an ambush of 4,000 infantry and ar
tillery. The intrepid Texan, unaccus
tomed to this kind of warfare, upon re
ceiving the orders scratched his head
resentfully, though he finally obeyed
without any uttered protest. His com
mand on that memorable occasion was a
dejected “Well, come along, boys.”
There was more of the funeral than the
martial air in the advance, but after hav
ing got beyond the sight of headquarters
a change came over the spirits of the
column. Greene halted and made this
address: “Boys, I want a few’volun
teers.” One long, loud shout answered
him. When they came in sight of the
Unionists a wild, sweeping charge was
made with Greene in the lead, and Wet
zel and his entire command were cap
tured, ,while Taylor was complacently
waiting for the expected victory of his
ambuß°ade. The success of Greene’s iin
petuosity could not appease Taylor’s
anger and disappointment, however.
“You have disobeyed your orders,
sir,” paid he. “I told you plainly to
only feel the enemy.”
“Well, General,” replied the Texan,
playing sheepishly with the brim of his
hat. “ all I know about feel in’ the enemy
is to pitch in and fight ’em like the
deuce. —Chicago News.
A Historic Tree.
An incident of the Revolutionary War
which is authentic, though not included
in our histories nor widely known, is the
story of the Liberty Tree which stood in
Charleston, South Carolina. It was a
huge live-oak, which grew in the centre
of the square between Charlotte and
Boundary Streets.
When the popular excitement over the
Stamp Act was at its height in Charles
ton in 1706, about twenty men, belong
ing to the most influential Carolinian
families, assembled under this tree, and
were addressed by General Gadsden. He
denounced the measure with indigna
tion, and prophesied that the colonies
would never receive justice from the
mother country. He then, after a mo
ment’s solemn pause, declared that the
only hope for the future lay in the sever
ence of all bonds with England, and in
the independence of the Colonies.
This, it is asserted, was the first time
that the independence of this country
was spoken of in public.
The men assembled then joined hands
around the old oak, and pledged them
selves to resist oppression to the death.
Their names arc still on record. 3lost
of them were distinguished for their
courage and patriotism during the strug
gle which followed.
The Liberty Tree was regarded with
such reverence by the enthusiastic Car
olinians that Bir Henry Clinton, after
the surrender of Charleston to the Brit
ish, ordered it lo be destroyed. It was
cut down, and afterwards its branches
were formally heaped about its trunk
and burned.— Youth's Companion,
A block of granite twentv-fl.e feet
long, and five leet thick and wide U
being cut in Vermont for a California
ban* vault. It wil. take thirty span ol
horses to <1 raw it the four miles o tae
railroad.
Terms. $1,50 per Aim Single Copy 5 cents.
Some Valuable Woods.
The tulip tree is a native of America,
and is found from Canada to Florida. It
is especially abundant inutile Western
States. The wood is greatly valued for
the ease with which it can J)e worked.
Satin wood is the name applied to several
woods of commerce which acquire a
peculiar lusture when polished; the prin
cipal of these are brought from India and
the Bahamas and West Indies. The
Indian satin wood is from a tree of the
meliaceiE family, which grows to a height
of 50 or 60 feet, and is found along the
Coromandel coast and other parts of In
dia; the wood is hard and yellow. The
Bahaman wood comes from a tree of an
other species; it is lighter colored than
the India wood. Rosewood is a name
applied in commerce to several costly
kinds of ornamental wood, which come
from different countries and from very
•different trees. The best-known rose
woods are from Brazil and other parts of
South America. Africa and Burmese
rosewoods are thought to come from a
different species of the same family as
South American trees. Other kinds are
brought from different places and are ob
tained from very different trees. One
kind is found on the Canary Islands only,
another on the island of Jamaica, and
others at different places. Sandal wood
is the name of the aromatic wood of sev
eral species of santalum, mainly found in
the East Indies, and on the mainland of
India, though certain kinds are also ob
tained in the forests of the Hawaiian
Islands, the Fecjce Islands, and in Aus
tralia. Block ebony wood is found
principally in Ceylon, Madagascar, and
Mauritius, where it grows spontaneously,
and is cultivated to a certain extent in
other localities of the East. The wood
of all specie j of the holly tree is remark
ably white when the tree is young, but
assumes a darker color with age. The
Euiopcan holly is found especially in
Italy, Greece, and the Danubian prov
inces. It grows abundantly throughout
Southern Europe, and is also cultivated
in Great Britain. The American holly is
found along the Atlantic coast, from
Maine southward, and is especially
abundant in Virginia and the Carolinas.
It does not seem to flourish so well in
the Wcst. — ln ter - Occa n.
Dishonesty and Cruelty in Morocco.
Notwithstanding the colossal imperial
peculation, private enterprise in the same
direction is visited with summary pun
ishment. The Sultan desires a monopoly.
A thief—not an official—is punished by '
having his hand cut off at the wrist, which
is plunged into a pot of boiling pitch, in
order to cauterize the wound and pre
vent. fatal bleeding. The bastinado is
used on the slightest provocation. Not
long ago the keeper of the prison was
asked by an American traveler, whom for
some reason he was anxious to please,
j what this punishment of the bastinado
was like. The answer was that he should
see for himself. In a few minutes a man
wa» brought in, fastened to the floor
face downward, and terribly beaten upon
the upturned soles of his bare feet. The
screams and entreaties of the poor wretch
were so heartrending that our country
man interfered and begged for mercy,
when the punishment was immediately
stopped.
“What has this man done?” said he to
the officer.
“Nothing,” was the reply.
“Then what are you whipping him
for?” was the amazed question, which
was answered in a tone of equal astonish
ment :
“Why, didn’t you ask to see a man
bastinadoed?”
They had gone into the street, seized a
passer-by, and severely whipped an inof
fensive man merely to gratify the curi
osity of an amiable foreigner.—Cosmo
volitan Magazine.
A slo,ooo*Watch.
The death of Mr. Alfred Denison re
moves a well-known figure from London
society, lie was a younger brother of
the celebrated George Anthony Denison,
Archdeacon of Taunton, .and of Mr.
Speaker Denison, afterward Viscount
Ossington. l ady Ossington presented
her brother-in-law with SIO,OOO for cer
tain services. This money Mr. Denison
invested in a sumptuous watch. A very
musical repeater of the best workman
ship was enclosed in a gold case literally
studded with jewels, and each jewel a
picked stone. The watch chain had a
succession of black pearls, and the signo'
was a scarabieus. The worst of this
costly whim was that the owner scarcely
dared wear the watch for fear of beiog
robbed in the street, and could not leave
it home for fear of burglary.— Liverpool
Courier.
More Interstate Business.
“Better keep your head in the car,**
continued the conductor on the Lansing
train as he passed through a coach and
saw an old mau with his head thrust
out.
It was slowly drawn in and tho owner
turned to a man on the seat behind and
asked:
“What harm does it do to put my head
out?”
“You might knock some of the tele
graph poles down.”
“Oh, that’s it! Well, if they are so
’fraid of a few old poles I'll keep my
head in. That's the way on the railroads
since that new law went into effect”—
Ite roil Fret Frets.
Six He.vty"ld Brothers.
A very remarkable group was recently
photographed at Chariottstown, Canada.
It consisted of six brothers whose uniter”
ages amount to 465 years, or an average
of 77 1-3 years each, as follows: Charle.
Stevenson, of Tiguish, 86 years; Join
Stevenson, New-Glasgow, 83; Andrew
Stevenson, Fredericton, Prince Edward
Island, 80; William Stevenson, Frederic
ton, Prince Edward Island, 77; George
Stevenson, New-Glasgow, 73; Roliert
Stevenson, Kuatico, 67. They are sl|
hale and hearty.