Newspapers / The Roanoke Beacon and … / Nov. 16, 1894, edition 1 / Page 1
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:for god, for cou&tiiv and for TRura $1.00 a yearin advance. VOL. VI. PLYMOUTH, N. C, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1894. NO. 20. "WY FletcherAusbon.Editor and Manager. ." THE CROAKER. TThea it ain't a-goin' to blow, It'll snow, - ' r It'll snow! When the land with cosh Is huminiaV There's a money panlo coida' 1 When the sky Is heamln' bright, . There's a hurricane in sight I' . And you'll know,' . And you'll know, -It was him who told you sot - TFhen the crops are growln flno, - They'll decline, . They'll decline 1 When the weather's kinder sunny, - All the heat will melt the honey I : When it's lookln' rather wet. It will drown the cotton yet I - And you'll know,- I And you'll know,- It was him who told you so I ,, He's a Kreat one in his way, k Everyday," Everyday! , lie is always prophesying You are either dead, or dying ' : And no matter what you do, . It's exactly as he knew ! t: And you'll know, Know, know. It was him who told you so '. P. L. Stanton. THE ABANDONED HOUSE, M FBANCOIS COFFEE. J OR" fifteen years 1 passed nearly every clay, and some times twice a clay through a little street situated at the extreme limit of the Faubonrg St.: GermaiD, and WTW90 enumg in one of sff 'll Iv " tJuose magnificent boulevards , which radiate about dee Invalides. It was , one of those Tnr-o rare xarisian Dy-ways wnere tnere is not a single shop. I do not know a more tranquil spot. Several gardens, enclosed in long, low walls overhung with branches, Bhed over the deserted street in May the delicate odor of lilacs; in June, the heavier perfume of elderflowers and acacias. . ' Among these was one abode even more isolated than the others. When the porte cochere opened to admit a landau or coupe, the pedestrian (who heard the echo of his stena on th sidewalk) saw only a graveled road, bordered with a hedge ; which turned abruptly toward a house hidden amid the verdure. It would have been dif ficult to find a corner more secluded. The place contained neither gardener's house nor porter's lodge nothing but that nest in the foliage. , The. pavilion was inhabited. The garden, gay with flowers, always care fully attended to, was a proof of that. In winter, the smoke from the chira Beys rose to the gray sky, and in the evening a light 6hone dimly behind the thick curtains, alwaya closely drawn. Several times I saw going or coming through the lattice-door an . old ser vant in sombre livery, and with a cir cumspect, even suspicious, air. Evi dently I should gain nothing by inter rogating him. Besides, what right had I to trouble with vain curiosity the. unknown host or hosts of the closed house? ; I respected their secret, but the enigmatical dwelling continued ' to ex ercise for me its singular attraction. One July night, a stifling night, un der a dark, heavy sky, I came home about eleven o'clock, and, accord ing to my - usual habit, I mechanically turned my steps . so as to pass before the mysterious pavilion. The little street, lighted only by three ga9 jets far apart, which flickered in the heated air, was abso lutely deserted. Not a. leaf stirred on the trees in the garden. All nature was dumb in the quiet which precedes a storm. - I was in front of the pavilion, when tome notes were struck on a piano within and echoed in the motionless air. - I noticed with surprise that, doubtless beoause of the heat, two of the windows were partly open, though not enough for one to see the interior of the apartment. Suddenly a woman's voioe, a soprano of wonderful sweet Sees and power, burst forth upon the silence of the . night. . : . She sang a short melody, of strange rhythm and the most touching melan choly, in which I divined instinctively a popular air, one of those flowers of primitive music whioh are never gath ered in the gardens zaked by profes sional maestri. Yes, it certainly was a folk song, but of what country I did not recognize the tongue in which the words were written, but I felt there the plaintive inspiration, and fancied, that I detected in them the sad spirit of the North. The air was thrilling, the voice sublime. It hard ly lasted two minutes, but I never felt in all my life such a deep musical sen sation, and long after , the song had, died away, I felt still vibrating within me the final melodious note, sharp, penetrating, sad, like a long cry of pain. I remained there for a long time in the hope of hearing that de licious ' voice again, but suddenly " a Utorin burst upon the city. The wind- CP Bhook the trees. I felt a large drop of rain on my hand. I was obliged to make all haste to get home. Some days afterward I was in the Cwsino at Dieppe with some jolly com-., pauions, and took ' part in an anima ted discussion upon music. I praised popular airs, which spring spontane ously from an innocent sentiment. In aid of my theory, I related my adven ture. ' "What do you think of thia air?" naked Prince Khaloff, a young Rus sian with whom I was very intimate. I shall never forget it, ".I said warm ly. I proceeded to sing it indifferently well. " - ' "SVell," replied the young prince, "you can congratulate yourself, . my dear . sir, in having had such a rare treat. . That melody is a soug of the sailors 1 of Drontheim, away out in Norway,' and the beautiful voioe must have been that of Stolberg, with whom we were all in love two years asro. when she made her debut in St. Peters burgthat Stolberg was the rival of her countrywoman Nilsson, and who would have become one of the great est singers of the . century if she had not been suddenly snatched from art. from the stage, from, success of all kinds by her love for Count Basil Lobanof, at that time my comrade- in the Guards, ' when we were both cornets in the cavalry. Yes, for two years we were . without news of Basil. He had given up his commission and left Bussia without ' eaying adieu to any one. And we only knew vaguely that he had hidden himself In Paris with his wife; but we were ignorant of the place of his retreat till you now revealed it by chance." ' 4 'So, " said I, "the wonderfully . gifted artist has renounced everything for a little love affair." Say rather for a great passion P " cried the prince. " "Although very young, Stolberg had had numerous flirtations When she met Lobanof. 1 was there in the green room on the evening when Basil who, I should tell you, is as handsome as a god was presented to her, and I saw the diva pale with emotion, even under her powder and paint. Oh, it was start ling, and I thought that she would carry off our young friend that same evening, pell--. ', with the trium phant bouquet. ,a after the fifth act. But immediately he became ae jealous as a Mussulman yes, jealous of the very publio when she sang. He was . always there in the front seats of the orchestra, and at each burst of ap plause he turned abruptly, and cast a sombre look over the house. That look seemed to express a desire to slap the whole audience in the face. Everything went wrong. Even when the Czar was pres ent, the prima donna had eyes for no one but Basil sang always to Basil. , That canned trouble behind the scenes, 7and the poor girl decided to leave the stage. Bhe did so at the end of three months, at the close of her engage ment. He married her- and since then they have hidden themselves in Paris, in the retreat which you dis covered. They must be dead in love. But I will wager that Basil will get over it. He is built like the Farnese Hercules, and they say poor Stolberg is consumptive. They pretend even that it is disease which gives her voice its wonderful power and extraordi nary sweetness and pathos. Her gift is the result of disease, like the pearl. . All the same, no matter how much in love with Lobanof the poor girl is, she will die of weariness in that cage in which he keeps her. Then she must 'sing very rarely, since in the many times you have passed before their house you have heard her but once, 'that night of the atorm. Well, it will 'end badly." . The conversation turned to other things, and the next day I left Dieppe to go with some f riends to. Lower Nor mandy. . I had only been there ten 'days when I read accidentally in a the atrical paper the following notice) We announce with sorrow the death of Mile. Ida ; Stolberg. the Swedish cantatrice, who shone so briefly and brilliantly on the stage in Germany and Bussia, and who renounced hex lyrical career in the midst of her suo cess and has been living quietly in Paris for two years past. She died of pulmonary consumption." I had never seen Stolberg. .Once only had I heard that incomparable voice. Still, the reading of this com monplace notice, which' announced to me the fulfilment of Prince KhalofPs' dismal propheoy, broke my heart. I knew now the whole mystery of the closed house. It was there that the poor woman had languished and been extinguished, deeply in love, no doubt,1 but stifled also by the captivity to .which she was condemned by the jealousy of her husband. ' No doubt, also, sho was full of regrets for the former - triumphs of her abandoned art The fate of Stolberg seemed so sad to me that I fairly hated the man who had sacrificed her whole life. Ho seemed to me a fop, an egotist, a brute.' . I was certain that he would soon console himself for the loss of his wife, that he would soon forget the poor dead woman, and that, un-' worthy of the love which' ho had in spired, he would also ba incapable of ' grief or fidelity. On my retur ri to Tatie, one of the first persons I met on the Boulevard was Princo Khaloff. I told him how much I had been moved at the news of the singer's death, and I could not hide from . him the instinctive antipathy which I felt toward Lobanof. ."Behold, you people of imagina tion I " cried the prince. .''"You were charmed for an instant by this wo man's voice, and you feel a posthu mous love for her, and a retrospective jealousy of ray poor friend. I own to you that I have always thought Basil a more sensual than sensible man, more passionate than tender; but I have seen him since poor Ida's death, and he is a' prey, I assure you, to the most horrible! and sincere despair. When I expressed my sympathy .to him, he cast himself in my arms, and repeated to me, as he wept on my shoulder, that he could livj no loager. And it was not pretence. He goes at once to Senegal, to join the Jackson "mission, a party of explorers, who will bury, themselves, probably for- ; ever, in frightful Africa. That is not common, you will own. It is to be feared that fever or cholera, or a shot from the gun of a savage, will end the poor boy's life and sorrow, ""ait back, I beg you, your rash and pre mature judgment upon him. Besides, he had before his departure an idea which should certainly seem affecting to you. That pavilion, where he has been so happy and so unhappy, be longs to hint. Well, he has closed it forever. .' Basil wishe3 that no living being should ever again penetrate that abode of love and sorrow. You can pass there now, and see the house fall into ruin, and on the day when they put a notioe upon it, on that day you can say, 'Basil Lobanof is dead."' I left the prince, and the next day, reproaching myself for my injustice, I went to see the deserted house. The shntters were closed ; the dead leaves of the great plane tree, half-bare (it was the end of autnmn), covered the grass of the lawn. Weeds foroed their way through the gravelled walk. The work of destruction had begun. Months passed ; a year ; then anoth er ; then the daily papers were full of the great anxiety felt over the fate of Jackson and his companions, from whom no news had come. You know that even to-day the world is ignorant of the fate of those brave explorers, Living always in the same vicinity and passing every day before the abandoned pavilion, I say it deoay, little by little. The rain of two win ters had lashed constantly the plaster of the facade and covered it with a damp mould. Then the slate roof was damaged by - wind and rain storms. Dampness attacked everything. Liz ards sunned themselves on the wall ; the baloony wan loosened ; the roof bent. The appearance of the poor house became lamentable. As' for the - garden, it had returned quickly to its savage state. ' The flowers were not cultivated ; the rose bushes were untrimmed, and bad only leaves and branches; the geraniums were dead. The grass had long since disappeared under the dead hay, and the high stalks of the weeds were dis dained even by the butterflies. Noth ing grew there but thistles and the pale poppy. It was a gloomy spot ! Years rolled on. It was now im possible to hope for the return of the Jackson party. Evidently those in trepid pioneers had succumbed to hunger and thirst in some horrible desert or been massacred by the sav ages, and Count Basil Lobanof was dead with them, faithful to his Stol berg. The deserted house had fallen absolutely into ruins. . The great tree which was near the house, and whose foliage was no longer kept in check by trimming, had thrust oue of its im mense branches through the window. The shutters had fallen off, and the tree had pushed its way into the in terior of the disembowelled house. There might be , mushrooms within and even grass growing on the floor of the salon. Each time I passed be fore the old ruin which had come to to the last stages of decay, I thonght, abandoning myself to a romantic rev ery, "It is better that it should be so. If they had heard of . the count's death, the heirs no doubt would have caused steps to be taken at once for its restoration. They would hav broken it open brutally, and let in the garish light of : day, to desecrate those hal lowed associations of love and sorrow. Basil Lobanof has done well- to disap pear, ana nature lovingly destroys slowly this old love-nest, and keeps it from ' profanation. The other day (saw the ruin again ; the branches of . the great tree came through the roof, and there wsre lit tle trees growing in the rocks. Then I met Prince KhaloSf, who had , not been' in France for. a dozen years. We walked and talkod together, and I told him all abou$ the abandoned house, its slow destruction, and the thoughts it suggested. The prince burst into laughter. "Decidedly, my dear fellow, you will never be anything but a poet. Basil is married again, the father of three children, and holds the ofaoo of First Secretary to the Russian Ambas sador at Rome." "The Count Lobanof is not dead I" I cried, stupefied. , . "On my "last visit to Borne ho was as well aa you or I." "He did not go with the Jackson party? Oh, the perfidious maul" I cried, furious at my wasted sympathy. I should have suspected him. It seeras that he forgot his dead love at nee." . "Oh no," replied ..he prince. rB tsil is not so guilty as that. Wild with grief after her death, he would, for good or bad go with . the party, and he set out for Senegam bla. But on the sixth day of their march he fell seriously ill and was taken to St. Louis by a caravan, in the greatest agony. There ho re coveredbut it was sot his fault. His friends profited by his weakness.- and lack of energy to carry him back to Europe, and since then, after waiting a long time, he has consoled himself." "But ' then the ; deserted house? What does that comedy signify?" isked I, in a bad humor. 1 . j "How severe you are, my dear I" re plied the amiable Russian. ''It is not comedy, but it proves on the oon- trary, that the count is a man of hoior. What did he promise? That -as long is he lived no one should go under the cool whioh had sheltered his love. And he has kept his word, though it has acst him a great deal. Besides, who knows if he does not always mourn hie delightful singer, and regret bitterly the evenings passed in that closed house, listening to the divinely sad music of that voice whioh caused him jo much happiness, so much sorrow? ill that I can tell you," added the prinoe with an ironical smile, "is that with a large fortune, a beautiful family, and a home in the Eternal City, ft despairing love twelve years old ought to be endurable 1" Translated lor Romance. SELECT SIFTINGS, Cloven grow wild in the Moluecas. The camphor tree resembles the linden. Blonde hair is the finest and red the coarsest. IronmaKing was commenced in South Carolina in 1773. ' One-third of the coal consumed in France is imported. A goose at Berry, Ky., has adopted a litter of twelve pigs. The best and sweetest cheese is made in the month of May. In Sweden a man is expected to take off his hat when he enters a bank. A Chinese soldier is paid $1 per month and finds his own rations. Migrations of the more timid spe cies of birds take place at night. The population of Peru under the Incas was twelve times greater than it Is to-day. There is a lady in Marietta, Ga., who has a hand-spun counterpane made one hundred and twenty-three years ago. Notaries are first mentioned in the fourth century. They were appointed by priests and bishops to keep the church records. At Talbotton, Ga., a hog discovered a large owl in a farmyard. The owl was blinded by the sunshine, and the hog cornered it and killed it. The Hungarian of three centuries ago was entitled to wear one feather , in his cap for every Turk he killed, hence the phrase in common use among us. "Gray Juan," a Digger Indian liv ing in Cabrillo, Southern California, claims to be 136 years of age. There is documentary evidence that he has reached the age of 119. Coat-of-arms were first employed in England during the reign of Richard I., and beoame hereditary in families in the following century. They origi nated from the painted banners car ried by knights and nobles. Henry Hemingway and Mary Rob inson were married in a balloon whioh was sent up from a fair ground at the town of North East, Md. The balloon took an erratic course, and they do not know whether the marriage took place in - Pennsylvania, Delaware or Maryland. John H. Thompson and his brother Hugh, who were married at the same time in September, 1844, celebrated their golden iwedding together a few days ago at Northumberland, N. Y., with three other persons exolusive of their wives who were present at the original ceremony. Ezekiel Squires, aged eighty-eight ; John Jones, aged eighty-one; John Richmond, aged eighty-one ; W. W. Butler,, aged eighty-four, and John Williamson, aged eighty-three, all residents of Brookville, Ohio, were photographed in a group the other day. Their united ages are 417 years. The E?jr Product. . -" According to the census the United SiiiW produced 450,000,000 dozens of eggs in 1879 and 817,000,000 dozens in 1889. These figures are probably under the mark. At the figures given, however, the annual egg product of the United States amounts to $100,-. 000,000. If to this we add the value of the poultry sold we shall obtain a pretty high figure for the annual but put of the department. One author ity has placed it at $300,000,000. In 1893 the entire wheat crop of the United States amounted to 396,000, 000 bushels, worth lees than $300,000, -000. --New Orleans ricayune, - ODD ACCIDENTS. STRANGE RECORDS OF FATAIf ITIJ2S AND CASUALTIES. What an Examination of the Vita Statistics Issued by the New York Board of Health Discloses. NY person interested in the subject of accidents in the city will be repaid by study ing the vital statistics pre Tared by the Board of Health. These extend back for many years. Formerly they were printed annually. In 1880, however, there caine a break in the publication, and it was not until re cently that the omitted years were put into type, and the valuable records carried forward to 1892. In glanoing over, the tables one finds many features of interest. It is a re markable fact, for instance, that homi cides in the city are not only rela tively but actually on the decrease. In 1892 but thirty-eight persons came to homicidal deaths. This is but 2.39 persons to the 100,000, the lowest ratio ever known. The proportion has been as high as 7.44 to the 100, 000. This was in 1873, when seventy three persons were murdered during the' year. The lowest actual number of deaths in twenty-four years was in 1869, when thirty-seven persons were killed. The ratio at that time per 100,000 of population was 4.13. Turning from this record of de creased murders, which, oddly enough, coincides with the introduc tion of electrocution, one is horrified to learn that deaths from accident and negligence are increasing steadily. In 1891 they numbered 1597; in 1892 they had risen to 1900, an increase of 851. The total deaths are subdivided and classiflei with great care. According to the subdivision the greatest cause of fatality from acci dents are fractures and contusions. Of these in 1892 there were 835. The other causes follow in this order: Sunstrokes, 320; drowning, 187; burns and scalds, 179 ; surgioal opera tions, 151 ; suffocstion, ninety-nine ; wounds, fifty-six; poison, fifty-six; other causes, seventeen. As against the increase in accidental deaths it is inter esting to note that the number of sui cides is decreasing, or, at least, re mains about stationary. In 1892, 241 persons took their ' own lives, as against 300 in 1891 and 239 in 1890. Suicides still prefer pistols as a means of terminating their real or fancied troubles. Eighty-five selected this medium of death during the year mentioned. Fifty-two poisoned them selves, fifty-one resorted to hanging, seventeen stabbed themselves, and a like number leaped from elevated places ; eleven used illuminating gas, four resorted to drowning, and five chose methods not specified, but just as effectual. Included in the report is a summary of deaths from accident from 1870 to 1892, both inclusive. According to this there have been some strange ac cidents in the city during the past twenty-two years. Persons who have been drowned, for instance, do not all meet their fate in the river or bay. One met death in a barrel of water, thirteen by falling into boilers, one by the bursting of a sewer pipe while in a cellar, three in cisterns, one in a flooded culvert, eleven babies in pails of water, twenty-seven children and others in tubs, and three men in vats. .The reoord of deaths from falls is even more varied than the drowning accidents. Three men, for ' instance, have fallen from church steeples with in the period mentioned, and met death. Falls from the Brooklyn Bridge have ccntributed seven to the total of such, casualties, which are almost numberless. One man died from slip ping on an orange peel and falling ; one while performing the "leap for life," one by falling from stilts, an other while stopping a runaway and two by falling from swings. One man died from a fracture by ths bursting of a grindstone, and one by the bursting of a wheel ; one by an ex plosion of fireworks, four by the burst ing of kegs of ale, coeby the explosion of a mineral water siphon, one by the explosion of a soda water fountain, and one by the bursting of the water back of a range. Five persons died oi frac'ures received by the fall of plaster ing from ceilings, one from injuries re ceived v-VJ.i boxing, ona by bsir. hit 7V by a snowball and one by beingtruck in the chest by a baseball. One girl ji va tii- i . . . . uieu irom laning wniie jumping rope. Among the deaths due to suffocation one was caused by swallowing artifi cial teeth, four by beans becoming lodged in the larynx, three by bed clothing, three by bones in the bron chus, three by buttons in the pharynx,' one by grain in a grain car, one by ewa' lowing the head of a walking eti'ck, one in a bin of bran, two In bins ; of malt, one . in a diving bell, one In the , cassion of the Brooklyn Bridge and one in a mancrer of hav. The most tion is drift to nrrinlrA at firp.ji and thn lodgement of food in the trachea. -A person would scarcely look for a fatal accident due to a mosquito bite, yet among the records of deaths due to wounds one is . credited to such a cause. The bite of a boar has resulted fatally in one case, that of a rat in an- A1L A JS Altai - 1. i a:m wtuci, bum uuit ui n uuk xa ami uuiu- er instance. Two deaths are attnb-- ated to wounds . received from the bites of horses. Three persons have died from cutting, corns, two from piercing their ears, and eight by be- lux xuieu UT vntiric. uuuouwn w tin , trnnnrliiAnnflH to hatha most f&taL next to which in number of deaths are punctnresof the feet by nails. The statistics of the Board of Health concerning fatalities due to lightning -a-i ii j. nr j - i. ti der storm. In twenty-two vears there have been exactly nine deaths duo to lightning. During the same period twenty-three persons died of frost bite. The chances are therefore about IV... 1. -.' -, J J . frost bites as against, being struck by lightning. 'As a matter of fact there' ' is scarcely a cause of accidental death reported, whioh in the order of thingi might fall to the average person, that has so few deaths accredited to it &s! lightning. The chances of death are irom suiciae aooui ouu, irom , huu- stroke about 250, from murder about 14(1 tr r.nn of riAAih tvr litrhtnino'. Una is infinifolv mnra IiaVJa tft difl bv steD- : ping on a nail,' or by being struck by a falling tree or safe, or being run over by vehicles in the streets. New York Herald. ' ; . Life on an Iron-Clad at Sea. Admiral von Werner, high au-1 i work recently published, the behav or of armor plated men-of-war in a leavysea. He says: "Even with a noderate gale and sea, an armor lated cruiser, if going against the vind, -will find herself, in conditions dmilar to those of a storm at least,' .he crew will have that impression. : l?he movements of the stern - of tho v ihip are violent and exceedingly diss- rreeable. The waves pushed by the idvancing prow sweep continually' ver the ship from bow to stern. All vindows and port boles must be closed, tnd air reaches the lower decks, where' .he heat increases unbearably, only through the artificial ventilators. With' he exception of the specially pro-1 ;ected command bridge, all the nn jovered portions of the ship are im passable ; thus the whole crew must jearaawell as they can the closed leeks. On such a ship no one can eel comfortable ; and when there ia a itorm in which a sailing ship would ' eei comparatively as ease, ice crewoi . in armor plated ship imagines itself - be in a heavy hurricane whioh threatens destruction at every minute. The long, narrow forepart of the ship, : rhirth i Tint horn a ' licritlv 'hv'trtft vater, and is rendered extremely Heavy by the mighty ram and the ar nored deck and the. cannon and tor pedoes, forces the ship in a high eea - JT O O ' ;raordinary kind that they cannot be lescribed. The crew of such a ship is not only exposed to mortal dangers, but. the voyages they make reader .hTn rlivirtftllv- ATT.ramAl'v urn? i i. rj j j ' jerously nervous; the mental trcpres--. dons they reoeive wear them out and make the profession hateful" Et. James's Gazette. ; Japanese Soldiers Are Gymr.as!:. Every Japanese barrack has a gyrj nasium, and the Japanese soldiers rank amjne the best trvmnasts in the world. In half a minute they can scale a- fourteen-foot wall by siaiply bounding on each other's shoulderp, one man supporting two cr three oth ers. Chicago IIuaLl, ' ".'"''
The Roanoke Beacon and Washington County News (Plymouth, N.C.)
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Nov. 16, 1894, edition 1
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