Newspapers / The Chronicle (Wilkesboro, N.C.) / Jan. 7, 1903, edition 1 / Page 2
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AUTO BIOGBAPII IT OF A WILKES GOVNTT BDITOH. - . ! Cliarlott Observer. At Moravian Palls, Wilkes county, is published bi-weekly The Yellow Jacket, : ; a BepuUcan. folio, At columns to i the . " page, subscription price, 80 cents a year to single subscribers, in clubs of four, 25 cents each. In its issue of the 25th V ult. appears a - cut of its editor and proprietor, B. Don Laws, and another u cut labeled "Part of The Yellow Jacket Force," showing the faces of MriXaws C and another gentleman, and those of three young ladies,': Mr. i .laws' maie : companion and the three young ladies n being nameless there foreyermore. Under his own separate cut Mr. i Laws - writes his autobiography, setting forth in addition a statement of his beliefs, - methods and ' mental processes, i This : we take pleasure in appending: . r faint idea of what the editor of ; The ; Yellow Jacket looks like. We were - born in Wilkes county, North Carolina, in 1868, lived on a poor farm, ate corn bread and fat meat and plowed a steer until we were 21 years old. - ; We hap pened to the good luck of getting to attend school 18 months, all told. At the age of thirteen we made the : hrst printing press we ever saw'. With a wooden ;;press and ' type carved from : bits of maple and "ivy, ink made from h the roots of white walnut, w6 took the . first impression we ever saw, made' with ' type on paper. This rude outfit - only stimulated our ambition for the ac quirement of better facilitiles for print ing. Along about this time we got the a idea into our -"noggin" that some time we wanted to be a "one-horse" editor, . nu ui iiuue low, we ixia.un.geu mj get up ; i : t i orc , . 3 i 4 : : a little old press and some type, all worth about $25, and we "founded" The Yellow Jacket beginning it as three-column, four ' paged , monthly sheet and made up somewhat on the style of its matter today - For a long time it looked as if the game would not . .. 1. -ll. il. 1 ' JT. l-.4 J 11 do wona me canuie, dui we worjeeu me , harder; - hoping that a hrjgher day - would come by' and by. After awhile things did begin to come our way but they seemed . very slow. Yet' we 1 knew 1 that Republicanism was right and we firmly believed that even our rough way ; of promulgating its politics would bring success in the end. -As to the wisdom of these conclusions we will let the :. growth of the paper speak, by saying that it has reached the largest circula - of any paper in North Carolina and the largest of any Republican paper, in the entire South , and - that the little old rickety-rackety outfit has. been succeed ed by an up-to-date plant and that it is is so. enormous that we are now com pelled to soon put in some larger and more rrapidn presses ; than ever.'; We hope to install this new machinery ; by -the first of March. "We lay no claim to literary culture nor journalistic genius. We did not .. model The Yellow Jacket after any thing .in the newspaper world; We never consulted any living soul about - what to say on any subject. We, have never received a dollar in "boodle1' -irom any source, xnere are not men enough this side of Hepsidam to stam pede us from our position on political questions. If we believe a thing is right we proprose to Bay so and stick to it if the whole world calls us a liar. ' j.uai me way. wo were uuxiii h-iiu we -. jnv'4- V rvl w-k Zi nmsY vita iTAfi'f 'TiTnif 4-r What we say is from the standpoint of a fellow who has had to t grapple with ' the "corn cobs of realitv" from child hood. . J , u We hope .every Bepublican; - who reads this and : feels interested ' in ; the work The Yellow Jacket is engaged in will do this, cause and the - paper: the kindness to take this copy and . go- out in the hedges and highways and make up a club to the tune of about- one dozen. That's all we have to say in this respect." r T; Side bv side with 'the " foreeoine is printed a tribute to Editor Laws by his friend and neighbor, James Larkin Pearson, who says in part: ' " -: ,B. Don Laws is only 84 years of j age, but into his 34 years he has crowd ed more work than the : average - man 'puts into ; a lifetime. In - his early years, before he entered the newspaper profession, . he was employed ; as a farmer, house carpenter and , school . teacher. He also sold books and work ed on the railroad. , He filled alT these positions ably and I honorably, - but it was not until he started The Yellow Jacket in 1805 that he stepped into his particular "forte." In his office or in his home Mr. Laws is - the same jolly good fellow he was before ; Dame For tune smiled so benignly upon ! him. .His success has not spoiled him." ' . - Now what does The Biblical Recorder think of The Yellow Jacket's claim to larger circulation than it has ? and what does The Winston Republican 1 think of the claim that it has a larger! circulation than any other Bepublican paper in , the South f And yet in its current issue are three letters to the editor f rornlndiana,. three from Illinois, and one each from Oklahoma, Wes Virglxiia, Missouri, Alabama, Virginia, Kentucky and Iowa. ' u v " : This case should teach all boys "wha can be accomplished fwith a piece , o: maple and a jack knife, and should be a lesson to grown men to be the same jolly good fellows after Dame Fortune has smiled upon them as before,' and not be spoiled or unduly puffed up vby success. " " - Stockman Files ; Novel Doenment In - Snlt for Damagei. In his "bill of particulars" to justify his demand of $20,000 from the Wab ash Railroad for hoisting him skyward with one of its locomotives, M. i B Ayres, a stockman of Macon county Mo., furnishes the following itemized list of personal injuries resulting from the contact : , 'Left leg crushed. ; 1 "Patella contused, crushed, mangled and broken; ' 'Knee joint permanently stiffened - "Left arm above elbow contused, cu and wounded also paralyzed. : . "Ligaments and muscle attachments about' elbow broken. , "Left shoulde crushed and bruised "Wrist joint destroyed. . "Hand ; and fingers deprivedof mo tion and strength; 'Shoulder and arm shrunken - and decayed. "Left leg rendered two and one-half inches shorter than right leg. - ' ' Severe scalp wound. r "Serious injuries about head, back and shoulders. "Ribs dislocated. - : . ' ' 'Concussion of the spine. .'Serious internal injuries. "Eyesight and hearing impaired. 'Continual mental and bodily suf fering, i "Life shortened 75 per cent." On January 7 he started from La Plata down the Wabash track. A mile out he sat down' to rest,! and a pas senger train maicing forty miles ' an hour collided with him. The railroad representatives claim Ayres was drunk, and fiay they have recovered his bottle of whisky that went through the col lision without the loss of a drop or a crack in the flask. The case has been transferred from Macon i to Carroll county, where it will be tried in January. In Darkest New nsland. ' Regarding a recent . race trouble in the metropolis of New England, the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot says: . ' - "In Boston Monday an angry crowd of 2,000 persons tried to lynch a negro, and was prevented from so doing with great difiiculty. by the police, who i re sponded hurriedly to a riot call. And the occasion of demonstration was hot the same that usually leads to a lynch ing in the South.; He had been guilty of no fiendish or inhuman crime. He had merely drawn a knife pn - a white man with whom he had had an alterca tion. Women and children, it is said, were knocked down and, trampled upon by the mob in its efforts to get at -the negro. - "If the same incident had occurred in the South a policeman would have arrested the negro, and without inter ference from the crowd would have quietly taken him to the lockup. ; "We lynch negroes down here for inhuman crimes only, i In negrophilis tic Boston they want to lynch him if or drawing a knife." The Express Train of the Future. : On the experimental railroad built by the German government between Berlin and Zossen a new type of express train is to be tested next year. .The specifi cations 1 require that the ' train shall maintain a speed of 74 J miles an hour for three consecutive hours In order to diminish the air resistance as much as possible, the entire train, ' including the locomotive, will be enclosed in a shell of sheet steel jointed so as to se cure flexibility in rounding curves, uni form in size from- end to end, and presenting no : projections to catch air. The front of-, the engine will be wedge- shaped, and the wheels will all be of the disk instead of the spoked pattern, and will be enclosed, as; far as possible, by the protecting sheath. Steam is to be the. motive power, the previous ex periments' having shown that electric motors at . high speeds unduly I strain the track. ' . Unmarried men. are excluded from the service of the Williams Street Rail ways, of Norfolk, Portsmouth .and Newport News." Manager Gunn says the plan of employing only married men insures a steadier, soberer, .more reliable class of men, who are more ac commodating to the passengers L and have at : heart the' interest of the road more than strangers and wanderers, as a majority - of. unmarried ' men are apt to be. I TFHIT IS CHINA FOOBf Natural and Artificial Causes Great Nation's Poverty. Pall Mail Gazette. of a One of the greatest disabilities under "Which : China labors as a nation is as simple as it is sad. An immense pro portion , of its population Lvery rarely get a meal sufficient either , in quantity or in nutritive -power. ; Hundreds' o benevolent foreigners, both of the mer cantile and missionary orders, are con stantly . seeking m scattered spots throughout -the vast realm to, mitigate the chronic distress of the poorest sec tions. Especially has philanthropy been effective in relieving the abnormal pressure consequent on ' drouth - and floods.' Obviously, however, externa help can do .next to nothing to meet a normal condition of insufficient aliment extending over a very extensive land and involving an enormous population. pOne of the causes of chronic and massive indigence in China throughout most of the interior is the utter stagna tioh for ages of civilization. The de velopment of this mighty race was long since arrested,' and : though the nation is . not . decadent, its ' conditions are stereotyped, and China is in a state of permanent childhood; Every linguist well understands that this accounts for that colossal philological curiosity,' the Chinese language." It has never got beyond the monosyllabic stage,' and is a mere language of overgrown babies. This condition of arrested development lies at the root of the appalling poverty of the masses in a country which na ture designed to be incalculably wealthy. China is not. like Central Asia, a land of savage, howling wastes. It is one of the most fertile and flowery parts of the earth's surface almost throughout the entire area. And, moreover, its people are the most in dustrious agriculturists in the world, and have been so for many centuries. Fruit .and vegetables are much; more abundant and exist in much greater variety than we are favored with in our own country. '. Noth withstanding these magnificent natural endowment, what is the state of things in the "Flowery Kingdom ?" From lack of anything like scientific cultivation the quality of nearly all fruits is exceedingly poor, and only the splendid sunshine and the atmospheric conditions compensate for the lack of skill. Apples, pears, apricots, peaches, nectarines, plums, cherries, grapes and persimmons are almost everywhere grown in immense abundance, but no native ever studies improvement in their culture. ' Wheat, millet, ' maize, sorghum, sweet potatoes, peanuts, indigo and a great variety of pea and bean ' crops are - produced with ease while, rice is, of course, almost univer saiiy round ; in cultivation. J5ut in nearly every province the output, not withstanding the indefatigable toil of the i people, is far short of what might be attained! under better management, while the quality of of the foodstuffs is deficient in nutritive power. Vast tracts of soil have been impoverished through centuries of uninterrupted pro duction without any adequate compen sation. Enriching material is poor in quality. , Grazing is unknown, and in most of the provinces the land never lies fallow, the natives s never having learned the ' secret of - the rotation of crops. . Yet the land is still forced to produce three crops in two years with out intermission. ; : . The Chinese poverty problem is com plicated. Its secondary causes are man- fold but after all they are only exagger ation and aggravations of the- main factor, the agrarian stagnation.:. One of my friends residing for a time in the interior asked an official how, many beggars he was feeding. He replied 18,000. ' "These,'.' he explained, "are all tenant farmers from the north. Few people who entirely own their land are so miserably . poor." Thus at . every point the agricultural question recurs; In the : province of Wuhn last year a large relief work ' was initiated by for? eigners. . Here also the , starving suffer ers were chiefly of that same large class in China, the - tenant farmers. : Many of them were from the immense estates of the late Li Hung Chang; - Where a man gives half he raises to a landlord he can, even in a good year, save little or nothing, and .a poor year means amine.-. " Whether the great likin- system of interior taxation can speedily be extir pated, as some seem to expect- it will now be, is very doubtful; , One of the chief producing causes of distressing poverty lies just here. A cow crossing the river at Nankin is taxed 60 cents, a pig about 1 J per cent, and chickens 2 J per cent;, etc. ; This is the climax, for all along the road before nearing the great city they.: have . been1 taxed - at various points,-and they will be taxed again when: entering the" city gate. When- a boatman earns a fee for row ing people across the river he must pay 40 per centr tax. Imagine what an English workman would think and say if compelled to pay in one tax 40 : per cent, of his wages! Some of the cus toms stations on , the great : roads ; o; travel and. trade are exceedingly lucra tive, but the mischief of the system lies in the fact that none of the receipts go into the . official treasury, for as the collector has to buy his position. He has to Jet the officials and : their run ners go through free. wThe rest is pro fit for himself. -: The Egg: and the liady. - An- Athens. ' Ala.,," letter to The Montgomery Advertiser telle this story A very interesting , story of an: adyer- tisement placed pn an egg comes from one of the rural stores in this county, A man who clerks in the store, while packing a case of eggs for shipment a short time since, wrote his name and address ukn a large white egg and stated lhat he was looking for a wife and -that should the egg fall into the hands et some lady who would like to correspond with him looking to matri mony that he would be pleased to hear from her. He forgot all about i- the matter- until a few days since, he re ceived a dainty little v note from a lady in Brooklyn, N. Y.. who stated that she had, while shopping for her sister, found this egg in the number sent to her home and had decided to write to him. She gave her age, sent some facts along about herself, and he at once replied and soon photos were ex changed: and a wedding is scheduled for the near future. In Defence of. Santa Claus. A most spirited defense of the good old. patriarch who fills the Christmas stockings appears in The Columbus Enquirer-Sun. It is as follows: "The declaration of the Ministers' Union of Hamilton, Ohio, that Santa Claus is an. impostor a theatrical im postor has caused a . good deal of comment, and not a little of it is un complimentary to the Ministers' Union. xnat there is a 'Santa uiaus' no sane man will deny, and - when one looks around him on Christmas morning and beholds the thousands and millions of children who have been made happy by his visit to them the night before, he does not desire to make such an un warranted, and unreconcilable denial. 'Santa Claus' v has made his annual visit to the children on the night before Christmas from a time 'whence the memory of man runneth not to the contrary, ' distributing gifts and good cheer to all. The rich and poor are remembered, and if he be an impostor, as the Hamilton ministers declare. there are few, if anyf who will not wish that, there were more like him. The Hamilton ministers may declare that there is rfo 'Santa Claus' and they may excommunicate the jolly old fellow, but there was not a child in this broad land Christmas morning who does not know better. Even now they have evidence conclusive to their minds that there is a 'Santa Claus,' and all the ministers unions in the world would not be suffi cient to convince them to the contrary. There is a 'Santa Claus,' and there will always will be one." . Doesn't Thins: Negroes Can Be De ported. Speaking of Senator Morgan's plan for colonizing the negroes in the Phil ippine Islands, ex-Governor Hogg, of Texas, characterized it as impracticable. "The negro race is increasing at the rate of 750,000 a year,'' said the former Governor, "and there are nearly 10, -000,000 of them already in the United States. If the Government should un dertake to send them to the Philippines it would ; require a tremendous fleet of transports. If it takes two months for one transport to make the round trip, and the greatest number of passengers each trip would be 2,000, that makes 12, 000 a year. Fifty transports would take 600,000 persons over in one year, if the conditions were perfect and the trans ports provided. , Where would the Gov ernment get 50 transport ships ? . Even if this number should be furnished, the natural increase would not be provided or, and the' plan is impractical from either point of view. . Crisis met II air Way. There were strict orders in the Philip pines regarding looting, and one day a lieutenant's suspicions were aroused by a private whom he saw peering eagerly under the piazza of a house on the out shirts of Manila, writes Dixie Wolcott in Harper's Magazine. ; "What are you doing there VI he de manded, in his gruffest tones. "Why, sir," said, the soldier, salut ing, "I'm only trying to catch, a chicken which I've just bought." Lieutenant K. - stopped . and - caught sight of a fine pair of fowls. - "There 1 are two chickens , under there," he exclaimed excitedly; - 1 bought -; the other - one. "' Catch 'em both." ' - Ort'ER TTII.I.IAinS CHABIOT. fTad TtAn Prevarlns:. Dut Wasn't JTust Ready For It When It Came. It was pretty" generally understood . " TlJSijL L .Pttlpment that Lne-day, in the - economy, of tm o a ol frnrrr Paradise was to'call upon Br'er WilUams, place him inacheervoot"of fire and take him -i,-s 1 i - rrui- nnAatan- fng was the result of .repeated state- wiiHra t,f. thP said 1UCUW VI V . . angel had appeared to him in a dream and had warned him to . put his house in order ' that he. might be ready at a moment's notice :to ' depart in the celestial carriage. ? And it was remarked that it was with a more serene counten ance and ever uplifted,.; expectant eyes that 3r'er Williams walked; among his fellow-men thereafter. 'Hit may be, " he said to them, ' 'dat I'll be tooken durin' my daily walk- right in de middle ;er de street, befo' de eyes er all er you; so hit's" behoovm' er me ter be dressed en Teady,- en ter have my min' in ez peaceful a frame ez dat what my pictur's in, hangin's oh de honriftwall!" t..i xf Hi j : fo,-f oonf f tul wUh AMU VU AU UW Va T WU V VUW ''' the fiery chariot, until one dark night long to be remembered by Br'er WiUiams and the community when SAtan inflnpnrWl a few nf th hrftthren. who were of a mischievous mind, to make Br'er Williams the victim of a practical joke. He was sleeping soundly in his cabin when he heard , the galloping of horses, the sudden stopping of a vehicle at his door-saw a glimmer of lights through the window chinks, and caught the sound of low, sepulchral voices. - - Then thfir was a rW. mfiaHiifed knock at the door, and a voice, as from u wtj. "Br'er Williams! Br'er Williamsl" " He rose to a sitting posture on the bed chill perspiration dripping from his brow. . But no answer. "Br'er Williamsl Br'er Williamsl" ' His limbs shook s till the bedslats rattled, and it seemed that the very shingles on the roof were dancing.; . Shivering and wild-eyed he crawled forth and peeped through the shutter. Saints above him I The fiery chariot was there the wheels blazing the ghostly horses impatiently pawing the earth I . . There was but one escape for him the chimney. And - up he crawled, as ar as its narrowing limits would let him just as the door gave way and the ghostly visitors entered. "Br'er Williams! Where are you? The fiery chariot is waiting." For answer they heard muffled sounds up the chimney : V "Lawd; he'p me ter reach de topi Good - Lawd, he'p me I" But his dangling feet - were visible and by them he was dragged down and carried i howling to the door by two white-robed figures. "Don't take me now 1 " he pleaded. I got a blister on my chist already, en can't stan' no mo' fire I Don't take me, Kunnel Angel, don't take me!" But the noise and the scuffling had alarmed the phantom horses, and away they dashed down the dark road, .with the fiery chariot blazing at their heels, and after them sped the ghostly visi- tants who had been struggling with Br'er Williams. Then a number of the citizens who i had been - lurking conveniently near rushed in and asked the old man what was the matter. When he had breath enough he gasped : ' 'Looky what you gone en done now! De fiery cheeryoot come fer me, en fo' I had time ter jump in you folks corned up en skeered it off." Fell Dead of Starvation. . New York Sun. A hatless and coatless man about 33 vp..rR old tottered down Elm street ves- terday afternoon and stood looking into -- -. " . ' I he subway, excavation at Franklin I afroAf TTia f an was nale and his teeth were chattering. Watchman Kane thought the man was looking for a job and spoke to him, but the man made no reply and walked over - to a restauraui ai me corner oi Elm and 'Franklin:, streets, where he stood gazing through thewindow at the All . . 1 i. M m m m m m r . I OIKS wno were eauug iuojuc. -He stood there for a few minutes and :. then ; walked ' down: Elm street. When he got in front of 72 Elm street he fell to the sidewalk. An ambulance was summonea . Dy poiiucma.ii, ,.uui the man was dead when the surgeon arrived. CJoroner Scholer said it looked to him as if the man had died of starvation. - - ..... Every manner of living, each of our actions, has a particular end in , view, and all these ends have a general aim happiness, it is noi in me euu ouv m i ' . . . - .'41 I 1 .4 i 1 the choice -of means ourselves. Aristotle. that we deceive Learnlns: to Save., . Youth's Companion;" The School. Savings Bank is not Yet everywhere a. familiar institution. one hundred and eighteen town and cities in twenty-four States and H Canadian provinces there are nearly nf teen nunurea 8Cnoui8 wuere me sys tern of school savings is practiced. The depositors number over one hundred and sixty-thousand. -'According to statistics brought up to January, 1902, tne toiai uepuaiw uau uu a mu lion and a quarter dollars, of which more . than- four ; hundred thousand dollars still remained to the credit of depositors. These figures mean something. They mean that in many places the pupils of the public schools, under wise teachers, are learning one of the most iCortant lessons , of lifethe lesson of thrift. The method of teaching it is practical. On Monday mornings the teacher col lects such 'savings in pennies, nickels or dimes as the pupils wish to lay aside. The : depositors have learned that their money is safe, and that it can be drawn-out at any time of need. This work, as yet without official or- eamzation, has been gome: on in In America forabout seventeen year8. various countries of Europe it takes its T, governmeni scnooia, anu regaruea as naving- the highest educational value and importance. : . Sooner or later, in some form or other, the system will be made a part of the American scheme of education. We are a peculiarly practical people. We wish our young' people taught, be- 7nd , anything they may learn from D00M tne Yemenis oi common sense. -LXie nrsi' ot lut5Be " lue rutu tor nearly every Doay me ; proverwai rainy day is bound to come. A system vox scnooi savings is one oi uie uesi educational means yet devised to pre I Pare or People Wno Enjoy Being; miserable. Cleveland Press. . r How can anybody enjoy being mis erable? Men do, and so do women. They surround themselves with an atmos phere of gloom. - They hug trouble to their breasts. They make mountains out of mole-hills, and there are tears and groans when there should be smiles. Perhaps you have a cynic in your employ. : .You can pick him out with your eyes shut. Me has . the blues from Monday morning till Saturday night. He will tell you that he always gets the worst of it from everybody; that his talent isn't recognized; that his genius is wasted;' that he isn't getting enough money; that there is no future for him and a lot of tommy rot like that. . After that comes the brooding stage. Any : man who broods over real or fancied" wrongs sis dangerous. He is not sane, and he is also a mighty poor workman, whether he is making hoe handles or counting money, in a bank. He deliberately destroys his own effici ency and chance for success, and all for the perilous and questionable hap piness of being miserable. ;7 Mr. Depew Was In. "Is Mr. Depew in ?" said a life in surance agent, handing his card to the attendants "I'll see, sir," replied the minion, going into the Senator's sanctum. Mr. - Depew glanced at the card and shook his head in the negative. Al though the upper part of his body was hidden ' from public view, by his desk, the Senator's legs were plainly visible as he sat with his side toward the desk. f Mr. Depew is out," said the attend ant. . "Well," said the insurance solicitor, glancing through the half open door, "I veish you'd tell him when he cornea in that 1 think m v company would tt.1 1 ' 'a 'J rt x pw"viy riue io accepn mm as a nrst Vi ibjw unieos iie win agree w aiwayo "i0 mui.wucu "c 6' Dlsappolntlnff. "Be you Dr. X- ?" asked a tall, lean man, walking into the office of a practitioner. ' "I am," replied the doctor. 'Well;; look a-here, ' old fell, ' ' 'I'm glad tO yer at last. D'ye remember how yer set a feller's arm and didn't charge him for it?" J "Yes," said the doctor, "with the prospect of a big fee rising before him. "I'm that feller. I've broke the other arm, an' I've come to have it set on the same terms." rMr;. James W. Osborne, formerly of Charlotte, who had charge of the prose- cution lot Moimenx. and who made a great reputation by his skillful manage ment of the case for the State, has en tered suit against The New York Sun for $75,000 damages.-: - -; : -;
The Chronicle (Wilkesboro, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Jan. 7, 1903, edition 1
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