Newspapers / Elm City Elevator (Elm … / Aug. 8, 1902, edition 1 / Page 1
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mmmmm THE ELM CITY VOL. 1. F.T.M CITY, N. C., FRIDAY, AUGUST 8, 1902. NO. 58. n-. lu 41 pm 215 pm 5 30 pm 5 54 pm 7 27 pm 8 27 pm 1035 pm I OS am 456 am »iSjim 10 50 urn 8 55 pm iittpm 16 W pm 6it0 pm #25 am II oa am 140 pm 210 pm 8 55 pm 618 pm 1035 pm 3 06 pm ID 32 pm 135 am S 4:1 am 613 am DailF No. 38. 8 40 pm 930 am 800 pm 1123 pm 156 am 4 06 am 4 50 am 7 40 am 834 am 1105 am 12 42 pm ■ I 4i pm 3 00 pm 5 35 pm 6 55 am 16 45 am to 00 pm 510 am 8 00 am No. 66 8 00 am 3 50 pm 7 30 am 1140 pm 500 am 823 am 9 22 am II 35 am 12 58 am 145 pm 4 07 pm 4 is pm 836 am 1125 pm 2 56 am 6 30 am 7 31 3 15 8 37 4 its 10 10 6 00 PM AM 7 00 9 30 8 30 11 9 57 12JP 10 35 1 Jg 11 23 1 53 *ve8 vsrii eizaip.!^ •8 sianford a lO p. m. »r- Payetteville >8 tien 1 aprin I 10 65 ' leaves Fay- 1 Spri?" netwvllle ram No. 78 at Railroad, at Bowmore me !h Road leavM ., arrives Soot- 147 p. in., SSttX at iMBa. ?: |?afrer».U ou 10 85 a. m- |ve8*llym^*| ves , Suaday »W •* aoldb|«« -■rtvin^r HmHh litlifield 7 00*. don *t Weiaon ria Blcmond. 1 paa. an old favorite HOME, SWEET HOME By Jo JOHN PA1WB, &atboi* and &ctor, was lH>rn in New York city Juna 9, 1792. and died In Tunla, north Africa, in Aiirll, U52. He made hia first stae appearance in New Torl( at the age qf sixteen and met with great favor. He played also in England and France, and retired from the stage in ihm- From 1843 to 1845 and in 18Sl-£8 Payne was United States consul at Tunis. He was the author, translator or adapter of more than sixty plays. His most popular song. “Home, Sweet Home,” occurs in his opera “Clari; or. The Maid of Milan." M ID pleasures and palaces though we may roam. Be it ever so himUe, th«fe^ no place like home! A charm from the ntamt to hallow as there Which, seek through the world. Is ne’er met with elsewhere. Home, sweet home! There’s no place like home! An exile from home splendor dazzles in vain— Oh, give me my lowly thatched cottage again! The birds singing gayly that came at my call— Give me them, with the peace of mind dearer than all. Home, sweet home! There’s no place like home! GHILD-Un INTISSINIA SIXTY TBAUAGO. BILL ARP»S I.KTTBB. Atlanta Constltutloii. “I still live.” I was ruminating about the last words of great men, and those of Daniel Webster always impress me with peculiar force. On the very coutines of eternity, on the brink of the everlasting change that he knew was at hand, bis great mind seemed to be studying and waiting for the moment of his departure—waiting and wat^ng for the separation of the seal from the body, and wondering how he would pass the c isis. There was no fear, no dread, as he camly whispered, “I still live, ’ ’ and immediately died. His body died, and what was th6 next 'daon of his great soul the worid would like to know, but it is forbidden. I thought of all this not long ago as I seemed to be drawing near the end and approach ed the confines of that undurovered country from whose bourne no traveler returns. I was serious and solemn with expectation, but was not alarmed, for my faith is that my Maker will take care of me and of idl others who love Him and try to do right. All that troubled me was the separation' from those I love and their grief at my de parture. Two months isn long time to be a child again without vital force enough to walk alone. But I have passed the crisis, and though weak and nervous am on the upgrade, and can walk about the garden and cany the little grandchild in my arms and give him dowers on kis smiles and caresses. Well, that is enough on that line. You readers can find sermons and prosy commentaries on sickness and death on another page. “Carpedlem.” Let us enjoy the day and be thankful that we still live. But to drop reverent ly from the sublime to the ridiculous, 1 recall that when I was young a num ber of us were quoting the last words of great men such as Seneca and Plato and Calvin and Luther and one said; “Well, you know what Daniel Webster said?” No, we did not remember and he replied: “Why, he opened his great big eyes and looked at his friends who were weeping around him and whispered, ‘Boys, don’t cry; I am not dead yet.’ ” Forty-one years ago last Sunday the battle of Mannassas was fought. It was the first battle of the civil war and made a deeper impression upon those engaged in it than any other. Ciompar- ed with the great battles that came after it, it waa almost insignificant, for up. there were only four hundred and seventy federals killed and three hun dred and seventeen confederates. The federal account gives sixteen hundred of their army as missing. That is a mistake, for by 4 o’clock they were all missing. Our cavalry couldn’t find them, though they followed their trail of discarded guns and haversacks for miles and miles. There never was such a rout and such a panic during the war. We didn’t have enough wag ons next day to gather up the scatter^ munitions of war, and it took McDowell a month to call in his army of twenty seven thousand men and reoiganiw. But in the long run they got even with us and a little ahead, and the Grand Army is still bragging how four of them whipped one of us in four yean. That’s all right. We are satisfied with our record and it grows brighter as the years roll on. Anno domini will tell. The other day my doctor said I must take some exercise and. he took his mother and me up the river road for a few miles to the ruins of the Cooper iron works. It was a wild, weird, ghosty place on the banks of the Etowah, where once were rolling mills and feundry and furnaces and flour mills and tan yards and hundreds of cottages, where happy laborers aad mechanics lived. But Sherman’s army burned and destroyed everything, and since then most of the cruml^g walls have fallen and the trees have grown up in their midst and wild vines have climbed the trees and nothing is visible bat ruins and the sad spectacle of a cruel and brutal war. But this is one burn ing that, according to the roles and usages of war, was justified, for these iron works were making cannon for the confederacy. It was the lonesome chimneys of the poor all along his line of march that marked his brutality and proved his assertion that “ ^aris h6ll.” But no more of this. While view ing the^ ruins my memory went back to the time when Joe Brown was gov ernor and ordered that 5,000 pikes be made with a spear point and a nde blade curved donward Ijlrft and a long handle in a socket, so that our boys might take ’em coming going. If they didn’t run we were to spear ’em, and if they did run we were to overtake ’em and hook back. That’s what old man Lewis told me, and he was the master mechanic who made them, and he still lives near here and is in his 88th year. I saw him to day and he steps light and springy. He is an £n man. “Mr. Lewis,” said I, why didn’t the Georgia boys use these pikes?^' “Well, you see,” said he, “the old army officers who were drilling our boys at Big Shanty looked at these pikes and said to the governor: ‘What will the enemy be doing with their guns while our boys are rushing on them with these pikes? They will shoot our boys down before they can get to them, and they made so much fun over thQ4>ikes that they were refused. West Point wouldn’t have anything that was not used at West Point.” Anfl so the further manufacture of I^es was stopped and those that were made are now scattered all over the country as curios for museums. A sister of mine says she saw one of them not long ago in a museum in Boston. But still I don’t see why spears are any more out of order t^n bayonets when a desperate chaige is to be made “Charge bayonets!” is in the West Point tactics, and why not “Charge pikes?” They are an awful looking weapon, and if they w^ coming me and my gun was to miss fin should drop it and run like a turkey 1 had rather be bored with a bullet than stuck like a hog. But it is all over now, and we have beaten our speais into pruning hooks according to scripture and will not learn war any more, except when the mulattoes and niggers refuse to give up their lands to us. Wewant more land for territory and more niggers for subjects. But I heard the dinner bell and must go—^not to partake of the feut, but to say grace and preside and inhale the savory order of roast lamb and green com pudding and look at the peaches and cream for desert. They let me do that and give me nothing but soup and rice for my share. My tomatoes are now in their prime and it pleases me to ^ther them in the early morn. My largest weighed 2 pounds, lacking 2 ounces, and was a beauty. Il was working them in the hot sun and then filling up with ice water that laid me Marlon Harland in Tooth’s (XMnpanlon. The little Virginia girl who came in to this iNPight and beautiful world in 1842 had Eng^h caHooee tar everyday wear, but finer and f^eless French prints wore, as she would have said, for nice.” The English prints cost from' twenty-five to Uilrty-seven and one half cents a yatd and the French seldom less than fifty; so that her at tire was not as cheap as |t would seem to readers used to nine penny calicoes and shilling onghams. Moreover, money then was worth more than half as much again as now. For h^l^ys and holidays our littie maid had white and figured n ai^ lawns in Summer. In Winter her b^ frodc was of meono, her second best of “«reassian,” a coarser iroolen fabric. Her stout shoes were made by the ]>lantation at village shoemaker. He liad a “last” for each member of the family, the lesser children growing up to those discarded by the larger as they succeeded to ou^n^wns froclEs, jackets and trousers. U, under this law of succession, the shoes were not always an exact fit, the fault was not on the side of smallness. Toes and ankles were never cramped. The fashion of her beet bonnets changed twice a year. If thenewestbaby were too youug to be left at home while the mother m^e her annual pilgrim age to town for the season’s millinery an obliging nieghbor who could go was intrusted with the family memoran dum, or the country merchant nearest the homestead undertook to fill an order for three, four or six bonnets of assorted sizes and prices. Only boys wore “hats. " If our maiden’s last season’s head gear was hopelessly shabby, there was always a spinster or widow in the neighborlK)^ who eked out a living, or perhaps made her ‘church money,’ by bleaching, blocking and making over straws.” Chips, Dunstable and the more pliable leghorns were much worn. A good leghorn was exjwnsive, but it went down through several generations of wearers, coming out as good as new every six months. The rural modiste bleached bonnets by hanging them in an inverted barrel and lighting a pan of brimstone underneath, ^^en the straws had paled and cooled she cut them down, or pieced them out to or der, wetting and shaping them upon a block which, by the exercise of a little ingenuity, could be made to last several At Inreakfast, as at dinner, we, I ie~ g^t to say, were fed upon just what our ~ rs ate. There w«r« always tibree or four kinds of hot bread on the table with eggs,* two or three dishes of meat, hon^, molasses or airup, milk, tea, coffee and. Winter and Summer, batter —that is griddle—cakes. We w^ cautioned agsinst greedi ness as to quantity, bat made our own selections as to quality. A mortifying reminiscence of my childhood is the unexpected tom given by my mother to an economical device upon which I had prided my seven year-old self. She had lectured me so often upon the sin wastefulness that I expected tMraise for the practical illus tration of the contrary jninciple. ‘Mother,” I whispc^ behind the cof -um one morning, “I made one sau sage hold out for eight buckwheat cakes!’ “Fie! What a;reedy Htfle girl to eat eight buckwheat cakes!” I can see now the horrified arch ot hor brows. Heavy suppers were interdicted be cause they gave children bad dreams. In all else pertaining to the kind of food,we devoured and the times of eat- i°S> we judged for oui;^lves. If we were hungry between meals we ran in to the kitchen and begged for whatever was at hand. Sometimes is was hot ash-cake and buttermilk; sometimes cold pone cupful of hot liquor from the pot in which bacon and cabbage were boiling; TflBT OW» 111 DBATB TAI.1.BT. MiOr Orus« ky iklrM While ovmv las «ke »e«er> They •ruk Ovas aa Anealc Bvrlacaatf Sarvtve* Bill Arp. Hardslilp OB the Teacbers. Charlotte Observer. From now until Christmas all county schools that are taught in Mecklenburg county will be conducted on a credit basis. At the end of each month the teachers will be given written instru ments which are termed vouchers, by courtesy, but these will not be paid until the first Mondy in January. The papers are not considered good enough for the national banks to handle, and the teachers are forced to negotiate the vouchers through merchants or individ uals. And they have been charged, and will be charged, a discount that ranges from 8 to 24 per cent. To illustrate: If a. Mecklenburg teacher conducts a school for three months at $40 a month he—or she—is Intimately entitled to $120. Yet the teacher is given a paper that must be discounted at, say, 20 per cen., which is, as the system works, necessary but unfur reduction of his earnings to only $96. The fact might as well be faced: spite the great educational cry that is heard from one end of this county to the other the teachers are not receiv ing their proper wages. The board of education does not deny this. The county supervisor of education says the system is bad and should be rectified. Yet no remedy is effected or contem plated, and the instructors of the young in this great and prosperous county work on a credit or have many dollars taken from them regularly by people who can afford to hold the poor paper that the teachers are not financially able to retain. In the appointment of the school fund the teacher is the last person to be considered. For daily wear there were plenty of homemade sunbonnets in Summer, and quilted hoods for the Wintw that began just before Christmas and was over by the first of March. We had for week-day wear stockings of lamb’s wool or fine cotton knit at home, the heels and toes' ‘knit double,” and for Sunday i^hat were called “In dia cotton.” Every lady was proficient in plain and fancy knitting. Some of our stockings were far pret tier to our taste than the openwork silk hose imported for grown people, being wrought in lacelike patterns upon insteps and ankles by the deft fingers of our mothers, aunts or elder sisters. At the top of every stocking, coarse or fine, the initials of the wearer were knitted in by some mysterious process of “widening and narrowing.” There was not a letter in the alphabet which the gentiewoman of that time could fashion without the aid of a sampler. Of aprons we had great stmre,—black silk, embroidered with colored silks; mu^n and fine linen trimmed with luffles, or scalloped all around with nun’s cotton,” bird’s-eye huckaback, and checked muslin and gingham for play and school hours. ^hold, then, our little Southern ^1, thus cloth^ and * ready for the days work and play. She waa dressed by a maid or nurse. The head nurse of the household bore the honorable titie of “mammy.” She was mcH^ likely to spoil than be severe with her charges, but her rule was generally judicious. She might and did lecture us; she never scolded, nor shook, nor struck one of us. Her qualifications for the office were steadiness, neatness and fondness for children. The colored girl or woman who did not “take to” babies was never allowed to tend them. Mammy managed us by ^king, and did a good deal of managing. From the time we could frame the two words with our own lips, we were “littie ladies,” and were continually remind' ed of what was expected of us in that character. Without ever hearing the phrase “Noblesse oblige,” mammy interwove the spirit of it into all her monitions. “Littie ladies musn’t run bar’foot like boys,”—which we were solely tempted to do in hottest weather. Littie ladies must have their hair [dattcsd and tied up with ribbons, not fiyin’ 'boutthdirearslike colts’manes.” “Littie ladies mustn’t hang down their heads, or put their fingers their mout^, or lay down, their arms over their eyes when anybody says ‘ Howdye do?’ to them. NoMy but overseers’ chillun an’ po’ white folk’s chillun behave so.” , . . “Littie ladies mustn’t say ‘I declar . 'A Chicago school teacher has sued a real estate dealer for $50,000 damages for an all^;ed atten^t to kiss her. Great Scott! what would the figure have been had the man succeeded 7— Chicago Post. The Bible says there’s but one ‘Old Declarer,’ an’ that is Satan.” “Littie ladies must say their prayers every night an’ momiii’, same as they’d say ‘Thankye,’ when anybody is good to them, ’cause ’tis sut’nly mighty good in their Hevenly Father to take such good keer of thein. Mammy said “1 and sut’nly,” but she despised “n^ro talk”—she never said “nigger,” nor let us say it—as heartily as she de spised “po’ white folks” and free n^;roeB. She taught us through these salutary avoidanoe of low 0019- pany- and improper associatiOBB. A “real gentleman” might be poor; an ill-bred milUonaire was always “po white frfki^.” sometimes hot buiscuit or a “ginga^ cake,” and in “killing time,” a broiled spare-rib, or a pig tail baked in hot ashes. The least hurtful of these perijMtetio lunches were green com, roasted in the inner “shuck,” and sweet potatoes raled out from the chimney-corner. In fruit season we ranged garden and orchard at will. I w afraid to try to guess at the numb» of unripe apples, pears, peaches and plums we consum ed daily Our fairfaced mothers—most of them in delicate health themselves, I may re mark—sat in the house or upon the shaded porches doing wondrous things with ne^le and netting-hook, and gave never a thought to our digestions. “All children would eat trash. ITiey would learn better by and by.” The “old field school,” so named be cause the schoolhouse was usually built in the middle or upon the edge of a worn-out field given up to broom-straw and sassafras saplings, was attended by both giris and boys, and usually was taught by a college student or a' gradu ate who desired to “put himself through” the university or law school or m^ical college. While there was no actual prejudice against this primitive order of co-^uca- tion, many parents preferred to have tutors and governesses in their own homes. The schoolroom waa an ap pendage to eight out of ten country houses. Under tutor or governess we studied and recited with our brothers until they were fourteen years old or thereabouts, when they were sent off to boarding- school. The girls remained for a year or two longer under home rule b^re going to some young ladies’ seminary or institute. Some of the best educa ted women I know never went from nome to such a school. Our childhood ended at thirteen, when we begged to “tuck up our hair.” But it was glorious while it lasted for those of us who were not pat tern children. Our regular duties were school les sons, and “tasks” of sewing and knit ting. We learned to knit first upon garters, then upon stockings _ for o^ selves that grew wofully grimy with much handling and unraveling and knitting up t^in before the toes wen; turned off. Our earliest tasks in the use of the needle were upon patchwork quilts. When we had knit a certain number of rounds above the bit of black thread tied in for a mark, and put together in unpuckered seams a given tale of “bed- quilt pieces,” we were free for the rest of the day. Freedom meant open-air exercise ex cept in stormy wither. We dug in our flower gardens^ we climbed cheny and apple trees; we tramped for hourS; a retinue of small negroes at our heels over old fields, knee-deep in broom staw or “hen’s-nest grass,” hunting for partridge’s eggs or wild strawberries, or lersimmons, or chincapins, or huckle- t>errieB. We rode colts and plow-horses and mules; we swung in loops made of wild grapevines or tore them down ^ to use as jumping ropes; we played Hide the Switch, and Bound about the Gooseberry bush, and Fox and Hounds, and sat on mossy banks, our bared feet in the warm water of forest brooks, watchirg the frightened minnows skurrying up and down stream. Or, gronp^ under the pines, we told the small negroes stories of Cinderella and Red Biding Hood in return for the folk-lore they heard o/er the kitch en fire, of “Brer Babbitt” and “Brer B’ar”—returning home in the breath less Summer sunsets and the dim' An tumn twilights tired, ha^y and hungry, bringing our spoils with us Mammy’s turbaned head was shaken at us from the porch like a moumfid cotton ball. Our mothers scolded and sighed over tom frocks and mud-en- crasted shoes, and fine young lady visitors held up hands of laughing horror. But we got the good out of every day in that far-off time. Nature, dis dainful of conventionalities, kept us in bar own school. We bless her for it, in our riper years, and the anipud spirits, the mere joy in being alive, that tempted us to follow her leading. But for this merciful overruling wh»e would be the stomachs ai^ nerves originally bestwed upon chil dren who were pwmitted to eat mince pie, boiled dumplings pound-cake, pot- Uquor, nuts jost ripe, and fmit quite unripe; fresh pork, saasi^ and fried oakes, udd to dti^i from babyhood tea, cc^ee and eider? The treacheroos, meccileM sands of Death Val^y have yielded up the story of another grewiome, ghaMly tragedy fifty years after it was enacted. Sto ries at siniilar tragedies in th«t Yalle delos Muertos have been told agam and ag^n, yet they are always new in the telling, for thdr fasdnation Ues in their honor. Yeaily, as the white men traverse that tnq>door of hell, they {day their lives against the tales of yel low lore that lie ander it and some 1m. The next year their mamified coipaes are foond bj others, who pity ttom as “gbod men; they played tlie limit aad lost.” There is no occasion for mourn ing; they werestnuig men,and knew the game they were against. Th^ aouepted the chance in the gamble with d^h, and, having lost, th^ paid the winner in full. But when wcnnen and children go down that journey oi death only be cause husbands and fathers go there is an excuse among those who “know" for the moisture that collects on sun- dried eyelids. Fifty-one years ago a party of men, women and children—twenty in all— left Independence, Mo., in two wagons drawn by oxen, bound for the gold fields of California. From that day until now tiiey have never been heard of, and their taie has ^ways been a mystery, although it was thought prob able that they had strayed from the overiand trail and had b^ massacred by the Indians. All these years has the bare, brown-breasted” desert hdd the secret securely locked, and only re cently have its restless, crawling sands disclosed the key; that key waa the huge, rusted hook of an ancient ox chun. Don Pickett is a prospector, with frame of tempered st^ and sinews and muscles as tough as whang leather. He is not well known in San Francisco, but is a familiar figure from Carson to the Mexican line. Tonopah, the sink the Amargosa, Death Valley and the Desert of the Cok>rado know him. He is in the city now, and it is difficult for him to back-track himself from a mining office on Montgomery street to his hotel, but in the country named he knows the trails as they are known to the Indians and the eagles. He has just returned from a prospecting trip from Tonopah through the Panamint country and Death Valley, by way of Mojave and Keeler. It was in the noithem extremity of the Panamint range that he picked up the k^ that unliked the haIf-centnry-M secret. At a foot of the sptu of the Pana mint Mountains on its northeastem elope he and his partner, Len Cknrson, had stopped to rest themselves and their burros from the exhaustion at tendant upon their trip across Death Valley. Where they stopped a spring of perfectiy clear, oold water bubUed from the rocks and lost itself in the sands a few yards further on. They did not drink pf the water; they knew it; so did their burros, and the animals hardly sniffed at it as they turned to nibble at the scant herb^e. It poison, deadly poison, and the arsenic contained in a good draught would kill a drinker. Years ago some {Hospector had scrawled the word “Poiron” on a board from a packing box and had fastened it to a stake by the e^ of the spring. It was while resting in the shade of the socks and brui Picket saw, a few ieet from him, the top of a rust-eaten iron hook project ing above the sand. He took hold of it, but it did not come away easily, and exerting his strength, he unoovn^ an ancient ox chain forty feet in length, the kind that is practically out of use now. From its rusty condition it must have lain buried in the sand for at least fifty years, and knowing the man ner in which ^e desert concealed its secrets, they took their prospecting picks from the packs and b^an drair- ing them through the sand, 'j^e points of the picks turned ap bone after bone and pieces of wagon irons. Some of the bones w&ce of oxen, and some were of humans, a few evidentiy being those of women and children. As many of the bones of humans as th^ uncovered they re-interred in a trench in the sand and then packed on across the dr^ury waste that stretched away before them They told the story of their find to In dians and old white settlers in the Amargosa country, and from one and another of the old men they gathered the following: It was in the fall of *51 that a party came down Anuurgosa way with two w(m-out ox teams. The party had left Independence, Mo., that qtting, bat had been ddayed by sidness, and had once lost its way and iiad left the trail, consequentiy they did not i^proach the Sara Neva^ mountains untU the ness of winter prohibited their passage. They had, therefore, turned south from Humbold sink imd hi|d taken the Southem route by the way of the old Salt Lake and Los Angdes trail. One or two of the women and several of the children had died on the way. one of the wagons had broken down, and the oxen were so thin and wcnm that aU were attached to the beet wagon and the other abandoned, as were some of their goods. The remaining 11 children and outfit were packed in one wagon, and with the men on foot, the sorrowed littie cavalcade toiled on to ward El Dtwado. Nothing more was seen or heard of them by the Ama^osa settlers, and it was prmmed that they had gone through in safety. The grewsome find at the pcnaon springs tells a different tale. It is a tale eaqr in the rea^g tat men who travel the des^ and know it better than you know the park. Oxen in the desert are worse than nsdess; th^ cannot haul enough war W fm their own needs. It is along, thirsfy way from water to water be tween the sink of the Amaigosa and Death Vall^ if one does not “know” —and the party from Independence did not. If they had, they would have a few ftet in the dry sand of the of the lost Amargosa and found water, Ixtter, it is trae, but it- would have preserved life. Neither did they Know that if with the axe or hatchet they had splitthehage “bull” or “nig- gtfhead” cactus they would have found an acrid, jui7 palp that would have mcMsten^ the patched throats of their oxen and themselves. .But all this they did not know, and strug^ed on with stating eyes and parehed and cracking tongues throt^h the hot and stifling alkaJi^ust, straining their eyes across the dreary, dull gray waste for a spot of green that might mark the presence d water. They saw that qtot at the foot of the Pinamintt and headed for it, goading on their dragging, jaded They reached it and all drank their filL That was fifty-one years ago and thdr dry bones ^ve just been found. Pickett found an old Indian who remembered seeing years ago, an apimdoned tumbledown wagon near the spring. The woodwwk of the wheels had dri^ and fallen apart and the ranning gears were held up only by the rusted tires. How many years ago the Indian did not know, he did not measure time by years. Since that time the drifting sand, beaten back by the mountains of basalt and granite as ■ the shore beats back the surf, had buried.the evidence of its crime. It requires no stretch of the imagination to picture that scene of lonely death, the little party of tortured emigrants dying at the moment they thought life had been found. That part of Death Valley lying low the level of the sea is only about eighteen miles long and three or four miles in width, but the Death Valley proper is about seventy-five miles long ani from five to fift^n miles wide. As miles go, the distance, with water, is not far; without water, entirely lies between one and the little block dots on the map that shows the location of water. There are trae and correct maps of the valley, but they are seared on the brains of a few hardy prospect ors. There have been men who thought they could cross that country alone with the aid of a topographicid map. Their bleaching tones offer mute but indisputable evidence of their error of judgement. In the cooler seasons men inured to the hardships of the desert have been known to go for several days without water, subsisting on the juice of the cactus; in the summer season from twenty-four to thirty-six hours is suffi- dent to unsettle their reason. A new comer, a “tenderfoot,” will go stark raving mad in from four to eight hours hot weather if he has not water. To such men three gall, ns of water a day are necessary—the hot, d^ atmosphere causing a rapid evaporation and phe nomenal thirst. During the days in the middle of the summer the thermometer stands anywhere from 125 to 135 de grees in the shade in the coolest place that can be found. On the sand in the sun the bight to which the mercury climbs is almost beyond belief. Only the excessive dryness of the atmosphere permits one to live in such heat. Given the humidity of San Francisco in the me temperature and neither man nor animal could live in it a day. It is this terrible heat that boils the blood of tenderfoot” until the steam cooks the brain and drives him a naked maniac, shrieking across the blistered sands. That is a peculiar feature alwf^s ac companying dementia from thirst in that r^on—the tearing of all dothinj; from the body. Men have been foun[ in this condition, and it was necessary to tie them with a lariat for a day or two and give them water slowly, a few rips at a time, until their sufferings were relieved. To permit them to drink their fill at once would have been litUe short of murder. Those who “know,” in going from one waterhole to another, always carry enough water to last them there and back in the event the objective water hole should be found dry. There water at certain points in Death Valley, but unless one knows the exa^ location these springs or water holes, it is death from horrible torture to attempt to traverse the vall^ in the summer months. The daily sameness of the countiy is such that all mountains and rocks lo(^ alike to the stranger and he may pass to his death within a few yards of where he could have found life. The frequent sand storms obliterate the trail and in that region of constant mirage effects, a stranger is easily lured to death. Mis. Ansstas Kmpsohn, of ville, Ind., has just celebrated her one hundred and first birthday.. She haa lost her t^per in all these him* dred years, and has lived in peace with ^ the world. It is safe to wy that no one living in the world to-day caa par allel this record. Mrs. Simpsohn tells the itoty of her life in the following words: I was bom in the town of Goldea- ton, Busma, in the qtring of 1801. Hb parents were poor, but had good stand ing in the neighbcurhood, aj^ iHmb girl I went to school just like other and never dreamed that I would ever sae America. America,' in feet, waa Ip us those far-off days merely a nane. “I jost can remember seeiiig tlw great Napoleon. The scene will never fade from my memory if I should live 100 years old. I remember I wsa standing by the window inoor home, and my mother told me to see the soldiers go by. Th^ were several hours in passing. My mother said they were going to try and defeat the and do I Hover IMS m*r forces of the Czar and do us all (rf dami^. The sotdiers lo(dced fine, and their uniforms were hrig^ In the rear of the army were several stiikii^- lookiug men on horseback. One of them was a small man, perfectly ersot, and wore a hat turned up at the side. ~ remember my mother said that wag Napoleon, the greatest general in the French army. The men who rode bf his side were lager than NapoSBon. 'A short time after this I remember hear ing my parents tell about the of Moscow, and how the Frmch diers had frozen to death on their re treat from that ruined cify. ‘After my parents died my husband and I went to Caracas, in Booth America. If I remember correotly, I was not over 45 when I went there^ We lived in Caracas for three or four years. My husband was a merchant and made mmey, but he afterward lost it by unwise investments. Oar only daughter died in Caracas, and we laid her to rest there. I like ^e city of Caracas with its many sao^ memoriea. After we left Caracas we qame to the United States, landed in New Yt^and finally located in Cincinnati, where we lived a'long number of yean. You ask me how I manage never to ang^. To that question I will sajr that it is the easiest thing in the world.. Whin I was a girl I ka^ so many . people who would lose their tempe^ To me it seemed to spoil their cGi|X)ii* tions. I just made up my mind then and there that I would cultivate a qpirit of good wUl for all peofde and tl^ I would never lose my temper. “I believe I have carried m^ good resolution into everyday practice. Qf course the temper has come to me, and often, too, but I have always had win power enough to rise above aU diffi^ culties. I cannot recall any particaliur am where I WAS greatiy vexfd or worried, for I trained my--mind when a small girl to be cheetfjland alwayslo(Aed on. the bright side of the picture, oone what would. About the closest I ever earner to getting angry was when I lived wiA my husband in Caracas. A man oame to our house to collect a bill that had been paid. When I insisted that tte bill bad been paid and produced th^ receipt he grew abusive, anditty firet impulse was to pick up something and strike him but I controlled my temper and was glad of it aft«wardi That was over 50 years iigo. “I have taken good care of myeelf. I go to bed at 8 o’^ock every night, and have ^or years. 1 eat heutily and enjoy my fmeals. My favorite dlsbea are soup, chicken and fish. I do not care for fiuicy dishes and do notbefiem they do anyone any good. . Plain food is the, bwt every time. My health & good and I do not see why I shoaU not live many years yet. My i^yrioian says my health is better than many people who are but half my age.’* Sparfclac rain Stack Part. Hew York Son. There is much indignation among the young residents of the Morris neighborhood section of Bloomfield, N. J., over the work of a practical joker who recentiy poured tax all along the coping of ^e stone bridge over the Yantacaw Biver at Franklin avenue near Broad street* The bridge is a favorite trysting place for young people. It was warm thatnightand the bridge was.fiUed with young women and their escorts. All went well until one of the couples thought they woald like some ice m. As &e young man attempted to jump from the coping his head went raid, but the rest of his body re fused to follow. He tiied again and this time there ts a ripiHng sound. The young man put his behind him and made for cover. When the young woman tried to jump down she found herself also studc. Most of the other couples dis- ocn'eteA that th^ were in the same fix. A crowd gather^ and guyed them. The bridge presented a curious ap pearance li^ in the evening with its iHts of feminine and maeculine ^pfiar^ stuck here and there. Our hearts and arms are never so strong as when justiee is behind. ■pMeaile of BUataMS. New Okleans, July 29.—The ear- geons of the New Orieans eye, ear, noatf and throat hospital have been surpris ed lately by the large number of patients recdved by that institntion from the country districts around New Orleans suffering from partial or total blindness. The surgeons were nnaWe at first to discover the cause of the Wndness, but an investigation haa dia- dosed the fact that it is due to the ge^ eral use in Louisiana of a che^> anti septic which contains a large amomit of methyl or wood alcoluS, a poiaon that acts directly on the optic nerve when taken internally. Upcm diaeoter- insr this fact the hosi»tal submitted the antiseptics used by its patients to Chem ist Moore, of the board of health, who, after analyffls reported that some of the gpedmens contained aa much aa 80 per cent of methyl alcohol, rendering them totally unfit for internal medicine. Most of the perwns affected will not fully recover their sight. It is andounced that the Soathem Bailway Company haa dedded to re quire ail its employeeato stand aa ez- aminstion every three numtha on the rules of the company. The new ruUng will apfdy to all empioyea excqit coland brakemen and flagmen, who have not responsibility and cannot be promoted ThirCharlotte Observer says it ia main tained by Southem Railway ofllciala that many acddents are directly due to the fact that empk>yees are not familiar with or misunderstand, mlea, and ttie purpose of the examinations is to see to it that the men in the servioe of ^ company have a correct interpretation of all rules and r^alatimM. When a fellow bepns to forget the ^ date he was married he wonders if it {wasn’t April 1.
Elm City Elevator (Elm City, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Aug. 8, 1902, edition 1
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