Published bt Koanokb Publishing Co.
"FOR GOD. t'OR COUNTRY AND FOR TRUTH.
C. V. W .AubBOIT, BOSISK33 MASAGKR.
VOL. II.
PLYMOUTH, N. C.. FRIDAY, MARCH 20, 1891.
NO. 45.
REV, DR. TALMAGB,
The Eminent Brooklyn Divine's Sun
. day. Sermon.
Subject "TbelPlnKiieof Dad Books."
T?X,T! ,'An& thefroas came ttp and cen
tred the landof Egypt. And the magician
rtw so with their enchantments, and
--Ex gsvPn the of Egypt."
! There is almost a universal aversion to
rrogs, and yet with the Egyptian they were
Honored, they were sacred, and they were'
objects o worship while alive, and after
death they ere embalmed, and to-day their
, remains may be found among the sepulchres
, of Thebes. These creatures, so attractive
once to the Egyptians, at divine behest be
came obnoxious and loathsome, and they
went croaking and hopping and leaping into
the palnca of the king, and into the bread
trays and the couches of the people, and even
the ovens, which now are uplifted above the
earth and on the side of chimneys, bat then
were fmall holes in the earth, with sunken
pottery, were filled with frogs when the
housekeeper cants to look at them. If a man
sat do wn to ea t a frog alighted on his plate.
If he attempted to put on a shoe it was pre-
- occupied by a f rog. If ho attempted to put
his head upon a pillow it had been taken pos
session ot by a frog. ,
' Frogs high and low and everywhere; loath
some iross 6limy frogs, besieging frogs, in
numerable frogs, great plague of frogs.
- What, made the matter worse the magicians'
said there was no miracle in this, and they
could by sleight of band produce the same
thing, and they eemed to succeed, for by
. s sleight of hand wonders may ba wrought.
; After Moses had thrown down his staff and
by miracle it became a serpent, and" then he
. took hold of it and by miracle ' it again be
came a staff, the serpent charmers imitated
the same thing, and Knowing that there were
serpents in Egypt which by a peculiar pres
sure on the neck would become as rigid as a
stick of wood, they seemed to change the ser
pent into the staff, and then, throwing it
down, the staff became the serpent.
So likewise these magicians tried to iml-
tate the plague of frogs, and perhaps by
smell of food attracting a great number of
them to a certain point, or by shaking them
out from a hidden place, the magicians some
times seemed to accomplish the same mira
cle. "While these magicians made the plague
worse, none of them tried to make it better. '
. "Frogs came np and covered the land of
Egypt, ant the magicians did so with their
enchantment, and brought up frogs upon the
land cf Egypt." . ,.
Now that plague of frogs has come back
upon the earth. It is abroad to-day. It is
. Emitting this nation. It comes in the shape
of corrupt literature. These frogs hop into
' the store, the 6hop, the office, the banking
house, the factory into the home, into the
cellar, into the garret, on the drawing room
table, on the shelf of the library. .While the
lad is reading the bad book the teacher's face
is turned the other way. One of these frogs ;
hops upon the page. While the young woman
is reading the iorbidden novelette after re
tiring at night, reading by gaslight, one of
these frogs leaps upon the page. Indeed
1 they have bopped upon the news stands of
the country, and, the mails at the postofflce
shake out in the letter trough hundreds of
them. The plague has taken at different
times possession of this country. It is one of
the most loathsome, one of the most fright-,
f ui,ono of tho most ghastly of the ten plagues
of our modern cities.
There is avast number of books and news
papers printed and published which ought
, never to see tho light. They are filled with a
pestilence that makes the land swelter with a
moral epidemic. The greatest blessing that
ever cam. to this nation is that of an ele- -
'. vated literature, and the greatest scourge
' bas been that of unclean , literature. This
last has its victims in all occupations and
"departments. It has helped to fill insane
' ssylums and penitentiaries and almshouses
and dens of shame. The bodies of this infec-
, tion li ? in the hospitals and in the graves,
while their 60uls are being tossed over into
a lost eternity, an avalanche of horror and
despair.
The London plague was nothing to it.
That counted its victims by thousands, but
this modern pest has already shoveled its
millions into the charnel house of the morally
. iad. The longest rail train that ever ran
over the Erie or Hudson tracks was notlong
enough nor large enough to carry the beast
liness and the putrefaction which have been'
gathered up in bad books and newspapers of
this land in the last twenty years. Tho
. literature of a nation decides the fate of a
nation. Good books, good morals. Bad
' books, bad morals.
.-I begiu with the lowest of all the litera
. ture, tnat which does not even pretend to
be respectable from cover to cover a blotch
of . leprosy.' There are many whose entire.
. business it is to dispose of that kind of lit-
erature. They display it before the scbool-
boy on bis way home. They get the cata-:
logues of Echools and colleges, take the
names hud postofflce addresses, and send
their advertisements, and their circulars.
Mid th eir pamphlets, and their books to every ,
one of them. .
In the possession of these dealers in bad
literature were found nine hundred thou-'
eaud names and postofflce addresses, to
whom it was thought it might be profitable 1
, to send these corrupt-things. In the year.
1873 tnere were one nuuareu aau eiitjr-uvo .i
estaiuisnrnents enugou m muuamK vucmjj,
corrupt literature. From one publishing
house tfcere wen trout twenty different styles,
. of corrupt books. Although over thirty;
tons of vile literature have been destroyed;
by the Society for the Suppression of Vica,
rtill there is enough of it left in this country
. to bring down upon us the just angor of an
aroused God.. - s. ' -
In the year 1663 the evil had become so ,
.great in this country that 'the Congress of
- the-United States passed -a law forbidding "
the transmission of bad literature through ,
the United. States mails, but' there were
large loops in that law through which'
prJmiriAlsfcmiirht crawl out. and the law was
a dead failure that law of 1803. Bat in jt
87S another law was passed by the Congress $
of the United States against the transmission a
ot corrupt literature through the mVilE'
grand law, a potent law, a Christian 'daw
v and under .that law multitudes of these'
EC'T)drels have been arrested, their property
rojilscatedand they themselves thrown into,
th- penitentiaries, whare they belonged. .
Now, my friendp, how are wa to war
agrjnst this corrupt literature, and how are(
, the iroRl of f this Egyptian, plague to be
slain? First of all by the prompt and inex
orable execution of the law. Let all good
pofctmaEtsrs, and Unified States district at
torneys, and detectives, and, reformers con
cert in theii?. action,, to, stop this plagued
When BirKowland tofll sfwmt his life in try-,
ing to secure cheap postags not only for
Encland, but for all the wond, and to open
the Messing of the postofflsa to all houcst
business, and to all messages of charity,
and kindiesp, and affsction, for. all health
ful intercommunication, he did not mean to
make vie easy or to till the mail bags of the
United State's with the scabs of such a
leprosy. .... .
it ought not to be in the power of every
tad man who can raisa a one-cent stamp for
a circular or a two-ceut stamp for a kUsr to
blast a man or destroy a home. ' The postal
service ot this country must be clean, must
be kept clean, and we must all understand
that the swift retributions of the Unite!
States Government hover over every viola
tion of the letter box.
There are thousands of men and women in
this country, some for personal gain, soma
through innate depravity, some through a
spirit of revenge, who wish to use this great
avenue of convenience and intelligence for
purposes revengeful salacious and diabolic,
wake up the law. Wake up the penalties.
Let every court room on this subject : be a
Sinai thunderous and aflame. Let the con
victed offenders be sent for the full term to
Sing Sing or Harrisburg. :
I am not talking about what cannot be
done. I am talking now about what is being
done; A great many of the printing presses
that gave themselves entirely to the publico.
won of vUe literature have been stopped or
Jy8 gone into business less obnoxious,
w bat has thrown off, what has kept; off the
rail trains of this country for sometime
back nearly all the leprous periodicals?
Those of us who have been on the rail trains
have noticed a great change in the last few
months and the last year or two. Why ba v
nearly all those vile pariodicals been keDt off
the rail trains for some time back? Who ef
fected it? These societies for the purification
of railroad literature gave warning to the
publishers and warning to railroad compan
ies, and warning to conductors, and warn
ing to newsboys, to keep the infernal stuff
off the trains.
Many of the cities have successfully pro
hibited the most of that literature even from
going on the news stands. Terror has seized
upon the publishers and the dealers in impure
literature, from the fact that over a thou
sand arrests have been made, and the azgre
gate tims for which the convicted have been
sentenced to the prison is over one hundred
and ninety years, and from the fact that
about two millions of their circulars have
been destroyed, and the business is not as
profit-able as it used to be.
How have so many of the news stanrls of
our great cities been purified? How has so
much of this iniquity bean balked? By
moral suasion? Oh, no. You might as well
go into the jungle of the East Indies and pat
a cobra on the neck, and with profound ar
gument try to persuade it that it is morally
wrong to bite and to sting and to poison
anything. The only answer to vour argu
ment would be an uplifted head and a hiss
and a sham reeking tooth struck into vour
arteries. The only argument for a cobra Is
a shotgun, and the onlv argument for these
dealers in impure literature is the clutch of
the police and the bean soup in a paniten
tdary. The law I The la w ! I invoke to con
summate the work so grandly bagun !
Another way in which we are to drive
back this plague of Egyptian frogs is by
filling the minds of Our young people with
a healthful literature. I do not mean to say
that all the books and newspapers in our
families ought to be religious books end
newspapers, or that everv song ought to be
sung to the tune of "Old Hundred." I have
no sympathy with the attempt to make the
young old. I would rather join in a crusade
to keep the young young. Boyhood aud girl
hood must not be abbreviated. But there
are good books, good histories, good biogra
phies, good works ot fiction, good books of
all styles with which we are to fill the minds
of the young, so that there will be no more,
room for the useless and the vicious than
there is room for chaff in a bushel measure
which is already filled with Michigan
wheat. .
Why are fifty per cent, of the criminals in
the jails and penitentiaries of the United
States to-day under twenty-one years of
age? Many of them under seventeen, under
sixteen, under fifteen, under fourteen, under
thirteen. Walk along one of the corridors
of the Tombs prison in New York and look
for yourselves. Bad books, bad newspapers
bewitched them as soon as they got out of
the cradle. Beware of all those stories
which end wrong. Beware of all those
books which make the road that ends in
perdition seem to end In Paradise. Do not
glorify the dirk and the pistol. Do not call
the desperado brave or the libertine gallant.
Teach our young people that if they go down
into the swamps and marshes to watch the
jack-o'-lanterns dance on the decay and
rottenness they will catch the malaria and
death.
"Ob," says some one, "I am a business
man, and I have no time to examine what ,
my children read. I have no time to inspect
the books that come into my household." If
your children were threatened with typhoid
fever, would you have time to go for the doc
tor? Would you have time to watch the
progress of the disease? Would you have
time for the funeral? In the presence of my
Gcd I warn you of the fact that your chil
dren are threatened with moral and spirit
ual typhoid, and that unless the. thing ba
stopped it will be to them funeral ot body,
funeral of mind, funeral of soul. Three
funerals in one day.
My word is to this vast multitude of young
people: Do not touch, do not borrow, do
not buy a corrupt book or a corrupt picture.
A book will decide a man's destiny for good
or for evil. The book you read yesterday
may have decided you for time and for eter
nity, or it may be a book that may coma
Into your possessions to-morrow.
A good book who can exaggerate its
power? Benjamin Franklin said that his
reading of Cotton Mather's "Essays to Do
Good" in childhood gave him holy aspira
tions for ail the rest of his life. George Law
cleclared that a biography he read in child
hood gave him all his subsequent prosperi
ties A clergyman, many years ago, passing
to the far west, stopped at a hotel. He saw
woman copying something from Dodd
ridge's "Rise and Progress." It seamed that
the ihad borrowed the book, and there were
lome things she wanted especially to re
member, The clergyman had in his sachet a copy of
Doddridge's '"Rise and Progress," and so he.
made her a present of it. Thirty years
passed on. The clergyman came that way,
and he asked where the woman was whom
he had seen so long ago. "She lives yonder
In that beautiful house." He want there and
laid to her, "Do you remember me?" . She
laid, "No, I do not." He said, "Do you re
member a man gave you Doddridge's 'Ri3e
and Progress' thirty years ago!" "Oh, yes;
I remember. That book savod my soul. I
loaned the book to all my neighbors, and
they read it and they were converted to God,
sad we had a revival of religion wnich swept
through the whole community. We built a
church and called a pastor. You see tbat
spire yonder, don't you? That church
was built as the result of that book you gave
me thirty years ago." Oh, the power' of a
pood book! But, alasl for the influence of a
bad book. . ' , ' ,
John Angel James, than! whom England
never had a holier ministor, stood tn his pul
pit at Birmingham and said: 'Twenty-five
years ago a lad loaned to me an intamous
b'Kjk. He ,' would loan it only fifteen min
utes, and then I had to give it back, but that
hnnk li hauntal ma like a specter ever
Bince. I have in agony of soul, on my mtM
before God, prayed that he would obliterate ,
from my soul the memory of it, but I shall ,
carry the damage of it until the day of my
death." The assassin of Sir William Kits- .
sell declared tbat he got the inspiration for
his crime by reading what was then a nsw
and popular novel, "Jack ShspparJ."
Homer's "Iliad" ma'le Alexander the war
rior. Al'ixandfr said so. Th siory cf
Alexander made Julius Uassar and Charles
XII. both men of blood. Have you in youfc
pocket, or in your trunk, or in your desk ar
business a bad book, a bad picture, a bad
pamphlet? In God's name I warn you to de
stroy it. .
Another way in which we shall fight back
this corrupt literature and kill the frogs of;
Egypt is by rolling over them the Christian,
printing press, which shall give plenty ofj
healthful reading to all adults. All thess
men and women are reading men and wo
men. What are you reading? Abstain from
all those books which, while they bad some
good things about them, had also an admix
ture of evil. You have read books that had
two elements in them the good and the bad.
Which stuck to you? The badl The heart
of most people is like a sieve, which lets the;
small particles of gold fall through, but
keeps the great cinders. Once in a white
there is a mind like a loadstone, which,
plunged amid steel and brass filings, gathers!
up the steel and repels the brass. But it is
generally the opposite. If you attempt to
plunge through a fence of burrs to get one
blackberry, you will get more burrs than
blackberries.- -
You cannot afford to read a bad book,
however good you are. You say, "The in
fluence is insignificant." I tell you that tha
scratch of a pin has sometimes produced lock
jaw. Alas, if through curiosity, as many do,
you pry into an evil book, your curiosity is
as dangerous as that of the man who would
take a torch into a gunpowder mill merely
to see whether it would really blow, up oi
not. In a menagerie a man put his arne
through the bars ot a black leopard's cage,
The animal's hide looked so sleek and brigta
and beautiful. He just stroked it once. Tbj
monster seized him; and he drew forth a hand
torn and mangled and bleeding.
Ob, touch not tho evil even with the faint
est stroke! Though it may be glossy and
beautiful, touch it not lest you pull forth
your soul torn and bleeding under the clutch
of the black leopard. "But," you say, "how
can I find out whether a book is good or bad
without reading it?" There is always some
thing suspicious about a bad book. I never
knew an excaption something suspicious in
the index or style of illustration. This ven
omous reptile almost always carries a warn
ing rattle.
The clock strikes midnight. A fair form
bonds over a romance. The eyes flash
fire. The breath is quick and irregular.
Occasionally the color dashes to the cheek,
and then dies out. The hands tremble aa
though a guardian spirit were trying to
shake the deadly book out of the grasp. Hot
tears fall. She laughs with .a shrill voice
that drons dead at its own sound. The
sweat on her brow is the spray dashed up
from the river of death. The clock strikes
four, ani the rosy dawn soon after begins to
look through the lattice upon the paie form
that looks like a detained specter of the
night. Soon in a madhouse she will mistake
her ringlets for curling serpeants, and thrust
her white hand through the bars of the
prison, and smite her head, rubbing it back
as though to push the scalp from the 6kull,
Bhriekmg: "My brain I my brain T' Oh,
stand off from that! Why will you go
sounding your way amid the reefs and warn
ing buoys, wb.ee; there is such a vast ocean
in which vou mav voyage, all sail set?
We see so many books we do not under
stand what a book is. Stand it on end.
Measure it the height of it, the depth of it,
the length of it, the breadth of it Yon can
not do it. Examine the paper and estimate
the progress made from the time of the im
pressions on clay, and then on the bark of
trees, and from the bark of trees to papyrus,
and from papyrus to the hide of wild beasts,
and from the hide of wild beasts on down
until the miracles of our modern paper man
ufactories, and then see the paper, white and
pure as an infant's soul, waiting for God's in
icription. A book ! Examine the type of it. Examine
the printing of it, and see the progress from
the time wben Solon's laws were written on
,iak planks, and Hesiod's poem3 were written
in tables of lead, and the Siniatic commands
were written on tables of stone, on down to
Hoe's perfecting minting press.
A book ! It took all the universities of the
past, all the martyr fires, all the civilizations,
all the bittleK, all the victories, all the de
feats, all the glooms, all the brightness, all
the centuries to make it possible.
A book! It is the chorus of all ages; it is
the drawing room in which kings and queens
and orators and posts and historians come
out to greet you. If I worshiped anything
on earth I would worship that. It 1 burned
incense to any idol I would build an altar to
that.. Thank God for good books, healthful
books, inspiring books, Christian books,
hooks of men, books of women, Book of God.
It is with thes9 good books that we are to
overcome corrupt literature. Upon the frogs
swoop with these eagles. I depend much for
the overthrow of iniquitous literature upon
the mortality of books. Even good books
have a bard struggle to live.
Poly'oius wrote forty books; only five of
them loft. Thirty books of Tacitus have
perished. Twenty books of Pliny have per
ished. Livy wrote one hundred and forty
books; onlyv thirty-live of them remain.
Eschylus wrote one hundred dramas; only
seven remain. Euripides wrote over a hun
dred; only nineteen remain. Vatro wrote
the biographies of over seven hundred great
Romans. All that wealth of biography baa
perished. If good and valuable books have
such a struggle to live, what must be the
fate of those that are diseased and corrupt
and blasted at the very start! They will die
as the frogs when the Lord turned back the
plague. The work of Christianization will
go on until there will be nothing left but
good books, and they will take the supremacy
of the world . May you and I live to see the
illustrious day!
Against every bad pamphlet send a good
pamphlet; against every unclean picture send
an innocent picture; against every scur
rilous song send a Christian song; against
every bad book send a good book; and then
it will be as it was in ancient Toledo, where
the Toletum missals were kept by the saints
in six churches, and the sacrilegious Romans
demanded tbat those missals be destroyed,
and that the Roman missals be substituted:
and the war came on, and I am glad to say
that the whole matter having been referred
to champions, the champion of the Toletum
missals with one blow brought down the
champion of the Roman missals.
So it will be in our day. The good litara
ture, the Christian literature, in its charn-
mship for God, ana tne trucn, wiu oring
down the evil literature In its cnamplonsbip
for the devil. I fel tingling to the tips of
my fingers and throush all the nerves of my
body, and all the depths of my soul, the
certainty of our triumph. Cheer up, oh,
man and women who are toiling for ths
purification of society ! Toil with your faces
in tha sonhght. "If God be for us, who,
who can be against us?"
Lady Hester Stanhope was the daughter
of the third Earl of Stanhope, and after her
nearest friends had died she went to the far
east, took possession of a deserted convent. .
threw up fortresses amid the mountains of
Lebanon, opened the castle to the poor, and
the wretched, and the sick who would come
in. " She made her castle a homo for the un
fortunate. She was a devout Christian
woman. She was waiting for the coming of
the Lord. She expected that the Lord would
descend in psrson, and she thought upon it
until it was too much for her reason. In the
raastrificfnt st,ibleof her plac she had two
horos groomd and bridled and sailed and
ca- amj-jei cii ail rcaiy for the day ia
' which her Lord should desennd, and be on
one of them and she on the other should start
1 for Jerusalem, the city of the Great King.
It was a fanaticism and a delusion; but there
wasromanca, and 4,here was splendor, and
there was thrilling expectation in the dreamt
Ah, my friends, we need no earthly pal
freys groomed and saddled and bridled and
caparisoned for our Lord when He shall
come. The horse is ready in the equerry of
heaven, and the Imperial rider is ready to
mount. "And I saw, and behold a white
horse, and he that sat on him had a bow;
and a crown was given unto him; and he
went forth conquering and to conquer. And
the armies which were in heaven followed
Him on white horses and on His vestnre and
on His thigh were written, King of kings,
and Lord of lords.' Horse men of Heaven,
mount! Cavalry of God, ride on! Charge!
charge! until they shall be buried back on
their haunches the black horse of famine,
and the red horse of carnage, and the pal
horse of cVvith. Jesus forever!
WORK AND WORKERS.
TniRTT clerks have been discharged by the
Burlington and Missouri Railroad at Omaha
and Piattcmouth.
Over 300 weavers at the Wansknok Mill,
in Providence, RhiHle Island, are on a strike
because of a reduction in wanes.
The Sonthern Pacific lUilroad Company
his settled the matters in dispute with its em
ployees and there will be not strnke.
OVER 150 clerks and laborers have been
discharged hy the Chicago, Burlington and J
putney Railroad, at Burlington, Iowa.
The Big Mine Run Colliery, nt Ashland,
Pa., lias shut down for au indefinite period.
The suspension will affect 300 men and boys.
Denver and Rio Grande Railroad official
have reached an understanding with iheir
engineers, and the threatened strike has been
averted.
Ox account of the scarcity of coke cau el
by the recent strikes, the fires of the two large
blast lurnaues at liollidaysburg. Fa., have
been banked, and the employees discharged.
A contract has been executed between
several property owners in Joliet, Illinoin,
and Lewis Bros., of Pittsburg Pa., and Wales,
England, by which South Joliet secures ti
$500,000 tin plate plant to occupy 20 acres of
ground. '
The puddlers of the Brooke Iron Company,
at Birdboro, Ph., held a meeting to consider
whether they should continue work at $3.60 a
ton, they having resumed work a week ago
at that figure. They decided to continue at
that figure.
The sfHke of the electrotypers in Boston
has been sanctioned by the International
Typographical Union, which means not only
financial aid, but is also interpreted that press
men employed in book aud job offices will not
do any press work from plates made by non
union electrotypers.
The Seattle Typographical Union, in
Seattle, Wash., has decided to abolish piece
work on all the daily papers, and establish an
eight-hour working day, with the minimum
scale ot ti per day. Hereafter work will be
gin on the morning papers at 7 30 P. M. The
action of the Union has been adopted by the
proprietors.
Master Workman John McCarthy, of
National Trade Assembly, No. 240, Knights
of Labor, which embraces all the organiza
tions of the leather workers in this country,
was arrested in Lynn, Mass., for an alleged
attempt, with other persons, to ' co.ispire,
combine, confederate and agree" to unlaw
fully molest and intimidate non-union work
men employed in the morocco factories of
John Douallon & Son, and John T. Moulin.
CORN AND WHEAT.
Estimate! of the Grain In the Hand of
the Farmers.
The statistical returns of the Department
of Agriculture for March are estimates of
the corn and wheat iu the hands of farmers,
the proportion and present value of merchant
able corn, the weight of wheat per measured
bushel, and other points in the commercial
distribution of grain. x ,
The reswit of the consolidation makes the
farmero' reserve of corn 36.4 per cent, of the
fiop iii comparison with 45.1) per cnt. last
year. I u bushels, 542,000,000, against D70.0OO,
WU last year. It is the lowest recent reserve,
except tbat from the smaller crop of 18S7 and
that trom thfc erop of 1883. The percentage
retained iu the seven corn surplus states is
less than in others.
The proportion estimated for consumption
where grown is relatively Jan:, 87.4 per
cent., instead oi 81.8 last year. The quantity
shipped iroin the farms is, therefore, only
18$,uuo,000 bushels, or less than half the sur
plus of last year.
The proportion of the crop merchantable is
79.5 per cent., against 85.7 per cent, last year.
It is, therefore, slightly under the average iu
quality. The average price of merchantable
torn is 55.8 cents per bushel; ol uuinerchant
nblc, 22.y vents. Ihe aggregate value of the
crop, on this basis, is $7ol,0u0,u00. nearly
0UO,u00 more than the December valuation, an
advance of about one per cent., establishing
the substantial accuracy of the December
estimate.
Tiie proportion of wheat still in the hands
of iariuersis still lower than an average of
! the last ten years, the range beiug irom 1'U to
33 per cent, it is 'ISX per cent., or ll,UOU,000
bushels, it has been lower only in two years
ot the last ten, alter the meagre crops ot 1881
and 1885, which were smaller than that of
181K). Including the visible stocks, the supply
is 135,00t,00 bushels. The consumption of
the lat twelve months is estimated at 229,-
Ouo.OtX), seed used 53,000,000, and the exports
have been about 98,000,000 from March 1,
1890.
The low percentages of the spring wheat
states are especially noticeable. Half of the
present stocks will be required for spring
eeding.
The proportion of the crop estimated for
consumption within the couutrv is 52.1 per
cent, against 48.1 last year. The average
weignt per measured bushel is 57.2 pounds.
The average of 1869 was 57.7 pounds, which
was the precise average of seven crops from
18&3. In bushels of nixtv pounds the accre-
j gate is 381,000,000, or 90,000,000 less by weight
j than the preceding crop.
INTERCEPTING IMMIGRANTS.
The Sew Lmw to Be Strictly Enforced
by the Goverament.
Secretary Foster has sent instructions to
his subordinates, intrusted with the adminis
I tration of the new immigration act, to begin
j at once the study of its provisions.
! Undr this law steamship companies will
be held respo- sible tor all immigrants arriv
ing until they are inspected by the Govern
ment nthcials, and the steirobip companies
will be ohiiKed to take back to Europe all
contract lalwrers, polyeiinists, and other
, persons forbidden to land under this hill. .
1 The new Superintendent of Immigration
.will be appointed iiy the Prideut before he
Rom t in Western trip. The act will not
take t-rttvt until the 1st of April, and it is
believe'i will iuU'i'ci'pt iiuttiy iminigranti who
come into the country ev-ry Spring to work
tint in-; if Summer and return to J. urope in
the Pall..
THE NEWSL
It has been proposed to have the World's
Fair opened by the only living descendant of
Columbus, the Duke of Seragua, of Madrid.
Trouble is threatened between the whites
and the negroes in Oklahoma. Wholesale
grocers and tobacco men held a meeting in
Chicago to organize a protective association
against what is known as thf jobbers' contract
system. John Freeman, a clerk in New
York city, aged eighteen years, was instantly
killed by falling against an electric dynamo.
Margaret Gibney obtained a verdict for
$25,000 in the New York court against Wm.
1L McKenzie for breach of promise of
marriage. The furniture manufacturers
have organized a national association to hold
semi-annual exhibitions in New York.
John Wigginton and his four sons narrowly
escaped lynching at Mount Stirling, Ky., for
the poisoning of his two sons-in-law and a
granddaughter. There was some discussion
in the Conference of the M. E. Church South
at Roanoke, Va., about admitting old preachers
to work. Hiram McConkey, of Springport,
Mich., alter sleeping eight mouths, has
awakened, and is well as ever. Celestine
Kalteubach, the oldest postnuser in the
Northwest, died at Potosi, Wis. tlirdie
Mil'er, a school girl near Reading, Pa., was
tatully hurt by a bulldog and a bloodhoum'.
Bella Preusch, a school girl in VirgiuLi,
X e v., shot herself because she was suspended
irom school. Barney Beckman, George
Eilers and another man named Wei fenbach
were int-tauily killed by the explosion of a
boiler at Beckiuan's saw-mill, in Emiighain,
111. The bodies of Eilers and Weienbach
were blown a di tance of eighty feet. -Mr.
John E. Carr, of Haverhill, Mass., was gored
to denth by a mad bull. The Navy Depart
ment has issued an advertisement inviting
proposals for the cons ruction of the protei ted
steel crui-er of 7,3UO tons displacement.
In San Diego, Cal., Frank Coto shot tn-a
duel Wm. Trimmer, who was courting his sis
ter. Bill Crawford, a condemned murderer
in Decatur, III., declines to allow any inter
ference by his lawyers. There is a stmng
probability of a general strike and lockout of
plasterers in Milwaukee. Wm. Dabney
Straior Taylor, n'nephewof President Zach
ury Taylor, died in LouUville. Labor un
ions in St. Louis are boycotting Anhcusei
Busch beer. The family of George Potter,
of Boston, was overcome by coal gas. The
son is dead. John Glover and his wife,
Sarah Glover, was killed by a P. W. & B.
train at Wilmington, Del. Col. N. S. Goss,
the state ornithologist of Missouri, is dead.
A mineral deposit has been found on the
farm of John Milman, two miles distant from
Coatcsville, Ind. An analysis of a specimen
shows a large percentage of gold. There
cent storms in Mississippi did great damage.
Houses were blown down, the inmates injured
nod a young woman at Okala was killed by
lightning. Fire in Buffalo destroyed
Henry W. Burt's big building, which was oc
cupied by Farmer & Co., and other firms,
causing a total loss of $225,000.- Henry C.
Lamar and Miss Louise King Connelly were
drowned while rowing on the canal at Au-
Eusta, Ga. A company has been organized
with a capital of $1,500,0 JO, to provide Kansas
City with a belt line and railway terminal
facilities. E. C. Mitchell and 11. C. Head,
members of the Arkansas House of Represen
tatives, engaged in a fight, in which they
bruised each other's heads with inkstands
and spittoons. Dudley Hall & Co, oi Bos-
ton, the second largest tea house in the Uni
ted States, made an assignment. Liabilities
$400,000. Senator P. G. Ballingall, presi
dent of the coal palace at Ottumwa, Iowa,
died at sea on a voyage to Hong Kong.
Thomas Worrall, a prominent citizen of Wil
mington, Del., died at the age ot eighty-three.
A delegation ot the citizens of Atlanta,
Qa., presented the new cruiser Atlanta with
a splendid service. Mrs. O. S. Hanson, of
Pelican Rapids, Minn.,hanged herself and ber
one-year-old baby. David II. Post on, a
lawyer, shot and mortally wounded Col. H.
Clay King, a lawyer, at Memphis, Tenn
An Indian squaw has caused a sensation in
the Michigan legislature, by charging that
Representative Frledlunder, a Democrat, who
married her in 1854, had deserted her and with
out a divoreehad married a woman in Alpena.
The Ridgely Constitutional Convention
bill passed the Delaware House. Unless
the wages of (he men on the Sandusky branch
jf the Big Four are raised, there is likely to
be a tie-up of that whole railroad system.
Secretary Proctor opened negotiations with
land-owners at Chicnmaugua, for the pur
chase of 7,000 acres for the national park.
G. M. Robertson was killed at Danville, Va,
in a railroad' sin ash up. Jimmie Dime
knocked out Dennis Shaughnessy in nineteen
rounds at Troy, N. Y. George D. Peoples
has been elected treasurer of New Castle
county, Del. Charles E. Cook, formerly an
officer of the defunct Park National Bank of
Chicago, and part owner in two Wisconsin
banks that failed when the Park National
went under, was arrested in Chicago, charged
with illegal banking. Daniel P. Goulding,
a clerk in the postoflice at Eastport, Me., has
been arrested, charged with robbing the
maijp.- A careless boy, accidentally setting
fire to a can oi varnish, caused a $200,000 nre
in Chicago. A natural gas explosion in
Pittsburg caused the burning of valuable
business buildings. Guatemala has con
tracted with the Cosmos Steamship Company
to ran a monthly line between her porta and
Hamburg, Germany. -A bill to prohibit
the employment by corporations of Pinker
ton's detectives in strikes has passed the New
York State Assembly.
THE Mikado of Japan is to visit Wiesbaden
next Summer, partly for the waters and part
ly for the spectacle "of innocent merriment."
Bix villas have betn engaged for the Emper
or and his suite, which will comprise at least
sixty persons. No Mikado has ever , before
left his own dominion.
Mark Twain, among other equally big in
vestments, bas (170,000 sunk in a typesetiiug
machine.
Eighty Persons Perish pnring ths
Great. Storm.
A Big British Sl!p Cioee Down With All
Ilandj SevcrsliSetiooners Wreek
d-Cortvall Cut OJT.
Following the blizzard, a serere frost has
set in all over England. The frost is greatly
hindering the clearing of the railroad' lines
which were blorked bysnowndriftsduringthe
storm. Cornwall continues isolated from the
rest of England. Many wrecks are reported
to have occurred on that coast, and at Land's
End a number of people have been frozen to
death. It is rumored at Newport that the
steamer Trinidad has been lost, and that all
the crew have been drowned. "Y '
A foreign steamship, the name of which is
unknown, was wrecked off Start Point, near,
Dartmouth, Devonshire, England, during the
recent blizzard. - All the crew aud passengers,
were drowned.
The British ship Dryad, Captain Thomas,
louiid irom Shields fur Valparaiso, has also
been wrecked ofl dart Poiut. Her crew, eon-,
siting oi twenty-four men aud officers, have,
been drowned. . . , t ? . '
The Dryad was an iron vessel of 1,033 tons
burden. Ulie was built at Liverpool, and was.
owned by J. B. Wamsley, of that city. '
Among the scnooners lost off Start Point;
was the Lunesdalc. Four of her crew were .
drowned. Her captain was eaved.
It is already known that at least seventy,
five lives have been lot off the coast during!
the blizzard, and in addition at least ten men
perished i'rotn cold aud exposure alter reach- '
ing the shore. -
It is feared that the list ? wrecks and the
record of lives lost is far from being complete
as several vessels are knowu to be missing.
Many points inl ind, where the storm was '
most severe.'y lelt, are still isolated from the
surrounding country, and days mnst elapsei
before th'ough freight and passenger tratiio
Hre entirely restored on the branch lines of
the railroads. . -
The severity of thestorm, and the difficulty
of restoring the lines of communication to'
their usual state of usefulness, may be judged;
from the fact than an express train was blouk-j
ed up between Plymouth and the Brent river'
lor. four days. The passengers all suffered;
verely from exposure.
Gangs of laborers, numbering hundreds,
have been sent irom all directions to clear'
the railroad lines in Devonshire and Corn-,
wall, where the snow drifts have piled up so,
heavily that cuttings twelve feet deep have'
to be made through the snow, which is now
frozen into an almost solid mass. . . .
The loss to farm stock is enormous, and will
entail much suffering among the farmers, who
hare already lost considerable money by the
terrible weather experienced at the end of
last year. '
The water mains at Plymouth are snowed
up to such an extent that a force of two hun
dred soldiers from the garrison has been sent
to assist the waterworks employes in clearing
them to an extent which will enable them to
be used. As it i, no water has passed through
the mains lor several days, and a water fam
ine is now added to the otner sufferings which
the peopleof Plymouth have had to endure
through the terrible blizzard which has
caused sO-much distress in England.
SHOT DOWN IN THE STREET.
Tragic Seqnel to a Celebrated Case tn
Memphis, Tenn. .
Mr. David H. Poston, a prominent lawyer
of Memphis, Tenn., was shot and mortally
wounded by Colonel II. Clay King, a well
known citizen and also a member of the Mem
phis bar.
Mr. Poston is a member of the law. firm of
Poston & Poston, and his family is one of the
most prominent in the city and well-known
throughout the South.
The causes which led to the shoot ing have
their origin in the lawsuit which lias become
a rase celebrated both in Tennessee and Ar
kansas judicial annals and to which 11. Clay
King aud Mrs. Gideon J. Pillow, wife of
Gideon J. Pillow, of Fort Pillow fame, were
the principals. The litigation bas teen pend
ing tor a number of years and grew out of
certain transactions between these parties
with regard to Arkansas lands, Mrs. Pillow
claiming the tit'e through certain deeds signed
by King, and which he claimed were never
executed as far aa delivery was concerned,
alleging that she obtained surreptitious : pos
session of them. The firm of Poston & Pos
ton Wdsof counsel for Mrs. Pillow, the com
plainant a id had prosecuted her title vigor
ously. - , ,
A bitter feeling was aroused between the
parties to the litigation, and evidence hurtful
to the social reputation ol both wes freely
adduced. King's bitterness against Mrs. Pil
low was in a measure transferred to David
Poston, the leading counsel. The main case
is now pending ia the Supreme Court of this
State, and is set for the April term ol that tri
bunal, it having been decided in the lower'
court in King's favor.
Colonel King was standing in front of Lee's
cigar store at naif past eleven ..with a large
i ..... 1 n l. .... .1 . . - l . . n..
jsiaivi in ins iiuiiu. a luimif iiv imer nir. rim
ton came along. W lthout a word of warmug"
Kjng stepped out from the doorway, and
placing the pistol a forty-four caliber
gainst Mr. Pok ton's abdomen, fired, i The
wouuded man staggered blindly for a few
.seconds, when friends rushed to his assistance
and carried him into a nearby restaurant.
King stood still, pistol in hand, and was ar
rested a few moments later. Mr. Poston was
taken to an infirmary.
, makSeST"
. . B A 1.T1 MO RE Flour City M i II s, e xtra,$5.1 5
$5.37 Wheat Southern Fultz, 1.04 1.05.
Corn Southern White, 62?io Yellow.
63(64g.. Oats Southern aud Pennsylvania
5052c-Rye Maryland and Pennsylvania
8588c Hay. Maryland and Pennsylvania
10.60$11.00. Straw Wheat. 7.5UiS.50,
Butter Eastern Creamery, SSKgiSGc., near-by
receipts 1920c Cheese Eastern Fancy
Cream, KH11 V Western, l4e Eggs 15
(oj 16c. Tobaeco.Leaf Interior, 1(1.50, Good
Common, 4$$5.00, Middling, 6((t8.00, Good
to fine red, 9(a)li.00. i Fancy 1213.0d.
Niw YORK Flour Southern Good to
choice extra, 4.25$5.8o. Wheat No. 1 White
109H0. Rye-State C800c. Corn South
ern Yellow, 6565c Oats White, State
64i55o. Butter State, llf&24ic. Cheese
State, 79e. Eggs 18(ilf:. .
PHII.ADEl.PHl A Flour Pennsylvania
'fancy, 4.25a$4.50. Wheat, Pennsylvania and
Southern Red, 1.04$ 1 05. Ryf- Pennf y 1 va
nia,6657c Corn Southern Yellow, WOi,
64o. Oats 47f47ie. Butter State, 27(,2ikv,
Cheese New York Factory, 10 lf. ic. I :.;s
State, 17 18c
CATTLE.
Baltimore Beef 4.50f-. F4.75. Shep
4.50(35.25. Hops 3.50faJ.U5. .
New YORK Beef 0.00f'i.$7.0a S!;ep
B.OOf ?.$5.2.i. Hors 3.40S:,!.!2.
East Liserty Bpc f .4'h -s-l.ra. :.?p-