THE FRAN
CLIN
PRES
MLUME XIX.
DIAMOND HARD TO STEAL
MOST OF THE SALESMEN KNOW
ALL THE CROOKS' TRICKS.
System Employed In the Big Store
Women Thieve as Compared
v.ith Mn Thievet One Way t
Circumvent the Stealer.
Says the SanFranclsco Chronicle:
Little does the average customer, as
he sees the clerks of the Jeweler
lounging In apparent indifference be
hind the counter, realize that they aro
In fact amateur detectives, keeping in
operation an olaborato system of es
pionage. There aro innumerable attempts,
more or less successful, to despoil the
Jewelers on a small scan), and every
clerk is carefully instructed regarding
all the "crook dodges" known to tho
trade before ho is allowed to handle
the more valuable stuck. A clerk in a
Market street storo says that hft has
even known professional prestidigita
tors to be employed by Europeari gold
smiths to test the Vigilance of their
employes, and by giving them a good
scare to make them more careful. Or
dinarily, the young man learns by long
experience lo watch every move ot
every customer, and by the lime he is
old enough to be Intrusted with the
diamond trays Is more than a match
for any one but tne most clever of
the genus thief.
Fortunately, all schemes to obtain
gems without paying for them divide
themselves into a few categories, and
after one has had his attention called
to them all be Is not likely to be duped
by an Immaterial variation. The chief
trick of the thief is substitution, and
great skill Is often displayed in play
ring it. A pawnbroker in the retail dis
trict, recounts his experience with a
rogue of this class:
"One day,'" says he, "a Chinese
called to see some solitaire ringa. It
Is not unusual for the better class of
Chinese to purchase second-hand jew
elry, so I handed him out a tray of the
best I had in stock. He picked up the
finest Btone I had In the tray, and af
ter asking Its prico shufflel out. mut
tering, "Come may ba'back tomollow."
"Sure enough, or did come back at
the time promised, and again exam
ined the same stone. But he didn't
buy it, and as he failed to return for
several days I forgot all about him.
But at the end of a week he came In
again, and once more picked up the
diamond which had pleased him on the
former occasion. As he turned to go
was wri
turned
made t
It off
the stock that night that I knew I had
been robbed. I aucceeed in locating
her, but she had Influential friends, who
promised that she should leave town
If no prosecution was Instituted. I
knew she could cry too beautifully tot
a jury to believe auythlng against her,
sc I let her go, charging the trouble
she had caused me to my experience
account."
The "wedding ring" (rick was very
efficacious until the iraJe became fa
miliar with it. Any one attempting
to execute it now would find himself
under suspicion at once. It originated
in England, where there is a supersti
tion that It II unlucky oer to take tho
gold band from the finger after the
marriage ceremony. A woman Will
enter a store and complain that the
wedding fing that has been shown her
Is so large that it might slip off and
cause her ill luck. Bhe Is consequent
ly Bhown one that fits very lightly, and
she is compelled to wet her finger
with her Hps before she can get It off.
A brass ring, previously carried In the
mbiith Is handed back to the salesmen.
If the rings in the! trays ard IS carat
flnct it is vdry difficult to detect the dif
ference, but no brass burnisher yet
discovered can produce quite the ef
fect of 2i-carat gold.
Rings are sometimes dropped into a
parasol carried by a female thiol, il
is very difficult to prove such cases, as
It Is always possible that the mi.v;--ment
was accidental. Most Jewelers
will pretend to accept the accident
theory, and politely call the lady's at
tention to the fact that sho is carry
ing off property not bar own. All
gooda are Identified by numbers In
well regulated stores, and a record
kept of their manufacture and nale. An
account is also taken of the most pre
cious gonis overy night. Therefore it
is very difficult for the thief to suc
ceed, except by regular robbery, as
was done to the pawnshop of M. J.
Franklin, at 215 Grant avenue, Feb. 21,
1896, when $30(10 worth cf gems were
taken by smashing the show window.
The la it famous sleight-of hanil dkv
mond iheft In the United States oc
curred at New Orleans, when an Ital
ian secured $10,000 worth of jewels
from Geirge E. Gail by appearing to
put them in a box before his eyes.
When Gail opened tne box he found a
two-dollar bill wrapped in a silk hand
kerchief. By the pretence that tho
gems were to oe manufactured Into a
cross as a gift to the pope the jewel
er confidence had been so complete
ly won as to dull tho eJgos of his prudence.
QUAINT AND CURIOUS.
A SERMON FOR SUNDAY
AN ELOQUENT DISCOURSE BY Trlj
REV. D?.i RCBEfif COLLYErli
he took For Subject " tlht on a
Hidden Wiv "-Ever Life Should He
kn Open. Self-Contained rrovldeucoS
Lose Not Ilrnrt ml Hope;
tKO0KI.Vx, X. Y --Dr. Unbert ("ollver,
fclio recently pnssed Ins eightieth birthday:
Iircat-hed Sunday morning in the Second
nitaria-.i Church. The sndience filled
the church and listened with treat atten
tion to the eloquent words of the famous
preacher, fir. Cnllyer took for his subject
'Lieht on a Hidden Way.' Hi text was
Job iii: j: " Why in lijrht given to a man
Whnae way is hid?" He said:
' The ISook of .lob." ears Thomas Carlvie,
'is one of the grandest things ever Writtert
with a pen, our first statement, in books,
b; the problem of the destiny cf man and
the way Cod takes with him bn this
rarth: grand in its simplicity hnd epic
melody, s-jblm-e in its sorrow and recon
ciliation: a choral melody, old as the
heart of man, soft as the Summer mid
night, wonderful as the world with its
seas and stars; and there ia no other thing
in the llible, or out of it, of equal merit.
I suppose it is not possible now to te.ll
whether the book is a trim storv or a sort
hi Oriental drams. The question Is one
that will always keep the critics lit wcirk
ns long a there are rational and What
ought, in all fairness, to he Called not
rational schools in theo'ogy. My Owit
idea is that the rude outline of the story
was floating ab-vjt tiie desert, as the story
of I.rar or M.i hi ih tl.mte.l ahlut in Inter
t.'iucH iiiiviiig o.h- own tire-elders, and that,
iK Hu-'p f ;il dramas, it was taken into
tac heart 1.1 i nic rrui now forgotten and
runic out e;-n n endowed with this won
drom ;!:a'ity cf inspiration and life, that
will luar i mi-tard tliroush nil time. But
w'intryer t lie . i n th may lie in this direc
t 0:1 ti.is i rliar, that wlieil .lob put the
lo.estii. i I hive taken for a text lie wa
fir down in the world a a man can be
vwio is no: nursed by sin.
.'oli had been the richest tr(n in the
eoui'tiy-iiile. honored by all who knew him
his wl d'ni, his gootiusa or Ins mo.iey.
c v.n mow so pojr that, he says, men
derided him whose fa!he?s he would not
have si t with the d.iz of his. flock. He
had h.en n s.iiind, healthy man. full of
human impulses and aet.titiesj he had tK-en
sight t.i the blind, feet to the- lame, a
father to the pojr and a defender of the
oppressed. He was now a diseased and
broken man, siuicg in tie; ashes of a
ruined home; Ins tire, all gone out, hi
h'M'sBlio'd gn.nls a'l s'lattered. his rlii'dcn
a:l (P'H'l. am! ins unc, tin- mother of his
tin childicn, lost t.i the mighty love which
will take ever so ili'.ir.ite .11111 trllc-hrftrted
a wo:nan at such a time nnd make her
a tower of strength to the man. His wife,
who should have stood, as the angels stand,
at once bv his side and above him, turned
on him in his tilterienst sorrow, and said,
"Curse Cod, and die."
Two things, in this sad time, seem to
lime sunlit-' dob with unconquerable
pain. First, he co ild not make his condi
tion chord with his i-mviciion of what
ought to have happened. He had been
trained to believe in the axiom we put up
in our Sunday-tciiuo'.s, that to he good ia to
be happy, how he had been snod and yet
here lie was, ns miserable c.s it was pos
sible for n man to be. And the Warat Of
all was, he could not deaden l nvn to the
s :, :'. . "---'.. inui 1 winnows mi
fcsiil the divine mstlee wou.d not let hint laew
FRANKLIN. N. C. WEDNESDAY. MARCH 9,
will find everywhere1 this discord between
the longing that is in the soul, (tad what
the man tad do, Our life, as sdin one
said bf the Cathedral of Celogne,- seems to
be a broken promise made to God.
Now in trying to find some solution of
this question,- I want to say frankly that
1 cannot preterid to make the mystery all
clear, sd that it will gire yon no mor
trouble; because I eanndt put girdle
around the world in forty mitlHtesi Sncj
also because a full solution tnn'st depend
greatly on our Own dissolution. 1 believe,
Iso, that the man whd thinks tie has left
nothing unexplained; in the mystery of
providence and life, has rather explained
m lining. I listen to him, if I am in trou
ble, ana then go home and break mv heart
all the same, because I see that he has not
only not cleared up the mystery, but that
he does not know enough about it to
trouble him. ' The "I'rincipia" and the?
tingle Rule of Three are alike simple and
easy to him because he does not know the
Uuie of Three. And ao I cannot be sat
shed with the last words which some later
hand has added to the bonk that holds this
sad history, '1'luf tci uj 1-ow Job has all
his property doubled, to the last nas and
ramei baa seven sons again and three
daughters, has entire satisfaction Of all
his accusers,- lives a hundred and forty
years, sees four generations of his line anil
then dies satisfied.
Netd I say that this solution1 wilj Mt
stand the test of life, and that if life, 6rl
the average, came oat 10 from its most
trying ordeal, there would be little need
for our sermons. For then, every life
would be an open, self-contained provi
dence and the last rage in time would vin
dicate t iie first, Men do not ao live and
die; and such cannjt have been the primi
tive etinhts-on of the history. It has
'Viper meaning rtr.d a sublinier iuetitics
t o-i. or it had never been inspired by the
Holy Ghost.
And tins lssiire to suggest itself to yotf
an you read the story, that Job, in his
troub'e, would have lost nothing and
gained very much if he had not been ao im
pntient in coming to the conclusion that
God had left him, that life was a mere
apple of .Sodom, that he had backed up to
great walls of fate and he had not a friend
V ft on the earth. His soul, looking through
her darkened windows, concluded the heav
ens were dark. The nerve, quivering at
the eentlest touch, mistook the ministra
tion of mercy for a blow. He might hsve
found some cool Shelter for his agonv; ho
preferred to sit on the ashes in the burn
ing sun. He knew not where the next
robe was to come from; this did not deter
nim from tearing to shreds the robe that
was to shelter him from the keen winds.
It wns a dreadful trial at the best; it was
worse for Ins way of meeting it: and,
when he wal St once in the worst health
and temper possible, he Midi "Why is
!ight given to a man whose trtf is hid?"
s not this now, as it was then, one Ot the
nost serious mistakes that can be inaete?
try to solve great problems of provi
iencei perhaps, when 1 am so unstrung as
be entirely un lilted to touch their
more subtle, delicate and far reaching har
monies. As well might you decide on some
exquisite anthem when your organ is
broken, and conclude there is no music
in it because you can make no music of
it, as, in such a condition of life and such
I temper of the aoirit. try to find these
freat harmonies of Uod. When I am in
rouble, then, and darkness comes down
on me like a pall, the first question ought
to be. "Host much of this unbelief about
tproriaene" and Jife, ltk Cowper sense
pf the unpaido'jtblt sin, ome front the
tnost material disorgsnitation! Is the
tisrKtirxs l reel in the soul, or I it on the
'Ough which the soul must
.-mi "il il- iimucii n
tesver to stand at
' to wait for Robert Burns, the son; Ber-
fiardo waited to be perfected in hia son,
Torquata Tasso; William Mersebel left
Sany problem in the heavens for John
eriche) to make Clear; Leopold Mozart
Wrestled With melodies that Chrysnstom
Mozart found afterward of themselves in
every. chaL.ber of hia brain, and Raymond
fidnnur needed his daughter Rosa to come
and paint Out bis pictures for him. Dr.
Beid has said, tbaf when the bee makes
its Cell to geometrically, the geometry is
not irt the beef but id the geometrician that
made the bee. Alas, if in the Maker there
is no such order fcr ts as there is for the
bee! If God ao instruct the bee; if God ao
feed tho bird; if even the lions, roaring
after their prey, seek their meat from
God; if He not onlf holds the linnet on
the spray, but the lion 01 the spring, how
shall we dare lose heart and nope?
So, then, while we may not know what
(rials wait on any of us, we can believe
that as fit, days in which this man
wrestled with in Slk tnaladies are the
only days tnat make mm worth remem
brance, and but for whieff his name had
never been written in the bCCk of life;
no the daya through which we straggle,
finding no way, but never losing the light,
will be the most significant we are called
to live, Indeed, men of all ages have
Wrestled with this problem of the differ
ence between the conception and the con
dition, Life is full of these appeals, from
the doom that is on us to the love that
is oVft1 a? -from the God we fear to the
God we woTs-hip. The very Christ cries
once: "My God! Why hast Thou for
saken Me?'' Vet never did our nobleat
nnd best, oar apostles, martyrs ana con
fessors, Hinch finally from their .rust,
that God is light; that life is divine: that
there ia a way, though we may not see it;
and have gone singing of their deep con
fidence, by lire and cross into the shadow
of death. It is true, nay, it is truest of
all, that "men who suffered countless ills,
in battles for the true and jnsti" hsve had
the strongest conviction, like old Latimer,
that a Way would open in those moments
when it seemed most impossible. Their
light on the thing brought a commanding
assurance that there must somewhere,
sometime, be light on the way.
Aim High.
If one seems to promote his own per
sonal welfare, it is at the beat a low aim,
unworttv of a true man. Selfishness, or
telfness, even of the highest sort, is ever
below whs'.' is superior to a man- and any
man and every man should always be as
piring and striving toward that which is
superior to himself.
Them are two vital difficulties in the
way of a selfish man'a strivings for hia
own personal good, even the highest. In
the first place, it is a man's duty to seek
what is more important than his own per
sonal good; and in the second place, the
man who strives to secure his own high
est personal good is pretty sure to tail
in his pursuii. Any man who does his
duty and tills his place baa some object
of pursuit which he deems mortt imporUut
than himself; and. on the other hand, on
ly the man who lives for something out
side of himself is successful in his striv
ing, It is a mistake and a folly to strive
in an effort where, at the best, he will
hopekasiy fail. In every sphere of life
thlgluit interest of self comes ss an in
(f lal consequence ot living for some
t. I which one deems superior to self.
SeXs at the best unworthy of our Ufa
ivors.
tvho lives for himself, for his
a happiness, is not likely
or to Una true enjoy-
the nigliest personal
'Hizens are pretty
.tnougnts ana nest
pnow tn
1904.
2
THE ATLANTA COUSTITUTIOt
Great New Offer Upon Receipts of Cotton at All
United States Ports From September 1st, 1903,
to may 1st, 1904, Both Inclusive.
Contest Opened Jan. 18th, 1904, Closes April 20th, 1904.
DIVISION OF PRIZES.
For th axaot, or the nart to tho oxaot, estimate of the total number of Bales
of Cotton received at all United States ports from September 1st, 1903, to May
1st, 1004, both Inoluslve - $ 2 BOO.OO
For the next nearest estimate - I.OOO.OO
For the next nearest estimate BOO.OO
For the S next nearest estimate, f 25. OO each 126. OO
For the 10 next nearest estimates, 12.00 eaoh 125. OO
For the ao next nearest estimates, 10.00 eaoh 200. OO
For the SO next nearest estlmatee, 0.00 eaoh 260 OO
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Additional Offers for Best Estimates
Made Durlntr Different Periods
of the Contest.
For convenience the time of the con
test is divided Into estimate' received
by The Constitution during four pe
riodsthe first period covering from
the beginning of contest to February
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ary 10 to March 1, 1904; third period,
March 1 to 20; fourth period, March I
20 to April 20, 1904. We will give
the best estimate received during
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other prise It may take, or If it take
no prise at all), the turn of 1125.00.
The four prises thus offered
1 1 2 B.OO eaoh amount to. . .
Conditions of Sending Estimates in This Port Receipts Contest,
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Is now on. Attention Is called to the following summary of conditions:
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. M I "TVwITOQlIXJEBSCElETIONS. Where subscriptions are ordered, this arrival OF THE PA-
those estimates (not taking any of
the above 188 prises and not shar
ing the first consolation offer) com
ing within 1,000 bales either way
of the exact figures
at
8 600.00
one ordgr. A postal card receipt will be
NUMIMK 10.
I'S
$ 5,000.00
TWO CRAND1CON80LATION OFFERS.
First For distribution among
those estimates (not taking any of
the above 188 prizes) coming within
500 bales either way of the exact
"sure ' 8 1,000.00
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' 1,000 00
Grand Total 87,600 OO
In oaso of a tie on any prize estimate tho
money will bo equally divided.
sent for ALL ESTIMATES RE-
ter ai
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1 THAT YOUR ESTIMATE HAS BEEN RECEIVED AND IS
No, I
have