Evening Star Newspaper, July 28, 1894, Page 14

——————————— a ee SIX MEM STEPPED OUT FROM BEHIND THE TREES. ADVENTURE WITH MOONSHINERS. Written tor The Evening Star. OME TIME AGO I made a trip through the wilds of northern Arkansas, which we!l illustrated the saying that fools rush in where angels fear to tread. Wholly un- armed, I allowed my- ' self to fall into the } power of a band of the most desperate é moonshiners in the ©. ‘south. Moreover, 1 nesz frankly avowed that Z was a revenue agent, although I knew ‘that they regarded revenue agents as their Ditterest foes. Undoubtedly it was my frankness and evident harmlessness that waved my life. If I had carried a revolver, as my friends advised, I should probably have been transformed from a fool into an ‘arsel. As it was, by good luck and the ex- ercise of a little shrewdness and mother wit I came out of the adventure unharm- ed, and through the information I was able to give the moonshiners were subsequently caught and their illicit operations broken up; but when I look at the derby, with a bullet hole through the top of the crown, which I preserve as a memento of the ad- venture, I take little credit to myself for my escape, but, with mingled feelings of @atisfaction and humiliatic I recali the eld saying. “A fool for luck. i was an agent of the federal govern- ment, assigned to the special duty of ex- ‘amining the offices of collectors and deputy gollectors of internal revenue. Reaching ‘Little Rock the day before Christmas and proceeding to the collector's office, I found Bhat one of his deputies, located at Harri- fon, in the northern part of the state, had Deen intrusted with a large amount of Stamps—some twenty thousand dollars in fvalue—to enable him to supply the distillers in that region. The amount being so large, it became my duty, under my official in- tructions, to proceed to his office and erify his accounts. When I made known y purpose of doing so, the collector smiled eredulously and remarked that he hought I wouldn't go. I wished to know hy. when he informed me that I would e to travel a hundred miles and return ihrough the wildest portion of the state; that 1 would be obliged to ford numerous Streams and to cross the Boston moun- Rains, which were infested with desperate Znoonshiners, always on the lookout for Yevenue agents, and that there were no willages or inns along the route. “But you receive reports from your dep- Harrison, don't you?” I inquired. Yes; we get mail from there about once rtnight in the winter.” ow is the mail brought?" By mail carrier, on horseback, te Rus- Bellville.” “Well, if the mail carrier can get through I guess I can,” I answered. This was m» first tour of inspection, and @ was naturatiy zealous and ambitious to Bhow the department at Washington how ‘enterprising I could be. Se the next morning I took the train for QRusseliville. 1 arrived there in the after- joon and took my Christmas dinner at (Mrs. Williams’ boarding house, near the station. After dinner I walked over to the livery Btable near by, and, finding a boy, I in- aired for the proprietor. The boy ran cross to a saloon on the dpposite side of the street, and returned with a lively look- {ng young fellow of about twenty. When “Lf & Tall, Lank Female Appeared fm the Doorwny. 3 told him that I wished a team and driver to so to Harrison he opened his eyes wide end looked me over. “That's a plumb hard trip,” said he. What's the difficulty with it?” “It's woods all the way, and you've got to go over the mountains, and there ain't much of no road, and the moonshiners is @angerous.”” “Have you ever sent a team there?” “Oh, yes; I drove a man over there last fumn “Have you a good team and carriage?" ‘Oh, yes; we've a right smart team and d cartiage.” . t will you charge to take me over back?” r to the joon and see my owns the stable.” oceeded to the saloon I observed or seventy saddle horses, and with bridies and no saddles, stand- ing tiel to the fence and trees near by. | When I ntered the saloon I understood orses were there, for the saloon 1 with natives of the surrounding ho had come into town to cele- | Tis this was the way | " y drinking whi } mas, and it prietor, who, } the difficulties of the | to make the reund trip | brother to be my driver. He tart that afternoon, as © to help wait upon mors in the saloon, but he agreed | 1s early the next day as I might | Mrs. Wil- by candle- | pearing with a dash- | * started. tever might be I had m = st > the x top that the event of rain or buffalo : not k car- | put up in had a for the driv he nerous rt r, I w “- = in and ing. > did was, in true so n, to bestow upon me the tit t th e did was to 91d poor liqu a very fair article fo; | and was aston-! | fellows I ever saw, were sitting on wo ished when he found that I carried none. ‘When he learned, through that I was in the revenue service he hastened to @ negro minstrel troupe, with himself as middieman, and had given shows in the country towns; he had joined a horseback party of his neighbors which had followed a horse thief into Texas and hung him to a limb; and now, at length, he had reached the position of man-of-all-work for his brother—bartender, hostler, horse trader, driver. He was on hand at all country dances and celebrations, and, according to his account of himself, he was a great favorite with all the girls, though not with the fathers, a fact which he did not seem to think was to his discredit. He was a skillful driver, and yet he drove with the utmost ease and nonchalance, talking continually and keeping the team in a rapid trot, hough the hubs of the wheels frequently barely escaped the stumps and trees among which wound the devious road. At noon we stopped for dinner at a log farm house by the roadside in the woods. And here I noticed, for the first time, a habit of the people which I frequently ob- served afterward in the country and in the country towns in the south, namely, that they seldom take the trouble to close a door after them, even in the coldest weather. It was freezing cold, and I hastened to the open fireplace to get warm, but when one of the boys in the house went out to get some wood to replenish the fire he left the door wide open, and when he returned he did the same. During the hour that we were there I had to close the door myself repeatedly. Afterwards in towns in Ar- kansas, Mississippi and Georgia I saw that the doors of stores were invariably kept open, and there was objection to having them shut, lest people should think the store was closed up. I mentioned this pe- culiarity once in the collector's office in Jackson, Miss., when an old gentleman who was present told me the following an- ecdote, affording an amusing illustration of the prejudice against closed doors: The weather was very cold, and court was in session. A northern lawyer who was present trying a case requested the deputy marshal to close the door of the court room, whereupon the judge directed the officer to leave the door open. The lawyer protested that the room was uncomfortably cold, when the judge declared that the door must be left open, “because,” he said, “the law requires that this case shall be tried in open court.” We set out immediately after dinner, and soon we began the ascent of the mountains. The road was fearfully rough, and the weather was growing colder, but my driver, who frequently fortified himself from his bottle, was talkative, and so entertaining that my mind was quite diverted from the hardships of the journey. One of his narratives in particular, though interesting, was under the circumstances anything but comforting to me. Pointing to a crag not far distant, overlooking a nar- row valiey below, he told me that it had been for a long time the resort and fastness of a desperate moonshiner, who had sworn that he would distill all the illicit whisky he wanted to, and that he would not be taken alive. He kept a supply of weapons and ammunition, and himself or one of his sens was always on the lookout for any officers who might approach his place. One day, during the previous summer, while on the watch with his rifle beside him, he saw three men on horseback coming up the val- ley. Assuming that they were revenue of- ficers coming to find him, and thinking it prudent to take time by the forelock, he called his sons, and, leveling their rifles, they fired, killing two of the riders. Instead | | of being officers it happened that the three | men were inoffensive itinerant Methodist | ministers on their way meeting in a neighboring town. one who was unhurt made known how his companions had been murdered the people ved upen the If the two men who were killed had, in fact, been revenue offi- cers, the people would have received the news with satisfaction, or at least with in- difference, but the murder of their parsons called for vengeance. Some fifty of them rallied on_ horseback moonshiner’s c: for the capture, all well armed. For several | days they pursued the hunt, and at length they found the hiding place to which he had fled. The desperate murderer fired among them repeatedly, but they were too numer- ous and too resolved to be diverted from their purpose, and at length, after a des- perate struggle, they captured him. Taking him to the nearest jail, which was a small, rude wooden structure, for fear he would escape—so desperate was he known to be— they chained him to an iron staple driven into the floor of the jail, attaching the chain to his person by iron bands around his wrists. While he was thus imprisoned an- other culprit, for some minor offense, was brought and shut into the room with him. ‘This new prisoner, having a match, set fire to the door of the jail, in the night, and when it had burned through he escaped, leaving the moonshiner to burn up or escape if he could. Rendered desperate by the fire he tore one of his hands through the band about his wrist, and being able to reach to one of the iron bars across the window he wrenched it off, and with this he succeeded in prying the staple cut of the floor; then, carrying the chain with him, since it was still attached to his other wrist, he escaped and fled to the mountains. The people again turned out in pursuit of him, and tracking him to a cave, where he had hidden, they camped down in front of it, until at last, | being famished, he showed himself at the entrance, when they riddled him with bul- | lets. ‘These events occurred in the region in which I was new traveling, and a more lonely and uninviting place I had never visited. We had seen one or two solitary log cabins with no life about them, and dur- ing the afternoon we had passed but two persons, two forbidding-looking men on horseba with guns slung across their sale I began to be anxious about our stopping place for the night. The driver had already informed me that we were to stop at “Widow Meeker’s,” who lived in a log house og the mountain, and, inci . he told me that the widow's late 1 had been killed by one of ighbors, with whom he had had a Hiding behind a tree with rifle in bor had shot her husband own d en we re: It was a rude log cabin, with one window, ng in the edge of the w with a cleared field behind it. Stopping the y driver called out ents a tall, lank doorway, with a on her head, so that the driver. eho h from the deep lemm “Come nto the driver pre a rude I the u ed to put up the near by. Thr stools before the fireplace, with slouch hats ou their beads and pipes in their mouths, to a conference | When the | THE EVENING STARK, SATURDAW, JULY 28, 1894-TWENTY PAGES. Turning their heads they stared at me a moment, then turning them back “they continued to gaze into the fireplace, with- out having uttered a word or even nodded. The driver afterward told me that these men had killed a bear, and that the body was lying on the ground behind the house. Three little girls stood in the middle of the room, wearing sunbonnets like their mother, and they also stared, but not a word was spoken. The widow had disappeared. 1 went up to the fireplace, and, making some remark about the coldness of the weather, to which the men paid no attention, I pro- ceeded to try and warm myself. Pretty soon the driver-came bustling in with # make-yourself-at-home sort of an air, and his presence was quite a relief to me, but even he, though talkative as usual, could not elicit a syllable from our three neigh- bors. The fireplace contained only a few embers, and the driver, going out through the back door, returned with a handful of sticks, with which he replenished ihe fire, when we managed, at last, to get warm. In one corner of the room was a non- t sort of a bed; in another corner on floor was a small pile of ragged quilts; in a third corner stood a ladder, reaching up to an opening in the attic above, and these, with the wooden stools on which we were sitting, constituted the furniture of the apartment. One of the girls, who had gone out a few moments before, now re- turned and said, in a drawling tone, “You can come to supper now.” Whereupon we all rose and followed her through the back door to a smaller log cabin near by, which we found dimly hghted by a small chimaey- less, smoking oil lamp, placed on a low table in the middle of the room. Around the table there were low, wooden stools, and at one side of it stood the widow, #tilt benneted, and beside her, sitting at the table, was a dirty, ragged, croms-eyed boy of about two years. We all took seats arcund the table. Not a word was spoke. The widow poured into cups of all sizes and sorts, from a tin coffee pot, a black-looking liquid, supposed to be coffee, and a cupful We Were Upset. was passed to each of us. Ther: was no milk or sugar. In the middle of the table there was a dish of fried pork, the melted fat from which had already congealed with cold; in another dish was some black-look- ing dried-apple sauce, and in a third there was what was intended to be corn pone, but which was in fact raw cornmeal mixed with water and smoked; it was not even warmed through. There was no butter; and this was the fe: My stomach was not in a state, after the day's journey, to encourage fastidi but I could not eat a mouthful. Apart from the food, the face of the urchin who sat opposite me, and his manner of eating— snuffling and cramming the food into his mouth with both hands—was too much for me. Tarrying a few moments for appear- ance sake, I finally remarked to my driver that I did not feel very hungry, and would go to the fireplace in the other house, and rising, I departed. In a little while the others came filing back, and the three hunters resumed their places and their pipes. Half an hour later the widow en- tered and said, “You can go to bed now The three men thereupon ascended the iad- der and disappeared in the attic overhead, and my driver and I took possession of the nondescript bed in the corner. The widow then spread the quilts from the other cor- ner on the floor before the fireplace, and she and her four children disposed them- selves upon them. A gale was blowing outside, and once in the night the wind blew the door open, the widow rising and bracing it shut with a stick of wood. I had removed bt a small portion of my clothing, and had no idea of sleeping. T even began to wish that I had provided myself with a revolver. I did not like the looks of the three men who were in the attic overhead, and I realized how complete- ly we were in their power, Tired nature, however, encouraged by my driver's sno} ing, at length prevailed, and I slept. How long I slept I know not, but I must have slept lightly, for when IL awoke I found that I had been awakened by the noise of the three men descending quietly from above. I could see nothing, but I listened intent! wondering if they meant mischief. It was an anxious moment. To my great satisfac- tion they opened the door and passed «ut. It was not yet daylight, and their early de- parture was strange, to say the least, but I was glad that they were gone. Our breakfast the next morning was like | the supper of the night before, and when | after breakfast we had 1 our score and | entered our carriage I hastened to explore my grip for some Zoriunately provided my: h which L had inst such } an emergency, as had now ari regretted that I had r | ant lunch. | washing the! 2 | driver's whisky, inspired | with new cour: but I protested to m 1 driver that he must manage, if possible, to find some other stopping place than ‘the Hotel Meeker upon our return. My driver, as I soon found, was not % tie- tle disturbed in mind as to the intentions of the three men who had departed before | daylight. He said he had no doubt they had gone to notify some moonshiner in the neighborhood of our presence, and he did not feel at all sure that we would not be fired upon from ambush, as that kind of warfare was not uncommon in that region, and the presence of a stranger on the moun- tains at that season of the year was sure to excite suspicion. He said that if we were to show any signs of being in search of illicit stills we would be fired upon at once; that undoubtedly we were watched, and that our only safety lay in keeping straight on in the regular line of travel without turning either to the right or to the left. If the driver was correct in his conjec- tures I had cortainly taken greater risks than I intended when Ivset out upon the trip. Still I could not believe that we would be disturbed if we kept the main road: but could we keep the road? Our way still lay through the woods; there were no fences or guide boards; the road wound in and out among the trees, and hardly showed the marks of wheels, so infrequently wa it traveled with velficles; and, worst of all, snow had been falling in the night and w. still falling. “Can you keep the road?” I asked of the | driver. “Oh, yes." ‘Suppose we come to a fork in the road, will you know which road to take?” “Oh, I kuow the road, major; take the wrong one.” He had alread I won't ) drinks from the bottle of whisky, it was still early in the morning, and this fact in- »d my anxiety, for I knew how much ht depend upon his keeping a cool d. Our ponies were trotting along at a live- if anxious to leave the dreary e were in; the stimulant the driver en had given him confidence, and I ginning take a more che view of the situation, when sudder came to a fork in the roa not stop the team or he or did ate, but kept on, takiug the road to the right. re you sure this is the right road?” 1 “Oh, yes, this fs right.” Hardly were the words spoken, when crack went the report of a rifle; thé horses a start, and 1, feeling as if something 1 happened to the top of my head, t up my hand, taking off my hat and ling of my head. Apparently I was not hit, but what had cau Just then I loo in my hand, through the p of the crown, was a bullet hole. | head and looking at the back e top, which was d over nother bullet hole, and I realized had a cli call. Whether the was fired from the front or behind it s impossible to tell, but I conclude » that we had left the main road a were going right toward the moonshiners quarters. At the irstant the shot was fired the driver pulled up his team and axclajmed: at! | farms, “They're on to ~?) We've taken the wron; road.” A moma later six men ste} out from behin& the trees before us, all carrying rifles. As they walked slowly to- ward us I recognized among them the three men we. had seen at the Widow Meeker’s the night before. "They were all tough- looking customers—tiouch hats, hair black and long, faces unshaven, short coats and trousers in thei boets. As they came near us the driver greeted them: “Hallo! you fellars, ain't you firin’ round yer pretty brash?” They made no answer, but looked steadily at Ws fora moment in silence; then oneof them said: “Whar yer bound?” “To | Harrison,” answered the driver. “I'm drivin’ the major over thar,” refer- ring to me witb a sideways nod of his head. “This ain't the road,” growled the speaker, . “Is that so? Is it the one there to the eger asked the driver, “Yes” “Well, I'm plumb glad we found it out ‘fore we went any further.” ‘The driver thereupon began gathering up his reins, preparatory to turning and pro- ceeding on the other road, but I felt sure the men would not let us go on without some further parley. I had not yet spoken, and I made up my mind that 1 was the one whose presence excited their suspicions, and that they would want to know what I had to say for myself. 1 had never been in a position yet where I had not found truth telling better than lying, and I did not believe that this was an exception. Perhaps these men knew already that I was a revenue agent; or perhaps they would search us, and if they did they would find papers in my pocket bearing the print ed heading of the internal revenue office Little Rock, as I had stated the deputy’s account on the collector's official paper: These thoughts passed through my mind, and when one of the men asked, looking at me, ‘Are you a revenue man?” I answered, promptly, “Yes,” and as I did so the driver kicked my foot under the carriage robe, but J proceeded: “I’m an agent from Washington, sent to examine the accounts of collectors and stamp deputies. I’m go- ing to examine the books of the stamp deputy at Harrison to see if he keeps them right and pays in to the government all the money he collects.’” The driver evidently thought I had made a mistake in acknowledging that I was in the revenue service, and, in order to re- assure the men, he gaid. “The major don’t have nothing to do with hunting stills; he don’t even carry a re- said I, “I shouldn't know a still if I saw one. 1 know good whisky, though. We've got some here.” 4s I said this I tock up the driver's bottle, which lay on the seat between us, and, hold- ing it ovt to the men, I said: “Gentiemen, take a drink.” For an instant no one stirred, then the one who had acted as spokesman came up and took the bottle from my hand, and, de- liberately removing the cork, he took a long drink and passed the bottle along to his companions. It had been a critical mo- ment, but now I felt that we were all right, that the bottle was between us, like the In- dian’s pipe of pe: When the bottle got back to us I passed it to the driver, and after he had drank I took a drink myself. ‘The driver entered into the spirit of good- fellowship I had started and told the men that when they came to Russellville they must come to his brother's saloon, and he would give them some more of the same kind of whisky, which, he said, was the best in the state. The driver now gathered up the reins again, and as we turned to leave I asked the men how far it was to Harrison, and the answer came back: “About forty miles.” 1 believed that we had conciliated our late foes, but f confess that I did not feel wholly easy in my mind until we were out of range of their rifles. The memento of their mark- manship I had already received was en- tirely sufficient. That forenoon we descended tre north side of the mountains, and when we reached the streams in the! valley below we found them covered with ice. ‘The horses broke through very willingly at first, but the sharp edses of the icé cutting their legs, they at length refused to enter the streams, so that before we could ford them we had to get out and break the ice with stones and sticks, when it would float away and leave a passa; that I san to doubt If we should reach our desti- nation that night, but by making as brief @ stop as possible for ner—which we ob- tain-J at a more thrifty-looking house than We 424 before ‘seen—ani by pushing on as as possible over the better portions road, we succeeded in reaching Har- n about 8.o’clock in the evening. he deputy whose accounts 1 had come to examine kept the village tavern, and as I had learned from driver that he was thrifty and well-to-do, I hoped for comfort- able entertain nd I was not disap- pointed. known, and announced the purpose of my coming, he gave me a cordial welcome, placing me be- | fore a blazing fireplace and directing that a hot supper be prepared for us at once. It was a great surprise to this deputy, living in this out of the way place, a hun- dred miles from the railway, to have a gov- ernment agent from Washington drop in vpon him in midwinter, and if he had been a dishonest or a careless officer, who had misappropriated the government funds he kad collected, or had neglected his accounts, the reader can readily wu: unweicome visitor I sb moreover, how aw for me to be in ne man whose delinque: my duty to take no was spared this em ent, for, s I soon found, his accounts were in perfect condition, and the government funds col- lected by him were in his p ion, in- tact. Being an honest and pains aking offi- cer he knew that he would be mentioned as such in the report upon the condition of the district which I would forward to Washing- id But happily I ton, and so he was naturally pleased that I had come. It was a rule with all effictent agents, upon reaching 2 collector's or deputy’s of- flee, upon ninxtion with as y as possible, so that if there | chanced to be a shortage in his cash, he should not have an cpportunity to borrow | the amount and so avoid detection. A , therefere, as I ha thawed the nu ness out of my fingers, I a to produce his collections I proceeded at once to v everything, as I have alre cellent condition. Business disposed of { supper which the deputy’s wife had mean- while prepared. And such a supper! There were hot fried chicken, and fried pork, fried sweet potatoes, hot corn pone done brown, sweet butter and milk and preserves and hot coffee, and numerous other dishes, which even with my voracious appetite I was unable to attack. I never enjoyed a supper before or since as I did that. After the villainous supper of the night before, and the breakfast of crackers, and the hasty and indifferent dinner I had eaten Qvring the day, and after the cold and hardships of two days of travel, it may readily be understood that I was prepared to do fair justice to the feast that was be- fore me. After supper we sat before the great fire- place and the deputy and his wife told me something of their Aistory. The deputy was frem New England, hence his thrift, and his wife was a southern woman, hence the gen- crous supper which I had just left. He owned considerable) land in the neighbor- hood of the villgge, and he told me that he had found the best use he could make of it was to cut it up into little farms of thirty acres and rent it to colored smail farmers. He always treated them kindly and encour- aged them to thrift, and he had found them excellent, prompt-paying tenants. With a wetie: a plough they cultivated their little ing cotton and such grain s taken Into the oe their own use, and in- of imitating some of their white ors in pioking their cotton only once, what riyened iater to be beaten into the mud by the winter stort and wasted, they gathered every shred. Some of them had even purchase and paid for their little and built omforteble log honses uyon them, and houses for their live stock. I remembered and re terward, when in seuthern planter in ne that we n i the “nigger;” t 1 utterly unthrifty bad learned of them at I ed, what my later ob me, that when I saw a neglected cotton field, with half the cotton uny 1 and wasting, I always found that the field be- longed to a white planter, who hired his nds, and not to a colc farmer who, ith his own family, did the farm work n at length it came tir y showed m satisfactic ht to we set out upon of our return, upon the adv the deputy, we decided to take a r around the mountains, thus esi difficult ascent and avoiding the re the moonshiners whom we did not we were putting ou the driver show f whisky, which he had re at a neighboring grocery. The almost colorless, and the deputy quor Was remarke> that he had better not drink much of that, as it was new, raw whisky, not fit for use: but the driver said it was the best he could get, and that he must have something “to keep the cold out.” Before the day was over I had evidence that the deputy had given my driver good advice. We had proceeded without incident until late in the afternoon, when I observed that the driver was sleeping in his seat. He had been taking frequent drauchts from his bot- tle, and I knew at once that he was over- come by the liquor; so, taking the reins from his hands. I proceeded to drive. He slept for about an hour, and my hands were becoming benumbed with cold, when he woke up, and finding me driving, and realiz- ing that he had been asleep, he straightened himself up, and, taking the reins out of my hands, he struck the horses with the whip— |! a thing which he had not done before—and away they dashed. Being still under the influence of the whisky, he failed to guide them in the road, and in a moment the Wheels went over a stump, and we were epset. Fortunately, The driver was thrown over me out the ground. I was under the carriage buried in robes and cushions. Working my way out, I found that I was not hurt, though I was a good deal shaken up, and not @ little vexed. We righted up the ve- hicle and found that, fortunately, it was not injured. As the driver began to pick up the things that had been thrown out, I ob- served his bottle lying upon the ground, and I said: “I wish that bottle of yours had | Deen broken; that’s what has made the trou- ble." At this the driver said: “That's the first ‘time I was ever told I was drunk. want you to itand that I am a thor- and I don’t allow any man to tell me that Iam drunk.” And at that he oe his hands — her in a very Aavcimers manrer, as if he proposed to it me then and there. We were alone, in the we ; he was drunk, and carried a and was “a thoroughbred,” and I had t= ed him. It was not a nice situation. But, happily, I was equal to the emergency. Yankee wit coming to the rescue, I counter- ed in a way which he didn’t expect, and left him hors de combat. man,” said I, looking him square in eye, “you are too good a driver to upset me if you had not been drunk.” Thus I forcéd upon him the elternative of admit- ting that he was either drunk or a driver, He didn’t like to admit the latter, for driving was his profession, and he did not wish to admit the fermer. So he sulk- ed; but the fight was all gone out of him. My | country on their CATTLE INSPECTION Important Duties Performed by the Agricultural Department. PROPOSED EXTENSION OF THE SYSTEM Dairy and Poultry Farms Brought Under Supervision. the horses eet BACILLI AND PARASITES oe ne ey Written for The Evening Star. iEREE way to the executioner. When herds of stock are packed closely to- “Look here, young | &¢tner in box cars, and confined for weeks the | Without proper food and clean apartments, disease generally breaks out among them which will be detected by the government poor | inspectors. The strict laws governing the interference with government tagging will prevent the detachment of these »ew dan- ger signals, for which the meat dealer will The thoroughbred had become thoughtful, | #!Ways be on the lookout. Before, the ab- We proceeded in silence the rest of that | sence of a tag was not easily noticed, eith- day. to enter our carriage to begin our second day's journey homeward, my driver reach- ed under the seat, and taking out the half- filled bottle of whisky, he turned to me good-naturedly and said: “Major, I was drunk yesterday, and I ain't a ‘goin’ to drink any more of that stuff.” And at that he flung the bottle against a stump and broke it in pieces. ‘This was very satisfac- tory, for it was much more agreeable to The next morning as we were about | er by the careless employe who ehipped the meat away, or by the purchaser. At the various stock yards the govern- ment inspectors, continually on the alert for finding bad meat, are indeed the best friends of the public and the life-savers of the epicure, especially since the railroads have centralized the packing systems in different parts of the country, which supply the greater part of the meat markcts of the travel with a pleasant and talkative driver | Cities. Now that the system in use by the than with a drunken and sullen one. We made slow progress that day, tly because of the snow, ee we were still twenty miles from Russell- ville, show the effects of the wear and tear it had gone through. First, the tire on one of the wheels snapped. But the driver was equal to this emergency. Going a short distance into the woods he came back with some branches of a bush, which he informed me was leatherwood, the bark of which he said was as strong as leather. Stripping off the bark he bound thongs of it about the rim and tire of the wheel, and during the rest of the day this bark held the broken tire firmly in its place. The driver told me that during the war, when the supply of leather was beginning to be exhausted in the south, the farmers used leatherwood bark for traces to their harnesses, and that anes were even strong enough to plough with, Later in the day the king pin broke, and thea a portion of the harness gave way, but each time leatherwood was brought into requisition with satisfactory results. About 8 o'clock in the afternoon Russell- ville appeared in sight, and we were all glad to see it, especially the poor, faithful, jaded horses. The driver said’ that he wouldn't make the trip over again for a hundred dollars, and I think it was worth it. I told him that I felt under obligations to him for the agreeable manner in which he had entertained me with his various nar- ratives, and that by his accounts of him- | self and his interesting experiences he had j made the journey much more endurable than it would otherwise have been. “But you don't believe all Isnave told you, do you major?" “Of course I do; every word.” “Oh! well, you must not believe more than about half of what I have told you. I thought I would make it interesting for you.” I thereupon assured him that I now en- tertained even a higher opinion of his tal- ents than I did before, for I realized that he | Possessed imagination, as well as the gift of narrative. I took the train that nicht for Little Rock, and when I walked into the collect- | or’s office the next morning, and reported | that the accounts of his deputy at Harrison | were all right, he could hardly be persuaded | that I had been there, and when T told him | of my adventure with’ the moonshiners, and showed him the bullet hole in my hat, locat- | Ing the place where the adventure occurred, | he said that he should send a posse of depu- | ties to raid the gang and break up their | stills; and afterward I learned that he had | done so, though one of his deputies lost his | life in the affray. A fortnight later I received a letter from the department at Washington, expressing on of the commissioner at my J. B. MARVIN. coe - DISCOURAGING HER SUITORS. © Od Man Didn't Want to Be I n » Many References. per’s Bazar, 3ood morning, M ‘Good morning, I do for you tod “Well, the fact er, your daughter referr “Oh, she did, did she?" snorted the papa. “Well, all I've got to say is that I'm get- ting tired of this referring business. You are the fourth that she has sent to me in the last ten days. I'll put a stop to it. I'll tell her that if she hasn't enough nerve to do her own rejecting I'll accept the very next dude that she unloads on me in this way, and make her marry him. When the fellow comes along that she wants she'll accept him without taking the old man into consideration, and I don’t propose to be made a scapegoat any. Well, I declare, if the chap didn’t actually walk off before I got done teliing him what I had to say.” Mr. Dolyers resumes his work of cutting off coupons. As for Mr. Trivvet, he never came back, = cee From Life. Dolyers—I— me to you, sir. “These are the thing: blast. Guess I'll try on sey puts in the and partly because the | Cl@imed, may as safely purchase her steak: horses were beginning to feel the effects of | #80 Joints from the west as from the neigh- the long, hard journey. When night came | DoTimg farmer whose cattle are not official- government provement, the undergone so much im- careful housewife, ly inspected. The Agricultural Depart- ment’s bureau of animal industries, which On the third day the carriage began to | b#S charge of all meat inspection, is but a decade old. Previous to 1884 the depart- ment, then under a commisstoner, had only a@ veterinary division, while the only dis- ease-detecting branch of the government was a commission of veterinary surgeons who were investigating hog cholera. But after ten years of earnest effort on the part of Dr. Salmon,the veterinarian,who brought the bureau out, it has been developed from its embryotic form to its present wide scope. The first move onward will be to bring all slaughter houses in the country which do interstate trade under regular inspec- tion. The next step will be to give special attention to the dairy and poultry indus- tries of the country. The condition of t former, since the fruits of the great tu- berculosis studies have come to light, has created much anxiety among raedical men, who are now inclined to believe that more than half of the cases of consumption in the land is caused by the tuberculosis bacil- jus in milk alone. Since boiling is the only means of destroying the germs, thus mak- ing milk unpalatable, the “ounce of pre- ventive” system must be employed. The present scope of the bureau extends active- ly only over cattle, sheep and hogs, after they have entered the stock yards, and only then when they are to be thrown into ment, which is continually called upon to furnish the various state institutions. Im- mense quantities are therefore in prepara- tion ‘continually to meet these demands, which often call for several hundred des at a time. t i t Fi i i H | 1 A | 5 t f i : ! i ! E A Ht eft it Hd i i : injection ‘of the discaserarey ian ol e longer. The é with specimens by the meat inspectors and Special agents throughout the country, who, immediaiely on finding a rare case of pare- parasites, a class of men who were inflicted habit of sponging on their friends, saving their board bilis by eating at the tabies of the Roman nobles, are responsible for the derivauon of this to the Jowest amcestries back several hundreds of years for the purpose of learning their present kinship. When this large family tree is completed there will still be millions of une known worms. The trichina fs the feature of this divi+ sion, just as the consumption plant is in the other. Under the microscope the tri- china resembles a smail snake coiled in the fibers of the flesh appear on his head, resembling eyes, but they are not those features, the trichina, like the fishes in the caves, not being re- quired to see—he merely eats. A thorough heating of meat, however, always ends his existence. In the premature state he is found in the flesh of an animal, not matur- the interstate market. To get at the ‘m- pure milk evil the farmers and dairies which transport milk over state boundaries must be attended to under the supervision of government inspectors. ‘Thus precau- tions against disease will extend into the yard, as well as into the slaughter house, Milk and Poultry. The dairy system of Denmark is consid- ered the best in the world, and a thorough investigation of this furnished the subject of the last special bulletin issued by the department to the prominent stock raisers of the country. The poultry business, by means of the rapid improvement in cold Storage cars, has become so extensive in interstate commerce as to require regula- on by official inspectors. The distribution of disease by unhealthy poultry meat and eggs is becoming sutficiently serious to re- quire an extension of this system. It has been pointed out that the proper breeding of chickens and other fowl used for food should also be regulated scientifically, and bulletins should be issued to the raisers in- structing them in the best means of mating for special purposes, as, for example, highly feathered fowls should be bred for that characteristic alone, good layers should be mated with others of the same faculty and meat-producing fowl should be raised for the cuisine only. There is said to be more wasteful interbreeding among chickens | than any other members of the animal pectors and their assistants din the country have only regulations of the bureau i city are carried out. These agent und in the field stations of y Sansas City, Nebraska Chi City, Omaha, ‘ity, Milwaukee, Ham- mond, Ind., , Cleveland, But- falo, Boston, Jersey City and Philadelphia. In Chicago alone the bureau has one hun- dred and fifty representatives. Although these active field agents are required to be men of veterinary skill or experienced stock raisers, they have none of the actual inves- tigation to perform. The laboratory of the mal industry bureau is almost as exten- sive as the other divisions of the Agricul- tural Department combined. It is the greatest institution of its kind in the world, being conducted under a faculty of special- isis, most of whom have been educated abroad. The laboratory is divided into two sections, one treating of animal bacteriol- ogy, the other of animal parasites. Gut- side of these, the government experiment station on Benning road is used as a hos- pital, morgue, dissecting room and under- taking establishment for the larger beas‘s, which can’t be taken up the department staircase. A Tabercalosis Bulletin. In the department of the laboratory de- voted to dacillary diseases, Dr. Theobald Smith is making an extended study of tu- berculosis, or consumption, and it is just now completing a lengthy bulletin for Sec- retary Morton, which will soon be in cir- culation among five thousand of the mom extensive stock raisers throughout the coun- try. It is in this place that the many chreads set flyirg at the discovery of Koch's lymph have been taken up and woven into the great diseoveries which not only will, in time, vid us of consumptive cattle, but, it is believed, deliver the human race from that disease. It is estimated that one-sev- enth of the deaths in the world are caused by this germ. Dr. Smith is daily engaged in breeding germs of coasumption, watching their every move and recording his discov- s Which will be classed among the first observations on the subject. The being of a vegetable order, ous than the Consump- ttle is by no means different from that in man, so the discoveries here valuable to the healers of humanity. For experiment in the laborator: nsumption germs are extracted from and sent t ue the experiment station, the department. Unlike other ger will not live in the usual pelatine compo- { sitions, but only in a fluid collected from matter which is extracted from blood, after | it has clotted on wounds, or hemorrhageous Mections. In this liquid they live in health tate as in man or beast, may be examined as they un s of development. U: consumption in the unit nothing but a small clip; ck hair, about one-sixt injuriou rese: ections, and separate a he system becomes pierced with infinitesi al rods, which may have started from ' eac’ ingle gern swallowed with a morsel of milk. Detection of the Disease. The bureau's method of detecting tuber | to add to the collection of ing until he reaches the intestines of the unfortunate eater of the meat. Parasites in All Animals. This laboratory not only has the task of determining the nature of animaiculae ap- pearing in beasts, but is often given specie mens from buman anatomy. A few days ago three small lizards, or chameleons, were by an Oregon farmer, who wrote to inquire what kind of a disease was signified by their appearance. The doctor replied that they were a sure indication of delirium tremens. One of the department's agents recently contributed the liver of a black snake, which was found to contain a nest of small worms. A species of leech is sometimes found in the livers of larger ani- mals, almost identical with the leech which preys upon the exterior ‘skin. A recently wasbed up on the coast was found to contain 25,000 parasites, which are strung upon a cord in the laboratory for misbe- lievers to count. A dog’s liver was found to contain am animal which resembles nothing but a small India rubber balloon about two inches in diameter. Just as all men are liars, the doctor says, all animals contain parasites, Connected with the laboratory there is a si-mortem room, where thousands of eatures, from rattlesnakes to mosquitos, have been laid out and open, never faiiing nimal germs, Interesting specimens of the germs, after t nave been Getected with the micro- are put through a microphone, which neat chopper with razor blades. This s off sections of the parasites, which ward colored and mounted upon The “tick,” traveling under. the hides of various ani- mails, is represented here in an excellent fashion. These bloodsucke>s appear to have been created in special sizes for boring into the pores of all embers of the animal kingdom. A long row of these, arranged in series, beginning with one entirely out of sight, extends several inches and shows how this plague grow The Texas Cattle Fever, Next to tuberculosis, Texas or southern cattle fever is giving the @octors in the Zoological laboratory the greatest anxiety. Since the close of the war this disease has caused the deaths of many thousand heads of cattle in the south, and up to a few years ago, when the tick was discovered ts be the cause of the contagion, not even the most learned specialists were able to disg- nose its symptoms. The peculiarity of the disease is that when southern cattle are brought into northern pastures, although not infected themselves, they usually carry the disease with them and spread it in wide territories. When northern cattle have been brought south, although not near any of the native herds, they catch the fever from the grass in the fields, in which the tick abounds. The Agricultural Depart- ment, through the foresight of Dr. Salmon, bas issued maps to its inspectors, showing the boundary line of the disease. All cattle brought from regions south of this bound- ary are quarantined and thoroughly ex- amined by the inspectors before they are allowed to enter stock yards for interstate trade, and all those suspected of the fever are returned. The bureau of animal in- dustry is also indirectly alliei with the local Societies for the prevention of cruelty throughout the cout E. W.. Jr, fever by eo Not Rending Matter. From the Texas Siftings “You have plenty of reading here,” said @ visitor’ to the literary editor, pointing to @ pile of books on the editorial desk. “These are not for reading,” replic? the editor, “They are for jewing. mn Wiy-Time. From Harper's Bazar. r) oe “Well, these chameleons are some ccoom, after all