Evening Star Newspaper, January 12, 1895, Page 15

THE EVENING STAR, SATURDAY, JANUARY 13, 1895-TWENTY PAGES. COREAN MAGISTRATE AND OFFICIALS. COREAN COURT LIFE Behind the Scenes of a Glittering Show. HOW THE OPFICIALS DRESS AND LIVE The King’s Soldiers, His Eunuchs and Attesdants. —— THE POLITICAL STRIKERS a 1895, by Frank G. Carpenter.) HAVE JUST RE- eelved letters from Corea stating that the whole country is in a state of anar- chy. The Tong Haks, or rebels,have sprung up again in different parts of the king- dom. The Japanese send out troops subdue them, but the moment they are conquered in one st place they spring up and they honeycomb even the (Copyrighted, fm another, tanks of the people in Seoul. The king is said to be in great danger, and he fears assassination more than ever. There are many Cor who bate everything con- nected with Japan, and as the king is now working in cc ation with the Japanese troops, he is charged by some with selling out the country. I wrote you some weeks ago of my Interview with him. I did not describe his palaces and his court. § It would be impossible for any one to have the access to these buildings today which had while I was in Seoul. How the King ts Guarded. The King of Corea does all his work by the electric light. He s! in the day- time, and receives all of his callers at night. The a | about twenty feet high which runs clear around his palace 4 city, and there are watch-houses on top of it in which sentinels stand day and night. Every t hundred feet along the outside of the wall there is a little guard house about five feet square, which con- tains two armed soldiers. Each of these guard houses has a well within it lined with straw, and while one soldier watches, the other curls himself up like a caterpillar in this well and goes to sleep. The sol- diers all sleep in their day clothes, and they rarely have blankets. The $s which go into the palace city are guarded by soldiers, and there are always servants and officials about them. At one time the king thought of running a lot of live wires around the palace walls, in order that any one who attempted to climb over them might be killed by the terrible electric shock which would result from the contact. He Moves Without Notice. The buildings in the king's palie cities (he bas twe in Seoul) are numbered by hundreds. They cover maay hundred acres, and he has suites of apartments in different parts of the grounds. He keeps his movements a secret, and only the few- An Official at Home. est people know in which palace he siceps or how long he will stay there. You can never tell where to find him, and it would be almost impossible to lay a plan for his abduction. He has all the walls of his palace city lighted, and when the electric plant is in full blast every co-ner will be as bright at night as it Is in the daytime. He sleeps in rooms guarded by eunuchs, and in receiving hfs officials they are re- quired to come into the palace during the daytime, and they wait around until his majesty is ready to receive them in the evening. As soon as ft becomes dusk the gates which enter the palace are closed with heavy doors plited with iron. They are locked with massive iron bars, and the keys are taken in to the king. It is death to any one outside of the gatekeeper to touch the locks, and they are so heavy that one of them is a load for a man. Wors> Than the Arabian Niz The scenes about these gates are more than those of tte “Arabian They are surrounded by all the queer characters who make up official Corea. There are soldiers in plum-colored pantaleons and blue coats. There are the King’s musicians in yellow, and there are all sorts of gcrgeous servants, dressed in bright gowns. Men with paddles for whi ping the people squat under the walls,their sleeves rolled up to the shoulder and their wny muscles ready for action. There are gorgeously caparisoned ponies, who stamp their feet and neigh. There are leopard-skin-covered chairs watched by servants h- livery, awaiting the coming out of their owners, who have gone in to see the king. There are lackeys of all sorts, and as you look you see that the “Black Crook” is here outdone. There are re such gorgeous people on the planet as these Officials. Here comes one of them on horse- back. He hi ® servant on each side to steady him as he sits in the saddle. An- other servant leads the horse, and he fans himself as he rides through the streets. His gown is of light blue silk, and he looks clean en ugh to be eaten. I doubt, however, whether investigation would show this to 1 it makes me think y lady who, be- is down to her me ind this man, looking even more comes another noble riding on a with six m pushing and n. ‘fhis machine runs on the it has been in use and T people go down on indeed. He had 11 beets of black broadcloth. A fifteen-dollar horsehair cap covers his head, and the leopard skin, which is only permitted to be used by officials, covers the back of his chair. I note that the other Officials get out of their chairs when they meet him. This is etiquette in Corea, and it provides that the man of low rank must ial to | and he is un- | never be above a man of higher station. As the mcnocycle approaches the gaudy dude on horseback sees him, and his fan drops in dismay. He is proud, and he doesn't like to get down, but there is no help for it. He is an under-officer, and he cannot tower above the man in the chair. He orders his servants to stop. They lift him off his horse, and he walks along while his superior rides by. As the chair comes up, its retinue of servants howl to all to get out of the way, and to bow down be- fore the great man they are carrying. And they do bow and they bow quick. The ofti- cials of Corea try not to meet each other on the streets, because of humiliations which they have to undergo of this nature. One day 1 saw the king's father go into the A Scribe. paleve, and a dozen high officials had to get out and walk in order to do him honor. I could see they were all angry at having to do so. What Ruined Corer. It is these nobles who have ruined Corea. The country is said to be poor, but the of Is roll in wealth, and it is a wonder to me where they get all the money they spend. ‘They dress in the finest of silk, and the ordinary man of rank who has access to the palace wears a green gown contain- ing enough silk to make a lady's ball dress. The best of Corean ha st from ten dollars upwards, and e: hing is Figh. Their expenses in keeping up their slishments must be he Many of them carry from ten to a hundr ryants with them when they go along the streets, and these are all lodged in their own quar- ters. A Corean nobie’s home consists of a nur@er of one-story buildings surrounded by a wall, which, in the city, opens upon | the street by a gate, which is so made that | you cannot see inside of the yard when it is open. Half of this wall is made up of buildings of one-story rooms, eight feet square, and these are the quarters of the | servants. The noble has several houses for himself inside the yard, and a number of buildings for his wife and concubines. He lives very well. His home is by no means an uncomfortatle one, and with its wide andas, its queerly-shaped ridged roofs, and its warm rooms, heated by fires | under the floor, he can, if he has enourh | money, live very well. This money he gets | out of squeezing the people. It all comes | from the men who grub the soil, and from | the offices which the king's officials give to | him for a consideration. Such an official is fairly well educated from a Chinese standpoint. He has learned to read the Chinese, and he can read and write the Corean. He has passed the examinations by which the king selects his officials, and | if he can keep up his share of the King’s | revenue his office is usually left with him. Many such men write poetry and are good | talkers, and men of much more than ordi- | nary intelligence, and the whole nation has | the making of a very good people, if any | method can be evolved by whi rrup= | tien may be done away with, and prop- erty rights be preserved. Inside the Palace Walls. I had an opportunity to get inside of the palace walls once or twice, in addition to the trip which I made through the grounds when I called upon the king. The build- ings are surrounded by a wall, and they are built within pens, each of which contains from two to four acres of space. -In going to the king you have to pass through from six to a dozen buildings, and everywhere you go you meet soldiers and eunuchs. The king’s bodyguard confronts you at every turn, and there are servants by the tens of hundreds. There are 500 of these bedyguards and each of these is so strong that he has to lift a bar of iron, six feet long and weighing one hundred pounds, from the ground and hold it at arm's length above his head. This is the test which the soldiers undergo before they are admitted to the guard. If you will straighten out your arm, bend over and take a rod of iron weighing a hundred pounds and attempt to lift it above your head without bending your arm, you will see something of the wonderful strength these men possess. A number of them are always close to the king, and they surround his chair as he goes from one palace to the other, and as they go they wail out a chant, which means something like this: “Soldiers, protect your ing. The eunuchs are also ubiquitous, both In China and Corea. These men have great power. They are said to be wise counsel- lors, and they certainly have a great deal to do with the administration of govern- mental affairs here. None but eunuchs are allowed to wait upon the queen, and her majesty has palaces, soldiers and a retinue of her own. They dress like the high of- ficials, with long gowns reaching to their feet, and horsehair caps. They have long, yellow, sober faces. Their voices have a The Corcan Monocycle. high falsetto pitch and they move about with a snake-like quietness. The Kinz and the Fates. The Coreans are very superstitious. They have their astrologers, and one of the prophe of the past said that the present ty would last only five hundred years nis time is now up, and the people look upon the war to a certain extent as a de- eree of the fat and some of them think that the king’s da: are numbered. The king himself is very progr e, and he | would like to improve his peo; He may | be able to do so if he can control his of- cials, and he will be able to do this only through the Japanese. There is little known about the government of Corea, and it will be surprising to many people to know that it has a fixed organization, and that there are departments in Seoul much like those at Washington. These are sup- posed to control the affairs of the kingdom, and in times past they have practically con- trolied the king. The king, with the aid of | the Japanese, is now running the machine, and it is probable that some of the rebel- lions throughout the country are fomented by the officials. How Corea 1s Governed. The government of Corea consists of the king and his officials in Seoul, and a vast number of officials who are scattered over the country. The kingdom is divided up into eight different provinces. Each of these provinces has a governor, who Is ap- pointed by the king, and it is divided up into counties or districts, each of which has its officers. Every city or district of ten thousand houses or less has a magis- trate who is a sort of a ruler and judge. He collects all the taxes and passes upon all disputes. He is a man of power, and every one bows down before him. Corea has between three and four hundred of these magistrates, and they practically run the kingdom outside of Seoul. They collect the taxes, and they have scores of scribes about them who are a sort of political strikers, and who do the dirty work for them. These lower officers all pay those above them for their offices, and they ex- pect to get back their money out of the people. The poor farmer, in fact, has to pay taxes over and over again, and if he gets anything ahead it is squeezed out of him by torture or paddling. _ The King’s Big Men. The high officials of Seoul are numerous, though the most of them have fled to the country on account of the war. I was told that there were eight vice presidents to the home office, when I was in Seoul, and there Were a number of vice presidents to the foreign office. Jn this office there are about fifteen clerks and nearly as many secreta- ries of state. The king has two men who are supposed to be his closest advisers, and these ure called the ministers of the right and left. All of these ofticials when they go to the palace take their toilet cases and wardrobes with them, and a servant always trots behind carrying their extra clothes, combs, brushes and other chamber furni- ture. They have to wait a long time often before they can see the king and they can- not get out of the palace before the sun rises. The official work is done outside of the palace, but the offices are not in full blast until about high noon. They Sit Up Late. The Coreans, although the laws do not permit the men to go on the streets at night, are fond of late hours. They sit and gossip amorg themselves, and their parties are always cf one sex. They are always either stag parties or hen parties, and the men dearly love the flowing bowl. There are more old men gossipers in Corea than there are old maid gossipers in Amer- ica. It is not an uncommon thing for a crowd of young and middle-aged men to spend a night in chatting, singing and in the writing of poetry. In poetry they use the Chinese characters, and the Chinese is the official court language. I may speak in another letter of their education and schools. They are queer in every way, and though they have many things which are cruel and bad.sthey are, on the whole, a very refined people, and are good-natured and kindly. The King’s Censors. There is one class of government offi- cials, however, which Corea has which we do not find in America, and which are now restricted to Corea and China. These are the censors. They are appointed by the king, and it is then business to travel over the country and see that justice is admin- istered. There are perhaps a dozen of them under tne government. They go about in all sorts of ways, and perform the part of official detectives. No one is supposed to know who they are. They may appear in the disguise of a coolie or a ped- dler, and they wil! settle in a town ruled by an unjist magistrate and live among the poor. They iind out whether the peo- ple are complaining, and if their complaints are just they Lave the power to remedy them. Each of them carries the king’s seal, and they have the right to order any head off below that of a governor. They have of late years, however, been very cor- rupt, I am told, and have been bribed by the officials. The Japanese, who are now controlling the ccuntry, are doing what they can to put down this bribery. It is a herculean task, and it is believed by the foreigners ir Corea that the cleaning of the Augean stables of Corean official cor- ruption is a bigger job than the conquering of China. How it will turn out time only can tell, FRANK G. CARPENTER. — THE NEW HEROINE. A Vivid Scene From the Drama of To- morrow. From Panch. Edwin—And do you really love me? ‘Angelina—With all my heart and soul; and yet— Edwin—Yet what? Angelina, why do you look so strangely at me? There is some- thing on your mind, something you have not the courage to tell me. Angelina—Edwin, I can hide nothing from you. Even though it should wreck both our lives, you have the right to know the truth. Edwin—My own darling, what is in your heart? Angelina—Can you bear to hear it? Don’t look at me, or I shali not have the courage to say what must be said. Edwin, I have never lived a disreputable life. Edwin (burying his face in his hands)— Great Heaven! and I believed in you 80 utterly. (Ther rising, with a desperate effort to control his emotion.) Good-bye. Angelina (falling on her knees, and cling- ing to him)—Ah, no, you shall not go. Think of it, Edwin, of the temptations to virtue that surrounded me, of the examples of simple girlhood that poisoned my youth. If I have lived a life of spotless innocence, remember, at least, that I knew no better. What else could I do? Brought up from earliest infancy by a mother of unblemish- ed reputation? Edwin (with a gesture of horror)—Your mother, too? Angelina, our marriage is im- possible. Angelina—How hard you men are! Is your sex alone to have the monopoly of in- nocence? Must there always be one law for women and another for dramatic au- thors? Oh, it is cruel! cruel! But you will not leave me. Remember, I am still young; it is never too late to err. And is it be- cause I am a woman that I am to be denied the chance of retrieving the innocence of a misspent youth by the indiscretions of a riper womanhood? Besides, are there not cases, cases known to us both, where a wife has lived down the terrible reproach of a blameless girlhood? Why, even Mr. Jones’ latest heroine, and there is nothing later than that, could not absolutely prove she had gone wrong, and yet her husband took her back! But you are so proud, so relentless. You have no pity in your heart. Edwin—Believe me, it is not pride. For myself, I would gladly brave the censure of the world, and if in after years men should say in scorn he married her though there was nothing against her, I should still be happy, knowing I had your love. But my father, that dear old man in his quiet country vicarage. Think of it? It is too horrible! Angelina (with bowed head)—You are right; I had forgotten your father. Edwin—How could I ever look into that sweet, wrinkled face, and meet those rev- erend eyes, knowing that I was asking him to receive as a daughter one who had never even once strayed from the paths of virtue? Angelina—I see it all now. Good-bye. Edwin—Good-bye. Angelina (as he is going)—Edwin, come back. Edwin—Ah, don’t torture me, I can bear no more! Angelina—But what if I were to tell you that this confession, so humiliating to us both, was but a ruse to test the strength of your devotion? —Ah, don’t raise a false hope with- in me, only to plunge me again in the abyss of despair! ngelina—But this is no false hope. win (eageriy)—What do you mean? Angelina (burying her head on his shoul- der)—I mean that I have been no better than I should be. ldwin (emb-eacing “her)—My love, nething can part us now. (Curtain.) ———-—-+ 0+ He Hoped Not. own true Frem Life. “Think of the white-robed choir over there!” whispered the young rector, as he bent over the pain-drawn face on. the pillow. A spasm of anguish passed over the wan features of the dying organist. “Choirs!” he gasped. “Choirs over there? Away! and let me die unrepem® anti” PIRATE TREASURE jaa eis Cece BLACKBEARD AND ‘HE UNRECOVERED TREASURE. BY HOWARD PYLE. (Copyrighted, 1895, by Howard Pyle.) There are two pirates each of whom are very famous in this country—Captain Will- iam Kidd, of whose adventures and the treagure buried upon Gardener's Island it has already been told—and Captain “Black- beard.” Perhaps Captain Kidd is the more famous of the two, but nevertheless nearly every- one knows of Blackbeard and there is hard- ly a strip of sandy beach between New Jersey and Florida that is not reputed to hold somewhere hidden in its bosom the buried treasure that he left behind him, and which has never yet been recovered. Nowhere in all-the histogy of piracy is there such a terrible, strange, dreadful figure as that of Captain Edward Teach, cr Blackbeard. Listen how the old histor- ian of the pirates describes him. “Our hero, Captain Teach,” says he, “assumed the cog- nomen of Blackbeard, from that large quantity of hair, which like a frightful meteor covered his whole face and fright- ened America more than any comet that had appeared for a long time. * “This beard was black, which he suffered to grow to an extravagant length; as to the breadth, it came up to his eyes. He was accustomed to twist with ribbons into small tails, after the number of our Rami- dies wigs, and-to turn them about his ears. In times of action he wore a sling over his shoulder with three brace of pistols hang- ing in the holsters like bandaliers. He stuck lighted matches under his hat, which, appearing on each side of his face and eyes, looked naturally fierce and wild, made Black Beard. him altogether such a figure that imagina- tion cannot ferm an {dea of a fury from the pit to look more frightful.” Perhaps not one of those old pirates, un- less it was Captain Kidd, was so closely identified with our eatly colonial history as Blackbeard. All of his depredations were committed along our coasts, where his terrible figure would be seen, now swooping down upon some peaceful mer- chant coaster,now running ashore to devas tate some plantation or settlement; nov appearing in some seaport town to barter or trade with the merchants or planters with the goods that he had just been taking from some sloop or schooner off the shore. It would be impossible here to recount all of his bold and desperate adventures along our American sea-board. That which shall be told is how he ter- rorized and robbed the town of Charleston, in South Carolina. How he and Gov Eden of North Carolina shared the spoils of the French barque laden with its then precious freightage of sugar,how he fought his last fight and how he left behind him a hidden treasure that has never yet been unearthed. Captain Edward Teach began his pirate life about the year 1716, sailing from the Island of Providence in the West Indies with a Captain Hornigold (another notable pirate) to the Main of America, taking in course of a month among other prizes a large French and richly freighted Guinea- man bound to Martinique. This large and powerful ship Captain Teach took for his man-of-war, rechristen- ing it “The Queen Anne’s Revenge,” a name that was to become notable along the Atlantic coast in the two or three years that followed. It 1s not proposed here to tell of the ad- ventures that happened to him in all of that time; of how he captured vessel after vessel; of how he fought a famous battle with the man-of-war Scarborough, beating off the king’s ship after an engagement that lasted for several hours. It is only needful to say that he joined with him a number of other pirate crafts then sailing under Major Stede Bonnet, and with this fleet fairly swept the sea, sailing away northward until he finally suddenly ap- peared off the bar of Charleston, South Carolina. It was a bright, warm day in the early spring time. That morning the good ship the Royal Princess, Captain Robert Clark commander, had set sail from Charleston harbor for England, with a number of pas- sengers of consideration aboard of her. Late in the afternoon a little boat came rowing up to Charleston with the news that the pirates had captured the Royal Princess just off the bay, and was holding her as a prize. t Blackbeard had come. For a whole week the pirates lay off the town. The Hoyal Princess was only the first of their captures. Every in-coming and out-going craft was stopped until a score of vessels lay riding at anchor off the bar, under the guns of ‘the pirate fleet, and the town was completely blockaded. Every prize was overhauled,,and everything of value taken from it. The passengers them- selves were held for ransom, and all their money #hd even. their watches and their jewelry were taken from them. At last the town itseif was visited. One day a boat load of pirates, with one of their prisoner: a little crowd had gathered, watching them loweringly. It is thus that the old historian of those times tells of it: “Reing in want of medicine,” says he, “Blackbeard resolved to demand a chest from the government of the ffrovince. Ac- cordingly, Richards, the captain of the Re- venge-sicop, with two or three more pirates, were sent up along with Mr. Marks, one of the prisoners, whom they had taken in Clark’s ship, to make their demands, which they did in a very insolent manner, threat- ening that if the town did not immediately send the chest of medicine and let the pirate-ambassadors return without offer- fg any violence to their persons, they would murder all the prisoners and send their heads up to the governor and set the ships they had taken on fire. “Whilst Mr. Marks was making applica- tion to the council, Richards and the rest of the pirates walked the streets publicly in the sight of all people, who were fired with the utmost indignation, but durst not landed at the quay, where | so much as think of arresting them. And so they were forced to let the villains pass with impunity. “The government was not long in de- ilberating upon the message, though it was: the greatest affront that could be put upon them, yet for the saving of so many peo- ple’s lives (among them Mr. Samuel Wragg, one of the council), they complied with the necessity and sent aboard a chest valued at between three and four hundred pounds, and the pirates went back to their ships.” How much Blackbeard took from the vessels he stopped on the bar in front of Charleston harbor, how great was the money paid for the redemption of the pris- oners, no-one can tell. Altogether the booty which he gained must have been very great indeed. Adding what was here taken to what he already had, he must have amassed a con- siderable fortune by this time. This for- tune he determined to secure as much as possible to himself. Accordingly he man- aged in a very clever way to run all of his vessels aground off Topsail inlet excepting one. To that one—a small sloop—he had transferred all of his treasure and a crew of forty men, and with it he sailed away for the North Carolina sounds. But even forty were in Blackbeard’s opinion too many to share what had been gained in their piracies. Accordingly he mfrooned nineteen of them on a little sandy island, about a league from the main land, “where,” says the historfan, ‘there was neither bird, beast, fish nor herb for their sustenance.” And only twenty-three were left to share the treasure. At that time piracy had become so ram- pant that King George issued a proclama- tion pardoning all freebooters who would surrender by a certain date, hoping thus to correct the evil. Blackbeard and the twen- ty-three pirates who now were with him were almost the first to take advantage of this pardon. After having shared the treas- ure among themselves, they went up into Pamlico sound and there surrendered to Gov. Eden at Bath-Town. There Blackbeard bought a plantation, married a girl of sixteen years (his four- teenth wife, it is said), and, striking up a friendship with the governor, the colonial secretary and other dignitaries of the prov- ince, led for a while a merry, jolly life of it, playing cards and spending ‘his money like alord. So for a while he continued his life ashore. Then, suddenly and apparently without reason, his restless desire for ad- venture broke out afresh. He called to- gether his men, who had nearly all settled in the neghborhood of Bath-Town, manned the sloop that he had brought with him, and with it and another sailed away out into the ocean through Ocracoke. He was gone for six or seven weeks and then he returned, bringing in a large French barque freighted with a precious cargo of sugar, which was then worth con- siderably upward of a shilling a pound. No one ever heard the history of the French vessel—how it was taken, what had happened after it was taken—it must have been a dark and bloody story. Blackbeard said he found the barque adrift with neither captain nor crew, and that he had brought it into port as a derelict. He made Goy. Eden a present of fifty hogsheads of the sugar, and Mr. Knight, the colonial secre- tary, a gift of twenty hogsheads. The rest was divided among the pirates. Then Gov. Eden promptly ordered the now empty vessel to be towed out into the sound and burned. There it was consumed, hissing, to the water’s edge and sunk, and with ft the last fragment that might have led to detection was blotted out forever. It was a very profitable adventure. And now comes the fierce and bloody ending of Blackbeard’s story. Gov. Spottswood of Virginia was already beginning to take steps to stamp out Black- beard’s nest of pirates down at Bath- Town, even though it was not in his juris- diction and was in the jurisdiction of another governor. The story that present- ed his ears concerning the loss of ench barque determined him to act without losing any time. He fitted out two sloops under command of Mr. Robert Maynard, first lieutenant of the Pearl man-of-war, which was then ly- ing at the mouth of the James river. Lieu- tenant Maynard sailed down to Ocrocoke inlet, into the sound and there met Black- beard. Then followed a fight such as one may read about now and then in pirate books, but rarely in a true history such as this. Blackbeard opened the battle by firing two broadsides into the lieutenant’s sloop, under the smoke of which he and the king's men drifted closer together and ally grappled. As soon as they were near enough the pirates began to throw aboard the sloop grenades made of case bottles filled with small shot and pieces of iron, These grenades burst as soon as they had struck the deck, throwing their con- tents together with bits of broken glass in all directions. Under the smoke and con- fusion Blackbeard and his men boarded the sloop and then followed one of the most desperate hand to hand conflicts in all pirate history. It is thus that Capt. Johnson, one of the chroniclers of those events, describes the conflict Blackbeard and the leutenant,"” says he, “fired the first pistol at each other, by which the pirate received a wound; then they engaged with swords until the Heu- tenant's. unluckily broke, who thereupon stepped back to cock his pistol. Blackbeard with his cutlass was striking at that in- stant, when one of Maynard's men gave him a terrible wound in the neck and threat, by which the lieutenant came off with a small cut on his finger: “They were now closely and warmly en- gaged, the lieutenant and twelve men against Blackbeard and fourteen, until the sea was tinctured with dlood around the sel. Though Blackbeard received a shot from the pistol that Lieut. Maynard dis- charged, yet he stood his ground and fought with great fury until he received twenty cuts and five more shots. At length, as he was cocking a pistol, having fired several before, he fell down dead.” With this the battle was over. Lieut. Maynard cut off the dead pirate’s head, nailed it at the bowsprit of his sloop and then sailed back in triumph to Virginia. So ended Blackbeard, the pirate, fighting to the last. But what became of his treasure? Some- where he had hidden it in the marshes or bluffs of Currituck sound or in the forests of the Tar river. There it somewhere re- poses to this day—all that had been earned through blood and crime and wickedness buried in the ground and lost forever. “The night before Blackbeard was killed,” says one of his historians, “one of the men asked him in case anything happened to him in the coming engagement whether his wife knew where he had buried his moncy. He answered that nobody but himself and the devil knew where it was, and that the longest liver should take all! No one has ever yet found it. ee THE RUINED PANAMA CANAL, A Scene of Desolntion and of Wasting and Vanishing Wealth, From the Omaha Bee. If that often mentioned New Zealander of Macaulay's imagination is tired waiting for the chance to sketch the ruins of St. Paul's from a broken arch of the London bridge, he might find diversion in a visit to the Isthmus of Panama. He can see there the mask of wealth and the ruin of the works of man to such an extent as may at least whet his appetite for the feast which the English historian suggested might be his. He will see there nature in the act of undo- ing the labors of man. The great scar on the isthmus is rapidly healing. Piles of excavated material are washing back into the channel. The wharves are falling into the water. Acres of machinery are rust- ing into dissolution. On the isthmus are nearly 1,0) miles of steel track with loco- motives and thousands of dump carts, now half hidden in the tropical growth. Seven- ty-six great steam shovels stand side by side in the excavation, buried in the lux- uriant vegetation, so that only the gaunt arms stand up above the green. What a picture is that to emphasize the Impotency of man in his struggles with nature! What- ever he may appropriate for his own use, and whatever form he may give to what takes, nature will set to work to repossess it some time. Her slow processes will re- claim it all unless man maintains a con- stant warfare to keep It. Of all the un- numbered millions of dollars which have been expended on the Panama canal, it ts said ninety per cent is going to waste, and will be utterly lost unless the work on the vast enterprise is resumed actively. Some of the machinery has been housed and cared for. Most of it has been abandoned where last used, and where it 1s now rot- ting or rusting its usefulness away. so- The Child and the Man, From the CI Once upon a time it chanced that a Child accosted a Man, saying: “Papa, may we play in the street?” The Man replied, and spake: “I should say no. Today is Sunday.” And the Child came back at the Man presently, and quoth: ‘But, papa, we will call it a sacred con- cert.” And the Man sald nothing, since there was nothing to say. 18 A BIG STAMPEDE! The Mad Flight of Four Thousand Texas Steers, Seven Times in as Many Nights the Belcher Drove Stampeded—Musio and Ilominations Resorted To. Texas Correspondence Globe-Democrat. Last night 4,000 of*the big Texas steers that Mr. Belcher has been fattening just outside the city limits of Belcherville went on a stampede. They had done so the night before and the night be- fore that and the night before that for seven consecutive nights. This may not mean much to some people, but to a man who has lived a near neighbor to that large herd, it will mean enough to make his blood tingle. To such a man it will suggest sudden alarms, hair-breadth escapes, the maddened trampling of six- teen thousand feet and the cool and un- pretentious daring of the brave men who kept the catastrophe from being any worse than it was. It will suggest the loss of thousands of dollars and the imperiling of scores of lives. It all started the night of 15th of Decem- ber, during the severe thunder storm that visited Montague county at that time. Some climates might not be able to pro- duce a good thunder storm at any time in the dead of winter, but the Texas climate can. At midnight on the 14th the sky over Belcherville was perfectly clear, and the men going home at that hour from the session of the Masonic lodge talked about the beauty of the moon and of the night, and about how bad they were needing rain. Not a cloud was in sight at midnight, but two hours later these same men were awakened by the crashing and booming of thunder. The lightning was gleaming in long zigzag streaks and flashing in huge, wide-spreading sheets. Some few of the timid people got up and went to their storm houses, the practical ones got up to see that the windows and doors were well fastened, the pious ones sleepily thanked God for the much-needed rain that was ccming, while the sleepiest ones of all merely turned over, did ncthing at all and’ then went back to sleep again. Suddenty, just as the storm was at its worst, there came a noise that could be heard above the thunder. It was a prolonged, vibrat- ing roar that made the earth tremble. Crash! whirr! boom! Many of the citizens thought a cyclone had struck the town: and they were right. It was a_ liv! - clone, and its passage was quick. For about two minutes there was the ponderous pound, pound of four times four thousand hoofs; then a gradual diminuticr in its volume; then people began to be aware sain of the fact that a thunder storm was aging. Getting the Cattle Back. Storm or no storm, Mr. Belcher and all ris men had to get up to see what had hap- pened. It may not be very pleasant to get up in the pouring rain in the middle of a winter's night, but then one has it to do sometimes. When a fortune of nearly $100,000 is galloping wildly ail over the country, cutting itself on wire fences, breaking its legs In ditches, shaking off loose dollars every mile it travels and get- ting out of one’s reach as fast as its mad- dened fury can take it, the best thing one can do is to go after it and bring it back. Within half an hour of the time the herd stampeded, about thirty men on horses had collected at the feed pens—or, rather, where the feed pens had formerly been. The scene revealed by the lightning that still flashed through the pouring rain was one of desolation and destruction. The huge nine-wire fence, with its high oaken posts, had been swept away as nothing. The large feed troughs, constructed out of 24 timbers, had been smashed almost into kindling wood. There were only twenty or thirty steers in sight—and these were the dead and dying ones that had been tram- pled on and left behind in the first mad rush. There was nothing to suggest defi- nitely the cause of the original scare. Perhaps the lightning had struck the fence and killed some of the cattle; perhaps the thunder frightened them; perhaps the devil took possession of them, as he did of the herd of swine mentioned in the Scripture. However, the men that had gathered at the pens in the cold and darkness of the winter's rain did not pause to theorize as to the origin of the scare. They went after their steers, found them—or at least a part of them—and then came back with what they couid find. One force of men was put- ting up the fence again, while another was bringing in the cattle. By noon the fence was completed and a large part of the herd was in the pens once more. It was Sunday, | and that morging Mr. Belcher failed to come to Sunday school, for once. However, as he had 4,000 oxen in the ditch, meta- phoricaily speaking, and was engaged at Sunday school time in pulling them out, I suppose the Lord excused him. Steers Having Fun. That morning one little group of about 400 found its way to Nocona, a flour- ishing little town seven miles east of Belch- erville. One citizen of the town, surprised at the army that had so unceremoniously invaded the village in the quiet of thé Sab- bath morning, thought he ought to utter a protest. Standing on his front doorstep, he attered his protest in the form of a vocifer- ous “Hey!” The steers had been walking along quict- ly enough before, but at this sudden chal- lenge, they bolted. Crash! they went over the fence that surrounded one of the neat- est little residences in the town. The rea- son they killed no one was that there was no one in the yard to kill. They stayed around Nacona for perhaps half an hour, demolishing fences, ruining yards and mak- ing things lively to their hearts’ content. Then the strange Coxey army of cows took its unlamented departure. Possibly seven-eighths of the whole herd wese in the pens at Belcherville by night- fall. Several men stood guard over them that night, but before morning the whole herd was out again. The program of the night before was repeated with incidental variation. There was the same hard work in getting them back again, the same trouble and expense in repairing the dam- age they had done. The next night Mr. Belcher introduced the plan of “‘sitting up” with the herd. To begin with, he secured about 100 lanterns, lighted them and hung them on the fence posts of the pens. He did this, not because he wanted to give the cattle light to see to run by, but because the cattle are generally afraid of fire, and he thought the lights would scare them away from the fences. The lights, when seen from a disiance, looked as if a new quarter of the town had suddenly ceme into existence, and was be- ing illuminated fer spectacular purposes. ‘The guard was increased to ten. All this was very kind of Mr. Belcher, and the cat- tle showed ungrateful hearts not appre- ciating it any better than they did. To- ward morning, a large part of them broke away again, and the program had to be repeated once more. The next night Mr. Belcher ordered music to his features in the entertainment of his cattle. He also doubled his guard. The citizens of the town stood on their back porches and iistened to the inspiring tunes of “Jesus, Lover of My Soul” and “Nearer, My Ged, to Thee,”’ as they rolled from a score of vociferous throats. I am not quite sure whether the music was intended to soothe the herd into restfulness, or to scare it into keeping away from the fences. But whatever the object, no one who heard those Texans singing to the cattle will like- ly evet forget it. If it is really true that music hath charms to soothe the savage breast, this music ought to have soothed the cattle, but it did not. The usual stam- pede occurred. the usual rebuilding of fences and troughs and the usual regather- ing of the herd. Seven Times Over. ‘The same things have happened now for seven nights in succession. It started iu the scare during the storm, and it has been cortinued on general principles. When cat tle orce ge: their hands in stampeding—or, should I say hoofs, instead of hands?—they never stop of their own accord, and rarely of anybody else's. They become so nervous that nothing can control them. Gu: lights, music and all become unavailing. It might be well to say just here that no’ aul T is stockmen sing church music to their wild cattle. Sometimes they say bad words, and the unappreciative steers are said to like these about as well as any- thing else. Mr. Belcher is the superintend- ent of the Methodist Sunday school at this place, and his worst enemy never ac- cused him of using an oath. Some Texas VALUED ENDORSEMENT, SCHAGHTICOKE, N. Y¥.—It fs ignorance rather than anything else that makes life miserable, Dut ignorance of the value of Dr. David Ken- nedy's Favorite Remedy does not exist in Schagh- ticeke today, as a blood medicine and nerve tonie it stands supreme. One of the principal reasons for its popularity comes from tae great benefit our fellow townsman, Andrew Sipperley, derived irom its use. Mr. Sipperley has suitered ‘for years past, with a chronic kidney trouble, frequent bilious attacks, and at intervals with violent in the head and tace. Up to last fall At that time his w: ood Dr. Kennedy's F erinined neural; verite Kemedy bad accomplished, de In writing about his sickness, 10 have him use it. pperley said: ‘or several years I was subject to attacks of kidney trouble and gravel, which was attended With most excruciating pain, but since 1 begun the use ef Dr. David Kennedy's Favorite Remedy I have had jous trouble, and my general Ith is greatly improved. I “know of a great ny people about here who have used Favorite edy, und in every instance benefit has fol- ‘One of the officers of the Albany, N. Y.. al recently said, in speaking of Favorite of its great medical value, and it cures the diseases for Wwhick it is prepared. The gr alue of Dr. David Kennedy’ yerite Remedy Hes in the fact that it the excess of uric ucid in the blood. Si ism, neuralgia, nervousness, dys- liver and urinary troubles, and ar to women all come fr orite Remede disso pm the system, thu es of scrofula, diabetes and Bright’s disease it has cured where other treat- ments have failed. Remedy to my knowle curing the cattlemen are Sunday school superintend- ents, but not ail. Standing guard at night is a dangerous business, and Mr. Beicher came near being Killed at it last Thursday night. He was inside the pens and had dismounted. The cattle were all lying down quietly, but sud- denly one of their wiid, mysterious, ui.ex- plainable impulses to rur. seized upon them without a secord’s warning, and on they came. Mr. Belcher attempted to mount his horse, but the animal, frightened by the noise of the cattle, threw him to the ground “Here,” shouted Bud True, as he whecled his horse around, “up behiad me!” There was not a moment to lose. Mr. Belcher is not as active now as he once was, but in a twinkling he had vaulted up behind Bud and away they went. Ten sec- onds later the cattle dashed over the place where Mr. Belcher had been thrown. But for his timely rescue he would have met an instantaneous and inevitable death be- neath the trampling hoofs. The man who rides ahead of the herd and starts them to milling has his share of the danger, too. Doubtless the reader has read that if a man rides ahead the leaders will follow him and turn when he turns. In this the herd is made to circle round and round and finally to stop. The “miller” needs a sure- footed horse and needs to hold a firm rein. Suppose in the darkness the horse steps in a hole in the ground and goes down. Kor a moment he hears the wild rush behind him, and then— Wee to the rider and woe to th That falls in front of the mad Of coursé, such persistent stampedes en- tail serious financial Joss. ‘The 1 $1,100. Fifty too, cattle Then, dead cos heaviest item of lo: gh, the amount of fi is lost in the wild ri try. It is es- timated that 30c. worth of flesh lost fr a good, large steer on ev such oc jon. Altcgether, the sum which the Belchers will have to pa: nt dur- ing the first week will not fail far short of $5,000. When cattle once get running, there fs only one absolutely reliable way to make them quit. That is to ship them to St. Louis or Chicago and have them killed for beef. This plan has never been known to fail, and Mr. Belcher is now making prep- arations to adopt it. — GAS METERS. coIN Nickel-in-the-Slot Idea as Applicd to Lighting Se ‘The use of “nic the-slot” gas meters for small consumers attracts a good deal of attention in England. There are estimated to be between $0,000 and 100,000 hous tenements, for instance, in South Lox without any gas supply, and the prepay- ment meter is looked upon as the solution of the problem of furnishing gas to the peor people occupying such premises. The cost of the gas is greater than it is to the ordinary consumer, and hence a higher rate of charge is necessary. ‘The would-be consumer of this class will not buy fittings and pay for fixing them, nor can he put down a deposit, which he generally does not possess. A quarter! count or monthly is out of where removals of tenants are so frequent; and hence the tariff has to be raised in or- der to help the gas company recoup itself cn the unusual investment. But thi vice proves a great boon to the workingmen of humbler condition, perhaps as much for cecking as for lighting, and h the rapid extension of the systcm is expected. ses soe Incomes in Coun From Scribner's Monthly Five thousand dollars in a country town is affluence, if the beneficiary is content to stay there; but in a city the family man with only that income, provided he is am- Ditious, can only just live, and might fairly be described as the cousin-german to a mendicant. And yet there are some worthy citizens still who would doubtiess be aghast at these statements, and would wish to know how one is to spend $5,000 a year without extravagance. yand Town. ——__+e+- ——__ How Papa Porcupine Fooled the Mon- keys. From Fliegende Blatter.