Evening Star Newspaper, August 10, 1895, Page 14

14 _ THE EVENING STAR, SATURDAY, AUGUST 10, 1895-TWENTY PAGES. A BIG MONEY BOX Interesting Stories About Attempts Made to Rob Uncle Sam. THE TREASURY REDEMPTION BUREAU A Woman Who Probably Stole Thousands of Dollars. SOME NOTED CASES (Copyrighted, 1805, by Frank G. Carpenter.) HAVE MORE STOR- jes today of men who are trying to break into Uncle Sam's money box. He keeps his pile, you know, in the United States treas- ury, and there are in his vaults today $534,000,000, This vast sum is under the charge of the United States treas- urer, a bright-eyed, active man of fifty, perhaps, who stands not over five feet seven in his stockings, and does not weigh more than one hun- dred and fifty pounds. This man’s rame is Daniel N. Morgan, and he is Uncle Sam's chief watchdog. I called upon him this afternoon. 1 he: “You want to know of some of the ways In which Uncle Sam is robbed? Well, they are few. The United States government loses very little money, I can tell you, though there are many attempts of one kind or another to steal from it. The chief robberies uttempt- ei are in connection with the greenhacks, and most of these come in through the re- demption bureau. I wiil give you a mes- senger now, who will take you to the chief of that bureau, and I will ask him to give you all the information you want.” With this ‘rr urer Morgan pressed a button. An ebony messenger appeared. He Ted me down into the basement of the treasury building, opened a door or iron grating, and took me into a great room where hundreds of thousands of dollars, in os He Handed Me $600,000, s of packages, were lying about. ackages were of old bills, which In for redemption. Some were 1 up in piles, others were neatly laid counter, and others were <-Kke carts, 1 which one part of the tr The packages were lying ust as they came from the banks, { looked, Mr. Albert Relyea, 1 cf the bureau, picked up one of them led it lo me. iful to make you rich,” said he. all The “that T found “You have $1,850,000 before you,” he went had $40,000 in my band. on, as he pointed to about two bushels of k note pack on a desi at the right. We handle in this bureau just about a miilion dollars of notes a day. Uncle 5s you Enow, gives new meney for old. We pass upon the off, cut it into pieces and send it out to the bur2au of engraving and rrinting, where {t is ground up into mush. If there are any pieces of a bill left, and it can be shown that the man holding the pieces has legitimately lost the balance, we give him new bills, We have replaced burnt money, and money chewed into thousands of pieces. A great many of the attempted frauds upon the treasury are from people who pretend that money has been de- stroyed when it has not, and want Uncle Sam to give them a new supply. A $20,000 Rat's Nest. “Here, for instance, is a $20,000 job that has been troubling me for some time,” said Mr. Relyea, as he took a handful of manilla paper slips, each the size of a bank note, froma drawer at his right and laid them before me. “On the corners or at the top of each slip there was a little piece of a bank note pasted. Some of these were pleces of $50 notes. Same of $20, some of $10, some of a hundred and several of a thousand. None of the pieces were bigger than your little finger nail, and they came, as it was afterward shown, from at least a hundred different notes. Those bits of money,” said Mr. Relyea, “were brought in to me one day a few weeks ago by a slouchy-looking adventurer, who came ‘from one of the backwoods counties of Pennsylyania. He brought them in in a pillbox and laid them before me and told me he wanted the United States to redeem the amount of money which they represent- ed. T asked him how the money had been destr 4, and he told his stor He said he wi a peddler, and that while out in Oregon about a year ago he d made a ich had had real estate m0, lucky ed him $i yack with bim to his home in the and had taken with him to his farm spectlation, w! This money i nsylvan He said it was in the + of the panie and he feired to trust the ks. So he nder the floor in his spring he 4 r few weeks he went to look at it and he found tha the e rats had gotten in and eaten it up. ean. ces that remained, an he f Uncle Sam would not 350,000 “The story was very fishy,” continued Mr. Kelyes. “I questioned the man, but he stick to his tale, and I finally told him that I would put the money in the hands of our experts and see what they could eof it. Y pasted It on these si y found that it represented pleces worth of notes. The fraud in ever, was evident. It was a hing that there was no piece from the middie of a note, and that the rats had left only those pieces of the notes which had some printing on them to show their jenominations. We told the man we could sot allow him the money. He went away at the figures-on its outside and} very angry. About two weeks came back, bringing three big rats’ nests with him. He laid these down on my ta- ble, and said: “There, sir, are the nests themselves. You will find me of my $50,000 still in them. I found these after I went home, and I have brought them down Treasury Vaults. just to show you that I have been telling the truth. My money has been eaten, and I want it." ‘All right,’ said I, ‘we will look at the nests.’ I handed them over to our experts and the pieces of money were picked out. We found that im the nests there were the pieces of seven bills. One of these was a hundred-dollar bill, another was a ten and there were five one-dollar bills. We at once saw that they were not torn by the rats, but that they had been pulled apart by hand. A rat makes a clean cut when it eats a greenback. It does not masticate ‘the whole bill, but it cuts holes in it and gnaws out a piece here and there. His notes were all torn in little pieces. We then turned him over to the detectives. They traced him, and they found that he was, as he claimed, a farmer peddler, who had gone to Oregon, and made there $1,500 by jumping a man’s claim. He had brought this money back to Pennsylvania, and had deposited it in a bank. It is my belief that he drew it out in large bills, say, twenties, fifties and hundreds. He then pinched a corner or a little strip off of the top of each of these bills. [nis would not be no- ticed, and would not hurt his passing the bill and having it changed for smaller bills. The small bills he would again deposit, and again draw out the money in large bills, pinching off the ends, so that he tinaily got the pieces which made the representa- tion of $21,000. He was a great rascal, and I wanted Chief Brooks of the secret service to see him. I remember he came into the department that day with a rank cigar in his mouth. It was so bad that I had to tell him he must ‘not smoke while in the redemption bureau. He was loud in i's language and very profane, and I told him he must not swear before the ladies. It was shortly after this that we went up to see Chief Brooks. Mr. Brooks is a kind of a Sunday school man. He likes to warn boys against entering the paths of crime, and before we came to business he told me of a Sunday school meeting which he had just attended in Philadelphia, and a speach which he had made to the boys. He then talked at length with the swindler, while I sat in the background. When we left, how- ever, I saw the swindler throw his arms around Mr. Brooks’ neck, and heard him say this: ‘Brother Brooks, I am a good man. I never smoke; I never swear. I am @ poor, humble follower of the lowly Jesus, and I want you to help me to get back my money.” The rascal had heard Brooks’ re- marks about the Sunday school, and he thought he could work upon him in this way.” How a Woman Stole a Fortune. “Is not money often.lost through the counters, Mr. Relyea?" I asked. “You have a large number of women here who handle hundreds of thousands o° dollars a day. I should think it would Le easy to slip out a bill now and then.” “Such a thing is impossible,” replied the chief. “The money all comes to us done up in packages from the banks. The amount in the package is marked, and the woman who counts it is responsible for the amount she receives. They come in packages of a hundred bills. If the pack- ages are not as marked the woman must report them at once to the chief, and the bank stands the loss. If she makes a mis- take or passes a covnterfeit she must make the mistaixe good. After the money is counted it is cut lengthwise in halves, and one-half goes to the Secretary's office and the other half to the ccunters of the register’s office. Here it is recounted, and there is, in fact, no chance for the slip- ping out of bills, as you call it. We had, however, one case of this kind, and the woman who did it probably stole thou- sands of dollars from the government. This woman's name was Mrs. Ernestine Becker. Courting Old Money. She had been in the department for twen- ty-five years, and she was _ appointed throveh the influence of President John- son. She was considered a very good counter, and up to my taking charge of the redemption bureau she was not sus- pected. Toward the last of her career, hewever, she grew reckless. She spent a great deal of money. She came to the de- partment every morning in her carriage, with her driver in livery. Mr. Hyatt was treasurer at that time, and he and I usval- ly walked down together, because we were too poor to afford a carriage. I saw this woman, and it seemed strange that she should live so well on $1,600 a year. She had a house in the city and one in the country, and she had sent her hoy to Europe to be educated. Upon inquiry it was stated that she had received a fcrtune from the death of relatives. “Another thing that created suspicion was the fact that it was discovered that she had one name in the department and another outside. She had been married twice, and on the treasury rolls her name was Mrs. Becker, while outside she was Mrs. Smith. Well, one evening we found an error in our accounts, and this error was traced to Mrs. Becker's desk. I asked for her the next morning, intending to give her a little scolding for her carelessness. She was not present; she had remained away from office without leave. This had heppened quite frequently, and I gave or- de for her papers to be examined, and for the money she had counted to be gone over. There was only the account of three : hich had not yet been seni to the In the money she had counted se three days we found that she 0, and she had probably been stealing for no one knows how long at the rate of $300 and upward per day. She ac- complished her thefts in a curious way: She would take ten bills, and, by tearing and pasting, so manipulate them that she would make ten short bills out of nine or- dinary bills. This done, she would put the tenth good bill in her pocket. I don’t know whether she did her work at home or at the department. I have understood that this trick dates back to the days of the had stolen war. There is no telling how much she stole. She had a lover, who, I think, was the chief devil in the plot. He was a mar- ried man, and it was shown that she had him large sums of money. The woman died of cancer mot long after she was discovered. I ever sent to prison.” sper aaa ss METEORS IN Express Robberies. The most ef the money which comes to the United States treasury from the banks is sent in by express. It is wrapped up in packages about the size of a square loaf of bread, and the bank that sends the money puts its seal on both ends. If this seal is broken, the Treasury Department refuses to receive the money. If it accepts, it, and the money is short, it is a question whether it was stolen by some of the em- ployes of the department or by one of the bank clerks. A number of instances are known of such packages being opened, and of nothing but strips of newspapers being found in the place of the notes. In such cases if the express company cannot prove that the theft took place at the bank or at the treasury they pay the bill and refund the money. The chief ‘of the redemption bureau, during my visit, sent for a pack- age of $10,000 worth of such money. It came from a national bank at Bridgeport, Conn. He showed me how the express messengers sometimes took a hot knife and raised the seal, and were thus enabled to get out the bundies of greenbacks, and to put in their places bundles of news- paper-slips. He says that this form of stealing grows less, however, from year to year, and that the express companies now pxt such packages in safes which are not opened until they reach their destina- tion, Not long ago a package of $5,000 came looking apparently all right. On be- ing opened it was found to contain only $500, the other $4,500 having been stolen. The express company made good the loss. An $11,000 Steal. A noted express robbery was that of a clerk named Winslow. This occurred in 1876. Winslow took a package containing about $12,000 in $100 notes, which had been Put up and ordered sent to the National Bank of Illinois. Winslow knew that this package was to be sent out. He prepared an envelope just like one of the regular official envelopes and had it filled with blank paper. He had sealed it with the office seal, and when he got his hands on the package of genuine notes he put it in his pocket and substituted his blank paper package for it. The fraud was, of course, at once discovered, and within a month the secret service bureau were on the track of the thief. He had grown frightened and had left a package containing $11,200 at the home of the chief of the secret service. This was traced to him, and he was ar- rested, convicted and sent to prison. A clerk named Halleck created a big sen- sation about a year before this. He was acting in the cash room of the Treasury Department, and he had a confederate in the shape of a saloonkeeper in Washing- ton named Ottman. He took a package of big aotes one day and handed it through the window of the cash room to this man Ottman. This package contained $47,000, the most of which was in $500 notes. al- leck, it ie said, handed the package to Ott- man, who took it and ran away. There was, however, a third party in the plot, a sporting man named Brown. He got hold of some of the $500 bills,and it was through his betting with these on the race track that suspicion was called to him. He was arrested and turned state’s evidence, im- plicating Halleck and Ottman. The result was that $29,000 was gotten back, but the jury which sat on the cases of these two other men disagreed, and they escaped Punishment. FRANK G. CARPENTER. . ——. COLOR MUSIC. The Possibility of an Art Akin in Effect to Music. From the Nineteenth Century. There are many considerations that lend some plausibility to the fancy that future times may see the birth of a new art that shall appeal to the emotions through color alone, in the same way that music makes its appeal through sound. It is true that no mechanism, no instrument at present exists that can pass before our eyes notes and chords of color such as music sends to our ears, nor, if this were possible, could our feelings at present correspond to them, or give them meaning; neither has the color composer yet come forward who can appeal to our emotions through a fresh medium, perhaps with a delicacy and keen- ness of sensation unknown before. Color seems to have every element neces- sary for exciting feelings as deep and as sympathetic as any that music calls forth, if only the appeal can be made and un- derstood. Already In some measure there is an as- sociation of ideas with colors, as in the gay effect of bright hues and the somber in- fluence of dark; and the experience of a sunset is witness to the influence that color can exert, and the depth of feeling it is capable of stimulating. Is it possjble to create an art that shall appeal to us in a kindred way to music, and to educate our perceptions so that we may appreciate the melody and narmony of color as we now appreciate the melody and harmony of sound? ‘The analogy of color to sound !s one con- sideration that may lead us to think that we can perhaps answer “yes.” Objectively, and as a matter of physical science, the two are so far alike that both are wave motions, though of different kinds; the pitch of a sound and the color of a ilght are both dependent on the num- ber of vibrations; violet light and high notes result from frequent vibrations; red light and low notes from comparatively few vibrations, and probably, though not of necessity, they would arouse similar sensations. The thunder of a storm might conceivably be represented by low notes and red color, the iightning by high notes and violent light. The range of audible sound comprises about eleven octaves, the range of musical sound about seven; the range of -visible light fs less than one octave; the range of artistic color may, perhaps, be less, as is the case with sound; but the seemingly narrow limits of color to less than one oc- tay» is more verbal than real, for if we consider that the Hmits of musical sound le between forty and 4,000 vibrations in a second, while the-limits of visible light lie between 460 millions of millions and 680 millions of millions in the same time, it would seem probable that a larger number of colors and tints could be appreciated by the eye than notes by the ear, and that, therefore, the variation producible by com- bination of colors is greater than the varia- tion possible by musical combination into chords, while the change from tint to tint could be incomparably more gradual and delicate than the change from note to note. But how far it would be possible or desirable to have scales of color, start- ing from different points and with inte: vals between the tints or colors, depen- dent on certain proportions between their respective vibrations, I am not prepared to guess. ———_+e+ The Night Express. Frank Roe Batenelder in the Congregationalist. Miss tr Her jot y ly one plaice, : ith a bright-smiling face, And she is so busy the whole long diy With matters that really brook no She can’t get away in the broad day So all her tyaveliug’s done by night. When the clocks strike seven in Pwilightville, And the stars come peeping ever rhe hill, Miss Ethel Marie, with a hop and a skip, Hurries to pack her trank and aer grips Clad in her eling gown of whi! She gives us ss ter good-night; ‘Then, with a ‘raveles’s fine disdain, Off she go2s for the evening train. ‘The Grand €rib Line zoes winding down From Twilightyille into Drowsyto wi The station, Ww all of its trains Is a room that's dear to a mo ‘The Pullman sleeper, whose I Is a little girl's bed’as white And just as soon as “Our Pather" is heard ‘The train dispatcher will give the wond. Ethel Marte has her baggage checked ‘That's for the trunk man, papa, to do; I ai conductor; 13 you can see, I write the berth check for Ethel Marlo. And whom do we have for a porter? Ah, Who tucks up a bed jike a dear mamma? And the engineer is the One, I guess, Whose mercy and love guide the night express, rf See The Owl #nd the Rabbit. From the New York Tribe. “I once saw a rabbit hop out of the brush near my shingle shanty in the woods just at dusk and begin to nibble at some buds. On a hemlock bough just over the rabbit sat a big horned owl that took a step or two along the limb the moment the rabbit came in sight. The rabbit became alarmed and darted into the brush, and the owl ad- justed its wings and looked disappointed. In a moment the rabbit skipped out again, and the owl let itseif drop noiselessly and caught the rabbit. Then the owl flew into the tree with the rabbit, and all of a sudden a wildcat that I hadn't seen before ran up the trunk, gave the owl a cuff and knocked it out of the tree, springing down upon it and taking the rabbit away. The ow! sailed off through the woods, and I clubbed the wildcat to death while it was crunching the rabbit's bones.” through. AUGUST A Spectacular Display Scheduled for Tomorrow Night. WHAT IS KNOWN" Of ‘THESE BODES Few Are Found, -but They Have a Market Value. AT THE NATIONAL MUSEUM eg ee Written for The Evening Star. UGUST IS ONE OF the months in which spectacular displays of meteors or fire- balls are most fre- quently seen in the heavens, and tomor- row is one of the particular red-letter days of the month when the best dis- plays are noted. In consequence the skies will be watch- ; ed tomorrow night with peculiar interest by well-informed People, especially since meteorites have re- cently been invested with additional value to science by reason of Prof. Ramsey’s discovery in Bngland that they contain the new-found element “argon,” as well as the long-sought substance called “helium,” heretofore known to exist only in the sun, and revealed in the solar spectrum by bright yellow lines. This discovery, which has created a great stir in the scientific world, was made in an analysis of a me- teorite from Augusta county, Va., and ex- perimenters are eager to secure specimens of meteorites with which to pursue similar inquiries for themselves. Very few, however, of the meteors ob- served in August fall to the earth, and so become meteorites, meteorolites, or aero- lites, as the fallen fragments are termed. Most of the metecrite falls occur at pro- imiscuous and whimsical periods, at any time of the day or night, at any season of the year, in any region of the earth, irre- spective of weather and without warning or expectation on the part of mankind. Still some cases are on record where certain of the displays booked for set times have materialized into “falls.” It is true, though, that only a small pro- Portion of the meteorites supposed to fall are ever found. Many experts on meteorites declare broadly that nothing is or can ba known precisely of their origin. Other physicists believe that they are the fuel of the sun, falling from space in myriad numbers and furnishing the heat which the sun gives out. But the most satisfactory and plaus- ible of the theories advanced by scientists and accepted meekly by untutored lay- men Is that they are derived from comets; that they were once parts of comets and have been brokea off the principal mass for some cause or other, possibly by eom- ing from the intense cold of space into the heat of the sun, just as stones are shat- tered in a hot fire At all events, this much at least is definitely known, thut the earth, at the special epochs when meteor displays are most numerous, plunges through vast streams of meteors passing through space, and many of these streams, as noted above, travel along the track of certain comets around the sun. Hence it is not unreasonable to suppose {hat the meteorites, moving in the train of Yomets, like so many camp followers, were ouce part of the comets. In a large az- gation of meteors! trailing through toward a definite point, like a school of fish through the water, it is easy to conceive some of them straying off to one side or other ef the procession; and in case Some of the stragglers should swerve to the side nearest to the earth, as it ap- proaches their orbit, they would constitute an advance guard, from our sg! ndpoint, and become visible to us at an earlier date than the others of the system, thus pro- ducing the phenomena witnessed month at West Chester preliminary to the gust. last and Mount Holly, “set displays” of Au- Great Number of Meteors. An infinitely greater number of meteors are seen every year than most people have any idea of. Daubree estimates that over the whole earth irom 600 to 700 different falls of meteors occur annually, while other authorities place the aggregate at a much higher figure. It is admitted that a very inadequate idea of the frequency of falling meteors can be had from the number that are actually gathered up. The enormous majority necessarily escape the most eager search, even in the densest populations, either being disguised in the vegetation on account of their smallness of size, or else because they enter the soil and are never Ploushed up. The largest number also must fall in uninhabited countries or sav- age domains, which make up the bulk of the terrestrial surface, and especially in the basins of the great oceans, The fascinating investigations of deep sea deposits conducted by the celebrated Chal- lenger expedition (1872-6), published by or- der of the British government in 1891, prove that the abyssal ocean beds, especially of the Pacific, are liberally strewn with small granules, cosmic dusts, meteoric globules and stone bodies of other than carthly origin, which have silently and steadily col lected in those submarine solitudes for un- told ages and been disintegrated by the ac- tion of the water. Some of these speci- mens brought up by the dredge consisted of metallic iron, with traces of cobalt, hav- ing all the characteristics of meteorites, The enormous measure of these meteorite deposits on the ocean floor can only be guessed at, but from the significant facts hinted at by the Challenger dredges, the quantities must be prodigious. Of the small meteors or shooting stars, most of which do not fall on the earth, the number is indefinitely larger. The outer spaco is densely packed with meteoroids— small bodies moving in orbits around the sun. It is calculated by scientists that more than 10,000 times as many of these are seen over the whole world than can be observed by any single person, and that there come into our atmosphere from the outside wastes of the universe not less than twenty millions of foreign bodies daily, each of which, on a cloudless night, would appear as a shoot- ing star, visible to the naked eye. The Museum Collection. The oldest collections of meteors in this country are those of Yale, Amherst and Harvard colleges, the Lawrence Smith col- lection at Louisville, Ky., and that of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadel- phia, The National Museum collection, al- though not yet as large as some of the old- er ones, is perhaps thé most valuable in this country, and it is the intention eventu- ally to make it the greatest in the world. It was formed under the supervision of Prof. Frank W. Clarke,ian honorary cura- ter, and contains, 390 separate falls, includ- ing 216 specimens belonging to the Shepard collection (the late Charles Upham Shep- ard), which will ultimately become the property of the museum. The specimens. fill four large cases, ag- gregating thirty feet long, tive shelves high. ‘They are of all manner of shapes, sizes and appearances, and were picked ‘up in all parts of the globe—in North, South and Central America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Greenland, Australia and the lesser islands of the sea. Many of the foreign rarities were obtained by exchange with the British Museum and the museums of Vienna, Paris, Berlin, St. Petersburg, Rio de Janeiro and the City of Mexico. The heaviest stone— one of the heaviest in the world—weighs 4,500 pounds, and is of an irregular round shape, not unlike that of a huge cobble- stone. The most unique stone in the collection is the Signet, Irwin or Ainsa meteorite, from the Santa Catarina mountains, but long used in Tucson, Ariz., by Mexicans for an anvil, and presented by Dr. B. J. D. Irwin, United States army. It weighs 1,400 pounds and has a great hole through its center, as though a round mass had ex- ploded from it. Some of the meteorites in the National Museum collection were found as far back as the years 1400 and 1492. Each specimen has a card attached, showing the date and place of fall or recovery. The American specimens come frem nearly every state, particularly California, Iowa, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Tennessee, Geor- gia, Alabama, North end South Carolina, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia and Connecticut. The Canon Diablo meteor- ites of Arizona contain “microscopic dia- monds, and the museum has 800 pounds of them, out of a fall of ten tons. The museum also has a tray full of speci- mens from the Estherville, Iowa, fall of 1879, the pieces ranging from the size of a beechnut to a ‘walnut. Here, also, are spectmens of the famous falls at Agram, Austria, in 1751; at L’Aigle, France, in 1803; at Braunau, Hungary, in 1847; at Orgeuil, France, in 1864; at Knyahinya, Hungary, in 1866; at Pultusk, Poland, in 1868, and at Hessle, Sweden, in 1869. What They Are Made Of. Meteorites differ In many respects from any recks native to the earth. Metallic iron, accompanied by nickel, is usually one of their component parts—locking like pure manufactured iron—whereas such iron is very rare among terrestrial minerals. Sometimes the iron forms a principal part of the meteorite, giving it the appearance of a mass of that metal. Sometimes also Particles of iron are seattered through a stony mass. Other minerals are found in meteorites which are not met with natural- ly on the earth, such as_schreibersite, daubreelite, oldhamite and lawrencite (mamed after their discoverers), and notably helium, as lately proven by Prof. Ramsey of England. Whenever a tangible and well authenti- cated fall of meteorites takes place in this country the Smithsonian authdrities imme- diately become on the alert ‘and enter into correspondence respecting them with scien- tifie men living in the vicinity of the fall. All the year round, however, the National Museum receives reports through newspa- per clipping bureaus of all the falls and dis- plays noted. Only the most promising of these reports are Investigated, and even- tually many of these do not materialize into stones, When they do, and the meteorites are ac- tually found, and good evidence is furnished of the date and place of fall, steps are taken locking toward their acquisition either by donation, exchange or purchase. A regular market for meteorites exists among the ini- tiated, and the average price paid is $1 per pound in the case of large meteorites, al- though certain particular stones are worth double their weight in gold, and as high as $40 is sometimes paid for a single globule weighing as little as one ounce. Se a What He Forgot. From the Chicago Record. Gee—“What are you loafing around town at this time of night for?’ Dee—‘’Fraid to go home. Wife told me to be sure and remember something, and I've forgotten what it was.” ohne wasn't bread or groceries, was '0."" : aby food, tacks or theater tick- ; but I've just thought of it.” Gee—“What was it?” Dee—“Why, she wanted me to remember to come home early. What Jimmie Said. From the Philadelphia Times. \ A class teacher was recently lecturing his class of small boys about errors of speech. “Now, to speak of molasses in the plural is shocking,” he said. “Think of a person saying ‘them molasses “Please sir, I always say ‘those,’ timid- ly remarked little Jimmie. = a The Indignant Alderman. From the Indianapolis Journal. “Sir,” said the indignant alderman, “are you not aware that were I to vote for your measure I would be exposed to the con- demnation of all the good citizens in my ward? And that sort of thing,” he added, lowering his voice, “comes pretty high, you know.” ——__+e A Blooming Idea. Drawn Expressly for The Evening Sta? by H. H. An idea shooteth, . And it bloometh, Highest of all in Leavening Power— Latest U.S. Gov't Report a Ro B= | Baking Powder ' ABSOLUTELY PURE . AN EXPERIMENT IN SUICIDE ————— BY CLIFTON SPARKS, ————— Written Exclusively for The Evening Star. There seems to be something about a wood fire and a pipe to bring strange glimpses of feeling out of even the hardest mien. No one of us ever knew Seyton to tell a story of this kind before. Maitland said he did, but then Maitland was un- reliable, anyhow. - There were men of many races and as many professions gathered around the fire the night I speak of. There were no lights; the dinner had been good, and in the dusk cf the room Maitland was playing one of those queer old world pieces that show Venice, as in a dream, to the man who never was out of his own country. Sey- ton’s faceewas in theggloom, and as Mait- land’s music moaned to its end one of the men began to tell the story of his first newspaper assignment. It was a good story, well told. Maitlafid said so. “I can tell you a story of an assignment, too,” began Seyton, quiztly. “It won't be quite like the last story, for sometimes the comedy and the carelessness drop out of the life.” He hesitated a minute, as if he thought some of us would break in. Then he went on: “I don’t know whether any of you knew Clive Holton; I don’t suppose you did. I met him first in Denver, myself. He walked in on me one day and asked for a job, but at the time 1 was only holding down the desk for a few days, and conse- quently could do nothing for him. It was a siack hour, and I got ialking to the boy. There was something about him I Liked, and the end of it was that when the city editor got back I managed te get him to give. Clive a show. He did pretty well from the start; sometimes he was almost brilliant and sometimes he slopped over badly. The boy’s sympathies were too easily aroused, and I told him more than once I hardly thought he was fitted for the hard griud of our work. He had literary Possibilities about him, and if there is any- thing that kills that sort of thing it is daily newspaper work. Some people think we ought always to be reeling out good stuff, and say we all ought to write ‘not- able novels.’ The fact of it is that the few of us who do accomplish anything in that line do it, not because we are news- paper men, but in spite of the fact that we are newspaper men. That's a digression I didn’t mean to make. ‘As I was saying. Clive’s sympathies got away with him. He would branch off in the middle of a good murder story to ex- paticte on the hardships thereby inflicted on the murdered man's family. That used to make the city editor tired, and he would coldly tell Clive that the paper had sey- eral editorial writers who were paid large and healthy salaries for writing that sort of stuif, and he needn’t try to help them out. As one of the noble body of copy- readers I used to point out his breaks to him once in a while, and because he al- Ways wore the same sized hat I began to — more than a usual interest in the y- “One day I was sitting im his room, and Clive was trying to find some picture or other he wanted to show me. He was diving into his trunk and litteriug the room with the armfuls of stuff he threw out. From the middle of one lot there fell a little morocco case, which rolled to my feet and came open as I lifted it. I recognized the little shining tube of glass and silver which it contained only too well. It was a morphine needle. Clive Was a little disconcerted when he saw what I had found. “*O, that? he said laughingly, as he sat down on the bed. ‘I keep that thing by me as I keep a gun; I might need it some time. I used to need it a lot once.’ “Then he took it from me and fitted the needle to its place. ‘Think of rest, sleep and forgetfulness coming to one at a touch with this,” he said, dreamily. hb! I put in savagely. ‘Don’t be such Think of the head you have next morning. There ign’t much rest and for- s about that.’ ~ emed to take no notice, but went on playing with the needle. ‘Isn’t it a queer thing,” he said, presently. ‘Here, you might say, is the idgal means of suicide, and I don't believe anyone ever tried it. I don’t see why a man couldn't get mor- phine enough to kill him under his skin with one of these needles. They eouldn’t pump him out, and it cught to kill him comfortably. I asked a doctor about it once, but he said he didn’t believe it would work, and insinuated that I had etter not try experiments. Just as if I wanted to. Still, I wish some of those novelty kun: ing suicides would try it once and see Low it worked.” “There came a time when I remembered all this, “To cut it short, I went on another paper and saw less and less of Clive. By and by I heard he had left the city. Nearly a year afterward I moved to Chicago,and about the first man I met was Clive. He was working on a morning paper, he tokt me, and was doing well. Moreover, he was engaged to “the sweetest, nicest girl that ever lived.’ I was sorry to hear it, for I knew I should be bored to death, and I was. Nothi would satisfy him but that I should come and dine with him. During dinner he talked continuously about his flancee and finally showed me her photograph. She was handsome, but it seemed to me to be the picture of a beautiful, shallow woman, who Was both ambitious and unscrupulous. It need hardiy be said that I kept these im- pressions to myself. “Chve kept on talking about the girl and told me a dozen little things about her, her name included. Only one thing seemed to worry him, and that was his fiancee’s friendship for a man he called Fielden. This Fielden, it appeared, was the son of a wealthy board of trade man and had the drop on Clive in the matter of a sleigh and several horses. Clive’s fiancee occupied a seat in that sleigh far more often than Clive liked, but, as he put it, ‘You see, I can’t take her out, and it would be beastly sellish of me to abject. They have known one another a long tin “In a few wecks I found myself working on the same paper with Clive. My work necessarily kept me in the office all ‘the time. His kept him out from 7 o'clock at night unul 4 in the morning. Once in a while I would get some of his copy to read, and it was easy to see he had improved. He was not brilliant by a lot, but he was Steady and conscientious, and the boys liked him. 1 seemed to be about his only confidant, and at least once a week Clive Would manage to waylay me, and then for three mortal hours I would have to listen to the progress of his love affair. The boy was so dead in earnest about whatever he did that I actually got interested in spite of myself. Somehow I felt that the girl was only amusing herself with him, and would throw him over for a wealthy man, but what could Il say? I let things slide. ‘One right Clive dropped into the oflice with some little story or other, and when he had written it said he would go to get some lunch. He always took his meals at the same restaurant at night, so that if we needed him we could get at him quickly. He had been gone half an hour when Ack- ley, the night city editor, came in. He also had been to lunch. “ “By the way,’ he said, ‘I got a tip on a good story just now, and I sent a note over to Clive to tell him to chase out on it. They Say young Fielden has eloped.’ “Somehow the name suggested nothing to me, arid I went on working. In about half an hour the telephone bell rang, and I an- swered it. Clive's voice said: “ “Tell Ackley that story is straight, I'll send it in Good-bye, Seyton.” “By and by the copy came in. Ackley read it. I heard him swearing rather more than usual, and asked what was the mat- ter. ‘Heres ““Matter enough,’ he returned. the best local scoop we've had in a week, and that man Holton has fallen down on it. He has sent in about two sticks of the woodenest stuff you ever read. I'll have ta rewrite it, and I'll give that boy fits for it tomorrow, too.’ “Now, what follows is true, but you don’t have to believe it, unless you want to. An- other thing I would like to impress thor- oughly upon you is that I have always con- sidered this midnight horribly overdone. M.dnight has been midday to me now for so many years that whatever of awe it may once have possessed has passed away together with my top hair. That what I have to tell now did happen at mid- night is a fact. Why it did I can no more explain than I can forget it, Let me just add that I had not been reading Edgar Al- lan Poe, and had no idea of Plagiarizing. “It was 9:30 when Clive got his assign- ment, and 10 o'clock when he telephoned. I want you to remember these things, be- cause they are of importance in what hap- pened. “When Ackiey got through swearing at and rewriting Clive’s copy it was 11:30 o'clock. Ackley looked at the clock, re- marked that he had five minutes to make a train, and flew down stairs. No one knows how deadly still, on occasion, a newspaper office can be. For once that evening I was absolutely alone, and until first edition time I had nothing to do. Save for the far dts- tant, smothered click of the telegraph in- struments there seemed to be no sound in the great building. “Usually when things are like that I turn out the desk light, pillow my head on ~ a directory and go to sleep, for I have a particular use for all the sleep I can get. This night it was different. Somehow the orly things I could think of were Clive and the telephone. In a half lazy way I wondered why he spoke so s! and why he sent in so ragged a story, but the fi came to me then. Twice T tried to read, and as many times my thoughts reverted to Clive and the tele- Phone. Over my head hung an electric clock. For many months it had struck midnight without disturbing me any,but thi time the first stroke made me start. Tell- ing myself that I was smoking altogether too many cigars for my nerves, I stood up and thought I would go to the telegraph room for company. “Then the telephone bell Tang. ee out tae what there was about - at particular ring to pr any Looking back at the cireamates concen eae ly, I believe there was nothing at all. Nevertheless, it chilled me through. All the thousand sounds of the city and the building shrank into silence behind the jingiing horror of that bell. In a rage with myself for my nervousness, I snatch- oa ithe: receiver and angrily shouted, ell? “Clive’s voice answered me; floated to me rather, for through the timbre of his voice was there no mechine that man ever mane reproduced the tones I heard that night. “Well; is it well? came the voice. “Ask her in the days to come if ft was well. Because vou have been good to me always, Seyten, I have come to say go0d-bye—a farewell such as none has had before. Good-bye, dear old friend; think well of me. “ ‘Clive, I shouted back to him, ‘what it?) What do you mean? mate “There came back to me a voice such as T hope I shall never hear again. It may have come from the telephone, but it seemed to come from the very room. ‘Dead—dead—dead,’ were the words it said, and the bitter despair that rang through those tones lives in my brain yet. “For a minute I was speechless, then I rang furiously for the main office. “Number? came the answer. . ‘Who was that I was talking with? I asked, breathless. “Talking with?” enswered the girl. “You weren't talking with any one. There hasn't beer a connection on your wire for over thirty minutes.’ “I don’t know what I said, but the next thing I knew I was up in the composing .| room asking wildly for a proof sheet of Clive’s story. I got it. The it that caught my eye read: Be ee Se J. H. FIELDEN ELOPES. Is married m Milwaukee to Miss Grace Gilham. 4 = “I read no more. Grace Gilham was Clive’s flancee, and I remembered who Fielden was now. Clive had been sent cut to investigate the story of his own betrayal. Sick at heart and with a great fear upon me I jumped into a cab. It was the same zround Clive had gone over before me, and as I rode 1 thought only of the feelings of the man who went to do his duty, though his heart was breaking. I knew now why there were only three hundred words of the story. What those two sticks must have cost him! “Tt was not far to Clive’s room; the cab- man drove fast, but yet I was too late. Clive lay dead on the bed with one strong bare arm outstretched on the coverlet. By his side was the little morocco case I had scen before. Ten blisters on his bared arm told the story. Clive had tried his experiment and it had succeeded. “Over him stood a doctor and the land- lady. The doctor shook his head as I questioned him. “There is nothing to be done,” he said. ‘I have worked two hours. He died thirty minutes ago.’ “It's all through some girl,’ wailed the landlady. ‘Such a nice young fellow, too. I know it’s a woman, for the last words he said were: “Ask her if it’s well?” Then he said: “Good-bye, dear old friend.”” “Now, what I want to know is, what un- seen power added those words: ‘Dead— dead—dend.’ ” ——— A Sagacious Cat. From the San Francisco Examinze. Thore is in the city receiving hospital a cat with a litter of small kittens. The family occupy a corner at the lower end of pthe padded-cell corridor, where the infan- tile felines led an uneventful life “intil yes- ing |.terday afternvon. For weeks the mother listened to the frenzied watl of the mental- Jy insolvent, but her intellect remained un- Impaired. Owing to the breaking of a drain pipe at the lower end of the corridor the floor was Kberally sprinkled with chiortde of Hme. One of the kittens, while playing about after the manner of its kind, rolled into the eat and got its coat filled with the e. “After cuffing the ears of her offspriag,” sald Dr. Berry, “the mother undertook to make the toilet of the little ones, but ac- quired a taste In her mouth that .ame near causing nervous prostration. Tears of sur- prise and regret stood in the eyes of the wretched parent as she gazed suspiciously at the kitten. Once I thought she was go- ing to faint, but she is not that kind of a cat. Instead of making a fuss the mother nosed the patient until she found a spot free from lime. Then she took the kitten in her teeth, carried it along the corridor to the hospital proper, and laid it on the operating table with its feet in the air. “Without doubt that old cat had confi- dence in the police surgeons and knew What we were there for. She sat on the leather pillow, looking first at the kitten and then at the instrument case, until I broke down and gave the kitten a bath in the sink. During the operation the mother purred in a satisfied sort of way, and when I had finished she took her baby by the nape of the neck, gave it a couple of shakes, and trotted back to her home in the corrider.” <—+oo—___— The Need of His House. From Harper's Bazar. She—“So you are having your house re decorated, Mr. Hawkins?” He—"Yes; the workmen began last week.” She—“What is to be the main feature of the new house?” He—"You—if you'll consent.” Net an Unmixed Evil, From Life.