Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 January 1879 — SOUTHERN TRAGEDIES. [ARTICLE]

SOUTHERN TRAGEDIES.

A Savage Duel in Baltimore. One of the most desperate and murderous duels at short range ever recorded was fought a few days ago in Baltimore between two members of the Fifth Afaryland regiment—Wood Hinds and William M. James. Thirteen shots were exchanged and both men riddled with bullets and seriously if not mortally wounded. A local paper gives the following particulars of the sanguinary affair : James, it is stated, charged Hinds with having ruined his sister. This, however, Hinds strenuously denies. James insisted that Hinds should marry his sister, which the latter refusing, a deadly hatred sprung up between the young men, and James, it is stated, frequently of late threatened to kill Hinds. Having been apprised of James’ declared intention of killing him, Hinds prepared himself for an attack. It came, however, when he least expected it. James entered the store of Aloore & Co. and asked to see Wood, the name by which he is familiarly known. The people in the establishment, knowing James to be a friend of Hinds, told him that the latter was down stairs. Hinds had, a few moments previous to James’ entrance, gone down into the basement to get a drink of water, and, when near a table at the bottom of the stairway on his return, he was confronted by James, who at once drew a revolver, and, after calling Hinds an insulting name, commenced firing at him. The young men were not more than five feet apart when the firing commenced. After receiving the first bullet in the right side of the temple, Hinds at once drew a sevenbarreled revolver and returned the fire. At this point a bloody duel commenced. Both men continued firing at each other until every load in James’ pistol had been exhausted, when James exclaimed : “Aly pistol is empty. I have had enough,” and rushed in on Hinds and attempted to brain him with the butt end of the weapon. Hinds, who had one more load in his revolver, struggled desperately with his maddened antagonist, and, pressing his revolver close to James’ right cheek, was about to fire a final shot, which would, doubtless, have killed him instantly, when they were separated by clerks in the store. The deadly conflict attracted the attention of all in the establishment, many of whom ran to the scene, to find Hinds and James covered with blood and seated on a bench. In answer to a question propounded to James as to how the affair occurred, he said : “Ask Wood.” The floor where the conflict occurred was covered with blood, while both of the young men were bleeding in the face and body. Neither of them appeared to suffer much from their wounds, but bore the pain with remarkable coolness. James was shot four times, one ball passing near his heart. Hinds received three wounds, two in the head.

A Duel With Rifles in Louisiana. A bloody tragedy was recently enacted near Shreveport, La. Wiley Holmes, married to a sister of Beu Talbert, had some family misunderstanding with his brother-in-law. Both happened out hunting deer, and met on the road. Talbert ordered Holmes to halt, and aimed his gun at him. Holmes raised his gun, and both fired simultaneously, each shot taking effect. They then dismounted and fired again. Talbert fell in the road and Holmes walked to a house near by, falling exhausted on the doorsteps. Talbert came up and stepped over Holmes into the house, asking for a gun to finish him. He, too, fell on the floor, and both expired in a few minutes after. Holmes was 23 and Talbert 19. The Speaker’s Sanctorum. It is during a week like the last when the little handful of men who really control, business in the House are making up their minds what shall be done that one begins to understand what an important place the Speaker’s room is. Possibly not half of those familiar with the Capitol know where it is. Ido not mean the Speaker’s room down in the guide-books, a big, tile-floored, wellwindowed reception-room just back of the chamber in which the House sits. That room is currently known as the Speaker’s room, but the Speaker never sees any one there whom he wants to see. It is too open and accessible by half. As Bismarck says in his conversations, what is really going on is never put into the dispatches; it is sent in private notes and memoranda. The conferences which the Speaker has at which anything is done are not held in this marble-walled saloon. Some ten years ago, driven to death by the horde of people who wanted to see him, Schuyler Colfax took a little closet in a dark entry below the hall. It is hard by a private staircase. The glazed door is screened by green baize. There is not the sign of name or note on the door, and it is one of the few doors not marked in the Capitol. The corridor has no light, and on a cloudy day is dark. Once inside, you see a room partly covered by a carpet partly ragged. The window'—there is only one—is screened in some cheap way. There is room for a straggling table, one lounge and three chairs There is room for nothing else. You have nearly to run over Mr. Speaker in reaching the chair to which he bow’s you. f you know him, you have got in without a card. If you do not know him, you have not got in at all. As a matter of course, there is no ante-room, but a brisk, sharp-eyed page loiters at the end of the passage and watches the door. And in such a room you find the third officer of the Government hard at work. It is significant of the publicity of public life, when it is un fenced by class-rank, that it is only in some such coal-hole that he can get time to work. Unless he hides himself, so many people have a right to see him that his w’hole time runs to waste. It is in this little hole in the wall that tnree Speakers, Colfax, Blaine and Randall, have done the real work of legislation. Speaking guardedly, I fancy more of the business of governing is done in that room than in any other one room in Washington.— IFus/tmjrton letter to Utica Herald.

Three Curious Children. A remarkable case of defective vision is that of the three children of James Howard, a seafaring man, whose family live on Ocracoke island. They become totally blind each day immediately after the sun goes down. If by chance they happen to be in the yard playing, their playthings are instantly laid aside, and efforts made to reach the house, when they soon after retire and sleep soundly

until sunrise, after which their sight is described as being restored, and, to all appearance, perfectly unimpaired. The youngest is 3 and the eldest 10 years old —two boys and one girl, all of light complexion. The eyes are light blue, and there is nothing about them that appears at all strange.— Tarboro (N. C.) Southerner.

Mr. Lockyer Finds the Philosopher’s Stone. Mr. Norman Lockyer has realized the ' alchemist’s dr.eain, the transmutation of metals. In the presence of a small party of scientific men. Mr. Lockyer, by the aid of a powerful voltaic current, volatilized copper within a glass tube, dissolved the deposit formed within the tube in hydrochloric acid, and then showed, by meaffs that the solution contained no longer copper, but another metal, calcium, the base of ordinary lime. The experiment < was repeated with other metals and with i i corresponding results. Nickel was thus ; ■ changed into cobalt, and calcium into : I strontium. All these bodies, as is well j known, have ever been regarded as elementary— that is, as incapable of being resolved into any components, or of being changed one into another. It is on this.basis that all modern chemistry is founded, and, should Mr. Lockyer’s discovery bear the test of further trial, i our entire system of chemistry will require revision. The future possibilities ’ of the discovery it is difficult to limit. ! The great object of the old alchemists ■ was, of course, to transmute base metals ■ into gold, and, so far as our knowledge I" goes, there is no reason why copper should not be changed into i gold as well as into calcium. ' The means at present employed are ob- | viously such as to render the process far ; more costly than any possible results can i be worth; but this is necessarily the case , with most scientific discoveries before i they are turned into commercial facts. Mr. Lockyer is one of our best bring spectroscopists, and no man with a reputation such as his would risk the publication of so startling a fact as he has j just announced to the scientific world I without the very surest grounds. He is i known by his friends as somewhat san- J guine, and he does not pretend to be an accomplished chemist, but he was supported yesterday by some of our leading chemists, all of whom admitted that the results of his experiments were in- I explicable on any other grounds but j those admitting of the change of one j element into another, unless, indeed, our whole system of spectrum analysis is to be upset, the other horn of a very ’ awkward dilemma. Since, 100 years ago, Priestly discovered oxygen and ' ' founded modern chemistry, there has ' ; been - there could be—no discovery made which would have such an effect i ; on modern science as that the so-called I : elements were no longer to be consid-' ered elementary. — London Daily News.

The National Militia. The plan for the organization of a National Guard of the United States has been drawn up by Gen. Geo. B. McClellan, Gen. Hancock, of the United States army, Gen. Couch, of Massachusetts, and Gen. W. B. Franklin, Ad jutant General of Connecticut. The following comprise the most important details of the measure: The annual appropriation for the militia shall be increased from $200,000 to $1,000,000, and, in addition, there shall be an appropriation of $1,000,000 for the purchase of arms, ammunition and equipments of the latest patterns, to be divided pro rata among the regu-larly-organized militia of the several States. The proper apportionment shall be made under the direction of a board of five officers, two regular and three from the National Guard, one from each of the great divisions of the country, East, West and South. The officers will be appointed by the President, upon the recommendations of the Governors from the three great natural divisions of the country above named. They shall have the pay of the officers of equal grade in the regular army while in such service. The regular officers shall be detailed by the proper authority, and the senior officers shall not be of less rank than Brigadier General. This board shall prepare a system of regulations for the uniform organization of the militia, w’hich shall be issued to the States. Each State accepting the money and arms allotted to it by the board shall furnish its soldiers with uniforms and equipments. The uniform thus adopted shall be the fatigue dress of the militia, and must be worn when the command are called out for active service, and at such other times as the Governors of the States may direct. The full dress local uniform shall be retained and worn on all other occasions. The President shall assign, from officers of the rank of Brigadier General on the retired list who are capable of performing such duty, ten Inspectors of Militia, whose duty it shall be to make annual inspections. It is also intended that each State shall put up a rifle-range and appoint an officer to superintend rifle practice; and the Federal Government is to offer a stand of colors each year for the regiment in each State which shall show the most proficiency in drill and discipline.

The Moffett Register. The Moffett liquor-tax system has not resulted as favorably in Virginia as has been represented, or as was hoped by the friends of the movement. The official report of the proceeds of the tax, as published by the State Auditor, is as follows: Tax from registers, countiessl4o,269.lß Tax from registers, cities 142,203.9 > T0ta1...,52-2.563.08 License, specific tax 190,271.11 Aggregates472,B34.l4 Rebates of licenses, tax and expenses.... 149,165.00 Net re5u1t5823,669.14 Raised by old license system 240,600.00 True product of Moffett register systems fe3.W19.14 This is not such a great improvement on the old system after all, but the comparatively fight result is attributed to the neglect to properly enforce the law and the evasion of the liquor-sellers, which things Dr. Moffett thinks he can remedy.