Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 December 1890 — ORATOR IN THE ROUGH. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]
ORATOR IN THE ROUGH.
To devote one’s self to something higher than one’s self, this is the answer of the ages to all who would find perpetual interests, and live in that energy which is immortal. Edison’s phonographic doll has now got up to 135 words in speech. The year-old flesh and blood baby can say a great many more words—acoording to its fond mother—but the words all sound alike. The form of oath binding the Mohammedan conscience is to make the Koran rest on the head while the oath is administered. But if the Koran is skillfully held just above the head the form is not valid and the oath not binding. A New Jebset woman named Blessing, who was given charity and cared for in Pittsburg, suddenly disappeared without even thanking her benefactors. “Blessings brighten as they take their flight,” but the New Jersey Blessing may not have but one of that kind.
The real test of the genuineness of an inward affection as it appears in our consciousness, is the course of action to which it leads. If it does not lead one to act rightly, it is not of much value. What men practically do is a very sure index to the character of their feelings. A Russian who married a girl-wife at the age of 85 has just died at the age of 120, leaving his once girlwife a widow past her prime. It can not be said that the old man married in haste to repent at leisure, but there was leisure enough for the young woman to repent. Mrs. Eva Hamilton has announced the intention of going on the stage to make her living. Shades of Shakespeare! To what extremity has the stage at last arrived. Dramatic managers seem to have their eyes upon the court calendars, and the pot-boiler playwrights appear to be ready to produce plays for everybody who may achieve prominence in divorce and criminal trials.
Underground London is far more wonderful than underground Paris. Take for example, its 3,000 miles of sewers, its 34,000 miles of telegraph wires, its 4,500 miles of water mains, its 3,200 miles of gas pipes, all definitely fixed. Yet not even these compare with the vast cellarage area beneath the feet of the pedestrian. In Oxford and Regent streets alone the capacity is said to exceed 140 acres.
The fact that certain red stars have disappeared from the heavens has recently been noted by Mr. Birmingham, of Tnam, Ireland, who also mentions that other stars of the same color have undergone extrarordinary changes in brilliancy. The cause of this variability in colored stars is unknown. It is supposed, however, that red starß are ordinarily in an ember-like condition, and are occasionally heated to whiteness in some manner not yet understood. Of course nobody is justified in committing suicide, especially as it is not at all likely that he betters matters any. But if anybody could be excused for thinking seriously of the matter it would be J. L. Cody, of Florida, who put himself out of the world a short time since. At the coroner’s inquest it was shown that Cody had for some years been staggering along under a combined load of intemperate habits, domestic troubles and a fear of prosecution by the courts.
A scientist announces that the size of the no indication of the extent of brain-power. Brain surface is the measure of intelligence, and the surface is great or small according to the depth of the convolutions or oreases. A man with a small head may have a brain so folding upon itself that it will be of vast extent, while one with a big head by superficial measurement may have the gray matter that enwraps his mind of such shallow convolutions that the mind will be of narrow scope.
The recent improvement in typesetting lias led many people not familiar with composition to believe that the days of the compositor and his stick and case are numbered. If they are numbered they are numbered a long way ahead. It will be a long time before the busy brain of the inventor will evolve a steam compositor that will take the place of the living one, even though he is at times faulty and cranky, and given to disappearing mysteriously at the very time when his presence is mo3t needed. a A Buffalo physician who had examined under a microscope the straps to which the stand-up passengers of the street cars of that city hold on says that they are fairly reeking with bacteria of the most dangerous kind. The physician with a microscpe in pursuit of bacilli, fever germs, microbes, bacteria and so on is always liable to excite an unnecessary alarm. But however real the danger in this case, it will not disturb the people of Chicago. They are toe well hardened to the more serious perils of street car travel to mind a trifling billion or two of bacteria. De Lesseps’ stock is so far below par that it is almost out of sight. TT-i« = Panama failure is followed by the anxuraaooment that the proposed scheme
of cutting a canal through the Isthmus of Gabes ard turning the Sahara Desert into a s< a has been abandoned because rock vas found where the diggers expected to find sand. M. DeLesseps had looked t lie plan over and pronunced it feasible. Recently one of the dredges purchased by the Nicaragua Canal Company from the Panama Canal Company sunk in the Gulf while on the way to its new owners. Its name was the Ferdinand DeLesseps. The ambitious Frenchman is getting down near the under side of things, it would seem.
The Jewelers' Weekly notes that the war on watch clubs is rapidly spreading to every part of the country. It says the lottery laws of the United States have little bearing on the subject except as they deprive the promoters of the benefits they might otherwise derive from newspaper advertising. The prosecution thus far conducted have been based on the statutes of the States wherein they have occurred. Missouri, Ohio, and one or two other States have already condemned it, and New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey courts will soon be called on to decide the question, the public prosecutors in each case saying that these clubs are clearly within the provisions of the penal statutes. The action of the United States Express Company in refusing to carry money or transact any business for lottery organizations is to be heartily commended. It will probably entirely close up the Louisiana lottery except in the State where this institution has its home. It is quite certain now that the lottery cannot secure a renewal of its charter, which expires in 1892. Since the United States anti-lottery law has gone into effect the lottery managers cannot afford the large sums that they not long ago offered for the renewal of their charter. The Mexican lotteries have until lately been doing a a great business in the Southwest, but with no means of getting communications before the public or money from it, their opportunities in this country must <pme to a close.
In the matter of rapid transit, New York might learn much from a consideration of the new underground line that has just been put into operation in London. The line is only three miles in length, but the best English engineering authorities consider that the system is “destined to revolutionize the whole plan of metropolitan railway construction.” A shaft fifty or sixty feet deep was sunk, and from this two tunnels were dug out and lined with circular iron plates. Inside these tunnels the trains are run by an electric motor. Electric lighting, elevators from the street down to the level of the tunnel, a single rate of fare aud other arrangements very much after the manner of our elevated roads complete the system. The cost of the work was very heavy, but there is general belief that the patronage will make it a paying enterprise.
The fast new cruiser Philadelphia is the second of the name. The first bore a notable part in American naval history. In the war against the pirates of Tripoli (1801 to 1805) the gallant wooden cruiser Philadelphia was wrecked and captured by the Tripolitans. They turned her into a first-class war ship of their kind aud placed her in the harbor with a Turkish crew aboad. In the dead of night, Feb. 16,1803, Lieut. Decatur, with a force of eighty-three men, on board the Intrepid, a captured and remodeled Turkish war vessel, stole alongside the Philadelphia under pretense of being a frjendly vessel in distress. They got' near enough to the Philadelphia to set lire toiler and blow her up, destroying her completely with a large number of the piratical forco on board, and then sailed away safely. This exploit helped to make the fame ol the American navy in those days.
The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania has rendeved an opinion on an interesting question never before raised in that State. A brother and sister who,had lived together manv years and were advanced in age, joined in making a will. Fach had separate property, and the will provided that it should go to the survivor during his or her life, and afterwards to be disposed of in a specified way. The brother died first and his property went to his sister. Before her death she made a new will and the question was raised whether she could revoke the double wjll. The court said she could, Here is its Reasoning: The will so made must be regarded therefore as the separate will of each testator as fully as though the will of each had been separately drawn up and signed. There was no joint property or joint devise. It is not, therefore, a joint will. It is not a contract between the makbrs in form or effect. No consideration passed; from one to the other, and none is suggested accept the affectionate interest which this aged brother and s i ster felt for each other. This moved them to provide for each other’s comfort by a life estate in the survivor, but beyond that ea,ch gave to the remainder what the other owned. Su< h a will i 3 properly executed as a do lble will. It must be construed and treated as the separate will of each testaj.or who signs it, in the same manner as though a separate copy had been exe- mted by each. Whether a joint will disposing, of a joint estate may be revot nd by either party is < question on v hich the courts have nol agreed.
AN EVANGELIST TO VIRGINIA MOUNTAINEERS. HU Simplicity and Fervor Wonderful Work of an Untutored bat Devoted Preacher Among » Heckle** People. Rev. Joseph C. Wells, of Big Stone Gap. Va . is a Baptist preacher of great
power. Who exhorts the primitive mountaineers among whom he has resided all his life in their own dialect, for the simple reason that he knows no other. He is the • most influential man in the group of four counties which go to make up the mountain region, and is altogether a unique character. He can sway his hearers at will—can move them
to tears or stir them to the highest pitch of enthusiasm: yet he himself can hardly read and write, and has confined his studies to the Bible and a few simple religious books. He has never come in contact with the world outside of his mountain home, has never visited Bristol, the nearest town to where he lives, has never been ‘in a railway train, and never saw one until very recently, when a new' road was run close to his homestead. But his fame has gone all over Virginia, and large crowds throng to hear him wherever he goes to preach. He travels on foot or on horseback from place to place, and never refuses to answer a call, whether it be to marry a couple, who cannot afford to give him a fee, to visit the sick, or to exhort sinners to repentance. He knows every nook and cranny of the mountain country, and is familiar with the least frequented by-paths, as well as the so-called roads which traverse the highlands. He does not follow the apostolic maxim that “those who preach the gospel should live by the gospel, ” for his scanty living is eked out by hard work on the little patch of ground which surrounds the oneroomed log cabin in which he and his family live. The largest amount of money he has ever received in one year for preaching is 575, and his average yearly receipts are under S3O. He loves
his work, not for the money that is in it, but for the good he can do to his fellow men and women. This apostle of the mountains was born fiftfc-eight years ago almost on the spot where his little log cabin now
stands. When he mprried the mother of his ten children, ho being eighteen and she a few; mont. h s younger. ' his father deeded him a slice of the old farm, and he built with his own hands the log cabin which is still his home Betsy was a
Kentucky girl who came to Big Stone Gap on a visit to a married sister, and the strapping young son of the mountains fell in love with her on sight. He has never had any reason to regret his choice. While her husband was away on his missionary work his sturdy wife attended to the farm work and kept the children near her in the fields. The open air life of their childhood has made them all models of physical manhood, and many of them are settled in the neighborhood and have large families. Often lias she washed his only Shirt when lie came home, tired and worn out, from one of his missionary journeys, so that he might be ready to start on another in the morning. Mr. Wells could nolther read nor write until after he was eighteen, when he was converted by hearing a sermon which had a great effect upon him. His mother v/a* his teacher. He studied in the fields during intervals of work and his mother heard his lessons by the log fire at night. Here is a specimen of his preaching in the homely speech of the mountains: “Tuhn to yo’ Savioh! Tuhn to th’ Lord God thet made ye ’n thet you’ve scandalized all yo’ shameful life! Yes, you’ll tuhn then in yo" old age.
when yo’ bos’ days hev went, ’n yo’ airthly frens hev left ye. But, oh, iny brethern, why don't you tuhn naow—this day—this night—this minute! Why don’t yc throw off the shackles o’Satin an’ stand for’erd a sarvant o’ Christ? Don’t be afeerd to acknowledge Him! Don't be afeerd to say befo’ all the wo'ld, ‘Th’ Lord God is my Savioh! In th’ Dord God I trust.’ Come, naow, while yo’ chi fen kin see ye. Come, naow. while yo’ wife is right a-hoah to shed tealis o’ joy with yo’s. Don’t put it off—don't say next yeah will
<Jo. Fo’ the yeahs go by ’n the night cometh—n praps you’ll wait too long, my breihern, ’n fin’ nothin’ befo* you but evahlastin’ night.”
THE MAN WITH A MESSAGE.
THE CHURCH IN THE MOUNTAINS.
THE PASTOR'S HELPMEET.
A GROUP OF HEARERS.