Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 August 1896 — Page 4

CHAPTER XVll.—(Continued.) But it became necessary soon to think ®f sublunary matters. Miss Mowbray, happily, was unhurt; but by this time, no doubt, the ttdings of her accident, or at any rate of her runaway steed and his fair rider having been lost to sight in the dense mist, must have reached Thorsdale. and given groiwd for no unreasonable alarms. They sun forth, therefore. Don insisting that Miss Mowbray—his Violet, as he was never weary of calling her — should lean on his arm as she walked beside him. Presently Thorsdale was approached. The court yard of the mansion was reached. that lighted yard where horses were being saddled and carriages got ready by the glare of lanterns, and where already a number of outdoor servants and hang-ers-on had assembled, and were waiting for orders. Violet's arrival under Don's charge occasioned a gieat relief to many minds, and put an end to the wild conjectures which were eu.rent as to her fate. A strange sight it was as the crowd, the lights, and the clamor all converged toward where the young girl stood, pale and lovely, with disheveled hair, leaning on the arm of the young man. handsome and graceful enough to have been a prince of romance. A fair young couple they looked as for a moment they stood there 6ide by side. Sir Richard Mortmain’s brow darkened as he saw by whom it was that Violet was escorted. He stepped forward, but before he had time to speak, the joyful news had spread from lip to lip, and kindly, rubicund Lord David Todhunter came hurrying up, with almost the air of a guardian. “My dear young lady, welcome back!" he exclaimed. “Bless my soull what a marvelous escape! and what a fright you have given nsl So this gentleman found you? I am su*e we are much obliged to him. And you are not hurt? That's ijice. Please to take my arm and come this way, for the countess is Very anxious and distressed, and no wonder." So Violet was hurriea into the house, with short space for leave-taking; and Don. having given as brief an account as he could of the circumstances of his meeting with Miss Mowbra.., withdrew himself as early as possib.e from the noise and comments of the crowd.

CHAPTER XVIII. “Sir Richard's room to be fitted up,” said the chief housemaid. The room which waa assigned at Thorsdale Park to Sir Richard Mortmain was just then vacant. The Countess of Thorsdale was too great a lady to occupy herself personally with such matters as the inspection of an expected visitor’s room, but then she put great faith in the taste of her clever foreign maid, Mademoiselle Glitka. She was herself worthy of notice, this Mademoiselle Glitka. Young she was—though probably she looked three or four years older than an English girl of her age would have done. Handsome she was, though of a swarthy pallor of complexion, and with a thin face and well-cut, mobile features. She had raven-haired black hair, very thick and long, and wound tightly round heT small, well-pois-ed head. Her figure was slight and active. But her eyes were her great attrac-tion-eyes that spoke, eyes that flashed, dark, expressive and at times terrible. Just then Mademoiselle Glitka was in Sir Richard Mortmain’s room—not the worst by any means of the many bedrooms at Thorsdale Park—and was alone. Having satisfied herself that she was not the subject of scrutiny, she made haste to institute a special search everywhere. Mademoiselle’s pliant fingers explored every pocket as deftly as those of a member of the Paris detective police could possibly have done. But she found nothing, only a photograph of Mrs. Scoresby—a pink scented, three-cornered note from Lady Paget, asking “Dear Sir Richard” whether Tomahawk was really sure to win the St. before she put her money on at the long odds. Then, at last., in a drawer she found a letter of another sort. Here it is:

“Dear Sir R. Mortmain, Baronet: I am getting so sick of this worn-out old country that unless you soon force on the trump card I have put into your hand I shall have to play mine, and blow the whole concern sky-high. Mind there’s no mistake about wnat I have to sell. The seventy thousand pounds go as surely to Miss V , and, if she marries without settlements, to her husband, as her name is Violet Mowbray. You, Sir R., are not the man I take you for if you cannot get a ‘Yes’ out of a country-bred young thing like that I need hardly say, don’t spoil your own game and mine by hinting to our innocent what a fortune goes with her at the altar. You are quite fit to hold your tongue when there’s money to be lost by speaking. But remember that I am weary of waiting, and shall have, if you shilly-shally, to clap the other screw on; and remember, too, that there must be a fair share of the swag, as we say in Australia—where I wish I was again—for your old pal, RUFUS CROUCH.” Olitka’s eyes glowed, darkened, glittered, as she perused this epistle. She spoke English, perhaps, better than she read it, but she had good brains and a vivid imagination, and could fill up the gaps with some approximation to the truth. First, she folded the letter and thrust it into her pocket. Then, resisting the momentary impulse, she snatched it out again, and taking up the writing materials that lay on a side table near, she made a rapid but accurate copy of the contents of the epistle. “I have him now!” she hissed out between her shut teeth; “1 have him, hard and fast! He is in Glitka’s hands now!” And to judge by the tightening of her lithe, dark fingers, it might have been dangerous to be delivered over to the handling of tiger-footed, bright-eyed Glitka. “He is expected at once,” she said, presently, and slipped away. About noon Sir Richard Mortmain drove up to Thorsdale Park, and went at once to his room. Scarcely had he reached it before there came a light tap at the door, and Mademoiselle Glitka gliding in, and shutting the door, stood before him. “I have to speak to you, Milord Sir Richard,” said the girl, looking Sir Richard Mortmain very steadily in the face. “Indeed, have you? From my sister, perhaps’/” asked the baronet, irresolutely, but with some annoyance. “No, but from myself,” answered GHtka, opening her eyes as a sbe-panther might have opened hers ere she showed her white fangs and sprung on her prey. "You are a lord, it seems. I am Miladi's

A LOYAL LOVE

BY J. BERWICK HARWOOD.

1 very humble servant, to obey her bell. It study her caprice. And you are a seigneur. Yet, traitor, craven, dissembler, is not this ring”—and she showed him on her finger a golden hoop set with small blue atones—"the betrothal ring you pat on my finger at Arad? and are you not my promised husband, if there be faith in old customs or the troth-plight of mar.?” “Upon my word, Glitka," answered the baronet in deprecatory tones, “I hope! you had forgotten or learned to take a more reasonable view of anything that was said in far-off Hungary between yon and me. How could I be expected ta us- ! derstand your ancient customs, and to lv bound by what seems binding to you? We 1 liked each other, I dare say, but I was ■ a mere traveler, a mere bird of passag “Yet, I am as noble as yourself T' fierce:ly retorted Glitka. "We are all noble — except a few Slavs, like the glaaier sod j the smith —cn our village; first as free Magyars, then as being ennobled by the empress hundreds of years ago. And l can remember seeing my grandsire show you, the English stranger, with honest pride, the grand parchment with the gold and color, and the great seal, of the paper from Imperial Vienna that made his grandsire a baron. My father, too, had the rank of baron. I. too, am Baroness Glitka, servant as I atn, and Mademoiselle as they call me." "Glitka.” answered the baronet, in sheer despair, “yon, wirh yocr impassioned nature aDd your reliance on old usages, .scarcely can do justice to a used-up. out-a:-elbows gentleman like myself. I am in debt, poor and worried. There are times when to put a pistol to my head to blow my brains out appears the only natural result of my position. I only wish you would keep quiet, and leave me to battle with my creditors as best I may." "Hear you. Sir Richard,” said her ladyship’s confidential maid, with bitter emphasis: “A woman who has loved seldom hurts the man who has left her, unless he makes the pain more than she can bear. So shall it be now. I came over to England, and became a servant, more that I might meet you than for any other cause. The old home is broken up. My uncle's farm —it was his when the grandfather died—has passed into the hands of j the Hebrew money lender, who had lent the money on mortgage, and Glitka and her brothers earn their bread as they may. But little as you deem my words to be true, I have a hold on you, proud Sir Richard, that you can no more shake off than a strayed lamb can get free from the wolf of the woods or the snake of the fens. Marry Miss Violet Mowbray, even for her thousands, and see what comes of it!” She conrteaied, and left him.

CHAPTER XIX. The picnic, on a grand scale —for things were liberally done at Thorsdale-—duly took place, and it was fuvored by the weather. A picnic given by I,ord Tborsdale, and planned by his wife, was sure to be on a large and lavish scale. “Spend and spare not!” constituted the pith of the countess’ directions to Mr. Sharpe, the secretary, aud of what she said to her brother Sir Richard. Everything that was scarce and dear and dainty, edible and potable, was conjured down from the metropolitan market, and fresh assistant cooks and confectioners were sent for, just as were the Oovent Garden fruit and salads and the ice. There would be good music as well as good viands, since a fine band under the guidance of a renowned bandmaster had been engaged, and would be stationed in ambush, as it were, in an impromptu orchestra at the corner of a leafy grove. In long array carriages swept down the winding road, and the guests gathered in force, vThile the attentive servants, and those auxiliaries engaged for the nonce, who could scarcely be called servants, but rather experts in their different Hues, made haste with their preparations. Of course, among the thickets gypsy fires were lighted. They added to the picturesqueness of the scene, and ware supposed to be necessary for the cooking of the fish, and the boiling of the vegetables, and the making of the tea aud coffee. The open air feast took place, the popping of the corks, the clatter of knives and forks, and the clink of glasses blending not unpleasantly with the melodious strains from the band. Louder and louder swelled the music, nnd in the intervals between the tunes the laughter and noise of conversation was in itself enough to prove the thing a success. Presently the dinner over, and the wearied musicians having hushed their instruments, for the sake of rest and refreshment, there was a general move, at least among the junior guests. Light-col-ored dressed fluttered gayly, like so many tropical butterflies, among the willow trees that bordered the banks of the sluggish stream, and the pleasant sound of girlish laughter and of young voices floated on the breeze.

Violet Mowbray never knew afterward how it came about that she found herself alone, as it were, with Sir Richard Mortmain in the garden of the inn. She had been standing in front of a bed of the sweet, queer old roses, not very far from a hedge of clipped holly. There was no one to be seen except Sir Richard himself. “I have been watching for this opportunity, Miss Mowbray,” he said, gravely. "I have something to say to you that must be said.” “Something to say to me. Sir Richard?” Violet Mowbray falteringly replied; of course she knew of what he meant to speak. “Yes, I must speak,” resumed Sir Richard. “You must have seen, you cannot have failed to observe, how very dear you have become to me; how, as if drawn by a power which I cannot but obey, I instinctively seek your company; how attentive I am to the lightest word that falls from those fair lips; how eager to anticipate your wishes, how anxious to conciliate your good opinion. Have 1 been quite unsuccessful in doing this? I hope not—fervently I hope not. Do you not like me a little bit, as a friend?” he added, trying to take her hand. But Violet withdrew her hand, she trembled, but her voice was steady as she replied, “As a friend, Sir Richard, you have, I am sure, always been regarded by every one at VVoodburn ever since we first saw you.” ‘'You dear little hypocrite!” he exclaimed, energetically, “do you think I mix you up in my thoughts with excellent Mr. Langton and his charming household? If I have been a frequent visitor at Woodburn, have you not guessed what was the magnet that drew' me there? How I love you, Violet darling, words are too weak to tell; but perhaps a life’s devotion would be the best proof of my sincerity. Be my wife, dear. Mak_- me happy; and let me welcome in the old halls of Mortmain the

tetvtwt, asW«l young bride that ever a husband yet brought to reign there!" It «* all mere acting. Even the trembling of the man's voter was a clover atnge trick. The baronet talked of welcoming his youthful bride to the grand old halls of Mortmain, he well knew in hit inznoat •onl that the nae be designed to make of \ ioJet's seventy thousand pounds was not to set up expensive housekeeping in the mansion of his ancestors. »toiet. with new-found courage, drew her hand hack from his grasp. "It cannot be as you wish. Sir Richard," she said, very gently, but very firmly. The man of the world bit his lip. “You mean. Ml Mowbray, that you cannot do me so high an honor as to consent to be my wife?" demanded the baronet. with a sort of haughty surprise. "1 cannot agree to be your wife. Sir Richard: but 1 had no wish to give you pain or to annoy yon by the manner of my refusal." returned Violet, gently, and looking aside.

“And 1 say," passionately retorted the master of Mortmain, “that I will not. sa the saying is, take ‘Xo’ for an answer; that 1 will not desist from my suit until you accept me." "You must spare me this," answered Violet, “since, believe me. Sir Richard, my reply will never be different from that which I have made to you to-day." “Is it possible," asked the baronet, in a changed voice, that quivered with anger, "that I am forestalled?” She flushed indignant crimson, and turned away, but she did not tell him that he had no right to ask any such question. "And who may the fortunate swain be, I wonder?" he broke out, furiously. "Some beggarly curate, I suppose: or perhaps a dapper clerk In the Daneborough Bank. If so, let him look to it. I am one ol those whom it is safer to have for a friend than for an enemy!" He absolutely hissed out the last words, with an emphasis that was really terrible. "Leave me, pray leave me!" exclaimed the girl, in real distress, when at that moment she caught sight of a group ol Lady Thorsdale’s guests, just then entering the shady gardens of tne inn. Without saying a word more Violet hurried off to meet her friends, under whose protection she felt that she was safe from further persecution, while Sir Richard, turning sharply on hie heel, strode off in an opposite direction. “We have been looking for you everywhere. Violet, dear," said motherly Mrs. Langton. Violet hardly knew what she answered, so glad was she to be rid for the time being of the importunity of her baleful admirer. Neither of the actors in this little scene had beheld a pair of dark, glittering eyes that had watched them from a convenient nook in the tall holly-hedge, and which, when both were gone, gave to view for a moment the keen Hungarian face of Mademoiselle Glitka. “Good!” said the foreign maid, in a low, menacing whisper—“ Good! He shall reckon to me for that!" And she stretched forth her hand as if its pliant brown fingers had an unseen dagger in their nervous grasp. (To 1>» ooutinued.)

TOMBS IN ST. PETER’S.

Some of Them Have Been Violated and the Bones Scattered. One of the best tombs in the basilica is that of Sixtus IV., the first pope of the Rovere family, in the Chapel of the Sacrament. The bronze figure, lying low on a sarcophagus placed out upon the floor, has a quiet, manly dignity about It which one cannot forget. But in the same tomb lies a greater man of the same race, Julius II., for whom Michelangelo made his great “Moses" In the church of San Pietro in Vincoli, a man who did more than any other, perhaps, to make the great basilica what It Is, and who, by a chain of mistakes, got no tomb of his own. He who solemnly laid the foundations of the present church, and lived to see the four main piers completed, with their arches, has only a little slab in the pavement to recall his memory. The protector and friend of Bramante, of Michelangelo, and of Raphael—of the great architect, the great sculptor, and the great painter—has not so much as the least work of any of the three to mark his place of rest. Perhaps he needed nothing but his name, which must always stand among the greatest. After nil, his bones have been allowed to rest in peace, which is more than can be said of all that have been buried within the area of the church. Urban VI. had no such good fortune. He so much surprised the cardinals, as soon as they had elected him, by his vigorous moral reforms, that they hastily retired to Anagni, and elected an antipope of milder manners and less sensitive conscience. He lived to triumph over his enemies. In Piacenza he was besieged by King Charles of Naples. He excommunicated him, tortured seven cardinals whom he caught in a conspiracy, and put five of them to death, overcame and slew Charles, refused him burial, and had his body exposed to the derision of the crowd. The chronicler says that “Italy, Germany, England, Hungary, Bohemia, Poland, Sicily and Portugal were obedient to the Lord Pope Urban VI." He died peacefully, and was buried in St. Peter’s in a marble sarcophagus. But when Sixtus V., who also surprised the cardinals greatly, was In a fit of haste to finish the dome, the masons, wanting a receptacle for water, laid hands on Urban’s stone coffin, pitched his bones into a corner, and used the sarcophagus as they pleased, leaving it to serve as a water-tank for many years afterward. In extending the foundations of the church, Paul III, came upon the bodies of Maria and Hermantia, the two wives of Honorius, the emperor who “disestablished" paganism !n favor of Christianity. They were sisters, daughters of Stilicho, and had been buried in their imperial robes, with many rich objects and feminine trinkets; and they were found intact, as they had been buried, in the month of February, 1543. Forty pounds of fine gold were taken from their robes alone, says Baracconi, without counting all the jewels and trinkets, among which was a very beautiful lamp, besides a great number of precious stones. The Pope melted down the gold for the expenses of the building, and set the gems in a tiara, where if they could be identified, they certainly exist to-day—the very stones worn by empresses of ancient Rome.—The Century. The reason that stare twinkle while planets do not (to any great degree) is that the stars are so far away from us thatthey appear as mere points of light, whereas the planets are near enough to show a measurable disc. Twinkling is caused by irregular refraction and interference of the light of the stars after it reaches our atmosphere. The first and last thing required of genius is the love of truth.— Goethe.

THE PEOPLE'S MONEY

WHY PRICES FALL. The mutual demand of the farmer for the products of the mill and of the factory hand for the products of the farm U much restricted, not because the farmer is well clad or the factory hand well fed, not because the farmer has an overabundance of clothes or the factory hand an overabundance of food, but because each Is unable to command the money with which to purchase that which the other could produce In ample abundance, and which he deslree to consume. The farmer getting such low prices for his products that his labor yields him little over and above the cost of producing and marketing his crops cannot command the money with which to purchase that which he needs, and he is perforce obliged to piece out old raiment in place of purchasing new. Thus, the demand for manufactured goods Is lessened, prices of such goods fall, and production Is curtailed. And with curtailed production come, of necessity, enforced idleness and ultimately wage reductions to the wage-earner, for the wage-earner, thrown oat of work. Is impelled, Irresistibly, sooner or later, to seek work by underbidding

IN THESE GOLD STANDARD TIMES.

The fanner cannot sell even at starvation prices, and the mechanic has not a dollar With which to buy.

his fellow workman. So the Impoverishment of the farmer must be reflected In curtailed demand and lessened production In manufactured goods, and consequent enforced idleness and lower wages to factory hands. Thus, we find the farmer Impoverished and buying less of manufactured goods, and the wage-earner, equally impoverished, obliged to economize in his purchases of the products of the farm. Bo we find curtailed demand for commodities In general. Indeed, for everything save gold there is a curtailed demand, and the only exceptions to the resulting and general fall in prices are where the supply of some article has been restricted, either as the result of natural causes or arbitrary restrictions on the production of such products as are monopolized. But for gold the demand is greater than ever. Those striving to secure gold or Its equivalent in exchange for their products are ever and anon offering a larger quantity of products of their labor to obtain this precious gold, that grows more valuable, greater and greater in purchasing power, from day to day. So, from day i.o day, gold goes up as prices go down. Yet still the demand for gold for export is unslackened. Our products are lower than ever before, yet not low enough to attract that foreign buying of our products, that great export of our commodities In excess of Imports, as will suffice to pay our indebtedness abroad, aside from that incurred on account of purchases of merchandise, and thus make unnecessary the export of gold.—Philadelphia North American.

Gold Will Come Back. The advocates of the single gold standard claim that the free coinage of silver will drive our gold to Europe. The reverse is true. It will bring gold from Europe. England can buy ten pounds of cotton or a bushel of wheat in silver-standard countries for an ounce of silver. Because our mints are closed to silver we are forced to sell England their silver at her own terms— about 70 cents an ounce now. If we sell wheat or cotton to England we must take the price of an ounce of silver for it. If the silver goes up, wheat and cotton go up. If silver goes down, wheat and cotton go down. Under free coinage an ounce of silver is worth $1.20. Under free coinage England would have to pay that price for our silver, and wheat, cotton, wool and all farm products would rise proportionately. We buy millions of dollars’ worth of goods of England. We sell her our silver and our surplus farm products. When we receive fair prices ror our silver and products, there is a large balance coming to us each year after paying for what we buy of her and the interest on what we owe her. And that makes us prosperous and fills our banks with gold. But when England can buy our sliver cheap—as she can now—we have to sell our products ■ heap and we do not realize enough from them to pay our Interest and for the goods we buy. So we make up the balance with gold.—Oswego Palladium. A Gold Btandard Besson. And they tell us that there is plenty of money, and that to restore prosperity nil that is necessary is to stick to the gold standard and let things go on as they are. With all branches of manufacture and trade blighted by the prevailing scarcity of money, it seems almost incredible that a great many of

: the American people are willing to let I prevailing methods continue rather I than try a change. The evils wrought by the blind adhesion to the gold standard are many, and those who carefully read the papers have before them daily lessons of the distress due to this cause. Two months ago a pottery at Wellsville. Ohio, one of the largest In the State, was forced to close because It could not secure the money to pay its hands. One month’s wages was due the workmen, and with no money in sight the employes refused to trust to luck. The firm had orders ahead, and thousands of dollars standing out, but It could secure neither the old bills nor advances upon new orders. To-day the wages due those workmen still remain unpaid; hundreds of families are destitute, and a prosperous business has been ruined. Why? Because to meet the greed of Wall street, to enable a few to prosper at the downfall of many, a financial policy Is maintained which enables money sharks lo corner the outlets of cash, and to force the merchant and manufacturer to try to float a successful business upon Interest-bearing paper. With the

single gold standard the country Is at the mercy of the money lending classes, nnd It is upon the poor that the taxation falls the heaviest.

Carlisle in 1878, I shall not enter into an examination of the causes which have combined to depreciate the relative value of sliver and to appreciate the value of gold since 1873, but I am one of those who believe ihat they are transient nnd temporary in their nature, and that when they have passed away, or have been removed by the separate or united actions of the nations most deeply interested in the subject, the old ratio of actual and relative value will be re-establish-ed on a firmer foundation than ever. I know that the world’s stock of precious metals is none too large, and I see no ifttson to apprehend that It will ever become so. Mankind will be fortunate, indeed, if the annual production of gold and silver coin shall keep pace with the annual Increase of population, commerce and Industry. According to my view of the subject, the conspiracy which seems to have been formed here and In Europe to destroy by legislation and otherwise from three-sevenths to one-half the metallic money of the world is the most gigantic crime of this or any other age.—John G. Carlisle, Feb. 21, 1878.

When Silver Is Restored. If the price of produce went up with the free coinage of silver it would help the workingman by an increase of wages. No times were ever better than when the prices for everything were nearly double what they are to-day. The demand for cheap goods is directly a demand for cheap labor, and when prices go up in one the other speedily follows. If wages depended upon the voluntary action of the employer there would be little wages paid. When wages come down the cry is always no profits, cheaper goods in the market. The value of an article Is determined by the demand for it, and when silver is restored its price will rise to the right place.—Philadelphia Item. What Beared the Price? The closing of the United States runts to the silver dollar in 1873, followed by like action in Germany and the Latin Union, had a depressing effect upon silver, which was increased hv false and exaggerated reports re-, garding the amount of silver in the Comstock mines of Nevada and in other mines in Colorado, South America and Australia. The owners of money, and of paper calling for money; took advantage of these reports in urging the adoption of the single gold standard. The net result was the steady appreciation of gold, and the steady hearing down of silver, until the commercial ratio at this time is close to 30 to I.—Denver News. The Mexican Dollar. As that Mexican silver dollar will bay as much of every product of human Industry In any market on earth as it would do at the time you speak of except gold, It seems to me that it might occur to any sane man, or at least to every honest man, that it is not because the Mexican silver dollar is now worth less, but that the gold dollar with which you measure it is worth twice as much. This is a condition, and not a theory.—L. E. Perkins, ia the National Bimetallist.

JUST BEFORE THE COLLISION.

Th« Thought* that Fla*h Through the Engine Man's Mind. A Rochester (X. Y.) Democrat and Chronicle reporter met a switchman the other day, the pathos of whose life was expressed in the wooden leg which he used, and as the Empire dashed by he looked up and said: “Yes, I like railroading. I hare been In the business all my life, and expect to spend the rest of my days over the rails, but 1 am quite content to remain here in my little cottage and tend to my flagging rather ihan hare the position of the man who bolds the throttle on that big engine which just whizzed by here. You may think it a snap to sit there and ride over the country at the rate of a mile a minute, but I tell you that man carries a load •f responsibility on his shoulders which the average man knows very little about. 1 know something of it, for I was fireman seme years ago on one of the fast engines, and lost my leg in an accident between here and Albany. But if I had come out of that accident as sound as you are I never should have been able to hold my nerve for any more fast trips. That finished me for that work.”

“Then if a man has been hurt in a railroad accident it makes him scary •f that kind of work, does it?” asked the reporter. “You bet it does,” answered the switchman with emphasis, “and don’t let any one fool you that it don't. The man who was running that engine the day I was hurt escaped with hardly a scratch, but he never could keep his time up the way he did before that, and finally was put on a freight, engine, where the running was a great deal slower. “I shall never forget the way he looked the afternoon the smash-up occurred. Just before the crash came I looked at him. We were rounding a curve down by Schenectady. His long gray hair was flowing in the breeze, his face set, and his eyes fixed on the track ahead. “All at once he jumped to his feet and reversed the lever and exclaimed in a startled tone, ‘My God, we are caught!’ It was probably not more than half a minute after when I was lying beneath the engine with my leg crushed, utterly unconscious of the fact that a great wreck had occurred, but every moment and occurrence of that half minute is as vividly im. pressed upon my mind as if it had taken weeks of time to impress it there. “As he spoke I looked through the cab window ahead of us, and there, within twenty rods, was a freight engine coming straight at us, and there was no possible chance to escape a crash. The engineer was doing his duty. I knew that. He was reversing the lever, applying the brakes, and doing his best to avert what he knew was inevitable, but I had nothing to do, and it seemed as if everything in my life was before me in those few seconds. I felt absolutely sure 1 was going to die. Strange as it may ■eem, the thought did not seem horrible to me. A whole lot of the slang sayings, such as, ‘You are learning to fire here in this world, so as to be prepared for the next,’ aqd ‘You won’t mind a hot job over there,’ and a number of those stale things which a fireman has to take, came into my head, and even in that awful position it occurred to me in a sort of humorous way that I had made a good start here below, or here above, as I might say. The next moment I was thinking of my wife and children, yes, and of mother, too, who had been dead a number of years. A man always thinks of his mother at such a time. But I don’t think I had. a particle of fear of death. The last thing that was on my mind was the question, Who was to blame for the accident? and that is the last I remember.

“When I came to my senses I was in a hospital and was minus a leg. Since then I have been continually employed one way and another by the railroad company, but I never see one of the fast trains go by without thinking of that wreck. The engineer miraculously escaped with scarcely a bruise, but it finished him for that kind of work. He was always seeing engines ahead of him after that, and I have heard that more than once he had slowed up his train in order not to collide with an imaginary engine, which I have no doubt was as real to him as it was on the afternoon the wreck I speak of occurred. As I said before, he was transferred •to a freight engine, but even there he was timid, and finally left the road altogether. “You can put it down as a pretty sure thing that when an engineer has been in an accident once he is minus a good share of the nerve which it takes to make his runs on time to the tick, and if he isn’t on time he has got to go, sooner or later.”

FIRST FIND OF AMERCAN GOLD.

John Brown the Only Man Living Who Was One of the Discovering Party. Of the considerable number of men who worked for Captain Sutter in his mill at Coloma, Cal., where, on January 24, 1848, James W. Marshall discovered gold, only one is living to-day, and he is James Brown, a hardy pioneer, now seventy years of age, who makes his home with a grandchild in the Pomona Valley. He was present when Marshall washed the yellow grains in'the camp dough pah, and it was he w 7 ho first tested the flaky scales with fire. In conversation with a Chicago Record reporter Mr. Brown said: “I am the oldest miner alive in California to-day. I don’t mean the oldest in years, but as the first miner. There were about a hundred of us building Captain Sutter’s mill on the American River. We had come upon the rock when we were digging the race, and were afraid that it would interfere with our making an even channel for the water. Then it was that Marshall came to me and told me about the books about gold and mines which he had been reading, and on the afternoon of January 23, 1848, he determined to do a little prospecting. He asked me to bring him the pan. It was an ordinary pan that we baked bread in. lie spent all the afternoon with that pan trying to find gold, but he got nothing.

“The next marling early he started out with the pan again. We boys were excavating the ditch when he came up from the hole where he was working and told us he had found some mineral. He had it in bis hat—a whole lot of little flake-like scales. They were all small bits, and all scaly, and he wasn’t sure what they .were. He handed the hat to me, and I took one of the flakes and bit it I thought l could tell by biting it that it was gold, bat I wasn't sure. So I took it into the cabin where a log fire was burning, and I tested it in the fire to see if it would melt. But it wouldn’t melt, and then I knew it was gold sure. Then I came out with it to where the men were working. “ 'Boys,’ said I. ‘it is gold r “That was the first announcement of the discovery of gold in California, and I was the first man to test the metal and the first to proclaim it’” Neither Brown nor Marshall nor any of the other mill builders went to Coloma to look for gold. They were working with the vaguest hope of receiving pay for their labor. As the old pioneer put it: “Old Captain Sutter owes me |IOO cold cash yet for the work I put in on the mill race, and I know I’ll never get it. seeing as he is dead.”

“When the discovery had once been made we tried for awhile to keep it quiet, and Sutter, who wanted to see his mill completed, was particularly anxious to keep the secret close. The workmen completed both the grist and the lumber mill, and did not desert their posts or the work they had originally contracted to do to seek the yellow metal. “Though I tested the first grains of gold in the fire, and with my teeth, nevertheless, to be sure about matters, we went to Sacramento, to make certain. They tested them there, and finally decided that they really were gold. Then they sent the news to San Francisco, where the announcement was published for the first time by a man named Sam Brannan, wlio had broil gilt a lot of type and a press and everything around the Horn. “Did I stay long at Coloma after the completion of the mill, you ask? No, sir; only a few of us did; myself and most of our people only remained long enough to dig up enough gold to equip ourselves for marching hack over the plains to meet those of our people who were coming out to join us.” “How much did you all make?” “Oh, it was all according to luck; some made S6OO or $S00; some made $4,000 or $5,000. I guess I had something like $1,500 in dust. Marshall, who found it first, had noue at all. Marshall was not lucky, somehow. He was one of the original bear flag men—one of the filibusters who thought he owned the country. They had selected the bear flag as their banner because bears were so plentiful out here in those days. The firsa bear flag was nothing but an old strip of canvas on which the men daubed a picture of a bear with tar, their pains brush being their own fingers.”

RURAL ELECTRIC ROADS.

Ideal Transportation for Suburban Commodities. Electric railways not a few are now in operation which carry freight as well as passengers and serve rural communities as well as city and suburban dwellers. An example is found in a line in southwest Missouri between Carthage and Joplin, a' distance of about nineteen miles. The car fare is a nickel, but as it is collected five times between the two places named, the total fare is 25 cents. This, however, is comparatively cheap, for each of the two great railways—the Missouri Pacific aud the St. Louis and San Francisco—which parallel each other and the new competitor between Carthage and Joplin, charge fifty-five cents, or about three cents a mile, while the trolley rate is about a cent and a quarter a mile. A transfer about midway from one electric car to the other interferes, however, with the perfection of the route as a through line, and there are those who will prefer the solid comfort of the steam trains to the bounding buoyancy of the trolley car, particularly in cold or stormy weather. But the farmers along the line are delighted with the new road, whose accommodating cars stop wherever the patrons desire, and which moreover will take the farmer’s vegetables to market for a consideration as cheerfully as they take him and his wife and children into the city to church, theater or shop. For freight transportation the car platforms are made very spacious, and one of the loads is said to have consisted of a piano and ten trunks. Strawberries are carried from any point on the road to Carthage for five cents a crate. Traveling men find the line handy for trips to the villages, carrying their sample trunks on the car platform; though the absence of station houses must make some inconvenience in handling baggage and freight. In a few weeks this line is to be extended ten miles farther, to Galena, Kan., making the total length—owned by two companies—about twenty-eight miles, and with a cheap tariff for farm products. The farmers along the line are pleased because now they can go to town of an evening just like the city folks, and don’t have to hitch up the horses to take a picking of berries to market.—Railway Age.

Tires Fifteen Feet High.

There is now in process of reconstruction at Boston a tricycle which will weigh when completed 350 pounds. The dimensions of the big tires are fifteen feet in diameter and the small tire six feet. The machine is geared to forty-three, and is analogous to a locomotive. Four men on one side are geared to one wheel and the four on the opposite side to the other wheel. It was built from plans drawn by John O. de Wolfe, a mechanical expert, who conceived the idea of the big machine. It is now being rebuilt, and the steering apparatus changed so that the two front men on either side will steer the wheel. This will do away with the ninth man. A G34-karat diamond, the finest ever found in Africa, was discovered at Jagersfonteiu, in the Transvaal, on the day after Christmas. When cut It is expected it will be worth $1,500,000,