Indianapolis Journal, Volume 48, Number 93, Indianapolis, Marion County, 3 April 1898 — Page 9

-Part Two-

PRICE FIVE CENTS.

EASTER J. OFFERINGS. Jt Vfsp iSssS c /y <*jfj Hi Jo ' STEVENSON BUILDInC

If You Want a SPRING SUIT or OVERCOAT for EASTER, You can easily afford it by coming to the PROGRESS.

sio f or Men’s Spring Suits and Top Coats, which other clothiers do not sell for less than sl2. These Suits and Overcoats are very stylish and just the thing. A stylish appearance conies from a combination of good materials, perfect fit and artistic tailoring. Our patrons are secure in all three points

]fe "T" A" h 'TOwY Men’s New Spring Trousers, over 5,000 pairs, embrac- $1,50 M B - to meres. Prices from

Our Hat Department With its vast stock and competent hat men, is both a bargain and fashion educator at the same time. Men’s Spnng Derbys and Alpines, in Dunlap, Knox, Miller and Yeoman shapes; all the swell dressers are wearing them. Can fit you at 95c, $1.50, $2.00, $2.50, $3.00, $3.50 Boys’ and Girls’ Hats and Caps In all the new colors and shapes. Prices from 25 cents to $1.50. Umbrellas and Canes All the new styles in handles and silver mounting are here. Prices from 95 cents upward.

BOYS’ CLOTH ING==Biggest and Busiest Dept, in the City. Our Easter Styles the Grandest Ever Shown in Indianapolis. The good taste in make and the swell styles is what marks the difference between our Boys’ and Children’s Clothes and the sort which is so freely and recklessly advertised by others. t*1.50, $ 2, *2.50. © *5, *6 and *7.50 f This is truly a great offering Here you will find exclusive in Boys’ All-wool suits. They styles in Brownie and Vestee come in Brownies, Reefers and ffiBjMSH suits, made expressly for the Jp||P Etons, ages 3to 16 years; with Progress. • X ,3 K ;: =0 and *4 W s ß*B.soand*lo l ' Here’s the chance to dress your boy Among these suits will be as handsome ■■ in the finest and best made clothing, styles and as good qualities as any other l|l They are faultless in make and finish house in this city sells at s*>. '.<s and will fit perfect. EASTER STYLES IN BOYS’ HATS AND CAPS. BOYS’ SPRING OVERCOATS AND REEFERS. ‘"“Si... Boys’ Furnishing Dept. Boys’ Fancy Shirts, Boys’ White Shirts, Boys’ Night Shirts, Boys’ Underwear. Mothers are cordially invited to visit our great Children’s Department. All the new, bright spring styles are here, and we’ll be pleased to show you through whether you wish to purchase or not.

“Go to a Glove Store tor* Gloves. M The Best Dressers In Paris, London, Berlin, Vienna and New York are wearing the same brand of Glove that we have made so popular in this territory, namely, the famous “Alexandre” Glove. Over three hundred different processes of manufacture are gone through with before a pair of Alexandre Gloves are ready for the wearer. Prices Alexandre Gloves: Men’s and Women’s sizes, $1.25, $1.50, $1.75 and $2.00 a pair Agents and distributers also for all the leading makes, including the well-known makes: Dents, Monarch, System Jay, etc. (Wholesale and retail.) Easter Glove Prices - 69 c, 75c, 89c, SI.OO, $1.25 to $2.00 a pair. Tucker’s Glove Store, 10 East Washington Street. (Established 1878.) Do Not Fall to visit the Cut Flower Department. Floral designs a specialty. Palms and plants for renting purposes. Phone 2365. , THOMAS, Manager.

Chestnut Cou*h But stun, tsc. at POTTER’S DRUG STORE Corner Pennsylvania and North Street*. The sole sale for Ind.an&polla. It's THE Specific for Cough. and PLEASANT. DENTIST Dr- A ‘ fc ; BUCHANAN

THE SUNDAY JOURNAL.

FUKNITURE, CARPETS ’ MESSENGER’S, 101 E. Washington St.

INDIANAPOLIS, SUNDAY MORNING, APRIL 3, 1898-TWENTY PAGES.

For Men’s Spring Suits and Top Chats, cut by custom cutters and made by custom tailors. Not only this, but trimmed and finished in a faultless manner. Furthermore, every garment is warranted to fit and to give satisfaction. Tailors may equal them at very high prices, but none can excel them at any price.

Easter Furnishings Easter Neckwear A special line from Fred M. Walton, the great Neckwear King, in all the dis- g/\ ferent shapes and all the new colorings. Regular 75c qualities at Ovl C Raster Shirts Fine Percale Shirts at 50c and SI.OO. New patterns for Easter selling. Also, the celebrated Manhattan Shirts. New spring styles, handsome patterns, and not lose your temper when you put one on. Easter Gloves Our assortment includes Persians, Dents and the D. &P. Special line of the latter in new shades at J, • VJ Easter Hosiery The fancy hosiery fad has probably struck you this season. They are here for your inspection. Roman stripes and fancy "plaids at 26c, 35c and 60c.

Largest Line, Best Assortment FOREIGN and DOMESTIC PERFUMES ...AT... Huder’s Drug Store, .. Web. end Pena. Sts.

IX 1900. The Great End-of-tlie-Century Exposition. London Daily Mail. Scarcely had the affairs of the Paris Exhibition for 1889 been closed up when the agitation began for another, to be held in 1900, to celebrate the closing year of the century of wonderful commercial, Industrial and artistic progress. Official recommendation was made on the subject by the French Minister of Commerce and Industry as early as July, 1892, and a decree was issued by the President of the republic in July of the following year announcing “a universal exhibition of works of art and of industrial and agricultural products,” to open April 15 and close Nov. 5, 1900. A financial scheme was devised by a temporary commission to meet an expense of 108,786,000 francs, or over £4,000,000. The city of Paris contributed 20,000,000 francs, and the French nation the same amount, and the bulk of the rest, or 60,000,000 francs, is to be raised by a popular bond issue. Each bond of twenty francs is redeemable in twenty full-paid admissions, and the holder is entitled to a 25 per cent, reduction in the charge for admission to places of amusement in the grounds, or a corresponding reduction in the cost of transportation to and from distant parts of the country. Andther peculiarity of the bond issue is that in lieu of interest there is to boa fund, equivalent to interest on the bonds, to be distributed in prizes upon drawings, thus affording the attraction of a lottery to the taking of the bonds. The estimated cost for construction Is £2,920.000; for advertising, entertaining, preliminary management, etc., £BOO,OOO, leaving a liberal margin for contingencies. It is believed that the receipts will more than meet the expenses during the exhibition. The site Is practically the same as that of 1889, though ninety-six acres more of space are made available, partly by filled land along the banks of the Seine. The total area is 336 acres, which is less than half that of the World’s Fair at Chicago in 1893, but the site is in the heart of the city of Paris, su'd easily accessible fr.m all directions, which was regarded as essential. It comprises the public grounds on both sides of the river, from the Place de la Concorde to Passy, Including the Champ de Mars, the Trocadero Park and Palace, the Esplanade de*. Invalides, the Qua! d’Orsay. the Qua! de la Conference, the Cours la Reine and a considerable section of the Champs Elysees. The two sections of the site are to be connected by a splendid new bridge, to be known as the Pont d’Alexandre 111. The work of clearing the ground and preparing for the new utructures is already proceeding. ____________ Quick Growth. Kansas City Journal. It doesn’t take long to ouild up a great reputation, if the times are favorable. Twelve months ago Billy Mason was not known an a fighting man at

LIFE ON THE EQUATOR QUEER FEATIftES OF TRAVEL ON THE SOUTHERN PACIFIC OCEAN. * * ' The Highest Steamship Rates ot the World, a Traveling Market, and Some Wonders ot Colombia. MINES OF GOLD AND DIAMONDS - 4 A RIVER OF VINEGAR AND WOODS WHICH STOP HEMORRHAGES. Trees Which Flow Cow’s Milk and Bnshes Which Grow Coffee and Chocolate—Sunday In Panama. s—(Copyright, 1898, by Frank G. Carpenter.) ON THE EQUATOR, March 15.—As I begin this letter I am on the hottest geographical line on the face of the globe. I am sitting on the deck of the steamship Santiago, opposite, but out of sight of, the coast of Ecuador and almost exactly on the equator. We shall cross it within an hour. If it were not for a slight breeze which still follows us from the northeast trade Avinds the air would be stifling. At my right there is a vast extent of ocean, w'hich the sun has turned into molten silver. Ten billion diamonds are dancing up and down upon the wavelets, and, although I am under cover, the light of the sun as reflected from the water dazzles my eyes as much as the direct rays of a July sun at home. On the opposite side of the vessel, in the shadow", the water is of an indigo blue, and as I stand up and look about me I see nothing but a vast expanse of what in the hot, hazy air, seems to be a steaming sea. To the westward stretches the Pacific, a distance of about 10.000 miles, before it reaches the lower part of Asia, and to the east is the equatorial region of South America, including snow-capped Andes and the mighty Amazon, my present field of travel. It is now three days since I left Panama for Guayaquil, the port of Ecuador, and until this morning we have been sailing bv the coast of Colombia, but in many places 150 miles from the shore. In this way we have saved four or five days of travel, and will make Guayaquil in four days, while the coasting steamers take ten. The boats of the southern Pacific are far different from those on w’hich I have crossed at different times to Asia. They are unlike the steamers of any other part of the world. The cabins are larger, and the quiet of the sea—for you seldom have a storm here—enables them to have several decks or stories and to keep everything open. There is about a quarter of a mile of walking space on the two upper decks of the Santiago, and on the top one there are places where you could almost lay out a croquet ground and have room to spare. I awake every morning thinking I am on my mountain farm in Virginia. There is a bleating of sheep, a crowing of cocks and a quacking and cackling of geese and ducks. Now and then a cow moos or a pig squeals. We carry all our meat with us. On the upper deck, within ten feet of where I am writing—there are two big coops full of chickens, ducks and geese. The coops are twostory affairs, walled with slats. The chickens are in the upper story, some rocsting and others poking their heads out to get at the water and com in the troughs cutside. The ducks and geese are on the ground floor. A little further over there are crates filled with potatoes and onions and others containing oranges and pineapples. The sheep and cattle are In pens and stalls two floors below. They are in the steerage, near the butcher shops and kitchens, and where there is what you do not find on other ships, a traveling market. There are men who pay big sums for the privilege of selling cn the south Pacific ships to the people at the ports. Our marketmen have in their stock at present about a dozen wagonloads of oranges and pineapples from Panama and ten cattle from Chile, and they will load up with other things at Guayaquil. They will take this stuff to the ports along the deserts of Peru and Chile, and, as nothing grows there, will get very high prices. Travel is very costly in these ships. There are two lines which sail between Panama and Valparaiso. One belongs to the Pacific Steam NavigationCompar.y and ihe other to the Chileans. The two companies have combined, and, as they have a monopoly of the business, they keep up the rates. I have never paid so much for steamship travel as I am now paying. The fare to Guayaquil from Panama is $67 in gold for a distance of about eight hundred miles, or more than 8 cents a mile. The fares to Europe by the first-class Atlantic liners do not run more than 3 cents a mile, and on some of the boats you can go for 2 cents or less. The freight rates here are also very high, being about 1 cent a pound for this trip. These lines have steamers every week north and south from Panama to Valparaiso, a distance of 3,000 miles. The through rate is $154, but all passengers are charged extra for stop-overs at the ports, and the local rates are correspondingly higher. SOMETHING ABOUT COLOMBIA. I am astounded at the extent of these South American countries. The republic of Colombia, along which we have been sail-

ing, and of which the Isthmus of Panama forms a part, is longer from north to south than the distance between St. Paul and New Orleans and wider in some parts than a beeline from New York to Chicago. It contains more than 500,000 square miles. It is one-sixth the size of the United States without Alaska, and it would make over nine States the size of New York or ten as big as Ohio or Kentucky. The isthmus or department of Panama has an area almost four times as big as that of Massachusetts, and the Colombian state of Cauca is almost as large as Texas. I have met a number of Americans and others who have recently traveled in many parts of Colombia. They tell me the country is an undeveloped empire and that a great part of it Is as yet unexplored. There are some Americans engaged in business of one kind or another in Colombia. Some are in the extreme north in the Chlriqui lands of the upper isthmus, raising coffee, and others have been buying lands in the Cauca valley. • This valley is over the mountains, a little back of the Pacific. It is several hundred miles long, and about twenty or more miles wide, and it is said to have some of the most fertile lands on the globe. One American, named Elder, who has recently died, is said to have left a big fortune made out of his coffee plantations. I have heard It said that his income was SIOO,OOO a year from them; and another had a contract for a railroad, upon which he did so little work that the Colombian government finally paid a million dollars to get rid of him. This was in the case of the concession for the Cauca Valley Railroad, which was to connect this rich region with the port of Buenaventura. I am told that

and that they will complete the road. It is now about twenty miles long, and the Intention is to build it on to the capital of the province, tho city of Cali, which Is sixty-four miles from Buenaventura. In addition to this road, there are a half dozen other little railroads in the country, comprising altogether about 400 miles of track, more than one-fourth of which has been built by Americans. The chief bank of Panama, that of Henry Ehrman, is American. The head ,of the firm came to Panama with 25 cents thirty years ago. He is now worth several million dollars and lives in Paris. A RIVER OF VINEGAR. The chief means of getting about through Colombia is on the. rivers and on the mule and donkey paths which cross the mountains everywhere. There is no country which has a greater number or more curious streams. What would you think of a river of vinegar? Colombia has one. It is the upper part of the Cauca river. The Cauca rises in the southern part of the country, near Ecuador, and flows 680 miles north and empties into the Magdalena. During the first part of its course it has waters which contain eleven parts of sulphuric acid and nine parts of hydrochloric acid in every thousand. It Is so sour within some miles of its source that no fish can live in it, and it goes by the name of the Rio Vinagre, which means the Vinegar river. The Magdalena, the chief river of Colombia, corresponds with our Mississippi. It is more than one thousand miles long. It is as wide but not so deep as the Mississipppi, but it cuts the country right in two. Steamers of light draft sail weekly from Barranquilla, on the Cmfibbean sea, up tiie Magdalena, to you take mules and climb up to the great plain of Bogota, on which Bogota, the Colombian capital, is situated. Then there are branches of the Amazon and of other big rivers in Colombia, so that the country is almost as well watered as China. Ten of the little steamers on the Colombia were made at Pittsburg and brought from New York In pieces and here put together. Just a word or so about Bogota. It is a town of 100,000 inhabitants, and It has electric lights and a street railroad, which were put in by Americans. It has a university ninety-five years old, a national theater, a library of I>o,ooo volumes, an astronomical observatory and a poorhouse. The town is on a plain about a half mile higher up In the air than Denver, and its climate is, I am told, much the same. This is the headquarters of the army, and the scene of a revolution now and then. A LAND OF FAT CONCESSIONS.

It is at Bogota that the President lives, and here the Congress meets. It is here that the fat concessions are given out. Colombia is a land of concessions. I have toid you of the big fortunes which Americans have made out of the Panama Railroad, which now pays a quarter of a million dollars a year to the government. Another valuable concession is the salt monopoly. No salt can be sold except by the party owning this concession. At present the owner is Mrs. Nunez, the widow of the late President Nunez. She has salt mines and furnishes the 5,000,000 people of Colombia with a very poor article at very high prices. Tobacco is another concession, and playing cards another. The gambling houses at Panama pay $48,000 a year for the right to keep other people out of the business, and as far as I can learn they are glad to do it. There is, of course, nothing like the money afloat now that there was during the old canal days, but every once in a while they catch a sucker, as they did .lust before I arrived, when a young Irishman lost $5,000 in one night at roulette. Another concession at Panama is the lottery. This is owned by a stock company, which has a capital of $200,000. The stock pays dividends of 45 per cent, a year, and 10,000 tickets at $1 apiece are sold every week. The prizes range from $3,000 downward. You see the lottery-ticket peddlers everywhere. Men, women and children, black and white, accost you in the hotels, on the streets and in the railroad trains and offer you chances for the next drawing. I happened to be passing the lottery office on Sunday when the drawing was going on and stepped in. A little boy of about eight years of age had been picked out of the crowd and put upon a table. In front of him was a revolving wire basket filled with hollow ivory' balls, each containing one of the numbers from 1 to 10. The basket was whirled and the boy picked out a ball. The number in it was the thousands of the prize, another whirl gave the figure for the hundreds, a third for the tens and a fourth for the units. The whole thing was fair enough, only, as the alcalde, or city judge, in charge told me, there was only about one chance in five hundred of a ticket holder drawing anything. The president of this company is a naturalized American citizen named Duque. He is the owner of the only paper in Panama, and his profits from his eighty thousands dollars’ worth of lottery stock are about $35,000 in silver a year. There is a chance for a concession here for water works. Panama is now supplied with water by peddlers, who go about through the streets, seated on barrel darts, each of which is pulled by a mule. In the wet season the city relies on the cisterns. There is, I am told, good water in the hills, twelve miles away, and it could easily be piped to the city. Panama has about 25,000 people. GOLD MINES OF COLOMBIA. The idea prevails In the United States that the greater part of South America Is low, moist and unhealthful. This is not bo. There are vast areas here which are as salubrious as any part of North America. Mr. Kennedy, an American mining engineer, who has prospected in all parts of our continent, as well as in many parts of this, tells me that for every habitable square mile in North America there is an equally rich and healthful square mile here, and that south of the equator there are vast areas of undeveloped agricultural territory which have not been touched. He says that this'is the Klondike of the future in gold as well as in other things, and predicts that the eyes of the world will soon be turned southward. In Colombia the most of the people live back from the coasts, where there are plains and valleys of vast extent from 3,000 to 5,000 and more feet above the sea. Colombia is a land of gold. It is like Alaska in that you cannot wash the soil anywhere along the rivers without finding what the miners call color. I saw men washing the sands of the sea in the bay of Panama, and, though they said they did not get much, I am toid that they have been doing the same work for years. It was here that the Spaniards got some of their first gold, and since the an aggregate of $700,000,000 worth of precious metals has been taken out of Colombia. A great deal of mining is now going on in the department or State of Antioqua, which is reached by going several hundreds of miles up the Magdalena river. Here small diamonds are sometimes found with the gold. English parties own a number of the best mines in this region, and much capital is invested. There are now between three and four hundred gold mines being worked In Colombia. Nearly all the Indian tribes have more or less gold. I have been told of a curious method which the church has of getting the Indians to give up their gold. They are prone to hoard it, but as they are very superstitious the priests have in some of the churches the images of pertain saints

--Pages 9 to 16-

price FIVE CENTS.

BOOTH’S GREAT CRIME - e JOHN H. SURRATT TALKS OF THE I ASSASSINATION OF LINCOLN. - ♦ Story of One of the Men Charged with Complicity In n Tragedy That Flanged a Nation In Grief. ■ ♦ - WAS NOT A PARTY TO THE DEED BUT TALKED WITH BOOTH ABOUT ABDUCTING THE PRESIDENT. - Surratt’s Flight to Europe, Service in the Fapal Guard, Betrayal, Arrest, and Subsequent Trial. ♦ Special to the Indianapolis Journal. BALTIMORE, Md., April 2.-Thirty-thre Easter Sundays have come and gone sine* Abraham Lincoln was shot to death by John Wilkes Booth In the old Ford’s Theater, Washington, and of the eleven individuals who were connected, directly or indirectly, with that tragic and unhappy event but two are yet living. One of these is Lewis J. Weichmann, now a resident of Philadelphia, whose testimony was the foundation stone on which the government rested its hopes of convicting Mrs. Mary E. Surratt and her son, John H, Surratt, and on which history and the light of subsequent events have since cast a grave shadow. The other living actor in that famous tragedy is John Harrison Surratt, a resident of this city, a trusted and honored official in the Old Bay line of Chesapeake steamers, whose life story from the time he ran away from school as a mere lad of sixteen and Joined the secret service bureau of the Confederacy until the last day of hie lengthy and highly sensational trial reads like a fairy tale, and it is but another evidence of the oft-proven adage that “Truth is stranger than fiction.” For a third of a century prominent writers for newspapers and magazines In every section of the Union have realized that could John H. Surratt be induced to tell bis story freely, unreservedly and fully, it would rival in romantic interest and dramatic detail anything hitherto published concerning tho landmarks of the war between the States. Countless efforts—over a thousand, in fact —have been made to get nim to tell his story and make a statement of his true relations with Wilkes Booth, Weichmann, Dr. Mudcl and the other actors who figured in that long train of stirring events which culminated in the assassination of Abrahar Lincoln and the execution of his mothe* but prior to the three interviews granted me for the Sunday Journal, in which he told me every detail of his life, he has returned but one answer to all. The wound was too deep and rankling to tear open at this late day and expose to the critical gaze of an unsympathetic public. He feels now, however, that after a lapse of a third of century the bitterness of feeling, rancor fiTET hate engendered by four long years of internecine strife has passed away and given place to a more fair and liberal feeling concerning his reputed connection with an event which shocked the world and thrust a ration into mourning. “I feel that I owe it to those who have passed away, as well as to myself, to make a statement concerning what I know of that event,” he said. His statement places him in a very different light before the people of the country.

Captain Surratt is very different from the ignorant and bloodthirsty Southerner pictured by an angry press during his trial; On the contrary he is refined, highly educated and polished. His manners are stately and dignified. He is a brilliant talker, and every word he utters conveys the exact mea ling ha intended. He is above the medium height, straight and slender, and has iron gray hair and mustache and two piercing gray eyes set deep in Ids head beneath heavy eyebrows. He talks in a low tone of voice, never hesitates for a word, and only twice during my talks with him did he become excited, although dwelling for the first time in over thirty years on matters which must have stirred his feelings to their core. Once was when he spoke of Wilkes Booth and the other time was during his terrible arraignment of Welciimann. He is only fifty-five years old, although he looks seventy. He told me he lived fifty years from the time he entered the Southern army until he was liberated on bail after his two months' trial. IN THE SECRET SERVICE. As the substance of this interview is of considerable historical importance in that it is the first purely voluntary statement of any one who had aught to do with Wilkes Booth, I will glvo his statements, word for word, as they left his mouth, merely preserving historical sequence. “When the war broke out,” said he, "I was a small boy of sixteen, studying at St. Charles College, in Carroll county, Maryland, and like all Southern boys at that time I was a red-hot rebel and dearly loved my native State. At tbo college It was strictly against the rules to discuss even in the most casual manner any of the political questions then agitating the country. I remember one afternoon we were all on the campus, which directly faced Charles Carroll, of Carrollton’s beautiful estate, Dourehegan Manor, when thero issued from the main driveway opposite, a troop of Confederate cavalry on their way to join the Army of Northern Virginia. Tbo troop had been recruited and was led by young Charles Carroll. They w* ro a magnificent set of young men, full of lire, dash and vim, and presented a splendid appearance. I was fifed with martial ardor at the sight, and tossing my cap into the air, I cheered and cheered again. In fact, I cheered myself hoarse. When the troop had disappeared behind a cloud of dust my comrades assured me that I would certainly be expelled, and taking the bull by the horns, as it were, I went direct to the principal and told him what I had done, He was very angry at first, but finally softening, said it might prove a good thing after all, adding, ‘We may have use for those young nien yet. It was at this college that I first met Lewis J. Weichmann, my Nemesis, a man who has done more than any one living or dead to bring disgrace on me and my family. He is a living proof that the child is father to the man. “After staying at, the college a few months I became convinced that my p>wcv was in the ranks of the Southern Confederacy, and suiting the action to the thought I went direct to Richmond and entered the Secret Service Bureau under General Wilder, one of the finest Americans that ever lived. It would take every column of space you represent to detail ail my experiences while traveling the underground route between Richmond. Washington, Baltimore and Montreal. I had innumerable hairbreadth escapee. When I look back on the risks I ran and the desperate chances i