People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 November 1893 — Page 3

IN DIXIE'S LAND BERORE THE WAR.

[Copyright, >B9s, by A. N. Kellogg KewspaperCo.] 1

I CHAPTER 1 ACCORDING TO “THE CODE.

HE story will be ’ uO an au to bi - > * Ography. I, •Jr Dorr Jewett, fl am the narB rator. I am a native of New Hampshire; but the larger part of my life has been passed in V the La Fourche 3 district of Loui s i a n a . This •WKjMk should be said, in order that my SmJjSJ 'un personality , jr may be und»rat the A worn and

■time-stained copy of the Vicksburg Daily Citizen of April 6, 1853, lies before me. After the occurrence of certain events with which future chapters will deal, I took the trouble to secure this paper, and have ever since preserved it. In its columns is a brief and rather unsatisfactory reference to an affair which had excited large interest in that part of Mississippi. I was not a witness of it; and the description afterward given to me by one of the actors in it was so much more in detail than the newspaper account that I prefer to adopt the former in setting this landmark at the outset of the story. If you follow the left bank of the river down to a point where the Vicksburg bluffs sink to the ordinary level -of the river banks, you will come out upon a beautiful grassy glade overlooking the water. Some small elms and cottonwoods made a pleasant shade bordering the road; a wide strip of land, possibly thirty rods across, lay between the highway and the river bank. So early upon the morning of the 3d of that April that the sun had not yet shown his rim above the trees, three hoi semen came at a brisk trot down the road, stopped at this grove, dismounted, and tied their horses. “The other people are not here yet,” one of the men observed. “There’s time enough. Ah! there the}’ are.” Three more horsemen approached from the opposite direction. They also halted here, and fastened their horses. All of the six were dressed in white duck suits, for the weather of that spring had come on hot. Two of them carried each one a case of mahogany wood, and these two, after saluting each other, came together in earnest conversation. Two of the others also Approached and shook hands, and the prefix “doctor” was exchanged between them.

“A disagreeable business,” one observed. “Indeed it is. I hope we shall neither of us be needed.” “4 hope so —but fear it will be otherwise. They say both are good shots. You brought your instruments?” “Yes; I carry them in a large pocket in my saddle-flap.” “All right; my darky is on the way with mine. Now what are Dorion and Basnet about?” These two, each with his mahogany--case under his arm, had drawn off out -of hearing. But as my account of the whole affair came from one of them, their conversation may be stated here. “Has this thing really got to go on?” “I suppose so—unless your man will withdraw his challenge.” “He can’t do that. To do it would be to confess that he never had any /grounds for it.” “And, do you know, Mr. Castex says that he never did have any ground for

THE DUEL.

the challenge. But Bostock put the affront on him in such a public manner, and in his own house, too, that he ■swears he’ll fight, unless the challenge is absolutely withdrawn, without explanation.” “Well, it’s an absurd thing! Duels I Slave been concerned in, have fought three or four myself, but never before was I engaged in one where nobody but the principals knew what the provocation was; and one of them insists th’at there was none. It seems like boy’s play. ,J “Look at y our man; he acts as though he were too angry this minute to contain himself.” , The principals to this meeting had bowed in the most distant manner upon reaching the ground. Then Mr. •Castex sat down, propped his back against a tree, lit a cigar, and smoked It as lazily as though his spirits were perfectly by the prospect of

By THE LATE K James Franklin Fihs.

the coming encounter. Mr. Bostock, on the contrary, walked nervously about, switching at the grass with his cane, and occasionally turning upon his nonchalant antagonist a glanoe that was decidedly savage. The seconds resumed their consultation. “Is it worth while to try to get an explanation?” “Not in the temper your man is in, I should say; not without a shot. We will stand them up once, and the first exchange may lead to an arrangement.” “If it don't put one or both of them beyond the reach of arrangements,” muttered the other. “Well, come on.” Messrs. Basnet and Dorion crossed the road; the others followed them. The first rays of the sun glanced through the trees; the delicious harmony of birds shook the air; the throbbing of the engines and splash of the paddle-wheels of a boat ascending the river were painfully distinct. _ Mr. Dorion thrust a small stick into the turf and deliberately measured oit ten paces, marking the limit in the same way. “Will you toss for position, Mr. Basnet?” The other tossed up a coin. “Heads!” cried Dorion, and both bent over the place. “You win, Mr. Castex. Please make your choice.” The person addressed walked to one of the sticks; his adversary walked to

“DON’T TRY TO TALK,” THE DOCTOR SAID.

the other. Contrasting them as they thus stood face to face, Bostock appeared tall, broad shouldered and ruddy; Castex slighter in build, sallow of face and with a decidedly sinister expression on it. The pistols were taken from their cases; one was delivered to each combatant. The doctors retired to where the horses were tied. The seconds went to the road. “Please observe the conditions,” Mr. Basnet said, in a loud voice. “Each man to hold his weapon perpendicularly up or down —so! The word will be, ‘Fire! —One —Two —Three.’ There must be no shot before the first word or after the last. Do you understand?” “Yes.” “I do.” “Are you ready?” “Ready.” “Yes.” “Fire! —One —”

The last words were drowned by the report of the pistols. The straw hat worn by Castex was seen to turn upon his head; he took it off, and exhibited a bullet hole through the crown. “Are you hurt, Mr. Bostock?” his friend eagerly asked, running forward. “No. Give us another shot.”

“It is time now for me to say a word,” said the friend of Mr. Castex, coming up. “He does not instruct me; I interfere because it seems something like murder to allow this difficulty to go any further. Mr. Bostock, my principal has accepted your challenge because he comes of a race of fighting men; his father was killed at Waterloo; he wants no imputation upon his own courage. He has come here and has exchanged shots with you, declaring to me that you have no just cause’ of offense against him. Whether you have or not, nobody but you two can know. The language which gave you offense was uttered in your own house, at your own table. What it was, no one heard but you. Both of you ought now to be satisfied; both of you have vindicated your honor. Let the affair end here.”

Mr. Bostock faced the speaker. “Does that man,” he asked, while his voice trembled with passion, “does that man affirm that he has not given me just cause for offense?” “That is what I say,” called out Mr. Castex from where he stood, with a strong French accent. “Then you lie, sir!” deliberately retorted Bostock. “Indeed! That is very good. You wiD observe now, messieurs, there is reason to fight, if there has not been before.” The seconds silently assented, and recharged the pistols. As they handed them back, they saw something in the faces of the principals that predicted another result this time. The steamer had advanced to a point nearly opposite where they stood, and the slow deep coughing of her pipes seemed to emphasize the scene. Again the word was given; both pistols spoke together. As the smoke floated off, Bostock was seen standing

upright. Castex lay his full length upon the ground. Both doctors were instantly kneeling by him. He never stirred. A small hole in the forehead showed where the bnHet had traversed the brain. Mr. Bostock looked at the group. “Is he dead?” he asked. His friend came over to where he stood. “Yes,” he said. Mr. Bostock’s face was getting white, and an expression of pain crossed it. His friend caught him as he was settling down to the ground. One of the doctors hurried over and laid the sufferer on the grass. “He hit me the last time,” said Bostock, faintly. “Look at the chest.” T'he doctor tore open vest and shirt and found SiG Vttlkt hole, He Inserted the probe. The“ fee administered a stimulant. “How is it, doctor?” the woUu^ ed man asked. “I don’t wish to alarm you, sir; but this is serious.” Under the temporary influence of the stimulant Mr. Bostock sat up. “I beg of you don't try to talk.” the doctor said. “Your life may depend upon your keeping quiet.” His remonstrance was not heeded. “I want you all to know,” cried the wounded man, “that I never wanted to kill him. You saw the chance I gave him. I could have put my first ball through his head just as easily as through his hat, if I’d wanted. He had a chance then to take back the damnably insulting words that he whispered to me at my own table. I wanted him just to say: ‘Mr. Bostock, I’m sorry that I said it, and it was not true,’ and I would have taken his hand. But no, he must die, repeating the insult. fool would rush on his fate.” “Mr. Bostock,” said the friend of the man who lay dead a few yards away, “what were those •words that you claim were so insulting?”

“Not another word!” the doctor crjed. “Silence and quiet, at the peril of your life!” “I can’t tell you,” Bostock faintly replied. “You must not know what he said. Nobody must know. The fool! —what tempted him? Say, Dorian — all of you—remember!—l have made no will —but my child, Coralie, will have it all —the plantations here and in Louisia'na—all—aH—” The blood gushed from his mouth and he fell back in a faint.

CHAPTER 11. AMONG THE GRANITE HILLS. As has been said, the scenes described in my first chapter were not witnessed by me. But I had seen and known one of the chief actors long before that memorable morning. I had seen and known him under circumstances that make it necessary to a due comprehension of the narrative to state where, when and how. It was five years before. To be exact, it was the spring of 1848. I was planting corn with my father, on one of the almost sterile hillsides of the New Hampshire farm. The humble roof under which I was born was visible down near the river. The Merrimac wound along two sides of our little homestead, furnishing the only cheerful feature of the scene. Hills —sterile hills—encompassed us. Twenty miles away I could see the granite top of Mount Kearsarge soaring to the clouds.

I was a boy of eleven, rather precocious for my years. I attended the public school four months in the year, and labored with my father the balance of the time among these rocks. I went to “meeting” on Sundays in the old edifice on top of a high hill, on the steeple of which a veering wooden codfish denoted the direction of the wind, and saved the people from the profanation which a cross in that place would have caused. I listened to the choir, elevated to a fearful height in the rear gallery, as they thundered forth resounding anthems and fugues. I heard the doleful-visaged an<J drawling-voiced minister pray forty minutes at a stretch, and preach ninety, frequently devoting ninetenths of the whole race to exquisite and eternal torment. I had a thirst for knowledge that the public school could not supply. A stray copy of the Boston Daily Journal, coming like an enchanter from the outside world, sometimes stimulated this thirst. I was generally regarded as “a green boy,” “an odd stick,” etc.; and I once heard of Deacon Halleck telling my father that a boy with such outlandish notions as Dorr ought to be whipped regularly twice week. Doubtless I should have been, had the deacon been given the ordering of me earlier than he was; but my father, although reared in all the vigor of Puritanism, was by nature kind and ten-der-hearted, and religious fanaticism could not change him. To my own puzzled youthful mind, it often seemed as though a grave mistake had been made in my allotment. I seemed to have been set down in the wrong corner of the world, among a people with whom I had no affinity. 1 was still a mere boy. I learned as I grew older, and long before I bade farewell to my northern home, to respect the intelligence, the force, the sturdy honesty of this people, whose very “failings leaned to virtue’s side.” Still, I thought then, as I think now, that I should always have been dwarfed and cramped among them. Returning to the bleak hill-side where my father and I were striving to plant corn on that afternoon, I record how 1 suddenly stopped work, leaned on my hoc, and contemplated my father. He was in his shirt-sleeves; his graying hair and refined but wrinkled face were turned to me as he bent over his toil. A sudden inspiration seized me. “Father! Do .you suppose that when I get to be as old as you are, I shall be planting corn in these rocks?” He stopped and looked up in surprise. “I hope not, Dorr —I hope you won’t! But what put such a question into your head just now?” “It’s in my head all the time. The way things are going on here, there

don’t seem to be anything coming to me but the same poverty and the same labor that you have always had." He looked at me —a serious, pitying glance it was—and sat down on a granite bowlder. He leaned his bead on his hand and sighed. “My boy, I’ve often thought of this. Your poor mother and I have laid awake nights talking about it; but I never thought it had troubled you any. What do you want?” “To go to the academy —maybe to college—and by and by to get out into the world, try to make a man of myself, like the men I read of, and to see something besides these hills and these people. I'd like to get rich, and come back and build a big house for you and mother over on the lake. Yes, I’d like to do anything rather than live here all my life.” He smiled at my youthful enthusiasm; but his look of painful reflection quickreturned. “Dorr, .J had just such dreams myself, when I Was i‘? lln g, an( l I presume that my father before me had them. I wanted an educatlop, and couldn’t have it. Poverty, hard toil and embarrassment seem to be the lot of those who cleave to this soil. God knows, I wish things might be shaped as you wish them; but how to contrive it I do not know.”

His hoe dropped from his hand, and his eyes sought the ground. I chanced to look down toward the river road apd I saw a man in a buggy stop at our gate. A woman, my mother, of course, as there was none other about the house, came to the door. There was a brief parley; then the man got out, hitched the horse, climbed the fence and strode over the upland toward us. [TO BE CONTINUED.]

PREVENTION OF CONSUMPTION.

Certain Breathing Movements Claimed to Be of the Greatest Value. I think it is evident that proper development, and expansion of the lungs by means of well-regulated breathing must be regarded as of the greatest value in the prevention and in the treatment of the inactive stages of pulmonary consumption, says Dr. Thomas J. Mays in the Uentury. The more simple the method the more effective and practical will be the results which flow from it. Among the many exercises which are recommended for this purpose the following movements are very valuable: The arms, being used as levers, are swung backward as far as possible on a level, with the shoulders during each inspiration, and brought together in front on. the same level during e’ach expiration. Or the hands are brought together above the head while inspiring, and gradually brought down alongside the body while expiring. A deep breath must be taken with each inspiration, and held until the arms are gradually moved forward, or downward, or longer, in order to make both methods fully operative. Another very serviceable chest exercise is to take a deep inspiration, and during expiration in a loud voice count or sing as long as possible. A male person with a good chest can count up to sixty or eighty, while in a female, even with good lungs, this power is somewhat reduced. Practice of this sort will slowly develop the lungs, and the increased ability to count longer is a measure of the improvement going on withhi the chest. Or, again, the taking of six or eight full and deep breaths in succession every hour during the day, either while sitting at work or walking out in the open air, will have a very beneficial effect. ’

The breathing of compressed and rarefied air is attracting wide attention at the present time in connection with the prevention and the treatment of pulmonary consumption, and is another mode wherewith the chest capacity can be decidedly improved. When air is breathed in this manner there is felt during each inspiration a gentle distension of the whole chest, while during expiration a feeling of emptiness is experienced. Consumption is not a disease which originates in a da£, but it is the outgrowth of morbid habits and agencies which may even underlie the birth of the individual. Defective breathing is one of these habits and its pernicious prevalence is more widespread than is generally supposed.

ARTFUL HAIRDRESSERS.

How They Make a Comfortable Living Out of Congressmen’* Wive*. There is in Washington a professional hairdresser who makes a comfortable living while congress is in session. It is an £asy matter, according to the Chicago Times, to get the name of the country politician. A note is sent to his wife asking permission to show her a more becoming way of arranging her hair. Some comprehensive hint is volunteered, with a mild compliment. The letter is marked “personal,” a verbal answer is requested, and in eight out of ten attempts the hairdresser gets an answer to call. Oddly enough it is the husband who urges her claim. lie wants his wife to look like other women. At home she is all right, but in cosmopolitan life she is something of a fright, and, although he despises himself for the thought, he is ashamed of her. In an hour’s'time the hairdresser puts a new face on the woman from the woods. She may not use an inch of false hair, but she wields a crimping iron in a way that takes years of farm life from her appearance. The troubled, shy old face is not made ridiculous; instead of curls the iron-gray hair is cleaned, brushed until it is fluffy, crimped enough to ripple and look three times its own quantity, and then it is dressed. J nsteud of the long iron wire hairpins little shell pins are used, and the coils are so lightly caught that the wondering wife reckons it will not be long before they all drop out. Women who refuse to have their hair cut into a bang arc provided with a false front, but in every instance the transformation is admirable. Tbe bill is sent to the congressman and it cheerfully paid

THE GOLD STANDARD.

Its Evils Set Forth In an Able Manner—Silver More Stable Than Gold. There is no greater source of wealth in the United States than cereal crops. The line of value has tended to faU farther and farther below that of erbp production. For instance, in 1878, though the crop production was 50 per cent, greater than in 1873, it sold for two per cent, less money. In 1888, which is the last year for which statistics are given, the crop was 109 per cent above that of 1873, but it sold at an increase of only 44 per cent What has caused the falling away in the line of value? The value of the crop is the product of the quantity by the price in gold. With the increasing scarcitj’ of gold there has necessarily been a diminishing price. Silver production, however, tells a different story. It will bo seen that silver prodncticu keens approximate pace with the production of cereal crops.-? 1 If our money needs grow at the same rate as farm produce, then silver and not gold furnis>«B the normal supply. There is as much re a *7. a for an outcry against an overproduction of cereals as of silver, for both increase at the same rate. Notwithstanding the increased cotton production, in nearly every year the crop has sold for actually less than did the crop of 1873. In 1890, for instance, though the crop was almost double that of 1873 it sold for only three per cent more, and in the succeeding year, though there was an increase of 38 percent, in crop production, the selling value increased only 18 per cent. There is the same striking parallelism between cotton production and silver production, showing in like manner that silver, and not gold, furnishes the natural and stable money metal. As measured by the gold standard, silver and wheat have steadily and quite uniformily declined in price. Silver stood at 11.004 when demonitized in 1873, and in 1892 had fallen to .074. The temporary effect of the Sherman law in 1890 is plainly shown. Wheat touched the 100 mark in 1874 at fl. 43 per bushel, reached its lowest point in 1890 at 58 per cent of the base price, or 83 cents per bushel. The course of the twenty staple commodities is instructive. It reveals where the “hard times” have come in. It is significant that these commodities also have shared the downfall of silver. An editorial in the June Century denies the appreciation of gold and claims that the fall of prices has been due to improved methods of production and distribution. It is impossible to wholly disprove a statement that is partially true. No doubt improved methods of production have lowered the prices of certain commodities.

The methods of producing steel rails have been greatly improved in twenty years and as a result the price has taken a veritable “header.” Yet butter and eggs have also declined in price, though there have been no improvements made in the ordinary cow and hen as methods of producing them. In other words, improved facilities may, in some cases, have augmented a fall that has been due to another and more universal cause.

The downward fall of values has been true of other values as well, land values and stocks of all kinds. Nothing takes the very spirit out of an enterprise more than a market that is constantly falling as a result of an appreciating currency. As Mr. Balfour recently said before an audience of London bankers and merchants, it “is, perhaps, the m-ait deadening and benumbing influonoD that can touch the enterprise of a nAtion.”

Vyhen the farmer has a mortgage on his land the appreciating dollar does him a three-fold injustice. It shrinks the value of his land, augments his indebtedness and at the same time by lowering the price of his produce takes away his ability to pay. The land value shrinks away under the mortgage and the mortgage spreads out over the land until there is no margin left for the original owner, and foreclosure is inevitable. The money brokers are entitled to their principal and interest They are not entitled to the unearned increment of their wealth, caused by the appreciation of the money standard. If the monetary policy of the country makes gold the most desirable and only secure form of property it is to be expected that men who have it will not invest it but will either hoard or loan it Until the monetary basis is broadened thete will be no enduring relief for the present depression of trade and enterprise. All our money is now referable to gold and appreciates with the appreciation of gold. Even our silver dollars must be represented by a gold dollar’s worth of silver bullion in the treasury. Issuing new forms of currency, payable directly or indirectly in gold, will afford no relief but will rather tend to accelerate the upward course of gold. It will be seen that gold as a money metal is in the nature of a monopoly which confers its favors on the few to the detriment of the many. The monometallists of congress understand this. They are willing to consent to any increase of currency provided it is redeemable in gold, but they obstinately oppose any measure that would broaden the money standard and skillfully eviscerate every real measure of relief by reducing it to some such nondescript as the Sherman law. The world has 84,000,000,000 worth of silver money and a little more than 13,500,000,000 worth of gold. Does anyone seriously believe for a moment that it is either wise or possible for the world to demonetize its silver? And if it is not wise for the world to do this, why should it be wise for the United States to take any further steps in that direction? After the necessity for using silver as money is admitted there does come in a perplexing question as to how it can be safely done in the absence of an international agreement Such an agreement would no doubt be a very convenient thing but at present not a probable one. The power of plutocracy is too strong in Germany and England to make it possible for many years to come. The only use of mono-

tary conferences hitherto has teen to postpone action. It is in the power of the United States to work out its own salvation in this matter without the help of other nations. Perhaps it would not be safe to declare for free coinage at the old ratio of 16 to 1. At the present time the market value of silver is seventy-three cents an ounce, while its coinage value is f 1.29. * A free coinage law at the old ratio would be equal to an attempt on the part of the United States to raise unaided the price of all the silver in the world from seventythree cents to f 1.29 an ounce in gold. AVe are a great people but hardly equal to such an undertaking as this. It is quite safe to say that wo would get more silver than we wanted and that we could not maintain it on a parity with gold. But the power and influence of the United States is great enough to raise and maintain the price of silver at a* point fur above its present abnormally low price. This point should be discovered end our opened to its free coinage at whatever ratio that would be. I believe that u free coin-, age law in the United States at the ratio of 20 to 1 would be an entirely safe measure and that it would absolutely fix the price of silver the world over at not less than f 1.03 an ounce in gold.

The failure of the Bland-. Allison law and the Sherman law to fix the price of silver is no criterion of the effect a free coinage law would have, for neither of these laws was intended to accomplish this result On the coif* trary they have both treated silver os a commodity, to be measured, like other commodities, by a gold standard. They have created a certain demand for silver and to this extent have benefltted the owners of silver mines; but they have done nothing to stop that steady appreciation of gold that has brought disaster to all kinds of values. Nothing short of a law that involves the principle of free coinage and makes silver full legal tender will accomplish this.

It is safe to say that when the people fully understand the question aud express their will the day of the present gold monopoly will be over. After the next popular election the congressmen who return to Washington will be in the condition of those who have seen a great light —Edward B Howell, in Review of Reviews.

FACTS ABOUT SILVER.

A Little History In Connection with the Demonetization of the White Metnl. A subscriber writes for information about the silver repeal bill, the Sherman law and previous silver legislation. From the formation of the government of 1873 gold and silver were coined free and unlimited at the mints of the United States, at a ratio first of to 1 and then of 10 to 1, that is, one ounce of gold being equal to sixteen ounces of silver. In 1873 the silver dollar was by a conspiracy dropped from the coinage and silver demonetized. So secretly had the act been passed that most of the prominent members of congress knew nothing about it, and even President Grant, who signed the bill, did not know what he was signing. In 1878 congress passed the Bland bill, which provided for the purchase and coinage of not less than 82,000,000 nor more than 84,000,000 of silver each month. It also provided for the issue of silver certificates against silver dollars stored in the treasury. In July, 1800, the Sherman law was passed. It repealed the Bland law and provided that the government should purchase 4,500,000 ounces of silver each month; that the same should bo paid for in treasury notes, redeemable in either gold or silver, and that the secretary of the treasury should coin as much as he should think necessary to redeem the treasury notes. Both exPresident Harrison and Senator Sherman have recently distinctly stated that this law was concocted for the express purpose of defeating the free coinage bill then pending in congress. Under the Harrison administration all coinage under this law was stopped July 1, 1891. The treasury notes were ordered to be redeemed in gold only. President Cleveland has not only continued this order, but for two months past he has purchased only about half the amount of silver required by the law. The present repeal bill, as It is called, refers only to the purchasing clause of the Sherman law. It proposes simply to stop the purchase by the government of 4,500,000 ounces of silver a month, and if this is done the balance of the law is virtually a dead letter. The passage of the pending repeal bill would take away the only market silver has in this country, save the small amount used in the arts. — Denver News

The Gold Product.

Already thoughtful Americans are waking up to the fact that, unless something at present unknown turns up, a time is in store for them when the precious metal will be at a premium, and what such a thing as that means can be best imagined by carrying the thought across the Panama isthmus. In 1891 America used for in dustrial purposes—i. e., watch cases, jewelry, plate, etc ,—nearly 820,000,000 worth of gold. At that date the total output of the standard metal was only just over 833.000,000. In 1892 the arts absorbed very much more than in the previous year without a corresponding increase in the output. If, however, the arts absorb two-thirds of the produce, what about coinage?—Jeweler's Review.

For Both Metals.

The American people, •by an overwhelming majority, are for the use silver as well as gold as a standard of values in this country. They insist upon a currency that shall be American. not British. They demand that the prosperity of the west shall be safeguarded equally with the interests of the east. They want the two great metals maintained at a parity by just and enlightened statesmanship.—N. Y. Press.