Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 April 1877 — Page 3

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lt JUDGE SOT .” Yu *poU>nr of ft pmm'a fault*, v, PenyiWt .forgot tout awn; \ |£oft. With home* of gI«M i aho*Mr!*l4<»n» to* ft stone. v, ts wo have nothing else to do / v But talk ad warn' via, "Tia bolter w commence ftt home. And boa iMut point begin. Tfohavenorighttojudgeaman— Ha should ho fairly tried; Should mm not like hia company, We know the world ia wide. /Somp may have Amite—and who have not, The old aa well aayoung? Perhape we may, for anght we know, Have many where they’re one. ■ 'l*ll tell you of a better plan, —And one that work* full well: f Be sure your own defect* you cure * i* Before of others’ tell. And, though I sometimes chance to be So worse than tome I know, My own shortcomings bid me let *.y The faults of other* go. . Then let oa all, when we commoner^ To slander friend or foe, Think of the harm one word may do To those we little know. Bomember, curve sometimes, like “ Our otdakens, roost at home;” Don’t speak of others’ faults until We hare none of oar own. — Harry B. Free, in Chicago Tribune.

'STOP HER, PARD! STOP 29!”

I give it in his own words as nearly as I can. We made the run from a way station, the name of which has escaped me, into Pueblo by night. There had been heavy rains. Parts of the track were sub. merged. The darkness and the rush of waters created amongxhe passengers considerable anxiety. I spent most of the night in the csb. The engineer was too much Absorbed in his duties to talk. He answered my questions with civility, but with brevity. I did not observe it at the time, but afterward I recalled distinctly the sudden start he gave, and the look of intense interest he turned upon me, when I made sonto observation which indicated that my house was in the vicinity of Pittsburgh. The next day he accepted my invitation to dine. We were alone at my room. I,had been recalling the scenes of the past night, when, taking his pipe from his lips, he began: THE BNOrNEER’B BTOBT. < ( Mayhag>, stranger, you liev run over the Pennaylvany Central Railroad. As you may say. I WAS 'born and brought up on that lint! first as fireman and then engineer, nigh on to twenty year. It’s allers excitin’ to run a machine, and wen I was a fireman I used to think it was better to be top of. one of them splendid engines than to fib President of the United States. The day they first put me on the footboard, apd I took the lever in my hand apd knew it was my engine, I reckon I wp the proudest man between Pittsburgh and Altoona. I kinder thought that everybody was goin’ to be out that day, to see how that train made her run, and you can bet all yer specie that she went smack up to 'the minit, the whole 117 miles. But thlifkind of spirit wore off after a while, ’n I settled down into a sober, stiddygoin’ man; 'n they did say that I wor as safe ’n reliable a man as they hed in the buaineas.- I hev to say it, ‘stranger, as thpra’s nobody else to ao it; elsewfee you wouldn’t know it Iwas turned twenty-three wan me and Mary was married. Twenty-eight years ago! You hev a wife, stranger! Hevn’t got no wife! Well! mayhans it’s just as well! I hed Mary some eight years, but it don’t seem like no time, now. 1 left her there in the old Keystone State, her an’ the boy. Sometimes I think I’d like to go back agin, and see the place where they both lie, but I suppose I never shall. Don’t seem as if I had the heart to do it. It wasn’t in any churchyard, you know; but a little way up the mountain there was & green, quiet spot among the trees, and thsy are there—not mor’n a hundred feet, say, above the track—and I often woiKtef' if Charley doesn’t still dream, when the New York Express thunders by, that his old father is holding the throttle. I put up a snag cabLi bv the side of the road when I had a small clearin’, and between whiles I used to plant, my potatoes and things, enough to keep us going, and Mary had her garden. Mary allers took as f used to tell her, jokin' like, ’cos she was one of the family. Then we had a cow, and Mary raised chickens, and I never see no person could do as much with chickens as Mary could. Jest seemed like those hens were always strainin’ of theirselves layin’ eggs. You never see nothin’ pay stricter attention to business than what they did. Never standin’ about and foolin’ around, but allers at it. An’ then they’d set and hatch incredible. Mostly two broods a year, and brought ’em all up.

Our little cabin was among the mountains, a good ways from any other house, and I used to sometimes think that Mary must be lonely, with me away so much of the time. You see, I was allers out three nights in the week. I went up in the day-time, passing my house at noon, and down again that night, passing at midnight. But I was home two or three days ip the week and allers Sunday. The place where we lived was a wild region of country, and the storms we used to nave Up there, so high in the air, was fearful. I didn’t tell you anything about the boy T Not Welt, do you know, I took to him the very first moment. An’ that’s a very cur’ous thing about babies. Now, I never fancied ’em much; but I tell you, stranger, it makes all the difference in the wtJrtdf whether it’s your baby or whether it belongs to somebody else. I’ve seen a great many of’em in my time, and, according to thrfr parents, they was the moat uncommon babies: but I never could see much of It. I used to laugh a good deal when people made such fools of theirselv«B over their children, but'l know exactly how it is now, for I suppose I was the greatest fool over my Charley as ever lived. Maty named him Charley. Tfeatwas after me. Bee ms to me that boy took to «locomotive from the time he was aix months old. His mother would set out in fh>nt of the house with him in her lap, when I was up at noon, and she’d kiss her hand and wave the baby at me. By the time he was three years ‘old he’d got so that I used to take him up to ride with me. There was a water-tank near the house, and when ( stopped to water he was allers there, and I’d ketch him up’n carry ’im off ten or twenty miles, till I. met another train, and seine of the boys’d oarry him back home. ’Tween’t long afore there wes scarce a man on the roaa as didn't know Charier Latham’s baby. They’d piok ’4m up wherever they

could find ’im, and sometimes he’d be £no nearly all day, but somebody set ’im wn afore night 'n he’d come toddling home. Sometimes I think it’s queer how the men used to take to that baby. There was fellers just as rough as bears—brakemen, that’d get drunk and crazy with liquor and cut or shoot a man qulcker’n litenin’; *n section men—up in them mountains them section men were mighty hard cases. What for fighting’ and quarrelin’ they beat Sam Hill. An’ yet there wasn’t one o’ them chaps as would speak a cross word to my baby. They was all fond of ’im, and if anybody took to imposin’ on 'im, why, there’d be a muss quicker'n the drop of yer hat. One of the first things Charley learned to say, when he was beginnin* to talk, was this: You see the men on the road used to call one another •' Pard ” —short for “ pardner.” Charley he caught it, and he allers called me “ Para.” I don’t think he ever called me father or papa, like other children do; but it was allers “Pard.” “You and me is pards, isn’t weT" he used to say, an’ that’s what we allers called one another, and he went by the name of “ Charley Latham's pard ” all over the road.

I'd be goin’ by the house on the noon train, and le&nin’ out of the cab watchin’ for ’im, ’n he’d be out in front with a white nig or something to wave at me, and I’d see by the motion of his lips—l couldn't hear for the noise of the cars — that he was saving’, “You and me is pards, isn’t we?” As I was tollin’, Sundays I laid off; ’n in the mornin’ after breakfast, Mary would fill up a basket with some bread, 'n butter, ’n meat, ’n things, and we three would go off up into the mountains and stay all day. We used to do this mostly every Sunday, and so Charley got to callin’ it his pard’s day. You- see he got a notion it was the best day in the week ’cos I was allers home with ’im. I didn’t never go to church much —it was a long ways; and then I thought Charley 'would get as much religion by goin’ around in the woods, an’ among the mountains, where the trees an’ leaves were so beautiful, and the rocks so grand, as any other way. If they don’t tell us that the Creator who made ’em all is powerful, and good, too, there ain’t no preacher can do it. You see, I never was any Christian, and never give Charley no sich trainin’, and sometimes I think mebbe I didn’t do quite right by him. But, Lord love you, stranger, when he went among the angels, I’m just certain there wasn’t none of ’em had any cleaner soul an’ what he had. There was a place, about three-quarters of a mile from our house, where we used to go a good deal Sundays, and Mary would read the Bible to us and sing. She was a good singer, Manr was. We used to call the place “ Devil’s Run.” It was a sort of creek, and didn’t have no water In it, ’cept after a hard rain. It come down between two high mountains, where it was steep as could ne. When a storm came up I’ve known it in half an hour to have six feet of water in it. An’ then it would bring down big logs, trunks of trees, and great stones, roaring that way you could near it for miles. It got its name because it was such an infernal place. Often I’ve been woke up at night by a heavy shower, and I’d hear Devil’s Run howling as though it would tear everything to pieces. There couldn’t vbe-*o worse place fixed for the road, if they had hunted the whole country through, than right there. There was a sharp curve, and on the outside of it was a straight up and down precipice for hundreds of feet, so that if a train went off it would be smashed into kindlin’-wood and tenpenny nails. Devil’s Run went underneath the track, near the point of the curve, through a barrel culvert, and once there came a hard storm, ’n the trees ’n stones, ’n so on, chocked up the culvert, which wasn’t large enough, ’n the water dammed up and rose, till by’n by the whole embankment gave way, and twenty feet of the road wentrippin’ down the mountain. They found out the break before any accident happened, and the culvert was rebuilt, a good deal larger than before. But that place the whole road was afeard of.

As I was tellin’, Charley was bom to be an engineer. But the time he had got to be six years old he knew the name of nigh all parts of the machine. He’d learnt all the signals that was used on the road. He knew that a red flag or a red light meant danger. That a lantern, at night, swung backwards ’n forwards, slowly, across the track would bring a train up, all standin’. All that sort o’ thing he’d jest picked up hisself. He knew the sound of every whistle and bell on the road, ’n could tell what ingine they belonged to, and I believe he knew the tread of No. 29 whenever she went by, night of day. No. 29, that was my ingine, 1 run her about three years, and there wasn’t nothin’ in God’s world I couldn’t get out of her when she was in good humor. We sort o’ understood one another, and she hardly ever went back ou me. Once in a while she did, and then she was a perfect cuss. Yes! he was seven that winter—just seven years old a few days before Christmas. After Charley got a year or two old, I allers made much of Christmas. Mostly I contrived to lay off that day so as to be home with my little pard. Some of the boys was allers ready and willin’ to take my run that day—them as didn’t hev no wives or children. They’d come and say, “blow, Latham, there’s your little pard, he’ll be a-wantin’ of you to-morrow, which is Chiistmas. Bo i’ll jest take your run down. An’ this ’ere basket, why, the boys, you know, they ses, we ain’t got no chick or child, and we’ll send this along to Latham’s little Charley.’’ The first time they did that I was took back that way I stood and gaped, alookin’ around like a natural, and couldn’t say a word. And the things they used to send Charley was astonishin’; toys and so on. Why, one Christmas they sent ’im a silver ring. Oh! stranger, them days was such times as I’ve never hed since. There wasn’t no other children around for Charley to play with, but me*n his mother was all he seemed to care for, ’n we’d carry on together all day just as if none of us was more’n seven years old. Cnarley hed a little room by hisself, where he Blept, which had a window that looked down the track. I gave him a railroad lantern, which be trimmed and oiled hisself, after I showed him how, ’n wen it was my night down he’d light his lantern ’n put it in the window at the head of his bed. I could see it a long way before I got to the house, ’n you don’t know, stranger, what comfort it was wen I was a cornin’ down to see that light and know that my little boy waa lyin’ there fast asieep and dreamin’ that the ..roar of the train waa the footsteps of his old pard flying at fortv mile an hour.’’ It was my run down Thanksgiving Eve. I was goin’ to stop off in the mornin’, and BUI Walker was to take my train gpin’ back. We started from Altoona late in the evening and a good deal behind. It had been a warm day. The weather had, been warm for some time hack, and it began to rain in the mornin’. and hed rained aU day. By night the wind

chopped round to the north, ’n it began to turn cold, so that won we started it was reinin’ and sleetin’ with an outlook for a heavy storm. A darker night I never saw, ’n wen the conductor pulled the bel 1 1 sea to my fireman, “ Crazy, this is goin’ to be an ugly run.” My fireman was a wild, harum-scarum sort of a boy, and so they had nicknamed ’im “ Crazy Jake.” But they soon dropped the Jake ’n left him Crazy, and thet’s the name he allers went by. So he ses to me, “ Bom, I guess you’re right there.” Crazy was one of them boys thet never was afeard o’ nothin’. • I’ve seen ’im in desperate tight places, but never knowd ’im to show the white feather. 1 don’t believe man or devil could scare ’im, but this night he seemed to be sorter uneasy like. Sometimes there’s something that makes you think beforehand that something is goin’ to happen—a kind of—of—presentiment? Tea! that’s it. Presentimen’. You can’t tell exactly how it is, but if there is sperrits in accidents or disasters, seems like they was tryin’ some way to let folks know in time, and couldn’t quite do it. ' Everything seemed to go wrong with us that night. The passengers was all growlin' cos we hurried ’em up at supper; and when I pulled out my machine had the very old boy in her. No. 29, as I was tollin' ye, was one of the surest engines on the road, but weu she did git into her didos she was more obstreperous ’n a Government mule. Ingines is like those sewin’ machines or planners, and them things. They git out o’ kilter without no reason, and yer can’t tell w’at’s the matter with ’em, only they jest won’t, and that’s all there is about it. She wouldn’t steam, she fretted and snorted, and foamed, and wouldn’t do her work no ways at all. Me and Crazy fussed with her, ana worked with her, and coaxed and - cussed her, but it wasn’t no use. We kept runnin’ behind all the time instead of making up, ’n the conductor swore like a pirate. He was a engineer hisself, and he came out into the cab, and for five or ten miles he fussed and worked and coaxed and cussed. I believe that engine knew just as well that Satan was out loose that night as if she’d been a real human. Ingines is like women—they can’t tell you why a thing is so, and can’t give no reason for it, but they jest know it is so.

Mebbe we’d make thirty miles, or rich matter. The rain, and sleet, and hail, and snow was comm’ down fearful. The water was pourin’ down the mountain and fillin’ the ditches and runnin’ much as you saw it last night. The wind was a blowin a tornado, and come tearin’ through the passes—gulches they call ’em in this countiy —in gusts that would strike the locomotive like a big wave striking the ship, and almost throw her over. It was so dark, too, that I couldn’t hev seen Crazy on the other side- of the cab but for the lantern, and when he opened the furnace door. But I had to get along all I could. It wouldn’t do to slow up, as I was runnin’ for a meetin’ point. Just before you get to the curve at Devil’s Run there’s a short stretch of straight track. Boon as I struck that 1 began to look for the light in Charley’s window, which was the other side of the Run. Strainin’ my eyes through the dark just at the point of the curve, I saw a light swinging backwards and forwards slowly across the track. Yon know I was a tellin’ you as everything went crooked that night. Scon as I saw that light I knew what it waa all in a minit. It came on me with a rush, like. My hair stood on end. I blew brakes. I screamed to the fireman, “Crazy, Devil’s Run culvert’s gone, by the livin’ God!’’ He jumped ’n sot the tender brakes, and slid the wheels in a flash. The brakemen behind didn’t answer. They were dozin’ in the cars, I reckon. I blew brakes agin with a blast to wake the dead, and threw her aver. The drivers ground and groaned under me, hut the rails waa sleety and slippery, and I was forging ahead to t» gulf 500 feet square down, and 150 human lives behind me. I was tellin’ ye as No. 29 that night was dead square agiu goin’ ahead; but when I threw her back seems like she knew her biz, and how much laid on her doin’ of it well. Women, agin, is inginec. Crabbed, crooked, cantankerous cusses wen they don’t want to, but, where it’s werks of goodness or mercy, call on ’em and they’re right there. No. 29 took hold on that reverse with a grit I never see in no ingine afore. She put all there was in her into every turn, and the whole affair took less time than I’m a tellin 1 of it till the danger was by. When we stopped within twenty feet of the light, which was swingin’ still, backwards and forwards, slowly across the track, I sez to Crazy, “ Who’s got that lantern ?” Knew it couldn’t be the trackman, for we’d just met him three miles below, and ’cept him there was nobody ne&rer’n ten miles at that time of night. So f gits down from the machine and runs up the road. As I comes up I sees a little figure in white. It was still a swingin’ of the light, backwards and forwards, slowly across the track. He was in his night-gown, just as he got out of bed, hadn’t no hat, and was barefoot. The sleet had froze ip his hare, and his night-gown was stiff with ice. I comes up to ’im—-well, I was took that way I couldn’t speak. An’ he kep’ swingin’ the light backwards and forwards, slowly across the track, and he sez to me, he sez, “ You and me’s pards, isn’t we?’’ I looks at ’im a minnit. His eyes was open and looked queer. He was dead-fast asleep. Crazy ketches me or I’d gone over, which It were my knees seemed weak like. Then I sets down on the rail, and Crazy picks up the child, ’n huggiu’ of ’im up busted right out cryin’, he did. The conductor and some of the men got out of the cars and come where we was. It was sleetin' still, ’n’ growin ’bitter cold. The boys carried the Daby into the baggage-car, where there was a stove, and took oft his night-clothes and wrapped ’im up in blankets and great-coats. There was a doctor on the train, and he ses if we kin git 'im back to bed without wakin’ of •im up. p’raps it wouldn’t hurt ’im; but if he was to wake, what with the wet ’n’ the cold, ’n’ the fright, like as not it might kill ’pi. Bo the boys takes'm up to carry’m to the house, and I follered along, but I couldn't hev carried a kitten. The doctor he tells ’em to be keerfnl and not wake ’im, for it was as much as his life was worth. So Crazy takes ’im, and two of ’em holds a blanket over ’im to ’im to keep the sleet off, V one goes ahead with a lantern, and two or three more about with lanterns, so’s to light the way. Wen we got to the break it was just aa I expected. Track, road, culvert, everything gone, clean as if cut out with a knife. The water was pitchin’ down the ran six feet deep, carryin’ big rocks and boulders that bounced and bumped from side to side and up into the air, clear out of the water. It was awful to look at. How the child got over the gap, which was at least twenty feet wide, I don’t know. A tree bed come down and lodged crossways, and I suppose he must hev gone over that. Wen we come to it we was moat nfraid -to try it, for if yon. slipped off the log it was all day with you. I didn’t like to trust the boys, and

sea to Jake: “Crazy, you won’t drop the baby, will you»” He pointa down into the break, and aea: “ Latham, we'd all be dow» there, every mother's son of -aa, but for your little pard. I’d drop my soul first.” Well! we got ’im home safe at last Mary was asleep when we got to the house, and scared as bad as when she heard what was up. We put ’lm back, in his bed, and, sure enough, be never waked up. Next mornin’ they threw a trestle over the break, and trains was runnin’ agin. But the doctor stayed with us. Jest out of his own head, you know, but he seemed anxious. Seemed as though he took to the child. Don’t wonder at that, neither. Moot everybody did. I watched by 'im all that night, and toward day I got out all his old Christmas things ana set ’em on to a table near the bed, where he could see ’em the first thing. But a fever came on ’im, ’n’ w’en he woke up he was out of his head. I speaks to ’im and ses, “ Hew goes it, Pard?” but he didn’t know me. That was Thanksgiving-Day, you know, ’n I sat there by him, liopin’s every minit as he might come round, so I could give ’im Lis things and we could hev our holiday jest as we used to do. But he kep’ gittin’ worse from hour to hour.

He was sick jest a week and wanderin’ and wild from first to last. I stayed with ’im all the time, for I hadn’t wits enough left to handle a machine, and the boys sent word out not to bother myself about business ’n’ they’d see me through, so between 'em they did my duty,'bd No. 29 went up and down in her reg’lar runs jest as if I was at the lever myself. You know I was tollin’ about the watertank near the house. It didn’t used to be used much, but that week seemed as though there wasn’t a train either way that didn’t git out o’ water just there, ana some of ’em would come over to see about the boy. And their wives kept sendin’ nice things—and they wasall poor people, too. You see, somehow, it traveled about fast what little Pard had done, stoppin’ the train that night, ’n’ he such a mite of a child. An’ it got into the newspapers, and the President of the road came up to see ’im, and all that. But he jest went on from day to day, for Death struck 'im from the first moment as he stood there in the winter rain. . From his talking while he was delirious we found out pretty much all ho<v it was. I reckon he heard the storm in hia sleep and the roarin’ of the run, and that set ’im to dreamin’. Of course, he knew it was my night, ’nd I had often told ’im what a bad place it was, and what to do if anything happened—never thinking that he’d go to doin’ of it hisself. But he gits up in his sleep, takes his lantern, and goes out to meet me. I’d be a sittin’ there watchin’ of ’im by his bed, ’n he’d begin first, jest kind o’ mutterin’, and I’d hear him say, softly like, as es he was talkin’ to hisself:

“ Pard’s due at the run in twenty minits. I kin git there in time.” * ’ Peered like it was all goin’ through his mind agin, and he was doing over jest what he did that night. We could tell wen he got to the place where the road broak, for he ses: “ Kin I git over on that log? Es 1 don’t my Pard will be killed.” Then seemed as though he was goin’ down to the curve where we found him. An’ he’d shiver like, as es the cold rain was strikin’ ’im. You see we could mostly foller ’im by watchin’ ’im and ketchln’ what he said. Onct or twict he shook right hard, and his teeth chattered. We thought it was the cold he was feelin’ again as he felt it out there in the night with nothin’ on ’im. Then he keeps still awhile like he was a waitin’ and listenin’ for the train, and you’d see ’im hold his breath fearin’ he couldn’t ketclj the sound. Pretty soon he speaks agin, gently like, and ses: “Kin he see the light in time?” ’N he waits a bit. Next he jumps up in bed on his knees and screams out at the top of his voice: “ Stop her, Pard! Stop 20!” Stranger, I’ve seen frightful things in my time, but I| never seen things so awful as that was. Pale and wild, with the fever on ’im, that mere babv was trying t* make me hear, and the wind howlin’ and the rain roarin’ the way it was. An’ we’d try to keep ’im still, ’n his mother would coax him, and I’dtry to quiet him, ’n he’d B/'l’PflTD qmn “ Culvert’s gone! Stop her, Pard!” An’ I’d take him in my arms, ’n he’d be all of a quiver. Then it seemed like he heerd me whistle, for he ses, “AH right! He’s blowih’brakes.” An’ I puts ’im back in bed, and he lays still a minit, like he was a listenin’, and ses, *

“ He’s a reversin’ of 29, he is. My Pard —Pard’s safe.” Then he’d shut his eyes an’ drop off, and smile in his sleep, like he was satisfied. By-and-by he’d begin and go all over it again, and so, day after day, allers the same. He seemed to hev it in his mind all the time. The doctor, you know, him I was a tellin’ about, well, he stopped off that night and staid with us the whole week and nursed baby like it was his own. ’N wen it wps all over I thought it was no more’n right, ’n I ses to ’im, “ Doctor! can I pay you?” “No!” says he, “ Latham, you can’t. His life saved mine. ’N beside that, Latham,” ’n he filled up like, “ besides that, Latham, I’ve got ohe jest his age. There ain’t nothin’ yon can give me but that little curl there on his forehead.” Bo Mary takes the scissors and cuts it off. He kissed it, ’n put it in his pocket ’n went away. On the night of the break at Devil’s Run, when I got off the machine to go and see what was the matter, I pulls out my watch and it was twelve o’clock and three migits. Some of the neighbors had come from around in the mountains, ’n a minister from a village about fifteen miles off. I didn’t give no attention to nothin’, for I was stunned like and didn’t know how it all was. I was a sittin’ in front of the bouse on a large stone, where Charley used to sit and wait for me when I was coming by, and I heerd a whistle. An’ I seed a train. It stopped near where I was. The locomotive was No. 29. The boys had her dressed in mournin’. Bill Walker was runnin’ her and Crazy was firin’. There was three coaches, filled with the boys and their wives and children. They was in their best clothes, *n’ when they came by where I was sittin’—they all knew it was liUle Charley’s place—the men took off their hats and the women had their handkerchiefs to their faces. I allers knowed they was very fond of him, but it seemed as though they had lost an only child. There was six little boys, all the same size, and they took 'imup, and we all followed op the side of the mountain. It was a mild day, and the sun was shinin’ bright. We crossed Devil’s Run, and came to a place of level ground where was some large pine trees. It was just over the cliff, a little ways from the road, jua a hundred feet, and in plain sight of where he stood wavin' his lantern backward and forward slowly acroea the track

when he said: “Yon and me is pards, isn’t we?” Alter all, it was harder on Mary than on me. In three months' time I took her there, too. I stayed on the line awhile after that, but I oouldn't never go back to my house agin, and whenever I was goin l by and saw those two heaps of fresh’ earth, it worked on me so I couldn’t stand if. As I was fellin', I sometime* think I’d like to get busk there and soe the place once more, Wit seems as if I was ariserd. I don’t believs in ghosts, but I know If I was to run a train around that curve in a dark night I’d see my little Charley wavin’ his light as he did thatnight when it cost him his life. — D. T. Wright, in Christian Union.

A New Motive Power.

In the middle ages, gentlemen of a philosophic turn of mind and an unlimited amount of leisure wasted their lives in a fruitless search after the elixir at life or the philosopher’s stone. The present time finds people more sensible, and these desirable butvery unobtainable articles are not now sought after; the philosopher of the nineteenth century prefers employing his talents to better advantage, and, when everything else fails him, he turns his attention to the discovery es a new motive power, and whenever he announces that he is ready to run a train of cars or a steamboat with a half pint of water, or condensed air, or pendulnms, or something of that sort, there are hundreds ready to believe the inventor’s promises who would scoff at the idea of transmuting metals. There is no doubt that a new motive power is urgently needed; any person who has run against a lamp-post at midnight is ready to admit that, and perhaps this is one of the reasons that makes people so anxious for something novel in this line, as icy pavements and late hours are veiy apt to undermine a person’s confidence in the present style of locomotion. Philadelphia had her moment of triumph in this matter, but now the voice of Keely is heard no more in the land. Detroit stepped to the front, but Glassey has departed forever; so Brooklyn now stands up, and in the person of Isaac Chomel, 501 Fulton street, challenges the admiration of the world for her new motive power. Unlike Keely, Isaac is not satisfied with a pint of water, he wants oceans of it; in fact, he intends to utilize the rolling motion of the ship to propel it. In his ship is suspended a movable platform, hung so as to yield to the pitching or rolling motion of the vessel. This, at its bottom, gears directly upon the propeller shaft, so that there is the least possible loss of power. As this platform is inclined to an angle of thirty degrees, the propeller mtuces eight revolutions, continuing to revolve in flle same direction when the platform is tilted the other way.

Mr. Chomel says that a ship at sea rolls about ten times per minute, mid that he will thus secure in a brisk sea eighty revolutions per minute. Of course, the invention is only in its infancy yet. Few can realize the Immense influence this newly-discovered power is going to have on the future of the world. If the rolling of the waves will propel a boat it will run a mill, factorv, foundry or any other kind of machinery. Real estate will fall and water lots will go up. On every h&rnj will be seen posters announcing the sale of choice and wavy sections of lake and ocean at lowest prices. Advertisements will appear in the Free Press of that time something as follows: The subscriber has just erected a grist mill on one of the roughest sections of Lake Erie. In calm weather only custom work done, but daring storms he is prepared to furnish floor for home or foreign consumption. On a good windy day we may expect to see all sorts of factories nodding away at each other on the river, and a free and easiness will be introduced into our industries never before experienced. Then, the more shaky a man’s investments are, the better it will be for his prospects; it is far otherwise now. As may he expected, this new system of things will have its drawbacks, Wje shall read items Uke the following:

During thegale yesterday, the saw-mill of J. Smith, near Windsor, was working at its highest rolling power, when it broke loose and ran into William Jones’ soap factory at the middle of the river. Before the storm subsided the saw-mill had most of the soap factory cut into six-inch strip* in spite of the efforts of the new car-works and rolling-mill to separate them. No insurance. But then there are Immense advantages in connection with the Brooklyn invention that it is impossible to estimate. What a boon it will be to humanity when a man comes home at questionable hoars, finding the street all too narrow for him, to explain to an inquiring policeman or an investigating wife, that he has not yet got accustomed to the stability of dry land after rolling around in his office at the mill all day. At the Board of Trade banquets a 'regular toast will he “Our manufactures—long may they wave,” which will be responded to by a song—“ Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep,” or the band will strike up “ A Life on the Ocean Wave,” and our manufacturing interests will indeed have “ A Home on the Rolling Deep.” Thns it is that Isaac Chomel has answered the longestablished conundrum, “ What are the Wild Waves Saying?”and itistobehoped that Isaac will soon render serviceable that vast portion of the earth’s surface which has hitherto been more useful to commerce than to manufactures.— Detroit Free Press.

Faithful to His Trust.

We hear all about the had deeds of this wicked world, bat the good deedu are rarely alluded to at any length. We expect people to be honest and say nothing about it. It is the dishonesty of men which excites comment. The other day, in New York, Mr. Samuel T. Skidmore, the executor of the will of one John R. Townsend, who died thirty years ago, asked to be relieved of his trust on account of age. The son of Mr. Townsend stated in court that during his long trusteeship Mr.. Skidmore hod refused to accept one cent of remuneration, and he requested that the accounts be accepted without an investigation. Surrogate Calvin' said it was a bright spot in the history of the Court, where so many had proved false to their trusts, when a case was presented in which all parties interested in a trust expressed themselves so highly gratified with its management. He directed the accounts of Mr. Skidmore to be passed withont examination. There are a thousand instances of similar fidelity on the part of executors and trustees in Boston, but we do not remember that any one ever took care of a large estate for thirty years without compensation. —Boston Journal. The appropriations to the charitable institutions of New York, included in tne annual tax-levy, have increftied trom $200,000 in 1867 to nearly $1,600,000 in 1877: The instil utions were intended to be supported mainly by private charity, hod there is now a loud call for reform.

Fory Years in a Cave.

AftnunTwitha moot remarkable hie. STUB'S ittSHSS Pike County, Pe . whet, be he. u!e7fo, was bora at Stony Creek, Ot, his parents being among ths “ best people” at the rtJ'age, He grew up to be a blacksmith, hsd a business of bis own. and prospered. When he was twenty-six he married the (laughter of a wealthy farmer, and idolized her ; but after a short time of happy married life, she died leaving him child, less. “ Then.” said the old man. “ everything changed with me. It wasoot in my heart to work, and I could not bear to associate with any one. I think I became, crazy. I cursed God, at any rate, andropenting in agonv, resolved to give the rest of my days entirely to Him.” For five years Sheldon was a wanderer, roaming through Connecticut and Mew York, shunning mankind, living altogether in the wilderness, bat constantly wandering. At length he determined to settle down where he could hold “ communion with God alone,” and he secured 100 acres of woodland on the Mooeic Mountain of Northern Pennsylvania, and there lived In a cave for ayear. But the lumbermen found him. ana, when Sheldon refused to sell, one of them brought his wife to the cave, offering her in exchange for the trees. Then Sheldon fled further into the wilderness and took up his present abode. Here in a half hat, half cave, just large enough to turn about in, with only the cracks in the stones to let in the light and give escape to the smoke from his stone stove, the hermit has lived for forty years. For ten years he did not see a human being. He trapped more than enough game for his needs; wolves and panthers howled about his den at night, and once he found a she bear in his hat and was forced to spend the night In a tree. Then game grew scarcer and he lived on roots and berries, once subsisting a week on a quart of dried raspberries, till he was driven to the settlements to Eick up work at making butcher-knives. A rather and sister from Connecticut Visited him not long since and begged) him to share their wealth and homo, but though the sister wept with him all - eight, bo refused. Hero, with matted hair and beard, with grimy, leathery skin, with feet wrapped in buckskin, and with clothing that has not been taken off for twenty years and whose rags are secured together with hickory withes and wire, the old man, now past seventy, means to spend his life, reading the Bible, that he has strapped about his waist, by day, and sleeping, as he has through all these years, in a rough, rootwoven chair.

An Advertising Agent.

We thought, from the way became into the office, and slammed his cane down Ml the table, and took the beat chair, and spat on the stove, and said: “ Well, cully, how does tho old thing work ?” he was a circus-agent; bqt his card showed him to be a modest, unpretending advertising agent of a Wisconsin paper. He had just come from Chicago, he said. We said “Ah!”—not because there was any particular, original brilliancy in the remark, but because that is what we generally say, with a rising accent on the final syllable, when a man tells ns he has been to Chicago. “ Yes,” he said, he had been to Chicago. “ Had we a man up there?” “Ho, we hadn’t." “Well,” he said, “ don't send one there. Just a waste of time. I’ve been there nearly three weeks, and I just club myself every time I think what a fool I was to throw away so much time that I might have put in somewhere else to advantage.” “ Didn’t he do anything in Chicago?” we asked, rather timidly, for we began to see that we were in the presence of a Master Hind. “ Naw-w-w!” he snarled in a most contemptuous tone; “ hardly made expeaM*; didn’t pay salary. There three weeks, and only come away with $3,760 worth of ads. AJI cash, of course, and that makes it a little better, but didn’t pay for all that time. How much Chicago advertising are you carrying?” We couldn’t tell him, indeed, without consulting the business manager, but we were confident that the Hawk-Bye had, at inside figures, at least three or, four dollars worth of live Chicago advertisements. We began to think what a jewel this man must be on the business staff of a. daily paper. “Was he going to St. Louis?” wo He burst into a short of derisive laughter, for all the world like the Qpposition benches in Congress. “ Been there,” he said, “ and ain’t going back until times pick up a little. Deadest place you ever saw in your life. Nothing doing. Just nothing. Why,'l was there ten days—ten whole days—as I’m a truthful man, and only got—let me see, I’ll give you the figures—’* and ho Railed out his note-book and ran over the saves and down long colams of figures—- “ yes, sir, I was in St. Louis ten days to an hour, and only got $4,237.50, and $1,806.75 I have to take in trade, and only $2,130 cash-in-advance ads. Don’t you send a man to St. Lonis if you don’t want to pay his fare home.” “ Which way was he going from Burlington?" we asked. “Oh, out along the line of the B. & M.,” he said—“out to Omaha, and maybe out to Lincoln, and up to Des Moines.” “ Now, don’t go there,” we begged him; “don’t go out that way at all. It won’t pay you; we know this country, and we know yon won’t make a cent on that trip." “ Why not?” he asked, defiantly, and in a rather incredulous tone of countenance. * “Because,” we said, “the Hawk-Eye had a man out all through that country one day last week. It may appear incredible, but, sir, that man was gone fifteen minutes, and came back with only $73,000 cash sis, a couple of National banka, six Nebraska farms, a Kansas cat-tle-ranche and the lowa State Treasury, and the Captain discharged him for not making his wages. It’s as dead a—” \ But he was gone, and we heard him down-stairs asking the business manager if he thought it was necessary to impart a thoroughbred liar to edit his paper.— Burlington Hawk-Bye. 1 1 i jin i . ii . i /. iff. The sum total of railway lines through the principal countries of the worn now reach the distance nearly fourteen times the circumference of the globe, or one and one-half times the journey to the mood. Of this total the United States lines extend 75,585 miles; Great Britain at home and through ber foreign domains, 06,101; Russia, in Europe and Asia, 34,914 ; those of francs* 80,779 ; of the German Empire, 18,799. The whole population of British India is close on 239,000,000. The density «f population varies from 500 to over 750 inhabitants per square mile. m