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BILL ARP'S" LETTER Butow Mia Delights to Hear From His Aged Contemporaries, EIVLS MANY LtTTLRS FR03 THEM Mct of tho Writers Wer William's "Chums" In the Long Ago. Tries to Answer All of Them. They are not all dead. In fact, thy eeem to multiply es tho years roll on ray contemporaries, I mean. I receive more letters from old men than I over did, and they write well and give long epistles. When a man gets along la the seventies he feels lonesome, not withstanding tho near presence of children and grandchildren. The com panlons of his youth are gone, and bo some of the?e old men unbosom them eolvrs to me for sympathy. I like such letters and try to answer them all, but rheumatism In my arm and hand cramps my replies. One old gentle man from Alabama says he feels bet ter after he has written, for ho Is native Georgian and loves her pespls and her old red hills and the sweet memories of Emory college and his visits to Athens, where his Uncle Elt zar Newton lived, and how he met me there In tho forties and John Grant and Dan Hughes and Jack Brown and Billy Williams, who married friend's cousin and took charge of the blind asylum and how ho heard Dr. Church preach and was charmed with the music of the choir, where Miss Ann Waddcll and Rosa Pringle and other pretty girls pang, and how a tall, long, high man, with a big hooked nose and a huge "pomum Adamus" o'l his throat sang bass, and how ho was a room mate of Tom Norwood at Emory and a class mate of Bishop Key and Judge A. B. Longstrcet, the author of "Geor gia Scenes" was the prwldent; and how he removed to Alabama- In 1S49 and married and haa Beven daughters and no sons, and haa ten orphan grand children, and has to work early and late to support and educate them, but never sees and rarely tears from any friend of his youth and Is at times sad and depressed and longs for sympa thy. Poor old man, I wish that he lived near me, for I would vlslthlmand cheer him up, and tell him anecdotes and antidotes, and we would talk over the old times and swap college stories and brag about the good old days when there were no telegraphs or tele phones or bicycles, and we did ncj want any; no sewing machines or Btore clothes, and we didn't need any; no football or baseball or hazing or suicides or appendicitis. And in those days came Toombs and Stephens and Judge Dougherty and Howell Cobb and Walter Colquitt and spake to the peo ple face to face, and such eloquent men as George Pearce and Bishop Ca pers and Jesse Mercer and Dr. Hoyt and Goulding and Ingles preached to them. Yes, we would talk about tho days of our boyhood, when there wras no gas or kerosene or friction matches nothing but candles to give us Ughfc and no Prometheus to steal fire from heaven to light them with. Shake speare knew how it was, for be wrote: "How far that little candle throws Its beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world." If Shakespeare wrote by candle light, why shouldn't we? And he, too, used the flint and steel to make a spark to light them. "Pick your flint and keep your powder dry," was Gen eral Jackson's order at New Orleans. When I wa3 a young merchant gun flints were as common as marbles, and I sold them at the same price 10 cents a dozen. Wonderful, wonderful are the changes, and we old people fall in with them and adapt them to our use and our comfort. I wouldn't be set back. to the good old times If I could, but I would enjoy seeing this generation all set back about seventy years, just for about a week. My Ala bama friend and other veterans would be tickled to death to see the univer sal dismay no railroads or telegraph, no mail, but once a week and 25 cents for a single letter. No daily newspa pers In the state and only four week lies, with no sensations, no suicides or lynchings. There would be no cook ing stoves, no coal, no steel pens or envelopes, no cigarettes. No million aires or free niggers. I remember when cotton was packed in round bales with a crowbar. The long bag was made first and was suspended from a hole in the gin house floor and Uncle Jack got down In it and packed the cotton hard as it was thrown to him. He packed two bales a day and they weighed 400 pounds each. Two of them filled the bed of the big wag on and five more were crossed on top and fastened down with al.long pole. All the little rpaees were filled with corn and fodder, the big cover put on and with a four or six-horse team wo w ro off for Auf-usta. It was a ton days' trip and we boys wero happy to go along end camp out nil night and listen to the nlgror drivers tell about ghosts and Jack-o' Lanti rn anil witches and raw head and bloody bones. It was great fun. We brought bark nugar and n.ohifsis In great hogfihtads. It was brown sugar, fo white nimar wasn't Invented, except a kind called loaf sugar, which was put up In five-pound cones and covered with blue paper. That kind was for rich folks and was very precious. It was crystallized like these little square lumps that aro common now. When our mother would unwrap tho loaf she would let us children lick the sweet white tissue paper that waj next to the sugar. It was good. Most anything was good then. A stick of striped candy was a raro treat. So was half an orange, or a bunch of "resins," as the niggers called them. Motit anything was good then, for our appetites had not been surfeited with cakes and sweetmeats, as they are now. We loved sassafras root and an gelica and sugar berrlas and locusts and wild cherries and the lnsido bark of chestnut trees and slippery elm. We were always hungry and hunting for something. My Alabama friend Is sad, not only because he has lost his youthful companions, but his youthful appetite. Even ginger cakes have lost their relish and a game of sweepstakes and town ball and bull-pen their fas cination. I envy the happy children as they play around me, but I am hap py, too, In trying to make them hap py, for I know that there Is trouble enough ahead of them, for man that is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble. The best we can do is to do the best we can to fortify against it and take the bad with the good. Try to be calm and serene, for life is full of blessings and we should school ourselves to magnify them and be thankful. I have not forgotten the poor little boy who slept under tho straw, and one cold windy night hia mother laid an old door on the straw to hold it down, and he said, "Motheij I reckon there are some little boys who haven't got any door to put over them." It is a good way for us to think about those who are worse off than we are, and my Alabama friend knows there are thousands of them. But I must stop, for it Is hard to write a cheerful letter these gloomy days. The weather Is depressing and that helps my Alabama friend to feel sad. Cobe says that a long wet rain is worse on a man than a long dry drought. We have not seen the bless ed cunshine for four long days and the wind has blown down my pretty but ter bean arbor flat to the ground. Bill Arp, In Atlanta Constitution. THe arid land of the West furnishes us with one of the most serious prob lems in our internal development Therd arc abundant supplies of water in many places under the dry surface, and with power to work the pumps it can be brought up and run into the irrigatioa ditches. Steam power is too expensive because of the high cast of fuel. On j ithe otlT hand; f tara,cti d? not cxis cvci ywucic, anu mc civcu mans tannut yet transmit their power very success fully over the longer distances. The outlook, however, is most attractive, and it suggesti imminent changes irt the "Great American Desert" of far reach- mg importance to man. NEWSY CLEANINGS. Bpain Is building six new war-ships. The European squadron of American warships will rendezvous at Genoa. Investors in British railways are alarmed over the reduction in their dividends. A society for the Suppression of Spurious Titles has been formed in Virginia. Nearly half the Chinese seeking ad mission to the United States at San Francisco are refused. The bead of a London academy of dancing says that American women do not know Low to dance well. Oil has been struck at Constanti nople in the house of a Jew. An Eng lish company is going to develop the wells. Consul-Gencral Long nt Cairo, Egypt, has made a report showing the wide extent of the slave trade in the Soudan. Lord Curzon has submitted to King Edward a plan for giving com missions in the Indian army to Hindu Princes and nobles. The Minnesota Agricultural College Is to be equipped with a complete plant for instruction in the killing, dressing and curing of meats. A line of electricity-operated canal boats running between Toledo and Cincinnati, Ohio, will probably be started iu a short time. Twenty additional fruit-carrying steamships have beeu chartered to re inforce the fleet now trading between the West Indies and Philadelphia. An ordinance has been adopted by the Town Council of Yorkville, S. C. making it a misdemeanor for any per son to be seen staggering on the streets of that town. The Health Oflicer in St. Paul, Minn., has decided that rank growths oX weeds are generative of disease oi' or unsanitary condition, and has or dered their extirpation. DR.TALTlAGE'SSEUnON Tt Eminent Divine's Sunday DIcour. SoJ-ti Woman's Fpliere fihe Should Ilnla Quern In tli Home IU 'lu tlelJ of t'tfiilnt The Mother's Influe nr on the Nation' Life ICoirrlgljt 1KIL1 WaphINGTON, 1). C.-In thin discourse Dr. Talmao extol home as a hold of use fulness find cuperi.illy eneounu''1 wives and mothers; text, Genesis i, 'ft, "M.ilo and femalo created lie them." In other words, God, who can make no mistake, made man and woman for a spe citio work and to move in particular spheres, man to be regnant in his realm, woman to be dominant in hers, Iho boundary line betiM.cn Italy and Switzer land, between England and Scotland, is not more thorougnly marked than this distinction between tiie empire masculine and the empire feminine. So entirely dis similar are the fields to which God called them that you no more compare them than you can oxygen and hydrogen, water and gras, trees and stars. J this talk about the superiority of one sei to tho other sex is an everlasting waste of ink and speech. A iewelcr may have & scale so delicate that lie can weigh the dust of diamond, but where are the scales so deli cate that vou can weigh in them affection against affection, sentiment against senti ment, thought against thought, soul against soul, a man s word against a wom an's word? You come out with the stereotyped re nark that man is superior to woman in intellect, and then I open on my desk the swarthy, iron typed, thunder-bolted writ ings of Harriet Martineau and Elizabeth Brownintr and Gcoree Eliot. You come n with your stereotyped remark about wom an's superiority to man in he item of af fection, but 1 ask you where was there more capacity to love than tf John, the uixciplc, and Robert McChoyne. the Scotchman, and John Summerfield, the Methodist, and Henry Martyn, the mis pionary? The heart of tho ir.c.i was so large that after you had rolled into it the hemispheres there was room still left to marshal the hosts of heaven and set up the throne intellectual. I deny to womau the throne nfl'ectional. No human phrase ology will ever define the spheres, while there is afl intuition by which we know when a man is in hia realm and when a woman is in her realm, and when either of them is out of it. No bungling legisla tion ought to attempt to make a definition or to say, "This is the line and that is thq line." - ; My theory is that if woman wants to vote she ought to vote, and that if a man wants to embroider and keep house he ought to be allowed to embroider and keep house. There are masculine women and there are effeminate men. My theory is that you have no right to interfere with any one's doing anything that is righteous. Albany and Washington might as well decree by legislation how high a brown thrasher should fly or how deep a trout should plunge as to try to seek out the height or the depth of woman's duty. The question of capacity will settle finally the whole question, the whole subject. When a woman is prepared to preach sha will preach, and neither conference nor presbytery can hinder her. When a wom an is prepared to move in highest commer cial spheres, she will have great influence on the exchange, and no boards of trade can hinder her. I want woman to under stand that heart and brain can overflow any barrier that politicians may set up, and that nothing can keep her back or keep her down but the question of capac ity. ... I know there are women of most unde sirable nature who wander up and down the country, having no homes of their own pr forsaking; their own homes, talk ing about their rights, and we know very well that they themselves are fit neither to vote nor fit to keep house. Their mis sion seems to be to humiliate the two .l. xi Li c ...l.x en would enact or to have cast upon 1 society the ' children that such women would raise. But I will show you that the best rights that woman can own she already haa in her possession, that her position in this country at this time is not one of commiseration, but one of congrat ulation; that the grandeur and power of her realm have never yet been appre ciated, that she sits to-day on a throne bo X X x i 11.1 .1 . ... xiiga iiut an ti e inrones oi eann piled on top of each other would not make her a ! lootstool. Here is the platform on which she stands. Away down below it are the ballot box and the Congressional assem blage and the legislative hall. Woman always has voted and always will vote. Our great-grandfathers thought they were by their votes putting Wash ington into the Presidential chair. No. His mother, by the principles she taught him and by the habits she inculcated, made him President. It was a Christian mother's hand dropping the ballot when Lord Bacon wrote, and Newton philoso phized, and Alfred the Great governed, and Jonathan Edwards thundered of judgment to come. How many men thero have been in high political station who would have been insufficient to stand the test to which their moral principle was put had it not been for a wile's voice that encouraged them to do right and a wife's prayer that sounded louder than the cla mor of partisanship ! Why, my friends, the right of suffrage as we men exercise it seems to be a feeble thing. You, a Christian man, come up to the ballot box, and you drop your vote. Right after you comes a libertine or a sot, the offscouring of the street, and he drops his vote, and his vote counteracts yours. But if in the quiet of home life a daughter by her Christian demeanor, a wife hy her indus try, a motner by her faithfulness, casts a vote in the right direction then nothing can resist it, and the influence of that vote will throb through the eternities. My chief anxiety, then, is not that woman have other rights accorded her, but that she by the grace of God rise up to the appreciation of the glorious rights she already possesses. I shall only have time to speak of one grand and all absorb ing right that evtry woman has, and that is to make home happy. That realm no one has ever disputed with her. Men may come home at noon or at night, and they tarry a comparatively little while, but she all day long governs it, beautifies it, sancti fies it. It is within her power to make it the most attractive place on earth. It is the only calm harbor in this world. You know as well as I do that this outside world and the business world is a long scene of jostle and contention. The man who has a dollar struggles to keep it; the man who has it not struggles to pet it. Prices up. Prices down. Losses. Gains. Misrepresentations. Gouging. Under selling. Buyers depreciating; sale-mien ej npgerating. Tenants seeking less rent; landlords T.anJing more. Gold fidgety. Struggles about ofhee. Men who are in trying to keep in; men out trying to get I in. rnpn, tiimtoes. jn-inirvion. rati!'-. ... , .1 II - V.I ..... have a Lome and that you may be qui-cn in it! Better bo there than wear a queen's cor onet. Better bo there than carry tho puri of a prince. Your shod may , humble, but you can by your faith in God and your cheerfulness of demeanor pild it with splendors such as aa uphoUttrer's hand never yet kindled. There are abode in the city humble, two atorien, lour plain uupapered rooms, muloirahl( neighborhood and yet there 14 a man here to-diiy who mould (lis on th threshold rather than surrender it. Why? It is home. Whenever lio thinks of it he sees angels of God hovering around it. The ladders of heaven rw let down to this lions. Over the child's rough crib thers are'the chanting of angels, as thone thai sounded over Bethlehem. It is home. These children may come up aftc awhile, and they may win high position, and they mav have an affluent residence, but they will not until their dying day forget that humble roof under which their father rested and their mother sang and thur sisters played. Oh, if you would gather up all tender memories, all the lights and shades of the heart, all banqueting and reunions, all filial, fraternal, paternal and conjugal af fections, and you had only just lour let tenj to spell out that height and depth and length and breadth and magnitude and eternity of meaning, you would, with streaming eyes and trembling voice and agitated hand, writ it out in those four living capitals, H-O-M-EI What right does woman want that ! pander than to be queen in such & realm? Why, tho cazlcs of heaven cannot fly across that dominion. Horses, panting and with lathred flanks, are net swift enough to run to the outpost of that realm. They say that the sun never sets on the liritish empire, but I have to tell you that on this realm of woman's influence eter nity never marks any bound. Isabella fled from the Spanish throne, pursued by the nation's anathema, but she who is queen in a home will never lose her throne, and death itself will only be the annexation of heavenly principalities. When you want to get your grandest idea of a queen, you do not think of Cath erine of Russia or of Anne of England or Maria Theresa of Austria, but when you want to get your grandest idea of a queen you thlnlc ol the plain woman wno sat op posite vour father at the table or walked with him arm in arm down life's pathway, sometimes to the thanksgiving banquet, sometimes to the grave, but always to gether, soothing your petty griefs, cor recting your childish waywardness, joining in your infantile sports, listening to your evening prayers, toiling for you with needle or at tho spinning wheel and on cold nights wrapping you up "mug ana warm. And then at last on that day when she lay in the back room dying and you saw her take those thin hands with which she toiled for you so long and put them together in a dying prayer that commend ed you to God whom she had taught you to trust oh, Bhe was the queen! Ihe cha riots of God came down to fetch her, and as she went in all heaven rose up. You cannot think of her now without a rush of tenderness that stirs the deep founda tions of your soul, and you feel as much a child again as when you cried on her lap, and if you could bring her back again to speak just once more your name as ten derly as she used to speak it you would be willing to throw yourself on the ground and kiss the sod that covers her, crying, "Mother, mother!" Ah, she was the queen, she was the queen f Now, can you tell me how many thou sand miles a woman like that would have to travel down before she got to the ballot box? Compared with this work of training kings and queens for God and eternity, how insignificant seems all this work of voting tor aldermen ana common councilmen and sheriffs and constables and mayors and presidents! lo make one such grand woman as I have described how manv thousand would rou want of those people who go in the round of god lessnesa and fashion and dissipation, dis torting their bodies and going as Si$ 1 waru uiBEraceiui unourei an mey uaie that God who made them women and no? gorgons, and tramping on down through frivolous and dissipated life to temporal and eternal destruction? O woman, with the lightning of your soul strike dead at your feet all these al lurements to dissipation and to fashion! Your immortal soul cannot be fed upon such garbage. God calls you up to em pire and dominion. Will you have it? . Uh n nnA ,lpfir,- in nni. your best energies, give to God all your culture, give to God all your refinement, give vourelf to Him for this world and the next! Soon all these bright eyes will ha quenched and these voices will be hushed. For the last time you will look upon this fair earth. Father s hand, mother s hand, sister's hand, child's hand, will be no more in yours. It will be night, and there will come up a cold wind from the Jordan, and you must start. Will it be a lone woman on a trackless moor? Ah, no! Jesus will come up in that hour and offer His hand, and He will say, "You stood by Me when you were well, now I will not desert you when you are sick." One wave of Hia hand and the storm will drop; an other wave of His hand, and midnight shall break into midnoon, and another wave of His hand and the chamberlains of God will come down from the treasure houses of heaven with robes lustrous, blood washed and heaven glinted, in which you will array yourself for the mar riage supper of the Lamb. And then with Miriam, who struck the timbrel by the lied Sea, and with Deborah, who led the Lord's host into the fight, and with Han nah, who gave her Samuel to the Lord, and with Mary, who rocked Jesus to sleep while there were angels sinking in the air, and with Florence Nightingale, who bound up the battle wounds of the Cri mea, you will from the chalice of God drink to (he soul's eternal rescue. One twilight after I had been playing with the children for some time I lay down on the lounge to rest, and, half asleep and half awake, I seemed to dream thij dream: It seemed to me that I wa3 in a far distant land not Persia, although more Oriental luxuriance crowned the cities; nor the tropics, although more than tropical fruitfulness filled the gar dens; nor Italy, although more than Ital ian softness filled the air. And I wan dered around, looking for thorns and net tles, but I found none of them grew there. And I walked forth and I saw the sun rise, and I said, "When will it set again?" And the sun sank not. And I saw all the people in holiday apparel, and I said, 'U hen will they put on workingrnan's garb again and delve in the mine and swelter at the forge?" But neither the garments nor the robes did thev put off. And I wandered in the suburbs and I Faid, "Where do they bury the dead of this great city?" And I looked along by the hills where it would be most beauti ful for the dead to sleep, and I raw castles and towers and b;. ''elements, but not a mausoleum nor monument nor white slab ' l- i . - ' - A- V-1 1 11 rr"t ciinj.n i ino muii n ri l i n,n,j: V l.rj- tit the poor worship? Whern lire the l"-m !in on hieh they sit?" And ft voice an iwered, "We have no pour in this p,it tt city." Ari l I wandered out, wtking t find tln place where were thf hovi U of tho destitute, and I found mansions i,f n-n-bir and ivory and gold, but no tear did I see or sitfh hear. I wn bewildered, and I sat under thn shadow of a peat tree, and I said, "What am I ami whence comes all X'mtV And nt that moment there came from Among tho leave, nkipping up the flowery paths find neroM the sparkling waters, a very bright and fjmrltuntf group and when I saw their step I knew it, ami when I heard their vo;ces I thought I knew them, but their npparcl was no dilTerent from any thing I had ever neen I bowed, a stranger to strangers. JUit after awhile, when they dapped hands and shouted, "Wei. come welcome!" the mystery was solved, and I saw that time had pnnsed and that eternity had come and-that God had gathered us up into a higher home, and I said, "Are all here?" And the voices of innumerable generations answered, "All here." And while tears of gladness were rfuning down our cheeks andthe branches Df the Lebanon cedars were clapping their hands and the towers of the great city were chiming their welcome we betmn to laugh and sinit and leap and shout, "Home, home, home! LABOR WORLO. 'A' Btrike Is Impending among tho employes lnthe Vatican museums. In England and Ilelglum co-operation Is a great factor in the lives of the working classes. The Unlwn Pacific Railroad warns employes against using Intoxicants tinder penalty of dismissal. Labor In the South Is in great de mand, and the negroes are better paid than they have ever been In tbclr lives before. An army of employes, numbering 50,000, is requlml to administer the affairs of New York City, and the average salary Is $1000. Tho two unions of textile workers have decided to unite and back the Fall River, Mas3., cotton mill employes In their fight against a reduction of wages. The latest census 'shows that 027, 23S women, amounting to twenty-eight ' per cent of the total population of Nor way, are engaged in manual labor, domestic and factory work. Maccaronl makers at Torre An nunziata, near Naples, have struck for higher wages and better treat ment. Torre Annunziata is one of the chief ports from which maccaronl is exported. The City Council of Dulnth, Minn.,' has appropriated $1000 to start a free labor employment bureau so that ap plicants for work will not have to de pend upon expensive private employ ment bureaus. Every working iron moulder In Chi cago will contribute fifty cents a day to support the men who are still on strike. The assessment will, It is thought, bring about $2500 a week Into the strike fund. Captain William E. Augustus, as sistant chief of the Paducah (Ky.) Fire Department, says he is the old est paid fireman in the United States. He is now completing his forty -ninth year of continuous service. THE NATIONAL CAME. Tannehill has not made a" wild pitch this season. Young has had but one wild pitch all the season. Dolan has supplanted McCreery in Brooklyn's outfield. Cincinnati has tried nine pitchers thus far this season. LaChance Is hitting the ball with terrific force these days. Chicago Is the only unwhitewashed team in the American League. Long and Lowe are playing up to , their best standard these days. Crawford now leads the National League in home runs and extra base hits. It looks quite natural to see Burkett and Keeler at the bead of the League batsmen. Davis has played thirty-ono games in the field for Pittsburg without mak ing an error. Ritcbey is playing the fastest sec ond base that the National League has seen for several seasons. llartsel, of Chicago, leads the League In stolen bases to date, with Wagner, of Pittsburg, a close second. With Ileidrick back in the game the St. Louis team is as strong now as it was at any time this season. Manager Duffy early in the season tried to secure "Scrappy" Bill Joyce as first baseman for Milwaukee. Manager McGraw has Clarence Ma lone, a promising young Baltimore backstop, practicing with the Orioles. Ever since Ely joined the Athletics, of Philadelphia, the team has been playing championship ball, and it in now at the bead of the second di vision. That it pays to get good players is demonstrated in the Jennings cas-j. President Reach, of Philadelphia, says that llughey has already paid for himself. A pure water supply is rightly looked upon as one of the greatest essentials to the healthfulness of a community. Manys foods salads, for example can not be cooked or subjected to the ef fects of a high temperature, while, on the other hand, washing them in in fected water may render them the means of conveying disease. In England open fireplaces are almost the only means of heating houses, and hotels, public buildings, and office build ings are heated in the same manner. C'i'iM I mo. An! I went inU tl i. i . .....