Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1875-07-25

rather stale but for the personal part of
it, and if you can't be patient. why, be
as patient as you can.) Mrs. Stone,
very aged, quite infrm. almost totally
deaf, but possessing most remarkable
fund of information. keen and correct
memory, ard a command of language
seldom found. She relates anecdotes of
the noted persons she has met, with a
keen appreciation of their funny side,
and almost carries one back to the days
she recalls in her conversation. At the
time Of Lafayette visit to this country
IL 1S25. she saw him and witnessed the
meeting between him and his old cook
said she, "Why, Lafayette put his arms
around that black, greasy negro, and
they hugged each other like two chill
dren p
Her fervent ''God bless and keep you,
my child" uttered when she kissed me
goodbye, seemed like benediction from
the lips of one whom God is leading
with very tender, loving care down the
decline of life to the waters edge-wa-
ters which will not be dark to her, for
Jesus is her pilot; river which is bridg-
ed by a faith, strong and sure and stead
fast; and the memory of her peaceful
cOuntenance, her happy smile, will long
be with me.
Augusta is situated upon bluff which
rises abruptly from the Savannah river
and extends along its banks for dis
tance of something over two miles.
The first record of the town shows
that royal charter was granted it in
1875, two years after General Ogle-
thorpe made his first settlement at Sa-
vannah. The little hamlet had the same
hardshIps to endure, the same struggles
for existence, that all the early settlers
met.
Sixty-three years later, in January,
1898, after many of the first settlers
had finished their work, the town was
again chartered, and in December, 1917,
it was incorporated as city.
The fact that after an existence of 58
years, it only numbers twenty thousand
inhabi tants, would alone show that it is
not destined to become large, flourish
ing, commercial town, like those We see
springing up like mushrooms IN the
great west And yet it has every facil-
ity for becoming large manufacturing
town, and has already taken few steps
in that direction.
In l845, at great expense, canal
nine miles in length was built for the
purpose of utilizing the water of the up
per Savannah for manufacturing purpos-
es. By this means the water is brought
to the city at an elevation of about 45
feet, furnishing ample motive power for
as many mills as far-seeing capitalists
may desire to erect.
/ Already two or three cotton mills, of
fair dimensions, are at work, furnishing
constant employment for some seven or
eight hundred white men, women and
! children. We visited one of these mills
and found every one hard at work-wo-
men, strong and able to do their tasks ;
other women with pale. patient faces,
out of which looked eyes more used to
tears than smiles others, hardened by
continual contact with the rougher side
of life; young girls just coming into
wOmanhood and needing all the shelter
ing care mothers love can give them,
to guide their feet over the slippery pla-
ces little children, boys and girls, who
ought to be in school and must be plac-
ed there, if Augusta wants to make men
and women of them.
All the country can lily afford to
make such sacrifice Of young life.
Wherever there are large manufacturing
interests. we find scores of little chill
dren put to work before they are fairly
out of babyhood; stripped of all the
pleasures of childhood taught from the
first that there is only the bread of bit
terness for them to eat; brought con-
staatly in contact with vice. What won
der that they grow hard and wicked ?
! Schools are cheaper than prisons. 1t
is better to feed and elothe and educate
them now, than to feed, clothe and put
keepers ever them by and by, after they
are trained in the school of vice.
But | did not mean to preach, | only
wanted to give vent to few Of the
thoughts which came TO me as looked
at these little children-God's own little
ones-and longed to gather them all in
my arms and carry them out into the
sweet spring sunshine. where tEeir bod
les might grow stronger and their souls
pnrer.
In addition to the cotton mills there
is powder mill By some oversight,
We missed visiting that, 50 | have moth
ing to tell you about It.
In another portion Of the city is an
ice manufsctory, where the article is
Manufactured as frm and pure, with the
mercury at 100 degrees, as Jack Frost
makes it at the dead Of winter in. VT.
The water to be CONCEALED Is first