Smyrna times., 1877-08-08

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that have been held on that popular
ground for years past. There are one hun
dred and fifteen tents. The great camps
that gave this woods its celebrity were
held in 1858 and 9, when from 500 to GOO
tents were in the grove. 1t has been de-
cided to hold the meetings over next Sun
day. The sermons last Sunday were
preached-in the morning by Father Taylor
the California street preachers and missionary
to India; in the afternoon by Rev. Enoch
Stubbs, of this town, and in the evening by
Rev. j. E. Mowbray, of Wilmington. The
camp is under the management of Rev. Il.
F. Talbot of Camden Circuit.
G. s. BELL, "THE UNION SCOUT" who
made some notoriety during the war, and
whose parents live in New Castle, has been
arrested in Mississippi for numbering a
man in Texas in 1869. He says this makes
the third time he has been arrested in
connection with the case, and that it
amounts to nothing. His friends say that
while an agent for the Governor of Texas
he ordered that three men, who were under
arrest and escaping, be fired upon, and one
of them (Morris) was killed. Bell figured
in the celebrated Babcocl1 trial, and has
rather cloud" reputation, but is smart
While in Texas after the war he wrote an
interesting series of letters signed "Kaleid-
oscope" to the Wilmington Commercial.
Shortly after his not very creditable APP
pearance as a witness in the Babcock trial,
he visited Wilmington.
THE P, w. & B.. STRETCHING Our.-A
special dispatch to the Times of Philadel-
phia, dated Baltimore, Aug. 9th, says
President Hinckley and Superintendent
Kenney, of the Philadelphia, Wilmington
& Baltimore Railroad, were in Baltimore
to-day and negotiated with the directors of
the Queen Anne's and Kent County Rail
road for the purchase of a controlling
interest in that company. Fifty-two per
cent. of the stock was secured, for which
the Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore
Railroad gives its notes for 100000, to be
paid in instalments of $1,000 and $4,000.
The purchased line extends twenty-six
miles from Centreville, Queen Anne's coun-
ty, Nd, to Massey's Station, on the Towns
end branch of the Delaware Railroad. 1t
is an important feeder and its purchase
will prevent the consummatOn of some
other schemes which had been contem-
plated in the interest of Baltimore.
SHOOTING AFFAIR AT ODEssA.--Parties
from this town, who were in Odessa on
Sunday report a shooting affair that took
place in that town on Saturday evening
a JOuHS hOSIO ulail, CHdfICS IOlk, dSkeu
another negro man, whose name we have
not learned, for some money due him.
The man told Polk that he hadn't it, and
that he would have to wait until he got it.
This seems to have enraged Polk, and he
drew his pistol and discharged it twice, one
OF the balls taking effect in the negro's
breast. lie was not dead at last accounts
but it was thought he could not live. The
citizens, it is said, ran Polk out of town,
and he has not been heard from since He
Is looked upon as very obstreperous
mulatto. He is the protege of old Aunt
Susan Thomas, an eccentric old lady who
died there about two months ago at the
advanced age of between 90 and 100 years.
She raised Polk almost from infancy, it is
said, and manifested the strongest attach
ment for him. Being possessed of con.
siderable wealth, she gratified nearly all
his whims and at her death left him several
thousand dollars. His good fortune caused
him to lay in q large crop of wild oats. lie
sported quite nice team and was rather
naughty to those of his own race and to
others at times. He has been wild and
haramskaram in his conduct The shoot
ing took place in front of a store, near the
hotel
WHAT A PREACHER THINKS OF Peaches
Rev. c. Huntington, Presbyterian minister
of Dover, has written letter to the EUery
EUening and Commercial in which he says
that the only way to make peaches pay is
to ship only good fr1,t, and keep the market
clear of poor fruit. He thinks there are
; only two ways to accomplish this, viz: /:
either for the growers to agree to not ship
any bad fruit, or for the railroad company
to keep the freights so high as to make it
Improbable to send off only good fruit. He
is fully convinced that the growers will
never come to any agreement to keep poor
fruit at home, therefore he is in favor of
high ights-freights high enough to
compel such a result. He says: " 1t seems
impossible to convince the majority of
growers that twenty-five baskets of peaches,
at$l per basket, will bring them more money
than one hundred baskets at twenty-five
cents per basket; and that they really
have the remedy for high freights in their
own hands. They seem to forget that they
pay no more freight on a basket of peaches
} worth 50 in New York market than on one
which will bring nothing. Would those
} who complain that when their peaches
bring only twenty-five cents per basket in
New York, the railroad company get more
than half the net proceeds, accede to a
proposition on the part of the company
to carry their peaches for five years for
twenty per cent. of their net proceeds +?
Probably not, for they do not propose that
the company shall participate in their
profits; why then should they ask the
company to participate in their losses.
In 1875 the peach crop was so enor-
nous that had the railroad company
, yielded to the demand for lower rates of
f transportation, and charged, say ten cents
per basket from Dover to New York, and
, in proportion from other stations on the
, Delaware road, the market would have
! been glutted during the whole season and
prices have been SO low that nothing would
have been made on even good fruit But
: just as soon as the senders of poor fruit
were compelled, by the cost Of getting their
Q peaches TO market, and by that alone, to
= discontinue their shipments, fair prices
, were realized for all such fruit as was really
0 worth sending. Would it be for the inter
e ests of fruit growers that the railroad COM
a panies should carry for nothing all the
S small, poor and worthless varieties of
: peaches now raised? Certainly not. On
r the controry, it is better for us that the