Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1886-06-10

dergrowth was so dense that you might have
touched an elephant in your groupings before
you saw him but above this dense tangle of
six or seven feet in height rose the straight
smooth trunks of superb trees indeed, the
timber I saw here. was exceptionally fine.
The gloom of the forest was intensified by
the enormous masses of orchilla-Weed which
grew thickly on the upper branches of the
trees, in such manner as to suggest a
gray, green cloth being thrown over the
foliage. The density of the woodland growth
was almost appalling; we felt like insects
creeping and twining through the inter-
stices of the mighty trunks. AS we pre-
ferred to go whittier the elephants had
forced a way, our course was naturally an
cratic one, and several times the men lay
down in despair to pant and rest.-H. II.
Johnston.
Too LATE.-A story is told, as authentic,
of a young man in the Highlands of Scot
land, who became a drunkard, a gambler,
and, in the expressive Scotch phrase, a
"ne'er-do-well." His father owned a small
farm which had been in the family for two
hundred years. But to save Jock from the
consequences of his misdoing, he was OBJ
liged to mortgage it far beyond the possible
ity of redemption.
The old man sank under the disgrace and
misery, and died, leaving his wife, two or
three children and worthless Jock. But the
shock of his death brought the boy to his
senses. He foreswore cards and whisky,
came home and turned into hard work.
He toiled steadily for years. At last his
mother was ''struck with DEATH"
Jock, now a middle-aged, grizzled farm
err, stern and grave, was sent for in haste.
He stood in silence by her death-bed a mo-
ment, and then broke forth:
"Mither! mither! gin we see feyther there
tell him the farms our W agen. An it's
a. recht wi me-"
The story reminds US of DR.. johnson, who
went, when he was an old man, to stand in
the market place of Uttoxeter, his gray
head barred to the pelting rain, in bitter re-
membrane of some act of disobedience to
his father on that spot when he was a boy.
But of what avail are these acts of atone
ment when the old father or mother whom
we have hurt and sighted so cruelty is
dead? Do they see? Do they forgive?
Who can say?
cit is only" said a mother, lately, "since
my own children speak to me with rudeness
and contempt. that I understand how great
the debt was which l owed to my mother,
and how poorly 1 paid it,"
Many a poor girl who reads these words,
who treats her mother as a member of the
family who does the work of servant with
out a servants wages, or a lad who filings
about the money which the father is fast
spending his feeble life to earn, will awaken
some day to utter their remorse in an ex-
ceedingly bitter cry to which, alas, there
can come no answer.
SONGS OF THE MoCKING BIRD.-Mocking
birds can be taught almost anything in the
way of tunes. Macon used to boast of a
bird that whistled "Dixie," and years ago
a Frenchman travelled about the country
playing airs upon the piano which his bird
would follow accurately. At the Pulaski
house, in Savannah, a negro used to keep a
bird that would whistle a good alto to tunes
his master whistled.
One ofthe most popular errors concerning
the mocking bird is the belief that he has
no song of his own; that he adopts and
blends only the notes of other birds into a
song. This is pure nonsense. The young
mocking-birds reared in the garrets of great
cities and beyond the reach of the songs of
others sing as do the natives in their free
dom, though not as strongly, since they lack
the inspiration of mates, the mellow SUM-
light and liberty. Their song is, in fact, a
number of songs, but entirely original. No
man ever heard the divisions of the mock
ing birds song in any forest. That he in
tersperses them with cat-calls, the hawks
screech, the whir of the bull-bat and the
chickens melancholy "peep," and notes
from other birds is true, but these are only
characters in his recitative ballad, features
in the romance of his summers. That he
sings his parts backward and forward and
combines them anew is also true. The
hooking birds song is tothe ear what the
kaleidoscope is to the eye, and the combina-
lions of his songs are as endless as the glass
forms in the toy. But the song notes are
the same.
The bird is probably the most continuous
singer in the world, but there are two weeks
out of every fifty-two when nothing can
tempt him to sing, and that is when he is
melting. At such times he may be found
moping in a secluded spot lost in rayless
melancholy. He looks then hot and sick,
and the only note he utters is q short low
whistle, not unlike that which the fat man
makes as he removes his hat and mops his
brow. Perhaps during this season the bird
laysaside mockery, repents, and makes good
resolutions. -Macon (Ga.) Telegraph.
WHO owns GREAT BRITAIN eEvery-
body knows that a small number of men
own the bulk of the land in Great Britain,
but there is always something startling
about the figures. The total area of Eng
land and Wales Excluding London) is 81
243, $50 acres or about that of New York,
New Jersey and Delaware combined. One
man owns 49,, 1897, or 1000 Of the whole; a
second 1872 9G acres, and a third 102, 1856
acres sixty-siX persons oWn..l ,9l7 ,07G acres,
equal to Delaware and the three lower
counties of New jersey; $50 own 5,426,7 1854
acres, a tract considerably larger than New
Jersey; S74 own 9,2G7 ,O31 acres, at which
rate 1000 persons would own a full third Of
New York State. A body of men which
does not exceed 1850 owns more than one
half of England and Wales.
In Scotland the situation is still worse.
The area of that country is 1896, G94 acres,
which is a little more than that of Rhode