davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1889-10-03
stake

/ cannot, says Lord Wolsely in the North
American Review, pass on the Gettysburg
campaign without calling attention to Lees
mistake in allowing the Federal army to
escape across the Rappanannock after the
battle of Fredericksburg To command in
war for many campaigns and make no
mistake is impossible. Gen. Lee, great IN
strategy and able in tactics, is no exception
to the wisdom Of this saying. Military his
tory can only be made of use to the student
Of war by a close criticism of every opera
ton, and the critic no matter how humble,
should not shrink from pointing out what
he conceives to be the errors and mistakes
made by even the most renowned COM
manders Gen. Lee made some mistakes
In his most brilliant career, but the great
est was after the battle of Fredericksburg.
The more closely his conduct then IS
studied the more inexplicable it appears.
The reasons he gives In his published DIS
patches for having failed either to push
the Federal army into the river or to COM
pei its surrender are most unsatisfactory,
most insufficient That battle was a bril-
liant success. Lee ought to have made 1t
a crushing, If not final victory.
Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1889-10-03
DEATH BY THE GUILLOTINE.
The Awful Suspense of a Criminal, De-
scribed by Able Faure.

A Paris letter to the London Telegraph
saws: The recent double execution of
Allorto and Seller at La Roquette has
again given rise to a considerable amount
of discussion as to the moral effect of the
''guillotine on the criminal classes. 1t
is quite possible that President CARROTS
severity in according few reprieves has had
a deterrent effect on the cutthroats, who
had learned to expect so much from the
misplaced clemency of M. Grevy This
would seem to be borne out by the obser-
vations of the Able Faure, chaplain OF
La Roquette prison, who has just commun-
icated a report on his ministrations to the
government. The Abhe believes that no
other punishment which may be substl-
tuted for execution by the ''guillotine
will have so fear-producing an effect as the
terrible instrument of justice at the service
of the public headsman. -.
In his report the Able draws a realistic
picture Of the suspense IN which the
doomed murderer lives from day to day,
until he hears either his summons to the
scaffold or the news of a reprieve. Nearly
all the murderers seek consolation more or
less In religion, according to the degree OF
education which they have received, and
none of them give up the hope OF re-
prieve until the last moment. Inc CON
demned criminals rarely or never sleep
when they know that their time is APP
preaching, or if they do it is only to doze
off into horrible dream from which they
jump up all livid with fear and dread.
Sleeping or waking the ''guillotine, the
lanette. the headsman and his assistants
are for ever present to their imaginationss.
Out of eleven persons whom the Able at
tended during his six years of office only
three were really asleep when their sum-
mons came.
On the whole, the French system OF
keeping criminals IN suspense toI weeks
or months is a severe one, but neither the
prison chaplain, who considers it his duty
always to buoy up the doomed men with
hope. nor the magistrates and police Off
Gals who deal with the dangerous classes,
are inclined to recommend its alteration IN
any of its details.
Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1889-10-03
WASHINGTON.

FREDERICK DOUGLASS, United States
minister to Hayti, has sailed for his post
LAND COMMISSIONER GRoFFF has
recommended to the secretary of the in
terror the appointment of George Red
way, of the District of Columbia, as chief
clerk of the general land office, now va
cant.
A STATEMENT issued by the treasury de-
partment shows that silver dollars in the
treasury against which certificates can now
be issued are now reduced to $9,000,000;
silver certificates now in circulation are
1915, 900, 900; silver dollars In circulation,
S56,000,000.
WAsHINGToN-The secretary of the
treasury has accepted the resignation
of Dr. James P Kimball, as director of the
mint, to take effect October 18th. Edward
0. Leech, computor in the Office, is now
acting as director with the understanding
that he will be appointed to the director
ship as soon as the Office becomes vacant.
Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1889-10-03
7 I T

What can be more moving, lacerating,
pathetic outrageous, than the spectacle
presented within few days to the public
of the barn scene in which, in cold and 81
lence, three little boys were found, one of
whose backs had been cut to the bone In a
dozen places by the rawhide of a stalwart
drunken uncle? What more horrible than
the hairy Pole beating with a strap shod
with buckle little boy till his young life
fed to escape the torture? What more
abominable and revolving than the specta-
cles presented at the police courts showing
the white backs of tender girls covered
with welts, scars, and blood inflicted by
the hands of drunken parents?
The cases developed at intervals IN the
police courts are only suggestions, glimpses
of the evil. There are innumerable families
in which blows and abuse are an unbroken
thing, in which they are common as air.
There are everywhere to be seen children
on whose faces there is look as if a blow
were impending; an expression of pain, as
if one blow had just fallen. In tens of
thousanes of places hurt children are
shrinking from the lash and their faces
are wet with tears wrung from them by
pain.
Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1889-10-03
THERE WILL BE TROUBLE.
The Attorney General Wants the Title of
the Des Moines River Land Vested in
the Government.

FT. Wednesday the attorney
general filed bill in equity asking a
decree of the federal district court, vesting
in the government the title of the Des
Moines river lands The
territory is that from which
numerous evictions were recently attempted
by land grant companies and wealthy
owners. Complaint was made today under
direction of Attorney General Miller
in the name of the United States,
and sets forth that the grant was never
earned and that all pretended settlements
and adjudications of title to lands were
illegal and invalid.
Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1889-10-03

ONE of Paris glories, of which few peo-
pie know, has just gone. Thackeray,
when in Paris, used to frequent the Cafe
Veron, and there he had put for his own
special use quantity of London porter
Recently two English journalists and a
naval officer had the honor of drinking
the last two pints of Thackeray's porter,
drinking his health in full appreciation
of his fame and of the quality of the ven
cradle liquid, which was pronounced to be
nectar, indeed.
Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1889-10-03

by Queen Victoria she hasspent only twelve
days in Ireland
FIVE persons were killed and twenty in
jured by the collapse of an unfinished house
at Milan.
The smokeless powder that Austria is
using makes such a fearful smell that it
will have to be abandoned At a recent
practice several men tainted from it.
TANGIERs Spanish corvette Navarro
has sailed for Riff coast. On board
the corvette is a commission from the
sultan charged to order an immediate re-
lease of the Spanish sailors recently cap
tured by Rifians.
In the great Prdssian field marshal own
immediate branch of the Moltka family
there have been eight ministers of state
four generals, and one admiral, all In the
Danish service.
BERLIN = Eighteen thousand miners
employed at Sankt Johann have addressed
a petition to the authorities of Bonn, set
ting forth their grievances and asking that
measures be taken for their redress.
ODESSA teacher in this city named
Sause, committed suicide. His wife was
so much afflicted that she lost her reason.
She killed her five children and carried
their bodies to the third story window and
threw them to the ground. She then threw
herself out, receiving fatal injuries.
BERLIN Post says, editorially:
Although we are well aware that every
party in France desires the honor of re-
yenge, we have*no desire to contend with
a nation paralyzed by Boulangerism. If
there is to be a struggle let it be honorable
n every acceptation of the term. >
PARIs.-United States Minister White
law Reid has been requested by Minister
Spuller to transmit to Thomas Edison a
commanders cross of the Legion of Honor
Minister Spuller also sends letter for Mr..
Edison, saying that the decoration has
been conferred in remembrance of the. lat
ter's service to science, his visit to Paris
and his participation in the exposition,
thus testifying to the indissoluble bonds
which connect France and America.
Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1889-10-03

A CORRESPONDENT of the Cincinnati
Enquirer makes the honors paid to Edison
In Paris the text on an interesting and
instructive contrast between the Ameri-
can and the French recognition of merit
In scientists ''At home, says the writer,
edison was for some time a convenient
newspaper paragraph, and after that a
subject of growing As long as he dis
covered something and applied something
he was shaken up every forenoon by a
half dozen reporters, who took the virtue
out of him by touching him. When he
palIed little we were all told that Smith,
Williams and Jones had really dis
covered all that Edison claimed to have
brought out, and that Edison was
now a retired quantity, quite overpaid
and quite overestimated. But when
Edison went to France for summer
visit the population and the science of
that country did not pour out to see any
body else They did not even know about
Chauncey Depew and his great speeches.
They did not inquire is George Wander
bilt was in Paris buying something.
Both the select few and the great multi
tude hailed Tom Edison as the living
successor of Benjamin Franklin. He
could hardly eat except In noble COM
pany. He could hardly walk unless a
crowd followed him. He could not
read the daily news without FINDING him
self the leading topic of discourse.
All men are susceptible to honors
thus generously accorded, and the
writer scores a point when he asks
what must be the effect of each
treatment upon Edison himself, when
he returns to the United States.
.'Here," he says, mo learned society
meets him with a steamer or escorts him
to the City Hall. We have blasted itera-
ture from the hand and made science a
drap for money-getting. We do one ex-
cellent thing above all other nations with
regard to applied science; we hire 1t
quickly, and lose no time in questioning
Its etnCienCy, IL II VIII earn SUl1elIl1ilS
for our money and save something to tax
payers This is really our superiority
as a nation-that we are without
prejudice toward that which will earn
money for u.s. But, if we had the potter
instinct to pay some honor to our orig
inal men, how much more they might be
attached to the United States, and bless
its people and system of government The
French have always had this sympathy of
science, and In point of this recognition of
science and literature and art they are I'M
quostionally above all existing nations.
The critic makes plea for recognition of
our bright men in their day of effort, in
stead of waiting until they are dead and
then giving them Indian maudlin tears
and howls of grief He ascribes our
present treatment of them to predatory
and sensational natures which exist by
belittling and disparaging the honest
achievements of their betters.
Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1889-10-03
WARNER DECLINES.
After Much De1iberation he Refuses to
Accept the Office,

DEER PARK, Nd. : Major Warner,
of Missouri has finally decided to
decline the Office of commissioner of
pensions rendered him by the president.
The letter of declination was written Sep
TENDER 16, but on the urgent solicita-
ton of the president, Major Warner
agreed to reconsider. Today,
however, after consultation with
his business partner he telegraphed that
he must adhere to his original resolution,
and the letter is therefore made public
In it he says he appreciates the high COM
pliment paid him and did not business
engagements, which he had no right to
break forbid it, no personal sacrifice would
prevent his acceptance.
Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1889-10-03

OF its chains. slavery and serfdom have
been abolished. feudatories no longer exist.
and to vast extent the domain of free
dom have been enlarged.
Largely exempt thus far from the benef-
lcent work of emancipation are the child
rem. For scores of centuries human slav-
cry held away, empowered by the author
Ity OF Hebrew writer: after the same
fashion: the children of the age are held
subsequent to the lash through the teach
ngs OF another of these lawgivers. 1t is
time that these laws were repealed. or de-
ned as remnants of barbarous periods.
POIIUTo.
Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1889-10-03
THE CZAR'S ESCAPE.
A Chest of Dynamite Gxplodes Prema
turely.

LoNDoN-The fact, though suppressed
by the authorities. has come to
light that on the occasion of the czar's de-
parture for Copenhagen, a chest of dyna-
mite exploded in the railway station at
Peterhof, killing a signal man and wound
ing several other persons. The explosion
occurred just previous to the cars arrival
at the station from the Peterhof palace and
was probably premature, as it is undeni-
able from the circumstances connected
with the affair, that the persons who
placed the chest in the station did so with
the intention of exploding its contents
when his majesty should be near it.
Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1889-10-03
~.


| speak on this matter as | do for the
reason that | was during childhood the
constant victim of the switch and the raw
hide. My parents were people Of profound
piety, conscientious, irreproachable, and
yet imbued by the conviction that to
spare the rod was to spoil the child. l
was beaten In season and out of season,
and with terrible severity. / was Wiped
for smiling on Sunday; for the slightest
disrespect, however unintentional, to a
superior; for every fault, no matter how
trivial or unprecedented.
1t was the same in every family IN that
region; the whip and the Bible wrought
side by side The lash was the adjunct OF
the catechism; the twisted rawhide took its
place with such instrumentalities of good
as the Sunday-school and hymn-book.
This class Of treatment never yet secured
eform in either boy or girl 1t makes the
bad worse. and often vitiates those who
otherwise would grow up blameless. The
boy who is constantly subjected to the lash
becomes a coward, liar and hypocrite.
Helearns to lie to escape punishment, and
in thus doing cultivates cowardlce and
deceit.
Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1889-10-03

IT is widely prevalent impression that
business is a methodical system which
almost deserves to rank as an exact science.
Ponderous books record the transactions of
the day with great minuteness, and ac-
counts involving millions are made to bal
ance to penny. Yet here is the young
Napoleon of finance" Henry S. Ives,
hardly more than a mere youth, who W ak
up to great railroad corporation, without
any capital and rigs derrick by which he
soon lifts the whole concern and takes
practical possession of it. Surrounded by
first class business men of long experience,
this adventurer manages to buy the stock
of the concern with the stock itself, which
he had first borrowed. Various banks de-
iberately certify his checks when he had
nothing in the world to meet them but
cheek. With these checks he buys more
stock, and, having pledged it. uses the
money to keep his accounts good and boom
his reputation as a capitalist. Soon his
audacity elevates him to position where
&c calls for checks out of the capital of the
corporation as authoritively and success
fully as though he were its sole owner and
manager. OF course this would not last
forever, but it went on long enough to
allow Ives to be rated as a very rich man
by substantial business concerns. Unless
we allow that all the banks and business
concerns that honored his transactions were
in conspiracy with him. it must be admit
ted that this youth actually succeeded IN
outwitting many men of tried business eX-
perience and became nominally rich upon
fraud before their very eyes. 1t would
seem that one of the results of the CONSOLE
dation of immense interests In a few hands
is to make them so bulky that the heads of
their managers cannot hold them On no
other theory can it be understood how d
man like Ives could gamble with the prop
erty of others so long without detection,
Doubtless our colony Of financial experts IN
Canada could throw some interesting light
upon the extent to which the abnormal
consolidation of business tends to make it
top-heayy and unmanageable.
Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1889-10-03

Jones, Roberts and Parry, who were
charged with conspiring to enact more
than the reward offered for sum of money
that had been found, were dismissed at
Columbus. Lawyer Coles having failed to
appear against them.
Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1889-10-03

A MAN never appreciates the value of a
newspaper so thoroughly as when he can
not read it. The first copy of newspaper
that reached Atlanta City through the
doods was quickly bought by man who
thought he got it cheap for $3.50. The
regular price was cents.
Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1889-10-03

Emancipation is one of the developments
of the later centuries. For thousands of
years insanity. unbelief heresy, witches
were burned, hanged, eviscerated, and i'm
prisoned. Thought has since been relieved
Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1889-10-03

So far as is known the beating of child
rem is the outgrowth of civilization and
alleged christianity. The latter element
secures its authority from Jewish writer
who centuuies ago announced ''that he
that spareth his rod hateth his son, but he
that loveth him chasteneth him. This
atrocity, originating when barbarism
shrouded the nations, has become grated
on christianity and controls the action of
innumerable myriads of men. 1t is a
bastard combination of natural brutality
and religious -so-called-d duty.
Inspired by the one element the mother
flags the tender bodies of her children, and
actuated by the other the brute lashes
them, like Mr.. .Squeers, for the mere pleas
ure of inficting suffering 1t is true that
within a brief period public opinion has,
in great centers driven the beating of chill
dren from the public schools, but in the
country places it still prevails in all its
hideousness. Throughout those homes
where the gloom of false Interpretation
of religion asserts itself, the Internal in
junction of the Jewish barbarism is repro
duced in the swish of the strap and the
screams of tortured children.
In Chicago there is an urgent necessity
for an organized movement for the protec-
ton of children which will reach recesses
not yet penetrated They are exposed to
assaults of Immature, of drunkenness, of
passion, and, more than all to the torture
of that class of piety which believe that
their punishment is of divine command.
Between brutes and fanatics they undergo
persistent cruelty.
Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1889-10-03

As soon as the horse cars from Cairo to
the Pyramids are completed, and the work
Is nearly done, an elevator will be made to
the fop of the venerable piles. so that ascent
NAV be made quickly and comfortable by
tbe Tnodren traveller.
Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1889-10-03

IT is reassuring to learn that Mrs. Rob
ert Ray Hamilton has decided not to COM
nit suicide. She will serve her term like
lady.
Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1889-10-03
VICTIMS OF THE LASH.
Exposed TO Persistent Cruelty-A
Modern Barbarism.
Children Whose Lives are Darkened
by the Assaults of the Ill-Natured
and the Ill-Timed ChaStiSe-
ment of Parents.
Poliuto in Chicago Herald

With as much distinctness as if il had
| occurred last night | recall an occurrence
of almost half a century ago. In humble
house far in the country, Just before dark.
a boy about seven years of age. tiptoed
fearfully up the steep, narrow stairway
leading to a small room directly under the
slanting roof The boy was barefooted.
with ragged straw hat, a coarse shirt. a
pair OF trousers and a single suspender.
There was low, narrow bed into which.
after hastily divesting himself of his trou-
sers, he sprung. and, getting under the
single cover, pulled himself down toward
the foot, being entirely buried under the
blanket
For a little time shivers agitated the
mass in the bed Then it became Quiet.
outlines rose and fell with regularity that
indicated sleep.
A couple of hours passed when suddenly
the boy was aroused by the stripping from
him of the blanket. There was a dim
light In the room in which his sleepy ewes
caught sight of a woman, and the next
moment storm of blows from a switch
was raining on his naked legs and body.
The switch cut like knife, and each
blow seemed to reach his very marrow
Suddenly awakened from a sound and
peaceful sleep, stung and lacerated by the
whip. his pain and his fright were mex
pressible. He writhed, struggled, scream
ed. pleaded, Don t. Don II" until it an
peared to him that he must die. Every
nerve was shivering with intense agony;
his voice, hoarse from screaming. was
choked with sobs to the point of suffoca-
ton. His face was flushed to the redness
of Blood his eyes protuding, CLASSY, and
his face stained with floods of tears.
After what was an eternity the blows
ceased, the clothes were laid carefully
over the writhing, tortured mass, darkness
filled the room, the cries subsidized into
means and these into spasmodic sobs which
grew wider apart and then were heard no
more. Once more the boy slept as be-
fore, save that now and then long drawn
breath or a slight shudder agitated the
covering.
What was the cause of this invasion in
the night of this tired and sleeping boy?
What crime had he committed that war
ranted the rude awakening and the fright
full torture to which he had been subjected?
At the house of a neighbor, during the
afternoon he had undertaken to reach
glass tumbler, standing on the shelf to
get a drink from the WELL 1t slipped
from his hands and was broken in the fall
1t was for this that he sneaked to bed pur-
sued by the phantom of the broken vessel
and against whose horrid and threatening
mein he had covered his head with the
blanket. Word drifted after him as to
his otfense, and late at night passing
neighbor brought to his home the damning
intelligence of his crime. Late as it was
punishment must be at once administered