Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1891-12-27

this machine is not in operation. We
next visited large ice machine and bot
Ting works. The ice machine is also a
very profitable enterprise, but it also
was not in operation. Artificial ice is
| constructed by lowering the temperature
artiticialiy to such an extent that ordi-
nary water becomes hardened. Before
! visited this machine ! was in utter ig-
norance regarding the process. We WIS.,
tied several other enterprises at Green
wood, but 1t did not seem TO be their
busy day.
visited the office of the local paper
and had long, interesting talk with the
editor, who is also q member OF the state
Legislature.
Recently the railroad from Helena to
! Lula has been abandoned. This news
will fall with sickening PUNK on the
ear OF the tourist. The road ran largely
! through a dank swampt-a shaggy wal
low in the wilderness. When the off
! side of the track sagged, which it in
variably did, unless the nigh side was
engaged in saEging, the weight OF the
train showed the decayed ties into the
wet, mushy bosom of the earth and
suuirted the mud forty feet high. This
| kept the windows of the cars looking
very untidy, which is rare thing in
| that vicinity.
| 1t is is said to be the worst railroad
| ever born in capacity. | could hardly
help comparing it with the road in
| Michigan leading out from Manistec,
which has never had dollar of debt,
think. The stock has never been for
sale: the logs hauled over it are suf1i-
cient to pay all running expenses. The
only passenger conductor on the road is
| also general passenger agent, assistant
general passedger agent, auditor, gen.
eral western freight agent, assistant
general press agent and eX-officio presi-
dent.
At Lula we got what we called din
| ner. 1t was such meal as you would
naturally expect in a town named Lula.
The hotel was run by sad faced woman
in middle life who had probably twenty
years ago raShlY made bet that she
could subsist for twenty years on her
own cooking. I would like to give a
list of the different articles which we ate
there, but l never knew what they
were, and | hate to describe anything
unless I am fully posted regarding it.
What we had in our four cups inferred
!! was coffee, but it might have been, for
all could see to the contrary, the aban-
doned right OF way OF the Lula and
| Helena railroad.
During the afternoon we rode through
one enormous and almost continuous
cotton field. The negroes pronounced
niggroes) were just closing up the third
and last picking. The first picking,
believe, occurs in October, but as the
bolls are not open very much the yield
is small. A few weeks later the prin-
cDal picking takes place; the third fol-
lows the first heavy frost, when the
pods are fully opened.
The cotton we have been riding
through to-day is spoken Of sarcastically
by a man who sits with me, and who
lives on higher ground, as bumblebee
cotton, which is short in staple and in
ierior in quality. The cotton buyer has
a way Of pulling out wisp OF cotton
from the bale, and with a dexterity re-
sulting from long continual practice he
squares the lock at either end, so that
he is enabled TO know the exact length
OF the fiber, or staple, measuring it with
his eye and telling you accurately what
its market value would be.
1t reminds me of the wonderful sag
acity Of the wheat buyer Of the north
west, who runs his hand into bin of
wheat, blows out the chsff, weighs it in
his hand, estimates the shrinkage per
cookie, pigeon grass seed, wild buck
wheat, etc., also grading it and telling
you accurately the market value Of the
entire lot. He has the profound air of
seek-no-further knowledge OF the old
protector of the gold mines, who takes
a lump OF ordinary looking rock from
the dump, blows hard on it, wipes it on
a shiny side of his trousers leg, puts a
pocket glass on it, looks far away, SEEM
ing to place himself back at the begin
ming of the world, when the geological
formation of the earth was being ar
! ranged, and gives an opinion which may
cost some gentle pilgrim from Wall
street a million of dollars.
New Orleans is doubtless more agi-
tated at the present time over the state
lottery than she has ever before been.
It is national question, however, for