The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1895-11-27
BILL ARP'S LETTER.
Arp Illuminating on the Uncertainty Of
Life.
Atlanta Constitution.

it does seem hard that he should die.
Just in his prime and getting ripper,
purer, mellower as years rolled on.
We of the South had learned to love
him for he was gentle and kind to us.
He loved Grady and Grady loved him.
They are together now somewhere.
I wonder how their spirits met and
what they said. It is hard on the
South to lose two such friends. They
were of the same age lacking few
months. Love, kindness, tenderness
of heart are redeeming traits in human
nature, and they had them.
was reading Wallace Reeds pleas
ant Renaissance of Henry Grady in
last Sundays paper and it carried me
back to the hard days when Henry,
like Fields, was struggling against fate
to make his paper success. The
merchants had not then learned the
value of advertising, and Henry plead
ed in vain for more liberal patronage.
A leading merchant who claimed to
be his friend stubbornly declined to
give him big 'ad' and said it would
be money thrown away, for nobody
read them.
"Don't read them |" exclaimed
Henry, " don't read theml Well, |
will show you.
Next mornings paper contained
short editorial on cats and told how
cat fur had recently come into great
demand in fashionable circles in New
York and how the long coarse hairs
were eliminated and the real fur was
made into tippets and muffs and every
fashionable lady wore a feline, etc.
Not far off in another column was
displayed advertisement that said:
" WANTED, 900 cats, for which SO
cents each will be paid"
The merchants name was signed to
it.
By noon the cats began to roll in.
Small boys, white and black, brought
them in baskets and bags. For
while the merchant enjoyed the joke,
but soon got tired and went away to
dinner. By the time he returned the
boys and darkies from the suburbs
were coming in and the sidewalk was
blockaded. Henry had laughed until
he was exhausted and sat on window
still across the street, threated, he
said, with cataleptic fit. Neighboring
merchants and, their clerks gathered
around and laughed and shouted and
cried at every new arrival of cats. AS
fast as the merchant drove off one
crowd another filled their places. He
armed himself with big stick, but at
last he closed his doors in sheer de-
spair and night relieved him from the
pressure.
But the next morning the cstas
trophe was worse. The catalogue was
not ended, for the country people had
heard the news and brought cats in on
their wood wagons and under their
buggy seats and tied up in cotton
baskets like chickens. Henry took
his stand near by and leaned against
telegraph pole for support. He and
Shanklin-dear old Shanklin-and the
folks who loved fun, were all there
and while it was fun to the boys and
death to the frogs, it was such rare
and racy joke that the merchant
could mt get mad and finally surrender
ed. He made an appropriate little
speech to the crowd and told Henry
that if he would promise never to do
him so any more he would give him
the biggest "ad'' he had ever had in
his paper. Henry promised and the
ad was given. That illustrated the
mischief that was in his rollicking
nature.
But one evening Henry was sick
and left his junior to make up the
paper. 1t was just on the eve Of an
exciting municipal election and some
bitter things had been published and
more bitter things had been said. It
was feared that some of the contend
ing parties would come to blows. A
candidate who had been sorely malign-
ed wrote a bitter denunciation of his
opponent and took it to the junior
just before the paper went to press.
It was received and inserted and
printed in about three hundred copies
when Henry walked into the Office to
see what the boys had done in his
absence. He read the article and was
horror-stricken. Stop that press!"
cried he. ''Stop it; stop it. I would
not have that article 60 in for 81, 900.
Both these men are my personal
friends, and they will fight. There
will be blood shed either on the street
or in duel. Both have wives and
children and it would be shame to
widen the breach. How many have
you struck Offs
"About three. hundred" they said.
''Well, get your knives and scissors
and we will cut it out of every one
and print no more with that bloody
piece in them.
All hands went to work and soon
had every paper perforated with hole
2x4 inches, and so they were folded
and mailed. The town wondered, but
Henry had sworn all hands to secrecy
and not more than FIVE Of us ever
knew what had been cut out. Long
years after he said to me one day in
his Atlanta Office. II believe I saved
mans life that night and it was
good spirit that moved me to get up
off sick bed and go down to overlook
the paper"
Henry is dead and Shanklin, whom
he loved, and Dwinell and John Riley
and I reckon everybody else who was
connected with his paper. His broth
er is dead and his sister. Only his
good old Christian mother remains of
that family. 1t seems to me that old
Father Time ought to t9hlea-us by our
ages and let the young live on. Eu-
gene Field was not even sick nor fore
warned. This heart failure is getting
alarming. 1t is agood text for Moody,
for nobody is safe nowadays.
There is another of that trio-Grady,
Field and Joel Chandler Harris, all
about the same age. Two shall be
taken and the other left. May the
L L .oo, lso