Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1895-12-29
A DESPERATE REVENGE.
Enc Silver Statesman Was Too Much for
 fI,c Txur-tar


 It was an inclement night, but the gloomy looking man who stood in the doorway of the little town hall and looked out at the pelting rain did not blame it entirely on the weather. The gloomy-looking man was Web ster Shukks, leading citizen and prom ! inent debater of Bainbridge township. He had come to Spiketown, pursuant to announcement, to deliver an address on .'rhe Crime of '73," and only three persons had turned out, one of them being the janitor of the building.
 The other two had heard the orator once or twice already.
 It was decided to postpone the meet ing. The lights were put out and Mir. shukks, buttoning his overcoat about him, turned up his collar, and pulling his hat brim down all around, went forth into the storm.
 Oppressed by the burden of an un- spoken speech, he wandered aimlessly about the little town for hours, regard less of the rain that soaked his gar ments and the mud that spattered and stopped as he wended his devious and uncertain way through streets whose broad sidewalks and welI-built cross ings were yet in the future. Bitter thoughts of the apathy of the people he had come to enlighten surged through his mind, and at times he felt an almost irresistible impulse to let them slide on to their ruin without making any further effort to save them.
 Finding himself at last opposite the village hotel. where he had engaged lodgings for the night, he went in. Climbing the stairs softly, in order not to disturb the slumbers of the other guests, he proceeded to his room.
 Through the partly opened door he saw a man slipping quietly about with a dim lantern in his hand.
 Webster Shukks grasped his heavy cane firmly, slipped noiselessly inside, shut the door behind him and spoke in low tone:
 Stop right where you are! If you make single movement I'll brain youl"
 Taken by surprise, the intruder threw up his hands
 Now, you scoundrel," said the statesman Of Bainbridge township, with the same, low, tense utterance, .'I don't know who you are or where you come from, but know what you're prowling about my room for. You are here to steal something!'
 "I-I''-began the baffled burglar.
 There is nothing you need say" in terrupted Webster Shulkks, with a gleam of vengeance in his eye Open your head again and I'll drive you down through the foorl ListeB to me. We have met this evening, my fellow-eiti- zens, to consider as calmly as we can the great crime committed against the people of this country in the year 1873 at the bidding of an organization com posed of a few London and New York banl1ers-a crime so dastardly, so fiend- ish, so monstrous in it's conception and heartless in it's execution that human ity may well stand appalled, at the mere contemplation of it! Let us go back to the beginning! Tn 1792, my fellow-citi- zens, congress passed Q mint and coin age law by which gold and silver, when ; money of the republic. The unit of value was the silver dollar of 371% grains ot pure, or 416 grains of stand ard, silver. The legal ratio was de- elared in this act to be, until otherwise provided for, fifteen to one. It was enacted that any person could take either of the two metals to the mint and have them coined into money, free of all charge. In it's sovereign ca pacity, fellow-citizens, the founders of this great country laid down the broad principle of the free coinage of sil- ver-s
 There was a hoarse, gurgling sound, and the hopeless villain, who had been standing in a corner of the room with his hands above his head, sank in a heap to the floor.
 Nature had come to his relief. He had fainted.-Chicago Tribune.