The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-07-05
 SUFFERED THE RAILS.

hSy LtCloSd tIlS IlttliS elilO NldAiolC
 Engine Was Detained Until the Frol-
 ic Was Over and the Boys Returned.
 General Billy" Malone, the fast lighting Virginian, never lowered his flag voluntarily in the face of an ene- my but once in his eventful life. That was when a lot of college students got after him down in southwestern Vir- ginia in the early seventies. The gen eral was then president of the lately consolidated line of railway from Nor folk to Bristol. Within ten miles of Abingdon, this way, is located the fa- nous old Methodist college, Emory and Henry, redolent in name of the piety of Bishop Emory and the patriotism of Patrick Henry. At the period mention ed there was a "salt train" that used to pass the college en route from Salt vile to Bristol daily at an hour that enabled the students to ride on it down to Abingdon, where some of them visit ed the girls at the female colleges of the town. The others usually visited the local jag foundry. and returned to college to enliven its classic quietude with whoops and yells not required by the Ciceronian cult of oratory nor found in the preparatory discipline for IGHlOSCIeneaT u9ClanldL1Ou.
 The college authorities were anxious to break up the Abingdon excursions, but they ran by a sort of ancient pre- scription, and the faculty hesitated to taboo them outright. They resorted to strategy, and got General Malone to quietly order the salt train to scoot past the college station, oblivious to all sig nals and defiant of past custom. The first afternoon that the train frisked by and left the callow collegians amaz- ed and dtsgusted they considered 1t mishap only due perhaps to some de- | mand of urgency upon the engineer to meet new schedule. The second day they were left in like plight, and this | time they were neither chary nor Chris 1 tian in their objurgations. It was evi- dent to them that they were the vic- l tims of conspiracy. A caucus result | ed in the sending forth special con- mission to ferret out the mystery and 1 spot the nliscreants.
 | That evening three of the boys set out for Saltville. At Glade Spring they 1 loaded up with the ticklers of old H. l ram Thompson's best bugjuiee. When l they reached SaltvilIe they soon got the l engineer of the salt train in tow and l headed for Floyd's reserve, where l nightly carousals with a loose and l lushy crowd of countrymen could be l found The engineer got booZy enough 1 to give the whole game away, and next morning the special commissioners re- ported throughout college and campus i that General Malone was Iii league | with the faculty to "shoot the train" and deprive the boys of their time- honored privileges. A midnight eau GUS was held by the ringleaders of col lege devilment in general and ways and means proposed to circumvent the doughty general and the faculty. For
 more than week there had been a student riot breeding over a dozen fir kins of rancid butter that had been 1 imported by one of the college refecto- ries. Some shrewd student proposed
 that both grievances be dealt with at l the same time. It was resolved to
 bring the butter and the bullgine" to- gether, and soon the knockers-up were
 summoning from their beds the reliable
 spirits who could be trusted for such
 an adventure as that in hand. A half
 hundred willingly responded
 It did not take long to force the door
 of the springhouse and yank out half
 a dozen firkins of butter strong enough
 to stall any train in the land. A hum dred hands were soon busy spreading
 the offensive grease along the rails of
 the track until they were smeared for
 half mile either way from the college
 station. The last southern express
 train was due along about daylight,
 and the boys washed up in the spring
 branch and went back to their quar- ters to await the racket.
 Soon the trains headlight came over
 the grade from Glade Spring, and pres-
 ently there was heard a whirr and
 whizz of wheels the frantic snorts of
 the engine, then a dead standstill for
 the train and long whistle for help from the engineer. He had run out of
 sand and was spinning on the grease. The train crew were soon out hunting
 more sand, and throwing dirt and grav-
 el on the rails as the engine painfully
 pinched along with the heavy train.
 All hands were making the morning air
 lurid with variegated profanity, and | speedily this was reinforced by the special and sundry oursings of the
 awakened and disgusted passengers. It took the train just two hours to
 get away from the buttered rails, and
 it took General Malone only a few
 hours more to cover the space on spe- cial engine between Lynchburg and the l college.
 His arrival was greeted by an ova- I tion by the students, and the madder l he showed himself to be the wilder l grew the cheers and chaff of the col l lege boys. A hurried consultation with the faculty was followed by request l from the general to have speech with the students. He mounted the platform at the station and proceeded to declaim against "the outrage" perpetrated on | interstate commerce, "the crime" against the United States mails, and so forth; but the boys laughed and l jeered more exasperatingly as the gen. eral grew more vehement and swung his old white slouch hat to punctuate his points. At length almost frothing at the mouth, the general shouted: 1 What do you want?''
 'The salt train!" replied 200 voices
 as that of one big giant.
 Well, by -, you may have it Good
 by!"
 Ieapins onto the engine, the general
 pulled out on the back journey. and the boys had no more trouble about the