The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-06-12
NOT jim FRANKLIM'S WAY.
AN EXCEPTION TO A TEXAS RULE
ABOUT ELDERLY HUSBANDS.

fui MarIsmnn-His End So Far as
Texas Was Concerned.
Lagarto. Tex. Letter in New York Sun.
Pop Strayhorn. the monte dealer and
champion short-card player of Live Oak
county says: when a man gets past 90
years old and his wifes goes back on him.
he is most generally glad Of it. He thinks
he is plenty young to get another. That
/ wasn't the way With Jim Franklin"
| When he gets started, with Franklin for
subject, he talks much, since he knew
the man for years, loved him, and got a
letter from him not long ago which was
written IN some one Of the camps Of Gen.
Gomez. More than sixty years old as he
Is Franklin is one of the rough riders of
the Cuban leader and If he is not killed,
VIII, to quote Strayhorn again, turn up
with a whole cavvy-yard of horses, a hair
rope, and Mexican blanket, and a sugar
plantation" Strayhorn puts the absent
soldier of fortune just one notch lower in
| the scale Of creation than JEFF Davis. Davis
| is at he top.
James Franklin to write the name as II
IS signed to many horse bills of sale in the
I
left a memory hereabouts linked with two
or three virtues and many more crimes.
! Age did not wither him, and at the time he
faded out of sight he was just as ready as
! ever Tor a fight or a frolic for whisky, love,
| or war. The frontiers of the United
! states, North and South, breed types that
! are Homere and he was one of these,
! strong in everything that goes to make
! man the most dangerous of animals; mus
/ cies, endurance, brain. courage, fortitude
energy, and immortality. He did not show
! well IN the drawing room. There was not
1 enough money in America to tempt him in
| to dress coat, but on the prairie in long.
danger-fraught rides, in the duels of che
| border, or in midnight forays he was at
| his best. These qualities ought to make
! him OF value TO Gomez, more particularly
| as he patters Spanish as rapidly as he does
! English.
franklin is a native Of the Lower Rio
Grande country. His father came from
! pennsylvania and may have belonged to
! the family of Benjamin Franklin If that
! Is so, there Is no tradition of il in the Rio
Grande branch of the family. jim Frank
| line cared no. more for BENJAMIN. the
| phiiosopher-printer than for Benjamin the
brother of Joseph Possibly he never
heard of either. They would not have in
! terested him, anyhow, because neither
could ride, or shoot straight, or rope and
! throw steer in the brush-and James
| was an artist in all of these pursuits With
the Winchesterior Colts As he was a mar
Vel, somewhere down in Mexico his faith
er picked up a muzzle-oading double-bar-
| relied shotgun. which came originally from
| France, and had been the property of a
| gentleman sportsman. It's rosewood stock
| bore In letters of silver the Inscription.
Legere ct scribere pedagogi est sed OPP
| time collineare est Dei'-dog Latin for
IDo 1
| IRON the schoolmaster, but crack shot
Is the work of God" 1t might have served
| as a motto for a coat of arms if Franklin
had thought to have one, though his talent
IN poyhood ran to single-shot weapons
ne gave up the shotgun early, holding
that IL was the weapon of bungler and
the slX-shooter and rifle became his daily
companions. He came In time to do mary
Nellous things with them-shooting with
poth eyes open and apparently more by in
stlhct man anything else Later he used
them on his fellow men with painful re-
suits to the other parties concerned. Dur
ing the nrst twenty years of his manhood
ne was occupied in lodging officers or
shooting them. Then he became an officer
hlmseH, and had the laws sanction for his
pistol practice
In many respects he was the most re-
lIlarkapIe desperado in a land of despera-
does He was low of stature ruea suring
not more than 5 feet in his high-heeIed
poots, and quiet of voice, with a red mus
tache and steel-gray eyes. His manners
were gentle. When he had a home the
virtue of hospitality was so strong in him
that 1t was vice. The fact that he was
able, IN spite of his many affrays to cath-
er some property, shows how easily wealth
was acquired in this country in the early
days. great deal of his propertv was
hooted and running loose, and a man
needed only red-hot branding iron to
make 1t his own. Franklin built him a
house only when he had squared his &C.
| count with the law by the hocus-pocus
familiar TO the frontier courts
But he did not quit killing It Is the
| curse of the man slayer that he cannot
stop. The habit of slaughter is more diff
ficult to break than gambling Ola vic
| tins haunt the man who sent them to the
| shades, and their friends come to see
| him, armed and meaning retaliation It
was so with him. Not year passed but
he was forced to defend himself at the
pistols muzzle. At last he gave up try
ing to keep out of trouble, and took a Joy
| in making a corpse of man who wanted
to make a corpse of him. He was con-
stantly in shooting practice. Among his
everyday feats with the revolver was
clipping the crimson apples from the edges
of cactus leaves forty yards away wheel
Ing rapidly upon one heel and putting six
bullets Into a playing card nailed against
the air, breaking it, and then breaking
both pieces before they touched the ground;
writing his initials by boring holes through
tin plate at thirty yards; marking the
outlines Of a mans head on a post, driv-
ing at 1t at full speed on horseback, and
throwing six bullets into il as he passed
| With the Winchester he would amuse
himself for hours decapitating small
snakes that swan far out on Soldier Lake
or bringing down the yellow trimmed Yul-
lures which wheeled above him thousand
feet in air. He was, indeed, an awkward
hand in a row.
His troubles began in the early '6c'1 whom
the Rio Grande country was under mar
tial law. A squad of soldiers at Eagle
Pass attempted to arrest him while he
!. was IN a drunken frenzy and terrorizipg
the town. He killed two of them and
made his escape. This forced him to take
to the chaparral. For three years he did
not sleep in a house. With the experience
thus acquired Joined TO previous train
ing. he developed a woodcraft as remark
able as his shooting practice. He was
learned in the habits and haunts of every
IL. -