The Laurens advertiser. (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973, 1902-05-28

was from 20 to 30 feet deep and the
little negro boys would plunge in and
dive to the bottom for the money and
always got it.
Then L got to Illuminating about
Vesuvius and Pompeii and Hercu-
laneum. fused TO speak a speech about
ancient Greece and Rome and Thebes,
and l always said Pompyeye and The
bees, for that was right then, and 80
was Sisero for Cicero, but they have
got new ways now and l don't know
where l am at. Vesuvius has been
cutting up for more than two thousand
years. 1t has had nine bad e%ruptions,
but there are still people living ON lis
slopes and c%ultivating them. Its en-
ormous crater is 2 miles around and
1000 feet deep, and the accumulated
lava sometimes raises its brink 800 feet
during an eruption.
When S%partacus, the gladiator, was
besieged by the Romans he with his
little army Of seventy men took refuge
in that crater, for it was quiet then,
anil killed 1000 Romans who attacked
them on its brink. The great orator,
| Cicero, had q beautiful villa at its base,
but in the year rs A. ID. old Vulcan
fired up his furnace and belched forth
fire and smoke and lava and ashes and
buried those two cities sixty five feet
deep and changed the sea shore and
the river 80 that their sites could not
be found and when found by accident
they were two miles inland. For thre o
centuries excavations have been going
on and of late with great energy and
the veritable homes of the cultured
people have been found filled with
ashes and cinders that have preserved
them all these centuries. These homes
and halls and churches and temples
have been cleaned out aud even the
paintings on the walls have been re-
stored end the beautiful marble sculp-
tured figures of LAGOON and his sons
strangled by q serpent was found there
IN perfect condition. In some of these
beautiful homes of the wealthy the
tables were set for a feast and in the
temple were found the gold and silver
adornments that are usual in such
places. In the Temple of Juno there
were the corpses of 800 people who
had fled there for safety, but Juno was
%powerless and they all persisted just as
did the 5000 at st. Pierre who fled
into the Roman Catholic cathedral.
The fate of all these cities was very
similar, for it was not lava that de-
stroycd them, nor at st. Pierre, but q
shower of cinder and ashes, and these
are preservatives of anything that they
encase.
When we consider all such Gala
mites a grateful and thoughtful peo-
pie will be thankful to our Heavenly
Father that we live in a land remark
ably free from calamity or afiiction.
No volcanoes hang their threatening
peaks over us or e us, no cyclones
visit us. The noisome pestilence does
not visit us by day or by night. Ca
daverous famine does not darken our
households with its awful distress, but
we live in peace and in plenty and the
lines have fallen unto us in pleasant
places.
1t is a fitting time now for those
who like to read that is
founded on fact to take up that good
oil | book of Bulwer's, "The Last DAYS
of Pompeii," and read il again.
BILL ARP.
| have just received a pleasant letter
from o North Carolina friend asking
me what [ think of Carroll's book,
1.-The Negro a Beast" and he asks,
do you believe the niger 10 a
beaet3" 1 answered at the bottom of
his letter, I" Which nigger2"