The Laurens advertiser. (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973, 1902-06-04
BILL ARP ON THE HORRORS.
The Accounts of Disasters Make
Him Sad-They Seem Now to
Increase.


!. Him Sad-They Seem Now t
Increase.
d Atlanta Constitution.
4 1t is utterly impossible for a man I
l grasp the horrors of Martiniqu,
Every individual case has its hear
!. rending anguish and there are 40, 90
! ! Of them, and 600 more at st. Vir
4 cent. Heie are 300 In the coal mine
: near Knoxville and 5000 mournel
= outside, and every day tells of som
l new disaster. The world seems to b
getting used to calamities and terribl
things. They are now big part O
the battle of life, and if we are not re
conciled to 1t we do not stop momen
to ponder the suffering and crime tina
ls going on. No, we cannot take it il
and the head lines in the daily paper
are all that we have time or inclina
ton to read. Last night my wife ant
l read the pitlful story of Captain
Freeman, of the Roddam, as he told i
at the hospital at st. Lucia while ten
derly lying upon pillows his face ant
hands charred and blackened, his Aesf
raw and his eye balls bloody, and how
one after another of his crew sank in
fiery death until there were seven
teen of them dead upon the deck, and
this was the only vessel of the sixteen
that brought away living soul. Oh,
IL was horrible and filled our hearts
with sorrow and our eyes with tears.
But this was only one case, and there
are thousands who would have had as
pltlful tale to tell if they had lived TO
tell IL. 1t is good for us that we can
not know but small part of the hor-
rcrs OF Martinique and ST Vincent and
on the seas and rivers-one case is
enough. One Case of a mother trying
10 save her child Oh burning boat on
the mississippi river few weeks ago
saddened us al, but the memory of
such things soon passes away and we
forget 1T until another comes. Only
last week the papers told of man, a
Drute, who got angry with his little
boy OF years and after slapping him
TO the floor picked him up bodily and
raised him above his head and dashed
MN down and crushed the life out of
MS little body and his mother picked
hlm up a corpse, while the life blood
spouted from his mouth and nose. The
recital made me sick and sad. The
little boy, believe. is in heaven, but
the poor hear.-broken mother has to
stay to keep guard over the other three.
MercifuI Father, when will these
things cease to be; when will woman
learn that 1t is better to live and die
single than to chain herself to a man
whose character for loving kindness
has not been established in the COM
munitY. Girls, let me beseech you to
take NO chances Be shop girl, q
typewriter, = seamstress, q book agent
or anything that is pure and honest
rather than the wife OF heartless
brute and the mother of his children.
Take no chances. The young men of
this generation are hard lot-not more
than two in ten are fit to marry. Count
them up In your own community and
ask your brother about them. How
many does he know Hho he would be
wiling for his sister to marry.
But L was ruminating about these
horrible disasters and the grief that
fellows in their wake. Death is not
80 terrible a thing. Very often it
comes IN mercy and is blessing. A
peaceful death to the aged is q trium-
plant change-the end of trouble and
The beginning of happiness. But it is
the time and the manner of death,
Fitz Greene Halleck never wrote a
more beautiful verse than his apos-
trophe to death:
"COme when the blesaed aeala
ihat close the pestilence are broke
And crowded cities wall Its stroke;
Come in consumption's chastity form,
The earthquakes shock, the oceans
storm;
And thou art terrible-the tear.
The groan, the knell, the pail, the bier {;
And all we know or dream or fear
or agony are thine"
1t looks like some OF these awful
things are getting close to lis. These
Windward islands are on our side of
the world, and not so far away. Even
now the wind is blowing their ashes
on our coasts, and the earth Is quakipg
under Florida. The explosion of the
coal mines at Knoxville is the first
horror of that kind i'm our Southland, =,
and no pen can picture the scene of
those imprisoned men writing their
last loving words TO wives and children
as they gasped for breath-may the
Lord have mercy upon them and tenn
per the wind to the shorn lamb. TO
all who are in peril and all who are
bereaved, we would breathe the poor
lisherman's prayer; "Oh Lord, good
Lord, L am broken down poor maIl--
a fool to speak to Thee-I am too old
too old-my lads are drowned-Iye
buried my poor wife--my little lassles
died so long ago that l forget what
they were like. know they went tc
Thee, but forget their little faces
though L missed them sore. Mercifu
Lord, please comfort those who have
heavy hearts. cannot pray with finer
words; L have no learning-too old
too old; but, good Lord, have pity OF
them ALL"
Ii is sad to have TO write OF sac
things, but the wise man said: 1t i,
better to go to the house of mournin,
than to theshouse of feasting.o 1t II
good for us all TO stop and think ant
let our hearts open wide in sympathy
Man is to blame for most of hi
own troubles, and "man's inhu
: manity to man makes counties
thousands mourn" but that is no
the darkest side of the picture. 1t 1
mans inhumanity that brings most al
of the distress that women and chill