The people's journal. (Pickens, S.C.) 1891-1903, 1902-05-29
only ], 200 were French. Just think

only 200 were French. Just think
of it. Our county is about rs miles
square and is quite thickly settled and
has $4,000 people, while Martinique
has seven times as many and most of
them are negroes. These negroes wero
all slaves until 1848. They live chiefly
on fruit and anything they can pick up
or steal. My boys amused themselves
throwing dimes into tho water that
was from 20 to 80 feet deep and the
little negro boys would plunge in and
dive TO the bottom for the monev and
always got it.
Then l got to Illuminating about
Vesuvius and POmpeii and Hercu-
laneuln. lused TO speak speech about
ancient Greece and Rome and Thebes.
and always said Pompyeye and The.
bees, for that was right then. and 80
Was Sisero for Cicero, but thcy have
got new ways now and | don,t know
whefe am Mt. Vesuvius has boen
cutting up Tor more than two thousand
years. 1t has had nine bad eruptions.
put there are still people living on ITS
slopes and cultivating them. It's en-
ormous crater Is 2 miles around and
a,ooO teet deep, and the accumulated
iaVa sometimes raises its brink 800 feet
during an eruption.
When Spartacus, the gladiator. was
besieged by the Romans he with h;a
illIle army or seventy men took refuge
III lhat crater, for it was quiet then,
anu killed 5000 Romans who attacked
Them ON it's brink. The great orator.
Cicero, had beautiful villa at its base'
but in the year rs A. ID. Old Vulcan
fired up his furnace and bclched forth
hre and smoke and lava and ashes and
puried 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 three
centuries excavations have been going
on ana OF late with great energy and
the veritable homes of the cultured
people have been found filed with
ashes and clnderB that have preserved
them all these centuries. These homes
ana halls and churches and TEMPLES
! nave been cleaned out and even the
paintings on the walls have been re-
stored and the beautiful marble sculp-
tured figures of LAGOON and his sons
strangled by serpent was found there
Ill perfect condition. In some of these
beautiful homes of the wealthy the
tables were set for 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 300 people who
had fled there for safety, but Juno was
powerless and they all perished lust as
did the 5000 at st. Pierre who fled
into the Roman Catholic cathedral,
| The fate of all these cities was yerv
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 thew
| encase.
When we consider all such GALA
mites a grateful and thoughtful poo
pie Will be thankful to our Heavenly
Father that we live in land remark
ably free from calamity or anlction.
NO volcanoes hang their threatening
peaks over uB or near us, no cyclones
visit us. The noisome pestilence does
not visit us by day or by night. Ca.
daverous famine does not darkeu orr
households with its awful distress, but
we live III peace and in plenty and the
lines have fallen unto us in pleasant
| places.
1t is fitting time now for those
who like to read romance that is
founded on fact to take up that good
old book of Bulwer's, "The Last Days
OF Pompeii," and read it again.
BILL ARP.
have just received pleasant letter
from North Carolina friend askino
me what | think of Carrol's book
"Ihe Negro Beast" and he asks
DO You believe the nigger Is a
oeaet?" | answered at the bottom of
his letter, " Which nigger?"