The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1902-01-26

children Of this blessed land, have been
neglected of late, for I have had time
of it in taking care of myself FOR
month past ! have been perplexed and
burdened with correspondence that
could not avoid. have answered more
than a hundred letters concerning the
Monticello fraud, but that trouble IS
row about over and once more am calm
and serene. 1t was most marvellous en-
terprise Nothing equal to it has ever oc-
CURED in the South. One woman writes
that she has written over eleven hum
dred letters. The area covered by it and
the victims who suffered is astounding
NV correspondents are all women, de-
pendent, struggling women and they feck
the land from West Virginia to western
Texas. / learn that Monticello has sur
rendered and assigned, which means, of
course, that the army of these agents
will have to surrender and be resigned.
Blessed are they who expect nothing, for
they shall not be disappointed.
Just now there seems to be lull in
tho excitements that have agitated the
press and the public for some time past.
The negro has almost retired from dis
{, ssion and is the same unconcerned
creature he has always been. Professor
Stone. who has been studying them in
Mississippi, says that in the Delta where
they constitute 81 per cent of the popu-
lation they are more contented, more
Industrious and more law-abiding than
in any region that he has visitd. Maybe
bishop Turner is right and they can take
care of themselves if left to themselves.
But my philosophy is, let the problem
alone and let it work out it's own solu-
tion 1t may take twenty years, it may
take fifty, but it will solve itself.
Politics, too, is somewhat tired and in
a dormant condition. The country has
ceased to make much edo over the antics
and romantics of the new President and
is just waiting to see what he will do
next. He is a Sphinx. He. is going to do
what he thinks is right. but the trouble
is. he thinks wrong too often. He is what
you might call finiky-that's all. The
word is not in the dictionary and has no
definition Finiky is finiky.
Well, our State politics has subsidized
for time. The Pot boiled over at first
but has simmeTed down and we are not
making as many Governors and other
officers as we did before Christmas. T
don't feel very anxious about the next
Governor, for with those who are in the
field we can't hardly make a mistake.
AS Cobe would say, Its all optionary
with me-" There is nothing left hardly
to fuss and fume about except the At
Ianta depot. This is enduring stock. |
have not been to Atlanta since last
March and l am not going until they
build a new depot. Nevertheless, we
still have the usual amount of horrors
and wrecks and homicides. 1t takes all
/. 4 he big type to keep the head lines GO
ing. Forty years ago there never was a
displayed head line nor the picture of
woman in a newspaper. The Richmond
Wing and The National Intelligencer did
rot even have caption to their edto-
rails. You had to read it to find out
what the article was about. Now we
glance at the heading and read Moth
ing else and as for the pictures We old
men can't tell the difference between
Lydia Pinkham and the belle of Frog
town.
But the mothers and their children are
still left us. was eliminating about the
books we boys had to read in the olden
time and how hey had disappeared and
gone out of print. There were the Ara
.GuIlivers Travers" and Baron Num-
enausen"-all were made up lies, but the
bigger the lies the better we liked them,
for children are imaginative and the lit
tic stories of Jack, the Giant Killer.
and Jack and the Bean Vine" ant
cinderella" have to be told over and
over again to the little ones before they
90 to bed There are two little ones
I - ell oh
repeating the sane old stories. But the
Baron Munchausen" type of lies passed
away, although it went through man,
editions and have seen nothing like il
Until recently, when | received little
book called, I'm Something of Liar
Myself published in London and New
York and manufactured by Baron De-
Vore of Edgefeld, S. c. | think he is 9
lincal descendant of Munchausen and has
improved upon his great ancestor. II
seems that he fell in with a dwarf in
Kansas City, whose name wan Ran. This
Ran had lived nine years on the banks
of the Amazon river and told Baron De-
wore how the ammonia OF that region
produced forests of great trees that were
two or three Thousand feet high and big
round in proportion He says it tool
him eleven days and six hours and thirty
nine minutes to walk around one Of
them Ran says the ammonia dwarfet
him. 1t enlarged his head and length
ened his feet, but shrunk up his shanks
and neck. He wore No. 10 hat and No
collar. His feet were Is inches Ions
and fattened like a ducks bill and his
legs about the size of hoe handle. His
feet grew long on purpose. for the sol
vas so soft an ordinary foot would have
sunk down in it. Everybody knows hin
in Kansas City and it is dangerous t.
doubt or dispute his stories. Ran says
that some of those trees are awful,
crooked and one day he came across ONT
that had fallen down from old age. |
was hollow from the butt to the top ant
was $4,000 feet long and one of its BIZ
limbs had stuck in the ground and M
noticed that millions of bees were golni
III and coming out of the hole in 1t. -
10 got help and cut into it to get tn
honey and suddenly the limb broke ant
The crooked tree commenced rolling an
the honey commenced pouring out. IN
tree was so crooked 1t could not stol
rolling and 1t got faster and faster WIFI
lis own momentum and crushed down tn