Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1903-02-06
JULIAN RALPH IN CHINA
Noted Journalists Novel Meet
ing With a Celestial.
his ADVENTURE WITH A MINER.
startling Experience Among the
Molly MaguIrer and With a Reck-
less Welshmap In Coal Mine.
Story of an Expensive Mistake In
Paris.

When the late Julian Ralph, the well
known journalist, went TO China, he
prepared himself very carefully In
pigeon English, which he had been told
he would find useful. On discovering a
Chinamnn in his bedroom in Shanghai
he exclaimed: Hello! What tingf
What fashion man you b'long! What
side you Gomez To which the China
man replied:
This is Mr.. Ralph, presume? We
have mutual friends who suggested my
calling on you. Oh, that's all right"
he went on. II spent eight years at
school In Norwich, Conn"
"Ah" said Mr.. Ralph, partially re-
covering his presence of mind. "Nely
well. vely we'll"
To correspondent of the New York
Press Julian Ralph related this story
of one of his experiences as reporter:
Il remember the day he said, that
took me over the mountain behind
Mauch Chunk and into the house of the
family Of Molly Mcguire who had
been hung the day before. In company
with New York Herald man | stood
beside the felon's coffin. The whisky,
the tobacco, the grooming women and
the low proved conspirators and muir
derers who had been the mans friends
were in the room. They asked us if
we were reporters, and | said we were.
"They told us in the most eXtrava
CANT politeness they could command 10
Git When they went out into the
street, a reputable citizen called us In
to his store and told us that our pres
ence in the village had led to n deter.
mination on the part of the Molly Ma
CURES TO kill us after sunset. 1t was
almost sunset then. The necessity for
getting our reports into New York was
what impelled Us to walk again the
lonely path over the mountain. Still,
| am glad there was some other neces-
sity.
Reaching the largest coal mine IN
the United States, at Pottsville, after
an explosion that had robbed many
families Of their heads, | tried TO OBJ
tain permission to enter the mine. The
owners said that 1t was certain death
to go into 1t and | would not be per.
mitted to do so. l paid poor Welsh
man S. to take me secretly down the
shaft, and he and | spent an afternoon
In the bowels of the earth. There would
not have been anything very desperate
about that but for the ignorance and
recklessness of my Welshman 49, the
same sort Of ignorance and reckless
ness that had blown up that mine and
has blown up hundred others.
'He got to telling me about the
brownies that live In the mine. Queer
little pygmies he said they were, not
much bigger than your hand, clothed
all in brown, wearing feathers in their
hats and always appearing to a miner
when something dreadful is about to
happen to the mine or to the individual.
He said that as he was at work in
blind shaft Oh the day of the explosion
he heard Lilliputian chattering and,
looking up, saw brownie four inches
high standing in crevice in coal
vein and holding up a warning finger.
"My Welshman had a naked lamp in
his hand, and suddenly he raised it and
thrust it In n Granny over my head,
with the remark, The brownies do live
In all such cracks as that When you
hot Iot
the flame Of a lamp touched any of the
crevices Of the rocks wherein gas was
still certain to be lurking another fright
full explosion would occur, you can i'm
agine my feelings as l seized that mans
arm aud pulled it down half minute
after the flame had penetrated that hid
ing place Of the fatal fluid"
One day Julian Ralph was strolling
along one of. the boulevards in Paris
in rather lonely mood when two of
the newspaper correspondents came up,
says Vance Thompson in the Saturday
Evening Post. BY a sort of premedi-
tated hazard they came at the luncheon
hour. Mr.. Ralph greeted them like
brothers. you don't know how much
good it does me to get chance to talk
English" he said. "Why, do you know
what did today? They didn't know.
II got shaved three times this morn
Ing at the barber shop in the Grand
hotel because the barber could say,
'Yizzir; thankee, "Trip
They were strolling down the Boule-
ward DIES ltaliens.
"Come and have chop with me;''
said Mr.. Ralph in his usual CHEEKY way.
81 noticed little restaurant near here
quiet, modest, cheap looking little
place-but by the looks of it am pref
ty sure we can get things clean any
way. And of course we don't want
much"
Mr. Ralph led the way into the "cheap
Iittlp nlucp hut nIann HIT, e,.;onIe