Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1911-04-18

| men were bent on devices tOr Killing
somebody. 1t was a section Of a Rem
ingtOn rifle sawed off and fitted to a
pistol stock, carrying a ball assigned
especially to Canary" Miller. 1t was
placed in the drawer of the desk and
trained on him pressed into the bot
tom Of the drawer during the silence
of one night: and kept cooked, the
calculation being that when the fuss
was opened the drawer would be pull
ed out, the trigger touched and Cana
ry" dropped as he rose in his place on
the right hand side toward the rear
If two or three men happened to be in
the way it would be all the better. That
| cartridge was good for an elephant
and all our fellows were clear. All this
| was because Canary" rose every fif-
teen minutes and conducted this colo
guy:
MIR. Speaker"
The Speaker: "Th. gentleman from
Beaufort"
Mr.. Speaker, l rise to a point of
order"
THE gentleman from Beaufort will
state his point of order"
Persons are on the floor of the
house who are not members of the
house"
The point of order of the gentle
man from Beaufort Is well taken. The
sergeant-at- arms will proceed to re-
move from the floor all persons not
members"
This was where the trouble was eX-
pected to occur. Orders were that
when the radical sergeant t-arms put
his hand on a Democrat or allied men,
ber the shooting would start. Every
time he was ordered, the fool sergeant
alarms would walk up the aisle to-
ward somebody and nobody knew
when with an extra drink or two or
on some signal, he actually would
touch a man. 1t was trying on the
nerves. An outbreak there would have
meant not only present slaughted,
but civil war, because II had not been
decided whether Hayes or Tilden was
to he next president and the nerves
and temper Of the entire country were
at strained tension, ready to be start
led to the fighting point by a less
thing than wholesale butchery in the
state house of one of the pivotal and
disputed states.
BY the special mercy of the AL
mighty the country was saved from.
that horror, as by the same gracious
means 1t has been saved from so
many. The three nights and days the
| hundred and fifty odd armed and hat
ing men slept and ate and laughed and
taunted and threatened locked in the
hall together, passed and the blow that
would have had such fearful conse-
quences was not struck. Canary
| Miller did not get his fight or his bull
let Gen. Hampton got notice that
the United States troops were to
charge on his men and he moved them
| out; and next day his Red Shirts came
in headlong and yelling on horseback
and on the dead run and yelling afoot
and swarmed over the town by thou
sands; and the worst strain Of it was
over. And Canary" Miller, elderly
peaceful and TAT, looms up again afte1
all these years.
Mad days and bad days and mad and
merry nights those times. with a thrill
| for every hour and danger for every
step. Newspaper men did not need to
look for news. They could crowd the
wires with it until the wires could take
no more. That was before typewriters
or telephones or street cars. Men de-
pended on their own legs and hands
and eyes and ears and brains and no
body thought much Of food or sleep or
cared much for anything because no
body expected much to live until
spring or that by spring there would
| he any state or government.
And of all the bright, gay men who
chroncled that time from day to day
| who lived luXuriantly because WIN
peril and excitement their nerves were
strung happily and tense always, VINO
| ioined in chorus and laughter to the
| rising of many wintry suns or new
days of hard work and emergency
| there is, so far as we know, but one
left. When the drama was over they
scattered to the many parts or the
| world whence they came and we think
ali are dead now, but one-and they
were young men, too.
| Here is thanks to Canary Miller
for recalling a time thirty -four years
back, we'll worth living in.-A. y. VIII
liams i'm Roanoke Times.