PRESIDENT MCKINLEY'S EXCURSION, DYNAMITE IN POCKET, SIG SAUTELLE'S CIRCUS, AND TRIP TO PITCHER

 

President William McKinley visits El Paso, Texas.

The Cortland Democrat, Friday, May 3, 1901.

WASHINGTON LETTER.

(From Our Regular Correspondent.)

   Washington, April 29.—Mr. McKinley's record-breaking presidential free excursion left Washington today on its little jaunt of 10,581 miles. The special train consists of seven Pullman cars, each selected as the most elegant of its kind. The trip will cost thousands of dollars, but it is doubtful whether a cent of it will come out of the pocket of any one of the 38 passengers. Secretary Cortenyou was thoroughly alive to the advertising possibilities of the trip, when he arranged that more than one-fourth of the passengers should be newspaper men, and he took care that there should be artists among them. Also, that a good photographer should be on the train, as well as telegraph operators. There are nine ladies to keep Mrs. McKinley company, and Dr. Rixey is on hand to look after her health, and that of the rest of the party.
   The members of that Cuban committee left Washington hugging the delusion that Mr. McKinley's promise to appoint commissioners to negotiate a reciprocity treaty with Cuba, as soon as Cuba had a government to negotiate with, meant something tangible. Unless the senate should treat it better than it did the whole bunch of reciprocity treaties negotiated by the present administration, the actual negotiation of such a treaty would be meaningless. Still, the promise sent the Cubans home in a good humor and that was doubtless all it was intended to do. The Cubans on their side promised to do their best to get the constitutional convention to accept the Platt amendment. It will soon be apparent whether their promise was worth any more than Mr. McKinley's.

   If the movement that has been started in Washington to make the daughters of the American Revolution an auxiliary to the machine that is booming Senator Fairbanks of Indiana for the Republican presidential nomination in 1904 is successful, the D. A. R. will probably have a split on its hands and will certainly suffer in the esteem of those who are on principle opposed to the participation in partisan politics of such organizations. This movement, which is understood to have been started with the knowledge of Mrs. Fairbanks, president general of the D. A. R., and wife of the senator, is to have the D. A. R. National board unofficially request every chapter in the country to use the influence of its members with fathers, sons, husbands and friends, to secure support for the Fairbanks boom. It was because they wish to keep the movement secret that the national board of the D. A. R recently decided that the press should be rigidly excluded, not only from the board meetings, but from future national congresses of the organization. That decision provoked such adverse criticism that the board has since announced that it had been temporarily abandoned. It has from its organization been plain that the D. A. R. had nothing to do with partisan politics, but the same claim has been made for organizations of men, which are constantly dabbling in partisanship.

   Nothing but praise is heard of the action of Mr. McKinley, taken in response to a written request of Senator Daniel of Virginia, in ordering that the Washington relics, which have for some years been on exhibition in the National Museum, be restored to their proper owner. Gen. G. W. C. Lee of Virginia, a son of Gen. R. E. Lee, from whose house at Arlington the relics were taken at the opening of the Civil war. While it was action that should have voluntarily been taken years ago, by some president, Mr. McKinley is entitled to credit for taking it, even at this late day, and to more credit for the manly latter to Senator Daniel, in which he announced his intention to do so.

   All the administration influence will be used to get Minister E. H. Conger nominated for governor by the Iowa Republicans. Not because it loves Conger over well or desires to see him honored, but because it doesn't wish him to return to China as United States minister, nor to tell him that he cannot. In other words, for purely selfish reasons, the administration wishes Mr. Conger nominated for governor of Iowa. He displeased the administration several times during the negotiations in Pekin, and he has displeased it again by his published interviews since he reached the United States, but his standing with the powerful missionary element in this country is such that the administration is afraid to kick him out of the diplomatic service.

   Secretary Hay announced before he left Washington that he had secured a sufficiently definite statement of Senatorial views, to inform him just what sort of a new Isthmian canal treaty with England would be sure to receive the support of two-thirds of the senators. Senators who ought to know something about the views of their colleagues on this subject, think that this announcement were like many others made in the diplomatic world—misleading without being untrue. One of them said: "Any Senator could have told Mr. Hay offhand just what sort of a treaty would be sure for ratification by the senate—the amended Hay-Pauncefote treaty was one sort, but that didn't suit England, and unless there is some craw-fishing in England, and it is very doubtful that any treaty will suit two-thirds of the senate will suit England [sic]. The radical point of difference is that two thirds of the senate believe in American control of the canal, while England doesn't.

 

DYNAMITE IN POCKET.

SCHOOLBOY IN NEW YORK FRIGHTENS HIS TEACHER.

Was Discovered Whittling Dynamite Cartridge in School—People Visit New York to Eat Shellfish—Fashionable Gambling Resort Raided—Women Cashiers Popular—Bound to Die.

   New York City. May 1.—A most startling discovery was made by a teacher in one of our city schools last Thursday, who had cause to reprimand one of her pupils, a ten-year old lad, for playing with what she supposed to be a piece of lead pipe. She ordered the boy to bring to her the piece of pipe which he had been cutting with his pen-knife. The teacher nearly dropped the supposed pipe on the floor when the boy handed it to her, for she saw it was a dynamite cartridge, such as is used for blasting. With difficulty she suppressed an involuntary shriek and congratulated herself that she had not spanked the boy while he had the cartridge in his pocket. The explosive material was taken to the rooms of the board of education, and the superintendent of the building department said there was enough dynamite in the cartridge to kill a hundred men. A superintendent of a contract company said it was a wonder that the cartridge had not been exploded by contact with the boy's knife, and blow the teacher and all the children in the class room into the next world.

   The amount of eating done in New York by out-of-town people is astonishing. All spring, autumn and winter long the city is crowded with strangers, who if their patronage of the hotels and restaurants in any gauge, have come here largely to eat. Some of these visitors spend more in New York during their annual week or fortnight than they do at home in a year—and all, mainly, upon things to eat. One can usually spot the westerner or islander in any restaurant by the amount of shell fish he orders. Oysters, clams, lobsters—he eats them all as if he had not had a chance to taste any of them since his last visit to New York, which is probably true. A St. Louis girl here not long ago confessed to having had lobster for breakfast, luncheon, dinner and supper during the entire three weeks of her stay. Of all the vast sums expended in eating by strangers in New York, we may be sure that more than half of it goes for shell fish.

   What is known as the Committee of Fifteen has been doing some effective work recently towards breaking up gambling dens. A raid was made last week upon a resort in Broad-st., raiders finding thirty men in the room, nearly all of whom were playing roulette, faro and poker. They made frantic efforts to escape, but were prevented. The raid, taking place as it did in the heart of the financial district, created a great deal of excitement. Gambling paraphernalia worth upwards of $3,000, several thousand chips, many packs of cards and about $30 in small change, was taken by the raiders, as well as the account books of the establishment. The latter were kept in a very crude form, but an unexplained item of expense in the sum of $500 led Mr. Moss and Justice Jerome to say that this item might prove an important link in the chain of evidence against the mysterious John Doe, who is alleged to give protection from police interference to the gamblers of the city.

   The business men in New York much prefer women cashiers, one reason for which is thus stated by a prominent gentleman: "I went into a restaurant in the money district recently and had a light lunch. My check called for 25 cents. I threw out a bill, got 75 cents, and went away. In the evening I discovered that I had paid out a $5 bill by mistake. I had never been in the place before, and it was a woman cashier. Next day I went back and lunched at the same place. I took my check and went up to the desk. I said to the young woman: 'Didn't I give you a five for a one yesterday?' She took a look at me, and then without a word reached into the safe behind her and took out an envelope and handed it to me. I tore it open, and inside were four $1 bills. If that had been a man cashier, I would never have had a second sight of the money."

   The desperate straits to which poverty will drive a man were painfully illustrated a few days ago, when an Englishman printer named James Eccles went to a hotel and called for a room. He was assigned quarters on the third floor. His head was bandaged as the result of an unsuccessful attempt at suicide by throwing himself under the wheels of a truck, but he didn't tell anybody at the hotel about that. After getting to his room he first tried to smother himself by winding the bed clothes about his head. This didn't seem to work. Then he tried to hang himself with a sheet, but this was not effective. Finally he slashed his wrists with a pen-knife and lay back on the bed to die. The night porter heard him groaning early the next morning and opened the door. Eccles was not nearly dead even then, and after having his wrists tied up by an ambulance surgeon he was locked up. Before he was moved from the hotel he begged for a pistol with which he might end his life quickly. He said he was out of work and wanted to die.

 

Sig Sautelle, May 11.

   With Sig Sautelle's twentieth century 25-cent circus, which will exhibit in Cortland, Saturday, May 11, afternoon and evening, are some of the most daring and sensational riders the world has known in this or any other age. Prominent among the number is Miss Olga Reed, than whom there is no more fearlessly reckless equestrienne on earth. Young, handsome and winsome she presents a beautiful picture in the arena. A picture which fascinates the men and charms the women. Miss Reed was especially engaged this season for her famous principal act in which, with her horse tearing madly at full speed around the 50-foot ring, she accomplishes the seemingly impossible with an ease, grace and daring possessed by no other equestrienne.

   Two artists with the Sautelle show, each of whom is a conceded champion in his particular style of riding, are Captains Pierrierr and Barlow. The former does a thrilling hurdle act and the faster the horse runs the better the captain likes it. On its back, its neck, its head, underneath everywhere the rider places himself, while onlookers hold their breath expecting each moment to see the man seriously, if not fatally, injured beneath the steel shod hoofs of the animal. Mr. Barlow has but recently returned from an extensive foreign tour during which he appeared before all the crowned heads of nearly every country on the map. In addition to the foregoing there are two horses carrying, four-horse and comedy riding acts, all contributing to the pleasures of the imperial program. No person can afford to remain away from the Sautelle circus.

 

TRIP TO PITCHER, N. Y.

What a Representative of the Democrat Saw in that Hustling Inland Town.

   Reader, have you ever visited the old historic town of Pitcher? If you have not you want to do so, even if you have to steal eggs, sheep, hens or sell your clothes on your back in order to raise the money to go with. Now this may not seem very ''fatherly'' or ''motherly" advice to a young man or woman just starting out in life to see the world, but nevertheless we want you to see the place and feel that the same advice a father once gave to his son is admissible here: "My son," the fond father said, "the main object in life is to get rich, honest if you can, but get rich."

   Go to Pitcher even if you have to go the same way the early settlers reached the Pacific slope from the east—walk. A short time ago a Democrat representative visited this charming little village and became acquainted with its friendly inhabitants. Situated as the village is, in the beautiful Otselic Valley; away from the noise and bustle of the outside world; out of the smoke of busy factories, far away from beyond the limits of the air-tainted scent of the Italian cheese made in Cincinnatus, its inhabitants have many things to be thankful for. Just why the town is called "Pitcher" is not because they have nothing else for a thirsty traveler to drink from, although a few utilized "jugs" during the maple sugar season, which contained a concoction of different liquids sweetened to suit the taste.

   The village contains nearly fifty homes all told, not a tumble-down shanty being among them. Two fine churches, a Baptist and a Congregational, as handsome a school building as any place of its size can boast of, (all will soon appear in the Democrat), adorn the village and add to its natural attractiveness. Besides these there are a few stores which supply the common necessaries of life not only to the quiet law-abiding residents of the village, but to the hillside inhabitants as well.

   The Baldwin Bros, (by the way Fred S. Baldwin is the present supervisor of the town), have a general store here and are doing a good, healthy, country inland town business. Diagonally across from their store is that of H. D. Fairchild, a descendant four generations removed of the original Benjamin Fairchild who came here from Connecticut and settled in 1797 where the old hotel now stands. Mr. Fairchild carries on a hardware business, and has a splendid trade from every section of this part of the world. He lives in one of the finest modern homes that one seldom sees in a small town. He carries a full line of hardware specialties at prices to suit the pocketbook, be the purchaser rich or poor.

   But we spoke of a "hotel" (!) a moment ago. May God forgive us for lying. It was once a hotel. Today it is a representation of what it was once. The "hotel" part has moved out. If a stranger had entered the place a few weeks ago they would have sworn that it was meant for an ice-house. In fact a man did come there to rent it preparatory to moving in, but in spite of the fact that he was willing to live in some barns he had seen, yet this was too much. However, strangers visiting Pitcher are requested to look the other way when they come in sight of the hotel. This is the best way out of it. If you are hungry and want a place to sleep, accommodations can be had of Mrs. L. E. Darling, Mrs. Charles Baldwin, (perhaps) or Mrs. Fred Sheldon. We speak of them as "Mrs." All are married, however, and have troubles of their own yet all "rule their own households" and neither will turn a stranger away hungry. Then you want to call on Mrs. Dithie Chandler, the postmistress, that is if you are in need of information and looking for trouble. You will find one of the best equipped local post offices you have seen in some time. Besides a nice assortment of confectionery, school supplies, etc.

   If you have the time you should give Mrs. Frank Cook a call and look over her large assortment of trimmed hats and other millinery supplies. Frank Cook will sell yon anything in the jewelry line, being an expert jeweler, anything from a Waterbury watch to a diamond necklace. Their home is a dream, a perfect dream. Call and be convinced that there are but few in the country that compare with it in this respect. Just below there, towards the river at the end of the walk, you will find Dr. L. C. Andrews. If you are in need of a pill or have a tooth that will feel much better "out" than "in", or need the services off a first class physician, by all means call. You will not only find a congenial gentleman, but a good physician as well.

   Charles Wildman stands ready to shoe your horse on short notice or other blacksmith work at cut rate prices.

   If you are taken sick while in town and need a good nurse, call on Charley Barrett, and if looking for a strictly all wool, first-class music teacher call on his daughter Miss Ethel Barrett. By the way, Miss Barrett is a photographer of no mean skill, and if you happen to have the price she will fit you out so your own mother won't know you with the latest "snap shots" on the market. Miss Barrett is very artistic in her work. Miss Ada Kingsley also, does fine work with the camera. There is one thing, however, that Pitcher can lay claim to and this is to the championship of having more widows, grass widows and old maids living by themselves than any place of its size on earth. This is not as it should be or as the world was intended. There is still another thing that one will meet with here, and that is some of the most hospitable, friendly inhabitants that you will find anywhere.

   We left the little hamlet laboring under the impression that Pitcher is one of the most pleasantly situated, and contains some of the finest people that there are to be found in the country.

 

HERE AND THERE.

   To-day is Arbor day.

   A bill has passed the State Legislature closing all butcher shops on Sunday, and has been signed by the Governor, but it does not go into effect until next September.

   The bill making the funeral expenses of a deceased person a preferred lien on his estate and payable before all other debts has become a law.

   The postoffice department is to make a new ruling to the effect that the rural population who want free mail delivery must keep the roads in good passable condition or else lose the service.

   New five and ten dollar first national bank bills of Tully, N. Y., were put in circulation this week. They are new and crisp and bear the names of F. J. Carr, president, and Willis Maine, cashier. Hurrah for Tully and her first national bank.—Tully Times.

   Farmers say they are two weeks behind time with their spring work.

   Nearly every horse in the city was put to use last Sunday, making a harvest for liverymen.

   Harry Millard has resigned his position as express messenger and is succeeded by Philip A. May.

   The Normal [School] athletics will have a field day this afternoon on the fair grounds. There are a large number of entries for the sixteen events.

   Next Sunday evening Rev. U. S. Milburn will preach in the Universalist church upon "The Brotherhood of Man." The Odd Fellows and Rebekahs will attend the service.

   Not the least of the blessings of a somewhat sour and backward spring is the promise of a good hay crop. Even the editor who doesn't take hay on subscription can feel glad over this.

   C. C. Darby, who was seriously hurt in the mail car at Binghamton two weeks ago, was brought to his home in Cortland in a special car last Saturday. He is still in a critical condition, the injury resulting in concussion of the brain.

   In an interview with a representative of the Ithaca Journal, Herman Burgholtz, who is a heavy owner of the Cortland & Homer trolley line, verifies the statement made in the Democrat some time ago that the line will be extended to Little York in the near future.

   The fact that a pathmaster did what he believed to be his duty in properly placing the highway between Cortland and McGrawville in proper condition for travel by team seems hardly sufficient cause for all the fuss and expense created in Cortlandville. The people, while willing to accord wheelmen all the rights possible, will soon become disgusted with the sidepath law.

   The Rev. O. M. Owen, pastor of the Free Methodist church, invites the W. C. T. U. to his church Sunday evening next, at 7:30, at which time he will deliver a sermon upon Sabbath Observance. It is earnestly hoped that this invitation will be heartily responded to, and the members of that organization are requested to meet at headquarters at 7:15 and attend in a body.

  

Some Statements for Honest Thinkers.

   Jesus Christ never kept Sunday for the Sabbath.

   He did not teach anyone to keep it.

   He did not tell his apostles to keep it after his resurrection, or to teach that it should be kept for the Sabbath.

   The Bible does not call it a sacred day.

   Christ never called it his day.

   No New Testament writer called it the Lord's sacred or holy day, or taught anyone to keep it holy.

   Not until within about sixty years has it been called Sabbath. It was called Sunday.

   Sunday schools were not called Sabbath schools.

   District schools taught that the first day of the week is called Sunday; and that the seventh day of the week is called "Saturday or Sabbath."

   Geo. W. Bliss, Penelope, N. Y.