The Pawnee Dispatch. (Pawnee, Okla.), Vol. 6, No. 19, Ed. 1 Friday, April 13, 1900 Page: 2 of 8
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pawnee dispatch.
X. T. Jjnsios, Editor.
PAWNEE.
OKLAHOMA.
tret
•KlJtlOMA AMD IMDUH 1««BlIO»*
O. W. I’Ohten of lllulnr oownty hai.a
Sr,o acre wlu *t Held.
The Western I’nion ha* put 5“ an
.uptown telegraph oftlce In Enid.
Chiekaaba ha* a SoronU and the club
I* devoting it* time to a fctudy of Dick-
•ns.
In Oakland 845,Q00 was raided in one
hour's time, by citizens to capitalize a
(bank.
One of the best pianist* in the terri-
tory 1* Miss Eagle f eather of Canton-
ment.
J. If. Havighout claims to hare lo-
rated a Hne bed of the best of coal near
iiuthrie.
8. P. Cornell, of Lincoln county, wa*
shot by hi* son-in-law, named Lynch,
fa a quarrel.
In western Oklahoma, the herd law
I* gradually encroaching on the domain
gf free range
There in one school district in Okla-
homa county, that has a board exclu-
sively of women.
The negroes at Kingfisher nominated
a city ticket, but failed to file it within
the statutory time.
The boy* at the Oklahoma Agricul-
tural college.liave set out 33,000 treeson
the college grounds.
C. C, White, a cnrpenler at Knid. had
a scaffold collapse beneath him and
was very seriously hurt.
Pottawatomie county i* free from
•mall pox and court* will he held at
regularly appointed date*.
An elaborate mnp of Oklahoma is
■being prepared as an advertisement for
the Rough Riders' reunion.
•lim Johnson, a man in the Watonga
Jail for murder, claim* that he will
}>ray himself out. a* Paul did.
No more proof notice* will be sent
Out from the Knid land ofiice until the
|4 publication fee is advanced.
Oklahoma City and Perry both mnde
•n even break at the city elections,
electing one half of each ticket
J. W. Cordon, of Wellston, Lincoln
eonnty, i* contracting his looo crop of
castor bean* at one dollar per bushel.
District No. 71, Oklahoma county
has sold ltonds to the amount of 8400
for the purpose of building a new school
house.
A New York paper contains a picture
of Wilkins, the Knid giant. It is said
that there is on record only one man
larger than Wilkins.
Prof. G. K. Morrow, who ret ired from
the presidency of the Oklahoma Agri-
cultural college a year ago. died recent-
ly in Champaign. Illinois.
Settlers on the Deep Fork, In Lincoln
county, drink a decoction of cotton-
wood bark a* a cure for malaria, claim-
ing that it I- more ctttacion* than
quinine.
Attorney General J. C. Strang lia*
■rendered uu opinion that bauk* can
only be assessed for taxation upon the
capital stock thereof and any surplus
they may have.
Sixteen miles from Augusta Is a salt
|Plain with an area of 100 square miles.
The salt deposit is from one to four
dnehea deep. The plain is 1,3'.*0 feet
tobove sea level.
It is now claimed the Sunday school
of the Pilgrim Congregational church,
(of Oklahoma City, is the largest in the
(territory. The average attendance for
the year was 1 V.t.
Rev. Wagner, o, the M. K. church nt
Norman spread paint on the church
and parsonage with his own hands,
[lie also assisted in papering the church
and has put the grounds around the
parsonage in good shape.
Corn jumped to 34 cents in Guthrie
and hogs to tt.T.V One scene of inter-
est was two farmers one with a load of
.corn, another with a load of wheat.
The first received $13.34 for his load,
the second $SW. Heretofore it ha*
taken four loads of corn to purchase
one of wheat.
Two Insurance agents traveling in
Grant county dropped u match from
their hugg.v, which started a tire that
'burned aero** several farms anti de-
stroyed a number of stacks of buy.
Henry Wicker while prospecting in
the Otter Mountain* in the Kiowa ami
Comanche country, found tlie skeleton*
of four persons, apparently those of a
man, a woman anti twoehlldrvn. The
skeletons, from appearances, bad been
there alaiut six months. Nearby were
a Winchester rifle, camp outfit and
•addle*.
Henry t'itv. a new town, lia* Wen
laid out in Pottawatomie county. The
townsife is one mile long and half u
inlle w ide.
A teacher of the normal at Alva told
hi* class he would try to detect the
difference in the acuteness of the sense
pf smelling in pupil*. He pan«ed
•round * Imltle of distilled water ask-
ing each to snv how strong it wus of
ammonia. Every one smelled the am-
monia all right, hot there was none in
dhe water, lie then lectured ou "Im-
agination."
perry merchants have ayrcoil to here-
after close their store* *t «:3o.
Oklahoma t itv 1 linishe* chnriv.ir
hoodlum* by fining them for each
offense.
A deputy marshal was killed ut Wag-
oner by a drunken innn named Gaylor,
who escaped.
Hotter made by the Guthrie creamery
is Mdd in Italtimore Mil., and commands
tlie highest price there.
The MulhalI brass band will give q
grand concert *»n April "nth and bus
invited Perry musicians to ass.st,
Guy Anfreeht, of the North Side
hotel in Oklahoma Pity died April '-• of
cancer of the throat and tongue.
The Wells-Fargo Kxpress company
will establish an office at Augusta to
connect with tlie railroad at Alva.
A gang of Indians camped at Garher
ami were a* much of a curiosity to the
people as they would have been in an
Kastera state
The Santa Fe has paid three farmers
for right of way of the Hutchinson A
Southern, a much higher price than
the condemning Iniaril allowed.
There are about 3413 Otoe Indians on
the Otoe reservation. About IWI.OOO
acres of land has been a 1 loted to them,
and they still have TO.tMKIacrc* unallot-
ed.
An examination of peach buds at tlie
agricultural experiment statiou shows
a large pewentage of the buds are dead,
yet there are enough remaining to
yield a fair crop.
Tlie Oklahoma live stock commission
have followeil the example of Kansas
ami quarantini-d against cattle from
eastern and northern states unless they
can pass inspection as to infection with
tuberculosis.
The amount of fruit trees anil shrubs
being taken home from the delivery
grounds of the ilealers is astonishing.
Dray loails are nearly all the time in
sight, on the streets of the rail mad
towns, in transit to the pluccs of de-
livery.
The land appraising commission, at
work in the Choctaw country, will
finish the appraisement of tlie Pliicka-
saw land* during the current year.
Then there will still Ik- left a strip of
land on the east side of the Choctaw
nation without appraisement.
The townsite commission for the
Choctaw nation has selected May 5 us
the dute of the public sale of town lots
in the town of Sterrett, I. T., for de-
faulted payment*. Notice of sale will
soon be officially published, together
with a rule requiring all bidders to de-
posit 10 per cent of tlie amount of their
bid a* forfeit in case they ilo not com-
plete their purchase.
Captain J. S. Ilainniur. ilcpartment
commander for tlie Indian Territory G
A. II. lias announced the following
staff appointments: Hewart Ik-nee. nv
sistant adjutnnl general and assistant
quartermaster general; M. S. Parker,
deputy inspector; I-ouis Lockhart,
judge advocate; S. Hoyles, chief jiffieer;
J. II. Dixon, senior aide; council of ad-
ministration, C. W. Mcares, Hugh
Pampliell, Tom Roberts, It. F. Preas,
John Pouvnn.
It i* reported on what appears to lie
g«H>d authority that ex-Senator Dawes,
the head of the Daw es commission, will
nliortly resign ami retire to private life.
Mr. Dawes, who is an old man. has not
been actively superintending the work
of the commission for Home time, and
ha* not been in the Indian territory
for several years. The real head of
the commission lias lieen Judge Mo-
Kennon. and it is said that Mr. Dawes
has not been in active sympathy with
some of tlie plans of the commission
for some time. An attempt may lie
made by Senator Stewart to dissolve
the commission or to re-organize it.
John Swearenger, of Woodwanl, i*
insane, lie was a Santa Fe engineer.
Parties near Weatherford imported a
car load of fine cattle. They were
shipped by way of Memphis, and un-
loaded there to lie fed. Memphis i*
south of the quarantine line. The
cattle started north of tlie quarantine
line mul could have lieen shipped
through to Weatherford hud they not
unloaded at any point south of the line.
As the ease now stands the cattle will
lie compelled to remain lielow the line
until next fall.
Colonel .1. W. Sheldon, a prominent
citizen of Chicago, fell Wtwi*en the
coaches of the passenger train at I’ur-
cell and was horribly mangled, Isitli
his legs being crushed.
Ardmore is cntiiieil to a free mail
delivery system now an far as her post-
al business is concerned, t lie receipts of
the office for two consecutive year* ex-
ceeding 910.turn. |f it is granted to
Ardmore to have free delivery now it
is probable that It will l«e several year*
ahead of any other town in the terrl-
i <ory.
J. D. Weaver, tin- Rock Island agent
at Dover. O. T., was married lust week
to Miss llertha Maltby, of McPherson,
Kan.
J. A. Iloggult was arrested at Supul-
pa. under a warrant from Oklahoma,
charged with selling mortgaged pro-
perty.
A. Forgue and J. Is Jackson, two
Oklahoma pioneers have left Lucotnbe
for Alberta. Panada. They will seek
homestead* under tlie Pnnndlitn law.
Mr. Jaekkon w an accompanied by hi*
wife and fifteen children.
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
VICTORY OF RETREAT, LAST
SUNDAY'S SUBJECT.
MMk Aceo**all*h*4 by W*ltla« tmr Or
portunlll**—J«ku'i PI** ml Anhu-
and* Cite ! a* a MarcM*lul Om far
lha BlfblMiia
of brandy taken for
poses by a man who
fCopj rigid. 194*1. by I,oubi Klopach.l
Text: Joshua vilL 7, "Theu shall ye
rise up from the ambush ami aelxe
upon the city."
One Sabbath evening, with my fam-
ily around me. we were talking over
the scene of the text. In the wide
open eyes and the quU'k interrogations
and the blanched cheeks I realized
what a thrilling drama it was. There
is the old city, shorter by name than
any other city in the ages, spelled with
two letters, A. I, Ai. Joshua d his
men want to take It. How to do it is
the question. On a former occasion,
in a stralghtforwaril. face to face tight,
they had been defeated, but now they
are going to take it by ambuscade.
General Joshua has two divisions in
his army. The one division the battle
worn commander will lead liimsolf, the
other division he sends off to encamp
in an ambush on the west side of the
city of Ai. No torches, no luuterns,
no sound of heavy battalions, but 30.-
U00 swarthy warriors moving in si-
lence. speaking only in a whisper; no
clicking of swords against shields, lest
the watchmen of Ai discover it and
the stratagem be a failure. If the rois-
tering soldier in the israelitish army
forgets himself, all along the line the
word is "Hush!"
Joshua takes the other division, the
one with which he is to march, and
puts it on the north side of the city
of AI, and then spends the night In
reconnoitering In the valley. There
he Is, thinking over the fortunes of the
coming day with something of the feel-
ings m Wellington the night before
Waterloo or of Meade and Lee the
night before Gettysburg. There he
stands In the night and says to him-
self. "Yonder is the division in am-
bush on the west side of Ai. Here is
the division I have under my especial
rotnmand on the north Bid* of Ai.
There i* the old city slumbering in its
sin. Tomorrow will be the battle."
Look! The morning already begins
to tip the hills. The military officers
of AI look out In the morning very
early, and. while they do not see the
division in ambush, they behold the
other division of Joshua and the cry.
• To arms! To arms!" rings through
all the streets of the old town, and
every swoid. whether hacked and bent
or newly welded, is brought out. and
all the inhabitants of the city of Ai
pour through the gates, an infuriated
torrent, and their cry is. "Come, we 11
make quick work with Joshua and his
troops.
A Seeming Kcpnt**-
No sooner had these people of Ai
come out against the troops of Joshua
than Joshua gave such a command as
he seldom gave—"Fall back!" Why,
they could not believe their own ears!
Is Joshua's courage failing him? The
retreat is beaten, anil the Israelites
are flying, throwing blankets and can-
teens on every side under this worse
than Bull Run defeat. And you ought
to hear the soldiers of AI cheer and
cheer and cheer. But they huzza too
toon. The men lying in ambush are
•training their vision to get some sig-
nal fiom Joshua that they may know
what time to drop upon the city. Josh-
ua takes his burnished spear, glittering
in the sun like a shaft of doom, and
point* It toward the city, and when the
men up yonder in the ambush see it
with hawklike swoop they drop upon
Ai and without stroke of sword or
stab of spear take the city and put it
to the torch.
So much for the division that was
in ambush. How about the division
under Joshua’s command? No sooner
does Joshua stop in the flight than all
his men stop with him. and as he
wheels they wheel, for in a voice of
thunder he cried "Halt!" one strong
arm driving back a torrent of flying
troops. AnJ then, as he points his
spear through the golden light toward
that fated city, his troops know that
they are to start for it. What a scene
It was when the division in umbush
which had taken the city inarched
down against the men of Ai on the
one side, and the troops under Joshua
doubled on their enemies from the
other side, and the men of Ai were
caught between these two hurrh-anes
of l*raeMtl*li courage. thrust before
and behind, stabbed In breast and
back, ground between the upper and
the nether millstones of God's Indigna-
tion! Woe to the city of Ai! Cheer
for Israel!
Vlctorlou* Helrasl.
There is such a thing as victorious
retreat. Joshua's railing back was the
first chapter In his successful beslege-
niAit. And there are times in your
life when the (test thing you cun do Is
to run. You were 4jnce tlie victim of
strong drink. The demijohn and the
decanter were your fierce foe*. They
came down upon yon with greater fury
than the men of AI rime upon the men
of Joshua. Your only safety 1* to get
away from them Your dissipating
companions will iome around you for
your overt 1 row. Hun for your life!
Fall back! Foil back from the drink-
ing saloon! Fall back from the wine
party! Your flight la your advance;
your retreat la your victory. There Is
a saloon down on the next rfroet that
hss almost been the ruin of your soul.
Then why do you go along that s’jreet?
Why do you not pas* through
lam* other street rather than by the
place of your calamity? A spoonful
medicinal pur-
20 years before
had been reformed from drunkenneia
hurled Into Inebriety and the grave one
of the beet friends I ever had. Retreat
Is victory!
Here la a converted Inflilel. He is so
strong now in hi* faith in the gospel
he says he can read anything. What
are you reading? Bolingbroke? An-
drew Jackson Davis' tracts? Tyndall’s
Glasgow university address? Drop
them and run. Yon will be an infidel
before you die unless you quit that.
These men of Ai will be too much for
you. Turn your back on the rank and
file of unbelief. Fly before they cut
you with their sword* and transfix you
with their Javelins. There are people
who have been well nigh ruined be-
cause they risked a foolhardy expedi-
tion in the presence of mighty and
overwhelming temptations, and the
men of AI made a morning meal of
them. • • •
Rrivoiu for
But there is a more marked illustra-
tion of victorious retreat in the life of
our Joshua, the Jesus of the ages. E irst
falling back from an appalling height
to an appalling depth, falling from ce-
lestial hills to terrestrial valleys, from
throne to manger; yet that did not
seem to suffice him as a retreat. Fall-
ing back still farther from Bethlehem
to Nazareth, from Nazareth to Jerusa-
lem. back from Jerusalem to Golgotha,
back from Golgotha to the mausoleum
in the rot-k. hack down over the preci-
pices of perdition until he walked amid
the caverns of the eternal captives and
drank of the wine of the wrath of Al-
mighty God. amid the Ahabs, and the
Jezebels and the Belshazzars. Oh, men
of the pulpit and men of the pew
Christ's descent from heaven to earth
does not measure half the distance! It
was from glory to perdition. He de-
scended Into hell. All the records of
earthly retreat are as nothing com-
pared with this falling back.
Min** Triumph Itrlcf.
The triumph of the wicked is short.
Did you ever see an army in a panic?
There Is nothing so uncontrollable. If
you had stood at Long bridge, Wash-
ington, during the opening of our sad
civil war, you would know what it is
to see an army run. And when these
men of AI looked out and saw those
men of Joshua In a stampede they ex-
pected easy work. They would scatter
them as the equinox the leaves. Oh.
the gleeful and Jubilant descent of the
men of Ai upon the men of Joshua:
But their exhilaration was brief, for
you may take almost any lasile of sin
for ChrUt. Come up toward men with
g regular besiegement of argument,
and you will be defeated, but Just wait
until the door of their hearts is set
ajar, or they are off their guard, or
their severe caution is away from
home, and then drop in on them from
Christian ambuscade. There has
been many a man up to his chin In
scientific portfolios which proved there
was no Christ and no divine revelation,
his pen a aclmeter flung into the heart
of theological opponents. wb' never-
theless has been discomfited and cap-
tured for God by some little 3-year-old
child who has got up and put her
snowy arms around his sinewy neck
and asked some simple question about
God. • • •
Importance of OdmI Aim.
The importauce of taking good aini.
There is Joshua, but how are thoae
people in ambush up yonder to know
when they are to drop on the city, and
how are these men around Joshua to
know when they are to stop their flight
and advance? There must be some
signal—a signal to stop the one divi-
sion and to start the other. Joshua,
with a spear on which were onlinarlly
hung the colors of cattle, points toward
the city. He stands in such a conspic-
uous position, and there is so much of
the morning light dripping from that
spear tip. that all around the horizon
they see it. It was as much as to say:
“There is the city. Take it!”
God knows and we know that a
great deal of Christian attack amounts
to nothing simply because we flo not
take good aim. Nobody knows and we
do not know ourselves which point we
want to take when we ought to make
up our minds what Gotl will have us
to do and point our spear in that di-
rection and then hurl our body, mind,
soul, time, eternity at that one tar-
get. • * •
The Need of Course*.
1 have heard it said: "Look out for a
man who has only one Idea; he is ir-
resistible.” I say look out for the
man who has one idea, and that a de-
termination for soul saving. I believe
God would Btrlke me ilead if I dared
to point the spear In any other direc-
tion. Oh. for some of the courage
and enthusiasm of Joshua! He flung
two armies from the tip of that spear.
It la sinful for us to rest unless It is
to get stronger muscle and fresher
brain and purer heart for God's work.
I feel on my head the hands of Christ
in a new ordination. Do you not feel
the same omnipotent pressure? There
is a work for all of us. Oh. that we
the tide of battle turned, and these
quondam conquerors left their miser- j might Btand up side by side and point
able carcasses in the wilderness of | the spear toward the city! It ought
Bethaven. So it always is. The tri-
umph of the wicked is short. 1(011
make 120.000 at the gaming table. Do
you expect to keep it? You will die in
the poorhouse. You made a fortune by
iniquitous traffic. Do you expect to
keep it? Your money will scatter, or
it will stay long enough to curse your
children after you are dead. Cull over
the »oll of bad men who prospered and
see how Bliort was their prosperity.
For awhile, like the men of Ai, they
went from conquest to conquest, but
after awhile disaster rolled back upon
them, and they were divided into three
parts. Misfortune took their property,
the grave took their body and the lost
world took their soul. I am always
Interested in the building of the pal-
aces of dissipation. I like to have
them built of the best granite and have
the rooms made large and to have the
pillars made very Arm. Ood Is going
to conquer them, and they will be turn-
ed Into asylums and art galleries and
churches. The stores in which fraud-
ulent men do business, the splendid
banking Institutions where the presi-
dent and cashier put all their property
in their wives’ hands and then fail for
$500,000, all these institutions are to
become the places where honest Chris-
tian men do business.
How long will It take your boys to
get through your Ill-gotten gains? The
wicked do not live out half their days.
For awhile they swagger and strut
and make a groat splash in the news-
papers, but after awhile it all dwindles
down into a brief paragraph: "Died
suddenly, April 8. 1900. at 35 years of
to be taken. It will be taken. Our
cities are drifting off toward loose
religion or what is railed “liberal
Christianity," which is so liberal that
it gives up all the cardinal' doctrines
of the Bible; bo liberal that it surren-
ders the rectitude of the throne of the
Almighty. That is liberality with a
vengeance. Let us decide upon the
work which we as Christian men have
to do and In the strength of God go
to work and do it. • • •
A Tear of Merries.
I believe that the next year will be
the most stupendous year that heavei,
ever Raw. The nations are quaking
now with the coming of God. It will
be a year of success for the men of
Joshua, but of doom for the men of
Ai. You put your ear to the rail
track, and you can hear the train com-
ing miles away. So I put my ear to
the ground, and I hear the thunder-
ing on of the lightning train of God’s
mercies and Judgments. The mercy
of Ood is first to be tried upon this
nation, it will be preachi-d in the pul-
pits, in theaters, on the streets— ev-
erywhere. People will be invited to
accept the mercy of the gospel, and the
story and the song and the prayer will
be "mercy.” But suppose they do not
accept the offer of mercy—what then?
Then God will come with his judg-
ments, and the grasshoppers will eat
the crops, and the freshets will devas-
tate the valleys, and the defalcations
will swallow the money markets, and
the fires will burn the cities, and the
earth will quake from pole to pole,
Year of mercies und of judgments;
age. Relatives and friends of the fani- year
ily are invited to attend the funeral year
on Wednesday at 2 o'clock from the
late resilience on Madison square. In-
terment at Greenwood or Oak Hill."
Some of them Jumped off the docks.
of invitation and of warning;
of jubilee and of woe. Which
side are you going to be on—with the
men of AI or the men of Jo»hua? Pass
over this Sabbath into the ranks of Is-
rael. I would clap niy hands at the
Some of them tool; pruaslc acid. Some joy of your coming. You will huve a
of them fell under the snap of a Der- i poor chance for this world and the
ringer pistol. Some of them spent \ world to coins without Jesus. You
their days in a lunatic asylum. Where
are William Tweed and his associates?
Where fcre Ketcham and Hwartwout,
absconding swindlers? Where are
James Fisk, the libertine, and ail the
other misdemeanants? The wicked do
not live out half their days. Dlsent-
liogue. O world of darkness! Come
up, Hildebrand and Henry 11. and
Robespierre and, with blistering and
blaspheming and ashen lips, hi*s out.
“The triumph of the wicked is short."
Awaiting Opportunity*.
How much may be accomplished by-
lying in ambush for opportunities. Are
you hypercritical of Joshua’s maneu-
ver? Do you say that It wa* cheating
for him to take that cll^ by ambus-
cade? Wan it wrong for Washington
to kindle cnmpflros on Jersey heights,
giving the impression to the opposing
force that a great army wa* encamped
there when there was none ut all? I
answer, if the war was right, then
Joshua was right In his stratagem. He
violated no flag of truce. He broke
no treaty, but by a lawful ambtiacadc
captured the city of AI. Oh. that we
all knew how to llo In ambuah for
oppert’inltles to serve God. The best
of our opportunities do not Hs on the
surface, but are secreted. By tact, by
stratagem, by Christian ambuscade.
1 cannot stand what is to eome upon
yon and upon the world unless you
j have the pardon and the comfort and
I the help of Christ. Come over! On
: this side are your happiness and safe-
ty; on tl.e other side nr<i disquietude
I und despair. Eternal defe.it to the men
1 of AI! Eternal victory to the men of
Joshua!
Th* Ktlllnr** Mlntaka.
Editors have their troubles. One of
these men, who presides over the des-
tinies of n western newspaper, Is
mourning the loss of two subscribers.
No. 1 wrote asking how to raise his
twins safely, while the other wanted to
know how he might rid his orchard of
grasshoppers. The answers went fon
ward by mall, but by arc bleut the eJI.
lor put then Into the wrong invelopes,
so that the mail with the twins re-
i»lved the answer: "Cover t’lem car*-
fully with straw ind u t the to it, und
ihen the little pest*, after Jumping In
the flames for u few minutis, will bn
speedily settled." And the inan with
the grasshoppers wa* tt id to "give
< as'pr oil und rub thr!r gums with a
bone.”—Tim Columbian.
insolence is not logic; rpltbeta are
the argunieuls of mallie.—R. U. la*
gersoll.
THE GYPSY MOTH.
MASSACHUSETTS FINDS IT A
FORMIDABLE FOB.
Tfee Filthy **4 Destraellv* V**l Was
teywlrt free* the 014 Wort 4—It*
•sree4. Reregee **4 the Efforts te
Rtteresleete It,
The smallest, meanest and most con-
temptible creatures are the most un-
conquerable. and they are found in the
Insect world. Mankind in all parts of
the world has been and la annoyed,
pestered and subjected to severe losses
by these little creature*. Natives and
settlers In Africa would rather cope
with a herd of trumpeting elephants
than an army of ants, anJ the Inhabi-
tants of the South American llanos feel
leBB terror when the earth trembles
with the approach of a troop of wild
horses or a drove of wild cattle than
when they perceive the sinuous lines
of a migratory ant army. To the
farmer, the thieving crow and the rav-
aging hawk are angels a* compared
with the potato hug, the locust or the
grasshopper. Some philosophers and
many scientists assert that all living
creatures have some mission of good to
perform whether their early life be
long or transient. This may be so, but
the odds are great that these learned
people never encountered an ant army,
never had a promising field of grain
devastated by grasshoppers or locusts,
or never picked potato bugs when tha
thermometer registered 30 degrees In
the shade. It would not be well for
anyone to even hint to the people of
eastern Massachusetts that all insects
were created for some good and wor-
thy purpose. They would draw the line
on one of the nastiest and most de-
structive pests that has ever infested
the New World.
According to Fletcher Osgood, In
the New England Magazine, the gyp-
ay moth Is a tough, hardy creature,
and feeds of nearly every form of
useful vegetation. Like nearly all In-
sects It multiplies rapidly. It is a na-
tive of the Old World, and was Intro-
duced into this country with the best
of intentions. In 1868 a French scien-
tist conceived the Idea of breeding the
moth of the silk worm and producing
a moth that would flourish in the cli-
mate of the United States and furnish
a web like that of the silk worm. He
tried his experiment In the Glenwood
region of Medford, Mass., in 1870. It
was a dismal failure so far as produc-
ing a silk worm was concerned, but
has proved a howling success in fur-
nishing the people of eastern Massa-
chusetts with a pest which has caused
indescribable annoyance, losses that
amount to thousands of dollars, and
the expenditure of large sums of
money and years of toil in endeavors
to wipe It out.
When the experiment proved a fail-
ure many of the gypsy moths in the
caterpillar stHge of their existence es-
caped from their netted confines and
spread themselves over the wooded
neighborhood surrounding Medford.
In 1881 the moths had increased so
rapidly as to be considered a nuisance,
but not until 1899 did they appear in
such numbers as to arouse the people
to a full sense of the danger that
threatened them. In that year the
shrubbery and flowers of Medford
were ruined; corn, small fruits and
vegetables destroyed; the foliage
stripped from fruit, forest and shade
trees, and homes were made filthy by
tbe intrusion of the little peits.
Houses, fences and walls were cover-
ed with armies of little caterpillars and
the stench arising from the crowding
mass was most disagreeable. The
crawling disgusting creatures entered
the houses, swarmed on house plants,
crept into closets and even Into the
beds and upon the persons of the
sleeping inmateB. The people tried to
check the pest with Are, hot water and
coal oil, but their efforts were unavail-
ing. and the nuisance became worse
year by year. The insects began to
spread out over additional territory,
and when the people saw that they
could not check them they appealed
to the state for aid.
In 1890 a paid state commission took
charge of fighting the nuisance, but in
1891 the commission was abolished
and the work was put in charge of
tha Massachusetts State Board of Ag-
riculture. The board began working
on the outskirts of the infested district
and worked toward the center. Dur-
ing the past two years the best work
has been done, and the men In charge
of the contest believe that they will
Anally be auccessful in entirely wiping
out the peat If they do succeed It will
be the flrat time in the hlatory of the
world that an Inaect peat haa been
completely eradicated from a country.
In 1898 and 1899 the etate appropri-
ated 1200,000 to defray the work of
fighting the peat, and It la probabl*
that the recommendation of Prof.
Charles H. Fernald, zoologist at Am-
herst and entomologist to the State
Board of Agriculture, will be follow-
ed and the same amount will be grant-
ed for each of the succeeding three
years. The professor believes that
then, nt the close of 1909, the battle
will be ao far won that the appropria-
tion can be reduced to $100,000 each
year, for three years, and afterward *o
$16,000 a year for five years, when the
moths will be entirely destroyed.
Fr***nilr*l.
Mr. Sweet—"Do you find It econom-
ical to do your own cooking?" Mrs.
Burnem—“Ob, yea; my husband does*
n’t eat half as much as be did when
we had a cook."—Tld-BIta.
Th* Octopus IMoi
Octopus, or Octo-puaay?—Teacher
(to rlaaa)—What is an octopus?
Small Boy (who h** lust commenced
fjttln, eagerly) Please, air, I know,
Ulr; lt‘8 an eight-*ideil ct
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Johnson, N. F. The Pawnee Dispatch. (Pawnee, Okla.), Vol. 6, No. 19, Ed. 1 Friday, April 13, 1900, newspaper, April 13, 1900; Pawnee, Oklahoma. (https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc907668/m1/2/?q=Ardmore+ok: accessed June 18, 2024), The Gateway to Oklahoma History, https://gateway.okhistory.org; crediting Oklahoma Historical Society.