Thursday, December 7, 1900
There is no need of any panic about the smallpox. It does not amount to much when you get it, and you might as well be dead as to be scared about something all the time. Get vaccinated and go about your business. “The coward dies a thousand deaths.
INCIDENT AT NEWCASTLE
In Newcastle, Va., reside Mrs. Sarah Hamilton and Mrs. Clifton S. Hill, aged respectively 83 and 76 years. They are living together in one of the coziest of homes in the suburb. About November 17, they were seized with the grippe and were found in a delirious condition Sunday afternoon by young friends who had casually called in on the way home from church. The house had been entered Saturday night by burglars and trunks rifled but so far as known nothing of much value was missing. Though surrounded by evidence of wealth and with hundreds of dollars in their rooms they were destitute and in urgent need of assistance. These venerable ladies are daughters of Capt. Jacob Price, an officer in the War of 1812, and granddaughters of Thomas Price, the progenitor of the Price relationship in our county, the late James A. Price, of Marlinton being one of his sons…
Mrs. Hill, who is the owner of what is reported to be one of the sweetest old-fashioned homes in Newcastle, has dubiously confessed, “Well, I guess I am really growing old; too old to take care of myself any longer.”
No more risks will be run, their niece, Miss Agnes Scott was telegraphed for from New Orleans and she has come on and is now their guardian genius, and these interesting aged sisters will be well cared for.
GERRYMANDERING
In all probability, the next legislature will redistrict the State, changing to some extent the apportionment of Senators and Delegates to the various sections from what a partisan Democratic legislature fixed in 1891. The constitution provides that the State shall be redistricted as soon as possible after each census. The Legislature decides how many each branch is to consist of and then divides them among the different counties. The whole population of the State is divided by the number so determined. The house now consists of 71 members. Supposing 71 be adopted as the number for the next ten years and dividing the number of the people of the State officially determined to be 958,800, and rejecting the fraction as pro- vided by the Constitution, we have the quotient, 13,594, the basis of representation…
It must be confessed, however, that our party, or rather the men we had in the legislature in 1891, have set a rather poor example in redistricting the State. They have even been accused of gerrymandering. Gerrymandering is a political term and means to alter the political map of a State so that the districts are unfairly or abnormally arranged for the purpose of advancing the interest of a particular party or candidate. It is derived from Elbridge Gerry, Governor of Massachusetts, who formed a district that on the map resembled a salamander, a kind of lizard. It is about as grave a crime as a political party can be guilty of…
WEDDING
A rather unexpected but a very pleasant society event transpired at the Bird Hotel, east Marlinton, Wednesday morning, when William Averill Arbogast and Miss Birdie Jane Galford were joined in holy matrimony by Wm. T. Price… The bride is a daughter of W. W. Galford on Galford’s Run, one of the head tributaries of Sitlington Creek, and is a highly esteemed young woman. The groom is an industrious young farmer of the Glade Hill vicinity, and is the grandson of the lamented preacher, Henry Arbogast, who died so sadly during the late War Between the States. The groom is probably the only namesake of General Averill in our county…
THE WAY OF THE WORLD
His youth was spent upon a farm
In some backwoods locality,
And so, the city had a charm,
A strong potentiality
That seemed to urge him day and night
To seek its great variety,
To leave the fields behind and write
A drama of society.
Now, had he been in city born,
Where crowds are really maddening
Far from waving wheat and corn
And sylvan silence gladdening,
It would have been just his caprice
To show his versatility
By writing pastorals of peace
And ballads of tranquility.
‘Tis ever thus! What man can do –
This is the rule immutable –
And deems the task unsuitable,
While that of which he knows the least
He tackles with avidity –
He deems there is a fruitful feast
Where there is most aridity.
The man who’s built to run a mill
Would seek a berth congressional;
The one who’s used to axe and drill
Would play us a recessional.
The millionaire who deals in stocks
Has country life propensities.
The farmer, goading on his ox
Would deal with trade immensities.
The modern maiden is beguiled
By some absurd “affinity;”
The woman who could rear a child
Is aping masculinity.
They all forget they must progress
In fields that are permitted them.
Nor strive for Life to woo success
For which it never fitted them.
~ Elliott Flower
