The Star Ledger from Kosciusko, Mississippi • 7

GEORGIA PROHIBITED IT. TIMES HAVE CHANGED. ABOUT THE SQUAN CREEK FOLKS. I First State to Put the Slave Trade Under the Ban. Thirty Years Ago Messenger Boya Had a Fine Snap.

Old Jcp Jnc5 the Story of Moses Parker Who Was Found Sadly Wanting. Now They Barn Hat a Few Hollars Week How a JVetvxpu er jMan Once "Scooiied" Horace Ureeley, BY M. QUAD, i lght.1898 Copy 1 trhen Moses Parker moved down to Special Washington Letter. "I used to bo a telegraph messenger boy," says the head book-keeper of a leading hotel. "It was a very common thing for messenger boys to make lqBOB lar per column, infl thn I wa alt right.

When I also got a ciiance to do space work on the Tribune, 1 felt that 1 was rapidly becoming a millionaire, for 1 made in the aggregate about $15 per week, and that was big money iu those days. 1 vas a pioneer h''et as a special correspondent, but 1 soon had company. The political excitement 1S5G, when the Black republicans nominated John C. Fremont for the presi deney, and made such a great campaign for him, caused all eyes to turn to Washington, as they had never done before. Then came the inauguration of Buchanan, and all of the complications which knowing men saw were leading up to the civil war, and so the newspapers began to send correspondents here, until now the press galleries at the capitol will not hold half of them.

Tr.ey all look at me as a sort of relio of the past, I guess, but I am as hard et work to-day gathering news and sending it to my paper as I was a generation ago. "1 sent the first message ever sent from Washington over the electric wires. It was by the old Morse sys- lest a week to git settled and look urn Pw, the old sawmill, and sat Km uu" km down on a lop, nu urBu. rm one o' the leadin' 'As men as much, operators ago. We for every tents for tage.

In ten cents money as the telegraph between 25 and 30 years used to receive six cents message delivered and four every answer to a mes-this way we often made a trip, covering half a Creek I feel it ray solemn dooty Do ve wan.ter uan ix. nnnpr nnist societv Ions lu fr I nfAKVa nnllntitn nmnnir dozen blocks for each message, and re. le mudsills? Uo fur sez muses, iu mu (he upper rruau ij tJin rpvnliis'hiin. and mv i hp ar KrV. nnner crust will receive ye," sez her people from misrepresentation.

Even our own children have to be told over and over again how we used to live and what was the true relation of southern masters to their slavea. I remember when it was the strongest incentive to good behavior for a master to tell his slave "if you don't behave better and do better I will turn you over to a nigger trader and he will take you off atd sell you." Mr. McGee told Mr. Folsom that the negroes cost them a dollar or two apiece Jn Congo paid for in trinkets and they sold them for $000 or $700 apiece when they got them here. That was a good profit if there is no blood money to be counted in Heaven no discount for murder by slow and horrible degrees.

There were some features of our slavery system that were bad enough and gave deep concern to all good citizens, but there was nothing to be compared to this importation from Congo and our pride has been that only New England barbarians engaged in it. The eminent Judge Story once charged the grand jury in Boston that it was notorious that Boston people were deeply engaged in this slave trade and were ainasSng fortunes out of this blood money and it was a disgrace to their civilization and must be stopped. Next morning the newspapers of Boston lampooned him for that charge and intimated that it was none of his business. Boston and New Bedford continued it until 1843 and when they could sell no more to the south they sold them to Brazil and other countries. These are the facts that have been kept behind the scenes while Harriet BeecherStowe and Wendell Phillips were engaged in denouncing the south for defending slavery as a system.

Gen. Grant owned slaves up to the very date of their freedom and they build a million-dollar monument to him and sing his praises but continue to abuse the south. What a curious people they are. All of Lincoln's wife's people were slave owners and her brothers were in the confederate army and Lincoln said: "If I can save the union without freeing the negroes I will do it," and yet these same fanatics built a monument to him for proclaiming them free, though he said that he did it only as a war measure. The fact remains and will remain, that neither Grant nor Lincoln cared (jhrlam, "or it will cast ye out.

That's cordin' to the course ye take. Was taved and, I'll MTeP tell another Vw long as I live!" The boys rowed out and took him off, and when they brung him Lome his words was reported. He had promised to lie and stick to it, but he'd gone back on hisself the very first thing. At the meetin' which was called he was ordered to stand up and explain, and thar' was a sweet smile on his face as he riz to his feet and said: "Gentlemeu, thar's sum awful mistake yere. It's true that my boat was upsot by the squall, and that I was left hangin' to the buoy and expectin' every minute to be my last; but I was thinkin' up a new lobster lie and repeatin' it aloud, and them was the words the boys overheard." As the wind was howlin' and the waves roarin' it was just possible that the boys may hev been mistaken.

They vowed they wasn't, but it was decided to gin Moses the benefit of the doubt and he was let off. lie understood, however, that he was to be watched from that time on, and he jest braced right up and told some of the mightiest lobster lies ever heard in America. That was one of his lies published in a Philadelphia paper, about a lobster walkin' ashore on Cat island and seizin a yearlin' colt belongin' to Deacon Spooner. Moses said he saw the hull performance from his boat, and that the screams of the colt made his blood run cold. He took a reporter clown to the island and showed him the airth all torn up, and pieces of hide lyin' around, and the story brung him in $20 in cash and restored his manv liars'" 1 1, Dill Arp Itefntea Stntcmeiitn Mnde by Mr.

McGee, the Old Slave Trader of the Ship Wanderer. Mr. Folsom ''gave an interesting sketch of Mr. McUee, the old slave trader of the Wanderer, who, he says, celebrated his seventieth birthday recently in Columbus, where he lives. As one of the invited guests, he could hardly do less than to write pleasant things about the old man, and as a graphic writer of light literature, he felt constrained to make the old man a hero if possible.

The pressure of the press for something new and startling is very great, and sometimes these bohemian galley slaves have to ignore facts and deal in fancies. Mr. Folsom says that this old veteran has been an important factor in Georgia's progress; that among other notable acts and deeds he took an active part in our war with the Creek Indians and in removing them to the Indian territory, and that he was a promoter in the building of the old Monroe railroad (now the Macon Western). Well, now, this old man must have been a very lively youth and unusually precocious, for those Indians fought their last fight in 1S35 and surrendered and were at once sent to the territory. Mr.

McGee was then just nine years old. The Monroe railroad from Macon to Forsyth was built in 1843, when this young man was 15 years old. Probably he toted water for the boys or perhaps he forgot, and it was his father who did these big things. But all this amounts to nothing. The important perversion of state history is his declaration that a large and influential portion of the good citizens of Georgia gave countenance to and encouraged the venture of the "Wanderer" in bringing slaves here from Africa.

He can't prove this by any respectable citizen now living. That slave trade was under the ban of all good people. Georgia was the first state that prohibited it. This was done in 1793, which was ten years before congress abolished it, and from then until the late war no Only three or iu'iu- unuj uc by the name. Was vou one ot cm; I kin say Wltnoui unuoo vainiy mm taas.

1 No. 1 up ihar. That's a mighty pint your tavor. of us here kind o' sized ye up lur HI kA IIp fw iar, out we can't alius tell uy a ma.n iace ther he will lie or tell the- trooth. i i a hat sort lies am ye ne uuuui, up Mostly about clams and lobsters," Moses.

"My great specialty was n' about lobsters. That's how I got o' the 'Lobster It Ut without sayin that I could tell a we sometimes had from five to ten messages each trip. We also used to rtceive two dollars for delivering a message at the soldiers' home and four dollars for delivering a message at Arlington. We could easily hire a horse for one dollar to make the trip to the soldiers' home or Arlington, and it was lots of fun to take a horseback ride in that manner, and clear from one to three dollars at the same time. We always had plenty of money, and, besides, had free access to the theaters, so that the life of a messenger boy in those days was a jolly and a profitable Hie to lead.

"There was a sure thing of a $20 gold piece for the first boy to deliver a telegram to Gen. Grant at the white hoilse on Christmas or New Year's day. Consequently there was always a great rivalry among the boys to get the first white house message on those days. Other boys all along the line, however, on those holidays received from one dollar up to ten dollars each for delivering telegrams to the president, and I presume the amount tendered in each case was largely influenced by the effect of the telegram on the old man's mind. Grant was always very kind to the messenger boys on all occasions.

On cold, wet or snowy days the boys were certain to be invited to a place beside a wood fire, and have a cup of coffee and a sandwich in the president's library or working room, before they 6tarted again on their trips. "Then there was old man Spinner, the treasurer of the United States, who used to sign his name so that it looked pretty, although nobody on earth could read it. He always paid the messenger boys well for their services, but he never signed any receipts for the messages. His private secretary did that. He had a beaaitiful room in the northeast corner of the treasury building, and the walls were beautified with handsome aud costly pictures.

His mantelpieces were covered with bric-a-brac. Old man Spinner had a bedroom adjoining his office room, and frequently had his meals sent to him in the treasury department; so that it was his hotel and residence, as well as his mrpr lobster lie than any other man dihin 20 miles of Kej-port. Mebbe you anything for the negro and the fact re mains that the manner of their freedom has been their gravest curse. Of course we cannot expect the north to do us justice, but we cannot let the ut terances of Mr. McGee or anv other EVEN THE KID'S PASTIMES HAVE CHANGED.

tern. The operators at that time cou not tell the letters by sound, but read them as they recorded dots on long slipa of white paper. By the way, when the Banks speakership fight was on, Horace Greeley came over here to look into the matter himself. 1 was in the tele-graph office in the old hotel about eight o'clock one evening, when old Greeley came in, handed some copy to the operator and hurried out to join a friend. I heard him say something that indicated that he was going to the theater, but I do not now remember his exact words.

"Well, I was writing a dispatch on the speakership situation, when the telegraph operator asked me to help him read Greeley's dispatch. It was a horribly-written manuscript, but, being an old typesetter, I was able to help the boy piece it out and make a sensible dispatch of it. Moreover, incidentally lespectable citizen ever thought of trying to evade the law. Georgia was and still is proud of her record on this subject, and would be prouder still if the "Wanderer" had never landed a cargo on our coast. Mr.

McGee seems quite boastful of his success in reaping a harvest of blood money out of this horrible business. Seven hundred human creatures thrust in the hold of the southern man pass without a protest. Bill Arp, in Atlanta Constitution. OUR REGULAR ARMY. We Ha-re Twice as Many Postmaster an Enlisted Soldiers.

vessel, packed in like hogs and dying The United States army is not a very by scores of heat, suffocation, filth and large, powerful, or imposing organiza homesickness on the long voyage and their carcasses thrown overboard to the tion in comparison with any of the armies maintained by the leading pow fishes. All this Mr. McGee tells and ers of Europe. It is a curious fact that there are in the service of this govern that they made a second voyage with similar horrors and similar results, and how he pocketed $10,000 from each ment more than twice as many postmasters, for example, as there are en cargo. Conscience does not seem con business office.

I have had many a cup and sandwich in his room, and many a gift of from one dollar to five listed soldiers. In other words, the cerned as yet. John Newton, the com United States has not an army large poser of the sweetest hymn ever sang. dollars in greenbacks enough to permit of a policy of placing was once a slave trader, but repented "When I was about 17 years of age the telegraph company began to real one soldier at every post office in the United States in time of some sudden under John Wesley's preaching and never ceased to repent, and expressed lze the fact that the messenger bovs emergency, and even if the strength of were making a decent and gentlemanly the army were doubled its force would his gratitude when he wrote: "Amazing grace how sweet the sound-That saved a wretch like me!" living, and the corporation immediate still be insufficient for such a purpose, ly proceeded to grab all of the receipts And when, old and infirm, his friend-s condition of affairs is not pleas which had been making the boys and ing to military men generally, and their families comfortable. Uniforms were provided for all messengers, and army officers hve many times consid ered the advisability of the adoption of begged Mm to quit preaching and rest, he said: "Xo.no! Shall the old slave-trader stop preaching as long as he can walk or talk? Noi" Even in Savannah, where Charley Lamar lived, who was their salaries were fixed at seven dol some system by which the strength of lars each per weefe, which was a clear gain of at least ten dollars a week for the army in some sudden emergency cotfld be increased.

The prize essay of the leader and part owner of the Wan the tqlegraph company in the case of each bov. I regarded that as rank rob- the military service institution for this derer, Gen. Henry R. Jackson, as United year, for example, deals with the ques THH PREACHER ADVISES AGAINST CONFESSION. I found out that old Greeley had gotten some inside facts which I had not learned; so I tore up what I had written and wrote for my paper a difl'erenl dispatch.

It turned out the next day that Greeley and I were both right in our prognostications, but if I had not seen that dispatch I would have been awfully wrong in my news matter. "As a matter of precaution, to prevent others from getting on the in side, I gave that telegraph operatoi a fatherly talk. I told him that while it was all right for me to help him out in reading that dispatch, he must be very careful not to let any other newspaper man see any dispatch, un-del any circumstances, because he might lose his place if he did. Thus, with, a clean conscience, 1 had helped old Greeley by helping the boy read his manuscript; I had helped the boy with some well-meant advice, and I had helped m3'self at the same time by keeping on the right side of the newa market. The messenger boys and the newspaper correspondents have very close relations in Washington in modern times.

The correspondents seldom gc to the telegraph offices with their dispatches. The3' write their news in their offices, then ring for a messenger boy, who promptly responds and carries each dispatch to the telegraph office. In the press galleries of the capitol the correspondents write their States attorney, pursued the captain and crew and owners with unrelenting tion of establishing a system which in fciember the story in some of the New time of need could be utilized in rais ing a volunteer army for almost imme diligence fortwo years, but the free use of this blood money in some way defeated his purposes. Ask him if this papers about a gigantic lobster izui' my skiff and nnwttln' tr, xr diate service. The essay is at least in It bay?" teresting, although naturally it is writ slave trade was ever favored or winked at by the good people of Georgia.

So ten from the point of view of an army ll dew, and was that one o' your officer. far from it, there were at that time and According to this essay, the best to provide for any sudden emer previous many good men who with Chief Justice Lumpkin at their head, were tr3'ing to formulate a scheme of gency of war would be one which had been mapped out in advance, and for gradual emancipation on Henry Clay's the I T0-0A1 I prestige among us. The colt was over on Catfish marsh all the time, but the story went jest the same. Moses rarker had been in Squan Creek fur six months, and was hevin things all his own way, when one day he was took with bilious colic. He was around the house, and when the fust pain struck him he got skeert and said to his wife: "Lucy, I'm marked fur death and j-ou'U be a widder afore night! It's all on account of my lyin'." "But I never knowed yeu to lie," sez she.

"I've done nothing but lie fur the last six months, and now Providence is arter me. If I die with all these whoppin' big lies on my soul I won't plan. Another fact remains that all the proper working of which some preparation had previously been made. the ante-bellum citizens know to be true. The dealing in slaves as a trade The essay proposes in effect that the regiments of a volunteer army shall It was on o' my small ones." ifcen you'll certainly do fur the up-erast of high society here," sez nnam, as he slaps his leg.

"That a bewtiful lie-a bewtiful lie. ed. if it didn't deceive all the liars quan Creek! Yes, that's all right, i ye furder. Hevin' once aum- ye stick io right aIoDe?" er boat got upset and ye was 'D around, would ye own up?" er pa drift clean across the before I'd give up!" hpwe ye was took sick and thought goin to die?" or profession Georgia was under the ban of public opinion. They were not be raised on a system which allows one altogether socially ostracised, but they lost their place, if they, ever had any, regiment to each congressional district, and One also to each territory, exclusive of Alaska.

Such a system would oall for a force of about 435,000 men, or 361 regi "Who is that man who is strutting brief telegrams to afternoon papers, and. although the telegraph office is not around town?" "Why, he is a nigger trader," and that answer settled his more than ten or fifteen feet from the table where the dispatches are writ status. His society was not wanted by ten, the messenger boys are there to ments, each regiment having 1.200 men. Of these 361 regiments, the greater part would naturally he infantry. It is proposed, for example, that 225 regiments of infantry, 61 of heavy artillery.

carry the news from writer to sender. I JeSt Same- lBdeed. 1'ieve I t.5i nothing is as it uskd to be. go within a thousand miles of Heaven. Don't ye think I'd better call in sum-body and confess?" His wife thought he had, and she run fur the preacher.

By the time she got back with him Moses was all cldubled up with pains and thought he The successful Washington correspond fell a Digger lie ents are pampered in many ways. bery, and I quit the messenger boy 30 of light artillery, and 4 of cavalry would represent a fair apportionment. hoif i 7 man 10 uraff onto S1. the business. The position of Washington correspondent has become so desirable that i unoerstana tnat tne messenger The officers of these regiments would be commissioned under federal law, the fn'i 1 ionefathers I0'lvS Of Rniiciin boys have gradually been cut down un u.

ictzb. ttm nut me l0n on a rail." there is an ambitious reporter in every large newspaper office who longs and hopes for the day when he may be sent til now they get only three dollars per colonel of each regiment being a regular with a rank not above that of major week; but if they are extra good boys tphriam felt that Moses was 'siii and ha to the national capital. As a result of they may get $3.50 or four dollars a this ambition and consequent intrigue in nis tk "Vt weiMned him to Squan of the active list of the army, and his service requirement being restricted to not more than one month in each year. week, and go to the cemetary on Sunday to amuse themselves. I was a some of the best and most successful By some such system as this it is Is nniri to an I 811 he drink.

and every- vciy active, ambitious, hard-working claimed that, when war should break bn. a a iobster liar correspondents have been supplanted by new men during the past ten years, because of the home influence exerted on the managing editors. Consequently there are scores of new faces in the out, at least the officers of the different messenger boy, and was saving my money, expecting to go into some kind of business, when the company under about "cst- K.ina. 0 ble- Jt Clanis. regiments would be men of some experience in military affairs.

The propo took to hog it all, and 1 simply went sition is somewhat original, but it is press galleries, and the old-timers do not know one-half of them. They are ui aoont not likely to be adopted in this country on a strike. In winter, and in all disagreeable weather, when 1 see the poor little underpaid boys trudging along all bright fellows, for the managing ed good people. No doubt some of them were clever men and honest, but the presumption was that, they were hardhearted and of an easy conscience. Gen.

Forrest was a negro trader, it is said, and no doubt was respectable and reputable, but nobody ever accused him of having high moral sentiments or emotions. His war record is splendid, and there was no discount on his ability or his patriotism. Now this transfer of negro savages from the jungles of Africa to a civilized country was no doubt a blessing to them, but it was against the laws of Georgia and the United States and the agreement of all the great powers across the seas, and the mode and methods of it were horrible. Mr. McGee says that many of them died from grief at being torn from their home and country.

I well remember seeing some of them at work in Col. Mott's garden in Columbus, and my heart bled for them then, for they looked forlorn and miserable. They could not speak nor understand our language and had to work by signs. Of course they became weaned in time and took wives and reared children, and occasionally we find some of these and their children here and there in our state and they rejoice that they were brought from their native land to this country. Now the historians and newspaper men of this generation cannot write intelligently or correctly of.

the events of ante-bellum days, and it keeps the old men busy in defending the state and itor of a good newspaper would not, un so long as the present system of the national guard is in existence. Boston Advertiser. the streets, I think of my own experi of ue iest Sot off der any circumstances, send to this city ences, and many a dime 1 have spent anyone who did not possess superior ability and education. Therefore, it is hadn't but half an hour to live. When he said he wanted to confess to his lyin' the preacher speaks up and sez: "I shouldn't be too hasty if I was you.

You hev worked hard to build up a reputashun in Squan Creek, and it shouldn't go in an hour." "But I want to own up and ask fur-giveness," sez Moses, and right then and thar' he owned up to 352 lobster lies, big and little. The preacher tried to choke him off, and his wife wept when she thought of his lost reputashun, but thar' was no holdin' him back. He didn't die, however. A dose cf Jamaica ginger cured him arter he'd owned up, and then he tried to git out o' it, same as before. It wasn't fur him to do it.

The preacher was agin him and his own wife was agin him, and Ephriam Watkins stood up and said: "Ye can't never make no upper crust out o' no lower crust. He's a bewtiful liar a bewtiful liar, but he can't lie and stick to it. He might be a orny-ment to this community, but he's only a disgrace, and if he would save the reputashun of Squan Creek from ever-lastin disgrace he must go." And the next week Moses Parker ipoved hjick to Keyport, and nobody would bid him good-by as he went out o' tc wn with tears Is his eyes. buying coffee and pie for them. It gives me great pleasure to be able to help them, for the majority of them Iivas ill i was V0Tea tiJflt Oeraston for Gratitude.

Lord Carrington tells a story of his not an exaggeration to say that in the el)be six arf worthy and deserving." experiences while governor of New South Wales. His first public appear press gallery of the house of representatives there is fully as high an order "I have been here as a Washington Uf me fur ance was at the mayor's dinner at Sydney. Having committed a few words to of intelligence as there is upon the floor of the house; and the average Wash- a uinr PrPer dit. andhL TC" his b0t in the correspondent for 46 years," says the Nestor of the press. "I was ot work ia the government printing office in 1652, as a compositor, but my eyes be paper, he delivered them in reply to the ngton correspondent need not take off toast of his health, and then sat down, bottom elf from Pin' t0 3 hold of buoy his hat nor bow too low to the average congressman.

In the senate it is different. The members of that bod are el feeling very much satisfied with him he yr.Ju" fic wa an alone, came affected by the lead and the poor light we had in those days, end there IBird lwo of the crowd was self. Opposite to him there sat a fat man. He was an M. who had suffered long from the abundant eloquence derly, experienced, learned, grave, dig was lots of night work then, so I had had.ne?r.by-nd arter nified, and command the respect of all newspaper men.

SMITH D. FRY. heard on ir 15 minits Ain't fitten todlein to give up typesetting, and 1 went to writing letters fo newspapers. It was ijat very good paying business, and I had a hard time keeping body and oul together; but 1 finally got work the New York Herald at three dol- of the new governor's predecessor. When Lord Carrington sat down the fat man filled his glass to the brira-and said: "Thank the Lord, he can't" speak." St.

Louis Globe-Democrat. -Inhabitants-of the Sea. A statistician asserts that every last fivJ about lobsters fur square mile of the sea is inhabited bf Ph to lKU.uou.uuu nnny creatures. to, jet be jL.