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WRIGHT.-On Fifth month 20th, 1883, Rachel, widow of John S. Wright, in her 71st year; a member of Green Street Monthly Meeting.

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For Friends' Intelligencer.

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF BENJAMIN HAL

LOWELL."

Perhaps no class of books is more interesting to thoughtful readers than autobiographies, and probably they are more valued by the philosophic student of human life than more pretentious works. The revered Benjamin Hallowell, in the evening of his long and useful life, at the request of a beloved daughter, sits down to the task of recalling and recording the events of his childhood, youth, early manhood, and mature years; with the truthful accuracy and childlike sincerity and simplicity characteristic of the man, giving freely his spiritual experiences, his struggles and trials, his triumphs and his accomplished work. His beautiful personal character is apparent through all, and the happiness of his life was plainly due to his obedience to the Guiding Hand, and to the love of his fellow men-ever the consequence of such a consistent life of Christian rectitude as his.

His testimony to his unfaltering faith in, and practical experience of, the distinctive tenet of Quakerism, that the immediate teaching of the Holy Spirit in the human soul is the highest fountain of Divine Wisdom to man, subordinating all other teachers, and is the one thing needful to the soul, is full and strong. In a letter written in 1870 he says of this doctrine: "It is as high as the heavens and as holy as the Lord. It is adapted to all mankind, and to every condition of mind and of life, high and low, rich and poor, strong and weak, learned and unlearned, the duty of each individual being simply to live up, day by day, to the highest convictions of right and duty, revealed to the watchful consciousness."

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Every such revelation of duty is necessarily accompanied by ability to perform it; for God being just, He must give the requisite power to perform every requirement He makes of His creatures."

ance and the friendship of this dear and
honored teacher and helper of men will most
Such will not
value this autobiography.
question much the propriety of printing every
playful episode, every childlike fancy of a
noble and manly man. The memory of his
personality, so benignant and beautiful, his
voice attuned to gentle and harmonious
cadences, his genial and social condescension
to those who felt that his years and high
qualities entitled him to a certain elevation
above most, and his practical and unfailing
courtesy and benevolence to all, make this
record very precious.

We cannot forbear to quote a portion from the memorial prepared by his own Monthly Meeting (Sandy Spring) as a testimonial to his faithful walk with God.

"When disease came upon him in his later years, in a most painful form, he was enabled to prove the sustaining power of his life-long principles by wonderful resignation under the severest suffering. These seasons of protracted agony were often periods of deep interest to his attendants and himself. One of them writes that 'he was throughout tender and affectionate, desirous of giving as little trouble as possible, cheerful, animated and full of love.' At length his powerful constitution gave way under attacks of disease continually repeated, and when it was evident that he was dying, his son and daughter, manifesting their grief by tears, he said, 'My children, would so much rather see you smiling. My way is all clear, it is all so bright, beautiful, glorious.' Feebly moving his thin hand, he added, 'I would not turn my hand to remove a single throb of pain; it is the will of the Heavenly Father, and His will is right. He is so near,--He is in this room; He will never forsake me while I keep right, and I will try so hard to keep right." Not long before his close he opened wide his eyes, which seemed filled with a mysterious depth, a radiance and reverential awe, gazing fixedly on something not visible to his attendants, and without a struggle his spirit took its flight; and thus finished his earthly course, with the anthem of praise on his dying lips."

Eminent persons in many walks of life hastened to bear witness to the worth and beauty of the life just ended, and as the clods of the valley fell upon his coffin, tributes of love and honor came to his children to con

Upon this pure high principle his life was founded, and while even the nearest and closest of his loving friends would have shrunk from revealing so fully the private life of this noble man, he himself unsparingly re-sole them in their sorrow. lates what we would, in some cases, if we might, still keep from the public eye. But we believe that there is nothing in the book which can wound the feelings of any of the living, or throw a cloud upon the memory of the departed.

Those who enjoyed the personal acquaint

Moncure D. Conway, from London, wrote: "I would like on this soft October day, to be able to pluck that last white rose in my garden and kneel and plant it on his grave, emblem of his pure simplicity, the light that clothed him, the sweet fragrance of his beautiful life."

"After long years of contact with sects and | bale is the allowance to land that has been in their dogmas, I find that I have a creed, and cultivation, and parties are content even to it is written in such lives and hearts as your get one bale from three acres. From the father's. The faith that can produce such field, the first stage brings it to the gin, where men is the faith for me. With one Benjamin the seeds are extracted, with more or less Hallowell, I will outweigh all the theology cotton clinging to them. From this time on ever written." the paths of the cotton and the seed diverge, the former going to the compress, the latter to the oil mill. The ginning press I cannot describe here, as the gin has not been running lately, but a similar process can be seen at the oil mill, where the seed is reginned, and this we shall come to presently. The compress is a peculiar building, placed on a high platform of about a half block in area; its roof is curved, and it has no sides, though the engine-room and one or two other departments are inclosed. All over the platform bales of cotton, pressed and unpressed, are lying, the former ready for shipment to New Orleans, whence it is to be shipped to Liverpool, the destination of nearly all the cotton that goes from here.

From Prof. Joseph Henry, of the Smithsonian Institute, came this tribute: "It is one of the principal pleasures of my life to have the kind regard of men of the character of your esteemed father. He has done a good Awork in life, and the seeds he has sown in the minds of the youth of this region, will germinate and bring forth fruit long after his departure from earth."

From Elizabeth Peabody came this testimonial: Benjamin Hallowell did not embody with the principles of George Fox the inevitable limitations of that day. He did not need to rest on the traditions of even the Saintly Fathers, because, like those Fathers, he held immediate communion with God. He was indeed the ideal Friend."

The beautiful tribute of A. G. Riddle, of the N. Y. Tribune, was published in full in Friends' Intelligencer. But one passage must be repeated: "His work was that which lay nearest his hand. Emphatically, he loved his neighbor. His neighborhood was the universe, and all living things were the objects of his care. As his manners were the manifestation of his heart and spirit, he was naturally the most graceful and polished of cultivated men. The servants, the coachman who drove him to the railroad station, always remembered his consideration for them." F. E. Abbott, of Boston, wrote to the family: "It is true I never saw him in the flesh, but I have seen and learned to love the beautiful spirit that revealed itself in his letters. The name of Benjamin Hallowell will always be tenderly cherished by me, as that of one who extended to me constant sympathy and aid in objects of my highest aspiration. Truly, he was a saintly man, not alone in his close but in his life, for he testified of the spirit and the spirit testified of him." Philadelphia, Fifth Month, 25.

THE LAND OF COTTON.

S. R.

An occasional contributor to Friends' Intelligencer, who has been wintering in Texas, furnishes an interesting account of the gathering in of the great Southern staple, to the Chicago Inter-Ocean, from which the following selections have been made:

An acre of new land will sometimes furnish one bale of cotton, 1,700 pounds seed cotton, or about 500 pounds lint cotton, while a half

As we approach the press, around which seven or eight negroes are standing apparently doing nothing, a bale of cotton, soft and springy, bulging out of its covering of sacking, and bound with five or six iron bands, is trundled in from the platform. At once every man is on the alert-two seize the innocent bale and tear off all the bands except one, after which it is trundled up an incline to the press and deposited on the iron floor thereof. A man steps up, cuts the remaining iron band and pulls it off. A bell rings, the engineer grasps his levers, the floor of the press rises gradually, squeezing the cotton against its iron roof; at the same moment comes a preliminary burst of steam from the escape pipe as if a cry had at last been forced from the victim; then the final pressure is put on, an almost deafening scream issues from the pipe, and the bale is "crushed again." During this operation the hands have not been idle. Three men stand on each side of the press, and through grooves in its roof and floor slip iron bands like those that have been taken off, and fasten them around the cotton. This is not the easy and pleasant work one might think it, for the edges of the iron are often ragged, and cut the hands of the tyers as they slip through. Very often the men work with bleeding hands, not seeming to mind the pain. They have to be quite expert, and in consequence receive higher wages than the other hands, i. e., $2.50, where the others receive $2 per day. At each end of the press stands a negro, with an

immense canvas-needle threaded with twine with which the ends of the sacking are sewed together securely when the bale has reached its ultimate size. When the pressure is com

pleted, and the bale is a third or fourth of its | minute, brushes it into a flue, which carries former bulk, and so hard that I cannot think of anything with which to compare it, it is trundled away on another truck to await shipment, and the machine is ready to go through its bearish process again. A pressure of 2,000 tons can be given, but from 1,200 to 1,300 is all that is needed.

A day's work is 650 bales, and from the beginning of the season in September up to a month ago the number of bales pressed amounted to 39,000. Recently cotton has been brought in so slowly, owing to the state of the roads, that the compress has been running only at intervals, while in the height of the season it is obliged to do night work.

Having accompanied the cotton to the depot and seen it off, as one might say, we went back to "the parting of the ways," and followed the seed through its many changes. Formerly, when the farmers here had ginned their cotton they made a bonfire of the seed, not knowing what else to do with it. Within four or five years, however, it has been used to feed cattle and sheep, which are very fond of it; indeed, it is in such demand for this purpose that the oil-mill has difficulty in getting enough for its wants, though it buys from 200 miles of territory. Farmers prefer cotton seed to corn for fodder, as the former is only 15 cents per bushel, while the latter is from 35 to 50 cents, forgetting that there are only 331 pounds to a bushel of the former, and 72 pounds to one of the latter.

The oil-mill here is one of the largest, if not the largest in the State. It is the property of an Eastern firm, one of the partners living here to take charge of it. Forty tons of seed per day are required to run it.

When we entered the store-room our eyes, unaccustomed to seeing such immense quantities of material, opened in astonishment at the mountains of seed that rose before us; and besides these there were great piles of bags full to bursting-in all, 1,000 tons, or a two months' supply. The first thing in order is the cleaning of the seed from the pieces of iron, wood and rags that invariably get into it by the time it reaches the mill. The machine for this purpose is an invention of the proprietor, who tells us that he was driven to invent something of the kind because the machinery was so often spoiled by scraps of metal. From this room we went to the third floor of another building, where the seed is re-ginned. The gin is constructed on much the same principle as that which gins the cotton in the first place, but is fitted for finer work. Its 106 tiny saws with their 350 revolutions per minute tear off the shreds of cotton that cling to the seed, and a long roller brush, whose record is 1,400 revolutions per

it with the swiftness of wind into a small room, where it appears wound upon rollers, the softest, whitest, fleeciest cotton I ever saw. To give us au idea of the rate at which it was going, our guide opened a small door in the top of the flue, when shreds of cotton flew out as if driven by a miniature tornado. The material secured by the re-ginning of the seed is of very short fibre, and is used only for batting and to fill comforts, and is sold in bulk by the mill at four to five cents per pound. Next year there will probably be added facilities for making batting.

The above processes and that of hulling are preparatory merely. So far, that part of the seed which profits the mill has not been revealed. From the huller, which does its work at the rate of 1,000 revolutions per minute, the kernel, flattened out and crushed beyond recognition, if we had ever seen it before, is ready for cooking.

Four great black tanks, placed on a sort of range of brick, receive the seed, cook it, and reduce it to meal; part of this is ground still finer, put into bags and sold to the surrounding country to feed to cattle. It is of a clear mustard-yellow, and is frequently used to adulterate mustard. The rest is laid in scoopfuls on the top of a circular iron stand, perforated with several holes; from these holes depend bags, into which the meal is scraped until they are full. These bags are of camel's hair, and are made by hand, the mill keeping several negro women employed in the work. Four presses, exerting a pressure of 4,000 pounds to the square inch, are the instruments of the metamorphosis by which the oil is extracted from the meal, leaving it oil cake. When this is taken out, hard and juiceless, bearing the marks of the stitches in the bags, it is difficult to believe it went into the press a moment ago a soft, oily, yielding mass. To illustrate the amount of pressure, our guide told us that a piece of pine wood, four inches thick, had been placed in the press and reduced to two inches, the sap being entirely squeezed out. The oil cake is packed into large sacks, hammered in tight with a mallet, and shipped to Europe, where it is used to fatten stock.

Going down into the oil-room, whither the oil is conducted by large pipes, we found five tanks of 1,300 gallons capacity, in which the oil stands about six days to settle. There is no refinery in connection with the mill, and the oil is shipped crude in barrels to all parts of the United States. The shipment has amounted to 5,000 barrels this season.

As a finishing touch we were shown, in a shed adjoining the mill, the refuse of the seed, which is sent down a shaft, and lies in

great heaps ready to be used as fuel for the insatiable engine. A small proportion of seed must inevitably escape the fate of the rest, and re-appear unscathed in this pile of refuse, but in a well-conducted mill the quantity is very small indeed. The profits of such an institution depend very closely on economical management and constant vigilance. The season begins in September and lasts eight or nine months. In the mill, as at the compress, we were told that colored labor was preferable to white; white men would not stay, wanted a change or easier work, while the negroes, though careless and wasteful, do not mind the labor, however disagreeable it may be. The press men, whose work is the most difficult and who are divided into a day gang and a night gang, receive, the former $2, the latter, $2.50.

It seemed to us by the time we had finished our walk through the mill that cotton had done its part toward furnishing clothing, food, etc., to man and beast; but we were destined to admire it still more when we found that the fiber of the stalk is now made into paper car-wheels. Even if the rest of the stalk should never be utilized for anything but bonfires it has demonstrated its right to exist. M. W. P.

THE YOUNG MEN WHO WILL SUCCEED.

With average ability, nothing is more certain than that the man who pays close attention to the little details of his business, who devotes his time in its interest, obtaining information as well as results, is the man who, in the long run, obtains the best positions and holds them against all would-be comers. It is not a matter of necessity that a classical education has been had by the candidate; but the better education he may be possessed of, and the more practical experience, the more valuable the man will be in every instance. We

say this much for the encouragement of the young men, to those who are now in the ranks and looking out for something better.

There was never a time when young men had so much to look forward to if they make themselves worthy. Sitting about stores and beer shops will not procure this promotion; nor will it procure the knowledge or actual information which capitalists, manufacturers, and the owners and managers of industrial establishments are looking out for to-day. It is the man who applies himself carefully, gathering in all the information possible to be collected with reference to the vocation he may have chosen, that stands the first chance, and if he is strictly sober, sensible, honest and reliable he will not need the help of uncles or aunts, for the plain fact of the matter is,

too much of this business has been done.— Grocer's Price Current.

BRYANT'S UNFINISHED POEM.

following unfinished poem, referring to his wife, who had died seven years before, was found. The morn hath not the glory that it wore, Nor doth the day so beautifully die, Since I can call thee to my side no more To gaze upon the sky.

the manuscripts of William C. Bryant, the

For thy dear hand, with each return of spring,
I sought in sunny nooks the flowers she
I seek them still, and sorrowfully bring
gave;

The choicest to thy grave.
Here where I sit alone, is sometimes heard,
From the great world, a whisper of my

name,

Joined, haply, to some kind, commending word,

By those whose praise is fame.

And then, as if I thought thou still wert nigh,
To read the gentle gladness in thine eye
I turn me, half forgetting thou art dead,

That once I might have read.

I turn, but see thee not; before my eyes
The image of a hillside mound appears,
Where all of thee that passed not to the skies
Was laid with bitter tears.

And I, whose thoughts go back to happier days

That fled with thee, would gladly now resign All that the world can give of fame and praise For one sweet look of thine.

Thus, ever, when I read of generous deeds, Such words as thou didst once delight to My heart is wrung with anguish as it bleeds

hear,

To think thou art not near.

And now that I can talk no more with thee
Of ancient friends and days too fair to last,
A bitterness blends with the memory
Of all that happy past.
Oh, when I

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TEMPERANCE CERTAINTIES.

The Christian Union has the following: There are so many doubts and discussions labeled in the public mind the temperance respecting temperance that it has come to be question; and a great many people, reacting from the dogmatism of a few temperance agitators, have come to think that it is all question; that nothing is settled. There are, however, more temperance certainties than temperance questions; more, both in number and importance.

Of the certainties it claims:

1. That distilled liquors are a dangerous poison; should never be used as a beverage; and as a medicine, only with the extremest caution and under the wisest advice.

2. That wine and beer, if ever useful, except medicinally, are always more or less dangerous; most dangerous for those who crave them most, especially dangerous for the young, and for persons of sanguine and nervous temperament. Every reader of this paragraph knows scores who have been injured by excessive use; how many can he mention who have been injured by abstinence?

3. That the liquor traffic, as now conducted, does more injury to society, produces more crime and pauperism, breaks up more homes, and destroys more life than all other dangerous traffics put together.

4. That the State has always a right of self-preservation; and that it has, therefore, a right to enact such laws-prohibitory or regulative-as experience indicates to be most efficient for. the purposes of self-preser

vation..

off till, as they say, they can see it in print. Things look so different in type, they are tired of MS.; the alterations can be, at worst, Correcting proof, except the mere errors of but slight, and are far more easily made in proof. Now, herein are several fallacies. the printer, is an expensive business. The estimate made for printing a book, whether that only such corrections and a few more given to the author or the publisher, assumes will be made in proof, and all else is charged

extra. There never vet lived an author who was not quite sure he had corrected very little, and those who are most guilty are the most confident that they have made next to no changes. Nor is it true that all things can be best corrected in proof. When the MS. leaves the writer he has taken leave of his book as a whole. He afterward gets it only piecemeal; he is unable to compare the beginning with the middle and the end.”—Fortnightly Review.

NATURAL HISTORY STUDIES.

Neglected Wild Fruits.-While we have made wonderful progress in in the cultivation and production of varieties of exotic cies have been almost entirely neglected. fruits, our own wild or indigenous spelect, inasmuch as the imported kinds have, in There is, of course, some excuse for this ne most instances, been greatly improved during their long cultivation and domestication in foreign lands, and it is much easier to avail ourselves of the labors of others than to unothers have done we may with good reason dertake experiments for ourselves. But what 5. That it is the duty of society to pass expect to do also, and if the pomologists of such laws as can be enforced, to enforce such centuries past have been able to produce the laws as are passed, and in general to do what- magnificent and luscious apples and pears of ever is practicable, in the present state of the present day from the wild crabs of Europublic opinion, to reduce the evils of drunken-pean forests, we certainly have good reasons ness and the liquor traffic. The free sale of for believing that similar improvements may, liquor, whether with or without the seeming the wild or indigenous fruits of America. We with diligence and skill, be made in some of sanction of law, is suicide. have a good foundation on which to build our laborers in this field have been few and not hopes for the future, although heretofore the over industrious; but they are increasing in numbers as well as in knowledge and experience, and the prospect of valuable results is a good one.

By the side of these temperance certainties the temperance questions are of minor importance and significance.

CORRECTING MANUSCRIPTS.

Let us suppose that a book is written and that its author has surmounted the preliminary difficulties of want of inspiration and want of learning. We will assume that it has been written on one side of the paper only, and in quarto, not in folio, size; that the pages are numbered, and that they are not fastened together, a most irritating and vexatious proceeding. It is, perhaps, too much to assume that the MS. has been carefully revised, because many people put this

It is true that some of our native fruits have been taken in hand and greatly improved by cultivation, notably the strawberry, blackberry, and raspberry; but, with the exception of the first-named, the improved sorts in cultivation are more the result of chance or good luck than of skill or intelligent effort. If such fruit can be produced without any exercise of skill on the part of the scientific horticulturist, what may we not expect when

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