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About Harrison press-journal. (Harrison, Nebraska) 1899-1905 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 13, 1902)
The Monstry The most awesome, most repellar.t Swelling pUce In the world l the grim tortress monastery of Mar Saba, i n She Dead Sea, where thousands of monks live in grim and . melancholy austerity. Thta; monks are the most rigorous f any in the Greek church. Their livts are passed In penance, which no hope of pleasure this Fide of the grave and not one cheerful incident to brigh--n their existence. Day after day. amid gloomy surroundings that would rive most- mei-miafl?iwly mttd--they-j-s thrwuKh the same ujiyarving rou tine, and yet surrounding them are Iho remains of such true romances as r!y mediaeval times could produce. War Saba Is at the end of the bar ren Wady en Nor. or Kedron vall'-y. tr the Dead Pea. and Its very loea- n is enough to send a chill down !-..-! spine. It is the only oasis In the vild rn'ss of this region, a destroyed tror.r.o!d of the Crusaders and the tomb of a ncmad chieftain, that of Shcift JWessiaf. The wearied traveler is glad to behold the fortress-like pile of the an'ient monastery way down in fi'e dark valley, even though he ex periences a presentiment of some hid den danger lurking in that forbidden alaee. It If the most romantically situated aionastery, the oldest and undoubtedly the most grewsome in the world. Itr Is built on the abrupt terrace of a diz ' gorge, at the bottom of w-nicta, 0 feet below the torrent Cedron seethes In winter. The rocks fall away so perpendicularly that iuge flying but tresses had to be constructed in order to afford the very moderate space oc cupied by the monastery. In the early part of the fifth cen tury it was inhabited by the Sabaites. an order of monks of whom San Sa aas was the superior, and who also built the greater portion of the mon astery. San Sabas was born about 439 fa Capapdocia jir(i at 8 year" of age ke entered this monastery, which was riginally founded by Euthymius. As the reputation of San Sabas for sanc tity Increased he was joined by a great number of anchorites, all of whom could not find shelter In his nonastery, and it Is said 19.600 of the noly men were living In rock caves In the mountain opposite. Thousands of caves once Inhabited y these hermits look from the side f the mountain, many having mosaic floors and decorations upon the walls, and the story has every semblance of ruth. About 4,000 monks inhabited the monastery proper, and In the sev enth century the Persian horde of Chosroes routed them all and plun dered the monastery, and for centu ftes Its wealth attracted marauders f all kinds. The last time It was Waged was in 1832 and 1834 by Be douins. After the very first attack it was fortified, just as it is seen today. The two castle-like towers which Serve as battlements are the first ev idence the traveler has of the exist- ; nee of this living tomb. j The fair Empress Budoxia built It in rder to be close to her Ideal of man- I QUAINT FEATURES GF LIFE. Wwwwwww"wwww There Is an old suburban inn near Philadelphia kept by a quakcr who, amid the incongruous surroundings of his bar still clings to the plain lan guage of his faith. Occasionally he even dispenses liquid refreshments With his own hands, and it -seems queer to hear his mild voice asking, "What will thee have?" The other 4ay there was a crowd in the bar and one of the men had already been Im bibing too freely. Nevertheless, he Jlned up at the bar with the others and loudly called for whiskey. The eld man looked at him severely and remarked: "James, doesn't thee think The Red Man and Helper, published tuff? Thee had better take a 'pa fllla.' " There was no appeal and James drank a glass of sarsaparllla. Ire for Information and n. attempt to by the students at the Carlisle (Pa.) Indian school, has this to say on In dian etiquette: "It was an actual de sire for inofrmatlon and no attempt to be funny that a boy In. looking up from reading about squaw men asked If the white women who marry In dian men were ' called buck women. "We could not answer why they were Bot. Such a name would be no more Insulting to a woman than the first appellation Is to a man. All Indian oman are no more squaws than white women are wenches. The name squaw emenated from "aqua," an Indian word of a Massachusetts tribe meaning women. Hut it has since eome to be used commonly by Illiter ate people for Indian women of any tribe. No educated or refined people Trse the words "squaw" or "buck," and we advise when they hear them not to pay uny alentlon to the speak er, but to murk him or her down In 'helr minds as person of low breed ing." . ' The young people of the North Greenfield, Ohio Congregational church Cave a hugging social the other even In and raised 176 toward paying off the church debt. Following were the rates charged: Olrto under IE yean of age, 15 cents for two minutes hag. Olrto under W rears, H centa. Twanty to X years, Tt centa. Aaockar man's wife, fl. Old maids, t cents and no time limit. Adetta Dennison, wba prepared the af prices, was probably the f the ravag asssin. Cia csrfei eongregaOws sat snatnaf far rearuary M, tart of Mar Saba. hood Euthymius. Euthymius was noted for his sanctity throughout Pal estine, aid his learning and great moral endowments attracted the em prers. Slie loved him with great de votion, but Euthymius. true to his trust, refused to see her. When her devotion to him did not cease he fled to the Moatbit desert beyond the Jor dan. The empress watched daily from the tower for his return. After much p-rsualon he was dragged back to t'v monaster)- by his companion, The and -the- empress n e pi witir joy. cne remained there a few years longer, during which time she caught oi.ly a casual and Infrequent glance or the object of her love. Finally she lef tthe place with her court attend ants, never to return. Now the tower is used as a lookout, and a watchman w stationed there day and night, who scans the mountains and valleys far and wide to see whether any danger threatens the monastery. After repeated knocking at the great Iron doorway that lea is to the mon astery a gray bearded monk shouts through a small opening from Ku doxia's tower and demands the letter of introduction from the Greek patri arch of Jerusalem, without which no admission to the monastery is obtain ed. The necessary document being produced it is put Into a basket which the monk lets down. After a few min utes' delay he again appears at the opening, and the visitors are invited to ascend a bread stairway. Below a great door swings open, just wide enough to let them pass through. This door is of Immense proportions. and looks more like the wall of a safe deposit vault. It requires all the strength of the monk to move It and throw the great lock. The dark-robed monk then shoves two lrf,e Iron bars Into place and the hardy visitors find themselves In a prison from which there is no escape unless they woujd scale the trra-s and throw them selves into the gaping abyss at the verge of which the monastery Is built. Descending further Is found a paved courtyard .In the center of hleh is a small Roman chapel, which looks like a shrine transplanted here from one of the pagan temples. An outer veranda in the same court yard leads to the ancnlent church of St. Nicholas, which is hewn out of the natural rock, and is one of the old est churches In Palestine. The left wall of the sanctuary contains a niche filled with human skulls. The churcn of this Greek brotherhood, which is used every day. Is on the east side of the enclosure, and is shaped like a basilica. Walking higher up into this dismal cavern ana cumoing a ladder to a small opening the visitor reaches a cave in which San Sabas lived, and a legend says that one day the holy man found a lion there. The king of the desert shared the room of the saint thereafter. Immediately in the bark of this cave are the cells of the, monks. A century old atmosphere abounds, and Is al- most stifling. the older members say it must be called off, a the bounds of propriety have already been overstepped. The recent hugging match was widely ad vertined, and the girls say that If the one arranged for February is given they will pay off the entire debt. The social was more largely patronized by middle-aped and old men than by the young men. Among the mourners who followed the remains of aged Mrs. Mary Far mer from St. Bernard's church. In Uartton, N. J to the little Catholic cemetery on the hill back of that town on the 24th uit., was her son, John Farmer, whose presence in the town after an absence of many years has brought to light a strange story of the return of a long lost son. Over fifteen years tgo he left his home In Rarlton and was never heard from by his family. When Mrs. Far mer became critically III some weeks ago she frequently opressed a wish to see her mlssilng boy be-fore she died. Another son of the widow remem bered that bts brother John had talked much about railroads when he was a boy, and vowed that he would be a railroad manager when he be came man. With faint hope the brother adver tised In a railroad trainmen's journal for John Fanner. John Is a trainmas ter on a western railroad at Portland. Ore. He read the advertisement, and made haste to communicate with his family. He was Informed of his mother's critical Illness and made flying trip east. He arrived at his mother's side as she was dying. She was able to recognize him, and gave him her blessing. New York has a new Joke quite up to the usual standard of I7ew York humor. Your friend tells us you can call up 144 Broad on the tele hone because a Mr. Fish wants to speak with you. You do It, and till the girl who answers you: "I want to talk with Mr. Fish." She nays, "Which one?" Tou say, "Is there more than one?" and she says, "Yes, (ha! ha!) this Is fha!ha!) the aquarium (ha! hat ha!)" Now, all please smile, appreci atively just to please New Tork. The New Zealand government ha decided that swimming and life aarlnc hall be taught In all the schools. Tha Ufa Saving society's method has haaa adopted, and 2,000 handbooks and chart have bean sent by order of Um government for the vat of achoolmaa- :j: The Story of Mystry of The mysterious death of Miss Ma bel Scofield two years ago In Des Moines has resulted In an astonishing illustration of the old saying that "murder will out." Charles Thomas, a 10-year-old youth, has been arrested for the murder after more than two years of fancied secur ity, during which it seems he has been leading a life of reckless dissipation. --T-be t?rlme h amost extraordinary one. The deceased was a young wo man of excellent family, the daugh'er of a physician, and of the highest character. The accused man is also of excellent family, but even before the murder he had fallen among evil asso ciates. She was a visitor in his moth er's house at the time and they were distant relations. Miss Scofield was last seen alive on the morning of October 21. 1M. On the following afternoon her body was found In the Des Moines river. The cause of her death was then uncertain. There was so little clew to point to the manner of the poor girl's death that the authorities were Inclined to abandon the case In despair. Kut a committee of prominent citi zens was formed for the purpose of clearing up the mystery. They felt that If a crime had been committed It was of so cruel a nature that It would be a blot on the fair name of the citv to let It go unpunished. As a result of their untiring efforts, Charles Thomas was arrested after two years. The citizens have put together link by link a mighty chain of evidence agaltiFt him. Whon Thomas was arrested they found concealed In his sock a bottl" of the same poison chloral that had killed Mabel Scofield. In spite of hi" position Thomas was offensively cheer ful and even danced a jig. Mabel Scofield was very pretty, only 20 years old, and the daughter of Dr. A. J. Scofield of Mackfburg. la. 8h was engaged to Dr. Chflds, a dentin of that city. Before the murder she had been vis iting her aunt, Mrs. Jasper N. Thomas, of r-s Moines. Her mother had alvo been staying in the house just before the tragedy. Mabel Scofield went with her mother to a train at 8 o'clock Saturday morn ing, October 21, 1H. Kissing her mother farewell she said she would return to the Thomas house and finish some needlework which she was do ing. The mother's train swung out of the union station, leaving the girl there alone. At 4 o'clock on Sunday afternoon her lifeless body was found near the bank of the Des Moines river In the heart of the city. It was lying at a spot where the bank is egded with willows and thick with rushes. At first It was taken to the morgue. Her brother, Clyde Scofield, a student In Highland Park college, north of the cily, was coming down town In a street ca' to go out to one of j the parks, when he saw a crowd about the morgue. He Jumped off th? car with a friend, walked In out of idle curiosity and was horrified to see bis sister lying on the mable slab. An autopsy was performed. Though the body was found in the wafer, no water was found In either lungs or stomach. The stomach was removed and given to the state chemist, 15. R. Maeey of Highland Park college. A ontroversy arose between him and the coroner, t ; neraf II. . Anfceny, as to whether the corner or the county should pay for an analysis of th- con tents. It was not then analyzed, but was preserved. The coroner's Jury did nothing for several months and was discharged without rendering a verdi' t. The city police professed to do the best It could to dlccover a clew to the metho dof the girl's death, but every trail was fruitlessly followed and final ly the official Interest In the affair died away and only occasionally was he case revived. Hut Aldeman Joseph E. Fagen took an Intense Interest In It. He was a bachelor and at his boarding house he organized a committee to Investigate the crime. The Rev. I. N. McCash, pastor or tne University Plae Church of Christ, was Interested in the or ganization; then C. A. Oawford.cash ler of the American Barings bank, and many others. By dillfcrnt work a re ward of $2,000 for the conviction of ths girl's murderers was raised and Gov ernor snaw was Induced to offer an additional KM. Police officers J. P. Hockersmlth and J. 8. S. Mesklmen discovered that two reputable residents of Des Moines, Mrs. K. A. Canine and Mrs. Robert Dean, had seen two men holding between them a woman apparently dead or un conscious drive hurriedly past their residences toward the point of the riv er where the girl's body was found. At the river bank they found the tracks of a buggy. Near by they found a man's hat In which were the Ini tials "C. T." They discovered that Charles Thomas had bought chloral In large quantity at Hansen's drug store on the Friday before the day that the girl disappeared. They learned that the excuse given by him when he bought It was false. They discovered a hack driver named Cross, to whom Thomas said, on Bun day, before the body was found, "Well, Mabel Scofield left this man's town today for good." They bare found two girls, daughters of excellent fam ilies and whose names they decline to tell, and a married woman also, who ay that Thomas tried to poison them. The prosecution now have the testi mony of Bute Chemist Maeey that the tomach of the girl contained enough chloral to kill eight or tan people. This fae thai not been known to the poo-1 the Mtirder : Mabel Scofield pie before. At the time of the mur der some people Insisted that she had fallen from a bridge and died of heart disease before she struck the water, which accounted for the absence of water from her lungs and stomach. Some believed she had been drugged and thus killed. Others believed she had committed suicide for the reason that rhe could not attend college.whlle her hroTher "was sent there. It Is now settled that her death was foul mur der, because she could not have taker chloral and then jumped Into the wa ter. If Thomas Is guilty the crime was particularly atrocious, because the girt was staying In his family. The Thom as house, at 10tf6 Woodland avenue. Is in the heart of one of the fashionable residence districts of the city. Mrs. Thomas had known the girl's mother at Mflrksburg, Another young woman staying at the house, and a great friend of Miss Scofield's, was Miss Maggie Hammond. Young Thomas paid Miss Scofield very asvlduous attentions. He was un- 'doubfedly anxious to make her his wife, but she did not care for him at all. She was, In fact, engaged to Dr. E. O. Ohilds of Macksburg, a dentist, who removed to Calnsville, Mo., broken hearted by the tragedy soon after the gill's death. He spent several weeks : In Des Moines encouraging the officers I in their efforts to go to the bottom of the mypleiy. and has returned several times since. .Neither he nor any of tlie family believed she committed sui cide or met with an accident. "Mabel was a Christian." said her mother "and she did not kill herself." 1 hat young Thomas' attentions to the gill were distasteful, Miss Ham mond, who has returned to her home In Macknburg, testifies. She did not desire the attentions of any men. She occasionally visited her brother at his college, but never permitted him to lake college friends to call on her. She would naturally have attracted them, for she was a pretty girl, with dark brown hair and eyes, of slight buiid graceful and charming of manner. On the Saturday of her disappear ance uie i nomas nome wan, by a cu rious coincidence, deserted. Mrs. Tho mas was visiting a sick friend. Mr. Thomas spent the day downtown. Young Thomas told his employers that he had to go to a funeral and did not ork. The girl had told her moth er at the depot that she was going back home. It is now the theory of the state that Thomas knew of these plans, that he either went to the depot and took the girl home or went to hit home after she arrived there to wait for her. What happened then will perhaps never be known. It Is known that when Miss Scofield returned ti the house she drank one or more cups of coffee, the morning being cold. It is conjectured that Thomas made a last desperate appeal to her to accept his suit. When she repulsed his atten tions he became enraged and found some way of puulne ihe chloral com monly called knockout drops Into the coffee. According to the same theory, when the girl died from the effects of the poison he conceaii-d the body around the premises. He then left the houxe and returned, as his mother testifies, in the evening, complaining of a head ache and saying that he had been to a funeral at Valley Junction. After his people had gone to bed It Is believ ed that he carried the body to a con venient spot, that he secured the as sistance of a friend with a carriage (whose identity the police do not know), that the two wnlted until early in the morning. nd then taking the girl between them in the buggy car ried her body to th rlvvr by a route which the officers have traced from the Thomas residence to th point where the bod y was found under the willows near the bank. To prove his dissipat ed character they will produce ample evidence. Thomas was once prominent In an excellent social set yg hand some and popular. But as a boy he began to go wrong. He early became attracted to disreputable society. At one time he even worked as a hack driver In order to see low life and nocturnal life thoroughly." This mysterious case has created more Interest and absorbed more at tention than any other ce of the kind In the history of Ihe state. The girl was so young, so good and so In nocent that the whole city has watch ed the development of the case with the most Intense Interest. When It became definitely known this week that she was poisoned and hud not committed suicide the people began to clamor for the punishment of the criminal. Suspicion attached Itself to Charles Thomas one before, and he and two or three other boys were arrested, but they all proved no con nection with the crime and were dis charged. It seemed then Inconceiva ble that the 20-year-old boy nf the family In which the girl lived as In her own home had committed the crime. No suspicion now attaches to the other boys then suspected, but a stout net has been woven about Thomas, and the prosecution believes' that he will be convicted. j out using soap or other chemicals. Thomas cays that he can prove an ' Instead of these he use. boiled pola allbl and that he has the statements J toes, which he rubs into Ihe goods and of several reputable business men that ' then rinses out. It Is said that this he waa not at his home during the ! method will make soiled linen, silk or day. He will evidently make a strong aerense, in earas, the tailor mar not knew' mnch about suits. j A GRAIN Foe STEPHEN'S PrUlfle Drtitt Wttfestudltf tin. Mammoth crop good years; big crop dry years. Yielded 0 bushels to the acre on high ground with three culti vations this year, and adjoining corn, with five cultivations, yielded ten bush els. 8end 25 cents for 15 grains enough for a start and examination. StepkM'i Prolific Con U. I7 Euclid Ave., - Kansas City, Mo. Please mention this paper. frttuwa nurnnnhrnffrownClOVCr, for vinr frnet and drouth resisting L properties, hasjustly become famous. J IIKIIOI norn. la. U N: 100 lis. h I . UCrtntrTlM CUm.H. tt M; 100 m. 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From Tomsk to Irkutsk, on the W bertan railway, a distance of U miles, there Is only one town deserving tba name Krasnoaira with a population of M.oas. M . IJ