dark and the future gloomy. The balance of trade was heavily against the United States. Government securities tumbled and a steady drain of gold to Europe set in. The efforts of Congress, the Treasury Department and syndicates of bankers to stem the tide of disaster were on a par with Mrs. Partington's attempt to sweep back the ocean with a sixpenny-broom. Amid the general demoralization, when the nation seemed hastening to positive ruin, one splendid enterprise alone extended its business, multiplied its resources and was largely instrumental in restoring public confidence. The Standard Oil-Company, unrivalled in its equipment of brains and skill and capital, not merely breasted the storm successfully, but did more than all other agencies combined to avert widespread bankruptcy. Through the sagacity and foresight of this great corporation crude oil advanced fifty per cent., thereby doubling and trebling the prosperity of the producing sections, without a corresponding rise in refined. By this wise policy, which only men of nerve and genius could have carried out, home consumers were not taxed to benefit the oil-regions and the exports of petroleum-products swelled enormously. As the result, while the American demand increased constantly, millions upon millions of dollars flowed in from abroad, materially diminishing the European drainage of the yellow metal from this side of the Atlantic. The salutary, far-reaching effects of such management, by reviving faith and stimulating the flagging energies of the country, exerted an influence upon the common welfare words and figures cannot estimate. Petroleum preserved the thread of golden traffic with foreign nations. Hon. Samuel C. T. Dodd, one of the ablest lawyers Pennsylvania has produced, is general solicitor of the Standard and resides in New York. His father, the venerable Levi Dodd, established the first Sunday-school and was president of the second company that bored for oil at Franklin, the birthplace of his son in 1830. Young Samuel learned printing, graduated from Jefferson College in 1857, studied law with James K. Kerr and was admitted to the Venango Bar in August of 1859. His brilliant talents, conscientious application and legal acquirements quickly won him a leading place among the successful jurists of the state. During a practice of nearly twenty-two years in the courts of the district and commonwealth he stood in the front rank of his profession. He served with credit in the Constitutional Convention of 1873, framing some of its most important provisions. He traveled abroad and wrote descriptions of foreign lands so charming they might have come from Washington Irving and N. P. Willis. His selection by the Standard Oil-Trust in 1881 as its general solicitor was a marked recognition of his superior abilities. The position, one of the most prominent and responsible to which a lawyer can attain, demanded exceptional qualifications. How capably it has been filled the records of all legal matters concerning the Standard abundantly demonstrate. Mr. Dodd's profound knowledge of corporation-law, eminent sense of justice, forensic skill, rare tact and clear brain have steered the great company safely and honorably through many suits involving grave SAMUEL C. T. DODD. questions of right and millions of money. The papers he prepared organizing the Standard Trust have been the models for all such documents since they left his desk. Terse logic, sound reasoning, pointed analysis and apposite expression distinguish his legal opinions and arguments, combining the vigor of a Damascus blade with the beauty of an epic. He is a delightful conversationalist, sincere friend and prudent counsellor, kindly, affable and thorougly upright. His home, brightened by a loving wife and devoted family, is singularly happy. Amid the cares and anxieties incident to professional life he has cultivated his fine literary-taste, writing magazine-articles and wooing the muses at intervals of leisure only too far apart. He has the honor of writing the first poem on petroleum that ever appeared in print. It was a rich parody on Byron's "Isles of Greece" and was published in the spring of 1860, as follows: The land of Grease! the land of Grease! Where Rouseville rose and Tarville sprung; But oil-wells render dear each spot. The ceaseless tap, tap of the tools, The engine's puff, the pump's dull squeak, Deep in the vale of Cherry Run The Humboldt Works I went to see, And sitting there an oil-cask on I found that Grease was not yet free; For busily a dirty carl Was branding "bonded " on each barrel. I sat upon the rocky brow Which o'erlooks Franklin-far-famed town; A hundred derricks stood below And many a well of great renown; I counted them at break of day, And when the sun set where were they? They were still there. But where art thou, The engine stands all idle now, The heavy auger beats no more; And must a well of so great cost 'Tis awful when you bore a well Down in the earth six-hundred feet, Comes up your anxious nose to greet; What! silent still? and silent all? And answers, bore ahead, you ass, Who from the East are flocking here. Fill high the cup with lager-beer! Place me in Oil Creek's rocky dell, And find petroleum or die. No more I'll work this dry-hole here; A pretty little story is told of Miss Edith Rockefeller while at boardingschool, illustrative of the manner in which she was trained by her father to consider herself as no more than moderately wealthy. Miss Edith, with a party of girls from her class, presented herself at a furniture-dealer's to choose a gift for a favorite teacher. The price of the pretty writing-desk was more than the sum of money in their possession. The girls suggested that, if the desk were sent, they would forward the balance as soon as possible. The furniture-dealer very politely, but also very decidedly, informed the girls that he could not do as they asked. "But," he said, "if you can think of any New-York businessman with whom any of your fathers is acquainted and who will vouch for you, the matter may be arranged." "Why," said the daughter of the petroleum-magnate, "I think my papa has an office away down on Broadway; possibly we can get the money there." "Who is your father?" queried the dealer. "His name is Rockefeller," replied the girl; "John D. Rockefeller; he is in the oil-business." The merchant gasped and looked at the girl in amazement. "John D. Rockefeller your father? Is John D. Rockefeller good for twenty-five dollars?" he repeated. Then he recovered his presence of mind sufficiently to order the desk packed up and sent immediately, while Miss Edith, very much astonished at his unwonted excitement, thanked him with pretty and simple grace. Although the Standard pays the highest wages in the world and has never had a serious strike in its grand army of forty-thousand men, not one cent of a reduction was ordered during the panic. No works stopped and no employés were turned adrift to beg or starve. On the contrary, improvements and additions were made continually, the force of workmen was augmented, cash was paid for everything bought, no claims remained unsettled and nobody had to wait an hour for money justly due. These are facts for the toiling masses, whom prejudice against big corporations sometimes misleads, to understand and consider. Russian competition, the extent and danger of which most people do not begin to appreciate, was met and overcome by sheer tenacity and superior generalship. The advantages of capable, courageous, intelligent concentration of the varied branches of a great industry were never manifested more strongly. Deprived of the invincible bulwark the Standard offered, the oil-producers of Pennsylvania, New York, West Virginia, Ohio and Indiana would have been utterly helpless. The Muscovite bear would have gobbled the trade of Europe and Asia, driving American oil from the foreign markets. Local consumption would not have exhausted two-thirds of the production, stocks of crude would have piled up and the price would have fallen proportionately. Instead of ranking with the busiest, happiest and most prosperous quarters of the universe, as they are to-day, the oil-regions of five states would have been irretrievably ruined, dragging down thousands of the brightest, manliest, cleverest fellows on God's footstool! Instead of bringing a vast amount of gold from England, France and Germany for petroleum produced on American soil, refined by American workmen paid American wages and exported by an American company in American vessels, the trade would have been killed, the cash would have stayed across the waters and the country at large would have suffered incalculably! These are things to think of when some cheap agitator, with a private axe to grind, a mean spite to gratify or a selfish object to attain, raises a howl about monopoly and insists that the entire creation should "damn the Standard!" XV. JUST ODDS AND ENDS. HOW NATURAL GAS PLAYED ITS PART-FIRE AND WATER MUCH IN EVIDENCECHANGES IN METHODS AND APPLIANCES-DESERTED TOWNS-PECULIAR COINCIDENCES AND FATALITIES-RAILROAD EPISODES-REMINISCENCES OF BYGONE SCENES-PRACTICAL JOKERS-SAD TRAGEDIES - LIGHTS AND SHADOWS INTERMINGLE AND THE CURTAIN FALLS FOREVER. "Variety's the very spice of life."-Cowper. 44 "Fuss and feather, wind and weather, varied items strung together."-Oil City Derrick. -Miss Parlɔa. From many sources facts and taucies rifles."-Ibid. "Fond memory brings the light of other days around me."-Ibid. ATURAL-GAS, the cleanest, slickest, handiest fuel that ever warmed a heart or a tenement, is the right bower of crude-petroleum. It is the one and only fuel that mines, transports and feeds itself, without digging every spoonful, screening lumps, carting, freighting and shoveling into the stove or furnace. Getting it does not imperil the limbs and lives of poor miners- the most overworked and underpaid class in Pennsylvania- in the damp and darkness of death-traps hundreds of feet beneath the surface of the ground. You drill a hole to the vital spot, lay a pipe from the well to the home or factory, turn a stop-cock to let out the vapor, touch off a match and there it is-the brightest, cleanest, steadiest, hottest fire on earth. Not a speck of dust, not an atom of smoke, not a particle of cinder, not a taint of sulphur, not a bit of ashes vexes your soul or tries your temper. There is no carrying of coal, no dumping of choked grates, no waiting for kindling to catch or green wood to burn, no scolding about sulky fires, no postponement of heat because the wind blows in the wrong direction. Blue Monday is robbed of all its terrors, the labor of housekeeping is lightened and husbands no longer object to starting the fire on cold mornings. A nice blaze may be let burn all night in winter and kept on tap in summer only when needed. It is lighted or extinguished as readily as |