THE GRAVE DIGGER.

Some Interesting Statistics ---Reminiscence of a Sorrowful Incident---The Result of the Heartless Conduct of a Couple of Fiendish Sons..

James W. Little, sexton of the Warnock and Odd Fellow cemeteries, has since April 6, 1876 dug 530 graves, 205 of these were for children under twelve years of age. This would make a ditch over twelve hundred feet long, five feet deep by five fee wide. This sounds like a great many deaths occur in and about Princeton, yet in proportion to the population, the average is exceedingly small

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The first grave ever dug by Mr. Little was on April 6, 1876, fro Mrs. Elizabeth Martin, who lived at the county poor asylum at the extreme old age of 101 years.

In connection with this death a sad story is brought to memory, a few of the facts concerning which Mr. Little related to the writer. Some time, probably a year or two, previous to 1876, Mrs. Martin came to Princeton with her two sons and located on a farm a few miles south. They came from Tennessee, and for a time made a pretty good impression among the neighbors in the vicinity where they settled. The mother, besides being very old and feeble, had been deprived of her eyesight, and not being able to perform any labor, she sat in her room a quite and uncomplaining sufferer. Her sons had the appearance of doing well, and the neighbors thought the family was prospering fairly well. They were not rich, of course, being ordinary farmers, but they were not paupers by any means. Some time during the fall of 1875, with out notifying any of their acquaintances, the two sons packed their things together and struck the return trail for Tennessee.. They did not pack up all their belongings, for in one room they left a chair, the one in which their mother always sat---and beside this they left the old lady sitting in the chair. They probably made their exit in the night, for their mother had no knowledge of their departure. She was soon found in her lonely and helpless condition by some of the neighbors. They had left her neither money nor food, and but for the timely discovery of her condition she must have perished for want of food and water. She was taken to the county poor asylum and properly cared for until the next spring, when she died, probably from a broken heart as much as from old age.

Instead of burying her as a pauper she was given a very respectable burial by some kind-hearted citizens, who bought her a coffin better than those furnished by the county, and also purchased for her a lot in Archer cemetery.

Her sons have never been heard from since they went away, but it is safe to say they have suffered twinges of their consciences every time their memories ran back to the aged mother they so heartlessly abandoned.