The Easley messenger. (Easley, S.C.) 1883-1891, November 02, 1883, Image 2
The Easley Mossegor
rutI, like a lordh, the more it's shooh, it shines.
VOL. 1.] EASLEY, SOUTH CAROLINA, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1%. [NO.4.
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MESSENGER, Easley, S. C.
THE PLOWMAN.
Clear the brown path to meet his coul
ter's gleam !
Lo! on he comes, behind his smoking
team,
With toil's bright dew-drops on his
sun-burnt brow.
The lord of the earth, the hero of the
plow !
First in the field, before the reddening
sun,
Last in the shadows when the day is
done ;
Line after line along the breaking sod
Marks the broad acres where his feet
have trod.
Still where he treads the stubborn
elods divide,
The smooth, fresh furrow opens deep
and wide ;
Matted and dense the tangled turf up
heaves,
Mellow and dark the ridgy cornfield
cleaves.
At every turn the loosened chains re
sound,
The swinging plowshare circles glis
tening round,
'Till the wide field one billowy waste
appears,
And the wearied hands unbind the
panting steers.
There are the hands whose sturdy la
bor brings
The peasa 'it's food, the golden pomp
of kings;
This is the page whose letters shall be
seen,
pChanged by the sun to words of living
green ;
This is the scholar whose immortal pen
Spells the-first lesson hunger taught to
men;
'These are the lives that heaven-comn
Inandled toil
SShows on his deced-thle charter of the
K soil.
--Oliver Wendell Holmes
-Accordiwg to the "Catholic Di
rectory," the number of Catholics in
the United States was 5,760,000 in
1874 andl 6,880,000 in 1882. This Is
:equivalent to an increase of about 20
,per cent. in ten years.
-An insane workmnan leaped Iglio
the furnace of the glass works at Kent,
Ohio, on Friday, and was almost in
stantly conumed.
[For the Messenger.
Public Roads.
[CONTINUED FROM[ LAST WEEK.]
I favor thb break or turn-out systeim
on roads'; I have some experience, as
I have had something to do with the
public roads for nearly twenty-ftvq
years, and have kept up one or two
miles of private ones for the same
length of time, and I contend it Is the
next thing to- an Impossibility to do
without them. No sirs ! If you are
going to compel me to help keep the
public roads in a passable condition
without them, or Macadamizing, I
think I am ready to enmigrate at once.
And why? My recollection is that we
have an annual rain fall of about 50
inches. Half of this frequently falls
In two or hirce of the winter or early
spring moraths. Now our wagon
wheels are about 5 feet apart. Him
dreds of people, for the sake of econo
my, go to market immediately after an
all-day's rain, with a three-horse load
on a two-horse wagon. This heavy
load on, narrow tire drive, them to the
axle, so that it matters not how nuch
the road is raised in the middle, no
more water ever gets across those ruts,
but stands between or in them. Let
some of you who are fond of figures
tell 1ts how much water will fall on a
piece of road half a mile long and 5
feet wide with a column of water 25
inches high, on each sqnare inch. Sup
pose this is a hill half a mile long and
elevated, at an angle of almost 45 de
grees, we will have ruts washed and
worn out that are almost bottomless.
Sometimes we scarcely see the Sun for
twenty days. the mud still remains,
and you had just as well till these ruts
with water or snow as to ill them with
mud.
You never can get me to acknowl
edge the man who advocates the work
ing of roads without turn-outs, as my
Solomon on this question. We have a
great many of these turnouts that are
dreadful; they are too high, sharp,
and are not across the roads at the
proper angle ; they ought, where it is
possible, run the water each war from
the middle of the road, and he built of
timber. You had just about as well
expect snow to stand against the wag
on wheel as to expect (litt to in wet
weather. I know these turn-outs or
breaks are awfully cursed by such fe.1
lows as are fond of driving at a break
neck speed, and who can not brook the
idea of being stopped in their wild ca
reer for a moment. They are wise
enough to require no more time for
pausing to reflect ; they sometimes
cause the girls to get an awful jolt too.
Well, I am sorry for them, umtil they
learn better what sort of a poy to
choose to drive for them.
To stop jesting, this is a questIon of
vital imp~ortance, andl we ought to have
it handled by the cleareat heads among
us. Some of our p~eople spendl almost
half of their time on the roads- for
instance, preachers, doctors, mail catr
riers, etc. If the roads were better
they would be usedl still more. It
would increase al most.every branch of
business, from Church-going to going
a courting. I believe the public has
determined (and if it has not It ought)
to have better roads at all hazards,
even if it has to take the hats oftf our
heads, with all the tobacco and boxes,
whisky barrels andi jugs, to fill up the
mud-holes and gullies. We must have
better roads else the law will be
changed; and I don't know what might
happen. Keel) this subject before the
people "on all occasion, ndr some
times between times." Let, everybody
remethber that this stibject Is of great
importance to all ; from those in the
Alms-house to the greatest of us, and
good roads are so ,easly obtainedf.
'Just will it and it's half accoinplished.'
I will say In conclusion that these
are the rous for us to spend our ine
and money on. Let the men with
millIons build just as many Itailroads
as they wish. Keep your tingers out
of the fire. Our purses will not pass
muster when those enferprises costing
front 025.000 to $30.000 per mile are
up. We have never built and kept in
a resp[)ectjble condition our own roads.
whic i do not cost more than 05 or $10
a itlle. SUBSCRIBER.
Extracts From Bill Arp In Atlanta
Constitution.
There is no istriction so cheap as
reading, and no pleasure so lasting.,
bit the reading muiust be of the right
kind. Iow the childreui do love a good
story, and how fortunate is tie faumily
thatha a ood story teller in the
household. Wat a favorlite with the
little folks and how happy it makes
them to gather round aunty or an old
er sister, and listen to some wonderful
things that happened long ago or away
of somewhere
I reckon there never was a boy that
didn't want to do some big thing and
be a hero. That is all right and very
natural. The men do too mitil they
get married and settle down to the
hard striuggle ol life, raising children
and paying debts, and that takes the
starch out of 'emi and the romance too.
Its all fact. fact every day and iight.
Thirty years ago I begun waiting on a
little chap an7 washing his face and
ticing lip lils toes and his lingers and
teaching him his lessons, and pretty
soon they doubled on me and then they
trebled and quadrupled and kept on
away up yonder and here I amti still
working and teaching and every night
I have to hear 'em spell aud speak their
sp(qeehes and show 'emit how to do stums,
and I can't keep up with the new fash
ioned books and tht new way of cipher
ing by analysis, and so sometimes
when I get stalled I have to look wise
and say the answer in the book is
wrong.
Parents and teachers ought to be
mighty patient with childrgn. Some
have more cipaicity and some more
memory. Sone are slow and some are
quick. It is not the smartestehild that
makes the smartest man or woman.
It is a powelful strain on some of 'em
to keep up. and the dull ones oughtent
to be crowdled until they hate books
and~ dIread the time of goIng Jo school.
Sonme folks send their children to school
to get rid of 'emi. but miy opinion Is
the parents ought to hellp the teacher
every night. It shows the children
how miuch Interest they feel in their
edlucationi. It is a sign of a good teach
er when the children get ambitious to
keel) upi andl get head marks,and bring
their books home at (night and want to
go to sc hool if it Is raining a little.
Wrap 'cem up and let 'emi go. There
Is nothing that demoralizes a school
boy like staying at hiome every few
tday and getting behind the class. We
used to walk three miles to school, and
Iwe never minded it at all. It was a
frolic all the way there and all the way
back and we (11( have the best dinners
in the world. Delmonico never had as
good things as our mother used to fix
up) for us. It seems to me so now. A
child's life is full of romance anid fun
tho best sort of fun. A child's damm
are spleodid but we don't dream now.
hardly eve r. [ used to read Robinson
Crusoe and. dream it all over ai.,
[low I did long to be shlp-wree on
an island and raise monkeys and goats
and parotts. S16w, chUidren. are gen
erilly sure childrin, but they don't
show off' much. Daniel Webster wa
most always toot his class, bu whet
he learned anythi he never forgot it.
Some boys are lid and restless and
have no use for books, but they ought
ent to be given up or hacked or abused
continually. If they have good pa
rents they wil 1ome to themnselves a!
ter while. Th y will sow their wl
oats and gather the crop and get tired
of that sort of farming. I was read
lug the other day about Oliver Gold
smith, who I reckon was the wormt
vagabond in all England, and was
krcked about and abused by everybody,
and got in jall, and sometImes slept in
the corner of the fence and liked to
have perlshed to death, but he came to
himself at last and made one of Eng
land's best and greatest men. The
three worst boys that ever li'ed in
Rome are now good men, splendid
men, and are hdnered and respected.
They had good parents. Give a dog
a bad name and everybody wants to
kick him. Good men ought to note(
the bad boys specially and speak
kindly. to 'em and offer to help 'em
and make 'em teel that they are not
Ishmaaelites. Some boys get so much
Ahuie at home and abroad that they
are astonished when a decent man
speaks to 'em. Some folks give 'et
no consideration, but want to see 'em
go to jail or to the calaboose" which Is
the worst thing that can be done for a
boy, for lie never gets over it and
grows desperate. It is astonishing
h1ow long a little sin or a. little humilli
ation will follow a boy. One time a
boy stole a quarter of a dollar from a
nother boy it school, and that follow
ed him to hi6 grave. He got to be a
great man and was thirty years in con
gress and was a senator, and one day
when lie made a bitter speech against
the corruption of the opposite party
and denounced their steiliing and plun
dering by wholesale. one of his oppo
nents replied by saying lie would re
mind the gentleman that preachers of
morality should come into the pulpit
with clean hands--that Ben Franklin
said, 'H1e that would steal a pin woul (I
steal a bigger thing,' and he asked no
quarters from the -gentleman on that
score.
So, boys, remember and keep your
hands clean. Folks* will forgive mis
chief and a heap of other things, but
they won't forgive meanness.
BILL ARP.
-A young man has turned up at
Portland, Me. lming to be the long
lost Charley Ross and telling a most
astonishing story of early abduction by
Frank and Jesse James, long confine
mient, a voyage on a pirate boat to Br'a
z41 and an escape. T1hxe chances are
ninety-nhot~ to one that the young man
is an awkward and badly traied liar.
-There were two soldiers in Gene':al
Grant's army, lying below blankets,
looking up at the stars in a Virginia sky.
Says Jack, "What made you go into
army, Tom ?" "Well," teplied Tomn,
'I had no wife, and I love wvar. What
made you go into the war, Jack?"
"Well, I had a wife, arid I love peace."
-Augusta factory men are declining
Chinese orders for goods, as they exn
neet an advanna in nrk'PQ QAnnI.