The independent press. (Abbeville C.H., S.C.) 1853-1860, 1855-05-04

nately every year, is shorter than the rigors
OF an inhospitable winter at Kttery, Port.
land, Boston or New York, when labor Is
almost entirely suspended by the workmen.
The lumber they use is taken from your
wharves. Why not put the labor on it be,
fore committing it to the strifes of ocean
and build mp and enrich your own mechan,
ics2 The stranger will see in Baltimore
thousands of mechanics at their forges, fur,
naces and foundlies, in their shot towers,
marble and stone yards, shops, and machine
shops. Nearly every square supports its
tall chimney with black smoke issuing from
the furnace of an engine driving machinery
at its base. How many smoke stacks would
the stranger count in Charleston9 How
many engines, propelling machinery, would
he be able to enumerate Was not the
steam engine some years back maala pro-
had'ta within the corporate limits of this
c'tyE How many carpenters at your ship
yards, mechanics at your forges and found
rles, and machinists at your work shops,
would he count9 These hints furnish some
of the prominent reasons why Baltimore
has outstripped Charleston, and Indicate
means Of speedily and permanently promo
ting her languishing prosperity.
The demand for engines and locomotives
is now imposing, and annually augmenting
throughout the State. Engines are being
extensively introduced for saw, merchant
and grist mills, as we'll as for various de-
scriptions Of machines to save or facilitate
labor. Eight hundred miles and more of
Railroads traverse the State, and the loco
motives used cost the companies notle less an
nually than Sl5O,OOO. Have you ma
cliinists enough in Charleston to execute
supplies for the demand from all sourccs2 ?
If you have not strive to obtain them.
How vivifying and refreshing to every in
dustrial interests if the s25o,0OO, annually
expended abroad for engines and Iocomo-
tiyes, could be retained at home to pay
home mechanics
1t is unnecessary that should point out
other branches Of mechanical industry.
The examples given establish your greatest
want; and until artisans and mechanics
crowd your city, fear that your hopes of
greatly enhanced prosperity are illusory.
In many localities in the country the de-
ficiency in the mechanic arts is even greater
than here, and with less sufficient excuse
for delinquency. Town and village prop
erty, taxes, rents aud provisions are lower
than in the city, and the climate is
.healthful and salubrious-exempt from all
malignant epidemic maladics- and yet some
of our villages can boast of no higher at
tainment in the mechanic arts than the pos
session of a blacksmith, who can shoe a
horse and lay plow, or a'house carpenter,
who can jack plank and saw lumber; and
what is the resulta In traversing the coun-
tryswc too often see huge piles :, Of lumber
thrown together witout regard to convent
ence or comfort in light or ventilation
without symmetry, and without consulting
n single point of architectural taste or bea,;-
ty, and the expense incurred by the builder
equal to its construction and completion with
neatness and even elegance. Unless some
improvement is made in rural architecture,
another order will be added to the existing
list, which acynic might denominate the
Carolina" as descriptive of the locality of
its origin. The dwelling places of the dead
manifest the same absence of taste, care and
attention as those Of the living. A church
yard is generally selected as the depository
of the remains Of the deceased. 1t is en-
closed and is shrubbed out, until the plat is
covered over With graves then commences
an Implying .neglect--the paling de-
Gays and tumbles to the ground--the
briars and brambles spring up and become
a covert for the hare, the fox and the ser
pent! No stone rises to. mark the spot
where loved one .reposes In private bu-
rial grounds the picture is even more revolt
ing. The homestead passes into the hands
Of tt,ougbtless, and, perhaps, heartless stran-
gers. the enclosure falls, and time and sea-
sons level the little:moupd. Soon, It is for
gotten. that the dead sleep there and over
the. bones Of the once owner of, the man
sion, groves and broad fields around, cotton
and corr, grows. oh! what desecratien OF
the dead. The aboriginal. savage marked
by more, enduring monuments the resting
places Of their loved dead. They heaped
earth and stone together 80, high that ages
did not eface the memorial, and all future
generations trod lghtlyo over the spot where
the venerated sleeper reposed. : Every town
and village should have its cemetery-eri.
closed with substantial iron raiiing--laid out
lin Pfats and dfwalks, and planted in flowers
AND avesgfeens, and some, heat and simple
monument be- erected over every. grave
ThisS% would be, showing that respect andsaf
feetion or;the memory of.the dead, esbJ
la civilized and christ ssaopies 3 3 q .
T We must shsye afcf iitectts and educated
mechanics tojmpf tie style a our
;lings,; aud front hdets mar bic Yards S!Aht