Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1858-09-10
THE TIMES.
QUOTATIONS or AN OLD FARMER.

QUOTATIONS or AN OLD FARMER.
Hard times So everybody says; and so
say we-lor the ''times" do bother us, as
everybody else is bothered. Possibly we may
not be so badly damaged az some others, but
we know enough about the hard scratching
which they inhict upon US to wish they were
otherwise. We have had good" times too,
and quite a run Of them for several years,
until few months ago So the same every
body told us time and again. Yes, they
were good times We had trade, and
free-credit abroad and we used it freely too,
with a vengeance. We have built a long ar
ray Of free raj roads, free to the select cote
ries of spectators who got them up for their
own especial benefit, mind you, on funds COB
bled up by the usurers with decided freedom.
The roads gave free passes to the legislators,
and Judges of the country, as well as to va
rious editors, for which, the little share we
had in the riding, we shall never cease to
thank them. We imported millions of free
goods that we did not need but which we
/ have made out to wear, and eat, and drink,
and dispose Of in one way and another and
the beauty of it is, those which are not paid
| for, or used up-and they are many-the
| owners are free to send back TO where they
came from, as many of them probably will, or
let the goods lie a long while in the bonded
warehouses, awaiting better times for sale
and consumption.
The truth is for the last eight or ten years
we have built extrayagantly, dressed non
sensically, lived layishly, speculatod wildly,
trusted everybody about us, as we got trust
ed abroad, and ''laid loose" around, generally,
Our farmers got great prices for their produce
to feed the fools and tyrants who were doing
. up their own fighting in Europe and they
' got such prices so long they supposed they
/ were always to have them. Our towns were
/ so prosperous, and people in them got ricl
G so rapidly that great many others, old an'
5 young, who were doing well enough ON thei
$ farms, and thought they could do grea
n deal better in town, left them, to know littl
/ peace or quietude afterwards. Our wome
II and girls quit spinning stocking yarn at home
&c and took to spinning street-yarn, and wearing
y crinoline abroad. Instead Of humping tn
clothes in the pounding barrel in the kitchen
they took to humping the piano, and the me
Mt lodian in the parlor; while the boys, an
to "Young America" took to "iast horses,
1t ''long mines "eook-tails," and a genera
n, "cut up all round the board, and so wen
BIO the world.
lie These be homely truths, blnntly Spoken
yh we admit. But are they not true We opn
OF thom to be SO, for we have seen just sue
ge times before-bating the railroad speculatin
Id twenty years ago-and which we have Il
best reasons for remembering long as "
he live.
ny Our lives are mixed commodity of GOO
st, and evil The old patriarch, Jacob, VIII
for after many days Of prosperity, clouded o
he casionally with trihc Of adversely, bell
Ter brought in deep affection. and questioned
is Pharaoh of his life, answered "few and e
Of have been the days of my pilgrimage" Sc
IL great many of us say now yet, with all t
wn warnings Of wise men for some time pa
hin like Jeshurun OF old, we "waxed fat a
se, kicked" at the shadow Of calamity aiar Of
it and with the homely proyorb, having dane,