The Wyandot pioneer. (Upper Sandusky, Ohio) 1853-1868, 1868-05-14
Brass Tacks.


Bring things right down to brass
tacks in all the affairs of this life
and the millennium is not-far away.
Brass .taeks- blem OF the only
inevitable and last friend, the under
taker. Studded over our final lig-
Ineous adornrnent, brass stacks are
suggestive Of stern, inexorable real
ity; sham and shoddy are no longer
available; deceit and pretence are
below par. Brass tacks have equal
lied all human earthly conditions.
The peer and peasant, king and
common, old and young, wise and
otherwise, lie down in common
mortality from which there is no
escape. Once before-at birth
they were all equal in ignorance
and helplessness. They were not
consulted then. They have had
many opportunities for good and
evil since; they have strutted life's
busy hour upon Times stage, play
ing their allotted parts with more
or less earnestness, in farce or trag-
edy, some to the pit, others to the
dress circle-this one applauded,
that one hissed, until, again with
out being consulted, death brings
them all down to brass tacks.
We begin. in fact, to doubt the
reality Of everything this side of
brass tacks. Shams and shoddy
pervade society, and civilization is
a mockery and a delusion. II am
Christians" says one. All! bring
it down to brass tacks-which of
sixty eppugnant and wrangling sects
do you fight for ? Oh, Catholic,
eh-the Latin branch or its irrecon-
cilable enemy, the Greek Church ?
The whole world is full Of mis-
understandings. People do not
define things by their right names,
and are always in mischief and
trouble. Language is employed to
conceal thought. Ones face is in
tended to hide character no one is
what he seems. "Turn to the
rightn' said man on one side of
river to another man on the oppo-
site side who had inquired the way
to the ford. The querest obeyed,
and was drowned. "Good gra
cious! I meant my right. not his;
how unfortunate !'' Just so through
every phase of life-we misname
things We don't bring them down
to brass tacks. Nothing is what it
appears to be on the face of it. All
is buncombe and sham, from mock
auctions, quack. doctors, sensation
preachers, acrobat politicians to
thimble-riggers of all kinds. We
used to bet freely and confidently
ON human nature, civilization, prog
ress, pretty girls, our preacher and
our doctor; but we don't any more.
The ladies, resplendent in silks
and diamonds glowing with the roses
of youth, graceful in form, teeth of
pearl, eyes Of light, hair falling like
golden fleece over billowy shoul-
ders5 of snow. Alas! matrimony
brings them down to brass tacks,
Kalosina, cotton, India-rubber, saw
dust, crinoline, false hair, plumpers,
calves, palpitators, DC, dispel the
illusion.
| Humbug has come to be one of
the polite arts. Quackery is a sci
ence. Swill milk and poison whis
ky are popular lies. Wooden oats
tin side saddles, wax buttons, psper
collars, glued boots, only illustrate
how the world is given to lying
When the Indian, in pursuit Of
his enemy, seized him by the hair
just as he had plunged into the
river and the wig came off, the red
gentleman very naturally exclaimed
in tone of indignant disgust, as he
held up the tonsorial chef deuvre,
"d-n lie." .He ..tss i
Nearly every thing is a whopper.
We get nothing that we pay for now
a days. We scarcely know what
we eat and drink any more than if
we lived at Chinese hotel The
horses pass the bologna-sausage
dealers with reproachful looks, and
in the ssassenger' season one is al
most! ashamed to look a well9bred
dog in the face. zo ra
We saw a few days ago, several
casks of terra aba, which, being in,
terpreted, means white clay. Upon
inquiring what it was to be used
for, we learned to make cream of
tartar and sugar ornaments. Our
coffee is rye and chickory, sugar is
sand, -four plaster of Paris, pepper
and alspice black walnut sawdust,
oak bark for cinnamon, corn meal
for mustard and ginger, blue clay
for blue pill, and so on with every
thing. AS to the liquors we iinbibe,
no language can do justice to the
subject. It involves, besides, sever
al great moral questions, a treatise
) upon poisons and mans wonderful
| powers to endure Bring every
thing right down to brass tacks, and
what becomes Of all our pretentious
progress? The doctor who has
himself called out of half a dozen
churches every Sunday morning is
like unto the wig-and the best OF
them when brought taee to face
with disease and death, and per
emptorily required to exhibit theil
boasted " kno Wedge, are brought
, down to brass tacks, and must OWE
their helpless ignorance ~
! The evangelical and model minis.
ter, whose creed involves infant
damnation, election, resurrection
of the material body and triple De
ity, when brought down to Brass
4 Tacks, disbelieves it all-or, what
| is the same thing, doubts The
lawyer who rushes to and fro from
court with huge green bag filled
with old newspapers, is another wig