The Charleston daily news. [volume] (Charleston, S.C.) 1865-1873, 1869-11-26
Islam.

NOTWITHSTANDING tne fAY;lS,eS Oi t1c great
fire, we have still too many comfortable
street corners in Charleston. There are
places which lounger cannot pass walls
which attract The back or shoulder Of an
idle man as potcntly rs the magnet attracts
steel, counters over which he must loll,
sunny curb stones where ne must deposit
his weary frame and chatter while he rests
GASES cherished by the Arab OF the streets
as fondly as by his dusky brother OF the
desert. The tastes Of the two are congo
nial; beth love to haunt the majestic yicin-
age OF pnblic buildngs-to linger where
they can watch tho current of trade passing
by, TO encourage the industries and the
pompS OF lie by the ragged, jovial contrast,
and appreciative, philosophic patronage OF
their presence Whether the Arab leans
against q Palmyran temple or City Hall,
whether he watches the moving caravan OF
pilgrims or the drift OF clerks and merchants
along East Bay, whether he lounges around
the Caaba or the Citadel Square-the con-
viction upon his mind is undisturbed, that
the world owes him living, aud that some
how or other the debt has to be paid.
There is only one marked difference be-
tween the kindred races of which we speak.
The child OF the desert totally abstains from
spirituous liquors-even from wine. The
Bedouin of the streets totaly-doesnt; on
the contrary, he goes to a grog-sbop like q
camel TO fountain, and takes drau yht suf-
ficient for many days; he buzzes around .
spigot like o bee around solitary lily of the
valley; he devourS strychnine like rat.
Our hearts are sad to think of these Arabs
amongst us-these squatters in the thin
oases of the South-these waits, stranded
on the storm-Swept coasts of civilization
these "out-of-works" in modern society.
The Tribune, sort OF Koran among these
American Islamites, classifeS them as fol-
lows: They are, 1. Those who know how to
do nothing; 2. Those who can do something,
but nothing that any one wants to pay them
for doing; 5. Those who are not willing to
do what they can do, and might find to do,
but will only work at something lighter,
more genteel and better paid; 4. Those who
insist on staying where there is no work for
them, instead OF seeking it where it might
be found, and who grumble like the drunken
potato digger, eff you want your potatoes
''dug, just fetch them on, amt going to
"run all over the lot after them"
We, for our part, have much more reason
than the Tribune has to warn the Aborer
against the irrational overcrowding OF cities,
when the country is full of work, when more
than dollar day is paid to laborers on
the sugar estates of Louisiana, to the lim-
ber-cutters of the West and South, to the
ditchers and drainers along the railroads
when men can be supported on all our broad
plantations. 1t is the Radical thunderer,
and not we, from whom the admonition to
idle laborers comes: "Here and there work
.tstops, and men are discharged; as the pre-
'mium on gold declines, nearly everything
selse is sold cheaper, and wages share the
"downward tendency; but there is still work
''for those who can do it and will seek it
'aright" Any resort is better than pauper-
ism, or shiftless and predatory Gipsy life,
to which not o few OF our 'fellow-citiZens,
both in town and country, ut present incline.
From Che time when we tried in childish ire
BILE the songs of the nursery, wehave had an
interestin s'the man all tattered and torn" In
later years the tender sympathy vas renewed
and deepened by Dickens immortal portrait
Of Micaw6er And it cuts US 10 the heart when
we are constrained to say to the hopeful
tatteriemalion: Dear friend, your "mule"
has been begged; your 'Torty acres" are
swamped; your hands in your pockets
will not create money there, your politics
cannot support you, one multirdinous Cor
bin or Scott, plHri5as ~num, can absorb
all the salaries Of South Carolina. You mus.
do what your soul abhors-you must work,
az ot