Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1869-04-27
/" p o p p L N g."
That NextDoor Neighbor.
BY JULIA KAvAEAGH.

BY JULIA KAvANAGH.
Next-door neighbors have ever been
fast friends or bitter enemies. They have
either fought and died for each other, in
very barbarous times, of course, or they
have cut each others throats; and the
one thing, it is sad to say, they have done
I much ottener than the other. Strong
hate seems, as matter of course, to
spring from close vicinity in these old
times. The Cspulets and the Montagues
must have been next-door neighbors,
though Shakespeare does not say So
Superficial people may think that Romeo
and Juliet more than made up the feud !;
\ but deep thinkers will rather consider
4 these gentle Veronese lovers as illus
trious exceptions than as precedents at
| all affecting the two great laws of love
and hate which rule next-door neighbor-
| ships Besides, it is all very well to talk
\ of the Romeo who takes poison and dies
at his Juliet's feet. Old people of the
\ world shake their heads and sigh; they
know that these things take place at a
! certain time of life, and at that time only.
You see no Italian chronicler, no Shake.
speare, no lovely legend has said word
about the youthful Romeo of twelve, who
may be tied an cid saucepan to the tail
Of Juliets favorite greyhound, when the
careless housemaid let it out; or who,
Young hardened sinner, threw cabbage
stalks at Juliet herself over the garden
wall. AS for the bachelor Romeo of forty,
who did his best against the unveiled
Juliet of thirty-fve, who worried her by
raising up turret with numerous win
dows, whe ace his pryiDg eyes invaded her
privacy, who went three times to law
with her about the partition wall, and who
made her exclsim twenty times a day:
THAT dreadful man will be the death of
mel that Romeo, we say, has been ig-
nored altogether.
With the progress of time and good
breeding, next.door neighbors have
grown to be civilly affectionate or politely
rancourous, and now, as rule, the kiss
ing or pickering, as the case may be, is
carried out OIL the most moderate scale
When next.door neighbors meet, they
bow to, or stare at, or cut each other as
distinctly as they can well do these
things, and they generally walk through
life as they mostly go to heaven, by roads
that. having once met at right angles,
are never by any means to meet again,
but 20 on widening and widening away
till they flow into the great recoiling sea
of death.
But still we meet every now and then,
chiefly in small or out-of-the-way places,
with instances of cruel hate or tender
love, of bitter animosity or kind and
brotherly offices, which bring back the
old relation in its vivid aspect before us
modified, indeed, by change of manners
but still the same at heart. Such in
stances must be known to many; two
will illustrate our meaning.
Two workmen were next-door neigh
bors in one of the London suburbs.
They lived at peace for a whole year;
then the dog of one having flown at the
child of the other, war was declared.
Still, though embittered on both sides BY
wives and children, the contest was car
ried on lauguidly. But hate was there,
passive and phlegmaticin one man, keen
and active in the other, and unlucklly
strong in both. These men drank freely,
! and nsed to meet and quarrel at the same
nublic house. 1t was inevitable that
n, w should come to blews, and at length
thew did. The phlegmatic man being
much the stronger of the two, had no
trouble in defeating his enemy. The
worsted cue was henceforth bent upon
revenge. and chance or his own ingenuity
gave him what he wanted. He came one
evening to the usual haunt, his tsce stili
bearing the mark Of the blow that had
felled him. He drank his beer in surly
silence; be bore with his foes boast
looks, and with the jeeripg OF the BY
stapders; but when he went to pay his
reckoning, and was waiting jor his
change, he said to the, andlady;
a. owe you something, Mrs. Smith:
Please to make it all square. That man,
and he pointed a scornful fore6nger at
his enemy, sis thiefl come here no
more that man is theft He got three
months for robbing his master ten years
back. Let him deny itl-let him deny
it
Pale, CHASTITY, and struck IS by death,
the wretched man stood there and denied
nothing. They looked ssksnce at him,
and he denied nothing. 1t was true. He
had been a thief once-once only-tor
he was one of the very few men who,
having thus fallen, rise out of and tri-
umph over their sin. he was honest
now, and therefore the discovery and the
shame were too much for him. he skunk
away with grief and rage in his heart,
ana was seen in the public house no
more. Nor was this all. His story spread
His wife, on learning it, reviled him his
children got to be ashamed of him; the
whole world, he felt, bad in some sort
turned against him. He could not bear
this new lot He rose early one morn
ing, went out, and never came back
And the saddest part Of this sad story Is
that his triumphant enemy never re-
pented his share 10 bis neighbor's ruin:
These two men, who could have lived
at peace 90 easily if they had been but
little farther apart, could not resist the
opportunities for dislike and animosity
which vicinity threw il their way. And
what is true Of hatred is happily also