Norfolk day book. [volume] (Norfolk and Portsmouth Va.) 1868-1880, 1869-04-24

W Sohda0l. Dut possAoiy piio0 udy
be in the way. You may be afraid
folks may laugh at you. That sort of
feeling keeps many man in poverty,
with his nose on the grind-stone all his
life.
Landlords are erecting houses in the
city which you are paying for in two
or three years entire, but they are never
yours. You can go mile or two out of
the city and get land at $50 or 500 an
acre and erect your own building in less
time on what you save on your rent
That will give labor an opportunity to
combat against capital with great ad-
vantage to itself and to the State too !;
and it would be combat that capital
would like to assist in carrying out,
doubtless, for the "gods help them who
help themselves" .t.
Call in at some of the newspaper
stores and take a look at the picture of
Gen. Grant, now the President of the
United States, erecting his log house,
and give the matter proper reflection.
Now, President Grant is great
man, and he has made himself great
by his own exertions; and possibly he
may have found himself at one time in
life in about as Strengthened circum-
stances as you are; and about that time
he may have concluded in bis own mind
that it was necessary to smother some
of his foolish pride, and go 10 work
manfully to buffet with hard fortune.
He went at it, and you can all see the
result.
And by the by, speaking Of President
Grant, we are reminded of some of the
remarks of one or two of the newspa-
pers about his errors of grammar, in
writing his messages. Let us say that
it only shows of how little conseq uence
college education is to man who
has got the genius in him for making
his mark on the worlds history. You
know we, here in Virginia, have always,
somehow or other, been possessed with
the notion that man without an edu-
cation finished off at "our University"
could not be anything, no way it could
be fixed. Was this the effects of an
enlightened understanding, or was it
ignorance of our fellow-man and of our
selves? We could have no one to make
our laws for us of course unless he was
lawyer for no one but lawyer
could make laws, according to our no.
tons heretofore. They have been our
representative men from time immemo-
rial. We had to have them, because if
we didn't our laws would all get in a
tangle, and then when we went to law
we'd have to get the lawyer to untangle
them. This appears to have been our
notion about the matter heretofore; but
still, now, when we come to look into
the matter, notwithstanding the lawyer s
made all the laws, we find about as
much of q tangle in them as if they had
been made by as bad a grammarian as
President Grant.
And this reminds US of what we be-
lieve TO be the case, that if man hasn' t
got any "gumption" in him, all the
colleges in the world can't put it into
him; for we have seen material some
times turned out from our colleges with
diplomas, as lawyers, say for instance
who broke down in their efforts to be
Commonwealth's Attorneys, even for
some little half horse village. Now we
know we could 60 among the mechanics
and workingmen hereabouts and select
hundred or two intelligent men who
have had but a common school educa-
ton and put law book in their hands,
and they would do quite as well as
some of those college chaps" we speak
of-at least they couldn't do much
worse If you amt got "mother wit"
alma mater can't give it to you. Bear
that in mind hereafter, workingmen,
and recollect that you need not 60 out
of your own ranks to find representa-
tive men, and that in the new order of
things you will need true representa-
tive men that will stand up for the me-
chanical and manufacturing interests OF
our old State, which is to be lifted out
of the slough of dispond" by advanc-
ing her mechanical and manufacturing
advantages, along with her commercial
and agricultural pursuits.
gggr The Suffolk Sun says: Nanse-
mond is destined to be one of the most
thriving counties in the tide-water re-
gion of Virginia, and Suffolk is des-
tined to become place of much more
business than ever before, 1t is to be
the centre of a large trucking commu-
nifty, and the farmers hereabouts are to