Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1871-10-28
HOME News.
THE GOOD OLD WAY.
A Plea for the People.


Win you allow a few words on behalf of
venerable and lifelong friend of the poor,
who, through the infirInities of age and the
neglect of relatives, has fallen into diSre-
pute, although still supplying the daily
wants of some forty thousand hungry hui
mans. / allude to our old Market-HoUse,
abandoned by friend and abused by foe on
every side.
Is it really d superannuate? Have our
people outgrown its old usages? Let the
crowds that throng under its leaky roof
each morning, give answer. If there be a
large class of consumers who prefer meat
shops and green grocers, how does it hap
pen that our grocers fail to supply their
wants? and how does il happen that every
meat store ever opened in Nashville has
fizzled out III few months? Evidently,
the bulk Ofthe peOple-the poorer masses
are well content with the present system.
The street cars from every suburb centre
in front Of the ancient structure. Edge
field, it is true, has to trudge through the
mud and slosh but still the Edgefelder
even prefers it, and a competition market
over the river would prove losing con
eern. Here the people coagregate, rich and
poor, on republican equality. perhaps
some don't like that.) And here each man,
however lowly, has his pick and choice OF
the whole produce market. Here he finds
a lively, healthy competition that protects
him from the snareS of SPECTATORS. He
has the range of some forty butchers and
three hundred gardeners, all as anxious to
sell as he is to buy, and the rivalry among
them secures him choice of products and
prices.
And what do our modern cabbage-head
Solons offer us in exchange? Simply this:
to place the masses of the poor at the mercy
of " hucksterS;" to fatten class of middle
men between the producer and consumer,
who will take advantage of the needs of
both, shaving the farmer, who is always
anxious to sell his perishable truck, and
grinding the artisan or lab0rer, who must
buy. Instead of forty butchers, laboring
side by side in honest rivalry, and giving
direct employment to hundreds of our pop
ulation, the meat business will fall into the
hands of three or four mOneyed men, who
can pay high rents and high taxes by fleeing
the people numerically. Abolish the Mar
kethOuse, and you abolish practically a
branch of manufacturing that surpasses our
pork interest. The stock-raiser viii then
find in Nashville a speculative combination,
in place of beyy of buying butchers, and
our people will pay twenty to twenty-five
cents for their steak, instead of five to ten
| cents. Let any mechanic or laborer, who
has ever patronized meat shop either in
Nashville or the North, say if this is not so.
The world may be divided into two great
classes, producers and pirates-thOse that
| live by their own labor, and those that live
| by the labor of others. This proposed move
will only multiply our pirates, and God
knows Nashville is cursed with enough of
them already-wealthy idlers, who live of
of us in some way without work-tricky
traders, who manage to support respecta-
bility on margin" of a thousand dollars;
but it comes out of the poor workers in
some shape, and it is a sorry inducement to
| immigrants.
No, gentlemen of the City Council; rest
assured that the masses of your constituency
| do not wish the old markethOuse done
away with Just yet. If any class want
meat and vegetable stores, let them be es-
| tablished, and let that class patronize them:
there is no law to hinder them. And when
| they have their new means of supply in
successful operation, it will be time enough
| to discuss the abolition of the present sys-
! tenn. And if, as they claim, their new
tangled, imported system is better, then the
| old one will become obsolete of itself. That
| is the natural course of things, and it is
| best not to force nature. Above all, gen.
tlemen, do not think of wipins out the old
system in the utter absene6 of any other
organized means of supply for our citizens,
particularly just now on the threshold of win
ter. And have some regard for the equitable
1 if not vested rights of honest workers who
| have invested their little all in butchering
! and gardening, and whose business you
propose to annihilate at one fell sweep.
In truth, the old markethOuse has done
| nobly. Its revenues have been ample to
| keep it up and enlarge and beautify it. II
! it is an eyesore, it is no fault of the system.
| The system is more than self-sustaining.
! But its revenues have been diverted to
tighten the taxes of property holder and
| renter. Let justice be done. Give the old
| place a chance. Cover its nakedness. En-
| large it. Make it an ornament. Our city
| guardians can keep it clean and nice, where
| a dozen meat shops under private manage
ment would be so many stench-holes dis
persed among our residences. And build,
| if YOU will, a commOdiOus hall overhead
| for public meetings and discussions. Our
| city is poor, but this can be done without
| extra expense. Instead of abOlshing the
present shed, you need only take its rentals
for next year to make it a market-place
| worthy of ancient Rome.
But if our worthy business men on the
| Square persist in their objections to the
nuisance" let them prove their faith by
their works. Let them get up joint stock
company to build an elegant market, say
on the vacant corner Of Summer and
| Union, with the certain custom OF an arlsto7
! cratic peighborhood to begin on. They
could cap it with an Opera House and
make good thing of it, like Weisiger Hall
of Louisville And when they get the new
concern in operation, this debate about abo[
ishing the present institution might be in
order-not before.
/ Yours, ETC., BUTCHER