Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1871-06-23
The Rising Generation of the South.

Ine h1Slng 0eneratlOn OF tne oOuIn.
When people are poor they are foolish
to attempt to live as if they were rich
The old and young, the males and females
of every family which has the misfortune
to be poor, ought bear the burden togeth-
er, and ought to work together to increase
the common store. If there is but one
working person in the family, and he is
generally the father, his nose will be kept
at the grindstone from one years end to
another. unless he has well-ordered
household. The wife can greatly aid him
by her sympathy, by frugal management,
by a cheerful temper, and BY instilling
into the young people lessons of economy
and industry. To attempt to live as rich
people do. when family is poor. is not
only sham and cheat. but it makes the
head of such family hopeless slave and
drudge, and absolutely perpetuates the
poverty so sedulously sought to be con-
cealed.
We are, with few exceptions, all poor
alike in the South. Let US not be asham-
ed of it, and not commit the folly of in
creasing and continuing it by contempti-
BILE shifts to hide it. It is an evil, but
the way to conquer it is to look it in the
face to 60 to work. and to practice econ
omy. If all that an over.worked father
makes is consumed in supporting sons in
idleness and daughters in all the extrava-
gance of fashionable dressing and display,
what earthly prospect will there be Of an
improvement in circumstances If the
over-worked head of the family lives un-
der all his burdens. he lives to seeincreas-
ing helplessness all around him in that
family which ought to be source of COM
fort to him. If he dies, a victim to his
heavy burdens, he leaves behind him sons
unframed to work-possibly of expensive
if not dissipated habits, and daughters
without any resources whatever, and mis-
erable because they cannot continue to
keep up the poor delusion that they are
part and parcel of the fashionable world.
No situation in life can be more galling g
than that Of a poor family striving to hide
its poverty by aping the fashions. Ifthe
efforts made by its members to keep up a
false show were but directed to useful ends,
the result would be most propitious. As
it is, all they can do is to keep their heads
above water and be tolerated in the world
of fashion To compass this pitiful end
they pass through purgatory. They sac:
|rlfice seIf-respect, solid comfort and all The
sacred duties of domestic life in order ia
get an uncertain and very humble posi-
ton in that society which is called fash
ionable.
This is unworthy of people who have a
spark Of intellect 1t will, If it becomes
prevalent among US. be more disastrous
even than the war was. It will fasten
poverty upon us for successive generations
and make us set of social cheats and
humbugs.
If thoughtless boys and giddy misses
are allowed their way, they. will, of course.
keep away from the tasks of life and seek
only its pleasures: But they ought not
to be allowed to have their way. They
should be controlled. The boys should
be brought up with the idea that life has
its serious duties and responsibilities, and
that chief among them is the courage to
work; and the girls should be taught that
they cease to be the ornaments of domes-
tic life when they sacrifice everything to
fashion and empty show.
Real gertility is something higher and
nobler than mere fashion; and gentecl
poverty is far more respectable than vul-
gar snobbery that SO many weak minded
and white blooded people cultivate all their
lives long.
It will be an evil day for Virginia when
she becomes a prey to snobbery. The
high repute in which she has SO long been
held was the result of the solid virtues and
the true refinement of her men and wo-
men. Mere fashion had nothing to do
with it. Her position will be anything
but proud one when she has to point to
the puppets of fashion as her best claims
to consideration. Richmond Wing.