The Opelousas journal. [volume] (Opelousas, La.) 1868-1878, 1874-12-04
The Bathroom.
From the New Orleans Times.l

Civilized communities rightly looh
with superior disdain upon the processes
by which the badly tutOred red mar
works up his feelings to a pitch that i'm,
pels him to enact deeds, which in COO.
blood even his barbarOus, crooked, di-
lapidated and profoundly latent con
science would not sanction. Walking
Buzzard and his brothers invoke the
magnetism of the war dance, environ
the stake and whirl about it with heastly
| capers, howl, slash the bark with knives
| and tOmahawks, and at last fill them
| selves up with a stock of spurious indig-
nation sufficient to carry them through a
| plan of bloody mischief. It's very shock
ing to refined and Christian people. 1t
is Justly suspected to be one of the de-
vices by which the Evil One operates on
unregenerate man to the confusion of
| the good.
But is it not worth while to consider
whether the principle of the war dance
has been wholly eliminated from civil
lied and Christian communities Is not
| the blatilerskite, with his rant, his noise,
his loud and usually lying assertion, as
| potent for mischief with IS as are the
]contortions Of Standing Buzzard with
his fellows? Certainly not, exclaims in
tlA I1nIII Sst1ETtf ; b&L iIi dLTFCI VIII Ett5I
endure a sharp test. Let any one quietly
sit down and recall the process by which
he has formed his opinions Of men
and things not directly and personally
| known to him. All, except perhaps, the
c0nstitutiOnally skeptical, will be sur
prised at the large percentage of belief
based simply on rumOr, clamOr, or simple
"damnable iteration" without known
origin or foundation. All the mad and
disastrous freaks known to history, and
history is fuller of mad freaks thar of
rational action, are due to the power of
the hlatherskite and his clamOr. OF
course we have q great contempt for
him dispise his superficial and densely
selfish nature and his narrow views 4;
our gorge rises when we note his street
corner defamation, or his strident in
science of remark in the street car.
Bnt in spite of all this nine-tenths of us
allow him to warp Our Judgment to a
degree ont of all proportion to our res
pect for him. He is lord of the primary,
and carries the caucus three times ont
of four, and we wrap the mantle af self
respect haughtily about us, and-vote
for him while we hate him.
AS to those of his assertions concern
ing which We have proof, we know that
he lies as to those concerning R";sic"A we
hare no proof, we usually believe him
and act upon them. OF course we r
often SURPRISED and indignant when we
find that mere fiumnlery has carried
away our judgement; we ought perhaps
to be more ashamed of it than we are.
The only true and safe theory il to
esehew the ranter, the shallow, selfish
and vindietive !" ~blatteroon," always and
on principle. He is the servant of pre-
iudice, the herald of clamor, and not to
he over nice abont it. the %forerunner of
the devil himself. Let him be marked
more carefully than heretofore, and let
civilized ma brand him as q n~uisanceto
be abated on every possible occasion.
BAD FARMING.-The Rural World
says: When we consider that less than
onp-third of the area of United States,
and less tila.a o fifth OF the entire domain
ofthe United tatesis snapped into farms. .
and, remember, of this farm area only
n%ne-fourth is titled or moved and
when We further reflect that the aver
age yield per acre could he doubled If
the many could he brought mp to the
plane OF the few, in the practice of inten-
sive eulture-tllen we begin to realize
whaf numbers our country is capable of
feeding and what waste Of toll and effort
Games from neglect of the economic
faughtb by the statistics of ~acien-
tihG agriculture. !