The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1875-04-29
The Spelling Mania.

and variety. If it cannot have healthy agita-
ton, morbid exhilaration will be entertained
with an avidity almost frenzied, and sometimes
ridiculous. When these waves of disturbance
flow over whole continent, like epizooty or
yellow fever, there is very little hope of stop
ping their onset by any known agency. They
have to exhaust their hidden forces, before re.
action can take place. 1t is within the memo
ry of living men how fortunes were to have
been made by planting mulberry trees and
raising slk-worms and how few are the per-
sons who escaped the Chicken fever" The
writer of this blushingly confesses that his
days and nights were filled with mingled hopes
and fears on the fowl question. The books he
read on the subject of Brahma Pootras would
fill library. The torture he experienced in
the morning when the roosters did not crow
was enough to condone multitude of sins,
The wretchedness he inflicted upon hens and
pullets, by experiments for their welfare, passes
utterance. The death of promising chick
was signal for general mourning, and when
the predacious freedmen despoiled the roost,
"chaos and old night" had come again. Living
in the country at the time, while engaged du-
ring the week in the city, it was e1asperation
to leave the beloved feathered tribes; it was
rapture TO behold them once more. When we
gaze backward and think Of that season Of
mania, which rufded so many others besides
ourselves, it is theme for wonder, shame and
boisterous laughter. Every man has his day
of exquisite tomfooery, like the measles and
when he gets bravely over it, the satisfaction
remains of witnessing the curious performances
of others, just as the knowing ones of the
'Knights of Malta" had their reconlpense in
assisting at the initiation of fresh victims to an
ungovernable .furore
Just now there is spelling mania. How it
arose no one can tell. Some people say the
publishers of dictionaries and primers, finding
the book trade dull, hit upon this ingenious
Be this as it may, the photographed craze is
on the grand rounds and can only stop its
march from frozen Maine when it shall have
been drowned in the tepid Gulf or the Peaceful
Sea. The people of Augusta are not easily or
quickly caught by these revolutionary proceed
| ings but they have been inocula;ed at last
| When a man first wakes in the morning, his
little girl or boy has some villainous word for
his investigation, and woe to him if he should
20 to pieces upon it, 1t is sad thing to fall
IN the estimation of your progeny, but there is
"slice of the day of Judgment" in the re-
mark of babe and sucking that "papa isn't
as smart as he pretends to be, and had better
20 back to school," And then the wife Of ycc"r
bosom, morning paper in hand Instead of
sending your coffee cup promptly, piles you
with Jaw breakers which you have coolly, and
deliberately determined to ignore. Without
the stimulus of the matutinal beverage, you
slip up on word, and then have to endure the
disparaging comment that "a man who aspires
to teach others had better teach himself"
Abashed, cowed down, furious, the unhappy
mortal rushes from his home; dares not walk
~ Gov FOO & for rio
the street corners and bundles desperately
into a street car But it is out of the frying
pan into the fire. PoLYsYLLABICUs PoLYGLoT,
who "never was stumped yet on word to spell,
and can take the conceit out of any so-caled
scholar" is, spider-like, waiting for his prey
He fixes US with his stony stare, he devours us
with his malignant grim he makes hash of us
with his carefully prepared knives and forks of
conundrums. With painful sense of discom-
fture, we quit that car at the first opportunity
and hy rather than walk to the Post Office
The fends of the spelling book are gathered
there in force, like the internal host described
by John Milton. Every diabolical one of them
has word ready for you, and taunt at the
end of each word like the sting in a hornets
tail. PIunging franticalfy through the crowd
and landing in your Office, you reach what is
fondly hoped to be refuge, an asylum, a snug
harbor, Sabbath, cosy nook, an alter of
protection, 3 calm amid the storm, an oasis in
the desert. But it is nothing of the sort. 1t
is bowling pandemonium. The book-keeper,
with Satanic leer, bids you good morning,
and then proceeds to test your mental integri-
ty with some seven-leagued monstrosity which
some other disciple of Webster or Worcester had
previously slaughtered him with. The clerk
has list of verbal pets as long as grocery
ND ho
much as a matador waves his red flag in the
eyes of Spanish bull. How can man per-
form his daily duties, while these human gnats,
gad-hies and mosquitoes buzz and bite him
into q condition bordering on lunacy? No
peace at home and no tranquility abroad
what is life worth thus poisoned and blasted
If we were japanese, we should commit the
"happy dispatch" and let out our hot troubles
by disembowelment. If we were Turk and
believed that our mission in the other world
was to live in Mohammed's Paradise, which is
fenced round with black-eyed houries, who
dare not trespass upon the thrilling repose of
the masculine heaven, we should bid adieu to
the intolerabe prosecutions of this mundane
sphere and seek shore beyond, to which no
smelling demon shall ever enter unless his SINS
be purged and burned away. But, being nelth-
er japanese nor Turk, but very ordinary olt
of American and Christian clay, we have to
remain here on this iron earth, bound to
wheel of fire or martyred on gridiron which
scorches but does not kill Our only hope is
that reaction against the present, craze Will
come with warm weather and cooling orlhks'
II it. shall not come at that time, we care not
what other woe betides, since nothing can ex-
ceed the curse that now strides gigantically and
with Juggernaut remorselessness over this usu-
ally quiet and we'll behaved, but now distracted
and miserable town.-Augusta Consttut'onahst.
- The fool-kiler should be let loose at once
among the young ladies of New York. 1t is
reported, on the most undoub:ed authority,
that a number of young women have formed
club for the purpose of clarifying the
charms of a nOpular YOUNG actor. whose per-