Martinsburg weekly independent. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1873-1875, 1875-01-09
Gut this Dat and Paste id i'm
Your Hat.
tFrom the Baltimore American.)

day of the year As heads are raise
ed from the pillow, the first
thought that comes in with the
morning light, is of the inevitable
approach of the hour for the settle
ment of the debts that have been
accumulatlng for months back to
rise up in judgment and demand
satisfaction now. Upon the feast
ing and merrymaking of Christ
mas they have obtruded them
selves and caused a halt in the
revelry, and soured the taste of the
turkey and The pudding. When
the world was some few centuries
younger than it is now, the wise
old pagans who set our fashion OF
observing Christmas, placed a skel-
eton ahtheir banqueting table to
remind the guests that they were
mortal. Roses might crown its
awful head, and a grim smile seem
to play upon the fieshless cheeks
and Turk in the eyeless sockets, but
the presence was still u check upon
the saturnalia that would not
not be smothered with flowers or
drowned in wine.
In our Christian times the spec
treat the holiday festivities is the
ghast of every unpaid-for purchase
for perhaps the whole year.
There has been an atteuupt to for
get them in the excitement of the
moment, attempts to Danish them
from thought and memory, COM
forting ourselves, it may be, with
fiattering JUNCTION that the day of
account was yet distant, or that
something might turn up mean
while to set things straight and
let us go on our way rejoicing /;
but at last the unlucky day has
come, the postman is handing in
the yellow envelopes at every
round, the sum total is appalling,
and the pocket book is empty, and
the balance at bank wofully small.
Retrospection only makes the
matter worse. The debtor remem-
bers how he a year ago made all
sorts of promises, determined to
cut off expenses, buy nothing that
he could not pay the cash down
for, ask no credit and give none,
and recalls, with sardonic pleasure
at condemning himself of idiocy,
that these sensible resolutions did
not last out the month of January;
that ere thirty days went by he
allowed himself to be tempted in
to fresh extravagancies, and COM
menced to accumulate another bill
for January, 1875.
1t was so easy to tell the shop
keeper, the milliner, &C. to send
home this or that article that fit so
nicely on the parlor table; the set
of furniture that was wanted for
the hall or chamber seemed so
cheap; the parties at which our
friends gathered were so alluring,
and the silks and satins and furs
that miss and madame went in
debt for, set them off so charming
ly, and SO raised them in the esti-
nation of our neighbors-all these
mischieyous brides TO the casting
away of good resolution, dethroned
the better judgments and brought
the Nemesis of settlement day.
Now comes the wish that dealers
had not been so accommodating !;
that they had not tempted us with
the delicate fiattery of long credit,
when the most wholesome thing
they could have done would have
been to open the door and shown
us the street when we approached
them with no money in our peck
cts. Truly, the gods have made
OF our pleasant vices whips where
with 10 scourge us.
Well, there is nothing to be
done now but to face the inevita-
BILE. The little surplus of green
backs fades into nothingness COM
pared with the gap to be filled, and
the things that.are owed for, re-
proach US for their very existence.
We think how easily we could
have done without them, and wish
them back again on the shelves,
or in the WarerOOms of the store
keeper. The dyspepsia and head
aches born of holiday frolics are of
themselves enough to worry the
mindsand depress the spirits; but
with this one torment comes the
ether and worse destroyer Of peace
and content in the shape of bills
and creditors. 1t is hard oven o
extract any comfort from the fact
that your fellow sufferers are le-
gion, or that the very man who
asks you to square up his account
has his own purauers on his track,
JUS as
--" Naturalists observe a Il ca
Has smaller heas that on him prey;
And these have smaller still to bite 'em
And so proc aed ad infnitum."
Retrenchment will be ino cry at
the family breakfast table, agaia
NJ lippar and tbf, tnni,. nF ,,,ouo,,