The tribune. [volume] (Beaufort, S.C.) 1874-1876, 1875-01-27
Those Odious Bills.

Ono Of the most inconvenient, il not
unpleasant features of the new year is
the bills Of the last, which come pouring
In, clamorous for settlement. AS the
yellow shower of bills increases to O
flood, says an exchange, we begin to
doubt as to our own supply of beef and
trousers for '75; with vehemence we
urge retrenchment at breakfast every
morning; cannot imagine what family
Like OURS can do with such an absurd
quantity Of milk wonder if copper shoes
would stand Toms wear go down street
haunted by nameless horrsr that things
may reach such q crisis that our usual
brand OF cigars will not be possible to
U.S.. There Is, too, the certainty that
each OF these ghosts might never have
had being, or might have been laid at
birth If we had 80 chosen. We could
have staid away from dozen balls and
parties, and suffered no damage in brain
or body life would have been possible
without that last proof before letter or
bit of cracked cloisonne enamel. If
there be any comfort in fellowship, we
may take it in knowing that from Maine
to California these yellow, lean spirits
are flying about with purpose almost as
vlrllent as the horrid winged things that
presage a pestilence. In inland towns
and country villages, people who care
nothing for ball or opera, to whom rare
prints and cracked pottery are no tempta-
tion, are wretched to-day over the little
extravagance of last July, the buggy
hired for half-day's holiday, when they
might have dug turnips, or the lawn
dress when q calico would have served.
How many girl, dependent on father
and brother, is shedding hot salt tears
Just now over these yearly bills, that
each seems savage taunt of fate at her
own inability How she racks her little
brain to find some way in which she may
earn one or two hundred a year How
many scrawny, hard-handed house
keeper ID poring over the green-grocer's g
little greasy book, staring at the awful
total and wondering where the potatoes
could have been pared closer or the
children have been. stinted in their
sorghum sirups Your great debts and
large expenditures are enemies to be met
! gallantly; but it is when incomes are
counted by the hundreds, when debts
are counted by the penny and the dollar.
that the juices and strength are worn
out of life. Money has its daily sting,
and seems then to bite like an adder and
carry death in its handling.
AS for the yellow ghosts, how are we
to make headway against them2 How
can we lay them by December, rs 2
Everybody-Le Grand Johns who owes
his hundred thousands, and little Jones
who is in debt to his grocer an unachiev-
able ten dcllars-knows the key to the
riddle. 1t is hard, rough, and disagree
able. The way to suspend debts-is to
suspend. The way not to owe for wines.
Is not to drink them. The way not to
owe for a coat is not to wear it. If we
cannot pay for meat, let us live on bread.
If we have not cash for butter, let us eat
our bread dry. Let us all sign round
robin to face the inevitable boldly in
every day of rs from January to Christ
mas. Then shall we in this last week of
the year arise like the lucky harvester
with rejoicing, bringing our full
sheaves with u.s."