The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1875-02-25


he is poor, desolatc old bachelor, and the late
cold snap has nearly done for him. A wretch
cd man, with matted beard and tangled hair
and general seediness, had sat down with sud-
den violence on the dragged edge" Of an ice
encrusted curbing, and this gentle admonition
of the noble ''husband and father" fell as the
soft dew of pity and charity ON the exhuberant
merriment Of the bright young boy that walkei
by his side an amused witness OF the occur
renee. That careful parent was right, We
have, and all ought to have, nothing but COM
miseration and sympathy for this forlorn and
hapless class. Few know the life history of
many of them, and we are sorry for it, for what
IN approved textbook it would make, if writ
ten out, for our modern sabbath schools, Or
Christian Associations.
Poor old man, with no sphere claiming him.
we find him, as it conscious of the fact, doni-
ciled near the roof, suspended between heaven
and earth, and to this poor abode, this terra in
cogaita, none but his physician, his washerwom-
an and personal attendant ever seek or gain adj
mittance. He scales six fights ct stairs to
reach it and he scores each step with an cath,
and reaches tho summit anvclopel in a thick
atmosphere of sulphurous eloquenee. Who
knows his heart history. Nobody but . physiol-
ogist and he will tell you tsthat his heart is
hollow muscle, composed of circular fibres sub
divided into auricles and ventrecles with inter-
communicating valves, and this organ, by
regular and uniform number of contractions
and expansions to the minute, sends the yitali-
zing blood through his entire structure. This
is all that IS expected of it in his case: and all
that is required or performed. But, alas, in a
short time the walls lose their normal con-
tractility and he has, as the DOCTORS tell him,
"fatty degeneration The old force pump
won't work free any longer, the circulation
fails, the old bachelors feet get cold and his
shoes and yarn mittens, and swears at the stove
and Kanawha coal, and seeks to augment COM
bustion by Clemmer and Bumgardner.
Then, after a while he gets worse and con-
sumes more coal and Clemmer, and the Doctors
come and listen at his chest and thump on his
ribs, and tell him his symptoms are still unfa-
vorable. They 60 out and sit round in circle
and white sticks and say to each other in .
| calm sort Of way, that there are sevident indi-
cations of an increased proliferation Of adipose
cells, and : corresponding diminution of mus
cular ,Jibrili'' and they 60 back to tell him So
He says it is cursed hard that all the 'prolifera-
tion'' in which he has been permitted morally
and legitimately I'd take a hand, has feferenee
to the destruction Of his cardiac integrity, and
then he fingers on while with no touch Of
feminine fingers to seothe his pain or voice of
| wonian's SYMPATHY to make music in his ears,
! until at last, with a muttered demand for
more coal and Clemnler, he turns YEARLY to
the wall and breathes out his aimless existence.
His servant and his washer-woman come and
they 10 with gentle hands their last sad offices
for the attic lodger, and they say in low and
reverential whisper, She was nice man sure,
but powerful spiteful about de fire and knows
he's gone where he won't need no stove now.''
Maybe this homely culogy is true and the poor,
shIvering, lonely celbate has gone over into
that land OF perpetual summer, that region OF
perennial heat where equatorial SHOWS never
fall and where the insuficiency of registers
snail inconvenience him no more. Oh, no, we
Will hONC1 laugh al via bachelors. Let them De
irascible and impulsive; no harrassed and weary
wife receives the days accumulation of vexation
and petty annoyance in harsh words and pee
| wish answers. Let them loaf in your room and
spit squarely on the hot stove; soon the accus-
toned chair will be vacant and the wonted fl,-
migatlon but forgotten thing of the past
With them go all their virtues and vices as well.
They leave behind no menientoes. They per-
petuate neither their names nor their peculiari-
ties and when the scrubbing-b broom and paint
brush have effaced the last imprints of their
lives-the world moves on with nothing to re-
call them, save the cleaning wilderness OF the
head-board that stands as silent watcher o,c
their forgotten dust,
WIN. F, Krebs, Wholesale and retail dealer in
tobaccos and cigars, is prepared to furnish the
trade with the choicest selections in his line at
the lowest prices, feb 1886
! Leave grammar alone, Bennett. You trench
upon Drinkard's exclusive domain: