The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1876-07-27
A Disquisition on the Hot Weather.

The Atlanta correspondent of the
Augusta Constitutionaiist treats his readers
to picture of the torrid weather in the
Gate City:
If this weather doesn't suit the most
fastidious salamander,' then the most fas-
tidious salamander can't be suited. It's
hot enough to melt brass door-plates and
cause them to run Sizing and sputtering
into the keyholes. It boils the mercury
in the perspiring thermometer until it
surges and seethes like an angry ocean.
Sweet milk is converted into buttermilk
by the sole heat of one sunbeam, and
butter is sold by the quart. Potatoes
when grabbed are found to be we'll
cooked, and eggs are boiled in the per-
spiration of the hen who laid them.
Ifyou want to squander your wealth
on chunk of ice the ice man hauls out
piece and weighs it; you want ten cents
worth and the piece calls for twenty-five
cents he simply pulls out his handker-
chief, wipes the oozing sweat away from
his classic brow, and by that time the
piece has melted down to ten cents worth.
You start out with eight pounds of solid
frozen water dangling from the end of
sharp string. By the time you have gone
a square you put the remainder of the ice
in your vest pocket as a souvenir of o
vanished dream and quietly fold up the
string for winter use. Sun umbrellas
wilt like so many cabbage leaves, and the
stifest of hats collapse and shrink away
as if sat down on by pile-driver. Shirt
collars stand up manfully until the wear
er geta down town, and then it fops over
and slides down his back to die. Nearly
every man carries safety.valve in his
shoe tops TO let out the perspiration that
condenses into steam in his pauts-legs.
The summer is on US. The summer
heat starts out on its ferocious war path
with the first crack of day, and about
noon the contending forces meet and the
strife is terrific. The gorgeous god of
day pulls off his shiny coat and warns to
his work. He sendeth his blisteripg rays
down upon the just and the unjust, upon
the pious sinner and the diabolically
wicked, upon the sweet Graded infant
and the mature old codger, upon the del
icate dimples of the feeble female and
the callous corpses Of the parboiled poll
tician. 1t fails to discriminate. It is as
lavish in its warmth and as careless ofits
distribution as whole Congress Of Civil
Rights bills. 1t grasps the woolen head
of the Senegambian, with the same vigor-
GUS vehemence that 'pervades the grip on.
misguided white trash. 1t irrigates the
red hot perspiration, and the steaming
sluices gush adown the melting calabash
and Websterian forehead alike.
And such awful heat!
It dcmoralizes man.
It thaws out that old store of wicked
cussedness that was laid by in the relig-
ious winter, and it comes sweltering to
the surface apparently brighter. r.for the
long rest. 1t stagnates trade, clogs the
wheels of industry and throws a hot
sweaty damper on enterprise. 1t melts
the peace-making oil that has been
thrown lovingly on troubled waters, and
it skips away in a tremor of delight whilst
the water is as troubled as before, al
though ice has been thrown into it by the
ton. This heat has settled down TO tho
solemn fact of being nuisance--a sort
of unconquerable fraud. We Atlantians
can't keep cool. Our ice factory is grind
ingaway night and day, freezing up Chat
tahoochee river, and there sSenator Jones'
(of Nevada) mammoth ice factory, and
again there's the Macon ice sent up here
By the car load, and yet we are forced to
sleep with nothing on save our NOUS
taches, and those who are not SO fortu-
nate as to possess moustaches must sleep
entirely nude! Great Caesar Every
sleeping :ar from Macon and Florida
brings up cargoes of fblood-sampling NOUS
quitos, and t won't be long before they
will take entire. possession of the town.
Now and then a few of those Brobdinag-
gian gallinippers waddle up here from
Savannah, and buzz about taking up the
capitol, and moving it to Milledgeviile,
but they generally quaff a sanguinary
cocktail and then an az recoir. ~.
Well, lack-a-dayl Things can't go on
this way long. All things have an end
ing, and it is to be devoutly wished that
this summer simmer down to Q freezing
point in order that we may draw on our
clothes. The rumor that there was only
q sheet of tissue paper between this place
and Tophet is unfounded. There isn't
room enough to get the paper between.
It's the most convenient place for the un-
repenting sinner to kick the ice water
bucket in you ever saw, because its so
near purgatory!