The Ouachita telegraph. [volume] (Monroe, La.) 1865-1889, 1877-05-18
FLUSH. TIMES.
from the Courier-Journal.l

CFrom the CONFECTIONERY
Flush times are CHEEKY times, and
the better days are breaking on us.
We have had a waste of muscle and
brain and energy in this land of ours
for some years past, and the waste
power that has gone by the mill is past
computation Good capacities have
been lost and ruined by inactiou and
the evil habits that wait on idleness.
It has been period of dollar shirts,
dickey-fronts and paper collars, and
there seems to be a chance now for
honest shirt bosoms and new suits.
Your idle man naturally gravitates
toward beer saloon, and Il glass OF
Dock and a chance cigar become events
III his life. Neat dress and decency are
.ubOrdinated to a state of inebriety ana
the pleasures of a hummer existence.
A man without employment soon gets
20 look on himself as u man without a
fair chance in life, and when he be-
comes convinced OF this and loses his
grip, after a short peroid of damning
all political and social institutions, he
ia ready to accept his fate, to drop out
Of old associations, and go to the devil
in the society ofall the other poor dogs
in the land, some of whom will go there
in the best of times.
OuAOcSlAOAoOAy udlu Vl"S9S AuS
miserable state of affairs brought about
by the old system of Radical nlisrule,
mad lowered tho morality of the coun-
try. There are thefts and murders and
Ieductions when people are turned
drift and there is no money or work
going. Hard times uislnregrate
ciety. Families fail apart. Wives
no longer cling TO their husbands. The
joke doesn't go round; the lovers don't
walk in the twilight and under the
shade trees in the same honest, old
fashioned and always true-love style.
Friendship is as bad Off at the edges
and has to be patched up in cunning
ways. People, once companionable
and agreeable enough, get to be in
tolerable nuisances from the habit of
borrowing odd quarters. Every man
is interested in his neighbours trousers.
Even the stranger within your gates,
or on the streets, it the seat of his
trousers is out becomes at once an
object of interest, and when, after
| many days of solicitude on the subject,
one perceives that the party in question
has a new covering, the relief is gener-
al throughout the community. Human
selfishness never goes so far that it is
Indifferent to general decency. And
yet, if these hard times had been kept
up under the Radical misrule, we
would have been a nation without Il
whole pair OF trousers between us.
Isn't this sufficient cause for illumi-
nation? The man with trousers whole
and fancy free rather enjoys having a
calcium light thrown on him. If he has
given up his beer-drinking,is making
an honest living, and has the health in
him that work gives, he is q proutler
man, better citizen, and as good pa
triot as you should want to find.
What time has Il man to be agreeable
to his fellow-men Zone of his first duties
to society, if his mind is ever occupied
with the subterfuges of poverty if he is
in state of alarm at every wind which
may reveal his poverty; if he has to be
a liar anti hypocrite to maintain a false
decency, or to keep himself from starv-
| ing?
In short, without pursuing the sub
| ject, hard times undermine the honesty
Of the best of people. A gentleman in
distress becomes pitiable as we'll rs
] dangerous-as a scientific borrower.
| And in considering him we leave out
If account watch-peddlers, and all the
various tradesfolk who do business in
| the ranks of the povety-stricken
Addison describes DIR. Arne, once !.
man of influence, who used to encum-
Der the seats of the park, dressed con a
! sultry day with loose great coat and
Il nuff, with long campaign wig out
of curl and further adorned by pair
of black carriers bucl<led under the
knee" He closed his tedious harangues
by the usual Importantly for the loan
Of half-a.crown. The great essayist
adds: 'In compassion to so needy a
statesman, and to dissipate the confu-
sion I found he was in, L told him, il
he pleased, / would give five shillings
to receive five pounds of him when
the Grand Turk was driven out of Con-
stantinople." Let us hope that our
| impecuuious friends will share in the
general prosperity which seems to b..
at hand, ana which Is not altogether
dependent on the dispossession OF Con-
stantinople of the Grand Turk. Good
Times, come again, and then we will
regain specie basis to the country
and sound bottoms to trousers.
POKPOlSES INDICATED.