New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1878-10-12
THE MAN WITH A GRIEVANCE.

Every man, no matter how blessed
with health, competence and friend
ship, has troubles enough of his own
without being called upon to sympa-
thize with those of mere passing ac-
quaintances. And yet this is pre-.
cisely what is expected, and almost
demanded by the man with the
grievance. He stands upon the
street corners ,readyato waylay any
of his acquaintance who may be po-
lite enough to submit to being bored,
button-hOles him, and begins his
wearisome recital, Perhaps he is a
politician who has failed to get the
nomination he has been working for,
and then his unfortunate listener has
to hear all the tedious details of how
seventeen out of twenty COM
mitteemen had been positively
pledged to him. but Smith had
been bought and Jones influenced,
and how Brown and Black were
regular shirks," ETC., ad nauSeum.
Should this injured individual, who
is protean in his shape and may be
found in every class, belong to some
benevolent society, then his griev-
ance may be the lack of appreciation
bestowed upon his exertions in be-
half of suffering humanity-howh he
has lost sleep and expended money,
and given his personal attention,
etc, and yet failed to receive any
thing like his due in the way of graf
itude. Sometimes the grievance is
troublesome neighbors, sometimes
persistently dunning creditors, who
having waited so long for their dues
that the debtor has forgotten the
claim, are now most unkindly clam
oring for payment. Whatever the
grievance may be-whether bodily
ailment, the weather, the hard times
or the course of Providence-it is
usually some matter in which the
victimized listener is perfectly i'm
potent to afford relief; and can only
hum " and "ha," and be VERY
sorry" and relieve himself by in
ward profanity. For, if swearing
had never before existed, the man
with the grievance would have in
spired it.
There is, however, one thing worse,
and thatis-the woman with griev-
ance. She is not friend of yours,
nor even a friendly acquaintance in
need of some positive relief that any
man of ordinary humanity or benev-
olence would bestow if possible; she
may be perfect stranger who has
heard of your obliging disposition,
and would like to tell you just how
she is eircumstanced. Usually this
inopportune female is a widow with
a harsh landlord or delinquent board
ers, and although she is fifty years
of age, and having lived in the place
her whole life, ought to have some
friends or old acquaintance, yet she
comes to you a stranger, with her
plants and petitions. Sometimes
the wOman's grievance is long
standing claim of some kind against
the government. or a lawsuit, and
she wants nothing of you but to lis
ten to her, which you think a great
deal. At other times the trouble is
an undutiful son-in-law, upon whose
shortcomings she never wearies to
enlarge; but the burden of most fem
mime complainers is the annoyance
of servants. If the complainer is a
married woman her grievance may
perhape be her husband, in which
case, beware if you have any regard
for your own peace, of offering one
single word of sympathy for her or
of condemnation for him; such wo-
men are the weakest or the widest of
their sex; and in either case, who
ever listens to them does SO at peril.
This listening to persons with
grievances is one of the severest
social taxes man can be called
upon to pay; for every one has some
real friends who are entitled to his
sympathy, and no man can afford to
squander his compassion upon idle
whimperers. If these habitual COM
planners could only realize that they
commit wrong in inflicting their
triding woes upon Indifferent ac-
quaintances, sometimes by the dis
gust they cause, hardening the
hearts of their hearers against the
cry of real distress, perhaps they
might learn to restrain themselves,
and bear the inevitable in dignified
silence. Same might those who are
only beginning the habit, but for the
old stagers there is no hope. M
isances they are nuisances they win
remain. ,.,Nt p ..''s