Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1880-12-16

Ed Ronssfor-

Winter has sent In much earlier than
usual in this latitude, and, what with
frost and snow, we have had several
weeks of good solid Christmas weather.
Farmers have, as yet, pulled but lit
tie corn, though the acreage was small
and the crop light; but the snow and SO
much threshing has kept them back.
Hands are very scarce, though wag-
es are down at low figure, 80 those
who have work to do swap help round
with their neighbors. Few farmers
here bire, except for crowd or pinch,
and good hands do not like to be pushed
and then set adrift; while for laborers
who have families. it is almost impossi-
BILE to find a house to live in.
The steam thresher has nearly driven
out the horsepower here this season;
and few who employed steam machines
will care to have anything to do with
horse-powers again. A good separator
with 2s-inch cylinder, driven by tea
or twelve horsepower engine, will
til resh six or eight hundred bushels a
day, and burn about twenty bushels of
coal, which the owner of the grain finds,
and which costs here five and six cents
a bushei at the bank. The danger of
fire, on account Of patent spark-arrest-
ers used in the smoke-stacks, amounts
to nothing; aud the danger of explosion
is the only risk of account. have
helped . great deal with one thresher
since harvest that 36-inch cylinder and
14-horse-powere engine, and which US
ualIy carried from one hundred to one
hundred aud twenty pounds Of steam.
Lately employed 2S-inch cylinder
with q 10-horse-power engine that did
as much and as good work with from
sixty to eighty pounds Of steam, and
burned from five to ten bushels less
coal per day. A cold, windy day re-
quires more fuel, as the boilers are not
jacketted.
If coal was not 80 high with you,
would Recommend your tn reshergto get
small steam machines, but except with
plenty of the best seasoned wood it
would b bard u Keep 1 wotking-head
| in such small boilers.
The eIeclIon passed off very quietly
here, aud our county went Democratic;
but Democracy Isl under par on ac-
count OF he general result; and most of
the local leaders seem to have come TO
Ben Hills conclusion that q new name
and some live issues are in order.
Heaven knows there are live issues
enough if they were spsung. The Re
publican party abolished cbattel slav-
cry, and now let The Democratic party
take the front aud purge lis past record
on the slavery question 1v abolishing
social slavery.
Considering the newness OF the coup-
Try, laodlordism is doing as great harm
in Illinois as in Ireland. IT is O curse
because it is wrong, in every country.
Rent is the foundation OF usury; and by
the recognition of usury the law pro-
vides way for men to get q living,
and more than living, without earn
ing 1t. 1t is the black devil that lies at
the bottom Of this strife to get on in the
world, and poisons our civilization. The
number Of papers that expose our pres
ent baieful customs and social regula-
tious is increasing; but the trouble is
that when they prescribe remedies for
this condition of things, they tend to-
ward Socialism. The Socialism Of Las
sale and Karl Marx is not the monster
its opponents would have us believe it
to be; hut it is not Democracy. Recog-
nizing the fact that primitive and nat
ural government began with patriar-
ct,y. it proposes to perfect government
by making the State father as well as
archon. The State is to own all prop
erty, TO give all employment and to
compel all to labor i'm some field Of prac-
tical usefulness. The administration Of
affairs in such State would necessari-
ly require the division and subdivision
of its business into many departments
or branches, SO that it would inevitably
become vast complicated bureauocra-
cy, with central head or executive-l
very far from what De-
mocracy ought to be. Our present
are at one extreme, Social |
ism is at the other-both make funda-
mental and fatal mistake at the same |
point; and though going in opposite di-
rections, they circle the sphere and
meet in plutocracy, the rule of the rich.
We may consider all economical Ques-
tions now in dispute, as the unknown
quantities in q single equation, and
whether we choose to eliminate, to
or to substitute, one method
will solve them all. Though the prim-
Tive form Of government was patri-
archal, the masses have long passed
their political minority and We cam
not transfer the partriarchy to the
state and make the people It's minor
children. We must go back to the
nOint where the fundamental nis |