Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1881-04-20
POVERTY AND PATRIOTISM.
Bill Arp in the Atlanta COnsti.
tutiOn.

There is an old man writing in the
Country Gentleman and he goes back
to 1913 and says We had just such a
winter as this one-ffeezes and SHOWS
and floods until May, and scorching
drought all summer, and the farmers
made nothing but few nubbins and
peor people suffered and cattle died
from starvation, and he warns us, to
prepare for the worst. That's all very
well, and | am glad to perceive that
the farmers generally are doing their
best. Corn is crawling up to a dollar
a bushel and hay is $3.50, and meat is
on the rise, and we've got hardly any
seed in the ground and the harvest
will be late, but still there is no use in
borrowing trouble. Maybe it won't
come. A few yearr ago the people in
Kansas and Missouri thought they
were ruined, for the grasshoppers
came along aud eat up their growing
crops and didn't leave a green thing
upon the face of the eartn, but the
farmers plowed up, planted again and
the season hit the late crop
Just right and they had an
abundant harvest. There is a
power of elasticity about human
nature. It's astonishing how readily
we accommodate ourselves to cir
cumstances. If we prosper and make
money we spend it according, and if
we have bad luck we haul in and
pinch ourselves and scufle through
without suffering to extr entity. Most
of our wants are fanciful and magma
~ anyhow. The late war taught us a
lesson about that, and you cant scare
the old people who went through it
very much. The soldiers had an aw-
full time, but it was a little awfuller
on the poor families who stayed at
home and had to feed and clothe a
passel of helpless children. There
amt much fun in doing without shoes,
and hats, and -four, and meat, and
sugar, and boiling down salt out of.
smoke-heuse dirt and making coffee
out Of sweet potatoes and rye, and
sweetening it with sorghum. | re.
member when corn was a hundred
dollars a bushel and cotton cards
without handles or backs were worth
a hundred dollars a pair, and there
wasn't but one milk cow in u coun-
ty, and / bought her for four thou
sand dollars, for there was a baby on
hand and no milk where it ought to
be, and the little thing had liked
to have persisted to death, in the
name of the Lord. Those we're
hard times, sure enough, and when
| think of EN- it seems like a sin
for anybody to grumble or complain
about anything now. Good health and
peace is all ! ask for the balance of
my suhlunary life, and if we can teach
our children the same philosophy, it's
schooling enough to keep EN- content
ed and happy. But still when | read
about them fellers up yonder abusing
our people for their patriotism, and
calling it treason, it sorter democrat
ICES my humanity, and | catch myself
wishing some great trouble would
overtake 'em for a little while, just to
let EN- feel what suffering and trouble
is. The everlasting v~agabonds are not
satisfied with abusing us at home. but
they rig up their hypocritical shows
and bring 'em down here and insult us
before our faces and make our people
pay to see it. Here's "Uncle Toms
a cruising around upon wheels
with a big old houn' dog a following
and they picture slavery as an
awful brutality, and are trying to teach
our children a lie and make EN- be-
lieve their fathers were ~unfeeling mon
sters in the shape of men, and there's
fools enough living to p~atronize
such a thing and pay the impudent
slanderers for the privilege OF being
and insulted. Them show
are bad eggs, and I'm glad the
people of Griffin throwed bad eggs at
EN-. It did me good all over when l
read about it. They've got sense and
indignation, and if ever l moye any.
it will be to Griffin. Ifslavery
had have been all that Mrs. Stowe
wrote about it, il would been amazing
i~mpudence for them to say lets take
the looking glass down south Snd let
EN- look in and see themselves, and
make EN- pay for it," but what kind of
unblushihg ~effrontery is it when they
mould the mirror in a twist and show
US something that looks like the devil
lncarnate and say it is us and make us
pay to see it. Where is Newt Tum-
lin? Where is John Branson? Where
is General Tombs? Is there nobody
rise up and use language and say
something appropriate? nurrah for
Three cheers for Griffin.
When she wants any more eggs let her
draw on me and III make the hens
spile EN- for a purpose.