The Osceola times., 1882-01-28
The Rural Population.

1t has become quite the fashion for
city-reared people to sneer at those
who live in the country. We do not
accuse them of being ill-natured
about it, they have simply fallen into
the habit.
Now, while we must admit that
there are many faults and follies a
bout the dwellers in country plac es,
faults which ridicule must seize upon
if one has the slightest sense of the
ludicrous, it must remain an undis-
puted fact that the "rural popula-
ton are the bone and sinew of the
country.
They raise our fruit, and cereals.
aud vegetables. They furnish our
tables with its choicest viands; the
labor of their honest hands gives US
many Of theluxuries we SO much
prize. But this is not all. And it
is not the most From whence are
the ranks of our business men re-
cruitcd? Where do the smartcst
boys and prettiest girls come from:
From the country.
Who was George Washington?
\ farmers boy. Where were the
majority of our chief magistrates
reared: In the country, among the
" rural population. " From whence
came the being among men, who at
single dash of his pen, released
from ignoble bondage the souls of
three MILLIONS of human beings:
From the country.
From whence came the greatest
intellect America has ever known
from what portion of the coupt,r ~
the world by his majesty and power?
From New Hampshire, the barren
little State from whose reluctant soil
the farmer wrings a scanty subsis-
tance-from New Hampshire, where,
as some brilliant thinker has said
God has hung out his sign upon the
mountain cliffs to show that here He
makes men.
And Horace Greeley, the man
who at one time swaycd his political
party as no other man could over
sway it-the statesman and phiian-
thropist he, too, was reared among
the New Hampshire hills, and was
born in the home of honest poverty.
And so we might go on indefinite
", with the list of illustrious names
whose owners sprung from the "ru-
raj population, whose fathers were
farmers, whose mothers were hard
workers, and who knew the meaning
Of the expression, bearing the bur
den and the heat of the day. "
As we were whirled along in the
ears the other day through the coun-
try, an aged farmer was gathering
his corn by the side of the railway.
He had on patched frock, and his
were well fringed and
ventilated by the process of long
wear.
He stopped his labors to look at
the train. a young, kid-gloved
swell from the city, remarked to his
fair young lady companion:
"Aw--no wonder Darwin believes
man descended from the monkey!"
And then they all-there were
half dozen in the party-laughed,
and the young swell felt himself "A
wit at once.
And yet that old countryman, as
we happened to know, was the faith
or of one of our most honored Unit |
ed States Senators, and has moro |
braine in his little finger than the |
Young swell could muster, if he laid |
bare his whole anatomy
Give the "rural population " their
due, Don't sncer at a man because
he came from the country. God !
made the country, and man made
the town, and mans work loses by
comparison. rs
All people cannot live in the city
all people cannot live in the coun-
try, and vulgarity and ill-breeding
are the same, whether they be found
in the humble fsrm-housc, or the
brown-stone front, and we have met
them in both places.
And though we claim the privilege
of ridiculing whatever we See amiss
in our country friends, inst as we do
in regard to our city friends, we
honor thc-l, a. class, aud think
highly of the rural population.
- Ex.