Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1882-02-23

stamps used tor the sale of perfumery
or hair powder, he was hung for it
The blood Of q man or woman convict
ed OF capital offence was attainted-
that is. was so corrupted by fiction o
law that he could not transmit his
property to his heirs. So. for these one
hundred and sixty capital offences, =
most of them of course being of petty
natura,-the parties convicted were not
only hung, but their children were sent
adrift in the world paupers, and the
goods and the lands Of the offender were
forfeited and went to the king. Not
only this, but punishment was infiict-
Cd In those times In the most barbarous
modes. Men and women were quar-
tered; were whipped; were put in the
pillory and stocks; were ducked; were
put to the severest torture to extort
confessions from them; were stripped,
tied to carts tail and mercilessly
whipped; were burnt at the stake.
I he prize ring, known as the wager of
battle, was established by law and pre-
sided over by grave Judges in their
gowns, in which questions Of law and
the rights of men and the issues of life
and death were determined under the
solemn sanctions of an act of Parlia-
ment. and the right was ,j,Itlicidiiy de-
clared by these grave Judges to be al
ways on the side of the combatant W no
had the toughest hide and could endure
for the longest time the heaviest pound
ing. ask, in all candor, if a teav edu-
Gated men perfect civilization and ele-
saSe mankind, why is it the great men
of the 18th century did not lift the
masses out of superstition Bnd barbar-
ism? Nay, [ may ask why they did
not lift themselves up-for they were
all believers in witchcraft and sane
toned the atrocities ema mating from
the courts at that time. Bacon could
discourse learnedly about the advance
ment of learning aud philosophy, and
even while he wrote the Nov,kza Or
ganuDs, he put poor old Peachive to the
torture because he would not confess he
had written a sermon which was never
in which the honest old par
son denied that kings derived their
right to govern the people from God,
and wrote to his royal master. James l.,
that the old servant Of God would not
confess and he verify believed he aOds
posed of q dumb deVit. So with the
rest-James I. and his learned trans
lators of the Bible, Taylor, Hale, Dry
den, Newton. They all drank deep of
the fountain of learning, but darkness
brooded like night over the people. In
their day and age it was thought impru-
dent to allow more than twenty print
ers to be employed at ono time in the
raeeSu, and an act of Parliament was
raxS limiting them to that number
ASSI1sAl lShit5 WAS pat over the PE<as, and;
nothing could be print ted except what
the king approved. Why this supersti-
tion, this bar rbarism, this restraint of h u
human thought, this curtailment of the
liberty Of conscience? They existed in
spite the learning of the few. Do we not
conclude correctly. then, when we con-
clude that they existed simply because
the MASSES were stepped in ignorance
and hung like an incubus upon the ed
ucated and the universities? At that
time the poorer classes were treated as
the mud-sills of society-as machines
to be used like SO many beasts of bur-
den. The latin civilization has reversed
this order of things. The philosophy
of to-day is that, in order to reach the
highest point for society, we must ele-
vate the Whole fabric. At one time
the city of Chicago was found to be too
low, and it was thought desirable to
elevate the honses. How did they do
this? BY ropes and tackles and by
lifting from the tepes of the houses?
No. But jack-screws were placed un-
der the foundations and the whole mass
was lifted together from the bottom.
So it is with society. To civiliZe and
elevate it, yeu must not lift from the
top as they did in the 18th century,
but from the bottom as we do in the
last quarter of the 18th century. The
Jack screws of education must be put
under the lowest classes in society and
the whole raised together from the bot
tom. The rapid progress we have made
even within our own memories amaze
US. What an immense shove to the
front has man received in the last
twenty-five years! What is the cause
Of this? The education of the masses.
As they move up, 80 all above move
up also. All under the present regime
10 upward and onward. And can any
man proximately tell what the latent
and uudeveloped in man will yet &C
complish for us? Indeed, we often hear
men say that while we
are developing the brain-pssoer,w we are
the nsordt forces of society,
and that the condition of society is not
upon the whole as favorable to-day as
it has been in the past. SO in certain
class of newspapers we frequently see
minds of such are gangrened by preju
lice or are not well informed, and are
narrow, contracted. Like the Flathead
Indians, they have permitted prejudice
% prey npon their mental faculties un-
i'll they are warped cut of shape and
are One-sided.
I could tell you of the happy days
,pe,lt in Arcadia Valley thirty years |,
.go. l have hunted squirrels and
pigeons and turkeys in a deep forest
vhere Ironton now stands. And shall |
exlaiul: "Oh! the glorious good old
laws of 1850 are gone, and gone forever,
,ever to returnv' Tie memory of the
,ast is indeed sweet and mournful to the
eul, and I would net part with the
eminiscences Of the past for any earth
v consideration, but does that prove
hat the wsrld is worse now than it
vas when I was boy? No. Two
hings contribute to make US think the
resent is worse than the past and tear
hat man is on the down incline and is
in his moral forces. One
} we are never satisfied with the pres
mt and are always looking with hope
o the future aud with tender regrets
NON tho mast Man is alVayS about