Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1883-01-17
LETTERS FROM THE PEOPLE.
"Mother Goose" tue PIasterer, The
Drayman and tue Car penter.
To fha Editors of the Anneal:

mother Goose,'' the PIasterer, The
Drayman and tue Car penter.
To the Editors of the Appeal:
Your valuable paper is daily visitor al
our kreside-or, rather, j should say,
nightly visitor, for it is only when the lamps
are lighted, and the seven brings us home"
the world without" have leisure to unfold its
moist pages, and, beginning with column No.
l, follow the APPEAL, as, wizard-like, it leads
us over land and sea.
Occasionally We find ourselves at variance
with The ideas set forth in your progressive
journal, but, in the main, the grand and
goodn old paper is on the side of right.
OF course do not pretend TO say that read
everything in the APPEAL. 1t would require
much larger mental capacity than L possess
to digest the daily bill OF fare it sets before
its readers; but wet, dresry evening, and
feeling of ennui combined, often drive Us to
resources that We dream not of under more
favorable circumstances.
These were the conditions under which,
having fnished the Polk sensation, shud-
dered over The Milwaukee horror, glanced
over the items devoted to the beautiful Mrs.
Langtry and the creed making Henry Ward
Beecher smil-d at the wit aired in the So
cal Parsgrsphs," L read in your issue of
January 18th the sketch in midland water
colors from the pen of "Mother Goose"
Alter reading perhaps three dozen lines /
mentally decided that she was fortunate in
her selection of non de plume. Let nae
quote paragraph for your dedication. 81
found myself uninlentionally staring into
"a window that belonged to little dingy
"brown cottage so unprepossessing in its ex
"terior that if | had been asked summarily
''to place its occupants l would have said
"plasterers or draymen or carpenters, or
''some of that sort of burden bearers, who
"are not permitted by the arbitrary condi-
"tions of their lot to be conscious of any
'thiuG but an anatomy which requires so
many pounds of nutriment and so many
"hours rest"
There is an air of freshness about this
statement of Smother Goose" that quite up
sets ones preconceived theories; the nairete,
not TO say chic, of it quite destroys ones
faith in those fine old lines of Bobbie Burns,
"a mans man for a. that"
l solemnly assure you, Messrs. Editors,
that up TO the good hour in which read of
"Mother Goose's" paddle through the mud,
had supposed that carpenters and Shat
sor" had the same makeup that the rest of
m ankind-"Mother Goose" included-had.
| L suppose that sort means those who have 10
give tremendously hard blows with their
hard hahds in the struggle for "nutriment."
Suppose We change old "Shylock's" words q
little and spply them: Hath he not eyes?
hath he mt hands, organs, dimensions,
senses, Affections, passions? fed with the same
1000! nurt Will the same weapons? subject
| 20 the same diseases, healed by the same
means, warmed ami cooled by the same win
| ter and summer as he Christian is? If you
prick us,do we not bhed? if you tickle III, do
We not laugh? if you poison us, do we not
die? and if you wrong ns, shall we not re-
vepge% After telling hov the window un.
deceived her, "Mother Goosep in true Charles
| Dickens tones, tells us of the Interior. which
was not the home of The workman. Ita very
simplicity and beauty and tidines forbid the
idea that it was the home of a Carpenter or
| any of Shat Sort"
Hard indeed must be the condition # the
laboring mans lot if he is to have no blight
fire, no cheerful home, no tidy wife with ell
| ing babes awaiting his return. He has not.
ing but an anatomy which requires as many
pounds OF nutriment and 30 many hours rest
Has Mother Goose" from her high altitude
80 far above anything of Shat Sort" evel
looked into the lives of some Of the most EN-
inent men the world has ever known, or ha,
she been so taken up with the aesthetic sid,
of life that che has had no time for the sterI
reality? Does she forget how FrankliI
worked at a primers case? how Stevenson
toiled in the darkened mines? how jane
Watt plodded ceaselessly until his great dis
covery made the world rich?
1t seems that all these we're conscious o
something outside of their own not-very
well-fed anatomy. Has she forgotten hov
James A. Garfield stood day after day at
carpenters bench, slowly adding to his Glen
der purse the means of supporting his wild
owed mother, and at the same time increas
ing the store of knowledge that by-and-b
was to place him among the foremost OF hi
time?
| When J. G. Holland played around hi
fathers work bench, handling the sharp
edged tools with awe, wondering how Ion,
4 time must elapse before he could becom
master Of the same trade, watching MS faith
er's delicate face as alterations of hope ans
fear played across it-both father and con
the boys subsequent career proving it-wer
actuated by the highest, holiest impulse
and aspirations OF which human nature /
capable.
am aware that Mother Goose" utter
the sentiments of very large class of pee
pie. II l we're called upon summarily +
place" her educational surroundings,
should say unhesitatingly that she wa
raised befo' the wah," when no man was
gentleman who did not own negroes ant
land, when a white man who worked wit
his hands was only tpoor white trash" sc
, ond in rank 10 the rich mans negroes
The papers may say that this class, whic
never learns and never forgets, is almost e1
tinci, but they are mistak Ii is here, an
many generations will come and 90 before
is eradicaied. 1t stands right across the va
OF any advancement socially or intellectually
in the South.
So long as lsboring men are classed wit
the beasts OF the field, needing only food an
rest, SO long will they shun, the South as if
were stricken with the plsgue. So long q
manual labor is considered disreputabl,
, men will exercise their wits TO get money b
/ extraordinary means.
Will Mother Goose" tell us what is TO be
come Of the young men of the country, all c
i whom cannot enter the so-c2lled learned prc
fessions? They cAnuot all become lawyer
. doctors and preachers; no more can the mos
/ Of them become merchants and editors. Tn
respectable class, those who are conscious O
, anything above food, raiment and sleep, TEL
i US there is no room for others; you must 2
. elsewhere. A man who has spark Of mar
, hood in him will hesitate before consigniu