The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1883-06-21
The Rag CARPET.

With the threatened eruption of the
rag carpet as kind of venerable sue
cessor to the genuine BOstOn-nade
Turkish rug, there comes a wall on the
part of the male humanity, and pro-
test on the part of all health-loving hu-
manity. a.# #
rise at this moment as a self-ap-
pointed representative of poor, down
trodden, long-suffering man. Already
lady friends are looking with ayaricious
and coVeteOus eyes on my spring suit,
and, in fancy, constructing a stripe of
navy blue, while some other man s
spring clothes are already spotted for
the 8 hit-or-miss' stripe of this time
honOred humbug.
1t seems to me that there is enough
Borrowing toll going on for nothing al
ready, enough of back-ache and deliri-
UNI, without tearing the shirt off a
mans back to sew into a big ball, and
then weave into rag carpet, made to
breed death and disease, with its per
spiratiOn and its modern drugstore
dyes.
The rug now commonly known as the
Turkish prayer-rug has a sad, worn
look, but it does not come up to the
rag carpet Ofthe dear old home. Around
it there clusters, perhaps, tradition or
an Oriental falsehood, but the rag car
pet of the dear old home, and rich in as
ISOLATION, is an heirloom that passes
down from generation to generation.
like the hOrse-blanket of forgotten years
or the rag-bag of the dear dead past.
Here is found the stripe of aIl-wool de-
laine that was worn by one who is now
in the golden hence, or stricken with
the Dakota fever, living In the SQUAT
ter's home. and there is the fragmentof
IInder-clothes prematurely jerked from
the back of the husband and father be
fore the silver of century had erept
into his hair. There is no question but
the dear old rag carpet,with poisonous
greens and sickly yellows and brindle
browns and doubtful blacks. is bic
thing 1t looks kind of modest and I'M
pretending, and yet speaks of the dead
past and smells of the antique and the
garnet. .s
1t represents the long months when
aching fingers first sewed the garments,
then the first dash of gravy on the front
breadth, the maddening crv, the wild
effort to efface it with benzine, the sor-
rowful defeat, the dusty grease spot
standing like pork-graYy plaque upon
the face of the past, the glad relinquish-
ment of the garment, the attack of the
rag carpet tiend upon it, the hurried
crash as it was torn into shreds and
sewn together, then the mad plunge of
the dust-pOwdered mass into the reek-
ing bath of Paris green or cOpperaS,
then the weaver's gentle racket. and at
last the pale, cOnsumptivc, freckled,
sickly panorama of outrageous color
ing, offending the eye, the nose, the
thorax and the larynX, to be trOdden
under feet of men, and to yield up its
precious dose of destroying poisons
from generation even unto generation.
1t is not a thing of beauty for it looks
like the cOlOred engraving of a morti-
fed lung. is not economical for the
same time devoted to knocking out the
brains offrOgs and collecting their hams
for the metropolitan market would yield
infinitely more, and it Is not worth much
as an heirloom, for within the same time
a mortgage may be placed upon theold
homestead which will pass down from
father to son, even to nations vet I'M
born, and attract more attention in-the
courts than All the rag. carpets that it
would require to span the broad span
gled dome of heaven.
| often wonder that Oscar Wilde. the
pale patron of the good, the true and
the beautiful, did not rise in his might
and knock the essential warp and fill
ing ont of the RAG. carpet Oscar did
not do right or he would have stood up
in his funny clothes and fought for re-
form at so much per fight While he
made fun of the Chicago Water Works,
a grateful public would have buried
him in cut flowers if, instead, he had
warped it to the rage rpet and the APP
preaching dude.-BiU Nge, IN Defrd5f
Free Press.