The Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1877-1885, 1883-06-23
THE RAGCARPET.

Win the threatened eruption OF the rag
carpet as kind of venerable successor to
the genuine Boston-made Turkish rug,
there comes wall on the part of the
male portion of humanity, and protest
on the part of all health -loving humanity.
l rise at this moment as the self APP
pointed representative of poor, down
trodden, and long suffering man. Already
the lady friends are looking with avarici-
Gus and covetous eyes on my spring suit,
constructing a stripe of navy blue, while
some other mans spring cloths are already
spotted for the "hit-or miss" stripe of this
e-honored humbug.
1t does seem to me that there is enough
sorrowing toll going fof nothing already,
enough of backache and delirium, with
out tearing the shirts off a mans back to
sew into big ball, and then weave it into
a rag carpet, made to breed death and
disease, with its prehistoric perspTation
and its modern drug 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
of the dear old home. Around it there
clusters, perhaps, tradition or an Orien-
tai falsehood, but the rag carpet Of the
dear old home, and rich in association, is
an heirloom that passes down from gen
Grafton to generation, like the horse blan-
ket OF forgotten years or the rag-baby OF
the dear dead past Here Is found the
stripe of Atwood delaine that was worn
by one who is now in the golden fleece
Or stricken with the Dakota fever, living
in the squatters home; and there is the
fragment of underclothes prematurlyjerk-
ed from the back of the husband and ia
Their before the silver of century had
crept into his hair There is no question
but the dear old rag carpets, with poison
Gus green's and sickly yellows and brindlc
browns and doubtful blacks, is big thing
1t looks kind of modest and unpretending
and yet speaks of the dead past and smell
of the antique and the garrett
1t represents the long months when
aching fingers first sewed the garments,
then the first dash of gravy on the front
breath, the maddening cry, the wild effort
TO efface it with benZine, the sorrowful
defeat, the dusty grease spot standing like
a pork gravy plaque upon the face of the
past, the glad REIMBURSEMENT of the gar
ment, the attack of the rag carpet hend
| upon it, the hurried crash as it is torn il
to shieds and sewn together, then the
mad plunge Of the dust powdered mas
into the reeking bath of Paris green Of
copperas, then the weavers gentle racket
and at last the pale cousumptive. freckleC
sickly panorama of outrageous coloring
offending the eye, the nose the thorax
OF men and to yield up its precious dos
of destroying poisons from generation ev
en- to generation.
1t is not thing of beauty, for it look
like the colored engraving of mortified
lung 1t is not now eeonimical, for tn,
same time devoted to knocking out tn
4 brains of frogs and collecting their ham
for the metropolitan market would yielt
infinitely more, and it is not worth mucl
an heirloom, for within the same time
mortgage may be placed upon the oil
homestead which will pass down from ia
Their to son, even to nations yet unborn
and attract more attention in the court
than rag carpets that all the rag carpet
that it would require to span the board
spangled dome of heaven.
1 often wonder that Oscar Wilde, tn
pale patron of the good, the true and tn
beautiful, did not rise in his might an
knock ire essential warp and filling on
of the rag carpet. Oscar did not do RICH
or he would have stood up in his funn
chothes and fought for reform at so muc
per fight. While be made fun of th
Chicago Waterworks, grateful publ
would have buried him in cut flowers,
instead he had warped it to the ragcarpe
and the approaching dude.