Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1888-01-05
Still Drouthy III Il!inois-Things in
General.

/ We have had some rains, but nature
has been very chasy OF such favors,
and has. in u great measure, neutraIiz-
ed the good effects of such showers by
| following it with a tlizzard.
Wells on high ground are as low as
they were before any rain fell, though
not as low rs when the trees were
growing and their roots drawing.
Hay and foe der are scarcer than ever
known before. Same four eeks ago,
| too, we had twenty-fnur hours OF gale
that tore fodder shocks 10 pieces and
wrecked hay stacks badly, and much
was wasted
This county wants booming badly,
or else it has been doomed aud has not
gotten well of it yet. Your writer has
been for weeks hunting for farm to
! buy. and though nearly half the 'un-
| ty is offered for sale, not forty can be
| bought at any price that could be made
out of the land; indeed, if man should
pay half down and pay but per cent.
| on deferred payment, he would have
to live hard, work hard, and die in
debt. Most farms offered are under
mortgage and the Improvements are
poor. A nls with plenty could get a
good lay out, to enjoy our increasing
dry weather on, but man without
plenty of money here is like the pro-
verbal cat in the hot place, with claws.
AT every court the mortgage wrecker
gets his work in and the tenants and
serfs are slowly, but surely, coming to
realize the lesson that the history of
every people proves, with single ex-
ception, in all the dreary centuries of
the past: that to permit the products
of labor to be made the direct subjects
of taxation results, inevitably, in the
enslavement of the many to the few.
Lately our farmers organized an in
stitute at the county seat, but the next
meeting has been postponed because
they could not get talent from abroad
to do the speaking. That's pretty
rough on home talent, but it can't be
helped That's in Goods countrywide,
remem Der; here in the galorious state
of "Eleenoy," where free schools have
been establised long enough for gen.
Grafton to grow to ripe manhood in
them. There is one lesson that very
dear experience, and not our schools, is
now teaching US; that is that all work
and no play makes Jack dull boy"
and that the drudgery we have been
calling industry is demoraliZ ng and
degrading. Yesterday, however, while
at the county seat, the president of the
farmers institute asked me whether
he could get S me land question, VI
single-tax literatures; ard the county
superintendent of schools notified me
that I was on the programme for the
next teachers institute to read George
on education. That shows that some
body is, like Cleveland's message
looking in the right direction, though
ike the message, they may not go very
far.
Already there is a very large number
who favor the single tax, and they re
gard the message as committing ons
of the old parties to a policy that j
cannot control, or rather check, in itt
own ranks. until the logical end il
reac ached and ground-rent is restored tt
the public treasury. Laboring men set
that it is not foreign competition that
they need protecting against, but th'
system of legalIzed robbery practiceo
at home by putting into private pock
cts a value that the public, and not th'
. individual, creates, and TO which th'
public is morally, and should be legal
3 ly, entitled.
Many of our citizens have been look
ing elsewhere fer homes and some hay
:. gone to California, Kansas, Colorado
Nebraska and elsewhere. Many hav
already found themselves disappointed
while few, who had money enoug!
tn head off the edog-in-the-maugf ,hav
J succeeded in making money, which
among Mammon worshippers, is an
other word for happiness.
Christmas has been exceedingly
= quiet; and. as it falls on Sunday thi
year. most of our schools go on with
:. out intermission. We ought 10 reilas
the work of the Nicene council and pu
,e Christmas on the third Sunday in DE-
&C cenber. FARMER.
Murrayville, Ills, Dec. 26. 1887.
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