Phillipsburg herald. [volume] (Phillipsburg, Kan.) 1882-1905, 1889-05-03


fes. When Peric1es began to speak
at the funeral of an infant he expressed
regrets that such thrOng should have
rushed in to the last rites of so small a
human being. Nature harbOr, q
lake, a sea, riYer-asks trade and
manufacturing to come to a par ocular:
spot, and folks all around begin to ac-
cept of the invitation; and for each ten
that had q real reason for going, there
are at least three persons who repair
thither to see what was the matter
with the other ten. Thus the move
ment of animated beings goes on until
there are perhaps One-foUrbh more
persons in every city than that city
wants. 1t has no use for them. It
cannot give them work Of a good kind
nor in an adequate quantity. When q
dinner is offered free to all, the appli-
cants have generally been too many
for the size of the dinner
AIlured by the central "dog-fght, "
Greek tutors migrated by the hundred
from Athens, because they had heard
that all Roman families of rank Yere
seeking Greek tutors for their chill
dren. Thus a wide invitation had gone
forth on the wind, and it was so gen
orally accepted that it soon became a
prOyerb In Rome that man was not
as poor as a church mouse. but as poor
as a Greek schoolmaster. The guests
surpassed the dinner.
In the long history of cities there
has been one continuous fact-that of
more persons being drawn by the cen
traI attraction than the attraction could
Justify. It is cOmmendable in man
to desire to pitch his tent where he
can live well his life, which at best is
but brief; to live within easy reach of
libraries. music in its greatest forms,
drama, painting, sculpture, and near
the many kinds ana qualities of re-
HgiOn; but many thousands of city
jewellers are unmOYed by any of these
things, and other thousands can not
find in these attractions a good reason
for attempting to live in the midst of
them. So far as all the arts and ra-
tiOnal pleasures are thought of, there
are thousands Of persons who are sufi-
GENTLY near a great city when they are
twenty miles away from it's heart.
That our cities have become gigantic
forms Of popular delusiOn the railways
can bear swift witness. They have
paralleled each other until there is
little freight and few passengers for
or three millions each per annum
They are like the Greek tutors that
rushed into Rome until there was not
a pupil apiece, and some of those
teachers had to sit down on a curb
stone and wait for high-tOned children
to be born. Thus our railways must
wait for passengers to be born. Four
new States have been born in the West;
freight and passengers viii increase;
but so viii the railways, for the world
is now so Old that it will fulfill in its
own new way the maxim that there is
"no fool like an old fool At folly we
are all old hands, rich in experience
but not in wisdom. Each city is a
great Apollo. but with the govt in one
foot, or is a beautiful enus, with the
muInps raging in one jaw.
1t would be a good thing if some of
our railways could become more &C
lively suburban roads, and would car
~ all working people of all kinds ten
or twenty miles for five cents. Now
the rich can live in the suburbs, but it
ought to be that so, 900 of the Iaboring
classes could go out of town every
night