The western sentinel. [volume] (Winston-Salem, N.C.) 1887-1926, 1890-04-17
THhT RAILROAD CROSSING ON THE
BROOKSTOWN ROAD.


Q.-HOw are you this morning.
Hayseed, this most delightful April
morning?
A.-Happy, sir, happy, thanks. !
feel, feel-well, feel s'like big sun
flower" bathed in morning dew and
greeting with bold and honest front
the rising King of Day.
Q.-YOu read both papers, do you
Republican and SENTINEL - and
thus keep in sight, at least, Of the
progressives?
A.-Oh, yes, we folks-we rustics
who dwell in the huts of the back
country-are greatly indebted to the
SENTINEL and Republican. But for
their enterprise our darkness would
be intolerably thick.
Q-Tell me, Mossback, how you
live, shut out as you are from ''sassi-
ETY." and it's delightful and varied
privileges and opportunities.
A.-Well, no doubt, to you, our life
would be burdensome indeed scarcely
worthy to be called life, but you
know ''there's nothing like getting
used to a thing" besides, our sort
of life is not altogether without COM
pensation. 1t is not our high privi-
lege to hear Dr. Rondthaler's lecture
on Greece" or Prof. Blair on
"Rome," and we rather "rejoice in
hope" of an everlasting freedom from
the discussion Of old, dead, barren
themes, when the world is SO full of
living ISSUES. The dissection of num-
mics, however skilled, would be to us
backwoodsmen disgustingly uninter-
esting.
Q.-What subject are you people
especially interested in just now-not
the "Appian way of old Rome, 1
suppose?
A.-Thn railroad crossing on the
Brookstown road; that is the "vexed
question: now; it is all-absorbing
O.-What about the n. C. Midland
Railroad, anyway?
All we know of it's anterior his
tory we have learned from a letter
published not many months since, by
five appointment citizens of the Twin
City, and if you feel any special in
terest in the inquiry, we respectfully
refer you to that letter for a detailed
account of the genesis and present
status Of that corporation.
fQ.-YOu seem to be very much dis
satisfied with things generally What
do you think OF Forsyth county?
A.-Oh, Forsyth county is all right
she is grand-I was born in For
syth county-long years before Win
ston fitted across the vision of the
widest dreamer. OF course the peo-
pie of Forsyth, like all other people,
have their faults, but we are not dis
posed to hunt them up and hold
them aloft for animadversiOn. We
are rather inclined to hide the faults
we see, and make as conspicuous as
possible a virtue that covers "mul-
titude of SINS
Q.-What virtue of the people do
YOU think worthy of special notice?
A.-Long-suffering patience so Won
derfully displayed in dealing with
that little pig-tail railroad. called the
n. C. Midland.
Q.-Please explain yourself; don t
quite understand you.
Ais it possible you havenot seen
the report Of the Commissioners
Court, last Monday (Easter)! Why,
sir, the N. C. Midland appeared, by
it's attorneys, before the court to de-
fend itself-even it's dirty self, lying
across the kings highway, obstruct-
ing it and interfering with the free
and proper use thereof by his majes-
tvs most loyal and devoted subjects.
Dwell, of course, the commits
sioners ordered the obstruction to be
removed-the nuisance to be abated
at Once-did thew not?
A.-Well, the commissioners of For
syth county did not do that very
thing; that nuisance remains Just
where it has been the last six months
"a stubborn, disorderly and rebel
lious fact.
Let North Carolina remember
Mecklenburg no more forever. Let
her 'sput on sackcloth" and sit in the
ashes of her humiliation. Let her
forever hereafter hold her pedce-shut
up her mouth on the majesty of the
law
Q.-You seem respondent. Do
you mean to give up the old Com
monwealth to the spoilers?
A.-Look at the picture, will YOU;
look at the facts in the case Here is
a soulless corporation-an organized
appetite for public municipalities
as a hungry tiger and insatiate as
the grave; builds up an embankment
across thoroughfare, impairing the
usefulness thereof and rendering it
less convenient to the people for
whose good it was established-vio-
lating the law and trampling under
foot the dignity of the State.
Q.-How long, suppose you, would
the citizens of the Twin City tolerate
such an obstruction in their streets?
A.-Not twenty-four hours. The
obstruction would be removed, the
nuisance abated and the offenders
prosecuted vigorously to the end.
The first dashing and flashing
brougham that encountered an OBJ
struction on Cherry street or Fifth
avenue would be a casus beM and the
mighty arm of the law would at once
be uplifted for vengeance.
Dwell, how did the commission
ers dispose of the case?
hayseeds the barbarians of the
"rooral Observation-Disclosures had to
submit to the outrage through the
fall, the winter and spring, without
sympathy and without remedy, and
when at last the matter is brought
before the commissioners, the repre-
sentatives of the majority and power
of justice established by law, as a
grand conclusion of the whole mat
ter, the people get a compromise and
a committee la committee of three
to meet the "Kurnel," the "Majur,"