St. Landry clarion. (Opelousas, La.) 1890-1921, 1891-01-17

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ers. When men with their purses full
sit down to play in gambling den
sooner or later the proprietor OF the
den absorbs all the money in the shape
of fees. All gambling schemes are
founded on that principle to gradual
ly absorb the wealth Of the patrons
what is returned in lotteries merely
acts as bait or inducement. The mo-
nopolies fostered by the government
act similarly to some extent the peo
pie are compelled, by law or the force
of circumstances, to support them at
an undue expense. The people, the
natural owners of the public domain
are robbed by their recreant legislative
representatives, Of their natural home
steads for the benefit of specializing
railroad companies; they have to buy
from these companies their own lands
and then pay such exorbitant charges
for transportation of their produce as
coupled with other monopolistic char
ges, to leave the farming class general
ly with a bare subsistence out OF the
productions OF their hard labor. The
tendency is for all the surplus wealth
produced by the farmers to be concen-
trated in the hands of few monopo-
lists. The farmer is allowed to have
enough to live and keep on working
the soil, and no more. Such a condl-
tion of things is worse, as far as the
farmers are concerned, than for the
country to be without railroads and
manufacturers protected by high
tariff. The promise OF general pros
perity, by these latter, has proven dead
sea fruit to the farmers there is pros
perity for them, but not for the farm-
ers. The farmers settled this country
when it was wilderness they suffer-
ed the privations and hardships OF
colonization and Indian warefare but
they lived Independently and what
they had was their own; the demon
that mortgaged their farms to the
money-lender at usurious interest, that
gave their public lands to the railroads
and sold it at merely nominal prices to
capitalists, that taxed them unduly to
support all kinds of monopolies, be-
longs to our more modern civilization.
In the beginning the farmers were
too poor or their surplus productions
were too small to support the monop-
olies Of those eh4 would live without
labor The prosperity Of the farmers
was their own ruin. The men OF
brains, without honest principle and
averse to labor, set about scheming to
relieve the farmers of their surplus
products, and succeeded under the
forms of law. The farmers have but
two ways Of remedy before them ; to
get possession of the government and
change it, or to return to a primitive
mode Of living, have little or no sur
plus products, and starye out the
monopolists and bloodsuckers.
Our neighbor, the st. Landry Dem
ocrat, expresses the opinion, in regard
to 2. M. johnson, insane, who died in
jail last week, that with lottery.
license money, invested in asylums,
this poor mans reason might have
been restored, or his last days on earth,
at least, might have been made COM
Portable" If the Lottery, during the
past twenty or more years OF its ex-
istence, has not seen fit to invest its
money in asylums, we are sure that no
one is to blame but the Lottery itself.
The insane asylums Of this State have
never been kept up by Lottery money,
that we are aware of; and yet some
people persist in stayingin Louisiana,
and thereby running the risk of be-
coming insane and dying '3in a dungeon
like a dog" for the lack of Lottery
money. We can not see, however, in
this particular case, that if all the
Lottery money was invested in asy-
lums, that it would have done the de-
ceased any good, for he had not passed
the legal formalities necessary to reach
such a place, and it seems he was
unable to stand the journey,
and that he would not take remedies
for his sustenance or relief. There
may be a Lottery Elysium on earth,
in the Sweet Bye-and-Bye Of the Lot
terry, after new charter has been OBJ
tained, but it is hard to believe that
any but the Lottery chiefs and their
hangers-on will inherit that Elysium.
There have been hundreds of opportu-
mites during the past twenty years for
the Lottery to show pecuniary charity
to the insane and other afflicted ones.
Now that its own end is approaching,
it tries to tempt the people by telling
them the good things it will do if the
people will prolong its life. Remem-
Der the injunction !: Judge q tree by