Blue-grass blade. [volume] (Lexington, Ky.) 188?-19??, 1891-12-05

Captain John Smiths compass
and the "talking chip" were
miracles to the Indians; but the
compass was not a miracle to a
sailor, nor the "talking chip" a
miracle to anybody who could
read pencil writing on chip.
Ali of us old cranks, and people
whose heads are little ont of
whack, see mira lies almost any
day, but we are afraid to tell other
people about it, for they would
put us in the lunatic asylums.
Twenty-Five years ago l said all
that McQueary and Briggs and
Lorimer and Harper and Flower
and Cave are now saying, but the
people thought my head was net
level, and l had to go slow; and if
| would tell you just how certain
l am that the Prohibition party is
going to sweep the liquor traffic
ont of this country, and out of the
whole civilized world, just as the
Abolition party swept the slave
traffic, even my best friends would
say am crazy. But l see it just
like Joan of Arc saw ahead.
1t will have to go, not merely if
it has to split the churches, as the
New York Voice has said, but if
a war as direful as that Of thirty
years ago has to make it 90.
When the true American born
patriot understands, as he will yet
understand, that the liquor traffic
is the badge of servitude that the
foreign scum of Europe is trying
to force upon us, and that the
leading politicians of this country
are servile sycophants who bow
before them to gain their political
patronage, true Americans who
are the sons of the sires of Valley
Forge and Trenton, of Bunker
Hill and Saratoga and Monmouth
and Yorktown, will rise against
these foreign vipors that we have
warmed in our bosoms, and "the
seed of the woman shall crush the
serpent's head.
But | started to tell you about
miracles. You know l told you
l believed in "Elijah's ravens"
and my good friends Mrs. Clark
and Capt. Drake said it would not
do. l have been betting on those
ravens for thirty years, and l
have never got left yet.
People say to me that if 1 don't
quit talking as do my paper will
60 to smash. Let her smash. l
don't want to get killed, but l
know l am right, and if | do get
killed, or they crush down me and
my paper, my cause will grow all
the faster, like the Acacia in the
Greek fable that they said grew
faster when you laid rock on top
of it.
But about those "ravens." You
know Bro. Freeman from Dan
vile, said he wanted my paper,
but was poor and could not pay
for it, and asked me to discon-
tinue it until he could pay for it.
said in the Blade that the pt per
would go on to him, and slme-
body would pay me for it, land
that if a raven did not bring lit, a
crow or buzzard or-wood-pkcr
or jay-bird or some other bird
would, and now you see a Wren
has done it, and brought sixidol-
lars more beside. 1.-THE Christian
people just had as much faith in
God as l have in the crows they
wouldn't get left either.
The Blade and 1 want a mailing
machine for a Christmas gift, and
then we'll be all hunky, and my
young ladies can set more type,
and your paper will come to you
with your name printed on it, and
the time you have paid to. 1 have
got money enough to run the
paper, but l haven't any to spare
to get that mailing machine. /
can get one for $1,000 and 1 can
afford to pay $1,000 of it myself
but | am going to look to the
ravens or crows, or some other
kind ofa bird for the other 5000
and you see if it don't come some
how or other by Christmas.
Then when 1 get that, l wont
ask any odds OF anybody, | will
be perfectly serene if people who
owe me for my paper will either
pay me for it, or send me word
that they don't want it and let me
stopit.