The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1892-04-13

he Is 50 careful that he would not take yard
Of cloth or a spool OF cotton from the counter
without paying for it, aud who il bank
cashier should make mistake and send in q
roll Of bills five dollars too much would dis
patch messenger in hot haste to return the
surplus yet who will go into astocktcompany
in which after awhile he gets control OF the
stock and then waters the stock and makes
500, 900 appear like $20a, 900. He stole only
500, 600 by the operation. Many OF the men
of fortune made their wealth in that way.
Ono OF those men engaged in such unright-
eous acts, that evening, the evening OF the
very day when he watered the stock, will
find a wharf rat stealing an evening newspa-
per from the basement doorway, and will go
out and catch the urchin by the collar and
twist the collar so tightly the poor fellow
cannot say that it was thirst for knowledge
that led him to the dishonest act, but grip
the collar tighter and tighter. saying: II
have been looking for you a long while. You
stole my paper four or five tunes, haven't
YOU? You miserable wretchT And then
the old stock gambler. with voice they can
hear three blocks, will cry out, "Police, po-
licew
That same man, the evening Of the day on
which he watered the stock. will kneel with
prosperity Of the day. then kiss his children
good night with an air which seems to say:
II hope you will all grow up to be as good
as your fstherp Prisons for sins insectile
In size, but palaces for crimes dromedarian.
No mercy for sins animalcule in proper ton,
but great leniency for mastodon iniquity.
It is time that we learn in America that
sin is not excusable In proportion as it de-
clares large dividends and has outriders in
equtpage. Many man Is riding to perdt-
ton position ahead and laekey behind. To
steal dollar is gnst; to steal many thou.
sands Of dollars is camel. There Is many q
fruit dealer who would not consent to steal
a basket Of peaches from neighbors stall,
but who would not scruple to depress the
fruit market: and as long as can remember
we have heard every summer the peach crop
Of Maryland is a failure, and by the time the
crop comes in the misrepresentation makes
difference of millions Of dollars. A man
who would not steal one peach basket steals
fifty thousand peach baskets.
ANY summer 60 down into the Mercantile
library, in the reading rooms, and see the
newspaper reports Of the crops from all parrs
Of the country, and their phraseology Is very
much the same, and the same men wrote
them, methodically and infamously carry
ing out the huge lying about the grain crop
from year to year and for a score Of years.
After while there is corner" in the
wheat market, and men who had q contempt
for petty theft will burglarize the wheat
bin OF nation and commit larceny upon the
American corncrib. And men will sit In
churches and in reformatory institutions try.
ing to strain out the small gnats of scoundrel.
ism, while in their grain elevators and in
their storehouses they are fattening huge
camels which they expect after awhile to
swallow. Society has to be entirely recon.
structed on this subject. We are to find
that sin Is inexcusable In proportion as 1t
Is great.
/ know in our time the tendency is to
charge religious frauds upon good men.
They say, "Oh, what q class OF frauds you
have in the Church Of God in this day." and
when an elder of church or, deacon or a
minister Of the Gospel or superintendent
Of a Sabbath school turns out q defaulter
what display heads there are in many Of the
newspapers-great primer type; five line
pica-"Another Saint Absconded," "Cler-
ical Scoundrelism," Religion at Dis
there are thousand scoundrels outside the
church to where there Is one inside the
church, and the misbehavior Of those who
never sea the inside Of . church IS 80 great 1t
is enough to tempt uanto become Chris
tian to get out Of their company. =:
But in all circles, religious AMI irreligious,
the tendency Is to excuse sin in proportion
as it is mammoth. Even John Milton in his
'.Paradise Lost" while he condemns Satan,
givassuch grand description Of him you
have hard work to suppress your admlra-
like gnats, and this gulping down great In,
iquities like camels.
This subject does not give the picture Of
Of one or two persons but Is gallery in
which thousands Of people may see their
likenesses. For instance, all these people
who, while they would not rob their neigh
bor Of farthing, appropriate the money
and the treasure Of the public. A man has
house to sell, and he tells his customer it is
worth go, 1000. Next day the assessor comes
around and the owner says 1t is worth $l5.-
600. The Government Of the United States
took OF the tax from personal income,
among other reasons because so few people
would tell the truth, and many man with
an income OF hundreds Of dollars day made
statements which seemed to imply he was
about to be handed over to the oversser OF
the poor.
Careful to pay their passage from Liver
pool to New York, yet smuggling In their
Saratoga trunk ten silk dresses from Paris
and q half dozen watches from Geneva,
Switzerland, telling the custom house officer
on the wharf, There Is nothing in that
trunk but wearing apparel, and putting
five dollar gold piece In his hand TO punctu'
ate the statement.
Described in the text are all those who are
particular never to break the law OF gram
mar. and who want all their language an
elegant specimen Of syntax, straintng out all
the inaccuracies Of speech with hne sieve
Of literary criticism, while through their
conversation go slander ana lnnuenoo anu
profanity and falsehoo1 larger than weole
caravan Of camels when they might better
- hn la 90
shock their Intellectual taste, and better let
verb seek in vain for its nominative, and
every noun for its government, and every
proposition lose Its way In the sentence, ana
adjectives and participles and pronouns get
into a grand riot worthy of the Fourth ward
on election day, then to commit moral IN.
accuracy. Better swallow thousand gnats
than one camel.
Such persons ara also described in the
text who are very much alarmed about
the small faults OF others and have no
alarm about their own great transgres-
Eons. There are in every community and
in every church watchdogs who feel called
upon to keep their eyes on others ana
growl. Ttey are full Of suspicious. They
wonder il that man is not dishonest, II that
man is not unclean. il there is not something
wrong about the other man. They ara al.
ways the first to hear Of anything wrong.
Vultures are always the first to smell car
rion. They are self appointed detectives.
lay this down as rule without any excep.
tian-that those people who have the most
faults themselves are most merciless in their
watching Of others. From scalp Of head to
sole of foot they are full Of jealousies and
hypercriticisms.
They spend their life in hunting for musk
rats and mud turtles instead Of hunting for
Rocky Mountain eagles; always for some
thing mean instead Of something grand.
They look at their neighbors' imperfections