The citizen. (Frederick City, Md.) 1895-1923, 1895-08-30
A Fable With a Moral.

fine house and large and costly barn.
all of which he had acquired by his
own industry and labor. His barn
was filled with crops. He had the
most improved farming implements
and the best teams in the neighbor-
hood. But he was troubled by wiley
rat which took up its abode in the
costly barn. He set traps to catch the
rat, but the cunning fellow could not be
tempted to enter them. He tried
terrier with no better success. Finding
that all his efforts to catch or to kill
this annoying rat were unavailing, he
became angry and greatly incensed.
He began to complain to his neighbors
about the worry the rat caused him
and about his inability to get rid of
the sly intruder. He dwelt upon this
subject so continuously that it became
hobby. His irritation at being foiled
in his efforts to get rid of this hateful
rat grew into blind and unreasoning
rage, and it was not long ere he real.
lied what many wiser but equally inn
petuous men had to their lasting sor-
row learned before-that it is better to
bear the ills we have than fly to Others
that we know not of. Having, how
ever, worked himself up to the distem-
pered belief that the presence of this
rat in his barn was the worst of all
evils, he was willing to accept any
suggestion, whether made by friends
or enemies, as to the surest means of
diving him out.
In this frame of mind he met one
day an enviOus neighbor-one of those
mean spirited men who hate to see 9TH
ers prosper-and to his neighbor he re-
hearsed all his grievances against the
rat in his barn, and asked him if he
could not suggest remedy. The en-
vious neighbor was quick to seize upon
an opportunity thus afforded him to
inf1ict, under the guise of friendly
counsel, a lasting injury upon the pros.
porous Turner; and So with loud pro-
fessions of friendship, he urged the
ia rmer to burn the rat QUITO set fire
to the barn, burn it down and then he
would be rid of the rat. Blinded by
his rage against the rat, the farmer did
not stop to think that this advice was
given by an enemy; or that, under the
guise of friendship, it was intended to
cause him injury. Too enraged at his
tormentor, the rat, to reflect. upon the
consequences, he eagerly accepted the
evil advice of his enemy, thanked him
for it, rushed home and with his own
hand applied the torch to his barn. In
few hours the accumulated fruits of
the toll of years-the barn, Its housed
crops, farming implements and his
splendid teams-were reduced to ashes;
but the rat had quietly slipped away
and taken refuge in the farmers house.
Contemplating the ruins that lay be-
fere him, and finding, though he had
driven the rat out of the barn by de-
stroying the barn, that the rat was as
lively as ever, he began to think over
what he had done and to reason with
himself about it. He realized that the
remedy he had applied was infinitely
worse in its results than the evil he
had hoped to abate. When inflamed
with anger he had listened to the voice
OF his enemy, who professed to be his
friend; and he had 10y following that
enemy's advice brought irretrievable
disaster upon himself He had gained
nothing for himself, but he had accom-
plished the evil designs of his enemy
by doing precisely the thing which,
without his own aid, that enemy
would never have dared to undertake.
The enemy secretly gloated over the
success of the scheme, and the gulled
farmer was left amid smoking ruins
with nothing but unavailing regrets
over his costly folly. The rat was not
hurt, but the barn was destroyed.
This fable has moral. The barn
represents the Democratic party Some
who claim to be Democrats allege that
Senator German is worrying rat and
;; should be driven out of the barn. They
have tried various eXpedients without
avail and they are sorely dissatisfied.
The Baltimore Sua, full of malice, full
of spleen, is tanning the anger of the
disatfected members of theDemocratic
party and urging them to drive the
Senator out of the party by destroying
the party itself; just as the enemy of
the foolish farmer INSPIRED him to burn
down his own barn to get rid of the rat.
If this sinister advice be taken and the
Democratic party be destroyed by the
votes of its own members-as the farm
er by his own hand burned down his
own barn-the deluded voters will dis
cover, as the misled farmer did,
that their imaginary wrong has not
been righted; and they will find that
the Democratic party and not Senator
German has been defeated and demol-
ished. Amid the wreck which their
rash act in voting against the whole
party to get rid of one man will have
caused, If they succeed, they will have
ample time to reflect upon their folly
in turning over the State to the reck.
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