The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1895-11-28
SALTWATER, MINNESOTA NOVEMBER 2S 1895.

charging their artillery upon society.
Society is to blame for this, has been
cruel in that; should have hindered
one thing, or remedied another.
Society starves, the work people;
makes milliners slave for seventeen
hours out of the twenty-four in the sea-
son; encourages open or concealed i'm
morality; indulges in articles which
necessitate unhealthy. nay deadly
trades. Society is cruel to cabmen.
neglectful of literary men, despises art
lists, and patronizes quacks of all kinds,
in medicine, law. trade and general
life. Society bows the knee to two !
idols Rank and Money, is senseless,
coquettish, mad, and occasionally very
vicious; is always thoughtless, often
cruel; suffers the scholar and the pa
triot to struggle and die for it, refuses
him bread whilst living, and offers him
stone when dead.
This is the old old story the common
writer's, satiriSts and small takers; the
perpetual spring of orators and leading
article writers, and the never-failing
comfort of the disappointed man. Are
all the accusations true?
The loose method Ofreasoning and Of
talking which is prevalent, makes us
all too ready to run amuck at society
when any one has set the fashion; and
thus society abuses itself; and as very
powerful, satrical, coarse and some
what ill.natured novelist has chosen
to take the lead people in the world,
who are very numerous, Lave at once
taken up the cuckoo cry.
Preachers and teachers are continu-
ally setting society right. They are
like those guides which Swift tells us
attended the philosophers in Laputa
with bladder containing peas, at the
end of long stick. When the philos-
opher stepped out of his way on the
right side they ratified him on the left
when on the left they hit him on the
F right, and so on. SO comic writers
will be showing society the way to dc
right, and they have been at that dry
work ever since the days of Aristoph
anes, apparently with very little effect
! for society hath its virtues.
! The sins of society are manifes
o enough. Great bodies are alway
hard hearted, or, rather have no heart
v at all. They are forgetful; they ar
y careless Of merit, and about as selfisl
II as might be expected. Virtues do no
" flourish very luxuriantly in public, bu
n vices do. Society is again lamentabl
r in it's ignorance. Upon 1t Quacks
+ all kinds flourish; quacks in medicine
Il in music, literature, and the fine arts
r. A man who processes one of these
r. sure to succeed with the slenderes
# merit, if he be only taken up by Soc
ETY.. A man of the greatest geniu
cannot get on without it. His work
may live, but he may die unapprec
ated and unrewarded
We Milton, neglected and blind; Molier
re lonely, poor, and uncared for; Butle
to pining and starving in garret; W olt
ne before his last chance, begging for
is command; Johnson at Lord Cheste
ur fields door: Hayden, maddening wit
DIS the contrast of the gaping crowds WI
57. came to see Tom Thumb, whilst h
ry own pictures in the same house we
unlocked at; these may be pointed
as few of the victims of Society. v
need not 60 so far back as Belisaril
iv- who had saved an empire, begging,
nix have many neglected men nowaday
It's many a Cassandra prophesying,
MS whom we will not listen; manya pc
his ready to sing, but unheeded throu
lid the perverse tastes of Society.
de, Not the least of the sins of society
WIS it's irresistible power in diffusing fol
ty. Because an emperor of old was afrs
ely of lightning, {the Romans believed IL
Ids the electric fluid would not touch
( is laurel,) or simply wore laurel wre'
all as the emblem of victory, we bad cl
afe sizes have adopted that as crown
to empire, and all modern monarchs W
md it ON their coins.
dis But Society is just as absurd NJ