The Laurens advertiser. (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973, 1896-05-19
BILL ARP HAS A VISITOR,
PROF. TUCKER OF THE UNITED
STATES LABOR DEPARTMENT.
Sample of Fancy and Other Work,
Gathered to Compare by His De-
partment With the Primitive and
New Methods, Cost, Etc.
For The Constitution.

For The Constitution.
This is a great government. W.
don't know very much about it unit
screens as 1t were-and see what Il
going on. The doings of Congress a.
we read them in the papers are yer.
noisy and exciting, but Is mostly rou
tine work and tells US nothing OF wha
Is going on in the various departments
scientific and Industrial. We used tt
get the patent Office reports that hat
a world of curious information anc
explanatory pictures, but they seem tC
have stopped coming. And there were
books on agriculture and horticulture
and pestiferous insects and books that
told about cattle and sheep and all the
All these used to be distributed among
the people like the garden seed are
distributed, and pretty much for the
same vote-catching purpose, but they
cost big lot of money, and now are
given only to the scientific. The men
of science make but little noise in the
world. They care but little for fame
or fortune, but they are ever at work
studying nature and solving mysteries
and lessening the burdens Of life. 1t
does seem to be disposition of pro-
| viueuce tnat gredJ ihen Cdfe pu1 lltLle
for money. What they discover or in
vent soon becomes common property.
l am not speaking of the small man
who takes out a patent on fish hooks or
hairpins, but of great men, like Jenner
and Pasteur, AgassiZ, Fulton Watts,
Newton or Morse.
! But was Illuminating about visit 1
had today-a visit from Professor
Tucker, the United States agent for
the labor department. He came to
| find out about how the silk business
was conducted in Georgia fifty years
ago. So told him how my father, in
| 1887, got some morus multicaulis cut
tings from Washington and in two
years had several acres of young trees,
and then built house, forty feet
square and two stories high, and filed
it with hurdle frames and got some
silkworm eggs, and when they hatcbed
| the worms soon filled the house and
eat up all the mulberry leaves and
wanted more. We got enough from a
neighbor to finish up with, and we boys
were glad enough when the nasty
things began to wrap up in their mum
my-like shrOuds.
But my curiosity was excited. What
does the United States want to know
all this for? So Unexplained by saying
that his department is comparing the
old with the new-the primitive me-
thods with the mo9ern-and the cost
Of each, and which was the best and
gave more happiness, and other econo-
mic questions. He had leather grip
full Of samples of the handiwork of the
women of western North Carolina and
northeast Georgia. Every little square
or scrap was pinned to printed sheet,
that gave the name of the weaver and
her age and residence. There were
samples of woolen aud cotton and linon
and silk, samples of linsey and Jeans
and counterpanes and quilts and wa
gon sheets and curtains and Table
cloths, and some of them were gems of
beautiful fabrics, and in those mountain
counties the humble people are still
spinning and weaving in the oldfash-
ioned way and are happy. In many
families their handiwork is piled up on
the shelves and clothes preuses, await
ing theimarriage of sons and daughters,
to whom they were to be given as
bridal presents. Professor Tucker
had some specimens Of silk sewing
thread and 1axthread that we're made
at home. He found good people up
there who seldom bought anything and
were able to give q stranger good
bed and plenty to eat and sincere
hospitality. He told me OF an old man
in Etabun who said he never fell out
with the United States until the rove
nue. officers began to sneak around his
little still, where ho had been making
peach brandy for fifty years, and had
the respect of his Maker and his neigh
bors and he told them that the United
States wasent big enough to stop him,
for the right to make it was handed
down from his father and grandfather.
l.
time they came about, but he kept two
pitchforks IN the house-one under
the front door and the other at the
head of bis bed, and they dident dare
to arrest him. But after worrying
with them for three years things kept
getting hotter ana hotter and his
neighbors advised him to quit stilling
and he did, for he was getting old and
wanted to live in peace, but is was
| bad government that would let rich
man still and not let poor man.
These big distillsries, said he, swindle
the government out of more tax money
| than all our moonshine stills put To-
gether. All they have to do is to bribe
the storekeeper. | know of one In
North Carolina that sold $500 gallons
in one year and never paid dollar of
tax on it. He told Professor Tucker
that the revenue men broke up forty
stills in that region last year, but to
| his knowledge there were hundred
that were still running on small
scale. "The boys sorter like the dan
ger OF It," said he, and the informer
catches it when found out. He gen.
orally leaves this part of the country
as soon as he pockets his bribe. The
mountain people are not as honest and
honorable as they used to be, and it
all comes of this bribe-taking business.
The United States ought to be ashamed
OF it," The professor said It Is impos-
sible to convince those mountaineers
who are seventy-five miles from mar
ket that 1t Is wrong to convert their
corn into whiskey when one bushel
will make three gallons and they can
haul hundred dollars worth with a
little yoke Of steers. But they can't
run still on the government plan, for
it would cost two or three hundred
dollars, and they haven't got the money.
He wanted to know IL there were any
old-fashioned wheels and looms used
in this county. Yes, good many. a
good old man died near here last year
whose family never wore any other
clothes as long as he lived. / knew
another mau who was quite we'll of
for farmer, who was deacon In the
church and sometimes foreman of 8
grand jury, who never bought store
clothes-and he always looked we'll III
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