The Laurens advertiser. (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973, 1896-04-07
Old Newspapers.

% oWGGu duu ptChodub cdNOuE, DElC-d-
brac, curios, jewels, and many things
Of such great value that they cannot
grow out OF fashion. We have been led
to these reflections by q batch Of old
newspapers sent us by u valued
friend, Mr.. w. D. Sullivan from his
beautiful home on the banks Of the
Reedy, waiting (and we trust not to
wait long) for the music of great
wheels and the whir OF thousands Of
spindles responsive to the roar of the
tumbling waters OF his splendid shoals.
1t Is a valuable talent to have O knack
OF saving things and VIZ have much en-
joyed a leisure hour in looking back
ward to the times these old documents
record. They are not SO old that the
memory OF man runneth not to the con-
trary, but they are growing cobwebby
and the things and personages they dis
cuss are already of history, and in u lit
tie while will be themes of tradition.
We have the Columbia Daily Union,
an intensely radical sheet, Of August /,
1872. These we're the days of good
stealing in South Carolina, when the
Legislative expenses for one year
amounted to over four hundred thou
sands dollars. This paper was q shar-
or in the gains and a faithful organ Of
the exquisite rascals of those times. It
was intensely Grant as against Greedy.
A copy Of the New York Weekly Sun
contains a great speech Of Charles Sum-
NOR In Onnpcifiop IN Cropt Cropf op6
Greedy being the opposing candidates
for the Presidency. These are some of
the head lines, in great capitals, to this
courtly but savage attack upon the
great war chieftain of the other side:
1.-THE Caezar"; "The Usurper ar
raigned;" The King Of ,Nepotists;"
"Reform and Purity OF Government
Demanded;" There were cranks, even
in those days." 1.-THE Presidency O
Trust, Not a P~laything;' Personal
Governmental and Presidential Pre-
tensions;" liberation being passible at
that critical period). The speech was
delivered in the U. S. Senate May 81,
1872 and the paper bears the imprint,
June 8, Of that year. But Grant went
In with more than three million voters
at his back. Another of the faded,
yellow, time stained prints is the Rich
mond Daily Enquirer, OF July /, Of the
same year.. 1t contains q letter of Gen.
Henry A. Wise addressed to Col. John
g. Mosby, the confederate Guerilla, af-
forwards In admirer of Grant and his
appointee to a great consular place in
China. Gen. Wise, it will be noted, as
Governor of Virginia mad hung old
John Brown, of sainted memory, and
whose soul is still marching on. The
letter was in answer to an inquiry by
Mosby If Virginia should support Grant
or Greedy. One sentence from Gen.
Wise's noble letter will reveal the
tenor of the whole. "Bathed in tears
n draped in mourning, as she is or
ought to be at the burial of her rights
and past power and glory, it is about
as proper and decent for her to be
mingling in the cabals of parties strug-
CLING for office and patronage, as it
would be for a widow of yesterday,
whose husbands corpse is lying in her
chamber, to receive the calls of lusty
beau. or to accept tickets to midnight
balls" The letter is written in all the
fervor of & ,great Virginia patriot, but
it was wasted IN Mosby, who shifted
the odor of spells from afar and went
lovingly and enthusiastically for Grant.
A copy of the sunSay Mercury, Phila-
delphia, of June 1etEs1S72 accompanies
the batch. 1t was a siIpon pure demo-
cratic journal and true rs steel. Grant
was then President and congress la
adjourned. The republicans were Dent
on re-electing Grant as the stealing
was imperial. Somebody la made
Grant a present of a cottage at Long
Branch, q sea side resort that the
Grants greatly poprlar1sed. Here Is
what the Mercury has to say Of the
departure of the great captain Presi-
dent: "Congress adjourned on Monday
evening aud on Tuesday the President,
with the Dents, the Babcocks and Pot
tofs, a number of bull pups, and other
dogs, eleven horses, and one jackass,
went to Long Branch" Commenting
NShotJ 10Y JIG SutCo VI oUuUC Ou
Grant, the Mercury says: Grant should
write q book entitled-"governing made
easy" for the benefit Of National Rul-
ers," &c. We wish we had space to
draw more largely from these old
prints. We close this review with
the remark, that there would be no
demand now for the book as suggested,
and that the breed OF jackasses did not
expire with the single specimen that
accompanied the great party to Long
Branch in 1872. -
~ #*x
Op,the Both March last Gov. Evans
committed to life imprisonment the
death sentence OF Wash Owens, con-
victed in this county of the assassina-
tion of Mr.. Dorroh Hairston several
years ago. Owens was carried to the
Pen~itientiary upon some suspicion OF q
contemplated lynching. Here Is what
the Columbia correspondent Of the
Charleston News and Courier says:
Governor Evans to day committed the
\ sentence of Wash Owens, convicted of
murder in Laurens to life imprison.
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