The county record. [volume] (Kingstree, S.C.) 1885-1975, 1897-07-22
BARLOW PHILOSOPHER REGIS.
TERS A LARGE, HEALTHY KICK.
MUCH WATER, BUT LITTLE LIGHT.
Hot Weather Of the Past Month Reminds
Him Of the Prediction That the
World IL Drying Up.

it is chronic to complain of corpora
tions, but I am obliged to consider
myself an injured person. Almost
every night I have to 60 down town
to help nurse and comfort little sick
child who is very dear to me, and
although the street has a gaslight, I
collide with something or somebody
or fall into ditch every dark night I
travel. I ran against big fat negro
woman the other night, and she used
disrespectful language at me. Last
night I had in my hand a bucket Of
blackberries that my daughter gave
me, and I fell over a stepping stone
and spilled them all and skinned my
aged shins and dropped my cane, and
it took me some time to find it. I've
q good notion to bring suit for damages
and have a receiver appointed. That
so-called gaslight does not throw its
effulyent rays a hundred feet, and is
not lighted more than half the time,
and now that lightning bugs have
come again, I think the company
ought to catch some and put them in
bottle and do away with the gas.
But I don't see any sense in having
gas with the lamp posts quarter Of q
mile apart. We don't want to carry
lanterns and pay for gas, too. That's
all I have got to say about this gas
business, and my folks have limited
that the fault is more in my eyes and
my legs than in the dim, religious
light, but know better. I am not on
the superannuated list by a good deal.
I work every day in my garden and
get all in sweat of perspiration, and
then clean up and feel good and hon
est. The long drought hurt me pretty
bad, but the garden survived it, and
now we have vegetables abundant.
The waterworks man never caught me
stealing more than my share of water
but once, and he didn't make much
fuss about it. BE is a very con-
siderste man. Up north the COM
panies put meters at every Gus
TONER'S residence, and he pays for
what he uses, but We have got more
water here than the town can use, and
don't have to be stingy. What q
blessed thing it is! Water, plenty of
water! Water in the kitchen and at
the back door and in the front yard
and the garden, beside bathtub
upstairs and downstairs. Pure water,
fresh from a big spring that gushes
from the hillside. No river nor pond
nor reservoir nor fltering machines
nor microbes nor bacilli. No we'll
rope to break nor windlass to get
loose and knock one of the children in
the head. No cleaning out and finding
dead chickens that we had been drink
ing on. The fact is, I never knew the
comfort of water, abundant water, un.
til we planted our waterworks in Car
tersville. Strange to say, they never
came until we abolished whisky-that
is, the saloons. A great English poet
and jurist says: 'Its cool refreshment
drained by fevered lips gives pleasure
more exquisite than nectarean Juice, "
and Coleridge's sum of human agony
was to have
"Water, water everywhere,
But not drop to drink"
During the late long heated term in
June it was alarming to read from the
weather bureau that the world was
slowly but surely drying up, and the
rainfall was decreasing every year.
What an awful calamity is to come to
somebody some timel God grant that
it may not come in our day, nor our
children's nor children's children!
God grant that it may not come at ALL
But the scriptures do say that this
world shall be burned up, and I heard
Professor Proctor, the great Jastrono-
mer, deliver a lecture on the "Birth,
Growth, Maturity, Decay and Destruc-
ton of World" that made the hair al
most stand on end, for he proved that
the world had passed its meridian and
was now on a rapid down grade of de-
cay. 'tRapid, rapid, did I say? Yes,
rapid for planet, but it may be mil
lion years distant" That lets US down
easy, and that night the young people
danced and the sports played poker as
usual. Just postpone the judgment
out of sight and human nature will
take the chances.
But the blessed seals that hold the
rain in the heavens have at last been
opened, and once more man and beast
and nature rejoice in temperate at
mosphere and q moistened earth. It
was distressing to read of the sun
strokes ard the suffering in the great
cities, and to think of the little inno-
cent children and the inValids in the
garrets and crowded rooms of the
tenement houses. Oh, when will the
good things Of this world be equally
apportioned? Many of us have far
more than our share, but we are still
ungrateful and long for more. My
opinion is that, Independent Of all
revelation, there is obliged to be an
other life in another world just to
equalize things. "Son, remember that
thou in thy lifetime receivedst good
lySI