Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1897-12-16
MurrayvilIe, Ills.

We are still here waiting for the
much promised prosperity, but patience
seems to have ceased to be a virtue.
The Mckinley gold standard on hogs
is hardly three cents, while corn bob
bles at lSc if you will allow IS lbs. to
the bushel, in the ear.
Prosperity, however, has struck one
man. the coroner. He has had "a or
% cases in the past year, accidents,
murders, and suicides. OF suicides
alone he has had nine, and five more
| were attempted. You no doubt won
der why so many would rather die than
live in such rich country as this is.
There is nothing surprising about it,
however. You must purchase your
right to live here, and as the land is
naturally good spectators have got the
price up so high that it is easier to die
than to make it, Here. by law, the
rights which a set of tricky politicians
invest a man with coutravene the rights
God invested man with, aud the AL
mighty Dollar is the only god we wor-
ship in sincerity and truth hence a leap
in the dark seems better than to exist
in mental and physical torture.
Your writer was kindly given the
use of the pulpit at the Baptist church
last Sunday evening to pay a pubic
tribute to his dead friend Henry
George. | wish more would read his
works. In spite of all that has been
said to the contrary Mr.. George had
no theories. He held that human life
was a series of simple facts and to or
der our social life Alright we must know
what those facts are; and he spent his
life in teaching them. What he thought
of theories may be judged from the
manner in which he demolished the
current theory of wages, and also the
Malthusian theory.
Our farmers, or few of the fancy
and sidewalk variety, held an institute
in Jacksonville last week. 1t was for
the most part threshing of old straw.
Why, in spite of improved methods
and machinery, do wages tend to a min
imum that will give bare living? was
question not asked, though it is a
pressing one iu county where over
forty-eight per cent. of the farmers do
not own the roofs they live under nor
the land they till; while of the fifty
two per cent. a large majority are
mortgaged. Free silver would not re-
deem this part of the Lords immoral
vineyard from the curse of landlordism.
In addition to a farmers institute
once year we have a teachers insti-
tute once a month, where another bum
die of old straw is threshed, for they,
too, ignore the actual conditions we are
living under and are, as ibody, so
morally cowardly that they dare not
enquire too deeply into the fact that
crime increases in spite of schools and
school teachers.
To-day / saw lowered into the grave
the body OF an old man who once told
me that in the early settlement of this
county he left his house with all his
| household goods inside and not door
| locked: barrel of whisky and some
meat in his smohehouse, and the latch
string hanging out; put his family in
wagon and went to Tennessee visit
| ing; returned at the end of three
months and found all safe and sound.
But he lived to see the country so much
worse. in spite OF schools and churches,
that man would endauger his life to
| habitually carry ten dollars IN his
pocket aud let it be generally known.
Dec. 5, '97. WM. CAMM.
Ladies' and chiIdren's hosiery all