The Magnolia gazette., 1899-12-20
CONVERSATION
WITH A LADY.

Dear Gazette: Meeting recent
| ly very intelligent lady friend
in town, the writer remarked to
her that business affairs were go
ing smoothly along.
She said, "The country never
was in more deplorable political
and financial condition than at
present. n
what" asked, "with cotton
q fair price, and good yield and
everybody with plenty Of corn
and potatoes, how can this thing
be?' ?
She said, "No one can bring
ten bushels Of corn to market and
sell it for cash. -
told her that was fine sign
ofprosperity when our best friend
-bread--was down.
She said 'No country is in
good condition when corn cannot
be sold. -
| told her there was large de-
mand now for corn at our own
doors, as a hundred teams were
now hauling lumber and they
bought all their OK food in town,
and that certainly she could find
market.
She said, 1--WE would have to
shell it and bring it to town. We
then could not get over 40 cents
for it. -
told her corn would bring as
much in Osyka, cash, as it would
in st. Louis, Cincinnati, or any
OF the corn centres of the West,
and that we could not blame the
administration because bread was
low, for low bread was always a
blessing to the poor, and that no
government could be expected to
furnish US with low priced flour
and nigh priced corn Just when
we had a little of the latter to sell.
That corn must enter the market
here, like elsewhere. sacked up, |
and then il would be sure to bring
its market value.
She said, they could not sell
corn to lumber haulers because
these latter had to buy through
merchants and the haulers never
handled their own money, and
that the trusts were running the
country.
| asked her ii there was not
something closely akin to trusts
that existed between the saw mill
man and the merchant, that pre-
vented her selling corn direct to
the waggoner.
She said there might be some-
thing of that that kept the team
sters from having cash to pay for
their feed.
! told her that little home trusts
We're about as severe on us as
were the big trusts that we want
ed legislation on.
Now IL the small men who are
forevergrumbling about the trusts
would 60 to work building up an
independentlitt credit for them
selves by depositing their money
in the banks, they would learn
the value of promptness. They
would soon learn that their sig-
nature to a check was an object;
their customers would learn this
also, then our friend could sell
these men her corn, and get a
check for it, and the middle man
that so many people have been
striving to eliminate from their
business, would be out Of their
way.
Men, TO be successful, must
learn business habits, and then
practice them, for business will
not thrive among people who do
not practice business habits. So
corn, as we'll as everything else,
must mply with the rules 81
supply and demand, for no gov.
ernment can keep flour cheap for
US who buy it, and sorn dear be-
baase we want to sell a very little
Iof it.
i Oar people must learn TO make
| much smaller accounts than they
\ 90 and pay them on the day
promised. then learn to make
some public roads worth tn,
name. and then they viii wake
lup to the fact that they have :
pretty good country.
II you wish to add to world,
\ interests ofthe country, get liquor
out Of It, make your b oys qui