The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1899-07-07

! ephone and telegraph wires !
| from tEci, ears to all the houses l.
neighborhood.. They have no taste
| healthy news, but for the scraps
| peelings thrown out of the sculler
the back yard they have great avidit.
On the day when there is a new scandal
in the newspapers they have no time to
go abroad. On the day when there are
! four or five columns of delightful pri-
vatc letters published in divorce case
| she stays at home and reads and reads
and reads. No time for her Bible that
day, but toward night, perhaps, she
may find time to run out little while
and see whether there are any new de-
velopments.
Satan does not have to keep very
J sharp lookout for his evil dominion in
| that neighborhood. He has let out to
| her the whole contract. She gets hus-
bands and wives into quarrel and
| brothers and sisters into antagonism,
and she disgusts the pastor with the
| flock and the flock with the pastor, and
! she makes neighbors who before were
| kindly disposed toward each other over
suspicious and critical, so when one of
the neighbors passes by in a carriage
they hiss through their teeth and say:
"Ah, we could all keep carriages if we
never paid our debts!"
When two or three whisperers get to-
gether they stir caldron of trouble,
which makes me think of the three
witches of Macbeth" dancing around
boiling caldron in dark cave:
Double, double, toll and trouble,
Fire burn and caldron bubble,
Fillet of a fenny snake
In the caldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blind worms sting,
Lizards leg and owlet's wing
For charm of powerful trouble.
Like hell both boil and bubble.
Double, double, boil and trouble,
Fire burn and caIdron bubble,
Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witches mummy, NAV and gulf
OF the ravin'd salt sea shark:
Make the cruel thick and stark;
Add thereto a tigers Chaudron
For the ingredients of our caIdron.
Double double, toll and trouble,
Fire burn and CaldroR bubble;
Cool it with babboon's blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.
l would only change Shakespeare in
this, that where he puts the word
witch" l should put the word "whis-
perer." All, what a caldron! Did you
ever get taste of it? l have more re-
spect for the poor waif of the street
that goes down under the gaslight with
no home and no God-for she deceives
no one as to what she is-than l have
for these hags of respectable society
who cover up their tiger claws with a
fine shawl and bolt the hell of their
heart with a diamond breastpin.
The work of masculine whisperers is
chiefly seen in the embarrassment of
business. Now, l suppose there are
hundreds of men here who at some time
have been in business trouble. l will
undertake to say that in nine cases out
Of ten it was the result of some whisper
er's work. The whisperer uttered some
suspicion in regard to your credit. You
sold your horse and carriage because
you had no use for them, and the whis-
perer said: ''Sold his horse and car
riage because he had to sell them. The
fact that he sold his horse and carriage
shows he is going down in business"
One of your friends gets embarrassed,
and you are a little involved with him.
The whisperer says: Il wonder if he
can stand under all this pressure? l
think he is going down. | think he will
have to give up" You borrow money
out of bank, and the director whispers
outside about it, and after awhile the
suspicion gets fairly started, and it
leaps from one whisperer's lips to an
other whispcrer's lips until all the peo-
pie you owe want their money and want
it right away, and the business circles
come around you like pack of wolves,
and, though you had assets four times
more than were necessary to meet your
liabilities, crash went everything. |
Whisperers! Oh, how much business |
men have suffered!
Sometimes in the circles of clergy
men we discuss why it is that great |
many merchants do not go to church.
| will tell you why they do not go to |
church. By the time Saturday night |
comes they are worn out with the an
noyances of business life. They have |
had enough meanness practiced upon
them to set their whole nervous system |
a-twitch.
| think among the worst of the whis- |
perers are those who gather up all tie |
harsh things that have been said about |
you and bring them to you-all the |
things said against you, or against |
your family, or against your style of
business. They gather them all up, and /
they bring them to you; they bring
them to you in the very worst shape;
they bring them to you without any of
The extenuating circumstances, and
after they have made your feelings all
raw, very raw, they take this brine, this
this aqua fortis, and rub it
N with coarse towel, and rub it in u1-
I'll it sinks to the bone. They make you
he pincushion in which they thrust all
The sharp things they have ever heard
about you. ''Now, don't bring me into
he scrape. Now, don't tell anybody
old you. Let it be between you and
ne. Don't involve me in it at all"
they aggravate you to the point of pro-
anity, and then they wonder you can
lot sing psalm tunes! They turn ga
N a spit before hot fire and wonder