The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1899-07-19

s
! these p-oniscuous and multltudinou
residences there are so many who have
nothing to do, and that always makes
mischief. They gather in each others
rooms and spend hours in consultation
about others. IF they had to walk
half mile before they got to willing ear
Of some listener to detraction, they
would be out Of breath before reaching
there and not feel in full glow Of ami
mostly or SANDER, or might, because Of
the distance. not go at all. But rooms
20. p, %, %, u and 25 are on the
same corridor, and when one carrion
crow goes Cav! Cav" all the other
crows hear it and flock together over
the same carcass. ''Oh, l have heard
something rich Sit down and let me
tell you all about it" And the first
guffaw increases the gathering, and 1t
has to be told all over again, and as
they separate each carries spark from
the altar of Cab to some other circle
until, from the coal HEAVIER in the cellar
to the maid in the top room Of the gar.
ret, all are aware Of the defamation and
that eveGing all who leave the house
Will bear it to other houses until au-
tumnal fires sweeping across Illinois
praries are less raging and swift than
that fame of consuming reputation
blazing across the village or city.
Those Of us who were brought up in
the country know that the old fashion
ed Matching of eggs in the haymow re-
ouired four or FIVE weeks of brooding,
but there are new modes Of Matching by
machinery, which take less time and do
the work by wholesale. So, while the
private home may brood into life an oc-
casional falsity, and take a long time to
do it, many Of the boarding houses and
family hotels afford swifter and more
multitudinous style Of moral incubation
and one old gossip will get off the nest
after one hours brooding, clucklDg a
fock Of 80 lies after her, each one pick
ing up its little worm Of juicy regale
ment. 1t is no advantage to hear too
much about your neighbors, for your
time will be so much occupied IN taking
care of their faults that you will have
no time to look after your own. And
while you are pulling the chickweed out
of their garden, yours will get all over
grown with horse sorrel and mullen
stalks.
One of the worst damages that come
from the herding of so many people into
boarding houses and family hotels is IN
Aicted upon children. It is only anoth-
er way Of bringing them up on the COM
mons. While you have your own prl-
vate house you can, for the most part,
control their companionship and their
whereabouts, but by y years Of age in
these public resorts they will have
picked up all the bad things that can
be furnished by the prurient minds OF
dozens of people. They will overhear
blasphemies and see quarrels and get
precocious in sin, and what the barten-
der does not tell them the porter or host
Ter or bell boy will.
Besides that, the children will go out
into this world without the restraining,
anchoring, steadying and all controlling
memory Of home. From that none OF
US who have been blessed of such mem
ory have escaped. 1t grips man for so
years, if he lives solong. ltpulls him
back from doors into which he other
wise would enter. It tsmites him with
contrition in the very midst Of his dissi-
nations. As the fish already surround
ed by the long wide net swim out to sea,
thinking they can go as far as they
please, and with gay toss Of silvery
scale they defy the sportsman on the
beach, and after awhile the fishermen
begin to draw in the net hand over
hand and hand over hand, and it is g
long while before the captured fms be-
gin to fce. the net, and then they dart
this way and that, hoping to get out,
but find themselves approaching the
shore and are brought up to the very
feet of the captors, so the memory OF
an early home sometimes seems to relax
and let men out farther and farther
from God and farther and farther from
shore-5 years, 10 years, 20 years, 81
years-but some day they find an ire
sistible mesh drawing them back, and
they are compelled to retreat from their
prodigality and wandering, and, though
they make desperate effort to escape
the impression and try to dive deeper
down in sin, after awhile are brought
clear back and held upon the Rock OF
Ages.
If it be possible, oh father and moth
er. let your sons and daughters go out
into the world under the semiomnipo-
tent memory Of a good, pure home.
About your two or three rooms in a
boarding house or a family hotel you
can cast no such glorious sanctity.
They will think Of these public caravan,
saries as an early stopping place, mala,
dorous with old victuals, coffees perpet,
ually steaming and meats in everlasting
stew or broil, the air surcharged with
carbonic acid and corridors along which
drunken boarders come staggering at
o'clock in the morning, rapping at the
door till the afrighted wife lets them
in. Do not be guilty Of the sacrilege
or blasphemy of calling such place a
home.
A home is four walls inclosing one
family with identity of interest and a
privacy from outside inspection so com,
plete that it is a world in itself, no one
entering except by permission-bolted
and barred and chained against all out,
side inquisi1iveness. The phrase SC
often used in law books and legal circles
is nightly suggestive-every man
house is his castle. AS much so as
though it had drawbridge, portcullis,
redoubt, bastion and armed turret.
Even the officer Of the law may not en-
ter to serve a writ except the door be
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