The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1901-07-28
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Hotel can easily accommodate 25o guests.
Bill Arlp'S Letter !.
The Barlow Philosopher Declares That Life
Is One Continual Struggle.

built better house and gave his child
rem a good education and then | mar
ried and bettered my condition and my
wife and / undertook to raise a flock of
children on higher plane than we had
been raised on. We have succeeded
pretty WELL but it has been contin-
ual struggle, especially since the war.
1t is hard to keep even. There are
so many new inventions, new attrac-
tons, that lessen labor or give pleasure
that the temptation is very great and
liberal man is liable to get in the fix
of the old fellow who said he was about
even with the world and was ready to
die for he owed about as many as ne
didn't owe.
1t is these fixed charges that keep
man ever embarrassed. Fixed charges
that is what the railroad companies
call them-expenses that are regular
every month and do not vary / was
Illuminating about the fixed charges in
almost every aspiring family in a town
or city. My own for example. There
are taxes and fire insurance, say 1920 per
annum, or SO month; water, $3.50; gas,
$3.50; telephone, $150; cook, $40; wash
ing, So: church and Sunday school, 81:
say 81 for an average; postage and box
rent, 81. Now. all these make $3.50 of
| fixed charges per month, not including
cost of keeping horse and COW. and
there is 5 per cent for annual repairs
on the dwelling. And SO much NOR.
than half of the income goes for fixed
!, charges that seem to be unavoidable.
| Of course we can dismiss the cook and
IN wi ha al but VIC do ,nt
wish to for both are great comforts.
especially when company comes We
have long since dismissed the horse
and the cow Now. where do the food
ard clothing come from? 1t takes more
| for the unfixed thing than the fixed.
Then there is something wanted almost
every day for charity. Book agents
come almost every day and excite our
sympathy, but we have long since cut
off that expense. One came yesterday
for book of which General Miles is one
of the editors. 1t shouldn't stay in my
house. Those Northern publishers seem
to think we have no feeling-no resent
| ment-and they seek to shove Uncle
Toms Cabin" and any other fraud upon
us, and some of our fool people swallow
| the bait. Why don't they buy DR.. Cur
rvs book, or Raphael Semmes," or
| Percy Grey" or some book that has
| fewer pictures and more truth?
| But blessings on the good old-fash-
Toned country people, who have no fixed
charges to pay-none hardly, and the
unfxed are not bought from the butch
er or the baker, nor are the dry goods
altogether regulated By the fashions
of the town or city. They raise their
own supplies of flour and meal and lard
and chickens and eggs. When company
! comes they call up Cindy and tell her
/ she will have to kill another chicken
and that is all of it, OF course, they
must buy sugar and coffee, but they
make their own jellies and jam and
peach pickles from their own fruit and
| can beat Dio Lewis on cherry tarts and
apple dumplings and chicken pie. Just
/ go to farmers club one time, if you
would know what these substantial
| country people can do in the way of a
| picnic.
! But like company and when it comes