The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1901-09-20
BILL ARP'S LETTER
Barlow Man Delights to Hear
From His Aged Contemporaries,
RECEIVES MANY LETTERS FROM THEN
Most Of tho Writers Were Williams
"chumo" In the Long Ago.-Trles
TO Anower All Of Them.

They are not oil dead In fact. they
seem to multiply as the years roll on
ny contemporaries, mean. receive
more letters from old men than even
did, and they write well and give long
eplBtles. When a man gets along in
the seventies he feels lonesome, not
withstanding the near presence OF
children and grandchildren. The com.
panlons Of his youth are gone, and 80
some Of these old men unbosom them.
selves to me for sympathy. like such
letters and try to answer them all, but
rheumatism in my arm and hand
cramps my replies. One old gentle
man from Alabama says he feels bet.
ter after he has written, for he Is
native Georgian and loves her people
and her old red hills and the sweet
memories Of Emory college and his
visits to Athens, where his Uncle Eli
Ear Newton lived, and how he met me
there In the forties and John Grant
and Dan Hughes and Jack Brown and
Billy Williams, who married my
friends cousin and took charge Of the
blind asylum-and how he heard DR.,
Church preach and was charmed with
the music Of the choir, where Miss Ann
Waddell and Rosa Pringle and other
pretty girls sang. and how a tall. long,
high man, with big hooked nose and
huge "pomum Adamus" on his throat
sang bass, and how he was room
mate OF Tom Norwood at Emory and
class mate Of Bishop Key and Judge
A. B, Longstreet, the author Of "Geor.
gia Scenes" was the president; and
how he removed to Alabama in 1S49
and married and has seven daughters
and no sons and has ten orphan grand
children and has to work early and
late to support and educate them, but
never sees and rarely hears from any
friend Of his youth and is at times sad
and depressed and longs for sympa-
thy. Poor old man, I wish that he
lived near me, for would visithim and
cheer him up and tell him anecdotes
and antidotes, and we would talk over
the old times and swap college stories
and brag about the good old days
when there we're no telegraphs or tele.
phones or bicycles, and we did noe
want any; no sewing machines or
store clothes, and we didn't need any;
no football or baseball or hazing or
suicides or appendicitis. And In those
days came Toombs and Stephens and
Judge Dougherty and Howell Cobb and
Walter Colquitt and spake to the peo-
pie face to face, and such eloquent
men as George Pearce and Bishop Ca
pers and Jesse Mercer and DR.. Hoyt
and Goulding and Ingles preached to
them. Yes, we would talk about the
days of our boyhood, when there was
no gas or kerosene or friction matches
nothing but candles to give us light
and no Prometheus to steal fire from
heaven to light them with. Shake
speare knew how 1t was, for he wrote
'How far that little candle throws Its
beams!
So shines good deed in a naughty
world"
If Shakespeare wrote by candle
Hight, why shouldn't WEI And he
too. used the flint and steel to make g
spark to light them. "Pick your fin
and keep your powder dry" was Gen
eral Jackson's order at New Orleans
When l was a young merchant gun
flints were as common as marbles, ant
I sold them at the same price-1t
cents a dozen. Wonderful, wonderful
are the changes, and we old people
fall in with them and adapt them tt
our use and our comfort. / wouldn'
be set back. to the good old times
could, but would enjoy seeing thl
generation all set back about seyent.
years, just for about a week. My Ala
bama friend and other veterans woult
be tickled 10 death to see the unIver
sal dismay-no railroads or telegraph
no mail, but once a week-and rs cent
for a single letter No daily newspa
pers in the state and only four week
lies. with no sensations, no suicides
or lynchings. There would be no cook
ing stoves, no coal, no steel pens o
envelopes, no cigarettes. No million
aires or free niggers. l remembe
when cotton was packed in rount
bales with a crowbar. The long bal
was made first and was suspende'
from a hole in the gin house floor ant
Uncle Jack got down IN 1t and packe
H. nnttnn hard % II was thrown L