The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1901-07-31

While once in awhile Henry Irving or
an Edwin Booth or a Joseph Jefferson
thrills great audience with tragedy, you
know as well as l do that the vast major
ity of the theatres are as debased as de.
based they can be, as unclean as unclean
they can be. Three million dollars-the
vast majority of those dollars going in the
wrong direction.
Over a hundred millions paid in this
country for cigars and tobacco a year!
About $4,000, 600 paid for strong drink
in one year in this country! With such
extravaganza, pernicious extravaganza,
can there be any permanent prosperity?
Business men, cool headed business men,
is such thing possibility? These e1-
travagances also account, as I have al
ready limited, for the positive crimes, the
forgeries, the abscondings of the officers
of the banks. The store on the business
street swamped by the residence on the
fashionable avenue. The fathers, the hus-
bands craft capsized by carrying too
the leak in the merchants money till.
That is what cracks the pistols of the sui
cides. That is what tears down the banks.
That is what stops insurance companies
That is what halts this nation again and
again in it's triumphal march of prosper
ity. In the presence of the American peo.
pie, 30 far as I can get their attention, I
want to arraign this monster curse of ex-
travagance, and I want you to pelt it with
your scorn and hurl at it your anathema.
know it cuts close. did not know
but some Of you in high dudgeon would
get up and go out. You nd it well.
and after awhile you will die, and minis
ters will be sent for to come and stand by
your coffin and lie about your excellences,
but they will not come. If you send for
me, will tell you what my text will be-:
"He that pIovideth not for his own, and
especially for those in his own household,
is worse than an infdel"
How many fortunes every year wrecked
on the wardrobe? Things have got to such
a pass that when we cry over our sins in
church we wipe the tears away with a
$3.50 pocket handkerchief! I show you a
domestic tragedy in five acts:
full. Enter newly married pair. Enter
contentment. Enter as much happiness
as ever gets in one home.
Act the second-Enter discomfort. En-
ter desire for larger expenditure. Enter
envy. Enter jealousy.
Act the third-Enter the queenly dress
makers. Enter the French milliners. En-
ter all costly plate and all great extrava-
gances.
Act the fourth - Tip top of society.
Princes and princesses of upper tendon
floating in and out. Everything on large
and magnificent scale. Enter contempt
for other people.
Act the fifth and last-Enter the as
signee. Enter the sheriff. Enter the
creditors. Enter humiliation. Enter the
wrath of God. Enter the contempt of
society: Enter ruin and death; Now
drop the curtain; The play is ended, and
I called it tragery. That is misno-
mer. 1t is farce.
Extravaganza accounts for much of the
pauperism. Who are these people whom
you have to help? Many of them are the
children of parents who had plenty, lived
in luxury, had more than they needed,
spent all they had, spent more, too; then
died and left their families in poverty.
Some of those who call on you now for
aid had an ancestry that supped on Bur-
gurdy and woodcock.
w hat an apportionment! Twenty thou.
sand dollars for ourselves and one cent
for God All, my friends, this extrava.
gance accounts for great deal of what
the cause of God suffers!
And the deseeration goes on even to the
funeral day. You know very well that
there are men who die solvent, but the
expenses are so great before they get un.
der ground they are insolvent.
There are families that 60 into penury
in wicked response to the demands of
tl.is day. They put in casket and tomb
stone that which they ought to put in
bread. They wanted bread; you gave
them tombstone.
One would think that the last two OBJ
legations people would be particular about
would be the physician and the under
taker. Because they are the two last OBJ
legations. those two professions are almost
always cheated. They send for the doctor
night. They send for the undertaken
amid the great solemnities, and often
these two men are the very last to be met
with compensation. Merchants sell goods,
and the goods are not paid for. They take
back the goods, I am told. But there is
no relief in this case. The man spent all
he had in luxury and extravaganza while
he lived, and then he goes out of the
world, and has left nothing for his family,
nothing for the obsequies, and as he goes
out of the world he steals the doctor 8
pills and the undertaker's slippers. was
reading in New York paper an account
of the obsequies in family of very moder-
ate estate, and the aggregate was S3000.
A man in New York of moderate. estate
dies, He has lived in extreme luxury.
Of keeping up the magnifcence, orders the
following things. They were produced and
never paid for to this day:
Casket, covered with Lyons velvet,
silver holdings .................... $3.50
HEAVY Mated handles " an
Solid silver plate, engraved in Roman
Ten linen scarfs. ........:.:...::.... $50 50
Floral decorations. ............... 225
Music and quartet choir at the house 40
Twenty carriages ................... 40
Then fifteen other important expen-
dltures amounting to.............. 1856
Making an aggregate of. .Sls76
And all that to get one poor mortal to
his last home and never paid for! Swim
died his family. Swindled the world. He
is swindling it now. 1t is one of the great
curses of this day, the extravaganza, the
And then look how the cause of God is
impoverished. Men give so much some
times for their indulgences they have
nothing for the cause of God and religion.
Twenty-Five million dollars expended in
this country year for religious purposes;
but what are the twenty-five millions eX-
pended for religion compared with the
hundred millions expended on cigars and
tobacco and then two thousand millions
of dollars spent for rum! So man who
had fortune of $75O,0O0 or what amount
ed to that in London spent, it all in in
dulgences, chiefys in gluttonies, and sent
hither and yon for al the delicacies and
often had meal that would cost 800 or
$500 for himself. Then he was reduced'to
one guinea with asJ which a bss he bought otys rare r
took two hours for digestion, walked out
or Westminster bridge, and jumped into
the Thames-on a large scale what men
are doing on a small scale.
Oh, my friends, let US take our stand
against the extravagances of society. Do
not nav for things which are frivolous