The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1901-09-04

- SoAASSA&&PoAc cAASo3 X mSdus J. re-
ceive more letters from old men than
ever did, and they write we'll and
give. long epistles. When a man gees
along in the seventies be feels lone.
some, notwithstanding the near pres.
ence Of children and grandchildren
The companions of his youth are
gone, and SO some Of these old men
unbosom themselves to me for sym.
pathy. I like such letters and try to
answer them all. bur rheumatism in
my arm and hand cramps my replies.
One old gentleman from Alabama
says he feels better after he has writ.
ten, for he is natiyc 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 Elizar Newton lived
and how he met me there in the for
ties, and John Grant and John Eughes
and Jack Brown and Billy Williams,
who married my friends cousin and
took charge of the blind asylum land
how he heard DR.. Church preach and
was charmed with the music of the
choir, where Miss Ann Waddell and
Rosa Pringle aud other pretty girls
: sang, and how tall, long, high man,
with a big hooked nose and huge
"pomum Adamus' on his throat, sang
base, and how he was roommate of
Tom Norwood at Emory and class
mate Of Bishop Key and Judge A. r.
Longstreet, the author of Georgia
Scenes," was the president; and how
he removed to Alabama in 1849 and
married and has seven daughters and
no sons and has ten orphan grandchil-
dren, and has to work early and late
to support aud educate them, but
never sees and rarely hears from any
friend of his youth and is at times sad
and depressed and longs for sympathy.
Poor old man, wish that he lived
near me, for I would visit him 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 were no telegraphs or telephones
or bicycles, and we did not 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
Doutherty and Howell Cobb and Wal
ter Colquitt and spake to the people
face to face, and such eloquent men
as George Pearce and Bishop Capera
and Jessie 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
spsare knew how it was, for he wrote:
(. How, far that little candle throws it's
beams!
So shines good deed III a naughty
world.n
If Shakespeare wrote by candle
light, Why shouldn't we? And he,
too, ussd the Aint and steel 70 make
q spark to light them. "Pick your
flint and keep your powder dry Was
General Jackson's order at New Or
leans. When I was young merchant
gun-AinsS were as common as marbles,
.aad I sold them ut the same prica-10
cents . DOZEN. Wonderful, wonderful
are the changes, and 1--WE old people
fall in with them and adapt them TO-
our nse and our comfort, wculdn'ti
be set back co the good old times IL I
could, but I would en,oy seeing this
generation oil set back about seventy
years, just for about week. Ny
Alabama friend and other veterans
would be tickled TO death TO see the
universal dismay-no railroads or tele-
graph, no mail but once week and
20 cents for q single letter. No daily
newspapers in the State and only four.
weeklies, with no sensations, no sui.
cidcsJo or lyme hings, There would be
no cooking stoves, no coal, no steel
pens or envelopes. no cigarettes. No
millionaires or free niggers. I re-.
member when cotton was packedio
round bales with crowbar. The
long bag was made first and was. sus-
pended from . hole In the gin house
floor and Uncle Jack got down in IL
and packed the cotton hard as il was
thrown to him. He packed two bales
q day and they weighed 400 pounds
each EWhO of them ifsi6d ths bsaf of