Fort Mill times. [volume] (Fort Mill, S.C.) 1892-current, 1901-03-06
LETTER FROM SAM p. JONES.
Says the World Never Needed Old
Fashioned Mammies and Daddics
Like it Needs Them To-day.
The Atlanta Journa

times a fellow has to hold his breath as
he looks on. The saying that ''if you
let it alone it will let you alone" is
great big whopping lie, but it is lie
that has been told so often that the
believe it is true. A fellow said to me
the other day that If man will let
whiskey alone it will let him alone.
This is the whoppinest lie of all. A
many home and many man has let
whiskey alone and yet because some
body else drank 1t a husband has been
shot down "Gd the widow and orphans
have been left homeless and penniless.
Sometimes good mother that always
let whiskey alone finds that it is wreck
ing her boy and won't let her alone,
and this is true of the other deviltries
of life.
Tragedy and comedy. There are
many things TO laugh at and others
that make your blood run cold. What
a tragedy the papers this week report of
the gruesome find out near Bolton
These horrors are not accidents or the
mishaps of n day; they have their roots
running backward and running down
ward. Society is getting more cor
rupt, modesty and purity are standing
at less premium, decency and sobriety
are spurned by many who would be
esteemed respectable. When a woman
loses her modestv she has already half
way lost her virtue. When man has
bottle of whisky in one pocket and
pack of cigarettes in the other he has
very little move to lose except bis soul
This world never needed the old-fash-
iUned mammies and daddles like it
needs them today. We have substitutes
for them called mammas and papas,
of which | am whom, and they are
sorry set.
Buggy and bicycle riding, balloons,
etc, however nice they may seem, they
are like the old woman's collards when
she said, elf you cook these old
blue stem collards before frost bites
them If you don't put heap of grease in
them you will find after you have ca.
them that they have got the very devil
in them" Buggy riding and ball rooms
need grace instead of grease and great
deal more grace than goes to that phase
OF life. l tell you the young bucks and
buckesses are up to snuff these days.
| noticed a report in the New York
World the other day of the woman who
dined at the fashionable restaurants in
New York, that 10 per cent. of them
took wine and whiskey with their din
ners. / said it and stick to it that
when woman IS full of wine she is not
able to take care of herself properly in
the midst of this crooked and perverse
generation. But while the young folks,
so called, are having II good time, there
are bleeding hearts behind them suffer
ing untold agonies, and | have said it
and stick to it again, that the greatest
mystery III Gods economy is that the
innocent must suffer with the guilty,
not perchance like the dog Tray who
went In bad company, for he ought to
have been licked for having gotten
with that gang, but the innocent, who
do not consort with the guilty. Mothers,
wives, daughters, husbands, suffer be-
cause of the guilt of another whom
God has bound to them by ties of con-
sanguiuity
Ii the devil does get hIs dues and
gives some people their dues, there is
going to be picnic some day in PAN
demonium. | have long since aban-
the devil will get anybody whom he
ought not to get or that he will do any
more to thern than he ought to do.
But l have laughed much TINS week
over the board of trade valentines and
the Georgia minstrels. That's comedy,
gentlemen, pure and simple.
The more | think about these things
the funnier they get. ! don't how
funny they are, however, to Harry
Hunt" and "Joel Atkinson" and then
to think about Mayor Minis being
troubled like he is (when he came into
the mayOralty with bottle of cologne
in one hand and his curling tongs in
the other and all about 21 years
franchise on short street. You may
say to Mayor Minis for me that his
trouble has just begun, and that if his
hair is not naturally curly he will soon
have trouble enough to make it curl
naturally, and he will find that rose
water won't do To scald hogs in. He
must remember the other crowd had
the mayor last year, no matter who has
got him this year, and time about is
fair play, anyway. But them valen-
uhco-pIy, uOh / thcs 20 lOV ClirK as
well as the rest of the boys. If | had
nothing to do but enjoy fun | would
move to Atlanta. A fellow can have it
there every day, and ali he wants.
The constitution of the United States
guarantees to the people the right of
petition, but that's as far as the guar
antee goes, and it also gives people the
right to peaceabiy assemble. Why don't
one or the other of the street car COM
panies employ Sister Nation with her
| hatchef. she wOuld oDep nm on avopua