The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1903-05-01
Barlow Philosopher Cautions His
Hosts Of Correspondents.
MANY LETnRS SHY OF STAMPS
Warns Endless chain Promoters and
Cchsmers 10 Give Him a Wide
5crtd-oome True North.
ern Friends.


know that the time for compositions
and debates and essays is near at
hand, but am sick and cannot help
you this spring l am weak and don't
want to strain my mind. / haven't
been out of the house but twice in
three months. Ny wife and the doc.
tor watch me and won't let me go. A
few weeks ago l slipped off to M
daughters one pleasant evening and
had to be hauled back in a buggy. for
1t is up hill to my house, and was
weaker than / thought. You see,
had a sunstroke last June and have
never recovered from 1t. Every night,
II the weather is bad, have to get up
about midnight and sit by the fire and
cough for an hour or two. Bus | can
answer letters and have from a dozen
to a score every day. It pleases me
to answer the letters Of the young
folks, for many of them need help. /
know that / did when | was away OF
ct school. My father was an old
school teacher and knew how to help
me. He wrote nearly all Of my junior
orators speech and / got credit for 1t,
though | only crossed the is and dot
ted the rs and put my name to the
end Of It, But there are hundreds OF
bSys and girls who have no help and /
am sorry for them, and so for many
years past have tried to help them.
Some Of them just want a little nelp,
a few ideas, but others want the
whole thing. In fact, one boy asked
me to write him two so that he could
take choice. Many of them forget
to enclose a stamp and my postage
account got to be such a burden that,
as Rip Van Winkle said, Il swore off,
and quit answering such letters. 1t
is bad manners to write to a man on
business that does not concern him
and expect him to pay the return
D. postage. l receive many long manu-.
n scripts with request to read and crit
else and return and tell where to have
published and what the writer will
probably get paid for them. l have
two on hand, just received-no stamps
enclosed-one is a grammatical curl
osity. Hardly a line tnat does not
contain bad grammar or a misspelled
word. 1t takes nearly half a line fol-
the word "spectacles" and 1t has four
I teen letters in it, The word angel ii
spelled angle, and yet the writer ex
poets to get paid for the story.
The other manuscript is an inquiry
into the race problem-no stamps
and it contains seventeen questions
for me to answer. Another long let
a ter on fool's-cap writes of the goot
N old times and says in conclusion tina
ii | will answer he will write agar
and put his name to the next letter
There is no name to this. He is al
Irishman l reckon. One other re
quest | wish to make about letters
Please place your postoffice address
plainly at the top and your name
~ lainly at the bottom Many a time
u have passed a letter all around thu
family trying to decipher the sigma
ture. Sometimes | have cut the sig
nature off and pasted it on the back O
the reply, thinking that probably tn,
postmaster at the writer's home wout
recognize it. If the postoffice address
is omitted and the postmark on tn,
envelope is blurred, as it frequently is
it is impossible to know where a re
kply should be sent, and if l guess a
and guess wrong it goes to the dea,
ketter office Now, you young peopl
must not forget these little things
for they are important, especially tn
stamps. Sometimes we literary me-
ore greatly perpexed to know what Il
% with some letters. One more re
81 best. Do not write to me at Atlanta
I 70 not live there. My home is in Car
tersyille, and l thought that every
body knew it by this time. l hav
living here over twenty years.
And now let me ask the good char
table ladies' who seek to do some
ng for some good cause to send n
more endless chain letters to me
They are a nuisance and have annoy
ed me greatly. l thought that whe
that common cheat and swindler, Joe
Smith, of Monticello, Fra, was broke
up and arrested the endless chat
business had stopped, but of late
has revived and l received three las
lex. One of them started in Canad
Ior a so.called missionary work an
got all the way down to Louisiana an
from there to me, wanting me to cop