Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1904-06-29
-voLUnzE 1.-TWO. 80.
J. A. Cooks letter

Fort Madison, June 81. ~ Editors
Courier: We noticed in your paper of
June 9th an article from Taber signed
Steno, and in regard to the dispensary,
the school fund, etc., he says: ."Tbat
school fund comes in handy, and the
majority of our peoples consciences do
not trouble them on account of using it
for the benefit of tho public Schools"
Steno further says that "Maiue is
shining example of q prohibition State.
But we wonder what those people do In
case of snake bites" We wonder if 10
never occurred to the mind of our friend,
Steno, that there are about as many diff
ferent varieties of conscience as there is
OF corn, wheat. oats, etc. We have been
planting the celebrated Coke's Prolific
Corn, which is a hard, fiinty variety, the
ears small in size and hard to q ~, and
we find some mems conscienc .ru and
fiinty, small in size, scatter med and
hard to she'll. The homes nan's con-
science will usually guide nim all right
enough, but when we f2d scoundrel
the laws of the country Ave to guide
the conscience, as the Law hf God have
no effect on him. Ono n..si's conscience
wilLteach Him that it is his duty to go to
China as a missionary to oivilize and
Christianize the heathen Chinaman.
Then the Chinaman's conscience will
teach him to murder the missionary
while he is praying with him.
We heard of an American girl whose
conscience taught her that 1t was her
duty to 60 to Africa to ciyilize and
Christianize those heathens in that
country, and when she got there she
happened to get among a lot of cannibals
and their consciepces taught them to
kill the girl and eat her and after they
were through feasting upon the body Of
the girl, their queen leaned back from
the table, wiped her mouth with her
m lyar htnf nd nntI oh ..I -.
God she knew the parents of this girl so
she could correspond with them.
There are not only a great many
different varieties of consciences, but
there are some consciences that seem
to be made of mineral metallic sub
stance of some kind. 1t seems that they
will expand one day and contract the
next day. Sometimes when man is
full of dispensary booze his conscience
will lead him to murder his fellow man,
and as soon as he gets sober again the
very same conscience will worry him
until he will commit suicide.
We once heard of rich man whose
conscience taught him that it was very
wrong for poor old negro to steal 10
cent chicken. He had the negro taken
up and put in the chain gang for it, but
in less than twelve months the same
conscience lead this rich man to go iuto
bankruptcy, and he swindled his credi-
1oio ouG VI CuOuSduu collars. lC
seems that when mans conscience ex-
pands it always stretches in the direc-
tion of the money, and it seems that
those metallic cOnsoieDces always ex-
pand when the mans pocketbook is he
ing filled. But when some poor old
widow woman comes to him, in her
rags, with tears in her eyes, whose hus-
band has killed himself drinking at the
State dispensary, which was established
in front of his door for his convenience,
aud whose children are crying for bread,
and ask him to give her dollar to get
bread for her children, then his little
mineral conscience will begin to contract
was indicating temperature 40 degrees
below zero. He will cry out, "Best So
luton, best solution of the whiskey
problem" And he is then chasing q
rainbow that has dynamite bomb un-
der both ends of it. He is probably
using hor dead husbands money to
school his children, and his children
probably strutting around with their
derby hats and toothpick shoes on and
calling the widow woman's children
poor buckra, trash, &c.
We don't think man with con-
science of this kind should be afraid
of the snake of Maine or any
other State. If a snake should bite him
it would probably come out second best
in the fight. If the conscience will
guide us Alright in this dispensary bust
ness, we can see no reason why it
wouldn't guide us Alright in all other
business.
Suppose we abolish all the laws of the
country, both civil and criminal, and let
the whole business of the world be
governed according to the consciences of
the people. What kind of time would
we haveP When the supply merchant,
who has been furnishing supplies for
the working people all the year, would
start out in the fall to collect his liens
and mortgages and just leave the whole
him, how much of his dues would he
collect? And what about our tax gath
erer when he would come around in the
fall to collect State and county taxes,
just leave it to the peoples conscience to
pay or not, whichever they pleased, how
much money would he get.v He wouldn't
get enough money to buy one barrel of
Hour for the poor at the poor house.
In this case wouldn't you be sorry for
the regiment of little majors, colOnels,
captains and cadets at Clemson College,
instead of getting more than one hun
dred thousand dollars, as usual, they
would get just about enough to buy
their uniforms; or probably they would
put on mourning instead of uniforms,
and 1T would not cost so much.
Now, wonder if my friend, Steno,
would not agree with me that it is better
to let reason, common sense and self
respect be our guide in this dispensary
matter than have so much conscience
in it. j. A. Cook.
On the first indication of kidney trou-
Bile, StOD it by taking Eolev,s Kidpay