The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1909-04-15
Western Barbarians.
Pious but Silly Creatures Who
Seek to Enlighten the Poor
Benighted Mountain Folk of
North Carolina by Sending
Them Bright Colored Mag
azine Covers.
Thomasyille Charity and Children.

| Thomasyille Charity and Children.
The current issue of the JFOman's
Home Companion, which is enclosed
| i'm brilliant covers contains this limo.
cent bit of correspondence that looks
very pious and pitiful:
eve are exceedingly glad to get
letters from our readers, telling ex-
actly how the COmpa MON is for them
a tool for service These letters
seem to US especially helpful and sug-
| gestive:
Dear Companion:-Would you like to
! know what becomes of you after grand
| mother and J ohn and Lad and wee Alice
and | have read you through and
through? First, clip off your beautiful
covers and send them to a missioner up
among the hills OF North Carolina. They
are dreary places, the homes where these
mountain folk live. Read what she says
and see how glad she is to have the
covers Plaster is almost unknown
| here The better houses are wood ceiled
and with very few windows, sometimes
| only one, so the room is always dark.
| Bright pictures on the dark, smoke
| stained wood relieve the barrenness
greatly. ISL I 1T a WOuueIlul ullssiol "
carry cheer into lonely lives?'
There is more to this interesting
letter. but the above is sufficient for
our purpose. The sender of these
bright and gaudy pictures for the
ceilings OF the better class of our
mountain homes is an honest soul,
no doubt, and reminds us OF the
woman who burst into passion OF
tears over the ice-house at Mount
Vernon. thinking it was the tomb OF
Washington But that missioner
that DiOus missiOner-whO is giving
her sweet life to the tanning of the
savages-what shall we say of her?
We have heard from her oft before
She can beat the world drawing a
| picture of dreariness and desOlatiOn
into which she is throwing a soft and
saving light. The missioner must
know that some of the finest and
most convenient homes of the State
are to be found in Western North
Carolina, and that the lives of the
people in that section are no more
bleak and barren than are those OF
lllt uldl ItSlDliS VI we" LIAM pSuI
and Maine. Why will our friend, the
missioner, persist in playing the mar
tyr in the magazines which have a
wide circulation among the barba-
rians she has come to rescue? The
mountain people are not a whit bet
ter than the people of other sections
of the. State, but they are just as
good. and that means that they
measure up very we'll with the mis-.
sioner who is dying to redeem them.
OF course there are illiterate, crude
and unpromising people among the
mountains, but so there are in every
section OF the United States that we
have visited 1t is wrong, unjust
and unchristian to hold up to public
scorn a whole people and a whole
| section because of the extreme cases
that are to be found anywhere, and
in proportions more nearly equal
| than is sometimes supposed. 81 am
| holier than thou" is not a popular
doctrine in North Caralina or any
where else Our friend the missioner
can find field white to the harvest
a good deal nearer home than up
among the hills OF North Carolina