Norwich bulletin., 1910-10-22
sERApHINA LANES OPINION OF FARMERS

CWritten specially for the Bulletin.)
 Seraphina Jane thinks farmers are 'so rough" She even intimates, with a shrug of her sha2ely shoulders,-if S,tu evee Seard "Ese Mikado" you must res-1eurber KasSnl6a's famous el- bow,-sh~ at least suggests by the way she lift those s1t ulders that she thinks we are coarse In Seraphi- mas lexeion and in that which she teaches Willie" and Reggie" and the others of her adoring followers to be coarse" or even rough" is to be anathenla. I have always suspected that Seraphina's idea of a man was just about the same as her idea of horse,-i. Q. that mostly everything depended on the grooming
 Now, Seraphina is nice girl, all the Seraphiuas are,-the two you and I know. and the others that other fel- fows know. I'll bust my typewriter with a hammer before I'll let it pound out a word of sarcasm or reproduction against her. In point of fact, re- gards a very considerable number of farmers, I quite agree with her. There are good many farmers who cer- tainly are rough and not a few who are coarse. There isn't a rural com murity between QuOday Head and Cos Cob which hasn't in 1t an element whose only idea of fun is the toughest whose conception of a joke is always something which hurts or de- grades its victim You who have listened. even briefly, to the sort of talk which goes on in the country tavern or the back-roon of the country store do not need to have me prove that statement. Your senses are witnesses.
 can't say that ! like the we'll drilled rffaaE and G1TdhlhfS in whom Sp1s4- phina seems to take pleasure. When I'm buying a horse I never look at his grooming but at his legs and his feet and his barrel and his eyes. I want to know if he's sound in wind and limb and if he has a decent dis position and knows Q little some Ching. When I'm measuring up a man, J never yet found it wise to pass final judgment from his clothes alone That is a sort of thing which I leave to Seraphina and to the advertisements Of the tailoring house of Guttenheimer ard Co. But.-snd this is very real 'rbut" .-rhere is something in ap pearances." The way 9 man looks and talks is an index which tells in some measure what sort of a man he really Is His appearance is not wholly to be ignored. It may, now and then, be deceiving. It won't do to take it as ultimate proof but 1t often is sug- Pestive and indicative of the mans real character in some degree.
 Why on earth a farmer can't be Warmer and a gentleman, too is a nnys- tery to me. I understand why he can't be a farmer and q dude at the same time. But that's another proposi- tion. By gentleman" I mean "one Of gentle and refined manners: well-bred man" That's dictionary: It's truth, too. Thank heaven, there gre a lot of such gentlemen among the farmers I know. They are quite as frequent among the hard handed sort known as working farmers" as among the exotic who like to describe them selves as farmers" The latter are. probably. more "genteeP' men. but I haven't always found them more gentle men. Nor more kindly Nor warmer-hearted. Nor more loyal Nor more self sacrificing. Nor more helpful For these latter qualities I think I should look quite as soon among my neigihbors who work dirt for a living. as among those who hire others to dig the dirt for them.
 But there are those who are not gentle men in either speech or con- duct or manner of looking at things. They are both rough and coarse, as Seraphina says: they are also rude and bullying and brutal I know one farmer who occasionally has to kill a lamb for the meat supply. He does it because he has to-: as he has to do other hard and cruel things under the stress of necessity: he dreads it and puts it off as long as he can; then goes at it as he would go under punish rnent. I know another who, when the struggling victim chances perhaps, to kick him in it's natural efforts to get free. plunges the knife into it's throat with an oath and watches it's dying struggles with real glee.
 Now Seraphina would never know where to find the words which I want to use in expressing my feelings about that latter sort of two legged thing. Her lady-lilSe lexicon doesn't contain them. Tn fact I should be a little charv in expressing them myself be- fore the minister.
 We farmers have to work in the soil and with it. Our business lies in that direction. Our living comes out of it. We can't be delicate about touching it. as if it were something defiling. We've got to walk on it and through it. which manifestly prevents the daily use of patent-leather boots. We have to lug and lift and stoop and carry, which plainly tend to remove the uD- snd-down creases from our trouser- looms and 10 make the knees bag. We have to tug and sweat at hard, hot tasks, which make the starched collar and the boiled shirt uncomfortable nuisances. We have to get into the dirt with our fingers. which results i'm making them grimy and getting black under our finger nails. So, if The wearing of always shiny boots and elDavs treased trousers and always