The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1911-07-11

could cave her baby with trained
nurses while she took in the sights.
There WIS much discussion of this
new plan Of checking babies There
is no red tape here about checking
babies. The mother who is 50 minded
has carte blanche TO use the court
house, No if any mother had houyh
she would have put her offspring ia
sleep on the Judges bench, feeling she
was doing an honor to the Judge.
DR.. Blackwell, long mine-host at
h Marlborough, who had a quaint
and an original humor, once said that
q barbecue would attract more peo-
pie than anything else. Here is the way
he put it: If you will advertise a free
barbecue dinner in Raleigh, YOU viii
see not one but a thousand men
leave their homes to come who would
be attracted by nothing else. The
farmer in Chatham, twenty miles
from Raleigh, will take two horses or
mules out Of his crop hat needs
TIC ~ IL wi Will l0o
home before daylight and ride all the
way to Raleigh to get free barbecue
while General Grass is getting control
# their cotton crop. The two mems
work-that day is worth easily $3.50:
the horses work is worth so cents;
the money spent in Raleigh will be at
least SO cents. Here YOU have this
! farmer and his son virtually SDoDG-
ing $500 at the lowest calculation to
come to the free barbecue. When din
ner is announced. these men who have
come 50 far will have to push and
"~scrouge"'to get a place at the table,
then they will get betw cen them thir-
ty cents worth Of barbecue at a cost
of $500 and a long trip and Of loss
to their crop. Why will they do it?'
Nobody has yet answered the doctor,
but if he had been here today he
would have found why the farmers
came here to this picnic and barbe-
cue. They did not. come for anything
to eat at all. They brought baskets
did many of them-and there was an
abundance and to spare for all, but
they came to touch elbow TO elbow
with their neighbors and countymen,
10 discuss the biggest crop yer vet
seen in this good county, to hear the
speeches, to talk and plan for good
Dads, and to have a day of recrea-
ton and pleasure. The dinner was
bountiful and excellent. | will not say
the barbecue was the best | ever tast-
ed but l will say that it was nearly
as good as the pigs that used to pc
barbecued for fifty years every July
by the lamented Henry w. Peele, ot
Wilson. whose barbecue was as sac
culent as hat Charles Lamb tells Us
about in his delightful story OF 10"
roasted pig came to be regarded as the
best food that ever touched the pal
ate of any man since Esau sold ms
birthrisht for a mess OF pottase OF
John Rid thanked God for tbs
room he had inside Of him.
When I was a boy (and that has
not been many years aSo) there was
some objection to public bafhecues be
cause Their they were too often at
tended by too much drinking, anc
it was not infrequent to see q score
of intoxicated men on the afternoon q
a public barbecue. Even men who dlC
not drink ordinarily seemed to thlnt
that a drink of liquor was needed &c
season the barbecue and the saloons
always did a land-otfice business 81
a day of a public barbecue ferfdP'
il was the hles that went VIII
the barbecue that was the asn ina
drew the Chatham man TO a Tree oaI.
becue at Raleigh in the old days Whei
saloons were licensed galore and Whef
drunkenness was not pa
), ~barbecues have not lost their popu
Iaritv and vhile there We're 1900 PEG
: Mo here today it was as sober ant