The Dillon herald. [volume] (Dillon, S.C.) 1894-????, 1911-12-07
THE NEED OF NEIGHBORs.
without Them People Cannot Be
Happy--n the Great Cities.

iheIe Is no loneliness more
dreary than that of one who lives
ana moves and tolls in crowd in
which he sees not one familiar face
and hears not one friendly voice,
says Marion Harlan, in Philadelphia
North American. Those who have
felt 1T comprehend the indescribable
sense OF mental suffocation oppress-
| ihS one like physical asphyXia The
uWellers i'll adjacent houses are
cruel in the selfishness that hin
reds them from recognizing the
new conner as a neighbor to whom
lhey owe the form of courtesy.
Dehy 1t as the stubborn pesSimist
Snay, there is no use in trying to
gloss over the ugly truth that the
old-iashloned virtue of neighborli-
ness as practiced by our forbears,
has fallen into disrepute. am
thankful that | recollect it as a liv-
ing, active principle. The fact that
a new family had moved into the
neiS hood set pulses TO dancing
and wits to work at once in devils
ing ways and means by which to
make the strangers welcome. IL was
esteemed only right and becoming
the occasion for the residents whose
back yards adjoined that of the Just
opened house to send a dinner or
supper already cooked with the COM
pllments of the housewife who pre-
pared it. Offers of assistance in
the labor of moving and settling,
were likewise the constitutional
thing"
In times Of sickness and affliction
the neighborhood was unit in
sympathy and kindly offices. 1t
was not an uncommon occurrance
for all the food eaten by the inya-
lid to be sent in by acquaintances
and intimates
And the continual interchange of
gifts from the tables of such as
lived near enough together to al
low the passage of a hot dish from
one dining room to another was as
much matter of course as atten-
ton to the sick. To-day it was a
plate of rolls fresh and fragrant
from the oven; tomorrow a loaf of
cake or a pudding which the maker
fancied might taste good because
ii wasn't cooked in your own house,
although it may not be nearly so
nice as If you had made it," When
ice cream was made, a thought of
the folks next door" went into the
freezer If new recipe for cake
or pie, muffinS or cuStard turned
out well. a sample must be sent
around the corner or handed over
the fence to the appreciative fellow
housemother, who would do the
same when her experiments were
successful.
Such a tale of the absolute disre-
gard of the circumstances that a
new family had moved into the
neighborhood, as we have read E,
day - and which might be dupli-
Gated fift-- times a month were the
annals of town and city block re-
corded - would be esteemed dis
graceful.
AS it is, let the awe be what it
may. One and all we are sinners
in this respect. Overweening re-
gard for our personal and domestic
interests, absorption in the affairs
that concern us and our own blood
and name, are surely shutting our
hearts against those we should be-
! friend. Perhaps seven times out
of ten it is this selfish care of our
individual welfare that makes us
inhospitable. Three times out of
ten snobbery, impure and complex,
Is at the root of the discourtesy.
! Our snob must be very sure whom
he admits within the pale Of his
| friendly offices before he lets down
the bars. His wife is fastidious in
making up her visiting circle. That
people can afford to pay as high
a rent and wear as expensive cloth
es as herself is no sign that they
are worth cultivating. Mrs. Snobs
has a great deal to say about "cul-
tivating" other people. 1t would
be hopeless undertaking to try to
convince her that to pass the time
of day"-as she would phrase it
with the family next door, after as
suring herself that they are of
decent sort, would be cultivation of
her own better self and not of the
lonely strangers.
My appeal is to better bred and
better natural readers. Who is
your neighbor? If the reply OF the
Bible class teacher to the boys
query be correct, open your eyes
and hear to the perception of the
duty lying under your windows and
along your daily walk to business.
Somebody defined sympathy as
"the ability to put yourself in the
other fellows place" | wish that
this homely talk could bring to
those nominal neighbors of the lone
ly woman of our story what old
time eXhorters termed a realizing
sense" Of the Christian and humane
obligations to put themselves in
fancy in the place of the newcomers
who have moved into the home next
door.
We have read much in our Ex-
change within the last year of the
revival of ancient styles of fancy
work, such as rose beads, weaving
bead chains, making cobwebby lace
with pillow and bobbin and, stitch
by stitch, marvellous patterns in
tapestry. Who will be the pioneer
in the renaissance of the ancient
and hnnnrahla fashion nf paiuh hpr-