The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1913-06-06

e nod. said he was : blooming SILK
stocking and snob, that he wouldn't
put it past him to have his picture
taken in a dress suit and plug hat,
and that among other iniquities No
bilior had kept poets in his camp.
Old Mother Grundy.
This seemed to have ranked in
old Cato's honest breast worst of all;
the idea of carting bunch of poets
along on a campaign! However,
there are things to be said of Nobil-
ior. Since poets seem inevitable is
it not better to have them along with
an army, where they at least run a
chance of being killed, than to leave
them at home to bring down edito
rial heads in sorrow to the grave?
To get back to Rome, however.
They went ahead and held the tri-
umph anyhow, Cato to the contrary
Notwithstanding, and it was rumored
that General Fluvius Nobilior placed
his thumb to his nose and waved his
extended fingers in derisive glee when
he passed Cato's Ihouse-where. by
the way, the blinds were pulled down
and Cato was sitting in a straight
backed chair on the back porch read
ing. Very likely he was asking him
self as he heard the gay uproar from
the street just whittier we were drift
ing, anyhow.
But Cato's real triumph was to
come. In 1874 B. C. he was elected
censor, a job which in those days held
a lot of duties besides viewing the
movies. Cato, with one other censor,
had charge of the city directory, de-
cided who was a citizen and who was
not, was dictator of public morals
and had some say so about how the
sesterces in the city treasury should
be spent. He was sort of a director
of the census, head of the board of
public welfare, chairman of the ap-
preparations committee all in one,
with few odd duties thrown in for
good measure. And he had the
chance of a lifetime to clamp the lid
on Rome, chance that old C. K. ].
was not slow to improve, you may
be sure
No HObbIe Skirts for Cato.
He issued orders about what sort
of simple clothes everybody should
wear. placed the taboo on hobble
skirts and three-foot hat pins and did
a lot more unpleasant things. His
ideas of what were decorous and
what wasn't were rigid, to say the
least. One man named Nautilus was
degraded from his pretorian rank
of citizenship because he kissed Mrs.
Nautilus in the presence of their
daughter. Whether Cato was sore
because he wanted to kiss Mrs. NJ
himself is not known. Anyhow, they
reduced Nautilus to the ranks
But Cato, of course, did a lot of
good. Many of the things he put
the lid on temporarily needed sup
pressing. He spent the towns mon
cy we'll, improved the waterworks
system and the rivers, and not even
the folks who disIiked Cato most and
called him oil Sour Dough behind his
hack ever intimated that there was
any graft in his department. The
trouble with Cato was that he was at
heart standpatter. He was una
Bile to distinguish between the good
and the evil in the new ideas that
were pouring in from Greece, and so
fought everything new.
One of the biggest services Cato
ever performed for Rome was to stir
the citizens UP against Carthage. He
was sent to Carthage as a peace en-
voy to arbitrate some differences be-
tween the Carthaginians and the king
o fNumidia, and he came back very
| much alarmed over the wealth and
power of the North African city.
He felt that unless Rome swooped
down and beat Carthage to whis-
per pretty quickly the Carthaginians
were sure sooner or later to pounce
on Rome and turn it into a mere
suberb OF Carthage And so after he
got back he began hammering away
about the necessity of destroying
Carthage. For years he never made
a public speech without ending with
the phrase "Cartha delenda est
which means, roughly speaking, Put
Carthage on the blink"
Aud finally Rome did go to war,
and you remember that when Rome
got through Carthage looked as if
| it had been through the Omaha tor
nado and this Dayton flood, with a
few .olts from the San Francisco
earthquake. Old Cato in his grave
must have almost smiled.
No person need hesitate to take
Foley Kidney Pills on the ground