The Washburn times. [volume] (Washburn, Wis.) 1896-1976, 1920-02-19
LIFE At ITS BEST
Advantages of Dwelling in Coun-
try Town.
City Man Knows Nothing of the Sweet
contentment That Is the Lot of
the Resident or Rural
Places.

Observing the Inconvenience and
sometimes discomforts of city life
some of the brethren of the country
press are taking shot at the city
dweller and emphasizing the fortu-
nate position of the citizen who con-
trives to spend bis life in some quiet
town of the country, says writer in
the Seattle Post-Intelligencer The
country gentleman never cares wheth-
er the street cars run or not; he is
not concerned with the electric light
plant or the water supply, having his
reliable kerosene lamps and good
well in working order for emergency
use. He Is not afraid that 100000 OF
his townsinen will run out of coal ct
once and freeze to death, because the
old grove on the east forty is capable
of furnishing his fuel should his sup
ply of five cords of sawed and split
wood that he has IN his woodshed be-
come depleted. He lives away from
the mass, and his small wants are
not pushed and crowded by the small
wants of hundreds of thousands of
other people. He feels that if there
is anything that he really needs that
he does not possess, he can go out
and procure it any morning without
much trouble, and he is generally quite
right about it.
Charles M Eorton, of Hadley, N. z,
cites the cases of the city and the
country citizens in recent issue of
Golfers Weekly. Writes Mr.. Horton:
The man who started the back-to-
the-farm movement had something
The man who shouted "Back to ma
ture." said something; The advice was
directed at city jewellers, of course,
because folks who were living out Of
the cities already did not need it.
He takes up the case of the $50 a
week married man, who hardly exists
in the city, and shows what he is ac-
complishing in the country town:
A clerk in the store here gets $50
a week, owns his own home and a
boat on the lake and jitney, goes
hunting in the north woods in the fall,
fishes evenings and days off without
number, picks berries, kills his own
beef in the fall, raises his own pigs,
has piano and library and silver
service and linen, modern pictures on
the walls, good rugs on the floors mis-
sion furniture around the rooms, twin
neds, dog, two cats, a bear rug, low
ceilings, plain wall paper, electric fix
lures everything. in short, that the
city dweller has, or wants, but can't
have-and he Is a clerk in grocery
store at $50 week. And he had these
things when he was getting $1S-six
had more, in fact, because he owned
a trotting horse that could go some;
this animal has since died.
The writer himself was beguiled
from the country to the city under the
cmmon belief that the city is the only
place for the man Of ambition who
would go far. He had brains, in
measure; he had money, in a measure,
and then he tossed the whole thing up
in the air and made back for the coun-
try, where he now exists in content
ment. And when one sees city folk
bedeviled and harassed and bepinched
by every human want, living from
hand to mouth. and worrying lest
some necessity of existence be cut off
by some Svhim of man or vagary of
fate, one is inclined to give the argu-
ment of the country citizen large value
and credence.