Year: 1867

| SENSIBLE ADVICE FROM A VIRGINIA FIRE-EATER
In speech delivered before the Memorial AS


sociation, at Winchester, Virginia. Henry A. Wise


offered the following sensible advice to his hear


ers which may be regarded as something remark
| able coming from that source oh young men


who have fathers with naught now left but negro;


scourged tobacco and wheat fields, burdened


with old debts enough to break the hearts OF
honest men, and make them bow in want with


sorrow to the grave, pull off your broadcloths,


bare your arms, blister your hands until blisters
become callous, to plow and reap the plenty


which earnest labor will surely bring home to
pay debts, and provide comfort, aid main tain
manly independence You have no longer the
host OF slaverys drones to feed and clothe your
expenses now are comparatively small. Only be
seif-denying and determined and work. You
need not fear that there will be too many of you
in the field. But if there are. those not wanting
and not willing there can find occupations, now
multiplied and varied beyond what plantations
! afforded, to try their fortunes on. Mining, man
ufacturing, commerce, mechanic arts will now
open avenues for skill and enterprise anu i'm
provements IN all these will soon pay profession
al avocations higher fees and wages than ever
compensated them before


Have your fathers thousands of acres of land
which now yield no income and cannot afford to
pay iabOi iOi tucii CulllFdllOH Lay OH lIt gar
den spots, scrape the mounds of humus all around
every centilage compost your wasted manures
for the little space you can till, and sell or rent
out or let lie every impoverished acre. Aye,
do better-advertise to select EN- grants that you
will gladly give to them one half your super1u-
Gus lands, and help them build and fence them, if
they will come and settle the other half Their
settlement will make the other half far more
valuable than was or is the whole. They will
! ,,bh bhorh nd md hr;p 10
you lights, and be your source of most effect
i've labor and of richest returns. Abandon ''one
ideas - here it is wheat-there it is tobacco
yonder corn and potatOes-and somewhere else


it is brandy and gooberpeas


Go to the fields and be taught by your own ex-
perience learn of other crops, and prepare your
own fertilizers from the forest leaves and pine
tags and straw, and from well-fed cattle and pig
pens Don't stand on the river bank like the
fool of Horace and wait for the waters to pass
by before you cross this Rubicund. Don't wait
to manure until you can get capital to buy guano.
Work up the compost heap, and don't borrow
money for the guano. Borrow not at all, but
work and you will soon have wherewith to lend.
The faith of jackson saw this, that the war
would put our young men to work No more
fox hoLI. 5 10 more lazy morning hours No
more cigars and juleps No more card parties
and club idleness No more syren retreats in
summer and city hells in winter


The hard necessity which presses down Upon
our people may change the Virginia character in
some lamentable respects, but it will also hap
PLY strengthen it in other important traits.


CLEvERLY TOLD.-There was sensation story
ahoat short time ago about q man in Mobile
who, in committing suicide, cut off his head and
hid it SO ef1ectu lily that no one has ever been
able to find it. The circumstance excited the
envy of some chap out West who thus tells of


horrible affair that recently occurred in his Sec
ton :-' An Indian who had lived unhappily
with fifty or sixty squaws determined upon sui
eide. Desiring that no one should be able to
identify any portion of him, he cut of both legs
and carried them about hve miles into the woods
on foot and alone. He buried them. and then
cut off both his arms, which he carried five miles
further and buried. Then cutting out his tongue,
that he might be unable to tell one he might
meet who he was, he proceeded several miles fur
ther, chanting his death song as he went. He fin
ally cut off his own head and after amusing him
self some time kicking it about as football max
ing the woods ring with his shouts of merriment,
he hid it in the trunk of tree ; and then, digging
a grave with his own hands, he got in covered
himself up and planted very handsome tomb
stone at the head of his grave. Where is your
Mobile man now p