Lamar County AlArchives News.....The Vernon Clipper February 27, 1880
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The Vernon Clipper February 27, 1880

Microfilm Ref Call #373
Microfilm Order #M1992.4466
from
The Alabama Department of Archives and History

THE VERNON CLIPPER 

VOLUME I.          VERNON, LAMAR CO., ALABAMA           FEBRUARY 27, 1880     
NUMBER 52   

THE MOUNTAIN ROAD – By Julia C. B. Dorr – [Cottage Hearth]

Only a glimpse of mountain road
That followed where a river flowed;
Only a glimpse – then on we passed,
Skirting the forest dim and vast.

But, heeding not the dangerous way
O’er hung by sheer cliffs, rough and gray,
I only say, as in a dream.
The road beside the mountain stream.

No smoke cu rled upward in the air,
No meadow lands stretched broad and fair;
But towering peaks rose far and high.
Piercing the clear, untroubled sky.

Yet down the yellow, winding road
That followed where the river flowed,
I saw a long procession pass,
As shadows over bending grass.

The young, the old, the sad, the gay,
Whose feet had worn the narrow way,
Since first within the dusky glade
Some Indian lover wooed his maid.

Or silent crept from tree to tree –
Spirit of stealthy vengeance, he!
Or breathless crouched while through the brake
The wild deer stole his thirst to stake.

The barefooted school boys rushing out,
An eager, crowding, roistorous route
The sturdy, lads, the lassies gay
As bobolinks in merry May!

The farmer whistling to his team
When first the dawn begins to glean;
The loaded wains that, one by one,
Drag slowly home at set of sun.

Young lovers straying hand in hand
Within a fair enchanted land;
And many a bride with lingering feet
And many a matron calm and sweet.

And many an old man bent with pain,
And many a solemn funeral train
And sometimes red against the sky
An army’s banners waving high.

All mysteries of life and death
To which the spirit answereth
Are thine, O lovely mountain road,
That followed where the river flowed.

FOR THE YOUNG FOLKS

	“My dear, just listen to the noise those children are making,” said 
Longwhiskers, an old mouse to his wife, Brighteyes, as a sound of scurrying to 
and fro and squeaking awoke them up from a nap they had been enjoying in a 
cozy nest in the wall of an old stable.
	“Yes,” replied Brighteyes, “How they are enjoying themselves.  I 
suppose they do enjoy more when they have no one looking after them.  You 
remember that you were telling them yourself the other day that ‘When the 
cat’s away the mice will play.’”
	“I hope,” returned Longwhiskers, getting up, “that you don’t mean to 
compare either yourself or me to a cat; but I must go and put a stop to this 
noise – there is no need whatever tha all the cats in the neighborhood should 
know where we are living,” and he was just going out of the nest when three 
little mice rushed in, calling out:
	“Mother, the cat’s gone away,  May we go into the loft to play?”
	Brighteyes looked at her husband, who inquired:
	“How do you know the cat has gone?”
	“We saw her go down the loft ladder and out of the stable,” answered 
Brownie, Nimble, and Squeakie all together.
	“That may be,” said their father, “but she might soon come back again. 
I must explain to you tomorrow what I meant by mice playing when the cat is 
away.  Meanwhile, I think you had better not go into the loft today.  But stay 
and play in the wall until your mother or I can take you out, for I feel sure 
that the car has a family of young children there, and if she has, she will 
not stay away from them for any length of time; and mind you play quietly too, 
for if the cat should hear you she will keep watch at the mouth of the hole, 
and then you will not be able to go out at all.”
	The news that their father suspected that there was a family of little 
cats in the loft greatly excited the young mice, and they earnestly begged him 
to let them go only a little way out of the wall to see if they could spy them 
anywhere but their father was firm in his refusal to all their entreaties and 
they left the nest in a much soberer manner than they had bounced into it.
	For some time they played together very quietly, till at last 
Squeakie, who was very fond of singing and making a noise, suddenly stopped.
	“This is very stupid,” said he.  “What a pity it is that we can’t go 
out of the wall!”
	The others also took this view, and the result was they resolved to 
disobey their father’s orders not to go into the loft.
They ran out, and after a little searching they could see a small blind kitten 
lying in its nest.  But then, with a bound, the old cat sprang in amongst them.
	Fortunately for Brownie and her brothers they escaped the cat’s 
clutches, and took refuge in a hole close at hand, and after going for some 
distance they arrived at something which appeared to be a large store-room 
filled with provisions.  There were oats, one or two potatoes, a bone with a 
little meat on it, a piece of cheese, and sundry other things.
	“How jolly,” cried Nimble and Squeakie.  “We shall not starve, at any 
rate.  Help yourself, Brownie.”
	“But Brownie held back.
	“They are not ours,” said she.  “May we take them?”
	“Hold hard, Squeakie,” cried Nimble, as the former was about to attack 
the cheese, “perhaps it is stealing.  I wonder if there is anybody about that 
would give us some.  Sing, you are fond of hearing your own voice.”
	Squeakie sun with all his might, when a gruff voice, not far from 
them, immediately answered:
	“Oh, you rascals!  You thieves, in my larder again, eh!” and a large 
rat came running into the storeroom, showing his teeth and looking so fierce, 
that Brownie, Squeakie, and Nimble, now thinking only of safety, fled for 
their lives along the continuation of the passage by which they had come 
pursued by the old rat, calling out, “Catch them!: and “Stop thieves!” as loud 
as he could.
	Hurriedly they scamper along, till, turning sharp round a corner, they 
ran out into a yard, the old rat still at their heels, and so bent upon 
catching them that he forgot his usual caution, which cost him his life; for a 
terrier, which happened to be near, disdained mice as too small fry when rats 
were there, flew upon him and soon dispatched him.
	But of this the little mice knew nothing at all.  The scuffle behind 
them only increased their alarm, and they raced across the yard at the top of 
their speed towards a gate, having passed through which they escaped into some 
high grass, where they hid, breathless and exhausted.  Nimble having received 
a sharp peck from a hen on his way, which had quite lamed him, and Squeakie 
having been scared out of the remainder of his wits by the loud quacking of 
some ducks as he passed close by them.  It rained hard, half drowning the poor 
wanderers as they huddled together and felt thoroughly miserable.
	“How I wish I had not sung so loud,” whispered Squeakie.
	“How I wish I had never seen a big cat,” said Nimble, “I should then 
never have wanted to see a little one.”
	“How I wish we had done what father told us, and not gone into the 
loft,” said Brownie.
	“So do I,” echoed both the others.
	“And now,” continued Nimble, “we can’t go back; “for even if we 
crossed the yard safely, I don’t think we could find the hole again.”
	“And if we did,” added Squeakie, in a doleful voice, “we might find 
the old rat in it; so we are lost quite.”
	The poor little mice crept closer to each other and began to cry.
	“Hullo!  What’s all this noise about?” cried a frog, as he jumped over 
the grass and alighted near them causing them a terrible start.  “What’s the 
matter!”
	“We have left home without leave, and been chased by a cat, and now we 
are lost,” answered Brownie.
	“Ah, that’s bad,” said the frog.  “But don’t give up so.  Come home 
with me to the pond, and you will soon be merry again there.”
	“What is the pond?” asked Squeakie.
	“The pond,” replied the frog, “Oh, it’s a nice piece of water.  You 
can jump in, dive to the bottom, have a nice swim, and refresh yourself, and 
then we will sit around the edge and enjoy ourselves.”
	“I am much obliged, but I would rather not,” said Squeakie slowly.  “I 
don’t think I could be any wetter, and I don’t feel refreshed a bit.”
	“But,” interrupted Nimble, “perhaps you could tell us where we might 
find another mouse.  We have a great many relations, and perhaps we might 
learn our way home them.”
	“Well,” said the frog, after thinking a little, “I do know of a mouse, 
and one that does not live very far from here, too,.  So come along.”
	So on they traveled till at last they came to a corn stack, and 
stopped before an opening in it.
	“Here is the place,” said the frog, “up here, first turning to the 
right, and knock, that is what she told me.  So now I will bid you good day!” 
and the frog left them.
	Brownie pushed on in front and soon came to a turning.
	“This must be the place,” thought she, and with a beating heart she 
knocked.
	“Come in,” answered a hearty voice and Brownie went forward into a 
comfortable room, in which sat a fat, merry-looking mouse, who, as soon as she 
saw her, jumped up, exclaiming:
	“Bless me! Why, Brownie, how, how did you get here?  Where are Nimble 
and Squeakie?” and catching her in her arms began kissing her, only to let her 
go again, crying, “Phaw!  How wet the child is!  Have you been rolling 
yourself in a puddle, or what have you been doing?”
	Brownie was so bewildered that she could not speak; until the mouse, 
asking her if she had forgotten her Aunt Sleekskin, who had left their home 
when they were quite young to go and live in the country.  She remembered 
herself and told her aunt that Nimble and Squeakie were outside; on hearing 
which, Aunt Sleekskin bustled out and soon returned with the two brothers.
	After Brownie and her brothers had rubbed themselves tolerably dry, 
and eaten some corn their aunt brought them, they told her all their 
adventures.
	“Hum!” said she, “A pretty scrape you have got into – that comes of 
not doing what you are bid.  But it is no business of mine to give you a 
lecture about that. You will doubtless have plenty of it when you get home, 
where it is my business to take you as soon as it is dark enough to cross over 
the stable wall in safety.  I dare say you know now as well as any of us that 
the best way to play when the cat’s away is to have some one keeping a sharp 
look-out that while the play is going on the cat may not come and join in the 
game.
	When evening set in, the little mice went home with Aunt Sleekskin, 
who one bringing them in to their father and mother, said:
	“Here are three small culprits, who have been learning lessons in 
disobedience and playing with cats, which will do them more good than all the 
talking you could give them in a week, and in my opinion the best thing you 
can do is to send them to bed to think over it, and I can tell you all about 
where they have been.
	This plan was adopted.  The three children gladly crept off to bed, 
whilst Aunt Sleekskin sat down and had a chat with their parents during which 
she must have explained matters satisfactorily, for in the morning they 
escaped with a slight scolding; and their father evidently thought he had no 
need to explain to them the way to understand “When the cat’s away the mice 
will play, “ for he never did so.

A BARE-FOOTED GROOM
	About twenty years ago a young fellow named Johnson, in the wilds of 
the Cheat Mountains in West Virginia, made up his mind to be married.
	“But you have not a penny,” remonstrated his friends.
	“I have my hands.  A man was given two hands – one to scratch for 
himself, the other for his wife,” he said.
	On the day of the wedding Johnson appeared in a whole coat and 
trowsers, but bare-footed.
	“This is hardly decent,” said the clergyman.  “I will lend you a pair 
of shoes.”
	“No,” said Johnson, “when I can buy shoes I will wear them – not 
before.”  And he stood up to be married with out any thought of his feet.
	The same sturdy conduct showed itself in his future course.  What he 
had not money to pay for, he did without.  He hired himself to a farmer for a 
year’s work.  With the money he saved he bought a pair of sheep, built himself 
a hut, and went to work on his ground.
	His sheep increased.  As time flew by he bought more; then he sold off 
the cheaper kinds, and invested in Southdown and French Merino.  His neighbors 
tried by turns raising cattle, horses, or gave their attention to experimental 
farming.
	Johnson having once found that sheep raising in his district brought a 
handsome profit stuck to it.  He had that shrewdness in seeing the best way, 
and that dogged persistence in following it, which are the surest elements of 
success. 
	Stock-buyers from the Eastern markets found that Johnson’s fleeces 
were the finest and his mutton the sweetest on the Cheat.  He never allowed 
their reputation to fail – the end of which course is, the man who married 
barefooted is now worth a large property.
	The story is an absolutely true one, and may point a moral for the 
hordes of stout, able-bodies men who crowd the cities complaining that they 
must starve for want of work.

POOR SPELLING
Prof. A. S. HILL, in Good Company gives a few specimens of the spelling of 
candidates lately, contesting for admission to Harvard College.  He says:  
Many, larger number than usual, spelled as if starting a spelling reform, each 
for himself.  Of these vagaries specimens are subjoined, including vain 
attempts to reproduce proper names that were printed on the examination paper 
itself:  Duell’s jeloise, chief, opposite, surprising, Collosus, compaired, 
repetedly, fourth, (for forth), to (for too), thrown (for throne), ficle, 
white-winged angle, beaverage, broak, carrige, champaign (for champagne), 
instead, haled (for hailed), endevors, sucess, preasant, and preasance, widly, 
wating, differance, superceeded, praired, comand, conspiritors, to finnish, 
avaratious, undoubility, granfather, peice, fashionable bell, written and 
writing, maniger (for manager), untill, jovility (for joviality), ficticious, 
couard, and couardise (for coward), exhisted, origen and origonal (for origin 
and original), kneeded (for needed), genious, married, mad (for made), wer 
(for were), cleaverly, differculty, existance, abscent, oiler, repare, 
enoubling, agrieved, of (for off), susceptable, proclamed, loose (for lose), 
principle (for principal), lead (for led), Rip Van Rincle, Adison and 
Adderson, Queene Ann, Macauley, Thackery, Steel (Sir Richard), Henery, Harries 
(for Harry’s). Of these mistakes some are evidently much graver than others; 
but some of the worst were found in several books, and not a few are 
apparently due to an unconscious effort to represent to the eye a vicious 
pronunciation.  Many books were deformed by grossly ungrammatical or 
profoundly obscure sentences, and some by absolute illiteracy.

THE INCREASE IN POPULATION
The official Board of Statistics at St. Petersburg has published some 
population figures, from which it appears that in European Russia there are 
annually born 1,619,108 males and 1,544,297 females, or an average total of 
3,163,405 children of both sexes.  On the other hand, the average annual 
deaths are 1,214,467 males and 1,167,929 females, or a total of 2,382,396 
persons of both sexes.  The population, therefore, shows an average increase 
of 781,000 a year – a percentage which, supposing the inhabitants always to 
multiply at the same rate, would double the population in 58 years.  Whereas 
in Sweden, according to a similar method of calculation, this result would 
only be attainted in 62 years, in Germany in 68, in Belgium in 79, in Austria 
in 95, in Switzerland in 99, and in France in 165 years.  The high percentage 
of mortality in Russia is chiefly caused by the numerous deaths among 
children, more than the fourth part of whom perish before they are a year 
old.  Whereas in Prussia, of 1,000 infants only 165, and in England still 
fewer, 140, die before that age.  Measles, scarlatina, and diptheria, says the 
Novaye Vremya, are making---among children in the cap----certain districts of 
the empire----is so great that several coll----fants schools have been closed. 
(NOTE – ARTICLE TORN)

THE MONEYED CLASSES
	Statistics lately collected in one of our oldest New England cities 
showed that ninety-four percent of the leading men of the city were either 
farmer’s boys or poor boys in the cities and villages.  The list included all 
the bank presidents, the railroad magnates and the leading manufacturers and 
merchants.  Forty years ago “the moneyed class” of this particular city were 
hoeing corn, or tending lathes, or peddling newspapers; forty years ago 
these “bloated bondholders” were not a plethoric race; and it is highly 
improbable than nay considerable portion of the money which they now possess 
will be in the hands of their grandchildren.  The “moneyed aristocracy” of the 
next generation are growing up now on the farms and in the factories.
	What is true of this one city is substantially true of every other 
city.  The fortunes that are continued in the same family for a hundred years 
are very few.  What one generation gathers another generation scatters.  The 
wealth of the land is constantly changing hands; and the boy who belongs to 
what are called the working classes has quite as good a chance of becoming 
a “bloated bondholder” before he dies as the boy who is born with a sliver 
spoon in his mouth.
	With these facts in view, is it not rather wicked for demagogues to 
truly to excite the alarm of the people who work with their hands, lest they 
should be enslaved by this formidable and tyrannical “moneyed class?”  There 
is no such “class.”  A consolidated and hereditary aristocracy of wealth does 
not exist.  The great bulk of the wealth of this country is now in the hands 
of men who were born poor.  Is it likely that they will combine to oppress and 
enslave those who are toiling up from the level on which they started?  Is it 
possible that they should so combine, in any effectual way, seeing that their 
future control of the property which now they call their own must be so very 
slight?
	And would it not be a foolish and suicidal thing for the poor men of 
this country to combine to overthrow a system of government which promotes 
such a rapid distribution of wealth, and which offers such abundant chances to 
them and their children?  When the Communists and the socialistic reformers 
urge that all property rights must be annulled and that some new industrial 
and proprietary scheme must be inaugurated, just call their attention to the 
facts recited above and ask them whether under any other system the children 
of the poor would have a better chance than they have under the present system.

LITTERERY FELLERS IN ENGLAND
Who shall say, asks the London World that literature and its representatives 
are without honor in England?  While Brighton selects Mr. Sala as one of its 
candidates at the next general election, the Westminster Liberals invite Mr. 
John Morley as the successor of John Stuart Mill.  The compliment is 
thoroughly deserved, and Westminster does not do more honor to the best 
biographer whom Burke has yet found than to itself.  Mr. John Morley has 
steadily strengthened and improved by study naturally great abilities.  He is 
a s earnest as he is industrious and as accomplished as he is just and fair.  
Parliamentary practice may very possibly develop him in to a highly successful 
politician.  Unlike Stuart Mill, Mr. John Morley, if he is returned for 
Westminster, will enter the House of Commons as one who owes all his 
reputation to his pen.  Mill it must be remembered, had a large official 
experience at the India Office, and it is well known that this circumstance 
secured him not a few votes.  Mr. Morley comes before the Westminster electors 
solely as the representative of literature and as one whose claims consist 
exclusively of the public service which his writings have rendered.

AN EXTRAORDINARY PROPOSITION
A recent Washington dispatch to the New York Times says:  An extraordinary 
letter has been received by the United States Indian Agent at Pine Ridge 
Agency, Dakota, and by him referred to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, who 
furnishes it for publication.  It is written on the official paper of 
the “Indiana Christian Sunday School Association,” which in its printed 
heading displays the names of a number of well known citizens of Indianapolis 
and other places in Indiana as Vice-Presidents and other officers of the 
association, and that of Z. T. Sweeny as President.  It also announces that 
the next convention will be held at Danville, August 3, 4, and 5, 1880.  The 
letter is as follows:
COLUMBUS, IND., NOV. 8, 1879
Dear Sir:
I want to ascertain if it is practicable to get communications with Sitting 
Bull.  I should like to settle the question of his trouble with the government 
by giving him employment for the coming summer, with eight or ten of his 
braves.  Could you make such an arrangement?  I will pay you for your trouble 
and time.  My plan is to give exhibitions in some of our cities and towns.  
There are three of us here who propose to do that thing either with him or 
some of the Utes.  If you can serve us, we will either pay your for your 
trouble or give you an interest in the profits.  Hoping to hear from you soon, 
I remain, very truly.
	Z. T. SWEENY

One of the most elegant novelties of the hour in Paris is phosphorescent 
flowers.  These flowers are rendered luminous by coating the petals with 
transparent size and then dusting them with a phosphorescent substance.-----
(REST OF ARTICLE IS TORN)

FEMALE WITNESS
	A reporter of the New York World photographs a scene in court which 
illustrates the thorns that beset a lawyer’s path when he is trying to escort 
a female witness through her evidence:
	“I want to know, Mrs. - ,” interrupted Hubbard, “I want to know on 
which side of your house the L is.  Is it north, south, east, or west?”
	‘It’s on this side,” replied the lady, motioning with her hand.
	“The east side?”
	“no,”
	“The west side?”
	|No, it’s straight across from Mrs. B’s parlor window, not twenty feet 
from it, you—“
	“Mrs. ---“ shouted the lawyer “will you tell me if that L is on the 
east, west, north or south side of your house?”
	“It ain’t on any side of the house,” replied the witness, compressing 
her lips.  “It’s at the end.  You know as well as I do.  You’ve seen it many a 
time, and there ain’t no use ---“
	“Come, come, Mrs. – “ interrupted Judge Cromer, “tell the gentleman 
where the L of your house is situated.”
	“Haven’t I been telling him just as plain as I could?”
	“Where is the L situated?” said Hubbard, desperately.
	“Right in the lot, back against the end of the house.”
	“Will you answer my question?” shouted the affable lawyer, running up 
his hair in desperation.
	“What question?”
	“Is the L on the east, west, north or south side of the house?”
	“Judge, I’ve told him just as plain as ever a woman could.  I didn’t 
come here to be insulted by no one-horse lawyer.  I know him and his father 
before him.  He ain’t got no business putting on airs.  What kind of a family--
-“ 
	“Silence!” thundered the Judge.  “Now Mrs. ---, which side of your 
house does the sun rise on?”
	“That one,” said the witness indicating.
	“Is the L on that side?”
	“Yes, sir.”
	“Then its on the east side?”
	“Yes,”
	“Why didn’t you say so, then?” asked the exasperated lawyer.
	“Cause you never asked me, you thick-headed old fool.  I know a thing 
or---“
	“That will do,” said Hubbard.  “Take the witness,” he added, turning 
to Tom Wren , the opposing counsel.
	

A DEFINITION FOR SPACE
	Our American newspaper men do not propose to allow the scientists to 
get ahead of them 0 even in their own peculiar sphere.  As an instance of 
journalistic achievement in the way of definition we give the following from 
the Graphic written by a man who evidently intended to beat the astronomer, 
Proctor, out of his boots:
	“Space is very large.  It is immense, very immense.  A great deal of 
immensity exists in space.  Space has no top, no bottom.  In fact, it is 
bottomless both at the bottom and at the top.  Space extends as far forward as 
it does backward, vice versa or versa vice.  There is no compass of space, and 
no boxing of the compass.  A billion million of miles traveled in space won’t 
bring a man any nearer to the end than one mile or one inch.  Consequently, in 
space it’s better to stay where you are and let well enough alone.”

DUPED HUNTERS
The owner of a hotel upon Mount Tamalpais has a property catamount rigged up 
in a tree about half a mile from the house, and employs an old half-breed to 
sit under a bush near by to growl and work the dummy’s paws by means of a 
couple of small cords on pulleys.  The young hunters from the city invariably 
come across the “painter,” fire one volley, hear a blood curd ling yell and 
make a three-minute dash back to the cabin again, where they sit and outlie 
each other for the rest of the day.  The hotel-keeper says that by the time 
the fraud is shot all to pieces he expects to have money enough to run a daily 
newspaper.

A 111-YEAR OLD SUIT
The most celebrated instance of “the law’s delays” ever quoted by law 
reformers from the records of our English courts seem to be fully equaled, if 
not surpassed, by a case just concluded in Hungary.  The Pester Lloyd states 
that on October 28th, a division of the Senate of the “Royal Table” (the 
Hungarian Supreme Court) gave final judgment in a suit commenced in 1768, and 
which has since passed through all the phases of Hungarian litigation.  The 
object of the original suit was the same as would be aimed at by an ejectment 
suit with us – to get rid of an alleged wrongful occupier of a large family 
estate.  After one hundred and eleven years of litigation, the court placed 
the representatives of the original plaintiffs in possession of a portion only 
of the property.  It is stated that a large portion has been swallowed up by 
expenses – a familiar story.

General Hatch says that while the Utes refuse to be tried in Colorado, it will 
be impossible to secure a fair trial in Washington or elsewhere, and as he 
expresses it “we might just as well end this business and fight them now.”  
He ---inion that a war with them ----is inevitable. (NOTE:  ARTICLE IS TORN)

(TORN)

CLIPPED PARAGRAPHS

An aurist is an ear-responsible man.

Every man has regular business (?)ours. – (Can’t read)

The poorer the tea, the better the chromo.

Signal service – handkerchief flirtations.

Rock crystal is nothing but a geologist’s strata-gem.

Song of the dry-goods clerk – swinging in delane.

Talmage says there are no clocks in heaven.  All striped, eh?

Song of ice men – “Shall We Gather from the River?”

The truth is mighty – mean sometimes.

To the sluggard, every year is sleep year.

How to acquire shorthand – fool around a buzz saw.

A good name is better than precious ointment – on the back of a bank note.

Those who put their money into telephone stock made a sound investment.

Does the maternal codfish call its young with a codfish bawl.

It’s meet and drink that is depriving many a family of food.

The only reason men don’t follow the plow, is because the plow isn’t a woman.

The older the tree the more rings it has.  It is very much the same with a 
city.

“Now, Emma, what is the tenth commandment?”  Emma, aged five – “The same as it 
was last Sunday.”

Some people are so unreasonable!  Now, nothing would please us more than to 
find hare in our hash.

Day-after-tomorrow is the name of a Cherokee Indian Chief.  He is a brother of 
Procrastination.

The latest news of the South American War is that a Chili man-of-war has taken 
the Peruvian bark Quinine.

In a boarding-house you don’t knock the stuffing out of the turkey; you knock 
the turkey out of the stuffing.

It’s hard to fool castor oil – that is, it is hard to take it in – [Wheeling 
Sunday Leader]

Tramps have generally no religious belief, but lean towards the church of roam.

“Does your wife play euchre?” asked one.  “No,” replied the other, rubbing his 
head, “but she’d death on poker.”

The man who said he was hard pushed in his business was a book agent who had 
just been ejected from a store.

Young writer:  You have chosen an excellent nom de plume for your first 
effusion, “Euripides,” for you rip ideas all to pieces. – [Cincinnati Saturday 
Night]

“He was struck by her beautiful form,” and it happened in this wise:  He 
chanced to be passing her house just as she came tumbling off the roof.

There is a lady in Whitehall who is so fashionable that she won’t eat boarding 
house butter unless the hair in it is frizzed.

Truth is stranger than fiction.  A man may now he is a liar, and yet he’ll 
feel decidedly strange when he is called one.

Smith – “There are dogs that have more sense than their masters.”  “Just so,” 
responds young Fitznoodle; “I’ve got that very kind of a dog myself.”

The foolish virgin on the train sitteth demure and quietly in her seat, but 
the wise one flirteth with the conductor and passeth free of charge – [Oil 
City Derrick]

When an Irishman was accused of stealing a handkerchief of a fellow traveler, 
but the owner, on finding it, apologized to Pat, and said it was a 
mistake.  “Arrah, my jewel,” retorted Pat, “it was a two-sided mistake – you 
took me for a thaif, and I took you for a gentleman.”

A little boy, whose sisters stroll in the woods for the bright-hued leaves of 
autumn time, saw them coming home the other day with a red-whiskered 
gentleman, whom he greeted with the remark:  “My!  You got autumn leave 
whiskers, ain’t you?”  - [Philadelphia Bulletin]

“What’s fame?” yelled an excited orator.  “What’s fame!  That ghost of 
ambition!  What’s honor?” And a weak-minded man in the crowd said he supposed 
she had clothes on her, as nay darned fool ought to know – [Oil City Derrick]

Treeless Iowa is being transformed into a forest-covered country by law which 
remits certain taxes for five years on every acre of fruit, and ten years on 
every acre of forest trees planted and kept alive.  Over 76,000 acres of fruit 
and forest trees have been planted and $200,000 have been remitted in taxes.  
Could not a similar inducement be devises, says the Sanitary Enquirer to lead 
people to keep their homes and farms salubrious?  It seems perfectly feasible.

A very important function of the tail of the yak, cat, squirrel and many other 
animals serve a very important purpose in preserving their body-heat during 
their nightly and wintry sleep.  In cold weather these animals with bushy 
tails will be found cu rled up with their tails laid carefully over their feet 
like a rug, and with their noses buried in the fur of the tail, which is thus 
used exactly in the same way and for the same purpose as we use respirators.

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PAGE 4

THE SOUTHERN FARMER
PRINCIPLES OF STOCK FEEDING – No well defined system of stock management 
resting upon the laws of animal growth and of the relations of food to each 
other in animal nutrition, is in practice to any considerable extent in this 
country.  It is a self-evident statement that working in harmony with law is 
working to the best advantage.  As farmers, we are sadly out of harmony with 
the best methods of stock management, thus coming greatly short of obtaining 
the possible objective value of our foods.  Feeding is not as yet a developed 
science, but a very hopefully developing one.  Closely pressed by having to 
compete with the low prices of prairies steers, the only hope of Eastern 
feeders lies in the search for, and observance of the laws that control in 
this department of farm husbandry.  Allow me then to name a few important 
points that have come under my observation in experimental feeding for a few 
years past.
	Every reader at once declares that the matter is clear – it must be a 
steer that has been well bred, that inherits a large capacity for consumption, 
digestion and assimilation of food.  It is useless to attempt to feed any 
other for profit in the East, but under the head of “the steer to feed.”   I 
wish to make this point, resting upon my own observation and that of others:  
This is the only steer that one can afford to feed high; for, when fed an 
increased ration over an ordinary one, the well-bred steer assimilates a ver 
much heavier percentage of this increase than an average steer, and the poorer 
steer’s capacity for assimilation is so low that it will not give a favorable 
response to a heavy ration.
	Our steer must be of the larger breeds; for a rapidly growing, or a 
large animal, will make more growth on a pound of food than one of a smaller 
breed.  A large beef presents less radiating surface in proportion to weight, 
than a small one.  Thus, in case of the latter, more food is required, 
particularly in winter, to maintain the animal heat.  On this head practical 
experience confirms theoretical considerations.   The animal should be early 
matured.  If a steer is sold when 4 ½ years of age, weighing 1,600 pounds, 
then his average weight for his lifetime would have been not far from 800 
pounds. Such an 800-pound steer I have found will consume 14 pounds of hay a 
day as maintenance fodder, making no growth.  Now, the steer has consumed 14 
pounds a day for 4 ½ years, - how many steers require 6 years to weigh 1,600 
pounds – simply to run the machine?  It is the hay given over this amount 
daily that makes the growth.  Growing out steer to 1,600 pounds at 2 ½ years, 
will save maintenance fodder for two years; or, in round numbers, for two 
winters.  360 days we shall save 2 ¼ tons of hay, as well as two years; 
pasturing.  But again I find that a young animal will make more faint on a 
pound of food than an older one, thus making a double gain.   Moreover, an 
animal when small, will make very much more gain than an animal nearly 
matured.  The difference is so great as to become of much importance.  This 
fact should lead us so to breed as to get an animal that will come into shape 
to command full market prices at a much less weight than that named.  Could a 
market demand be developed for 800-pound calves, these could be furnished at a 
profit by the side of Texas steers.
	For a generation most of the stock of New England has been kept for 
the direct purpose of manure-making, and they are yet its cheapest sources.  
Were it not so, in a comparatively short time there would be but little stock 
in the West.  Yet in feeding, the prime object – the fact that our steers are 
simply manure factories – is lost sight of.  The Englishman’s first question 
is:  “What is the manure value of the food?”  Then in buying foods – I buy 
heavily because I find it the cheapest means of obtaining plant food, and for 
another object I will name further on.  I always consider the amount of the 
elements of plant food contained in the proposed purchases.  I do not say that 
that shall be the sole criterion of purchase, but it must have a determining 
recognition.  It not unfrequently happens that a nitrogenous food is nearly or 
quite worth its costs as a manure.  Intending here to call attention only to 
prominent points in stock management, that are settled but not accepted 
generally in practice, I will forego details, and simply say that in practice 
I can give corroborative evidence from my records of the facts here stated.
	Chemistry has blundered around badly on the question of the nutritive 
value of foods, as it has on other questions in agriculture.  But the stimulus 
it has given to practical investigators, pointing to the door; and as an aid 
to them, will result in an immense saving of food values.  Pardon me for 
referring to personal data again; such data, however, always bear more 
directly on the point than what one has heard of.  As the result of three 
year’s careful weighings of food for several sets of steers, I am thoroughly 
convinced that an extremely important saving can be made in feeding mixed 
rations, and that it is not enough that these mixtures be indiscriminately 
made.  In general terms, nitrogenous foods should be mixed with carbonaceous; 
or bran, peas, cotton-seed, oil cake, blood, eat, and clover should be given 
in connection with coarse foods, like straw, corn fodder, and swale hay.  
Happily it is the first named foods that are rich manure-makers, and, using 
them, we accomplish two important purposes. – [J. W. Sanborn in Rural New 
Yorker]

TOPICS FOR THE HOUSEHOLD
For people with skin diseases a carbolic bath should be used.

Frosted artificial flowers may be renovated by coating them with the white of 
an egg and dusting them with powdered glass.

To take ink out of linen, dip the ink spot in pre melted tallow, then wash out 
the tallow, and the ink will come out with tit.  This is said to be unfailing.

A correspondent in the Rural Home maintains that American cooks use too much 
lard.  He claims that it is unhealthy, and recommends the substitution of 
butter and cream.

Britannia ware should be first rubbed gently with a woolen cloth and sweet 
oil; then washed in warm water suds, and rubbed with soft leather and 
whiting.  Thus treated it will retain its beauty to the last.

When mattresses get hard and bunchy, rip them, take the hair out, pull it 
thoroughly by hand, let it lie a day or two to air, wash the tick, lay it in 
as lightly and evenly as possible, and catch it down as before.  Thus prepared 
they will be good as new.

It is said that boiled hams are much nicer to stand in the water in which they 
were boiled until cold.  The outside does not ten turn black and dry up as it 
does when taken from the water to cool; but remember to remove the lid of the 
kettle, so that the steam may escape.

Good hen manure from fowls which have been liberally fed is worth as much as 
guano.  It should be put in barrels as soon as taken from the chicken-house, 
and kept in a dry place until wanted, a little plaster mixed with it, and 
before using, pound up fine.  Apply it same as guano.

Relative to changing the clothing, it is considered hazardous to lessen its 
amount after dressing in the morning, unless active exercise is taken 
immediately.  No under-garments should be changed to lighter ones during the 
day, ordinarily. The best, safest, and most convenient time for lessening the 
clothing is in the morning, when we first dress for the day.

The following is recommended to whiten porcelain sauce pains:  Have the pans 
half filled with hot water; throw in a tablespoonful of pulverized borax, and 
let it boil.  If this does not remove all the stains, soap a cloth and 
sprinkle on plenty of pulverized borax.  Scour  them well.

TO MAKE COFFEE. – A gentleman from Ceylon states that the custom there to make 
coffee was as follows:  Put sufficient ground coffee into cold water over 
night; in the morning strain off; then heat.  He adds his testimony that 
coffee made under this plan is excellent in flavor, and those who are bilious 
will not find the evil effect produced by the old method.

CHICKEN PIE – Boil the chicken until tender, salt to the taste, make a crust 
with one quart flour, two small tablespoons lard, one teaspoon salt, one 
teaspoon soda, two of cream tartar, sifted with the flour; two cups sweet 
milk.  Work the lard in the flour as quickly as possible, and make the dough 
as soft as you can roll out.  Line a deep dish with the crust, put in the 
chicken, with the large bones removed, one small teacup of the chicken broth, 
a little salt and pepper; cover with the crust, and bake one hour.  Serve with 
gravy made form the chicken broth.

FRITTERS – OYSTER – Beat two eggs very light; then stir in two tablespoons 
cream or milk, three tablespoons sifted flour, a pinch of salt.  Dip the 
oysters in this, and fry in hot lard.  CLAM – Take twenty-five clams and stew 
them in their own liquor.  Salt and pepper them slightly.  Cook for fifteen 
minutes slowly.  Drain the clams, chopping them as fine as possible, removing 
all the hard portions first.  Make a batter of four eggs, with a half-pint of 
sifter flour and a pint of milk.  Get it as smooth as possible. Mix the clams 
with tit.  Use butter for frying.  A small addition of parsley is excellent.  
PEA – Cook a pint, or three ups, more peas than you need for dinner.  Mash 
while hot, seasoning with pepper, salt, and butter.  Put by until morning.  
Make a batter of two beaten eggs, a cup of milk, quarter of a teaspoon soda, 
half a teaspoonful of cream tartar, and half a cup of flour.  Stir the peas 
into this, beaten very hard, and cook as you would griddle cakes.  BRAIN – 
Half pint of milk, quarter of a pound of flour, two eggs, half light 
teaspoonful of salt, a saltspoonful of white pepper, and a teaspoonful of 
chopped parsley.  Stir the milk gradually into the flour and salt and the well-
beaten yolks of the eggs, parsley and pepper, then the whites of the eggs.  
Drain all the salt and water from the brains, break them up thoroughly with a 
fork, and then put them in the batter, beating them well in.  Fry them by the 
tablespoonful in boiling drippings or a mixture of lard band butter with an 
expenditure of sixty-five cents, or with wine seventy-five cents, if you use 
wine for the stew, you have three dishes, sufficient for quite two days’ 
dinner for six people. 

ROBUST ENGLISHMEN
Delane, late editor of the London Times was a florid, healthy-looking man, 
more like a country gentleman than a laborious journalist.  Lord Palmerston 
had a similar fresh, “breezy” countenance, and it is notable than many of 
England’s hardest-worked men are bright, active, stalwart gentlemen.  Among 
our leading artists this is peculiarly the case; so it is with prosperous 
barristers and judges.  There are few heartier-looking “bucks” now than the 
Lord Chief Justice.  Anthony Trollope looks like a flourishing country 
gentleman, though he is up at 5 o’clock every morning, writing those endless 
novels, which are continually being published or about to appear.  Mr. 
Tennyson does not overwork himself, but he can hardly be said to look his 
intellectual occupation.  I saw him not long since smoking his pipe in a 
coarse every day suit and a soft hat.  It is true, he was walking in his own 
grounds, but smaller poets generally pose in fitting raiment even in their 
back gardens.  Sals, who often writes more in a week than some of his 
contemporaries do in a month, is “rosy as the morn,” and as full of life and 
spirits as a stripling.  Mark Lemon, when he was editing Punch, writing novels 
and trying to make fortunes in mines, was a picture of Falstaffian 
cheerfulness.  Burnard, with white hair and gray beard, looks even younger 
than he is.  Work is evidently a good thing up to a certain point.

OUTWITTING HIS COMPETITOR
Two men started from Minneapolis on the same train carrying conflicting deeds 
to a piece of land in Sioux Falls, and each resolved to get his document 
recorded first.  As they approached that city, one of them climbed upon the 
engine, slipped the coupling, left the train to take care of itself, and 
rushed on, securing a record of his title half an hour in advance of his rival 
who had to wait for another locomotive.

CHRISTMAS PLAY-SONG – [J. C. Harris, in Atlanta Constitution]
(Myrick Place, Putnam County, 1858)
	It is unnecessary to state for the information of Southern readers 
that the irregularity of metre in the following is apparent only and not 
real.  Unfortunately the limitations of typography do not permit me to 
represent the intonations and somewhat striking monotony of the negro songs.  
I can best describe them by explaining that the rhythm of these melodies is 
wholly the result of a succession of caesuras, the recurrence of which is 
invariable, but irregular.  In order to preserve as far as possible the spirit 
and characteristics of the negro play-song, which was one of the peculiar 
results of plantation life.  I have purposely avoided any form of 
versification – depending wholly upon the caesura, as, for instance, in the 
line –  “an’ himeby| Old Miss| ‘ll be a send | in’ out de dram|.” where the 
air and intonation make the harmony perfect.

Hi my rinktum! Black gal sweet,
Some like goodies w’at de w’ite folks eat;
Ho my Riley! Don’t you taken’n tell’er name,
En den ef sumpin happen you won’t ketch de blame
Hi my rinktum!  Better tak’n hide y’ plum’
Joree don’t’ holler eve’ry time he fine a wum.

Den it’s hi my rinktum!
Don’t git no udder man;
And it’s ho my Riley!
Fetch out Miss Dilsey Ann!

Ho my Riley!  Yaller gal fine;
She may be yone but she oughter be mine!
Hi my rinktum!  Lemme git by
An’ see w’at she mean be de cut er dat eye!
Ho my Riley!  Better shet dat do’
De w’ite folks’ll think we er t’arin up de flo’.

Den it’s ho my Rilery!
Come a sitting up fer me!
An’ its hi my rinktum!
Dis de way to twis’ yo knee!

Hi my rinktum!  Ain’t de eas’ gitting red?
De squinch owl shiver like he wanter go ter ed;
He my Riley’ but de gals an’ de boys
Des now gitting’ so dey kin sorter make a noise.
Hi my rinktum!  let de yaller gal ‘lone’
Niggers don’t hanker arter sodey in de pone.

Den it’s high my rinktum!
Better try anudder plan’
An’ it’s ho my Riley!
Trot out Miss Silsey Ann!

Ho my riley.  In de happy Chrismus’ time
De darkeys shake de cloze a hunting fer a dime
Hi my rinktum!  Ad den dey shake der feet,
An’ grease derese’f wid de good ham meat.
Ho my Riley!  Dey ear an’ dey cram,
An’ bimeby ole Miss’ll be sendin’ out de dram.

Den it’s be my Riely!
You hear di, Sara?
An’ it’s hi my rinktum,
Be a sendin’ out de dram!

MASCALINE AND FEMINE MORALITY – [Home Journal]
I could never understand the opposite system of weights and measure which have 
been established for gauging morality among men and women.  The strictest 
among us allow that t a young man should sow his wild oats; but who ever 
admitted the same necessity in the case of girls?  We say than man should have 
his amusements – his clubs, cigars, horse-races, flirtations, and liquorings; 
but supposing our women and girls came to us reeking of tobacco?  Supposing 
they addicted themselves openly to nips of grog and absinthe when their 
spirits were low?  Supposing they sat down to quiet rubbers of whist or 
ecarte, gambling away their house of money just to while of dull hours.  We 
demanded so much excellence of our women that the worst of them are still 
better than the average man.  I have known some women who were social 
outcasts, and who, in point of heart, conduct and general moral rectitude, 
might have furnished stuff of the making of very upright gentlemen indeed.  
They had fallen once, it is true, but what tearful penalty they had been made 
to pay for that one slip, while by comparison, the kindred penalties of men 
are so light.  If a young man gets mixed up in some disgraceful entanglement, 
breaks a heart, throws a young girl upon the streets after having ruined her 
life, people say of him, compassionately, by and by “He was so young when he 
did it, and now he has tuned over a new leaf.”  But if an inexperienced girl, 
a mere child of sixteen or seventeen, comes to harm through a moment’s 
weakness, born of too much love and over confidence in her betrayer, who ever 
things of pleading her youth as an excuse?  Who ever urges, seriously, that a 
girl “has turned over a new leaf.”

“PUT ON PETTICOATS”
	The Indian custom is to butcher prisoners taken in battle.  Such, 
however, was not the practice of TECUMSEH, the great chief who, as an ally of 
the British, fought against us in the war of 1812.  He hated the Americans, 
but he fought as a warrior, not as a Thug.
	In 1813, COL. DUDLEY, while attempting to relive Fort Meigs, where 
GEN. HARRISON  was besieged by British and Indians was defeated with great 
slaughter.  As usual, the Indians began killing the American prisoners.  GEN. 
PROCTOR, the British commander, looked coolly on and made no effort to 
restrain them.
	Suddenly a voice sounded like a clap of thunder, and TECUMSEH, mounted 
on a foaming horse, dashed among the butchers.  Two Indians were in the act of 
killing a prisoner.  Springing from his horse, TECUMSEH seized one Indian by 
the throat and the other by the breast and thew to the ground.
	Drawing tomahawk and scalping knife, he dared and Indian to touch 
another prisoner.  A chief disobeyed, and TECUMSEH brained him with his 
tomahawk.  The Indians sullenly desisted.
	‘What will become of my Indians?” he exclaimed.  Then turning to 
Proctor, who stood near, he sternly demanded why he had not put a stop to the 
massacre.
	“Your Indians cannot be commanded,” replied the General.
	“Go away!  You are unfit to command.  Put on petticoats!” was the 
scornful reply.

FEARING THE WORST – [Sacramento Record-Union]
Railroad men tell a story of a woman who had lived for years in the upper part 
of the State, and knew little of hotel life and usages, and who recently paid 
a visit to Chico.  She had previously heard of telegraphic messages being 
unexpectedly received by travelers from their friends, conveying news of 
sickness, death, or business disaster.  When, therefore, the waiter placed 
before her a bill of fare, she thought of her husband, burst into tears, and 
shrieked, “My God, a dispatch from Jake!”

THE MINING VERNACULAR – [Nevada City Transcript]
A man who arrived here from Boston a few days ago has been industriously 
engaged every since in fitting himself for conversing in the strain peculiar 
to California mining camps.  He made his first public effort yesterday.  
Meeting a new-made acquaintance – who chanced to be a school teacher – one the 
street, he remarked:  “I say, Colonel, that racket that the twelve duffers 
dished up to the kid at the Justice mill last night for nipping the 
Pittsburg’s dust from the plates was a tough deal, hey?  Bet your sweet life 
the law in these diggins is no slouch when it sets its optics on a cuss 
once.”  He was at once requested to attend the meeting of Old Pioneers at the 
Bay as a sole delegate from Nevada County.

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