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SOUTHERN LITERARY GAZETTE:
An SUustratcli U'ctkln .Journal of Bclks-Cettrcs, Stitnrc anti the Arts.
A M, c. RICHARDS, EDITOR.
©riginal JJoctrn.
For the Southern Literary Gazette.
THE TOCSIN.
by ROBERT M . CHARLTON.
[ During the Temperance Convention at Atlanta, one of
•he Vice-Presidents declared, in his speech, that, “We do
<lo t belong to the venders of liquorwe belong to our
wives!” Another of the speakers took occasion to com
bat this last branch of the proposition, and to affirm, that
<• We belong to nobody : we are freemen. It is to us that
ur wives have promised to love, honor and obey.” This
brought up the President of the Convention, who is also
a judge of the Supreme Court, and he announced that we
nm belong to our wives—that theirs was the best and
wisest rule—that he had, in his marriage ceremony, prom
ised to obey, and that, hereafter, when in his judicial ca
pacity he tied the silken cords of matrimony, he would
insist that the men should vow obedience. The following
iines are founded upon these incidents, and also upon the
prior decision of the Supreme Court of Georgia, that the
Legislature had transcended their constitutional power in
allowing divorces, and that hereafter there should be
none']
Ye Freemen of Georgia! Ye bold and Married
Men !
Arouse ye, for there’s danger stalking fiercely thro’
your land;
Ye have often fought for freedom !—Ye must battle
now again,
Not with a foreign foeman, but your own domestic
band.
Ye are struggling for a dearer right than even for
your lives,
For the contest is for liberty !—the enemy, your
wives !
Alas, the fiat has gone forth, —ye have no more the
power—
Ye are wedlock’s helpless victims —ye are woman’s
luckless prey —
The golden rule of olden time has vanish’d from this
hour—
’Tis ye that henceforth now must swear “ to honor
and obey.”
Alas! alas ! my comrades, that we’ve taken so much
pains
To be clasp’d in Hymen’s fetters —to be bound by
Beauty’s chains !
A has the Court of Errors ! Down with the tyrants,
down!
’T is they who’ve brought such danger to our free
and peaceful State,
Tis they, clothed in the panoply of ermine and of
gown,
Who’ve sworn that “ no man henceforth shall be
parted from his mate
And now, to cap the climax of their most unright
eous sway,
Their chief has said “ The ivomen rule, —the men
shall now obey ! ”
Ah me ! when first I knelt me down at Beauty’s
lovely shrine,.
And swore that there forever I would offer up my
heart—
That her eyes should be the only suns that on my
path should shine —
That 1 would do with joy whate’er her sweet lips
should impart,
Fid 1 think, oh wretched mortal! oh unsuspecting
youth!
1 ‘id I deem but for a moment 1 was telling her the
truth !
‘’h Turkey ! thou bright region of the myrtle and
the vine,
1 hey may talk about your despot’s rule, but thou
alone art free —
i hy turban’d men disdain beneath a woman’s yoke
to pine,
And though each may have a hundred wives, he
keeps them under key !
dark, benighted Judges, cease your desolating
work;
wisdom from the Mussulmen, —learn prudence
from the Turk!
1 surrender: there’s no kind of use in fighting against
fate;
■ H make no farther struggle,—l’ll waste no more
my breath ;
A hat Bulwer says is true, I guess, “ When one has
got a mate,
Fe s nothing else to do on earth, but calmly wait
for death!”
1 surrender, Freedom’s flag is down, —the drapeau
blanc unfurls!
Th, Bho shall stand the battery of “forty miles of
girls !”
THE FOUNTAIN, AT THE MADISON SPRINGS.
Os all the watering places which are presenting their rival claims to the public in our State,
this summer, commend us to the “Madison.” Situated at the very threshold of our sublime
mountain-region it possesses natural attractions peculiar to itself. It is but a day’s ride from
the beautiful and majestic “Currahee,” beyond and about which, are clustered scenes on
which the eye may well delight to linger.
The Springs are at this time crowded with visiters —and mirth and music add wings to the
hours and days which the young, the gay, and the beautiful of our land, are passing amid
their charms.
Haply, these paragraphs may meet the eye of some who are dragging out the weary sum
mer days in the city or in the “dull town,” and if so, let us prevail with them to make a
visit to Clarkesville and its noble “lions”—Tallulah, Toccoa, Nacoochee, Currahee and
Yonah! And, furthermore, let them not fail to spend, at least, a week at the Madison Springs,
both going and returning —and if, when they get fairly under the sumptuous administration
of our friend Morrison, they feel any great degree of impatience to change their quarters,
we shall marvel greatly, and exclaim “De gustibus!” &c. Gentle readers—one and all of
you, who are sighing for fresh air, innocent pastimes and charming society—let us woo you
in verse—
AWAY TO THE S r UINGS!
i.
Oh say, would you drink of the cup,
That Health and true pleasure fill up
To the brim, with life’s nectar 1
Would you revel awhile in delight,
Give earth’s petty troubles a slight—
And show Care you neglect her ‘l
Away to the springs—where joy ever flings
A halo of light, from her rose-colored wings ;
Where Nature and Art have each done their part,
To ravish the eye, and enrapture the heart:
Oh, away to the Springs!
Popular (talcs.
808 RACKET’S SEARCH FOR SHOES.
BY EDWARD YOUL.
In the year—well the year doesn’t matter —
in the depth of the winter season, a very hard
frost set in, which lasted a very long time.
Not such a frost as is common to ordinary
winters. Nothing like it. But much more
servere than England has known for the last
quarter of a century. The earth bit men’s
toes as they trod upon it; and some of those
unfortunates who, perforce, went shoeless,
never, it was said, found their feet again, but
had them withered up, long before the great
thaw came.
Oh, it was a hard time for the poor, that;
if indeed any time can be said to be easy with
those, upon whose shoulders the yoke of pov
erty is doomed to sit. If it only galled the
flesh! but it galls the soul. Os course—for
amid our selfishness, we have much real feel
ing for the ills of others—there were all sorts
of Charities set a-foot, Blanket and Flannel
Charities —Soup Charities —Bread Charities—
Coal Charities! But no one thought of shoes.
If they had, feet would not have withered off,
and as Bob Racket would have been shod by
the Shoe Charity, I should have had 110 tale
to tell.
Bob had no shoes, and his mother (his fa
ther was dead) could not afford to buy him
any. After paying her rent she had just three
and sixpence a week left to furnish seven
mouths \vi h food. Sixpence a mouth, less
than a penny a day, and provisions were dear,
as they ever are, when it is the interest of the
poor to have them cheap. Therefore, as there
were no Shoe Charities, Bob was like to go
barefooted.
ATHENS, GEORGIA, SATURDAY, JULY 29, 1848.
11.
Oh, there doth the mountain-breezo come,
Still cool with the cataract’s foam,
And with fresh odors laden!
It sendeth the blood with a rush,
And a tinge like the rose’s young blush—
To the cheek of the maiden !
Away to the springs, where the mountain-breezo
Beauty and health on its musical wings; [brings
Which murmur sweet tales of the hills and the vales
Where the sunlight of Joy, forever prevails:
Oh, away to the Springs!
Poor Bob! The soles of his feet, from
long practice in walking upon them unshod,
had got hard, almost horny indeed, in sub
stance, but the frost found them out, and
pinched them, as if it paid him off a grudge
long owing, and did it with a spite, as dunned
exquisites, of intemperate disposition, dis
charge their debts. The worst of it was that
a quotidian threepence was of Bob’s earning,
and there was consequently no staying at
home. Forth he must go, and tread the in
clement ground, when the morning clock
struck eight; and if he would find his feet
after half an hour’s exposure to the frost he
must look for them, for feel them he could
not. Well-booted gentlemen glancing at his
shoeless extremities, were shocked. Eyesores
to gentility are naked feet. Oh, if there had
but been Shoe Charities !
The mortification was that urchins more
diminutive than himself noted the unshod ex
tremities, and jeered him. There were boys
and men begging who had shoes. The very
horses, as Bob thought had them : and in
cordwainers’ shops there were hundreds and
hundreds of pairs unappropriated, asking to
be worn, longing to escape from the shelves,
and see the world outside, with iron tips that
fretted themselves to rust because the roads
were slippery, with ice, and they were never
taken out to slide. Hundreds and hundreds,
aye, thousands and thousands of pairs and
Bob’s feet smarted, and Bob’s feelings winced
for lack of one pair. Oh, if there had but
been Shoe Charities!
Bob stopped before a shoe shop in llolborn
one day, and went the length of handling a
pair that dangled with many others at the
door. It was a presumption that they were
submitted for public touch and general inspec
tion, and Bob thought that he underwent no
risk But a boy seeing his fingers close up
on them, rushed out.
VOLUME I.— PM BEK 12.
“Oh, you would, would you?” cried the
boy.
“Would what?” asked Bob Racket.
“ Steal them shoes?”
“ No,” said Bob, quietly, and he went on
handling them. Stout, serviceable shoes they
were to look at.
“Now, Tom,” cried a voice inside, “what
are you dawdling at the door for ? There’s
the three pair of Wellingtons to go to Great
Ormond Street.”
“Eye upon the fives, father,” replied the
boy. The jives meaning Bob’s fingers.
“I'll attend to them,” replied the parent. —
“You make a conveyance of the Welling
tons.”
“Eye upon the fives,” shouted Tom again.
“I’m stiff if he ain’t got’em off the nail.”
Bob had indeed ventured so far—to inspect
them more closely.
“ What is this here, that’s interfering with
them Wellingtons a-going to Great Ormond
Street?” cried the cordwainer, approaching
the door. “Them shoes,” addressing Bob,
“are five and sixpence.”
“ Please, Sir.” said Bob Racket, looking im
ploringly in the man’s face, “ would you
take it by the week, sixpence a week ?” and
he pointed to his red and raw feet.
“ Cold weather, Sir.”
“ Yes, 1 take weekly payments,” said the
man. “Pay the first sixpence now, and I’ll
stow them safely away for you.”
“ But please, ain’t I to have them at once ?”
stammered Bob.
“We don’t do business on that principle
It wouldn’t stand, eh, father?” cried Tom
interposing. “ Times is hard.”
“ Not, exactly, Tom,” answered the shoe
maker, laughing. “Come take those Wel
lingtons—and you, (to Bob) pay sixpence on
the nail; bring another sixpence every week,
and in ten weeks the shoes are yours.”
* “In ten weeks the spring will be here*
sighed Bob, and walked away.
When days went by, and weeks and Janu
ary was nearly out, and no signs of the break
ing up of the weather had been hinted to the
sagacious in such matters, Bob Racket limp
ed, nay, went very lame. Chilblains had
scarred his poor feet until their shape was
nearly lost. He suffered excruciating pain*
and got no sleep o’nights. And though thou
sands upon thousands of unappropriated pairs
of shoes burdened the cordwainer’s shelves,
filled their windows, hung temptingly at theii
doors; though skins stripped reeking from
the fat sides of animals were transferred from
abattoirs to tanpits, and thence to the curri
er’s, and thence to shoemaker’s workshops,
where awls pierced and hammers rang on lasts
and lapstones from morning till night, yet
Bob Racket got no shoes.
Still the frost became more severe than
ever.
For his quotidian threepence Bob did er
rands for a lawyer. Park, dingy rooms that
lawyer had, full of musty law hooks and cob
webs,; windows that were never cleaned look
ed out upon dead blank walls; severer than
in the streets, where the atmosphere came hir
ing from the sky, was the frost in those*
chambers, where the warm soul of humanity
was turned to chilling ice.
Bob’s master was of a taciturn disposition,
and seldom addressed his clerks except t >
give instructions. If Bob had been an auto
maton, a piece of machinery, doing errands
by virtue of some ingenious mechanism war
ranted never to get out of order, and entailing
no other expense than three-penn’orth of oil
per diem for the lubrication of its springs and
wheels, and no more trouble than the appli
cation of it, he could not have been more a
cypher in the estimation of both clerks and
master. Bob cleaned and dusted the desks
and shelves, (he could not reach the cobwebs
which clouded the angels of the ceiling like
sable drapery) he fetched and carried, he was
active and servile—like the poor drudge he
was, in numerous capacities. Every one in
the office found him the handiest fellow liv
ing,—yet human, warm breathing, endowed
with life from God, and made akin to high
angelic beings, he was of less account than a
bird or beast, brought from a foreign land
would have been. A sheet of parchment
covered with the hieroglyphs of a dead man’s
will, bequeathing an hundred acres, would
have out-valued ten thousand of such items
in the social scale, though every pair of nu
ked feet had been ascending to Heaven, hy
the ladder which Jacob witnessed in his dream
The lawyer was not a proud man, but he
had a becoming pride,, that gloss by which.