4
Since the above was written Judge Parker's
complete defeat by the convention has been acknowl
edged; so has GufTy, another of Mr. Bryan's most
active opponents. This seems to indicate that the
people will do to trust when properly informed
trusted to set down hard upon a man or a principle
not in thorough agreement with decency, common
sense ami ordinary honesty.
IN DISTRESS -
BUT WHO CARES?
His wife in an alms house, himse’f in a peon's
cell.
Such is the unfortunate position of Mr. Barring
ton and his wife, an aged couple formerly engaged
in the grocery business in the suburbs of Savannah.
Mr. Barrington is charged with doing business
without a liscense, in fact, has been convicted of
such crime after pleading guilty; and has been
sentenced to thirty days in jail, which sentence he
is now serving.
His bunk is hard, —you bet it is hard.
In the middle of darkest night, amid the wild
fanatical shrieks of criminals, he reaches out his
polished hand to grasp the hand of his care-worn
companion who has been his bosom friend all down
through life's rocky way; but she is not by his side
as she use to be in the back-room of their little 1 store,
—he feels not now her warm touch, nor hears again
her messages of sympathy and cheer.
Desolation, humiliation and degredation, accom
panied by thoughts of his old wile subsisting on
charily, are his constant companions.
It use to be different. The couple once had a
comfortable home on the farm, in the midst of green
fields of waving corn, a farm stocked with lowing
cattle and trampled over by barrel-shaped pigs and
Ideating sheep, a farm with barns bursting open
with grain and smoke houses odorous with meat. A
home in the country among simple, kind and affec
tionate neighbors.
THE REASON
A home next door to those who never kill a pig
without dividing it up.- - all of whom feel the jar
when distress befalls one of their number!
Instead of being caught by blackberry vines as
when he rambled of dewy mornings over his farm,
old man Barrington in the Late evening of life has
been caught bv the strong arm of the law; instead
of feeding on Ethiops sweets he is feeding on water
and hard-tack; instead of the brooklet's pretty song
he hears only the mad man's rave!
And al] for the want of SIOO with which to secure
a license for doing business in an out-of-the-way
place where the volume of trade would scarcely
justify the payment of $lO for such privilege. The
stock carried has never. at any time that the old
couple trudged at it to make their living, amounted
to over SIOO. It is a fact that there were months
while tin 1 old man lasted that the gross receipts of
the business were less than $125.
These facts, however, provide no justification for
Barrington's offence unless art of theft can be justi
fied when committed to prevent starvation or beg
gary. Bather than beg. rather than steal, old man
Barrington would, if let alone, hide out in a secluded
spot and ply his trade buy and sell a few groceries,
in order to provid** two feeble old bodies with
the means of a livelihood.
He woidd do a little more, rather than take what
did not belong to him, rather than beg. —he would
tell a lie and say it was another man's business, an
old soldier's who had a permit to do business with
out a license.
A lie—mighty small thing to (‘lose flu* door of a
business house, but rain stops the cotton picking,
and sorrow, a thing less subtle but more overwhelm
ing, the joy of feasting.
It may be that the little “lib" had help in its last
moments in closing the old man up in the shape of
a circumstance — an incident—the prosecution
which Mr. Barrington instituted sometime ago
against his landlord for assault ami battery, under
which charge tin* said landlord is now bonded in
the sum of S3OO for his appearance before a court
of law.
Whether this circumstance had anything to do
with the sudden and unexpected termination of the
old man's business career cannot be authoritativelv
*
stated, but it is known that not until such prosecu
tion arose was any thought given the matter of
forcing the collection of the license tax.
