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Tacts and Tancies for the Tireside
LETTER FROM AN OLD LADY
IN A GEORGIA TOWN.
The following fiom Collier’s f. r
June 15, is the echo of a voice from
the South rich in that quality which
Southerners love but nowadays hear
all too seldom:
Slaves of the lamp in our unlovely
little Babel, we scurry about from
year end to year end at the bidding
of our various masters. We never
get rich enough nor famous enough,
and although we ’croak a g eat deal
and pretend we don’t like it, we
know we do. Most of us came to
New York from quieter places, wh.re
folks lived every day instead of
once a week and away back in our
congested cerebra is a picture of the
p’ace we are going to when the
right time comes and we can run
away to the Islands of the Blest. All
of us in the special little eddy from
which this paper is weekly spouted
forth have such a picture, now, at
, any rate, if \ve didn’t b ’fore —through
the happy thought of the 14 Life in
Our Town” contest —this letter
came:
4 4 LaGrange, Ga., March 18,1907.
<4 Dear Collier’s —I am an old lady
just, entering my 71st year, but I
love my old town and want to tell
you about it. LaGrange is in mid
dle Georgia, just two hoars’ ride
from Atlanta. It has about 8,000 in
habitants and is just full of life. We
have six cotton mills, a guano fac
tory, ice factory, two large female
I colleges and a. public school with
about 1,000 students. Paved streels,
| electric lights and three large banks,
1 controlling lots of money.- We have
I a historic town, too for here that sil
| ver-tongue Benjamin H. Hill spent
“ his happy childhood, here he brought
his young bride, here his children
were born and here his first maiden
speeches proclaiming to the world
what a grand man he was to be. His
old colonial home still stands here as
a memorial. Here also were the
homes of Walter T. Colquitt and Gov
ernor Alfred IT. Colquitt, United
States senator from Georgia.
4 4 LaGrange 'is called the City of
Elms and Roses, and if you could see
it in spring time you would certainly
say the name was honestly given.
Our homes have all beautiful gardens.
1 do wish some of the Collier staff
would come and see us and our town
, and let us show you what is true
Southern hospitality and what a fine
climate, water, etc., as well as a great
cotton market.
44 Now, dear Collier's, I want to
thank you for your fearless manner
in attacking all those quack medi
cines, for it is high time for them to
be suppressed, and you deserve the
credit for coming boldly to the front,
for it seems no one eLe had the
courage .
44 1 like youn, candor in defending
that grand old man, General Robert
E. Lee, but will stop for fear 1 have
rijn over my 1,000 words. Please
promise me you will not put this in
the waste-basket.
4 4 Very respectfully,
44 MRS. CAROLINE E. GAY.”
Waste-basket! Inscribed in our
hearts, rather, set up on the bright
mountain peak of Hope, where the
sun shines three hundred and sixty
six days in the year’ We like to
think of the South as one of those
Blessed Islands, left in a bnzy and
sometimes careless world, whore ev
erything is kindness and courtesy and
good cheer. Sometimes, when we are
misunderstood and Southerners write
us to go off and jump info the sea,
this is hard to do, and we are huit
and puzzled. LaGrange, however,
makes our dreams come true. We are
all going there some day —going to
walk under the elm trees, sit on the
white porticos and look out at those
rose card'ns; but first and most im
portant of all we will find that par
ticular white portico and rose garden
from which this letter came, there to
greet and to thank, face to face, as
we do now. in these dull words, the
gracious hostess who has restored our
illusions and been so kind.
TEN COMMANDMENTS.
1. Thon shalt not go away from
home to do thy trading, nor the ask
ing of--favors.
2. Thou shalt patronize home mer
chants, thy home printer, for yea.
verily doth the home printer spread
ever the tidings of thy goodness and
greatness and many will patronize.
3. Thou shalt employ thv, home
mechanics that they shall not be driv
en from their homes to find bread
for their little ones.
4. Thou shalt not ask credit, as
goods cost much and the merchant’s
brain is burdened with bills. His
children clamor daily for bread, and
his wife abideth at home for lack
of raiment as. adoreth her sisters.
Blessed, yea, thrice blessed, is the
man who pays cash.
5. Thou shalt not ask for reduced
prices on thine “influence,” for
guile is in thy heart and the mer
chant readeth thee like an open book.
He laugheth thee to scorn and shout
eth to his clerks, 44 Ha, ha!”
G. Thou shalt do what liefh in thy
power to encourage and promote the
welfare of thine own town and thine
own people.
7. Thou shalt not suffer thy voice
of pride to overcome thee, and if oth
er towns entice thee, consent thou
not. for thou mayest be deceived.
R. Thou shalt spend thy earnings
at homo that they may return from
whence they came and give nourish
ment to such as may come after thee.
9. Thou shalt not bear false wit
ness against the town wherein thou
dwellest, but speak well of it by all
men.
10. Thon shalt keep these com
mandments and teach them to thy
children, even unto the third and
fourth generations, that they mav be
made to flourish and grow in plenty
when thou art, laid to rest with thy
fathers. —Ex.
WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN.
THE FOLLY OF THE DAY.
There is a wonderful ambition
abroad for being “genteel.” We
keep up appearances too often at, the
expense of honesty; and though we
may not be rich, yet we must
seem to be 44 respectable,” though
only in the meanest sense
in mere vulgar show. We have
not the courage to go patiently
onward in the condition of life to
which it has pleased God to call us;
but must needs be in some fashionable
state to which we ridiculously please
to call ourselves, and all to gratify
the vanity of that unsubstantial, gen
teel world of which we form a p it.
There is a constant struggle and pres
sure for front seats in the soical
ampitheatre; in the midst of which
all noble, self-denying resolve is trod
den down, and many fine natures are
inevitably crushed to death. Whit
waste, what misery, what bankruptcy,
come from all this ambition to daz
zle others with a glare of appare t
worldly success, we need not describe.
The mischievous results show th-m
selves in a thousand ways—in the
rank frauds committed by men who
dare to be dishonest, but do not care
to seem poor; and in the desperate
dashes at fortune, in which the pity
is not so much for those who fail
as for the hundreds of innocent fami
lies who are so often involved in
their ruin.
WHERE WILL WOMAN STOP?
OR WILL SHE STOP?
This is the age of the woman.
And the future also is hers.
It is less than fifty years since
American girls were refused admis
sion to colleges their brothers at
tended. Now there are more women
in colleges than men. Almost every
agency of modern times caters to
woman. Merchants vie for her cus
tom. The pulpit wants her strong
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608 TEMPLE COURT
The Tool Company
58 Marietta St. Bell Phone 5311
ATLANTA, GEORGIA
We have a complete line of tools to meet the demand of all trades*
men. 10 per cent off on Starrett’s Machinist Tools. Everything we sell Is
guaranteed. Mall orders filled the same day they are received.
support. Ute press seeks her favor
and patronage. Woman is no long
er behind the throne. She is the
throne. All this change of a few
years seems a radical departure.
But cast your eyes over Europe.
I he women of Britain are pounding
at the doors of parliament seeking
suffrage. In Germany the gajes of
the ancient universities have been
lifted from their hinges to let in
women. In Italy the parliament has
appointed, a commission to arrange,
if possible, for equal suffrage.
The French women have gone
ahead of men in the field of scien
tific discovery. And in England, of
the twelve best books, every one
was written by a woman. Even in
daik st Russia women physicians
are teaching the doctors of the
woild s advance methods in hospi
tal work. But most striking of all,
Finland—think of it-Finland!
nineteen women now occupy seats
as lawmakers in the legislature of
that duchy! In point of fact, in
its appreciation and advance of
women—great as that advance has
been America is in some respects
tai- behind Finland. This is the wom
an!’s age. In this new equation of
modern life is man to be the X—the
unknown quantity?—St. Louis Star.
CAUSE OF THE EXODUS.
44 He110, George! What’s every
body crowding out of the drawing
room for? Have refreshments been
announced?”
George— 44 N0; but Aunt Matilda is
getting ready to sing.”—London Tit-
Bits.
WARNING TO SUCKERS. i
4 4 Do you thing cabbage is unwhole
some?” said the dyspeptic.
44 1 t depends somewhat,” answered
the food expert, “on whether you
eat it or try to smoke it.’’— Wash
ington Star.
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