Rensselaer Union, Volume 10, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 May 1878 — Poor, but Not Proud. [ARTICLE]

Poor, but Not Proud.

“I’m as poor as free-lunch turtlesoup, but I don’t glory in it,” said a weak-eyed waif of trouble, with a breath like the odor of an old stocking, as he sat down on a bench among the pariahs in Washington Park, the other morning. iL : —. ■ “ Merciful Moses!” exclaimed a sparse-haired mendicant, whose back hadn't carried a new coat for twenty years, “show me the man as does, an’ he kin take my share, cheap!” “ Trouble has follered me like ashadder from the cradle, an’ there never was a time when I was any more free from misfortune than I am of graybaeks at this minute, but I don’t go round with a tin horn an’ a banner, tellin’ the world I’m poor, do I?” The crowd edged up around him and listened, with open mouths. “I say I don’t flaunt my poverty,” he continued. “I’m not proud of it, nor puffed up over it, like some folks is, an’ I don’t crow over them as is better off, nor make brags that I liavo more trials an’ less to eat than any other living soul.” “No more do I,” put in a man with a face that had long been a stranger to water. “I grins an’ bears it.” “ Job’s turkey was a fat bird to the side of me, but what’s the good of my puttin’ on airs 3 It won’t make feathers grow on a station-house plank, will it? An’ kin’ boastin’ about my misery put another bean in my soup or give my stomach any more to do. Nary time, it can’t. Conceit never put a full spoon to anybody’s mouth. Land knows I’ve sot plenty of rope if I wanted to brag, ut that ain’t my natur.” “ Lots more of us can be hit with the same pole,” chimed in a thin man with a tight belt. “Yes, maybe; but if you’ll hold your breath you'll say less,” resumed' the iirst speaker. “There was Lazarus, now; look at him. He was poor enough to be respectable, by long odds. But I discount him, boys, Ido heavy. He had sores that was inticin’ to a hull pack of dogs, but you couldn’t find a scab big enough for a pup to smell of before its eyes were open; an’ then again, you can’t prove he didn’t own the hounds himself! Do I look able to kick my own dog? Well, I should say not! Poverty, boys, is my best holt. It’s the only thing in this world l ever had plenty of; but, as 1 said before, I don’t flaunt it around and glory in it, nor 1 don’t y’arn for any more of it. Poor? Yoj. couldn’t find fat enough abouthie to grease a watch!”—Cincinnati Breakfast Table

t—Joseph Walker, of Mansfield, Pa., a widower of fifty, with four children and property of the value of some $50,000, hanged himself a few days ago. A niece of bis' wife’s, a woman of thirty, had been sent for by him to act as his housekeeper. She claimed that he had promised to marry her, and when he denied that he had any matrimonial intentions made preparations for suing him for breach of promise. The threatened suit and the fears of losing some of his fortune in consequence so weighed upon his mind that he Was tied to end his imagined miseries by suicide. He was a very close, economical man, and he dreaded more than anything else the thought of losing a few dollars. Two fob Assent—A bridal couple