Saturday Evening Mail, Volume 5, Number 6, Terre Haute, Vigo County, 8 August 1874 — Page 1

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Vol. 5.—No. 6.

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$5 W

THE MAIL

A PAPER FOR THE PEOPLE.

[Written for The Mail.] A MYSTERY. IDA MAY DEPUY. When, we wonder, will it be? A year hence, three or give. Will we be here on earth alive?

Whta shall tt !*•.

Humble or ifrand? A «pire in Alhen'w rulnod bind. Or 11 reef of ooral »tntnd I fP&owtli br there? Knrth'* lord and kins, Kobcd In slitter, loudly *lr»lC, HoulullagbrtUMwadcyrabtu ring?

When, »T. lit be?

At noomla right. Bathed in a flood of lovely ll*ht. Or In the dark, dead hour of night.

When will it be

l¥f

In a palace or a cot, Where were battle* waged ami fought, 2u which t» cant «w M.

Who

will lie railed

Whoso race run, Whose «*1 lost or victory won, When lift?'* work here to done

ITtorv shall we lie

In a lowly cave, Or 'neoth oceanV» dark, blue wave Which shall hold our grave?

Then what shall

Our monument be? A marble shaft as silent as we. Or a word to speak in eternity n'ht can solve this Mystery!

Town-Talk.

THK RAILROAD CONDUCT© IW. T. T. in his evenful, active and usefhl life has served in many capacties, but ho xeve wasasailroad conductor. Since a boy, -when his highest ambition was to go with a cjrcus or be a "cabin-boy" on a steamboat, one great desire of his life has been to be a railroad conductor. It has seemed so nice to walk about the depot platform, in elegant clothes, with massive gold watch in hand, a gold chain pendant, the observed and admixed of all. both passengers and rural depot loungers, shout with all the authority of a General in the army, "all aboard," ring the bell and speed away with the wings of the wind. It all seemed nice, but in later years T. T. has learned that the life of a railroad conductor is anything but a bed of roses. This fact has been brought prominently before him by a recent article from the St. Louis Journal, copied in the Journal of this city a few days since, in regard to "Spotters," a class of men employed to hunt down conductors. It is probably these men who have been used to cause the recent dismissal—no, the resignations of several conductors on the Vandalia road, whose familiar feces and cordial greeting will be greatly missed by the frequent passengers on this line of travel.

As a class, T. 1. believes conductors as honest as other people—more so than many who charge them with theft and embezzlement would be under the same circumstances and opportunities. Directors of railroads think nothing of stealing or coming in strategetic posses sion of a few dividend paying shares of railroad stock, and occasionally walking off with a railroad. Yet they expect men, who, like themselves must live and support families, on small salaries,, must be strictly honest, when it is so easy to forget which pocket to put money in when collected on the cars for fkre. The usual salary paid the passenger conductor is one hundred dollars a month. This is less than is paid men in the generality of occupations who have no more nor even a tenth of the responsibility of Ufa and property on their shoulders. Yet on this sum they arc expected to live and support families, dress well, carry none but accurate time pieoft* stand treat to secure patronage, look out for and protect the interests of the company and be careful to take out every dollar which finds piaee in their pockets.

No, to come down to the troth, the directors of the road well know thai the conductor, If he has a family, cannot live on one hundred dollars a month. It is understood, that to "make both ends most,"to make connection beween body and soul, to avoid a collision with his iitors, to prei nt the groct front switOulig him off iu* books, h" ft»# make wp the deficiency by daily t* ketiag aper centageof the fare—* knocking down" as It is familiarly and {-•litcly trrrrr^. The only rrrretfim t- be con»j *i,iwvu Is how mwt. L-j ui*y u..e, the conductor, unwatched, Is the Judge, he Is placed In a trying position, ftnd .1- rsof S r\ it«' r!! on tie :*j.| tetfeiufc MKJE*'*-" and.heit hi* pay he is a*'. 1.$ is the OT nirof fine houses, large jfarm*. fc»t e!w

T.T. 1- 1" I? ."J* T* +—TT waythsi) tii«' tv a re 1 Ii tors. I*t railf.i'l d:r.M..r» and •r«7 where be hont and-•! a—des. Then let honest, M)ber, I, f.r conductors pay th jao*f h'i:idred and «rt*oh nir'l d^ii.urss mornit mI»- *, and to t! employ *'imk*tN«• ..a. Bea: ntite -s» wi ihle far ita MD» «TMI pn- .c »f'»

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management. If your better judgment at times tells you to pass a poor man or a cripple free, do ao. But collect all the money you pan, be an honest man we think you are, and we will see that in case of accident er sickness neither you or your fiunily shall want."

It Is bad in theory and practice think a man a thief, and to have him feel that be Is watched day and night, a man wishes to steal, he can in spite of all the spotters in the country. Employ none but good men, then trust more upon their honor than upon detectives who are generally just sharp enough to take pay from both sides. T. T. is inti tnately acquainted with the affairs of 1 business house in this city, the proprietor of which has more confidence in his employes than most people have and has been robbed less. Several times he H** found confidence misplaced, and has quietly suffered the dishonorable one to depart that his place might be filled by abetter man. It is true that he has lost a lew dollars, but less than he would have lost to have every man in his employ to feel that he was thought a thief and that hired detectives were watching him. If you treat your employes like men they will in most cases return the compliment.

The duties of a railrqjtd conductor are many, severe and peculiar. He must know his business and be possessed of common sense, one of the rarest of good qualities. He must do more than cry "all aboard'," swing his lantern or wave his hand as a signal for the engineer. He must be polite to all persons, answer all questions, protect the weak, be courteous to the ladies in his care, civil to those who are rude, see to his fares and ran his train safely. More than any other offlcial"i»e is to the traveling public a representative of the road, giving it character and popularity.

A salary of $150 er 9200 per month would command the services of the most experienced and competent conductors and would shut out incompetents and dishonest men. It is stated that President McKeen, of the Vandalia, advocated this policy several years ago. It should be given the serions attention of railroad managers. Give conductors better wages, stop dogging them with spies, honest or dishonest, give them a chance to earn liberal wages, give them your confidence, thus making them feel like men, and there will be less embezzlement, more attention to business, and more money for directors to distribute among stockholders and themselves.

Husks and Nubbins.

T1IE POOR FARMER.

Of late we have beard much about the former's wrongs. No one has to work so hard as he and be paid so poorly. Even the elements are unkind to him. The season is unfavorable and his crops are put into the ground too late, to begin with, and after they are up perhaps there is a drouth which cuts the yield shorter than it would and ought to be or the grasshoppers or some other destructive insect come in swarms of Egypt to eat up what little there might be if the frost spares his blossoms the half formed fruit is beset with worms and Mis to tho ground unripe when there is a good market he has little or nothing to sell and when he has a good crop there is a poor market.

But this to not all nor the worst. When his crop is at last harvested and carried over long, bftd mads to market he is at once set upon by a flock of voracious middlemen who compel him to •ell it for less than its value and who, by the mere child's play of dumping it into the scale* and out again, contrive to pocket a Larger profit from it than he has been able to do with all his summer of waiting and toiL These men live like kings in handsome houses luxuriously furnished and ertfoy all the social pleasures and amenities of town life, while he is destined to spend his days in the isolation, monotony and poverty of the country. Yet he knows, as all know and admit, that he hi the very bstsia and foundation stone of this whole grand fitbrie of wealth and prosperity— the slave who toils under a summer sun and amid tii* float and snow of winter, toilslat niiil yii.'tt the6v"tiers in tfeer't'as may drive in splendid carHag* -,s over paired Mm-is, fill their with beauty and luxury, put fountain* In tiH#dooi\yarda,ere«* magnt bdldings and fatten on the best land. The merchant alts in bis store waiting lor tho farmer to dr.ve tor mites through the heat and •HI hit h.iil-enrnod products to buy v,\u 1,., dwni W* tow*. nw,- io his snug office at tlx in* and cbsts with his r-ni)uiH»jj» until '~nio one's iftttOMAtt' *r nn-t i-t him io seek legal aivt-- t.-r wfci' h-• !*y» a most txhor- «. uoetor loalS the inKi riti^rln ln-nt «'f in* !.• and MiMfcing Hav.ito

irftaw rof t». it as IwV it I rTS Whole «i.iv"S

Why should these things be, he asks? Why Me the toil and enjoyment of the world so unreasonably separated? Hie ikrmers throughout the country and ped&lly throughout the West are just now asking this question and trying to answer it. We have a mind to by to help them a little.

In the first place the ease and luxury of town and city life are greatly exaggerated. True there are many rich people in the citiea, because they naturally congregate there even if their money be made in the country. But these are the few. Usere are thousands and thousands who are held to some confining task day alter day, and week upon week, with no rest or recreation, and after all earn ing but enough to support their fltmilies decently, laying little or nothing by. The carriages of the rich whirl past them only to remind them how poor they are the stately mansion rears its bead above the squalid tenement they call their home, only to be the object of their perpetual envy and despair. The country knows nothing of the poverty, wretchedness and want that exist in the city.

But we will admit that the farmer lacks many of tho comforts of city life, that his home is not so elegant, nor his labor so well paid as are those of the townsman. WSto is to blame but himself for it? He has been condemning others let us see if the fault Is not largely his ^wn. Our farmers have been working too much with their hands and not enough with their brains. They have not brought the shrewdness and enterprise into their work that charsc terlzes their city brethren. If thoy have poor crops it is often because they have farmed poorly. Their fruit trees wither and die because they do not tako care of them as they should. Their produots bring a poor price because they raise too much of one thing and too little of another. They glut the market with grain when half the labor spent on some other product would bring them twice the profit. They have begun their life with out any preparatory education and con' tinue it without any subsequent research. The experience of years is recorded and laid up for them and

would

V.-1U" »"»oalls for him when, in

a i,|j

raw. !i,el »«*i 1 t)t 1 ri,(S

be of golden value, but they re

fuse to avail themselves of It. They go on as their fathers

did

before them, set

ting the laws of nature at defiance, scorning the knowledge which others have gathered and though not expecting to reap where they have not sown, yet satisfied to reap meagrely where thejmight ^eap abundantly. Our farmers have mado their work a drudgery because they have depended alone on brawn to the exclusion of brain. There is no excuse for it. There is not in the factory or the store or the professional office more scope for the exercise of thought, culture and shrewd enterprise than there is on the farm. Everywhere this is true, that just in proportion as miad comes in muscle goes out. The farmer complains that he has not time to road If he would read more ho would have more time. He complains that his work is slavish if he would not work so hard his harvests would bo larger. Iiet him spend apart of his time in studying the science of farming, of fruit-growing, let him keep posted in the current events that have a bearing on his profession, let him rest his over-tasked muscles and educate his brain and the fanner will soon see himself in possession of thrift and competency.

A few words as & Ills hoitf i*. There Is no reason why the farmers home should not be neat, tasty and elegant. It is his own fault if it Is not. It costs no more to build a pretty houso in the country than In town and but llttlo more to build with some reference to the rules of teste and beauty than jn outrageous violation of them. The farmer has abundant scope to choose a pretty location for his houso and should not grudge enough of his acres to make a handsome yard of, with walks ami drives in 1U

Here is an instance illustrating what a cultured and intelligent farmer's home can be. The scene is In Delaware county, this State. The farm is a fine, fertile one stretching away on both sides of the road in meadows, fields of waving corn and harvested stubble fields. There is a large, thrifty orchard wi'h many kinds of fruit? a spacious and comfortable house, substantially furnished and lacking few if any of the conveniences of a city bowse. A luxury at once the envy and despair of the rural visitor in th* city, is the distribution of water throughout Hie house and yard, by means of the wator works. Well, what tun this farmer done but erect waterworks on his own account. He dug a 1 well near the barn. Into It he put a putnp worked by a wittd-mlll. The water is pnmped Into a reservoir lu the tarn, and thence distributed by means pipes throughout the barn, the house and wherever elm ft may be wanted. WbAt has this man to envy in any townsman's home? He lives like a

BsusesBameasum

When a man saves hia dtgar money to his wife anew bonnet and the cV!-: 4: new shoes, It indicates a »pr •im^itine. ,. J.

w? VS.

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TERRE HAUTE, IND., SATURDAY EVENING, AUGUST 8,1874. fJ 'TJii Price Five Cents*

People and Things.

The Beaton Globe wants Weston to walk against a bun saw. An Iowa Presbyterian went to ahorseraoe to "frown the thing down."

Woodhull says that TUton finit had the story from one of hia children, How are you, old fellow?" is the jolly way Beecber has of greeting visitors.

Bayard Taylor Is going to Iceland tor awhile, where board is only four cents a day.

No resident of Cleveland is thought much of unless he has a red chair on bis front piassa.

The little TUtonsare: Florence, aged 16 Alice,aged 14 Carroll, aged II and Franlde, aged 5.

It only costs astfkiehto getyon* cost brushed at a Saratoga hotel as it does to buy a wisp broom.

The Pittsburg Commercial mentions the "Aqueous Fiend." Probably the "Fire Flend'a" brother.

Every body regrets the publication of the Beecber scandal, and yet, strange to say, every body reads it.

Some of the papers want abaldheaded President next time, because we have not had one since Martin Van Buren.

Struggling to suppress the truth is like tho practice of loaning a "friend" a quarter. You sometimes get tired of it.

Poor Whalen! It seems hard for a man to cut down whon he hasn't lived but 111 years, but he's gone. He lived in Leesburg, Virginia.

Rev. Henry Ward Beecber will spend tho remainder of tho summer, what is left after the investigation, at the Twin Mountain House, New Hampshire.

Prince Bismarck is credited with drinking two bottles of champagne on every midnight as a sleeping-potion, and finding it an infallible sedative.

If the angelic choirs above suffer as much from quarreling and jealousy as do the earthly choir below, nobody loving the ways of peace would care to join thom.

A barrel of beans was the other day shipped from New York to the Grand Duke of Russia to gratify a taste acquired by the young man when he was in this country.

A Wisconsin man has just been pardoned, after seven years' service in the penitentiary, it having been ascertained that he did not commit the murder of which he was accused.

According to tho Milwaukee News, a young lady asked a bookseller's clerk if he had "Festus." "No," was the answer, "but I'm afraid a boll is coming OH the back of my neck."

A Baltimore minister recently preached on "Finding a Wife," and advised his hearers to select pretty girls as life partners. This was one of the summer discourses, easy for practice.

It is stated in a scientific papor that if a billygoat is placed in a cellar he will drive out all the rats in a qfrort time. The inhabitants of the house will bo likely to leave before tho rats.

Circumstanoes alter cases. For Instance, when a Virginian arose in church and said, "Here's a hundred dollar bill for the old hoss behind the pulpit!" no one thought of putting him out.

Brownlow denies that he came near being struck by lightning." We are glad that he does. We hated not a little to hear that he came so near it and failod.—[Louisville Courier-Journal,j

One of the sand bags which was thrown out of Donaldson's balloon tho other day struck negro on tho head. He looked around hi in for a minute, and then said: "Who frew dat peanut at

me?"

,(•

The Philadelphia Ledger doesn't write any obituary poetry for children outride of Philadelphia. This is the style In which it mentions the death of a small boy of Lowell Lowell—Saturday. Two little boys and a pistol. Now, only one little boy and a pistol."

Homo Chicago visitors went Into a saloon In Cleveland, kept by a German woman, and called for whisky. She told them she couldn't sell any, and then whispered confidentially to one of them: "Ven you vant visky you must call for vine, and pinch mit your eye*."

ANew York confidence man was fairly taken aback the other day. Approaching an intended victim he addressed him as Mr. Wardell. "My name la not Wardell," said the stranger. "Is It possible I am mistaken Are yon not Mr. Wardell, of New Haven "I am not,'* answered the stranger, "I am Tom Collins."

It wont do for fathom fo treat their children harshly. Young America Is nude of too sensitive stuff to be used rudely. Hits we have often tried to imprtjss on father*. Hero Is another insUneeiwhcte a father did not heed our advlcc. A youth named George Brum*, of Hardin, Ky,, aged twelve, asked his father to jrarclutts him a saddle. The father refused. The youtb went out into the ham and hung himself. Moral: Father** obey your dMtdrem japf "^•^7 f"""

Boston has a woman newspaper carrier who is 87 years old. After a season in those scant-skirted dresses, ladies ought to be expert at sack-racing. t-

mmmmm

V..

Frederick Baatier, a hatter of San Francisco, declared that he was the Inventor of an apparatus by which a woman can be prevented from talking, and at the same time remain happy. He was promptly sent to the insane asylum.

A lager-beer saloon-keeper in New York who shot himself through the heart last week because of disappointment in love, wrote a long letter to the fair betrayer, the closing sentence In which is, "The fool's {day is ended and the curtain drops." He knew his chew aeter well.

Feminitems.

The autumn silks will be striped. Rosa Bonheur continues unmarried maid—the kitchen girl out of Inciters.

A crew from Vassar is suggested for the next regatta. How all the boats would hug Vassar

An Ohio housewife suicided the other day because her kettle of soft soup wouldn't "make."

The Salt Lake Gentiles are talking of sending Ann Eliza Brigham Young to Congress as Delegate.

Brides aro going to adopt the English custom next winter of wearing a bonnet at the ceremony, just for a change.

To secure a scowl of perfect disgust from a woman, tell her that a caterpillar Is crawling on the back of her dress.

French milliners are already at work upon the autumn bonnet. They have promised to produce a "perfect love."

The kid glove for full dress now comes within three inches of thp elbow and has tho unusual number of fifteen buttons 1

Since Princess Nellie wore two curls on tho left side at her wedding, country maidens are pursuaded 'tis the style, to do so.

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A Brooklyn horse-car conductor says that 99 per cent, of the women in the city of churches step off the horse-cars backwards.

The Scotch and Irish plaids are to be revived next winter in all their glory, provided the ladies will unanimously agree to the revival#

Since New York houwieepers got to sprinkling pie® with croton oil and leaving them around loose, servant girls have given up evening lunches.

A Boston lady in California says that the big strawberries on the Pacific Coast have but little flavor, being a cross between a turnip and a dried apple.

A learned exchange says: "Elizabeth, Eliza, Isabel, Isabella, Betty and Bess aro all derived from one name, Elispeth, which means 'power of God.'"

I'm not in mourning," said a Newport belle in answer to a question, "but as tho widows are getting all the offers now-a-days, we poor girls have to resort to artifice."

SBISlSi

1 1

Some ladles at the watering places persist in wearing their hair In a terrible mess over tho eyes, and people wonder why they dont stay up stairs long enough to dross.

A pretty Wisconsin girl rides in La Crosse on a steer, sells her butter, buys her groceries, and canters out with a whoo-oop, which has won the heart of every young man in town.

Mrs. Elisabeth A. Allen, who implored to be rocked to sleep, mother, when she was a great strsppin' hulk of a young woman over twenty, with a waterfall, Is now editing a paper in Portland.

Those graceful little hanging pockets worn by tho ladies now are just the thing. Jones says he picked a note out of one and learned that Smith had the start of him, which saved hl^JJjg, 1^millation of being rejected.

An exchange, describing a fashionable party at Newport, speaks of a gallant gentleman who whispered to a lady and took her apart. Putting her together, after the model of the fashlonplates, would be mere difficult, perhaps.

A young lady sent a friend of hers to tho store to get a pair of shoes. She told her friend to get number fives, bat her friend, being anxious to secure a good fit for her, ordered the storekeeper to change the marks on a pair of sevens. He did so, awl the lady said they fitted better than any she had had for a long time.

Mrs. Isadora Pratt, of Massachusetts, has succeeded in gaining admittance to tho royal art academy of Berlin but being only a "woman," her name does not appear on the roll of students, and for tho same reason no money will be Mpted from her, which she says hi the only advantage she ever gained by wearing skirt*.

Here she bt at last We've been looking for her all the Summer. Wo knew she'd turn up in some country newspaper. This time It la the Burlington (Iowa) liawfeeye which has revived her. This interesting female, we are informed, t«n get np at six o'clock, kindle the fire, -S-^7-5 A A.

get break fiwt, root out the family, wash the dishes and six children, sew a button on the neck of her husband's shirt and hunt up his hat, go to a mission Sunday school and teach a class, attend church, rush home and have dinner over in time to attend afternoon Sunday school, read the Sunday school papers to the children, go to church at night, and talk on her way homo about Sunday as a day of rest. And they dont die eeu*iy, such women. It's only their brutes of husbands who ssv, "More's the pity."

Connubialities.

Motto for the married—Never dls-pedr. A man who chews tobacco should never choose a wife.

He went back on his own true love because she ate onions, and the jury gave her 93,200 damages.

An old fellow at Portland, Maine, got a suit of clothes, 36 years ago, and has been married in it four times.

A Delaware man thrashed his wife almost to death because their baby did not get a prise at a baby show, and then he offered to trade the baby for a Pig-

A verbatim report of a recent marriage ceremony in Iowa: "Join your right hands. Do you wsnt one another?" "Yes," "Well, have one another. You are man and wife."

Mrs. Slaughter, down in Harrodsburg, Ky., thought most too much of Mr. Matheny. Hie citizens think her husband will not be convicted of anything more than manslaughter in the 12th or 15th degree.

We often hear of people who are too poor to marry, but a California oouple, who bad been engaged for some time, married because they could not aflbrd to keep two separate rooms in a boarding bouse

When a Tennessee husband will horsewhip his wife for wsshing potatoes in his Sunday plug-hat, it is time to inquire whether this generation of men ian't getting to be too confounded hightoned for the age of the country "Why, Ichabod, I thought you got married moro'n a year ago V' "Well, Aunt Jerush, it was talked of, but I found out that the girl and all her folks were opposed to it, so I just give 'em all the mitten and let tho thing drop."

Your ftature husband seems very exacting he has been stipulating for all sorts of things," said a mother to her daughter who was on the point of being married. "Never mind, mamma," sedd the affectionate girl, who was already dressed for the ceremony, "these are his last wishes."

A medical advertisement is headed "Looks like a Miracle! A Young Man Made to Walk in Five Minutes But Augustus thinks that is no great miracle compared to his experience the other evening'when he went to see his girl. The old man came in and made him walk In less ihan one minute.

A priest at Santa Marta In the-Unlted States of Columbia followed Father Hyacinthe's example, and took to himself a wife. He has lately repented, and addressed a petition to the bishop of Dibona, begging the pardon of tho church, and declaring that he has put away the woman. The pardon has been granted.

Husband and wife who have fought the world side by side, who have mado common stock with joy or sorrow, and grown aged together, are not unfroquently found curiously alike in per. sonal appearance, and in pitch and tone of voice. He has gained something feminine which brings his manhood into full relief she has gained something masculine which acts as a foil to her woman* hood.

Mrs. Minnie A. Bedell of Elmore, Vermont, advertises the departure of her husband in the following classic language* "Whereas my charming hue* band, Daniel C. Bedell, has left me for the twelfth time, without just cause or provocation, this Is to warn all persons from trusting him on my account, as I am done paying his debts and supporting him. Hereafter be must cut bis own feed or starve.

A Troy woman had her husband arrested on a charge of non-support. She testified that he had given her a house and lot worth |6,000, together with several smaller pieces of real estate, that his life was insured for her benefit to the amount of fa,000, and that he gave her |15 of his weekly income of 185. She wanted 925, the brute refused, and she had him arrested, bat being blinded by masculine prejudice, the judgo dismissed the case.

A bridegroom seldom renders his

mother-in-law

speechless, but here is an

interesting cose: A self-possessed young man called at a house in Atlanta, Ga., a few mornings ago, and asked to see his wife. "Shi Is not here," replied the mistress of the house. "There is no one here but the members of my own family." "Well," he replied, "It's one of them I want to see. I married your oldest daughter fast night." v-

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