Saturday Evening Mail, Volume 7, Number 50, Terre Haute, Vigo County, 9 June 1877 — Page 1

Vol. 7.—No. 50.

THE MAIL

A P.\rER FOR TIN-: PEOPLE.

SECOND EDITION.!

Town- Talk.

Stand from under, Mr. Westfall. Your turn has come at last. In obedience to the principle of hitting ahead wherever you see it, when it deserves hitting, it becomes the duty ofT. T. to bringdown his 6hillalah this week upon your pate. Stand up and take it like a man. And if you don't print every word in this copy you may write ycur own T. T's. hereafter. Fair warning.

Now sir, T. T. will waste so much of his valuable space as to reprint from the editorial columns of last week the following extract from your article on colleges 4 it takes long time to get a boy back to earth after he has spent several years in oollege. And so too with the girls—especially when they are sent abroad. In too many of our so-called instltu ions of learning our children have their heads tamed by a senseless, worthless mess of gibberish that in their innocent simplicity they suppose to be education. Rather than send your children to such institutions it would be better to keep them at home and put them into the practical school of lift. The tiino devotod to these foolcroating mills by our youth In not of so much account In itself. It is the curing process which must lollow—that is, if the unfortunate subject is not ruined pa.it redemption."

That's all right," did you say it is all wrong, T. T. says. He has suffered too much for Jack of college education to let such wtuflf as that g* unanswered. Instead of casting a slur upon colleges and college education, such a paper as The Mall, which Is read by the better classes In city and country, and Is the especial favorite of the young (take the compliment, and make much of It) ought to exert its lufluence, with parents and young people in favor of a thorough and extended education. The only grain of common senAe In that extract is contained in the declaration that, "in too many of these so-ralloa institutions of learning our children have their heads tuined by a senseless, worthless mess of gibberish," etc. But what of tbat{ Because some of these Institutions are humbugs, is that any reason for casting a slur upon the whole class of colleges, and furnishing a cheap, but harmful argument against them Because there are schools which profess to fit teachers by short-cut method* for their profession, is that a good reason for slurring our OWIJ Normal School which does thorough work Because some of the other newspapers, daily and weekly, are not up to the staudard of The Mall, is that any reason for casting a slur upon all the papers, The Mail ineluded If there are poor colleges, as there are, it is a good reason lor advising to exercise care in selecting *oAe, not for dubbing all colleges "fool-creating mills." It is true that a good many fools go to oollege and come out very much as they went in, only more so. It Is also true, not only that a good many who are not fools go to college, and come out vastly improved, but that many little better than fools go to college and come away very respectable men. They are not half as big fools as they would have been If they had not been to college.

T. T. will not- deny that you, who have never been to college, make a better editor and a more successful newpaper publisher than some who have been through college. But good as The Mail is, if you and T. T. could add to our practical good sense, the benefit of a thorough training of four years In college, even The Mail might be Improved. And then, too, who can tell how much poorer the papers of these college educated editors would be, iI It were not for their college training. Because some men without education can do bettor with an education, that is no argument agaluet schools. I

What if it doee "take a Wy a I6ng time to got back to earth after he has spent several years in oollege?" Doee that prove that it is better to stick him in a mud paddle all his days? Would it have been better for James Oakey and Eddie O'Boyle to have been put into the money making mill of business that sent to college. Isn't it worth something that theee children of oats should

have a few years when they think of something else besides money? Let them get away from the cursed business of money making, st least for a few years, and learn that there Is something of more value than money. And as for the girls, there is not one In a hundred in this city or county, who would not be vastly improved by being "sent abroad" to some good school or college. How any man of sense, when he looks upon the indolent, silly, useless life which the average young lady leads, could utter this nonsense about colleges and college education, is more than T. T. can understand. Now Mr. Westfall, thero is hardly to be found a "oollege for yoang ladies" so poor—T. T. knows what wretched humbugs ge by that name—but that at least one-half of the young ladies in Terre Haute who are out of school would be vastly better off, if placed in the peter est of them. And there is not one in a hundred of the young ladies out of school and under twenty-five years of age that would not be better off in a good college than as they are. Out upon this noaense about "keeping children at homo and putting them into the practical school of life." P.actical indeed. It is practical for boys to sell tape, run about the streets for a bank, ruin health in a counting room, smile and grin behind a counter, or to milk cows, feed f)igs and plow and reap. But it isn't practical for a boy to get an education, make a man of himself. Tbe farmer's boy who brings in hides and sells them to Mr. O'Boyle is in the "practical school of life," but Mr. O'Boyle's son, who goes to college is in a "fool-creating mill." Mr. Westfall, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Practical indeed! The girl who works in the kitchen in tbe morning, sweeps and dusts or, to go down where the "young ladies" are, the girl who wonders every morning how'she shall pass the day, sleeps till nine o'clock or reads novels, dresses two or three times a day, flirts on the streets, makes calls, gossips, dances half tbe night, or talks about dress, parties, balls and the beaux, these are in the "practical school of life." But tbe girlwho is conscious of mental powers, and desires and strives to improve these and make of herself something beside a silly doll, or a drudge, she has gone abroad into one of those "fool-oreating mills," Mr. Westfall, tbe more T. T. thinks of that edftorial, the more ashamed of yoii he gets. Take it back. Say you didn't mean it, that you have changed your mind, that somebody else wrote it, that you were "tl^ht"—say anything, but takoit back.

Husks and Nubbins,

No. 257.

THE WATS OP PROVIDENCE.

In one of the admirable papers of the Spectator, Addison ventures the prediction that part of the happiness of the future state will arise from a more perfect understanding of tbe divine wisdom In the government of the world, of which, In our present condition, we ljave but a limited knowledge, in being tbe business of this life to act rather than to know.- He Insists that the ways of providence, seem hard and unjust to us, sometimes only because we are In no proper situation to judge of the counsels by which Providence acts since but little arrives at our knowledge and even that little we discern but imperfectly, and he illustrates his Idea by relating a Jewish tradition oonoerning Moses. The great prophet, it is said, was called up by a voice from heaven, to the top of a mountain where, In a conference with the Supreme Being, he was permitted to propose to him some questions concerning tbe administration of the universe. In the midst of the colloquy, Moees was commanded to look down on the plain below. At the foot of the mountain there issued a clear spring of Water, at which a soldier alighted from his horse to drink. He was no sooner gone than a little boy caino to the same place, and finding a parse of gold, which the soldier had dropped, took it ap, and went away with it. Immediately after this cameau infirm old man, weary with age and traveling, who, having drank, sat down to reat himself by the side of the spring. Tbe soldier, missing bis purse, returns to search for it and demands it of tbe old

man

who affirms that he has

not seen it and appeals to heaven in witness of his innocence. Tbe soldier, not believing his protestations, kills him. Moses falls on bis face with horror and amasement, when tbe Divine Voice tells him: "Be not surprised, Moses, nor ask why the judge of tbe whol4 earth has suffered this thing to come to pass the child Is the occasion that the blood of the old man is spilt but know that the old man was tbe murderer of the child's father."

Seen from Moses* stand-point there was a great wrong committed here, but Moees did not see it all. His vision took in only what transpired immediately before his eyes and could not penetrate tbe past and see the acts which bad preceded these. May it not often happen thus that we reach conclusions from very insufficient data-conclusions as erroneous as was that of Moeea! We see a flow frcte, take it for granted they are

all, and proceed deliberately to say that Providence haa oommitted a blunder. And then we make such a parade of our logic and conclusions, as if they were infallible, when in truth we can never be certain that we have not omitted altogether the most important facts in the case! The skeptic sees the world to be full of wrongs and inconsistencies and considers that there is no providence, or if there is that providence is a great blunderer. Tbe skeptic is wise in his own conceit, but bow worthless is bis wisdom. 11 must be true, as Addison says, that the business of this life is to act, rather than to know. Not that the inorease of knowledge should be discouraged, because the more we know the more wisely we shall be able to act, but there should be great humility in our knowledge and indeed the greatest and wisest of men have always been the most humble. They have often doubtod the results of their study and investigations, which their superficial followers have accepted as infallible truth. How the believers in Darwinism have outrun Darwin! It has always seemed to me that the author of the evolution theory never regarded it in any other light than as a partial or possible truth. He has collated many facts which seem to support it and some others which oppose it. He has set both before the world, manifesting little interest in the fate of his the'ory, but an infinite interest in tbe cause of truth. It is such men that help the world on in knowledge.

Tbero are two antagonistic views among men in respect to providence: one, that providence sunerintends and controls tbe minutest details of each individual life the other, that providence has no superintending care at all, but has established certain laws, which are inexorable, for the government of the world and that all goes on In conformity therewith. Now there is perhaps no certainty which way it is, or whether it is either nor does it greatly matter. In either and any event it Is our business to live honestly and uprightly and no possible condition of things will excuse us from so living. Yet it is certain that many great and wise men have believed and do still believe in such a superintending providence, and although the doctrine is steadily losing adherents and the opposite one gaining new advocates, how shall we ever know that one and not tbe other is right? Our knowledge is so broken and fragmentary that it is like constructing a science of geology from two or three of the earth's stratified rocks, to attempt to reason about the ways of providence from sucn meagre data. This we do know, that every now and then a condition of facts stares us in the face which looks like tbe hand of providence in the affairs of men if not this, then it is a strange and unaccountable coincidence of events which presents the strongest features of intelligent design and action. Then again anether state of facts is revealed', which, like the vision of Moses, seems an unaccountable blunder to us. What if it is only because some of the links are missing, because we do not see tbe causes whieh preceded. May it not be possible that if we could bring within tho focas of our vision all tbe facts, present and past, connected with any given event, we should arrive at a very different conclusion from that wo ordinarily reach? Wbei., for instance, an exemplary citizen is ahot down in tbe night time on our streets, we see nothing in the circumstance but the wanton crime of a cold-blooded murderer, and perhaps that is what and all it is but may it not be possible that there are facts lying far back of tbe murder which, if known, would put a different face upon tbe matter

THE CHANGES IN PREACHINO. Nearly all of oar ministers now speak extemporaneously, and few written sermons are delivered in this city. Dr. Holland, in Scrlbner for June says:

With the passing away of tbe theological essay, will pass away much of tbe necessity of written discourses and it will be noticed that very nearly in the proportion in which the character of preaching has changed, baa the oral supplanted the written discourse. We think it is seen now, with great dis tinctness, that, in addressing motives, direct speech from heart to heart is almost infinitely superior to tbe reading of pages conceived and framed in the study. If instruction were needed upon this point, the history of Methodism in this country would furnish it in abundance. With a ministry confessedly inferior in scholarship, at least in its beginning?, bat with direct address from every pulpit to the heart and life, the success of this denomination has been enormous. With high culture dta tbe part of Its teachers, its progress would possibly have been wider, but thev have at least proved that tbe direct, spoken discourse is power which every pulpit should assume and use as soon as it can. The question whether a young man who cannot acquire the ability to speak well without reading 1 to speak well without reading bas a eau to preach is, to say the least, an open one. At any rate, this ability is wb&t all divinity students are striving for

An exchange says that" now is a good time to lean over the fence and tell your neighbor what to do,"—and we may add that there are lota of them who will improve the opportunity.

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TERRE HAUTE, INlC SATURDAY EVENING, JUNE 9, 1877.

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People and Things.

The Bostonian in summer carries four kinds of tickets—soda, horse-car, beach excursions and Turkish baths.

Colonel Sellers calls his dog Mulberry, probably becausp he never barks without leaf, 4nd is too sweet for anything.

A correspondent says of aNew Yorker bo failed recently "God ward he was very strict, but man ward he was a .little twistical."

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The little fellows who abused General Grant for eight years feel cheap when they read the cable dispatches from England just now.

Another Connecticut millionaire! has died. He owned 91,187,002, and it is not known how much treasure he bad laid up in Heaven.

A negro was recently sentenced in Texas to ninety-nine years in the penitentiary. To serve out the ninety and nine be should go to Sing Sing.

The close observer of the Burlington Hawkeye has noticed that the lower lip of a baby starts in first and gets through with its part of the cry before the upper lip can get in position.'

At Orangeburg, S. C., May, 28, Judge Cooke sentenced three colored men, for cotton stealing, to 10 years' imprisonment, ond one man, for manslaughter, to two years'imprisonment.

Tbe Sultan recently had the toolhaohe and sent for his dentist. Then he ordered eight slaves to have a tooth pulled in his presence in order to nerve himself for the operation. Finally he concluded to let the old tooth ache if it wanted to.'

A couple applied to" a clergyman in Quincy, 111., to be married, got him to take §3 out of a counterfeit $20 bill for his fee, and then departed, and then some of tbe household wb3 watched them were astonished to see the bride remove her dress in an alley and come forth a young man.

ANew Hampshire man sued a neighbor for the value of some apples which the latter had taken from overhanging branches of his trees. Judge Doe'told the jury that the frait belonged to tbe man who owned the land on which the trees grew, and they brought in a verdict of J15 for the plaintiff.

Baptismal parties in France are always in vogue. The following is a recent invitation: "Mrs. and Mrs. F. have the honor to notify you of tbe birth of their daughter, so long expected, and who by the favor of heaven comes into the world bearing the name of Hortense, which is that of her much-adored grandmother."

When McCullough acted a small part in one of Boucicault's plays, a great many years ago, tbe author was obliged to remind him that he was not playing Othello. "I know I ain't," he replied, "but I will someday," and then walked off, muttering

Eomethlng

about punch­

ing somebody's head. His prediction has come true. A medinm in Wisconsin recently had along interview with the late President Lincoln in the coarse of which Mr. Lincoln stated positively that he knew Tilden was fairly elected. That always was the way with Mr. Lincoln when be was alive neyera bit particular about who he talked to, and always full of his jokes.— Burlington Hawkeye.

"John's moved again!" cried a Pennsylvania farmer, rushing into the house with a letter from his son, out West. "Moved! Bless his heart!" said the farmeress. "Bat I know Sarah won't like the new house. Where's he moved now?' "Into Bankruptcy, wherever that is. John writes that everybody's going there, out West, and be had to keep up with, the fashion. And he's made so much money there already that he wants to buy a farm hereabout." Tableau The old couple looking on a map for Bankruptcy.

The following story is told by a Hertford clergyman: On his way home from church he found himself behind three ladies engaged in a lively discussion over the music of the service, one condemning the soprano and anether the tenor, while the third stoutly defended both. As the discussion became warm, the third lady sought to pour oil on the troubled waters, and, in the words of tbe clergyman, "did so to perfection by a judicious and truthful remark, to which all of them at once assented she simply said, 'Well, it was a miserable sermon, anyhow!'

Mr. James C. Flood, one of the owners of the Bonanza, reputed to be worth $25,000,000, said to a reporter recently: "I never bought a share of stock that I did not pay for and take away. I never sold a share abort. Mining is a risk, any way bat it is a risk almost always the wrong way to those who speculate on margins. You ask me about the Bonanzas. Well I better* in them bat yon need not pin your faith to me. Pve aright to do what I like with my own money. I've got a comfortable home of eight rooms for my little family, and so I spend what 1 don't want for marketing and clothes in Bonanzas. mf ,»•#H.I jfOivsvi 1

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Feminitems.

A girl who can put a square patch on a pair of pantaloons may not be quite so accomplished as one who can work a green worsted dog on a yellow ground, but she is of more value in tbe community.

When a young lady takes something out of her cup, puts it on the back of her hand and slaps it with all her might she la not killing a fly, but only patting a tea ground to know when ber bean is coming.

Mrs. Maloch Craik still wears tbe queerly fashioned gown of 20 years ago, with its body gathered at the Bhoalders to a point at tbe waist. When asked to sing, she complies readily, and givee an old time ballad with a simple accompaniment.

Lena Dale wrote to a friend, before jumping into the river at Louisville: "When you receive this my body will be floating peacefully in the water." She was rescued, and in prison she said, referring to the" letter, "and now to think I'm only in the calaboose.'

Milwaukee Commercial Times: "The American girl who reads Emerson and discusses Wagner and Chopin, and generals lunch parties and Saturday morning clubs with such bewitching grace, too often unfortunately shuts her books and her piano when she turns over the new leaf of matrimony."

Of Miss Carrie Parker, of Princeton, 111., it is said: "The lady appears hopelessly insane, and the cause is traced back to a twenty-four hours' walk which she, made some time ago, on a wager of flOO. She won tbe wager, but she has virtually committed suicide."

A gentleman stepped into a milliner shop the other day on business, and accidentally sat down on a bonnet that some one had laid on tbe chair. He remained there until no one was looking in his direction, and then quietly got up and stepped to one side. There was a lady in at the time looking for a bonnet shaped to suit her. She finally found the one the gentleman had put in shape and it jast took her fancy it was just what she wanted, so she said.

Tbe Austin (Nevada) Reveille tells us why a young woman of that far-off town got her back up: "An Austin young lady was complaining to a gentleman friend that some work which she was compelled to do was very tiresome, from tbe fact that she had no assistance in it, and it took nearly all her timei 'You ought to have a change of shifts,' said the gentleman. He is now wondering what made her mad, and she has ceased thinking that he wandered from the subject, since she has learned the significance of the word shift in mining parlance.

FASHIONABLE FUNNYGRAPHS,

Pocket-books without any lining are quite fashionable.—[Ex. We suppose they mean the "silver lining."

Too mach winter dancing bringeth rheumatism to our belles and beaus.— [Kempis Improved.

Wben yoa see a yoang man with his ears all scratched up, you may conclude that his beloved has one of those outlandish bracelets the girls are al 1 wearing.

Ladles are hesitating about the next step: the "Saratoga limp," tbe "camel lope,' and the "kangaroo hop" are worn out. What stride shall be next tried?

Round-oornered

cellars will be worn

by gentlemen this season, having superseded those with sharp points, and hereafter a man will'be able to call upon a girl to inquire after the health of her parents without running the risk of putting oat one of her eyes.

Gentlemen who can't tell a polonaise from an apron, will bear in mind the prevailing distinction between a and a bonnet. One is worn over ear, and the other on tbe nape of neck.

hat the tbe

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Hints to would-be fashionables: Don't pick your teeth witn a fork it injures the enamel. If your bread and butter falls on the floor, don't pick it up and swear at it, but kick it under tbe table and talk aboat roses. If anyone speaks ill of your best friend, join in and run him down, too, it is impolite to be contradictory. Pretend yoa know everything—that yen're a regular walking dictionary, and yoa won't be troubled with new scrape of knowledge every day.

A stupid editor, who never notices the fashions, tries to be smart, and say?: "Tbe sweetest thing in bonnets is tbe lady's two-lips." Oh, ignorance! not to know, Iu the present style of wearing tbe bonnet, it is farther away from the lady's lips than it is from ber feet. Why, a quiet, reserved, timid woman wears ber bat away aft, like a main-shaft rudder a fashionable woman boilds a kind, of a platform out of her back hair and bangs her bonnet on the rear end of it, and the rsal stylish, model hired girl carries a pole over ber shoulder with tbe hat slung to tbe end o/it. vA ~x 41 gist* si ti

Price Five Cents

CHURCH AND THEATRE.

EDITOR MAIL: I was much pleased with Town Talk's talk "about theatres" in last week's Mall. It bas always been believed by many close students of the influences of society, that tbe church deprived itself of a most useful ally in frowning down the theatre. The latter is a most efficient teacher of morals, and if the church had recognized this fact and placed itself in harmonious relations with the atage, it could have controlled tbe character of the exhibitions there, and exerted a useful influence upon the lives of those connected with, and habituating places of amusement. But, because tbe "mystery" plays that were so much a feature In tbe religious life of a few centuries ago, become perverted and scandalous, the Catholic Church issued its decree against plays of all kinds, and this was one of its features adopted in its fullness by tbe Reformers, who never took the trouble to inquire into the reason of such prohibition, but continued it and intensified it from age to age, until at last many sects came to regard the theatre as the earthly mouth of the infernal pit.

The Bishop of Manchester, England, Dr. Eraser—is a prelate who takes a different view, and ene which commends itself to sensible Christian people. He recently addressed the members of the theatrical profession from the stages of two Manchester theaters, those people being present in large numbers. Dr. Fraser adverted to St. Paul being advised not to adventure himself into a theatre, and said he (tbe Bishop of Manchester) was the first Bishop of the Church of England, if no5 the first Bishop of the Christian Church, who had ever addressed a congregation in a theater.

He then remarked upon the proper dignity of tbe acting profession, and observed that the Puritan attempt to abolish theatres altogether was followed by a violent reaction in tbe shape of the immoral playB of the Restoration. He did not want to abolish the theater, but to purify it and make it a harmless instrument of recreation. With such illustrious names as Macready, Charles Kean, and Miss Helen Faucitt before him, he did net tbink tbe stage should necessarily be degraded.

BASES FOR A DIVORCE ARGUMENT. The St. Louis Globe- Demot »t says tbe following skeleton of an argument was found on a table in tbe Circuit Court room in that city, supposed to have been left by a distinguished legal luminary engaged in a recent divorce case: 1. Importance of the case. 2. The parties their great dignity. 3. Tbe great questions of our modern civilization the rights of husband and wife, their duties to each other. 4. Tbe marriage vow its saoredness. 5. Touch up the court on the solemn duty imposed upon it in tearing from tbe husband tbe property which God gave him title to, viz., the body, soul and affections of his wife.

G. Excoriate the wife, picture the wrongs of the husband: move tbe court to tears (if possible) qfaote from Milton:

Till Hymen brought in love-delighted hour, there dwelt no joy in Eden's rosy bower," etc., (not sure about that being from Milt n, may be from Pope orJWalt Whitman but no matter) cite authorities—Greenleaf, Bishop and 21st Mo.

Peroration, overcome with emotion glaas of water to be handy handkerchief to be perfumed to have on a swallow tailed coat apostrophe to justice.

THE NUPTIAL KNOT.

How Buffalo Bill tied il.

After serving for years on the frontier, Cody settled at McPherson, in Nebraska, and in 1872 was elected Justice of the Peace, and in the following year was chosen member of tbe Legislature. A good story ia told of bow he performed tne ceremony of marriage while he was Justice of the Peace. It was bis first attempt, and the applicants were of tho true Western type. They called upon Cbdy in the log cabin where he held bis justice office. Bill had a book of forms, which he took down and studied attentively, to get some idea of bow he should tie the knot. There were forms for nearly every transaction of life, but be failed to find what he was looking for, and finally he slammed the book down and observed to tbe parties,: "Yon two fellers join hands," and the "two fellers" did so.

Then benaid to the groom "Are yen willing to take this woman to be your lawful and wedded wife, to love her honor ber and obey ber?" "You bet your butes." was the response of tbe bashful hair lifter. "And you, Miss, are yon willing to take this here man to be your wedded husband, to love him, honor him, and support him?"

Hoe giggled and nodded in tbe affirmative but this-didn't suit Bill who said. "See here, Miss, we've got to have this thing on tbe dead square, and we can't marry folks by halves in this country. We are bound lo go the whole bog. If you want this here man for a husband you mast speak out and say fto, em though you meant it sure—I'll ask yoa again. Will yoa take this here man to be your lawful wedded husband, to love him. honor him and support him?"

This time tbe lady responded bravely: "Yea, sir: I will."

This satisfied bis honor, and he remarked "That settles it. Now look here, you two you are man and wife, and whoever Bill Cody and God Almighty have joined together, let no man put asunder."

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