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The Easley Mossegor rutI, like a lordh, the more it's shooh, it shines. VOL. 1.] EASLEY, SOUTH CAROLINA, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1%. [NO.4. Ike jasteg 5ssernier. Entered at the Postqf)lcC at Easley, S. C., an Second Ciasa Matter. HUDOENS, IRAGOOD & CO., Prop'rs. TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION. One year, strictly In advance ......$1.00 Six months "1 " ...... 65 RATES OF ADVERTISING. One square (1 inch) 1 insertion......75c Bach subsequent insertion............40c Liberal discount on contracts or by the column, half or quarter column. Marriage notices free and solicited. Obituaries over 12 lines charged for. Correspondents. to insure attention, must give their full address. We are not responsible for the opin ons of our correspondents. All communications for the paper must be addressed to the Editors; business letters to the Publisher of the MESSENGER, Easley, S. C. THE PLOWMAN. Clear the brown path to meet his coul ter's gleam ! Lo! on he comes, behind his smoking team, With toil's bright dew-drops on his sun-burnt brow. The lord of the earth, the hero of the plow ! First in the field, before the reddening sun, Last in the shadows when the day is done ; Line after line along the breaking sod Marks the broad acres where his feet have trod. Still where he treads the stubborn elods divide, The smooth, fresh furrow opens deep and wide ; Matted and dense the tangled turf up heaves, Mellow and dark the ridgy cornfield cleaves. At every turn the loosened chains re sound, The swinging plowshare circles glis tening round, 'Till the wide field one billowy waste appears, And the wearied hands unbind the panting steers. There are the hands whose sturdy la bor brings The peasa 'it's food, the golden pomp of kings; This is the page whose letters shall be seen, pChanged by the sun to words of living green ; This is the scholar whose immortal pen Spells the-first lesson hunger taught to men; 'These are the lives that heaven-comn Inandled toil SShows on his deced-thle charter of the K soil. --Oliver Wendell Holmes -Accordiwg to the "Catholic Di rectory," the number of Catholics in the United States was 5,760,000 in 1874 andl 6,880,000 in 1882. This Is :equivalent to an increase of about 20 ,per cent. in ten years. -An insane workmnan leaped Iglio the furnace of the glass works at Kent, Ohio, on Friday, and was almost in stantly conumed. [For the Messenger. Public Roads. [CONTINUED FROM[ LAST WEEK.] I favor thb break or turn-out systeim on roads'; I have some experience, as I have had something to do with the public roads for nearly twenty-ftvq years, and have kept up one or two miles of private ones for the same length of time, and I contend it Is the next thing to- an Impossibility to do without them. No sirs ! If you are going to compel me to help keep the public roads in a passable condition without them, or Macadamizing, I think I am ready to enmigrate at once. And why? My recollection is that we have an annual rain fall of about 50 inches. Half of this frequently falls In two or hirce of the winter or early spring moraths. Now our wagon wheels are about 5 feet apart. Him dreds of people, for the sake of econo my, go to market immediately after an all-day's rain, with a three-horse load on a two-horse wagon. This heavy load on, narrow tire drive, them to the axle, so that it matters not how nuch the road is raised in the middle, no more water ever gets across those ruts, but stands between or in them. Let some of you who are fond of figures tell 1ts how much water will fall on a piece of road half a mile long and 5 feet wide with a column of water 25 inches high, on each sqnare inch. Sup pose this is a hill half a mile long and elevated, at an angle of almost 45 de grees, we will have ruts washed and worn out that are almost bottomless. Sometimes we scarcely see the Sun for twenty days. the mud still remains, and you had just as well till these ruts with water or snow as to ill them with mud. You never can get me to acknowl edge the man who advocates the work ing of roads without turn-outs, as my Solomon on this question. We have a great many of these turnouts that are dreadful; they are too high, sharp, and are not across the roads at the proper angle ; they ought, where it is possible, run the water each war from the middle of the road, and he built of timber. You had just about as well expect snow to stand against the wag on wheel as to expect (litt to in wet weather. I know these turn-outs or breaks are awfully cursed by such fe.1 lows as are fond of driving at a break neck speed, and who can not brook the idea of being stopped in their wild ca reer for a moment. They are wise enough to require no more time for pausing to reflect ; they sometimes cause the girls to get an awful jolt too. Well, I am sorry for them, umtil they learn better what sort of a poy to choose to drive for them. To stop jesting, this is a questIon of vital imp~ortance, andl we ought to have it handled by the cleareat heads among us. Some of our p~eople spendl almost half of their time on the roads- for instance, preachers, doctors, mail catr riers, etc. If the roads were better they would be usedl still more. It would increase al most.every branch of business, from Church-going to going a courting. I believe the public has determined (and if it has not It ought) to have better roads at all hazards, even if it has to take the hats oftf our heads, with all the tobacco and boxes, whisky barrels andi jugs, to fill up the mud-holes and gullies. We must have better roads else the law will be changed; and I don't know what might happen. Keel) this subject before the people "on all occasion, ndr some times between times." Let, everybody remethber that this stibject Is of great importance to all ; from those in the Alms-house to the greatest of us, and good roads are so ,easly obtainedf. 'Just will it and it's half accoinplished.' I will say In conclusion that these are the rous for us to spend our ine and money on. Let the men with millIons build just as many Itailroads as they wish. Keep your tingers out of the fire. Our purses will not pass muster when those enferprises costing front 025.000 to $30.000 per mile are up. We have never built and kept in a resp[)ectjble condition our own roads. whic i do not cost more than 05 or $10 a itlle. SUBSCRIBER. Extracts From Bill Arp In Atlanta Constitution. There is no istriction so cheap as reading, and no pleasure so lasting., bit the reading muiust be of the right kind. Iow the childreui do love a good story, and how fortunate is tie faumily thatha a ood story teller in the household. Wat a favorlite with the little folks and how happy it makes them to gather round aunty or an old er sister, and listen to some wonderful things that happened long ago or away of somewhere I reckon there never was a boy that didn't want to do some big thing and be a hero. That is all right and very natural. The men do too mitil they get married and settle down to the hard striuggle ol life, raising children and paying debts, and that takes the starch out of 'emi and the romance too. Its all fact. fact every day and iight. Thirty years ago I begun waiting on a little chap an7 washing his face and ticing lip lils toes and his lingers and teaching him his lessons, and pretty soon they doubled on me and then they trebled and quadrupled and kept on away up yonder and here I amti still working and teaching and every night I have to hear 'em spell aud speak their sp(qeehes and show 'emit how to do stums, and I can't keep up with the new fash ioned books and tht new way of cipher ing by analysis, and so sometimes when I get stalled I have to look wise and say the answer in the book is wrong. Parents and teachers ought to be mighty patient with childrgn. Some have more cipaicity and some more memory. Sone are slow and some are quick. It is not the smartestehild that makes the smartest man or woman. It is a powelful strain on some of 'em to keep up. and the dull ones oughtent to be crowdled until they hate books and~ dIread the time of goIng Jo school. Sonme folks send their children to school to get rid of 'emi. but miy opinion Is the parents ought to hellp the teacher every night. It shows the children how miuch Interest they feel in their edlucationi. It is a sign of a good teach er when the children get ambitious to keel) upi andl get head marks,and bring their books home at (night and want to go to sc hool if it Is raining a little. Wrap 'cem up and let 'emi go. There Is nothing that demoralizes a school boy like staying at hiome every few tday and getting behind the class. We used to walk three miles to school, and Iwe never minded it at all. It was a frolic all the way there and all the way back and we (11( have the best dinners in the world. Delmonico never had as good things as our mother used to fix up) for us. It seems to me so now. A child's life is full of romance anid fun tho best sort of fun. A child's damm are spleodid but we don't dream now. hardly eve r. [ used to read Robinson Crusoe and. dream it all over ai., [low I did long to be shlp-wree on an island and raise monkeys and goats and parotts. S16w, chUidren. are gen erilly sure childrin, but they don't show off' much. Daniel Webster wa most always toot his class, bu whet he learned anythi he never forgot it. Some boys are lid and restless and have no use for books, but they ought ent to be given up or hacked or abused continually. If they have good pa rents they wil 1ome to themnselves a! ter while. Th y will sow their wl oats and gather the crop and get tired of that sort of farming. I was read lug the other day about Oliver Gold smith, who I reckon was the wormt vagabond in all England, and was krcked about and abused by everybody, and got in jall, and sometImes slept in the corner of the fence and liked to have perlshed to death, but he came to himself at last and made one of Eng land's best and greatest men. The three worst boys that ever li'ed in Rome are now good men, splendid men, and are hdnered and respected. They had good parents. Give a dog a bad name and everybody wants to kick him. Good men ought to note( the bad boys specially and speak kindly. to 'em and offer to help 'em and make 'em teel that they are not Ishmaaelites. Some boys get so much Ahuie at home and abroad that they are astonished when a decent man speaks to 'em. Some folks give 'et no consideration, but want to see 'em go to jail or to the calaboose" which Is the worst thing that can be done for a boy, for lie never gets over it and grows desperate. It is astonishing h1ow long a little sin or a. little humilli ation will follow a boy. One time a boy stole a quarter of a dollar from a nother boy it school, and that follow ed him to hi6 grave. He got to be a great man and was thirty years in con gress and was a senator, and one day when lie made a bitter speech against the corruption of the opposite party and denounced their steiliing and plun dering by wholesale. one of his oppo nents replied by saying lie would re mind the gentleman that preachers of morality should come into the pulpit with clean hands--that Ben Franklin said, 'H1e that would steal a pin woul (I steal a bigger thing,' and he asked no quarters from the -gentleman on that score. So, boys, remember and keep your hands clean. Folks* will forgive mis chief and a heap of other things, but they won't forgive meanness. BILL ARP. -A young man has turned up at Portland, Me. lming to be the long lost Charley Ross and telling a most astonishing story of early abduction by Frank and Jesse James, long confine mient, a voyage on a pirate boat to Br'a z41 and an escape. T1hxe chances are ninety-nhot~ to one that the young man is an awkward and badly traied liar. -There were two soldiers in Gene':al Grant's army, lying below blankets, looking up at the stars in a Virginia sky. Says Jack, "What made you go into army, Tom ?" "Well," teplied Tomn, 'I had no wife, and I love wvar. What made you go into the war, Jack?" "Well, I had a wife, arid I love peace." -Augusta factory men are declining Chinese orders for goods, as they exn neet an advanna in nrk'PQ QAnnI.