We know it is fashionable for people to talk about the great monopolies,
the railroads, and show how they are sapping the life-blood from the
farmers by arranging facilities for transporting wheat worth forty cents
a bushel in store pay, without railroads, to a market where the farmer
realizes nearly a dollar a bushel in cash.
Demagogues ring the changes on these monopolies, tell how the directors
ride in palace cars and drink wine, from the proceeds of the millions of
dollars invested in railroads, though they never mention the fact that
the railroads have made it possible for farmers to give up driving ox
teams and ride after horses that can trot in 2:40.
We presume that railroad managers like to get a pretty good dividend on
their investments, but do they get a better dividend than farmers do
on some of their investments? Do you know of any farmer that ever
complained that his produce was selling too high? If you complain
at paying eight dollars for a jag of crow's nest wood during a snow
blockade, does he argue with, you, to show that he is a monopoly, or
does he tell you that if you don't want the wood you needn't have it?
Now, talking of railroad men manipulating stock, and taking advantage of
a raise, how is it about eggs? Within the last two months there has been
the worst corner on eggs that the world has ever seen, and the dividends
that farmers have received on their investments have been so enormous
that they must blush for shame, unless they are a soulless corporation.
Now, for instance, a farmer paid twenty-five cents for a good average
hen the 1st of December. Before the 1st of February that hen has laid
five dozen eggs, which are worth two dollars and a half. Take out five
cents for feed, two cents for the society that the hen has enjoyed, and
there is a clear profit of two dollars and forty-three cents, and
the farmer has got the hen left. Did any railroad wrecker ever make a
greater percentage than that? Talk about watering stock, is it any worse
than feeding a hen, to make her lay four-shilling eggs?
We have it from good authority that some farmers have actually gone so
far as to bribe legislators with eggs, to prevent their passing any law
fixing a rate for the sale of eggs. This is a serious charge, and we do
not vouch for it. It is probable that farmers who are sharp enough to
get a corner on eggs, by which they can be run up to a fictitious value,
are sharp enough not to lay themselves liable for bribery by giving eggs
directly to the members, but there are ways to avoid that. They can send
them to the residences of the members, where they are worth their weight
in gold almost.
Rich railroad owners have submitted to this soulless monopoly of the egg
business as long as they can, and we learn that they have organized a
state grange, with grips and passwords, and will institute subordinate
lodges all over the State to try and break up this vile business that is
sapping their life-blood.
Already a bill has been prepared for introduction into the legislature
to prohibit any manipulation of the egg market in the future. “Shall the
farmers of the State be allowed to combine with hens and roosters and
create a famine in eggs, an article of food on which so many people rely
to keep soul and body together?” they ask.
Our heart has bled, in the last sixty days, as well as our pocket-book,
while studying this question. We have seen men of wealth going about the
streets crying for an egg to cool their parched tongues, and they have
been turned away eggless, and gone to their palatial homes only to
suffer untold agonies, the result of those unholy alliances between
farmers and hens. They have tossed sleeplessly on their downy beds,
wondering if there was no balm in Gilead, no rooster there. They have
looked in vain for compassion on the part of the farmers, who haye only
laughed at their sufferings, and put up the price of eggs.
The time has arrived for action on the part of the wealthy consumers
of eggs, and we are glad the State grange has been formed. Let a
few determined men get together in every community, and swear by the
bald-headed profit that they will put down this hen monopoly or die,
and after they have sworn, let them send to us for a charter for a
lodge--enclosing two dollars in advance--and we will forward to them the
ritual of the order.
If this thing is allowed to go on for five years these farmers will be
beyond the power of the government to control. This is a grave question,
and if the wealthy people do not get relief we might as well bid
farewell to our American institutions, as the liberty for which our
forefathers fought will not be worth paying taxes for.
*****
There is no person in the world who is easier to overlook the
inconsistencies that show themselves on the stage at theatres than we
are, but once in a while there is something so glaring that it pains us.
We have seen actors fight a duel in a piece of woods far away from any
town, on the stage, and when one of them fell, pierced to the heart with
a sword, we have noticed that he fell on a Brussels carpet. That is all
wrong, but we have stood it manfully.
We have seen a woman, on the stage who was so beautiful that we could be
easily mashed if we had any heart left to spare. Her eyes were of that
heavenly color that has been written about heretofore, and her smile
as sweet as ever was seen, but behind the scenes, through the wings, we
have seen her trying to dig the cork out of a beer bottle with a pair of
shears, and ask a supe, in harsh tones, where the cork-screw was, while
she spread mustard on a piece of cheese, and finally drank the beer
from the bottle, and spit the pieces of cork out on the floor, sitting
astride of a stage chair, and her boot heels up on the top round, her
trail rolled up into a ball, wrong side out, showing dirt from forty
different stage floors.
These things hurt. But the worst thing that has ever occurred to knock
the romance out of us, was to see a girl in the second act, after
“twelve years is supposed to elapse,” with the same pair of red
stockings on that she wore in the first act, twelve years before. Now,
what kind of a way is that? It does not stand to reason that a girl
would wear the same pair of stockings twelve years. Even if she had them
washed once in six months, they would be worn out. People notice these
things.
What the actresses of this country need is to change their stockings. To
wear them twelve years, even in their minds, shows an inattention to
the details and probabilities of a play, that must do the actresses
an injury, if not give them corns. Let theatre-goers insist that the
stockings be changed oftener, in these plays that sometimes cover half
a century, and the stockings will not become moth-eaten. Girls, look to
the little details. Look to the stockings, as your audiences do, and you
will see how it is yourselves.