Carolina Watchman

              the carolina watchman reign of terror macaulay in his review of the ■ me moirs of barrere gives the following brief but striking picture of the reign oi terror in revolutionary france : " then came those days when the most barbarous of all codes was administered by the most barbarous of all tribunals when no man could greet his neighbors or say his prayers or dress his hair with out danger of committing a capital crime when spies lurked in every corner when the guillotine was long and hard at work : every morning : when the jails were filled as close as the hold of a slave ship when the gutters ran foaming with blood into : the seine : when it was death to be great ; neice to a captain of the royal guard or a half brother to a doctor of sarbonne : to express a doubt whether assignafs would not lull to hint that the english had been victorious in the action of the first of jane to have a copy of burke's pamphlets fock ■ ed up in a desk:—to laugh at a jacobin ! for taking the name of casslus or timo i icon or to call the fifth sans-culotidc by ; its old superstitious name ofst mathew's day while the daily wagon loads were carried to their doom through the streets i of paris the proconsuls whom the sover eign committee had sent forlh to the de partments revelled in an extravagance of cruelty unknown even in the capital the knife of the deadly machine rose and fell too slow for their work of slaughter long rows of captives were mowed down with grape shot holes were made in the bottom of crowded barges lyons was turned into a desert at arras even the cruel mercy of speedy death was denied t to the prisoners all down the loire from samur to the sea great flocks of crows '■ and kites feasted on naked corpses,twined together in hideous embraces xo mercy .: was shown to sex or age the number i of young lads and yirls of seventeen who i were murdered l»y that execrable govern ment is to be reckoned by hundreds ba bies torn from the breast were tossed from pike to pike aloiiir the jacobin ranks one champion of liberty had his pockets i well stuffed with ears another swag ; gered about with the linger of a little child i in his hat a few months had served to degrade france below the level of new . zealand j travelling over the andes l c pickett esq u states charge ih ' affaires at lima in a letter to the na tional institute remarks i have travelled rive days at a time a mong the andes without seeing a human creature except those with me and along a track not a road which for the most part serpentized over almost perpendicu lar precipices or through a tores literally . impervious by cutting one's way at every : step provisions luggage and everything i were carried on men's backs ; and my saddle-horse was a sioiil mulatto part in dian whom i occasionally mounted when tired of walking i te!t at first a decided . repugnance to this sort of equitation and could not think of i:si fellow-being for a beast of burden but the necessity of the case and the custom of the country got the better of my scruples as they bad ; of more conscientious men no doubt and as the silh n chairman as he was called told me it was his occupation to carry christians over the mountains and solici 1 ted the job i struck a bargain with him and ihe price was k through i riding about half the time this quadrupedal biped if so he may be called turned out ' to be a very surefooted and trusty animal '■ and carried me in perfect safety to the end of the route the modus equitandi \\\\< : instead of a saddle a very light chair is : used which the chairman slings upon his back,and the traveller's face when seat , ed in it is to the north should he be going to the south aud ricr versa it is neces sary that when mounted he should keep himself very accurately balanced ior there are many places in passing which a false step on the part of the sillero might cause a tumble down a precipice which would be fatal both to the rider and the ridden men of the world there is a great difference between the power of giving good advice and the abil ity to act upon it theoretical wisdom is perhaps rarely associated with practical wisdom and"we often find that men pf i.ilfmit whatever contrive to pass through life with credit and propriety under the guidance of a kind of instinct these aj-e the persons who seem to stumble by mere c ood luck upon the philosopher's stone la the commerce of life everything they touch seems to turn into gold bruner & james ) „ „ > " keep a check rro.v all your editors <$_• proprietors i is safe .» ( new series rclers a b™y \ number 42 of volume i salisbury n c february 15 1845 olous accomplishments which are so often better rewarded than worth or genius nor of the arts by which a brazen-faced adventurer sometimes throws a modest and meritorious rival into the shade nor shall i proceed to show how great a draw hack is a noble sincerity in the commerce of the world the memorable scene be tween gil bias and the archbishop of to ledo is daily and nightly re-acted on the great stage of life i can not enter upon minute particulars or touch upon all the numerous branches of my subject without exceeding the limits i have proposed to myself in the present essay brought out from the depths of his own soul they have only fastened themselves on his memory and are much nearer to his tongue than to his heart nooneissur j prised at the innumerable wise saws and proverbial phrases that issue from the lips of the most silly and ignorant old women in all ranks of life in town and country in cottages and in courts in the conver j sation of the weakest-minded persons we | often find as in that of polonius both | " matter and impertinency mixed his advice is not that of a philosopher but of a courtier and man of the world he e choes the common wisdom of his associ ates — " give every man thine ear but few thy voice : take each inan"s censure but reserve thy judgment he is indebted to his court education for this mean and heartless maxim to lis-1 ten eagerly to the communications of oth ers and to conceal his own thoughts is the first lesson that a courtier learns let ; us quote another specimen of his paternal admonitions we are apt to place the greatest confi dence in the advice of the successful and n ono at all in that of the unprosperous o if fortune never favored fools nor neg lected the wise a man may have more intellect than does him good for it tempts bim to meditate and to compare when he should aet with rapidity and decision :— and by trusting loo much to his own sa lacity and too little to fortune he often loses many a golden opportunity that is like a prize in thc lottery to his less brill iant competitors it is not the men of thought but the men of action who are best fitted o pu-h their way upward in gratifying to know that none have a high er opinion of human nature it is observable that men are very much disposed to '• make themselves the meas ure of mankind ;" or in other words when they paint their fellow-creaturrs to dip their brush in the colors of their own heart " all seem infected that the infected spy as all seems yellow to the jaundiced eye on the other hand a frank and noble spi rit observes the world by the light of its own nature ; and indeed all who have stu died mankind without prejudice or parti ality and with a wide and liberal obser vation have felt that man is not altoge ther unworthy of being formed after the image of his maker though i have alluded to the tendency of some particular professions to indurate the heart and limit or wrap the judgment 1 should be sorry indeed if the remarks that i have ventured upon this subject should be regarded as an avowal of hos tility toward any class whatever of my fellow-creatures i should be guilty of a gross absurdity and injustice if i did not readily admit that intellect and virtue are not confined to one class or excluded from another men are generally speaking very much the creature of circumstance ; but there is no condition of life in which the soul has not sometimes asserted her independence of all adventitious distinc tions ; and there is no trade or profession in which we do not meet with men who are an honor to human nature perhaps a knowledge of the world in the ordinary acceptation of the phrase may mean nothinginorethan a knowledge of conventionalisms or a familiarity with the forms and ceremonials of society this of eoursc is of easy acquisition when the mind is once bent upon the task the practice of the small proprieties of life to a congenial spirit soon ceases to be a stu : dv it rapidly becomes a mere habit or an untroubled and unerring instinct this is always the case when there is no sed entary labor by the midnight lamp to pro duce an ungainly stoop in the shoulders and a conscious defect of grace and pli ancy in the limbs ; and where there is no abstract thought or poetic vision to dissi pate the attention and blind us to the tri ; vial realities that are passing immediate ly around us some degree of vanity and a perfect self-possession are absolutely es sential ; but high intellect is only an ob j struction there are some who seem born for the boudoir and the ball-room while others are as little fitted for fashionable society as a fish is for the open air and the dry land they who are more fami liar with books than with men cannot look calm and pleased when their souls are inwardly perplexed the almost ve nial hypocrisy of politeness is the more criminal and disgusting in their judgment ■ on account of its difficulty to themselves j and the provoking ease with which it ap pears to be adopted by others the lo i quacity of the forward the effeminate af ! fectation of the foppish and the senten j tiousness of shallow gravity excite a feel j ing of contempt and weariness that they have-neither the skill nor the inclination ! to conceal a recluse philosopher is unable to re ; turn a simple salutation without betraying ! his awkwardness and uneasiness to the quick eye of the man of the world he exhibits a ludicrous mixture of humility j and pride he is indignant at the assur '. ance of others and is mortified at his own | timidity he is vexed that he should suf : fer those whom he feels to be his inferiors j to enjoy a temporary superiority he is troubled that they should be able to trou ble him and ashamed that they should make him ashamed such a man when he enters into society brings all his pride but leaves his vanity behind him pride i allows our wounds to remain exposed and makes them doubly irritable ; but vanity as sancho says of sleep seems to cover a man all over as with a cloak a contem plative spirit can not concentrate its at tention on minute and uninteresting cere monials and a sense of unfitness for soci ty makes the most ordinary of its duties a painful task there are some authors who would rather write a quarto volume in praise of woman than hand a fashion able lady to her chair the world tho hamlets or philosopical speculators are of their element in the crowd they are wise enough as reflect ing observers but the moment ihey de scend from their solitary elevation and mingle with the thick throng of their fel low-creatures there is a sad discrepancy between their dignity as teachers and their conduct as actors ; their wisdom in busy life evaporates in words they talk like sages but they act like fools there is an essential difference between those qual ities that are necessary for success in the world and those that are required in the closet bacon was the wisest of human brings in his quiet study but when he en tered the wide and noisy theatre of life be sometimes conducted himself in away of which he could have admirably point ed out the impropriety in a moral essay : he knew as well as any man that hones ty is the best policy but he did not always act as if he thought so the fine intel lect of addison could trace with subtlety and truth all the proprieties of social and of public life but he was himself deplor | ably inefficient both as a companion and as a statesman a more delicate and ac j curate observer of human life than the \ poet cowper is not often met with,though lie was absolutely incapable of turning his knowledge and good sense to a practical j account and when he came to act for him | self was as helpless and dependant as a child the excellent author of the wealth j of nations could not manage the econo i my of his own house people who have sought the advice of successful men of the world have oflen experienced a feeling of surprise and dis i appointment when listening to their com ; monpl.ife maxims and weak and barren observations there is very frequently i the same discrepancy though intheoppo ; site extreme between the words and the j actions of prosperous men of the world that 1 have noticed in the ease of unsuc | cessful men of wisdom the former talk like fools but they act like men of sense : the reverse is the case with the latter ; the thinkers may safely direct the move j ffients of other men but they do not seem ; peculiarly fitted to direct their own " neither a borrower nor a lender be ; for loan oft loses both itself and friend and borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry ier into a fit of sickness he early calculated the price of wite and children but was fright ened by the looting up : he was wedded to econ omy and the shop and his gray hairs attest his fidelity blow high or blow low he stands alone and erect and this is counter life ! there is the mechanic emphatically the ar tificer of his own fortune his mind so runs on : timber iron bricks and leather that it is not strange he should think his wife and children ; composed in paft of the same materials : hence the joints that connect his paternal ark are sub jected to no small wear and tear but the pan acea of many ills money is coming in while temper is going out and if they miss oi an av erage share of happiness it is because the boss aspires to and secures a scat in the assembly where he diligently assists in plane-lag down opinions that have essentially contributed to his elevation and this is life ! there is the rich sleeping partner his sleepiness goes abroad to air his other faculties and get awake travels every where but into ] counting houses—lie knows 1 asgow manches j ter liverpool and lyons as matters of histo \ ry and london paris and naples as matters of fact—perhaps he carries a winning card in the shape of a wife who by a sweet presence and voluble discourse secures for them ambassado rial letters presentations at court and whatev er else their ingenuity may devise having contracted a heavy load of european reminis ' cences they come home and tip up but the monotonous humdrum of american life soon be comes insipid and oft they go to be again mere spectators of stars and garters in the elder : world whilst repeating this dilicious experi j ment a letter marked " private comes from the ameiican firm premonitory of coming ill { and arrests the enjoyment of their carnival ere long they find themselves upon the billows both real and imaginary not knowing what may ; befa them and this is life ! there is the very close sbrewed man who is viewed by his townsmen as a soit of walking razor—edge never dull rarely offers his arm unless to a stranger and can scent an applicant for a loan the length of wall street in his domicile you may remark design all concur ring and subservient to one end self and it is fortunate if his children do not prove to be a lit tle race of penknives the daily torment of this man is the fear of being over-reached and dying of a broken heart and this is life ! there is the fortunate tin fortunate the man who when his last creditor signed ofl rose in imagination like a rocket a million are in pros pect and prospects enough for a million con quer or die " was the motto and he did die and " made no sign and this is life ! there is the man of great pretensions whom to buv at his own price would beggar an astor behind his chair and carriage servants wait : a very respectable man that nobody respects : inwards how full of piety : in actions how in exorable : has an all-abounding appetite for great agencies and through them becomes a sort of dictator to impoiters and jobbers his notion of equity is defined by selden's remark arcording to the size of the chancellor's foot in settling family estate he would be more executioner that executor if he should ever die a slate and pencil would be an appro , pria'.e emblem n his grave stone and hi is life ! polonius might have picked up this mar vellous scrap of prudence in some petty tradesman's shop not however in a ' pawnbroker's for the sign of which it would form a very forbidding motto j there are a few precepts in the parting advice of polonius of a somewhat higher character ; but they are only such as float about the world and are repeated on ac casion by all well-intentioned people they are not of that high and original cast which shakspeare would have put into the mouth of hamlet or any other thoughtful and noble-hearted personage it seems paradoxical to affirm that men who are out of the world know more of the philosophy of its movements than those who are in it but it is nevertheless per fectly true and easily accounted for the busy man is so rapidly whirled about in the vast machine that he has not leisure to observe its motion an observer sta tioned on a hill lhat overlooks a battle can see more distinctly thc operations of either army than the combatants themselves they who have attained success by mere good fortune are particularly ill-fitted to direct and counsel others who are strug gling through the labyrinths of life a j shrewd observer who has touched the rocks is a better pilot than he who has passed through a difficult channel in ig j norance of its dangers from the new york american and this is life he who would analyze the seemingly contra dictory elements in which man moves and has his being need not wonder at the discontent the happiness the restlessness the vanity the pride the show of wealth the desire to conceal it the arrogant claims of learning the attrac tions of beauty the workings of retired talent the multiplicity of noisy nothings ; all of which have their day and sway there is the retired man of business over laid with all the seeming requisites of happi ness ; breakfasts when he chooses sumptuous ly lounges in his unread library and takes his airing in almost regal style by the fellowship which he has established in society he is constantly reminded of his deficien cies in those accomplishments that invest life with charms the most engaging and dignity the most enduring thrice every week he goes to his bed wofully sensible that horace and vir gil have lived for him in vain and grecian bards tuned their lyres for more fortunate and happier sensibilities he awakes on his 50th anniver sary determined to enter the labyrinth of classic lore and is lost and this is life ! there is the plodding merchant who goes to his counting-room and until his letters are read is hardly conscious of anything but existence — his brow contracts or expands according to the nature of their contents ; he reads and is filled ; determines to sell his coffee and cotton to the first bidder and at the least sacrifice ; goes home with a sinker at his heart finds fault with his dinner and if he has a wife is almost tempted to sell her and this is life ! the extent of a person's knowledge of mankind is not to be calculated by the number of his years the old indeed are ' always wise in their own estimation and eagerly volunteer advice which is not in all cases as eagerly received the stale preparatory sentence of when you have come to my years c is occasionally a prologue to the wearisome farce of second childhood a latin proverb says that •' experience teacheth it sometimes does i so but not always experience can not | confer natural sagacity and without that it is nearly useless it is said to be an j axiom in natural history that a cat will never tread again the road on which it has been beaten but this has been dis proved in a thousand experiments it is the same with mankind a w teak-minded man let his years be few or numerous will no sooner be extricated from a silly i scrape than he will fall again into the same way nothing is more common than for old women of either sex to shake with a solemn gravity their thin gray hairs as if they covered a repository of gathered wisdom when perchance some clear and lively head upon younger shoulders has fifty times the knowledge with less than half the pretension we are not always wise in proportion to our opportunities of acquiring wisdom but according to the shrewdness and activity of our observa tion nor is a man's fortune in all cases an unequivocal criterion of the character of his intellect or his knowledge in the world men in business acquire a habit of guarding themselves very carefully a gainst the arts of those with whom they are brought in contact in their commercial transactions : but they are perhaps better versed in goods and securities than in the human heart they wisely trust a great deal more to law papers than to " the hu man face divine or any of those indica tions of character which are so unerringly perused by a profound observer a great dramatic poet can lift the curtain of the human heart but mere men of business must act always in the dark and taking it for granted that every individual what ever his ostensible character may be a secret villain they will have no transac tions with their fellow-creatures until they have made assurance doubly sure and secured themselves from the possibility of roguery and imposition they carry this habit of caution and mistrustfulness to such a melancholy extreme that they will hardly lend a guinea to a father or a bro ther without a regular receipt they judge of all mankind by a few wretched exceptions lawyers have a similar ten dency to form partial and unfavorable o pinions of their fellow-creatures because they come in contact with the worst spe cimens of humanity and see more of the dark side of life than other men of all classes of men perhaps the members of the medical profession have the best op portunity of forming a fair and accurate judgment of mankind in general and it is pauperism in massachusetts the number of state paupers lor th year ending l**t of no vember 1844 was 6,060 : of thesa 3,688 more than one half are foreigner there is the poet fearfully and wonderfully made sometimes life hanging in festoona ot richest flowers all about him and his aspira tions partaking of their hue : to him the true and beautiful seem always approaching but ne ver arrived ; he works day and night in con structing a monument to the muses and though summoned they come not to its consecration : he sighs over the apathy and insensibility of his fellow-men until irant turns his choice llelic n into bitters or forces him at last to slake his thirst from a fountain of common " croton — on this fare he thrives and s-»on marries into the extensive family of the magazines and has a very respectable progeny of essays : he suc ceeds in walking the earth like other people onlv now and then mourning over the decline of poetry particularly his own and una is .:- ' i will sav nothing of the man of much money lar^e wisdom and entire rood faith until 1 find him d e n sabbath in sicitzerumd a correspon dent of the n y observer writing from zurich says " i spent the sabbath here and was surprised to find in this home of zwingli—this protestant canton—so little respect to its sanctity towards evening the military were reviewed on the public square while on one side was a public ex hibition of rope dancers and tumblers and among the tumblers two rosy cheeked pea sant girls this is a protest canton in , deed protestant it may be but this was no protestant sabbath by ramming a coal of fire into the muzzle of a loaded gun you can save the priming in st loom hc number of paupers in tin alms ii.ju-*'1 is v : of these 13 are fbreigaera and j americans during tbc last four years there have been admitted into the sc loui marine hospital 1,289 foreigners and 530 american on this the tribune says :— •• s;:rh facts as tbese are sometimes cited to disparage foreigners : bat they may better bo considered as compliments to americans who prefer to rent dwellings for themselves r.itl.rr than to creep under the heller of the roofs f cfiiiicos provided for t needj by the st;»to besides it is singular that in america th-j home of all classes from th old world both the educated and prosperous,the poor n<i l'm rant — •- it singular that sotno portion of th hitter should claim our charity in ibis new hnd sf their adoption ! lot them come in god's name and t what accommodation they can in this wide abode of prosperity let them come but n t from european poor hnusos and earopean prisons.—a tax upon the hsh laborer ol america*—a p<>i<nn » society and the republic why ar we to support all the 5 and sweep-off of the earth !— yew york expn ts jj an establishment for the manufac ture of various articles of silk is now in active operation at louisville the lou isville journal says most of the opera tions in this factory arc effected by steam the cocoons are reeled on the machine universally known as the piedmontese reel and the silk is spun on a throstle ma chine a modification of which makes the twisted silk three looms arc worked and are principally employed in making sewing silk handkerchiefs vestings and dress patterns for ladies there is the stock broker—gregp.rious from his birth—he comes to his six by eight lodgment in wall street with a quick step and every mus cle and eye alert—he goes out to feed in the highway as hens do along with their brood un til 10 o'clock when he mounts to a higher re gion to set ruminate and realize philosophizes on the insecurity of securities hates the like ness of the market to the tides so regular in their ups and downs—is vexed that he did not go into smiling canton instead of drooping stonington goes home to dinner looks grave at his wife snubs his children and protests against having any more and this is life ! there is the clerk whose yearnings for notice and gentility have induced him to quit his hard though safe bench in the counting house for a basement in once of the city thoroughfares where he sets up champaigne cigar and bacon vender possessing some light accomplish ments he receives invitations to parties and having no real ownership in himself always accepts ; to decline he dares not by little and little he goes into love but is obliged to come out of it much more suddenly he goes home at midnight to his estate of one room and the furniture sullen dissatisfied and vexed that peo ple cannot be uncorked as easily as his cham paigne and swearing that he will devote the next twelve months in mastering the art that enables so many to butter their bread on both sides and pay their rent and this is life ! there is peter snug who has lived so long on one spot as to make his oneness immortal he serves as a perpetual sign board to the ris ine generation ; histrophies are defunct dealers non descript merchants and visionary shop keepers he rises with the sun breakfasts and dines with a despatch not surpassed by the express mail and makes his bank deposit so uniformly that its omission would throw an ordinary cash they who bask in the sunshine of pros peril are generally inclined to be so un grateful to fortune as to attribute all their success to their own exertions and to sea pity for their less successful bends with some degree of contempt in the great majority of cases nothing can be more ridiculous and unjust in the list of the prosperous there are very few ra ted who owe their advancement to tal ent and sagacity alone the majority must attribute their rise to a combination of industry prudence and good fortune ; ind there are many who are still more in debted to the lucky accidents of life than to their own character or conduct perhaps not only the higher intellectual gifts but.even the liner moral emotions flre an encumbrance to the fortune-hunter a gentle disposition and extreme frank ness and generosity have been the ruin n a worldly sense of many a noble spirit there is a degree of cautiousness and mis trust and a certain insensibility and stern teas,that seem essential to the man who as to hustle through the world and se cl>re his own interests lie can not turn and indulge in generous sympathies without neglecting in some measure his own affairs it is like a pedestrian's pro cess through a crowded street he can m pause for a moment or look to the 11 or left without increasing his own factions when time and business ress hard upon him the cry of affliction j the roadside is unheeded and forgotten e acquires a habit of indifference to all l c one thing needful—his own suc • cess shall not here speak of those by-ways cess in life which require only a se share of hypocrisy and meanness ; of those insinuating manners and friv the foolish and formal conversation of polite life is naturally uninteresting to the retired scholar but it would perhaps.be less objectionable if he thought he could take a share in it with any degree of cred it he can not despise his fellow creatures nor be wholly indifferent to their good opinion whatever he may think of their manners and conversation his uneasiness evinces that he does not feel altogether above or independent of them no man likes to seem unfit for the company he is in at rome every man would be a ro man * * * * the axioms most familiar to men of the world are passed from one tongue to an other without much reflection they are merely parroted some critics have thought that the advice which polonius in the tragedy of hamlet gives his son on his going abroad exhibits a degree of wisdom wholly inconsistent with the general cha racter of that weak and foolish old man but in this case as in most of a similar na ture we tind on closer consideration that what may seem at the first glance an er ror or oversight of shakspeare's is only another illustration of his accurate know ledge of human life the precepts which the old man desires to fix in the mind of laertes are just such as he might have heard a hundred thousand times in his long passage through the world they are not j