The Weekly Panola Star

From the Temperance Guardian.

GOSSIP IN SMALL TOWNS.

"There is a load in man, so charm can tame
Of idly publishing his Neighbor's shame."

It is the nature of the human mind to keep itself constantly on the lookout when it cannot find one thing to talk about, it will seek another, and if there be no reality upon which it can operate, it will create something—and this creating tendency is very largely developed in the minds of some people, and always exhibits itself when they talk of men and women.

There is a natural inclination in the dispositions of a great many beings to concern themselves particularly with other people and their affairs, forgetting the old proverb that 'he is well engaged who properly attends to his own business.' Especially is this the case in all small towns and villages. In those little places each personage sits in judgment upon the character, conduct and appearance of all the rest, and there is always an everlasting volley of discreditable reports circulating the streets, first about one and then another

"Soft buzzing slander, silly mouths, that
An honest name."

An unguarded word spoken in jest, a friendly joke, is caught up and started on the magnetic-electrical wire to generate a flame. One person has been saying harsh things about another, which a third one heard and communicated, and a coolness grows up between two friends; a young gentleman has spoken disrespectfully of a young lady, and her virtuous character is questioned; this man is close stingy and underhanded—and that one foolishly extravagant; such a woman is a mean, unprincipled neighbor, borrows and never repays, beats her negroes, and cares for nobody but herself; a certain young lady has been too familiar with some young man, and her reputation is stained; such a young girl is a rollicking Tom-boy; and such a young fellow is a low-life, trifling lounger; the Minister is a detestable hypocrite; the Physician an ignorant empiric, and the Lawyer a mere skinning pettifogger; such a one is a swell-head aristocrat, because he has a little money. Let a man become a little unpopular and there is nothing he can do that will not be construed into a mean, underhanded trick—his very motive, however pure, is questioned, and perverted by misrepresentations. If a young lady gives way to a "flow of feeling," and laughs a hearty laugh, lifts her dress clear of the ground in crossing the muddy ditch, alone in the street to shake hands with a young man, a good old friend, and inquire after his health, she is pronounced coarse, vulgar and unladylike. Let a young man, through genteel deportment and honorable course, by his gallantry, become a favorite in the place, and receive a little more attention than some others, and nothing more is necessary to choose him a host of bitter enemies and villainous falsifiers—green-eyed jealousy actuates the depraved hearts. If you don't pay marked respect to every woman you meet you are proud—it makes no difference how much you are hurried; be in matters which deeply concern your own interest it is no apology for your not bowing; creeping, and scraping, and breaching rich door-yards the rest of the time is the state of things in nearly all little towns and it always makes one who has any feeling for the decencies of life.

Whether it be complimentary or the reverse, they seem to regard it as a good opportunity to take things out of the one accused of, by inquiring about him as a friend of such one, retailing or obloquy concerning him. Much of that always shows a deal of meanness in the brain. We had as soon be accused of being a thief as such a character—one in whose presence people would fear to speak, lest their remarks be caught up and circulated round.

The slanderer!—who does not loathe him as the villain whelp of sin's own felon, unwhipped of justice, black with infamy and guilt, darker than the blood-stained soul of the assassin!

"A whisper wakes the air
A soft, light tone and low,
Yet barbed with shame and woe—
Now might it only perish there!
Nor farther go.
Ah, meet a quick and angry ear
Caught up the little moaning sound!
Another voice has breathed it clear.
And so it wanders 'round,
From ear to lip, from lip to ear—
Until it reached a gentle heart,
And THAT—a wound!"