Clarksville Weekly Chronicle

A Sage Journalist's Advice to a
Fiery Untamed Editor.
Athens Post.
Our old friend Tom W. Neal, of
the State Gazette, is awfully exer-
cised over the passage of the 100-3
bill, and quotes from Byron's "Ma-
zeppa" with much unction. Your
attention for a moment, Thomas.
There is no man connected with
the Tennessee press for whom we
have a warmer personal regard than
yourself; but you are wrong, and
like the writer of this good-natured
paragraph, too old, too far advanced
along life's rugged pathway, to
look at things, particularly the in-
evitable, in other than a calm con-
siderate manner, Somebody has
said, or might have said, that as
the hot suns of Africa instil into her
reptiles a still more deadly venom,
so may the natural milk and water
of a man's disposition be turned to
gall and worm-wood by the infus-
sion of splenetic bile. Eschew such
feverish ebullitions. They are bad
for the digestion, and when the
season for sober, second thought
comes 'round, as it is certain to do
sooner or later, make one feel a good
deal like Uncle Bill Stokes' bare-
footed boy at a country frolic. The
100-3 proposition was not exactly
what any of us wanted, but it was
"the best attainable," and we,
therefore, rejoice at its adoption by
the legislature. Read the law care-
fully, investigate its provisions,
study them well, and in due time
you will be forced to the conclus-
ion that it was the wisest thing
that could be done under the cir-
cumstances; that it will not de-
stroy the state or the democracy, but
save both from the worst fate that
could fall upon a people or a party.
As to the sickly sentimentalism
and gush about posterity-if our
posterity should happen. to be the
sons of their daddies, which is not
altogether improbable, we guess they
will prove amply able to take care
of themselves.
These, old friend. are the sugges:
tions of truth and soberness, and in-
spired by a motive, which, if you
do not appreciate it now, you will
after awhile