A Message from the Past

(Written by E.W. Hoch and copied from the December 26, 1884, issue of the Marion Record)

A Look Behind

Ere another number of the RECORD is issued, 1884 will have passed into history, and 1885 will have been ushered in. It is a good time for reflection, a good time to think; and so, in imagination, the RECORD gathers its goodly family of readers about its cozy hearthstone for a little family chat. There are hundreds of you to whom we have been talking for years, into whose kindly faces we have never had the pleasure of looking, and whose friendly hands we have not been privileged to grasp; but in spite of this we feel pretty well acquainted, and if we should happen along your way sometime, hungry—as we doubtless would if we happened that way at all—we would not hesitate to drop in and make ourself at home. And, if you should ever pass our way in that condition, be assured that a divide would cheerfully be made of all the neighbors had sent in that day.

We trust the year now drawing to a close has been one of pleasure and enduring profit to everyone of you. The fact is, for we should be frank and honest at these times, if ever, we have all enjoyed more of the good things of life than we deserved, doubtless.

Retrospecting the past, we can all see mistakes we have made and if we had the year to live over there would be many changes in our several courses. Ah, what a teacher is experience!

The RECORD frankly acknowledges its errors. No doubt you have often gotten mad at the old thing and slammed it down, and vowed you would never “take” it again, but somehow or other you “hated” to give it up, and then your good wife just put her foot down and said she couldn’t keep house at all without the RECORD, and so, when your time was out, you sent along the little dollar-and-a-half as usual.

Well, now, we wouldn’t run a paper that never made anybody mad, and you wouldn’t either, would you? Honest, now, would you? You know you wouldn’t. Stop and think if after all this isn’t one big reason why you have “staid” with the RECORD so long.

But we didn’t intend to talk so much about ourself as about you, in this little conversation

Haven’t you done some mean thing during the year? How often have you made your wife build the fire this winter? Did you hire fourteen men to help you harvest and thresh your grain last summer, while you hired no one to help your wife do the cooking?

Have you given you wife as much “change” to spend as you squandered for whisky and tobacco? Come, now, don’t look so sheepish. Didn’t you tell her that times were hard and you couldn’t afford to buy her that dress or cloak, and then came to town and fooled your money away betting on a horse race or the election? Didn’t you?

And, then, haven’t you cheated a little and lied a good deal during the past twelve months? Didn’t you put the biggest potatoes on top one time, when you offered them for sale? Didn’t you exaggerate about the horse’s good quality and conceal its bad? Didn’t you mark up the cost of those goods more than you paid for them? Didn’t you tip the sales the wrong way?

And than haven’t you been working your boy or girl to death without giving them a cent or hardly a word of encouragement? Haven’t you been surly and cross and mean at home instead of good-natured, patient, and kind? How do you expect your wife to live long, or how do you expect your children to stay at home or ever amount to anything while you “carry on” this way?

But we won’t torment you with any more of these cruel questions We leave you, between the old year and the new to think of these things, and ask yourself if it isn’t about time for you to begin to follow Solomon’s advice, and "show thyself a man."