Sangamo Journal

[Amy L.]

Dated this day 177 years ago, a contribution to the Sangamon Journal -

LETTER FROM THE LOST TOWNSHIPS

I see you printed that long letter I sent you a spell ago --- I'm quite encouraged by it, and can't keep from writing again. ...

...
"`Loss, damnation!' says he, `.. I defy even you, aunt Becca, to show how the people can lose any thing by paying their taxes in State paper.'

"`Well,' says I, `you see what the officers of State say about it, and they are a desarnin set of men.' `But,' says I, `I guess you're mistaken about what the proclamation says; it don't say the people will lose any thing by the paper money being taken for taxes. It only says ``there will be danger of loss,''

...

"All the galls about town was there, and all the handsome widows, and married women, finickin about, trying to look like galls, tied as tight in the middle, and puffed out at both ends like bundles of fodder that hadn't been stacked yet, but wanted stackin pretty bad. ... They wouldn't let no democrats in, for fear they'd... dirty the floor. I looked in at the window, and there was this same fellow Shields floatin about on the air, without heft or earthly substance, just like a lock of cat-fur where cats had been fightin."
...
And now Mr. Printer, will you be sure to let us know in your next paper whether this Shields is a whig or a democrat? I don't care about it for myself, for I know well enough how it is already, but I want to convince Jeff. It may do some good to let him, and others like him, know who and what these officers of State are. It may help to send the present hypocritical set to where they belong, and to fill the places they now disgrace with men who will do more work, for less pay, and take a fewer airs while they are doing it. It aint sensible to think that the same men who get us into trouble will change their course; and yet its pretty plain, if some change for the better is not made, its not long that neither Peggy, or I, or any of us, will have a cow left to milk, or a calf's tail to wring.
Yours, truly, REBECCA---.


https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/te...ncoln1:310