Farmer and Fisherman, June 22, 1893

Vs. Mrs. Armistead

Moral -- AlcoholInfrastructure -- Public : Schools

MR. EDITOR,

Will you kindly favor me with space enough to show that I, an Accomacian, have resented the flashes of personality and unjust charges upon our Eastern Shore towns by Mrs. Armistead in your issue of week before last. The kind lady must have had her antique slat bonnet on when she wrote the article, and looking with a squinted eye toward Onancock, it loomed mirage-like, suspended between heaven and earth, (near to the former,) and anxious to determine upon some conclusion important to Accomac's favored metropolis, we fear she took a magnified view of it when the curtains were down, and failed to perceive its significant shortcomings. In behalf of the Eastern Shore, I must endeavor to defend, not only my town, but all that have been assailed through misrepresentations by a critic, too partial to one town to properly criticise others. Although a few intimations and charges she made are full of truth and logic, I believe to sustain her opinion of the super-excellence of Onancock by comparison, as she did, that she dicountenanced proper discrimination and resounded forth praises partly undue, appearing to be merely idealistic conclusions, or bribed convictions, I know not which. Her hints at the intemperate evils and dissipations of our little towns and villages are suggestive to a moral reformation no doubt, and to accomplish this we have but to touch the hem of Onancock's garment to become thoroughly a standard of purity, exemplary to the moral, educational and spiritual world. In my limited judgement I believe her accusations to be entirely too superlative and severe beyond the least shadow of sympathy, and to multiply our ignominious short-comings as her revelations ascribes in her sophisticated construction of a scriptural passage she suggests that idolized and favored towns thrive and prey upon territorial surroundings at an expense degrading and conducive only to penury and want in all the spheres common to the welfare of fraternal care. The principal of existence could be expected from some illiterate and remote nation of martyr days but of an American, Virginian, it certainly is not expected to take origin within the tender avenues of a woman's heart, this long considered the beau ideal of human perfection.

Onancock has no right to complain at its progress, but where did it take its origin? No man of just conception will hesitate to say that Prof. Brent has done more for it than every capitalist within its limits. He has laid an impenetrable foundation that, with the excitement of proper energy, will insure success; though to-day "Honor to whom honor is due" is not unanimously demonstrated there. Furthermore, while Onancock boasts of her superior educational acquirements and facilities, she should also bow in grateful humility to Accomac and Northampton for patronage that has maintained her schools, from which she has derived the greatest benefit. Here I'll borrow Mrs. Armistead's scriptural quotations, "To him that hath (gratitude) it (educational advantage) shall be given, to him who hath not (gratitude) it (educational advantage) shall be taken away." 'Tis true, Onancock has just now but one barroom, but this has only been the case a short time. Not long since there were three; and I have been told that their pecuniary support was so compensating that two of them retired with money a plenty. How true this is I do not know; but I do know that one of the men is living in the city quite comfortable.

We leave off here and give up to Mrs. Armistead, as men invariably do, and recall the story of the "Scissors and the fishing trip."

Anti-Monopoly.