“If Forever, Fare Thee Well.”
To gratify a pardonable curiosity on the part of some of our readers, we again refer to “Laborer,” whose vehicle for offensive communications is the Shepherdstown Register, and at the same time we humbly ask pardon for the recurrence. In one of his articles, perhaps not fancying the intimation that he was, probably, a son of Erin’s Isle, he announced himself a “Dutch laborer,” and to impress the idea that he was, truly, a laborer and had the interests, temporal and spiritual, of that class at heart, makes the novel suggestion that a church be erected on the canal bank at Georgetown for the exclusive use of canal boatman! To be a Dutch laborer is not at all, in our estimation, discreditable to him, but– a little hard on the Teutons. And in another place he alludes, with a good deal of satisfaction, to his having gotten through the war “without a scratch.” We believe he did steer through, — was not even gored by his own ox; and we do not hesitate to do him the justice to attest that his deeds in peace are not less renowned, and glorious, than his achievements in war.— Not so much to excite sympathy in his own behalf— because he is masked behind a nom de plume– as to prejudice a class against us, he publishes his lack of ingenuousness— to put it mildly— by styling himself a “Laborer,” which he is not, in the common acceptation of the term, but, in reality, a Capitalist— a co-partner in a large manufacturing establishment, from which he receives his proportion of the profits, besides a competency in the way of salary for procuring that without which the children of Israel were compelled to make bricks. “Laborer” is not what he professes to be. In diverse and devious ways he tried to conceal his authorship of unprovoked and offensive attacks upon us. That we have his scalp dangling at our girdle may be cause for his “sore-headedness,” but not matter of surprise to the friends of Mr. John H. Strider.
