Bill Nye, P.M.
Gen. Frank Hatton, Washington, D.C.
A Journalistic Tenderfoot.
Most everyone who has tried the publication of a newspaper will call to
mind as he reads this item, a similar experience, though, perhaps, not so
pronounced and protuberant.
Early one summer morning a gawky young tenderfoot, both as to the West and
the details of journalism, came into the office and asked me for a job as
correspondent to write up the mines in North Park. He wore his hair
longish and tried to make it curl. The result was a greasy coat collar and
the general _tout ensemble_ of the genus “smart Aleck.” He had also
clothed himself in the extravagant clothes of the dime novel scout and
beautiful girl-rescuer of the Indian country. He had been driven west by a
wild desire to hunt the flagrant Sioux warrior, and do a general Wild Bill
business; hoping, no doubt, before the season closed, to rescue enough
beautiful captive maidens to get up a young Vassar College in Wyoming or
Montana.
I told him that we did not care for a mining correspondent who did not
know a piece of blossom rock from a geranium. I knew it took a man a good
many years to gain knowledge enough to know where to sink a prospect shaft
even, and as to passing opinions on a vein, it would seem almost wicked
and sacriligious to send a man out there among those old grizzly miners
who had spent their lives in bitter experience, unless the young man could
readily distinguish the points of difference between a chunk of free
milling quartz and a fragment of bologna sausage.
He still thought he could write us letters that would do the paper some
eternal good, and though I told him, as he wrung my hand and left, to
refrain from writing or doing any work for us, he wrote a letter before he
had reached the home station on the stage road, or at least sent us a long
letter from there. It might have been written before he started, however.
The letter was of the “we-have-went” and “I-have-never-saw” variety, and
he spelt curiosity “qrossity.” He worked hard to get the word into his
alleged letter, and then assassinated it.
Well, we paid no attention whatever to the letter, but meantime he got
into the mines, and the way he dead-headed feed and sour mash, on the
strength of his relations with the press, made the older miners weep.
Buck Bramel got a little worried and wrote to me about it. He said that
our soft-eyed mining savant was getting us a good many subscribers, and
writing up every little gopher hole in North Park, and living on
Cincinnati quail, as we miners call bacon; but he said that none of these
fine, blooming letters, regarding the assays on “The Weasel Asleep,” “The
Pauper's Dream,” “The Mary Ellen” and “The Over Draft,” ever seemed to
crop out in the paper.
Why was it?
I wrote back that the white-eyed pelican from the buckwheat-enamelled
plains of Arkansas had not remitted, was not employed by us, and that I
would write and publish a little card of introduction for the bilious
litterateur that would make people take in their domestic animals, and
lock up their front fences and garden fountains.
In the meantime they sent him up the gulch to find some “float.” He had
wandered away from camp thirty miles before he remembered that he didn't
know what float looked like. Then he thought he would go back and inquire.
He got lost while in a dark brown study and drifted into the bosom of the
unknowable. He didn't miss the trail until a perpendicular wall of the
Rocky Mountains, about 900 feet high, rose up and hit him athwart the
nose.
[Illustration: COMMUNING WITH NATURE.]
He communed with nature and the coyotes one night and had a pretty tough
time of it. He froze his nose partially off, and the coyotes came and
gnawed his little dimpled toes. He passed a wretched night, and was
greatly annoyed by the cold, which at that elevation sends the mercury
toward zero all through the summer nights.
Of course he pulled the zodiac partially over him, and tried to button his
alapaca duster a little closer, but his sleep was troubled by the
sociability of the coyotes and the midnight twitter of the mountain lion.
He ate moss agates rare and spruce gum for breakfast. When he got to the
camp he looked like a forty-day starvationist hunting for a job.
They asked him if he found any float, and he said he didn't find a blamed
drop of water, say nothing about float, and then they all laughed a merry
laugh, and said that if he showed up at daylight the next morning within
the limits of the park, the orders were to burn him at the stake.
The next morning neither he nor the best bay mule on the Troublesome was
to be seen with naked eye. After that we heard of him in the San Juan
country.
He had lacerated the finer feelings of the miners down there, and had
violated the etiquette of San Juan, so they kicked a flour barrel out from
under him one day when he was looking the other way, and being a poor
tight-rope performer, he got tangled up with a piece of inch rope in such
a way that he died of his injuries.
The Amateur Carpenter.
In my opinion every professional man should keep a chest of carpenters'
tools in his barn or shop, and busy himself at odd hours with them in
constructing the varied articles that are always needed about the house.
There is a great deal of pleasure in feeling your own independence of
other trades, and more especially of the carpenter. Every now and then
your wife will want a bracket put up in some corner or other, and with
your new, bright saw and glittering hammer you can put up one upon which
she can hang a cast-iron horse-blanket lambrequin, with inflexible water
lilies sewed in it.
A man will, if he tries, readily learn to do a great many such little
things and his wife will brag on him to other ladies, and they will make
invidious comparisons between their husbands who can't do anything of that
kind whatever, and you who are “so handy.”
Firstly, you buy a set of amateur carpenter tools. You do not need to say
that you are an amateur. The dealer will find that out when you ask him
for an easy-running broad-ax or a green-gage plumb line. He will sell you
a set of amateur's tools that will be made of old sheet-iron with basswood
handles, and the saws will double up like a piece of stovepipe.
After you have nailed a board on the fence successfully, you will very
naturally desire to do something much better, more difficult. You will
probable try to erect a parlor table or rustic settee.
I made a very handsome bracket last week, and I was naturally proud of it.
In fastening it together, if I hadn't inadvertently nailed it to the barn
floor, I guess I could have used it very well, but in tearing it loose
from the barn, so that the two could be used separately, I ruined a
bracket that was intended to serve as the base, as it were, of a
lambrequin which cost nine dollars, aside from the time expended on it.
During the month of March I built an ice-chest for this summer. It was not
handsome, but it was roomy, and would be very nice for the season of 1886,
I thought. It worked pretty well through March and April, but as the
weather begins to warm up that ice-chest is about the warmest place around
the house. There is actually a glow of heat around that ice-chest that I
don't notice elsewhere. I've shown it to several personal friends. They
seem to think it is not built tightly enough for an ice-chest. My brother
looked at it yesterday, and said that his idea of an ice-chest was that it
ought to be tight enough at least to hold the larger chunks of ice so that
they would not escape through the pores of the ice-box. He says he never
built one, but that it stood to reason that a refrigerator like that ought
to be constructed so that it would keep the cows out of it. You don't want
to have a refrigerator that the cattle can get through the cracks of and
eat up your strawberries on ice, he says.
A neighbor of mine who once built a hen resort of laths, and now wears a
thick thumb-nail that looks like a Brazil nut as a memento of that pullet
corral, says my ice-chest is all right enough, only that it is not suited
to this climate. He thinks that along Behring's Strait, during the
holidays, my ice-chest would work like a charm. And even here, he thought,
if I could keep the fever out of my chest there would be less pain.
I have made several other little articles of _vertu_ this spring, to the
construction of which I have contributed a good deal of time and two
finger nails. I have also sawed into my leg two or three times. The leg,
of course, will get well, but the pantaloons will not. Parties wishing to
meet me in my studio during the morning hour will turn into the alley
between Eighth and Ninth streets, enter the third stable door on the left,
pass around behind my Gothic horse, and give the countersign and three
kicks on the door in an ordinary tone of voice.
The Average Hen.
I am convinced that there is great economy in keeping hens if we have
sufficient room for them and a thorough knowledge of how to manage the
fowl property. But to the professional man, who is not familiar with the
habits of the hen, and whose mind does not naturally and instinctively
turn henward, I would say: Shun her as you would the deadly upas tree of
Piscataquis county, Me.
Nature has endowed the hen with but a limited amount of brain-force. Any
one will notice that if he will compare the skull of the average self-made
hen with that of Daniel Webster, taking careful measurements directly over
the top from one ear to the other, the well-informed brain student will at
once notice a great falling-off in the region of reverence and an abnormal
bulging out in the location of alimentiveness.
Now take your tape-measure and, beginning at memory, pass carefully over
the occiputal bone to the base of the brain in the region of love of home
and offspring and you will see that, while the hen suffers much in
comparison with the statement in the relative size of sublimity,
reflection, spirituality, time, tune, etc., when it comes to love of home
and offspring she shines forth with great splendor.
The hen does not care for the sublime in nature. Neither does she care for
music. Music hath no charms to soften her tough old breast. But she loves
her home and her country. I have sought to promote the interests of the
hen to some extent, but I have not been a marked success in that line.
I can write a poem in fifteen minutes. I always could dash off a poem
whenever I wanted to, and a very good poem, too, for a dashed poem. I
could write a speech for a friend in congress--a speech that would be
printed in the Congressional Record and go all over the United States and
be read by no one. I could enter the field of letters anywhere and attract
attention, but when it comes to setting a hen I feel that I am not worthy.
I never feel my utter unworthiness as I do in the presence of a setting
hen.
When the adult hen in my presence expresses a desire to set I excuse
myself and go away. That is the supreme moment when a hen desires to be
alone. That is no time for me to introduce my shallow levity, I never do
it is after death that I most fully appreciate the hen. When she has
been cut down early in life and fried I respect her. No one can look upon
the still features of a young hen overtaken by death in life's young
morning, snuffed out as it were, like an old tin lantern in a gale of
wind, without being visibly affected.
But it is not the hen who desires to set for the purpose of getting out an
early edition of spring chickens that I am averse to. It is the aged hen,
who is in her dotage, and whose eggs, also, are in their second childhood.
Upon this hen I shower my anathemas. Overlooked by the pruning hook of
time, shallow in her remarks, and a wall-flower in society, she deposits
her quota of eggs in the catnip conservatory, far from the haunts of men,
and then in August, when eggs are extremely low and her collection of no
value to any one but the antiquarian, she proudly calls attention to her
summer's work.
This hen does not win the general confidence. Shunned by good society
during life, her death is only regretted by those who are called upon to
assist at her obsequies. Selfish through life, her death is regarded as a
calamity by those alone who are expected to eat her.
And what has such a hen to look back upon in her closing hours? A long
life, perhaps, for longevity is one of the characteristics of this class
of hens; but of what has that life been productive? How many golden hours
has she frittered away hovering over a porcelain door-knob trying to hatch
out a litter of Queen Anne cottages. How many nights has she passed in
solitude on her lonely nest, with a heart filled with bitterness toward
all mankind, hoping on against hope that in the fall she would come off
the nest with a cunning little brick block, perhaps.
[Illustration: THE RESULT OF PATIENCE.]
Such is the history of the aimless hen. While others were at work she
stood around with her hands in her pockets and criticised the policy of
those who labored, and when the summer waned she came forth with nothing
but regret to wander listlessly about and freeze off some more of her feet
during the winter. For such a hen death can have no terrors.
Woodtick William's Story.
We had about as ornery and triflin' a crop of kids in Calaveras county,
thirty years ago, as you could gather in with a fine-tooth comb and a
brass band in fourteen States. For ways that was kittensome they were
moderately active and abnormally protuberant. That was the prevailing
style of Calaveras kid, when Mr. George W. Mulqueen come there and wanted
to engage the school at the old camp, where I hung up in the days when the
country was new and the murmur of the six-shooter was heard in the land.
[Illustration: WINNING THEIR YOUNG LOVE.]
“George W. Mulqueen was a slender young party from the effete East, with
conscientious scruples and a hectic flush. Both of these was agin him for
a promoter of school discipline and square root. He had a heap of
information and big sorrowful eyes.
“So fur as I was concerned, I didn't feel like swearing around George or
using any language that would sound irrelevant in a ladies' boodore; but
as for the kids of the school, they didn't care a blamed cent. They just
hollered and whooped like a passle of Sioux.
“They didn't seem to respect literary attainments or expensive knowledge.
They just simply seemed to respect the genius that come to that country to
win their young love with a long-handled shovel and a blood-shot tone of
voice. That's what seemed to catch the Calaveras kids in the early days.
“George had weak lungs, and they kept to work at him till they drove him
into a mountain fever, and finally into a metallic sarcophagus.
“Along about the holidays the sun went down on George W. Mulqueen's life,
just as the eternal sunlight lit up the dewy eyes. You will pardon my
manner, Nye, but it seemed to me just as if George had climbed up to the
top of Mount Cavalry, or wherever it was, with that whole school on his
back, and had to give up at last.
“It seemed kind of tough to me, and I couldn't help blamin' it onto the
school some, for there was a half a dozen big snoozers that didn't go to
school to learn, but just to raise Ned and turn up Jack.
“Well, they killed him, anyhow, and that settled it.”
“The school run kind of wild till Feboowary, and then a husky young
tenderfoot, with a fist like a mule's foot in full bloom, made an
application for the place, and allowed he thought he could maintain
discipline if they'd give him a chance. Well, they ast him when he wanted
to take his place as tutor, and he reckoned he could begin to tute about
Monday follering.
“Sunday afternoon he went up to the school-house to look over the ground,
and to arrange a plan for an active Injin campaign agin the hostile
hoodlums of Calaveras.
“Monday he sailed in about 9 A.M. with his grip-sack, and begun the
discharge of his juties.
“He brought in a bunch of mountain-willers, and, after driving a big
railroad-spike into the door-casing, over the latch, he said the senate
and house would sit with closed doors during the morning session. Several
large, white-eyed holy terrors gazed at him in a kind of dumb, inquiring
tone of voice, but he didn't say much. He seemed considerably reserved as
to the plan of the campaign. The new teacher then unlocked his
alligator-skin grip, and took out a Bible and a new self-cocking weepon
that had an automatic dingus for throwing out the empty shells. It was one
of the bull-dog variety, and had the laugh of a joyous child.
“He read a short passage from the Scriptures, and then pulled off his coat
and hung it on a nail. Then he made a few extemporaneous remarks, after
which he salivated the palm of his right hand, took the self-cocking
songster in his left, and proceeded to wear out the gads over the varied
protuberances of his pupils.
“People passing by thought they must be beating carpets in the
school-house. He pointed the gun at his charge with his left and
manipulated the gad with his right duke. One large, overgrown Missourian
tried to crawl out of the winder, but, after he had looked down the barrel
of the shooter a moment, he changed his mind. He seemed to realize that it
would be a violation of the rules of the school, so he came back and sat
down.
“After he wore out the foliage, Bill, he pulled the spike out of that
door, put on his coat and went away. He never was seen there again. He
didn't ask for any salary, but just walked off quietly, and that summer we
accidently heard that he was George W. Mulqueen's brother.”
In Washington.
I have just returned from a polite and recherche party here. Washington is
the hot-bed of gayety, and general headquarters for the recherche
business. It would be hard to find a bontonger aggregation than the one I
was just at, to use the words of a gentleman who was there, and who asked
me if I wrote “The Heathen Chinee.”
He was a very talented man, with a broad sweep of skull and a vague
yearning for something more tangible--to drink. He was in Washington, he
said, in the interests of Mingo county. I forgot to ask him where Mingo
county might be. He took a great interest in me, and talked with me long
after he really had anything to say. He was one of those fluent
conversationalists frequently met with in society. He used one of these
web-perfecting talkers--the kind that can be fed with raw Roman punch,
and that will turn out punctuated talk in links, like varnished sausages.
Being a poor talker myself, and rather more fluent as a listener, I did
not interrupt him.
He said that he was sorry to notice how young girls and their parents came
to Washington as they would to a matrimonial market.
I was sorry also to hear it. It pained me to know that young ladies should
allow themselves to be bamboozled into matrimony. Why was it, I asked,
that matrimony should ever single out the young and fair?
“Ah,” said he, “it is indeed rough!”
He then breathed a sigh that shook the foilage of the speckled geranium
near by, and killed an artificial caterpillar that hung on its branches.
“Matrimony is all right,” said he, “if properly brought about. It breaks
my heart, though, to notice how Washington is used as a matrimonial
market. It seems to me almost as if these here young ladies were brought
here like slaves and exposed for sale.” I had noticed that they were
somewhat exposed, but I did not know that they were for sale. I asked him
if the waists of party dresses had always been so sadly in the minority,
and he said they had.
I danced with a beautiful young lady whose trail had evidently caught in a
doorway. She hadn't noticed it till she had walked out partially through
her costume.
I do not think a lady ought to give too much thought to her apparel;
neither should she feel too much above her clothes. I say this in the
kindest spirit, because I believe that man should be a friend to woman. No
family circle is complete without a woman. She is like a glad landscape to
the weary eye. Individually and collectively, woman is a great adjunct of
civilization and progress. The electric light is a good thing, but how
pale and feeble it looks by the light of a good woman's eyes. The
telephone is a great invention. It is a good thing to talk at, and murmur
into and deposit profanity in; but to take up a conversation, and keep it
up, and follow a man out through the front door with it, the telephone has
still much to learn from woman.
It is said that our government officials are not sufficiently paid; and I
presume that is the case, so it became necessary to economize in every
way; but, why should wives concentrate all their economy on the waist of a
dress? When chest protectors are so cheap as they now are. I hate to see
people suffer, and there is more real suffering, more privation and more
destitution, pervading the Washington scapula and clavicle this winter
than I ever saw before.
But I do not hope to change this custom, though I spoke to several ladies
about it, and asked them to think it over. I do not think they will. It
seems almost wicked to cut off the best part of a dress and put it at the
other end of the skirt, to be trodden under feet of men, as I may say.
They smiled good humoredly at me as I tried to impress my views upon them,
but should I go there again next season and mingle in the mad whirl of
Washington, where these fair women are also mingling in said mad whirl, I
presume that I will find them clothed in the same gaslight waist, with
trimmings of real vertebrae down the back.
Still, what does a man know about the proper costume of a woman? He knows
nothing whatever. He is in many ways a little inconsistent. Why does a man
frown on a certain costume for his wife, and admire it on the first woman
he meets? Why does he fight shy of religion and Christianity and talk very
freely about the church, but get mad if his wife is an infidel?
Crops around Washington are looking well. Winter wheat, crocusses and
indefinite postponements were never in a more thrifty condition. Quite a
number of people are here who are waiting to be confirmed. Judging from
their habits, they are lingering around here in order to become confirmed
drunkards.
I leave here to-morrow with a large, wet towel in my plug hat. Perhaps I
should have said nothing on this dress reform question while my hat is
fitting me so immediately. It is seldom that I step aside from the beaten
path of rectitude, but last evening, on the way home, it seemed to me that
I didn't do much else but step aside. At these parties no charge is made
for punch. It is perfectly free. I asked a colored man who was standing
near the punch bowl, and who replenished it ever and anon, what the damage
was, and he drew himself up to his full height.
Possibly I did wrong, but I hate to be a burden on anyone. It seemed odd
to me to go to a first-class dance and find the supper and the band and
the rum all paid for. It must cost a good deal of money to run this
government.
My Experience as an Agriculturist.
During the past season I was considerably interested in agriculture. I met
with some success, but not enough to madden me with joy. It takes a good
deal of success to unscrew my reason and make it totter on its throne.
I've had trouble with my liver, and various other abnormal conditions of
the vital organs, but old reason sits there on his or her throne, as the
case may be, through it all.
Agriculture has a charm about it which I can not adequately describe.
Every product of the farm is furnished by nature with something that loves
it, so that it will never be neglected. The grain crop is loved by the
weevil, the Hessian fly, and the chinch bug; the watermelon, the squash
and the cucumber are loved by the squash bug; the potato is loved by the
potato bug; the sweet corn is loved by the ant, thou sluggard; the tomato
is loved by the cut-worm; the plum is loved by the curculio, and so forth,
and so forth, so that no plant that grows need be a wall-flower. [Early
blooming and extremely dwarf joke for the table. Plant as soon as there is
no danger of frosts, in drills four inches apart. When ripe, pull it, and
eat raw with vinegar. The red ants may be added to taste.]
Well, I began early to spade up my angle-worms and other pets, to see if
they had withstood the severe winter. I found they had. They were
unusually bright and cheerful. The potato bugs were a little sluggish at
first, but as the spring opened and the ground warmed up they pitched
right in, and did first-rate. Every one of my bugs in May looked
splendidly. I was most worried about my cut-worms. Away along in April I
had not seen a cutworm, and I began to fear they had suffered, and perhaps
perished, in the extreme cold of the previous winter.
One morning late in the month, however, I saw a cut-worm come out from
behind a cabbage stump and take off his ear muff. He was a little stiff in
the joints, but he had not lost hope. I saw at once now was the time to
assist him if I had a spark of humanity left. I searched every work I
could find on agriculture to find out what it was that farmers fed their
blamed cut-worms, but all scientists seemed to be silent. I read the
agricultural reports, the dictionary, and the encyclopedia, but they
didn't throw any light on the subject. I got wild. I feared that I had
brought but one cut-worm through the winter, and I was liable to lose him
unless I could find out what to feed him. I asked some of my neighbors,
but they spoke jeeringly and sarcastically. I know now how it was. All
their cut-worms had frozen down last winter, and they couldn't bear to see
me get ahead.
[Illustration: THEY SPOKE JEERINGLY.]
All at once, an idea struck me. I haven't recovered from the concussion
yet. It was this: the worm had wintered under a cabbage stalk; no doubt he
was fond of the beverage. I acted upon this thought and bought him two
dozen red cabbage plants, at fifty cents a dozen. I had hit it the first
pop. He was passionately fond of these plants, and would eat three in one
night. He also had several matinees and sauerkraut lawn festivals for his
friends, and in a week I bought three dozen more cabbage plants. By this
time I had collected a large group of common scrub cut-worms, early
Swedish cut-worms, dwarf Hubbard cut-worms, and short-horn cut-worms, all
doing well, but still, I thought, a little hide-bound and bilious. They
acted languid and listless. As my squash bugs, currant worms, potato bugs,
etc., were all doing well without care, I devoted myself almost
exclusively to my cut-worms. They were all strong and well, but they
seemed melancholy with nothing to eat, day after day, but cabbages.
I therefore bought five dozen tomato plants that were tender and large.
These I fed to the cut-worms at the rate of eight or ten in one night. In
a week the cut-worms had thrown off that air of _ennui_ and languor that I
had I formerly noticed, and were gay and light-hearted. I got them some
more tomato plants, and then some more cabbage for change. On the whole I
was as proud as any young farmer who has made a success of anything.
One morning I noticed that a cabbage plant was left standing unchanged.
The next day it was still there. I was thunderstruck. I dug into the
ground. My cut-worms were gone. I spaded up the whole patch, but there
wasn't one. Just as I had become attached to them, and they had learned to
look forward each day to my coming, when they would almost come up and eat
a tomato-plant out of my hand, some one had robbed me of them. I was
almost wild with despair and grief. Suddenly something tumbled over my
foot. It was mostly stomach, but it had feet on each corner. A neighbor
said it was a warty toad. He had eaten up my summer's work! He had
swallowed my cunning little cut-worms. I tell you, gentle reader, unless
some way is provided, whereby this warty toad scourge can be wiped out, I
for one shall relinquish the joys of agricultural pursuits. When a common
toad, with a sallow complexion and no intellect, can swallow up my
summer's work, it is time to pause.
A New Autograph Album.
This autograph business is getting to be a little bit tedious. It is all
one-sided. I want to get even some how, on some one. If I can't come back
at the autograph fiend himself, perhaps I might make some other fellow
creature unhappy. That would take my mind off the woes that are inflicted
by the man who is making a collection of the autographs of “prominent
men,” and who sends a printed circular formally demanding your autograph,
as the tax collector would demand your tax.
John Comstock, the President of the First National Bank, of Hudson, the
other day suggested an idea. I gave him an autograph copy of my last great
work, and he said: “Now, I'm a man of business. You gave me your
autograph, I give you mine in return. That's what we call business.” He
then signed a brand new $5 national bank note, the cashier did ditto, and
the two autographs were turned over to me.
Now, how would it do to make a collection of the signatures of the
presidents and cashiers of national banks of the United States in the
above manner? An album containing the autographs of these bank officials
would not only be a handsome heirloom to fork over to posterity, but it
would possess intrinsic value. In pursuance of this idea, I have been
considering the advisability of issuing the following letter:
To the Presidents and Cashiers of the National Banks of the United States.
Gentlemen--I am now engaged in making a collection of the autographs of
the presidents and cashiers of national banks throughout the Union, and to
make the collection uniform, I have decided to ask for autographs written
at the foot of the national currency bank note of the denomination of $5.
I am not sectarian in my religious views, and I only suggest this
denomination for the sake of uniformity throughout the album.
Card collections, cat albums and so forth, may please others, but I prefer
to make a collection that shall show future ages who it was that built up
our finances, and furnished the sinews of war. Some may look upon this
move as a mercenary one, but with me it is a passion. It is not simply a
freak, it is a desire of my heart.
In return I would be glad to give my own autograph, either by itself or
attached to some little gem of thought which might occur to my mind at the
time.
I have always taken a great interest in the currency of the country. So
far as possible I have made it a study. I have watched its growth, and
noted with some regret its natural reserve. I may say that, considering
meagre opportunities and isolated advantages afforded me, no one is more
familiar with the habits of our national currency than I am. Yet, at times
my laboratory has not been so abundantly supplied with specimens as I
could have wished. This has been my chief drawback.
I began a collection of railroad passes some time ago, intending to file
them away and pass the collection down through the dim vista of coming
years, but in a rash moment I took a trip of several thousand miles, and
those passes were taken up.
I desire, in conclusion, gentlemen, to call your attention to the fact
that I have always been your friend and champion. I have never robbed the
bank of a personal friend, and if I held your autographs I should deem you
my personal friends, and feel in honor bound to discourage any movement
looking toward an unjust appropriation of the funds of your bank. The
autographs of yourselves in my possession, and my own in your hands, would
be regarded as a tacit agreement on my part never to rob your bank. I
would even be willing to enter into a contract with you not to break into
your vaults, if you insist upon it. I would thus be compelled to confine
myself to the stage coaches and railroad trains in a great measure, but I
am getting now so I like to spend my evenings at home, anyhow, and if I do
well this year, I shall sell my burglars' tools and give myself up to the
authorities.
You will understand, gentlemen, the delicate nature of this request, I
trust, and not misconstrue my motives. My intentions are perfectly
honorable, and my idea in doing this is, I may say, to supply a long felt
want.
Hoping that what I have said will meet with your approval and hearty
cooperation, and that our very friendly business relations, as they have
existed in the past, may continue through the years to come, and that your
bank may wallow in success till the cows come home, or words to that
effect, I beg leave to subscribe myself, yours in favor of one country,
one flag and one bank account.
A Resign.
Postoffice Divan, Laramie City, W.T., Oct. 1, 1883.
To the President of the United States:
Sir.--I beg leave at this time to officially tender my resignation as
postmaster at this place, and in due form to deliver the great seal and
the key to the front door of the office. The safe combination is set on
the numbers 33, 66 and 99, though I do not remember at this moment which
comes first, or how many times you revolve the knob, or which direction
you should turn it at first in order to make it operate.
There is some mining stock in my private drawer in the safe, which I have
not yet removed. This stock you may have, if you desire it. It is a
luxury, but you may have it. I have decided to keep a horse instead of
this mining stock. The horse may not be so pretty, but it will cost less
to keep him.
You will find the postal cards that have not been used under the
distributing table, and the coal down in the cellar. If the stove draws
too hard, close the damper in the pipe and shut the general delivery
window.
Looking over my stormy and eventful administration as postmaster here, I
find abundant cause for thanksgiving. At the time I entered upon the
duties of my office the department was not yet on a paying basis. It was
not even self-sustaining. Since that time, with the active co-operation of
the chief executive and the heads of the department, I have been able to
make our postal system a paying one, and on top of that I am now able to
reduce the tariff on average-sized letters from three cents to two. I
might add that this is rather too too, but I will not say anything that
might seem undignified in an official resignation which is to become a
matter of history.
Through all the vicissitudes of a tempestuous term of office I have safely
passed. I am able to turn over the office to-day in a highly improved
condition, and to present a purified and renovated institution to my
successor.
Acting under the advice of Gen. Hatton, a year ago, I removed the feather
bed with which my predecessor, Deacon Hayford, had bolstered up his
administration by stuffing the window, and substituted glass. Finding
nothing in the book of instructions to postmasters which made the feather
bed a part of my official duties, I filed it away in an obscure place and
burned it in effigy, also in the gloaming. This act maddened my
predecessor to such a degree, that he then and there became a candidate
for justice of the peace on the Democratic ticket. The Democratic party
was able, however, with what aid it secured from the Republicans, to plow
the old man under to a great degree.
[Illustration: STRICT ATTENTION TO BUSINESS.]
It was not long after I had taken my official oath before an era of
unexampled prosperity opened for the American people. The price of beef
rose to a remarkable altitude, and other vegetables commanded a good
figure and a ready market. We then began to make active preparations for
the introduction of the strawberry-roan two-cent stamps and the
black-and-tan postal note. One reform has crowded upon the heels of
another, until the country is to-day upon the foam-crested wave of
permanent prosperity.
Mr. President, I cannot close this letter without thanking yourself and
the heads of departments at Washington for your active, cheery and prompt
cooperation in these matters. You can do as you see fit, of course, about
incorporating this idea into your Thanksgiving proclamation, but rest
assured it would not be ill-timed or inopportune. It is not alone a credit
to myself, It reflects credit upon the administration also.
I need not say that I herewith transmit my resignation with great sorrow
and genuine regret. We have toiled on together month after month, asking
for no reward except the innate consciousness of rectitude and the salary
as fixed by law. Now we are to separate. Here the roads seem to fork, as
it were, and you and I, and the cabinet, must leave each other at this
point.
You will find the key under the door-mat, and you had better turn the cat
out at night when you close the office. If she does not go readily, you
can make it clearer to her mind by throwing the cancelling stamp at her.
If Deacon Hayford does not pay up his box-rent, you might as well put his
mail in the general delivery, and when Bob Head gets drunk and insists on
a letter from one of his wives every day in the week, you can salute him
through the box delivery with an old Queen Anne tomahawk, which you will
find near the Etruscan water-pail. This will not in any manner surprise
either of these parties.
Tears are unavailing. I once more become a private citizen, clothed only
with the right to read such postal cards as may be addressed to me
personally, and to curse the inefficiency of the postoffice department. I
believe the voting class to be divided into two parties, viz: Those who
are in the postal service, and those who are mad because they cannot
receive a registered letter every fifteen minutes of each day, including
Sunday.
Mr. President, as an official of this Government I now retire. My term of
office would not expire until 1886. I must, therefore, beg pardon for my
eccentricity in resigning. It will be best, perhaps, to keep the
heart-breaking news from the ears of European powers until the dangers of
a financial panic are fully past. Then hurl it broadcast with a sickening
thud.
My Mine.
I have decided to sacrifice another valuable piece of mining property this
spring. It would not be sold if I had the necessary capital to develop it.
It is a good mine, for I located it myself. I remember well the day I
climbed up on the ridge-pole of the universe and nailed my location notice
to the eaves of the sky.
It was in August that I discovered the Vanderbilt claim in a snow-storm.
It cropped out apparently a little southeast of a point where the arc of
the orbit of Venus bisects the milky way, and ran due east eighty chains,
three links and a swivel, thence south fifteen paces and a half to a blue
spot in the sky, thence proceeding west eighty chains, three links of
sausage and a half to a fixed star, thence north across the lead to place
of beginning.
The Vanderbilt set out to be a carbonate deposit, but changed its mind. I
sent a piece of the cropping to a man over in Salt Lake, who is a good
assayer and quite a scientist, if he would brace up and avoid humor. His
assay read as follows to-wit:
Salt Lake City, U.T., August 25, 1877.
Mr. Bill Nye:--Your specimen of ore No. 35832, current series, has been
submitted to assay and shows the following result:
Metal. Ounces. Value per ton.
Gold -- --
Silver -- --
Railroad iron 1 --
Pyrites of poverty 9 --
Parasites of disappointment 90 --
McVicker, Assayer.
Note.--I also find that the formation is igneous, prehistoric and
erroneous. If I were you I would sink a prospect shaft below the vertical
slide where the old red brimstone and preadamite slag cross-cut the
malachite and intersect the schist. I think that would be schist about as
good as anything you could do. Then send me specimens with $2 for assay
and we shall see what we shall see.
Well, I didn't know he was “an humorist,” you see, so I went to work on
the Vanderbilt to try and do what Mac. said. I sank a shaft and everything
else I could get hold of on that claim. It was so high that we had to
carry water up there to drink when we began and before fall we had struck
a vein of the richest water you ever saw. We had more water in that mine
than the regular army could use.
When we got down sixty feet I sent some pieces of the pay streak to the
assayer again. This time he wrote me quite a letter, and at the same time
inclosed the certificate of assay.
Salt Lake City, U.T., October 3, 1877.
Mr. Bill Nye:--Your specimen of ore No. 36132, current series, has been
submitted to assay and shows the following result:
Metal. Ounces. Value per ton.
Gold -- --
Silver -- --
Railroad iron 1 --
Pyrites of poverty 9 --
Parasites of disappointment 90 --
McVicker, Assayer.
In the letter he said there was, no doubt, something in the claim if I
could get the true contact with calcimine walls denoting a true fissure.
He thought I ought to run a drift. I told him I had already run adrift.
Then he said to stope out my stove polish ore and sell it for enough to go
on with the development. I tried that, but capital seemed coy. Others had
been there before me and capital bade me soak my head and said other
things which grated harshly on my sensitive nature.
The Vanderbilt mine, with all its dips, spurs, angles, variations, veins,
sinuosities, rights, titles, franchises, prerogatives and assessments is
now for sale. I sell it in order to raise the necessary funds for the
development of the Governor of North Carolina. I had so much trouble with
water in the Vanderbilt, that I named the new claim the Governor of North
Carolina, because he was always dry.
Mush and Melody.
Lately I have been giving a good deal of attention to hygiene--in other
people. The gentle reader will notice that, as a rule, the man who gives
the most time and thought to this subject is an invalid himself; just as
the young theological student devotes his first sermon to the care of
children, and the ward politician talks the smoothest on the subject of
how and when to plant ruta-bagas or wean a calf from the parent stem.
Having been thrown into the society of physicians a great deal the past
two years, mostly in the role of patient, I have given some study to the
human form; its structure and idiosyncracies, as it were. Perhaps few men
in the same length of time have successfully acquired a larger or more
select repertoire of choice diseases than I have. I do not say this
boastfully. I simply desire to call the attention of our growing youth to
the glorious possibilities that await the ambitious and enterprising in
this line.
Starting out as a poor boy, with few advantages in the way of disease, I
have resolutely carved my way up to the dizzy heights of fame as a chronic
invalid and drug-soaked relic of other days. I inherited no disease
whatever. My ancestors were poor and healthy. They bequeathed me no snug
little nucleus of fashionable malaria such as other boys had. I was
obliged to acquire it myself. Yet I was not discouraged. The results have
shown that disease is not alone the heritage of the wealthy and the great.
The poorest of us may become eminent invalids if we will only go at it in
the right way. But I started out to say something on the subject of
health, for there are still many common people who would rather be healthy
and unknown than obtain distinction with some dazzling new disease.
Noticing many years ago that imperfect mastication and dyspepsia walked
hand in hand, so to speak, Mr. Gladstone adopted in his family a regular
mastication scale; for instance, thirty-two bites for steak, twenty-two
for fish, and so forth. Now I take this idea and improve upon it. Two
statesmen can always act better in concert if they will do so.
With Mr. Gladstone's knowledge of the laws of health and my own musical
genius, I have hit on a way to make eating not only a duty, but a
pleasure. Eating is too frequently irksome. There is nothing about it to
make it attractive.
What we need is a union of mush and melody, if I may be allowed that
expression. Mr. Gladstone has given us the graduated scale, so that we
know just what metre a bill of fare goes in as quick as we look at it. In
this way the day is not far distant when music and mastication will march
down through the dim vista of years together.
The Baked Bean Chant, the Vermicelli Waltz, the Mush and Milk March, the
sad and touchful Pumpkin Pie Refrain, the gay and rollicking Oxtail Soup
Gallop, and the melting Ice Cream Serenade will yet be common musical
names.
Taking different classes of food, I have set them to music in such a way
that the meal, for instance, may open with a Soup Overture, to be followed
by a Roast Beef March in C, and so on, closing with a kind of Mince Pie La
Somnambula pianissimo in G. Space, of course, forbids an extended
description of this idea as I propose to carry it out, but the conception
is certainly grand. Let us picture the jaws of a whole family moving in
exact time to a Strauss waltz on the silent remains of the late lamented
hen, and we see at once how much real pleasure may be added to the process
of mastication.
[Illustration]
The Blase Young Man.
I have just formed the acquaintance of a _blase_ young man. I have been on
an extended trip with him. He is about twenty-two years old, but he is
already weary of life. He was very careful all the time never to be
exuberant. No matter how beautiful the landscape, he never allowed himself
to exube.
Several times I succeeded in startling him enough to say “Ah!” but that
was all. He had the air all the time of a man who had been reared in
luxury and fondled so much in the lap of wealth that he was weary of life,
and yearned for a bright immortality. I have often wished that the
pruning-hook of time would use a little more discretion. The _blase_ young
man seemed to be tired all the time. He was weary of life because life was
hollow.
He seemed to hanker for the cool and quiet grave. I wished at times that
the hankering might have been more mutual. But what does a cool, quiet
grave want of a young man who never did anything but breathe the nice pure
air into his froggy lungs and spoil it for everybody else?
This young man had a large grip-sack with him which he frequently
consulted. I glanced into it once while he left it open. It was not right,
but I did it. I saw the following articles in it:
31 Assorted Neckties.
1 pair Socks (whole).
1 pair do. (not so whole).
17 Collars.
1 Shirt
1 quart Cuff-Buttons.
1 suit discouraged Gauze Underwear.
1 box Speckled Handkerchiefs.
1 box Condition Powders.
1 Toothbrush (prematurely bald).
1 copy Martin F. Tupper's Works.
1 box Prepared Chalk.
1 Pair Tweezers for encouraging Moustache to come out to breakfast.
1 Powder Rag.
1 Gob ecru-colored Taffy.
1 Hair-brush, with Ginger Hair in it.
1 Pencil to pencil Moustache at night.
1 Bread and Milk Poultice to put on Moustache on retiring, so that it will
not forget to come out again the next day.
1 Box Trix for the breath.
1 Box Chloride of Lime to use in case breath becomes unmanageable.
1 Ear-spoon (large size).
1 Plain Mourning Head for Cane.
1 Vulcanized Rubber Head for Cane (to bite on).
1 Shoe-horn to use in working Ears into Ear-Muffs.
1 Pair Corsets.
1 Dark-brown Wash for Mouth, to be used in the morning.
1 Large Box _Ennui_, to be used in Society.
1 Box Spruce Gum, made in Chicago and warranted pure.
1 Gallon Assorted Shirt Studs.
1 Polka-dot Handkerchief to pin in side pocket, but not for nose.
1 Plain Handkerchief for nose.
1 Fancy Head for Cane (morning).
1 Fancy Head for Cane (evening).
1 Picnic Head for Cane.
1 Bottle Peppermint.
1 do. Catnip.
1 Waterbury Watch.
7 Chains for same.
1 Box Letter Paper.
1 Stick Sealing Wax (baby blue).
1 do “ (Bismarck brindle).
1 do “ (mashed gooseberry).
1 Seal for same.
1 Family Crest (wash-tub rampant on a field calico).
[Illustration: HE IS NIX BONUM.]
There were other little articles of virtu and bric-a-brac till you
couldn't rest, but these were all that I could see thoroughly before he
returned from the wash-room.
I do not like the _blase_ young man as a traveling companion. He is _nix
bonum_. He is too _E pluribus_ for me. He is not _de trop_ or _sciatica_
enough to suit my style.
If he belonged to me I would picket him out somewhere in a hostile Indian
country, and then try to nerve myself up for the result.
It is better to go through life reading the signs on the ten-story
buildings and acquiring knowledge, than to dawdle and “Ah!” adown our
pathway to the tomb and leave no record for posterity except that we had a
good neck to pin a necktie upon. It is not pleasant to be called green,
but I would rather be green and aspiring than _blase_ and hide-bound at
nineteen.
Let us so live that when at last we pass away our friends will not be
immediately and uproariously reconciled to our death.
History of Babylon.
The history of Babylon is fraught with sadness. It illustrates, only too
painfully, that the people of a town make or mar its success rather than
the natural resources and advantages it may possess on the start.
Thus Babylon, with 3,000 years the start of Minneapolis, is to-day a hole
in the ground, while Minneapolis socks her XXXX flour into every corner of
the globe, and the price of real estate would make a common dynasty totter
on its throne.
Babylon is a good illustration of the decay of a town that does not keep
up with the procession. Compare her to-day with Kansas City. While Babylon
was the capital of Chaldea, 1,270 years before the birth of Christ, and
Kansas City was organized so many years after that event that many of the
people there have forgotten all about it, Kansas City has doubled her
population in ten years, while Babylon is simply a gothic hole in the
ground.
Why did trade and emigration turn their backs upon Babylon and seek out
Minneapolis, St. Paul, Kansas City and Omaha? Was it because they were
blest with a bluer sky or a more genial sun? Not by any means. While
Babylon lived upon what she had been and neglected to advertise, other
towns with no history extending back into the mouldy past, whooped with an
exceeding great whoop and tore up the ground and shed printers' ink and
showed marked signs of vitality. That is the reason that Babylon is no
more.
This life of ours is one of intense activity. We cannot rest long in
idleness without inviting forgetfulness, death and oblivion. “Babylon was
probably the largest and most magnificent city of the ancient world.”
Isaiah, who lived about 300 years before Herodotus, and whose remarks are
unusually free from local or political prejudice, refers to Babylon as
“the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldic's excellency,” and, yet,
while Cheyenne has the electric light and two daily papers, Babylon hasn't
got so much as a skating rink.
A city fourteen miles square with a brick wall around it 355 feet high,
she has quietly forgotten to advertise, and in turn she, also, is
forgotten.
Babylon was remarkable for the two beautiful palaces, one on each side of
the river, and the great temple of Belus. Connected with one of these
palaces was the hanging garden, regarded by the Greeks as one of the seven
wonders of the world, but that was prior to the erection of the Washington
monument and civil service reform.
This was a square of 400 Greek feet on each side. The Greek foot was not
so long as the modern foot introduced by Miss Mills, of Ohio. This garden
was supported on several tiers of open arches, built one over the other,
like the walls of a classic theatre, and sustaining at each stage, or
story, a solid platform from which the arches of the next story sprung.
This structure was also supported by the common council of Babylon, who
came forward with the city funds, and helped to sustain the immense
weight.
It is presumed that Nebuchadnezzar erected this garden before his mind
became affected. The tower of Belus, supposed by historians with a good
memory to have been 600 feet high, as there is still a red chalk mark in
the sky where the top came, was a great thing in its way. I am glad I was
not contiguous to it when it fell, and also that I had omitted being born
prior to that time.
“When we turn from this picture of the past,” says the historian,
Rawlinson, referring to the beauties of Babylon, “to contemplate the
present condition of these localities, we are at first struck with
astonishment at the small traces which remain of so vast and wonderful a
metropolis. The broad walls of Babylon are utterly broken down. God has
swept it with the besom of destruction.”
One cannot help wondering why the use of the besom should have been
abandoned. As we gaze upon the former site of Babylon we are forced to
admit that the new besom sweeps clean. On its old site no crumbling arches
or broken columns are found to indicate her former beauty. Here and there
huge heaps of debris alone indicate that here Godless wealth and wicked,
selfish, indolent, enervating, ephemeral pomp, rose and defied the supreme
laws to which the bloated, selfish millionaire and the hard-handed, hungry
laborer alike must bow, and they are dust to-day.
Babylon has fallen. I do not say this in a sensational way or to
depreciate the value of real estate there, but from actual observation,
and after a full investigation, I assent without fear of successful
contradiction, that Babylon has seen her best days. Her boomlet is busted,
and, to use a political phrase, her oriental hide is on the Chaldean
fence.
Such is life. We enter upon it reluctantly; we wade through it doubtfully,
and die at last timidly. How we Americans do blow about what we can do
before breakfast, and, yet, even in our own brief history, how we have
demonstrated what a little thing the common two-legged man is. He rises up
rapidly to acquire much wealth, and if he delays about going to Canada he
goes to Sing Sing, and we forget about him. There are lots of modern
Babylonians in New York City to-day, and if it were my business I would
call their attention to it. The assertion that gold will procure all
things has been so common and so popular that too many consider first the
bank account, and after that honor, home, religion, humanity and common
decency. Even some of the churches have fallen into the notion that first
comes the tall church, then the debt and mortgage, the ice cream sociable
and the kingdom of Heaven. Cash and Christianity go hand in hand
sometimes, but Christianity ought not to confer respectability on anybody
who comes into the church to purchase it.
I often think of the closing appeal of the old preacher, who was more
earnest than refined, perhaps, and in winding up his brief sermon on the
Christian life, said: “A man may lose all his wealth and get poor and
hungry and still recover, he may lose his health and come down close to
the dark stream and still git well again, but, when he loses his immortal
soul it is good-bye John.”
Lovely Horrors.
I dropped in the other day to see New York's great congress of wax figures
and soft statuary carnival. It is quite a success. The first thing you do
on entering is to contribute to the pedestal fund. New York this spring is
mostly a large rectangular box with a hole in the top, through which the
genial public is cordially requested to slide a dollar to give the goddess
of liberty a boom.
I was astonished and appalled at the wealth of apertures in Gotham through
which I was expected to slide a dime to assist some deserving object.
Every little while you run into a free-lunch room where there is a model
ship that will start up and operate if you feed it with a nickle. I never
visited a town that offered so many inducements for early and judicious
investments as New York.
But we were speaking of the wax works. I did not tarry long to notice the
presidents of the United States embalmed in wax, or to listen to the band
of lutists who furnished music in the winter garden. I ascertained where
the chamber of horrors was located, and went there at once. It is lovely.
I have never seen a more successful aggregation of horrors under one roof
and at one price of admission.
If you want to be shocked at cost, or have your pores opened for a merely
nominal price, and see a show that you will never forget as long as you
live, that is the place to find it. I never invested my money so as to get
so large a return for it, because I frequently see the whole show yet in
the middle of the night, and the cold perspiration ripples down my spinal
column just as it did the first time I saw it.
The chamber of horrors certainly furnishes a very durable show. I don't
think I was ever more successfully or economically horrified.
I got quite nervous after a while, standing in the dim religious light
watching the lovely horrors. But it is the saving of money that I look at
most. I have known men to pay out thousands of dollars for a collection of
delirium tremens and new-laid horrors no better than these that you get on
week days for fifty cents and on Sundays for two bits. Certainly New York
is the place where you get your money's worth.
There are horrors there in that crypt that are well worth double the price
of admission. One peculiarity of the chamber of horrors is that you
finally get nervous when anyone touches you, and you immediately suspect
that he is a horror who has come out of his crypt to get a breath of fresh
air and stretch his legs.
[Illustration: HE WAS GREATLY ANNOYED.]
That is the reason I shuddered a little when I felt a man's hand in my
pocket. It was so unexpected, and the surroundings were such that I must
have appeared startled. The man was a stranger to me, though I could see
that he was a perfect gentleman. His clothes were superior to mine in
every way, and he had a certain refinement of manners which betrayed his
ill-concealed Knickerbocker lineage high.
I said, “Sir, you will find my fine cut tobacco in the other pocket.” This
startled him so that he wheeled about and wildly dashed into the arms of a
wax policeman near the door. When he discovered that he was in the
clutches of a suit of second-hand clothes filled with wax, he seemed to be
greatly annoyed and strode rapidly away.
I returned to view a chaste and truthful scene where one man had
successfully killed another with a club. I leaned pensively against a
column with my own spinal column, wrapped in thought.
Pretty soon a young gentleman from New Jersey with an Adam's apple on him
like a full-grown yam, and accompanied by a young lady also from the
mosquito jungles of Jersey, touched me on the bosom with his umbrella and
began to explain me to his companion.
[Illustration: THIS IS JESSE JAMES.]
“This,” said the Adam's apple with the young man attached to it, “is Jesse
James, the great outlaw chief from Missouri. How life-like he is. Little
would you think, Emeline, that he would as soon disembowel a bank, kill the
entire board of directors of a railroad company and ride off the rolling
stock, as you would wrap yourself around a doughnut. How tender and kind
he looks. He not only looks gentle and peaceful, but he looks to me as if
he wasn't real bright.”
I then uttered a piercing shriek and the young man from New Jersey went
away. Nothing is so embarrassing to an eminent man as to stand quietly
near and hear people discuss him.
But it is remarkable to see people get fooled at a wax show. Every day a
wax figure is taken for a live man, and live people are mistaken for wax.
I took hold of a waxen hand in one corner of the winter garden to see if
the ring was a real diamond, and it flew up and took me across the ear in
such a life-like manner that my ear is still hot and there is a roaring in
my head that sounds very disagreeable, indeed.
The Bite of a Mad Dog.
A “Family Physician,” published in 1883, says, for the bite of a mad dog:
“Take ash-colored ground liverwort, cleaned, dried, and powdered, half an
ounce; of black pepper, powdered, a quarter of an ounce. Mix these well
together, and divide the powder into four doses, one of which must be
taken every morning, fasting, for four mornings successively in half an
English pint of cow's milk, warm. After these four doses are taken, the
patient must go into the cold bath, or a cold spring or river, every
morning, fasting, for a month. He must be dipped all over, but not stay in
(with his head above water) longer than half a minute if the water is very
cold. After this he must go in three times a week for a fortnight longer.
He must be bled before he begins to take the medicine.”
It is very difficult to know just what is best to do when a person is
bitten by a mad dog, but my own advice would be to kill the dog. After
that feel of the leg where bitten, and ascertain how serious the injury
has been. Then go home and put on another pair of pantaloons, throwing
away those that have been lacerated. Parties having but one pair of
pantaloons will have to sequester themselves or excite remarks. Then take
a cold bath, as suggested above, but do not remain in the bath (with the
head above water) more than half an hour. If the head is under water, you
may remain in the bath until the funeral, if you think best.
When going into the bath it would be well to take something in your pocket
to bite, in case the desire to bite something should overcome you. Some
use a common shingle-nail for this purpose, while others prefer a personal
friend. In any event, do not bite a total stranger on an empty stomach. It
might make you ill.
Never catch a dog by the tail if he has hydrophobia. Although that end of
the dog is considered the most safe, you never know when a mad dog may
reverse himself.
If you meet a mad dog on the street, do not stop and try to quell him with
a glance of the eye. Many have tried to do that, and it took several days
to separate the two and tell which was mad dog and which was queller.
The real hydrophobia dog generally ignores kindness, and devotes himself
mostly to the introduction of his justly celebrated virus. A good thing to
do on observing the approach of a mad dog is to flee, and remain fled
until he has disappeared.
Hunting mad dogs in a crowded street is great sport. A young man with a
new revolver shooting at a mad dog is a fine sight. He may not kill the
dog, but he might shoot into a covey of little children and possibly get
one.
It would be a good plan to have a balloon inflated and tied in the back
yard during the season in which mad dogs mature, and get into it on the
approach of the infuriated animal (get into the balloon, I mean, not the
dog).
This plan would not work well, however, in case a cyclone should come at
the same time. When we consider all the uncertainties of life, and the
danger from hydrophobia, cyclones and breach of promise, it seems
sometimes as though the penitentiary was the only place where a man could
be absolutely free from anxiety.
If you discover that your dog has hydrophobia, it is absolutely foolish to
try to cure him of the disease. The best plan is to trade him off at once
for anything you can get. Do not stop to haggle over the price, but close
him right out below cost.
Do not tie a tin can to the tail of a mad dog. It only irritates him, and
he might resent it before you get the can tied on. A friend of mine, who
was a practical joker, once sought to tie a tin can to the tail of a mad
dog on an empty stomach. His widow still points with pride to the marks of
his teeth on the piano. If mad dogs would confine themselves exclusively
to practical jokers, I would be glad to endow a home for indigent mad dogs
out of my own private funds.
Arnold Winkelreid.
This great man lived in the old romantic days when it was a common thing
for a patriot to lay down his life that his country might live. He knew
not fear, and in his noble heart his country was always on top. Not alone
at election did Arnold sacrifice himself, but on the tented field, where
the buffalo grass was soaked in gore, did he win for himself a deathless
name. He was as gritty as a piece of liver rolled in the sand. Where glory
waited, there you would always find Arnold Winkelreid at the bat, with
William Tell on deck.
[Illustration: CLEAR THE TRACK.]
One day the army of the tyrant got a scoop on the rebel mountaineers and
it looked bad for the struggling band of chamois shooters. While Arnold's
detachment didn't seem to amount to a hill of beans, the hosts of the
tyrannical Austrian loomed up like six bits and things looked forbidding.
It occurred to Colonel Winkelreid that the correct thing would be to break
through the war front of the enemy, and then, while in his rear, crash in
his cranium with a cross gun while he was looking the other way. Acting on
this thought, he asked several of his most trusted men to break through
the Austrian line, so that the balance of the command could pass through
and slaughter enough of the enemy for a mess, but these men seemed a
little reticent about doing so, owing to the inclemency of the weather and
the threatening aspect of the enemy. The armed foe swarmed on every
hillside and their burnished spears glittered below in the canon. You
couldn't throw a stone in any direction without hitting a phalanx. It was
a good year for the phalanx business.
Then Arnold took off his suspenders, and, putting a fresh chew of tobacco
in among his back teeth, he told his men to follow him and he would show
them his little racket. Marching up to the solid line of lances, he
gathered an armful and put them in the pit of his stomach, and, as he sank
to the earth, he spoke in a shrill tone of voice to posterity, saying,
“Clear the track for Liberty.” He then died.
His remains looked like a toothpick holder.
But he made way for Liberty, and his troops were victorious.
At the inquest it was shown that he might have recovered, had not the
spears sat so hard on his stomach.
Probably A. Winkelreid will be remembered with gratitude long after the
name of the Sweet Singer of Michigan shall have rotted in oblivion. He
recognized and stuck to his proper spear. (This is a little mirthful
deviation of my own.)
I can think of some men now, even in this $ age of the world, who could
win glory by doing as A.W. did. They could offer themselves up. They
could suffer for the right and have their names passed down to posterity,
and it would be perfectly splendid.
But the heroes of to-day are different. They are just as courageous, but
they take a wheelbarrow and push it from New York to San Francisco, or
they starve forty days and forty nights and then eat watermelon and
lecture, or they eat 800 snipe in 800 years, or get an inspiration and
kill somebody with it.
The heroes of our day do not wear peaked hats and shoot chamois, and sass
tyrants and knock the worm out of an apple at fifty-nine yards rise with a
cross gun, as Tell did, but they know how to be loved by the people and
get half of the gate money. They are brave, but not mortally. The heroes
of our day all die of old age or political malaria.
Murray and the Mormons.
Gov. Murray, the gritty Gentile governor of Utah, would be noticed in a
crowd. He is very tall, yet well proportioned, square-built and handsome.
He was called fine looking in Kentucky, but the narrow-chested apostle of
the abnormally connubial creed does not see anything pretty about him.
Murray moves about through Salt Lake City in a cool, self-possessed kind
of way that is very annoying to the church. Full-bearded, with brown
moustache and dark hair parted a little to leeward of center; clothed in a
diagonal Prince Albert coat, a silk hat and other clothes, he strolls
through Zion like a man who hasn't got a yelping majority of ignorant
lepers, led by a remorseless gang of nickel-plated apostles, thirsting for
his young blood. I really believe he don't care a continental. The days of
the avenging angel and the meek-eyed Danite, carrying a large sock loaded
with buckshot, are over, perhaps; but only those who try to be Gentiles in
a land of polygamous wives and anonymous white-eyed children, know how
very unpopular it is. Judge Goodwin, of the Tribune, feels lonesome if he
gets through the day without a poorly spelled, spattered, daubed and
profane valentine threatening his life. The last time I saw him he showed
me a few of them. They generally referred to him as a blankety blank
“skunk,” and a “hound of hell.” He said he hoped I wound pardon him for
the apparent egotism, but he felt as though the Tribune was attracting
attention almost everyday. Some of these little billet-doux invited him to
call at a trysting place on Tribune avenue and get his alleged brains
scattered over a vacant lot. Most all of them threatened him with a
rectangular head, a tin ear, or a watch pocket under the eye He didn't
seem to care much. He felt pleased and proud. Goodwin was always pleased
with things that other men didn't like much. In the old days, when he and
Mark Twain and Dan DeQuille were together, this was noticed in him. Gov.
Murray is the same way. He feels the public pulse, and says to himself:
“Sometime there's going to be music here by the entire band, and I desire
to be where I shan't miss a note.”
There are people who think the Mormons will not fight. Perhaps not. They
won't if they are let alone, and allowed to fill the sage brush and line
the banks of the Jordan with juvenile _nom de plumes_. They are peaceful
while they may populate Utah and invade adjoining territories with their
herds of ostensible wives and prattling progeny; while they can bring in
every year via Castle Garden and the stock yards palace emigrant car,
thousands of proselyted paupers from every pest house of Europe, and the
free-love idiots of America. But when Murray gets an act of congress at
his back and a squad of nervy, gamy, law-abiding monogamous assistants
appointed by the president under that act of congress to knock crosswise
and crooked the Jim Crow revelations of Utah and Mormondom, you will see
the fur fly, and the fragrant follower of a false prophet will rise up
William Riley and the regular army will feel lonesome. I asked a staff
officer in one of the territories last summer what would be the result if
the Mormons, with their home drill and their arms and their devotion to
home and their fraudulent religion, should awake Nicodemas and begin to
massacre the Gentiles, and the regular army should be sent over the
Wasatch range to quell the trouble.
“Why,” said he, “the white-eyed followers of Mormonism would kill the
regular army with clubs. You can wear out a tribe of hostile Indians when
the grass gives out and the antelope hunts the foothills, but the Mormons
make everything they eat, drink and wear. They don't care whether there's
tariff or free trade. They can make everything from gunpowder to a knit
undershirt, from a $250 revelation to a hand-made cocktail. When a church
gets where it can make such cooking whisky as the Mormons do, it is time
to call for volunteers and put down the hydra-headed monster.”
If congress don't step on a technicality and fall down, it looks like
amusement ahead, and if a District of Columbia rule, or martial law, or
tocsin of war is the result, Gov. Murray is a good style of war governor.
He isn't the kind of a man to put on his wife's gossamer cloak and meander
over into Montana. He would give the matter his attention, and you would
find him in the neighborhood when the national government decided to sit
down on disorderly conduct in Utah. The first lever to be used will be the
great wealth of which the Mormon church and its members privately are
possessed. Then the oleaginous prophet will get a revelation to gird up
his loins and to load the double-barrel shotgun, and fire the culverin,
and to knock monogamy into a cocked hat. Money first and massacre second.
They can draw on their revelation supply house at three days, any time,
for authority to fill the irrigation ditches of Zion with the blood of the
Gentile and feed his vital organs to the coyote.
About Geology.
Geology is that branch of natural science which treats of the structure of
the earth's crust and the mode of formation of its rocks. It is a pleasant
and profitable study, and to the man who has married rich and does not
need to work, the amusement of busting geology with the Bible, or busting
the Bible with geology is indeed a great boon.
Geology goes hand in hand with zoology, botany, physical geography and
other kindred sciences. Taxidermy, chiropody and theology are not kindred
sciences.
Geologists ascertain the age of the earth by looking at its teeth and
counting the wrinkles on its horns. They have learned that the earth is
not only of great age, but that it is still adding to its age from year to
year.
It is hard to say very much of a great science in so short an article, and
that is one great obstacle which I am constantly running against as a
scientist.
I once prepared a paper in astronomy entitled “The Chronological History
and Habits of the Spheres.” It was very exhaustive and weighed four
pounds. I sent it to a scientific publication that was supposed to be
working for the advancement of our race. The editor did not print it, but
he wrote me a crisp and saucy postal card, requesting me to call with a
dray and remove my stuff before the board of health got after it. In five
short years from that time he was a corpse. As I write these lines, I
learn with ill-concealed pleasure that he is still a corpse. An awful
dispensation of Providence, in the shape of a large, wilted cucumber, laid
hold upon his vitals and cursed him with an inward pain. He has since had
the opportunity, by actual personal observation, to see whether the
statements by me relating to astronomy were true. His last words were:
“Friends, Romans and countrymen, beware of the q-cumber. It will w up.” It
was not original, but it was good.
The four great primary periods of the earth's history are as follows, viz,
to-wit: