This gave his hair a rich mahogany shade, and his hat smelled and looked

like an oil refinery.

That is the reason Nemesis spared the hat, and ate a couple of

porousplasters that his master was going to use on a case of croup.

At that time the doctor came in, and the dog ran to him with a glad cry of

pleasure, rubbing his cold nose against his master's hand. The able

veterinarian spoke roughly to Nemesis, and throwing a cigar-stub at him,

broke two of the animal's delicate legs.

[Illustration: BUSTLE AND CONFUSION.]

After that there was a low discordant murmur and the angry hum of medical

works, lung-testers, glass jars containing tumors and other bric-a-brac,

paper-weights and Italian grayhound bisecting the orbit of a redheaded

horse-physician with dude shoes.

When the police came in, it was found that Nemesis had jumped through a

glass door and escaped on two legs and his ear.

Out through the autumnal haze, across the intervening plateau, over the

low foot-hills, and up the Medicine Bow Range, on and ever onward sped the

timid, grieved and broken-hearted pup, accumulating with wonderful

eagerness the intervening distance between himself and the cruel promoter

of the fly-blister and lingering death.

How often do we thoughtlessly grieve the hearts of those who love us, and

drive forth into the pitiless world those who would gladly lick our hands

with their warm loving tongues, or warm their cold noses in the meshes of

our necks.

How prone we are to forget the devotion of a dumb brute that thoughtlessly

eats our lace lambrequins, and ere we have stopped to consider our mad

course, we have driven the loving heart and the warm wet tongue and the

cold little black nose out of our home-life, perhaps into the cold, cold

grave or the bleak and relentless pound.

Chinese Justice.

They do things differently in China. Here in America, when a man burgles

your residence, you go and confide in a detective, who keeps your secret

and gets another detective to help him. Generally that is the last of it.

In China, not long ago, the house of a missionary was entered and

valuables taken by the thieves. The missionary went to the authorities

with his tale and told them whom he suspected. That's the last he heard of

that for three weeks. Then he received a covered champagne basket from the

Department of Justice. On opening it he found the heads of the suspected

burglars packed in tinfoil and in a good state of preservation. These

heads were not sent necessarily for publication, but as an evidence of

good faith on the part of the Department of Unimpeded Justice. Mind you,

there was no postponement of the preliminary examination, no dilatory

motions and changes of venue, no pleas to the jurisdiction of the court,

no legal delays and final challenges of jurors until an idiotic jury had

been procured who hadn't read the papers, no ruling out of damaging

testimony, and finally filing of bill of exceptions, no appeal and delay,

or appeal afterward to another court which returned the defendant to the

court of original jurisdiction for review, and years of waiting for the

prosecuting witnesses to die of old age and thus release the defendant.

There is nothing of that kind in China. You just hand in your orders to

the judicial end of the administration, and then you retire. Later on, the

delivery man brings in your package of heads, makes a salaam, and goes

away.

Now, this is swift and speedy justice for you. I don't know how the guilt

of the defendants is arrived at, but there's nothing tedious about it. At

least, there's nothing tedious to the complainant I presume they make it

red-hot for the criminal.

Still this style of justice has its drawbacks. For instance, you are at

dinner. You have a large and select company dining with you. You are about

to carve the roast There is a ring at the door. The servant announces that

a judicial officer is at the drawbridge and desires to speak with you. You

pull your napkin out of your bosom, lay the carving knife down on the

virgin table cloth, and go to the door. There the minister of justice

presents you with a champagne basket and retires. You return to the dining

hall, leaving your basket on the sideboard. After a while you announce to

your guests that you have just received a basket of Mumm's extra dry with

the compliments of the government, and that you will, with the permission

of those present, open a bottle. You arm yourself with a corkscrew, open

the basket, and thoughtlessly tip it over, when two or three human heads,

with a pained and grieved expression on the face, roll out on the table.

When you are looking for a quart bottle of sparkling wine and find instead

the cold, sad features and reproachful stare of the extremely deceased and

_hic jacet_ Chinaman, you naturally betray your chagrin. I like to see

justice moderately swift, and, in fact I've seen it pretty forthwith in

its movements two or three times; but I cannot say that I would be

prepared for this style.

Perhaps I'm getting a little nervous in my old age, and a small matter

jars my equilibrium; but I'm sure a basket of heads handed in as I was

seated at the table would startle me a little at first, and I might forget

myself.

A friend of mine, under such circumstances, made what the English would

call “a doosed clevah” remark once in Shanghai. When he opened the basket

he was horrified, but he was cool. He was old sang froid from

Sangfroidville. He first took the basket and started for the back room,

with the remark: “My friends, I guess you will have to ex-queuese me.”

Then he pulled down his eyelids and laughed a hoarse English laugh.

Answers to Correspondents.

Caller--Your calling cards should be modest as to size and neatly

engraved, with an extra flourish.

In calling, there are two important things to be considered: First, when

to call, and, second, when to rise and hang on the door handle.

Some make one-third of the call before rising, and then complete the call

while airing the house and holding the door open, while others consider

this low and vulgar, making at least one-fourth of the call in the hall,

and one-half between the front door and the gate. Different authorities

differ as to the proper time for calling. Some think you should not call

before 3 or after 5 P.M., but if you have had any experience and had

ordinary sense to start with, you will know when to call as soon as you

look at your hand.

[Illustration]

Amateur Prize Fighter.--The boxing glove is a large upholstered buckskin

mitten, with an abnormal thumb and a string by which it is attached to the

wrist, so that when you feed it to an adversary he cannot swallow it and

choke himself. There are two kinds of gloves, viz., hard gloves and soft

gloves.

I once fought with soft gloves to a finish with a young man who was far my

inferior intellectually, but he exceeded me in brute force and knowledge

of the use of the gloves. He was not so tall, but he was wider than

myself. Longitudinally he was my inferior, but latitudinally he

outstripped me. We did not fight a regular prize-fight. It was just done

for pleasure. But I do not think we should abandon ourselves entirely to

pleasure. It is enervating, and makes one eye swell up and turn blue.

I still think that a young man ought to have a knowledge of the manly art

of self-defense, and if I could acquire such a knowledge without getting

into a fight about it I would surely learn how to defend myself.

The boxing glove is worn on the hand of one party, and on the gory nose of

the other party as the game progresses. Soft gloves very rarely kill

anyone, unless they work down into the bronchial tubes and shut off the

respiration.

[Illustration: “HE EXCEEDED ME IN BRUTE FORCE.”]

Lecturer, New York City.--You need not worry so much about your costume

until you have written your lecture, and it would be a good idea to test

the public a little, if possible, before you do much expensive printing.

Your idea seems to be that a man should get a fine lithograph of himself

and a $100 suit of clothes, and then write his lecture to fit the

lithograph and the clothes. That is erroneous.

You say that you have written a part of your lecture, but do not feel

satisfied with it. In this you will no doubt find many people will agree

with you.

You could wear a full dress suit of black with propriety, or a Prince

Albert coat, with your hand thrust into the bosom of it. I once lectured

on the subject of phrenology in the southern portion of Utah, being at

that time temporarily busted, but still hoping to tide over the dull times

by delivering a lecture on the subject of “Brains, and how to detect their

presence.” I was not supplied with a phrenological bust at that time, and

as such a thing is almost indispensable, I borrowed a young man from

Provost and induced him to act as bust for the evening. He did so with

thrilling effect, taking the entire gross receipts of the lecture course

from my coat pocket while I was illustrating the effect of alcoholic

stimulants on the raw brain of an adult in a state of health.

[Illustration: MAKING REPAIRS.]

You can remove spots of egg from your full dress suit with ammonia and

water, applied by means of a common nail brush. You do not ask for this

recipe, but, judging from your style, I hope that it may be of use to you.

Martin F. Tupper, Texas.--The poem to which you allude was written by

Julia A. Moore, better known as the Sweet Singer of Michigan. The last

stanza was something like this:

“My childhood days are past and gone,

And it fills my heart with pain,

To think that youth will nevermore

Return to me again.

And now, kind friends, what I have wrote,

I hope you will pass o'er

And not criticise as some has hitherto here--

before done.”

Miss Moore also wrote a volume of poems which the farmers of Michigan are

still using on their potato bugs. She wrote a large number of poems, all

more or less saturated with grief and damaged syntax. She is now said to

be a fugitive from justice. We should learn from this that we cannot evade

the responsibility of our acts, and those who write obituary poetry will

one day be overtaken by a bob-tail sleuth hound or a Siberian nemesis with

two rows of teeth.

Alonzo G., Smithville.--Yes, you can learn three card monte without a

master. It is very easy. The book will cost you twenty-five cents and then

you can practice on various people. The book is a very small item, you

will find, after you have been practicing awhile. Three card monte and

justifiable homicide go hand in hand. 2. You can turn a jack from the

bottom of the pack in the old sledge, if you live in some States, but west

of the Missouri the air is so light that men who have tried it have

frequently waked up on the shore of eternity with a half turned jack in

their hand, and a hole in the cerebellum the size of an English walnut.

You can get “Poker and Three Card Monte without a Master” for sixty cents,

with a coroner's verdict thrown in. If you contemplate a career as a monte

man, you should wear a pair of low, loose shoes that you can kick off

easily, unless you want to die with your boots on.

Henry Ubet, Montana.--No, you are mistaken in your assumption that

Socrates was the author of the maxim to which you allude. It is of more

modern origin, and, in fact, the sentence of which you speak, viz: “What a

combination of conflicting and paradoxical assertions is life? Of what use

are logic and argument when we find the true inwardness of the bologna

sausage on the outside?” were written by a philosopher who is still

living. I am willing to give Socrates credit for what he has said and

done, but when I think of a sentiment that is worthy to be graven on a

monolith and passed on down to prosperity, I do not want to have it

attributed to such men as Socrates.

Leonora Vivian Gobb, Oleson's Forks, Ariz.--Yes. You can turn the front

breadths, let out the tucks in the side plaiting and baste on a new dagoon

where you caught the oyster stew in your lap at the party. You could also

get trusted for a new dress, perhaps. But that is a matter of taste. Some

dealers are wearing their open accounts long this winter and some are not.

Do as you think best about cleaning the dress. Benzine will sometimes

eradicate an oyster stew from dress goods. It will also eradicate everyone

in the room at the same time. I have known a pair of rejuvenated kid

gloves to break up a funeral that started out with every prospect of

success. Benzine is an economical thing to use, but socially it is not up

to the standard. Another idea has occurred to me, however. Why not riprap

the skirt, calk the solvages, readjust the box plaits, cat stitch the

crown sheet, file down the gores, sandpaper the gaiters and discharge the

dolman. You could then wear the garment anywhere in the evening, and half

the people wouldn't know anything had happened to it.

James, Owatonna, Minn.--You can easily teach yourself to play on the tuba.

You know what Shakespeare says: “Tuba or not tuba? That's the question.”

How true this is? It touches every heart. It is as good a soliliquy as I

ever read. P.S.--Please do not swallow the tuba while practicing and

choke yourself to death. It would be a shame for you to swallow a nice new

tuba and cast a gloom over it so that no one else would ever want to play

on it again.

Florence.--You can stimulate your hair by using castor oil three ounces,

brandy one ounce. Put the oil on the sewing machine, and absorb the brandy

between meals. The brandy will no doubt fly right to your head and either

greatly assist your hair or it will reconcile you to your lot. The great

attraction about brandy as a hair tonic is, that it should not build up

the thing. If you wish, you may drink the brandy and then breathe hard on

the scalp. This will be difficult at first but after awhile it will not

seem irksome.

Great Sacrifice of Bric-a-brac.

Parties desiring to buy a job-lot of garden tools, will do well to call

and examine my stock. These implements have been but slightly used, and

are comparatively as good as new. The lot consists in part of the

following:

One three-cornered hoe, Gothic in its architecture and in good running

order. It is the same one I erroneously hoed up the carnation with, and

may be found, I think, behind the barn, where I threw it when I discovered

my error. Original cost of hoe, six bits. Will be closed out now at two

bits to make room for new goods.

Also one garden rake, almost as good as new. One front tooth needs

filling, and then it will be as good as ever. I sell this weapon, not so

much to get rid of it, but because I do not want it any more. I shall not

garden any next spring. I do not need to. I began it to benefit my health,

and my health is now so healthy that I shall not require the open-air

exercise incident to gardening any more. In fact, I am too robust, if

anything. I will, therefore, acting upon the advice of my royal physician,

close this rake out, since the failure of the Northwestern Car Company, at

50 cents on the dollar.

Also one lawn-mower, only used once. At that time I cut down what grass I

had on my lawn, and three varieties of high-priced rose bushes. It is one

of the most hardy open-air lawn-mowers now made. It will outlive any other

lawn-mower, and be firm and unmoved when all the shrubbery has gone to

decay. You can also mow your peony bed with it, if you desire. I tried it.

This is also an easy running lawn-mower, I would recommend it to any man

who would like to soak his lawn with perspiration. I mowed my lawn, and

then pushed a street-car around in the afternoon to relax my over-strained

muscles. I will sacrifice this lawn-mower at three-quarters of its

original cost, owing to depression in the stock of the New Jerusalem gold

mine, of which I am a large owner and cashier-at-large.

Will also sell a bright new spade, only used two hours spading for

angle-worms. This is a good, early-blooming and very hardy angle-worm

spade, built in the Doric style of architecture. Persons desiring a spade

flush, and lacking one spade to “fill,” will do well to give me a call. No

trouble to show the goods.

I will also part with a small chest of carpenter's tools, only slightly

used. I had intended to do a good deal of amateur carpenter work this

summer, but, as the presidential convention occurs in June, and I shall

have to attend to that, and as I have already sawed up a Queen Anne chair,

and thoughtlessly sawed into my leg, I shall probably sacrifice the tools.

These tools are all well made, and I do not sell them to make money on

them, but because I have no use for them. I feel as though these tools

would be safer in the hands of a carpenter. I'm no carpenter. My wife

admitted that when I sawed a board across the piano-stool and sawed the

what-do-you-call-it all out of the cushion.

[Illustration: OPEN-AIR EXERCISE.]

Anyone desiring to monkey with the carpenter's trade, will do well to

consult my catalogue and price-list. I will throw in a white holly

corner-bracket, put together with fence nails, and a rustic settee that

looks like the Cincinnati riot. Young men who do not know much, and

invalids whose minds have become affected, are cordially invited to call

and examine goods. For a cash trade I will also throw in arnica,

court-plaster and salve enough to run the tools two weeks, if ordinary

care be taken.

If properly approached, I might also be wheedled into sacrificing an

easy-running domestic wheelbarrow. I have domesticated it myself and

taught it a great many tricks.

A Convention.

The officers and members of the Home for Disabled Butter and Hoary-headed

Hotel Hash met at their mosque last Saturday evening, and, after the roll

call, reading of the moments of the preceding meeting by the Secretary,

singing of the ode and examination of all present to ascertain if they

were in possession of the quarterly password, explanation and signs of

distress, the Most Esteemed Toolymuckahi, having reached the order of

communications and new business and good of the order, stated that the

society was now ready to take action, or, at least, to discuss the

feasibility of holding a series of entertainments at the rink. These

entertainments had been proposed as a means of propping up the tottering

finances of the society, and procuring much-needed funds for the purpose

of purchasing new regalia for the Most Esteemed Duke of the Dishrag and

the Most Esteemed Hired Man, each of whom had been wearing the same red

calico collar and cheese-cloth sash since the organization of the society.

Funds were also necessary to pay for a brother who had walked through a

railroad trestle into the shoreless sea of eternity, and whose widow had a

policy of $135.25 against this society on the life of her husband.

Various suggestions were made; among them was the idea advanced by the

Most Highly Esteemed Inside Door-Slammer that, as the society's object

was, of course, to obtain funds, would it not be well to consider, in the

first place, whether it would not be as well for the Most Esteemed

Toolymuckahi to appoint six brethren in good standing to arm themselves

with great care, gird up their loins and muzzle the pay-car as it started

out on its mission. He simply offered this as a suggestion, and, as it was

a direct method of securing the coin necessary, he would move that such a

committee be appointed by the Chair to wait on the pay-car and draw on it

at sight.

The Most Esteemed Keeper of the Cork-screw seconded the motion, in order,

as he said, to get it before the house. This brought forward very hot

discussion, pending which the presiding officer could see very plainly

that the motion was unpopular.

A visiting brother from Yellowstone Park Creamery No. 17, stated that in

their society “an entertainment of this kind had been given for the

purpose of pouring a flood of wealth into the coffers of the society, and

it had been fairly successful. Among the attractions there had been

nothing of an immoral or lawless nature whatever. In the first place, a

kind of farewell oyster gorge had been given, with cove oysters as a

basis, and $2 a couple as an after-thought. A can of cove oysters

entertained thirty people and made $30 for the society. Besides, it was

found after the party had broken up that, owing to the adhesive properties

of the oysters, they were not eaten; but the juice, as it were, had been

scooped up and the puckered and corrugated gizzards of the sea had been

preserved. Acting upon this suggestion, the society had an oyster patty

debauch the following evening at $2 a couple. Forty suckers came and put

their means into the common fund. We didn't have enough oysters to quite

go around, so some of us cut a dozen out of an old boot leg, and the

entertainment was a great success. We also had other little devices for

making money, which worked admirably and yielded much profit to the

society. Those present also said that they had never enjoyed themselves so

much before. Many little games were played, which produced great merriment

and considerable coin. I could name a dozen devices for your society, if

desired, by which money could be made for your treasury, without the risk

or odium necessarily resulting from robbing the pay-car or a bank, and yet

the profit will be nearly as great in proportion to the work done.”

Here the gavel of the Most Esteemed Toolymuckahi fell with a sickening

thud, and the visiting brother was told that the time assigned to

communications, new business and good of the order had expired, but that

the discussion would be taken up at the next session, in one week, at

which time it was the purpose of the chair to hear and note all

suggestions relative to an entertainment to be given at a future date by

the society for the purpose of obtaining the evanescent scad and for the

successful flash of the reluctant boodle.

Come Back.

Personal.--Will the young woman who used to cook in our family, and who

went away ten pounds of sugar and five and a half pounds of tea ahead of

the game, please come back, and all will be forgiven.

If she cannot return, will she please write, stating her present address,

and also give her reasons for shutting up the cat in the refrigerator when

she went away?

If she will only return, we will try to forget the past, and think only of

the glorious present and the bright, bright future.

Come back, Sarah, and jerk the waffle-iron for us once more.

Your manners are peculiar, but we yearn for your doughnuts, and your style

of streaked cake suits us exactly.

You may keep the handkerchiefs and the collars, and we will not refer to

the dead past.

We have arranged it so that when you snore it will not disturb the night

police, and if you do not like our children we will send them away.

We realize that you do not like children very well, and our children

especially gave you much pain, because they were not so refined as you

were.

We have often wished, for your sake, that we had never had any children;

but so long as they are in our family, the neighbors will rather expect us

to take care of them.

Still, if you insist upon it, we will send them away. We don't want to

seem overbearing with our servants.

We would be willing, also, to give you more time for mental relaxation

than you had before. The intellectual strain incident to the life of one

who makes gravy for a lost and undone world must be very great, and tired

nature must at last succumb. We do not want you to succumb. If anyone has

got to succumb, let us do it.

All we ask is that you will let us know when you are going away, and leave

the crackers and cheese where we can find them.

It was rather rough on us to have you go away when we had guests in the

house, but if you had not taken the key to the cooking department we could

have worried along.

You ought to let us have company at the house sometimes if we will let you

have company when you want to. Still, you know best, perhaps. You are

older than we are, and you have seen more of the world.

We miss your gentle admonitions and your stern reproofs sadly. Come back

and reprove us again. Come back and admonish us once more, at so much per

admonish and groceries.

[Illustration: “WE HOPE YOU WILL DO THE SAME BY US.”]

We will agree to let you select the tender part of the steak, and such

fruit as seems to strike you favorably, just as we did before. We did not

like it when you were here, but that is because we were young and did not

know what the custom was.

If a life-time devoted to your welfare can obliterate the injustice we

have done you, we will be glad to yield it to you.

If you could suggest a good place for us to send the children, where they

would be well taken care of, and where they would not interfere with some

other cook who is a friend of yours, we would be glad to have you write

us.

My wife says she hopes you will feel perfectly free to use the piano

whenever you are lonely or sad, and when you or the bread feel depressed

you will be welcome to come into the parlor and lean up against either one

of us and sob.

We all know that when you were with us before we were a little reserved in

our manner toward you, but if you come back it will be different.

We will introduce you to more of our friends this time, and we hope you

will do the same by us. Young people are apt to get above their business,

and we admit that we were wrong.

Come back and oversee our fritter bureau once more.

Take the portfolio of our interior department.

Try to forget our former coldness.

Return, oh, wanderer, return!

A New Play.

The following letter was written, recently, in reply to a dramatist who

proposed the matter of writing a play jointly.

Hudson, Wis., Nov. 13, 1886.

Scott Marble, Esq.--Dear Sir: I have just received your favor of

yesterday, in which you ask me to unite with you in the construction of a

new play.

This idea has been suggested to me before, but not in such a way as to

inaugurate the serious thought which your letter has stirred up in my

seething mass of mind.

I would like very much to unite with you in the erection of such a

dramatic structure that people would cheerfully come to this country from

Europe, and board with us for months in order to see this play every

night.

You will surely agree with me that someone ought to write a play. Why it

has not been done long ago, I cannot understand. A well known comedian

told me a year ago that he hadn't been able to look into a paper for

sixteen months. He could not even read over the proof of his own press

notices and criticisms, to ascertain whether the printer had set them up

as he wrote them or not, simply because it took all his spare time off the

stage to examine the manuscripts of plays that had been submitted to him.

But I think we could arrange it so that we might together construct

something in that line which would at least attract the attention of our

families.

Would you mind telling me, for instance, how you write a play? You have

been in the business before, and you could tell me, of course, some of the

salient points about it. Do you write it with a typewriter, or do you

dictate your thoughts to someone who does not resent being dictated to?

Do you write a play and then dramatize it, or do you write the drama and

then play on it? Would it not be a very good idea to secure a plot that

would cost very little, and then put the kibosh on it, or would you put up

the lines first, and then hang the plot or drama, or whatever it is, on

the lines? Is it absolutely necessary to have a prologue? If so, what is a

prologue? Is it like a catalogue?

I have a great many crude ideas, but you see I am not practical. One of my

crude ideas is to introduce into the play an artist's studio. This would

not cost much, for we could borrow the studio evenings and allow the

artist to use it daytimes. Then we would introduce into the studio scene

the artist's living model. Everybody would be horrified, but they would

go. They would walk over each other to attend the drama, and we would do

well. Our living model in the studio act would be made of common wax, and

if it worked well, we would discharge other members of the company and

substitute wax. Gradually we could get it down to where the company would

be wax, with the exception of a janitor with a feather duster. Think that

over.

But seriously, a play, it seems to me, should embody an idea. Am I correct

in that theory or not? It ought to convey some great thought, some maxim

or aphorism, or some such a thing as that. How would it do to arrange a

play with the idea of impressing upon the audience that “the fool and his

money are soon parted?” Are you using a hero and a heroine in your plays

now? If so, would you mind writing their lines for them, while I arrange

the details and remarks for the young man who is discovered asleep on a

divan when the curtain rises, and who sleeps on through the play with his

mouth slightly ajar till the close--the close of the play, not the close

of his mouth--when it is discovered that he is dead. He then plays the

cold remains in the closing tableau, and fills a new-made grave at $9 per

week.

I could also write the lines, I think, for the young man who comes in

wearing a light summer cane and a seersucker coat so tight that you can

count his vertebrae. I could write what he would say without great mental

strain, I think. I must avoid mental strain or my intellect might split

down the back and I would be a mental wreck, good for nothing but to strew

the shores of time with myself.

Various other crude ideas present themselves to my mind, but they need to

be clothed. You will say that this is unnecessary. I know you will at once

reply that, for the stage, the less you clothe an idea the more popular it

will be, but I could not consent to have even a bare thought of mine make

an appearance night after night before a cultivated audience.

What do you think of introducing a genuine case of small-pox on the stage?

You say in your letter that what the American people clamor for is

something “catchy.” That would be catchy, and it would also introduce

itself.

I wish you would also tell me what kind of diet you confine yourself to

while writing a play, and how you go to work to procure it. Do you live on

a mixed diet, or on your relatives? Would you soak your head while writing

a play, or would you soak your overcoat? I desire to know all these

things, because, Mr. Marble, to tell you the truth, I am as ignorant about

this matter as the babe unborn. In fact, posterity would have to get up

early in the morning to know less about play-writing than I have succeeded

in knowing.

If we are to make a kind of comedy, my idea would be to introduce

something facetious in the middle of the comedy. No one will expect it,

you see, and it will tickle the audience almost to death.

A friend of mine suggests that it would be a great hit to introduce, or

rather to reproduce, the Hell Gate explosion. Many were not able to be

there at the time, and would willingly go a long distance to witness the

reproduction.

I wish that you would reply to this letter at an early date, telling me

what you think of the schemes suggested. Feel perfectly free to express

yourself fully. I am not too proud to receive your suggestions.

The Silver Dollar.

It would seem at this time, while so little is being said on the currency

question, and especially by the men who really control the currency, that

a word from me would not be out of place. Too much talking has been done

by those only who have a theoretical knowledge of money and its eccentric

habits. People with a mere smattering of knowledge regarding national

currency have been loquacious, while those who have made the matter a

study, have been kept in the background.

At this period in the history of our country, there seems to be a general

stringency, and many are in the stringency business who were never that

way before. Everything seems to be demonetized. The demonetization of

groceries is doing as much toward the general wiggly palsy of trade as

anything I know of.

But I may say, in alluding briefly to the silver dollar, that there are

worse calamities than the silver dollar. Other things may occur in our

lives, which, in the way of sadness and three-cornered gloom, make the

large, robust dollar look like an old-fashioned half-dime.

I met a man the other day, who, two years ago, was running a small paper

at Larrabie's Slough. He was then in his meridian as a journalist, and his

paper was frequently quoted by such widely-read publications as the

_Knight of Labor at Work_, a humorous semi-monthly journal. He boldly

assailed the silver dollar, and with his trenchant pen he wrote such

burning words of denunciation that the printer had to set them on ice

before he could use the copy.

Last week I met him on a Milwaukee & St. Paul train. He was very thin in

flesh, and the fire of defiance was no longer in his eye. I asked him how

he came on with the paper at Larrabie's Slough. He said it was no more.

“It started out,” said he, “in a fearless way, but it was not sustained.”

He then paused in a low tone of voice, gulped, and proceeded:

“Folks told me when I began that I ought to attack almost everything. Make

the paper non-partisan, but aggressive, that was their idea. Sail into

everything, and the paper would soon be a power in the land. So I

aggressed.

“Friends came in very kindly and told me what to attack. They would

neglect their own business in order to tell me of corruption in somebody

else. I went on that way for some time in a defiant mood, attacking

anything that happened to suggest itself.

“Finally I thought I would attack the silver dollar. I did so. I thought

that friends would come to me and praise me for my manly words, and that I

could afford to lose the friendship of the dollar provided I could win

friends.

“In six months I took an unexpired annual pass over our Larrabie Slough

Narrow-Gauge, or Orphan Road, and with nothing else but the clothes I

wore, I told the plaintiff how to jerk the old Washington press and went

away. The dear old Washington press that had more than once squatted my

burning words into the pure white page. The dear old towel on which I had

wiped my soiled hands for years, until it had almost become a part of

myself, the dark blue Gordon press with its large fly wheel and

intermittent chattel mortgage, a press, to which I had contributed the

first joint of my front finger; the editor's chair; the samples of large

business cards printed in green with an inflamed red border, which showed

that we could do colored work at Larrabie's Slough just as well as they

could in the large cities; the files of our paper; the large wilted potato

that Mr. Alonzo G. Pinkham of Erin Corners kindly laid on our table-all,

all had to go.

“I fled out into the great, hollow, mocking world of people who had

requested me to aggress. They were people who had called my attention to

various things which I ought to attack. I had attacked those things. I had

also attacked the Larrabie Slough Narrow-Gauge Railroad, but the manager

did not see the attack, and so my pass was good.

“What could I do?

“I had attacked everything, and more especially the silver dollar, and now

I was homeless. For fourteen weeks I rode up the narrow-gauge road one day

and back the next, subsisting solely on the sample of nice pecan meat that

the newsboy puts in each passenger's lap.

“You look incredulous, I see, but it is true.

“I feel differently toward the currency now, and I wish I could undo what

I have done. Were I called up again to jerk the Archimedean lever, I would

not be so aggressive, especially as regards the currency. Whether it is

inflated or not, silver dollars, paper certificates of deposit or silver

bullion, it does not matter to me.

“I yearn for two or three adult doughnuts and one of those thick, dappled

slabs of gingerbread, or slat of pie with gooseberries in it. I presume

that I could write a scathing editorial on the abuses of our currency yet,

but I am not so much in the scathe business as I used to be.

“I wish you would state, if you will, through some great metropolitan

journal, that my views in relation to the silver coinage and the currency

question have undergone a radical change, and that any plan whatever, by

which to make the American dollar less skittish, will meet with my hearty

approval.

“If I have done anything at all through my paper to injure or repress the

flow of our currency, and I fear I have, I now take this occasion to

cheerfully regret it.”

He then wrung my hand and passed from my sight.

Polygamy as a Religious Duty.

During the past few years in the history of our republic, we have had

leprosy, yellow fever and the dude, and it seemed as though each one would

wreck the whole national fabric at one time. National and international

troubles of one kind and another have gradually risen, been met and

mastered, but the great national abscess known as the Church of Jesus

Christ of Latter Day Saints still obstinately refuses to come to a head.

I may be a radical monogamist and a rash enthusiast upon this matter, but

I still adhere to my original motto, one country, one flag and one wife at

a time. Matrimony is a good thing, but it can be overdone. We can excuse

the man who becomes a collection of rare coins, stamps, or autographs, but

he who wears out his young life making a collection of wives, should be

looked upon with suspicion.

After all, however, this matter has always been, and still is, treated

with too much levity. It seems funny to us, at a distance of 1,600 miles,

that a thick-necked patriarch in the valley of the Jordan should be sealed

to thirteen or fourteen low-browed, half human females, and that the whole

mass of humanity should live and multiply under one roof.

Those who see the wealthy polygamists of Salt Lake City, do not know much

of the horrors of trying to make polygamy and poverty harmonize in the

rural districts. In the former case, each wife has a separate residence or

suite of rooms, perhaps; but in the latter is the aggregation of vice and

depravity, doubly horrible because, instead of the secluded character

which wickedness generally assumes, here it is the common heritage of the

young and at once fails to shock or horrify.

Under the All-seeing eye, and the Bee Hive, and the motto, “Holiness to

the Lord,” with a bogus Bible and a red-nosed prophet, who couldn't earn

$13. per month pounding sand, this so called church hanging on to the

horns of the altar, as it were, defies the statutes, and while in open

rebellion against the laws of God and man, refers to the constitution of

the United States as protecting it in its “religious belief.”

In a poem, the patient Mormon in the picturesque valley of the Great Salt

Lake, where he has “made the desert blossom as the rose,” looks well. With

the wonderful music of the great organ at the tabernacle sounding in your

ears, and the lofty temple near by towering to the sky, you say to

yourself, there is, after all, something solemn and impressive in all

this; but when a greasy apostle in an alapaca duster, takes his place

behind the elevated desk, and with bad grammar and slangy sentences, asks

God in a businesslike way to bless this buzzing mass of unclean,

low-browed, barbarous scum of all foreign countries, and the white trash

and criminals of our own, you find no reverence, and no religious awe.

The same mercenary, heartless lunacy that runs through the sickly

plagiarism of the Book of Mormon, pervades all this, and instead of the

odor of sanctity you notice the flavor of bilge water, and the emigrant's

own hailing sign, the all-pervading fragrance of the steerage.

Education is the foe of polygamy, and many of the young who have had the

means by which to complete their education in the East, are apostate, at

least so far as polygamy is concerned. Still, to the great mass of the

poor and illiterate of Mormondom this is no benefit. The rich of the

Mormon Church are rich because their influence with this great fraud has

made them so; and it would, as a matter of business, injure their

prospects to come out and bolt the nomination.

[Illustration: THE FAMILY WASH.]

Utah, even with the Edmunds bill, is hopelessly Mormon; all adjoining

States and Territories are already invaded by them, and the delegate in

Congress from Wyoming is elected by the Mormon vote.

I believe that I am moderately liberal and free upon all religious

matters, but when a man's confession of faith involves from three to

twenty-seven old corsets in the back yard every spring, and a clothes line

every Monday morning that looks like a bridal trousseau emporium struck by

a cyclone, I must admit that I am a little bit inclined to be sectarian in

my views.

It's bad enough to be slapped across the features by one pair of long wet

hose on your way to the barn, but to have a whole bankrupt stock of cold,

wet garments every week fold their damp arms around your neck, as you

dodge under the clothes line to drive the cow out of the yard, is wrong.

It is not good for man to be alone, of course, but why should he yearn to

fold a young ladies' seminary to his bosom? Why should this morbid

sentiment prompt him to marry a Female Suffrage Mass Meeting? I do not

wish to be considered an extremist in religious matters, but the doctrine

that requires me to be sealed to a whole emigrant train, seems unnatural

and inconsistent.

The Newspaper.

An Address Delivered Before the Wisconsin State Press Association, at

White-Water, Wis., August 11, 1886.

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Press of Wisconsin:

I am sure that when you so kindly invited me to address you to-day, you

did not anticipate a lavish display of genius and gestures. I accepted the

invitation because it afforded me an opportunity to meet you and to get

acquainted with you, and tell you personally that for years I have been a

constant reader of your valuable paper and I like it. You are running it

just as I like to see a newspaper run.

I need not elaborate upon the wonderful growth of the press in our

country, or refer to the great power which journalism wields in the

development of the new world. I need not ladle out statistics to show you

how the newspaper has encroached upon the field of oratory and how the

pale and silent man, while others sleep, compiles the universal history of

a day and tells his mighty audience what he thinks about it before he goes

to bed.

Of course, this is but the opinion of one man, but who has a better

opportunity to judge than he who sits with his finger on the electric

pulse of the world, judging the actions of humanity at so much per judge,

invariably in advance?

I need not tell you all this, for you certainly know it if you read your

paper, and I hope you do. A man ought to read his own paper, even if he

cannot endorse all its sentiments.

So necessary has the profession of journalism become to the progress and

education of our country, that the matter of establishing schools where

young men may be fitted for an active newspaper life, has attracted much

attention and discussion. It has been demonstrated that our colleges do

not fit a young man to walk at once into the active management of a paper.

He should at least know the difference between a vile contemporary and a

Gothic scoop.

It is difficult to map out a proper course for the student in a school of

journalism, there are so many things connected with the profession which

the editor and his staff should know and know hard. The newspaper of

to-day is a library. It is an encyclopaedia, a poem, a biography, a

history, a prophecy, a directory, a time-table, a romance, a cook book, a

guide, a horoscope, an art critic, a political resume, a _multum in

parvo_. It is a sermon, a song, a circus, an obituary, a picnic, a

shipwreck, a symphony in solid brevier, a medley of life and death, a

grand aggregation of man's glory and his shame. It is, in short, a

bird's-eye-view of all the magnanimity and meanness, the joys and griefs,

the births and deaths, the pride and poverty of the world, and all for two

cents--sometimes.

I could tell you some more things that the newspaper of to-day is, if you

had time to stay here and your business would not suffer in your absence.

Among others it is a long felt want, a nine-column paper in a five-column

town, a lying sheet, a feeble effort, a financial problem, a tottering

wreck, a political tool and a sheriff's sale.

If I were to suggest a curriculum for the young man who wished to take a

regular course in a school of journalism, preferring that to the actual

experience, I would say to him, devote the first two years to meditation

and prayer. This will prepare the young editor for the surprise and

consequent temptation to profanity which in a few years he may experience

when he finds that the name of the Deity in his double-leaded editorial is

spelled with a little “g,” and the peroration of the article is locked up

between a death notice and the advertisement of a patent moustache coaxer,

which is to follow pure reading matter every day in the week and occupy

the top of column on Sunday tf.

The ensuing five years should be devoted to the peculiar orthography of

the English language.

Then put in three years with the dumb bells, sand bags, slung shots and

tomahawk. In my own journalistic experience I have found more cause for

regret over my neglect of this branch than anything else. I usually keep

on my desk during a heated campaign, a large paper weight, weighing three

or four pounds, and in several instances I have found that I could feed

that to a constant reader of my valuable paper instead of a retraction.

Fewer people lick the editor though, now, than did so in years gone by.

Many people--in the last two years--have gone across the street to lick

the editor and never returned. They intended to come right back in a few

moments, but they are now in a land where a change of heart and a palm

leaf fan is all they need.

Fewer people are robbing the editor now-a-days, too, I notice with much

pleasure. Only a short time ago I noticed that a burglar succeeded in

breaking into the residence of a Dakota journalist, and after a long, hard

struggle the editor succeeded in robbing him.

After the primary course, mapped out already, an intermediate course of

ten years should be given to learning the typographical art, so that when

visitors come in and ask the editor all about the office, he can tell them

of the mysteries of making a paper, and how delinquent subscribers have

frequently been killed by a well-directed blow with a printer's towel.

Five years should be devoted to a study of the art of proof-reading. In

that length of time the young journalist can perfect himself to such a

degree that it will take another five years for the printer to understand

his corrections and marginal notes.

Fifteen years should then be devoted to the study of American politics,

especially civil service reform, looking at it from a non-partisan

standpoint. If possible, the last five years should be spent abroad.

London is the place to go if you wish to get a clear, concise view of

American politics, and Chicago or Milwaukee would be a good place for the

young English journalist to go and study the political outlook of England.

The student should then take a medical and surgical course, so that he

may be able to attend to contusions, fractures and so forth, which may

occur to himself or to the party who may come to his office for a

retraction and by mistake get his spinal column double-leaded.

Ten years should then be given to the study of law. No thorough,

metropolitan editor wants to enter upon the duties of his profession

without knowing the difference between a writ of _mandamus_ and other

styles of profanity. He should thoroughly understand the entire system of

American jurisprudence, so that in case a _certiorari_ should break out in

his neighborhood he would know just what to do for it.

The student will, by this time, begin to see what is required of him and

enter with great zeal upon the further study of his profession.

He will now enter upon a theological course of ten years and fit himself

thoroughly to speak intelligently of the various creeds and religions of

the world. Ignorance or the part of an editor is almost a crime, and when

he closes a powerful editorial with the familiar quotation, “It is the

early bird that catches the worm,” and attributes it to St. Paul instead

of Deuteronomy, it makes me blush for the profession.

The last ten years may be profitably devoted to the acquisition of a

practical knowledge of cutting cordwood, baking beans, making shirts,

lecturing, turning double handsprings, being shot out of a catapult at a

circus, learning how to make a good adhesive paste that will not sour in

hot weather, grinding scissors, punctuating, capitalization, condemnation,

syntax, plain sewing, music and dancing, sculpting, etiquette, prosody, how

to win the affections of the opposite sex and evade a malignant case of

breach of promise, the ten commandments, every man his own tooter on the

flute, croquet, rules of the prize ring, rhetoric, parlor magic,

calisthenics, penmanship, how to run a jack from the bottom of the pack

without getting shot, civil engineering, decorative art, kalsomining,

bicycling, base ball, hydraulics, botany, poker, international law,

high-low-jack, drawing and painting, faro, vocal music, driving, breaking

team, fifteen ball pool, how to remove grease spots from last year's

pantaloons, horsemanship, coupling freight cars, riding on a rail, riding

on a pass, feeding threshing machines, how to wean a calf from the parent

stem, teaching school, bull-whacking, plastering, waltzing, vaccination,

autopsy, how to win the affections of your wife's mother, every man his

own washerwoman, or how to wash underclothes so they will not shrink,

etc., etc.

But time forbids anything like a thorough list of what a young man should

study in order to fully understand all that he may be called upon to

express an opinion about in his actual experience as a journalist. There

are a thousand little matters which every editor should know; such, for

instance, as the construction of roller composition. Many newspaper men

can write a good editorial on Asiatic cholera, but their roller

composition is not fit to eat.

With the course of study that I have mapped out, the young student would

emerge from the college of journalism at the age of 95 or 96, ready to

take off his coat and write an article on almost any subject. He would be

a little giddy at first, and the office boy would have to see that he went

to bed at a proper time each night, but aside from that, he would be a

good man to feed a waste paper basket.

Actual experience is the best teacher in this peculiarly trying

profession. I hope some day to attend a press convention where the order

of exercise will consist of five-minute experiences from each one present

It would be worth listening to.

My own experience was a little peculiar. It was my intention at first to

practice law, when I went to the Rocky Mountains, although I had been

warned by the authorities not to do so. Still, I did practice in a

surreptitious kind of a way, and might have been practicing yet if my

client hadn't died. When you have become attached to a client and respect

and like him, and then when, without warning, like a bolt of electricity

from a clear sky, he suddenly dies and takes the bread right out of your

mouth, it is rough.

Then I tried the practice of criminal law, but my client got into the

penitentiary, where he was no use to me financially or politically.

Finally, when the judge was in a hurry, he would appoint me to defend the

pauper criminals. They all went to the penitentiary, until people got to

criticising the judge, and finally they told him that it was a shame to

appoint me to defend an innocent man.

My first experience in journalism was in a Western town, in which I was a

total stranger. I went there with thirty-five cents, but I had it

concealed in the lining of my clothes so that no one would have suspected

it if they had met me. I had no friends, and I noticed that when I got off

the train the band was not there to meet me. I entered the town just as

any other American citizen would. I had not fully decided whether to

become a stage robber or a lecturer on phrenology. At that time I got a

chance to work on a morning paper. It used to go to press before dark, so

I always had my evenings to myself and I liked that part of it first-rate.

I worked on that paper a year and might have continued if the proprietors

had not changed it to an evening paper.

Then a company incorporated itself and started a paper, of which I took

charge. The paper was published in the loft of a livery stable. That is

the reason they called it a stock company. You could come up the stairs

into the office or you could twist the tail of the iron-gray mule and take

the elevator.

It wasn't much of a paper, but it cost $16,000 a year to run it, and it

came out six days in the week, no matter what the weather was. We took the

Associated Press news by telegraph part of the time and part of the time

we relied on the Cheyenne morning papers, which we got of the conductor on

the early morning freight. We got a great many special telegrams from

Washington in that way, and when the freight train got in late, I had to

guess at what congress was doing and fix up a column of telegraph the best

I could. There was a rival evening paper there, and sometimes it would

send a smart boy down to the train and get hold of our special telegrams,

and sometimes the conductor would go away on a picnic and take our

Cheyenne paper with him.

All these things are annoying to a man who is trying to supply a long felt

want. There was one conductor, in particular, who used to go away into the

foot-hills shooting sage hens and take our cablegrams with him. This threw

too much strain on me. I could guess at what congress was doing and make

up a pretty readable report, but foreign powers and reichstags and crowned

heads and dynasties always mixed me up. You can look over what congress

did last year and give a pretty good guess at what it will do this year,

but you can't rely on a dynasty or an effete monarchy in a bad state of

preservation. It may go into executive session or it may go into

bankruptcy.

Still, at one time we used to have considerable local news to fill up

with. The north and middle parks for a while used to help us out when the

mining camps were new. Those were the days when it was considered

perfectly proper to kill off the board of supervisors if their action was

distasteful. At that time a new camp generally located a cemetery and

wrote an obituary; then the boys would start out to find a man whose name

would rhyme with the rest of the verse. Those were the days when the

cemeteries of Colorado were still in their infancy and the song of the

six-shooter was heard in the land.

Sometimes the Indians would send us in an item. It was generally in the

obituary line. With the Sioux on the north and the peaceful Utes on the

south, we were pretty sure of some kind of news during the summer. The

parks used to be occupied by white men winters and Indians summers. Summer

was really the pleasantest time to go into the parks, but the Indians had

been in the habit of going there at that season, and they were so clannish

that the white men couldn't have much fun with them, so they decided they

would not go there in the summer. Several of our best subscribers were

killed by the peaceful Utes.

There were two daily and three weekly papers published in Laramie City av

that time. There were between two and three thousand people and our local

circulation ran from 150 to 250, counting dead-heads. In our prospectus we

stated that we would spare no expense whatever in ransacking the universe

for fresh news, but there were times when it was all we could do to get

our paper out on time. Out of the express office, I mean.

One of the rival editors used to write his editorials for the paper in the

evening, jerk the Washington hand-press to work them off, go home and

wrestle with juvenile colic in his family until daylight and then deliver

his papers on the street. It is not surprising that the great mental

strain incident to this life made an old man of him, and gave a tinge of

extreme sadness to the funny column of his paper.

In an unguarded moment, this man wrote an editorial once that got all his

subscribers mad at him, and the same afternoon he came around and wanted

to sell his paper to us for $10,000. I told him that the whole outfit

wasn't worth ten thousand cents.

“I know that,” said he, “but it is not the material that I am talking

about. It is the good will of the paper.”

We had a rising young horsethief in Wyoming in those days, who got into

jail by some freak of justice, and it was so odd for a horsethief to get

into jail that I alluded to it editorially. This horsethief had

distinguished himself from the common, vulgar horsethieves of his time, by

wearing a large mouth--a kind of full-dress, eight-day mouth. He rarely

smiled, but when he did, he had to hold the top of his head on with both

hands. I remember that I spoke of this in the paper, forgetting that he

might criticise me when he got out of jail. When he did get out again, he

stated that he would shoot me on sight, but friends advised me not to have

his blood on my hands, and I took their advice, so I haven't got a

particle of his blood on either of my hands.

For two or three months I didn't know but he would drop into the office

any minute and criticise me, but one day a friend told me that he had been

hung in Montana. Then I began to mingle in society again, and didn't have

to get in my coal with a double barrel shot gun any more.

After that I was always conservative in relation to horsethieves until we

got the report of the vigilance committee.

Wrestling with the Mazy.

Very soon now I shall be strong enough on my cyclone leg to resume my

lessons in waltzing. It is needless to say that I look forward with great

pleasure to that moment. Nature intended that I should glide in the mazy.

Tall, lithe, bald-headed, genial, limber in the extreme, suave, soulful,

frolicsome at times, yet dignified and reserved toward strangers, light on

the foot--on my own foot, I mean--gentle as a woman at times, yet

irresistible as a tornado when insulted by a smaller, I am peculiarly

fitted to shine in society. Those who have observed my polished brow, when

under a strong electric light, say they never saw a man shine so in

society as I do.

My wife taught me how to waltz. She would teach me on Saturdays and repair

her skirts during the following week. I told her once that I thought I was

too brainy to dance. She said she hadn't noticed that, but she thought I

seemed to run too much to legs. My wife is not timid about telling me

anything that she thinks will be for my good. When I make a mistake she is

perfectly frank with me, and comes right to me and tells me about it, so

that I won't do so again.

I had just learned how to reel around a ballroom to a little waltz music,

when I was blown across the State of Mississippi in September last by a

high wind, and broke one of my legs which I use in waltzing. When this

accident occurred I had just got where I felt at liberty to choose a

glorious being with starry eyes and fluffy hair, and magnificently modeled

form, to steer me around the rink to the dreamy music of Strauss. One

young lady, with whom I had waltzed a good deal, when she heard that my

leg was broken, began to attend every dancing party she could hear of,

although she had declined a great many previous to that. I asked her how

she could be so giddy and so gay when I was suffering. She said she was

doing it to drown her sorrow, but her little brother told me on the quiet

that she was dancing while I was sick because she felt perfectly safe. A

friend of mine says I have a pronounced and distinctly original manner of

waltzing, and that he never saw anybody, with one exception, who waltzed

as I did, and that was Jumbo. He claimed that either one of us would be a

good dancer if he could have the whole ring to himself. He said that he

would like to see Jumbo and me waltz together if he were not afraid that I

would step on Jumbo and hurt him. You can see what a feeling of jealous

hatred it arouses in some small minds when a man gets so that he can

mingle in good society and enjoy himself.

[Illustration: WALTZING WITH JUMBO.]

I could waltz more easily if the rules did not require such a constant

change of position. I am sedentary in my nature, slow to move about, so

that it takes a lady of great strength of purpose to pull me around on

time.

Anecdotes of the Stage.

Years ago, before Laramie City got a handsome opera house, everything in

the theatrical and musical line of a high order was put on the stage of

Blackburn's Hall. Other light dramas on the stage, and thrilling murders

in the audience, used to occur at Alexander's Theater, on Front street.

Here you could get a glass of Laramie beer, made of glucose, alkali water,

plug tobacco, and Paris green, by paying two bits at the bar, and, as a

prize, you drew a ticket to the olio, specialties, and low gags of the

stage. The idea of inebriating a man at the box office, so that he will

endure such a sham, is certainly worthy of serious consideration. I have

seen shows at Alexander's, and also at McDaniel's, in Cheyenne, however,

where the bar should have provided an ounce of chloroform with each ticket

in order to allay the suffering.

Here you could sit down in the orchestra and take the chances of getting

hit when the audience began to shoot at the pianist, or you could go up

into the boxes and have a quiet little conversation with the timid

beer-jerkers. The beer-jerker was never too proud to speak to the most

humble, and if she could sell a grub-staker for $5 a bottle of real Piper

Heidsick, made in Cheyenne and warranted to remove the gastric coat, pants

and vest from a man's stomach in two minutes, she felt pleased and proud.

A room-mate of mine, whose name I will not give, simply because he was and

still is the best fellow in the United States, came home from the

“theater” one night with his hair parted in the middle. He didn't wear it

that way generally, so it occasioned talk in social circles. He still has

a natural parting of the hair about five inches long, that he acquired

that night. He said it was accidental so far as he was concerned, but

unless the management could keep people from shooting the holders of

reserved seats between the acts or any other vital spot, he would withdraw

his patronage. And he was right about it. I think that any court in the

land would protect a man who had purchased a seat in good faith, and with

his hat on and both feet on the back of the seat in front of him, sits

quietly in said seat, smoking a Colorado Maduro cigar and watching the

play.

Several such accidents occurred at the said theater. Among them was a

little tableau in which Joe Walker and Centennial Bob took the leading

parts. Bob went to the penitentiary, and Joe went to his reward with one

of his lungs in his coat pocket. There was a little difference between

them as to the regularity of a “draw” and “show down,” so Bob went home

from the theater and loaded a double-barrel shot-gun with a lot of

scrap-iron, and, after he had introduced the collection into Joe's front

breadth, the latter's system was so lacerated that it wouldn't retain

ground feed.

There were other little incidents like that which occurred in and around

the old theater, some growing out of the lost love of a beer-jerker, some

from an injudicious investment in a bob-tail flush that never got ripe

enough to pick, and some from the rarified mountain air, united with an

epidemic known as _mania rotguti_.

A funny incident of the stage occurred not long ago to a friend of mine,

who is traveling with a play in which a stage cow appears. He is using

what is called a profile cow now, which works by machinery. Last winter

this cow ran down while in the middle of the stage, and forgot her lines.

The prompter gave the string a jerk in order to assist her. This broke the

cow in two, and the fore-quarters walked off to the left into one

dressing-room, while the behind-quarters and porter-house steak retired to

the outer dressing-room. The audience called for an _encore_; but the cow

felt as though she had made a kind of a bull of the part, and would not

appear. Those who may be tempted to harshly criticise this last remark,

are gently reminded that the intense heat of the past month is liable to

effect anyone's mind. Remember, gentle reader, that your own brain may

some day soften also, and then you will remember how harsh you were toward

me.

Prior to the profile cow, the company ran a wicker-work cow, that was

hollow and admitted of two hired-men, who operated the beast at a moderate

salary. These men drilled a long time on what they called a heifer

dance--a beautiful spectacular, and highly moral and instructive quadruped

clog, sirloin shuffle, and cow gallop, to the music of a piano-forte. The

rehearsals had been crowned with success, and when the cow came on the

stage she got a bouquet, and made a bran mash on one of the ushers.

She danced up and down the stage, perfectly self-possessed, and with that

perfect grace and abandon which is so noticeable in the self-made cow.

Finally she got through, the piano sounded a wild Wagnerian bang, and the

cow danseuse ambled off. She was improperly steered, however, and ran her

head against a wing, where she stopped in full view of the audience. The

talent inside of the cow thought they had reached the dressing-room and

ran against the wall, so they felt perfectly free to converse with each

other. The cow stood with her nose jammed up against the wing, wrapped in

thought, Finally, from her thorax the audience heard a voice say:

“Jim, you blamed galoot, that ain't the step we took at rehearsal no

more'n nuthin'. If you're going to improvise a new cow duet, I wish you

wouldn't take the fore-quarters by surprise next time.”

It is not now known what the reply was, for just then the prompter came on

the stage, rudely twisted the tail of the cow, rousing her from her

lethargy, and harshly kicking her in the pit of the stomach, he drove her

off the stage, The audience loudly called for a repetition, but the cow

refused to come in.

George the Third.

George III was born in England June 4, 1738, and ran for king in 1760. He

was a son of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and held the office of king for

sixty years. He was a natural born king and succeeded his grandfather,

George II. Look as you will a-down the long page of English history, and

you will not fail to notice the scarcity of self-made kings. How few of

them were poor boys and had to skin along for years with no money, no

influential friends and no fun.

Ah, little does the English king know of hard times and carrying two or

three barrels of water to a tired elephant in order that he may get into

the afternoon performance without money. When he gets tired of being

prince, all he has to do is just to be king all day at good wages, and

then at night take off his high-priced crown, hang it up on the hat-rack,

put on a soft hat and take in the town.

George III quit being prince at the age of 22 years, and began to hold

down the English throne. He would reign along for a few years, taking it

kind of quiet, and then all at once he would declare war and pick out some

people to go abroad and leave their skeletons on some foreign shore. That

was George's favorite amusement. He got up the Spanish war in two years

after he clome the throne; then he had an American revolution, a French

revolution, an Irish rebellion and a Napoleonic war. He dearly loved

carnage, if it could be prepared on a foreign strand. George always wanted

imported carnage, even if it came higher. It was in 1765, and early in

George's reign, that the American stamp act passed the Legislature and the

Goddess of Liberty began to kick over the dashboard.

George was different from most English kings, morally. When he spit on his

hand and grasped the sceptre, he took his scruples with him right onto the

throne. He was not talked about half so much as other kings before or

since his time. Nine o'clock most always found George in bed, with his

sceptre under the window-sash, so that he could get plenty of fresh air.

As it got along toward 9 o'clock, he would call the hired girl, tell her

to spread a linen lap-robe on the throne till morning, issue a royal ukase

directing her to turn out the cat, and instructing the cook to set the

pancake batter behind the royal stove in the council chamber, then he

would wind the clock and retire. Early in the morning George would be up

and dressed, have all his chores done and the throne dusted off ready for

another hard day's reign.

[Illustration: WRAPPED IN SLUMBER.]

George III is the party referred to in the Declaration of Independence the

present king of Great Britain, and of whom many bitter personal remarks

were made by American patriots. On this side of the water George was not

highly esteemed. If he had come over here to spend the summer with friends

in Boston, during the days of the stamp act excitement, he could have gone

home packed in ice, no doubt, and with a Swiss sunset under each eye.

George's mind was always a little on the bias, and in 1810 he went crazy

for the fifth time. Always before that he had gone right ahead with his

reign, whether he was crazy or not, but with the fifth attack of insanity,

coupled with suggestion of the brain and blind staggers, it was decided to

tie him up in the barn and let someone else reign awhile. The historian

says that blindness succeeded this attack, and in 1811 the Prince of Wales

became regent.

George III died at Windsor in 1820, with the consent of a joint committee

of both houses of congress, at the age of 82 years. He made the longest

run as king, without stopping for feed or water, of any monarch in English

history. Sixty years is a long time to be a monarch and look under the bed

every night for a Nihilist loaded with a cut-glass bomb and Paris green.

Sixty years is a long while to jerk a sceptre over a nation and keep on

the right side, politically, all the time.

George was of an inventive turn of mind, and used to be monkeying with

some kind of a patent, evenings, after he had peeled his royal robes. Most

of his patents related to land, however, and some of the most successful

soil in Massachusetts was patented by George.

He was always trying some scheme to make a pile of money easy, so that he

wouldn't have to work; but he died poor and crazy at last, in England. He

was not very smart, but he attended to business all the time, and did not

get up much of a reputation as a moral leper. He said that as king of

Great Britain and general superintendent of Cork he did not aim to make

much noise, but he desired to attract universal attention by being so

moral that he would be regarded as eccentric by other crowned heads.

The Cell Nest.

To the Members of the Academy of Science, at Wrin Prairie, Wisconsin:

_Gentlemen:_--I beg leave to submit herewith my microscopic report on

the several sealed specimens of proud flesh and other mementoes taken

from the roof of Mr. Flannery's mouth. As Mr. Flannery is the mayor of

Erin Prairie, and therefore has a world-wide reputation, I deemed it

sufficiently important to the world at large, and pleasing to Mr.

Flannery's family, to publish this report in the medical journals of the

country, and have it telegraphed to the leading newspapers at their

expense. Knowing that the world at large is hungry to learn how the

laudable pus of an eminent man appears under the microscope, and what a

pleasure it must be to his family to read the description after his

death, I have just opened a new box of difficult words and herewith

transmit a report which will be an ornament not only to the scrap-book

of Mr. Flannery's immediate family after his death, but a priceless boon

to the reading public at large.

Removing the seals from the jars as soon as I had returned from the

express office, I poured off the alcohol and recklessly threw it away.

A true scientist does not care for expense.

The first specimen was in a good state of preservation on its arrival. I

never saw a more beautiful or robust proliferation epitherial cell nest in

my life. It must have been secured immediately after the old epitherial

had left the nest, and it was in good order on its arrival. The whole

lobule was looking first-rate. You might ride for a week and not run

across a prettier lobule or a more artistic aggregation of cell nests

outside a penitentiary.

Only one cell nest had been allowed to dry up on the way, and this looked

a good deal fatigued. In one specimen I noticed a carneous degeneration,

but this is really no reflection on Mr. Flannery personally. While he has

been ill it is not surprising that he should allow his cell nests to

carneously degenerate. Such a thing might happen to almost any of us.

One of the scrapings from the sore on the right posterior fauces, I found

on its arrival, had been seriously injured, and therefore not available. I

return it herewith.

From an examination, which has been conducted with great care, I am led to

believe that the right posterior rafter of Mr. Flannery's mouth is

slightly indurated, and it is barely possible that the northeast duplex

and parotid gable end of the roof of his mouth may become involved.

I wish you would ask Mr. Flannery's immediate relatives, if you can do so

without arousing alarm in the breast of the patient, if there has ever

been a marked predisposition on the part of his ancestors to tubercular

gumboil. I do not wish to be understood as giving this diagnosis as final

at all, but from what I have already stated, taken together with other

clinical and pathological data within my reach, and the fact that minute,

tabulated gumboil bactinae were found floating through some of the cell

nests, I have every reason to fear the worst. I would be glad to receive

from you for microscopic examination a fragment of Mr. Flannery's

malpighian layer, showing evidences of cell proliferation. I only suggest

this, of course, as practicable in case there should be a malpighian layer

which Mr. Flannery is not using. Do not ask him to take a malpighian layer

off her cell nest just to please me.

From one microscopic examination I hardly feel justified in giving a

diagnosis, nor care to venture any suggestion as to treatment, but it

might be well to kalsomine the roof of Mr. Flannery's mouth with

gum-arabic, white lime and glue in equal parts.

There has already been some extravatations and a marked multiformity. I

also noticed an inflamed and angry color to the stroma with trimmings of

the same. This might only indicate that Mr. Flannery had kept his mouth

open too much during the summer, and sunburned the roof of his mouth, were

it not that I also discovered traces of gumboil microbes of the squamous

variety. This leads me to fear the worst for Mr. Flannery. However, if the

gentlemanly, courteous and urbane members of the Academy of Science, of

Erin Prairie, to whom I am already largely indebted for past favors, will

kindly forward to me, prepaid, another scraping from the mansard roof of

Mr. Flannery's mouth next week, I will open another keg of hard words and

trace this gumboil theory to a successful termination, if I have to use up

the whole ceiling of the patient's mouth.

Yours, with great sincerity, profundity and verbosity,

Bill Nye,

Microscopist, Lobulist and Microbist.

Hudson, Wis., May 3.

Parental Advice.

The past fifty years have done much for the newspaper and periodical

readers of the United States. That period has been fruitful of great

advancement and a great reduction in price, but these are not all. Fifty

years and less have classified information so that science and sense are

conveniently found, and humor and nonsense have their proper sphere. All

branches are pretty full of lively and thoroughly competent writers, who

take hold of their own special work even as the thorough, quick-eyed

mechanic takes hold of his line of labor and acquits himself in a

creditable manner. The various lines of journalism may appear to be

crowded, but they are not. There may be too much vagabond journalism, but

the road that is traveled by the legitimate laborer is not crowded. The

clean, Caucasian journalist, as he climbs the hill, is not crowded very

much. He can make out to elbow his way toward the front, if he tries very

hard. There may be too much James Crow science, and too much editorial

vandalism and gush, and too much of the journalism for revenue only. There

may be too much ringworm humor also, but there is still a demand for the

scientific work of the true student. There is still a good market for

honest editorial opinion, reliable news and fearless and funny paragraph

work and character sketches, as the song and dance men would say.

All this, however, points in one direction. It all has one hoarse voice,

and in the tones of the culverin, whatever that is, it says that to the

young man who is starting out with the intention of filling the tomb of a

millionaire, “Learn to do something well.”

Lots of people rather disliked the famous British hangman, and thought he

hadn't made a great record for himself, but he performed a duty that had

to be done by someone, and no one ever complained much about Marwood's

work. He warranted every job and told everyone that if they were

dissatisfied he would refund their money at the door. No man ever came

back to Marwood and said, “Sir, you broke my neck in an unworkmanlike

manner.”

It is better to be a successful hangman than to be the banished, abused

and heart-broken, cast-off husband of a great actress. Learn to take hold

of some business and jerk it bald-headed. Learn to dress yourself first.

This will give you self-assurance, so that you can go away from home and

not be dependent on your mother. Teach yourself to be accurate and careful

in all things. It is better to turn the handle of a sausage grinder and

make a style of sausage that is free from hydrophobia, than to be the

extremely hence cashier of a stranded bank, fighting horseflies in the

solemn hush of a Canadian forest.

People have wrong ideas of the respective merits of different avocations.

It is better to be the successful driver of a dray than to be the

unsuccessful inventor of a still-born motor. I would rather discover how

to successfully wean a calf from the parent stem without being boosted

over a nine rail fence, than to discover a new star that had never been

used, and the next evening find that it had made an assignment.

Boys, oh, boys! How I wish I could take each of you by the ear and lead

you away by yourselves, and show you how many ruins strew the road to

success, and how life is like a mining boom. We only hear of those who

strike it rich. The hopeful, industrious prospector who failed to find the

contact and finally filled a nameless grave, is soon forgotten when he is

gone, but a million tongues tell to forty million listening ears of the

man who struck it rich and went to Europe.

Therefore make haste to advance slowly and surely. I am aware that your

ears ache with the abundance wherewith ye are advised, but if ye seek not

to brace up while yet it is called to-day, and file away information for

future reference and cease to look upon the fifteen-ball pool game when it

moveth itself aright, at such time as ye think not ye shall be in

pecuniary circumstances and there shall be none to indorse for you--nay,

not one.