Letters from the vice-president of the Badger Talking Machine Company of
Milwaukee are signed JAS/AK. What do you make of that, Watsonius?
The following was typed at the end of a letter received t'other day:
"HEE/HA."
Recurring to the dictaters, letters from the O'Meara Paper company of
New York are tagged JEW/EM.
Irene, she works for David Meyer,
Likes her job, not peeved a bit.
But when she ends a letter she
Marks it with this sign, DAM/IT.
Ferro.
* * *
Hint to students in the School of journalism: Always begin the
description of a tumultuous scene by saying that it is indescribable,
and then proceed to describe it until the telegraph editor chokes you
off.
* * *
To our young friend who expects to operate a column: Lay off the item
about Miss Hicks entertaining Carrie Dedbeete and Ima Proone; it is
phony. But the wheeze about the "eternal revenue collector" is still
good, and timely.
* * *
"I am a cub reporter," writes W. H. D., "and am going to conduct a
column in a few weeks, I think." Zazzo? Well, you can't do better than
to start with the announcement that Puls & Puls are dentists in
Sheboygan. And you might add that if the second Puls is a son the firm
should be Puls & Fils.
* * *
Our cub reporter friend, W. H. D., who expects to run a column
presently, should not overlook the sure-fire wheeze, "Shoes shined on
the inside."
* * *
Still undiscouraged by the failure of his "shoes shined on the inside"
wheeze to get by, the new contrib hopefully sends us the laundry slogan:
"Don't kill your wife. Let us do the dirty work."
* * *
When all the world is safe for democracy, only the aristocracy of taste
will remain, and this will cover the world. There is hardly a town so
small that it does not contain at least one member. All races belong to
it, and its passwords are accepted in every capital. Its mysteries are
Rosicrucian to persons without taste. And no other aristocracy was ever,
or ever will be, so closely and sympathetically knit together.
* * *
Whether Europe and Latin America like it or not, the Monroe Doctrine
must and shall be preserved. You may remember the case of the man who
was accused of being a traitor. It was charged that he had spoken as
disrespectfully of the Monroe Doctrine as Jeffrey once spoke of the
Equator. This the man denied vigorously. He avowed that he loved the
Monroe Doctrine, that he was willing to fight for it, and, if
necessary, to die for it. All he had said was that he didn't know what
it was about.
* * *
"There will be no speeches. The entire evening will be given over to
entertainment."--Duluth News-Tribune.
At least prohibition is a check on oratory.
* * *
We have just been talking to an optimist, whose nerves have been getting
shaky. We fancy that a straw vote of the rocking-chair fleet on a
sanitarium porch would show a preponderance of optimists. What brought
them there? Worry, which is brother to optimism. We attribute our good
health and reasonable amount of hair to the fact that we never flirted
with optimism, except for a period of about five years, during which
time we lost more hair than in all the years since.
* * *
May we again point out that pessimism is the only cheerful philosophy?
The pessimist is not concerned over the so-called yellow peril--at least
the pessimist who subscribes to the theory of the degradation of energy.
Europe is losing its pep, but so is Asia. There may be a difference of
degree, but not enough to keep one from sleeping soundly o' nights. The
twentieth or twenty-first century can not produce so energetic a gang as
that which came out of Asia in the fifth century.
* * *
"If I had no duties," said Dr. Johnson, "and no reference to futurity, I
would spend my life in driving briskly in a postchaise with a pretty
woman." And we wonder whether the old boy, were he living now, would
choose, instead, a Ford.
* * *
In time of freeze prepare for thaw. And no better advice can be given
than Doc Robertson's: "Keep your feet dry and your gutters open."
* * *
There was an Irish meeting in Janesville the other night, and the press
reported that "Garlic songs were sung." And we recall another report of
a lecture on Yeats and the Garlic Revival. Just a moment, while we take
a look at the linotype keyboard....
* * *