John W. Gates, the “Wire King,” is described as “an extreme type
of the American ‘hustler.’” The Texas cattlemen had never seen
barbed wire before, and they ridiculed it.
“That stuff wouldn’t hold a Texas steer a holy minute,” said
they.
Gates was put on his mettle. “I’ll show you whether it will or
not,” said he.
This was in the picturesque town of San Antonio, which is dotted
liberally with small open spaces, or plazas. Gates hired the
nearest plaza, and got together a drove of twenty-five of the
wildest Texas steers that could be found. Then he fenced his
plaza with barbed wire, put the steers inside, and gave the
cattlemen a free show. The steers charged the wire, and were
pricked by the barbs. They shook their heads and charged again,
with the same result. After two or three of these defeats they
huddled together on the inside and tried to think it over. Gates
sold hundreds of miles of his wire that day at eighteen cents a
pound.--_Munsey’s_.
(731)
* * * * *
Men are sometimes condemned on hearsay, who would be approved if their
critics gave them an actual and fair hearing.
When Chief Justice Holt was on the bench, a society had
sprung up called “The Society for the Suppression of Vice or
the Reformation of manners” (and probably it still exists),
and they resolved to prosecute for indecency one of the famous
singers of the day named Leveridge. This artist used to sing
Dryden’s ode, “The Praise of Love and Wine,” so as to excite
great enthusiasm among the depraved votaries of the theater
by his peculiar manner of execution. The judge saw the craze
under which the prosecutor acted, and resolved to defeat them
by the following course: He said to the jury that he had read
carefully the words of the song, and he could see nothing very
culpable in the words, and therefore he could only come to the
conclusion that it must be the manner in which the ode was
sung that had occasioned this prosecution. The fairest manner,
therefore, to all parties would be for the defendant to sing the
song in presence of the court and jury, when they could readily
determine the matter in a satisfactory way. The performer took
this hint, and, of course, sang with his very greatest power
and good taste, so that not only the jury, without leaving the
box, acquitted him, but the mob insisted on carrying him home on
their shoulders. (Text.)--CROAKE JAMES, “Curiosities of
Law and Lawyers.”
(732)
* * * * *
Tolstoy, in his “Coffee-house Parable,” tells of how some men of
different faiths had met in a place of public resort and had,
after a time, begun to argue about God, each claiming alone to
possess a true knowledge of Him, to have alone received His
revelation. One, wiser than the others, led them all forth at
last till they stood in the sunlight. That sun is a great fact
and manifests itself to every creature on earth. Man sees it,
or does not see it, being blind, yet is ever cheered by it; the
earth is kissed by its rays till it blossoms and brings forth
its fruit; even the hard, inanimate things, like the rocks, are
warmed by the sun’s rays. And God is the great central fact of
life.
(733)
See APPEAL, A LIVING; PROOF.