|IT was the policy of this paper, from its inception, whatever that is,
to frown upon and discourage fraud wherever the latter has shown its
hideous front. In doing so, we have simply done our duty, and our reward
has been great, partially in the shape of money, and partially in the
shape of conscious rectitude and new subscribers.
We shall continue this course until we are able to take a trip to
Europe, or until some large man comes into the office with a masked
battery and blows us out through the window into the mellow haze of an
eternal summer time.
We have been waiting until the present time for about 100,000 shade
trees in this town to grow, and as they seem to be a little reluctant
about doing so, and the season being now far advanced, we feel safe in
saying that they are dead. They were purchased a year ago of a nursery
that purported to be O. K., and up to that time no one had ever breathed
a word against it. Now, however, unless those trees are replaced, we
shall be compelled to publish the name of that nursery in large, glaring
type, to the world. The trees looked a little under the weather when
they arrived, but we thought we could bring them out by nursing them.
They stood up in the spring breeze like a seed wart, however, and
refused to leave. They are still obstinate. The agent concluded to
leave, but the trees did not. We feel hurt about it, because people
come here from a distance and laugh at our hoe-handle forest. They speak
jeeringly of our wilderness of deceased elms, and sneer at our defunct
magnolias. We hate to cast a reflection on the house, but we also
dislike to be played for Chinamen when we are no such thing.
We prefer to sit in the shade of the luxuriant telegraph pole, and
stroll at set of sun amid the umbrageous shadows of the barbed wire
fence, through which the sunlight glints and glitters to and fro.
Nothing saddens us like death in any form, and 100,000 dead trees
scattered through the city, sticking their limbs up into the atmosphere
like a variety actress, bears down upon us with the leaden weight of an
ever-present gloom.