_"Ghoulish Glee," Bucyrus, O._, writes: "For two years I have been
sending a copy of my paper, the 'Palladium and Observer' to President
Cleveland. Although I have criticised his administration editorially
several times, I have done so with the best of motives and certainly for
his good. If he was angry with me for this, he surely has never so
expressed himself to me, but last August I sent him a bill for his paper
covering two years and over, and he has not answered my letter up to
this date. Will you answer this through the columns of the _Daily News_
telling me what I had better do, and so that others who may be in the
same fix can understand what your advice would be in such a case?"
Stop his paper. By all means deprive him of the paper. You should have
done so before. Then you will feel perfectly free to criticise his
administration to the bitter end.
Nothing startles a president any more than to shut off a paper that he
has become attached to. Mr. Cleveland will go out and paw around in the
wet grass in front of the white house, and finally he will go in,
wondering what has become of the Palladium and Observer. In a week or
two he will remit and tell you to continue sending the paper. Do not
criticise his administration too severely till you see whether he is
going to remit or not.
_Early Rose, Mankato, Minn._, writes: "Is it proper to mark passages in
a book of poems loaned to one by a young man in whom one feels an
interest, or should one be content with simply expressing one's
admiration of certain passages in the book?"
I think the latter plan would be preferable, Rose. I am sure that young
ladies make a great mistake when they mark the earnest and impassioned
passages in a book of poems belonging to another. I once loaned a book
of poems written by a gentleman named Swinburne. In this book Mr.
Swinburne had several times expressed himself as being violently in love
with all the works of nature, especially those people who differed with
him in the matter of sex. He wrote so fluently and so earnestly
regarding the matter of love that I loaned the book to a young lady,
hoping that she would take this as a vicarious expression of my
sentiments. It was a costly book, and so when it came back with Mr.
Swinburne's sentiments emphasized by means of a blue pencil, and his
earnest thoughts underscored with a crochet hook, punctuated with tears,
and stabbed with a hair-pin, I regretted it very much. I was led to
believe, also, by rereading the book, that she was in the habit of
perusing it at the breakfast table, and that she was a victim of the
omelet habit.
Do not mark a borrowed book unless you have more friends than you can
avail yourself of.
_Savant, Tailholt, Ind._: You can get Indian arrow-heads now almost
anywhere except on the frontier. A good hand-made Indian arrow head is
now made in Connecticut, and the prices are not exorbitant. I believe
that if you can get manufacturers' rates, delivered on board the cars at
New Haven, you can secure enough Indian arrow-heads for $25 to fresco
the sides of a house. See that the name of the manufacturer is burned in
the shank of each.
You will have no more trouble in securing Indian skulls. The manufacture
of Indian skulls has not arrived at that degree of perfection which we
hope for it in the future. You can get an Indian skull made of celluloid
now that looks quite nice and ghastly, or you can secure a bear's nose
made of hard rubber, with pores in it and little drops of perspiration
standing out on it. These noses have been used with great success in
securing bounty in the New England states, and several counties in Maine
have a large stock of rubber bear noses on which they have paid large
bounties, and which they would now sell at a great sacrifice.
Aztec pottery excavated from old mounds in the southwest can now be
purchased in any large city or made to order at the leading potteries of
the country.
_Niagarn Plummer, Tutewler's Crossing, Tenn._, asks: "Is it proper to
use the following expression, which was made in our colored debating
society three weeks ago? If you will answer this inquiry you will confer
a blessing on two young ladies who's got a bet up on the question. The
expression we agree was as follows:
'He's entitled to pay me for them pair of license.'
"I claim that the word 'them' should be 'those,' while my friend Miss
Bonesette Jackson says that the sentence is correct. Which is
incorrect?"
Where both have done so well it is hard to say which is the more
incorrect. I will withhold my opinion till your debating society puts in
an evening devoted to the discussion of this question. Please let me
know when it will occur, as I would like to be there.
_Etiquette, Chicago, Ill._, asks: "Will you answer through the columns
of the _Daily News_ what remedy you would prescribe for the great
nuisance while traveling of being compelled to wait all the forenoon for
the female fiend who monopolizes one end of the sleeping car half of the
time and the other end of the car the other half. I am a lady, and
nothing tends to discourage my efforts in trying to continue such like
this constant contact with the average female brute who bolts herself
into the ladies' dressing room in a sleeper and remains there all the
forenoon calcimining her purple nose and striving to beautify her
chaotic features. Do tell us what you would suggest."
That is a question I have been called upon to settle before, but I am
still worrying over it. I do not think we ought to fritter away our time
on the tariff and other remote matters until we have, once for all, met
and settled this vital question which lies so near to every heart.
I have seen a large woman take her teeth in one hand and a shawl-strap
full of hair in the other and adjourn to the ladies' dressing room at
Camp Douglas and finally emerge therefrom, with a smooch of prepared
chalk over each eye, at Winona. All that time half a dozen ladies in the
car gnawed their under lips and tried to look happy. I have known a
timid young lady to lose her breakfast because this same ogress, with
bristles along the back of her neck, as usual moved into the
dressing-room and lived there till the train reached its destination and
the dining-car was detached.
Some day this dressing-room will be made on the plan of a large
concertina, operated by means of clockwork, and after this venerable
hyena has laundered herself and primped and beautified and upholstered
herself and waxed her mustache, and insulted the plate-glass mirror for
an hour or two by constantly compelling it to reflect her features, the
walls of the apartment will gradually approach each other, and when that
woman is removed she will look like the battle of Gettysburg.