Baled Hay. A Drier Book than Walt Whitman's «Leaves o' Grass»
TekstWHY WE ARE NOT GAY
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.
SCIENTIFIC
THE Boomerang reporter, sent ont to find the North Pole, eighteen months ago, has just been heard from. An exploring party recently found portions of his remains in latitude 4-11-44, longitude sou'est by sou' from the pole, and near the remains the following fragment of a diary:
July 1,1881. – Have just been out searching for a sunstroke and signs of a thaw. Saw nothing but ice floe and snow as far as the eye could reach. Think we will have snow this evening unless the wind changes.
July 2. – Spent the forenoon exploring to the northwest for right of way for a new equatorial and North Pole railroad that I think would be of immense value to commerce. The grade is easy, and the expense would be slight. Ate my last dog to-day. Had intended him for the 4th, but got too hungry, and ate him raw with vinegar; I wish I was at home eating Boomerang paste.
July 3. – We had quite a frost last night, and it looks this morning as though the corn and small fruits must have suffered. It is now two weeks since the last of the crew died and left me alone. Ate the leather ends of my suspenders to-day for dinner. I did not need the suspenders, anyway, for by tightening up my pants I find they will stay on all right, and I don't look for any ladies to call, so that even if my pants came off by some oversight or other, nobody would be shocked.
July 4. – Saved up some tar roofing and a bottle of mucilage for my Fourth of July dinner, and gorged myself to-day. The exercises were very poorly attended and the celebration rather a failure. It is clouding up in the west, and I'm afraid we're going to have snow. Seems to me we're having an all-fired late spring here this year.
July 5. – Didn't drink a drop yesterday. It was the quietest Fourth I ever put in. I never felt so little remorse over the way I celebrated as I do to-day. I didn't do a thing yesterday that I was ashamed of except to eat the remainder of a box of shoe blacking for supper. To-day I ate my last boot-heel, stewed. Looks as though we might have a hard winter.
July 6. – Feel a little apprehension about something to eat. My credit is all right here, but there is no competition, and prices are therefore very high. Ice, however, is still firm. This would be a good ice-cream country if there were any demand, but the country is so sparsely settled that a man feels as lonesome here as a green-backer at a presidential election. Ate a pound of cotton waste soaked in machine oil, to-day. There is nothing left for to-morrow but ice-water and an old pocket-book for dinner. Looks as though we might have snow.
July 7. – This is a good, cool place to spend the summer if provisions were more plenty. I am wearing a seal-skin undershirt with three woolen overshirts and two bear-skin vests, to-day, and when the dew begins to fall, I have to put on my buffalo ulster to keep off the night air. I wish I was home. It seems pretty lonesome here since the other boys died. I do not know what I will get for dinner to-morrow, unless the neighbors bring in something. A big bear is coming down the hatchway, as I write. I wish I could eat him. It would be the first square meal for two months. It is, however, a little mixed whether I will eat him or he eat me. It will be a cold day for me if he —
Here the diary breaks off abruptly, and from the chewed up appearance of the book, we are led to entertain a horrible fear as to his safety.
THE REVELATION RACKET IN UTAH
OUR esteemed and extremely connubial contemporary, the Deseret News, says in a recent editorial:
"The Latter day Saints will rejoice to learn that the' vacancies which have existed in the quorums of the twelve apostles and the first seven presidents of seventies are now filled. During the conference recently held, Elder Abram H. Cannon was unanimously chosen to be one of the first seven presidents of seventies, and he was ordained to that office on Monday, October 9th. Subsequently, the Lord, by revelation through His servant, Prest. John Taylor, designated by name, Brothers George Teasdale and Heber J. Grant, to be ordained to the apostleship, and Brother Seymour B. Young to fill the remaining vacancy in the presidency of the seventies. These brethren were ordained on Monday, October 16th, the two apostles, under the hands of the first presidency and twelve, and the other under the hands of the twelve and the presidency of the seventies."
Now, that's a convenient system of politics and civil service. When there is a vacancy, the president, John Taylor, goes into his closet and has a revelation which settles it all right. If the man appointed vicariously by the Lord is not in every way satisfactory, he may be discharged by the same process. Instead, therefore, of being required to rally a large force of his friends to aid him in getting an appointment, the aspirant arranges solely with the party who runs the revelation business. It will be seen at a glance, therefore, that the man who can get the job of revelating in Zion, has it pretty much his own way. We would not care who made the laws of Utah if we could do its revelating at so much per revelate.
Think of the power it gives a man in a community of blind believers. Imagine, if you please, the glorious possibilities in store for the man who can successfully reveal the word of the Lord in an easy, extemporaneous manner on five minutes notice.
This prerogative does not confine itself to politics alone. The impromptu revelator of the Jordan has revelations when he wants to evade the payment of a bill. He gets a divine order also if he desires to marry a beautiful maid or seal the new school ma'am to himself. He has a leverage which he can bring to bear upon the people of his diocese at all times, even more potent than the press, and it does not possess the drawbacks that a newspaper does. You can run an aggressive paper if you want to in this country, and up to the time of the funeral you have a pretty active and enjoyable time, but after the grave has been filled up with the clods of the valley and your widow has drawn her insurance, you naturally ask, "What is the advantage to be gained by this fearless style of journalism?"
Still, even the inspired racket has its drawbacks. Last year, a little incident occurred in a Mormon family down in southern Utah, which weighed about nine pounds, and when the ex officio husband, who had been absent two years, returned, he acted kind of wild and surprised, somehow, and as he went through the daily round of his work he could be seen counting his fingers back and forth and looking at the almanac, and adding up little amounts on the side of the barn with a piece of red chalk.
Finally, one of the inspired mob of that part of the vineyard thought it was about time to get a revelation and go down there, so he did so. He sailed up to the de facto husband and quasi parent and solemnly straightened up some little irregularities as to dates, but the revelation was received with disdain, and the revelator was sent home in an old ore sack and buried in a peach basket.
Sometimes there is, even in Utah, a manifestation of such irreverence and open hostility to the church that it makes us shudder.
SAGE BRUSH TONIC
WE have a scheme on hand which we believe will be even more remunerative than the newspaper business, if successfully carried out. It is to construct a national remedy and joy-to-the-world tonic, composed of the carefully expressed juice of our Rocky mountain tropical herb, known as the sage brush. Sage brush is known to possess wonderful medicinal properties. It is bitter enough to act as a tonic and to convey the idea of great strength. Our idea would be to have our portrait on each bottle, to attract attention and aid in effecting a cure. We have noticed that the homeliest men succeed best as patent medicine inventors, and this would be right in our hand.
The tonic could be erected at a cost of three cents per bottle, delivered on the cars here, and after we got fairly to going we might probably reduce even that price. At one dollar per bottle, we could realize a living profit, and still do mankind a favor and turn loose a boon to suffering humanity. It will make the hair grow, as everyone knows, and it will stir up a torpid liver equally well. It just loves to get after anything that is dormant. It might even help the Democratic party, if it had a chance.
Our plan would be to advertise liberally, for we know the advantages of judicious advertising. Only last week a man on South C street had three cows to sell, which fact he set forth in this paper at the usual rates. Before he went to bed that evening the cows were sold and people were filing in the front gate like a row of men at the general delivery of the postoffice. The next morning a large mob of people was found camped out in front of the house, and the railroad was giving excursion rates to those who wanted to come in from the country to buy these cows that had been sold the day before.
We just quote this to show how advertising stirs the mighty deep and wakes people up. We would make propositions to our brethren of the press by which they could make some money out of the ad, too, instead of telling them to put it in the middle of the telegraph page, surrounded by pure reading matter, daily and weekly till forbid and pay when we get ready.
Publishers will find that we are not that kind of people. We shall aim to do the square thing, and will throw in an electrotype, showing us just discovering the sage brush, and exclaiming "Eureka," while we prance around like a Zulu on the war path. Underneath this we will write, "Yours for Health," or words to that effect, and everything will be pleasant and nice.
The Sage Brush Tonic will be made of two grades, one will be for prohibition states and the other for states where prohibition is not in general use. The prohibition tonic will contain, in addition to the sage brush, a small amount of tansy and Jamaica ginger, to give it a bead and prevent it from fermenting. A trial bottle will be sent to subscribers of this paper, also a fitting little poem to be read at the funeral. We will also publish death notice of those using the tonic, at one-half rates.
LAME FROM HIS BERTH
A SAD-EYED man, the other night, fell out of his bed into the aisle of a Pullman car and skinned his knee. He now claims that he was lame from his berth. When he passes Carbon he will be hung by request.
THE PUBLIC PRINTER
VERY few of the great mass of humanity know who makes the beautiful public document, with its plain, black binding and wealth of statistics. Few stop to think that hidden away from the great work-a-day world, with eyelids heavy and red, and with finger-nails black with antimony, toiling on at his case hour after hour, the public printer, during the sessions of Congress, is setting up the thrilling chapters of the Congressional Record, and between times yanking the Washington press backward and forward, with his suspenders hanging down, as he prints this beautiful sea-side library of song.
We are too prone to read that which gives us pleasure without thought of the labor necessary to its creation. We glide gaily through the Congressional Record, pleased with its more attractive features, viz: its ayes and noes – little recking that Sterling P. Rounds, the public printer, stands in the subdued gaslight with his stick half full, trying to decipher the manuscript of some reticent representative, whose speech was yesterday delivered to the janitor as he polished the porcelain cuspidor of Congress.
This is a day and age of the world when men take that which comes to them, and do not stop to investigate the pain and toil it costs. They never inquire into the mystery of manufacture, or try to learn the details of its construction. Most of our libraries are replete with books which we have received at the hands of a generous government, and yet we treat those volumes with scorn and contumely. We jeer at the footsore bugologist who has chased the large, green worm from tree to tree, in order that we may be wise. We speak sneeringly of the man who stuffs the woodtick, and paints the gaudy wings of the squash-bug that we may know how often she orates.
Year after year the entomologist treads the same weary road with his bait-box tied to his waist, wooing to his laboratory the army-worm and the sheep-scab larvæ in order that we, poor particles on the surface of the great earth, may know how these minute creatures rise, flourish and decay.
Then the public printer throws in his case, rubs his finger and thumb over a lump of alum, takes a chew of tobacco, and puts in type these words of wisdom from the lips of gray-bearded savants, that knowledge may be scattered over the broad republic. Patiently he goes on with the click of type, anon in an absorbed way, while we, gay, thoughtless mortals, wear out the long summer day at a basket picnic, with deft fingers selecting the large red ant from our cold ham.
Thus these books are made which come to us wrapped in manilla and franked by the man we voted for last fall. Beautiful lithographs, illustrating the different stages of hog cholera, deck their pages. Rich oil paintings of gaudy tobacco worms chase each other from preface to errata. Magnificent chromos of the foot and mouth disease appeal to us from page after page, and statistics boil out between them, showing what per cent of invalid or convalescent animals was sent abroad, and what per cent was worked into oleomargarine and pressed corn beef.
And what becomes of all this wealth of information – this mammoth aggregation of costly knowledge?
Cast ruthlessly away by a trifling, shallow, frivolous and freckle-minded race!
It is no more than right that Sterling P. Rounds should know this. How it will gall his proud heart to know how his beautiful books, and his chatty and spicy Congressional Record are treated by a jeering, heartless throng! Do you suppose that I would perspire over doubtful copy night after night, and then tread a job printing press all the next day printing books at which the bloodless, soulless public sneered, and the broad-browed talent of a cruel generation spit upon? Not exactly.
I have a moderate amount of patience and self-control, but I am free to say right here before the world, that if I had been in Mr. Rounds' place, and had at great cost erected a scientific work upon "The Rise and Fall of Botts in America," and a flippant nation of scoffers had utilized that volume to press autumn leaves and scraggly ferns in, I would rise in my proud might and mash the forms with a mallet, I would jerk the lever of the Washington press into the middle of the effulgent hence. I would kick over my case, wipe the roller on the frescoed walls, and feed my statistics, to the hungry flames.
No publisher has ever been treated more shabbily; no compositor has, in the history of literature, been more rudely disregarded and derided.
Think of this, dear reader, when you look carelessly over the brief but wonderful career of the hop-louse, or with apparent ennui dawdle through the treatise on colic among silk-worms, and facial neuralgia among fowls.
This will not only please Mr. Rounds, the young and struggling compositor, but it will gratify and encourage all the friends of American progress and the lovers of learning throughout our whole land.
A REPRODUCTIVE COMET
AN exchange remarks: "The present comet in the eastern sky, which can be distinctly seen by everyone at early morning, is certainly the most remarkable one of the modern comets. Professor Lewis Swift, director of the Warner observatory, Rochester, New York, states that the comet grazed the sun so closely as to cause great disturbance, so much so, that it has divided into no less than eight separate parts, all of which can be distinctly seen by a good telescope. There is only one other instance on record, where a comet has divided, that one being Biella's comet of 1846, which separated into two parts. Applications have been made to Mr. H. H. Warner, by parties who have noticed these cometary offshoots, claiming the $200 prize for each one of them. Whether the great comet will continue to produce a brood of smaller comets remains to be seen."
It is certainly to be hoped that it will not. If the comet is going to multiply and replenish the earth, the average inhabitant had better proceed in the direction of the tall timber.
It excites and rattles us a good deal now to look out for what comets we have on hand; but that is mild, compared with what we will experience if the heavens are to be filled every spring with new laid comets, and comets that haven't got their eyes open yet. Our astronomers are able to figure on the old parent comets, and they know when to look for them, too; but if twins are to burst upon our vision occasionally, and little bob-tail orphan comets are to float around through space, we will have to kind of get up and seek out another solar system, where we will be safe from this comet foundling asylum.
Instead of the calm sky of night, flooded with the glorious effulgence of the silvery moon, surrounded by the twinkling stars, the coming sky will be one grand Fourth of July exhibit of fireworks, with a thousand little disobedient comets coming from the four corners of heaven in search of the milky way.
Possibly science may be wrong. We have known science to make bad little breaks of that kind, and when it advertised a particular show to come off, it was delayed by a wreck on the main track, or something of that kind, so that people were disappointed. Let us hope that this is the case now, and that the comets now loafing around through space with their coat tails on fire will not become parents. It would be scandalous.
A LITTLE VAGUE
A TALL, pleasant-looking gentleman, with quick, restless eyes, and the air of a man who had been in a newspaper office before, dropped into The Boomerang science department yesterday, and asked the pale, scholarly blossom, who sat writing an epic on the alarming prevalence of pip and its future as a national evil, if he could be permitted to read the Deseret News.
The scientist said certainly, and after a long and weary tussle got the Mormon placque out of the ruins.
"I used to be foreman on the Deseret News," said the gentleman with the penetrating eye; "I worked on the News two years, and had a case on the Tribune. I've been foreman of thirty-seven papers during my life, but my most unfortunate experience was on the Deseret News. I wanted the paper just now to see if they were still running an ad. that I had some trouble with when I was there.
"It was a contract we had with Dr. Balshazzer to advertise his Blue Eyed Forget-me Not Perfume, Dr. Balshazzer's Red Tar Worm Buster, and Dr. Balshazzer's Baled Brain Food and Tolurockandryeandcodliveroil. The Blue Eyed Forget-me Not Perfume was to go solid in long primer, following pure reading matter eod in daily and eowtf weekly. The Red Tar Worm Buster was to go in nonpareil leaded, 192I.T.thFth98weow3mo, and repeat; and the Baled Brain Food and Tolurock-andryecodliveroil was a six-inch electrotype to go in on third page, following pure original humorous matter, with six full head lines d&weod oct9tf, set in reading type similar to copy; these to be inserted between pure religious news, with no other advertising within four miles of the electro, or the reading notices.
"At the same time we were running old Monkeywrench's Kidney Scraper on the same kind of a contract. The business manager did not remember this when we took the contract, so that as soon as we began to run the two there was a collision between the Tolurockandryeandcodliver-oil and the Kidney Scraper right off. I spoke to the business manager about it, and he was puzzled. He didn't exactly know what it was best to do under the circumstances, and he hated to lose old Balshazzer's whole trade, for he wouldn't run any of his ads unless he would take them all according to his contract.
"We tried to get him to let us run the BlueEyed Forget-me Not Perfume, lapr9d&wly deod&wly 10:2t-eowtf; the Bed Tar Worm Buster, dol3 4t da22tf aprlo-ly dol3tf, and the Brain Food and Tolurockandryecodliveroil mchl8*ly jun4dtf&dangl8@gft>*&Sylds30tf&rsvpeod$, but he wouldn't do it.
"I displayed his ad. top of column adjoining humorous column with three line readers and astonishers without advertising marks or signs according to copy and instructions to foreman, all omissions or errors to be subject to fine and imprisonment. They were to go pdq $eoy*Octp&s* and they were to be double leaded and headed with italic caps. Still I said it had been some time since I saw the contract and I had been suffering with brain fever six months in jail and possibly my memory might be defective. I would go over it again and see if I was right.
"The electrophones were to be blown in the bottle and the readers were to be set in lower case slugs with guarantee of good faith and Rough on Rats would not die in the house. Use Pinkham's Sozodont for itching, freckles, bunions and croup. It saved my life. My good woman, why are you bilious with em quads in solid minion. Eureka Jumbo Baking Powder will not crack or fade in any climate sent on three months trial in leaded brevier quoins and all wool column rules warranted to cure rheumatism and army worms or money refunded. To be adjoining selected miscellany or fancy brass dashes marked eodsyld&w*!*? – " At this moment a dark browed man came in and told us that the young man was his charge and on his way to Mount Pleasant asylum for the insane and that we would have to excuse the intrusion. After subscribing for the paper and asking us if we had heard from Ohio, he went.
The scientist said afterward that he found it difficult to follow the young man in some of his statements and that he was just going to ask him to go over that again and say it slower, when the Mount Pleasant man came in and interrupted the flow of conversation.