Baled Hay. A Drier Book than Walt Whitman's «Leaves o' Grass»

CHICAGO CUSTOM HOUSE

THE Chicago custom house and post office, built from designs by Oscar Wild, and other delirum tremens artists, is getting wiggly, and bids fair to some day fall down and scrunch about 500 United States employes into the great billowy sea of the eternal hence. It is a sick looking structure, with little gothic warts on top, and red window sashes, and little half-grown smoke houses sprouting out of it in different places. It is grand, gloomy and peculiar, and looks as though it might be cursed with an inward pain.

FOREIGN OPINION

WE are indebted to Fred J. Prouting, correspondent of the foreign and British newspaper press, for a copy of the London Daily of the 9th inst., containing the following editorial notice:

"If ever celebrity were attained unexpectedly, most assuredly it was that thrust upon Bill Nye by Truthful James. It is just possible, however, that the innumerable readers of Mr. Bret Harte's 'Heathen Chinee' may have imagined Bill Nye and Ah Sin to be purely mythical personages. So far as the former is concerned, any such conclusion now appears to have been erroneous. Bill Nye is no more a phantom than any other journalist, although the name of the organ which he 'runs' savors more of fiction than of fact. But there is no doubt about the matter, for the Washington correspondent of the New York Tribune telegraphed on the 29th instant, that Bill Nye had accepted a post under the government. He has lately been domiciled in Laramie City, Wyoming territory, and is editor of The Daily Boomerang. In reference to Acting-Postmaster-Gen. Hatton's appointment of him as postmaster at Laramie City, the opponent of Ah Sin writes an extremely humorous letter, 'extending' his thanks, and advising his chief of his opinion that his 'appointment is a triumph of eternal truth over error and wrong.' Nye continues: 'It is one of the epochs, I may say, in the nation's onward march toward political purity and perfection. I don't know when I have noticed any stride in the affairs of state which has so thoroughly impressed me with its wisdom.' In this quiet strain of banter, Bill Nye continues to the end of his letter, which suggests the opinion that whatever the official qualifications of the new postmaster may be, the inhabitants of Laramie City must have a very readable newspaper in The Daily Boomerang."

While thanking our London contemporary for its gentle and harmless remarks, we desire to correct an erroneous impression that the seems to have as to our general style: The British press has in some way arrived at the conclusion that the editor of this fashion-guide and mental lighthouse on the rocky shores of time (terms cash), is a party with wild tangled hair, and an like a tongue of flame.

That is not the case, and therefore our English co-worker in the great field of journalism is, no doubt, laboring under a popular misapprehension. Could the editor of the News look in upon us as we pull down tome after tome of forgotten lore in our study; or, with a glad smile, glance hurriedly over the postal card in transit through our postoffice, he would see, not as he supposes, a wild and cruel slayer of his fellow men, but a thoughtful, scholarly and choice fragment of modern architecture, with lines of care about the firmly chiseled mouth, and with the subdued and chastened air of a man who has run for the legislature and failed to get there, Eli.

The London News is an older paper than ours, and we therefore recognize the value of its kind notice. The Boomerang is a young paper, and has therefore only begun fairly to do much damage as a national misfortune, but the time is not far distant, when, from Greenland's icy mountains to India's coral strand, we propose to search out suffering humanity and make death easier and more desirable, by introducing this choice malady.

Regarding the postoffice, we wish to state that we shall aim to make it a great financial success, and furnish mail at all times to all who desire it, whether they have any or not. We shall be pretty busy, of course, attending to the office during the day, and writing scathing editorials during the night, but we will try to snatch a moment now and then to write a few letters for those who have been inquiring sadly and hopelessly for letters during the past ten years. It is, indeed, a dark and dreary world to the man who has looked in at the same general delivery window nine times a day for ten years, and yet never received a letter, nor even a confidential postal card from a commercial man, stating that on the 5th of the following month he would strike the town with a new and attractive line of samples.

We should early learn to find put such suffering as that, and if we are in the postoffice department we may be the means of much good by putting new envelopes on our own dunning letters and mailing them to the suffering and distressed. Let us, in our abundance, remember those who have not been dunned for many a weary year. It will do them good, and we will not feel the loss.

THEY HAVE CURBED THEIR WOE

THEY say that Brigham Young's grave is looking as bare and desolate as a boulevard now. At first, while her grief was fresh, his widow used to march out there five abreast, and just naturally deluge the grave with scalding tears, and at that time the green grass grew luxuriantly, and the pig-weed waved in the soft summer air; but as she learned to control her emotions, the humidity of the atmosphere disappeared, and grief's grand irrigation failed to give down. We should learn from this that the man who flatters himself that in marrying a whole precinct during life, he is piling up for the future a large invoice of ungovernable woe, is liable to get left. The prophet's tomb looks to-day like a deserted buffalo wallow, while his widow has dried her tears, and is trying to make a mash on the Utah commission. Such is life in the far west, and such the fitting resting place of a red-headed old galvanized prophet, who marries a squint-eyed fly-up-the-creek, and afterward gets a special revelation requiring him to marry a female mass-meeting. Let us be thankful for what we have, instead of yearning for a great wealth of wife. Then the life insurance will not have to be scattered so, and our friends will be spared the humiliating spectacle of a bereft and sorrowing herd of widow, turned loose by the cold hand of death to monkey o'er our tomb.

HUNG BY REQUEST

THIS county has had two hemp carnivals during the past few weeks, and it begins to look like old times again. In each case the murder was unprovoked, and the victim a quiet gentleman. That is why there was a popular feeling against the murderer, and a spontaneous ropestretching benefit as a result. While we deplore the existence of a state of affairs that would warrant these little expressions of feeling, we cannot come right out and condemn the exercises which followed.

The more we read the political record of the candidate for office, as set forth in opposing journals, the more we feel that there are already few enough good men in this country, so that we do not care to spare any of them. If, therefore, the mischievous bad man is permitted to thin them out this way, the day is not distant when we won't have good men enough to run the newspapers, to say nothing of other avocations.

We know that eastern people will speak of us as a ferocious tribe on the Wyoming reservation, but we desire to call the attention of our more law-abiding brethren to the fact that there has been in the past year a lynching in almost every state in the Union, to say nothing of several hundred cases where there should have been. Do you suppose Wyoming young ladies would consent to play the waltz known as "Under the Elms," composed by Walter Malley, if Walter had been as frolicsome here as he was down on the Atlantic coast? Scarcely. We may be the creatures of impulse here, but not that kind of impulse.

Minneapolis hung a man during the past year, and so did Bloomington and other high-toned towns, and shall we, because we are poor and lonely, be denied this poor boon? We hope not. Because we have left the East and moved out here to make some money and build up a new country, shall we be refused the privileges we would have enjoyed if we had remained in the states. We trow not.

A telegraph pole with a remains hanging on it is not a cheerful sight, but it has a tendency to annoy and mentally disturb those who contemplate the violent death of some good man. It unnerves the brave assassin and makes him restless and apprehensive. Death is always depressing, but it is doubly so when it has that purple and suffocated appearance which is noticeable in the features of the early fall fruit of the telegraph pole. Lately, we will state, however, the telegraph pole has fallen into disfavor, and is not much used, owing to a rumor which gained circulation some time ago, to the effect that Jay Gould intended to charge the vigilance committee rent.

A COLORED GREEK SLATE

A NUDE colored woman, as wild as a gorilla, startling the people of the Marvel section of Missouri. She has been seen several times, and the last time threw a young lady, who was horseback riding, into hysteria, and with a grunt – not unlike that of a wild hog – jumped up and ran into the forest. At the time of her discovery she was burrowing into the side of the road, catching and eating crawfish, which she ate claws, hide and all. She is very black, and foams at the mouth when angry, like a wild animal at bay. She is probably a colored Greek slave in search of an umbrella and the remainder of her wardrobe. Still, she may be a brunette society belle, who went in swimming where a mud-turtle caught her by the pink toe, and the nervous shock has unsettled her mind.

THE MELVILLES

AN exchange says that Mrs. Melville has become deranged through excess of joy over the unexpected return of her husband. Another one says that it is thought that Lieutenant Melville is off his basement as a result of exposure to the vigorous and bracing air of the north pole. Still another says that Mr. Melville was always mean and hateful toward his wife, and that when he was at home, she had to do her own washing and wind the clock herself. From the different stories now floating about relative to the Melville family, we are led to believe that he is a kind and considerate husband, pleasant and good-natured toward his wife – while asleep; and that she is a kind, beautiful and accomplished wife – when she is sober. How many of our best wives are falling victims to the alcoholic habit recently! How sad to think that, as husbands, we will soon be left to wait and watch and vigil through the long, weary night for that one to return who promised us on the nuptial day that she would protect and love us. Ah, what a silent, but seductive foe to the husband is rum! How it creeps into the home circle and snatches the wife in the full blush and bloom of womanhood, while the pale, sad-eyed husband sits at the sewing machine and barely makes enough to keep the little ones from want.

No one can fully realize, but he who has been there, so to speak, the terrible shock that Mr. Melville received on the first evening that his wife came staggering home. No one can tell how the pain froze his throbbing gizzard, or how he shuddered in the darkness, and filled the pillow-sham full of sobs when he first knew that she had got it up her nose. Ah, what a picture of woe we see before us. There in the solemn night, robed in? long, plainly constructed garment of pure white, buttoned at the throat in a negligent manner, stands Mr. Melville with his bare, tall brow glistening in the flickering rays of a kerosene lamp, which he holds in his hand, while on the front porch stands the wife who a few years ago promised to defend and protect him. She is a little unsteady on her feet, and her hat is out of plumb. She tries to be facetious, and asks him if that is where Mr. Melville lives. He looks at her coldly and says it is, but unfortunately it is not an inebriate's home and refuge for the budge demolisher. Then he bursts into tears, and his sobs shake the entire ranch. But we draw a curtain over the scene.

A year later he may be discovered about two miles southwest of the north pole. Cool, but happy. He is trying to forget his woe. He smells like sperm-oil and looks like a bald-headed sausage, but the woe of drink is forgotten.'

How sad that he has returned and suffered again. What a mistake that he did not remain where, instead of his wife's coolness, he would have had only that of nature to contend against.

MENDING BROKEN NECKS

THEY have successfully set a boy's broken neck, in Connecticut, and now it looks as though the only way to kill a man is to take him about 200 miles from any physician, and run him through a Hoe Perfecting Press. If this thing continues, they will some day put some electricity into Pharaoh's daughter and engage her as a ballet-dancer, along with other tender pullets of her own age.

ARE YOU A MORMON?

WE are indebted to Elder Wilkins, of Logan, Utah, first-assistant-general-tooly-muck-a-hi Z. C. M. I. and Z. W. of T. U. O. M. and B. company, and president of the cache stake of Zion, constituting last in the quorum of seventies, for the late edition of the Mormon Guide and Hand Book of the Endowment House. It is a very pleasant work to read, and makes the whole endowment scheme as clear to the average mind as though he had been through it personally.

Pictures of the endowment chemiloon and Z. C. M. I. bib are given to show the novice exactly how they appear to the unclothed and unregenerate vision. The convert, it seems, first goes to the desk, on entering, and registers. Then she leaves her every-day clothes in the baggage room and gets a check for them. The next thing on the programme is a bath, called the farewell bath, because it is the last one taken by the endowment victim.

The convert is then anointed with machine oil from a cow's horn, after which she is named something, supposed to be the celestial cognomen. Then comes the endowment robe, which is a combination arrangement that don't look pretty. After that, the apprentice to polygamy goes into an impromptu garden of Eden, where the apple business is gone through with. A thick-necked path-master from Logan takes the character of Adam, and a pale-haired livery stable keeper from Salt Lake acts as the ruler of the universe. This is not making light of a sacred subject. It is just the simple, plain, horrible truth.

The creation of the world is thus gone through with by these blatant priests of Latter Day bogus sanctity, and the exercises are continued after this fashion through all their disgusting details. We have no time or inclination to enlarge upon them. Truth is sometimes nauseating, especially while discussing the Mormon problem.

If Brigham Young had lived, he would have helped out his church by a revelation that would have knocked the daylights out of polygamy; but as it is now, John Taylor, with his characteristic stubborness, will not attend to it, his revelation machine being somewhat out of whack, as Oscar Wilde would say, so that the anointing with the so-called sanctified lubricant will continue till the United States sits down on the whole grand farce.

CAUTION

A MAN is going about the streets of Laramie claiming to be John the Baptist. He has light hair and chin whiskers, is stout built and looks like a farmer. We desire to warn those of our readers who may be inclined to trust him, that he is not what he purports to be. We have taken great pains to look the matter up, and find, as a result of our research, that John the Baptist is dead.

A BLOW TO THE GOVERNMENT

AT the October term of the district court we shall resign the office of United States Commissioner for this judicial district, an office which we have held so long, and with such great credit to ourself. Fearing that in the hurry and rush of other business our contemporaries might overlook the matter, we have consented to mention, briefly, the fact that at the opening of court, Judge Blair will be called upon to accept the resignation of one of our most tried and true officials, who has for so long held up this corner of the great national fabric.

It has been our solemn duty to examine the greaser who sold liquor to our red brother, and filled him up with the deadly juice of the sour-mash tree. It has devolved upon us to singe the soft-eyed lad who stole baled hay from the reservation, and it has also been our glorious privilege to examine, in a preliminary manner, the absent-minded party who gathered unto himself the U. S. mule.

We have attempted to resign before, but failed. One reason was, that it was a novel proceeding in Wyoming, and no one seemed to know how to go to work at it. No one had ever resigned before, and the matter had to be hunted up and the law thoroughly understood.

The office is one of great profit, as we have said before. It brings wealth into the coffers of the U. S. Commissioner in a way that is well calculated to turn the head of most people. We have, however, succeeded in controlling ourself, and have so far suppressed that beastly pride which wealth engenders. With a salary of $7.25 per annum, and lead pencils, we have-steadily refused to go to Europe, preferring rather to plod along here in the wild west, although we may never see the beauties of a foreign shore.

Official duty was at all times weighing upon our mind like a leaden load. Oft in the stilly night we have been wakened by the oppressing thought that, perhaps at that moment, on some distant reservation, some pale-faced villain might be selling valley-tan to the gentle, untutored Indian brave, and it has tortured us and robbed us of slumber and joy. Now it is a relief to know that very soon we shall be free from this great responsibility. If an Indian gets drunk on the reservation, or a time-honored government mule is stolen, we shall not be expected to get up in the night and administer swift and terrible justice to the offender. Old-man-with-a-torpid-liver can go as drunk as he pleases on the reservation. It does not come under our jurisdiction any more. We can sleep now nights while some other man peels his coat, and acts as the United States nemesis for this diocese.

Sometime during the ensuing week we will turn over the lead pencil and the blotting paper of the office to our successor. We leave the Indian temperance movement in his hands. The United States mule, kleptomaniac also, we leave with him. With a clear conscience and an unliquidated claim against the government for $9.55, the earnings of the past two years, we turn over the office, knowing that although we have sacrificed our health, we have never evaded our duty, no matter how dangerous or disagreeable.

Yet we do not ask for any gold-headed cane as a mark of esteem on the part of the government. We have a watch that does very well for us, so that a testimonial consisting of a gold watch, costing $250, would be unnecessary. Any little trinket of that kind would, of course, show how ready the department of justice is to appreciate the work of an efficient officer, but we do not look for it, nor ask it. A thoroughly fumigated and disinfected conscience is all we want. That is enough for us. Do not call out the band. Just let us retire from the office quietly and unostentatiously. As regards the United States Commissionership, we retire to private life. In the bosom of our family we will forget the turbulent voyage of official life through which we have passed, and as we monkey with the children around our hearthstone, we will shut our eyes to the official suffering that is going on on all around us.

POISONS AND THEIR ANECDOTES

AN amateur scientist sends us a long article written with a purple pencil on both sides of twelve sheets of legal cap, and entitled "Poisons and Their Anecdotes."

Will the soft-eyed mullet-head please call and get it, also a lick over the eye with a hot stove leg, and greatly oblige the weary throbbing brain that, moulds the scientific course of this paper?

CORRESPONDENCE

Cheyenne, September 6, 1882

THE party, consisting of Governor Hale and wife, Secretary Morgan and wife, President Slack, of the "Wyoming Press Association, and wife, Mr. Baird and myself, started out of Laramie, about 8:30 last evening, and excurted along over the hill with some hesitation, arriving here this morning at four o'clock. The engine at first slipped an eccentric on Dale Creek bridge, and we remained there some time, delayed but happy. Then, as the night wore away and the gray dawn came down over the broad and mellow sweep of plain to the eastward, an engine ahead of us on a freight train blew off her monkey-wrench, and we were delayed in the neighborhood of Hazzard several more hours. Hazzard is a thriving town on the eastern slope of the mountains, with glorious possibilities for a town site. With gas and waterworks and a city debt of $200,000, Hazzard will some day attract notice from the civilized world. If her vast deposits of sand and alkali could be brought to the notice of capital, Hazzard would some day take rank with such cities as Wilcox and Tie City.

Still we had a good deal of fun. We heard that Whitelaw Reid, of the New York was on board, and we sent the porter into the other car after him. Mr. Reid did not behave as we thought he would at first. We had presumed that he was cold and distant in his manners, but he is not. As soon as the first embarrassment of meeting us was over, he sailed right in and did all the talking himself, just as any cultivated gentleman would. He told us all about New York politics and how he was fighting the machine, at the same time, however, casually dropping a remark or two that led us to conclude that it was only one machine that didn't want another one to win. He is a tall, rather fine-looking man, with a Grecian nose and long, dark hair, which he does up in tin foil at night. I told him that I was grieved to know that his hired man had, inadvertently no doubt, referred to me in a manner that gave the American people an idea that I was a good deal bigger man than I really was. I asked him whether he wanted to apologize then and there or be thrown over Dale Creek bridge into the rip-snorting torrent below.