The So-called Human Race

A WISCONSIN PARABLE

[From the Fort Atkinson Union.]

A friend asks us why we keep on pounding La Follette. He says there is no use pounding away at a man after he’s dead. Maybe we are like the man who was whaling a dead dog that had killed his sheep. “What are you whaling that cur for?” said a neighbor. “There is no use in that; he’s dead.” “Well,” said the man, “I’ll learn him, damn him, that there is punishment after death.”

Another way to impress upon the world the fact that you have lived in it is to scratch matches on walls and woodwork. A banged door leaves no record except in the ear processes of the persons sitting near the door, whereas match scratches are creative work.

Lives of such men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Match-marks on the walls of time.

HE SHOULD

Sir: Mr. Treetop, 6 feet 2 inches, is a porter at the St. Nicholas Hotel, Decatur. Would he add anything to the landscape gardening surrounding the Academy of Immortals? W. N. C.

WHY THE EDITOR BEAT IT

[From the Marengo Republican-News.]

Baptist Church, 7:30 p.m. – Popular evening service. Subject, “Fools and Idiots.” A large number are expected.

Speaking again of “experience essential but not necessary,” it was a gadder who observed to a fellow traveler in the smoker: “It is not only customary, but we have been doing it right along.”

“Even now,” remarks an editorial colleague, “the person who says ‘It is I’ is conscious of a precise effort which exaggerates the ego.” No such effort is made by one of our copyreaders, who never changes ‘who’ or ‘whom’ in a piece of telegraph copy; because, says he, “I never know which is right.”

HERE IT IS AGAIN

[From the classified ads.]

Saleslady, attractive, energetic, ambitious hustler. Selling experience essential but not necessary. Fred’k H. Bartlett & Co.

Her attractiveness, perchance, is also essential but not necessary.

We see by the lith’ry notes that Vance Thompson has published another book. Probably we told you about the farmer in Queechee at whose house Vance boarded one summer. “He told me he was going to do a lot of writing,” said the h. h. s. of t. to us, “and got me to hitch up and drive over to Pittsfield and buy him a quart bottle of ink. And dinged if he didn’t give me the bottle, unopened, when he went back to town in the fall.”

AFTER READING HARVEY’S WEEKLY

I love Colonel Harvey,
His stuff is so warm,
And if you don’t bite him
He’ll do you no harm.

I’ll sit by the fire
And feed him raw meat,
And Harvey will roar me
Clear off’n my feet.

The Nobel prize for the best split infinitive has been awarded to the framer of the new administrative code of the state of Washington, which contains this:

“To, in case of an emergency requiring expenditures in excess of the amount appropriated by the legislature for any institution of the state, state officer, or department of the state government, and upon the written request of the governing authorities of the institution, the state officer, or the head of the department, and in case the board by a majority vote of all its members determines that the public interest requires it, issue a permit in writing,” etc.

“‘When this art reaches so high a standard the Post deems it a duty to publicly commend it.’ – Edward A. Grozier, Editor and Publisher the Boston Post.”

But ought a Bostonian to split his infinitives in public? It doesn’t seem decent.

Every now and then a suburban train falls to pieces, and the trainmen wonder why. “What do you know about that?” they say. “It was as good as new this morning.” It never occurs to them that the slow but sure weakening of the rolling stock is due to Rule 7 in the “Instructions to Trainmen,” which requires conductors and brakemen to close coach doors as violently as possible. Although not required to, many passengers imitate the trainmen. With them it is a desire to make a noise in the world. If a man cannot attract attention in the arts and the professions, a sure way is to bang doors behind him.

DOXOLOGY

Praise Hearst, from whom all blessings flow!
Praise Hearst, who runs things here below.
Praise them who make him manifest —
Praise Andy L. and all the rest.

Praise Hearst because the world is round,
Because the seas with salt abound,
Because the water’s always wet,
And constellations rise and set.

Praise Hearst because the grass is green,
And pleasant flow’rs in spring are seen;
Praise him for morning, night and noon.
Praise him for stars and sun and moon.

Praise Hearst, our nation’s aim and end,
Humanity’s unselfish friend;
And who remains, for all our debt,
A modest sweet white violet.

We like Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony, Kubla Khan, and many other unfinished things, but we have always let unfinished novels alone – unless you consider unfinished the yarn that “Q” finished for Stevenson. And so we are unable to appreciate the periodical eruptions of excitement over “The Mystery of Edwin Drood.” Were we to read it, we dessay we should be as nutty as the Dickens fans.

Mr. Basso, second violin in the Minneapolis Orchestra, would seem to have missed his vocation by a few seats.

MY DEAR, YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN FRED!

[From the Milwaukee Sentinel.]

In this one, the orchestra became a troupe of gayly appareled ballerinas, whirling in splendid abandon, with Mr. Stock as première.

One lamps by the advertisements that the Fokines are to dance Beethoven’s “Moonshine” sonata. The hootch-kootch, as it were.

OFT IN THE STILLY WISCONSIN NIGHT

Sir: California may have the most sunshine, but I’ll bet Wisconsin has the most moonshine. E. C. M.

Did ever a presidential candidate say a few kind words for art and literature, intimate the part they play in the civilizing of a nation, and promise to further them by all means in his power, that the people should not sink deeper into the quagmire of materialism? Probably not.