Newspaper Page Text
A Friendship Letter to Saloon Keepers In Georgia.
.Hhe- t2^w>k uB - R 7
#11^«»<?
wL —-
wSw _®
VOLUME TWO.
HUMVEE TWENTY-TOUR
WHAT WE THINK OF WHAT WE SEE
Sometimes we sympathhize with the grocer. Os
course the coal and ice men are far above human
sympathy and beyond human control, but the gro
cer at times seems to be almost human. So we can
appreciate the feelings of a certain grocer who had
the following conversation over ’phone begun by
a lady who had long been one of his customers:
“Why, haven’t my groceries come yet? I ordered
a bill two hours ago. I am expecting company at
twelve o’clock and here it is, a little past ten. I
MUST have those groceries and have them soon.
Can’t you start them at once?”
The grocer replied: “I’ll have the things sent
right out.” And he went to look up the order.
He found it. The bill of groceries consisted of the
following items: Lettuce, 10 cents; sweet pickles,
5 cents. Then he went behind his counter and his
face was red and his step was heavy and he said —
but we will not repeat it. While we cannot censure
him, we cannot repeat it.
n r
A man died recently in an asylum for the insane
in Portland, Maine, where he had been confined for
twenty years. He went there, his friends declare,
because he tried to please his wife until his mind
gave way. His wife was one of the kind who
thought she was very considerate and very easy to
get along with. She first asked her husband to quit
smoking. He did so. Then she insisted that he
give up hunting. He did this. Then she decided
that seven-up playing prevented a man’s giving the
attention to his business that it demanded. Where
upon he stopped playing cards, but he seemed wor
ried and went about with a morose expression on his
face. Then he took to fishing. It seemed to com
fort him. But the wife finally put this innocent
pastime on the prohibited list, and the poor man
went crazy. He hadn’t been in the asylum long be
fore his wife died. And there you are. It just
simply shows beyond any question that a man must
not be deprived of his little comforts like tobacco
and fishing and set-back. If that lady had been
more considerate of her husband’s rights she might
now be alive and her husband might have grown to
be the Oldest Inhabitant with the best stock of
fish stories on record. Man is a poor, frail crea
ture and wives should learn this before they go too
far.
R R
The Macon Telegraph publishes a letter received
at its office since the passage of the Prohibition bill.
It was potsmarked Holton and arrived by due
course of mail. It is as follows: “To the Tele
graph: —My wife, which was a grandmother, say,
do she run agin the general assembly if she make
catnip tea for Missus Simpkins. (Signed) Wrout
8.”
To which The Telegraph sagely replies: “The
General Assembly has not yet adjourned, and we
do not know what it will do. So far there is no
ATLANTA, GA., AUGUST 8, %7.
Sy A. E. RAMSAUR. Managins. Editor.
prohibition against the use of catnip tea, unless it
may be found that there is a smidgen of alcohol in
it.”
We owe the present General Assembly so much
gratitude for one Bill passed at this session that
we cannot complain or criticise even if it were to
do some things that would ordinarily be consid
ered foolish or ultra vires. We are frank to confess
that when there was talk of raising the fee for mar
riage licenses from one dollar and a half to two dol
lars, we trembled. To the rich that added fifty
cents didn’t mean much, but to the backbone of this
country, the horny handed son of toil, it meant a
day’s work, and who can foretell what changes may
take place in a woman’s mind in twenty-four hours?
Many a worthy young man who had succeeded in
having all things ready; the consent of his lady
love; parental acquiscence and the one-fifty, might,
because of having to put in another day’s work
for the additional fifty, lose out altogether. It
might finally grow to be one of the strong causes of
race suicide. So we say this measure was ill-ad
vised and we are happy that it was voted down.
We were gratified when the bill was introduced re
quiring all bedsheets in Georgia to be made longer.
Some folks did not grow tall enough to realize the
horrible suffering caused at times by short sheets.
It has been discovered that’ exposure of the feet
and some eighteen inches of ankle during cold Win
ter nights causes more colds and coughs than any
other one thing. So we consider that measure a
good one. And we want to see a number of other
things changed. For one thing, the Legislature
should take notice of the cruel custom prevalent
in this section of carrying chickens with their
heads down. Some legislator should solve the prob
lem we presented in these columns some time ago,
as to the best way of getting home with a chicken
when both hands and all one’s pockets are filled
with other purchases. And we believe this will bo
done. But there must be no monkeying with cat
nip tea. The formula must not be changed, neither
must there be any restriction placed upon its manu
facture or consumption. Why, it is a national in
stitution. It is not only the earliest memory most
of us treasure, it is besides the lifelong friend of
man. Away back in Scriptural times there were
wise men of the East and skilled workmen in brass
and metals and soothsayers and witches and men of
healing, but the one who really did the work and
got results, unless we are much mistaken, was- the
old woman with the corn-cob pipe, the poke sun
bonnet and the catnip tea recipe. It may be ob
jected by our critics (Alas, that we should be
criticised when we mean so well!) that there were
no pipes and that poke bonnets were not fashion
able in those days. And such a criticism may be
well founded. But there is one thing we hold out
for; and it will take something pretty strong to
change our mind; and that is that catnip flourished
in its greatest purity then. Look how they lived
those days. Folks just wouldn’t wear out at all,
hardly; and see what strength they had and how
they could bear up under trouble and hard times.
Only catnip could have laid the foundation for such
longevity.
R R
A man in Jamaica, New York, signing himself
“Old Man,” writes to his favorite newspaper mak
ing complaint as follows:
“A generation ago mother and I went on our
wedding trip and stopped for one night only at a
relative’s house. We have been paying for it ever
since. On the strength of that small obligation
those relatives, their kindred, heirs and assigns of
every degree have ever since planted themselves,
bag and baggage, on our front stoop at all hours
of the day and night until we feel like one of those
city restaurants with a sign in the window, ‘This
place is never closed.’
“It is most likely to happen any beautiful sum
mer morning. Right after breakfast as we take up
the delightful routine of a retired life, the bell
rings and upon answering it we find Sister Maria
and Cousin Nellie and Uncle John and Aunt Ma
tilda and little Willie standing in a row and grin
ning from ear to ear in anticipation of the great
surprise they are about to give the old folks.
“ ‘Didn’t you get our postal?’ is usually their
first ejaculation. They always send a postal just
as they start out, and of course they get here first.
If ever the postal gets hero first, I tell you right
now, mother and I, in spite of our rheumatism, will
shut up the house and dust out somewhere pretty
quick. ’ ’
That old man has a heart of stone. We don’t
know what his paper replied to his letter, but they
should have talked to him as he deserved to be
talked to. Why, any couple, even if they had never
seen their relatives before they came to town
on a visit, should be proud and happy to carry them
around and show them the sights. The trouble
with Old Man and his wife is that they grew up in
the city. If they had ever lived in the country and
had paid a visit to the city and had gone with City
Cousin out to the State Fair and watched the races,
and seen the cattle and the poultry and gone
through the Agricultural Building during the day,
and at night had visited the trained animal show
and seen the aggregation of wild Western Rough
riders and Pistol-shots, and gazed upon the real
Turkish Dancers, they would know something about
life. And then to make it complete they should
have risen the next morning at five, and after break
fast gone over to the Capitol and climbed to the top
of the dome, then out to the Park and the Zoo, then
back to the electric theatres; in short, they should
have trodden just once the ways made and ordained
from the beginning for Country Cousin, and then
they would not scoff and complain.
TWO DOLLARS A YEAR.
FIVE CENTS A COPY.