 Section 27 of Bailed Hay by Bill Nye. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Riding Down a Mountain Gunnison City is one of the peculiarities of a mining boom. It spreads out and slops over the plain like a huge camp meeting, but without shape or beauty. The plains there are red and sandy, the trees are not nearer than the foothills, and the city which claims 5,000 inhabitants, though 3,000 would, no doubt, be more accurate, is composed of a wide area of ground, with scattering houses that look lonely in the midst of the desolation. Mining in Colorado this season has not advanced with the wonderful impetus which characterized it in previous years. Wherever you go, you hear first one reason and then another why good mines are not being worked. There is trouble among the stockholders, a game of freeze-out, lack of capital to put in proper machinery, or excessive railroad freight to pay which virtually paralyzes the reduction of ore owned by men too poor to erect the expensive works necessary to the realization of profit from the mines. Starting from Gunnison City now, you rise at a rate of over 200 feet to the mile, zigzagging up the almost perpendicular mountain, near the summit of which is the Alpine Tunnel. As you near the tunnel, there is a perpendicular and sometimes even a jutting wall above you, hundreds of feet at your right. While far below you on your left is a yellow streak, which at first you take to be an old mountain trail, but which you soon discover is the circuitous track over which you have just come. Near here, while the road was being built, a fine span of horses balked on the grade and like all balky horses, proceeded to back off the road. The owner got out of the wagon and told them they could keep that thing up if they wanted to, but he could not endorse their policy. They kept backing off until the wagon went over the brink and then there was a little scratching of loose stones, the kaleidoscope of legs and hoofs, a little rush and rumble, and the world was wealthier by one less balky team. The owner never went down to see where they went to or how they lit. He was afraid they would not survive their injuries, so he did not go down there. Later the carrion crows and turkey buzzards indicated where the refractory team had landed, and deep in the mountain gorge the white bones lie amid the wreck of a lumber wagon as monuments of equine folly. On Saturday evening we had the pleasure of riding down the dizzy grade from Hancock, a distance of eighteen miles, at which time we descended a mile perpendicularly in a push car, with Superintendent Wilbur as conductor and engineer. A push car is a plain, flat car, about as big as a dining table, with four wheels and nothing to propel it but gravity, and nothing to stop it but a sharpened piece of two-by-four scantling. Hancock is near the Alpine Tunnel, at the summit of the mountains, about eleven thousand feet high. Secretary Morgan misses Morgan with their little daughter Gertrude, E.A. of the sun, Frank Clark of the leader, Superintendent Wilbur and ourselves, constituted the party. At first everybody was a little nervous with the accumulating velocity of the car, and the yawning abyss below us. But later we got more accustomed to it, and the solemn grandeur of the green pine-covered canyons, the lofty snow-covered peaks, apparently so near us, and the rushing foaming torrent far below us were all we saw. Like lightning we rounded the sharp curves where the roads seemed to hang over instant destruction, and we held our breath as we thought that, like Dutch Charlie and other great men, only a piece of two-by-four scantling stood between us and death. Again and again the abrupt curve loomed up ahead and below us while we flew along the narrow gauge at such a pace that we were almost sure the car would leave the track before it would round such a point, and each time the two-by-four went down on the drive-wheel with a pressure that sent up volumes of blue smoke. It was a wild grand ride, so wild and grand, in fact, that even yet we wake up at night with a start from a dream in which the same party is riding down that canyon at lightning speed, and Mr. Wilbur, in a thoughtless moment, has dropped his pine-break overboard. Shades of Sam Patch, but wouldn't it scatter the average excursor over southern Colorado if such a thing should happen some day? Why the woods would be full of them, and for years to come the prospector along Chalk Creek Canyon would find pyrites of editorial poverty, and indications of collar buttons and fragments of Archimedean levers and other mementos of the great editorial Hedgira of 1882. Corraldom Last May, Sheriff Boswell received a postal card from a man up near Fort McKinney describing a pair of horses that had just been stolen and asking that Mr. Boswell would keep his eye peeled for the thief and arrest him on sight. Last week the sheriff discovered the identical team with color, brands, and everything to correspond. He told the driver that he would have to turn over that team and come along to the Bastille. The man stoutly protested his innocence and claimed that he owned the team. But Boswell laughed him to scorn and said that he often got such games of talk as that when he arrested horse thieves. Once as they were going down into the damp corridors Judge Blair met the criminal, recognized him at once and called him by name. It seems that he was the man who had originally written Boswell and having found his horses had neglected to inform him. Thus, when he came to town four months afterward he got snatched. You not only have to call the officer's attention to a larceny in this country, but it is absolutely necessary that you call off the sleuth hound of eternal justice when you have found the property, or you will be gathered in unless you can identify yourself. Boswell's initials are N.K., and now the boys call him Nemesis K. Boswell. Let bald-headed men rejoice! The London Lancet upsets the popular theory that abundant hair is a sign of bodily or mental strength. The fact is, it says, that notwithstanding the Samson precedent, the Chinese, who are the most enduring of all races, are mostly bald. Menace to the supposition that long and thick hair is a sign of intellectuality, all antiquity, all madhouses, and all common observation are against it. The easily-weedled Esau was hairy, the mighty Caesar was bald. Long-haired men are generally weak and fanatical, and men with scant hair are the philosophers and soldiers and statesmen of the world. Oscar Wilde, Theodore Tilton, and others of the long-haired fraternity should read these statements with soulful and heart-earning delight. Will the editor of the Lancet please step over to the saloon opposite the royal palace and take something at our expense? Pard, we shake with you. Count us in also. Reckon us, along with Caesar and Elijah and Aristotle, please. Though young, we can show more polished intellect to the superficial foot than many who have lived longer than we have. Will the editor of the Lancet please put our name on his list of subscribers and send the bill to us? What we want is a good, live paper that knows something, and isn't afraid to say it—firmness. We were pained to see a large mule brought into town yesterday with his side worn away until it looked very thin. It looked as though the pensive mule had laid down to think over his past life, and being in the company of seven other able-bodied mules, all of whom were attached to a government freight wagon going down a mountain, this particular animal, while wrapped in a brown study, had been pulled several miles with so much unction, as it were, that when the train stopped it was found that this large and highly accomplished mule had worn his side off so thin that you could see his inmost thoughts. When we saw him he looked as though if he had his life to live over again he would select a different time to ponder over his previous history. Sometimes a mule's firmness causes his teetotal and everlasting overthrow. Firmness is a good thing in its place, but we should early learn that to be firm we need not stand up against a cyclone till our eternal economy is blown into the tops of the neighboring trees. Moral courage is a good thing, but it is useless unless you have a liver to go along with it. Sometimes a man is required to lay down his life for his principles, but the cases where he is expected to lay down his digester on the altar of his belief are comparatively seldom. We may often learn a valuable lesson from the stubborn mule and guard against the too perturberant use of our own ideas in opposition to other powers against which it is useless to contend. It may be wrong for giant powder to blow the top of a man's head off without cause, but repeated contests have proved that even when giant powder is in the wrong it is eventually victorious. Let us therefore, while reasonably fixed in our purpose, avoid the display of a degree of firmness which will scatter us around over two school districts and confuse the corner in his inquest. Put in a sump. The president of the North Park and Vandalium Mining Company not long ago got a letter from the superintendent which closed by saying that everything was working splendidly, the ore body was increasing and the quality and richness of the rock improving with every foot. He also added that he had constructed a sump in the mine. The president, having spent most of his life in military and political affairs, had never found it necessary to use a sump, and so he didn't know to a dead moral certainty what it was that the superintendent had put in. He hoped, however, that the expense would not cripple the company and that by handling it carefully they might escape damage from an explosion of the sump at an unlooked foretime. He proceeded, however, to examine the unabridged and found that it meant a cistern which is constructed at the bottom of a mine for the purpose of collecting the water and from which it is pumped. The president, having posted himself, concluded to go and have a little conversation with one of the directors who was a drugist in the city and see if he knew the nature of a sump. The president, in answer to the questions of the director relative to the latest news from the mine, said that it was looking better all the time and that the superintendent had constructed a sump. The director never blinked his eye. He acted like a man who has lived on sumps all his life. Do you know what a sump is? asked the president. Why, of course, anybody knows what a sump is. It's a place where they collect water from a mine and pump it from to free the mine from water. A man who don't know what a sump is don't know his business. That's all I got to say. The president looked hurt about something. He hadn't looked for the conversation to assume just exactly the shape that it had. Finally he said, Well, you needn't point your wither and sarcasm at me. I know what a sump is. I just wanted to see whether a man who had been in the pill business all his life knew what a sump was. I knew you claimed to know almost everything, but I didn't believe you was up on that word. Now, if it's a proper question, I'd like to know just how long you have been so all-fired fluent about mining terms. Then the director said that there was no use in putting on airs and swelling up with pride over a little thing like that. He for one didn't propose to crow over other men who had not had the advantages that he had, and he would be frank with the president and admit that an hour ago he didn't know the difference between a sump and a surcier air-eye. It seems that a passenger who had come in on the same coach that brought in the superintendent's letter had casually dropped the remark to the director that Smith had put a sump in the end-o-mile, and the director had lit out for a dictionary without loss of time, so that when the two great miners got together they were both proud and confident. Which was proud because he knew what a sump was, and confident that the other one didn't know. End of Section 27. Section 28 of Bailed Hay by Bill Nye, this LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Mining as a Science. The study of mining as a science is one which brings with it a quiet joy which the novice knows nothing of. In Morrison's Mining Rights we find the following. If all classes of load deposits are to be regarded as legally identical, it follows that where a vein is pinched for a considerable distance, it is lost to the owner. If its apex is found in the slide, it cannot be located as a load. The distinction which would relieve these points would be to allow the dip to such loads only as have a perpendicular base and are not on the nature of stratigraphical deposits. All of the inconsistencies apparent with the previous paragraph are the sequence to any other ruling. If it be alleged that such holdings are not applicable to Fisher veins, at once a distinction is made between the two classes of veins in their consideration under the act. And if a single distinction in their legal status be admitted, no reason can be alleged against further distinctions with reference to their essential points at difference. Now, few who have not toiled over the long and wearsome works upon mining as a legal branch of human knowledge would care a cold dead clam whether such loads as have perpendicular bases or which have had stratigraphical deposits are to be allowed under the law in relation to pinched out or intersecting veins. But to the student whose whole life is wrapped up in the investigation of this beautiful mystery, these logical sequences break upon his mind with a beautiful effulgence that fills him with unstratified and purely igneous or nomencaeus joy. Reading farther in the thrilling work, above referred to, we find this little garland of fragrant literary wood violets. Another point to be guarded against in the conveyance of a segregated portion of a claim on a fissure vein is that a line drawn at right angles to the side lines at the surface and which is intended as the dividing line between the part retained and the part sold may, when carried vertically downward, cut off the vein on its dip in such a way as to divide it, for instance, at the surface. It begins at the west end of Discovery Shaft. It may leave the bottom of such shaft entirely in the west fraction of the load within a comparatively few feet of sinking. Such result, or a similar result, will invariably occur where the vein has a dip, unless the end lines are at exact right angle to the strike of the vein. Now, however, supposing that for the sake of argument the above is true, but in addition there to a segregation of non-metallic vertically heterogeneous quartzite in non-conformity to presuppose notions of horizontal deposits of mineral in place should be agitized and truncated with diverging lines meeting at the point of intersection and disappearing with the pinched veins or departing from known proximity and company with the dividends, we have then to consider whether a wind's coming in at this juncture and pinching out the assessments, would thereby invalidate tertiary flux and thereby, in the light of close legal examination of the slide, bar out the placer or riparian rites of contesting parties, or if so, why in thunder should it not, or at least what can be done about it in case of same or totally different set of surrounding circumstances should or should not take place. Drawbacks of Royalty It seems from our late dispatches that the prevailing assassin has made his appearance in England and has fired at her royal tallness, the Queen. The dispatch does not say why the man fired at Victoria, but the chances are that she at some time in a careless moment refused him the appointment of bookkeeper to the Queen's livery stable extraordinary, or neglected to confirm his nomination to the position as usher plenipotentiary to the royal bathroom and night of the Queen's cuspidore. Royalty gets it in the nose every day or two, and yet after the family has hung on to the salary for several centuries, it does not occur to the average king that he could strike a job as humorist on some London paper, at about the same salary and with none of the annoyances. The most of those people who have worn a great heavy cast-iron crown with diamonds on it as big as a peanut have become so attached to it that they can't swear off in a moment. We do not see where the orchestra comes in on a thing like that. The average American would rather sell mining stock and get wealthy without a tail on his name and his hair all worn off with a crown two sizes too large for him than to be king of the cannibal islands with a missionary baby on toast twice a day. The London spectator says that the humor of the United States, if closely examined, will be found to depend in a great measure on the ascendancy which the principle of utility has gained over the imagination of a rather imaginative people. The humor of England, if closely examined, will be found just about ready to drop over the picket fence into the arena but never quite making connections. If we scan the English literary horizon we will find the humorist up a tall tree depending from a sharp knot thereof by the slack of his overalls. He is just about out of sight at the time you look in that direction. He always has a man working in his place, however. The man who works in his place is just paring down the half-soul and newly pegging a joke that has recently been sent in by the foreman for repairs. About the autopsy We have been carefully reading and investigating the report of Dr. Lamb relative to the anatomical condition of the latent remnants of Charles J. Goutot and also a partial or minority report furnished by the other two doctors who got it on their ear at the time of the autopsy. We are permitted to print the fragment of a private letter addressed personally to the editor from one of these gentlemen whose name we are not permitted to use. He says, We found the late lamented and after looking him over thoroughly and removing what works he had inside of him agreed almost at once that he was dead. This was the only point upon which we agreed. Shortly after we began to remove the internal economy of the deceased some little discussion arose between Dr. Lamb and myself about the extravisation of blood in the right pictoralis and the peculiar position of the dew flicker on the dome of the diaphragm. I made a suggestion about the causes that had led to this stating in my opinion the pericarditis had crossed the median line and congested the doodad. He said it was no such thing in that I didn't know the difference between a malpiggy and capsule and an abdominal viscera. That insulted me, but I held my temper going on with my work removing the gallbladder and other things as though nothing had been said. By and by Lamb said I'd better quit fooling with the pancreas and come and help him. Then he advanced a tom-full theory about an adhesion of the duramatter and the gib-boom or some medical rot or other and I told him that I thought he was wrong and I didn't believe deceased had any duramatter. Lamb flared up then and struck at me with a bloody towel. I then grabbed a fragment of liver and pasted him in the nose. I don't allow any saw-bone upstart to impose on me if I know it. He then called me a very appropriate epithet indeed and struck me in the eye with a kidney. Then the fight became disgraceful and by the time we got through the late lamented was considerably scattered. Pure lay a second-hand lobe of liver while over there was the apex of a lung hanging on a gas fixture. It was a pretty lively scrimmage and made quite a feeling between us. I still think, however, that I was right in standing up for my theory and when an old pelican like Lamb thinks he can scare me into St. Vitus dance he bulls himself. The fact is he don't know a gallbladder from the gout and he couldn't tell a lobulated tumor from the side of a house. I told him so too while I was putting some court plaster on my nose after he pasted me with an old prison bed-stead. Lamb would get along better with me if he would curb his violent temper. I guess he thought so too when I broke his false teeth and jammed them so far back in his esophagus that he got blue in the face. I never allow a second-hand horse-doctor to impose on me if I know it, and it is time Doc Lamb took a grand aberrescent tumble to himself. A few calm words. A London paper tells how when a certain dean of Chester was all ready to perform a marriage between persons of high standing the bride was very late. When she reached the altar to the question, will thou take this man? She replied in most distinct tones. I will not. On retiring with the dean to the vestry she explained that her late arrival was not her fault and that the bridegroom had accosted her on her arrival at the church with, God damn you, if this is the way you begin you'll find it to your cost when you're my wife. That was no way to open up a honeymoon. They are not doing that way recently, and in the bone tone and disabilse select and etc. society of the more metropolitan cities such a remark would at once be considered as Utre and Corpus Christi. The groom should stop and consider that sometimes the most annoying accidents occur to a young lady in dressing. Suppose, for instance, that in stooping over to button her shoe she breaks a spoke in her corset and has to send it to the blacksmith's shop. Do you think that the groom is justified in kicking over the altar and dragging his a fiancée up the aisle by the hair of the head? We would rather suggest that he would not. There are other distressing accidents which may happen at such a time to the prospective bride, but we forbear to enter into the harrowing details. No man with the finer feelings of a gentleman will ever knock his new wife down in the church and tramp on her until he knows to a reasonable degree of a certainty that he is right. It may be annoying, of course, to the groom to stand and look out of the window for half an hour, while the bride is allaying the hemorrhage of a pimple on her nose with a powder puff. But then great hemlock, if a man can't endure that and smile, how will he behave when the clothes line falls down and the baby gets a kernel of corn up its nose? These are questions which naturally occur to the candid in thinking mind and command our attention. The groom who would swear at his wife for being a few minutes late at the altar would kill her and throw her stiffened remains over into the sheep corral if she allowed the twins to eat crackers in his bed and scatter the crumbs over his couch. Let us look these matters calmly in the face and not allow ourselves to drift away into space. End of section twenty-eight. Section twenty-nine of Bailed Hay by Bill Nye. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Don't like our style. Oscar Wilde closes his remarks about America, thus, but it is in the decay of manners that the thoughtful and well-bred American has caused for regret. I have repeatedly said this, but I am told in reply, we are still a young country and you must not be too severe upon us. Yes, I answer, but when your country was still younger its manners were better. They have never been equal since to what they were in Washington's time, a man whose manners were irreproachable. I believe the most serious problem for the American people to consider is the cultivation of better manners among its people. It is the most noticeable, the most painful defect in American civilization. Yes, Oscar, you are in a measure correct. Our manners are a little decayed. So also were the eggs with which you were greeted in some of our cities. That may have given you a wrong impression as to our manners and their state of health. We just want to straighten out any little error of judgment on your part as to American customs and to oppress upon your mind the fact that the decayed article which, in most cases you considered our miasma impregnated etiquette, was what is known among savants as decayed cabbage. Mr. T. Wilson. The gentleman above referred to has accomplished one of the most remarkable feats known to modern science, though uneducated and perhaps inexperienced, he has attracted toward himself the notice of the world. Though he was once a poor boy, unnoticed and unknown, he has risen to the proud eminence from which, with pride and covered with glory and sore places, he may survey the civilized world. He entered upon an argument with Mr. Sullivan, knowing the mental strength and powers of his adversary, and yet he never flinched. He stood up before his powerful antagonist and acquired a national reputation and a large octagonal breadth of black and blue intellect, which are the envy and admiration of fifty million people. This should be a convincing argument to our growing youth of the possibilities in store for the earnest, untiring and enthusiastic thumper. It is an example of the wonderful triumph of mind over matter. It shows how certain intellectual developments may be acquired almost instantaneously. It demonstrates at once that phrenological protuberances may be grown more rapidly and more spontaneously than the scientist has ever been willing to admit. A few weeks ago, Tug Wilson was as obscure as the Greenback Party. Now he is known from ocean to ocean, and his fame is as universal as is that of Dr. Tanner, the starvation primadonna of the world. Few men have the intellectual stamina to withstand the strain of such an argument as he did. But he left the arena with a collection of knobs in Arnica clustering around his brow, which he justly merited, and the world will not grudge him his meagre acquisition. It was due to his own exertions and his own prowess, and there is no American so mean as to rest it from him. Thousands of our own boys, who today are spearing frogs or bathing in the rivers of their native land, and parading on the shingly beach with no clothes on to speak of, are left to choose between such a career of usefulness and greatness of brow, and the humdrum life of a bilious student and pale, sad congressman. Will you rise to the proud pinnacle of fame as a pugilist boys, or will you plug along as a sorrowing, overworked statesman? Now, in the springtime of your lives, choose between the two and abide the consequences. etiquette of the napkin It has been stated, and very truly, too, that the law of the napkin is but vaguely understood. It may be said, however, on the start that custom and good breeding have uttered the decree that it is in poor taste to put the napkin in the pocket and carry it away. The rule of etiquette is becoming more and more thoroughly established that the napkin should be left at the house of the host or hostess after dinner. There has been a good deal of discussion also upon the matter of folding the napkin after dinner, and whether it should be so disposed of, or negligently tossed into the gravy-boat. If, however, it can be folded easily and without attracting too much attention and prolonging the session for several hours, it should be so arranged and placed beside the plate where it may be easily found by the hostess and return to her neighbor from whom she borrowed it for the occasion. If, however, the lady of the house is not doing her own work, the napkin may be carefully jammed into a globular wad and fired under the table to convey the idea of utter recklessness and pampered abandon. The use of the finger-bowl is also a subject of much importance to the bon-ton guest who gorges himself at the expense of his friends. The custom of drinking out of the finger-bowl, though not entirely obsolete, has been limited to the extent that good breeding does not now permit the guest to quaff the water from his finger-bowl unless he does so prior to using it as a finger-bowl. Thus it will be seen that social customs are slowly but surely cutting down and circumscribing the rights and privileges of the masses. At the court of Eugenie the customs of the table were very rigid and the most prominent guest of H.R.H. was liable to get the G.B. if he spread his napkin on his lap and cut his egg in two with a carving-knife. The custom was that the napkin should be hung on one knee and the egg busted at the big end and scooped out with a spoon. A prominent American at her table one day, in an unguarded moment, shattered the shell of a soft-boiled egg with his knife and while prying it apart both thumbs were erroneously jammed into the true inwardness of the fruit with so much momentum that the juice took him in the eye thus blinding him and maddening him to such a degree that he got up and threw the remnants into the bosom of the hired man plenipotentiary who stood near the table scratching his ear with the tray. As may readily be supposed there was a painful interim during which it was hard to tell for five or six minutes whether the prominent American or the hired man would come out on top but at last the American with the egg in his eye got the ear of the high-priced hired man in among his back teeth and the honor of our beloved flag was vindicated. An Infernal Machine A singular thing occurred in England the other day and in view of its truth and also in order that the American side of the affair may be shown in the correct light we give the facts as they occurred having obtained our information directly from the parties who were implicated in the affair. We hesitate to take hold of the subject but our duty to the American people demands some action and we do not falter. During the past winter there arrived in London a suspicious looking metallic box with a peculiar thumb screw or button on top. It was sent by mail and was addressed to a prominent landowner. This gentleman had been on the watch for some explosive machine for some time and when it was brought to him he had once turned it over to the authorities for investigation. The police force, detective force, and chemists were called in and requested to ascertain the nature of the Infernal Machine and if possible where it came from. Experts examined the box and, with the aid of a cord attached to the suspicious button on top, pulled open the metallic box without explosion. The substance contained therein was of a dark color with a strong smell of ammonia. All kinds of tests were made by the experts in order to ascertain of what kind of combustible it was composed. The odor was carefully noted as well as the taste, and then there was a careful chemical analysis made which was barren of result. In the midst of the general alarm the London papers with large scareheads and astonishers gave full and elaborate reports of the attempt upon the life of a prominent man through the agency of a new and very peculiar machine loaded with an explosive of which scientists could gain no knowledge or information whatever. Looked as though the assassin was far in advance of science, or at least of professional chemists, and the matter was about to be given up in despair when the following letter arrived from San Antonio, Texas, United States of America. My dear sir, I sent you by a recent mail prepaid a small metallic box of bat guano from the caves of Texas for analysis and experiment, pleasing knowledge receipt of same. Morton Freewin. Then the experts went home. They felt as though science had done all it could in this case, and they needed rest and perfect calm and change of scene. They hadn't seen their families for some time and they wanted to go home and get acquainted with their wives. They didn't ask for any pay for their services. They just said it was in the interest of science and they couldn't have the heart to charge anything for it. One chemist started off without his umbrella and never went back after it. When he got home he was troubled with nausea and they had to feed him on cracker toast for several weeks. We tell this incident simply to vindicate America. The London papers did not give all the proceedings and we feel it our duty to place the United States upon a square footing with England in this matter. Of course it is a little tough on the experts, but when we know our duty to our magnificent country and the land that gave us birth, there is no earthly power we fear, no terrestrial snoozer who can deter us from its performance. End of Section 29. Section 30 of Bailed Hay by Bill Nye. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Codfish. This tropical bird barely seldom wings its way so far west as Wyoming. He loves the sea breezes and humid atmosphere of the Atlantic Ocean and when isolated in this mountain climb pines for his native home. The codfish cannot sing but is prized for his beautiful plumage and seductive odor. The codfish of commerce is devoid of digestive apparatus and is more or less permeated with salt. Codfish on toast is not as expensive as quail on toast. The codfish ball is made of the shattered remains of the adult codfish mixed with the tropical Irish potato of commerce. The codfish has a great wealth of glad, unfettered smile. When he laughs at anything he has that same wide waist of mirth and back teeth that Mr. Talmadge has. The Wyoming codfish is generally dead. Death in most cases is a result of exposure and loss of appetite. No one can look at the codfish of commerce and not shed a tear. Far from home, with his system filled with salt, while his eternal economy is gone, there is an air of sadness and homesickness and briny hopelessness about him that no one can see unmoved. It is in our home life, however, that the codfish makes himself felt and remembered. When he enters our household, we feel his all-pervading presence, like the perfume of wood violets or the seductive odor of a dead mouse in the piano. Friends may visit us and go away to be forgotten with the advent of a new face, but the cold, calm, silent corpse of the codfish cannot be forgotten. Its chastened influence permeates the entire ranch. It steals into the parlor like an unbidden guest and flavors the costly curtains and the high-priced lambricans. It enters the dark closet and dallys lovingly with your swallowtail coat. It goes into your sleeping apartment and makes its home in your glove box and your handkerchief case. That is why we say that it is a solemn thing to take the life of a codfish. We would not do it. We would pass him by a thousand times, no matter how ferocious he might be, rather than take his life and have our once-happy home haunted forever by his unholy presence. His aged mother. An exchange says that the James boys had a morose and ugly disposition. This may be regarded as authentic. The James boys were not only morose, but they were at times irritable and even boorish. Some of their acts would seem to savor of the most course and rude of impulses. Jesse James at different times killed over fifty men. This would show that his disposition must have been soured by some great sorrow. A person who fills the new Jerusalem with people or kills a majority of the Republican voters of a precinct, or the entire board of directors of a national bank, or who remorselessly kills all the first-class passengers on a through train, just because he feels crotchety and disagreeable, must be morose and sullen in his disposition. No man, who is healthy and full of animal spirits, could massacre the able-bodied voters of a whole village, unless he fell cross and taciturn naturally. There should have been a postmortem examination of Mr. James to determine what was the matter with him. We were in favor of a postmortem examination of Mr. James twelve years ago, but there seemed to be a feeling of reluctance on the part of the authorities about holding it. No one seemed to doubt the propriety of such a movement, but there was a kind of vague hesitation by the proper officials on account of his mother. There has been a vast amount of thoughtfulness manifested by the Missouri people on behalf of Jesse's mother. For nearly twenty years they have put off the postmortem examination of Mr. James, because they knew that his mother would feel wretched and gloomy when she saw her son with his vitals in one market basket and his vertebrae in another. The American people hate like sin to step in between a mother and her child and create unpleasant sensations. Mr. Pinkerton was the most considerate. At first he said he would hold an autopsy on Mr. James right away, but it consumed so much time holding autopsies on his detectives that he postponed Jesse's postmortem for a long time. He also hoped that after the lapse of years, maybe, Mr. James would become enfeebled so that he could steal up behind him some night and stun him with a Chicago pie. But Jesse seemed vigorous up to a late date, and out of respect for his aged mother the Chicago sleuth-hounds of justice have spared him. Detectives are sometimes considered hard-hearted and unloving in their natures, but this is not the case. Very few of them can bear to witness the shedding of blood, especially their own blood. Sometimes they find it necessary to kill a man in order to restore peace to the country, but they very rarely kill a man like James. This is partly due to the fact that they hate to cut a man like that right down before he has a chance to repent. They are prone to give him probation and yet another chance to turn. Still, there are lots of mean harsh on thanking people who do not give the detectives credit for this. Business Letters All business letters as a rule demand some kind of an answer, especially those containing money. To neglect the reply to a letter is an insult, unless the letter failed to contain a stamp. In your reply, first acknowledge the receipt of the letter, then the receipt of the money, whatever it is. Letters asking for money or the payment of a bill may be postponed from time to time, if necessary. No man should reply to such a letter while angry. If the amount is small and you are moderately hot, wait two days. If the sum is quite large and you are tempted to write an insulting letter, wait two weeks or until you have thoroughly cooled down. Business Letters should be written on plain, neat paper with your name and business neatly printed at the top by the boomerang job printer. Letters from railroad companies, referring to important improvements, etc., etc., should contain pass, not for publication, but as a guarantee of good faith. Need and beautiful penmanship is very desirable in business correspondence, but it is most important that you should not spell God with a little G or codfish with a K. Ornamental penmanship is good, but it will not take the cuss off if you don't know how to spell. Read your letter over carefully after you have written it, if you can. If not, send it with an apology about the rush of business. In ordering goods, state whether you will remit soon or whether the account should be placed in the refrigerator. Danger of Gardening A Colorado book agent writes us about his follows. For some time past it has been my desire to ensure my life for the benefit of my family, but I knew the public sentiment so well that I feared it could not be done. I knew that there was a deep and bitter enmity against book agents, which I found had pervaded the insurance world to such an extent that I would be unable to obtain insurance at a reasonable premium. The popular belief is that book agents are shot on sight and their mangled bodies thrown into the tall grass are fed to the coyotes. I found, however, that I could get my life insured for two thousand dollars by paying a premium of twelve dollars per year as a book agent. This was far better than anything I had ever looked for. The question arose as to whether I worked in my garden or not, and I was forced to admit that I did. It ought to reduce the premium for man works in his garden, and thus by short periods of vigorous exercise prolongs his life. But it don't seem to be that way. They charged me an additional three dollars on the premium, because I toiled a little among my pet rutabagas. I don't know what the theory is about this matter. Perhaps the company labors under the impression that a thousand-legged worm might crawl into my ear and kill me, or a purple-top turnip might explode and knock my brains out. Of course in the midst of life we are in death, but I always used to think I was safer mashing my squash-bugs and hoeing my blue-eyed beans than when I was on the road dodging bulldogs and selling books. Perhaps some amateur gardener, in a careless moment at some time or other, has been stabbed in the diaphragm by a murderous radish or a watermelon may have stolen up to some man in years gone by, and brained him with part of a picket fence. There must be statistics somewhere by which the insurance companies have arrived at this high rate on gardeners. If you know anything of this matter, I wish you would write me. For if hoeing sweet corn and cultivating string beans is going to sock me into an early grave, I want to know it.