The Project Gutenberg eBook ofBill Nye's SparksThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: Bill Nye's SparksAuthor: Bill NyeRelease date: May 2, 2016 [eBook #51962]Most recently updated: October 23, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by David Widger from page images generouslyprovided by the Internet Archive*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BILL NYE'S SPARKS ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: Bill Nye's SparksAuthor: Bill NyeRelease date: May 2, 2016 [eBook #51962]Most recently updated: October 23, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by David Widger from page images generouslyprovided by the Internet Archive
Title: Bill Nye's Sparks
Author: Bill Nye
Author: Bill Nye
Release date: May 2, 2016 [eBook #51962]Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
Credits: Produced by David Widger from page images generouslyprovided by the Internet Archive
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BILL NYE'S SPARKS ***
0009
CONTENTS
BIOGRAPHICAL
BILL NYE'S SPARKS
REQUESTING A REMITTANCE
A PATENT ORATORICAL STEAM ORGANETTE FOR RAILWAY STUMPING
VERITAS
THE DRUG BUSINESS IN KANSAS
THE PERILS OF IDENTIFICATION
A FATHER'S LETTER
IN THE SOUTH
IN THE PARK
LIBERTY ENLIGHTENING THE WORLD.
HE SEES THE CAPITAL
HE SEES THE NAVY
MORE ABOUT WASHINGTON
A GREAT BENEFACTOR
THE COUPON LETTER OF INTRODUCTION
HOW TO TEACH JOURNALISM
THE GREAT WESTERN CLAIRVOYANT,
HIS GARDEN
WRITTEN TO THE BOY
ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS
THE FARMER AND THE TARIFF.
A CONVENTIONAL SPEECH
A PLEA FOR ONE IN ADVERSITY
THE RHUBARB-PIE
A COUNTRY FIRE
BIG STEVE
SPEECH OF RED SHIRT, THE FIGHTING CHIEF OF THE SIOUX NATION
TO THE POOR SHINNECOCK
WEBSTER AND HIS GREAT BOOK
Edgar Wilson Nye was whole-souled, big-hearted and genial. Those who knew him lost sight of the humorist in the wholesome friend.
He was born August 25, 1850, in Shirley, Piscataquis County, Maine. Poverty of resources drove the family to St. Croix Valley, Wisconsin, where they hoped to be able to live under conditions less severe. After receiving a meager schooling, he entered a lawyer's office where most of his work consisted in sweeping the office and running errands. In his idle moments the lawyer's library was at his service. Of this crude and desultory reading he afterward wrote:
"I could read the same passage today that I did yesterday and it would seem as fresh at the second reading as it did at the first. On the following day I could read it again and it would seem as new and mysterious as it did on the preceding day."
At the age of twenty-five, he was teaching a district school in Polk County, Wisconsin, at thirty dollars a month. In 1877 he was justice of the peace in Laramie. Of that experience he wrote:
"It was really pathetic to see the poor little miserable booth where I sat and waited with numb fingers for business. But I did not see the pathos which clung to every cobweb and darkened the rattling casement. Possibly I did not know enough. I forgot to say the office was not a salaried one, but solely dependent upon fees. So while I was called Judge Nye and frequently mentioned in the papers with consideration, I was out of coal half the time, and once could not mail my letters for three weeks because I did not have the necessary postage."
He wrote some letters to the CheyenneSunand soon made such a reputation for himself that he was able to obtain a position on the LaramieSentinel. Of this experience he wrote:
"The salary was small, but the latitude was great, and I was permitted to write anything that I thought would please the people, whether it was news or not. By and by I had won every heart by my patient poverty and my delightful parsimony with regards to facts. With a hectic imagination and an order on a restaurant which advertised in the paper I scarcely cared through the livelong day whether school kept or not."
Of the proprietor of theSentinelhe wrote:
"I don't know whether he got into the penitentiary or the Greenback party. At any rate he was the wickedest man in Wyoming. Still, he was warm-hearted and generous to a fault. He was more generous to a fault than to anything else—more especially his own faults. He gave me twelve dollars a week to edit the paper—local, telegraph, selections, religious, sporting, political, fashions, and obituary. He said twelve dollars was too much, but if I would jerk the press occasionally and take care of his children he would try to stand it. You can't mix politics and measles. I saw that I would have to draw the line at measles. So one day I drew my princely salary and quit, having acquired a style of fearless and independent journalism which I still retain. I can write up things that never occurred with a masterly and graphic hand. Then, if they occur, I am grateful; if not, I bow to the inevitable and smother my chagrin."
In the midst of a wrangle in politics he was appointed postmaster of his town and his letter of acceptance, addressed to the Postmaster-General at Washington, was the first of his writings to attract national attention.
He said that, in his opinion, his being selected for the office was a triumph of eternal right over error and wrong. "It is one of the epochs, I may say, in the nation's onward march toward political purity and perfection," he wrote. "I don't know when I have noticed any stride in the affairs of state which has so thoroughly impressed me with its wisdom."
Shortly after he became postmaster he started theBoomerang. The first office of the paper was over a livery stable and Nye put up a sign instructing callers to "twist the tail of the gray mule and take the elevator."
He at once became famous and was soon brought to New York, at a salary that seemed fabulous to him. His place among the humorists of the world was thenceforth assured.
He died February 22,1896, at his home in North Carolina, surrounded by his family.
James Whitcomb Riley, the Hoosier poet, was for many years a close personal friend of the dead humorist. When informed of Nye's death, he said: "Especially favored, as for years I have been, with close personal acquaintance and association with Mr. Nye, his going away fills me with selfishness of grief that finds a mute rebuke in my every memory of him. He was unselfish wholly, and I am broken-hearted, recalling the always patient strength and gentleness of this true man, the unfailing hope and cheer and faith of his child-heart, his noble and heroic life, and pure devotion to his home his deep affections, constant dreams, plans and realizations. I cannot doubt but that somehow, somewhere, he continues cheerily on in the unbroken exercise of these same capacities."
Mr. Riley recently wrote the following sonnet:
O William, in thy blithe companionship
What liberty is mine—what sweet release
From clamourous strife, and yet, what boisterous peace!
Ho! ho! It is thy fancy's finger tip
That dints the dimple now, and kinks the lip
That scarce may sing in all this glad increase
Of merriment! So, pray thee, do not cease
To cheer me thus, for underneath the quip
Of thy droll sorcery the wrangling fret
Of all distress is still. No syllable
Of sorrow vexeth me, no tear drops wet
My teeming lids, save those that leap to tell
Thee thou'st a guest that overweepeth yet
Only because thou jokest overwell.
Washington, D. C.
Along toward morning, 1887.
Cashier World Office, New York.—
MY DEAR SIR: You will doubtless be surprised to hear from me so soon, as I did not promise when I left New York that I would write you at all while here. But now I take pen in hand to say that the Senate and House of Representatives are having a good deal of fun with me, and hope you are enjoying the same great blessing. You will wonder at first why I send in my expense account before I send in anything for the paper, but I will explain that to you when I get back. At first I thought I would not bother with the expense account till I got to your office, but I can now see that it is going to worry me to get there unless I hear from you favorably by return mail.
When I came here I fell into the mad whirl of society, and attracted a good deal of attention by my cultivated ways and Jeffersonian method of sleeping with a different member of Congress every night.
I have not written anything for publication yet, but I am getting material together that will make people throughout our broad land open their eyes in astonishment. I shall deal fairly and openly with these great national questions, and frankly hew to the line, let the chips fall where they may, as I heard a man say to-day on the floor of the house—the Willard House, I mean. But I believe in handling great political matters without gloves, as you will remember, if you have watched my course as justice of the peace and litterateur. Candor is my leading characteristic, and if you will pardon me for saying so in the first letter you ever received from me I believe there is nothing about my whole character which seems to challenge my admiration for myself any more than that.
Congressmen and their wives are daily landing at the great national Castle Garden and looking wildly around for the place where they are told they will get their mileage. On every hand all is hurry and excitement. Bills are being introduced, acquaintances renewed, and punch bowls are beginning to wear a preoccupied air.
I have been mingling with society ever since I came here, and that is one reason I have written very little for publication, and did not send what I did write.
Yesterday afternoon my money gave out at 3:20, and since that my mind has been clearer and society has made fewer demands on me. At first I thought I would obtain employment at the Treasury Department as exchange editor in the greenback room. Then I remembered that I would get very faint before I could go through a competitive examination, and, in the meantime, I might lose social caste by wearing my person on the outside of my clothes. So I have resolved to write you a chatty letter about Washington, assuring you that I am well, and asking you kindly to consider the enclosed tabulated bill of expenses, as I need the money to buy Christmas presents and get home with.
Poker is one of the curses of national legislation. I have several times heard prominent foreigners say, in their own language—think ing, no doubt, that I could not understand them—that the members of the American Congress did not betray any emotion on their countenances. One foreigner from Liverpool, who thought I could not understand his language, said that our congressmen had a way of looking as though they did not know very much. When he afterwards played poker with those same men he saw that the look was acquired. One man told me that his vacant look had been as good as $50,000 to him, whether he stood pat or drew to an ostensible flush while really holding four bullets.
So far I have not been over to the Capitol, preferring to have Congress kind of percolate into my room, two or three at a time; but unless you can honor the inclosed way-bill I shall be forced to go over to the House to-morrow and write something for the paper. Since I have been writing this I have been led to inquire whether it would be advisable for me to remain here through the entire session or not. It will be unusually long, lasting perhaps clear into July, and I find that the stenographers as a general thing get a pretty accurate and spicey account of the proceedings, much more so than I can, and as you will see by inclosed statement it is going to cost more to keep me here than I figured on.
My idea was that board and lodgings would be the main items of expense, but I struck a low-priced place, where, by clubbing together with some plain gentlemen from a distance who have been waiting here three years for political recognition, and who do not feel like surrounding themselves with a hotel, we get a plain room with six beds in it. The room overlooks, the District of Columbia, and the first man in has the choice of beds, with the privilege of inviting friends to a limited number. We lunch plainly in the lower part of the building in a standing position without restraint or finger-bowls. So board is not the principal item of expense, though of course I do not wish to put up at a place where I will be a disgrace to the paper.
I wish that you would, when you send my check, write me frankly whether you think I had better remain here during the entire season or not. I like the place first rate, but my duties keep me up nights to a late hour, and I cannot sleep during the day, because my roommates annoy me by doing their washing and ironing over an oil stove.
I know by what several friends have said to me that Congress would like to have me stay here all winter, but I want to do what is best for the paper.
I saw Mr. Cleveland briefly last evening at his home, but he was surrounded by a crowd of fawning sycophants, so I did not get a chance to speak to him as I would like to, and don't know as he would have advanced the amount to me anyway. He is very firm and stubborn, I judged, and would yield very little indeed, especially to
Yours truly,
Bill Nye.
The following bill looks large in the aggregate, but when you come to examine each item by itself there is really nothing startling about it, and when you remember that I have been here now four days and that this is the first bill I have sent in to the office during that time, I know you will not consider it out of the way, especially as you are interested in seeing me make a good paper of theWorld, no matter what the expense is.
We are having good open winter weather and stock is looking well so far.
I fear you will regard the item for embalming as exorbitant, and it is so, but I was compelled to pay that price, as the man had to be shipped a long distance, and I did not want to shock his friends too much when he met them at the depot.
0024
I will probably remain here until I hear from you favorably. I have met several members of Congress for whom I have voted at various times off and on, but they were cold and haughty in their intercourse with me. I have been invited to sit on the floor of the House until I get some other place to stay, but I hate to ride a free horse to death.
b. n.
IAM now preparing for general use and desire to call the attention of numerous readers to what I have nominated the Campaigner's Companion, for use during or preceding a hot political campaign. Eureka is a very tame expression for this unique little contrivance, as it is good for any speaker and on behalf of any party, I care not of what political belief the orator may be. It is intended for immediate use, like a box of dry plates on an amateur photographic tour, only that it is more on the principle of the Organette, with from 500 to 5,000 tunes packed with it ready for use.
It is intended to be worked easily on the rear platform of a special car, and absolutely prevents repetition or the wrong application of local gags. Every political speaker of any importance has suffered more or less from what may be called the misplaced gag, such as localizing the grave of a well-known member of Congress in the wrong county or swelling up with pardonable pride over large soap works in a rival town fifty miles away from the one where they really are. All these things weaken the political possibilities of great men and bring contumely upon the party they represent.
My idea is to arrange a sort of Organette on the rear platform of the car, to be operated by steam conducted from the engine by means of pipes, the contrivance to be entirely out of sight, under a neat little spread made of the American flag. Behind this an eminent man may stand with his hand socked into the breast of his frock coat nearly up to the elbow, and while his bosom swells with pardonable pride the engineer turns on steam. Previously the private secretary has inserted a speech prepared on punched paper, furnished by me and bearing on that special town and showing a degree of familiarity with that neighborhood which would win the entire adult population.
Behind this machine the eminent speaker weaves to and fro, simply making the gestures and shutting off the steam with his foot whenever there is a manifest desire on the part of the audience to applaud.
I am having over five hundred good one-night towns prepared in this way and, if it would not take up too much of your space, I would like to give here one speech, illustrating my idea and showing the plan in brief, though with each machine I furnish a little book called "Every Man his Own Demosthenes." This book tells exactly how to work the Campaigner's Companion and makes it almost a pleasure to aspire to office.
I have chosen as an illustration a speech that I have had prepared for Asheville, N. C., but all the others are equally applicable and apropos.
(Note: See that all bearing's are well oiled before you start, especially political bearings. See that the crank is just tight enough, without being too tight, and also that the journals do not get hot.)
Fellow-Citizens of Asheville and Buncombe County and Brother Tarheels from Away Back:
If I were a faithful Mohammedan and believed that I could never enter heaven but once, I would look upon Buncombe County and despair ever afterwards. (Four minutes for applause to die away.) Asheville is 2,339 feet above tide-water. She is the hotbed of the invalid and the home of the physical wreck who cannot live elsewhere, but who comes here and lives till he gets plum sick of it. Your mountain breezes and your fried chicken bear strength and healing in their wings. (Hold valve open two minutes and a half to give laughter full scope.) Your altitude and your butter are both high, and the man who cannot get all the fresh air he wants on your mountains will do well to rent one of your cottages and allow the wind to meander through his whiskers. Asheville is a beautiful spot, where a peri could put in a highly enjoyable summer, picknicking along the Swananea through the day and conversing with Plum Levy at his blood-curdling barber shop in the gloaming. Nothing can possibly be thrillinger than to hear Plum tell of the hair-breadth escapes his customers have had in his cozy little shop.
The annual rainfall here is 40.2 inches, while smoking tobacco and horned cattle both do well. Ten miles away stretches Alexander's. You are only thirty-five miles from Buck Forest. Pisgah Mountain is only twenty miles from here, and Tahkeeastee Farm is only a mile away, with its name extending on beyond as far as the eye can reach. The French Broad River bathes your feet on the right and the sun-kissed Swananoa, with its beautiful borders of rhododendrons, sloshes up against you on the other side. Mount Mitchell, with an altitude of 6,711 feet and an annual rain-fall of 53.8 inches, is but twenty miles distant, while Lower Hominy is near, and Hell's Half Acre, Sandy Mush and Blue Ruin are within your grasp.
The sun never lit up a cuter little town than Asheville. Nature just seemed to wear herself out on Buncombe County and then she took what she had left over to make the rest of the country. Your air is full of vigor. Your farms get up and hump themselves in the middle or on one side, so that you have to wear a pair of telegraph-pole climbers when you dig your potatoes. Here you will see the japonica, the jonquil and the jaundice growing side by side in the spring, and at the cheese-foundry you can hear the skipper calling to his mate.
Here is the home of General Tom Clingman, who first originated the idea of using tobacco externally for burns, scalds, ringworm, spavin, pneumonia, Bright's disease, poll evil, pip, garget, heartburn, earache and financial stringency Here Randolph & Hunt can do your job printing for you, and theCitizenand theAdvancewill give you the news.
You are on a good line of railroad and I like your air very much, aside from the air just played by your home band. Certainly you have here the makings of a great city. You have pure air enough here for a city four times your present size, and although I have seen most all the Switzerlands of America, I think that this is in every way preferable. People who are in search of a Switzerland of America that can be relied upon will do well to try your town.
And now, having touched upon everything of national importance that I can think of, I will close by telling you a little anecdote which will, perhaps, illustrate my position better than I could do it in any other way. (Here I insert a humorous anecdote which has no special bearing on the political situation and during the ensuing laughter the train pulls out.)
MY NAME is Veritas. I write for the papers. I am quite an old man and have written my kindly words of advice to the press for many years. I am the friend of the public and the guiding star of the American newspaper. I point out the proper course for a newly-elected member of Congress and show the thoughtless editor the wants of the people. I write on the subject of political economy; also on both sides of the paper. Sometimes I write on both sides of the question. When I do so I write over the name of Tax-Payer, but my real name is Veritas.
I am the man who first suggested the culvert at the Jim street crossing, so that the water would run off toward the pound after a rain. With my ready pen—ready, and trenchant also, as I may say—I have, in my poor, weak way, suggested a great many things which might otherwise have remained for many years unsuggested.
I am the man who annually calls for a celebration of the Fourth of July in our little town, and asks for some young elocutionist to be selected by the committee, whose duty it shall be to read the Declaration of Independence in a shrill voice to those who yearn to be thrilled through and through with patriotism.
Did I not speak through the columns of the press in clarion tones for a proper observance of our nation's great natal day in large gothic extended caps, the nation's starry banner would remain furled and the greased pig would continue to crouch in his lair. With the aid of my genial co-workers Tax-Payer, Old Settler, Old Subscriber, Constant Reader, U. L. See, Fair Play, and Mr. Pro Bono Publico, I have made the world a far more desirable place in which to live than it would otherwise have been.
My co-laborer, Mr. Tax-Payer, is an old contributor to the paper, but he is not really a taxpayer. He uses this signature in order to conceal his identity, just as I use the name Veritas. We have a great deal of fun over this at our regular annual reunions, where we talk about all our affairs.
Old Settler is a young tenderfoot who came here last spring and tried to obtain a livelihood by selling an indestructible lamp-chimney. He did well for several weeks by going to the different residences and throwing one of his glass chimneys on the floor with considerable force to show that it would not break. He did a good business till one day he made a mistake. Instead of getting hold of his exhibition chimney, he picked out one of the stock and busted it beyond recognition. Since that he has been writing articles in violet ink relative to old times and publishing them over the signature of Old Settler.
Old Subscriber is a friend of mine who reads his paper at the hotels while waiting for a gratuitous drink. Fair Play is a retired monte man, and Pro Bono Publico is our genial and urbane undertaker.
I am a very prolific writer, but all my work is not printed. A venal and corrupt press at times hesitates about giving currency to such fearless, earnest truths as I make use of.
I am also the man who says brave things in the columns of the papers when the editor himself does not dare to say them because he is afraid he will be killed. But what recks Veritas the bold and free? Does he flinch or quail? Not a flinch; not a quail.
Boldly he flings aside his base fears, and with bitter vituperation he assails those he dislikes, and attacks with resounding blows his own personal enemies, fearlessly signing his name, Veritas, to the article, so that those who yearn to kill him may know just who he is.
What would the world do without Veritas? In the hands of a horde of journalists who have nothing to do but attend to their business, left with no anonymous friend to whom they can fly when momentous occasions arise, when the sound advice and better judgment of an outside friend is needed, their condition would indeed be a pitiable one. But he will never desert us. He is ever at hand, prompt to say, over his nom de plume, what he might hesitate to say over his own name, for fear that he might go home with a battle of Gettysburg under each eye and a nose like a volcanic eruption. He cheerfully attacks everything and everybody, and then goes away till the fight, the funeral, and the libel suit are over. Then he returns and assails the grim monster Wrong. He proposes improvements, and the following week a bitter reply comes from Tax-Payer. Pro Bono Publico, the retired three-card-monteist, says: "Let us have the proposed improvement, regardless of cost."
Then the cynical U. L. See (who is really the janitor at the blind asylum) grumbles about useless expense, and finally draws out from the teeming brain of Constant Reader a long, flabby essay, written on red-ruled leaves, cut out of an old meat-market ledger, written economically on both sides with light blue ink made of bluing and cold tea. This essay introduces, under the most trying circumstances, such crude yet original literary gems as:
Wad some power the giftie gie us, etc.
He also says:
The wee sma' hours ayant the twal.
And farther on:
Breathes there a man with soul so deal.
Who never to himself hath said, etc.
His essay is not so much the vehicle of thought as it is the accommodation train for fragments of his old school declamations to ride on.
But to Veritas we owe much. I say this because I know what I am talking about, for am I not old Veritas himself? Haven't I been writing things for the papers ever since papers were published? Am I not the man who for years has been a stranger to fear? Have I not again and again called the congressman, the capitalist, the clergyman, the voter and the philanthropist everything I could lay my tongue to, and then fought mosquitoes in the deep recesses of the swamp while the editor remained at the office and took the credit for writing what I had given him for nothing? Has not many a paper built up a name and a libel suit upon what I have written, and yet I am almost unknown? When people ask, Who is Veritas? and where does he live? no one seems to know. He is up seven flights of stairs, in a hot room that smells of old clothes and neglected thoughts. Far from the "madding crowd," as Constant Reader has so truly said, I sit alone, with no personal property but an overworked costume, a strong love for truth, and a shawl-strap full of suggestions to the overestimated man who edits the paper..
So I battle on, with only the meager and flea-bitten reward of seeing my name in print "anon," as Constant Reader would say. All I have to fork over to posterity is my good name, which I beg leave to sign here.
Veritas.
Hudson, Wis.
MR. BILL NYE.—Dear Sir: I hope you will pardon me for addressing you on a matter of pure business, but I have heard that you are not averse to going out of your way to do a favor now and then to those who are sincere and appreciative.
I have learned from a friend that you have been around all over the west, and so I have taken the liberty of writing you to ask what you think would be the chance of success for a young man if he were to go to Kansas to enter the drug business.
I am a practical young druggist 23 years of age, and have some money—a few hundred dollars—with which to go into business. Would you advise Kansas or Colorado as a good part of the west for that business?
I have also written some for the press, but with little success. I inclose you a few slips cut from the papers in which these articles originally appeared. I send stamp for reply and hope you will answer me, even though your time may be taken up pretty well by other matters. Respectfully yours.
Adolph Jaynes,
Lock-Box 604.
Hudson, Wis., Oct. 1.
MR. Adolph Jaynes, Lock-box 604.—
DEAR SIR: Your favor of late date is at hand, and I take pleasure in writing this dictated letter to you, using the columns of the Chicago Daily News as a delicate way of teaching you. I will take the liberty of replying to your last question first, if you pardon me, and I say that you would do better, no doubt at once, in a financial way, to go on with your drug business than to monkey with literature.
In the first place, your style of composition is like the present style of dress among men. It is absolutely correct, and therefore it is absolutely like that of nine men out of every ten we meet. Your style of writing has a mustache on it, wears a three-button cutaway of some Scotch mixture, carries a cane, and wears a straight, stand-up collar and scarf. It is so correct and so exactly in conformity with the prevailing style of composition, and your thoughts are expressed so thoroughly like other people's methods of dressing up their sentences and sand-papering the soul out of what they say, that I honestly think you would succeed better by trying to subsist upon the quick sales and small profits which the drug trade insures.
Now, let us consider the question of location.
Seriously, you ought to look over the ground yourself, but as you have asked me to give you my best judgment on the question of preference as between Kansas and Colorado I will say without hesitation that, if you mean by the drug business the sale of sure-enough drugs, medicines, paints, oils, glass, putty, toilet articles, and prescriptions carefully compounded, I wouldnotgo to Kansas at this time.
If you would like to go to a flourishing country and put out a big basswood mortar in front of your shop in order to sell the tincture of damnation throughout bleeding Kansas, now is your golden opportunity. Now is the accepted time.
If it is the great, big, burning desire of your heart to go into a town of 2,000 people and open the thirteenth drug store in order that you may stand behind a tall black-walnut prescription case day in and day out, with a graduate in one hand and a Babcock fire-extinguisher in the other, filling orders for whisky made of stump-water and the juice of future punishment, you will do well to go to Kansas. It is a temperance state, and no saloons are allowed there. All is quiet and orderly, and the drug business is a great success.
You can run a dummy drug store there with two dozen dreary old glass bottles on the shelves, punctuated by the hand of time and the Kansas fly of the period, and with a prohibitory law at your back and a tall, red barrel in the back room filled with a mixture that will burn great holes into nature's heart and make the cemetery blossom as the rose, and in a few years you can sell enough of this justly celebrated preparation for household, scientific, and experimental purposes only to fill your flabby pockets with wealth and paint the pure air of Kansas a bright and inflammatory red.
If you sincerely and earnestly yearn for a field where you may go forth and garner an honest harvest from the legitimate effort of an upright soda fountain and free and open sale of slippery elm in its unadulterated condition, I would go to some state where I would not have to enter into competition with a style of pharmacy that has the unholy instincts and ambitions of a blind pig. I would not go into the field where red-eyed ruin simply waited for a prescription blank, not necessarily for publication, but simply as a guaranty of good faith, in order that it may bound forth from behind the prescription case and populate the poorhouses and the paupers' nettle-grown addition to the silent city of the dead.
The great question of how best to down the demon rum is before the American people, and it will not be put aside until it is settled; but while this is being attended to, Mr. Jaynes, I would start a drug store farther away from the center of conflict and go on joyously, sacrificing expensive tinctures, compounds, and sirups at bed-rock prices.
Go on, Mr. Jaynes, dealing out to the yearning, panting public, drugs, paints, oils, glass putty, varnish, patent medicines, and prescriptions carefully compounded, with none to molest or make afraid, but shun, oh shun the wild-eyed pharmacopoeia that contains naught but the festering fluid so popular in Kansas, a compound that holds crime in solution and ruin in bulk, that shrivels up a man's gastric economy, and sears great ragged holes into his immortal soul. Take this advice home to your heart and you will ever command the hearty co-operation of "yours for health," as the late Lydia E. Pinkham so succinctly said.