Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 November 1883 — The Lightning-Rod Days. [ARTICLE]

The Lightning-Rod Days.

“Hello,” says a business man as he came down the avenue, to a melancholy looking chap that had seen better days, “you look a little off color. What you up to now?” ~ “Oh, a little of everything, ” said the hard-looking citizen. “Just been the rounds of the fairs selling soap to erase grease. Money enough in it, when you can get a bar of common soap for 5 cents and cut it up into fifty pieces, and sell them for 10 cents, with a little tin foil on, but the Grangers are all on to the scheme, thanks to the dum newspapers, and a man -can’t make a decent living.” “Why, three years ago you were selling lightning-rods, and flying high,” said the merchant. “You had a diamond pin, and champagne was not good enough for you. Well, time changes all things.” “There’s where you are right,” said the hard-looking citizen. “And the newspapers are to blame for it all. I have seen the time I could make SSO a day putting up lightning-rods. Drive up to a house aud talk with a man about rodding his barn, at so much a foot, and he would .figure that it would cost, say, sl6, and he would sign an order. Before the ink was cold, I would have seven ‘or eight men with ladders, all over that barn. They would go over it like cats on a back fence, and put points on every corner, and- conductors down every side. The farmer and his family would look on in amazement, and be so pleased at the improved look of the old barn that they wonld not kick at the number of points. Then we would go off without collecting the bill, and in about a week our collector would come along with a bill for $387.45, and the farmer’s note, all signed, and demand the pay. The farmer might faint away, but he had to pay it. Oh, of course, if he seemed hurt, we would throw off the odd cents, just to show a Christian spirit. But the condemned newspapers have kept talking about highway robbery under the disguise of lightning-rod peddlers, till it is as much as a man’s life is worth to go through the country on a light-ning-rod wagon.— Peck’s Sun.