Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 May 1884 — THE BAD BOY. [ARTICLE]

THE BAD BOY.

“I don’t hear much about your pa lately,” said the groceryman to the bad boy, as he showed up one. morning before breakfast to bay a mackerel. “He is alive, aint he? Is he in politics yet ?” and the groceryman took a smali rusty mackerel by the tail and slapped it against the inside of the barrel to get the brine off, and wrapped it in some thick paper, heavier than the fsli, before he weighed it. “Hold on there, please,” said the boy, who was watching the proceedings. “Weigh the mackerel separate, please, and then weigh the paper, and charge the fish to pa and charge the paper to yourself. That is all right, lea, pa is alive, but he is not in politics. He was throwed out of politics head first on two occasions the night before election. You see, pa is an enthusiast. Some years he is in one party, and some years in another; just which party gives him the best show to make speeches. He has got speaking on the brain, and, if he can get up before a crowd and say ‘feller-citizens,’ and not get hit with a piece of brick house, that ,is a picnic for pa. This spring he went with the temperancd and saloon people. You know the temperance people and saloon people sort of united on a candidate, and pa was red hot. He wanted to speak. The fellows showed pa thai he had got to be careful and not get mixed, and they turned him loose to speak. The night before election pa went in a hall where there was to be a meeting, and he got up and said what the people wanted was the highest possible license, enough to drive out half the saloons. He was just going on to demonstrate what a blessing it would be if there was only one saloon, when some one took him by the neck and threw him through a window. It seems that it was a meeting of people who were opposed to any license, and who believed everybody should be allowed to sell liquor for nothing. A policeman picked pa up and took tiie window sash off from over his neck, and picked the broken glass out of his vest and pants, and walked him around, and told him of his mistake, and pa admitted that what the people wanted was free trade in whisky. He said now that he thought pf it there was no justice in making people pay for the privilege of engaging in commercial pursuits, and if the policeman would take him back to the hall, he thought he could set himself right before the assembly. Well, the policeman is the meanest man in this town. He took pa to another hall, around a block, where there was a meeting of the high-license people, and he went in, thinking it was the one he was in first. He was kind of surprised that they did not attack him, but they were busy signing a petition for high license. Pa waited a minute to think up something to say, and then he got up on a chair and said, ‘ Mr. Chairman, this is a matter we are all interested in, and the humblest citizen may speak. After studying this matter thoroughly, looking at it in all its bearings, and summing up an experience of forty years, 1 have come to the conclusion that the city should not grant any licenses at all.’ That tickled the crowd, ’cause they thought pa was in favor of stopping the sale of liquor altogether, and they cheered him. Pa got his second wind, and continued: ‘As long as liquor is recognized as an article of commerce, like sugar, and meat, and soap, every man should be allowed to sell it without any license at all. Let everybody be free to sell liquor, and we shall ’ Pa didn’t get any farther. Somebody throwed a wooden water bucket at his head, his chair was knocked out from under him, and several men took him by the collar and pants and he went through another window. The policeman met pa as he came out the window, and asked him if he didn’t find it congenial in there)) and pa said it was too darned con-, genial. He said it seemed as thougii there was no suiting some people, and! he asked the policeman to take hint home. They passed a hall where therA was another meeting, and the police] man asked pa if he didn’t think he’d! better go in and try again, but pa wenj on the other side of the street. He said if he wanted to go through; any more windows he could jump through them himself, as he kneV better which end first he liked to go through windows, and he thought onei man better than six when it comes to making an exit from a public hall. I noticed pa came home early that night,» and he sat thinking a good deal, and I asked him if anything had happened," and he roused up and said,' “Hennery, a little advice from ad jold man will not hurt you. Whatever you do, when you arrive at man’s estate, don’t ever go into politics and, become a public speaker. If you are a public speaker, you will never know 1 how to take your audience, or how your, audience will take you. They may take you by the hand and welcome you, and they may take you by the neck and fire you out of a window. You can tell how to go into a hall, but you can never tell how you will come out. Keep out of politics, and don’t be a speaker. If you have anything to say, be an editor, and write it, and then if people kick on what you say, you can go and hide, or if they come to you you can fire them out. I have often thought you would make a good editor of a political paper, though you would have to learn to lie, I am afraid.’ Oh, pa has had enough of politics, and I guess he will not vote this year. Well, I must go with this mackerel, or we won’t have any breakfast," and the boy went out carrying the fish by the tail and rattling it against the pickets of a fence to make it tender.— Peck's Sun.