Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 November 1884 — Cannot Retaliate. [ARTICLE]

Cannot Retaliate.

“I wish I was an editor," exclaimed a poor devil of a doctor (albeit a very good doctor). “Want a ehance to work nights, I suppose," said a reporter, who was laboring to so mold a doubtful fact as to make it at once readable and probable. “Yes, or day times; it wouldn’t matter much, provided it was some time. But that’s not my reason for wishing I was an editor!" “What particular grievance have you t'ot? Perhaps I can swing your shillaah for you and close your aching void, both at the same time. Loose the animile!" ■ “Don’t you think it’s about time for railroad companies to relieve their patrons of the importunities of news agents ?" “No, sir, Ido not! The time is long past when the patrons of railroads should have taken a Judge Lynch with them, and a competent and strictly business jury and every telegraph pole should have been made interesting to tourists and coroners.' ‘Butcher the butchers!’ should have been the motto of passengers long ago. ” “Mind! I don’t object to the newsboy who passes through the cars with the daily papers, but I do to the impertinent and importunate fiend who seems to be an escaped graduate of Chatham street; the pest who, from morning until night, makes tired passengers wish either that they were at their journey’s end, or that they could have the satisfaction of hearing the wheels grinding over him and his obtrusive wares. Up engine-ward he seems to have a grocery, a book and periodical store, a cigar and tobacco stand, a toy store, a news stand, a fruit store, and a curiosity shop, and during the day you are importuned to buy each and every article in each and every establishment. “I, for one, don’t believe that when I buy a ticket and go aboard a train, the company haß any right to sen 4 aboqrtj, a fiend to torment mej that when my wife anj 1 take possession of a seat, a train ‘butcher’ has a right to any portion of it for storage purposes, or that I am compelled to act as a shelf for its wares, and I to-day acted upon that belief. Soon after we started this morning I purchased a newspaper for myself and a magazine for my wife, though, goodness knows, she didn’t get a chance to read a word of it! As I paid the youth for them, I said: ' Now, young man, this is all the literature we shall want to-day. We shall want no political taffy in pamphlet form, extolling jbhe virtues of candidates; we take no active interest in the James gang, the Younger brothers, the Benders, Guiteau, or any other of your corps of assassins ; we desire no illustrated weeklies showing the last days of the murderers, or the last legs of the ladies of the ballet; our necessities do not include wormy figs,cholera-morbus apples, peppermint prize packages, vegetable-ivory trinkets, 1879 confectionery, or any other part of your carefully selected rubbish. Moreover, we .have use for this seat —the whole of it, and shall most strenulouslv object to holding any of your stock in trade, the more especially as our sick baby is competent to tire out all the lap-room we have. Therefore, my boy, in your commercial wanderings through this car, just skip us!’ “About three minutes later, just as I had got fairly ensconced behind my paper, my wife exclaimed: * For goodness’ sake, take them away!’ I dropped my paper, only to find that butcher holding in front of her a basket of green, wormy, and withered apples, while the puling, fretful child was in the very nice act of biting one pf them. I knocked it out of her hand and informed that boy if he brought any more of his stuff near me I’d break every bone in his body, to which he replied : * Guess not! i pays for selling on this ’ere train, and if you break any bones you’ll pay for ’em, and don’t you forget it!’ “It took my wife and me a long time to pacify Dollie for the loss of her apple, but we succeeded at last, and got her to sleep lying across our knees. My wife laid her tired and aching head back against the window shade and closed her eyes, while I once more commenced reading the paper. And what do you think the authorized train butcher did ?” “Something pleasant, no doubt.” “Came along and chucked a twopound railway guide down upon her stomach, and nearly drove the wind out of her body. Ye gods! how I would like a job doctoring that boy and the Superintendent of the railroad!”—Detroit Free Press.