Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 165, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 July 1920 — PATHOS IN PLEAS [ARTICLE]

PATHOS IN PLEAS

More Than Humer in Samples of Baboo Writing, Communication* Evidently Composed Under Stres*—Proposal of Marriage Can Only Be Classed ■ as Remarkable. Serpents, baboons, tigers and other dangerous and disturbing creatures bave not infrequently interfered with the work of progress and improvement in India. The distracted telegram of a baboo station master, asking for instructions in the unpleasant emergency of “tiger dancing on platform,” has long been a stock anecdote. He was certainly excusable for being rather upset in his mind and in his EngThe recent plea of a baboo office clerk, addressed to the head of the firm whose son, a confirmed dog-lover, had been recently put in charge, had less to justify its urgency—yet there are many who will sympathize. “If this office will be continuously Infested by sprightly canine with penchant for eating legs,” he wrote, “how shall work be performed to honor’s satisfaction? I beseech with honor relegate the friend of man to house and home, where noxious behavior will be suitably admired.” The gentleman who reports this choice gem adds another, less recent, but equally characteristic: “Office cat, by reason of rats, dally growing lean,” he notified his superior. “Will superintendent please increase the contingent allowance for her return to Here is a fine example of baboo, and a proposal of marriage, too: “Dear sir—lt is with faltering penmanship that I write to have communication w’ith you about the prospective condition of your damsel offspring. “For some remote time to past a secret passion has been firing my bosom internally with loving for your daughter. I have navigated every channel In the magnitude of my extensive jurisdiction to cruelly smother the growing love-knot that is being constructed in my within side, but the timid lamp of affection trimmed by Cupid’s productive hands still nourishes my love-sick heart. Needless would it be for me to numerically extemporize the great conflagration that has been generated In my head and heart. During the region of rightness my intellectual cranium has been entangled in thoughtful attitude after my beloved consort. Nocturnal slumberlessness has been the infirmity which has besieged my now degenerate constitution. My educational capabilities have abandoned me, and I now cling to those lovely tresses of , your much-coveted daughter like a mariner shipwrecked on the rock of love. As to my scholastic caliber, 1 was recently ejected from Calcutta university. lam of lofty and original lineage and of Independent incomes, and hoping that having debated this proposition in your preoccupied mind you .will concordantly corroborate in espousing your female progeny to my tender bosom and thereby acquire me into your family circle. Your dutiful son-in-law.”