Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 July 1899 — SCANDALOUS MUTILATION. [ARTICLE]

SCANDALOUS MUTILATION.

Showing How the Compositor Gets in Hie Deadly Work. When a. Western editor was sitting in his office one day, a man whose brow was clothed with thunder entered. Fiercely Seizing a chair, he slammed his hat on the table, hurled his Umbrella On the floor, and sat down. “Are you the editor?’’ he asked. •lies." “Can you read writing?” “Of course.” “Bead that, then,” be said, thrusting at the colonel an envelope, with an inscription upon it. “B ,’’ said the colonel, trying to spell it. “That’s not aB. It’s an S,” said the man. “S; oh, yes, I see! Well, it looks like ‘Salt for dinner,’ or ‘Souls of sinners,” said the colonel. “No, sir,” replied the man; “nothing of the kind! That’s my name—Samuel H. Brunner. I knew you couldn’t read. I called to see you about that poem of mine you printed the other day, on the ‘Surcease of Sorrow.’ ” “I don’t remember It,” said the colonel. “Of course you don’t, because it went into the paper under the Infamous title of ‘Smearcase To-mcrrow.’ ” “A blunder of the compositor’s, I suppose.” “Yes, sir, and that’s what I want to see you about The way in which that poem was mutilated was simply scandalous. I haven’t slept a night since. It exposed me to derision. People think that lam an ass. Let me show you. The first line, when I wrote it, read in this way: Lying by a weeping willow, underneath a gentle slope. That is beautiful, poetic, affecting. Now, how did your vile sheet present it to the public? Lying to a weeping widow to induce her to elope. Weeping widow, mind you! A widow! Oh, thunder and lightning! This is too much! “But look a-here at the fourth verse. That’s worse yet: Cast thy pearls before the swine, and lose them in the dirt. He sets it up in this fashion: Cart thy pills before the sunrise, and love them if they hurt. Now, isn’t that a cold-blooded outrage on a man's feelings? I’ll leave it to you if it isn’t.” “It’s hard, that's a fact,” said the colonel. “And then take the fifth verse. In the original manuscript it said, plain as daylight: Take away the jingling money; it is only glittering dross! In Its printed form you made me say: Take away the tingling honey; put some flies in for the boss. By George, I felt like braining you with a fire-shovel! I was never so cut up in my life. There, for instance, was the sixth verse. I wrote: I am weary of the tossing of the ocean as it heaves! It is a lovely line, too. But imagine my horror and the anguish of my family when I opened your paper and saw the line transformed into: I am wearing out thy trousers til! they’re open at the knees! That is a little too much? That seems to me like carrying the thing an inch or two too far. I think I have a constitutional right to murder that compositor; don’t you?” “I think you have.” “Let me read you one more verse. I wrote:

I swell the flying echoes as they roam among the hills. And I feel my soul awakening to the ecstasy that thrills. Now, what do you s’pose your miserable outcast turned that into? Why, into this: I smell the frying shoes as they coast along the bulls, And I peel my sole mistaken in the ecstacy that whirls. I must slay that man. Where is he?” “He is out just now,” said the colonel. “Come In to-morrow.” “I will,” said the poet; “and I will come armed.”