Jasper County Democrat, Volume 13, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 August 1910 — NOTHING LIKE THAT NOWADAYS. [ARTICLE]

NOTHING LIKE THAT NOWADAYS.

The late Prof. William P. Blake, whose encouraging mineralogical reports induced the United States to buy Alaska, believed firmly in his country's inture.

Prof. Blake, in a Fourth of July address that Tucson still remembers, pointed out tlie forward strides that Arizona had made.

“Think of the ignorance ana illiteracy of the past, all vanished now.” he said. "Once while out on a mineralogical trip I wandered into a courthouse in an Arizona village. ‘‘The case afoot concerned a letter. The prosecution wanted this letter admitted in evidence, but the defense wanted it barred out. Finally the Judge said reluctantly:

“Hand the pesky, thing up here, and I'll decide on it/ “So the letter was handed up to tihe Judge, and he put on his spectacles and looked at it sideways and crosswise, and a loud laugh went up from the spectators. ‘What'are they laughing at?” I asked the man next me. "Why, at the Jedge’s bluff, o’, course/ was the reply. “The old fool can’t r£ad readin’-writin’ let alone writin’-writin’/ ”