People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 November 1895 — A Home Industry. [ARTICLE]

A Home Industry.

Grant Hopkins caught an 18 pound pickerel in the Iroquois at the Stackhouse bridge last Sunday. It is undoubtedly the finest specimen of the finny tribeever caught with a hook and line in Jasper county. Wuen Ed Honan, the master of mails at this important federal station, saw the mammoth catch, and comprehended that it was the result of Sunday’s expedition, he made the rash statement that he would be missing forthwith from the choir at St. Augustine’s church on Sunday mornings. But then Ed is impetuous and the prospect is vague for producing many fish in the next higher class. The fact is that Brother Honan is very impetuous, even for one who has traveled all the way to Kentucky to witness a “hoss” race, sampling the favorite brand of ‘ Old Pure” with the hospitable hosts of the blue grass state. To his friends at home he has oeen an object of self supposed envy for weeks. His superior judgment in the matter of the genuine Kentucky beverage had been so elaborated upon and amplified with technical descriptions of the article and how it was used in the realm of its perfect production that few doubted his accomplishment in the premises. But what was the surprise and shock to his confiding and credulous associates to witness his complete collapse in attempting to vindicate his judgment, and that too on the public street no later than Tuesday morning It was thus: Neighbor Peacock emerged from an apothecary shop with a long necked bottle protruding from his overcoat pocket, just as Col. Honan was about to enter the place. The neck of the bottle and the Colonel’s hand met, and with the assistance of several confederates the pocket and bottle parted company. Now then this bottle was labled “Old Pure” and Col. Honan immediately inserted bis cork screw and with feverish haste poured a Kentucky portion down his throat. One pour was enough even for this blue grass expert, for it at once transpired, that as genuine as the lable might be, the contents was, well, it was turpentine, and while the highly talented connoisseur of Kentucky’s famous whiskey was howling for an antidote and executing a Sioux dance his friends rolled upon the fine cement walk, for which Rensselaer is so famous, utterly helpless from the suddenness of the Colonel’s fall.