Rensselaer Journal, Volume 11, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 April 1902 — Our Man About Town, [ARTICLE]

Our Man About Town,

Discusses Sundry and Other Matters.

We ran across an old-fashioned man the other day who claims it hurts a clock to turn it backwards. A man in this town wears clean underclothes solely for fear he might be found dead sometime and then it would be seen what dirty underclothes he wears. • M ' * A young man in this town who is passionately fond of onions, does not eat them because he says he is in society so much that it would be very inconvenient to have the odor of the fragrant onion on his breath. A little tot in this town had to be punished by her mamma for making faces at her. The mother spanked her real hard, as she thought, and the little girl made faces again. The next time she spanked a good deal harder and then stopped to let it soak tn, and asked if she would make any more faces. “No,” sobbed the little one, “but I’d like to.” And now that mother wonders where the benefit of that spanking has all gone. V Auburn has an economical family that is certainly entitled to the belt. The lady of the household saves all her little pieces of waste thread, placing them in a sack which when filled is consigned to the ragbag; all wooden butter and sausage boxes are split up and used as substitutes for matches; when the head of the house wishes to light his pipe the stove poker is heated red hot for the purpose. As a result they have money in the banks, on interest and invested in various ways. V Dealers tell us that bicycles have gone out of date. Where they formerly sold fifty they now sell one. People do not use them for pleasure as they once did, but people buy them now wholly as a matter of business. If they can use a bicycle they buy one, but otherwise they have no use for one. The price has gone down so that everybody can own one, and yet nobody wants a bike. That is the most natural thing in the world, too. When everybody wants a thing then price is no object, but as soon as the demand fails nobody wants to invest. **• A business man we heard of the other day, had a misunderstanding

with a wholesale house about a peculiar thing. He bought a bill »f goods, and when the bill came for them each item was written down and at the end came the total, as is proper. He read down the list and o. k.’d each item till he came to the “total.” He wrote to the wholesale house remitting for the goods, but he said he found the bill alright except one thing. He said: “I got everything you have me charged with except the ’total.’ I did not get that and do not propose to pay for it.” And he was as good as his word. He did not pay for it, either. From St. Joe comes the following tale: “At a recent revival meeting a brother arose and said that he was the wickedest man in town, and had given his customers short weight for years. I’d go to hell if I should die to-night, he continued.” Immediately an old decon who is in the grocery business started the hymn: “If you get there before I do, look out for me, I’m coming too.” And then the grocer wondered why everybody laughed. >