Rensselaer Journal, Volume 11, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 May 1902 — Our Man About Town. [ARTICLE]

Our Man About Town.

Discusses Sundry and Other | Matters.

A new gag: A carpenter says when his saw gets dull, “It is getting real bashfUl.” * * * The other day we ran aoross an old fashioned man who wore boots with heel braces on them to keep from running them over at the heels. V People never know what they want. There is not a house In this town that has stood for ten years without having some ohanges made in it. V A woman in this town is glad that a certain girl got married and moved ont of town, beoause before her marriage she would always stop and wait to walk down town with her. V A school boy, but not a very old one, told of a horse that ran away, and said: “It got scared at the alligator.” He probably meant the elevator, but Alligators do scare horses. V One of our friends said his wile always used to press his trousers, but she could never get the shape just right and he always looked bowlegged, so she has quit pressing them and sends them to the pantatorium, and now his legs are straight again. *** One of the customers in a barber shop the other day said: “I want my beard cut off. I don’t want it palled. If I wanted it pulled I would go to a dentist.” We do not know any class of workmen who have to stand as mnch saroasm as the barbers. V

A man in this town has a penohant for calling people by their first names. He even calls his father by his given name instead of calling him as other men do their paternal ancestors. When this man goes to heaven, he will say to St. Peter, if he meets him: “Hello, Pete!” And if he sees any archangels he will say: “Ab, there, Arch !” It must be nice to be so comfortable. i *** A barber in this town says it used to be just as customary to ask a man if he would have hia whiskers dyed as it now is to ask him if be will have a shampoo. Half the men dyed their whiskers and many a time he has dyed a man’s beard coal black when he had hair as yellow as sunshine. Nobody dyes his whiskers any more, except an occasional one who does it himself, and then he gets more on bis skin than on his whiskers. *«* The mistress of a boarding house bought her daily supply of eggs the other day and when she went to use them found that one of them was hard boiled. She is now trying to find out what the hen had eaten, or if it is a breed of chickens that all lay boiled eggs. They would be much handier than the ordinary kind. There are a good many people awaiting her investigations, for if she finds the breed, they will try to raise some hens that will lay egg nog. V

Several weeks ago as I was coming down from Chicago I fell in with a garrulous old chap whose hobby was his horror of the ravages of rum. In the coarse of his denunciation of the use of intoxicating beverages, which, for the most part, was not any too severe, he said, “The man who will take a drink of whiskey or beer will steal.” In this I could not agree with him. It was patting it a little too strong. Besides it was a hard rnb on Noah, David, Solomon, and several other gentlemen whom we have been taught to regard as examples of righteousness. It is sad to contemplate Qeorge Washington and Daniel Webster appropriating other people’s prop rty, Socrates swiping silverware at a symposiac, Plato picking pockets, Grant burglarizing a bank or General VanSant robbing hen roosts. lam inclined to think that the man who will make such a statement will He for a nickle and swear to it for a dime. While it is doubtless the part of wisdom to let liquor alone, it is more likely to make one liberal with his own property than covetous of that of others. These addle-pated asses who talk without judgment do nothing bat barm to the cause they seek to farther.