Rensselaer Journal, Volume 12, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 February 1903 — Our Man About Town [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Our Man About Town

Discourses on Many Subjects and Relates Sundry and Other Incidents.

rpHIS might have happened in Rensx selaer, but it didn’t: There was an interesting discussion down street the other day upon the part of a minister and a scribe of a newspaper. Fortunately it was a bloodless battle and the points were given and taken in good part. It illustrated among other things the not infrequent failure of wise and holy men to see that errors in the attitudes and lives of others exist in their own, and that the false conventionalities frequently subject ministers as well as editors to the charge of mild hypocrisy. The question came up over an article that had appeared in the paper. The writer had given the best possible view to a matter which was highly favored when considered in its favorable aspect and had endeavored to tame down the flaring edges of in* hospitable criticism. To this the minister objected. “You* seem ever intent upon painting over acts of indignity. You show up the most glaring defects of life with the tones softened down and tints harmonized. You paint out the crimson—yOu even falsify about the characters of the men about whom you write, ascribing good motives and superior talents where none are to be found. *■ One man you find to be ‘well-connected,’another an ‘amiable and genial good citizen’; the first is a man of no ancestry, the second a crabbed irascible tyrant.” Then the scribe energized himself with a chew of J. T. add spake thus. “So the editor is a hypocrite, is he? Well, may be; but how about the clergy? How about the preacher who calls around and wags his paw and says ‘good fellow, pleased to meet you’ when he isn’t? How about the Mineral oration over the body of a man Whose soul the minister has just got to send to heaven? How about the tenets and dogmas youhave outgrown, if you are honest and thoughtfhl? How about the deeds of spite? How about the clerical sham—the homage to the ‘doth’ which you require as much as did the ecclesiastic despots of the dark ages who gave you your start? How about praising the Lord when you’d rather be doing something else? How about smiling at a ‘brother’ when all you want is one of his hard earned dollars? Why do you stand in the pulpit Sunday after Sunday afraid to speak out on burning, important questions, lest some ‘brother’ or ‘sister’ withdraw support? Friend, preacher, you are as big a hypocrite in as many places as we are. The fact is that both editor and minister are in the whitewash business, and if they desire support there is nothing to be done but coat over the truth, or give it out in installments that wont injure. People like to know that they are all right. Business is business. You won’t make a sinner happy if you tell him he is a backsliding fake. Go back to your books and when Mr. Tire-you-to death

comes to call tell him how glad you are to see him.” Then they both laughed good naturedlyand parted. The scribe to tell how an eminently respectable fellow-citizen was honored in some trivial town happening; the parson to call on a man whom deep in his heart he would .prefer not to recognize on the street. A very good aphoriam.might be written upon this subject which would overturn all tradition: “If you wish to die friendless tell the truth—as you see it.” **» ~ TT ABOR saving devices are always in demand and the man who thought of rubber stamping outfits had a head that should have made him secretary of the U. S. treasury. However, rubber stamps have their places and Occasions for use. If a business man sees fit to daub his letter heads and envelopes with a rubber stamp, thus leading strangers to think there are no printers in his town, he ought to be ostracised.

Such a man, when be comes to die,, ought to have his funeral notice and the usual resolutions of his fraternity printed on a fence board with a rubber stamp. And when he has a baby at his house, or a party, or a son or daughter gets married, or when the neighbors Oring in a wedding anniversary donation, a full account of the important events might be printed on packing paper and tacked on the front door. And when he is a candidate for office he might stamp a label to that effect and paste it on the bosom of his trousers. If he has an important advertisement to set before the people he could stamp up a display on some paper which would read, “I have for sale at cheaper rates the very same things other folks are advertising In the Journal. Oome to study it over there is no end to the use a rubber stamp might be put to in the hands of an energetic, enterprising, up-to-date, economical man.

ITIHERE is nothing hum-drum about x the socials that obtain in Rensselaer; they are something as splendid as dreams and a whole lot ftmnier. To attend one gives a person more solid seven toot enjoyment than looking through Montgomery Ward’s catalogue or at a Rensselaer foot ball game. The social usually begins in the afternoon with the right hand of fellowship— at the ice cream freezer; and it ends, we have been told, by the left arm going to waist. Two or three good ladies and a gentleman or two usually manage the opening operation while the latter is attended to by every visitor who can seize the opportunity—the main part of the social happens between times and isn’t so interesting. The internal operations of the occasion are looked after by wise and good persons who are used t? the details, such as carrying planks to make

tables on the lawn and smashing fingers crashing the ice. There are other persons who are entrusted with eating cream but this is done at stipulated hours, under the light of Chinese lanterns, by people who do not really figure in the amusement of the hour. In fact those who simply pay their money and take the cool receipt during the middle of the evening have no knowledge of the real delights, unless through chance they may be permitted to carry their own chairs, or help wash the dishes directly after they have gotten what they came for. One way to get a portion of the bliss that circulates around the freezer where two or three are scooping congealed cow, is to put on an apron and carry cake and water and the “money dish” around to people who are reluctantly (?) preparing to promenade up and down “Lover’s Lane.” It is also interesting to be the quartette that stands on the veranda and sings “O mother dear, Jerusalem!” to attract and retain the crowd. If the town band has offered its services and one can obtain permission t<f hold a kerosene lamp near the base drum in order,to light up the strains of “Always,” “Coon, Coon, Coon,” and “You are my Honeysuckle,” the situation will be found to be interesting and instructive.

Perhaps the climax of the occasion is the removing of the debris and children after the last freezer has been emptied and the last person has spent the last ten cents. It will be found educational to observe the exact moment when the tired feeling sets in and everybody “goes away back” etc, in a hurry—in an unseemly hurry, be it understood, leaving the hostess, who was kind enough to offer her premises for the occasion, the unmixed hilarity of setting things to rights once more.