Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 July 1885 — Paper Ranging. [ARTICLE]

Paper Ranging.

Dear reader, did you ever hang paper? Did you ever indulge in the luxurious blessedness of the paperhanging art ? Did you ever cut loose from the cares of a busy everyday humdrum business life and revel for a short space of a period or two of time in the pleasure of pasting paper on a wall. Well, if you didn’t you have missed one of the bitterest experiences of life, and much to be thankful for. If you overbid, you know then how it is yourself. The other day we took our first lesson in paper hanging, and perhaps we might as well say our last lesson also. We think we have got through. In fact, we hadn’t hardly got started before we wished we hadn’t commenced, and one of the first things we did was to repent of our undertaking. We had some paper to hang. Our better half said it must be hung. We had seen sonje paper hanging going on once and it looked easy. We told her no use to bother after paper hangers, for it was no trick to slap a few slices of paper on the wall, and we felt equal to the emergency, and felt also that we needed to enjoy a little spell of rest and recreation, so we would just paper the wall ourself. Alas, as Ben Butler once remarked, “The best laid plans o’ men and mice gang aft aglee. ” They did gang very much aft aglee. They scooted out like greased elm. We commenced work with a brush, a pot of paste and a large supply of self-confidenc. The "brush and paste lasted first-rate, but we soon found we were running terribly short of self-confidence. It takes a big amount of self-confidence to successfully keep up the paper hanging business. This is about all we learned of the business. Our wife said she didn’t believe we could hang paper, and thought we were fooling away our time. Wo told her she didn’t seem to have that implicit faith in our abilities that she should have, and that if she would just keep her eye on our movements, she would soon see that we knew how to hang paper as well as anybody. We proceeded to decorate the walls. The first piece did very well, only it seemed to have an inclination to skew around and get into a twist. The second piece was worse than the first, and the farther we went the worse it got. After awhile we noticed that the top was going right away from the bottom, and if the gain at the top kept up, that end of the papering process would get around the square and safely back home before the bottom got half way around. Then it began to all wrinkle up apd draw itself up in the ridges and act in other ways unbecoming to a respectable paper. About this time we began to weary of the job, and we also remembered that we didn’t have time to fool with such things, so we Concluded to let the matter drop and send for a paper-hanger to finish the job. That individual had no trouble in putting on the balance of it in a respectable manner, owing of course to the example we had given him of the way in which paper should be hung. We have quit the business now, and will not consent to hang paper any more, not even for our near relatives. Perhaps if we had a mean enemy and wanted to punish him, we might consent to hang his paper, if he was not allowed to look on with a shot gun, but Under no other circustances would we tackle the job. We are satisfied that it is not every man who can build for himself an enduring monument of skill and artfulness by attempting to slap paper on the wall. A man might successfully and decently hang himself, and at the same time make a fizzle in an "effort to hang paper. With these few remarks we close by saying that henceforth the public will apply to other firms when it wants paper hanging, as we have retired from the hanging business. —Pittsburg {Kan.) Democrat. t