Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 August 1885 — The Achromatic Liar. [ARTICLE]

The Achromatic Liar.

I love the achromatic liar who can cull chestnuts from the proverbial tree of knowledge, and foist it upon a longsuffering paopie as an original plum plucked from the cerebral of mental acumen. But Lord deliver me from the liar who adds fresh varnish and reconstructed stuffing to the equine chestnut. The season of the year, harbinger of editorial mendacity, draws near. In the van of this joyous heyday of pastoral delights and Waltonian lore, the gentle smile, like the forerunner of moral elasticity, enlightens the editorial sanctuary and threatens to lialo the bald bump of self-esteem ere trout season is o’er. If some good soul who is more fully endowed with the gift of perspicuity than I am, will explain to me why an editor poses as the non-achromatic fish liar par excellence beyond equivocation, I will present him with a year’s subscription to Ayer’s family_almanac. No man of general knowledge can fail to agree with me, viz.: When I make the stupendous assertion that the editorial quill will grapple with the actifiic and non-aet-inic colors of the mendacious rainbow, simply to win encomiums from the press in general, when the subject of lish plays havoc with the mental’powers. A bad lie poorly told is a blot upon the escutcheon of the editorial fraternity. But a good lie poorly told is a disgrace • beyond redemption. Snakes and fish, twin handmaids of mendacity, should be banished from the take hook. The pen toiler who goes forth in dll the blissful serenity of unruffled temper and buys a good catch from a base foot-urchin of rural proclivities, should be forever disgraced in the estimation of his esteemed contemporaries. That is the non-achro-' niatic liar. The lie with color. On the other hand, the editor who goes fishing with a novel, and spends the entire day in a hammock, and —buys a salt cod on his way home, deserves to be drawn and quartered forthwith.— 11. S. Keller, in Carl Pretzel's Weekly.