Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 February 1890 — INGALLS ON SOAP. [ARTICLE]

INGALLS ON SOAP.

The Senator Taken In by a Smart Reporter. Dave Lewsley, a reporter for i Washington Journal, was sent to hold an interview with the senator upon az important matter of state. The senator had no intention of being drawt into a conversation on that subject* but met Mr. Lewsley with his accustomed grace and courteously and veered the conversation to the general subject of shaving. “By all means,” said Senator Ingalls, “you should learn to shave yourself,” and then he went on with a learned, thoughtful and highly entertaining disquisition on the advantages, economic and melaphysic, of shaving oneself rather than hiring a barber to do it Mr. Lewsley paid careful attention to all the senators said, fixing facts and dates in his mind, and said nothing. When the senator had related circumstantially his own varied experiences with razors and brushes and soaps, recommending this make of blade and that brand of leather to Mr. Lewsley’a use, the reporter, convinced that he could not learn what he had come to learn, arose to go. There was, or the reporter imagined there was, a sort of merry triumph twinkle in Senator Ingall’s eye as he politely bowed his caller from the room—a twinkle which seem to say: “I have made, the young man really forget what he came for.” The next morning Senator Ingalls was more or less horrified at finding in the local newspaper a true report of what he had said, including the earnest reoommendation of a certain shaving soap, which he unqualifiedly pronounced to be the very best that could be had. But the reporter’s vengeanoe was not yet satisfied. He marked the article and sent it to the manufacturer of the recommended soap. In a fortnight the newspapers, the periodicals and all the many means employed by advertisers were brought into use, the Senator Ingalls’ eloquent eulogy of, that soap was printed in every form that could be devised to attract attention.