Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 June 1890 — SQUEEMS GOT KICKED. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

SQUEEMS GOT KICKED.

TROUBLES OF A CONSCIENTIOUS PHRENOLOCIST. Bkmbm H* Correctly Dlapottd Samps On ■ Customer** Bead He Was Walked On and Kicked Oat. ■ T ’'. ’’ • , J" _ • What it was that induced Hiram Squeems to take up with phrenology as a profession nobody ever knew with that degree of pdisitlveness which amounts to a certainty. Perhaps Ms failure in everything else had as muf:h to do with it as anything. Really, was little left for him to go into. The great trouble with Professor Squeems—everybody cnlled him professor, no matter what business he was in —was his conscience. He’ has constant rushes of conscience to the head. If he could have strangled that inelastic, abnormally large conscience of his he would undoubtedly have been a successful man, as the world goes. And it was this heavy-weight, hair-spring conscience was always getting him into some mess that left him even poorer than before. At last he studied phrenology to a finish and hung out his shingle as a phrenologist. “The trouble with most phrenologists is,” remarked Professor Squeems confidingly to a friend, "that they are unscrupulous charlatans. They wrong their patrons by giving them the most flattering diagnoses of their bumped heads. Such deception, while temporarily flattering, is harmful in the end. Now, suppose I tell a young man, just to please him, that he has concealed somewhere about his person a voice like Nicolim’B at it's prime. What is the result? The young man goes to Europe, trains his voice and comes back with s musical education and a voice—well, a voice that wouldn’t earn a dollar a week yelling ‘fish’ up a dark alley. “I shall differ from other phrenologists inasmuch I shall tell the truth and shame the devil—if he favors me with a call.” * * * * At last Professor Squeems has a customer. The phrenologist greets him with the gentle effusiveness that is innate with him. The customer is a benevolent looking gentleman, well dressed and smooth mannered. And what a

head for a phrenologist! A head with •uch bumps that it seem to have gone to seed like an old potato. The professor was charmed with his subject. "Sit right down in my examination chair, my bald-headed friend, and I will tell you all about yourself,” he said to hie caller. •‘How much is your fee?” inquired the stranger, cautiously. “Two dollars for a verbal diagnosis with a printed blank filled in with the main points, but you don’t need to pay until after the examination, and then only if you are satisfied.” The terms were not to be found fault with, and the customer filled the chair. The professor passed his fingers over the customer’s head like a barber making the motions preliminary to a dry shampoo. "Ahem!" remarked the professor, inquiringly. “Did I get your name?” "Awks is my name—John 8. Awks.” "Well, Mr. Awks, I will now proceed

to mnke a careful examination of yout i cranium aud truthfully tell you the re suit.” ' Go ahead, that's what I’m here for." ‘This is your bump of conjugal lop. ! or, father, where the bump should be,” \ snid the'professor. tenderly cartssiag t depression hack of Mr. Awks’ ear. ‘‘lts utter absence shows that you should never marry.. If you do you will surely end your days on the gallows for wife murder. The bump over your ear, that of destructiveness, shows that you art homicidally inclined. Self-esteem 14 sc strongly developed that I should advise you to Boe a surgeon and have the bump amputated. Benevolence is conspicu ous oniy by Its absence. Your bump oJ locality is represented only by a cavity, and 1 should advise you to engage s guide even when wandering about yout own bouse. The bump bf continuity ir your case betokens only a capacity foi getting on wbat is technically knbwn at a continuona jag. As for tune, why you couldn’t play a band organ aftar s years's instruction. You are so dell dent in Judging form that it would b« impossible, after tjie draw, for you tc distinguish the difference between s Dutflh flush and an aoejfali on deuce*

"Tour bump of acquisition looks like the half of an orange. Combativeneas is finely developed and if yon only had a little Courage you would make an excellent third-rate prize fighter. That is the only pursuit for which you seem fitted unless ” * * •

As Mr. Awks gave the poor professor of phrenology a final kick, which sent him spinning under a table, the angry customer observed quietly: “I didn’t mind being insulted by that quack, but -I object to that massage treatment about my lack of courage.” —Charles Lederer, in Chicago Herald. Tardy Wit. A bright little man sat. bemoaning his fate Of the wit that is tardy and sparkles too late; Of the keen repartee that is strictly one’s own But comes into view when occasion bas flown On, the ideas, opposite, bright and sublime. That travel like stage-coaches never on time--80 sluggish in movement, so slow In the race That a new topic renders them quite out ot place. Bo the bright little man, with a serious look. Remarked to himself as he opened the book; ‘‘Of regrets that annoy a humorist’s head The saddest is this: It might have been saidl"’ —J. A. Macon in the Century-

OLD-TIME REPORTERS. The Getter Up of News of Nearly 300 Tears Ago. Liberty is much indebted to the press. So, we regret to say, is license. From the time that newspapers first shed their pleasant light upon a theretofore newsless world, the manufacturers of those luminaries appear to have been somewhat given to —suppose we say distention of the truth. As a member of the guild we put it mildly. Glancing over the pages of “rare Ben Jonson” the other day, we noted in his "Staple of News,” which was first put upon the stage in 1625, the following hard hit at the ‘‘able editors” of that day: Pennyboy, Junior—Why, methinks, sir. If the honest, common people Will be abused, why should they not have that pleasure. In the belief that lies are made for them. As you In office, making them yourselves. Fittou—Oh, sir! It Is the printing we oppose. Cymbal—We not forbid that any news be made. But that it be printed; for, when news is printed. It leaves, sir, to be news; while ‘tls but, written— Fltton—Though it be ne’er so false It rum news still. The “Pennyboys” (newsboys) of this our day and generation could scarcely talk more to that point than Jonson’s youthful newsvender. Jonson has favored us with a pretty full description of the duties of “a writer for the newspaper press” in his day. Two hundred and sixty-four years ago, he particularized the labors of a gentleman in that line of life as follows: "Factor for news for all the shires of England, Ido write my thousand letters a week ordinary [rather extraordinary, we should say], sometimes one thousand two hundred [whew!) and maintain the business at some charge, both to hold up my reputation with mine own ministers in town and nay friends of correspondence in the country. I have friends of all ranks and of all religions, for which I keep an answering catalogue of dispatch, wherein I have my Puritan news, my Protestant news, and my Pontificial news.” It is astonishing how (newspaper) history repeats itself. Much of what the old dramatist has said iu his plays about the "News Letters” of the early part of the seventeenth century would fit a great many of the dailies and weeklies of the nineteenth. The newspaper interest appears—to use the words of Felix Grundy—to have been ’born a veteran.” It had no infancy, but sprang into being perfect, like Pallas from the brain of Jove. So far as priaciple is considered, in what does it differ to-day from its picture as we find it drawn by the masterhand of Shakspeare’s contemporary? No "news writer” of Queen Elizabeth’s time could have outfibbed the lightning telegraph; no puffer of the Globe Theater could have flattered Burbage and his compeers more unctuously than our “dramatic critics” sometimes flatter the stars, nav even the rushlight, of the modern stage.— N. 7. Ledger.

Waiters and Mashers. "A head-waiter of fourteen years’ standing,” writes the London Truth : "With respect to the statements made in the public press—viz., that, owing to the similiarity of our dress clothes, mashers are indignant at being 'mistook for waiters—l beg to state that the boot is on the other leg. It’s us waiters what have to suffer for the said mistake: and, as family men, earning our bread respectable, we don’t like it. I have more than once—l know vou won’t believe it, but it’s true—Lad mashers took for me at evening parties and such like, and twice to my knowledge they have had tips given to them intended for me. And what is more, sir, they have stuck to ’em.”

A Boy’s Composition. The following is an extract from a real composition written by a small boy in New Jersey. The subject given by the teacher was the extensive one of *‘Man.” Here is what the small boy wrote: “Man is a wonderful animal. He has eyes, ears, mouth. His ears are mostly for patching coid in aud having the earache. The nose is to get sniffles with. A man’s body is split naif way up, and he walks on the split ends.'’— Lippincott's Magazine. ■ - —— r~ It is said that the Empress Augusta left very full and carefully written memoirs, in which a clear account is given of her differences with Prince Bismarck

"HOW MUCH 18 TOUR FEE?"

“THIS IS YOUB BUMP OF IMITATION.”

MR. A WXS’ VIGOROUS DISAPPROVAL.