Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 August 1877 — The Terrible “Eye-Witness.” [ARTICLE]

The Terrible “Eye-Witness.”

Not least among the calamities caused by the strike is the eye-witness. Tracks will be relaid, depots rebuilt, locomotives and freight cars reconstructed trains remanned and the great streams of commerce will move on as before, The dan ger over, the members of militia companies who were taken deathly sick will recover, and those who were called suddenly from home will return. The striker will be a tradition, and the mob a mere memory. The reporters will lay aside the gory pencils with which they slew thousands at all the great railroad centers, and the telegraph operators will return to the peaceful avocations of infrequent dispatches and ten-cent draw. But the eye-witness will not disappear. He will break in on quiet families as they sit around smudge fires built for the benefit of the seasonable mosquito. He will be multitudinous on free-lunch routes and a bore everywhere. We have studied his nature and habits with care, for he has given frequent op. portunitics, and we are convinced that beinir an eye-witness is only one of his phases. He has many others. He began life as “ the first white child” born’in any given Western town. In some towns he makes up nearly one-half the, population. Madison, in this State, is a notable example: By actual count there are in. that village thirty-five “ first white children.” It’t the only capital some of them have, and they get along very well on it. An odd featurh in many ot their cases is that while each could, get a number of reputable old citizens to swear that he was the “ first white child,” he could hardly find any one reckless enough to say that he has grown up a white man. But this, we take it, is greatly due to his after history. When in school he did all the smart and dangerous things. He ployed the trick and the other fellow got the licking. He saw mad dogs and escaped their fangs by his own cleverness, and when fishing he always saw sea serpents and things of a monstrous kind. When he came of age he began polling the casting vote in elections carried by onemujority. He has sent men to Congress, elected Governors and even chosen a President by this wonderful faculty. And he frequently traveled gieatdistances and Buffered considerable Tosses to cast that vote. most marvelous financial escapes. Sometimes he was lucky,- at others unlucky, but always remarkable. When banks were breaking he was always the last man to draw his deposits before the doors closed. Large counterfeits were never discovered till they had left hia possession. But he always missed his mark in real estate. He was Implored to take the best corner lot in each city snd village in the West for “ the price of a pair of boots.” /If he had only foreseen the changes ahead he could have had a quarter section in the heart of the city, as easy

as not. He'd have beea a millionaire if be had taken the changes. In the army it was the man next to bim that was shot, always. He cheek was often grazed but the other fellow's brains were distributed. He was the first man In a charge and the last to surrender. He pulled down the enemy's flag and ran up outs, though it was no part of his duty to do either. He shone at fires and railway disasters. Last to leave a burning hotel or a steamboat, he was the first to discover a leak in the reservoir or the approach of a tornado. He was numerous at the gn at Chicago conflagration, and crossed each of the bridges as it tottered and fell. He bas had a dull time of it lately, and till the strike occurred was not much in demand. The old stories were growing stale and drinks precarious. There was a vast shrinkage in his market value, and we are not quite certain that he was not at the bottom gs the strike. Certainly it’s nuts for him. He stood in danger’s van, saw all the carnage, and reveled in gore. He became the terrible “ eye-wit-ness,” and his tale is in all the papers. In Chicago he saw the streets run red with blood; he saw the grape and canister rammed home, felt it almost graze his cheek, and cast his uninjured but appalled eye down the swaths of slain. We have no wish to rob him of his pleasure or Ids occupation. He will circulate and tell his story, and it will grow more blood-curiding and boring as he proceeds. But%e must lift up our voice in warning against him, for we regard him as too multitudinous and unreliable. —Milwaukee Sentinel.