Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 October 1897 — A Modern Fable. [ARTICLE]

A Modern Fable.

The Bluffton News contains the following fable: “There was once a sav-uge Microbe who made his home on a Pencil. This Mi-crobe de-fied Doc-tor Hur-ty and his Laws and though he was boiled many times in a Tank which the people paid $2.75 for, he still Flour-ished and grew Fat and went about seek-ing whom he might De-vour. One Day when a Child picked up the Pen-cil, which was the Mi-crobe’s Home, the Sav-age Creat-ure rushed out and Carried her off to his Den, and her Parents said it was Tough. “Moral: Pro-vide the School Children with Ax-es So the Microbes will fear them and will flee. Dr. Hurty Appears to have a number of able assistants over the state who are equally zealous in the prosecution of this great sanitary labor. Down in Richmond it has been decided to use individual communion cups. This is to prevent the microbes hopping around from mouth to mouth and inoculating the entire community. This is a good; a wise, judicious reform, but will not work the blessing intended unless arrangements can be made for each member of the church to sing a different tune. Microbes are bound to be swapped just as long as the same tunes are used by the entire congregation,

You can’t boil ’em like you do slate pencils. There must be an apportionment made, or all these precautions of Dr. Hurty will prove futile.