SKETCHES PROM TEXAS SIFTINGS." 5V .SWEET AND KNOX. I. ILLUSTRATED BY W. H . C A S K I E New York: TEXAS SIFTINGS PUBLISHING COMPANY, 150 Nassau Street 1882. 9^7 69 7 J^ Copyright y •''**' SWEET & KNOX. 1882. S. W. GREEN'S SON, Printer, Electrotyper and Binder, 74 and 76 Beekman and 13 and 15 Vandewater Sts., NEW YORK. HENRY CLAY LUKENS [Erratic Enrique] OF GIDDY GOTHAM'' THIS VOLUME FRATERNALLY INSCRIBED PR E F A C E During the days and the years of our pilgrimage here on earth, we have accumulated vast quantities of cheerful statistics, hilarious facts and solemn truths. So full of these things had we become about a year ago, that there was not room inside us for even an or- dinary appetite. The matter came to a crisis when, one day, we tried, with the aid of a mallet and wedge, to pack away an ordinary unripe anecdote, and realized the imminent danger we were in of cracking open in several places if we did not find some means of dispos- ing of a part of the surplus information we were car- rying. We felt that the public needed it more than we did, but having fears that the market w^ould be glutted if we unloaded it all at once, we determined to give it to the American people in broken doses. The result has been that for twelve months we have been digging these facts, statistics, and truths out of ourselves, and sending them abroad all over the land vi PREFACE. through the medium of Texas Sif tings — a weekly illus- trated journal costing $2 a year, and sold by all news- dealers in installments of 5 cents, payable weekly. We now feel somewhat relieved, although there is a great deal in us yet that it will take years to get rid of. This book contains a part of what we have succeeded in enticing out of ourselves and publishing in Texas Sif tings during the past year. These Sketches are put in the form of a book, not so much to enlighten, educate, and ennoble the human race, as to put money in the pockets of Mmt^Mh CONTENTS, The Drummer. Illustrated . The Conductor. Illustrated The Razor-Back Hog. Illustrated . Another Mystery Explained. Illustrated . The Hotel Clerk. Illustrated . The Cow-Boy. Illustrated . . . The Solemn Bore. Illustrated. The Texas Cow. Illustrated The Red Ant. Illustrated Power of the Press in Texas. Illustrated A Model Visitor. Illustj-ated . The Reckless Local Reporter. . . ^ . Gunning for Quail. Illustrated San Antonio Mexicans. Illustrated Fire Cranks. . . . . The Pelon Dog. Illustrated. Col. B. Snort's Legal Experience. Illustrated. The Hotel Waiter. Illustrated . The Statistical Crank. Illustrated . Dissatisfied Englishmen. Illustrated Obituary. Illustrated Heaven. .... The Texas Desperado. Illustrated , Mexican Bull Fight. Illlustrated . The Cayote. Ilhistrated . A News Factory .... The Patronizing Subscriber The Horned Frog. Illustrated . That Typical Texan. Illustrated He Wanted a Notice The Editorial Crank. Illustrated PAGE. Knox . 9 Sweet . 14 Knox. 17 Sweet . 20 Knox 23 Sweet & Knox 27 Knox . 30 Knox 32 Sweet . 35 Sweet 38 Sweet & Knox 44 Sweet . 46 Knox 50 Sweet . 55 Knox 58 Sweet . 60 Sweet 63 Knox . 72 Knox 75 Sweet . 78 Knox 83 Sweet . 85 Knox 88 Sweet . 91 Knox 94 Knox . 98 Sweet & Knox 100 Sweet & Knox 102 Sweet . 105 Sweet & Knox 107 Knox no viii CONTENTS. Illustrated . Illustrated Illustrated . The Confidential Bore. Illustrated Lavanburg's Substitute. Illustrated. A Texas Mustang. Illustrated . The Tumble Bug. Illustrated. Throwing the Lasso. Illustrated. Eighteen Eighty-One AVe Have Sworn Off. The Egotistical Bore A Foiled Book-Agent . A Poetic Gem. Illustrated Texas Soldiers. Illustrated The Gloriously Drunk Man. Why He Came to Texas Death in the Pot. Illustrated . The Omnipotent Rope. Illustrated The Awful Coal Bug .... The County Fair. Illustrated The Unhappy Farmer .... Another Brass-Mounted Offer. Illustrated Malarial Intoxication A Yankee Desperado. Illustrated. Editorial Sermon ..... The Chapparel Cock. Illustrated . The Weeping Drunk Man. Illustrated . Mulcahy's Cow. Illustrated . Writing under Difficulties. The Texas Climate . . ' . Sunday Reflections P. B. Lee— A Character Sketch. Illustrated. The Colored Cook. Illustrated. St. Patrick's Day. Ilhistrated The Confidential Drunk Man. Illustrated A Rough Translation .... Siftings. I Illustration .... Answers to Correspondents. 4 Illustrations Brevities. ..... Fashion Notes Tail Piece— End . . . . . . Knox . Sweet Knox . Sweet Sweet . Knox Sweet & Knox Knox Sweet . Knox Sweef . Knox Sweet . Knox Our Artist Knox . Knox Sweet . Knox Sweet . Sweet Knox . Sweet Knox . Sweet . Knox . Sweet Knox . Sweet Knox . Sweet Knox . Sweet Sweet Knox Sweet & Knox Knox . PAGE. 112 114 119 121 124 129 132 135 136 139 145 148 150 151 153 155 157 160 163 167 170 SKETCHES FROM TEXAS SIFTINGS.-^ THE DRUMMER The drummer inhabits railroad trains. He is al- ways at home on the cars. He al- so temporarily in- fests the best rooms in hotels. In winter he wears an ulster, with the surcin- gle hanging loose behind, and in summer a linen duster. He is usually swung to a satch- el containing a comb and brush, another shirt, a clean celluloid collar, and a pair of cuffs; also a railroad guide, and a newspaper wrapped around a suspicious- looking bottle. That is about all the personal baggage lb ' •■'• ''•''••• -SKETCHES EROM he carries, except a '^Seaside Library" novel, and a pocket-knife with a corkscrew in the back of it. He has a two-story iron-bound trunk containing " sambles of dem goots," which he checks through to the next town. He always travels for a first-class house— the largest firm in their line of business in the United States, a firm that sells more goods, and sells them cheaper, than any two houses in the country, He is very modest about stating these facts, and blushes when he makes the statement; but he makes it, nevertheless, probably as a matter of duty. He can talk on any subject, although he may not know much about it, but what little he knows he knows, and he lets you know that he knows it. He may be giving his views on the financial policy of the British government, or he may only be telling you of what, in his opinion, is good for a boil, but he will do it with an air and a tone that leaves the matter beyond dispute. He is at home everywhere, and he never seems out of place wherever you find him, although we do not re- member ever to have found him in church. Sitting on his gripsack at a way-station, waiting for a train six hours behind time, and abusing the railroad officials from brakesman to president, with a profuse and ro- bust profanity that gives the air a sulphurous odor for miles around, he seems in perfect keeping with the sur- roundings. The scene would be as incomplete without him as a horse race without a yellow dog on the track. When the drummer gets into a railroad train, if alone, he occupies two seats. One he sits on, and on the other he piles up his baggage and overcoat, and tries to look as if they didn't belong to him, but to an- other man who had just stepped into the smoking-car and would be back directly. Drummers are usually found in pairs or quartettes on " TEXAS SIFTINGSr ii the cars. They sit together in a double seat, with a va- lise on end between them, on which they play eucher and other sinful games. When they get tired of play- ing they go out into the smoking-car, where the man who is traveling for a distillery " sets 'em up " out of his sample-case, and for an hour or two they swop lies about the big bills of goods they have sold in the last town they were in, tell highly-seasoned stories about their personal adventures, and exhibit to each other the photographs of the last girls they made impressions on. While the drummer is not ostentatiously bashful, neither does he assume any outward show of religion. His great love of truth is, however, one of his strong points, and he is never known to go beyond actual facts, except in the matter of excessive baggage. Regarding this, he will sometimes stretch a point until it will cover up two hundred pounds of a three hundred pound trunk. He is the only man who dares address hotel clerks by their Christian names. He knows every ho- tel in the country, and every room in every hotel. When he arrives by a late train he is first to get out of the 'bus and reach the clerk's desk, when he says to the clerk: "Hello, Charley, old fel, how are you? Got No. i6 for me?" And the clerk flashes his Kohinoor and a smile on him as he shakes his hand, pounds the nickle- plated call-bell, and shouts: "John, take the gentle- man's baggage to No. i6." In the dining-room the drummer is a favorite with the colored waiters, although he orders more dishes and finds more fault with the fare than other guests do. He does not believe the waiter when he tells him that the milk is all out, but sends him off to inquire farther about the matter, and while the waiter is gone he fills up his glass out of the blue milk in the cream-pitcher. He flirts with the chambermaids, teases the boot-blacks SKETCHES EROM and plays practical jokes on the regular boarders. He goes to bed at a late hour, and sleeps so soundly that the porter wakes up the people for two blocks around, and shakes the plaster off the wall, in trying to com- municate to him the fact that the 'bus for the 4:20 a. m. train will start in ten minutes. The drummer has much to worry and fret him. Traveling at night to save time, sleeping in a baggage car or the caboose of a freight train, with nothing but his ear for a pillow, bumping over rough roads on stages and buck-boards, living on corn bread and cof- fee dinners in cross-road hotels, yet under all these vex- atious circumstances he is usually good-humored and in the best of spirits, although he sometimes expresses his feelings regarding the discomforts of travel, and the toughness of a beefsteak, or the solidity of a bis- cuit, in language that one would never think of attrib- uting to the author of Watts' hymns. All kinds of improbable stories are told about drum- mers, some of them being almost as improbable as the stories they themselves tell. For instance, we once heard that a man saw a drummer in the piney woods of North Carolina camping out under an umbrella. " What are you doing here ? " " I am camping, and living on spruce gum to save ex- penses," replied the drummer. " What are you doing that for ? " " To bring up the average." It seems that the firm allowed him a certain sum pei day for expenses, and by riotous living he had gone far beyond his daily allowance. By camping out under an umbrella and living on spruce gum for a few days, the expense would be so small as to offset the previous ex- cess he had been guilty of. This story is probably a fabrication. " TEXAS SIFTINGSr 13 The chief end and aim of the drummer is to sell goods, tell anecdotes, and circulate the latest fashiona- ble slang phrase. If he understands his business, the country merchant might as well capitulate at once. There is no hope too forlorn, nor any country merchant too surly or taciturn for the drummer to tackle. Our illustration at the head of this article shows the coun- try merchant under the influence of the drummer. That same merchant, not long ago, loaded up a double- barreled shotgun with nails, with the intention of vac- cinating the first drummer who entered his store. The commercial emissary represented in the picture has been talking to him only fifteen minutes. In that time he has told the old man four good jokes, paid him five compliments on his business ability and shrewdness, propounded two conundrums, and came very near tell- ing the truth once. As a result, the sanguinary old man is in excellent humor, and just about to make out an order for $500 worth of goods that he doesn't act- ually need, and then he will go out and take a drink with the drummer. The drummer is the growth of this fast age. With- out him the car of commerce would creak slowly along. He is an energetic and genial cuss, and we hope that he will appreciate this notice and the fact that we have suppressed an almost uncontrollable impulse to say something about his cheek. -»-<^o<^ — 14 SKETCHES FROM THE CONDUCTOR. In appearance the conductor re- sembles a U. S. Na- val Officer. If a s p y - g 1 a s s were shoved under h i s arm and he were taken up and set down on the quar- ter-deck of a United States man- of-war, the sailors would all think he belonged there. The only difficulty about it is there is no United States man-of-war it would be safe to put the conductor on. He would not take any such risk of being drowned. Like the cap- tain of a ship, the conductor is boss of the situation. He does not precisely run the train. The engineer does that, but the conductor runs the engineer. Unless he chooses, he has no occasion to be civil to anybody on the train, unless the president of the company is on board. The principal duty of the conductor is to take up tickets, and collect fares from such as have neither tickets nor passes. If any such passenger refuses to ''TEXAS SIFTINGSr 15 pay, or attempts to put the conductor off, the conduc- tor puts him right off in the middle of a big prairie. The conductor has even been known to treat newspa- per men that way, and the journalist who is thus treated usually gets even by taking the conductor off — in his, the journalist's, paper. A journalist of that class will then proceed to denounce railroad monopolies. As soon as the train leaves the station, the conduc> tor enters the car, and after looking in out-of-the-way places for irresponsible parties who might be hiding, he proceeds to go through the car and to levy and col- lect assessments from the passengers, just the same as if he held a power-of-attorney from Jesse James him- self. As a general thing, his authority to collect money from the passengers is only derived from Jay Gould, Vanderbilt, or some other legitimate highwayman. As it is very difficult for Jay Gould to be on every car in every train, and as the servant is like the master, pas- sengers are directed to get their tickets before entering the car. The object of this is evidently to prevent pas- sengers from paying their fares to the conductor, as hfe might not be able to bear up under the temptation. At night, ho^^ever, the ticket-ofhces are not open, and the passengers have to pay their fares to the conductor, and then, if Jay Gould is not on the car, and if the conduc- tor is not very conscientious, he may forget to turn the money over. Jay, himself, never forgets to turn the money over. When he buys a railroad cheap, he fre- quently turns it over three or four times, so they say. Some passenger, who has a spite at a railroad compa- ny, makes a vow that the company shall never handle any of his money, so he always pays his fare to the con- ductor, and then he feels sure the company will never get any of it. The belief that railroad conductors i6 SKETCHES FROM grow rich in this way, is caused by many of them wear- ing large diamond breastpins that outshine the lantern the conductor holds on his arm. Very few people know that Guch breastpins cost only a dollar and a half at a hardware store, and are frequently presented to the conductors by drummers, as souvenirs. Another duty of the conductor is to fail to impart in- formation to reporters about any accident that may happen to his train. If a conductor tells a reporter anything about an accident, the company requests him to send in his resignation. Much more information can be obtained from a dead man, who has been run over, lengthwise, by five passenger cars, than can be got out of a conductor. When a reporter asks him for infor- mation about the dreadful accident, he talks and looks as if he relied on the reporter to tell him all about it. In all seriousness, the conductor has combined a va- riety of qualifications to fill the position. He is, as a rule, very polite, considering the number of foolish questions that are put to him every hour in the day. He is courageous, and reliable, and above all, he is so- ber. When his varied qualifications, and the risks he runs, are taken into consideration, he is very poorly paid. It is estimated that one first-class corffluctor has more sense than a car-load of legislators. TEXAS SIFTINGS. 17 THE RAZOR-BACK HOG. To the traveler through Texas one of the strangest and most peculiar features of the landscape is the (^x.:,JA£a "*''-~^ — »,, ^-'^^^-y^ razor-back hoe. cottage style of architecture. His physical outline is angular to a degree unknown outside of a text book on the science of geometry. His ears — or the few rags and tatters of them that the dogs have left — are furled back with a knowing, vagabondish air. His tail has no curl in it — although our artist has decorated him with one in the above illustration — but it hangs aft, limp as a wet dish-rag hung out of a back window to dry. The highest peak of his corrugated back is six inches above the level of the root of his tail. He does not walk with the slow and stately step of the patrician Berkshire, but usually goes in a lively trot. He leaves the impres- sion that he was late starting in the morning and is making up for lost time ; or that he is in doubt about the payment of that check, and is hurrying to get it cashed before the bank closes. The country razor-back prowls around in the woods and lives on acorns, pecan nuts and roots ; when he can spare time he climbs under his owner's fence and as- sists in harvesting the corn crop. In this respect he is neighborly to a fault, and, when his duty to his owner's SKETCHES EROM crop will allow, he wijl readily turn in and assist the neighbors, even working at night rather than see the crop spoil for want of attention. He does not know the luxury of a sty. He never gets fat, and, from the day of his birth, sometimes two years roll into eternity before he is big enough to kill. Crossing the razor-back with blue-blooded stock makes but little improvement. The only effective way to improve him is to cross him with a railroad train. He then becomes an imported Berkshire or Polan-Chi- na hog, and if he does not knock the train off the track, the railroad company pays for him at about the rate of one dollar a pound, for which they are allowed the mournful privilege of shoveling the remains off the track. The ham of the country razor-back is more juicy than the hind leg of an iron fire-dog, but not quite so fat as a pine knot. The city razor-back differs from his country relative only in the matter of the quality of his food and the length of his tail. The city species prey on the roots of tropical plants and other garden luxuries instead of corn, and eat cinders and old type in the back alley in- stead of the acorns and pecans of the breezy wood- lands, that are assimilated in the digestive organs of the country stis aper. The tail of the city hog has usually been chewed of( in early life by dogs; in other words, it has been cur- tailed. This, and the arid patches on his back, where the hair has been scalded off by the enraged boarding- house cook, adds much to the picturesque appearance of the brute. A man once told us that the razor-back hog was the only bird of prey that was amphibious in " TEXAS SIFTINGSr 19 its habits, and that could lift a gate off its hinges with- out ruffling a feather. As the novelists say, " much might be said on this very interesting subject/' but time is money, and we are forced to concludebriefly with the following ''pome" by one of the old masters: Ye pigge he is a pretty fowl, And wond'rous good to eat; Hys ham is good, lykewise his jowl. And eke his little feete. But if you try a thousand yeare I trow you still will fayle To make a silk purse of hys eare Or a wissel of hys tayle. ^^<}-^0<2^ HE HAD JUST HAD ONE. "Don't you want a glass?" asked the man who rents opera glasses at the Austin opera house of a country- man from Onion creek. " Don't care if I do take a glass after the show is over, but ain't thirsty now; just had one." SS SKETCHES EROiM POWER OF THE PRESS IN TEXAS. HOW A TEXAS EDITOR TRAVELED ON A RAILROAD PASS. The night train on the Santa Fe road had jusfarrived at Milano Junction, and the passengers were changing cars. The International and Great Northern train was waiting, and the passengers by the Santa Fe were climbing on board, and among them was a shabbily dressed young man wearing a black slouch hat, and a mustache to match. The latter was dyed, however. It was four o'clock in the morning, and the proceedings were carried on by colored lanterns, that gave some people the blues and made others look green. The young man referred to was about to climb up into the car, when the brakeman laid an official hand on his arm, and asked him to show his ticket. "Didn't you never get to see a ticket before? Do you think I am traveling around over the country hunt- ing up lantern-jawed brakesmen to show them tickets? Why don't you go to the ticket office and ask the ticket agent to let you look at a ticket if you want to see one so badly? Just mention my name to him and he'll give you a handful. Do you think I am the advance agent of a variety show, or a circus, or a female minstrel troupe, that you have to bore me for a ticket ? Why don't you save up your wages and buy tickets if you want to amuse yourself? Why don't you ask Jay Gould to furnish you with circus tickets ? He can afford it ; I can't." There was a crowd trying to push into the car, and in the confusion that particular tourist was lost sight of. TEXAS SIFTINGSr 39 How he ever got into the car is a profound mystery, but very likely he crawled under the train and got in from the opposite side. At any rate, it is a matter of history that when the train pulled out of Milano Junc- tion for Austin, that very same young man who had such a flow of language was on board. He was not only on board, but as fast asleep as if he had traveled all night in that very car. Most of the other passen- gers were asleep in various picturesque attitudes, but none of them seemed to sleep quite so soundly as the man who had not got into the sheepfold through the door, but had climbed over some other way. He had evidently nothing on his mind to worry him. He look- ed as if even an invitation to take a drink might not have aroused him. Presently the conductor came along. He was a tall, rawboned man, with a big nose and a still bigger mus- tache. He wore a green lantern and a very solemn ex- pression of countenance. He went through the car hunting up the guilty parties who had got into the car at Milano, intending to furnish them with an opportu- nity to contribute a trifle each to assist the company in extending their line to the Rio Grande. Presently he came to the sleeper. He held up the lantern and gazed with a perplexed look on the green but matured cheek of the dreamer. Then the conductor smiled a sardonic, frozen smile that would have made a dead man feel uneasy, and reaching over, he shook the slumberer, and said, in a hoarse voice : " TICKET ! " But the Bohemian, for such he was, dreamed on. At last he rubbed his eyes and asked if this was Austin. The conductor once more brought up the ticket ques- tion. 40 SKETCHES FROM " Ticket ! why, I have got a pass. I showed it to you two hours ago. Don't worry me," and the drowsy man dozed off again and was fast asleep in less than a min- ute, but the grim-visaged conductor reached over and shook him as a terrier does a rat. That woke him up, but he did not wake up in good humor. " This is the goll darndest road in Texas, and it ought to be closed out. A gentleman can't have a minute's rest. What in the world did you shake me for ? Do you suppose that I have been taking laudanum by mis- take, and have to be shook up and walked about by the arm ? Is that what the railroad company pays you ten dollars a month for, or are you just hintin' you want me to treat you ? If you want a drink why don't you come out like a man and say so ? Wait — till — we — get — to — Austin — and I'll — set-'em-up," and he was about to doze off once more, when the conductor bawl- ed : " LEMME SEE YOUR PASS ! " He woke up with a jerk. He looked in his pocket. It was gone. He took off his hat and looked in it. No pass. He looked under the seat, and then out of the window at the trees which were visible by the early light, to see if his pass was there. Then he looked sus- piciously at the passengers, and finally he said to the conductor : "You never gave me back that pass." " Never saw you or your pass before. What's your name?" and the conductor took out a long, narrow book, and began to study. " Let me hold your lantern, colonel," said the rep- resentative of the press, trying to look over the list of names in the book. " Bill Snort, editor and proprietor of the Crosby ''TEXAS SIFTINGSr 41 county Clai'ion and Fa^-mers Vindicator^ a weekly jour- nal devoted to the prosperity of Texas, and the advance- ment of the great railroad interests of the State. The Clarion and Farmer s Vindicator is also a great religious journal." " No pass was ever issued to any such person." Bill Snort laughed scornfully, and said: " I reckon that's all you know about Jay Gould. I expect you will make a very good conductor in time, but you ain't the kind of a man he is going to intrust with his business plans. Jay don't keep you post- ed. Just you write him a line, and ask if he didn't give William B. Snort a pass for valuable considera- tion." ''Three dollars and six bits is the fare to Austin." ''Cash?" " Cash down, quick, or I'll bounce you off at the next station we come to." " If you are going to put me off, I want you to put me right back where you got me. You can either go back to Milano right now, or I'll stay on the train and come back with you to-morrow from Austin. Just suit yourself. It's not my funeral. Where, Mister, can I tap Jay Gould by wire ? " The impudence of Bill rather amused the grim-look- ing conductor, while it absolutely convulsed even the passengers who were fast asleep. " I'll tell you what," said Bill, " never mind the mon- ey. I'll give you a puff in the Clarion. I'll say what a gentlemanly conductor you are, and how passengers travel back and forward over the road just for the fun of talking to you, and I'll send Jay a marked copy. Perhaps he will promote you, and take you into the firm and give you a railroad of your own." 42 SKETCHES EROM The conductor said he was about tired of that mon- keying, and to hand out the money. " I'd just as lief as not pay the money, only I know Jay will get on his ear and make some railroad changes if he hears of it, and he will be mighty apt to hear of it. I only want to give you a chance to save yourself. If Gould fires you out, the only railroad in Texas that will employ you will be some street railroad, and you won't have no chance to steal a blamed cent, for con- ductors are not allowed to handle the fare at all in street cars. That would about break you up." " If you put anything about me in your blamed pa- per, the coroner will think a freight train ran over you lengthways, I'll punch your head for you. Now you hand out that three dollars and six bits, or out you go! " Seeing that the conductor meant business, Mr. Snort reached down in his clothes and brought out a roll of greenbacks, remarking: " Some smart people think editors never have any money. Here is a five-dollar bill. I would have paid long ago, only I sorter liked your looks, and I didn't want you and Jay to lock horns, for fear you might hurt him, he being an intimate friend of mine. He has a big family depending on him for their daily bread, and I hate to see anything happen them. Take your money, I reckon you'll be buying yourself some fresh clothes pretty soon." The conductor was too mad to talk, so he passed on, and 'the man who wields the Archimedean lever in Crosby County, put his feet up on the seat in front, and began to converse with the other passengers. " Darn a State, anyhow, where the press has no influ- ence. No wonder it don't boom. Three dollars and six bits gone to swell up that conductor with whiskey " TEXAS SIFTINGSr 43 and crackers. But it's not going to come out of my pocket. Somebody will have to bleed for this. There is one comfort about it. You all saw me pay my way. The Crosby County Clarion is the only, paper in fhe State that is independent of railroad monopolies. We fight to the bitter end, and the people know it. I have paid my fare, and nobody in this car will sneer at me, and take me for a member of the legislature. That's worth a thousand dollars to a gentleman of refinement like myself." He paused to catch his breath, and then placing his finger on the breast of a drummer, who was speechless with admiration at the cheek of the Texas journalist, he asked: " Isn't that a flask?" The drummer held it out to him. After taking a pull, he put it in his own side pocket, and looking around, asked: " Ain't we going to smoke? Ain't any of us going to pass around the cigars? What sort of a crowd is this, anyhow, that tries to bulldoze the press?" Nobody responded, so he reached in his own vest pocket, and produced the stump of a cigar. He sub- sided until the transfer agent asked him if he had any baggage. "Baggage? why, of course, I've got baggage. Do I look like an irresponsible person? Why don't you ask me if I have any clothes on. Can't you see for yourself that I am a whole clothing store? I have so much bag- gage that there was no room for it in the baggage car, so I had to charter a freight train. Call for the* bill of lading at the hotel." When we last saw him he was in a grocer's delivery wagon on his way to call on the Governor. 44 SKETCHES FROM A MODEL VISITOR. A FEW days ago, Mr. Lawler, of Williamson County, paid the sanc- tum of Texas Si f tings a friendly visit. It is not unusual for us to be thus honored. Almost every day some polite gentleman calls in to see us with a bill to col- lect or some other testi- monial of regard. Mr. Lawler, however, came on a different mission. We desire to call atten- tion to him. We desire other visitors, and those who expect to become visitors, to model on him, for he is the kind of an intruder we want to see frequently. Such disturbers as Mr. Lawler interrupt us very agreeably. For the information of all who visit newspaper offices, we will first tell what he did not do. He did not put his feet upon the table and tamper with the exchanges. He did not give us a mile and a half of advice how to make the paper populat" with the masses. This alone made us look on him in the light of a sainted angel. He did not startle us with a new joke that he claimed to have originated last week, but which we remembered to have heard in a circus thirty TEXAS SI F TINGS. 45 years ago. Neither did Mr. Lawler tell us anything about Sam Houston and the early history of Texas, or about his having shot a deer, away back in 1840, on the spot where the capitol now stands. The failure of Major Lawler to commit any of these outrages impels us to put him in nomination for governor, which we hereby do. And now we propose to state precisely just what Col, Lawler did. The first thing this noble-hearted friend did was to go away at the expiration of ten minutes after he enter- ed the office. As soon as he entered he drew out two dollars, did this nature's nobleman, this high-toned Southern gentleman, Gen. Lawler. and renewed his sub- scription which had not yet expired, remarking that Sif tings was the very best paper in Texas. Yes, that's just what this heaven-born old Texan, Gen Lawler, said. Then he produced a bottle from a basket, and proceed- ed to cheer up the Sifters with the contents, remarking once more that he was an admirer of the paper, which deserved to be framed in gold. The contents of the bottle was not the vile stuff called " home-made mus- tang wine.' with which old grangers disorganize the internal economy of inexperienced journalists, but was ice cold beer. After this seraphic old hero, Gen. Lawler, had drunk a glass to the prosperity of Texas Siftings^ amid the blushes of the editors, he said he would not think of occupying more of our valuable time, and bade us farewell, but not before he had produced a second bottle, which he forced on us, with an injunction to drink it as soon as we got lonesome or thirsty, both of which mental and bodily sensations we began to ex- perience as soon as our generous friend was outside the 46 SKETCHES FROM door, and not likely to return to get any of it — the beer, we mean. Now visitors know how we are to be conciliated. It should be mentioned, however, that there is no inten- tion of limiting their enthusiasm. If instead of two bottles of beer Gen. Lawler had brought two kegs, that w^ould not have diminished our high regard for him. If he had brought in a few boxes of cigars, even that would not have lessened our admiration for his many good qualities of heart and head. Gen. Lawler's past life has been blameless as far as we know, except that he owned up to being personally intimate with Nat Q. Henderson, of the Georgetown Record^ but those who know Nat will readily understand how a man who carries bottled beer about with him could hardly help being rather intimate with him so long as the beer lasted. — c^2^^2>Oe-^^ — THE RECKLESS L O C AL R E P O RT E R. The yearning of Americans after titles has often been very properly ridiculed. If a man has never been on the bench since he was a school boy, unless it was on the mourner's bench in the recorder's court for being drunk and disorderly, he is in more danger than almost anybody else of being called ''judge." If a man has been gifted with sufficient strategic ability to keep out of the late attempt to destroy the United States govern- ment, that man is liable to go through life with " col- onel " or " major " in front of his name. The best way would be to make the laws apply to everybody who forges complimentary titles. For this nonsense the press is largely responsible. There is a disposition on " TEXAS SIFTINGSr a.^ the part of local reporters to write down every man "general" or ^-'colonel" who happens to brighten up the reportorial horizon with a cheap cigar or a bottle of sour wine. The readers take their cue from the news- paper, and the consequence is that when men are sen- tenced to the penitentiary or arrested for taking clothes off a line, the judge and the constable address them as " general," " judge," " colonel," or whatever may be the stigma that attaches to their names. The Texas papers, in particular, have another bad habit they might advantageously shuffle off. If a little one horse corner erocer finds favor in the eyes of the faber-pusher he is denounced through the press as a merchant prmce. It is more than probable that report- ers who are so liberal in conferring princely titles have a very much muddled-up idea as to what kind of coffee- mill a prince really is. A real prince never slaps a re- porter on the back and calls him Bob, or Dick, or what- ever other name his sponsors in baptism have i3estowed upon him. A bona fide prince never sits in his shirt sleeves in front of his store and squirts tobacco juice through his front teeth. A real prince is ahvays dressed in a most gorgeous military uniform, with a big silver star as big as a saucer on his breast, to let people know that he is the prince, and no mistake. A prince is al- ways calm, reserved, dignified, and surrounded by a glittering staff. If a newspaper man were to run up to that kind of a prince and ask him for a pound of cheese and crackers on ninety days' credit, half-a-dozen dukes, counts, earls, and like small fry would telephone for a policeman to show the journalist the road to the lunatic asylum. There is no such thing as a merchant prince. The Texas journalist also persists in calling every Stockman who brands all the calves in his neighborhood 48 SKETCHES FROM a cattle king. No real king ever wore an old slouch hat and lived on cornbread and coffee. The real king sits upon a glittering throne, such as you see in circus processions, holding a golden sceptre like a policeman's club, in his hand, and a royal crown on his head. The king of diamonds is a pretty fair likeness of a highborn sovereign. Now, what is there about an alleged cattle potentate that justifies the reporter in dubbing him with the title of king? But the most serious charge we have to make against the average reporter is the kind of marriage notice that is sprung on the unfortunate couple by the local re- porter. It is an undeniable fact that what are called society people, like the angels in Heaven, are neithef married nor given in marriage. There is a gi*eat deal of buggy riding but comparatively little pushing about of baby carriages. There is no end to pic-nicking, moon- light rambles, but very few bridal tours among fashion- able people. There is a great deal of skirmishing along the line, but no regular engagement. And alV this hesi- tancy is occasioned by the dread of a cheerful send-off by the local reporter. We once knew a local reporter, in a Texas city, who materially reduced the census by his flattering marriage notices. He was not satisfied with the usual twaddle about " the fair and lovely bride," " the noble-looking groom," and " the high contracting parties," but he would invariably wind up the notice with a few verses of poetry. It did not make a particle of difference to him what kind of poetry it was. He had a dictionary of poetical quotations at hand, and would chop off a piece at random. Occasionally it fitted, but sometimes the verse reminded one of Sancho Panza's proverbs dragged in backward by the tail, On the occasion of " TEXAS SIFTINGSr 49 the nuptial of a well-known doctor, he wound up the notice with Longfellow's familiar verse beginning: "There is a reaper, whose name is Death." The doctor came very near gathering in that local reporter. On another occasion, where a young man, who had been very fast, reformed and got married, the local reporter seized his dictionary of classical quota- tions and made him happy with the verse from Gray's Elegy in a Country Church Yard, beginning: " No further seek his frailties to disclose." Such marriage notices kept people from adorning their necks with the marriage yoke. It was useless to at- tempt to modify his zeal. Men about to get married would beg him with tears in their eyes to treat them with silent contempt, but as soon as the wine and cake began to tell on his reportorial stomach, in one wild outburst of gratitude, he would perpetrate half a column of inspired idiocy. Occasionally some desperate man would fail to send the usual cake and wine, and then was startled by reading that the bride's mother was a servant girl but rose to her present position by industry and saving and that the bridegroom's father is the only one of four brothers who escaped the penitentiary. There can be no doubt but that the recklessness with which the newspaper man writes up marriage notices has much to do with the unwillingness of fashionable young men and maidens to get married. Some people say that the real cause is the inability of the fashion- able young wife to get along with an expensive colored cook lady, a colored wash lady and perhaps a nurse lady, not to speak of her " ma." We nearly over-looked that venerable obstacle. Then, too, they say fashion- able hats, and cotton, and paint, cost like the very mis- 50 SKETCHES EROM chief. These depressing influences may have some effect in discouraging marriages, but the real Jonah is the reckless local reporter. THE SIFTERS SEEK RELAXATION AND GO GUNNING FOR QUAIL. W E have a. friend who lives in the country a few miles from Austin. He is a farmer — one of those kind of agricul- turalists who earn their bread by the sweat of the hired man's brow. His horny hands are not the re- sult of intimate association with a hoe, but are acquired by hauling big fish out of the creek, and carrying home game bags full of snipe, and partridge, and ducks. He comes in to see us once in a while and tells us fish stories, and V^ /} mi''^ f//^^'^^-^'^ " TEXAS SIFTINGSr 51 tries to discourage us from our task of moulding public opinion by describing the pleasures of rural life; the delights of raising cotton on the uplands and cain among the game birds in the valleys; the joyful glee of farming with negro renters "on the shares," and the unalloyed felicity and hilarity of lying on one's back in the sylvan shades of Onion creek and drinking butter- milk. This friend of ours — for convenience sake, we will call him Tiff Johnson, because that is his name — has an accomplice in the person of a wicked brother, who aids and abets him in his unholy practice of making poor city editors dissatisfied with their lot, and causing them to yearn for the tranquility of the rural precincts where newspaper exchanges cease from troubling and the weary editor may have rest. He dropped in a few days ago, and, after telling us about something that happen- ed to a bow that was never unbent, suggested that we needed a day's rest, and invited us to go out to his place and shoot quail. We intimated that we did not think that prancing over corn rows all day would be what might be called a rest. He said that we would not need to go into the corn fields at all, that usually quail stayed in corn fields, but that this year they were so plenty that the corn fields would not hold them, and you could see them everywhere oozing out of the cracks in the fences and find them all over the prairies. On this assurance we consented to spend the next day (last Friday) unbending ourselves and slaughtering quail. To this end we rented two breech-loading guns, and fifty rounds of deadly cartridges for each gun. The Sifter who some eighteen years ago assisted in discouraging the Union army, by guarding a camp-fire down at Indianola, was supposed to be an excellent 52 SKETCHES FROM shot — at least he had acquired that reputation from the stories he told of marching around in gore during the war. The other Sifter, who was once an Irishman by pro- fession, never had had any practice in shooting, except at landlords, and did not have much confidence in his skill in shooting on the wing ; but was sure that he could make a line shot on a quail, if he could get him on the ground and creep up on him from behind a fence. However, we were both enthusiastic, and went to bed full of determination to let no guilty creature, with feathers on it, escape. The writer had a dreadful dream. He dreamed that he was surrounded by a co- vey of fierce quail. They were forming a circle around him. He was unable to move hand or foot. He saw in his dream his faithful gun lift up one paw, as if there was a thorn in it, while his tail became as rigid and pointed as the finger of scorn. At this critical mo- ment, when hope seemed dead and escape impossible, the other Sifter appeared on the scene, and bringing his double-barreled dog to his shoulder, he fired. Just then the writer awoke, and found his wife slamming him on the ear, trying to awaken him that he might start early on his errand of slaughter. The sun was just peering above the eastern horizon, and the morn- ing dew would have been on the grass — only that dew does not fall in Western Texas — as we started. After a drive of some six miles, we met our friends — the Johnson brothers — and proceeded to drive about five miles farther over the prairie before we were detected by a single quail. At this point we got out of the buggy and partook of some refreshments, and pro- ceeded on foot about two miles, when our feet became sore. We were about to inquire of our country friends " TEXAS SIFTINGSr 53 if this wasn't an off day with quails, when — whir — whirr — whirrr! a dozen birds flew up. Bang — bang — bang! The birds that we shoot at do not fall fluttering to the ground. They vanish like a schooner of beer in the presence of the editor of the Houston Age. We hear the country fellows laugh. They have bagged three birds. One of us city fellows managed to hit something. It was the right shoulder, and it was quite black next day. A tramp of a mile, and we discover some more birds, and two entirely new blisters on each of our heels. We get one of these birds, and feel satisfied that we would have got them all, but for the unneces- sary precipitancy with which they left the deadly neigh- borhood. At this point we take some more refreshments and a rest. Then we walk some more. We won- der why the birds do not alight on the trees or on a fence. What are trees and fences for, anyhow? We surprise a jack-rabbit, and scare him badly by plant- ing lead in the landscape all around him. We proceed in this manner for several hours, getting a few birds, intimidating vast numbers, and getting more blisters on our feet. Then we concluded that we had unbended ourselves sufficiently, and had had enough rest for one day. Our country friends had a large bag full of birds. We had seven quail, one lark, and a fly-up-the-creek. We had been laboring under the delusion that it was cheaper to go out and shoot quails than to buy them at a restaurant. We are not of that opinion now, as will be shown, with ghastly distinctness, in the following state' ment: §4 SKETCHES FROM LIABILITIES. To loo cartridges, No. lo. • • • • $3 5^^ To beer and other refreshments . . . 3 oo To pocket-knife broken in opening beer bottle 50 Arnica for shoulder 25 $7 25 ASSETS. By 5 cartridges on hand 17^ By 7 quails, market price .... 70 By I lark, market price 05 By I fly-up-the-creek, no value £ala?tce Loss . . . * . • $6 32^ $7 25 It will be seen that our liabilities exceed our assets by $6.32!, or, in other words, our nine birds cost us an average of about eighty cents each, without taking into consideration the wear and tear of the guns and our heels. We propose to work right along now, without re- laxation in the quail shooting line, for the next seventy- five years. A tramp who was stealing a ride on a freight train near San Antonio, was recently killed by a railroad ac- cident. This should be a solemn warning to tramps never to steal a ride. Let the tramp tear his clothes, punch a hole in his hat, paint his nose red, and then apply to the president of the road for a free pass as a member of the press. A tramp has no earthly excuse to steal a ride. " TEXAS SIFTINGSr 55 SAN ANTONIO MEXICANS Since the fall of the Alamo there has been a slow and gradual change in the aspect of the city of San Antonio ; the enterprise and civilization of the Ameri- can taking the place of the apathy, ignorance and shift- lessness of the Mexican. The old and new are brought together in violent contrast in San Antonio. Here the Mexican jacal, with its thatched roof and adobe walls ; across the street the palatial residence of an American or German resident, with its surroundings of flowers and fount- ains. Now a narrow and crooked street is intersected by a broad avenue, lined with trees, where we see the carriage of the broadcloth-covered American passing 56 SKETCHES EROM the ragged Mexican's donkey-cart, of a pattern used 200 years ago. Farther on we see a cockpit on the same block with a Methodist church, while we hear the creak of the huge Mexican carretas mingling with the rattle of the railroad cars. The San Antonio river flows through the city. A range of hills, with a gradual elevation of 200 feet, al- most surround the valley in which San Antonio is sit- uated. The altitude of San Antonio above the level of the Gulf of Mexico is 687 feet ; average temperature, spring, 69.90 ; summer, 83.50 ; autumn, 68.90 ; and win- ter, 52.90 degrees. The city has now a population of about 22,000. Oi this number six thousand are Mexicans. The balance includes representatives of almost every nation on earth. The Mexican element in the population is what makes San Antonio differ so much from every other city in the United States. The average Mexican is a mixture of Spaniard, Indian and negro. There is nothing thoroughbred about him ; and, even if he were washed, he would have but little to boast of over the Indian. It may be conceded that he is more of a suc- cess in raising a crop of small-pox ; but, outside of that, he possesses no virtue nor personal charm that the Indian has not. The Mexicans are, as a class, probably the poorest citizens in the United States. The Mexican who squanders twenty-five cents a day on the support of his family and dogs, is looked upon as a man in easy circumstances, and of prodigal habits. Upon arriving at San Antonio, one of the first things the tourist from the north wants to see is a Mexican " jackal." That, at least, is what he asks for. He has " TEXAS SIFTINGSr 57 read about " the dark-eyed daughters of old Castile," sitting at the door of the Mexican jacal. A jacal is a Mexican hut ; (the word is pronounced hackal.) Nine- tenths of the houses in the valley of the Rio Grande are jacals. A jacal is a den hardly fit for a jackal to live in. It consists of one room, 12x12, and is con- structed by driving a number of posts into the ground, very slowly — that is, it takes a Mexican about half a day to plant one post, and the other half of the day to lie on the ground and look at it from different direc- tions to see if it is set in straight. The posts are plant- ed close together, and the space between is daubed with mud. The roof is made with cane, thatched with tule. There is an opening in the side of the jacal, used for the entrance and exit of the inhabitants. A blanket with enough holes in it to justify it being washed by the dozen, usurps the place of a door. The inside walls are adorned with cheap and highly-colored pict- ures of saints with blue legs and purple hair. These saints bear a startling resemblance, in facial expression and general anatomical construction, to those high personages, the king and jack of diamonds. There is no attempt at gorgeousness in the way of furniture. A couple of benches and a few goat skins comprise the parlor set. The library, dining-room, parlor, stable, kitchen, picture-gallery and sleeping apartments are all in one room on the ground floor. When the owner is influential and opulent, a goat pen may be discovered in the neighborhood, and a few lean donkeys browse around in the adjacent chapparel. — »-^og>^-<,~ AN INFALLIBLE TEST. *'You can get Texas Sif tings from any respectable newsdealer in the United States," remarked one of the Sifters to a man who was going to travel, and did not know what his address would be. " But who are the respectable newsdealers? " asked the party. " You will never have any trouble finding that out. The respectable newsdealers are the ones who keep Ttxas Si/ti?igs." TEXAS SIFTlNGSr 85 HEAVEN. When poor Artemus Ward, whose heart was as ten- der as his life was pure, died in England, a touching piece of obituary poetry appeared in a prominent En- glish newspaper, the first lines of which read: He has gone to the land where there's no laughter. He who made mirth for us all. That Browne, for that was his proper name, died in the odor of sanctity we are not prepared to say, but the idea sought to be conveyed in the lines quoted is that he went to the place where the good people usually go, and that it was a land where everything like hilarity w^as forbidden by city ordinance, as it were. That was the poet's idea of Heaven, and over-looking Browne's hu- morous career, and his tendency to levity, the poet kind- ly enrolled him among the citizens of the "land where there's no laughter." Different people have different ideas of Heaven. Even different bodies of Christians do not agree precise- ly as to what kind of a place Heaven is. The over- worked, worn-out man — and he is in the majority — feels positive that Heaven means rest, and rest means Heaven. The mortal who has suffered from the stings of poverty, can not well separate his idea of Heaven from that of pecuniary independence. To the invalid. Heaven means health. The Indian's idea of Heaven is a happy hunt- ing ground, where there are more buffalo and fewer white men than he finds on this planet. That is what the Indian wants to make him happy. To be perfectly happy, however, he would require an occasional United S6 SKETCHES EROM States soldier to torture and scalp. Even in Heaven the poor Indian craves for a little amusement. The Moslem's Heaven has been described as being made up principally of black eyes and lemonade? He, too, how- ever, would feel more at home if he were furnished with an occasional " dog of an infidel " to put to the sword, as suggested by the Koran. It is not unlikely that the South Sea Islander's dream of bliss includes a tender young missionary for culinary purposes among the at- tractions of his Heaven. Besides having a Heaven fixed up to their own liking, most persons have another place fixed up for the special accommodation of those who do not worship in the same church with them. There is in all men, to a greater or less degree, a latent yearn- ing to make it unpleasant, both here and hereafter, for those who have the bad taste to dissent from their peculiar views on theological and political topics. Mark Twain illustrated this idea very neatly in his reply to the question as to his belief in eternal punishment. He said that he believed most emphatically in everlasting and eternal punishment, provided he was allowed to pick the men for punishment. But let us return to "the land where there's no laughter." There are in every denomination of Chris- tians, a great many people who not only believe, but fervently hope that — there is a land where there is no laughter, and that they will get to it. There are also many infidels who are cheered up in their earthly pil- grimage by the same hope. There have been saints whose spirits were so lovely and cheerful that they were really too good for this world, and there have been alleged saints who, suffering like Carlyle from indiges- tion, were more like devils than anything else. Some of the heroes of the Reformation were as vicious as " TEXAS SIFTINGSr 87 Mahomet himself. These, of course, have no use for a Heaven where there is anything savoring of good humor. If they ever were to reach Heaven, which is extremely problematical, and they were to discover any signs of genuine happiness, they would regard themselves as having been swindled. So Artemus Ward has been consigned without his being consulted, to " the land where there's no laughter." Let us sift this matter a little. Assuming that there will be a resurrection, and that the good will inhabit Heaven in the body, let us discard the theories of the followers, and see w^hat the great founder of Christianity has to say. It will be discovered, according to that high au- thority, that there will be a holier sound in Heaven than the chanted litany of the cowled monk, or the pious war- cries of the Puritan. If this be not so, then the docu- ment on which their chain of title is based is a sham. Have these wise men who feel so confident that there is no laughter in Heaven, forgotten what Christ said about little children? Have those sacred and comforting words, "and of such is the Kingdom of Heaven," entire- ly slipped from their memories, or do they not know that a little child that did not laugh would be like a sun that did not shine? Therefore, most wise and reverend sir, your Master having put little children, laughter and all, in Heaven, how are you going to get them out? 0-^<^3«Sl^5sSK^>^ One of the Galveston clergymen recently preached a thrilling sermon on the wickedness of Sodom. A stranger from Chicago went out during the middle of the sermon, and shed bitter tears. The sermon made him homesick. He left on the next train for Chicago. SKETCHES FROM THE TEXAS DESPERADO. The reputation for lawlessness that Tex- as has among the peo- ple of some of the northern and eastern states, is not the re- sult of the Sam Bass and Wesley Hardin sort of outlaw and their lawless deeds, but rather the result of the visits that Tex* as enjoys from the peaceful but imagi- native young man who comes from some virtuous eastern city to spend the winter, for the ben- efit of his health, in Western Texas. Before coming to Texas he has read a good deal of the ^' One-Eyed- Zeke-the-Scout," and " Dick, the Desperado," sort of literature. Previous to the packing of his trunk, he provides himself with some guns, a few revolvers, and a double-edged weapon with a spring back and a blade like a hay-knife. The latter he proposes using when- ever it may be necessary to cut his way through the jungle, or when fate may put it in his power to rescue some beautiful pale-face maiden from her redskin captors. He has rehearsed the thing so often in his mind, that he knows exactly how the incidents will " TEXAS SIFTINGSr 89 follow each other in rapid succession — how he will steal up on the unsuspecting sons of the forest as they are preparing to torture their victim; how he will rush in on the foe, and, first cutting the rawhide thongs that bind the captive, turn, and, with his trusty knife, pile up a cord or two of dead Indians; how he will seize the captive maiden — the beautiful Inez de Gonzales, daughter of a Spanish hidalgo — and, vaulting on the back of a coal-black mustang, etc., etc., etc. He tells the boys at home what he is going to do, and he promises that he will bring back scalps, wam- pum, wigwams, Indian mounds, and other bric-a-brac, and present them to his friends as mementoes of his sojourn in Texas. When he arrives in Texas he is dis- gusted to find schools, faro-banks, newspapers, church scandals, and other evidences of civilization. To the first man who will buy, he sells some of his revolvers, and secretly drops his hay-knife into a well. He lives a quiet, uneventful life at a boarding-house, where he eats the best canned goods that the market and his landlady can afford for $6 a week, and never meets with any more exciting adventure than being arrested and fined for carrying a pistol. When his father sends him money enough to buy a railroad ticket, he goes back home in the spring, wear- ing a broad-brimmed hat — which he ostentatiously calls a sombrero — and jangling a huge pair of Mexican spurs at his heels. This is the time when he develops into the noted Texas desperado — about the only des- perado Texas can now lay claim to. Before retiring on the first night of his return home, he asks his moth- er to just lay a blanket beside a tree-box on the side- walk, and he will try and borrow an old saddle or a brick for a pillow. He is so accustomed to sleeping in 90 SKETCHES FROM the open air, he says, that he cannot bear the close confinement of a house. When the boys call around for the scalps, Indian mounds and things that he promised to bring them from Texas, he tells them how he lost, in a border foray, a large Saratoga trunk filled with scalps, and a gripsack packed full of wampum and wigwams. Then he gives them a thrilling account of a prairie fire, and how he saved his life by crawling into the carcass of a buffalo he had slain, until the fire passed over and exhausted itself. After this he re- counts a desperate encounter he had with a stage- robber, and gives a detailed and hair-curdling descrip- tion of a scene at a lynching, where he got the drop on the crowd, and rescued the doomed man. His con- versation bristles with profanity, and is saturated with gore. The writer of this has been ten years in Texas, has been among the chivalrous Mexicans on the Rio Grande, the aesthetic cowboys on the plains, and the wild and hilarious church members in the cities, and has not yet seen a single pistol fired with intent to in- jure a human being, nor has he ever seen a buffalo goring Sunday-school children on the streets on any city of Texas; and the only genuine, blood-thirsty des- perado he has seen was the young man above de- scribed. Of course there are some lawless and desper- ate men in Texas, but none of them equals the tender- foot from the east for cold-blooded ferocity — after he gets back home. Talmage says " men of talent and commanding in- tellect are never good dancers." That is the first time we have seen any public allusion to our awkwardness in dancing. TEXAS SIFTINGS: 91 MEXICAN BULL- FIGHTS. This is the season of the year when the Mexicans on the Rio Grande improve their minds with ^^j-^^j-. The redeeming features of \y\^ fiesta are drunkenness, gam- bling and bull-fighting. But occasionally they fight with knives, besides. Another redeeming feature is that while the fiesta is going on, the Mexicans have not got any time to waste in expediting the ranches of their stock. Expedite is a Star-Route term, and means to steal. . Nobody can gamble, get drunk, go to bull- fights, and steal ponies at one and the same time, and the Mexican who tries it is likely to neglect some of his duties. At Laredo and El Paso, owing to the com- pletion of railroads to those points, the Mexicans have received considerable assistance from the Americans in properly celebrating the fiestas. There were, perhaps, not so many Americans, but they helped a great deal. 92 SKETCHES FROM They are very willing. It takes five or six Mexicans to get as drunk and make as much fuss as one hardy Anglo-Saxon. The latter throws more soul into the performance. He can be heard several miles off. The most peculiar feature of the fiesta is the bull- fight, which takes place in an amphitheater built for the purpose. It will hold a great many people, probably as many as can get into it. The board fence that sep- arates the audience from the arena is so arranged that the bull-fighter can climb up on it where the bull can- not reach him. This fence enables the bull-fighter to show his contempt for danger, and he makes liberal use of his opportunities. The bull-fighters are dressed in all the colors of the rainbow. They look very much like the face cards of the pack enlarged. It is really funny to see the jack of diamonds, the king of hearts, and all the rest of the royal family that are so familiar to many of our readers, prancing about the arena. In reality, there is no bull-fight at all. There is more real danger in lighting a kerosene lamp, or in call- ing a policeman a liar, than there is in a dozen bull- fights. Before the bull is presented with the freedom of the arena, several inches of his horns are sawed off. As with some folks we know of, it hurts the bull to have his horns cut off. If a heroic bull-fighter should lose his presence of mind, and in his efforts to get out of the arena run against the bull, a dull horn is the kind of a horn the reckless dare-devil wants to run against; but there is no danger of that. The horns are sawed off down to the quick, and are actually bloody. The end of the horn is as sensitive to the bull as an army-sized boil is to a man. If a man has a large boil on his per- son, he does not try to butt people with it. On the contrary, he is very careful that nobody hits against it. " TEXAS SIFTINGSr 93 That's the way it is with the bull with the sore horn. Instead of rushing about, trying to impale the bull fighter, the bull is half scared to death for fear the jack of spades or the king of hearts may accidentally bump against that sore horn. This is the kind of a bull the Mexicans love to fight. The jack of diamonds, knowing this, gets right in front of the dangerous brute, which turns tail, for fear the face card will run against that sore horn. Perhaps some of our readers know that it hurts to run against the jack of diamonds, particu- larly if hearts are trumps, and the other fellow has the right bower, and perhaps the ace and the ten-spot; but we are digressing. As soon as the bull refuses to hurt his sore horn against the jack of hearts, the air is rent with vivas in honor of the reckless intrepidity of the bull fighter, who gracefully bows his acknowledgements. All the bull fighters try in vain to bump against that sore horn but the bull is too smart for them. They punch him with spears, thrust sharp spikes festooned with tissue paper in his hide, until he is dripping with blood; until the unfort- unate brute is exhausted; but he never loses his pres- ence of mind so much as to punch one of the face cards with that sore horn. The animal is finally roped, the spikes are pulled out of his hide, and he is either driven out of the arena, or butchered. The Mexican bull fight is a beautiful blending of Spanish cruelty and Indian cowardice. No decent American would sit through the whole performance. If he really needed an emetic, he would go to a drug store and get one. 94 SKETCHES FROM THE CAYOTE. The cayote is about two-thirds the size of a yellow dog, and looks like a second-hand wolf in straightened circumstances. He bears about the same relation to the genuine wolf that the buzzard does to the eagle, or that a chicken thief does to a modern bank cashier. He has a prepetual air of being ashamed of himself, or of something he has done. As you catch a glimpse of him, trotting away from one mott of timber to another, looking back over his ears, and with his tail filled around his left leg, he looks as if he were aware that the police had a clue to his whereabouts, and were working up his case. No one ever saw a fat cayote. ''TEXAS SIFTlNGSr 95 You may catch a young one, civilize him as much as you can, feed him on canned groceries, and put a brass collar on him, but his ribs will still be his most prom- inent feature, and at the first favorable opportunity he will voluntarily and ungratefully leave your hospitable roof, and from choice, become a roving vagabond on the prairie, living on carrion and sharing his meal with the buzzard. These predatory shadows are not at all dangerous. There is no fight in them. They are fatal to sheep when the cayote majority is forty to a minority of one sick sheep, but otherwise they are quite harm- less. What they lack in courage they make up in craft- iness. They will twist themselves into all manner of grotesque postures, and tumble around in the long grass, that the rabbit or young fawns may, by curiosity, be induced to come within reach of their sharp fangs. This last playful characteristic of the cayote was de- scribed to us by a friend, who was a New York news- paper reporter, and acquainted with a cayote that re- sided in a cage in Central Park. His statement may, therefore, be relied on, even to the length of the grass. The cayote has a small head and fox-like, ears, but the biggest end of him is his voice. The mellifluous, silver- toned euphony of one of his nocturnal overtures would scare a monkey off a hand organ, and make an Italian opera singer hang himself with envy, and one of his own chords. When he slinks up, and, seating himself in the twilight of a camp-fire on the prairie, opens out with a canticle and runs up the scale — starting with a diminuendo whine, throwing in a staccato shriek, and ending with a crescendo howl — the sonorific outburst terrifies the Genus of Acoustics, and makes the welkin ring until it cracks itself and has to be carried off and repaired. 96 SKETCHES FROM A hardy frontiersman, traveling over the boundless prairies of western Texas, when the shades of night are beginning to fall, prepares to camp for the night. He stakes out his tired steed to graze on the flower-be- spangled grass, while he prepares his frugal meal. Hav- ing placed his weapons within easy reach, he spreads his blankets, and stretching his weary limbs, resigns himself to the care of the drowsy god. Suddenly the air is alive with direful yells, shrieks and howls, as if all the Indians on the American continent had been turned loose. Does the hardy frontiersman spring to his feet, seize his trusty rifle, and prepare to sell his life as dear- ly as possible? He does not. He merely turns over and mutters drowsily, " d — n a cayote, anyhow," for he knows that of all the wild beasts that roam the jungle, the cayote is the most harmless. One cayote at night can make enough noise to induce the inexperienced traveler to believe that there are at least fifty of them in the immediate neighborhood. If a cayote was assayed, we venture to predict that he would be found to consist of one part wolf and nine parts of vocal ability. The only time when the voice of the cayote, as one of the resources of Texas, has any value, is when it is used to take the conceit out of some smart stranger from the Eastern States. The accli- mated Texan induces the stranger to go with him in pursuit of game, and to camp out on the prairie or in the woods, and he enjoys the stranger's fear when he hears the cayotes for the first time as they howl around the camp-fire in " the dead waste and middle of the night." It is difficult to convince the stranger that the cayote will not make a meal of him and eat his horse and baggage for dessert. In fact, it is not the policy of the Texan to convince th^ stranger. TEXAS SIFTINGSr 97 That this popular fallacy regarding the ferocity of the cayote exists, was illustrated not long since in the remarks made by a Northern preacher, in a sermon he preached shortly after his arrival in the State. He was illustrating how the heedless sinner refused to benefit by the most earnest warning, in the very presence of the wrath to come. He said: "Dear friends, methinks I see two men walking out on one of your bee-utiful prairies. They enjoy the perfume of the flowers, the songs of the innocent little birds, and the calm, quiet beauty of your g-lorious Indian summer evenings. Communing together, they walk along heedless of dan- ger. The sun sinks to rest beyond the distant horizon; the curtain of night gradually descends and closes out the light of day; still the two men walk leisurely along, feeling safe and secure. But, hark! What sound is that in the distance? What blood-curdling howl makes them arrest their steps? It is, dear friends — it is the cry of the wolves on their track — the fierce and blood- thirsty cayote in hot pursuit, ah! And what think you do these two unfortunate men do? One of them, my beloved congregation, realized his danger, and running to a tree, climbed up by the aid of a convenient branch, out of reach of the cruel fangs of the relentless beasts of prey. He called unto his companion and said unto him: 'O, my brother, reach out and take hold of this branch, climb up here beside me, and be saved!' But the other said: 'No, there is no danger; the wolves are still a long way off — I have time enough.' Alas! dear hearers, while he was yet speaking, the dreadful cayotes came upon him, and, rending him limb from limb, devoured him even in the twinkling of an eye. Thus it is, O, careless and heedless sinners, that you, to- night, stand, etc., etc." When the preacher concluded 98 SKETCHES FROM the services and was leaving the church, he was accost- ed by old man Parker, (who has lived in Texas since '36), who said: " Parson, the front end of your discourse was grand and gloomy, and calculated to bluff the un- converted sinner. You had a full hand, and might have raked in all the mourners in the pot; but. Lord bless your soul, you played a nine spot when you chipped in with that wolf yarn. Yes, Doctor, you played when you got on that cayote lay!" A NEWS FACTORY We have often wondered how it was that the St. Louis Globe- Democrat exhibited so much more enter- prise than our most enterprising Texas papers, m pub- lishing special telegrams descriptive of murders and other crimes committed in Texas. We have frequently read of Texas murders and robberies in the Globe-Dem- ocrat^ that we never saw mentioned in any Texas pa- per. Now we understand how it was done. The feline has been ejected from the bag, and we can explain what has so long been a mystery. In the Globe- Democrat office there is kept a number of stereotyped forms, like the following, with blank spaces in them: ANOTHER MURDER IN TEXAS. [Special despatch to the Globe-Democrat.'\ , Te-xas, — . — A cold-blooded mur- der was committed here day, about — o'clock in the — . Mr. , a peaceable citizen, was called to his door, seized and carried a short dis- tance frorn the house, and shot de^d, No dew to the '' TEXAS SIFTINGSr 99 murderers. The country is in a very disturbed state, and life and property unsafe; THE KNIFE IN TEXAS. [Special despatch to the Globe-Democrat^ — '■ , Texas, — ^ . — Two men named and -■ , met last — : — , in the saloon at this place. After drinking together they got into a quarrel, and stabbed in the body times. is not expected to recover. DAILY RECORD OF TEXAS STAGE ROBBERIES. [Special dispatch to the Giobe-Democrat7[ , Texas, . — The stage between and w^as stopped and robbed day by masked men The passengers, in num- ber, contributed % and watches. The mails were . The robbers are supposed to be the same who robbed the stage the day before. Every night the managing editor calls the foreman up, and a conversation something in this style takes place: " Got nearly all the copy you want? " "All but about a column, sir." " Got all your suicides and fearful accidents in? " ■ " Yes, sir." "Have you enough clerical scandals and dreadful outrages for this issue?" " I believe we have fully the usual number." "Well, then, .1 recko.n you had better fill up with Texas crimes. Gimme them stereotypes. Here, fill up the blanks in this 'Dreadful Murder;' any names SKETCHES FROM will do. Locate it at Dallas; we have not had a mur- der there for a week. And here's the ' Stage Robbery * blank; locate the scene somewhere near San Antonicw It might as well go in every day, and twice in the Sun- day edition. And you can use this ' Lynching' form; it'll fit any Texas town. By-the-way, you had better get a new stereotype of that; the old one has been used so often it's pretty badly worn. Now, I think that will about fill your column; but if it don't, why, just stick in a homicide, a commutation by Gov. Roberts, or any other crime that we have got blanks for." "Yes, sir." "Texas is a great State, and she deserves all the prominence we can give her." ^-&<3oO^«>- THE PATRONIZING SUBSCRIBER. The patronizing subscriber is the most exasperating man with whom the journalist has to deal. He does not hand two dollars to the editor, and request that the paper be sent to his address for a year. He is not that sort of a man. When he buys a railroad ticket he pays cash down to the clerk who edits the ticket with a hand stamp; and to the Chinese journalist who edits his shirt with a flat-iron he disburses some of his wealth before he gets his shirt. But when he patronizes the editor, his tactics are different. He says: "Well, I reckon you'd better put my name down for your paper. I really take more papers now than I read, but I suppose I'll have to take yours, too. We are all expected to do something toward supporting the press, you know." He says this with the air of a philanthropist subscrib- " rmxAs siFTiNasr^ " . .161'. ing for the controlling interest in a narrow-gauge rail- road, or a new church, on which he never expects to draw a dividend; but, at the same time, he neglects to reduce his cash balance by subscribing the $2 in ad- vance. He tells the editor to call on him for the amount when he needs it. He is careful to leave the impression that he has no possible use for the paper, and he will likely never read it, but he merely wants to help the editor out with the two dollars he does not pay. Although the patronizing subscriber does not contribute a cent, he positively imagines he has squan- dered money that should have gone to the really de- serving poor. In time, as the paper prospers, he comes to regard himself as the founder and chief proprietor of it. The only wonder is that he does not sell it out when, as is frequently the case, it fails to reflect his political and religious views. When an editorial de- molishes one of his pet theories, he begins to regret that he has been nouris hing a serpent in his bosom, and talks of withdrawing his support from the paper. He even hints at establishing an independent organ that will properly represent the people. In return for the copy, that he has not yet paid for, the exacting patron expects that the editor will attempt, in some slight degree, to pay off the national debt of obligation due to him, by bringing his name before the people as a suit- able man for some prominent position. If this is not done he regards it as an evidence of base ingratitude. He comes into the editorial room with a manuscript describing the wonderful idiosyncrasies of character dis- played by his house dog, or some other such matter of national importance, and wants it put in the papei ; and when the editor reads it, and suggests that his columns are crowded and that he hardly thinks the matter offer- I02 SKETCHES FROM ed would interest the subscribers anyhow, the patroniz- ing subscriber is astonished, and says: " My Heavens, man, ain't I a subscriber?" and then he goes off deter- mined to bestow his patronage on some live paper that will appreciate his assistance. What exasperates him most, is for the editor to send him a bill for the $2 of capital stock that stands opposite his name on the books. We regret that these few words will not reach the pa- tronizing subscriber, because that kind of philanthropist does not read Texas Sifti?igs^ except when he borrows or steals a copy. Our invariably-in-advance policy is very distasteful to him. THE HORNED FROG, He stood on the Pacific slope of Onion creek, near a small school-house. He was evidently the school-master. His rusty black clothes and spa- cious shirt collar betrayed him. He was gazing intently on a small object on the ground. As we approached he picked it up, and holding it out in his hand, asked us if we had ever seen an iguanian reptile of the gefius phynosomna. We confessed that we had never seen one often enough to get intimately acquainted with its domestic habits. He said that it was a very interesting reptile, and was vulgarly called the horned frog. The specimen in his " TEXAS SIFTlNGSr 103 hand was the first we had ever seen, and the teacher dis- coursed learnedly regarding the manners and customs and family history of the bright-looking little reptile. We have since seen many of the frogs, and have found them to be very much of an improvement on the bull- frog, although their vocal ability is much more limited. When the horned frog is at home he indulges in wild bursts of eloquent silence, and seldom makes any noise, except when you lock him up in a bureau drawer to see how long he will live without food. The horned frog is a native of Texas and Lower Cali- fornia, where he is found inhabiting the sandy soil of the prairies, and the pockets of the small boy.' The horned frog is really not a frog at all, but a lizard traveling incognito. He is shorter and broader than the ordinary lizard, grey in color, with bright spots and horny spikes all over his back, and on his head two real horns about half-an-inch in length. He is not as big as a bull, but you can take him by the horns all the same. Although the horned frog does not live in a restaur- ant, he eats about as many flies as if he did; in fact, he lives on flies; that is his principal pursuit. When he eats a fly he knows .what he is doing, and that is where he has a great advantage over the regular restaurant boarder. We have seen horned frogs used as fly traps in grocers' windows. The fly that succeeds in attract- ing the attention of a horned frog can never be used afterwards. The horned frog is a dry, cleanly little reptile, and seems to have no vices. As he never gets drunk, nor eats hot biscuits, nor runs a newspaper, he is hard to kill. He will live six months without food and be good- natured all the time. He travels a great deal, but never brags about it. We I04 SKETCHES FROM knew one that left Texas, and three weeks afterwards was registered in a town in the south of England, in the enjoyment of fine health. He traveled cheaply, too; and — although he did not go on an editorial excursion, yet his traveling expenses, including hotel bills, fees to waiters, and other incidentals, only amounted to ten cents, this being the value of the postage stamps pasted on the paper collar box he was mailed in. Large quantities of him were formerly exiled to the Northern States and elsewhere, through the medium of the post- office department. The post-office authorities did not object much to the horned frog, but after a while they found that tarantulas, centipedes and an occasional rat- tlesnake were to be found among the letters and other mail matter. The paper boxes in which these little playthings were forwarded frequently got broken, and the foundling tarantula would occasionally bear away a post-office clerk to the dark and silent tomb. The con- sequence was that the clerks took to distributing and assorting mails with long poles. This occupied too much time, and when they found any specimens of na- tive Texans, instead of picking them up, placing them in the boxes and re-addressing them, they killed them in their tracks. About this time life insurance com- panies began to put extra clauses in their policies, re- quiring the policy holders to abstain from working in powder mills, from stealing ponies and from handling the mails from Texas. All of which caused the post- office department to pass a constitutional amendment requiring the sender of such insects to kill them before mailing them, as the labor of attending to the matter took up too much of the time of the employees. The horned frog — in which there is no more malice than there is in a cauliflower — had to suffer for the sins of TEXAS SIFTINGS: 105 the tarantula, the centipede, the rattlesnake and other representative characters. Two out of every possible three school-boys in Texas carry a few horned frogs alive in their pockets during the spring season — for what reason or purpose I am un- able to state. But who can give a reason for half the things that a small boy treasures about his person? — o-^<2^ TEXAS SIFTINGS: 121 THE TUMBLE-BUG, The foreigner in Texas is frequent- ly astonished as he drives along the road or walks in the outskirts of the city, to see a ball, somewhat above the average size of a boy's marble, roll ^ along, while there is no boy in the immediate neighborhood. Sometimes there will be a number of these little balls moving up hill without any apparent propelling power, and in vi- olation of all the laws of force and gravitation. Upon careful examination the foreigner will find a black beetle on the windward side of each ball, standing on its head and hands, and with its hind legs pushing the ball along. This beetle is called, in the vernacular and in Texas, a tumble-bug. Some scientists have ascertained that the male tum- ble-bug rolls the balls about for exercise or amusement, just as the fashionable young men push billiard balls about with the cue. Other scientists, however, assert that this is all humbug — that it is only the female tum- ble-bug that rolls the balls, and that she lays her eggs in them. We do not believe that any female tumble- bug would be so indelicate as to stand on her hands and push a ball along with her feet, as depicted by our SKETCHES FROM artist. It is a slander on the sex. At the same time, as both male and female dress alike — in black — it is a very difficult question to determine. We have only been acquainted with the tumble-bug during the summer months, and therefore do not know what he does in winter. During the long summer days, however, he is surcharged with industry in the matter of building spheres of the aromatic fertilizer that, either owing to its cohesiveness, or for some other reason, is always chosen, and after having constructed the balls he exhibits more zeal than judgment in roll- ing them along over every object that intervenes be- tween the place of construction and the hole prepared for them. Standing on his head like a clown in a cir- cus, and placing his hind feet on the ball, he pushes it before, or, more correctly speaking, behind him. He resembles the soldiers who, during the war, preferred to advance backwards, and in the matter of the muscu- lar development of his hind legs, he is related to the mule. The tumble-bug's wife lays an ^'g^ inside the ball, or rather lays an ^gg and then has the male bug build a ball around it. When finished, he starts out with it, and often makes a hundred futile attempts to get it over an obstruction in his path before he realizes that it would be easier to go around the obstruction. In this respect he resembles but moralizing is not our province, and, besides, some men might not like to be compared to the tumble-bug. When a tumble-bug gets tired and discouraged trying to roll a ball over rough ground, he quits it right there, but as soon as he is rested he starts another ball in some other locality. That seems to be his mission, just as some men travel about, start- ing a newspaper, and aft^r they have rolled it for a "TEXAS SIFTINGSr 123 while until they get tired, they quit, fly away and start afresh paper in some other locality. By the way, there is, or was, a newspaper in Texas called the Moving Ball. Occasionally when he gets his ball in the deep track of a wheel, he has to roll it along for half a mile before he finds a place to get it out. When a tumble-bug gets killed by the wheel of a passing vehicle, and his rela- tives come out to look for the body, the most influen- tial member of the family usually, without administer- ing on the estate, takes possession of the property be- longing to the deceased, and appropriates it to his own use and benefit. Quarrels among the bereaved relatives and bitter feuds are often the result of such proceed- ings. Most of the good qualities of the tumble-bug are of a negative character. He attends strictly to his own business affairs, and never becomes annoying with a long bill, which is higher praise than can be truthfully bestowed on the mosquito. The tumble-bug does not sing, neither does it play on the flute nor piano. The bug is never guilty of the impropriety of getting into bed with people, as do fleas and some other insects. There is another thing about tumble-bugs worthy of notice. They are all as black as the ace of spades. No- body ever saw a saddle-colored, cream-colored, or a mu- latto tumble-bug of any color. This speaks whole vol- umes in their favor. There is no place like Chicago, says a Garden City paper. We rejoice to be assured of that fact, for al- though it was said that the revisers took it out of the old edition, we still had our doubt that there was such a place: ^ 124 SKETCHES FROM THROWING THE LASSO, A ROPE, or lasso, is a harmless looking thing, but in the hands of a Mexican it becomes a terrible weapon. A Mexican can yank a Yankee, or any other hostile in- truder he has a spite at, out of the saddle, as quick as the President of the United States can remove an un- worthy office holder who is irregular in sending in his campaign assessments according to the civil service re- form rules. The dexterity of a Mexican vaquero in handling a rope has to be seen to be believed. During the war with the French, one of Maximillian's best cavalry officers, a Pole, was caught out, so to speak, by the Mexicans, with a lasso, around Monterey and his neck, and dragged to death. Every Mexican is danger- " TEXAS SIFTlNGSr 125 ous when he has got a lasso in his hands. Even a good- natured Mexican, who has been born without any armsr is not to be trusted when he has got a lasso in his hands — as we heard an Irishman once remark. In roping cattle and horses, the Mexican removes the calico rem- nant from the shrubbery. A vaquero gracefully swings the lasso, gives it an apparently careless toss, and it is sure to encircle the neck of any particular animal in the herd he may have singled out. He, the Mexican, then throws his horse on its haunches, the lasso becomes taut, and so does the animal. It is taught that it is no use trying to escape from a Mexican with a lasso. Like most other harmless looking weapons, the lasso is dan- gerous to persons who do not know how to handle it, and to demonstrate this we submit the following: A few days ago, we met a newly arrived Englishman coming down Austin Avenue on crutches. He wore his head in a bandage, his nose was skinned, and there were other indications of his having either leaned up against the propeller of a mule to rest himself, or of his having questioned the veracity of some native Texan. When you see an Englishman in Texas, who looks as if he needed medicine, you may be sure he is one of Dr. Kingsbury's patients. At least, that is what all sick Englishmen in Texas claim. This one told a touching story of how he met Dr. Kingsbury in London, and after they '"ad 'ad some 'arf and 'arf, ye know," the doctor had given him a florid description of Texas, how pine apples grew on the prickly pear bushes, and boxes of oranges dropping ripe from the trees encum- bered the sidewalks; but what induced the young En- glishman to leave his happy home and come to Texas, to enjoy sport and to acquire great riches, suddenly, was the description of what sport it was to lasso cattle. 126 SKETCHES FROM "So you have been roping cattle, have you?" we asked. He said he had hired a horse, saddle, and "lassoo," and had ridden up to a steer. As his bad luck would have it, he succeeded in throwing the rope over the an- imal's horns. It galloped off. Johnny followed the doctor's directions about reining in his horse, and the consequence was that the saddle, with the Englishman in it, went over the horse's neck. He had tied the "lassoo" to the pommel of the saddle, just as Kings- bury told him to do. The steer galloped off with the saddle, like a dog with a tin kettle tied to his tail. It was worth $15, which the Englishman had to pay, but as the " lassoo " was gone, too, he paid up cheerfully. He wanted to return to England to write a book about Texas sports and games. He had already written a letter to the London Times denouncing Kingsbury as unreliable. He also wanted the money returned that he had invested in his Texas pleasure trip. We told him there was no trouble about getting his money. All he had to do was to make out his bill, go over to San Antonio, and present it to Colonel H. B. Andrews, who would hand out a check for the amount; that Col. Peirce, President of the Sunset route, had given Col. Andrews written permission to pay out of his, Andrews' own pocket, any and all sums of money that he pleased to give to dissatisfied English immigrants. The English- man called a hack to take him to the train bound for San Antonio, and as he disappeared from sight, who should come up but Bill Snort, of the Crosby County Clarion and Farmers' Vi?idicator? We told Bill about the bad luck of the young English- man who succeeded in roping a Texan steer, when he, Colonel Snort, spoke up, and said that if he was proper- ''TEXAS SIFTINGSr 127 ly encouraged he would give us some of his experiences with the lasso. After having been encouraged twice, with a cigar thrown in, Bill settled himself in one of the editorial thrones, and let himself out as follows: " The first time I ever fooled with a lasso, or rather got fooled by a lasso, was when I was a mere boy, a playful child, so to speak. As I did not want to put my parents to the expense of buying a lasso, I cut twenty feet off the clothes line. I then took a position on the corner and lay in wait for a victim. An aged Mexican came jogging along on a pacing pony, little imagining what was in store for him. I was nearly delirious with joy at my lasso catching his horse by the hind foot. As I had tied the other end of the rope to my wrist, there was no chance for him to escape. The next thing I re- membered was a jerk at my arm that can only be com- pared to the shake of a candidate's hand on election day, after which I trotted mechanically behind the old Mexican, who did not seem to know what a smart boy he had caught. The people on the sidewalk took in the situation, but they were doubled up too much with laughter to render me much assistance. When the old Mexican traveled faster I humored him, and kept up with the procession. 1 prayed, however, loud and ear- nestly, that he might stop before my arm came off. My prayers were answered miraculously. He saw what was the matter. He dismounted and took the rope off his horse's hind leg. Then he began to haul me in as if- I were a big fish. I began to regret that my prayers for him to stop had been so promptly answered, for there was an expression in the aged Aztec's collection of feat- ures that filled me with gloomy forebodings. He was not in a hurry to take the rope off my wrist. He swung 128 SKETCHES FROM the other end of the rope around his head, and then I began to revolve around him like a planet around the sun, he keeping up the centrifugal force and the heat v^ith the end of the rope. After he had taken more ex- ercise than was necessary for a man of'his age, he took the rope off my wrist, and I flew off into space at a tangent and a high rate of speed. He did not give me back the rope either, but I did not miss it, for I got some more rope at home — got it on the same place, too — when my immediate ancestors discovered that the clothes line was too short." "That cured the dog of sucking eggs, didn't it?" queried one of the Sifters. " Well, my recollection is that it did for a while," re- sumed Bill, "but the cure was not permanent. About a year afterwards the city marshal issued a proclama- tion offering twenty-five cents reward for every unli- censed dog delivered at the pound. Here was a chance for a live, energetic boy to turn an honest quarter. The recollection of my former misfortune had faded out with the marks of the rope. I got another lasso, and watched for a dog. The first dog I saw was sev- eral sizes too large to suit me, and, besides, I was afraid he would not lead well. With my usual good luck the rope caught him around the neck, and I began to tow him in the direction of the pound. At first he did not understand what I wanted, and held back until I had nearly pulled his head off, when he suddenly came toward me, whereupon I abruptly sat down on the back of my head, and came very near impairing my future usefulness. But that was a splendid dog to lead. He not only came right up to me, but he went past me. The only fault I could find with him was that in pass- ing me he carried off some of my clothes in his mouth. " TEXAS SIFTINGSr 129 He must have got a taste of me in his mouth, too. He went on past to the end of the rope. This time, for- tunately, I had not tied the rope to my wrist, so I did not have to follow him unless I had wanted to. I thought I would check him up a little, so I pulled the rope. I never saw such an easy dog to lead. He turned right around and came back at me with his mouth open, as if he wanted the rest of my clothes and another mouthful of boy. I turned the brute loose, and fled. It was so easy to lead him. I led him right up to a tree, and the affectionate brute would have fol- lowed me up the tree if he had only had a ladder. Fin- nally he went off with my lasso, and the two bits I was to get for leading him to the pound. Right then and there, sitting on the limb of that tree, I registered a solemn vow never to fool with a lasso again. But I must be going. I have an appointment. Good-bye." EIGHTEEN EIGHTY-ONE. Death stares old '81 in the face. Its days are num- bered and its last hour is at hand. Its ebb of life is low, and the death-rattle can almost be heard as, with one foot already in the grave, it is rapidly hastening into the ultimo of time. A few more hours and all that will be left to remind us of '81 will be some old fa- miliar unpaid bills, and the shattered fragments of the high resolves we made when the year was young. As the old year, shrouded in penitence, regrets and remgrse, is salted away in the grave of the past, and the new year, just freed from the womb of futurity, is being dressed in the garments of hope and good resolutions. I30 SKETCHES FROM it is a fitting time to moralize, to hold a convention of one's self, call for an annual report, read and discuss it, and pass resolutions regarding future actions. It is also a good time to take another "last snifter" before swearing off. Taking a retrospective glance over the late lamented, we find that we have done many things we ought not to have done, and have left undone many things that we ought to have done. We remember one case wherein we failed to do our duty, and for our neglect we can never forgive ourselves. It was on a bright summer morning, some months ago, that a poor but dishonest looking man came slowly up the stairs and, falling over a cast iron waste basket into our editorial boudoir, in- troduced himself as " An old subscriber." {Sif tings wslS only two months old at the time.) He said he did not know how we were able to bear up under the strain of originating so many different things every week, and he just called to help us out by presenting us with an en- tirely original joke of his own manufacture. He said we could palm it off on the public as our own, without any extra charge. We read the manuscript, and dis- covered that the joke was one imported by Stephen F. Austin, with the first colonists who came to Texas in 1821, and that it had been in use so much since that it was frayed on the edges, and needed re-japanning and varnishing to make it look even second handed. Then we took that guileless man and, after hitting him on the head with an unabridged Webster's dictionary, threw him out of the window. We have ever since been naunted by the thought that we did not do what was right by that poor, misguided man. We should have taken him out and held him on the street car track until an Avenue car had passed over TEXAS SIFTINGSr 131 his neck, or we should have compelled him to smoke one of the five cent cigars out of the box presented to us by an admirer in Dallas. We are burdened with self-reproach for having made many such mistakes, during the year, but — "What is done cannot be now amended, Men will deal unadvisedly sometimes, Which after hours give leisure to repent." After all, however, we have not much cause to com- plain of the experience, pleasure and profit that 1881 brought us. We feel kindly toward the old year as it rolls back into the crypt of past ages. Its early days found us enjoying many blessings, and its close leaves us in the enjoyment of many more. As the bells " ring out the old and ring in the new," we sigh over the Has Been, and turn with a smile of hope and pleasant an- ticipations toward the To Be, for — "The years have linings, just as goblets do; The old year is the lining of the new; — Filled with the wine of precious memories, The golden Was doth line the silver Is." CORRECT LOGIC. He was lying in front of the store door when the merchant came out, and stirring him up with the toe of his bcot, said: "Are you drunk?" " Vou bet." " Then you move off from here." *' Are you drunk? "queried the inebriate. "No; I am sober," was the indignant response. " Then you can move off from here a — hie — sight easier than I can." 132 SKETCHES FROM WE HAVE SWORN OFF, ■ MassBf;?^ On the ist day of January, 1882, a business meeting of the Proprietors, Editors, and Sifters of this paper was held in the editorial arena at No. 914 Congress Avenue, Austin, Texas. The Proprietors, Editors, and Sifters were all present. In other words we were both in at- tendance. Judge Sweet and Col. Knox were both put in nomination for the position of chairman. The bal- lot resulted in a tie vote, each nominee having voted for himself. The deadlock was broken by a motion to elect two chairmen, one to act as presiding officer, while the other should have the floor; motion carried. Theread- mg of the minutes of the last meeting were dispensed with, as there had not been any last meeting. Judge Sweet presented the following resolution: Whereas, this being the dawn of a new year, and it being right and proper that we celebrate it as has been the custom from time immemorial, therefore be it Resolved^ That we swear off. " TEXAS SIFTINGSr 133 The resolution having been adopted, Col. Knox was appointed a committee to draw up a select assortment of resolutions regarding a swearing off platform. The Colonel retired, and, after an absence of half an hour, returned accompanied by the aroma of a coffee bean, and presented the following: SIFTINGS' PLATFORM FOR 1882. Be it Resolved, That during the year 1882 we shall continue to be, in politics, independent; in criticism, impartial; in the matter of publishing original poetry, abstemious; in comments, good natured, and in all things as truthful as heretofore. As our circulation bids fair to reach 50,000 copies before the end of the year, we can afford to be magnanimous to our enemies, and therefore promise not to speak of any of our con- temporaries as "hell-hounds." We shall cultivate charity and benevolence toward the needy. As evidence of our intention to relieve the wants of those less fortu- nate or less prosperous than ourselves, we hereby pledge ourselves, on application from any poor or dishonest person, who will prove to us that he or she is really de- serving of our bounty, to give said person one copy of Texas Sif tings every week for one year on receipt of $2 cash, (clubs of five, 25 per cent, discount. Money to be sent by P. O. orders or in registered letters.) Resolved, That we shall not refuse any presents (razor- back hogs and other live-stock excepted) that may be forced upon us by friends and admirers, and our public acknowledgment of the same, and our deep sense of obligation, will be governed by the following scale: When we receive a present of a hat (our size is 7^), same to be acknowledged in ten lines, and donor called Major. 134 SKETCHES FROM When a box of cigars (we smoke Colorado-Maduro) is sent us, a fifteen line acknowledgment, and donor to be called our public-spirited fellow citizen. Colonel . Should liquid encouragement accompany the cigars, the donor to receive further military promotion, and to be called a patron of literature; and a touching reference to be made to the disinterested benevolence of his character. A bottle of home-made mustang wine will only be acknowledged in the advertising columns at usual rates. Resolved^ That we hereby swear off using any stimu- lating beverages, said swear-off to continue and be in force for one year from date, with the following excep- tions regarding time and place, that is to say, that the rules may be suspended, and we may, under advise- ment, take certain stimulants solely and strictly as medicine: 1. When samples are sent to the office. 2. When laboring under a sense of discouragement. 3. When we receive a new subscriber. 4. When we feel that we actually need something. 5. On any special occasion. But at all other times we will abstain from drinking anything of a stimulating nature, and, moreover, we solemnly pledge ourselves not to drink anything either during the year 1881, which has just closed, or during any of the previous years since the creation of the world. i»-&<5o<2^ Blind Tom plays 7,000 pieces on the piano. He is accompanied by a kind-hearted man who sees that no- body else takes advantage of Tom. TEXAS SIFTINGS: 135 THE EGOTISTICAL BORE. [Some men are born bores, some become bores, and some have bores thrust upon them. J The egotistical bore is quite common, and he is to be found in every grade of society. He never asks your opinion about anything, but, in an I-am-sir- oracle way, says " I feel " — " I am positive that" — "I tell you, sir — " "I can assure you," etc. He utters the most com- mon place truisms as if they were original thoughts just coined in his own mental mint, and stamped with his great " I " trade mark. He will gravely tell you how you should conduct your business, and he does it with such an air of conscious superiority that you can not decide whether to laugh at him or kick him off the premises. The egotist is al- ways a critic, and to " damn with faint praise " is his forte. " Yes, yes," he will say, " very well done, indeed; very good for a man of his calibre," and then he strokes his upper lip and looks up at the ceiling in a way that says, as plainly as words could, " Lord bless you, you should see how I could do that." An egotist is always selfish, and does a large business on a very small capital by borrowing, and by exhibiting as cases of genuine goods, what are only empty boxes. 136 SKETCHES FROM Some first class egotists only use two fingers when shaking hands, but the most exasperating characteristic is that, in conversation — if a one-sided interview can be called conversation — a bore of this class pays no heed to what you say, and when he pauses and you, thinking he has finished, start in on your innings, he interrupts you by resuming at the word he left off. You may con- tinue and raise your voice, but that does not stop him. When he does give you a chance to reply, you can see that he is not paying attention to what you have been saying. While you were talking, he was thinking of what he would say when you got through. A wonderful thing about the egotist is that he never realizes that he is an egotist, and he will talk to you about the evidences of egotism in a mutual friend, and express regret that an otherwise good man should be so afflicted. Some egotists are amusing, some exasperating, and some should be spread out at the bottom of a deep hole and have railroad iron piled on top of them. If all the egotists in the world were shot at, very few of us would escape being at least winged by a spent ball. — HH><2^ — A FOILED BOOK AGENT. A YOUNG man with a large book under his arm and a seven-by-nine smile on his mug stuck his head into the ticket window at the Union depot, and asked the clerk what the fare was to San Antonio. ^' Ten dollars and fifteen cents," replied the ticket slinger. " I am pining to leave Austin, but I lack ten dollars of the ticket money. However, that shan't part us. I'll ''TEXAS SIFTINGSr 137 make a partial cash payment of fifteen cents and take the rest out in trade." " What do you mean by taking it out in trade?" " I am a book agent, and if you will let me have the ticket, I won't try to sell you a book. I won't say book to you once. This is the most liberal and advantage- ous offer ever made to the public, and you ought to take advantage of it. I have been known to talk a sane man §0 completely out of his senses in fifteen minutes that he wasn't even fit to send to the legislature afterward." "What book have you got?" asked the ticket agent. A beaming smile came over the book agent's face, and in a sing song voice he began: " I am offering in seventeen volumes Dr. Whiffletree's Observations in Palestine, a book that should be in every family, a book that comprises the views of the intelli- gent doctor on what he saw in the Holy Land, with numerous speculations and theories on what he did not see, altogether forming a complete library of deep re- search, pure theology and chaste imagery. I am now offering this invaluable encyclopedia for the unpre- cedented low price of two dollars a volume, which is really giving it away for nothing " After the book agent had kept this up for about ten minutes, he began to grow discouraged, for, instead of showing signs of weakening, the ticket agent, with an ecstatic smile on his face, begged the eloquent man to keep on. The book agent stopped to rest his jaw, when the ticket man reached out his hand and said: " Shake, ole fel! Come inside and take a chair, and sing that all over again. That cheers me up like a cocktail. I used to be a book agent myself before I reformed and went into the railroad business, and that is like music to me. 138 SKETCHES EROM It soothes me all over. It calls back hallowed memories of the past, and makes me want to go out on the road again. I would rather pay twenty dollars than have you leave Austin. You must come around every day. I could listen to that all day, and cry for more." The book agent shut his book and said: " Some infernal hyena has given me away, but there is another railroad that I can get out of this one-horse town on. I'll not consent to travel on any road that don't employ gentlemen who can treat a cash customer with common politeness. You can't capture my book on any terms, and if you will come out of your cage I'll punch your head in less time than you can punch a ticket.*' And he passed away like a beautiful dream. — «>^<3<<2^ — HE TOOK IT ALL BACK. "Do you mean to call me a liar?" asked one rival railroad man of another railroad man, during a dispute on business they had on Austin Avenue yesterday. " No, Colonel, I don't mean to call you a liar. On the contrary, I say you are the only man in town who tells the truth all the time, but I'm offering a reward of twenty-five dollars and a chromo to any other man who will say he believes me when I say you never lie," was the response. " Well, I'm glad you took it back," replied the other party, as they shook. Gen. Rusk, Republican candidate of Wisconsin, is accused of beginning life as a stage driver. Most peo- ple begin life by being carried about and having pins and soothing syrup stuck into them. TEXAS SIFTINGS. 139 A POETIC GEM. In these days of aestheticism and ultra refinement, a false standard of what constitutes true poetry has been established, and the grandiloquent and turgid style is all the fashion. The so-called poetry of to-day is made up of equal parts of high sounding words, florid figures, tortuous tropes, and misty metaphors. Let any rhymster select a lofty theme that he does not understand, let him rave and rhyme on that theme in such a manner that his readers will not know whether he is writing about one of the mythological gods or about the death of a mule, and he will be ranked among the poets as long as rhymed bathos will continue to flow out of him. This vitiated taste for the gaudy and lurid style of I40 SKETCHES FROM poetry is much to be deprecated, because it blinds its admirers to the beauty of real poetry. It is said to be a fact that traveling men who eat maple syrup, made of glucose and molasses, at hotels and railroad eating houses, at length acquire a taste for it, and actually use it, as a battercake lubricator, in preference to the gen- uine juice of the maple. So it is in the matter of a taste for poetry, that when the reading and study of the aesthetic school has progressed a certain length, the ap- preciation of the beauties of genuine poetry is gone for- ever, and there is little hope of reform. The infatua- tion of its devotees for what is artificial cannot be shaken off. Before it is everlastingly too late we want to reason with some of the erring ones who admire the glucose kind of poetry like this: " Oh, sweet is the whang of the wanglewane, And the snore of the snark in the twilight pale, As the krail crawl up the window pane — (Love me, love, in the grewsome gale.) Gone is the wanglewane, weird and wold, Down to the gate of the nether land, Where the horn-toads glide, and the musty mold Eats the lily in my' lost love's hand." We want to appeal to their reason, and by presenting an example of true classic poetry, and by pointing out its simplicity and beauty, convince them that they have been following mere bubbles while pearls lay neg- lected all around them. It is also our pleasing duty in this connection to res- cue from obscurity a poetic gem, the inimitable produc- tion of an anonymous genius, who uses words that all ''TEXAS SIFTlNGSr 141 can understand. It is no grand epic, no sentimental idyl, no heroic verse, but merely a terse recital of a com- mon incident in ordinary life. The bard has chosen the narrative style as that most suited to his theme. In the opening line he introduces the principal character in the poem: "There was an old woman who lived in a shoe." He does not waste time and words invoking the muse, but, with a boldness that is as refreshing and or- iginal as it is startling, dashes right into his subject. He does not strive to heighten the interest in his narra- tive by selecting, as a subject, one of the legendary he- roes of antiquity or a heroine of romance, but in terse and perspicuous language he affirms that the central figure in the poem is an "old woman," and there is no circumlocution in his statement as to the humble and quaint shelter in which she was domiciled — "She lived in a shoe." There is no unnecessary verbiage in the line quoted. It reads like a prepaid telegram, yet its euphonism is heightened and its elegance intensified by its brevity. The fastidious critic may see no beauty in an ancient female, and will doubtless cavil at the selection of such a commonplace heroine, but the impartial student will realize that genius can ennoble the commonest and most uninteresting personage, and throw a halo of ro- mance around even an old woman. In the second line the poet opens up to us along vis- ta of possibilities and probabilities. He outlines, or rather hints, at some of the cares of life that have fal- len to the lot of this heroine when he tells us that "She had so many children she didn't know what to do." 142 SKETCHES EROM True art in poetry is to leave to the imagination of the reader the filling up of the picture, to let him sur- mise the little details incident to the plot, but not nec- essary to be expressed to make the narrative under- stood. A bungling tyro would have told us the ages of the children, and would have discussed their pe- culiar idiosyncrasies of character. He would probably have introduced the father of the children, a character that would really detract from, rather than add interest to, the pathetic narrative. Our poet, with keen appre- ciation of literary art, does none of these things, but when he has prepared our minds by the lofty sublimity of the first line, he appeals to our sympathies in the second, where he shows how this poor but proud wom- an was harassed with doubt as to "what to do." We say she was proud, because the poet, with subtle inge- nuity, indicated that she was both proud and independ- ent, when he made the simple statement that she had taken up her residence in a shoe. She evidently pre- ferred independence, in the contracted and comfortless confines of an old brogan, to dependence in the gilded halls on the poor farm. In the next line the character of this true woman and noble mother begins to develop: " She gave them some broth without any bread." Here the natural instincts of the mother are shown forth in this act of supplying her children with nourish- ment. She, as we were told, did not know what to do, yet, even under these circumstances she was equal to the occasion, and the grand maternal care of the wom- an is feelingly portrayed in the evidences of love (and the broth) that she gave her offspring. The broth was without any bread. We are left in a state of delicious " TEXAS SIFTINGSr 143 • uncertainty as to whether it was Scotch broth, chicken broth, or beef broth; but that is an unimportant matter. There is, however, no question as to the bread; there was no bread. The superficial reader might suppose that the fact was mentioned to show the poverty of the woman, and to demonstrate that she was destitute of the staff of life. That was not the intention of the poet. Through this wise woman's act, and in these seemingly commonplace words, is taught a grand hygienic lesson. At the hour when the broth was placed before the children, as the concluding Imes of this sublime poem evidences, it was night, it was the time when the active body and mind seek needed repose, and when it would have been injurious to the digestive organs of children to have loaded their stomachs with bread, while such an ill-advised course would have, possibly, caused night- mare. The thoughtless may sneer at the heroine's com- mon surroundings, and jest about the plebeian character of her humble abode, but none dare say that she was not in the possession of a level head; and when we come to the concluding lines of this immortal story of a wom- an's suffering, a woman's patience, and a woman's firm- ness, we see the veneration for sacred precepts that prompted the last recorded act of this Spartan-like mother — " She whipped them all soundly And sent them to bed." Doubtless she disliked to whip them, but she shrank not from the nightly whipping that she considered it her duty to administer. This is an overpowering evidence of the firmness of her character. She not only felt that sparing the rod would spoil the child, but that in the case of children a properly administered castigation is conducive to sleep. 144 SKETCHES FROM We trust that by calling attention to the grandeur and simplicity of this great poem — grand and simple not only in sentiment, but in construction — we have done something toward reviving a taste for true poetry. -^Oo^ — A FAIR PROPOSITION. A man was brought up before an Austin justice of the peace, charged with trying to pass a lead counterfeit half dollar. " What do you mean by trying to palm off such a miserable counterfeit as that on the intelligent people of this University city.?" The prisoner said he didn't mean anything. " That will not go down with this court. You might have got a better counterfeit than that. How could you expect to deceive the public with that sort of a coin? If I couldn't get up a better counterfeit than that I would be ashamed of myself." "Well, judge," said the counterfeiter, "I am a busi- ness man, and if you have any better counterfeit than that half dollar, show me your samples, and if the price suits, I'll buy all of my counterfeit money from you. If you don't like that, I'll go in with you on shares." Judicial indignation, and the committal followed. HE TOOK. " Do you ever take anything? " asked an Austin can- didate, leading a prominent citizen into a saloon. " Do I ever take anything? Don't you remember I have been a member of the Legislature?" That settled it. He took something. TEXAS SIFTINGSr 145 TEXAS SOLDIERS. The old-fashioned, brass-mounted Texas soldier, who perished in the Alamo, and who but a short time after- wards made it so hot for the Mexicans at San Jacinto that they wished they had never been born, was a differ- ent looking son of Mars from the modern Mardi-Gras 146 SKETCHES FROM or Fourth of July soldier. The former was always watching to see a Mexican or an Indian, while the latter is anxious to be seen by the ladies. In some respect the modern Texas soldier is better off than those who fought during the Texan revolution. A modern Texas soldier is not expected to lay down his life in A. D. 1835 at the Alamo, as did the heroes of that place. He is not supposed to go back forty-six years and overwork himself "removing" Mexicans on the plains of San Jacinto. If the modern Texas soldier needs any exercise he goes out collecting bills, as he is usually a clerk as well as a son of Mars. The modern soldier does not have to march for days and days in the hot sun without any umbrella, and without coming to any place where he can get beer on ice. If the modern soldier wants to go to San Antonio, all he has to do is get on the cars, tell the conductor he represents Texas Sif tings, and he will arrive there safe and sound, and fresh as a daisy. He gets in the 'bus, is driven to a hotel, where he can have a nice time. If a Mexican gets after the modern soldier in San Antonio, the latter calls for a policeman, and has Mr. Mex. locked up. That's not the way it was when Texas soldiers made excursions to San Antonio about 1836. They had to walk or ride the whole way. When they got there they were cordially received with grape shot, etc. If they wanted to get into a house, they had to dig their way in with a crow-bar, and kill about forty Mexicans before they would let them alone. That is where the modern Texas soldier has a soft thing of it. In some other respects the soldier of to-day has to suffer. Every Mardi Gras there is trouble at Galveston, and he has to go there to see about it. Not long since there was a break-down on the train, and for several " TEXAS SIFTINGSr 147 hours a whole company of warriors had to fight off the attacks of savage mosquitoes. The enemy never let up, but there was not even a whisper of surrender, although every soldier lost more or less blood. On another oc- casion a company of modern soldiers captured a break- fast at an eating house at a railroad station. Every soldier received three or four biscuits in his stomach, and suffered untold agonies from indigestion, so really the modern soldier has to suffer as much as did the old- fashioned brass mounted Texans. By examining the illustration at the head of this ar- ticle the intelligent reader will be able to tell which is which. The soldier with the bouquet in the muzzle of his gun is the new-fashioned soldier, while the one with a Bowie knife in his boot, and a slouch hat, is the sort who used to die at the Alamo, offer up Mexicans at San Jacinto, and draw black beans as cheerfully as if they were engaged in celebrating Mardi Gras, or destroy- ing lunch on the Fourth of July. A CONSIDERATE MOTHER. A little colored girl applied at the house of a prom- inent citizen of Austin for a position to wash dishes, etc. " Where does your mother live? " asked the lady of the house. " She libs out on Robinson Hill." " Have you got any father?" *' Yes, ma'am, but he has gone out into de country to pick cotton, but my mudder tole me if I was a good girl, and behaved myself, she would get me a step-fodder until de cotton pickin' season was over." 148 SKETCHES FROM THE GLORIOUSLY DRUNK MAN. There are a variety of styles and patterns of drunk men, all of them more or less absurd and disagree able. There is the glo- rious, the stupid, the pugnacious, the confidential, the weeping, the loquacious, and the morose drunk man, be- sides many oth- er minor varie- ties. In this article we shall confine our- selves to the man who gets glo- riously drunk. He is the least objectionable of all the men who get drunk. He is usually a man of generous impulses, broad and liberal views, sanguine temperament, warm hearted and sociable. The miserly, mean, stingy, or small souled men are seldom seen gloriously drunk. Either because they lack enterprise or because they " TEXAS SIFTINGSr 149 dread the expense consequent on a glorious drunk, they confine themselves to solitary and economical tip- pling from a bottle that they keep on the upper shelf in the closet at home. You can never tell by looking at a man, when he is sober, what kind of a drunk man he would develop into, if he had the opportunity and the- requisite intoxicants, but you can be pretty sure that the niggard, or the man who changes a dime on Sunday morning that he may have a nickle to put in the poor box, never invests in a glorious drunk. The man who becomes gloriously drunk is usually ripe between i and 3 o'clock a. m., when, if he is not harvested by his friends and a hackman, he is liable to be pulled by the police. He takes more enjoyment out of a drunk than any of the other varieties of bacchana- lian revelers. His views of life broaden out and his contempt for the details and trivial worries of business strengthen as he warms up under the influence of suc- cessive glasses of his favorite beverage. If clouds of adversity or trouble have filled the horizon of his every- day life, these clouds glow with rose tints or disappear altogether before the deceptive influence of the golden liquid as he sucks it through a straw, and tells the bar- keeper to "charge 'em to me." He "sets 'em up" with a munificent liberality, not only to his friends, but to any chance acquaintance, or even strangers, that may be in the saloon. As he warms up he is apt to break forth into song. His favorite selections are of the " Drive-dull-care-away" and " Won't-go-home-till-morning " class, and he is ex- tremely partial to anything with a Hip, Hip, Hurrah! chorus to it. When he reaches the musical period of his drunk, he usually has his hat on one side of his head and mud on his coat tail. I50 SKETCHES FROM The man who gets gloriously drunk never does any- thing by halves. He is sure to get gloriously sick next morning. He is not an habitual drunkard (the latter never gets glorious), but merely once in a while, with- out premeditation, he meets a couple of friends whom he has not seen for some time, the temptation — and the liquor — is too strong, and the result, next morning, is a headache, brandy and soda, and a determination never to do so any more. His two friends usually belong to the royally drunk and the boisterously drunk class. 1 WHY HE CAME TO TEXAS. A GOOD many years ago, when Austin was a very small town, quite a number of prominent citizens went out on a hunting expedition. One night when they were all gathered around the camp fire, one of the party suggested that each man should give the time and rea- son for his leaving his native State and coming to Texas, whereupon each one in turn told his experience. Judge Blank had killed a man in self-defense, and Arkansaw. Gen. Soandso had forged another man's signature to a check, while another came to Texas on account of his having two wives. The only man who did not make any disclosures was a sanctimonious-looking old man, who, although a professional gambler, was usually call- ed " Parson." " Well, Parson, why did you leave Kentucky?" " I don't care to say anything about it. Besides, it was only a trifle. None of you would believe me any- how." "Out with it! Did you shoot somebody?" " No, gentlemen, I did not. But since you want to TEXAS SIFTlNGSr 151 know so bad, I'll tell you. I left Kentucky because I did not build a church." Deep silence fell on the group. No such excuse for coming to Texas ever had been heard before. There was evidently an unexplained mystery at the bottom of it. The " Parson " was called on to furnish more light. " Well, gentlemen, you see a Methodist congregation raised $3,000 and turned it over to me to build a church — and I didn't build the church. That's all." "DEATH IN THE POT." From time to time we read of the dreadful poisons contained in common articles of food, and we are told of danger and death lurking in the most unexpected places, and concealed under the most innocent guise. We become horrified as we realize how, for years and years, we have been slowly but surely filling our blood with deadly poisons, ruining our con- stitution with unhealthy viands, and taking risks that a graveyard insur- ance company would shudder to think of. One paper tells us that there is enough poison contained in one cigar to kill a dog; in the next family journal that we pick up, we read that there is more prussic acid in an almond than would extinguish the vital spark in a mouse, and then comes a note of warn- ing regarding our favorite beverage, coffee; we learn that sufficient poison can be extracted from a pound of 152 SKETCHES FROM coffee to poison two men and a boy. As soon as we have revised our commissary department and begin to feel safe once more, we are startled by statistics regard- ing the number killed annually by the bursting of mill- stones, or the unhealthy vapors arising from stagnant buttermilk. About a year ago, we had discarded everything that we thought was dangerous, when we were startled on learning that the syrup of' commerce was adulterated with nitric acid, and that miasma lurked in the deadly folds of the boarding-house batter-cake. Figures were given to show that the dreadful batter-cake habit was spreading, and prophecies were made that it would eventually ruin the constitution of its strongest devotees, and reduce the nation to a vast hospital of flap-jack in- valids; so the batter-cake was scratched off our list of edible fruits, and next went the fragrant cod-fish ball, because it was said to produce cold feet. Then we learned that the sad-faced and cohesive biscuit was a synonym of indigestion, and the unostentatious kraut but another name for rheumatism, so the biscuit and the kraut had to go; then we found out that castor oil con- tained the germs of ingostatic molecules, whatever that is, and we were, therefore, forced to give up the use of that hilarious medicinal beverage. This thing went on until we had cut off everything from our bill of fare but cistern water and chewing gum, and yet we found ourselves no stronger nor healthier than when we were rapidly hastening to the tomb from the effects of gorging ourselves with a heavy line of assorted poisons three or four times a day. About this time, a man came along with a magic lan- tern and showed us that every drop of cistern water contained an aquarium of hideous marine monsters with TEXAS SITTINGS. 153 wiggling tails, and a druggist told us that the habit of gum chewing was a fruitful source of cancer. Next thing we did was to swear off being an infernal fool on the diet question; and, now, we eat anything and everything that our teeth will masticate, or our palate commend, and we can work ten hours a day and see to read small print without spectacles. — ^-^^K^ — -^^^ OMNIPOrfyy;. EXAS: The children cry for it! 154 SKETCHES FROM 1llPiill!illillii I ^iHtrlli iiHii The boys play with it! iH^iiw:.^ /'^M -=: ufj The young men live by it. TEXAS SIFTINGS. 155 Some old ones die by it. THE AWFUL COAL BUG, An entomologist has discovered what he calls the coal bug, or the cimex anthracitus. We have been reading up on the history and habits of the interesting little insect, and it is with mingled feelings that we sit down to record the result of our investigations. Professor Rodagash, of Stockholm, says that the insect may be considered as a descendant of the prehistoric tree bug. Professor Otto Hechelmeyer says : " It is very notice- able that the so-called coal dust is peculiar on account of its round appearance. Upon ex-amination, with the 156 SKETCHES FROM microscope, it is found that these particles are covered with millions of cimex anthracitus." We learn, further, that each one is about the size of the head of a needle, flat in appearance, and that they are plentiful at the bottom of coal veins, from whence they work their way to the top. The male is of a gray black color, and has six spots on his back. The female is broad, and has nine spots. When the Professor told us that the crackling sound we hear when fresh coal is put on the fire, " is caused by the death struggles of these insects," our soul was filled with gloom and re- morse as we thought of the millions of the descendants of the prehistoric tree bug — the gentle cimex anthra- citus, that have been sacrificed through our selfish de- sire to have warm feet. When we thought of this heed- less waste of life for our comfort that we had been guilty of, we were bowed down with grief. When we learned that the cooking of a pan of biscuit was the death knell of a million little cimex anthracitus with six, or mayhap nine spots on their backs, and that what was, to us, the grateful crackling sound from our thanksgiv- ing turkey as it roasted before the fire, was the requi- em — the funeral dirge — of perhaps a hundred million innocent microscopic bugs, that had never done us any harm, we went down into the coal cellar and wept over the few remaining cimex anthracitus that were left to us, and we felt as if we never could burn anything again but green oak wood; but when we came back, and, con tinning our investigations further, found that Profes- sor Oxfeller calls the descendants of the prehistoric tree bug "Awful insects," and says: " Servant»girls, stokers in fire rooms^ and housewives cannot be too careful when moving about a coal pile, for if one of these minute creatures should get upon TEXAS SIFTINGSr 157 their clothing or flesh, the former would be eaten into holes quicker than by moths. When they become at- tached to the skin of a person they burrow in, and, burying themselves, multiply fast, producing a white swelling, which eventually results in a softening of the bones and a horrible death. Coal miners who imbibe large quantities of whiskey are never attacked by these insects." When we read this we wiped our tearful eyes, took something to prevent softening of our bones, and wrote an order for another ton of cimex anthracitus. — <^^^o<^ — THE COUNTY FAIR. VIEWED HISTORICALLY AND OTHERWISE. The county fair is one of the oldest institu- tions of this country. We have traced its growth and progress until we have found its origin almost lost in the mil- dewed past. Away back i n the mists of an- tiquity we find records of the first county fair in the United States. The county fair did not exactly come over in the Mayflower, but it was perpetuated by the 158 SKETCHES FROM Plymouth Rock people. It was projected by some of the Mayflower passengers soon after their arrival. The facts are as follows — they are historical facts, so we can- not vouch for them: Some time in Anno Domini 1760, a man, in Maryland^ named Sam Johnson, had a pumpkin patch. It was about two acres in extent, and fenced with cedar pickets. We are particular about giving details, be- cause this is history. Johnson's neighbor, a man by the name of Williams — Dick Williams — also had a pump- kin patch. There was only one acre of it, and it had a stake and rider fence around it. Dick owned a brindle dog, named Tyke. We cannot find that the dog ever did anything extraordinary, or cut any figure in the pumpkin imbroglio. We mention him, however, be- cause this is history we are writing, and history is made up of such trifles. Johnson found a very large pump- kin in the Southeast corner of the patch, and immedi- ately afterwards, Williams discovered a still larger pumpkin in the Northwest corner of his acre of pump- kins. Each of them determined to encourage his pump- kin to beat that of the other, Williams took the Amer- ican Agriculturalist, while Johnson subscribed to a grange paper and Landreth's Almanac. They read up all the authorities on pumpkins, and then put their fruit under a course of treatment. Williams used guano and phosphates on his. Johnson, by sweating, blanketing, and exercise, soon got his pumpkin to about equal in size the berry of his neighbor Williams. When the pumpkins were about ready to drop from the tree, the respective owners of each swore that his was the best. They were about to quarrel, when Johnson proposed to refer the matter to Deacon Long-Suffering Simpson. The Deacon was unable to decide, and sug- TEXAS SIFTINGSr 159 gested a committee. The committee failed to agree, and called a meeting of all the people of the colony to decide the matter, and forever set at rest the question as to which of the two pumpkins was the best, and the most calculated to promote and advance the interest of the young and struggling colony. The people met, and, after mature deliberation, decided that Williams' pump- kin was the largest and most nutritious, and better suited for all purposes for which pumpkins were intend- ed, but that Johnson's pumpkin was of the short-horned variety, and, furthermore — which was most important — it was raised from imported seed, seed that came from England, from the hot-house of the Duke of Here- ford, Johnson having the pedigree of the seed in his possession. So Johnson was declared the victor, and had a blue ribbon nailed to the masthead of his pump- kin. This was the origin of the county fair. The neighbors of Johnson and Williams went to raising pumpkins, and their wives planted rags and patches and raised a crop of rag carpets and patchwork quilts, which they took along w4th the pumpkins next year for exhibition. Then the man with the headless rooster came along, and the gubernatorial candidate w^as put on exhibition and made an agricultural address; other patent windmills were exhibited, and, gradually, the county fair grew and developed; but it was not until the patent churn man, the blind foreigner with the hand organ, and the fellow with the blue and red balloons came to the front, that the county fair became a per- manent institution. Fairs are instituted and carried on for the encourage- ment of farmers struggling with overgrown hogs, calves, and other farm products; also that awards of merit may be given to all the sewing machine and piano i6o SKETCHES EROM makers in the country. Of late, horse-races have been added to the county fair programme. Of course, only sinful men, who wear horse-shoe scarf pins, go to see the races. The superintendents of county fairs, desir- ous of catering to the prejudices and tastes of all classes, have it so arranged that all the good respectable tax- payers and church-members can go over to the cattle sheds and watch the Durham cows chew their cuds, while the races are going on. To stand and look at a cow chewing her cud has always an exhilarating effect on us. We like the excitement of it, but, somehow, when we attend county fairs we are invariably caught in a crowd, just in front of the race track when the races are taking place, and cannot get out until the race is over. This is very embarrassing, and — but we are getting away from the historical aspect of the county fair, and will, therefore, stop. °-^<}o<2^ THE UNHAPPY FARMER. There are very few people, excepting perhaps dead people, or those who have never been born, who are quite satisfied with their lot in life. The merchant com- plains of overwork if he has too much business, and he is far from being perfectly happy if he has no business at all. The doctor, the lawyer, in fact, almost every- body, grumbles more or less under the most favorable or unfavorable circumstances. We grumble from the cra- dle to the grave, and there are some people who will not be happy in Heaven, if they are not allowed to grum- ble. We have read of a sick boy, who grumbled be- cause his mother did not put as big, or as hot a mus- tard plaster on him as she did on his less deserving ''TEXAS SIFTJNGSr i6i brother. The professional patriot is always predicting that the country is rapidly going to the dogs, but somehow the country never manages to catch up with the dog. But for solid, unremitting grumbling, the farmer has no equal. He begins early in the spring and he never takes a vacation. When he comes to town he wears such a sad expression, that his city friends ask him if he has come to town for a coffin. He replies that he might as well get one to fit himself, for all the indications are, that there will be a late frost, and if there is, he will starve to death, but he does not care for any coffin. The crops the previous year were too poor to justify his revelling in such luxuries. It is plain to see that if there is no late frost, he will feel that life is but an empty dream. Sure enough the late frost fails to keep its appointment. The growing crops are in a splendid condition, notwithstanding the farmer seeks to discourage them by walking out among the cotton and corn, shaking his head and sighing heavily. When he comes to town he looks so ill that the under- takers follow him up. When his city friends ask him if he has the toothache, he shakes his head and says: " I might as well have no teeth at all. There will be nothing for them to bite this year. I was afraid that there would be no late frost to kill off the bugs and the grubs. It is just what the young grasshopper wants. When there is no late frost the season is sure to be sick- ly. I expect to mortgage my farm to buy quinine." And that is the dirge he keeps on chanting. After a while it becomes very evident that there will be plenty of corn and cotton. That is more than he can bear up under. Once more he lifts up his voice in lamentation, like Jeremiah with the cramp colic. ''Corn will be down to thirty cents. It won't pay to haul it to mar- i62 SKETCHES FROM ket. I knew from the start this was going to be a bad year on farmers." When he is asked how about the cotton, he groans some more, and says: ** I reckon we will raise enough cotton to feed the worms. I hope we won't make a bale to the acre, because it don't do us any good. The merchants get it all. We only raise cotton for the merchants, and the worms. If we can only fill them up, I reckon we ought to be satisfied, and ask Governor Roberts to order thanksgiving serv- ices." There are some farmers, of course, who laugh and take the weather as it comes, but they do not enjoy life as much as those who understand the business. IN DUPLICATE. Gus De Smith came down Austin Avenue yesterday with his chin cut in several places, so that it looked as if a drunken barber had been practicing on it. "Merciful Heavens, Gus!" exclaimed Gilhooly, "what did you do to the barber? You ought to have murdered him. That was the least you could have done." " I didn't do anything of the kind. After he was through shaving, I invited him across the street, and treated him to a cocktail and a cigar." "Well, you are a fool." " No, I ain't such a fool after all," responded Gus, "for you see I shave myself." " Oh, that's a different thing. You are a kind of double-barrelled fool." " TEXAS SIFTINGS: i6- ANOTHER BRASS-MOUNTED OFFER. As we have before hinted in this paper, the country is full of philanthropists who propose enriching the publishers of newspapers by offering them due bills in payment for advertisements, these due bills to be sent back to the advertiser, accompanied by sums of money ranging from $io to $50, in lieu of which the advertis- er promises to send the publisher either a Stop-action Havana-filler Sewing Machine, a cord of sheet music, a gallon of non-corrosive extra dry Robinson county printer's ink, an automatic cut-off double-cylinder liver pad, or a recipe for taking grease spots and iron mold out of a dog. The financial genius of the business man is shown in these brilliant offers, and his shrewdness in the seductive circular that contains them. The strong i64 SKETCHES FROM point — to the advertiser — in these circulars is, that the money the publisher sends, when he has published the advertisement for the time required, and when he re- turns the due bill, is more than the actual cost of the article or articles that the advertiser agrees to send to the publisher, the former, therefore, getting his adver- tisement free of cost. Since we, some time ago, published our views regarding some of the princely offers of the above described character that we received, there has been a marked falling off in the number of gaudy pro- posals we receive at this office; still there is occasion- ally one received that, with its visions of wealth and lurid hints of opulence, takes the breath away from our business manager, and causes him to refer it to us. He has just handed us one which he says is deserving of editorial attention. We find this to be a very exceptional offer, as the party making it does not ask us to pay anything for the privilege of inserting his ad., but actually, strange as it may seem, offers to pay something to have the ad- vertisement published. We will not give the real name of the concern, as that would be giving it a free adver- tisement. The circular explains itself, and so does our reply, which is appended: "advertising department. " Office of Blank Man'f g Co., " , January lo, 1882. "Gentlemen: — We hand you proposition to insert advertisement of six inches space (copy herewith) in your paper for twelve months, as per contract enclosed, to be paid in trade as named. "We will give you four boxes of a new brand of Cigars, of good quality, fine color, agreeable taste and " TEXAS SIFTINGSr 165 flavor, smoke freely, white ashes, and cannot fail to please any editor or person who may want a good cigar for private use. " They are neatly packed in boxes of 50 cigars each, bearing special trade-mark label, as per copy enclosed, and sell for $4.50 per box, the lowest price at which they can be purchased. ''In lieu of cigar proposition, we offer to you one case containing twelve quart bottles of O. F. C. Taylor Old 1873 Hand-Made Sour Mash Whiskey, at $18.00, our cash price per case for this article, and two boxes of cigars. In filling out your contract, please erase either the whiskey or the cigars clause, so that we may know your choice and which of the goods to ship to you. " Return advertising contract to us, duly filled out and signed, on receipt of which we will send you the full matter on stereotype plate by mail. " Respectfully yours, "Blank Manf'g Co." Office of Texas Siftings, Austin, January 16, 1882. Blank Manf'g Co: — Gentlemen: — Your very liberal offer of the loth inst. to hand. It is a very tempting proposal, twelve quarts of whis- key! Hand-made Sour Mash, too, and Old 1873 at that! What brilliant editorials there would be in those twelve quarts of inspiration, what sublirrie and refulgent locals, what radiant and glittering obituary notices, and what luminous and soul-stirring dramatic criticisms! and then to think of what a phosphorescent and lambient sheen we could throw over a market re- port if we only had the encouragement of a single quart i66 SKETCHES FROM of your old sour mash. But alas! it cannot be. There are insurmountable obstacles m the way of accepting your proposition, and, more in sorrow than in anger, we respectfully decline it. In the first place, as you will see by referring to the 7th of January edition of our paper, we have "sworn off" for the year 1882, and therefore could have no use for your whiskey. Why did you make your offer at such an inopportune time? If you had only waited un- til February, or even the end of the present month, we might have been in a position to , but no, even then we couldn't, because that matter-of-fact business manager of ours says that, although we may put what we blank please in the editorial columns, he won't put a six inch display in the advertising end of the paper for less than several hundred dollars cash, quarterly in advance. Now, although w^e feel that your twelve quarts of sour mash w^ould do us several hundred dol- lars' worth of good, up here in the editorial room, when we are wrestling with a pun, or fatigued by the labor of manufacturing facts and creating statistics, yet we must give way to that soulless business manager, who charges for everything by the line or inch. We pre- sume, that as soon as we recover from our present swearing off spell, we will have to go back to the old legitimate way of getting our sour mash — by winking at the barman and getting him to put it on the slate. Although we cannot do business with you just now, we commend the effort you are making to encourage the press and to ameliorate the condition of the journalist. We can fancy that, with the naked ear, we can hear the jubilant howl of the editors all over the land who have accepted your offer, and who, as a consequence, are full of Old 1873 Hand-made Sour Mash. We can imagine TEXAS SIFTINGSr 167 that we see their local columns filled with sour mash puffs and typographical errors; and we do not strain our imagination when we picture the enterprising ed- itor taking one of the cigars you recommend " for pri- vate use," and stealing off privately, far from the busy haunts of men, to smoke it on the top of some high mountain on a windy day. Respectfully yours. Sweet & Knox. — •-^<^3«<^ — MALARIAL INTOXICATION. In San Antonio and in some other cities, it has been customary, for many years past, to publish weekly mortuary reports for the purpose gf informing those inhabitants who are still alive, of the names of those who have died, and what particular disease they died of. In order to bring this information within the reach of all who can read, the Latin and Greek names of the diseases are given. This is an excellent idea. If a member of the family dies, it is consoling to the sur- vivors to read in the mortuary report that it was not jaundice, but Icterus acutus febrilis apaticus. Nobody could reasonably expect to survive all that. When a person reads that, he is astonished that the patient did not die sooner and more frequently. Again, it flatters common folks to read that some poor devil has died of a disease with a name a mile and a half long, while in the very same mortuary report perhaps some wealthy banker has been called hence on a disease of only two syllables. Over in San Antonio, thanks to successive city phy- sicians, the people die of icterus senilis, of seven kinds i68 SKETCHES FROM of tuberculoses; of icterus amenorrhoea, intestinalis pulmonalis, and five other kinds of icterus. They can also die, if they want to, of anenisma, colica flatuienta, biliosa — particularly when complicated with atrapia medullae spinalis or marasmus infantium, caused prob- ably by too much vox populi, nux vomica, e pluribus unum, etc., particularly etc. Of course the people of San Antonio were a little confused at first, to know what diseases they had died of, but at length they tumbled to the racket, and have educated themselves up to the technical terms. Nobody in San Antonio asks: " How is your prickly heat com- ing on?" Thanks to the city physician's mortuary re- ports, instead of asking: " How is your prickly heat to- day?" the Alamo citizen asks: " How is your eczema solare coming on?" to which the sufferer * replies: *' Much better, thank you. It was not the regular eczema solare at all, but only eczema impetigion oides, complicated a little with chloasma ephelis." If the other party does not want to give himself away, he will not ask if that is the barber's itch, for it is not, although it is somewhat similar, being rather in the nature of por- rigo lupinosa. So completely have the San Antonio people educated themselves up to calling things by their proper names that nothing is more common than to hear even colored people conversing somewhat in the following style: " I say, Uncle Mose, how's yer chile comin' on? I heered yer was up all night wid it, dat it had de wussest kind ob peretonitis ob de mucus membrane mixed up wid vomitus chronicus, and a misery in de chist." To this Uncle Mose responds: ''' De chile has done got ober all dat, but dis mornin' hit was all broke out wid epilepsia thoracica, but I has strong hopes ob hits gettin' well ef ''TEXAS SIFTlNGSr 169 laryngostenose don't sot in. Fs had a tech myself ob de rheumatismus paralyticus runnin' up my left leg, but I jess knocked de stiffness out ob hit wid angle worm oil." These technical terms may not be correct, but they answer the purpose just as well as any others. Not long since, in glancing over the San Antonio papers, we were surprised to read that somebody, for the first time in many years, had died of an intelligible malady. It read that: "Mr. Blank, aged -^6, malarial intoxication." Jess so. That's plain enough. Mr. Blank, while suffering from malaria, tried to cure it with some of Sam. C. Bennett's sour mash whiskey, and between the malaria and the remedy, the poor man fail- ed to survive. It was a great source of satisfaction for us to know precisely what one person in San Antonio really did die of. It was not too much gastroataxia saburralis, or even of haematernesis, of cardia podo- gracia, or any of those ordinary modes of shuffling off the mortal coil, but simply malarial intoxication. Our satisfaction that people over at San Antonio had returned to the old-fashioned diseases was of short duration, for the very next day our eye was riveted in its socket by the following card from Dr. Menger, the city phy- sician, in the San Antonio Evening Light: San Antonio, Jan. 25, 1882= Editors Eve?iing Light: In regard to the term "malarial intoxication," as certified in his death certificate, by the attending phy- sician, and in my weekly mortuary report, I noticed in your yesterday's Light that this appears to be a mistake, and that it should have been " malarial toxicohoemia." Now allow me to mention that, although I was aware of the mistake in the term " intoxication," I still men- 170 SKETCHES FROM tioned it in my weekly report because I can only make out a copy of the certificates of deaths issued. The technical meaning of the term in this case is not- " intoxication " nor " toxicohoemia, "but " toxicohaemia," from the Greek or Latin " toxikon " — a poison, and haema — blood; therefore, blood poisoning. Respectfully, Dr. R. Menger. *-©-K><^^^K>€'^' — ST. PATRICK'S DAY.