The Sunday Oregonian., June 21, 1908, Magazine Section, Page 9, Image 55

THE SUNDAY OREGOXIAN, PORTLAND, JUNE 21, 1908.
9
3?
T was mighty strange about that
last murder trial they had over
" In New Jersey," mused the Hotel
Clerk.
"I didn't see nothin' so strange about
it," said the House Detective of the
St. Reckless, speaking: In the profes
sional tone befitting one who had once
belonging to the uniformed force. "The
lady wuz found dead In a swamp, as I
remember, and her husband couldn't
properly explain where he wuz the
night she landed there, and he wuz
showed to be in the habit of takin' a
club to her every once't In a while
and labelln' her features with one of
them places marked X showln' where
a blow was struck, as the noospapers
say. Of course, they didn't have no
actual proof that t'wuz him croaked
her, but puttln' one thing with an
other "
"I didn't mean that," said the Hotel
Clerk. "The strange part was they
didn't find him guilty. I can't under
stand it. It must have been a serious
blow to state pride and a deep blot
op New Jersey's fair escutcheon. I
wouldn't be surprised to hear they'd
sent up to the escutcheon works for a
new one. I can't imagine what could
have come over those jurors. I under
stand there's still considerable sup
pressed feeling against them in Hobo
kn. WeehawUen and environs.'
"It don't usually turn out that way
over here." said the House Detective.
"Not that I recall." said the Hotel
Clerk. "Heretofore getting tried for
murder in our sister state if she Is
our sister has been something like
being chased the length of a thorough
vestibuled train and thrown off at a
hemp factory without stopping the
train. Those New Jersey Jurors must
have begun to get soft-fibcred and
weak-kneed since their state legis
lature abolished theood old slipnoose
under the left ear, of their fathers,
and voted in the comparatively tame
and uninteresting Morris chair having
Uraps on the ai ms and live wires run
ning down its legs. Up until the time
they installed electrical features in the
Trenton penitentiary, you'd read that
the indictment had been returned and
shortly thereafter you'd see it printed
under a Tom's River dateline that the
condemned man spent several hours of
his last night on earth playing the
rational game of pinochle witli the
death watch, named Heiney and Au
gust, after which he slept as peace
fully as a little child, but arose early
and donned the suit of neat black that
had been provided for him by Sheriff
Buttcnhcimer, ate a hearty breakfast,
consisting of ham and eggs, musk
melon, canned corn, ice cream, country
eausage, three cups of coffee, dough
nuts, buckwheat cakes, a cigar and
two kinds of pie, custard and mince
Bnd announced that he was prepared
to meet his God.
"We weren't in the habit of hearing
much about the trials, because they were
lo brief and satisfactory as hardly to
merit passing mention. The procedure
was something like, a military court-martial
of a suspected revolutionist, with
money, in Central America, and some
thing like one of those English trials at
the Old Bailey, where the presiding Jus
BY JIM NASIL'M.
fB TELL you Dad, she's a swell
I bunch of skirts, all right, and I'll
gamble that she won't be in the
family a year till you're a blamed sight
more stuck on her 'n I am. I've shown
enough goods to cinch my job in the big
leagues now, an" when the season closes
we're going to hook up and paddle down
the stream of life together. And take it
from me, you'll be blamed proud to float
on the same raft with her. I ain't goin'
to throw you down. Dad, 'cause no bunch
of skirts that ever rustled could make
me leave you at the post, put you're com
ln' into the stretch In the race of life now,
an' she'll be a blamed nifty little filly to
be trotting at your side when you go
under the wire." The Kid puffed out like
a pouter pigeon as he got this out of his
system.
"That's all right. Kid," replied the Old
Sport, "she may be just the swell little
Ally that you say she is. But let me
hand you the tip that pickfng women
isn't a blamed bit like picking the ponies.
A filly in skirts may set the circuit on
fire in her maiden race, but after the
marriage stakes she's mighty apt to balk
at the barrier and show a reversal of
form. Take it from me, you caM't dope
out the kirts from pedigree and previous
performances, and the marriage stakes is
a selling race in which the cuy who puts
up the dough is usually sold.
"And another thing. Kid, a guy is
mighty apt to be more careful in buying
a horse than he is in picking a wife. It
seems to be the way human nature is
built in this old dump of a world. When
he buys a horse he'll take her out on the
track and put her through a course of
sprouts and watch her gait from every
angle to see that she isn't straightened or
spavined or wind-broke, and he ll look at
her teeth and watch her feed and take
care that she isn't doctored .up to deceive
the public eye. But when he cops out a
bunch of skirts he's usually satisfied with
asuperhcial survey In the dim light of
the silv'ry moon or the ballroom chande
lier when she has her makeup and hair
puffs on, then he kicks like a maverick
when he gets her In the stable and finds
that she has a cork leg and a glass eye.
"I suppose that's the case, because a
lot of you kids in the mushhead stage of
development, nurse the dope that mar
riages are made in heaven, but you take
It from me that a thundering lot of these
affinity love matches are made in the
back parlor with the light turned so
blamed low that a guy can't see what he
Is up against. Now, Kid, I'm not saying
that this bunch of skirts of yours isn't
just exactly the fancy piece of bric-a-brac
that you say she is, but you don't want
to sign any contract for life with a part
lor ornament, because you can buy them
too cheaply. So, if you take my tip, you'll
sneak around the stable about 7 A. M.
and see how this filly of yours tackles
the ham and eggs, and keep your eye
peeled on how her peachy complexion
stands the test of the kitchen range. You
can take It from me that this method of
picking winners for the marriage stakes
has the ballroom and back parlor dope
skinned a block."
"you're not sore 'cause I'm mingling
MtBT TIT!
3igyyiiitf
(SUILTY OR. "NOT
OLMLTY, AND IP NOT
WHY NOT?
tice is in a hurry to get home to dinner
with the High Sheriff or the Lord Mayor
or Sir Thomas Lipton or somebody, and
so. in a brisk tone of voice, he asks the
cringing wretch at the bar whether he's
guilty or not guilty and. if not, why not.
and then inserts part of his wig into a
neat, black cap, such as a fat traveling
man wears on a railroad train In this
country, and takes a peep at the calen
dar and ' decides that Friday fortnight
will be a very good day for it, and every
thing's as good as settled before the fore
man of the Jury gets through writing
'without extenuating circumstances' on
the verdict.
"Over in Jersey 'twas only slightly dif
ferent. About the time the lawyer for the
defense was concluding the foolish for
mality of summing up, an elderly gentle
man in black, with rope lint on his
clothes, would quietly approach the de
fendant and ask him what size collar he
wore, and if he was as heavy as he looked
to be, and at that the word would run
through the crowded court that Colonel
Van Hise, the ever polite and accommo
dating official hangman, was on the Job,
getting the necessary plans and specifi
cations. That's the way ' it was until
lately. The only thing- a man could feel
safe in committing in New Jersey was
suicide, and even then there was the aw
ful thought that they might put the bee
on him after he was dead by burying him
in the state.
"How different, how very different, with
us here in New York, Larry! over there,
they've been accustomed to hanging
nearly everybory and over here we hang
nobody that's anybody and rarely ever
anybody that's nobody."
"Ever' now and then we do manage to
with the skirts, are you, Dad?" asked
the Kid.
"No, I'm not sore, Kid," replied the
Old Sport, "but you want to be mighty
careful and not let the skirts put you
on the bum. There's been lots of good
ballplayers who have been shoved into
the Down-and-Out Club by the calico.
Once the kid IMs the calico get- his goat
he's mighty apt to pay more attention
to the grace of his action and to the
poetry of motion when the batter slams
hit out his way than he does to getting
his mitts on the ball. The skirts are all
right, and the guy who fouls them off.
hi nil in n it i
HOTEL CLE1.K
. U ALIENIST
3Sfepw ;
convict a guy for puttin' some other guy
away with a dose out of a dark bottle, or
some such game," amended the House
Detective.
"Since you mention It, I believe that
oversight has been allowed to happen
once in a great while," said the Hotel
Clerk. "But the Supreme Court can
always be depended upon to rectify
it as soon as they get around to It,
which will be after 180,000 other cases
on the calendar can be disposed of,
which they do dispose of at the
rate of from two to four every Win
ter. The only drawback Is that the
guilty party has to stay in Jail 30 or
40 years before the learned Justice
is shy on plastering up In his garret. But
at the same time, when a kid gets it so
bad that he beats a' trail to the corner
drug store and buys up enough pimple lb
lion to beautify the I complexion of a
horned toad, then it's all off with the hall
of fame gag for his. The guy who has
learned to glide through the Merry Widow
waltz all night without spiking his part
ner Is mighty apt to develop Into one of
these 'every-move-a-plcture' dubs when
he hits the baseball lot.
"It's all right for the guy who can be
an ornament to society without becoming
a wart on the business world to butt into
IN WHICH HE TALKS AT LENGTH ON THE "COLLEGE ORNAMENTS." .
r-XfW'-''fi I b'iiM5H' I I MS"' 11 Yi H fill'
Splffleflinger or McGugging, as the
case may be, can begin the congenial
task of blasting reversible errors out
of the record. And so they order a
new trial, but by that time the wit
nesses are all dead or In jail them
selves, and serves them right, too, and,
a third generation has grown up
which feels no interest in the per
son that was put out of the way away
back yonder in 1908; and so they turn
the prisoner out of his cosy cell, where
he's been writing autographs and eating
the cocoanut layer cake and the choco
late fudge sent him by admiring ladies
who read his sad story as told by Nell
Bunkley in the Evening Exhaust, and
he gets a Job writing for the magazines
and builds him a villa over on Long
Island and is lookedi up to.
the society game, and he can mope over
the skirts and do the 'hearts asunder
trick to his heart's content, but when
you're planted on a baseball lot with five
thousand excited fans looking you over
and ready to hand you the gaff on the
slightest provocation; you don't want to
be going into any mystic seances with
Dan Cupid. If you get this Laura Jean
Libby dope planted in your roof garden,
along about the time when your mind is
reaching out and wrapping itself around
your lady love some sy will slam a hit
through you and you'll wake up a step
nearer the bottom of the ladder which
leads to success."
"But. Dad. you talk as though a ball
player shouldn't be anything else but a
ball player," said the Kid.
"And let me tell you. Kid. that's pretty
near enough," replied the Old Sport. "The
guy who can rip up the sod in the out
field with line drives and butt into the
milky way to pull down hits has a double
riveted cinch on the hall of fame. He
doesn't have to lead a cotillion or butt
Into the smart set at Newport to get his
name and a half-tone cut that is a libel
plastered among the want ads In the
daily. papers, and he doesn't have to play
a dozen different hands and earn his
dough In one way and pile up fame In
another. All he has to do is to concen
trate what little mind he has on the
baseball lot and chain It there so It can't
jump the fence or sneak out the pass
gate, and the world will be talking about
him long after a lot of these chimpanzee
banqueters and golf-playing captains of
Industry have been forgotten.
"Now I don't give a brass mounted con
tinental what diversions a ball player
has, but they must be only diversions
for the time being and not permanent
tenants in your upper story. They've got
to be obliging enough to move out dur
ing business hours. And let me give you
a tip that the society gag and Mr. Daniel
Cupid isn't that kind of a tenant, not by
a long shot. Once Dan Cupid gets his
trunk into your upper story and sets up
housekeeping it's all off with the business
doWnstairs. and you couldn't pry him out
of there with a charge of dynamite.
"There's nothing to it. Kid, you never
saw a guy who had been plugged through
the heart good and plenty with an arrow
from Dan Cupid's bow who could get his
mental machinery to working on any
thing else. And the guy who butts Into
the society game usually has his upper
story so full of monkey dinners and pink
tea biscuit shootings that business Is
crowded out onto the back veranda.
"And there's no two ways about it, a
ball player mixes in society just about as
successfully as a dose of castor oil In a
seltzer lemonade. As soon as you begin
to mix with the society bugs you're go
ing to put either your ball playing or
your lally gagging down for the count,
that's a cinch. Stick a bunch of sun
burned brawn and sinew into an open
faced suit and plant him in the center
of a ballroom, and you can take it from
me that he'll race the surroundings just
about as much as a May Howard poster
would In The Louvre. And you can
gamble that he'll feel about as much at
home as a fish in a sand pile. He may
be right there with the Iron nerve in
front of the holiday crowds on the base
ball lot, but the first time he'd have to
cross a bare expanse of ballroom floor
BY
oso
"But when Insanity is the plea and
there's a defendant that's got a large
available cash balance, or his family has,
that's where the. conditions become ideal
for sailing and boating. If he happens to
be one of those real sports from Sportsyl
vania, that's never had anything of im
portance under his hat except the part
in his hair, and If the lady in the case Is
a lovely model, who once posed for the
leading house, sign and portrait painter
of Pittsburg, and if the crime took place
in some quiet, secluded spot like the
corner of Forty-second street and Broad
way, at a quarter past five on a Satur
day afternoon, and if the descriptive
writers are feeling in good health at the
time, and If all of the little troupes of
performing adjectives are ready, and If
the alienists don't begin cutting the union
ABOUT-THETinETOUR,
HIND GETS WRAPPED
MOUND YOUR-IJLOVE'
A-nlT-THROM-YOU
by his lonesome It's a ten to one shot
that he'd spike himself and fall in a
dead faint. And about the first time
he'd unbutton his face and turn loose his
accumulated brand of gab to that society
bunch they'd all cover up and back into
a corner. Can you imagine Mike Donlin,
Spike Shannon, Hans Wagner or Husk
Chance leading a cotillion? If you can
you've a mental picture no artist can
paint.
"This isn't saying that the society bug
has anything on the ball player, because
you can stick the shoe on the other foot
and it won't look a blamed bit better.
Jam Harry Lehr and Reggy Vanderbilt
and some of that bunch Into a baseball
suit and plant them out on the diamond,
and they'd look as much out of place as
the peach bloom on an old maid's nose,
HOT eP COBB
THE. V-D"FASHIOMt0
Doctor -co
rate on one another in order to get the
job, why, then it's time for every one to
put on his bathing trunks and jump in
and splash up. First, they get the
Jury. That's the start of it. It only
takes ten or twelve weeks, or In ex
treme cases, four months. And when
the box is filled, they tell the prisoner
to stand up and look at the jury and
the jury to stand up and look a the
prisoner, thereby providing a treat for
all concerned. Then they shove all the
facts into the back ground, if there are
any facts, and trot out their expert tes
timony and .compel those twelve real
estate dealers and delicatessen princes
and retired faro dealers to sit and
listen to brutal disclosures in regard to
the pneumogastric and other intimate
subjects that should remain forever
sacred to the individual who owns
them, until their poor tired brains turn
to mayonnaise and they don't know
whether the medulla oblongata Is a
The first time they'd ask some guy's par
don for bumping into him they'd get a
look that'd bore holes through an ar
mored, cruiser, and their pink tea conver
sation with the umpire would lay the
gang out cold. It's no use. Kid, the game
that wins dukes and lords and jumps a
lot of our American skirts into the king
row can't trot in the same heat with the
National game. You can't lead cotillions
and batting averages at the same" time,
and you' can't give banquets for chimpan
zees to eat if you expect to eat up base
hits yourself."
"Dad, you're an awful plugger for the
tough mugs," replied the Kid. "You kept
me shut but of society while I was in col
lege because you didn't want me to get
my system plugged full of mollycoddle
germs, and I couldn't bust into a frater
grand opera or the name of a Spanish
restaurant, but are rarthcr inclined to
think it is. This part is very import
ant, Larry. It's called informing the
jury."
"Is them alienists wot testify In
murder, trials the same ones wot also
do the alienating in divorce suits?"
asked the House Detective.
"You're probably thinking of the
special co-respondents," said the Hotel
Clerk. "An alienist is a family doctor
who hates the night work. There was
a time when a doctor wasn't expected to
do anything but doctoring. In Winter
time he went to bed In his pants and
his ear muffs, and his horse slept be
tween the shafts with the bridle pushed
up on his forehead. He made his
rounds carrying a gallon crock of eight-year-old
calomel in one hand and in the
other dark blue pills resembling' the
style of ammunition that was once used
In a Navy six. But nowadays, if he
dislikes the late hours and loses all his
patients, either through them getting
wise or else death, he can buy himself
a pair of gold-rlmmed eye glasses and
trim his whiskers down to a point like
an evergreen in a cemetery, and if he
can climb up on a witness chair all
fatted out with Importance like a
trained sea lion and be prepared to re
verse himself as often as a quarter
mile track, why, he's an alienist and
amply qualified to make an appropriate
answer to a hypothetical question begin
ning as follows:
" 'Assuming, doctor, that on the night
in question the prisoner had been eat
ing a large quantity of things, or else
drinking them; and assuming that he had
a breath like a family grocery store; and
assuming that his eyes rolled from side
to side the same rs a china doorknob,
only different: and assuming that a man's
souse is his castle, as the English law
givers would say; and assuming that he's
willing to pay well for what you are
about to answer: and assuming that his
Uncle John Henry, commonly known in
the evidence as Exhibit A, had to wear
cotton in li a ears to keep his brains from
blowing his side-whiskers off; and as
suming that they were acutely maniacal
side-whiskers, which all side-whiskers
necessarily are; and assuming that his
hair was quite mussed up; and assuming
that the old hen crossed the road; and
assuming that an Irishman wears red
suspenders to keep his trousers up; and
assuming that he was afraid to go home
in the dark and' "
"Wot talk have you?" put In the House
Detective. "If it's a murder trial, why
don't they tell the jury about the mur
der?" "It's not customary," said the Hotel
Clerk, "and besides, it might confuse their
minds as to the main issue, which is
whether they ought to turn the defendant
loose and give him his pistol back and lpt
him resume his flirtations with Mary
Widdcr and Maudie Graw, or else send
him up-state to enjoy the society of Mat
tie Wann awhile. That's a Joke of my
own, Iirry, and I'd thank you to laugh
heartily."
"Well, anyway, we never hang any
innocent men in this town," said the
House Detective.
"I know a lot of innocent men that I
could spare," said the Hotel Clerk. "Be-
In" innocent Is a crime in this town, any
how.
nity there with a jimmy. I think il's
playing the string a little too far to ex
pect a kid to hurdle the fence every time
a bunch of skirts' dashes her lamps at
him."
"That's all right. Kid." replied the Oi l
Sport, "but just the pa me I kept you
out of the grand fraternity of has-beens
and never-was's, and if you hadn't swam
in a different pool from the gold-fls;i
while you were In the knowledge fac
tory, you can take my tip that you'd
have woke up to find that you was on!
a sucker after all. Your average hall
player in the knowledge factory is a
guy who tries to splatter a lot of grm-e
and beauty around the lot. and he wades
through his college career as though he
had matriculated in the living picture
class. The result in that lie cuts a wide
swath In college circles anil Is elected
Grand Division Superintendent, of a half
dozen Eta Bila Tie societies or something
of that sort, and when he grabs his roll
of sheepskin and his collection of per
sonal photographs and hustles out to stab
the world in the face he bumps into
something and wakes up to find -that
there Is no opening for alabaster vases
or human statuary.
"No. Kid, you won't find many great
players who have been pulled out of the
college garden, and when you do you'll
notice that they are a bunch of hard
working guys who never mingled much
with the Copenhagen and Drop-the hand
kerchief squad while in tiie knowled?"
factory. The Wagners, the Lajoies, tlTc
Ty Cobbs and the C'y Youngs grow
among the rag-weeds on the cinder
dumps with a wad of tobacco in their
face big enough to smother the entire
aggregation of intercollegiate Cham;
pions.
"These guys don't lend that chaste and
artistic finish to a social gathering that
is splattered around the surrounding
territory by your college Adonis, but let
me tell you that they are making a suc
cess out of their chosen calling, and
that's a blamed sight more important
factor in this old dump of a world than
a lot of your college ornaments will ever
pull off.
"And that's all I expect you to do.
Kid, specialize nnd do on- thing and d"
great in one thing. I don't give a brass
mounted continental what it is. you are
a blamed sight more of a success in this
world than the guy who tinkers with
the entire gamut of human accom lisn
ments. So, whenever you feel the mac
netic power of some outside force pull
ing at your coa tails to throw you off
your stride, you want to slip your Jacket
and keep on plugging. Let this dope fil
ter through the thinks in your belfry
now, Kid, and see if I'm not right."
A Woman's Tears.
Burllngham. Ala., Ape-Hera!d.
There's just no ue in talking.
When a woman starts to cry.
She can have 'most any bauMe
That a pile of gold can buy.
If she desired the ocean
And melted into tears.
Some chap would try t'scoop it up.
If it took a million years:
Fnme of the rierman hralth tnsuranre
companies have found It a paying in et
ment to estahlw sanatoria for the care of
their consumptive policy holders. '