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About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 13, 1908)
33 BV ir.VIN S. OIRB. ffT M f:,-uX, 1 di,n'1 ve in T;rl''" these limes," said the House De- tective of the St. Reckless. "I'm glad I don't live in Turkey any time." said tho Hotel Clerk. "I'm also g'ad J don't live In Patagonia, or New South Wales or tho Peninsula of North ern Michigan. To he quite frank with you. Larry, there's niore'n a million places that I'm glad I don't live in em. I can stand for hours'at a time listening to a skilled yodeler that calls off the names of the towns up at the Grand Central Stiftion without being over whelmed by a strange, wistful longing to go to Ashtabula. Ohio, and all points nest. I'd rather live right here In New York Willi Its teeming population of tlvo million people. I know it's pot five mil lion people, because I see fully three million of them all trying to get on the nm4 subway train going home every night. "But. If it'." not a personal matter, might I Rsk what has suddenly embit tered you against Turkey? Who asked you to live there, anyway? 1 didn't hear that an enthusiastic delegation from the Turkis'.i Chamber of Commerce, the Con stantinople C. A. IS. post and the Com mon Council had 1 n around ottering you the freedom of the city and begging you to come right along before all the choice residential villa sites are gobbled xp by real estate speculators. Have you been blackballed by the Young Turk."' Country and Cuochie-Coochie Club, or what?" Weil, it's the way they've been carry In' on over there." .-aid the House Detec tive, "shontin' and cuttin' and scrappin". Vol ails them Turks anyway?" 'They're merely getting a constitu tion." 'explained the Hotel Clerk. "It's always that way when .1 country that's never had a constitution is getting one. Babies behave the same way when they're teething. This thing of acquir ing' a constitution i merely drunk and d'sorderiy conduct, assault and battery and unlawful assemblage, on a large c. If the parties that want a con sltution are there with the punch and the-,- get the decision, cither on points or a knockout, they're a hunch of grand little patriots, and future generations will name third-class postofficcs and race Worses f'T them. Hut if the regular poll-. Tone is too strong for them, they Join the in Had Hx i.-ty and get ! days on the Island for resting an officer. "Iok at the Russians, for example. It seemed to me that. a.s Russians go. they were doing very well tinder an unlimited despotism, which us something '"c helng under the Standard oil. only not so se vere, anil in their simple Russian way. drinking the kerosene out of the family lamp and living on those little greasy minnows that reside in a can. But they got a Iounia :'nd the Dounia got the constitution hug in their head and. like anybody who could rat a caviar sand wich and enjoy it. they had the dispo sition that carried things to an extreme. But the Grand Dukes got to the Czar first and made up bis mind for him the o'her way. it being that kind or a mind and one snowy forenoon shortly after this time there was a noise like rattling the trace-chains on a log wagon and per sons residing along the road to Siberia looked out of the front windows and saw the leading spirits of the recent Douma starting on the first legislative junaei .i. the history of their country. "So now anv Russian statesman who thinks his land needs a constitution and wants to make a speech on the subject goes down In the cellar and turns out all the lights and confides his remarks to a semi-detached rat-hole. "But in Turkey, from what I can gather. It was the ladies that really started it. liver since the days of the Prophet, up until quite recently, the high caste Turkish lady had been content to stay in a harem, which is the institution on "which most of our county Jails In this country are modeled. She had the lower part of her face burled In a nose bag, the same as a truck team at high noon, and spent her time developing a figure that helped a lot toward carrying out the. comparison of a Norman horse Immersed In oats. For to be a success a" a Turkish lady she had to be fat. Those muscular ones you saw from time to time w ith the Streets of Cairo -show at an Elks carnival didn't move In the best set hack home. Slendemess wasn't any more popular in a harem than It is at the Chicago stockyards. No sir Mav lrwln wouldn"t have last ed a week in Turkey. They'd a-kld-naped her. Some dark night there'd a-been a furniture- van backed up at the side door of her hotel and In the morn ing she'd be missing, and when next you heard from her she'd be. a massive but helpless prisoner. Immured In the seraglio of some powerful pasha, closely guarded bv the same group of daring piano movers' that were hired to commit the abduction. That's the .way it used to be. "But all of a sudden a wave of female Independence swept through the Turk ish Kmpire. The leading ladies took off their nose-bags. And the populace at 1ars had a look. Then tbey had an other look and became Indeed desperate. They felt that the situation was one which could not be relieved by any or dinary' means, such as going over into the Balkans and killing off a few of the Christians, who occupy the same position In the political arrangements of that country that the Democrats do In this. So they decided to have a constitution. They are now engaged In having It. And after they have It I wonder what they'll do with It." "The paper says the Sultan, old Abdul Humid, or wotever his fooli.sb name is. has been ragin- like a caged lion," said the House Detective. "Well. I don't know how a caged lion rages, but I know how a eaged lion smells, and any other horrible details that vou have you can keep to yourself. said the Hotel Clerk. "And. anyway. I don't blame him for raging. He's a very sick man to start with. Kvery paper I pick up says he s the sickest man in Kurope. although none of them ever told what was the matter with him. unless It was the one that stated he had four or five regular wives and a barn full of deputy wives and any number of ladies-in-waiting scattered around the neighborhood. I guess he's the indis posed Ottoman Kid. all right. And then there s young Abdul AZ-lz tossing arouno my with old Abdul Az-wuz. who's either his uncle or his past participle. I forget which. The last I heard about the Sul tan he'd gone Into his bomb-proof and was letting the Albanian bodyguard do the rough outside work." "They say them Albanian guys Is the tough scrappers, all right," commented the House Detective. "I'll have to ask them to show me." said the Hotel Clerk. "I saw a picture of a row of them. They wear a costume that's a cross between a lamp chimney and a bareback rider and their weapons are the same kind that they sell you at the Installment-house to loop up the dra peries of your Oriental cozy corners with. I have my doubts about any man being able to fight very hard when he's got to worry all the time about the proba bility of his underskirts catching fire from a spark. "Yes'. I know the Turks licked the Greeks. But they took an unfair advan tage. They didn't fight with the Greeks' national weapon, which is the pushcart. At plaster Images and banana hooks the Greeks would have had 'em out before the end of the first round. And they've also licked the women and children of Armenia several times, but give me a pistol and a gun or two and I'll guaran tee to lick any Armenian child that lives, single-handed, by myself, and I'm no pro fessional fighter at that. They might even have put it on our friends the Chi- nese here a few years back, when the Chinks still entertained the notion that the proper way to affright the Invader was to march out on the serried field shooting fire-crackers and go through the parasol flirtation. But It only took one short Summer for our other friends, the Japs, to cure them of the delusion that the fan dTill was mightier than the dum dum bullet in modern warfare, and I've a notion that if the Turks tackled the nilnow now there'd be more widows In ni s.com. the rug store than In the hand laundry. And I positively shudder to think what would happen to the bloodthirsty Al banian body guard If It ever got snarled up with the reserves from the West Thirtieth-street Police Station." "The way I dope it out. a constitution ain't fltten for any race that's not civil ized all the way up," said the House De tective." "Quite right." said the Hotel Clerk. "There's a lot of things besides consti tutions that the Turks and the rest of the uncivilized nations couldn't assimi late without a severe course of training. Now there's the Filipino head hunter. He's a poor untutored cuss that got s about dressed up In the scenario of a pair of pants Rnd toting a spear with a head on it like one of those tools that a Masonlo lodge uses when it's laying a cornerstone. But he's a good sport, ac cording to his lights. About once In so long he encases his person in a sketchy first act of a suit of clothes, made out of grass, with a seashell waistband, and goes forth and puts a dent In his tribal foe that looks like an excavation for a new Union Depot. After which he har vests the other fellow's head and takes' his foot In his hand and hurriedly steals away. So far. so good. There's one dark brown gentleman that's dead and an other that's beating It back through tho Samar high grass In the general direc tion of Posey County. If the friends of the deceased should happen to overtake our hero, the formalities are simple In the extreme. They merely leave part ol him there and take the rest of him home with them on the end of a pole. There's another vacant bolo in Bologna and a new face, with a set smile on it. over the garden gate of the opposition vil lage. The incident has been closed In a I manner satisfactory to ell concerned. "Tf you should suggest to this crude savage that Instead of being slaughtered on the spot, he ought to enter an insan ity plea, he wouldn't grasp your meaning at all. He'd think you were taking ad vantage of his lack of education to kid him along and he'd feel aggrieved be cause you didn't go ahead and edit him down with a war-ax and cease your frivolous and ill-timed Jesting. And it he'd carried his brother along with him to see that It was a finished job. and you as his lawTer should advise that It would be easy to prove by competent alienists that both of them went crazy together, having been seized simulta neously with the new variety of insanity known as family group homicidal mel ancholia, the gentle head-hunter would probably double up In an uncontrollable outburst of laughter. He'd never get It through his skull. "You're quite right, T-arry, In what you said just now. There, are many things about the higher civilization thHt you couldn't get a savage nation to ac cept yet awhile, and I'm afraid they'd never believe in an up-to-date insanity defense such as we have in the more expensive murder cases. - "In fact, Larry, I never heard of any body that would believe in 'em except some Juries. IN WHICH HE SHOWS UP THE RESULTS OF "EARLY TO BED AND EARLY TO RISE. HIS sporting life is a pleasantly existence," said the up-state banker, who had come down to ee the sishts. "but It's a cinch that it doesn't do a fellow much good, and it's against all the rules of longevity. It's got me on tho bum since I hit thlH village. I tell you If we only fully realized just how much some of our pleasures clip off the fag end of our live we'd be a blamed sight more careful how we Indulged our, cravings for entertainment. I'll admit that I've had more fun crammed Into the few days of my life since I met you fel lows than I would ordinarily have In a year's existence, but when I begin to figure up at the rate the dopesters tell us our fun costs us. I find that I am due to die just about ten years earlier than I would have If I had stayed at home. These figures are alarming when you stop to ponder tn them awhile, and after a little figur ing I find that one more night like last night will make me dead and planted five years ago day before yes terday, allowing myself the average life of 75 years and deducting for dis sipation at the rate we are led to be lieve it costs us." "Well." replied the broker, "let me tell you that if the moralists' dope is right, by adding onto my present age the number of years that I have lost through dissipation. I find that my term of existence would have had old Methuselah in the infant class. Yessir. If I had - neycr chewed, smoked or drank, and left the midnight booze supper on the table Instead of sticking It under my vest, take It from me that I d be tiie oldest inhabitant of at least six more generations, and instead of these gray halis thai you see on my dome of thought tod;y you'd see me In the nursery playing with my dolly. That is assuming that the moralists have their figures pertaining to the cost of dissipation down pat." Well." exclaimed the. Old Sport, "also assuming that the moralists' dope Is correct. If there is anything; that posterity ought to be thankful for It is that some guy Invented dissipation, so that a couple of old fools like you two wouldn't live to contaminate the future ages with your presence. It's only another proof of thu eternal fit ness of things. If booze kills people it's only the guy who hasn't got sense enough to know when to stop and Isn't worth a continental cuss to the world anyway and therefore I say that booze Joints are a beneficial institu tion and should be encouraged. Nature gave us the cigarette because we have the dude to smoke them, and the one pest exterminates the other. A lot of these long-faced moralists who try to put dissipation on the blink are simply blind to the fitness of things as pro vided by nature. Take It from mew if they'd close up the booze Joints and the- Great White Way they wouldn't be able to find enough fool killer to upply the demand.' "I guess you're right, replied the banker, "but there's one thought that Is deeply impressed on my mind this morning, and that is that If some genius would only invent something that would make wine taste a.s good coming up as it does going down he would take a thun dering lot of misery out of the world and get his name splattered all over the hall of fame. You fellows down here in the city may think that 'early to It X V i 111 A Mr n i. -C I rifti i i-v i - xri J Tl FiDDWN- TV . V V l&IflLFIND W.AMED-cMGi HEJUTHjWEAim-AND vraon 6B11ND-A- ATFiK IN' TnwM.r xtihg. j nrNTa. Ar-niDNMl-inW.-IUULLPINW lluvjuimiiiiLiim. . LAST-NIGHT CAS: SH-THE-FLYIN- THE-raDBIX-OF- bed and early to rise' is a humdrum ex istence, but I guess after all It's the dope that wins out In the stretch." i'l guess you're hooked up In a wrest ling match with Mr. R. E. Morse 'this morning, replied the Old Sport. "But getting down to cases on this "early to bed and early to rise' dope, let me tell you that the object lessons that are splattered around this old dump of a world kind of puts this dope In the scrap pile. Out in the wheat belt, where the population hits the hay when the chickens go to roost and are feed ing the stock when the gray daws gets on the Job, you'll find a lot of old mummies hobbling around on a cane before they hit the half-century mark. But you drop into a down town cafe in this wicked city at 2 A. M. and you'll butt Into a bunch of old sports on the shady side of 50 who haven't put on their first wrinkle yet and can nail the last night car on the fly in the middle of the block. "The wise guy who ripped off this slush that "early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise,' may have hugged the dope that he was injecting a little wisdom Into the world, but take It from me, it's a losing tip. Y'ou'll find a blamed sight more health, wealth and wisdom plant ed behind a slab of steak in the down town eating joints at midnight than you'll find hugging the bay in the home ranch. If you keep your lamps trimmed as you plug along the path of life, you'll notice that the city sport woo considers It a public disgrace to go to bed the same day on which he got up Is a pretty slick specimen of manhood when he hits the 50-mile stone, wnlle the bucolic citizen of the rural districts who has been trained to stampede for the haymow when the sun sets makes an Kgyptlan mummy look like a pink and white cherub by com parison at the half-century mark. "At the age when your 'early to bed and early to rise' farmer Is doing the Rip Van Winkle stunt propped up In an easy chair in the shade of the old apple tree, your night owl of a city sport is still doing the shows and splattering his presence along the Great White Way through the midnight hours, and he doesn't look ready to cash in yet either, not by a long shot. 'Now. these object lessons that we have stabbing ns in. the mug every day are a blamed sight stronger proofs than a few coined phrases that have been shoved onto posterity as a relic of the dark ages by a bunch of long-faced garret ink slingcrs with a chronic case of stu porous melancholia, and to the guy with an observant turn of mind they put a good sized crimp In the thundering lot of this 'How to live long and be happy' dope. "And let me tell you that there's a blamed good reason for It. too. These guys will hand you a wad of dope on how to be healthy and live long, and fill you up with a string of restrictions the very observance of wjiich will insert a harmful monotony into your daily life that is in itself a more killing pace than any you can cut out for yourself. They don't seem to be hep to the dreadful effects of monotony, but you can take it from me - that monotony Is responsible for a blamed sight more blighted lives and prematurely withered souls and un timely ends than porterhouse steaks and mugs of ale at midnight. And any guy can dig up examples that will prove my assertion right among his own circle of acquaintances. "There's nothting to it, the guy who chucks monotony out of the bundle of baggage that he lugs-along the path , of life Is going to have a blamed sight better chance of getting a long and pleasant Journey t,han the dub who loads himself AND EARLY TO Rl?e b IVY TfeMAL-aTIZO- YfMAHPEDEd- TOR-TE-iWWEN- . AN-EGYPnAMHriY- LOOK-LlKE-A-CHEROBr down with monotonous directions and plugs through each day like a piece of mechanism doing the same old stunts. And take my tip. fellows, an overdose of pleasure constitutes monotony just as much as an overdose of work. The guy who hits the right trail to happiness and longevity is the one who makes one divert the other. A man can't plug along through life like a clock without busting his mainspring. "Take it from me. the guy who tries to live by any set of rules, I don't give a continental cuss what they are. Is going to get through with his Job in time to give his less precise and more sporty friends a chance to buy floral offerings and float around to his darkened home and chew the rag about how natural he looks. "They can bust their larynx yelling about a sporting life being too fast a pace if they want to and they can keep right on shoveling this 'early to bed and early to rise' dope into youthful think tanks till they put the kids on the bum. for all I care, but the motto that I'll keep tacked up in the family living room reads: v 'As we plug along the path of iJi-. iri ua iivb L' tin: n a j . "Even If It were a double riveted cinch that any dub could live to be 1J0 years old by following this health and longevity dope, I'll gamble that you'll not butt into many who would want to live 1X) years If they had to plug along on that schedule. I've got a good-sized hunch that It's a blamed sflght more profitable to spend the first 60 years In freedom and happiness and the last 60 years In the cemetery than to spend the whole 1X in an exist ence of crabbed self-denial that dries up your soul till It rattles when you waTk, like a pee. In a gourd. A wrinkled face lsa mark of respect, but a wrinkled soul Is the brand of a wasted life. "For my part I'd a blamed sight rather be 50 years young than 100 years old And you can take it from me that the world gets a blamed sight more good out of the guy who is a beam of sunshine In the dark places of the earth for 50 years than it does from the long-faced old crab who has plugged along for a century without the recollection of one good time to cheer him in his old age. and who leaves a taste like a dill pickle when he shuffles off. And I've a good strong hunch that when the Recording Angel figures up the official batting averages the numler of times at bat Isn't going to cut as much ice In the standing as tlm use that has been made of these chances. "Now, fellows, I'll leave It to you. If there's any truth In the dope that 'the eve Is the window of the soul.' if there isn't a blamed sight more sunshine used In the Interior decoration of the souls of a lot of old sports that you'll find hitting It up with the boys after midnight than you can 'dig out of the system of the grouches who crawl Into their shells, llk a turtle, and live to themselves. "Take my tip. the windows of a thun dering lot of souls look out on the back alley. Ajid you'll find this the cat) usually with the misguided duhs who as they Journey along the path of life, fall to do any living along the way. For my part. I'm going to keep my soul lit up by having a bay-window opening on the park and keeping the shades rolled up to the top. and take It from me, while I m plugging along the palh of life. I'm going to live by the way. No empty husk of an existence and a crabbed old age for mine. Not on your life." A Russian Beauty Farm. Woman's L.lfe. a woaltviv Russian noticed that . many of the' recruits in the Russo-Turklsh war were Inferior in physique. He according ly established what really Is a beaut farm. He employs on his estate only the h.nrf.n,(.st and healthiest villagers. These he encourages to enter upon matrimony by free grants or land, payment ni an riage fees and an annuity of 50 rubles a year for every child born. Since the In stitution of this farm 40 model marriag-s have taken place and more than 100 chil dren have been born. Frogs Aftec Chicken-Pie. Tork Cor. Philadelphia Record. Mrs. Caroline Ferguson, living near Margaretta Furnace, had for some time been missing young chickens. Near the house is a pond and Mrs. Ferguson declares that she saw a frog leap from the water, catch a chick which had strayed near, and leap bacic again with it. The pond has since been drained and every frog, a dozen or more slain. Now no more chicks are missed. A hotel is bping built at Berlin which will be the largest in the world.
