The So-called Human Race Part 18

At his usual hour Lord Did-More rose-- Renewed completely by repose-- His pleasant duty to rehea.r.s.e Of oiling up the universe.

Casting a glance aloft, he saw That, yielding to a natural law, The sun obediently moved Precisely as he had approved.

If mundane things would only run As regularly as the Sun!

But Earth's affairs, less nicely planned, Require Lord Did-More's guiding hand.

This day, outside Lord Did-More's door, There waited patiently a score Of diplomats from far and near Who sought his sympathetic ear.

Each brought to him, that he might scan, The latest governmental plan, And begged of him a word or two Approving what it hoped to do.

Lord Did-More nodded, smiled or frowned, Some word of praise or censure found, Withheld or added his "O. K."

And sent the ministers away.

These harmonized and sent away, Lord Did-More finished up his day By focusing his cosmic brain On our political campaign.

And night and morning, thro' the land, The public prints at his command Proclaimed, in type that fairly burst, The doughty deeds of Did-More Hearst.

THE SECOND POST.

[From a genius in Geneseo, Ill.]

Dear sir: I am the champion Cornhusker I have given exhibitions in different places and theater managers and moveing picture men have asked me why I dont have my show put into moves (Film). I beleave it would make a very interesting Picture. We could have it taken right in the Cornfield and also on the stage. It would be very interesting for farmer boys and would be a good drawing card in small towns. I beleave we could make 1000 feet of it by showing me driveing into the field with my extra made wagon. then show them my style and speed of husking and perheps let a common husker husk a while. I could also give my exibition on the stage in a theater includeing the playing of six or eight different Instruments. For instence when I plow with a traction engine or tresh I also lead bands and Orchestra's.

There is a stage in almost everybody's musical education when Chopin's Funeral March seems the most significant composition in the world.

The two stenogs in the L coach were discussing the opera. "I see," said one, "that they're going to sing 'Flagstaff.'" "That's Verdi's latest opera," said the other. "Yes," contributed the gentleman in the adjacent seat, leaning forward; "and the scene is laid in Arizona."

Mr. Shanks voxpops that traffic should be relieved, not prevented, as "the automobile is absolutely important in modern business life." Now, the fact is that the automobile has become a nuisance; one can get about much faster and cheaper in the city on Mr. Shanks' w. k. mare. Life to-day is scaled to the automobile, whereas, as our gossip Andy Rebori contends, it ought to be scaled to the baby carriage. Many lines of industry are short of labor because this labor has been withdrawn for the care of automobiles.

"Do you remember," asks a fair correspondent (who protests that she is only academically fair), "when we used to read 'A Shrops.h.i.+re Lad,' and A. E., and Arthur Symons, and Yeats? And you used to print so many of the beautiful things they wrote?" Ah, yes, we do remember; but that, my dear, was a long, long time ago, in the period which has just closed, as Bennett puts it. How worth while those things used to seem, and what pleasant days those were. Men say that they will come again. But men said that Arthur would come again.

Our method: We select only things that interest us, a.s.suming that other people will be interested; if they are not--why, chacun a son gout, as the cannibal king remarked, adding a little salt. We printed "The Spires of Oxford" a long time ago because it interested us exceedingly.

A valued colleague quotes the emotional line--

"This is my own, my native land!"--

as palliation, if not justification, for the "simple, homely, and comprehensive adjuration, 'Own Your Own Home.'" We acknowledge the homeliness and comprehensiveness, but we deny the value of poetic testimony. Said Dr. Johnson:

"Let observation with extensive view Survey mankind from China to Peru,"

which, De Quincey or Tennyson declared, should have run: "Let observation with extended observation observe mankind extensively."

Poets and tautology go walking like the Walrus and the Carpenter.

BOLSHEVISM OF LONG AGO.

"A radical heaven is a place where every man does what he pleases, and there is a general division of property every Sat.u.r.day night."--George S. Hillard (1853).

_LULLABY._

_In Woodman, Wis., the Hotel Lull Is where a man may rest his skull.

All care and fret is void and null When one puts up at Hotel Lull.

Ah, might I wing it as a gull Unto the mansion kept by Lull-- By W. K. Lull, the w. k. Lull, Who greets the guests at Hotel Lull._

"A thing of beauty is a joy forever." But if, miraculously, it happens in Chicago, it can, despite the poet's word, "pa.s.s into nothingness."

The old Field Museum, seen beneath a summer moon, when the mist is on the lake, is as beautiful as anything on the earth's crust. Not to preserve the exterior were a sin against Beauty, which is the unforgivable sin.

"LEMME UP, DARLING! LEMME UP!"

[From the Detroit Free Press.]

My advertis.e.m.e.nt of Feb. 24 was error. I will be responsible for my wife's debts.

Leo Tyo.

"I'll make the Line some day or jump into Great Salt Lake," warns C. W. O. Pick out a soft spot, friend. We jumped into it one day and sprained an ankle.

Alice in Cartoonland.

I.