Peck's Sunshine Part 26

And then he will die, and G.o.d will continue business at the old stand.

THE GREAT MONOPOLIES.

There is an a.s.sociation of old fossils at New York calling themselves the "Anti-Monopoly League," that has taken the job on their hands of saving the country from eternal and everlasting ruin at the hands of the gigantic monopolies, the railroads, and this league, through its President, L. E. Chittenden, is sending editorials and extracts from speeches delivered by great men who have been refused pa.s.ses, or who have not been retained by railroads to conduct law suits as much as they think they ought to be, to newspapers all over the country requesting their publication.

_The Sun_ gets its regular share of these doc.u.ments each week, which go into the waste basket with a regularity that is truly remarkable, considering that we are not a railroad monopoly. But there is something so ridiculous about these articles that one cannot help laughing. They claim that the country is in the grasp of the gigantic monopolies, and that they will choke the country to death and ruin everybody, though what the object can be in running the country and everybody in it, is not stated.

These monopolies have taken the country when it was as weak as gruel, and hoisted it by the slack of the pants to the leading position among nations. The monopolies have built their track all over G.o.d's creation, where land could not be given away, have hauled emigrants out there and set them up in business, and made the waste land of the government valuable. They have made transportation so cheap that the emigrant from Germany of last year can send wheat from Dakota to the Fatherland, and Bismarck and King William can get it cheaper than they can wheat grown within a mile of their castles.

These monopolies that the played out nine-spot anti-monopoly leagues are howling against have made the country what it is, and if there is anybody in this country that don't like it, they can get emigrant tickets and go to Germany or Norway and take the places of the men that the monopolies are causing to settle here. Of course we could all run railroads better than the owners run them, but as long as we have not got money enough to buy them we better shut up our yap and let Jay Gould and his fellows do what they please with their own, as long as they permit the country to prosper as it is prospering now. The anti-monopoly leaguers had better go to driving street cars.

ANOTHER DEAD FAILURE.

Again we are called upon to apologize to our readers for advertising what we had reason to expect would occur at the time advertised, but which failed to show up. We allude to the end of the world which was to have taken place last Sunday.

It is with humility that we confess that we were again misled into believing that the long postponed event would take place, and with others we got our things together that we intended to take along, only to be compelled to unpack them Monday morning.

Now this thing is played out, and the next time any party advertises that the world will come to an end, we shall take no stock in it. And then it will be just our luck to have the thing come to an end, when we are not prepared. There is the worst sort of mismanagement about this business somewhere, and we are not sure but it is best to allow G.o.d to go ahead and attend to the closing up of earthly affairs, and give these fellows that figure out the end of all things with a slate and pencil the grand bounce.

It is a dead loss to this country of millions of dollars every time there is a prediction that the world will come to an end, because there are lots of men who quit business weeks beforehand and do not try to earn a living, but go lunching around. We lost over fifteen dollars'

worth of advertising last week from people who thought if the thing was going up the flue on Sunday there was no use of advertising any more, and we refused twenty dollars' worth more because we thought if that was the last paper we were going to get out we might as well knock off work Friday and Sat.u.r.day and go and catch a string of perch. The people have been fooled about this thing enough, and the first man that comes around with any more predictions ought to be arrested.

People have got enough to worry about, paying taxes, and buying strawberries and sugar, to can, without feeling that if they get a tax receipt the money will be a dead loss, or if they put up a cellar full of canned fruit the world will tip over on it and break every jar and bust every tin can.

Hereafter we propose to go right along as though the world was going to stay right side up, have our hair cut, and try and behave, and then if old mother earth shoots off into s.p.a.ce without any warning we will take our chances with the rest in catching on to the corner of some pa.s.sing star and throw our leg over and get acquainted with the people there, and maybe start a funny paper and split the star wide open.

OUR BLUE-COATED DOG POISONERS.

"Papa, the cruel policeman has murdered little Gip! He sneaked up and frowed a nice piece of meat to Gip, and Gip he eated it, and fanked the policeman with his tail, and runned after him and teased for more, but the policeman fought Gip had enough, and then Gip stopped and looked sorry he had eaten it, and pretty soon he laid down and died, and the policeman laughed and went off feeling good. If Dan Sheehan was the policeman any more he wouldn't poison my dog, would he, pa?"

The above was the greeting the bald-headed _Sun_ man received on Thursday, and a pair of four-year-old brown eyes were full enough of tears to break the heart of a policeman of many years' standing, and the little, crushed master of the dead King Charles spaniel went to sleep sobbing and believing that policemen were the greatest blot upon the civilization of the nineteenth century.

Here was a little fellow that had from the day he first stood on his feet after the scarlet fever had left him alive, been allowing his heart to become entwined with love for that poor little dog. For nearly a year the dog had been ready to play with the child when everybody else was tired out, and never once had the dog been cross or backed out of a romp, and the laughter and the barking has many a time been the only sound of happiness in the neighborhood.

If the boy slept too long after dinner, the dog went and rooted around him as much as to say, "Look a here, Mr. Roy, you can't play this on your partner any longer. You get up here and we will have a high old time, and don't you forget it." And pretty soon the sound of baby feet and dog's toe nails would be heard on the stairs, and the circus would commence.

If the dog slept too long of an afternoon, the boy would hunt him out, take hold of his tail with one hand, and an ear with the other, and lug him into the parlor, saying, "Gip, too much sleep is what is ruining the dogs in this country. Now, brace up and play horse with me." And then there was fun.

Well, it is all over; but while we write there is a little fellow sleeping on a tear-stained pillow, dreaming, perhaps, of a heaven where the woods are full of King Charles' spaniel dogs, and a doorkeeper stands with a club to keep out policemen. And still we cannot blame policemen--it is the law that is to blame--the wise men who go to the legislature, and make months with one day too much, pa.s.s laws that a dog shall be muzzled and wear a bra.s.s check, or he is liable to go mad.

Statistics show that not one dog in a million ever goes mad, and that they are more liable to go mad in winter than in summer; but several hundred years ago somebody said that summer was "dog days," and the law-makers of this enlightened nineteenth century still insist on a wire muzzle at a season of the year when a dog wants air and water, and wants his tongue out.

So we compel our guardians of the peace to go around a.s.sa.s.sinating dogs.

Men, who as citizens, would cut their hands off before they would injure a neighbor's property, or speak harsh to his dog, when they hire out to the city must stifle all feelings of humanity, and descend to the level of Paris scavengers. We compel them to do this. If they would get on their ears and say to the city of Milwaukee, "We will guard your city, and protect you from insult, and die for you if it becomes necessary; but we will see you in hades before we will go around a.s.sa.s.sinating dogs," we as a people, would think more of them, and perhaps build them a decent station house to rest in.

The dog law is as foolish as the anti-treating law, and if it were not enforced, no harm would be done. Our legislators have to pa.s.s about so many laws anyway, and we should use our judgment about enforcing them.

But the dog is dead, and the little man meditates a terrible revenge. He is going to have a goat that can whip a policeman, he says; then there will be fun around the parsonage.

AND HE ROSE UP AND SPAKE.

As a general thing railroad men are "pretty fly," as the saying is, and not very apt to be scared. But a case occurred up on the La Crosse division of the St. Paul road last week that caused a good deal of hair to stand.

The train from St. Paul east runs to La Crosse, where all hands are changed, and the new gang run to Chicago. On the trip of which we speak there was placed in the baggage car at St. Paul a coffin, and at Lake City a parrot in a cage was put in. Before the train got to Winona other baggage was piled on top, so the coffin only showed one end, and the parrot cage was behind a trunk, next to the barrel of drinking water, out of sight, and where the cage would not get jammed. At La Crosse the hands were changed, and conductor Fred Cornes, as 6:35 arrived, shouted his cheery "All aboard," and the train moved off. The coffin was seen by all the men in the baggage car, and a solemnity took possession of everybody. Railroad men never feel 'entirely happy when a corpse is on the train.

The run to Sparta was made, and Fred went to the baggage car, and noticing the coffin and the mournful appearance of the boys, he told them to brace up and have some style about them He said it was what we had all to come to, sooner or later, and for his part a corpse or two, more or less, in a car made no difference to him. He said he had rather have a car load of dead people than go into an emigrant train when some were eating cheese and others were taking off their shoes and feeding infants.

He sat down in a chair and was counting over his tickets, and wondering where all the pa.s.ses come from, when the Legislature is not in session.

The train was just going through the tunnel near Greenfield, and Fred says.

"Boys, we are now in the bowels of the earth, way down deeper than a grave. Whew! how close it smells."

Just then the baggagemaster had taken a dipper of water from the barrel, and was drinking it, when a sepulchral voice, that seemed to come from the coffin, said:

"Dammit, let me out!"

The baggage man had his mouth fall of water, and when he heard the voice from the tombs, he squirted the water clear across the car, onto the express messenger, turned pale, and leaned against a trunk.

Fred Cornes heard the noise, and, chucking the tickets into his pocket and grabbing his lantern, he said, as he looked at the coffin:

"Who said that! Now, no ventriloquism on me, boys. I'm an old traveler, and don't you fool with me."

The baggage man had by this time got his breath, and he swore upon his sacred honor that the corpse in there was alive, and asked to be let out.

Fred went out of the car to register at Greenfield, and the express messenger opened the door to put out some egg cases, and the baggage man pulled out a trunk. He was so weak he couldn't lift it. They were all as pale as a whitewashed fence.

After the train left Greenfield they all gathered in the car and listened at a respectful distance from the coffin. All was as still as a car can be that is running twenty-five miles an hour. They gathered a little nearer, but no noise, when Cornes said they were all off their base, and had better soak their heads.

"You fellows are overworked, and are nervous, The company ought to give you a furlough, and pay your expenses to the sea sh.o.r.e."

Just then there was a rustling as if somebody had rolled over in bed and a voice said, as plainly as possible:

"O, how I suffer!"

If a nitro-glycerine bomb had exploded there could not have been more commotion. The express man rushed forward, and was going to climb over into the tender of the engine, the baggage man started for the emigrant car to see if there was anybody from the place in Germany that his hired girl came from, and Cornes happened to think that he had not collected fare from an Indian that got on at Greenfield with a lot of muskrat skins. In less than four seconds the corpse and parrot were the sole occupants of the car. The three train men and a brakeman met in the emigrant car and looked at each other.

They never said a word for about two minutes, when Fred opened the ball.