"Ghoulish Glee," Bucyrus, O., writes: "For two years I have been sending a copy of my paper, the 'Palladium and Observer' to President Cleveland. Although I have criticised his administration editorially several times, I have done so with the best of motives and certainly for his good. If he was angry with me for this, he surely has never so expressed himself to me, but last August I sent him a bill for his paper covering two years and over, and he has not answered my letter up to this date. Will you answer this through the columns of the Daily News telling me what I had better do, and so that others who may be in the same fix can understand what your advice would be in such a case?"
Stop his paper. By all means deprive him of the paper. You should have done so before. Then you will feel perfectly free to criticise his administration to the bitter end.
Nothing startles a president any more than to shut off a paper that he has become attached to. Mr. Cleveland will go out and paw around in the wet grass in front of the white house, and finally he will go in, wondering what has become of the Palladium and Observer. In a week or two he will remit and tell you to continue sending the paper. Do not criticise his administration too severely till you see whether he is going to remit or not.
Early Rose, Mankato, Minn., writes: "Is it proper to mark passages in a book of poems loaned to one by a young man in whom one feels an interest, or should one be content with simply expressing one's admiration of certain passages in the book?"
I think the latter plan would be preferable, Rose. I am sure that young ladies make a great mistake when they mark the earnest and impassioned passages in a book of poems belonging to another. I once loaned a book of poems written by a gentleman named Swinburne. In this book Mr. Swinburne had several times expressed himself as being violently in love with all the works of nature, especially those people who differed with him in the matter of sex. He wrote so fluently and so earnestly regarding the matter of love that I loaned the book to a young lady, hoping that she would take this as a vicarious expression of my sentiments. It was a costly book, and so when it came back with Mr. Swinburne's sentiments emphasized by means of a blue pencil, and his earnest thoughts underscored with a crochet hook, punctuated with tears, and stabbed with a hair-pin, I regretted it very much. I was led to believe, also, by rereading the book, that she was in the habit of perusing it at the breakfast table, and that she was a victim of the omelet habit.
Do not mark a borrowed book unless you have more friends than you can avail yourself of.
Savant, Tailholt, Ind.: You can get Indian arrow-heads now almost anywhere except on the frontier. A good hand-made Indian arrow head is now made in Connecticut, and the prices are not exorbitant. I believe that if you can get manufacturers' rates, delivered on board the cars at New Haven, you can secure enough Indian arrow-heads for $25 to fresco the sides of a house. See that the name of the manufacturer is burned in the shank of each.
You will have no more trouble in securing Indian skulls. The manufacture of Indian skulls has not arrived at that degree of perfection which we hope for it in the future. You can get an Indian skull made of celluloid now that looks quite nice and ghastly, or you can secure a bear's nose made of hard rubber, with pores in it and little drops of perspiration standing out on it. These noses have been used with great success in securing bounty in the New England states, and several counties in Maine have a large stock of rubber bear noses on which they have paid large bounties, and which they would now sell at a great sacrifice.
Aztec pottery excavated from old mounds in the southwest can now be purchased in any large city or made to order at the leading potteries of the country.
Niagarn Plummer, Tutewler's Crossing, Tenn., asks: "Is it proper to use the following expression, which was made in our colored debating society three weeks ago? If you will answer this inquiry you will confer a blessing on two young ladies who's got a bet up on the question. The expression we agree was as follows:
'He's entitled to pay me for them pair of license.'
"I claim that the word 'them' should be 'those,' while my friend Miss Bonesette Jackson says that the sentence is correct. Which is incorrect?"
Where both have done so well it is hard to say which is the more incorrect. I will withhold my opinion till your debating society puts in an evening devoted to the discussion of this question. Please let me know when it will occur, as I would like to be there.
Etiquette, Chicago, Ill., asks: "Will you answer through the columns of the Daily News what remedy you would prescribe for the great nuisance while traveling of being compelled to wait all the forenoon for the female fiend who monopolizes one end of the sleeping car half of the time and the other end of the car the other half. I am a lady, and nothing tends to discourage my efforts in trying to continue such like this constant contact with the average female brute who bolts herself into the ladies' dressing room in a sleeper and remains there all the forenoon calcimining her purple nose and striving to beautify her chaotic features. Do tell us what you would suggest."
That is a question I have been called upon to settle before, but I am still worrying over it. I do not think we ought to fritter away our time on the tariff and other remote matters until we have, once for all, met and settled this vital question which lies so near to every heart.
I have seen a large woman take her teeth in one hand and a shawl-strap full of hair in the other and adjourn to the ladies' dressing room at Camp Douglas and finally emerge therefrom, with a smooch of prepared chalk over each eye, at Winona. All that time half a dozen ladies in the car gnawed their under lips and tried to look happy. I have known a timid young lady to lose her breakfast because this same ogress, with bristles along the back of her neck, as usual moved into the dressing-room and lived there till the train reached its destination and the dining-car was detached.
Some day this dressing-room will be made on the plan of a large concertina, operated by means of clockwork, and after this venerable hyena has laundered herself and primped and beautified and upholstered herself and waxed her mustache, and insulted the plate-glass mirror for an hour or two by constantly compelling it to reflect her features, the walls of the apartment will gradually approach each other, and when that woman is removed she will look like the battle of Gettysburg.
