Judge — October 31, 1885 — page 4: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

HE Potter House of Chicago is very popular with travelling men no doubt, but when Gas Cusby made the statement that at least three-fourths of our fellow guests challenged him to prove it. he would and did. First, be privately secured the ser- vices of Mr. Cato Washington, the colored gentleman who ministered tothe needs of those who sat at our table, a person admirably suited to his purp Mr. Washington was wonderfully equipped as to lungs, and more im- portant still, was provided with a pair of evs so fearfully and wonderfully crossed that no living man could tell whether he was viewing the land- scape before him or scanning the country directly in his rear. Indeed, as he confided to Gus onthe quiet, when he was a small boy struggling with his early education he frequently found it most ficult because of his peculiar vision, to determine « tisfacte whether he was going to school or coming away from school. ‘The deal being properly fixed, Cusby’s dusky agent rushed into the dining room at an hour when it was well filled, and announced in a voice that would make the fortune of pool sellers: A gemman is in de rotundah, sah. His name is Smif, and ants to look at your line, sah. He says he is going to buy a big bill and can’t wait.” The words were hardly out of Cato’s mouth when every man at our table, including Josh and me and four-fifths of the other ¢ cupants of the room as well, dropped their knives and forks ant made a break for the door, not a man of us doubting for a mo- ment that the waiter was looking at him and that he was the man Mr. Smith had called for. Together we crowded down the stairs, each man undoubtedly wondering what the deuce the other fel- lows meant by interfering with his trade. Swarming into the ro- tunda, all hands began yelling “Smith! Smith!” at the top of their lungs, rushing about wildly the while in search of the im- aginary buyer, much to the astonishment of the clerks, porters and loungers. Josh Brown and I were quic next he had lost one of his Gus said y separated. When I saw him sleeves and his necktie had shifted around under his left ear. Nevertheless, he was on deck and in working order. In company with a hundred other enthusiastic drummers, he was howling quantities, qualities and prices for all he was worth in the direction of the terrified looking old gentleman who was perched on a table in the centre of the mob. ‘This poor creature had, it seems, unwisely admitted that his name was Smith, that he had been born a Smith, and wasn’t the least bit ashamed of it, either. A half adozen drummers hearing the statement and each fakir feeling confident that here was the man who had sent for him, started in to sell that ‘big bill.” © Much dismayed and badly scared by the onset his unwise acknowledgment had brought on him, Mr. Smith, to get away from his nearest tormentors, climbed onto a chair and fron thence mounted a table aroand which the crowd of excited drummers eurged and shouted. The men on the outside exerted themselves manfully to penetrate to the inner circle, even going 80 far, in some instances, a8 to attempt clambering over the heads of those immediately in front of them. When the picture that was then spread before me, co:nes back, as it often does, my heart glows with honest pride. Where is to be found a profession whercof the members show an equal ‘ dilli- gence in business; a more determined ‘Git there, Eli,” senti- ment than in mine? With the rest, I struggled to get at Mr. Smith, with all my strength and only backed out after a four hundred pound shoe- were drummers, [° blacking drummer had danced on my feet until they felt as if they were flattened over a couple of square yards of the marble flooring. From a convenient window sill, to which I had painfully dragged myself, I looked down on a mass of struggling, shouting drummer: Josh Brown had achoice position in the bald-headed row, so to speak, and stood his ground, wlthough one man with his arm around his neck was trying to choke him, while several others were yanking at his coat-tails vigorously. “Til close you out a line of sutin-lined casket ewt., Smith, I'll make it ten and five off trade, bawled. “Mine is the choicest line of chewing gum in the country. Let me put you down fora few s on memorandum,” inter rupted a small man in muffled tones, his silk hat having been pre- at $17.00 per regular,” he | viously smashed down over his face. “You can’t do better than lay in astock of our concert-grand jews-harps, Mr. Smith. I hold the certificates of Patti, Cam- panini and Wenry Hard Beecher, |——” * What does Smith want of jews-harp at my Patent Burglar Alarm Carpet Tacks. sell you the territory for © Only 62 1-2 cents per yard, freight to Chicago prepaid-—— st quality of strained rubber, Smith, my Ie came here to look Tsay, Mr. Smith, Pll 1d bunions—— O, Smith! Hullo, Smith! very fakir yelled the merits of his wares, hustled elbow, and tried his prettiest to. climb ‘over the tely in front of him or el shouting “ Smith! Smith!” waving his arms in the air in earnest attempts to attract the attention of the poor devil on the table. After Bedlam had |. some twenty minutes, the clerks sum- moned by telephone id a fire engine. A heavy stream of water properly directed scattered the crowd and then the officers with uplifted clubs made a rush for the man on the table. After having comfortably thumped him, the cuffs were judiciously clapped on, and he was triumphantly escorted by his captives to the nearest station, 1 afterwards learned that the next day before a police justice and charged by th the squad that had cffected his arr person, and contempt of court. + Committed for trial,” decided the judge, promptly. In due time, an intelligent jury of Mr. Smith's fellow citizens, endorsed the opinions of the police judge and the Grand jury, who found a tree bill, and the poor man, who gave his occupation Leat captain and his residence as Salt Lake City, was sen- to twenty-five years imprisonment on each of the three ter to be hung by the neck until he might sce Mr. Smith was brought ‘aptain in command of t, with arson, larceny from the Of course, Gus Cusby was slightly to blame for Smith’s sad end—Gus and Mr. Cato Washington. Still, as Cusby said in pal- liation: **No offense against mankind can be blacker, human nature cannot descend to lower depths, nothing more villianously vile can be charged against a man than that he should deliberately choose tobe born a Smith, unless perhaps the still more shameful sin, that, having so terribly criminated himself, he should allow any body to find it out.” L. L. LANG, Briefs Submitted. The auctioners have such a more-bid desire fora raise that they are always striking—with their hammers. The Chinese still believe in the philosopher’s stone. Such an effete notion will do for the slow-going Orientals; but Western philosophers have long since discarded the stone and substituted a Hock in its pla ‘They generally wear the block on their shoul- “Selkirk,” cried a West-shore brakeman, as the train halted Lefore a solitary building. “Eh, what did he say the parrot nose “Selkirk,” growled the billions-looking party on the opposite seat. “Oh, I see,” mused the old man, eying the lonely station from inquired the fussy old gentleman with end toend, ‘ I see, monarch of all it surveys.” comicbooks.com