Judge — February 4, 1922 — page 19: what you’re looking at

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

The Late Mr. Crusoe CRUSOE, on his lonely isle, R surveyed the prospect with a © smile. His faithful Friday by him stood—he, too, was in a cheer- ful mood. “This is the life,” R. Crusoe cried, the while his bosom swelled with pride; “to quote Bill Cowper, I'm the boss of fowl! and brute, of cow and hoss; I'm monarch of all things I see, and no Buttinskis bother me. To my own laws I bow and yield, and when they're stale they are repealed. I am the copper and the court, I am the lawyer and the tort; I am the prison and the writ; in everything I'm surely It. “In those punk lands beyond the sea men talk about their liberty; their fathers fought for sundry boons which weren't worth their weight in prunes. Oh, Friday, when I lived out there I used to weep and wring my hair, I used to gnash my costly teeth and wet with tears the floor beneath. They have a million laws, I ween, and none can tell you what they mean; one lawyer says they're meaning this, and he just makes a guess, I wis; another says they're meaning that, and he is talking through his hat. “I tried to walk the narrow way, but peelers pinched me every day. Although I always did my best, I knocked some statute galley west; my friends grew tired of going bail to get my person out of jail. Oh, every fellow wanted laws to help his private, selfish cause; and neighbors wanted statutes fremed, that other neighbors might be lamed; and legis- lators tried their best to answer every By Watt Mason Illustration by Ravet: Barton man’s behest, and so the laws were multiplied till good old-fashioned free- dom died. No man could ply a rusty saw and know he didn’t break a law. “But here, amid these virgin woods, I am the law, I am the goods. And when I drive my billy goat, or choo- choo in my henry-boat, no copper with a star of tin climbs on my form and runs me in. “Oh, Friday, in the crowded marts the tax collectors break men’s hearts. They tax the poet for his pomes; they chase the workmen to their homes; they take a slice of all we've earned, and then the coin is boldly burned. The hard-earned bucks are thrownaway, as hired men, with their forks, throw NX > tap hay. The governments, that groan and creak, use up a billion bucks a week; and men would think them much too dear if they cost twenty bones a year. Ah, Friday, poor be- sotted dub, you've roamed these islands with a club, and never mixed with men who sweat to pay a nation’s bulging debt. You've never yearned, in bleak despair, to lift a tax col- lector’s hair. You've never sighed, in deepest woe, to lay a bald assessor low. “Amid these sylvan solitudes a man may live in joyous moods. No candi- date, with silver throat, instructs me how to cast my vote No agent seeks me where I dwell, to boost the works of Harold Bell. And no reformer to me trips to jerk the briar from my lips. I am the ruler and the ruled, I am the cooler and the cooled; I am the sheriff and his star, I am the chuffer and the car. I am the singer and the sung, I am the barrel and the bung; and any man who'd rescue me, and bear me back across the sea will have to put up such a scrap as never yet adorned the map.” HE MUST BE ECONOMICAL “They say the director of this com- pany tries to keep the expenses down as much as possible. Is that true?” “It certainly is! He saved the price of an extra yesterday by playing the part of a good-natured man!” BUT IT'S MUCH LIKE IT It isn't the money that a man mar- ries that talks. THE GAY THOROUGHFARE It must require a lot of traffic cops on the path of the tvansgressor.