Life — June 30, 1887 — page 7: what you’re looking at

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

A HINT TO OUR YOUTHFUL READERS. It’s A VERY GOOD PLAN TO LOOSEN YOUR HOLD AFTER A SKY-ROCKET IS FAIRLY LIGHTED. RETURNING THE SCALPS. THE SHOSHONE NATION WAS CONVULSED WITH A CYCLONE OF PATRIOTIC INDIGNATION. HIEF PAIN-IN-THE-BACK, of the Shoshone nation, recently promulgated the following order: It is hereby ordered that all scalps taken from white men shall be | returned to their owners, if said owners are living; and the scalps of deceased people shall be sent to the nearest of kin to the hairless lamented. This is proper in view of the firmly established peace sub- sisting between the Shoshone nation and the Department of the | These trophies are now decaying in the corn-crib of the They were numbered and checked as they were scalp may be ascertained IN-IN-THE-BACK. Interior. Medicine Man. acquired, and the proper designation of each without much trouble. (Signed) PA The above order created the wildest excitement, and indignation meetings were immediately held. At one of these Captain Blue- Puppy, a gallant Sioux who lost an ear in the Custer Massacre and afterwards married into the Shoshone nation, jumped upon a hickory stump, and exclaimed, in an earthquake voice : ‘« Scalped be the head that conceived the sacrilege! Whoo-ah! whoop !! whow!!! It shall not be done!” That enterprising newspaper, the Shoshone Lightning-Bug at once dispatched reporters through the nation, who garnered the sentiments of the leading braves. “It is an qutrage to every Shoshone brave that ever took a scalp,” said Billy Back-Step ; “this reconciliation talk may do very well for | the squaw-hearted slumgullions who hoed corn and dug fishing-worms while the daring bully boys were harvesting hair and glory, and steal- | ing horses. What are you going to do with reconciliation, anyhow ? You can't eat it, or sleep on it, or wad your gun with it, or realize on it at a pawnshop. Let the scalps alone. They are doing very well where they are.” Sprung-in-the-Knee was more conciliatory. the-Back’s order,” he said. ‘ The white people are getting so numer- ous and pestiferous that I'm in favor of peace and reconciliation. We've got to let up on the Pale Faces, or there will not be enough of “T approve Pain-in- | | us left to feed a kitten, For this reason I’m in favor of white-winged | peace. I have a lot of scalps which I would like to swap for a few | mink-skins, or I'd be willing to sell them for twenty-five cents a-piece | on the instalment plan.” Hamfat Bow-Knot savagely resented the order for restoration. “It's a —— —— shame!” he began, as he handed the reporter a cigar, and requested him to omit interjections and exclamatory expletives in reporting the interview; ‘‘ who's to receive the scalps, anyhow? The men who lost them haven't asked for them, They are our scalps. If anybody wants them, let him sue us. I have one Italian-sunset scalp which I took from a sleeping Irishman, ‘ thinking him dead,’ and I'd like to see any knoct ‘:need, splay-footed, brass- head chief get it; and if he ever tries it, one of us will have to go to the bone-yard. I think that Pain-in-the-Back ought to be chopped up with a dull broad axe for a soap factory.” At last accounts the indignant Shoshones were guarding the Medicine Man's corn-crib to prevent Chief Pain-in-the-Back from purloining the scalps from the national strong-box. aM. JUST HIS LUCK. SHOT an arrow into the air, It fell to earth—I knew not where ; But shortly after a man came round, And—I bought a dead dog at a dollar a pound. QUEEN'S JUBILEE NOTE. T is said that the clerk of the robes in a Boston natato- rium is to be made night commander of the bath. NECK OR NOTHING: A society bud. Nota BENE! [Boston sign] — This restaurant closed. comicbooks.com