Peck's Sunshine Part 13

SOME TALK ABOUT MONOPOLIES.

We know it is fashionable for people to talk about the great monopolies, the railroads, and show how they are sapping the life-blood from the farmers by arranging facilities for transporting wheat worth forty cents a bushel in store pay, without railroads, to a market where the farmer realizes nearly a dollar a bushel in cash.

Demagogues ring the changes on these monopolies, tell how the directors ride in palace cars and drink wine, from the proceeds of the millions of dollars invested in railroads, though they never mention the fact that the railroads have made it possible for farmers to give up driving ox teams and ride after horses that can trot in 2:40.

We presume that railroad managers like to get a pretty good dividend on their investments, but do they get a better dividend than farmers do on some of their investments? Do you know of any farmer that ever complained that his produce was selling too high? If you complain at paying eight dollars for a jag of crow's nest wood during a snow blockade, does he argue with, you, to show that he is a monopoly, or does he tell you that if you don't want the wood you needn't have it?

Now, talking of railroad men manipulating stock, and taking advantage of a raise, how is it about eggs? Within the last two months there has been the worst corner on eggs that the world has ever seen, and the dividends that farmers have received on their investments have been so enormous that they must blush for shame, unless they are a soulless corporation.

Now, for instance, a farmer paid twenty-five cents for a good average hen the 1st of December. Before the 1st of February that hen has laid five dozen eggs, which are worth two dollars and a half. Take out five cents for feed, two cents for the society that the hen has enjoyed, and there is a clear profit of two dollars and forty-three cents, and the farmer has got the hen left. Did any railroad wrecker ever make a greater percentage than that? Talk about watering stock, is it any worse than feeding a hen, to make her lay four-shilling eggs?

We have it from good authority that some farmers have actually gone so far as to bribe legislators with eggs, to prevent their pa.s.sing any law fixing a rate for the sale of eggs. This is a serious charge, and we do not vouch for it. It is probable that farmers who are sharp enough to get a corner on eggs, by which they can be run up to a fict.i.tious value, are sharp enough not to lay themselves liable for bribery by giving eggs directly to the members, but there are ways to avoid that. They can send them to the residences of the members, where they are worth their weight in gold almost.

Rich railroad owners have submitted to this soulless monopoly of the egg business as long as they can, and we learn that they have organized a state grange, with grips and pa.s.swords, and will inst.i.tute subordinate lodges all over the State to try and break up this vile business that is sapping their life-blood.

Already a bill has been prepared for introduction into the legislature to prohibit any manipulation of the egg market in the future. "Shall the farmers of the State be allowed to combine with hens and roosters and create a famine in eggs, an article of food on which so many people rely to keep soul and body together?" they ask.

Our heart has bled, in the last sixty days, as well as our pocket-book, while studying this question. We have seen men of wealth going about the streets crying for an egg to cool their parched tongues, and they have been turned away eggless, and gone to their palatial homes only to suffer untold agonies, the result of those unholy alliances between farmers and hens. They have tossed sleeplessly on their downy beds, wondering if there was no balm in Gilead, no rooster there. They have looked in vain for compa.s.sion on the part of the farmers, who haye only laughed at their sufferings, and put up the price of eggs.

The time has arrived for action on the part of the wealthy consumers of eggs, and we are glad the State grange has been formed. Let a few determined men get together in every community, and swear by the bald-headed profit that they will put down this hen monopoly or die, and after they have sworn, let them send to us for a charter for a lodge--enclosing two dollars in advance--and we will forward to them the ritual of the order.

If this thing is allowed to go on for five years these farmers will be beyond the power of the government to control. This is a grave question, and if the wealthy people do not get relief we might as well bid farewell to our American inst.i.tutions, as the liberty for which our forefathers fought will not be worth paying taxes for.

There is no person in the world who is easier to overlook the inconsistencies that show themselves on the stage at theatres than we are, but once in a while there is something so glaring that it pains us.

We have seen actors fight a duel in a piece of woods far away from any town, on the stage, and when one of them fell, pierced to the heart with a sword, we have noticed that he fell on a Brussels carpet. That is all wrong, but we have stood it manfully.

We have seen a woman, on the stage who was so beautiful that we could be easily mashed if we had any heart left to spare. Her eyes were of that heavenly color that has been written about heretofore, and her smile as sweet as ever was seen, but behind the scenes, through the wings, we have seen her trying to dig the cork out of a beer bottle with a pair of shears, and ask a supe, in harsh tones, where the cork-screw was, while she spread mustard on a piece of cheese, and finally drank the beer from the bottle, and spit the pieces of cork out on the floor, sitting astride of a stage chair, and her boot heels up on the top round, her trail rolled up into a ball, wrong side out, showing dirt from forty different stage floors.

These things hurt. But the worst thing that has ever occurred to knock the romance out of us, was to see a girl in the second act, after "twelve years is supposed to elapse," with the same pair of red stockings on that she wore in the first act, twelve years before. Now, what kind of a way is that? It does not stand to reason that a girl would wear the same pair of stockings twelve years. Even if she had them washed once in six months, they would be worn out. People notice these things.

What the actresses of this country need is to change their stockings. To wear them twelve years, even in their minds, shows an inattention to the details and probabilities of a play, that must do the actresses an injury, if not give them corns. Let theatre-goers insist that the stockings be changed oftener, in these plays that sometimes cover half a century, and the stockings will not become moth-eaten. Girls, look to the little details. Look to the stockings, as your audiences do, and you will see how it is yourselves.

A BALD-HEADED MAN MOST CRAZY.

Last Wednesday the bell to our telephone rung violently at 8 o'clock in the morning, and when we put our ear to the earaphone, and our mouth to the mouthaphone, and asked what was the matter, a still small voice, evidently that of a lady, said, "Julia has got worms, doctor."

We were somewhat taken back, but supposing Julia was going fishing, we were just going to tell her not to forget to spit on her bait, when a male voice said, "O, go to the devil, will you?" We couldn't tell whose voice it was, but it sounded like the clerk at the Plankinton House, and we sat down.

There is no man who will go further to accommodate a friend than we will, but by the great ethereal there are some things we will not do to please anybody. As we sat and meditated, the bell rung once more, and then we knew the wires had got tangled, and that we were going to have trouble all day. It was a busy day, too, and to have a bell ringing beside one's ear all day is no fun.

The telephone is a blessed thing when it is healthy, but when its liver is out of order it is the worst nuisance on record. When it is out of order that way you can hear lots of conversation that you are not ent.i.tled to. For instance, we answered the bell after it had rung several times, and a sweet little female voice said, "Are you going to receive to-morrow?" We answered that we were going to receive all the time. Then she asked what made us so hoa.r.s.e? We told her that we had sat in a draft from the bank, and it made the cold chills run over us to pay it. That seemed to be satisfactory, and then she began to tell us what she was going to wear, and asked if we thought it was going to be too cold to wear a low neck dress and elbow sleeves. We told her that was what we were going to wear, and then she began to complain that her new dress was too tight in various places that she mentioned, and when the boys picked us up off the floor and bathed our temples, and we told them to take her away, they thought we were crazy.

If we have done wrong in talking with a total stranger, who took us for a lady friend, we are willing to die. We couldn't help it. For an hour we would not answer the constant ringing of the bell, but finally the bell fluttered as though a tiny bird had lit upon the wire and was shaking its plumage. It was not a ring, but it was a tune, as though an angel, about eighteen years old, a blonde angel, was handling the other end of the transmitter, and we felt as though it was wrong for us to sit and keep her in suspense, when she was evidently dying to pour into our auricular appendage remarks that we ought to hear.

And still the bell did flut. We went to the cornucopia, put our ear to the toddy stick and said, "What ailest thou darling, why dost thy hand tremble? Whisper all thou feelest to thine old baldy." Then there came over the wire and into our mansard by a side window the following touching remarks: "Matter enough. I have been ringing here till I have blistered my hands. We have got to have ten car loads of hogs by day after to-morrow or shut down." Then there was a stuttering, and then another voice said, "Go over to Loomis' p.a.w.n shop. A man shot in"--and another voice broke in, singing, "The sweet by and by, we shall meet on that beautiful"--and another voice said--"girl I ever saw. She was riding with a duffer, and wiped her nose as I drove by in the street car, and I think she is struck after me."

It was evident that the telephone was drunk, and we went out in the hall and wrote on a barrel all the afternoon, and gave it full possession of the office.

Mr. Peck was recently extended an invitation to be present at a meeting of the Iowa Commercial Travelers' a.s.sociation, at Des Moines, and respond to the toast: "Our Wives and Sweethearts, and Little Ones at Home." He couldn't be present, but he responded all the same, in the following manner:

"That is the sweetest toast that man was ever called upon to respond to.

Very few traveling men who have good wives, loving sweethearts, and dear little children at home, sending loving messages to them, often ever stray very far from the straight and narrow path. There is no cla.s.s of men on earth that has greater temptations and better opportunities to be 'cusses on wheels' than the traveling men of the Northwest; and when I say that they stand up under it a confounded sight better than the same number of ministers or editors would, I don't want you to think I am giving you any confectionery from my sample case.

"Through snows of winter, mud of spring and fall, and heat of summer, the traveling man makes his connections and sends in his orders, and seems to enjoy religion with the best of them. But the happiest days for him and the shortest are those he spends at home with his wife, the children or sweet-heart. There can be more tears brought to the eyes of the traveling man by a little child putting its arms around his neck and saying, 'My dear, precious papa,' than could be brought out by any other press I know of, however powerful.

"I know there is occasionally a traveling man who always has his sign out ready to be mashed, but he never neglects his business for any foolish-ness. He would leave the finest country flirt that ever winked a wink to sell a bill of brown sugar on sixty days' time.

"It is said that the average traveling man will keep a whole seat in a car, and never offer to give half of it to a man, when, if a handsome woman comes in, he will fly around and divide with her. Well, who the deuce wouldn't? That shows that his heart is in the right place. A man can go into the smoking car and sit on the wood box, but a woman has got to sit down, at least that is the way I should explain it.

"Boys, may the trips become shorter each year, and the visits to the dear ones at home be extended, so that in time you may be detailed to stay at home always, with an increase of salary or an interest in the business; and, I am sure, when the time comes you will be the happiest fellows that ever had thousand mile tickets punched, and when your time comes to attend the grand banquet above, and you appear before St. Peter at the gate, and begin to open up your samples, he will simply look at your business card and turn to the clerk and say, 'Give these boys all front rooms, and see that there is a fire escape and plenty of towels, and that the rooms are aired, and then step down to the box office and reserve them some seats for the sacred concert this evening. Pa.s.s right in now and get a check for your overshoes.'"

ACCIDENTS AND INCIDENTS AT THEATRES.

Sometimes our heart bleeds for actors and actresses, when we think what they have to go through with. The other night at Watertown, N. Y., Miss Ada Gray was playing "Camille," and in the dying scene, where she breathes her last, to slow music, an accident occurred which broke her all up. She was surrounded by sorrowing friends, who were trying to do everything to make it pleasant for her, when the bed on which she was dying,--an impromptu sort of a bed got up by the stage carpenter,--tipped partly over, and the dying woman rolled over on the stage, tipped over a wash-stand filled with tumblers and bottles of medicine, and raised a deuce of a row. It would have been all right, and she could have propped the bed up and proceeded with her dying, had not the actress got rattled.

Most actresses get lost entirely when anything occurs that is not in the play, and Miss Gray was the scaredest female that ever lived. She thought it was a judgment on her for playing a dying character, and thought the whole theatre had been struck by lightning, and was going to fall down. To save herself was her first thought, so she grabbed her night-dress,--which was embroidered up and down the front, and had point lace on the yoke of the sleeves,--in both hands and started for the orchestra, the wildest corpse that ever lived.

The leader of the orchestra caught her, but not being an undertaker he did not undertake to hold her, and she fell over the ba.s.s viol and run one foot through the snare drum, and grasping the fiddle for a life-preserver she jumped into the raging scenery-back of the stage which represented a sea.

They had to pull her out with boat-hooks, and it was half an hour before she could be induced to go to bed again and proceed with her dying.

Actresses are often annoyed at the remarks made by foolish fellows in the audience. A remark by a person in the audience always causes people to laugh, whether the speaker says anything smart or not.

Recently, in the play of "Cinderella at School," a girl came out with a sheet over her, as a ghost, to frighten a young fellow who was "mashed"

on her. He looked at the ghost for a moment, and kept on lighting his cigarette, when a galloot up in the gallery said, so everybody could hear it, "He don't scare worth a d.a.m.n!" and the audience went fairly wild, while the pretty girl stood there and blushed as though her heart would break.

Such things are wrong.

Probably one of the meanest tricks that was ever, played was played on Mary Anderson. It will be remembered that in the play of "Ingomar,"

Parthenia and the barbarian have several love scenes, where they lop on each other and hug some--that is, not too much hugging, but just hugging enough. Ingomar wears a huge fur garment, made of lion's skin, or something. One day he noticed that the moths were getting into it, and he told his servant to see about the moths, and drive them out. The servant got some insect powder and blowed the hair of the garment full of it, and scrubbed the inside of it with benzine.

Ingomar put it on just before he went on the stage, and thought it didn't smell just right, but he had no time to inquire into it. He had not got fairly in his position, before Parthenia came out on a hop, skip and jump, and threw herself all over him. She got one lung full of insect powder, and the other full of benzine, and as she said, "Wilt always love me, Ingomar?" she dropped her head over his shoulder, and said in an aside, "For the love of heaven, what have you been drinking?"

and then sneezed a couple times.

Ingomar held her up the best he could, considering that his nose was full of insect powder, and he answered: