The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1870-06-23

oracular Srofundity Of agricultural editors
Who know it al ln fact one Of lily cog-
respondents suggests this for thar a4uarpy
sqUib has deluged me Wi.h ler.5'- about
potatoes, and caLbages, and l. ulay and
cermicelli, and maccaroni, and aIl jhe other
fruits, cereals and vegetables that ever grew
on earth and II | get through answering
questions about tae best way of raising
these things before 90 Taying crazy, 1
shall be thanblul, and shall never write
obscurity for FIN any more)
Shall | tel. Jhe reason Why | have unin-
tentionally succeeded IN fooliug so many
/ peoplel 1t Is because some OF them read
only little oi tie sguib ! wrote. aud jump
"a 10 lhe eonc.usl5a hat it was serious, and
the rest did not fead it at ali, but heard of
my agricultural venture at secondhand
Those eases | could not guard against, Of
course. 70 write bUrlesque so wild that
its pretended facts VIII hot be accepted In
. perfect good taltl by somebody, Is very
nearly an impossible thing 10 DO. Il Is
/ because, Ia some Instances. the reader Is a
. person who never tries to deceive ANYBODY
/ himself, aud thCniUTc Is not expecting one
I to wantonly practice a deception upOn him.:
and in this case tie only person 3ishonoyed
/ Is the man who wrote the bur!esque, In
other instances tie 'nub, or mortal OF
I the burlesque-itHts : object be to euioIce a
/ truth-eScapcs uolce III The superior glare
/ OF something in the body Of the buIlesque
itself And very often this moral Is
tagged on at the bottom, and the reader.
! not knowing that i is the key Of the whole
/ thing, and the o,lg important pa. sraph
( in the article, TRANQUILITY turns up his nose
at 1t, and leaves il unread. One can de-
! liver satire with telling force through the
Iusl5l0uS medium 1f q travesty, aud so bury
it from the reader -bt, and .eaya him
jOhed and defIaU..l victim, when the hon
est ictent was to add 10 either his kn0wl-
edge o. his wisdom. / have had deal of
experience in bur,esqaes and their UuiOrtu-
nate aptness to deceive the public, and this
is why | tried hard 10 make that agricutur-
4; one 50 broad and 50 perfectly ralpablc
that even one eyed potato could see il
and yet as | speak tie solemn truth, it
fooled one Of the abtest agricultural editors
in America
THE PETRFIED MAN.
Now, TO show how really hard it is to
toist moral or truth upon an uususpect-
Ing public through a burIcsQae without
cntreI! and at>urI!y missing oue's mark, |
VIII here set down two experiences Of my
own ia tins thing Ia the fall OF 1862, in
Nevada and Cali ornia tho people got 10
running wlli ABOUT extraordinary nctrlGca-
tons and other natural marve!s. O1e could
pick up paper without finding IN i one
or two glonHed discoveries Of this kind
The NAME was becoming littie riIicuiou>
vas bran new local editor in Virginia
jIty, and / felt called upon to destroy TINS
growing evIii We all have oar bcngnant.
iathery moods at one tine or another, /
suppose. J. chose To xiii the pcuIicati0n
mania with delicate, a very delicate, satire
bat may be 1t was altogether too delicate
Tor nobody ever perceived Che satire part of
II at all. put my scheme in the shape Of
the discovery OF remarkable pcU!I9i man.
| had temporary falling out with MIR
oe"all, the new C0r3aCr and Justice Of the
Peace OF HuWbDldt. aud | thought might
as well touch him up little at the same
time and make him ridiculous, and thus
combine pleasure with business 50 | told
IN patient, belief compelling detail all about
the finding Of petrifed man at Gravelly
Ford (exactly a hundred and twenty miles
over a brcaknec6 mountain trail, from
where SeWelI ilved;) hoT all the .ayaufs in
the immediate negL5ulhood had been 10
examine it tit was notorious that there was
not u living creature within fifty miles OF
there, except 4 few starving Indians, some
crippled gCasshopprrS, and Iour or five
buzzards out OF meat and ton feeble to get
away:) h0W loSe zav3uis ali pronounced
the petnEed man tG have been IN a state OF
complete pctuhCatIon IUr over ten genera
uOns; and then with seriousness that |
ought 10 have been ashamed 10 assume, |
stated that as soon as Nh ccWeii heard the
news, he summoned a. jury, mounted his
mule, and posted Of, with noble reverence
tor Official duty, on that awful five days
journey, through aikaE, sagc-brush, peril
( OF body and Imminent starvation, 10 h0id
an inquest on tins man that had been dead
and turned to everlasting stone for more
than three hundred years And then my
/ hand beng IN, so to speak. / vent on,
with the same uuaiuchjng gravity, to state
that the jury returned a verdict that deceaS
ed came to his death from proiyucfcd cc-
p0SWe. This only moved me to higher
flights OF imagination, and | said that the
jury, with that charity 50 characteristic OF
prisoners, then dog grave, and were about
to give the perifed man Christian burial,
when they found that for ages a limestone
sediment had been trckhHg down the face
OF the stone against which he was sitting,
amt this stuff had run under him ana ce
mented him fast to the "bad-rock, that
the jury (they were all silver miuers) can
vassed the difficulty a moment, aud then
got out their powder and fuse and proseed
ed to drill Il hole under him, in order 20
blast han from hiS position, when Mr..
Sewall, with that deHc4cy So characteris~
/ tie OF him, forbade them, observing that it
would be little less than sacrilege to do
such a thing" From beginning to end
the 'Petritied Man sCuib was a string Of
roaring absurditicS, altgit they were told
with an unfair pretence Of truth that even
/ imposed upon me to some extent, and | was
in some danger Of believing in my own
fraud. But | really had no desire to de-
ceiye anybody, and no expectation Of doing
/ 1t. depended upon the way the petrifed
I man was sitting to explain TO the public
/ that he was a swindie. Yet | puroosely
mixed that up with other things, hoping to
make it Obseure-and did. | would de-
scribe the position OF one foot, and then
/ say his right thumb was against the side of
+ his nose; then talk about his other foot and
presently come back and sar the fingers OF
his night hand were spread apart then
tak about the back uT his head a little, aud
return and say the leit thumb was hooked
into the right little finger: then ramble all