Eaton weekly Democrat. [volume] (Eaton, Ohio) 1866-1875, 1870-06-16

jury, TmoAteQf nlS, mule and Q0SteQ OH,
with noble reverence for official duty, on
that awful five days. journey, through
alkali, sage-brush, peril of body and inn
minent starvation, to h6Id an inquest on
thfg man thatrhad been dead and turned
toAeverlastiRg stone for more than three
shund ndRed,years, and then my hand being
sSfh,S 50 tA-speaka Went-6n, with the
same unf1inching g gravity Stostate that the
uTYFeturned verdict that deceased came
/ This only moved me to higher flights of
! Imagination, 6ndAI said that the Jury; with
4 that charity 30 characteristic of prisoners,
then dug aigrave, and Weretabout TO give
fthe petri6ed man Christian burial, when
sthey. found that forages a limestone jsedi-
| ment had been tricklIng down the face, of
the stone against which he was sitting,
and thislstqff had run under him and ce
mented him last to the &c /" bedrock !" that
| the. jury lthey weregRn silver -miners) cam
vassi the difficulty moment, and then
| got out their powder and fuse, and pro.
hceeded tofdrill q holerundeF him. i1I order
to blast him from his1 position w whent, Mr..
SeWal, "with that delicacy so character
istic9of him, forbade t1emy observing that
Pit would ibe little less than'a sacrilege to
l do such a thingiT 7Efom beginniR9 to end
/! the" Petrified Man" squib was a string
/ Of roaring ,absurditfes, afbeity they were
told with an uIifait pretehee of truththat
| even imposed upon me 70 some extent,
ana I was in some, danger of believing in
my own, fraud, But really had no desire
to deceive any body, and no expectation, Of
doing it. 1 depended upon the way the
-petFitied man was sittSnQ to explain to the
public .thathe was a a,swindle. Yet pur-
posely mixed that up with other things,
hoping to make It iobsctreAand did I
and then say his right thumb was against
the side of his nose then talk about his
other foot, and presently come back and
say, the fingers of his right hand were
spread apart; then talk about the back of
his head little, and return and say the
left thumb was hooked into the right.
little finger; then ramblei an about
drift back again and remark that the
fingefs of the left hand were spread
like those Of the right But IiSwas
too Ingenious I mixed itup rather too
much; SO all the description of, the atti7-
tude, as key-to the humbuggery of the,
article, was entirely lost, for nobody but
me, ever discovered and comprehended
the peculiar and suggestive position of
the ,petrified mans hands.
As satire on the petrifaction mania,
or anything else, my Petrihed Man was
disheartening failure for everybody re-
ceived him in innocent good faith, and I
was stunned TO see the creature i had be-
gotten TO pull down the wOnder-busines
with and bring derision, upon it, calmly
exalted to the grand chief place in the list
of the genuine marve1s our Nevada had
prodaceds was SO disappointed at the
curious miscarriage Of my scheme that at
first was angry and did not like to think
about it; shqt by and by wheHs the ex
changes began to come in with the Petriss
fed Man copied andiguilelessly glorifed,
Il began to feel a soothing secret satisfac
ao W a.
sravef broadenod, and by the fxchangest +
saw that he steadily and implacably pene-
trated territory after territory, State after
State, and land after land, till he swept
the great globe and eliminated in sublime
and unimp peached legitimacy in the au-
gust :" London Lancet" my cup was tu,l,
and I said was glad had done it. /
think that for about eleveh months, as
nearly as4I can remember Mr.. .SewalPs
daaiy mail contained along1 in the neigh
7borho0d of, half q ibushel of newspapers
hailing from many climes with the Petri-
fed Man, in them, marked around with a.
prominent belt of ink. / sent them to
him. I,did. it for Spite; not for fun. He
used to, shovel them into his back yard
and curse; And every day during all
those months the miners, his constituents
d6r miners never; Quit joking a person
when they get started), would call on him
and ask if he could tell them where they
could get hold of a paper with the Petri-
ned Man in it, He could have aceommo-
dated a continent with them. I hated
Sewan IN those, days, and, these things
paeifiedIme and pleased me. could not
have gotten more real comfort out of him
without killing him. p3S .,TTaOa4
'a1b lAGYLRAlEoUss" BLOODY MASSACRE" ."a65i
sa The other ibhriesque have referred to,
was my fine satire upon the expedient of.
" cooking dividends, thing which be
came shamefdAy fequent on the Pacific
coast; 0pHe more, ip my selfSRmplacent
this reIsrmaI kfy satire a. the Sh5pe Of a.
fearful Massacre at Empire City" The
San Francisco papers were making great
'outcry abOuK the Daney Silver Mining
COmpanyo whose directors had declared d
isS'eooked, ,99ror false, dividend, tor, the pur
pose of increasing the value OF their
Comfortable figure and then scramble from
under the tuhbling concern. And, while
abusing the Daney, those papers did not
forget to urge the public to get rid of all
their silver stocks, and invest i'm sound
Spring " alley Water Company, etc. But
right as this unfortunate junctufe, behold
esSpring Valley cooked dividend TOO !!
And SO, Under the, insidious mask of an
bloody massacre" l stole upon
the public unRwares with my rscathing
satire upon the dividend-cookingss system.
In about half . column of Imaginary in7
human carnage told Row citizen had
murdered his wife and nine children and
then committed suicide. And said slyly,
at the bottom, that the sudden madness of
whiS this Smel kpcholy massacre was the
result, had been brought about by his
having allowed himself to be persuaded
By sthe California papers TO sell his
sound and Lucrative 'NeFada silver
stocks and buye into Spring Valley
Just in tme,to get cooked. along with that
company's fancy dividend, and sink every
cent he had in the world. Ah, 3 il was a
deep satire, and most ingeniohsly con-
tEived. But / made the horrible details so
carefully and conscientiously interesting
that the 2 public simply devoured them
greedily, and wholly overlooked the fol-
lowing distinctly stated facts, to-wit
The murderer was perfectly wen known
to every creature in the Land as bache-
lor, and consequently he could not muir
der hia wife sd nine childrsn; he muir
dered them 'tin his splendid dressed-stone
mansion just in the edge of the great
pine forest between Empire City and
Dutch, Nlok's,"y whenA even the very
picked oysters. that came on our tables
=. a a z1 ?