The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1874-06-25
The Coal Oil Fiend.

There is no law anywhere against people
using coal oil for "kindling" if they
choose and it seems that the list of burn
ings to death from this habit, carried for
ward from day to day, has no terrors for a
woman who wants to kindle fire quick
ly. and has can of coal oil in the house.
4 funeral Of a coal oil victim may daily
pass her house; or she may have just re-
turned from laying her mother or sister
away in the grave-cause of death, coal
oil; the woman wants a quick fire, she
pOurs coal oil over the wood and lights the
fire. at the imminent risk of taking the coal
oil train for the other world. 1t is a char
lot of fire, and the baggage left behind by
those who have gone up in it is neither
a remembrance nor a warning to those
into whose possession the old clothes may
fall.
The selling of poisonous drugs is regu-
lated by law; the storing of. gunpowder
and nitrO-glyccrine Obeys ordinances en-
acted for safety; certain diseases are hunt
ed out of town by sanitary regulation
hounds; wooden buildings are forbidden
within limits; any one seen rushing Wild
eyed toward the river is caught and locked
up away from water; but woman with a
can of coal oil in one hand and lighted
IllllGll Ill tue OlIltT Is lIOli pSi-
sOnal fear and interference. She is in q
hurry to cook or wash or iron, or warm up ::
she fOrgets or disregards the daily news
paper warning. Sights the memory OF her
lost friends, and rushes headlong into the
flames. 1t looks like madness. There
must be a serpentine fascination, always
fatal to women, about coal oil. Men are
not addicted to that sort of rashness, in the
very face of death, but women appear to
be hOpeleSsly charmedby the terror OF the
danger. The grim monster glOwers Ill
every kitchen where there is the slightest
smell of benZine, and grinning skeleton
walks out rafting its shivering bones be-
hind every woman who carries a can OF
kerosene and lighted match towards a
pile of wood. The fiery monster has as
many titles as Satan. When it becomes
particularly obnoxious under one name it
takes another, but they all mean death,
and they always temps a woman to her
destruction. They are perfectly innocent
and nOn-eXplosive, and the only result Is
light. and comfort. and boiling pot, and
this the vendors we'll know. And woman
has a thousand times tested the fruit and
given in her experience, and still woman
is not afraid to try it again. The last trial
that has come to light was in Cincinnati
the other day. A young HOllander in
that city married a young wife about
week ago, and the couple had gone to
housekeeping in the neat and comfortable
Stvle for which Hollanders are noted.
The wife was only sixteen, and her father
and mother had just paid the new and
happy family a visit. The child-wifa
wants quick fire for tea. She is tempted
by a can ofcoal oil. Before her husband
and parents can get to her she is whirl-
wind of fire. They make frantic efforts to
save wife, and child, and hope, in one, and
are all badly burned. the husband serious
w. When the flames have done their
work the crisp body of the girl is gasping
its last. and beside his dying wife lies the
man suffering unspeakable tOrments. And
the parents watch by them, and the neigh
borS 90 in and out speeches. and the
woman next door will tomorrow call the
coal-oil fiend out of the closet to help her
kindle her kitchen fire. At least this
would be cOnfOrmable to all past expert
ence in the history of kerosene, and thus
women have their Ways. Louis Repu6-
Ijc0Y