American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1876-02-12

hour. Swearing like pirate all the time
he felt that good.
Don't punctuatc. We prefer to punctu
| ate all manuscript sent to us. And don
use capitals. Then we can punctuate an,
| capitalize to suit ourself, and your article
when you see it in print, will astonish
even if it does not please, you.
| Don't try to write too plainly. 1t is
| sign of plebeian origin and public schOo
breeding Poor writing is an indication
of genius. It's about the only indication
of genius that a great many men possess
Scrawl your article with your eyes shut
and make every word as illegible as yoI
can. We get the same price for it from
the rag-men as though it was covered
with copper-plate sentences.
Avoid all painstaking with proper
names. We know the full name of every
man, woman and child in the United
States, and the merest hint at the name il
sufficient. For instance, if YOU write d
character something like drunken figure
"S," and then Draw wavy line, and the
letter NJ and another waving line, we will
know at once that you mean Samuel Nor
rison, even though you may think you
mean " Lemuel Messenger" 1t is great
mistake that proper names should be writ
ten plainly.
Always write on both sides of the paper,
and when you have filled both sides of
every page trail line up and down every
margin, and back to the top of the first
page, closing your article by writing the
signature just above the date. How we
do love to get hold of articles written in
this style. And how we would like to get
hold of the man who sends them. Just
for ten minutes. Alone. In the woods,
with cannon in our hip pocket. Revenge
is sweet; yum, yum, yum.
Lay your paper on the ground when
you write; the rougher the ground the
better.
Coarse brown wrapping paper is the
best for writing your articles on. If you
can tear down an old circus poster and
write on the paSty side of it with pin
stick, it will do still better.
When your article is completed, crunch
your paper in your pocket, and carry it
two or three days before sending it in.
This rubs off the superfluous pencil marks
and makes it lighter to handle.
= Ii you can think of it, lose one page out
of the middle of your article. We can
easily supply what is missing and We
love to do it. We have nothing else
to do.
If correspondents will observe these di-
rectiOns, we will hold ourselves personal
ly responsible for every error that appears
in their articles, and will pay them their
full claim for damages when they make
complaint. we shall never forget the last
man who complained under this rule. We
can never, never, although we should live
a thousand years, forget the appalling
look he turned upon us wlfile we were
pulling his lungs out of his ear with the
nail grab. Our heart seemed to turn to
ice, under the influence of that dumb be-
seeching look, while we tore him to
pieces. We have never torn a man
to pieces since then, without feeling the
hot tears spring to our eyes as we think of
that man. We have been tempted, time
and again, TO break ourself of this habit of
tearing men 10 pieces for trivial causes.
But we digress. We were merely saying
we are always happy to receive complaints
and correct any errors for which we are
Observation-Disclosures Hack Eye.