The Superior times. [volume] (Superior, Wis.) 1870-1912, 1876-11-10
BY MAX ADELER.

to the reporter of the Argus, 81 wish
you would stir around to-day and get
up a sensational local of some kind.
The paper's been UNANIMOUSLY dull late
". Now why can't you give account
of a sea-serpent that you saw of the
Canes YESTERDAY, engaged in fearful
combat with a whale, during which
the whale swallowed the sea-serpent
all but the end of his tail, which stung
the whale to death-or something of
that understanding exciting and
lively z" =.
II can't write about it if there was
no sea-serpent, can |
Thunder and lightning, Perkins !!
have you no Imagination! People don t
want facts; they want sensations.
When | was local reporter | used to
reel out the most astonishing anQc-
dotes about men who went up twenty
thousand feet high in balloons and fell
out, and struck telegraph poles, which
perforated them SO that the victims
would slip down to the ground, and lay
there with the pole sticking up out of
him until the do9tor sawed it off on
each side, SO that he went home with
a butcherblock permanently fixed in
his yitalS and | would tell of u boy
who stuffed himself with dried apples
and drank water until he sWelled out
SO that when he went in to swim his
abdomen would Craze tho bottom, and
he would then try to stand on his feet
and find that the water was over his
head, and that he was broader than he
was long. Things like that-the pub
lie want them. They like to be enter
tanned; they care more about excite
ment than truth. Now, why can t You
get up a collision for US We haven't
had collision for ever SO long
4 dunno; maybe | might.
explain to them that the two trains
were going at sixty miles an hour when
they met, and that when they struck,
the down train ran on top of the up
train. skipped along the roofs of the
cars and came down on the other side,
without doing any other damage than
smashing the ventilators and sweeping
off a couple of brakemen who were sit
ting on top of a freight car. Paint it
strong. Say that the trains were 60
ing SO fast that they slid ten miles
apart before they could be stopped af-
ter the accident; and introduce a hui
mor0uS incident about an old lady III
the parlOr car, who was 50 unnerYed
that she swallowed her spectacle-case
under the impression that it was
smoked sausage that she'd brought
along for lunch, and attempted to put
her umbrella in her carpet bag.
Maybe I might work it up some
how" said Perkins.
''0r, tell you, poSen you fix up Il
story about returned sailor, just ar
rived, who got into trance at sea-
SOS they thought him dead, and they
put him in a coffin ana chucked him
overheard, and after awhile he came
to and kicked off the lid, and Goated to
the Cannibal Islands, where he sneak
ed into the temple and passed himself
off as some neW-fangled kind of an
idol, and finally got three hundred of
his worShipper5 to follow him aboard
Il ship, where he chucked them into the
hold, fastened down the matches, and
sailed for Cuba, where he sold them rs
slaves, and made a million dollars
which he has brought home to give to
his widowed mOtEer, who has been
taking in washing and suffering from
rheumatism and crickS in her back.
Now, a local like that would attract at
tention it would excite remark peO-
pie would want to buy the paper. Give
your fancy play unlimber Your imag-
nation. That's the way | used to do.
Its first-rate plan" said Perkins
''Why, young and active man like
you might easily scare up some sort 0
an anecdote about man III this tow1
named Smith who travelled across the
plains twenty years ago with hi
20 l,N 4
upon by the Indians, who grabbed hi!
baby and scooted off, while Smith
bald-headed and miserable went OF
until he found desolate hearthst0nt
around which to gather the remain
der of his family. And then yol
might work up some kind of an ide
about Smith twenty years afterwar,
hunting up his child and finding
eating baked dog and betrothed to
young brave. And then when sh
failed to recognize her parent, yOI
might set it up that Mrs Smith shout,
sing some old tune which she used t,
put the baby to sleep with, SO S to see i
the maiden would remember her child
hood. And Miss Smith might hay,
some distant recollection of it, which
was faint because the old lady san:
flat, and slurred her notes too much
And then you might make her aere,
to remember that tune if Smith woul,
promise to load her up with jewelr,
and buy her piano. And as Mrs
Smith clasped her child to her bosom
and wept, the lover, the young BRAY,
might turn up and howl, and be bough
Off by Smith and taken east, and bt
civilized, and become a Ere Will Ban
list minister, who suddenly frel lapse,
one day, and tomahawked four dea
cons and the boy who blew the organ
bellows, and was put in an insane
asylum, while Miss Smith. his wife
consolidated with some other man
Now there S the outline of good local
Run it over in your mind. and see VIVA
you can do with it,
That afternoon Mr.. Perkins RESIGNED
and he mentioned, subsequently tn
friend that when he wanted to mir
out as a novelist he would have tina
fact understood, but while he wa