The Toledo chronicle. [volume] (Toledo, Tama County, Iowa) 1873-1924, 1876-10-26

81 can't write about it if there was
no sea-serpent, can Iy'
"Thunder and lightning, Perkins
have you no imagination? People
don't want facts; they want sensa-
lions. When 1 was local reporter l
used to reel out the most astonishing
anecdotes about men who went up
10000 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 one
lay there with the pole sticking up out
of him until the doctor sawed it off on
each side, so that he went home with
butcher-block permanently fixed in
his vitals; and 1 would tell of 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 the 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. They like to be entertained;
they care more about excitement than
truth. Now why can't you get up a
collision for US? We haven't had a
collision for ever so long"
81 dunno; maybe I 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 9TH
er side, without doing any other dam
age than smashing the ventilators and
sweeping off a couple of brakemen
who were sitting on top Of a freight
oar. Paint it in strong. Say that the
trains were going SO fast that they slid
ten miles apart before they could be
stopped after the accident; and intro
duce humorous incident about an old
lady in the parlor ear, who was so un-
nerved that she swallowed her Specta-
cle-case under the impression that it
was the smoked sausage that she'd
brought along for lunch, and attempt
ed to put her umbrella in her carpet
bag"
maybe l might work it up some
how said Perkins.
"Or, tell you, s'posen You fix up a
story about a returned sailor, just ar
rived, who got into trance at sea,
SOS they thought him dead, and they
put him in 4 coffin and chucked him
overheard, and after while he came
to and kicked off the lid, and Hoated to
the Cannibal Islands, where he sneaked
into the temple and passed himself off
as some new-fangled kind of an idol,
and finally got three hundred Of his
wOrshipers to follow him aboard ship,
where he chucked them into the hold,
fastened down the matches, and sailed
for Cuba, where he sold them us slaves
and made million dollars, which he
has brought home to give to his wild
owed mother, who has been taking in
washing and suffering from rheuma-
tism and cricks in her back. Now, a
local like that would attract attention
it would excite remark; people would
want to buy the paper. Give your
fancy play ;unlimber your imagination.
That's the way l used to do"
Its first-rate plan," said Per-
kins.
Why, a young and active man like
you might easily scare up some sort of
an anecdote about a man in this town
named Smith, who Travelled across the
! plains twenty years ago with his fam
! lily, and who was swooped down upon
! by the Indians, who grabbed his baby
and scooted off, while Smith, bald
headed and miserable, went on until
| he found adeSolate hearthStOne around
which he gathered the remainder of
his family. And then you might work
up some kind of an idea about Smith
twenty years afterward hunting up his
child and finding her among the Chick
asaw Indians eating baked dog and be-
trothed to young brave. And then
when she failed to recognize her pa
rent, you might set it up that Mrs.
Smith should sing some old tune which
she used to put that baby to sleep with,
SOS to see if the maiden would remem-
Der her childhood. And Miss Smith
might have some distant recollection
| of it, which was faint because the old
lady sang flat, and slurred her notes
too much. And then you might make
heI agree to remember that tune if
Smith would promise to load her up
with iewelry and buy her a piano. And
as Mrs. Smith clasped her child to her
bosom and wept, the lover, the young
brave, might turn up and howl, and be
bought off by Smith, and taken east,
and be civilized, and become Free
viii Baptist minister, who suddenly
relapSed one day and tomahawked four
deacons and the boy who blew the or
gan bellows, and was put in an insane
asylum, while Miss Smith, his wife,
consolidated with some other man.
Now, there's the outline of a good To-
cal. Run it over in your mind, and see
what you can do with it,"
That afternoon Mr.. Perkins re-
signed, and he mentioned, subsequent
ly, to Il friend that when he wanted to
hire out as a novelist he would have
that fact understood, but while he was
local reporter he didn't intend to 90
into fiction to a vast extent for con-
sideration of twelve dollars week.
"Mdr AdeIer,' IN ". Y. Weekly.
Crime in Sicily.