The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1878-03-16
How to Burn a Barn.

IT is the easiest thing in the world if
few simple directions are followed!
Use an old-fashioned tin lantern at
night, through whose roughlv-punched
sides only the minimum of light can
penetrate, and whose door must nee
essarily be open to enable YOU to see
anything. Set it down in the bedding
while you 90 up in the hay-loft to throw
down feed, and the chances are good
that your hungry horse or frisky COW
will kick it over, as Mrs. O'Leary's did
in Chicago, and set the barn on fire. If
you have not tin lantern carry can
die or open lamp, and use it in the same
way. If the night is windy feel your
way out to the barn the best you can,
and light your candle inside with
matches, and let the match ends take
care of themselves they are small af-
fairs, anyhow.
On rainy days make the barn your
rendezvous for smoking and whiting,
and talking politics with intelligent
neighbors who have leisure hours on
their hands as you have. Do not be
stingy with your pipes and tobacco, and
keep plenty of matches lying around
loose, so they may be handy to fire up
with. A few social afternoons spent in
this way will, not unlikely, enable you
to get your barn burned.
Never lock barn door. Padlocks
are expensive, and a wooden peg will
keep the thing shut just as well as forty
padlocks. Besides that, there are poor
people constantly on the road c. tramps"
they are called by unfeeling, well-to-do
people who have nice comfortable
homes of their OWN who need nights
lodging as well as other folks, and who
will be attracted by the hospitable APP
pearance of an unlocked barn door.
These gentlemen are not, as an average
thing, of literary turn of mind, but
they do sometimes carry short pieces of
candles in their pockets, with which to
look over scraps of newspapers and
other things in the interior of barns
where they spend their nights, and they
almost invariably have a supply of
matches with which to light their pipes
as they take a night-cap'' smoke on
the hay-mow before closing their gentle
eyes in slumber.
Never clean up your barn. 1t in
wolves a great deal of labor to be par
ticular about a barn--in sweeping the
floor and clearing up the stalls, and
fastidiously disposing of the rakings
and droppings, and odds and ends.
which accumulate and make a pleasant
carpet for the feet if left alone. All
this refuse when it becomes dry is east
ly ignited, and offers handy food for
incipient fires, which may be kindled
by an ambitious match, dropped during
the day and stepped on as you pass
through at night.
Do not pay attention to those hyper
scientific people who are everlastingly
talking about spontaneous combustion
in hay-mows. Never mind if, your hay
is wet; you do not want to be all the
year round waiting for it to dry. Nov
it away; tramp it down; let it dry at its
leisure; scout at the idea of moisture
setting hay on fire. A ridiculous news
paper reporter the other day actually
printed an item about an extra high
tide setting warehouse on fire because
the water reached some lime stored in
the cellar! just as if water could set
anything on fire!
AS with your hay so with your grain.
Suppose tits damp, what harm will it do?
Don't fool away your time in drying it;
put it in the bin, shut it up tight, and
go to bed like wise man, without tir-
ing yourself with over-particularity.
These directions, all of them, or part
of them, faithfully adhered to, will be-
yond doubt enable you to get your
barn burned. Farm and FireSide