Brenham weekly banner. [volume] (Brenham, Tex.) 1877-1907, 1879-03-07
TIE Facts Ab,at Sam Snyder.
MAX ApELER.

w Z hNl( SisNAi-( OoN CAA NllS
plaza in front of Blyler's store,
and Abner Bying was there, with
his legs cooked up against
post, and his chair tilted back.
DR.. hurry was running his eye
down the column of the county
paper, when he suddenly said:
"Halloa! This is queer. Why
it says that an English chemist
has succeed in distilling whis-
key from sawdust.r'
+" That's nothing" said Alb
ner Bying, Tipping his thumb.
''How do you mean nothing
asked the doctor.
"Oh. it's old, awful old. l
knew that years ago. Did you
ever meet Sam Snyder.
mo; never met him"
"Well, Sam was hard drink
er-must have rum by one
means or another. He had no
money and nobody to trust him
or treat him. So Sam some
how ascertained that whiskey
could be made out OF sawdust,
and do you know what he'd dor"
WHAT"
"He'd get so drunk off a
fence-rail and cross-cut saw
that he could't tell a COW from a
sugar-cured ham. Put him near
a wood-pile and a saw-buck,
and let him alone, and before
II o'clock he'd turn out the
most delicious mint juleps you
ever tasted"
Easily done, was it,"
Easily Why, one time
his family tried to keep him So
Der by putting him on the roof
and keeping him there; and do
you know what Sam did? Got
a boy to tie a wash-boiler and
four feet of lead pipe to string
and Sam hshed 'em up, and in
three days he had turned every
single into cocktails, and he
fell through the garnet IN such
a frightful condition of intoxi-
cation that they had to give
him electric shocks from a for
ty-two cell battery to bring him
back to Consciousness"
"You know this to be a fact
do your
Certainly, I was there. Why
that man acquired a preference
for liquor made from wood, and
three times to my certain knowl-
edge, he got mania-a-potu from
consumption of distilled pie
boards and potato-smashers.
He drank up four sets of chair
legs; and one 18th of July, when
his. wife stopped his obstruction
of the furniture, he celebrated
the day calling in three or four
friends to drink a new kind of
energetic brandy that he'd just
made out of a window-sill and
a clothes prop. Drink? Why,
sir, | pledge you my word, Sny-
der in a single winter drank up
a smoke house, three wash-tubs
and front-door. Nothing could
stop him when he got going"
"Why did he prefer domestic
utensils?"
"IIc didn't. There was
wood out back of the house that
belonged to his aunt. Sand
go there with a meat saw or any
kind ofa saw he could get and
in two years he had stimulated
his system with eight chestnut
trees, four persimmons, one oak
and fifteen saplins of various
kinds. Trimmed that grove out
SO that his aunt couldn't rent it
to picnic parties. Nearly broke
the old lady's heart, too"
did he kill himself drinking?"
"Wen, not exactly. I'll tell
you how it was. 1t seems that |
he was haunted for a long time |
with the idea that if he could |
distil the Presbyterian. church
steeple he could turn out an ar
ticle that would bear a resem-
blance, somehow, to old apple
brandy. Queer, wasn't itP But
the mai was not exactly right,
his mind was diseased. So one
night he got on the roof of the
church with a ladder to steal
the steeple. When he got there
i dunno how it was, but an
idea seemed to strike him to
taste the thing, maybe to see if
1t was right about the flavor,
and-he must havs been wild
when he did the actually
swallowed the weather cock,
and there he stuck, whirling
around all night as the wind
struck him! Dead? He was
Martin Van Buren,
when they come to take him
DOWN"
He swallowed the weather.
cock, did he?"
Eyes sir, swallowed it"
"Well, that wasn't half as
hard to swallow as your whole
yarn" said Blyler.
you don't doubt my veraci-
~, hope?" said Abner. you
do? Well, if hou have a quar-
Ter about you it will soothe my
wounded feelings. l only want
a."
Just at this juncture Blyler
licked Mr.. Bying off the porch,
md Abner walked away to the