The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1880-03-27

So into the midnight train we climbed,
and the Louisville and Nashville Rail-
road bore us away down into the land
of the sunshine. While the porter was
making up our berths, the fat passen-
gers thoughts were evidently running
on what DR.. Yundell said about walk
ing, that wise Providence had given a
horse four legs, so that he might walk
all he wished, but the same overruling
wisdom had given man but two, and
had fixed them so they could bend in
two directions and thus fit a carriage
seat perfectly.
1t is lazy, labor-saving age," the
tall, thin passenger said. Man is try
ing to solve the problem of living and
growing rich without labor or exertion.
1t is an age of labor-saving machinery"
And yet, !" the sad passenger put in,
"there never was an age of greater Or
more inccssant activity"
"People burn gas" said the tall, thin
passenger, disregarding the others
statement, "because they are too lazy
to snuff candle or fill lamp
Yes," said the passenger with the
sandy goatee, ssand they light it with
electricity to save the trouble of scratch
ing match"
And it was lazy man." said the
man on the wooden box, "that sat
around cold winter mornings, and shiv-
cred and shuddered, and wished he
knowed some way of putting enough
coal in the stove to last all day, that
finally invented the base-burner. No
active man would ever have thought of
such thing"
"Men used to take fair amount of
exercise" said the tall, thin passenger,
"when they had to walk from their
homes to their places of business; but
then some ease-loving genius built a
street car, and now any man who walks
4 three blocks with nickel in his pocket
will not be recognized in good society,"
| Sand if he will not wait in the cold
half an hour for the car" said the man
with the sample-cases, she is turned
out of the church."
Sand even then," said the passenger
with the sandy goatee, "men took a
little air and exercise on the street cars,
when their business compelled them to
90 from their own Office to other bust
ness houses. But then Edison invented
the telephone, and now man goes
down to his Office in the morning, CLUES
himself to chair and is there when the
street cars come along to take him to
supper. Ifhe didn't need them to wall
up stairs with, man in this lazy age
might trade off his legs for another paiI
of hands,"
i "That need not keep him back, >
said the sad passenger, because
when he wants to go up stairs h
gently but firmly glides into the eie
.yator."
be-, The fat passenger looked at tn
4 speaker with a look of approval
disMy son." he said, nodding his head
I" you are mighty right, he does"
Surely, it must be as the passenger
decided, the race is degenerating, physi
cally. We take all our exercise pro
fessionally, as the Japanese hire peopl
, to do their dancing for them. We pla
base ball with salaried mines, we ROY
!. with men who can pull for US withou
. taking us away from the counting-room
: when we want to walk some robust fe
|, low takes our money and makes GU
miles In uVe Gays IOr US. we oio q uS
: generate race, and have fallen ava
! from the high standard of physical VII
tue maintained by our fathers. An
vet as lie here in the pleasant palac
> car of my friend Pullman, with Ii
: jointless blanket folded about me in VI
yielding plates, and the miniature pi
low slipping down my back. draw Il
= curtain q little aside and look out at Il
: snowy landscape and the glitterin
u starlight, and I stretch myself out ar
snuggle myself up in very excess
l. comfort, and as think of our ruggc
Al manly, virtuous, stalwart fathers, plo
n ding over this same road from Louisvil
II to GAINESVILLE, in slow-moving stag
+ and numbering wagons, I close my ey
D in degenerate content, and say,
sleepy accents: ~
g "Dear fathers, virtuous men of ir'
y frame, if that mode of travel suited 20
n stick to it. This sort of thing is go'
IN enough for me. "-Burdette, IN the BIZ
y iington Hawkcye.