The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1880-02-27
A Surprise Party Surprised.

A Surprise Party Surprised.
There has been an attempt at q sur
prise party in Sheboygan, this winter,
which is worth mentioning for the able
and successful manner in which it was
combated. The intended victim was
physician who had recently moved into
the town, and who seems to have been
a singularly bold and enterprising man.
As usual, the aggressors made their ap-
pearance at about 10 80 in the evening,
when the physician and his wife were in
bed. There we're no less than thirty
criminals in the band, some of them
being old and hardened offenders, and
others being young men and women just
entering upon career of crime. The
physician and his wife rose, dressed
themselves, and welcomed the invaders
with an apparent cordially which threw
them off their guard. There was only
one thing which seemed to mar the Doc
tors delight at seeing his &c friends''-
as he termed them. This was his fear,
lest they might have contracted typhoid
fever by passing near a sewer-opening
some distance from his house. He told
them that although in the daytime the
sewer-gas was comparatively innocuous,
he should be afraid to pass within reach
of it at night, and that he could not
bear to think that his friends should have
incurred any risk of health by their de-
ightful and unexpected visit to his hum
BILE home. The "friends" laughed
his fears, and refused to be in the least
degree alarmed. They made them
selves at home by scattering cake
crumbs on the carpet and the furniture,
and playing airs from "Pinafore on
the piano in a way that showed that
they wholly disbelieved in any world
beyond the grave. When the physician
brought out wine they accepted it
gladly, and there was not one who re-
fused his earnest request to drink full
glass of wine to show their hearty good
fellowship.
Five minutes later strange silence
fell simultaneously upon the assemblage.
Strong men began to grow pale, and
several ladies remarked that it was very
late, and that they must Immediately
60 home. The good physician said he
was afraid that some of them were
feeling the effect of the sewer-gas, and
begged them to try little more wine,
but they all declined in much haste, and
began looking for their hats in hurried
and preoccupied manner. One man
rushed suddenly to the door and van
ished without hat or overcoat, and in a
few moments the invaders began q
panic-stricken retreat. In vain did the
physician urge them to stay and have
dance. In vain did he press more wine
upon them, and offer to have some nice
little pork chops cooked if they would
only wait little longer. They fled,
without waiting to say goodnight, and
as the good Doctor and his wife stood
smilingly at the front door holding the
lamp to light them on their way, strange
and awful sounds came through the
darkness of the night, and the fence on
the opposite side of the road seemed to
be hung with limp and agonized GRIM
inals.
The next day the physician was sent
for by twenty-seven of the thirty ma
RAIDERS, who informed him that they
had been taken very i'll from the effect
OF sewer-gas, and were on the brink of
typhoid .fever. He soon cured every
one of them, and thus laid the founda-
ton of what promises to be large and
successful practice. One of the inva-
ders, fat old man, notorious as q
leader of surprise parties, needed no
medicine, for he was found dead in the
street the morning after the surprise
party, and, in the general joy over the
event, the jury declined to inquire closely
into the cause of his death, but attrib-
uted it to cold and alcoholism. The
physician has, of course since replen-
ished his stock of antimonial wine, and
frequently remarks that he greatly en-
joys surprise parties, and will always be
happy to have his friends call on him at
midnight and take . friendly glass of
wine.