The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio) 1875-1903, 1881-06-02
The Brief and the Difruse.

Brevity is not only the soul of wit,
-saysthe Galveston NeaOs, but, ordinarily,
the mark of good common sense. Al
most all good things, however, may be
carried to extremes, and when newspa-.
pers not only become s~ententious, but
undertake to make asingle word do duty
for q paragraph, they often become as
uninteligible, or are liable to be inter-
preted in as many ways, as the oracles
Of the weather prophets. Some of the
papers have fallen into the habit OF drop
ping into m~onosynables, which are un-
Ineligible. except Immediately where
the facts referred to are already known
AS Grain" s'wind," tdry," sickness"
ga man dead" and the like phrases,
which would barely answer as headlines
In most cases. This is a little too much
of. the style which logicians call calegor-
matte, when a single word is capable OF
doing duty for a sentence, predicate or
proposition, as distinguished from the
ten categories of Aristotle, swhereth
substance, quality, quantity, relation,
action, passion, time, place, situation,
and habit of the thing described were
given or understood. But there is no
style SO curt as to be Objectionable as
the habit some people have of drawing
everything, under and above the earth,
past and present, into every incident
they undertake to relate until the reader
or listener loses all idea of the subject
supposed to be in hand, and like the old
man who was tired of waiting for his
wife to finish counting the beans, calls
on Gabriel to blow his horn and end the
trouble. Widow Bedett gave some adj
mirable specimens of this diffusive
style, and the central City Item adds the
following:
h134 seen you looking fer an item last
| week" said q freckled man with small
| Watery eyes, dashed with blue, to our
| local. "Do yer want one now?'"
To- He was cordially answeredinthe affirm.
alive, and gave in the following testi
mony. W -
"ike Bolivar and me had a narrow
escape from a horrible death, which wax
prevented by Joe Moran, who first went
to Pixies Peak In '56, and afterward mar
ried into the Runnels family as live6
down by the ford in Steuben County,
York State, where Hi Griffin used tx
have his blacksmith shop-and a cussee
poor man he was to shoea horse-nt
better'n a saloon hummer anyway, rant
lShis poor wife-married one of the Plat
ter gals-who first gave the sack to Jot
Duncan, who run RATS down the ALE
gany, and in winters saved shingles ant
fddled for dances. Yes, and he was {
hoss to rasseLseen him stand all day
Fourth of jules in a ten-foot ring AMI
-lop the best man that tackled him, bu
he[never laid up a cent and seemed Il
aIlus take the world just as easy as lying
for he was Just what Aunt Susan Parke.
called shiftlesss and a iklier old maid'l
Susan didn't bind a shoe mNorth AID
ans, Mass.-place where she wa raiset
-andsmart2 why her and "Doc." Ram
sayAallus called him "Doc." ever sine
he sucked the rattlesnake pizen outer
Jake Biglow's leg-her and 'Doc.
could hoer afrewof Eaters insone time ant
two motions and lay the last weed on tn
left side to wunst. Thar was a brothe
ofIS1san's who peddledo corn shelters
and afterward, growed. Injun seed for
big firm in Sandusky, Ohio-well, hi
name was Wash. Parker-married int
the Biles family down m Tioga County,
Penn.--got into a scrape, though, witt
another gal" The local gave the mar
rator of this lucid and closely connecte,
sensation one CHASTITY smile and fed.