The Hickman courier. [volume] (Hickman, Ky.) 1859-current, 1881-06-03
The Brief and the piruse.

Brevity is not only the.souI of wit,
says the Galveston NetUs. = ordinarily,
the mark of good commd| sense. Al
most all good things, how Ter. may be
carried to extremes, and Sien newspa-
pers not only become sententious, but
undertake to make single word do duty
for paragraph, they often become as
unintelhgible, 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 monosyllables. which are I'M
Ineligible except Immediately where
the facts referred to are already known
-as rain, "wind," cdr & nsickness''
"a man dead" and the n phrases,
which would barely answer head lines
in most cases. This is a II too much
Of. the style which logician: calegor-
matte, when single wor, bapable OF
doing duty for a SENTENCED bdicate or
proposition, as distingJiis Vi from the
ten categories of Aristotle. where the
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 Bedott gave some adj
mirable specimens of this diffusiye
style, and the central City ITEM adds the
following:
81 seen you looking for an item last
week." said freclxled man with small
watery eyes, dashed with blue, to our
local. 'tDo yer want one now?'
He was cordially answered in the affirm
alive, and gave in the following testi-
mony.
80 Ike Bolivar and me- had a narrow
escape from horrible death, which was
prevented by Joe Moran, who first went
to Pixies Peak in 90, and afterward mar
ried into the Runnels family as lived
down by the ford in Steuben County,
York State, where Hi Griffin used to
have his blacksmith shop-and a cussed
poor man he was to shoe horse-no
better'n a saloon hummer anyway, and
his poor wife-married enc of the Plat
ter gals-who first gave the sack to Job
Duncan, who run rails down the Ale
gany, and in winters saved shingles and
fddled for dances. Yes, and he was a
boss to rassel-seen him stand all day
Fourth of jules in ten-foot ring and
flop the best. man that tackled him, but
he never laid up q cent, and seemed to
allus take the world just as easy as lying,
for he was Just what Aunt Susan Parker
called shiftless, and hklier old maid'n
Susan didn't bind shoe in North Adj
ans, Mass.-place where she was raised
and smart2 why her and "Doe." RAM
say-allus called him doc ever since
he sucked the rattlesnake pizen oute'n
Jake Biglow's leg-her and doc.
could hoe a rowof taters in one time and
two motions and lay the last weed on the
left side to wunst. Thar was brother
of Susan's who peddled corn shelters,
and afterward growed Iniun seed for
big firm in Sandusky, 0hio-well, his
name was Wash. Parker-married into
the Biles family down in Hoga County,
Penh.-got into scrape, though, with
another gal" The local gave the mar
rator of this lucid and closely connected
sensation one CHASTITY smile and fed.