The Somerset press. [volume] (Somerset, Ohio) 1873-1977, 1881-04-14
Hamlet from a Granger Standpoint.

Hamlet from a Granger Standpoint.
Two grangers from Green County, who
were In here with some hogs, and who
were stopping at the Stock Yards Hotel,
came up town Wednesday night to see
''Hamlet" at the Opera-house. They
sat on a front seat, and the audience no.
ticed all through the play that they were
not pleased, and when they got into an
Elizabeth street car after the perform
ance, those in the car got pretty good
idea of what the trouble was.
"Well, Lige, how did it strike you ?"
said the sandy whiskered one, as he bit
off a piece of navy plug and handed the
plug back to his friend
80, it didn't strike me. All want is
to live to get back to the tavern and find
that red headed Norwegian hotel keeper
that told me Hamlet was burlesque
opera, with can-can girls. Call that
place of amusement? suppose place
of amusement is where a man goes to
laugh. I don't want nobody to charge
me dollar to see a funeral procession,
and listen to fellow dig a grave and
sing obscene songs. tell you, Ezra, it
don't look right to see skulls thrown
around on the stage. And as for diggin'
graves, there is man in Monroe that can
dig two graves to that fellows one"
80, yes, but Lige, people in cities like
to see funerals played in the theaters.
They never attend funerals unless they
are the corpse, or some of their relatives
die. In the country we all turn out to
funeral and it is no novelty to us. You
must think of the acting" says Ezra.
"Well, when 1 come in here with any
more hogs, and want to enjoy myself, l
shall go out to the cemetery, or to the
insane asylum. 1t just made me sick to
see that poor crazy girl, Ofeely, taking
on about her father that Gimlet killed
with scythe, and when them boys up in
the loft begun to cheer her I felt like
going and kicking them all down stairs,
and then saying my prayers. Any man
that will make fun of a crazy girl amt
fit to live. 1 tell you felt SO bad for
that girl I was cussed glad when the
hired girl come in and said she was
drownded."
..Hamlet was bully, I thought. He
could talk 'em all blind, and knew more
than the whole lot. Lige, do you think
he was crazy?" asked Ezra.
"Crazy, no. He was blasted fool.
Say, Ezra, have little sense now. Sup
! pose your father was dead and your
mother was married again to that fellow
that looked like Southside saloon keep
er, and some ghost should come bowling
| ing around you, with pants made of tin
foil, mosquito blanket on, and a tin
washbasin on his head, and point at you
with tin dinner horn, and tell you that
the saloon keeper caught your father
asleep out in the sugar bush and poured
pepper sauce in his ear and killed him,
and told you to go around gnashing your
teeth for revenge, and snatching your
mother bald headed, wouldn't you think
it was put up job, and they were play
ing you for sardine? OF course you
would, and you would belt him one in the
jaw, and tell the ghost to go and soak his
head. Now. wouldn't you?'
"Well, may be, Lige, but Hamlet
played his part well, didn't he?"
Certainly. The young man did splen-
didly, considering the play he had, but I
know school teachers in Green County
that can write a better play than that
during recess. Hamlet was no gentleman
to treat that girl the way he did. He
loved her, and she loved him, and then
he went back on her, and jabbed her
father, and set her crazy, and when he
happened to stumble onto her funeral in
the graveyard he wanted to get up cry
ing match with the girls brother, and
jump into the grave OF the coffin, and act
up, and put ON style, and break up the
funeral. o, get out I don't like that
way of doing business. A man that
hain't got no more sand than that couldn't
!! get a job driving hogs for me. What he
ought to have done was to marry the
girl, and any court in Wisconsin would
have made him marry her or pay fine. u
81 guess you're more than half right
Lige, but how did you like the way il
wound up? There wasn't enough left
for quorum, was there ?" said Ezra.
go, there was killing enough, for some
but it wasn't what you would call sangui
nary. Let's see, how many were there
that passed in their chips There was
Polonius, stabbed; Ofeely, she was
drowned, the old woman, she drank thai
soda water with the vinegar bitters in it
and went off behind the scenes. I sup
pose she is dead by this time. Hamlet
run his sabre into the king and he went
off to hunt his hole, and the chances are
he is dead. Then Hamlet and Lsertes
punctured each other, and they died tt
slow music. Was there any more, Ezra?'
''Not as I see. There was some O.
those supers holding up the corpses
There had to be enough left to bury tht
dead"
"Yes," says Lige, as the car turned in
to Elizabeth street, "Some of them dit
get away, but they didn't amount to any
thing. The best of the gang was killed
in one way or another. What they ough
to have had To wind m the business. wa
nitro-glycerine explosion, or q railroad
accident, with the air full of legs ant
arms. It was too tame. For funeral OBJ
sequies, Hamlet is good play, Sut TO
business give me Buffalo Bill. We ge
off here, Ez. Watch me kill that land
lord when we get to the house. Egad,
can't help thinking how confounded meal
that Hamlet treated his mother. Why
she had right to get married again. %
[ Peck's Sun.