Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1882-02-24
Cheated of the Reward.

l nlted States have sOWe ali A'Nu
vicious ami injurious laws. seld
solemn stranger who came in to read
the Presidents message and fire few
random shots at our olli,e cuspidoTe.
"You will certainly agree with me
that many of the crude statutes OF The
young Commonwealth OF Wyoming
Territory are weak and inefficient, to
say the least, ard many of them con-
dict in way that makes ME tired. For
instance, the commissioners OF the
counties are generally empowered to
offer a reward for the persons OF muir:
derers and highway robbers. Gener-
ally the law is such that the murderer
may be brought in dead or alive. This
made it unpleasant for the commission
ers, for they thus became a Board OF
stiff-viewers and post-mortem experts,
and the Office became enshrouded in
gloom so that there wasn't much OF a
struggle for tue position. So an
amendment was made to the law, which
provided that man who wanted re
ward on the remains Of a bad man
could bring in the head in a lunch
basket and get it bypotheticatea for its
face, if you will allow me the express
sion.
"Isimply refer to this law in par
ticular because l have had some ex-
perience with it myself. but there are
other statutes in this country that arc
equally obnoxious.
"To return to my subject, however.
1 wasn't doing much two years ago,
and as there was reward of $4,000 on
the head of an outlaw that they called
Aeiatic Cholera, who had killed small
village in Arizona, 1 concluded to go
aud get him and make some money out
of him. 1t seems that nobody knew
this mans name exactly. They just
called him Asiatic Cholera because he
was SO deadly and 60 uniformly fatal.
They talked it up and decided
that they could afford to give $4,000
for the head of this man rather than to
have the census of the young Territory
cut down fifty per cent in one season.
What was the use, they argued, to try
to call the attention of Eastern capital
and emigrants to the boundless wealth
and resources of Arizona if two or
three bad men could get into the COM
munity and not leave enough to boiler
fire.
$50 / went down to where Asiatic
had been heard from last, and travelled
over the country incog, as it were. l
disguised myself as crank, and lee
tured all through the Southwest on
phrenology and how to win the af-
fections of the opposite sex.
"Well, lectured to crowded houses
and paved the bumps of everybody l
could find till the middle of August, be-
fore I struck Asiatic. One night 1 was
lectuling at little camp they called
The New Made Grave saw Asiatic
in the back part of the room, when 1
commenced lecturing, and 80 got ready
for the bump feeling exercises right
away. Asiatic seemed little reticent
about having any experiments made on
his head, but I asked if the embryo
statesman on the. back seat did not de-
sire to have his intellectual rancho
gnawed over, and that fetched him. 1
ratified on at some length giving him a
pretty good game till 1 got down to ali
mentiveness, when I slid No. Al out of
my pocket wrapped up in red hand
K rchief and made q large irregular
aperture through the organ called love
.; home.
"Thst closed the exercises fer the
evening. The audience was delighted.
"The following day I put the still,
calm features OF Asiatic Cholera in a
salt bag and started for home. The
weather was very hot. and riding .
broncho all day in an Arizona sun with
the intellectual dome Of criminal on
the pommel of the saddle gets weari.
some after while, so / got drowsy,
and going up little canyon l fell off
my horse. he was little ekittish any
way. and rather coy and reluctant about
being caught, SO ! chased him about
$50 miles guess before caught him.
Unfortunately, the $50 miles we're not
in the direction I wanted to 60. SO that
when I got to the court house and pre-
sented the partial remains of Asiatic
Cholera TO the board, the chairman
jumped through the window and the
other members had to be resuscitated
With So worth Of whisky. Asiatic
Cholera, from Q red.headed blonde, had
changed to a pronounced brunette
of about the Blind Tom school, and
had fixed smile on his face that you
could shut your eyes and see for years
afterward.
death hadn't seemed to tone down
his rough, coarse features very much.
l can't tell you exactly how he looked.
l haven't the ability or the space, but
there was charm about it that made
q drivellng idiot of the Chairman of the
Board of County Commissioners. Still
the Chairman had lucid intervals after
that. During one of these sane mo-
ments he disallowed my claim for S.
GOO. en- the ground that the head pre-
rented could not be identified as that of
Asiatic Cholera.
"That is why claim that the law in
the West should be changed, and reg
ular county taxidermist elected every
two years, whose duty it should be to
taxiderm the heads of prize murderers,
etc., and that he should be required to