The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1882-12-07
Handmade Elouuence,

Chicago Inter ocean because we dislike
a humorous paper, and as rule read
those publications that enrich the mind
and add to the strength of the intellec-
tual faculties. We just happened, how
ever, to catch the following, under the
head of Trade Towers" and referring
to the new board of trade building:
''Be not alarmed, gentle or gallant
reader. A great stretch of columns does
not mean, of necessity, either prolixity
or ponderosity, and, therefore, skip it
not in this instance, for to you individu-
ally aud affectionately it is dedicated.
How in paragraph-pray tell a fellow
that!-can any adequate mention be
made of the Chicago Board of Trade and
its current etilorescence, architectually,
into the consumate pink that, now
sprinGing maiestically from a bed of
granite, marble and sculpture, will soon
have to lift its sun-kissed petals fully 800
feet into the air. Loftiness, substantial
ity, and graceworthy of its builders, and
of the imperial city they have SO largely
reared and now and ever represent SO
uniquely and gloriously."
This explains where the Sweet Singer
of Michigan went to when people thought
she was kidnapped. When people told
us that she had been garroted and
thrown into Lake Huron, we said to our
selves, no, she is not dead. Julia cannot
possibly be dead. Some more horrible
fate has befallen her She is on the
Inter Ocean staff, eating sour paste and
jerking poesy out of her system for her
board.
Yes, these musical gobs of high priced
posey came from Julia. We know Ju-
lia's style the moment we see it. 1t is
the polonaise style of free, unfettered,
Michigan gurgle.
Current etflorescence architectually in
to the consummate pink that now spring.
ing majestically from bed of granite
lifting its sun-kissed petals" and some
other things like that, are Julia's. Ju-
liza is poet even in prose. She can't
help it. She was born that way and
then while still little girl got blow on
the head from fire and burglar proof
safe that fell out of third story window
on her bump of ideality.
Since that time she has been unable to
recognize the faces of friends, and all
she can do is to write blank verse for
the Inter Ocean. The managing editor
just ties her to the city editors desk so
that she can't get out on the street and
run away, and then he tells her to write
up kind of Walt Whitman wad of
stuff that don't mean anything, and
which is therefore regarded as word
painting.
Later on, the poet gnashes her teeth,
and comes at us again in this style:
'.The tabulated figures of business
transacted rise up story upon story, Gu
pulo upon mansard, fiag-pole upon tow
er, not less massive memorial to the
board than the vast new Chamber of
Commerce about to overtop and dwarf
its tete-a-tete neighbors, the Grand
Pacific hotel and the Union depot. The
cattle of thousand hills, the grain of a
continent, the bristle-snouted beauties of
hemisphere!-the multitudinous emu
meration is denied"
How do you like that? Did old Sir
Walter Scott in his palmiest days ever
trill anything like that? ':Bristle-snout-
ed beauties of a hemisphere!' Now who
does she mean by that? If we had been
boarding at the Grand Pacific when that
article was published, we would have
gone over to the Inter Ocean woodshed
and secured a stick of cordwood, and
then we would have gone up the eleva-
tor, leaving death and human fragments
upon every floor.
Do you suppose that we would board
at the Grand Pacific and pay four dol
lars day and then be called "a tete a-tete
neighbor' and ''bristle-snouted beau
ty of hemisphere" Notexactly. When
we pay our bills it will be cold day
when we will let a poet or any other OBJ
ject of charity call us the ''bristle-snout-
ed beauty of hemisphere.
Farther on the poet tunes her Tyre to
lager beer concern and says some very
touchful things ut seventy-tive cents a
line and board. The true poet loves to
write about beer and other beauties of
nature. Illinois hogs and Milwaukee
lager beer are the best things in the
world to write a sonnet on. They say
you can 90 to the Inter Ocean office at
any time and get good two column
poem on the hog, by giving the poet a
link of pork sausage rs n guarantee of
good faith. Why, poetry in Chicago is
as plenty this year as pumpkins and
politicians. If You want an ode to car
load of Wyoming 3-year-ol! steers you
can go over onto the west side, and get
4 long-haired man by giving him fresh
liver, TO write something that will make
you get right up and howl.
The board of trade ought to be proud
of those eighteen columns of colic-in-
spired verse, descriptive of nothing and
meaning nothing under heaven but go
much per line. When the Inter Ocean
sweet singer gets an order for a poem,
she Just asks what it is to be about, and
how long it is to be, and then she lets
her hair down, loosens her corset laces
little, so that she won't be hampered
any, and then she sails in. She don't
care for expense, but just shells out
high-priced sentiments like these, just
as if times were good and money
plenty.
Again she says: '1n review like the
present, the skeleton of fact becomes
endowed with plumpness and flesh tints
through the diet of reminiscence."
How would the gentle reader like to
live two or three weeks on ''a diet of
"reminiscences" How would he like to
sit down to q picked memory, with
slices of fond recollection and fried re-
gret? How would deviled remembrances
and fricaSseed mementoes do with pre-
Vious pie and corn-starch oblivion? But
we cannot follow this thing up. 1t is
too depressing in its tendencies, and we
wonder that humorous paper like the
Inter Ocean would monkey with so much
sadness. Nye.