Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1882-10-12
8euulrpatrnnitit uraniti tNasitmest.
OUR DULl.-FIGHT.
BY JrxNY BROWN.


Prove their minds without doing any
harm, for nobody ever tells them that
their conduct is such, and that there
isn't the least excuse in the would for
them; but Just assure as a boy tries to
improve his mind, especially with ami
mails, he gets into dreadful difficulties.
There was a man came to our town
to lecture while ago. He had been
Q great traveller, and knew all about
Rome and Niagara Falls and the North
Pole, and such places, and father said:
s'Now, Jimmy, here's an opportunity
for you to learn something and i'm
prove your mind; go and take your
mother, and do take an interest in
something beside games"
Well, / went 20 the lecture. The
man told all about the Australian saw
ages.s! and their boomerangs. He
showed US a boomerang. which is
a stick with two legs, and an Aus
tarlian will throw 1t at o man, and it
will 70 and hit him, and come back OF
It's own accord. Then he told of about
the way the Zulus throw their assegais
that's the right way to spell it--and
spear an English man not more than
ten rods away from them. Then he
showed a long string with heavy
lead ball on each end, and said the
South Americans would throw it at a
wild horse, and it would wind around
the horses legs, and tie itself into a
bow knot, and then the South Ameri-
cans would each the horse, But the
best of all was the account of bull
fight which he saw in Spain, with the
Queen sitting on throne and giving
crown of evergreens to the chief
bull-fghter. He said that bull-fght-
ing was awfully cruel, and that he
tolG us about it so that we might be
thankful that we are so much better
than those dreadful Spanish people,
who will watch bull-tight all day,
and think 1t real fun.
The next day l told Mr.. Travers
about the boomerang, and he said it
was true. Once there was an
Australian savage in circus, and he
got angry, and threw his boomerang
at a man who was in the third story Of
a hotel. The boomerang went down
one street and up another, and into
the hotel door, and upstairs, and
knocked the man on the head, and
came back the same way right into
the Australian savage's Eand.
was SO anxious to show father
that | had listened to the lecture that
/ made boomerang just like the one
the lecturer had. When it was done,
, went out into the backyard, and slung
it'at cat on the roof of our house. 1t
never touched the cat, but it went
right through the dining.room win
dow, and gave Mr.. Travers an awful
blow in the eve, besides little Sue on
the nose 1t stopped right there in the
dinlng-room, and never came back to
me at all, and don't believe word
the lecturer said about it, | don't feel
courage to tell what father said about
it.
Then I tried to catch Mr.. Thomp-
sons dog, that lives next door to us,
with two lead balls tied on the ends Of
long string I didn't hit the dog any
more than | did the cat, but didn't
do any harm except to Mrs. Thomp-
sons cook, and she ought to be thank
full that it was only her arm, for the
doctor said that if the balls had hit
her on the head they would have bro
ken it, and the consequence might have
been serious.
1t was Q good while before / could
find anything to make an assegai out.
of; but after hunting all over the
house, ! came across lovely piece of
bamboo about ten feet long, and just
as light as feather. Then I got big
knife blade that hadn't any handle to
it, and that had been lying in fathers
tool chest for ever so long, and fasten.
ed it on the end of the bamboo. You
wouldn't believe how splendidly I
could throw that assegai, only fthe
wind would take it, and you couldn't
tell when you threw it where it would
bring up. I don't see how The Zulus
ever manage to hit an Englishman; but
Mr.. Travers says that the Englishmen
are all so made that you can't very
well miss them. And then perhaps
the Zulus, when they want to hit them,
aim at something else One day l was
practicing with the assegai at our barn
door, making believe that it was an
Englishman, when Mr.. Carruthers, the
butcher, drove by, and the assegai
came down and went through his foot,
and pinned it to the wagon. But he
didn't see me, and / guess he got it
out after while, though l never saw.
it again.
But what the lecturer taught us
about the bull-fight was worse than
anything else. Tom McGinnis' father
has terrible bull in the pasture, and
Tom and agreed that we'd have a
bull-fght, only of course, we wouldn't
hurt the bull. All we wanted to do
was to show our parents how much we
had learned about geography and the
habits of the Spaniards.
Tom McGinnis's sister Jane, who is
twelve years old, and thinks she knows
everything, said she'd be the Queen of