The daily Cairo bulletin. (Cairo, Ill.) 1878-1???, 1882-01-25

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| What the Argus is pleased to term
"THE BULLETINS exceedingly improbable
yarn" about the manner in which the Wa
bash trestle was broken down, was based
upon the utterance of one of the officers of
the raiload, who would not consider it an
honor, TO say the least, to have his reputa-
ton for truth and veracty placed in bal
ance against that of the Argus. Further
more, there is nothing imbrob-
| able about the story as given by
The BULLETIN, and if, as the Argus says.
nobody was near it or had anything to do
with it," $50 far as known it means, of
course), then THE BULLETINS yarn is just
as liable to be true as that of the lazy, silly,
little Argus. The question, as to whether
the barge, being scuttled in the slough, sew
eral hundred feet from the river, would yet
rest upon the bed Of the river, is an import
tant one. 1t opens up very wide field for
the study Of natural laws, particularly
the one embodied in the question: "can the
whole of one and the same material body be
in two widely apart places at the same
time" The editor Of the lazy little paper
aforesaid, in his profound profundity Gf we
may be allowed the expression), has assumed
an affirmative answer to his important
question, and conscious of our utter inabil-
ity TO cope with so powerful
an intellect, or to comprehend the incom-
prehensible, we will not dispute the cor.
rectness Of the editors assumption. But,
again, another important question is sug-
gested in this connection. The intellectual
monstrosity says that "f the flat-boat was
sunk there it must have been resting upon
the bed of the river, and it
could not, in that position,
have been pressed very heavily against
the piling." OF course and of course not.
1t is as plain as a one'dolar-and-costs
drunk. If the fat-boat was sunk it must
have gone to the bed of the river II
couldn't possibly have climbed up tree,
or gone on lecturing tour. And it couldn't
have been prevented from going to the bot.
tom by being pressed by the strong current
of water against the piles. One side couldn't
have been sucked under the water SO that
the barge stood on its edge, like Obcrlys
farm, with its bottom against the trestle
and with body of water equal in bulk
to the dimensions of the bottom, pressing
with almost irresistible force against the
whole. If this had been the case the tres
tie works must have been in a very unsafe
condition to have given way. 1t is evident
that THE BULLETIN WINS entirely mistaken
in its theory and that the lazy little paper
was right in every particular but one.
The little paper isn't given to making bold
assertions about anything because it is fear
full of giving oifense, but, for once, 1t has
deviated from that rule. 1t makes the
startling assertions that the "flat'boat was
ailoat when it struck the bridge; that il
was an old, rotten hulk, and that it "broke
up and sunk when it struck" Those sim
pic people, who were happy in the belief
that the barge was stuck fast in the bot
tom of the river ct Mound City, will be
startled to hear that they were mistaken
that il was "afloat when it struck the
bridge" But they will be still
more startled to learn that the
fact that an "od, rotten hulk" which
hoated gently off the bank above, drawing
but about foot of water, which "broke up
and sunk where II struck the piles, taking
seventy feet of the trcstle work down with
itthey will be still more surprised to learn
that all this, unlike THE BULLETINS fool
ish theory, does not make "a terrible bad
case Of the bridge TO use the quaint phrase
ology Of the little paper, but that II proves
the trestle works to have been model Of
strength.