The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1884-03-27
Between Scylla and Charybdls.


ion has been a sweeping one, and
their crowns and scepters are strewn
N every direction. The Texas land
board OF ever blessed memory, took
hold upon de-fenceless kings and at a
single bound advanced the lease price
OF land one hundred per cent. on them.
Ihls represents serious loss to them |
and constitutes burden almost too |
grievous to be borne. All at once the |
once proud and prosperous cattle |
prince sinks to the level of a mere
cowboy. The descent has been so
rapid, the fall so profound, that no
wonder many of them have been
giddy-will remain giddy for some
time to come. Texas had not well
finished formulating it's thunderbolt
until the governor Of Kansas called
the legislature of his state together
in special session to contrive out of
the "blackleg" and sore mouth dis
eases-scare, to fence the Texas cattle
kings and their herds out of Kansas
No cattleman in Texas will feel safe
until Clicks legislators start for
home. The discussions in the Kansas
legislature have been conducted in such
a way as to measurably conceal and
cover up the evident real design. 1t isn't
real pleasant to have the vast armies
OF Texas cattle trampling the blue
clay subsoil of Kansas to the surface
every spring, to the Earring of the
nerves of the mortgage holder. 1t is
regarded as "a dead give away" of the
poverty Of the soil. But for the YER
nal invasion of the Texas longhorns
the surface black of that state would
stand for soil. The Kansians would
not have the comfortable old delusion
rudely disturbed, and after they have
experimental several years with exclu-
sion weapons, they will come boldly
to the front with such legislation as
will turn the milk of human kindness
in the breast of the poor Texan cattle
king, into sour buttermilk in a jiffY.
This was not enough. All these
cumulative woes were insufficient,
and it remains for the blessed greaser
legislature of New Mexico to pass a
law which denies to the poor perse-
cuted Texas cattleman ingress to the
cactus plains and soap-weed plateaus
of that blistered incipient common
wealth-the pasture lands of the
prairie dog and the basking ground
OF the rattlesnake. 1t is not yet GER
tain what the full effects of this pom
derous blow will be upon the poor
flattened cattlemen. 1t cannot, how
ever, be anything short of ann1hila-
ton. Considered alone from this one
single fact it would be bad enough,
but the cattlemen have had their lines
coming to them in rough shape in
many ways. The markt is of the
world have not been reaching out for
the blessed broad-horn in just the way
that a cattleman's heart delights in.
Prices are wonderfully shrunken, and
there seems to be no prospect of an
immediate let up, and an uneasy
money market adds the feather weight
which overtakes the industry
"breaks the camePs back" as it were.
All that is necessary to cause cattle
monarch to bitterly deny that he ever
saw Texas steer, is for the campaign
orator, who is already busy whetting
the blades of war, to turn loose upon
the luckless cattleman. If the truth
were known there are already tons
and tons of manuscript prepared
wherein burning thought and high
resolve to meet the bloody cattle king
early and stay with him late-are
struggling and tumbling over each
other to find first expression, turn the
first spring summersault from the oily
tongue and be first to escape from the
smiling lip Of the loaded patriot.
But those blessed, thrice blessed
Mexicans-old Montezuma turns over
in his coffin and tries as hard as dead
king ever did to rise and cry "'Bless We
my children'-one more blow full on
the ugly mug of the ugly Gringo, and
just in the very nick of time" From
rustler-ridden Dona Ana to the San
Juan but one sound is heard, blessed,
blessed, thrice blessed legislature.
Billy the Kids kingdom has covered
itself fathom's deep in human glory
by this splendid piece of work.
The old proverb should be made
to read hereafter, uneasy lies
the head which wears a cattle
kings CROWN" soon there will
be not only crownless king, but the
blessed king will find no where to set
his feet-no solid, terrestrial earth
where he can make single track with
out putting down at least an eight |
cent minimum price.
The shortest way out of the maze
would be for the cattle kings to in
duce the devil to enter into their
herds, and then head 'em straight for |
the gulf of Mexico. And if they act |
upon this recommendation at all, |
they'll have to be p. d. q. or the lively
and board will draw maximum up
On the territory the school children
night have if the gulf were dried up.
Moral. Young man don't, don't for
dear sake, go and be cattle
ting.
THE San Antonio Light, the best
epublican paper in the south, is in &C.
tacies over the prospect of the demo-
rats abolishing the two-thirds rule.
md says it will be the beginning of
he break-up-and so it will.
The above, from the Sherman Cour-