The new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1876-1904, 1884-09-13
SATURDAY. SEPTEMBER 10. 1884.
The Amateur Chemist.


l often think how MANY scientists and
experimental chemists and coroners are
swallowed up by journalism, and how
thankful the public ought to be that
they are in field where they can not
get at the lives of the people. We
often find fault with fate, but certainly
it is wisdom that takes q man out of
the drug store sometimes and puts him
in the sanctum.
w. l.. Yisscher, who has done jour
nalis.ic work on many papers, and
work, too. that would have made his
reputation worldwide if he hadn't been
so internally anonymous about it, was
once drug clerk in Kentucky. If YOU
watch closely you will see that the man
who is intended as a newspaper athlete
will go through the gamut of trades
and professions, but will surely get
into Journalism first or last. And it
isn't such calamity to befall a young
man either, as it used to be. OF course,
mean if he is good, square news
paper man, not the scallawag kind or
the kindergarten humorist, but real,
working, advancing, sure-enough news
paper man. with love for his work
and desire to improve.
Well, Visscher used to invent things
when he was in the drug business. He
showed good deal of ingenuity in that
way. He invented kind of rat poison
once that worked we'll, but the ingredi-
ents were too expensive to make the
patent valuable one. He killed nine
rats with his solution, but it cost him
ninety dollars to do it. This, you see,
was fatal, not only to the rats, but to
the poison itself.
Jesse Clawser was a resident of the
village in which Visscher was acting
as Nemesis pro tenn. and general soda
fountain superintendent. Jesse was
dead shot when he got after the Ken
lucky squirrel, and life ought to have
been one long happy squirrel hunt for
him. But he was not entirely happy.
He had red whiskers. He did not care
for his angry hair, but his infamed
beard annoyed him very much. He
went to Visscher, regarding him as a
sort of alchemist who could do most any,
thing with his mysterious jars and pei
culiar smelling herbs. He asked Wis
scher to color his beard for him, and
offered, in consideration therefor 10
bring him mess of squirrels. The
price was satisfactory, and the young
chemist proceeded to make Mr..
Clawser's beard as black as a ravens
wing with lunar caustic. Every little
while he would make mistake and hit
the skin, and Mr.. Clawser would Jump
out of his chair with great uneasiness.
Wherever the caustic struck Jesse's
epidermis it would leave black spot
that would wash off about as easily as a
birth-mark.
Well, Mr.. Clawser walked out of the
back room of that drug store with a
beard as black as an Egyptian cat and
hair as red as the sunset of summer day
in my own Italian home so far, far away.
At first no one knew him. He had
to introduce himself Then people got
better acquainted with him, and the
people of Northern Kentucky, who were
not too busy, dropped their other duties
and followed him around wherever he
went. This at last panied and annoyed
him. He got through ten days, and
then he stole into the store after hours
one night and begged Visscher to shave
him. The great amateur chemist
offered to do so for another mess of
squirrels.
He didn't do it very we'll, but he
made out to segregate Mr.. Clawser
from his glorious beard. There it lay
on the floor like the end of a a cows
tail soaked in logwood, a dead, I'M
natural, horrible, somber pile of stiff
and diabolical hair. Mr. Clawser
heaved sigh of relief and went to the
mirror. He there saw young man
with white eyes and cream-colored eye
brows. The lashes were ecru, and
the freckles were like large iecks
of bronze. The hair hung about
the forehead like an incendiary
fire beyond control. To add to the
general horror of the holocaust. his
face was spotted all over with black
daubs of lunar caustic.. Mr.. Clawser
looked like the map of the burnt dis
trict. He looked like the tattooed man
at the circus. He reminded people of a
red headed pen-wiper.
He went around through the forests,
frightening little children into ST. Vitus'
dance, for three days, and living on
'huckleberries and blue grass. He then
took another mess of squirrels to Wis
scher and asked him if there wasn't some
way known to science by which these
marks could be removed. Visscher filed
the squirrels and said he thought posi-
bly, it could be done. He then applied
little cyanide of potassium and re-
moved the spots. He also removed the
skin here and there and turned Mr..
Clawser loose upon the community once
more. He fled to the mountains and
lived the life of a recluse until he heard
accidentally that Visscher had left the
drug trade and gone into journalism.
Then he came back to home and friends
once more, but he will not look at q
newspaper and is regarded everywhere
as the foe OF the press. He is afraid he
will run up against one of Visscher's
editorials somewhere.-BiU Nye, in
Louisville Courier-Journdl.
An Earthquake-PrO0f House.
In .Japan where earthquakes are