Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1885-05-22
THE AGE OF TATTOO.
Illuminated Linen as 1t Appears to Impress
Noted Humorist.

Illuminated Linen as 1t Appears to Impress
Noted Humorist.
do wish the washee washee people
OF the United States would call a Ma
tional Convention Of launders and
.aundresses, and adopt a uniform style
Of marking the linen that passes
through their hands. I have suffered
much from the diversity of talent dis
played in the private marks of Anglo,
German, Franco, Hibernian and Chi
nese-American laundries. l am a man
not given to novelties. like variety,
but l want it to be the same kind of
variety. do not like to go aroundthe
country %lecturing in the guise of the
tattooed man of Borneo.
Now, when [ put on my war paint
and sarahed forth to seek whom [
might gather the lecture committees in
lhad my scanty store of linen marked
with the real initials of my own hon
ored name-that Mrs. O'Mahony's hus-
band might know whose shirt he was
wearing to church, and Mile. Celeste
might know whose handkerchief she
stole, and that Wun Lung might be.
able to swear that the collars he offered
for sale were given him by his deceased
friend, Ram Jam Bang. But did these
simple marks content the wash ladies
and laundry gentlemen? Nay, not so.
The first laundry gentleman marked
everything l had with a big black x in
indelible ink, save only my-excuse my
blushes-hose. These dainty little
fabrics of silk and worsted, with faint
traces of cotton, he labeled by sewing.
a large, white patch about midships on
the after part of the veal of the anne.
| left all these marks on, hoping that
in connection with the regularly or
dained initials they would content the
next washer gentleman. But he was
a Trojan, and he put on a mark
something like the Greek letters phi,
psi. This vas in Philadelphia. At
Pittsburgh Ihad a round up of my linen
at the Great Western Satin Gloss Laun-
dry, where the man with the indelible
ink labeled everything XO, big and
black, and sewed additional patches on
my-ahem! hose. Inext corralled my
things at the establishment of Ping
Ping in Columbus, o., who stitched
in a fire cracker joke in red thread. We
Il and my herd of linen and manu-
script-drifted slowly to the North
west, and the wardrobe was watered at
a French laundry in Kalamazoo and
branded OLA. At Minneapolis it went
to the hotel laundry and came back
bearing the new legend LII with a
lozenge around it, and with red tags on
my s-cks. This was growing interest
ing, and when brand of blue ink came
into the plot at Council Bluffs and was
cast for XOA, 1 sat up half the night
reading my things. 1 am fond of liter
allure anyhow, and when the mental
pabulum on my linen was reinforced
at C%oncordia, Kan, by the addition
of w in a black circle to the bill OF
fare, / began to look about for a pub
Usher. At Kansas City Hang Hi worked
in a crazy quilt stitch on me-, and at De.
catur, Ill, the launder had a rub.
Der stamp, the design whereof was q
valentine heart, inclosing the letters
XIX. do not know the meaning O
the symbol unless it refers to my age
which certainly has nothing to do will
! the age Of my wardrobe. This mai
sewed white tags on the ears of m.
Stockings, with the same design
printed on them. At Terri
!. Haute, Ind, they sewed tags
on everything, from withers te
hook, and at Valparaiso they
stitched XVII OF the entire harness.
and at Upper sandusky 1 got NYS
linked on everything from collar tt
) crupper. At Beaver Falls, Pa,
Chinese gentleman embroidered on al
t my things portions of a strange, weir(
! alphabet wherever he could find room
for it, and at Uhrichsville, O., my liner
I was returned to me with a note stating
. that all articles must be plainly marked
before they could be received at thai
laundry.
Now, I want to know if this is fair!
1t wasn't my fault that the other laun.
. dries had used up all the available space
on my raiment before 1 got to Uhrichs'
vile. / don't really enjoy this sort o:
thing. When 1 wake in the night and
, see my pallid shirt hanging over a chai1
, back in the moonlight I am frightened
being a nervous man, thinking thai
Captain Costentenius, the tattooeo
man of the Antipodes, has got into my
room. / appeal to the laundry men tc
, adopt some uniform system. Let eacf
free-born American citizen who amasses
more than one shirt select his own
brand, have it duly registered, pub
) lished in the oficialpaper of the county
in which he resides, and let it go al
7 that. / don't like to have my friends
tell me that for a man who dresses sc
quietly as 1 do, those figured shirts arr
in bad taste. Where are the reformersi
Here is a crying evil that stalks up ant
down this fair land like the Augear
stables, blighting the MONDAY with it
midnight cry, and waiting for some
| strong hand to cut the Gordian knot o
it's labyrinthine axe that like a Cor
gon horror freezes our blood into stone
with the burning breath of its ironheel
Let the new Administration see to it
Robert j. Burdette, in Brooklyn Eagle
Self-Possession and Ability.