The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1885-05-08
JOHN SMITH.
An Ublquitous Personage which Every
One Has Known from His BOyhooi.

An Ubiquitous Parsonage which Every
One Has K5own from His Boyhood.
John Smith is one of the most pecu-
liar men ever knew, and have known
him from my infancy. He has followed
me from the time first formed his ac-
quaintance until this hour. When l
was married. over five hundred miles
from the place of my birth, he was at
my wedding, having been acquainted
with my wife's people long before I
ever heard the name. When our first
babe was born. he ciliciated as master
of ceremonies, although when l first
knew him he was a section hand on a
railroad, and at the time of my marriage
was a rising young sign-painter. He
was my school-master for considerable
period between those two dates, and
when / joined the church he baptized
me into the faith.
John Smith has never been hundred
miles away from me in all my life.
When l was practicing law at White
Hall, ILL.,, he ran farm less than four
miles from the village. When I was
principal of the village school ut Iuka,
five of his boys reaped of the harvest of
knowledge was sowing.
Although John Smiths five sons were
my pupils at Iuka, three months before,
when John Smith sailed me down the
gulf coast of Florida in an open boat.
he was a bachelor. 1t is strange how
soon he amassed a family. In about
nine weeks after found him bachelor
in Florida he had been a married man
in Iuka for nearly nine yeBrs. l could
not help looking upon him with sus-
picion, but a year later, when l found
him in the Legislature at Springfield,
with four 5lushing daughters swarming
around him, was astonished. He has
been where l could get at. him on an
hours notice for more than twenty
years, and in spite of this fact am told
that he has committed large number
OF crimes and misdcmeanors. While |
was in the gallery of the Illinois House
of Representatives listening to a speech
from him on the Harper High-license
bill, he ran away with the wife of
prominent physician in Chicago How
he managed to do so without being dis
covered is more than ! can understand.
While the Sheriff of Macoupin County
was looking for him with posse for
horse-stealing he was preaching in one
Of the most prominent churches in that
county. and one day, while he and |
were catching bass out of Long Lake,
over in Green County, he fell from the
top of the new post-oilice building in
st. Louis and was killed. and while his
funeral was in progress he robbed a
bank and escaped to Canada from
Northern New York.
When | came to Bloomington he was
a passenger conductor on the Chicago
Il Alton Railroad; but l had hardly got
settled in business when he came to me
in the guise Of a tramp printer. but he
had been in so many scrapes that de-
clined to have anything to do with him.
1t was less than two weeks after1 saw
a dispatch in the daily papers stating
that he had fallen heir to forty thousand
dollars by the death of rich uncle in
Australia. A year ago. he was driving
| a team of street-car mules in Blooming
ton, but it was only five weeks later that
| got draft from a Colorado bank cou-
tanning b signature rs cashier.
John Smith never gets up in the
world, however, but what he comes
down again in Il remarkably short time,
and l had hardly my draft cashed when
| saw 4 dispatch announcing his election
to Congress from South Carolina. Dur
ing the same week a mob got hold of
him in Wyoming. and hung him to a
telegraph pole for driving off some cat
tlc belonging to another man; but be-
fore the Coroner could summon jury
to inquire into his death he had taken
the contract to build new Jail in one
the back counties of Indiana.
John Smith is one of the most I'M
steady men ever knew. The Jail he
had contracted to build could not have
beel more than half done when he was
appointed postmaster of town in
Northern Ohio. and before he had quail
tiei by fling his bond and taking the
oath, a Mexican greaser lasSoed him
and dragged him over the prairies until
he was calm. and harmless corpse,
whose bones were left to bleach Oh the
SANDY plains of Arizona.
During the last month he seems to
have done much better, however. 1t
appears that he married n rich widow
and her five gown daughters, in Ten
ncsSee, and was on his way to Utah,
where he was to be installed rs one of
the Apostles of the Mormon Church.
On his way out, however. the train ran
of the track and left him q ont-sixth
widower, having killed his wife and
yOnthar-ip-law nnmbipe6 He il now
probably safely arrived at Salt Lake
City. Later:-This mornings Dispatch
es state that he was killed yesterday at
a fire in San Francisco. Still LATER
The evening papers say he was arrested
at the New Orleans Exposition yester-
day for dropping counterfeit money in
the fare-boX in the entrance. Through
Mail