The Arkansaw traveler., 1885-04-11
JOHN SMITH.
Through Maii,1


 from my infancy. He has followed me from the time first formed his acquaint- ance until this hour. When l was mar ried, 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 ever heard the name. Whea our first babe was born, he off, ciated as master of ceremonies, although when first knew him, he was a section hand on railroad, and at the time of my marriage, was rising young sign painter. He was my school-master for a considerable period between those two dates, and when joined the church, he baptized me into the faith.
 John Smith has never been a hundred miles away from me in all my life. When Illinois. Re ran farm less than four miles from the village. When l was principal of the village s:hool at luka, five ef 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 bachelor. It is strange how soon he amassed a family. In about niae weeks after found him a bachelor in Florida, he had been a married man in iuka for nearly nine years. l could not help looking upon him with suspicion, but year later, when found him in the legislature at Springfield, with four blush ing daughters Swarming around him, s@kn knA 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 a large number of crimes and misdemeanors. While l was sitting 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 a prominent physician in Chicago. How he ged to do so without being discovered, 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, W lile he and were catching bass out of Long Lake, over in Green county, he fell from the top of the new postoffice build ing in St. Louis and was killed, and while his funeral was in pro gress, he robbed bank and escaped to Canada from north ern New York.
 When came to Bloomington he was passenger conductor on the Chicago and Alton railroad but had hardly got set tied in business when he came to me in the guise of tramp printer, but he had been in so many scrapes that l declined to have anything to do with him. It was less than two weeks after that saw dispatch in the daily papers stating that he had fallen heir to 70 oco bv the death of rich uncle in Australia. A year ago, he was driving team of street car mules in Bloomin gton, but it was only five weeks later that got draft from Colorado bank containing his signature as cashier.
 John Smith never gets up in the world, however, but what he comes down again in remarkably short time, and l had hardly had my draft cashed, when saw dispatch announcing his election to congress from South Carolina. During the same week, mob got hold of him in Wyoming, and hung him to a telegraph pole for driving off some cattle belonging to another man but before the coroner could summon jury to inquire into his death, he had taken the contract to build a new jail in one of the back counties of Indiana
 John Smith is one of the most unsteady men l ever knew. The jail he had con- tracted to build could not have been more than half done when he was ap- pointed postmaster of town in northern Ohio, and before he had qualified by filing his bond aud taking the oath,s Mexican greaser lassoed him and dragged him over the prairies until he was calm and harmless corpse, whose bones were left to bleach on the sandy plains of Arizona
 During the last month, he seems to have done much better, however. IL ap- pears that he married a rich widow and her five grown daughters in Tennessee, aLd was on his way to Utah, where he was to be installed as one of the apostles of the Mormon church. On his way out, however, the train ran of the track and left him a one-sixth widower, having killed his wife and mother-in-law com bined. He is now probably safely ar- rived at Salt Lake City. Later:-rhis mornings dispatches state that he was killed yesterday at a fire in San Fran cisco. Still Later :-The evening papers say he was arrested at the New Orleans exposition yesterday for dropping coun- terfeit money in the fare-box in the en- trance.