The Washington critic., 1888-02-18
AN EpIToR,sI IEAnL,wEI.I..
The valcdictory Appearance of ~
tsRonrina Sprinn Exnb,ioer''


The valcdictory Appearance of tsc
"Ronring Spring Examiner."
Fred. Carruth in the Chicago Tri-
6uae: In 1870 a young man named
Lawler came out to the city of Roar
Spring (since extincb and started
the 'Roaring Spring EeomineD." lie,
following the usual custom, doomed
everything in sight, beside a good
many invisible things, endangered
his chances of salvation dozen times
in every issue by his disregard for the
truth in referring to his fellow citi-
zens,. and made paper generally
which they ought to have appreciated, +,
but didn't. He struggled FOR a year
and decided to give it up, especially
as O mortgage was being foreclosed on
his type and presses as fast, or little
faster, than the law allowed Below
is an extract from the valedictory, he
walking out Of town the night before
it appeared and leaving directions for
the boy to put the papers in the post
office next morning:
I'VE have worked pretty hard to
please the mossbacks and jayhawkers
living. in Roaring Spring, but it seems
they don't want to be pleased.
1--WE referred to the Western Hotel
as 'sumptuous and elegant in all its
appointments, the same week we
were carried out of its dining-room
insensible under the influence of its
tenth-rate canned goods and poison
Gus coffee.
1--WE have spoken of old man Will
kin as our efficient and scholarly
justice of the peace, while at the very
time we were writing the words the
old soaker was under our Office drunk
and humping his head up against the
floor, having crawled there under the
Impression that he was going TO bed
in q sleeping ear moving forty miles
an hour -,
1--WE have lied about the prospect
for raihoad coming here when we
knew there were more chances that
Noah's ark would sail through town
than that train of cars would ever
get in hearing distance.
owe have howled about the aston
ishing fertility of the soil near Roar
ing Spring in the same issue that we
should averecorded the fact that the
only man who ever took the Eram-
fner and paid for IL had just starved
out trying to raise hen grass.
"We wrote glowing account of
visit to our well built and com
modious courthouse, when the truth
is that stray COW came out of the
front door of it and tried to hook us
over the fence when we first went up
to it.
"We noticed the cause for pardona-
BILE pride which we had in the fine
condition of our Streets the same
day we had good pair of boots
pulled off by the mud, While going to
the postofiice.
eve grew really eloquent over the
splendid opportunities that exist
here for settlers, when we knew that
the only settler who arrived here this
summer was promptly run into o
saloon and cleaned out of his money
in poker game by Bill Kuhn, town
clerk, and Dan Woody, county COM
missioner.
1--WE told of our sparkling drinking
water, cool end delicious to the taste
when we knew thatthere was so much
alkali in it that, in washing our type
with it, it had actually eaten the tails
OIL the very commas we punctuated
the statement with.
1--WE spoke of our winter climate as
being clear and dry, rendering it
quite impossible to feel the cold,'
when only q month before the doctor
had amputated two of our toes where
we had inadvertently got our foot over
a rat hole in the floor while eating
supper.
article on our beautiful spring
weather, with just enough breeze to
purify the air and make It healthful,
even IL we weIc kept pretty busy that
week in sorting our type, whicn 'nau
been pied by the office being blown
away and scattered over half the
country.
"The week we were sunstruck we
wrote poem on Beautiful Summer
and Roaring Spring; when Judge of
Probate Dougherty had the jimjams
and set the school house afire in the
night we laid it to the 'diabolical
work of some villainous tramps'; when
Nick Daggett and his wife tried to
poison each other we shouted about
the arsenic in the wall paper; the
Packard family froze to death. in a
blizzard and we wept over the f. %that
consumption should thus Eater a
family without warning and swept
away whole household; u cyclone
killed six and we sobbed over
that fell destroyer, epileptic fits,
contracted in the army drink,
ing alkali water hurried a dozen
to an untimely grave, and in every
case we bowed our head and through
| our sobs moaned out: Another good
citizen killed in a runaway That's
the way we've been standing x ofor
you, but we are going to stop, This is
| the last Eraminer. If the few re-
naming dead beats in Roaring Spring
will this evening cast their eyes
through the gathering darkness they
will see tall, brainy young man,
formerly engaged in the newspaper
business in their midst, pass out from
them through the cleaning on the
trot. Goodbye. 1t is our earnest
| hope that we may not meet on better
shore; we couldn't meet on worse
one"
ntIIN DIkurnNn cxsrrrrr