Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-06-29
THE TOPICAL TALKER.
A Plea for the Cats and Dig for the Pug
Dog-A Jnvenile Plea and Answer
Molrfn. Eo.s T;,.,s -, -. T..- We

A Plea for the Cats and Dig for the Pug
Dog-A Juvenile Plea and Answer-
Making Fast Time ON the Iron Way.
PERHAPS it is time that little justice were
done cats in general in the matter of midnight
musicals and vocal calisthenics on the back
and front fence. They are, Messieurs ct Mes
danes the cats, held in the public estimation
to be the CHIEF breakers of the nights silence,
the champion sleep preventers and nocturnal
nuisances in all respects. They are intensely
disagreeable in their free perambulations at
night, and full many time have l tried to
make them as uncomfortable as they have
made me.
But in the interests Of simple justice allow
me to say that one small pug dog of the COM
mon caliber can make more noise disturb a
larger section of the country or town, and re-
sist all repressive measures more successfully
than any seven cats of various sizes and per-
suasions.
You can silence bowling cat if you can see
it plainly enough to hit it with some hard sub.
stance Even a loud and angry shout will scare
all but the most determined tom cats from the
premises. But stupid, meaningless pug dog
will sit on his launches and howl or stand on
his four feet and bark no matter how often
your proiectiles descend upon him. He doesn't
bark and growl for company. OF because he is
mad, or because another dog is barking. or
because his bark hurts his inside and he must
getit out, but he murders the sleep of every
body within hearing just out of mere pug-dog
cussedness and ignorance.
II you speak to the little taffy-colored brute
he barks all the louder. If you shut down the
window and refuse to think of the yowls out
SIDE he goes an octave higher and splits the
wooden shutters with the sound. There is no
evading it. The pug dog in the night time is
an issue like that of the tarif-it will not
down. Don't talk to me of the harmless neces-
sary cat that swear word or a boot-jack will
dispose Of. I've had an all-night seance with
pug dog, and the biscuit goes to him, There
ought to be poison in the biscuit, too.
So
ONE or two readers of some remarks that
were made in this column the other day about
projected dictionary of poets are undor the
impression that no such work is being CON-
piled, and that the circular, etc., mentioned
were inventions of the writer. Not at all. The
circular and pamphlets came to the Office of
this paper in the regular way, and the work
they sought to advertise is as far as know, to
be published in due time by a firm of Chicago
publishers.
1t is unkind to say so, but it looks as If the
book would find one OF two purchasers in ALE
gheny county.
A SLIP of girl went up to the parlor window
the other day while heavy storm was raging,
and, peering up at the battling clouds through
the streaming panes she said beseechingly:
"Oh, God, please stop the rain.''
Then she waited and watched the steady
downpour continue unchecked for good
while. When she next spoke she assumed as
deep tone as her baby voice could and said
plainly in answer to her own request:
"Bimebyr'
Her face lighted and seemed quite satisfied
that she had OWNED the will Of the Master of
the storm. &E
xx*
MAKING up time is always rather a pre-
carious business on a railroad. had rather be
late an hour than know that the engineer was
sending his iron steed faster over the rough
places and around the curves than his sober
senses told him was safe. Yet it is often DONE
The fastest ride 1 ever experienced was on
the New York express bound East over the
Lake Erie and Western, nearly ten years ago. |
The train had been late all the way down from
Buffalo, and in the last $50 miles the engineer
made desperate effort to save 40 minutes on
the run. He succeeded. But there were several
carloads of passengers behind him who were
badly scared as well as shaken and bruised
for the Erie road was very rough then-when
the train got into the depot.
Talking of fast travelling, 1 remember
cheerful habit Mr.. Baldwin had when he was
of the Fort Wayne Railroad. He
used often to travel in the coach nearest the
engine on the very speedy Beaver Falls ex-
press in the afternoon to his home at Shields,
and whenever he found himself next girl or
man or woman he took to be nervous he would
be careful to point out as the train swung on to
the curve below Ellsworth the exact place in
the Ohio river where the locomotive would
light if it should chance to leave the rails.