Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1890-05-02
THE ARIZONA KICKER.
Showing That Editorial Machinery Some
times Slips a Cog.


times Slips a Cog.
We extract the following from the latest
issue of The Arizona Kicker, which came
out on half sheet:
EXPLANATORY We owe our readers an
apology for the half sheet we were obliged
to issue this week. Monday morning, as
we entered the postofIce after our mail,
which, by the way, is five times as large as
that of any other establishment in Arizona,
the postmaster came out into the corridor
and demanded a personal apology for what
The Kicker said about him last week. In
our pioneer days, when we lived on roots
and hadn't "A second shirt to our back, we
used to get down and crawl whenever re-
quested. We felt that we had to. We
were a tenderfoot and lacked sand. A
change came. We haven't been doing any
creeping for the past two years. On the
contrary, we have had the revolver and the
other man has done the four legged act.
Therefore when the postmaster demand
ed an apology, and took us by the ear to
enforce obedience, we lit onto him with
the weight of two tons, and had him hol-
lering for mercy inside of two minutes.
Before letting him up we took his gun
away, and in some manner it was discharg-
ed and the bullet went through the palm
of our right hand. The wound will pre-
vent our using the pen for some weeks, and
we must dictate our copy.
MORE EXPLANAToRY.-The postmaster
has brother named Jim, who is loafer
and a cur from way back. We stated last
week that we believed he stole money let
tiers from the mails, and the statement
seems to have put some git" into him.
After we had licked his brother and got
back to the Office Jim came sneaking down
the street and fired at us through "A win
dow. He had shotgun, but he fired so
| high that no one was touched, and he was
out of sight before we got to the door,
In few days we are going on hunt for
Jim. We shall locate him and walk in on
him and slice off his ear and nail it on our
Office door. Let him accept this notice as
fair warning of our intentions. While he
didn't hit us with any of his buckshot, the
idea of such "A chuckaloo firing at us with
intent to kill ratified our nerves and sent
us to bed when we ought to have been get
ting out copy.
FURTHER EXPLANATORY Some three
weeks ago "A wild eyed guyasticutus en-
tered this town by the dirt road and struck
us for sit" He gave the name of j.
Melville Callahan, and claimed to have fur
nished all the brain fodder for most of the
New York papers for the last ten years.
AS he offered to work for 81 per week and
buy his crackers and cheese from our gro
Gerry, we didn't question him closely as
we otherwise might. He had worked two
days when we got hurt, and what did the
lop cared brother of hyena do but go Off
and get drunk and lay down just where
Col. Ravens drove of mules would run over
him in going to water! He was trampled
out of sight into the sand, and on top Of
our other troubles we had to hire him dug
out and buried. But for his kick-over we
could have issued a full sheet and got il
out on time. We've had him carted off to
one corner of our private burying ground,
and shall mark his grave but we don't
mourn.
THE LATEsT.-If our readers are not
satisfied with the above explanations
we have another to fire at them. Ow-
ing to our wounded hand we could
not do a stroke of writing. We could
dictate, however, and we hired young Bill
Ellis, son of Old Reprobate Ellis, to act as
our amanuensis. We had dictated about
half a column when he differed with us on
how to spell cordial" He insisted that it
was ''corjul," and rather than see the Eng
lish language knocked out we ceased die
tating fired Bill out and gave an old tramp
printer so and told him to go ahead and
run out half a sheet It's all we could do
under the circumstances, and we beg the
indulgence of our subscribers. Next week
we shall be all right, and we promise an
issue of The Kicker which will make the
sand fly in fifty directions Free
Press.