The Mason County journal. [volume] (Shelton, W.T.) 1886-1927, 1890-10-03
A RAILROAD EPISODE.
How Dcspondent Man Was Left Alon,
In This Cold and Cruel World.

In This Cold and Cruel World.
A Michigan Central railroad train was
hustling along toward Chicago at the
rate of forty miles an hour, when a
brassy faced, middle-aged man suddenly
jumped to his feet in the reclining-chair
car and glanced hastily and defiantly
around as though daring any one to re.
strain him. Flinging off his overcoat, and
COMPRISING his lips with the air of a
man whose mind is made up. he rushed
to the door, jeaxed it open. and screech
ed out as he turned around and faced the
other passengers:
Farewell, vain worldr"
Some of the passengers glanced over
the tops of their newspapers toward
him, others looked at him with languid
interest, while the man nearest the door
threw up his arms and yawned fright.
fully.
The man stepped out to the car plat.
form, thrust his head back into the car.
and again yelled out:
Farewell, vain world, go hence"
Nobody seemed to care whether he
went hence or to some other place, and
a look of bitter disappointment came
into the brassy face of the would-be
suicide. He again thrust his head into
the car and wildly shrieked out:
Goodbye, foreverr
$50 long, my friend; let US know when
you get there" replied the man who had
yawned, as he quietly closed the car
door and sat down.
The desperate man on the platform
flattened his nose against the car win.
dow, and gazed in mooGaly at the tran
quill passengers.
Waving them final adieu he flung
off his coat, threw APP his arms, and
sat down on the platform. Then he
craw}ed up to the keyhole of the door to
gaze through it on the horror and re-
morse stricken faces of tho men and
women who had deliberately permitted
human being to go to destruction.
But there wasn't single horror.
stricken passenger to look upon. Sew.
eral of them were giggling immoderate.
ly, and the cold-blooded, yawning pas
senger was indicating by signs to the
others that the farewell Twain world"
man had not gone hence, but was still in
New York State.
Finally he came sneaking back into
the car with a combined look of sadness
and madness on his care-worn face,
which grew gloomier when nobody
rushed forward to ask the cause of his
desperation. Nobody passed the hat for
his relief; nobody begged him to confide
in them; no purse was made up; nothing
turned out as he had thought it would.
Singing himself into the seat he had
vacated, the man Kissed out to the
wretch in front of him, who was swaying
to and fro with rude and ill-concealed
laughter:
''Laugh, now, hang we! Oh, laugh,
why don't ye! If we had single drop
of the milk of human kindness in your
breast we wouldn't see any thing funny
in the suicide of fellowbeing. You'd
bid him pause and
'Ticketsl Tickets!" cried the con-
ductor, appearing suddenly, and min
ute later he was saying to the man who
suicide:
"Lookee here, my friend, this is the
third time within month that l have
caught you trying to dead-head it over
this road. The last time you was try
ing to work the boat-ticlzet and pocket
book and dying-wife racket on the pas
sengers. and l know from your disap-
pointed look that you've been up to
something now that amt panned out SO
well, so off We go!'
A jerk of the bell, sudden stopping
of the train, quick appearance of a
brawny brakeman slight scuffie near
the door, and the gloomy passenger had
indeed gone flying from the platform,
and the train had gone on, leaving him
alone in this cold, vain and cruel world.
IN. Y. Tribune.