The Russellville Democrat., 1890-01-23
BURDETTE ON THE R,
Some of the Humorous Exp@.
 enoes of the Lecturer.
Six Horses Harncssed Abreast Could Not Draw Him from the Platform De- lights of the sIecping-Car--
 Riding on . Freight.

oOtAN bnab kifco d man cuCU dH easy li&C and large profits as lecturing. I don't suppose that six horses, harnessed abreast could draw me from tho plat form. It is just like lolling around in 8 June meadow, picking mp gold dollars instead of buttercups. Now, last Tues day night lectured in Granville, N. Y.; didn't leave dollar in the town. Next morning got mp at 4:45 o'clock, got into buggy, piled a valise weighing four hundred pounds---no. sir, won't take of one ounce-on my feet, and drove eleven miles through a pelting, driving rain storm, over muddy roads to a station on the D. & H. C., that has train five times year. At Granville they have one every spring. We'll. I got train, and changed cars once or twice and got more trains, and finally got to Albany at 1885. May be I didn't want my breakfast. Sat down to a table and drove a restaurant man to despair, bankruptcy and suicide. Got on the cars again, and at 6:30 that evening, without stop or stay for bite or sup, got of at my station. Raining like house afire and two miles to drive. Fun? uOii U tdfc SO IuuCn TUT bflC dtbudi lcttuI- ing, but the getting from one place to another do enjoy.
 And then, the pleasure of travel Do you know, some weeks, have sat still in the cars, one day after another, from 8 a. m. to f, 5, 6 or : D. m., without nov ing, save at meal time? How do you suppose an active man, fond of walking, enjoys that sort of thing? It's enough to drive graven image mad with nervousness
 But can't read?" asks Feeblemind.
 Say, when you are reading, and one of your lovely, loving and beloved children comes up and takes hold of the back of the chair and begins to shake it-don't you make her quit it right away? And if she doesn't stop, don't you box her ears with your precious book?
 What! Don't lie to me; I've seen you do it.
 We'll, that's the way the iig-jog, rat tle-rattle, shake and shiver of the car affect me. It just about drives me wild.
 But can while away the time in pleasant conversation with"
 Oh. can I? Do you remember reading
 'rs of well-dressed man
 e river, who was
 allen from an Erie n ,ing Portage Falls? We4. me that man was seen alive, U l lifted my 400 ton-''said 400 pounds little while ago?,--I said tons, both times; you can look back and see-he had lifted my 500-ton valise from my seat, and crowded himself in on me for what he called "a little chat. I enjoy conversation, but not in boiler factory. If you were having quiet conversation in you parlor would you like the children to come in and make as much noise as railway train? trow not We'll, don't like it either. The man who wastes time trying to draw me into a conversation on roar ing, crashing, buzzing railroad train will get much better results, and quite as pleasant ones to himself, if he will hold his naked eye out of the window and look for cinders.
 But why don't I travel at night and take the sleeper?" Because, imhecile, night is my time for work and lecture only in towns where sleepers either go through in the afternoon or the express trains don't stop You might as well ask the patriots to have their torchlight prooessions in the morning. And as for sleeping in a sleeper, could you sleep in your bed at home If it was about as wide as coffin and seven feet from the floor and twenty-two inches from the ceiling, with pillows twenty-eight inches square and blanket of two inch felt and somebody shook and swung the bed all night, and at inter- vals freight train, blowing whistle and ringing a bell, ran through the hall and jumped down stairs, and once or twice in the night they pulled your house out of the lot and jammed it up against another house, and just as you got calmed down truck inspector should come under your window and yell ''Try your air.'' and then some men should crawl under the house and hammer and pound and wrench at the ioists for twen- ty minutes, and then the engineer should ''try his air again and the men under the house should yell ''Whoop." and the man under your window should yell, "Whoopl Whoopee! Shut her of. Billr And then your house should groan and grunt and bump, and then go roaming and whirling of down street thirty-five or forty miles an hour? Could you sleep? Well, that's sleeping-ca slumher, to me. And you don't like to occupy room with any one else, do you? don't, too We'll, now, suppose you had long, narrow room, with twenty-fonr beds and thirty or thirty-five people sleeping in them; thirty or thirty-five pairs of boots and shoes-all sorts of boots and shoes, too standing around the room; not less than twenty snorers in the aprhestra? We'll, that's sleeping-car sluniber. It beats sit ting up all night, all to pieces. But it isn't luxury; and it isn't comfort It costs like it, and must say it's worth the price. but it isn't comfort. It's merely protection against greater dis comfort In times of siege and famine. men have paid twenty dol lars for rat and have eaten it greedily. But that wasn't because rats were even then considered lnxuries; it was because it was rat or nothing. When the un- grateful man got back to porterhouse steak again he let the cats have the rats. You may talk about Luxurious palaces Of princely comfort"-as the man with q pass is apt to debut msintain that sleeping in one aQs very