Los Angeles herald., 1891-07-23
THE DEVIL TEMPTED.
The Internal Region Turned Into a
Republic.

ne Internal Region Turned Into a
Republic.
The seedy man came in with iaunty
air and a smile on his face. He salutec
the crowd gracefully, and told the gen.
tlemen to ask the waiter what they
would have.
"Do you drink with us?"
mo, gentlemen; you drink with
me-"
"Oh!"
II think never met more charming,
liberal gentleman in my life than did
tonight
"Who was it?''
"The devil. Yes, l met him up
there" and the seedy man as usual
waved his hands towards the clouds.
He goes up every year to spend the
summer. l met him and grew quite in
terested in him. He asked me what
was going on here on earth, and in
vited him to come and see.'
(, He was portly, gray-haired gentle
man OF benevolent aspect and kindly
nature. He wore a dress coat and gold
eyeglasses, and all that was red about
him, were the ruby studs in his white
shirt 'front.'"
Haven't you visited the earth
lately ?" l asked him.,
"No; not since my election
"Your election ?" / queried."
thought you had been thrown out of
the upper circle some millions of years
ago and you had been reigning below
ever since"
SO no." he answered with a smile.
'The internal regions are now repub-
lie. We elect president once CEN
tury."
"And old Lucifer ?''
"We got tired of his despotism long
ago. He is now kept shoveling coal for
the Dynamo"
, And are you fallen angelo"
"No, never was an angel. | was a
lawyer before l died. The fallen angels
are all engaged in menial occupations
now. Mankind got away with them.
Oh, the place is vastly altered now. We
have manhood suffrage and primaries
and municipal elections. The fact is,
the methods of the world are so far
superior to those that used to obtain
down there that we have adopted all we
could"
''You surprise me.''
''Bless your souls,'' said the devil,
''you wouldn't know the lower regions"
Pardon me, but about fire and brim-
stone?"
"Theres no such thing, and as for
hunting souls, think Rll put an adver-
tisement in the papers informing the
public that we have no agents travelling
looking for them. ALI such are sheer
imposters. In the very old days, when
business was new, of course we had to
employ drummers, but now are consid-
ering seriously the passing of restric-
ton act and allowing no more lmmigra-
ton. The fact is that people seem to be
anxious to come to us. What with
science and civilization and enterprise
and the struggle for life, the earth has
become unbearable, and the number of
suicides is alarming us. You see, the
fallen angel dynasty was all right
until some smart men came
here, and socialistic movement
arose. Your ideas OF us are all wrong.
The internal regions are not bit what
you think they are. We found some
refined processes of punishments as the
years went on. The old idea was to
roast people and give them nothing to
drink. That was expensive and trouble
some. We were exhausting coal, too
and we had to do something. We used
to make people do all the disagreeable
things they didn't like to do. Now we
force them to do all things they like te
do. 1t is very severe punishment
For instance, if man is very fond, o.
whisky we don't give him anything
else, and he has to drink all the tiane
By the way, wish you would send as
real good political boss. We have moi
| got the political machine running quite
| smoothly yet. There is an innate hon
esty in human nature that will not bt
roasted out even. We want process
of ridding the soul Of everything that il
good. Every now and then there is
revolution in favor OF virtue, and some
times it really looks as if it would sue
ceed.v
BY this time we had reached the lob
by OF the California theater, and Man
ager Gilmore kindly placing his privat
box at our disposal we walked in.
"What is this play?" he asked.
Twelve Temptations.
Just then quartette OF grotesque fig