Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-07-26
MURRAY'S MUSINGS.
The Politician Must Coddle the Dog Fam
cier-The Crank and the Specialist-Res-
taurant Bills Getting Longer-The Corset
Habit-Gotham Stories

The Politician Must Coddle the Dog Fam
cier-The Crank and the Specialist-Res-
taurant Bills Getting Longer-The Corset
Habit-Gotham Stories
tFRoM STAFF CORRESPONDENT
NEW YORK, July 25.-'You will alwavs find
dog men pulling pretty much together. "
said General Ben LeFevre over his Hoffman
House breakfast. of you offend dog man
curing canvass you will lose the dog VOTE
when found q man who was interested in
dogs during my Congressional campaigns
made careful note of it. had little expe-
r1ence in my early political career that
Taught he that the dog man is not to be run
a1oul OF II 1t can be avoided. had refused
10 take pup from man. He wanted to
snow his good will toward me. He loved his
Jugs ana to give away what he loved was
MS highest testimonial of friendship.
Il declined the pup, and in doing so prac-
tically declined the mans friendship. Not
alone his, but that of all his neighbors with
| out regard to party. They didn't want any,
| tnlnS to do with man who didn't own q
| DOG and wouldn't have one as a gift. 1t took
me long time to live that error down. Since
tnat time l take every pup that is offered
me, trusting to Divine Providence to see me
through
A Dog That Cost Money.
| COLONEL STAPLES, the North Carolina law
yer, Is a dog man. That is, he is fond Of dogs
and esteems them next to pretty school
marms and red wagons. Staples was at the
| Hoffman House the other day and bought q
f1ne cocker spaniel of the dog fancier who
| works the Broadway corners of that neigh
borhood. He instructed the dog man to
| bring the animal to the Cor.landt street
ferry at a certain hour in the day, but they
| didn't connect somehow, so he missed his
| train. $50 had to pay man to take care of
| the dog over the river and came back to the
| Hoffman just in time to lend a fellow $40
| that I'll never see again.
81 got coupe and rode out in the park. 1t
| was 81 81 an hour, and used it an hour and
him wouldn't pay it, He could send his
bill to the hotel office. Here it is So SO, half a
dollar more yet. And paid it, too. 1 was
afraid to kick again for fear it would take
dog, and if somebody doesn't steal him be-
fore get down home ] shall consider it a
favorable change of luck"
Hard to Leave New York.
"NEw YORK is pretty hard city to get
away from, especially for a Western man."
said Mr.. Scott Ray, the Indiana poll
tician and journalist. 'T don't see why
so many people want to leave the metropolis
in the summer. They can get the earth
here"
Mr.. Ray had just been taking in Coney Is
land.
"That trip up the bay after nightfall," said
he, ''gives one of the most magnificent sights
that could be imagined. And as for Coney-
well, that stretch of West Brighton known as
the Bowery' probably has no counterpart in
the world. Either is worth coming a thou
sand miles to see. When New Workers claim
more variety of pleasure for less money than
any other city in the country can offer,
they don't claim too much"
Devoted His Life to Spiders.
of tba of ;fo
remarked an ex-Congressman, "is the devo-
tion of some men to an idea without regard
to the opinion of the rest of the world and
without hope of reward. l know of a man
from my State who has devoted a lifetime to
spiders. He died in the Alps where he had
been for two years collecting specimens of
spiders. He sacrificed his life to spiders
He has left collection of some %, 900 distinct
varieties. You would hardly think there
were many more spiders in existence. This
man has them stuck up in sections, in classes,
fully labeled.
;He began fooling with spiders when a
boy. He had room that he would allow no |
one to sweep or clean and encouraged the |
spiders to such an extent that they would |
come to him and feed out of his hand He |
discovered that by repeatedly destroying a |
web that 4 spider reached Il stage where his |
power of reproducing web is exhausted. |
When that stage was reached the spider |
attacked another spider, killed him and took |
his ball of web from him. just like q human |
being, don't you see? Before this man died |
he embalmed his knowledge of spiders in |
two volumes. He was spider crank"
The Crank and the Specialist.
SPEAKING of cranks," put in Mr.. Nc |
MILAN, of Tennessee, who will probably be |
the Speaker of the next House of Represen-
tatives, "it would almost seem that to ac-
complish anything remarkable in this world
it is necessary to become what we all call
crank That is, man must shut
out everything that conflicts or in
terferes with the one particular subject
in which he is interested. He must become
a specialist. By rigidly excluding the rest
of the world and ignoring all social and do
mestic relations and devoting every energy
and every minute to one particular line of
research something is to be accomplished. |
But does it pay? Is it the best use @ man
can be put to? Is it the ideal of intel
lectual manhood?"
81 have cousin in Tennessee who is q
harmless crank on the chronometer. He
has been fooling with the sun and the time
o. day until he seems to be pretty well
known by experts, even here in New York.
He put his name in the light shade of the
"V" on a watch dial so it could not be seen
with the naked eye. He has made a
chronometer so perfect that it can be put in
an oven and baked, taken out and be frozen
in an ice cream freezer, then boiled, and
during the entire process would not only
keep on running, but wouldn't vary twen-
tieth of u second in time.
"There are a good many .cranks' on
Watches" continued Mr.. Mcmillan. 81
know a member of the House who carried
a watch in every pocket. He was the fun
niest of them all. Some were gold, some
silver and some nickel. Some had chains, |
some had fobs and some were fastened to |
him with q cord or shoestring. He could
take a watch out of any pocket. The curious
feature OF the thing is he was exceedingly
sensitive on the subject 1t was a harmless
fad and amused him, presume, if he tried
to regulate them as to the sun and to each
other"
Was Cured by a Bill.
A WEsrERNER at one of the prominent up
town hotels was feeling restless and ill one
hot evening, and he rang for doctor. The
latter was in the same house. He called at
his patients room and diagnosed the case as
simple insomnia, gave couple of powders
and retired. The doctor called the next
to see how the patient (whom he
correctly judged to be man of means) was
getting on. During the day he saw him, and
Incidentally three or four times. The bill was |
S25 Five dollars visit from doctor living
on the same floor with him in the same house |
was something that nearly caused the West
Drner to faint. 1t exceeded his widest |
dreams. The bill had one efect-it made
him well man, he says.
The Adulteration of Beer
81 USED to be a great beer drinker," re-
marked a well-known railroad lawyer, par
as he squeezed bit of lemon
into cup of breakfast tea, "but I've given
It up. 1 find tea is the best drink that a man |
ever put down his throat. The chief reason '
against beer drinking is adulteration. This
IS common to all American beers. The COM
petition has grown to such an extent that
sven the best and well established beers
nave Joined the bogus gang and it is now
impossible to lind u good, pure,