The Wichita daily eagle., 1891-11-24

When this letter Is printed the GreaS
question of future greatness or future
shame and degradation in Ohio will
have been settled. Ohio will have then
cast the die and crossed the Rubicon.
Will she rise above the political horizon
purified and ennobled, to take her place
among the great sisterhood of progress
i've, prosperous and glorifed states, or
will she hang her head in sorrow and
humiliation in the ranks of the lost and
undone, amid the bleaching wrecks and
battered hulls of broken and stranded
ships which line the bleak ard forbid
ding shores of time? This will depend
greatly on what paper you take.
Findlay, o., is essentially gas town,
as every one knows. Ispoke there four
years ago to crowded house, consisting
of the gentleman who introduced me to
the audience and bright young janitor
to whom the chairman in a few well
chosen words introduced me. l spoke
feelingly to the janitor, and I am told
that he went away better man.
In the course of the evening violent
hailstorm broke loose over Findlay, O.,
and as there was low tin roof over the
stage, could not hear word that said.
So did not enjoy the entertainment so
much as usual. l went to my hotel won
dering if had made myself clear to the
janitor, and as wrote my press notice
for the morning paper said to myself:
"Have made stride in the right di-
rection? Have purified and ennobled
this ianitor who has been placed within
the sound of my voice?"
Since then Findlay has grown from
1000 people to 10000, and from the good
work done with that gentle janitor has
sprung up an audience that would have
swelled the heart of Frank Sanger.
Time heals over a wound quicker than
one would think.
Findlay now has gas wells which make
the old Karg well look tame. Though
few years ago the Karg was the wonder
of the world, now, by the side of recent
discoveries, she looks like the dim light
in which my young and trusting heart
was won by one to whom l afterward
gave my hand in marriage, together with
my worldly goods, consisting of the
good will of newspaper which was
pretty generally disliked.
The gas which forms in the earth in
and about Ohio would indicate very
unsettled state of affairs in that region.
l am getting accustomed to the use of
natural gas now, having been in the gas
region and competing with it, as may
say, successfully for two weeks, so that
at my hotel yesterday lighted my own
gas stove. Iput newspaper in the stove
and then slowly turned on the gas, hav-
ing first ignited the paper. Ihad lighted
the paper, which was one of the New
York Sunday papers, by the way, and
while / was turning on the gas the blaze
went out. This left the stove full of un-
employed gas, though l could not see it,
being little nearsighted anyway. So
when did light it successfully there
came pleasing little surprise in the way
of an explosion, which filed the air full
of special Sunday articles from the paper
and drove my hotel pillow into the ink
stand out of sight.
One should be very careful in lighting
the gas stove, or he may burn off his
whlskers and thus become manned for
life.
Meadville, Pa, is very thrifty and
picturesque town in the western part of
the state, where l had the pleasure of
spending the Sabbath. 1t is a very busy
town, and inhabited by thriving and
most courteous and kindly people.
1t was here, l think, that heard about
an abSentminded consumptive who lu-
bricated his buggy all summer with cod
liver oil and dosed himself with Frazer's
axle grease. When | saw him he was
improving rapidly.
Mr.. Burbank. who goes with me in
order to give an air of mirth and humor
to our show, an air which it sadly needs
at times. think, is taking cod liver oil
too 1t is in a new form. The oil is con-
cealed in flexible capsule about the size
OF thirty cent watermelon. Now a1d
then be asks me to join him in a social
capsule. but 80 far have not allowed the
habit TO fasten itself upon me. The cap
sule is of the shape and consistency of a
hens egg that mas not as yet had the shell
! put on IT, Possibly the reader has seen
the Plymouth Rock roe in that condition.
/ The patient throws back MS head, tosseS
TINS cold. dank mass against his palate,
and with sinuous movement of the
neck, as an ostrich would swallow a
door knob or a drowned colt, he takes
his cod liver oil capsule.
Cod liver oil is not the most auDetizinE