Virginia free press. (Charlestown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1832-1916, 1892-05-11
Trying to Beat $40.

y cOuflCt oi tnc lnuiaua pcnitchtiaiI
hit the nail on the head when asked how
his downward course began. He said it
began in trying to beat 2:40 with 800
horse. How many people in all branch
es of business are trying to beat $40 with
800 business. The man who has small
business that is paying him, and goes
into debt and tries TO spread himself over
too many eggs, Is trying to beat a 2;40
with n 800 horse. The young man who
gets a small salary, and spends more
money for ice cream and perfumery and
neckties than he earns, is trying to beat
2:40 with 800 horse. The girl that is
calculated by nature to be the wife of
mechanic, and gets above her business
and looks with scorn upon man who
earns his living by hard work, will look
at an old maid in the glass few years
from now, and realize that she has been
trying to beat 2:40 with 800 horse
The ordinary, every day sort Of man, who
is elected-to a small office with big ma
jority, on account of men voting for him
for charity, and who thereupon aspires TO
big office some day and he is beaten
higher than a kite, and he will then feel
of his aching head, examine his empty
pocketbooh, look around at the deb.s he
has contracted, and the enemies he has
made, and it will suddenly come to him
that he has been trying to beat $40 with
800 horse. The men or women who
leave a profession or employment TO
which they are justly fitted, and in which
they can be prosperous and happy and
have friends, and go upon the stage to
compete with men and women who have
been brought up to it, and who have
made success by a lifetime of hard work,
will some day realize to their sorrow that
they have failed to beat 240 with 300
horse
The young man who had been left n
fortune by dead father who has worked
lifetime to accumulate riches, and who
changes from beer, which was good
enough for him before, TO champagne,
and plenty Of it, and who can't find
places enough to spend money without
sitting up all night, and who finds old
sledge and penuchle too tame and adopts
draw poker and faro, and who forgeis
that his sisters are splendid company,
and gets acquainted with quick girls and
buys them diamonds rs big as pieces of
alum, will in few days be walking on
his uppers and having fur collars pinned
on to linen usters for winter, and he will
wake up some morning with the almight-
lest headache on record, and come TO the
conclusion that trying to beat 2:40 with
a 800 horse is what ails him.
The whole-souled good fellow, every
body's friend, gets to drinking too hard,
and as be is healthy he gets an idea he
can beat whiskey, game that SO many
have tried and failed. He keeps il up
until his nose gets red, his eyes bleared,
and his voice shaky, and he has n whisky
cough, and his friends try to reason with
him and get him to let up, but he laughs
at them with his good-natured laugh, and
tells them he has a constitution like a
horse, and that nothing can hurt him,
and he asks them 10 take drink Sone
day he gets the jim jams, and all his
friends say, 81 told you SC" and they sit
up nights with him and drive away
snakes, and just before he dies it suddenly
occurs to him that he has been trying to
beat 2:40 with 300 horse. Oh, there
are thousands of people who make mis-
take in trying to beat 2;40 with 300
horse.