Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1892-02-14


prominent member Of the hourishing Hi
nois colony on Red river, in Clay county,
for his many favors to.this department of
THE GAZETTE have made him well known
TO our readers; so to business without
further preliminary.
We have arranged to attend to that devils
riding horse matter in due time, to the
satisfaction of all concerned, we hope, save
those who have seen its dire action with
their own eyes, and have felt its dire per-
tormances with the same organs. But in
case of the centipede we must say 70 you,
Mr.. Bentley, that you have got into bad
scrape, according to popular tradition We
might recommend Pasteur's incubation
or Koch's lymph but for sinister motive
influencing US. We can see 4 speculation
in letting her flicker as she is. When the
Notwithstanding drops from your spinal
column come down TO Fort Worth and let
US go into the show business together. We
will furnish the hand organ and you can
furnish the phenomenon. A man with his
spinal column all on the outside would draw
every time It would beat the calf with
five legs, or the deformed negro who goes
on all-fours, out of all hollow. You might
bring that one-cheeked lady and the flesh
less-legged negro woman with you, as they
would, doubtlessly, draw first rate. We
might need to add monkey to our show,
but in the event that neither of US could
play the monkey to perfection we could
chip in and buy the monkey on shares.
Yes, those Texas centipedes are terrible
things One hears of them in the states
away from Texas, and since you Illinois
people came from beyond Texas, you must
have known all about them before you
came. True, some of our Texas people are
well posted with reference to their deadly
peculiarities, just as they are with refer
ence to the deadly qualities of the devils
riding-horse, but If you sound them with
care, you will find that they obtained their
information at some point beyond the Dor
ders of Texas. Why not, since it is very
common for people to go away from Texas
in search of their educationl
We have seen centipedes in Texas-lots
of them-but we have heard more about
Texas, save in cases where we met with
persons who had been educated abroad.
We have heard, out of Texas, that if u
centipede crawled over q man while he
was asleep he was done for. Suppose one
of these ''reptiles" should crawl over
mans neck while he was, possibly, indulg-
ing in pleasant dreams of the far-away,
why his head would drop off the next morn
ing, and ever after that eventful night you
would meet him going around carrying his
head in a ba sket on his arm.
A terrible country is Texas outside of
Texas. We have scorpions here, said, out
side of Texas, to sting man fearfully and
terribly. You've seen them, we guess, so
have we. They will sting, there is no rub
bing that fact out, provided you press them
or roll on them in bed We could tell you 4
scorpion story that would make your hair
raise. Eleven years ago while engaged
studying the entomology of Texas we were
stopping for time at hotel at Calvert in
county. In the room occupied
by US was another bed occupied by another
man. On the wash-stand was matcb-b box
containing a lively scorpion that we had
captured in the course of the day Late in
the night there arose from that other bed a
blast of profanity that we would not dare to
portray in print The man said wasp had
stung him We struck light and found
that the matchbox was empty, and then
our suspicious were aroused, but we kept
our suspicious to ourseIk Next morning
when the man had gone down stairs we
turned up the sheets of his bed and re-
cur scorpion. We still kept our
secret, and the man lived on, and a wasp
got full credit for all that had happened.
Indeed the man could not ''ind the place.
next morning, but said he'd be [emphasisl
if wasp had not stung him, for he had
felt the sting.
That's the way it is in Texas. Those
very bad things that we are supposed to
have are worse, IN the minds of the people
beyond the border of the state than they
are within the commonwealth, always pro-
viding that the Texan who knows all about
them has not mainly obtained his educa-
ton from abroad.