The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1892-03-11
Trying to Heat q, 40,

A convict of the Indiana penitentiary
hit the nail on the head when asked how
his downward course began. lie said il
began in trying to beat 240 with a 800
horse. How many people in all branches
of business are trying to beat 2.40 with
8. 90 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 2.40 with
800 horse. The young man who gets
small salary, and spends more money for
ice cream and perfumery and neckties
than he earns, is trying to beat 2.40 with
a 800 horse. The girl who is calculated
by nature to be the wife of a mechanic,
and gets above her business and looks
with scorn upon a man who earns his
living by hard work, will look at an old
maid in the glass a few years from now,
and realize that she has been trying 10
beat 2.40 with 800 horse.
The ordinary, every day sort Of man.
who is elected to a small Office with a big
majority, on account Of men voting for
him for charity. and who thereupon
aspires to big Office for which he is un-
fitted, will be nominated for the big office
some day and be beaten higher than a
kite, and he will then feel OF his aching
head, examine his empty pocketbook,
look around at the debts he has con.
tracted, and the enemies he has made,
and it will suddenly come to him that he
has been trying to beat 2. 40 with a 800
horse. The men or women who leave pro-
fession or employment to which they are
fitted, and in which they can be prosper
Gus 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 lifetime
of hard work, will some day realize to
their sorrow that they have failed to beat
$40 with 800 horse,
The young man who has been left for
tune by a dead father who has worked o
lifetime to accumulate riches, and who
changes from beer, which was good
enough for him before, to champagne,
and plenty of it, ard 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 forgets
that his sisters are splendid company,
and gets acquainted with quick girls
and buys them diamonds as big as pieces
of alum, will in a few years be walking
on his uppers and having fur collars
pinned on to linen ulsters for winter, and
he will wake up some morning with the
almightiest headache on record, and come
to the conclusion that trying to beat 2.40
with 800 horse is what ails him.
The whole-souled good fellow, every
body's friend, gets to drinking too hard,
and as he is healthy lie gets IN idea lie
can beat whisky, game that so many
have tried and failed. He keeps it up
until his nose gets red, his eyes bleared
and his voice shaky, and lie has 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 to take drink. Some
day he gets the jim-jams, and all his
friends say, II told you So" and they si
up nights with him and drive away
snakes, and just before he dies it sud-
denly occurs to him that he has been try
ing to beat $40 with 800 horse. Oh
there are thousands Of people who max,
o mistake in trying to beat 240 with 0
& 90 horse -PeCk's Sun