Morning journal and courier., 1893-04-07
THE BLUE SHIRT.
Tom Majors, Has Become q House,
hold Word In Nebraska.
IA.


blue and the motives that sotuated the In
habitant thereof to don the same.
In the first place, Tom lie not color blind. i
He knows 1t is blue shirt, and If he /
wears 1t with malice, It Is malice afors-
thought.
Away backs in 1878, the story goes, Tom
didn't have a very large collection of shirts
but of those he did possess the majority |
were blue, and, of course, Tom was COM
PEELED to wear the msiority, as he always |
doee.
Another thing that makes Tom wear blue i
shirts is the fact that since 1t has become /
SO popular If he didn't Church Howe would i
and Tom would rather see Church wear an /
expression of blue than a shirt of blue.
When he began the experiment of wear
ing those sky-colored garments Nebraska /
City paper dropped it's "bloody shirt" pol |
icy and took up the blue. From that day Il
to this Tom Majors blue shirt has been q Il
household word in Nebraska. All that 9
Democrat needs to do to become a Repub- /
lican is touch the hem of the garment and /
be made whole. When the campaign be- II
gins to rage Tom packs five or six of the /
goodly garments into an old cloth-covered /
sstchel that he once borrowed of Van
Wyck, and, with the one he always carries
on his back, ssllies forth with this impene-
trsble cost of mail.
With these blue shirts always goes O Il
number of sixteen and one-hslf lay-down i
collars The collar is the color of the shirt II
and made of the came piece of goods, but /
this has nothing to do with the length of i
the shirt, however.
These shirts are all open in the back and /
1t is said that Tom would never have left /
the church IL the shirt had buttoned up /
and down in front.
He was offered q present of csddy of II
shirts once by st. Louis firm, but refused Il
the offer, owing to the fact that he patron Il
ICES home industries. This doesn't mean
that his wife makes them, but that he buys
them of either Omaha or Lincoln manufso-
ture.
/ One of Toms admirers once sent him the L
following verses dedicated to his shirts and i
several other fellows as will be seen by o /
perussl:
Oh Toni oh, Tom, with shirt Of blue, Il
Come speak at Church Howe's barbecue.
We have OK, but twould net hurt
For you to come and bring your shirt
Tom did not like these verses, and with
his characteristic promptness sat down aud
penned the following declination, which Is
better poetry than the first In that 1t Is
more emphatic:
Ny shirts in wash and In bed
But hear the washtub's echo true
To hIwith Church Howe's barbecue.
When Tom Is at home he clings to the
blue shirt, or vice versa, with the same
tenscity that he does when abroad.
As to how often he changes remains q
hidden mystery, but "a far as the shirt lie
visible to the naked eye it Is always clean.
And this briDgs TO mind the fsct that the
wind never blew through Toms wbiskers
so that bis blue shirt could be seen. The
blue cuffs are always IN sight, but the
/ blue front is only Visible when come fellow
| sitting at his side rises to point of order
| in such a way that It makes Tom turn his
head and whiskers out from in front of the
| shirt
But, whatever the c1lor of Toms shirt
| may be, he has g white heart, and Is al
ways one of the boys.
The Gloom OF Provincial France.
| From the ST. Jsmes' Gazette Correspendencel
We are always hearing in England about
our gay neighbours" across the silver
stresk but after living among the French
on the eastern frontier these last few
months confess can never hear them
c,lled merry without laughing. Wise,
solemn, prudent, careful, IL you will-but
merry never! Yet they must have been q
gay folk once, or else where did the pre-
vailIpg notion come FRONT Perhaps the
weary end of the century has infected
them with Its ennui, or the war and the
weight of the indemnity have crushed
their old spirits At sill events, the gaye-
ty of the French nation is somehow
eclipsed, in the provinces st least, and the
people have forgotten how to enjoy them
selves. We talk about our dull British
Sunday, and Ievile 1t In French, as though
We could learn lesson from over the wa
ter. So we might perhaps from Paris; but
!; In the country, mol The British lsborer
enjoys his Sunday infinitely more thsn his
French equivalent. At least he Tests.
The French peasant swests over his field
as much on the dimanohe as any other
day. There is not e particle of difference
between Sunday and week day heIesbouts.
There is no rest for the msn-snd II is his
own fault; but one cannot help plying
the poor patient oxen and horses, who
{ never get a day of and have no choice In
= the matter
You can see the grinding care and greedy
u thrift which fill the lives of these people
= in their faces They are not q lovely folk,
these ever toilipg French peasants. The
long struggle for land and money hss pre-
Z maturely aged them, and the wizened look
= of the inveterste rniser Ia on thsir care.
worn features. How they love the soil
o Irish Gland hunger" Is nothing to It
u These French peasants scrspe aud scrap.
= and toll and toll to add q foot of ground
to their property. OF course they at,
70 owners of their land, not tenants; aut
70 dearly do they love to pinch themselves Il
- increase It. A farmer close by draws
rents of something like one hundred thou
,. sand francs year. yet there he is, work
4 ing away in his fields like any ploughmsn
dressed in his worst clothes, as intent ol
Ia gain as ever. On the high road dwell
quite q rich man; Jet he and his wife an,
4. four children live In three vretshed room
like q lsborer's family, without the leas
pretension to comfort. OF course thsre
scarcely any distinction of clssses- Ever
one Is monsieur or madame; and madam
often wears DO hat and throws but o shaw
1g over her shoulders, rich as abe may be an
lie fully prepared to give her daughter an el
v; cellent dot. Wealth does not bring CON,
10 fort, any more than honest toll brings
merry soul-in France. At work or pls
be you never hear the jolly song of tn
sd ploughmsn or the whistle of his boy
~ Every body goes at his work solemnly ant
!" gloomily. It Is rare thing TO hear ser
want singing over her work:
Indeed, the whole people, of all ages
. are subdued and wear q crushed air. lie
q the government or the wsri At any rate
:, the Joy seems to have gone out of the live
of young and old. They take no interes
in anything. Out here in the Jura tn
ist process Panama does not arouse the small
us eat excitement Home politics possesse
60 NO attraction for them But name Ger
ne many or Bismarck, and you viii find 10
have touched the sore place They voul
ed fight against Germany while they coui
he stand. They have many of them been on
les in 1870, and can tell long yarns of th
ch war-of lying out on the hills, of bein
taken prisoners, and all the memories {
On. that aHful year. It ts the one keen fsslin