Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1896-07-02
SINGLE COPY FIVE CENTS
NUMBER AT
FELSENTHALS' GUN.
TALE OF A CHICAGO FAMILY OF AN
GENT LINEAGE.

TALE OF A CHICAGO FAMILY OF AN
GENT LINEAGE
How They Celebrated the Glorious Fourth.
Firing Begun at sum Up-For Eighteen
hours a Fat BeIIied Cannon Roared De
hance to Ravishers OF Liberty.
The Felsenthals lived III Desplaines
street, a patriarchal family Of a lineage
80 ancient that they might have claimed
relationship with the crepuscular forms
Of life, own kinsmen to the ampbae
and their fellow aristocrats They kept
rag shop, and it was their purpose tn
sonciliate at times, to placate more often,
occasionally to bewilder the products of
another race-a very old and honorable
race, to be sure-which crossed the orbit
Of civilization TO the lasting terror Of
the stars some 2, 900 years after Noses
There was Solomon Felsenthal, pa-
triarchal as to beard and mien. slow but
sure Of speech, to whom all the tene-
ment looked up az If his queer old hand
had guided the way to the tablets Of
stone There was his young brother Da-
vid There were SOlomon's David and
David's solomon and Solomon's David's
Solomon and David's SOlomon's David
and Roses Rachel and Rachel's Rosy
and Lewis and Jacobs and Isaacs until
the Irish neighbors, skilled enough in
discriminating Mikes Paddy from Pad
dy's Mike and Big Mike from Little
Mike, were in distress to properly differ
entiate, but classed the rag1nan1 > family
as "thim Filsinthals, Y and made de-
scriptive particulars as ''the Filsinthal
that lost his earl or 1.-THE Filsinthal
that belongs to the Sicond regiment. T"
1t was David's Solomon's David who
owned the Fourth Of July cannon, as
much az any one Of that pastoral family
could own anything as an individual
The cannon was a curious contraption,
long a. it was broad, with huge belly
resting on wooden carriage, a gaping
mouth and general appearance Of sui
len ferOcity, in which it was challenged
by nothing else under the heavens ex-
cept the pictured Gila monster. 1t
would hold as much powder a. a man
could carry in his hat 1t was touched
of with a slow fuse In its commissions T
it leaped upward and bounded us much
as ten feet 1t had come t0 the Telsen-
thals in the course Of business, and the
use Of it for patriotic purposes had been
suggested BY the cannon of the Quinn
boys across the street Thereafter the
Quinn cannon spit and barked in vain
1t j. the Fourth Of July-the morn
ing There have been various trivial
outbursts Of explosive patriotism in the
barrooms along Madison street Sundry
bibulous persons have set off crackers in
the street cars and met with reprOaches
from their fellow passengers and the
top of the handle brake from the con
ductor. But at last silence comes The
city lies asleep and the blanketing hush
Of the hour before dawn has settled up
on its chimneys suddenly
Crashi Bangl
Little boys and young men awaken
and rub their eyes Feverish older peo-
pie toss over IN their beds and cry,
Cd those Felsenthals m "A thrill Of
life runs through the west side. "A
cracker starts, another, bunch in a
barrel The saloon keeper On the corner,
with his suspenders hanging from his
hips, blunders to the door, and, sighting
with an eye like slit Id poached egg,
fires both barrels Of his shotgun into his
neighbOr's windows The Husher boys
have exploded the anvil i'll their fathers
smithy. The fire wagons are scurrving
to Strunk's barn. Herman Fink, tapster
under Toms lodging house-he and his
hired help are wrestling out the trees in
tubs that signalize a holiday To West
Madison street. Brief, another indie
pendence day has dawned On the west
side.
But are the Felsenthals moved by the
Importance Of their situation? Are they
concerned because they have awakened
100, 600 Of their fellow citizens to an
adequate appreciation Of American indie
pendence? Not they. If Felsenthal had
put his name to the Declaration Of Inde-
pendence or bawled his defiance at Lord
North i'll THE house 0f burresses, You
would have learned Of it from other
lips. Not from theml What have the
scions Of a race that blinked iii the twi-
light Of history to do with the day be-
fore yesterday? Their business is at
hand. 1T consists in firing the fat bellied
cannon for is hours.
Thus soberly and orderly preceded
the Felsenthal celebration in the alley
back of the rag shop. one shepherd sue
ceeding the other in rintCndence Of
the cannon. The cannon itself was true
to it, employers 1T belched out flame
and coughed and roarcd and leaped
across the alley and hurled his frozen
fat against the clapbOards uf THE under
takers house next door Other weapons
might fail The roar Of crackers and
firearms would pause, would fiutter,
would break out in crazy diScord, would
pause again. But with the punctuality
Of d cosmic cause the Felsenthals' cannon
renewed it, sullen defiance to tho ravish-
ers Of liberty.
Evening came and it was still bray
ing The Felsenthals gave no heed To
the geegaws Of celebration. Red fire
burned from Fischer's flour mill to the
new hay market and the balls Of roman
candles burned around the spires uf st.
Patrick's church and rockets ran fiery
light CLEANED i'll front of the rag shop.
Nevertheless every rocket that blazed
along the curtain cf heaven, spilling it,
cinders across the arch. quavered i'll the
reverberations Of the FelScnthal cannon,
irrepressible, chrunomerical. unappeasi-
BE rs fate.
The evening came and went The last
blazing spark had challenged the stars
The blistered and ragged patriots had
returned to q wen earned rest For a
moment there was peace. Then the earth
quaked, the stars reeled, the maw OF
eternity opened. There came a belch Of
fire from the alley and billowy echo
rolled to the confines Of the city The
Felsenthals had fired all that remained
Of their gunpowder And all the world
sleptl-Chioago Times Herald
HIrsch and the Aristocracy.
1t is told Of the late Baron Hirsch
Fba+ hn -y,nn .,~v,,.asrrI bsc .r-, ,4a,,,--t Frv.