The record-union., 1897-08-15
KANSAS LIES.
SAMPLES OF ROMANCING
ABOUT WEATHER.
Where the Potato Winks His Eve
and the Cat Fields Are Shocked
at Gentle Twisters.

IOlQ QeplctlnS the fr1ghtfuI condition or
Kansas politics that eXaggerateS it in
the least. But, for instance: If one of
the gentle zephyrs of Kansas becomes
aggravated and gets an extraordinary
move on itself for a brief period, Kan
sas has had a cyclone, destroying life
and property galore; if a hot wind
strikes in one corner of the State the
crops o fthe entire State have, been de-
stroyed by hot winds; if the rivers are
the least bit swollen, Western Kansas
is inundated; if the western part of the
State lacks some moisture. lit is so
dry all over the State that you have to
run your well through a wringer to get
water enough to COX with; if the State
is favored with an average crop or bet
ter, 1--WE have raised enough food to feed
the world; if the crops fan below the
average, "the people are on the verge
of starvation"
And so it goes: Kansans are always
having trouble.
No one more fully appreciates that
such stories are accepted by many
strangers as virtually truthfully Incl
dents of life in the Sunflower State than
F. d. Coburn Secretary of her Depart
ment of Agriculture, who has been
making a collection of such as seemed to
best illustrate the type of joke always
in order when Kansas is mentioned. 1t
requires two large envelopes to hold
them, and as samples of the truly ar
tistic in lie making he rates the follow
ing as among the highest:
Here is an example of what a Kan
sas tornado can do or what a Kansas
liar can do when forced to it: A far
mer had a large crib filled with ear
corn, and there was a knot hole in the
south end of the crib. 1t was struck by
a tornado, and it is claimed that the
suction was so great that cob after cob
was drawn through the knot hole and
the farmer was left with a crib of Shelled
corn.
Several stories which the reader can
or cannot believe, just as he sees fit,
were started after the Seneca tornado,
two years ago, had violated the State
law in reference to the malicious de-
struction of property and departed for
parts unknown. A man was riding along
on horseback with a jug of whisky tied
with a strap to the saddle horn. After
the blow had ceased the jug handle
was forced inside the jug and the strap
having been blown inside out without
spilling a drop of liquor.
During the same blow a. goat hap
pened to get in the road and had his
hair blown off, leaving his hide as clean
as a skinned banana. The animal looked
so much like a Mexican dog with horns
that he was placed on exhibition.
Another caper which this tornado cut
| -il a,e-1-O OFF
travelling man and plant them on the
side of another fellows face, where
they continue to grow.
Here is another pretty fair one: A
farmer was plowing around an oblong
patch of ground one day and at night
the tract of unplowed land still con-
tanned about five acres. When he quit
for the day he left the plow sticking in
the furrow, as farmers often do. The
tornado came along and caught the
plow, taking it around the land" until
1T was all plowed.
A Kansan abroad recently found
crowd that did not seem to appreciate
his conversation concerning the cOnspir-
acy of the foreign capitalists to compel
the PopuliSt farmers of Kansas to pay
their honest debts, so he pulled out his
stock of tornado stories, hoping to at
tract attention.
81 saw a cyclone once" said he, that
picked up a strawstack and moved it
a mile and put it book, straw on stray,
as it was"
Two or three Of the auditors yawned
and the Kansas man tried il again.
Another time" said he, Il saw a
twister suck sixty gallons of molasses
out of a barrel in front of a grocery
store and distribute it to every family
in town who had a bucket out on the
back step for the milkman"
He cleared his throat and began
again: Back in the '70s we had a ter
rible cyclone in Western Kansas. 1t
blew the racks out of the fences, pulled
O. cistern out of the ground, moved a
township line, and changed the day of
the week"
Another man with an unblushing
face cold this story:
'I was out in Kansas last summer,
and the first cyclone, of course, I went
down in the cellar, like other folks. The
house was soon blown away. The next
thing / knew the cellar went, too, roll
ing over and over like silk hat. I was
SOOn SIgLdcu Oul w Il11 lilIlIllIe IdDOI
crawled back in the teeth of the wind,
intending to take refuge in the hole the
cellar came out of. To my consterna-
ton, I found that that had blown
away, also"
A prominent Kansan is accredited
with telling this:
"Tell you what's fact. have known
it to blow twelve days and nights on a
stretch and hold a sheep up again-t the
side of a barn until he starved to
death"
Probably the story which better IL
lustrates the position of the Populist
farmer in Kansas than any told in re-
cent years Is this:
Kansas man Visiting in the East)-
Yes. sir, Kansas is the country for the
farmers Look at her vast prairies
covered with crops so heavy that they
make whole counties sink down in the
middle Look at her corn crop, so vast
that it crowded township lines into the
river.
Same Kansas man (at the Populist
meeting in his own neighborhood)-
Fellow sufferers, dry weather, Hessian
flies and gold bugs prey like vampires
on our State. Our once fair State is
plastered over with mortgages SO heavy
that we have to bore a hole through
them with an augur in order to plant
corn. Rouse, We saavesi
A country editor not far from Sum
merfeld, just after receiving a cord of
wood ard a big supply of vegetables on
subscription, dipped his pen in the ink
and dashed this off: when you talk
about there being a better State than
Knncac everv nntafn WinkS ifS eve