The Roanoke times. (Roanoke, Va.) 1897-1977, 1898-01-16
WHAT'S in A NAME?
EVERYTHING, ACCORDING TO JAsEz
OBADIAH sLUGGS OF BROOKLYN.

There Is a Crisis In His Homo Affairs
When the Naming of tho Baby Is the
business of tho Hour-The Struggle and
Its Sequel.
For the first time in his career Of
many and varied experiences, Mr.. Bluges
of Brooklyn Heights was called in con.
5ultation i'll that most exciting and SELL
timental task of naming the baby. But,
being man who had made his own way
III the world, and who had faced every
emergency that transpired without fall
tering, he approached the great and mo-
mentous undertaking without a culver.
In his business as builder and con-
tractor he had performed the feat of
successfully naming score or two of
lighthouses and apartments, and rs the
proprietor of stock farm in Westches-
ter county he had given appropriate
titles to some of the finest blooded ami
mails on the American turf He had al
so assisted i'll the naming Of several yes
sells and had even given his advice re-
garding appropriate titles for Pullman
cars. and it is even said that no assisted
his friend Laura Lean Jibbey of Brook.
Ign and the whole world to name sew
eral of her most successful novels
Therefore no considered the task Of
naming an eight pound mite of human
ity us something trifling.
OF one thing he was sure-the boy
should not be named after him. His
pious but misguided parents had assas-
slnated all his hopes. of future fame by
handicapping him III the race of life
with the mouth filling cognomen, ia
be- Obadiah Bluggs, and it took all the
patience suggested by his initials, J. O.
b., to enable him to live under it. His
parents had died while he was young,
however, and he was never able to get
the revenge that his heart craved.
He opened proceedings by suggesting
cheerily that the boy should be called
John or James or George or some other
equally simple and satisfactory name.
There was an immediate protest. The
sentimental aunt argued violently that
the sweet little tootsys wootsy darling
should be called Adolphus Marmaduke
or some other sweet name popular with
the authors of cultured fiction.
Tho religious aunt fastened to inter
AuPo CIV uCHitiuNl tliiO Il0 SUOulu DO
named after his great uncle, the Rev
Joel Zerubbabel Mather AS soon as tho
mother could get chance sho insisted
that the name should be Jabez Obadiah,
after the proud father, whom she
adored
Noticing that there was n powerful:
ring Of determination in the voice of
each candidate for the honor of confer
ring the name, one of those inspirations
came to Mr.. Bluggs that only come to
self made men who are always prepared
to meet any crisis. He suggested that
each one should write the proposed
name on a slip of paper, that the slips
be placed in hat, shaken up, and that
the mother be allowed to draw one.
The name Oh the slip drawn should be
the namo of tho baby.
In an instant there WIS n storm that
almost made him imagine that he was
living Ill Chicago instead of pastoral
Brooklyn. The fond mother began to
weep, and the others all clustered around
the baby, who had awakened in the
meantime and begun to inform him
what Il brntc he had for n father.
Up to the present time the baby is
known to his relatives as tootsy wootsy
and number of inarticulate gurgles
by which he is lovingly addressed and
to the neighbDrs as that 'blank squali
ing Bluggs kid. New York Journal.