St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1898-04-30
ENIGMA OF THE RUNAWAY.


! Its Start In q MystcryS Its COurHe Con-
fusion, RiEht-of-Way Undisputed.
| The Runaway" is always an incident.
The city man never becomes indiffer-
ent to it. The countryman is always
on the outlook for it. 1t is the one thing
| which can distract the attention which
has been fixed upon burning build
ing. 1t can break up the stateliest
procession that ever moved. 1t can also
make the face of q motorman or car
driver or a teamster, even though he
be hackman, turn white. Whenever
you see it, or hear it, it is the same old
Interchangeable incident. 1t l.-s an ele-
ment of uncertainty which makes it
fascinating. When the winds blow, and
the seas roll, and the storm RACES, and
the building is in flames, you can
guess the result. You don't know,
you can't conceive the outcome of a
runaway.
There comes a time in the life OF
every horseman when he has no influ-
snce over the animal he has fostered
and petted and Dragged about. This
time is when the horse concludes, pro-
vided the horse reasons, to go as he
pleases. Pedigree, stables, outfit, at
tention or lack of attention enter not
into the runaway business. The an
imal, the ''slats" of which require no
X-ray scrutiny, and about which gen.
Grafton has capered, and on which the
gadflies of many summers have squat
ted and sucked, will in a moment, when
peace is brooding over all creation,
break up the quietude by plung-
ing and running and scurry-
ing like a Chinese demon down
the street, or up, or around the corner.
The more cumbersome the vehicle in
the rear of runaway horse, the great
-er his speed. The more crowded the
thoroughfare, the more Zigzag .he
course of the animal with nostrils dis
tended and ears laid back. He is never
in line with the conveyance. 1t is al
ways at geographical variance with his
tail.
There is something unexplainable in
the rapidity with which the news of
runaway travels and the effect upon
persons in the houses on the line of it.
Start runaway from the intersection
of Twenty-third street and Sixth ave-
nue., and the people at the corner of
Twenty-third street and Fifth avenue
will be on the lookout for it in two
seconds, and teams and urchins and
dogs will be getting out of the way.
A man who has made Il study of run
aways said to a Sun reporter:
Il was in one of the biggest retail
houses on Sixth avenue, shopping, when
the salesman, to my astonishment,
asked me il the runaway of Il few min
utes previous had done any damage
/ asked him how he knew there was
a runaway. He said he heard it and
that he saw it. And when questioned
him he told me he had missed max
ing sale in order to see the runaway.
and said it was the first one he had
seen since he had come to New York.
1t seemed to timber him up. He kept
talking about it as long as l traded,
and said, as was leaving. he supposed
it would be in the papers"
And the runaway item has good
show for place, generally speaking.
There is no rule for it, but you will |
notice that it usually comes next to
the advertising. A man who has been
on the makeup of a morning news |
paper many years said he could tell
runaway item in type with his eyes
shut, and he always found room for it.
A peculiar thing about this item is
that it rarely has a genesis. The man
who first tells Of it, the policeman who
makes report of it and the reporter
who writes it seldom enlighten the
reader as to the cause of the runaway.
The paragraph usually says that the
horse started from a certain point,
but not often does il tell what started
him. This is not the reporters fault
lie simply doesn't know. Nobody
Y. Sun.