Omaha daily bee., 1899-08-27
LOOKING BACKWARD

HNcIhi.Np bithV AhD.
Way back in 1865 the poetic satirist
John G. Sake. embalmed Omaha for al
future time in a pungent poem which
touches up h eccentricities of pioneer
life in the following fashion, under the
caption '"Ther."
Hast ever been to Omaha,
Where rolls the dark Missouri down,
And four strong horses scarce can draw
An empty wagon through the town?
Where muddy waters rise and swell
With fearful and resistless might;
where hsh are caught by sense OF smell
Because they cannot see to bite?
Where sand is blown from every mound
To fill your eyes and ears and throat;
Where all the steamboats, are aground,
And all the houses are afoat?
Where lager beer Is all the run,
And bloody scalpers come to trade;
Where everything is overdone,
And everybody underpaid?
Where whisky shops the l~ivelong night
Are vending out their horrid Juice;
Where men are often pretty tight,
anu women often pretty loose!
Where taverns have an anxious guest,
For every corner. nook and crack;
With half the people going west.
And all the others going back?
II not. take heed to what l say,
You'll find 1t as l have found 1t;
And If 1t lies upon your way,
For Gods sake go around it.
This lurid picture of bygone days
might have been forgiven, If not for
gotten, especially as it was not II bad
rhyme If it had a bad taste. But now
Rudyard Kipling in his Letters
of Travel" reprinted in two volumes,
just published, entitled, "From Sea to
Sea-" and seeks with malice aforethought
to vindlcate his bad digestion in a prose
TRADE against Omaha that is, to use a
favorite Kipling phrase, decidedly
beastly.
The trip which brought Kipling
through Omaha is presumed to have oc-
Cured about 1887, or twenty-five years
after Saxe's distempered vision. And,
this is what Kipling writes, Vol. II, D.
1856:
Omaha, Neb., was but a hating place
ON the road to Chicago, but 1t revealed 10
me horrors that l would not have will
lngly missed. The city, to casual |investl-
cation, seemed to be populated entirely by
Poles, Slays, Hungarians, Greats,
Magyars and all the scum OF the eastern
european states. But it must have been
laid out by Americans. No other people
would cut the traffic of a main street with
two streams of railway lines, each some
eight or nine tracks WIDE, and cheerfully
drive tram cars across the metals (rails).
Every now and again they have horrible
railway crossing accidents at Omaha, but
nobody seems to think of building an over
head bridge. That would interfere with
the vested interests OF the undertakers.
Be blessed to hear some details of one OF
that class. There vas a shop the like of which
! had never seen before. Its windows were
filled with dress coats for men and dresses
for women. But the studs of the shirts
were made OF stamped cloth upon the shirt
front, and there We're no trousers to these
but a sweep OF cheap black
cloth falling like an abbe's frock. In the
doorway sat a young man reading POL
locks Course of Time and by that knew
that he was an undertaken. His name was
Gring, which is a beautiful name, and /
talked to him on the mysteries OF his craft.
He was an enthusiast and an artist. j told
him how corpses were burned in India.
Said he: Eve are vastly superior. We hold
that Is to say, embalm-our dead" So!
Whereupon he produced the horrible weap-
ons OF his trade, and most practically
showed me how you held a man back
from that corruption which is his birth
right. And / wish l might live for a few
generations Just to see how my people keep.
am sure it's all right. Nothing can
touch 'em after / have embalmed en-
Then he displayed one of those CHASTITY
dress suits, and when / laid a shuddering