The age-herald., 1900-11-05
SKETCHES FROM
 EVERYDAY LIFE

A hotel clerk has to be all things 10 all
 men. He has to know everything. Not only must he know every railroad schedule
 and the arrival and departure of each mail,
 but he must know where his guests can
 buy candy, overshoes, chewing gum, lit- erature, clothes and medicines He should be able to answer half a dozen inquiries at once, know the name of every guest in
 the hotel. tell when to cash a check and when not, and remember a dozen mes sages.
 Say" says one guest If MT. Jones calls for me ask him to wait% If any one asks for me-" says another just tell them
 that you saw me"
 Mister says stranger from one of
 the rural towns coming up to the desk,
 Tit don't cost nothing to look at the regis
 ter, does it?' Any mail for me?' asks guest. The clerk must know his name and turn to the right letter box to get his mall. Let me see the letters in s ' says one
 who is expecting mail. The clerk hands
 him package of letters. he looks through them, but he has drawn blank He then
 signs his name and address in a forward
 ing register and leaves.
 
 The Morris Hotel has several hundred letters on hand all the time awaiting claim
 ants. They are sent to persons who ex- pected to stop there, but for one reason or aonther do not arrive. Those that are | marked return in limited time are sent back, while the others are held for thirty days, and if not claimed are turned over to the post office authorities. Every thirty | days from twenty-five to fifty letters
 thus returned. Probably five hundred let ters year are sent to the Morris which are never claimed, and are returned to the post office.
 "A remarkable feature about tlfe cam paign now drawing to a close, said | smoker yesterday, 'is that no cigar has come on the market named for Bryan. If 1 there is such a one I have never seen 1t, and it must be very obscure brand I think I have seen a Mckinley cigar, but never smoked one. Generally a cigar named after a prominent man is a pretty | bum article, relying entirely on its name | for a sale. It is on the order of the patron
 fze-home-industry appeal. A manufacturer l will make lot of wretched cigars that could never be sold on their merits and | label them William Mckinley hoping | that some ardent Republican will be en- | thusiastic enough to smoke one. It seems | odd that Democratic enthusiasm has not | been appealed to the same way. Does It | mean that there Is less enthusiasm among the Democrats than the Republicans or that the Democrats smoke better cigars?" The high price of cotton is having a po- etical effect on the farmer, as the follow ing joyful idyl taken from an exchange | would indicate:
 | The ehigger may chig with all his might, The mockingbird mock and sing; | But Alabama crops will take the cake, And cotton, you bet, Is king.
 | The cricket may crick, and the froglet frog And the farmer sing his strain; But the Alabama crop Is always top, The result of plenty of rain
 In the feud counties of a western state | the children won't play with pop-guns- | they insist on having the real article. Pa | rents rather encourage this custom, and | give pistols to their little boys, knowing | how necessary 1t is to be able to shoot straight in that climate. One little child who was crying was immediately appeased | when his mother gave him a pistol. She | forgot, however, 1t was loaded. The child | immediately began to play desperado, and | walking up to it's father told him he was | going to shoot him. Don't shoot" cried | his father, throwing up his hands and pre- tending to be afraid. This so delighted | the child that he pulled the trigger, the | pistol went off and down came the parent. l The doctors say that "the blow almost killed father"-had the ball gone little to the right it would have done so. There Is an art in knowing how to write l yellow" literature. Illustrative of this is | story which comes from California In San Jose they are boring an artesian well l in the search for water. The experts did | not expect to strike water until they got l to sea level about 800 feet below. | While the boring was going on an old | lady in the community who is in her nine 1 tieth year, and who claims to have the gift | of second sight, prophecied that water would be reached at depth of 300 feet. | ''I have seen all the earth underlying the | well," she is reported to have said, "and | in trance I have seen the water bubbng l up and spouting as if from a great foun- | tain, and it is within 300 feet of the sur 1 face I know what I am talking about for | have the gift of second sight, and what | is concealed from ordinary mortals is to | me as an open book.'
 | At the time this story was published the 1 well was 2S5 feet deep, and the whole com | munity was anxiously awaiting to see l whether the prophecy would come true. | Here the story artfully ends, leaving ev- l erybody expectant and curious as to the l outcome. There was only fifteen feet to l go to test the old lady's second sight. This l would have taken hut another day, but l had the. reporer waited this long and the 1 3O9 feet failed to reach water as 1t prob ably did, the story would have been flat and uninteresting.
 | SCHOOL TEACHERS HAVE WORRIES | From the Pittsburg Chronicle-Telegraph. | The Pamunky Indian school is again I without teacher because the braves or rsrar -ia fn