Arizona weekly journal-miner., 1901-06-12
DISSERTATION ON EATING.
With Some Side Notes on Picnics and the Menus of Same
 Thrown in.
Mild Form of Small Pox at Tempe Boring for 0ll at Standstill-
 Dr Miller's Ancient Ruins.


 nal-Miner: Some people actually haven't a particle of sense, when Il comes to eating. I'll tell you why say that. Last Saturday we had a picnic. You know that when people exhaust all other means of human misery, they get up a picnic. Just notice it, all of you, when every vail of woe is silent, when every body Is well and happy, and the neighbors are at last OF speaking terms with .ach other, some misguided mortal says: Let's have a picnic, Every body bring a basket full, and we'll have a good time." Then the poetic brother takes the floor, If there be a poetic brother) and he tells us it will do us good to get out by the babbling brooks the means the irrigating Iitch) and under the green trees. and there close to nature, we'll have a real good time. It sounds very poetic, but the truth of the business is that nature is bug laden and wormy and low-well, won't say that-but na- ture, my friends, is a lovely fraud. If not, why does she hatch out bed bugs, and fleas and mosquitOs? Why does she concoct microbes, and invent bacterial Why does she hide SCOT pions under innocent looking rocks? Why tuck away centipedes in the cracks of picturesque logs7 What makes her drop a caterpillar down your back every time you get close enoughl You cant answer these question:; you give it up; so do l. Depend upon 1t, nature means mis- chief, most of the time. You don't want to trust her too far. To love nature is to demonstrate the folly of misplaced affection. She Is respon- SibIe for lots of things that are laid at the devils door. Well, we had our picnic, and as a young brother re marked. there was right smart chance of people there. The shade was good, the grass soft, and nature donated a swarm of gnats. As well as can remember We had for dinner the following viands. to wit: chicken, roast meats. flies, salads. cakes, cater pillar rolled in butter, pie, spiders, pickles. coffee and dust. Some peo' pie might have been dissatisfied with a spread like that, but our crowd wasn't overly partic lar, so 1t just waded in and stuffed itself. It was appalling to witness it.
 If everything we ate had been put in bowl and stirred together, (before we ate it,) it would have stampeded the whole crowd. If l had the mak- ing of people, I'd make sole leather stomachs to them. Well, none of us died. and the first thing I did, when l got home, was to take long pole and punch down some half ripe figs, and eat them. This brings me right back to where I started. We have less sense about eating, than We have concerning any other calling that flesh is heir to,
 The vital question of the hour is not of the Porto Ricans. the Philip pines, the Chinese nor the BOers. We have dropped all such side issues at present, and when we meet, in home or street. we simply ask: Are there there any more cases in town?' Some people who have lived happy all their lives. without the aid of the English grammar, ask it this way: Has any of your folks got 'em?" Some times | they put it thus: 'i aint afeared; I've had 'em." as vet it has manifest ed in very mild form. Children are nearly always the first ones afflicted, but it spreads. The doctors say it's small poX. but every one who has 1t stoutly affirms that it's nosuch thing. I declare, they have disputed and wrangled until I'm so confused that l don't know which way to run. As very few are seriously ill from 1t, there | is little excitement. No one Is scared but nearly every one speaks lightly of it. The normal school Is still go- ing on. They have their commence ment exercises next week. There are eighteen graduates this year four teen sweet girl graduates, and four lovely boy graduates. A short time ago. when was young, there used to be more boys in the school than girls. Now it is the reverse. The man who says why! can answer himself.
 This is a prosperous year for Salt River valley. There is an abundance of water. and the farmers are cores pondingly happy. The weather con tinues quite pleasant. Nights are very cool and the days not very warm. Dr. Milleris having the walls of a ruin near here cleared of debris. He intends to open up the entire ruin in course of time. He thinks this one the oldest ruin he has ever seen.
 Our oil men have stopped boring to wait for other tools. They are in rock formation and the work goes very slowly. They have struck no water yet. A hundred feet where they are boring should bring them as low as the river bed. However, it takes time, patience and pluck to make success of anything. w.