The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1904-12-08
Just as / Am.

4 A chimney sweep is about dirty
and sooty fellow as you would run
across in many a day. With his long
lasso that he uses to roundup the ac-
cumulation of SCOT and cinders, and
with his clown hat or old "tile" and
his ringing bugle call he is truly
most original character. I should
say he was really sooted for any avo-
cation in life, but perhaps best adapt
! ed to the one he has chosen, He can
! make a draught on a house that even
a Goth century banker could not make,
and he can make stove or fireplace
draw harder than any four horses
that ever we're knocked down to the
highest bidder at Marks sales. The
way he can sweep a chimney will make
the Oldest swallow :shomeward fly.'
It only goes to show that one occupa-
ton is as good as another, that is in
the minds of some. The chimney
sweep would not feel at home drawing
slow-moving molasses in a dark Gel
lar or cutting pretty -fgured calico for
a homely-looking girl or lady for that
matter. Neither would he feel at
home in a printing Office with the
"devil'' just recovering from the ef-
fects of an overdose of angel-food.
and the editor just recovering from an
overdose of domestic simplicity or
''simple life.'' Looking at it from
vica versa standpoint what kind of
figure would a clerk, devil or an
editor cut doubled in a high-nosed
chimney trying to sound bottom from
the regions of the sky. Some sports
man returning from the hunt would
take them for a deer and they might
lose the northeast quarter Of the
southwest quarter of section II of
their pants. There's nothing like
person being satisfied with his occu-
patton. Learn a lesson of sweet con-
tentment from the chimney sweep,
and if you saw wood, saw it, if you
see snakes as the result of post
graduate course in Boozeology-may
the Lord have mercy on your poor
snaky soul. .~ ri
| While was strolling through the
Pan Handle country last fall, in the
wake of a patent-medicine man who
was contracting for space in the dinky
newspapers that seem to be awaiting
the resurrection, I had the opportunity
of meeting Mr.. Donothing. The fact
of the matter was was selling a new
brand of ''boiler plate''-self-rising
editorials, miscellany, etc., that tired
out and gone-to-seed newspaper pub
fishers and editors banker after so
much. You understand, dear reader,
that it's not the pen that's migthier
than the sword in the tall-grass, tar
antula-i infested region of journalism,
it's the ''boiler-plate'' that dulls the
keen edge of the sword and makes it
fit only for plow-share. I met Mr..
Donothing at a small town where a
gas we'll had gushed million beauti-
fully Autographed shares of stock and
then ceased to gush. He was the
publisher of the Pokeville Reed or
Cat-tail, that had taken deep root
when the gas we'll was coughing the
loudest, and had given promise of
great expectations. But the Reed or
Cat-tail had struck the gait of diver
and the only thing that held it up was
a loyal compositor who had a Keely
! insurance and few plugs of tobacco
Mr.. Donothing had just closed con-
tract with the patent medicine man
when met him. He had contracted
to insert seven sticksfull of Long
Primer in each issue of his paper for
81 consecutive issues for $6.l5 and
before I left him he had put up his
contract at the All-Night Pharmacy
for the amount of his first quarters
advertising. Donothing had enough
material about his Office to run first
class daily, and those many-pointed
letters were just aching to do some
talking, but Donothing had bad
case of inertia and seemed struck with
the first two degrees of premature de-
cline. It was a case of too much
cocktail and plain beer and not
enough Cat-tail and plain biz. His
soul was fred with fz, and he much.
resembled a supe at the Burning of
Rome" I sold him enough self-rising
editorials to run him three months
and several sets of boiler-plate fea
lures, SO that all that was left to do
on the Reed or Cat-tail was to set
column and a half !, Of locals, and
change the date on the first page. All
this the Keely -insuranced compositor
did while Donothing did the free-lunch
counters, played seven-up and took