The Arizona sentinel., 1904-09-14
The Lurid Liar.


 "Fancy an everyday temperature varying from 1O5 to 125 degrees in the shade for four and more months at a stretch. Imagine village of several hundred adobe, stone and brick squat one-story houses and store buildings, all with clumsy porches in front, strewn along dreary red-brown roasting bank of a drowsy, muddy stream-where rude thoroughfares struggle up and down a naked hill shimmering under the fiercest, empti- est sky you ever say. That is old Yuma, the literally hottest town in the United States.'
 Most of the readers of the Sentinel will doubtless recognize the above, as it has received attention in these col umns at least twice before. The para graph is only a small part of a lengthy misrepresentation which first appeared in print many years ago. The writer E. S. J. then, is not only monumental liar, but senseless plagiarist, as he presents as original, over his own sig nature, lot of rot, which, though graphically written, is not his own, and his motives for reproducing the screed cannot be otherwise than mal- icious. For, if he ever was in Yuma even for only few hours, the evidence of his own senses would disprove his statements.
 It seems useless to reply to these outrageous statements. They spring up in first one quarter then another, no matter how often they are headed off, denounced, disproved, lambasted, knocked in the head, like the nine lives of the cat, they are revived by some scribbling jack sometimes, per haps by some irresponsible hobo who has served time on the Yuma chain gang.
 To be sure, it does get hot in Yuma; so It does in>Minneapolisa and St. Paul, Chicago and New York, where the sweltering heat, blinds, paralyzes, and kills. In Yuma during the nearly fifty years of its history there has not been more than three cases of death from heat prostration, while in the northern and eastern cities there are scores of such deaths every summer. nhn ic hn hl1rr 1H1 1fXr there; combined with a temperature of 90, makes a sensible temperature greater than was ever known here.
 The intimation that work lags here in the summer and that business of any kind suspends except during the early morning hours and at night is of course ridiculous. It is fact that there is more building going on here during the warm months than during the winter and no kind of work or business is hindered by the suns rays.
 The highest officially recorded tenn perature here is 1l6. and that mark has only been reached twice in twenty seven years, the last time in June, 1902. The highest temperature is usually in June, but as a matter of fact the heat during that month is not uncomfortab at all. Few people think of going to the coast until after the 4th of July. In reality, July and August constitute what may be called the heated term. It is during these months that more or less rain falls, and the greater per cent of humidity thus caused, sometimes gives us an atmosphere similar to that in the Mississippi valley.
 From the 1st of September to the 1st of June there is no section of the country, or of the globe, that furnishes an equal share of delightful weather. This is conservative statement. During all this period of eight months the nights are invariably cold enough for blankets, while the days are bathed in cool invigorating air tempered to perfection by sunshine which is con- tinuous and incomparable.
 So far as climate conditions go, Yuma, as winter resort, has no eqnal, and the time is close at hand when it will be so recognized all ever the world. Even now, were the facilities of ac- commodation at hand, there would be hundreds if not thousands of tourists here. But these will all come in time.
 In former years Yuma was d by word for the incarnative of crudeness, sweltering heat, uncivilized conditions, and almost everything else embodied in the word "cusSedness". No other town has so often been compared to the internal regions; the town was fruitful topic for alleged humorists and made the butt of ridicule for nearly half century: even residents of Yuma have contributed TO little to placing the town and climate in wrong light by playing jokes on strangers and re- beating the stories of imagination. It is not much wonder that Yuma "has bad name", and that a widespread and wrong impression has been created that is hard to overcome.
 A peculiar, not to say devilish state ment in the E. $. J. screed is this:
 "Yuma is situated in the heart of @ region of extinct volcanoes, God-forsak- en barren hills and sterile canyons--a region of mirages,. Gila monsters and rnntileS that thrive ar,idCt 1,uro;rcc