Middletown transcript., 1905-12-16
on THE WING
December 18th, 100

December 18th, 1905.
Mr.. EDITOR: Your invitation in your
last issue to your readers to write letters
to THz TRANSCRIPT has inspired this COM
munication.
As write | am speeding through this
beautiful Ohio valley trayersed by the
Pan Handle Route This is a wonderful
State, and especially noted for the won
derful men it has produced during the
past fifty years. 1t was the birthplace Of
Stanton and Chase Grant and Garfield ;
Sherman and Sheridan Harrison and
Mckinley. No state has produced in SO
short period such galaxy of illustrious
men. Most of them were poor boys and
were often glad ON frosty morning to
stir up the cows from their resting places
in the barnyard to warm their bare feet
on the warm spot where the cows had
been lying.
1t was in country store along this very
line of road that the intrepid Sheridan
clerked for fifty cents a week and boarded
himself. The average boy of to-day
would spend more than that for cigarettes
that perhaps his poor mother had earned
by her needle or at the washtub. think
it was John Sherman who said that some
men were born great, and that Others
were born in Ohio.
From Tom Corwin to Mckinley Ohio
has never had a dearth OF great men.
She has had Presidents and Generals and
Colonels galore and it can't be said of
any OF them what has been said of the
Colonels raised in Kentucky of whose
greatness we hear SO much:
Kentucky, Oh, Kentucky, the land
where l was born,
Where the corn is full of kernels and the
Colonels full of corn."
Rather Ohio's great men have become
great because they never got ''corned. I"
No satisfactory reason has ever been given
why Ohio has given birth to so many
great men. 1t may be because of the
composite character of her people. The
Western Reserve you are aware was set
tied by band Of sturdy and thrifty New
Englanders whose eye has always been
upon the main chance and of whom Will
liam NJ. Evarts wittily said that ''when
they first landed at Plymouth Rock they,
with characteristic religious devotion, at
once fell upon their knees and then arose
and speedily fell upon the aborigines. !"
Then her Southern borders we're settled
by the fiery and volatile blood from the
Southland. Then later the solid and
stolid Dutch from Pennsylvania came in,
and the blood of the strain that had per-
sistently voted for Andrew Jackson for
fifty years after he. was dead is worth
something and must act as a sedative to
the other two strains. The plodding per-
sistency of that race is valuable in the
making of composite man. Think of
that German scholar who spent a whole
year on a dot which he thought stood for
a vowel in Hebrew word. An Amer
ican came along one day and with his
inger-nail gave the dot a scratch, and 10 !!
it was f1y-speck. Mix the Yankee and
the Southerner and the Dutch together
and you have man who will eventually
get there.
1t has been stated in a recent Washing
ton despatch that Congressman whose
avordupois kicks the beam at 800 pounds
live weight has introduced bill in Con-
gress to exterminate that pestiferous
Upper Berth in the sleeping cars. l
don't weigh 800 pounds but l wish he
would succeed for other and more cogent
reasons. had an experience once in an
upper berth on the Baltimore and Ohio
road. 1t happened between Pittsburg
and Washington. I'll never forget it and
neither will the woman l unwillingly
visited that fatal morning.
Twas once upon time an upper berth
took,
And snugiy saoze high up in elevated
nook.
When came the rosy fingered daughter
of the dawn,
Then her greeted with soporific yawn.
10 don my "duds'' it seemed an acrobatic
task,
But how twas done l cannot tell, and
pray don't ask.
Alas upon my bended knees, my eyes
askanLe,
Il was not praying then,-just pulling on
my pants.
The swiftly moving train around a curve
was whirled,
And I from elevated berth was rudely
hurled.
One leg in curtain high, securely fast was
tied,
The other helpless hung, so shocking far
astride.
Ny hands, unfailing true, they clutched
with death-like grips
Those pants, and they, sad fate were
just below my hips.
My head, unbid, was thrust in sleeping
matron's couch.
With frantic screams she greeted me-
and |, oh ouch
there was,-the saddest sight
on earth,
A frai but wiser victim OF the Upper
Berth.
was given an upper berth when
started on my journey-eyery lower berth
having been taken before leaving New
York. pathetically told my story to
the conductor and last night l slept in
lower berth. JUNIUs.
TOWNSEND
Rev. J. W. Jones spent Wednesday in