The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-11-04
CPLlT FTNNEY WONDERS
y WHY THEY DO 1T
Will Some One Please Explain Why
Men With Money Try to
Break Their Neckss

10 bennlngs, IN Washington, AsJ week 10
work for a deadline layer while that three
day jumping meeting was on" said Split.
They called IL the meeting Of the United
Hunts Steeplechase Association. or some
such gag. and the riders were all gent
equestrians in pinky winky coats or in
regular jock cOlors. Only the toffs and
nobs had the leg up on the hoppers.
my pal that was down there and saw
it all told me that it was sadder than look
ing at More to Be Pitied Than Censured.'
when you've got nine beers in you. to see
these Mister riders getting tossed all over
the autumn grass by their mounts and
rolled on and kicked in the teeth and
dra eyed around and jammed into the fence
and the wings OF the jumps n hauled
through the. water hop and landed on the
top Of prickly hedges.
@The tohy boys could ride at that, being
about the same gent riders that spin round
on the NewYork tracks in the timber sprints.
But the things that happened to them were
the things tina happen to all hands whether
they're tads OF tofs. Misters OF just Jims
and Bills that weigh in for these hopping
scrambles.
The thing is, what for? I'm not blow
ing the question at the gitappers who drag
plugs over hedges TO make a living, the
ones that never get the Mister thing pushed
In front OF their monakers ON the jock
board. Riding EN- over the sticks is their
end Of il. That's how they get by. It's
their work.. They're out for the soup
change, like the rest of the bunch that are
not born with the buttons to push, and
the only way they know how to try to get
anything is to steer four propped hoppers
over things sticking out Of the grass.
There was a Mister rider going over
the pickets in those hop sprints at Bennings
last week who's going to a the price of
about fifteen million ein-buck pewter
watches some day, and even now, before
he's due for the big ~tearoff, he's got so
much of the buying junk around his clothes
that he means and mutters in his sleep
because he can't begin TO chuck 1t in. I've
often seen this one club something from
bis own shed over the sticks on the New
York tracks. He can ride. He's there
with it. He's pretty near as good a rider
as some Yannigan of a sure enough Jump
ing jock that has to do it for q living.
And every time that l see this clean
looking young Mister boy parade his hop
ping poodle down the track and into the
field grass I'm there with a LAY out Of ques-
ton marks Of assorted sizes inside Of me
that makes me forget 10 keep a lamp out
for live ones for quite a little while. All
the change that he can conveniently carry
in his ~dungarees without turning turtle
and rolling over on his back like a woggle-
bug, and fifteen million Of those big rolled
silver ~frijoles right in sight-and there's
the Mister with all of this astraddle of a
crazy. w~rong-headed thing with a name
and -four hard hoofs, a thing with only one
idea in his conk: and all that the thing with
uaanQ and the nna idea has Onf 10 do ia no
take of about two feet too far forward, or
forget to clear a board by about an eighth
OF an inch. or slip when he hits the other side,
and then the Mister with all of the goodies
that were picked and preserved and put
away for him before he was born rs just as
liable as not 20 be CREASED over the Big
Divide without ever futtering back to
life long enough to ask for a cigaroot.
SHOW me! And all the time, instead Of
bobbing around in that foolish little parade
on the way TO the jumps. he could be up in
a box on the club stand listening TO the
flutes and the fageolets wailing the googoo
music and unreeling the winsome steam
into the ear of something winner looking
sitting alongside OF him. and with enough
OF his pocket change down OIL something
ned heard about in the timber sprint to
make hin feel like watching EN- sail over.
and the infield grass a-waving in the breezes,
Alcwyn, and a foot high beaker Of the
hissky amber wet after it was all over.
inc -
Say, that'd be me-in the box!
30, as long as I've got a two piastre
shinplaster in the kick or in sight I'm
going to be as busy ducking trouble as a
one armed paperhanger with the hives.
And a-riding horseback over heaped up
brush and puddles and things is trouble
all the way from canape to coffee, or I don't
now the difference between a saddle cloth
and a slate pencil.
Whenever ! see those Mister boys with
kanlhtYpIla that niohf Eg-..ipna,. lA..
couldn't pull on q sledge-when l see 'em
bouncing along over the stills in these
Topper events, / wonder what il d look
like to see the president Of a trust mpan
working in the North River tunnel for $3.50
a dav. And it's about the same thing.
The Mister lads don't have to do hat riding
work, but neither does old Fattsky with
the dough sacks lave to take a chance on
getting the tunnel bends.
IT'S the same. at that, with these kale
wrapped nobs that go in for gas carts that
only hit the ground every once in a while.
I could never handicap what for in their
case. either. They've got a chance TO sit
down and blow smoke rings at the lace
curtains from the time they get up in the
morning till their man hands 'em their
whenever they feel like touching a
button for anything they think they need
or want, somebody comes painting to EN-
and stakes 'em. They've got the whole
bAk W UP At a FdiliIldhVI > hrctlIo
and put away on ice. Nothing makes any
difference TO 'em. Room rent il something
they never heard Of. The eats il only u
case of what they feel like having, not what
they've got the junk to pay for. They never
heard Of a down-and-outer having TO ink
his hat brim SOS to go out on the street
and put up a front and look merry. They
wouldn't know a hard wallop il they saw
il hiking down the street with a tag tackled
on IL. All they've got to do is to live, and
loll, and loaf, and open the world up like
a Baltimore dinge with an oyster knife.
But they want to crawl into the entrails
Of an old thing that looks like a " est Indian
centipede in a bunch Of bananas, and shoot
along the pike or the sandy beach at the
clip Of a straight mile in nothing.
The blue prints, pail gotta have a
a . before | can see what for.
They're going up in the air in big gas
bags, too, a whole lot o these Misters that've
got 80 much to live for that IL makes a
smudge like me lonesome 10 think about Il.
Climbing into a basket, and getting EN-
selves yanked on the ground that feeds
ON. and getting themselves banged against
chimneys and steeples, and dragged through
mucky swamps, and dumped into the cold.
wet sea. and lodging in slippery elm trees
or cact u beds-I gotta have a Di~nny-pinny
peek at a working model OF the what for on
this. too, before ia ever know how 10 &c.
tba RIGHT Kind af Hnna ON IL ~