The independent., 1907-02-07

1t has come down to us from the
Stone Age-haS no more Plot than a
successful Musical Comedy and the
Meter is as unreliable as if it had been
installed by the Gas Company.
The verses concerning Mary and her
enamored Pet are mouldy fragment
of has been Literature. They are no
good on Earth but we have had them
in the Cupboard so long that we hate
to chuck them out
Mary is perhaps the best known
character in Fiction or Biography.
Many big, full grown Tax Payer with
a heavy Beard, who never read Pres
ident's Message in his Life, who thinks
that Omar Khayyam is the name of
perfumery, who doesn't know whether
Thomas w Lawson lives in Boston or
Montana, who never heard of Carlyle
until the Indians began to play foot
ball, who has dim and lurking sus-
picion that Charles Dickens wrote
"Alice of DID Vincennes" and who
couldn't tell you which Washington
was George and which is Booker, can
hand out the whole Piece about Mary
and the Lamb.
He is teaching the so-caiied Poem to
little Oliver, with the Front Teeth and
the F'reckles, and some evening he Will
have a Friend from the Wholesale
House go up to dinner with him and
he will sit by the door SO that the Vic
tim cannot break away, and then Oil
yer will stand over by the Center
Table and get off the whole Thing at
the rate of two hundred words min
ute. and his Parents will brag about
Oliver and get him all swelled up, in
stead of beating him with a Strap and
then locking him in his Room.
M L r l. fn in
with the domestic arrangements of ev-
cry Household the same as Wash Rags
and Fly Paper.
They have been universally adopted
and sheltered because the story of
their Loyal Friendship can be assimi-
lated by any 22-caliber Mortal with a
Cerebellum the size of an English
Walnut and Facial Angle of thirty
Degrees
The hopeless Paretic, after he has
been tucked away in the Foolish House
and measured for a Straightjacket
with Leather Trimmings, still remem-
bers in detail the sweet and simple
Story of the Dumb Brute whose Fleece
was as white as a Railway Pooling
Agreement and who waited outside the
School House for Mary to show up.
1t seems wrong to jump onto a Clas-
sic. but we have stood for the senti-
mental Live Stock just about long
enough.
Ii the Professors at the University
of Chicago have a right to take a Fall
out of Shakespeare, we have a rlSht
to put slight Kibosh on the rankest
Team that ever did a Turn in the Nur-
sery Vaudeville, viz: Mary and Lamb
There are plenty of good Acts that
can be put into Bill for the klddles,
so why star combination of onions?
You take Jack and the Beanstalk,
Riding Hood and Wolf, Crusoe and
Friday, the Boy on the Burning Deck
or even the Captains Daughter who
took her father by the Icy Mitt and
gave him a good talking to, and any
one of them will guarantee the Little
Folks a run for their Money. They
start something.
If Mary had taken an enterprlslng
Ram to school with her and the Ram
had butted the Teacher in the Solar
PleXus and then crashed through
Window and started down the Plke.
,lpsettIng Policemen, Fat Women and
Crippled Old Gentlemen, finally collid :
ing with can of Dynamite carried py
an Irishman with Green Sluggers'
thereby blowing up the whole street
and Gripping a large number OF lnno-
cent f3ySCdHueTS, liiC WiioiN
would have contained enough Excite
ment and Real American Humor to
Justify a full Page of Pictures In three
Colors.
or if it could be pointed out tnat
Mary was the first person In tnis
Country to protect American Wooi the
story could be given certain Pollticat
Significance, -.
But the yarn has nothing to COM
mend IT, No Criminal Interest no
bearing on Wall Street Operations, no
satire on Modern Society. no Dialect
not even Moral fastened on inc
end like a whip-cracker.
Yet we keep on using II. About the
time the First Born is big enough 70
begin learning Bridge Whist or llnding
out how many Cubic Yards OF Eartn
viii, be taken from the Culebra cut IN
the Isthmian Canal the misguided
Parents get him penned up In COR
ner and make him memorize the whole
mess Of Drivel about Marys Little
Lamb
They had II done 70 them when they
Ia.r.ar N