Shiner gazette. [volume] (Shiner, Tex.) 1893-current, 1907-05-30


ting something for nolning, the
which was rally and truly hisn
to have and to hold without a
scream from the other owner.
We must do business at the desk
always the ta-ra-rum of the
cash register-the ever-present
equation of the pound of flesh or
the fiddler to pay. In the stone
age, of course, everything was
everybody's and the biggest
stick was title in itself to what
ever he might fancy, from cave
and range to grasshopper waf-
flies and wives. Drawn was the
only bank-attorneys and alb
stracts of title and courts of rec
ord were still bottled in future
oblivion. Ownership was vest
ed in the ruffian who had it last.
With civilization came formal
conveyance and current coin
the proposition of adequate ex-
change-since when, in matters
of barter and trade dyemoind,
nobody has ever beaten the
game Of inevitable recompense.
And yet there is always the
ass who thinks it is easy-the
fellow with the breakfast-food
brain, the elongated gall and
moist mitts. Witness the his
toric hike of Ponce de Leon in
search of a fountain spouting
eternal tonic which has contrib
uted to the gayety of all nations
ever since, although countless
thousands are still following in
his footsteps. The olden time
alchemists who spent their lives
in trying to transmute black
sand and incantations and toads'
livers into precious metals were
wise men compared with the
poor fools who today insist that
the story about that pot of gold
at the end of the rainbow is true
and they're sure going to get it.
everywhere a mob besieges the
bargain counters where are sold
blue sky and gold bricks-every-
where the investor who is going
to make that successful if I'M
scDupulous financier the late
Captain Kidd, look like a dirty
deuce. There is no lack of bark
ers - the metropolitan press
fairly bristles with seductive adj
vertisements&of inventors who
are about to take a trip around
Venus-board of trade farmers
who guarantee ninety-nine BUSH
els to the acre-business invest
ments promising an impossible
profit-high-grade oil at bill
lion dollars a barrel, and pure
gold and silver and copper, your
own choice, at ten cents the ton.
1t was only a few months ago
that st. Louis quick-rich out
fit failed whose books proved the
robbery of thousands of patrons
and the exposure of which was
so complete that it ought to have
been a warning to every other
fool in the wide, wide world.
Later, another Philadelphia con-
Germ which had robbed enthusi-
astic investors of a million un-
der promise of a return of forty
eight per cent-and the st.
Louis thieves had only promised
thirty-went to the wall. This
matter of interest-of per cent
profits governed by inviolable
ought to understand, and yet the
more impossible the promise the
more readily it is accepted as a
bonded pledge by some people.
Charitable souls are laying up
treasure in heaven by buying
wireless telegraph stocks, every
day. An airline railroad be-
tween our two greatest cities is
being built on paper and in a
few capacious pockets-as GER
tain to be completed and prove
paying proposition as is the Pan
anna Canal, or a subway from
here to hades-whose litho-
graphic souvenirs are constantly
advancing in price and for
which otherwise sensible men
and = women are cheerfully
coughing up real rhino OF the
realm. Only the other day the
courts seized gigantic oil anc
pipe line syndicate by the collar
which has received for stock III