The Ketchikan miner., 1907-05-11

pected, and requested continuance of our contributions for each week. He cautioned us to be careful what we allowed to go into the paper, and, then took the train for a six weeks visit to his old home in Ohio; he said he needed rest, and so he did. Any man who is compelled to operate a pair of heavy two dollar shears, fifteen minutes week the whole year round will in time ruin his constitu- tion, though of iron, and sink pre- maturely into consumptive's grave. We'll, for week or two things slid along as smoothly as grease, and then rivalry sprang up between the members of the corps. Higgins and Steve Applethwaite were sweet on the same identical girl-a little beauty who li' aear town on the Conrad road. aust have been that Steve had the outside track, else he would never have inserted an unc ompli- mentary item such as this:
 ''It is barely possible that the freckl- ed-nose, carrotty haired fright, Miss Patience Hathaway, daughter of old milk an. water Hathaway, imagines she is nand o If she is, may Heaven prese. - It is said that her father stands her out in the pasture every spri. < to make the sheep own their lambs.
 When Higgins saw that, he was greatly pained. He labored with Steve for a few minutes earnestly, but not very prayerfully, and the latter was so overcome, as it were, that he threw up his situation on the paper, for one of greater ease and comfort at the hospital. Not one of us de- fended his course, which was certainly very unjournalistic. Higgins wrote double leaded apology, and two sonnets dedicated ito the beautiful Miss H--, the fair dairy maid,'' tc. but the whole paper was spoiled by Nat. Gillett, who worked in the same alley" with the lamented Apple thwaite and who perpetrated this:
 That pusillanimous old gas bag and whiskey tank, Ransdale, who is poisoning and robbing the unsuspect- ing public by the sale of about half a stock of condemned and prurient groceries, at the corner of Market and Main street, should be avoided by every resident. His grocery like himself is reeking pestilence, and in place of the new sign which he cheated the painter out of, should be placed the words: Whoever enters here leaves hope behind"
 The testimony at the coroner's in- quest showed that Gillett had called on Ransdale to solicit his card for the Statesman, and the latter had told deceased to go somewhere else-wit- ness thought he said ito the Hill.' The next week Higgins came out with this:
 That nifty young blackguard and candidate for tfe penitentiary, Hap- good, was caught in another disgrace ful affair the past week, but his fathers money and his family's social position were again brought into reguisition and the case was Smuggfeu out OI coutt. we are uu- able to learn the particulars. Verify the wages of sin is death-unless the sinner happens to be wealthy and re- specially connected. y
 Now this last was true in every particular Had it been otherwise Higgins might have got out of it by apologizing or laying the blame on someone else. So at midnight Rig gins borrowed Curio s gun, and escaped down the Bloomington road, with his life. He was very honest md candid man, and it beats Curio to account for he ever mana ged to sink himself to the level of the Wash ington legislatu e.