The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1908-02-16


ders. are going after the ladies who
smoke in public" said the Hotel Clerk.
just wot is a crusader" asked the
Head Bell Boy. Il hear Of 'em very
frequently here of late, but I amt seen
none as l knows Of
1T all depends on the period of his
tory to which you refer" said the Ho-
tel Clerk. "A matter of five or six
hundred years ago. when the captains
or industry used their Steel Preferred
for making top clothes out of, instead
OF for investment purposes, a crusader
was a gentleman of naughty aspect
who looked like a can Of imported sar
dimes when he had on his lightweight
summer armor and like a kitchen
range when he was wearing his winter
buds. He put on his vest with a stove
lid, and took off his socks with can
opener. A set of screw drivers was on
every well equipped dressing table If
anything got the matter with his he'll
met, or he forgot the combination of
his shirt front, they had to send for the
nearest lOcksmith. If he came home
TO his castle from a stag social of the
Crusaders Aid society with a commo-
dious medieval stew aboard, and trip
ped on the top step and fell down
stairs, as he no doubt did. from time
engine hitting a milk wagon. There
was no chance for him to take off his
shoes at the front door and slip in
quietly. They wasn't that sort of
shoes. They were more like the kind
horse wears. And so his lady wife
would hear the hideous clamOr ring
ing out on the a. m. quiet and shed
arise and come out to the top of the
landing and see him laying there fiat
on his pOrtcullis, with his hands clasp
ed across the dOnjon keep and -''
"WOt's portcullis?" asked the Head
Bell Boy, breaking in.
Never mind that" said the Hotel
Clerk. They have a different name
for it these days. Anyway. l was tell
ing you about the Crusader and not
about the various points of interest in
his anatomy
But he nearly always had a glo-
rious finish. He departed to the Holy
lands and a Saracen junk dealer broke
him up for scrap iron; or else he IA
tally went adjusting to a joust. A
joust, Hops, was something like the
modern football, game, only milder.
Sometimes, they called it a tourna-
ment, but l like jOust better. 1t sounds
more like what it was He'd go up to
the jOust, as l told you, and he'd ride
down the lists on his noble Percheron
charger with his long but foolish spear
set firmly i'm its socket and his Sun
day suit rafting like a load of Trails
crossing a car track. And another
chivalrous and gentle Jouster would
come looping out to meet him and COM
nit safe-burglary on him with a steel
nose maui So now he's buried in
Westminster Abbey or some other IA
NOrite resort for American tourists
with a stone monument weighing eleV-
On tons resting on his stomach: and
dozens of the best families in Chicago
and Troy. n. Y, named Watkins and
Mulligan, are claiming descent from
him and using his coat of arms on
their canned beef and their dollar
shirts. 1t ought to be glory enough
for any crusader, even if he's dead, to
know that eighty million packages of
deviled ham and countless volumes Of
two-for-a-qu quarter collars are annually
carrying his armOrial crest as a trade
mark and doing we'll
But the modern Crusader, Hops, is
a very different person. He doesn't
dress up in any of the mallea bic metals
unless you figure in his watch chain
and analgam filings. He's usually a
Well-tO-dO middle-aged gentleman-al-
though sometimes he's Iadv-who
makes ii a business 10 make every
body else's business his business He's
prominent in reform campaigns. and
breakfast food testimonials. He gener-
ally starts out by furnishing literary
contributions for the subscribers col
umn on the editorial pages of family
newspapers. The next stage is when
there's mass meeting to protest
against something, and he sits on the
stage with Anthony COmstock, Jos.
ChOate, r. Fulton Cutting. and the
other two hundred honorary vice-pres-
idents, and plays scenery. If it was a
musical show, he'd be the chorus: be-
ing mass meeting, he's the honorary
e-preSident. It's not a hard Job to
fill if the subject has a sufficiently Sc
riOus expression Of cOuntenance and a
name that looks kind Of impressive and
wealthy when printed in small type.
But after a bit, he passes into the
violent state. All of a sudden he rises
up and emits an emotional Shrek that
Sarah Bernhard would give any
money to own and have under control.
He's discovered that there ought to be
siX-cyiinder, fOrty-hOrSe power cru
SADIE started right away TO correct
some helEsh wrong that everybody
thought was all right until he called
attention 10 il.
IF we've got plenty of good live SEN
sations at the time We are apt to give
iaiiii INV bsANh-ub SiSAldi ne papers
print foolish pictures of him, and the
voice OF the public is heard advising
him to return to the round house and
spin around a few times. When strang-
ers begin to laugh at a young crusade,
its time for its friends To begin to
weep for it. So our disappointed Cru
sader retires down a siding and be-
comes passimistic and takes to reading
Edwin Markham's poetry.
But II he happens TO usher his
chubby, wrinkled. hairless, toothless
little pink crusade into the world at a
period when there's comparatively
nothing doing-fine and nutritiousl
Presently he finds himself marching at
the head OF a procession composed of
seven or eight million of his proud and
Rdmiring fellow citizens and when he
dies, We take up a popular subscriD-
ton and hire a home talent sculDtOr
10 erect a statue in his memory, and
future generations, as yet unborn, will
come and look at it and wonder if any
body ever really had that kind of legs.
Il haven't been able yet to figure
out what's liable to happen to the am
bilious crusaders that put the rollers
under the new crusade against women
smoking in public. I never saw but
one woman that smoked in public. and