The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-09-19
THE HOTEL CLERK ON THE
 HUDSON-FULTON BLOWOUT
BY IRWIN s. COBB.

friend, the fly, and enabled us to die Of many new diseases that we didn't used to know anything about"
 Well, I guess we ain't making no mis- take In shootin' off few fireworks fur Hudson and F'ulton,' said the House De- tective. Them parties wuz all right and personally I'm very strong for then" :"
 Som l." said the Hotel Clerk. none stronger. All honor to Hudson, the dis coverer of that majestic stream whose banks today are lined with real estate developments, and Thomas F. Ryan's gas tanks, and summer hotels, and 2O00 places where Washington had his head quarters. and fee houses and lofty pail sades crowned with corset signs, and holes where other lofty palisades used to be before we blasted them away to make foundations for fertilizer factories, and West Point, on the hazy heights, where the hazers come from, and at least three great institutions wherein the state houses its fncompetents. I refer to Sing Sing, Matteawan and the capitol at Albany. I'll bet you Hudson wouldn't know his own river now if he should see 1t.
 But did you ever stop to think Larry, that he couldn't help discovering 1t once he'd run up 1t little ways. It's quite 8 sizable body of water with a nice, wide
 
 you're coming this way you can't very well miss 1t. There were some of those old-time discoverers who got a lot of swell reading notices for doing things that happened accidentally To be sure, they took some risks. The dared the perils of the vasty deep in vessels that couldn't have been much safer than modern motor boat And they sailed westward ho and came and found the ID,,< were looking for. What they were look ing for was a short cut to China-Chinas been getting the short cut in every deal ever since-or for a fountain of perpetual youth, a fountain of hair dye I would suppose 1t was from the name or may be patent medicine or for what we most of us are still engaged in looking gold that you don't have to work to get. And if they continued their westward hoing long enough they bumbed into the continent of North America and dis covered 1t, on the same principle that a person will discover Niagara Falls If he drops into it.
 Anyhow, it's a sacred cinch that all tho really desirable property in this neigh borhood had been discovered before any of that fifteenth and sixteenth century bunch got here from the other side Now, you take the Hudson itself. From what l can gather, 1t was proba bly, discovered in the first place away back wonder by the Dinosaurus and the Thunder Lizard, better known among friends as Dinah and Big Liz, and after that by the Lost Tribes and after them by the Mound Builders, and then by the Indians and I don't know who all We'll. after 1t had been dis- covered some 700 or 800 times, and was an old story to all the older families in the vicinity, here came Friend Hank, sail ing along with his Dutch crew, in a ship shaped like piece of pie It would seem that his attention was attracted almost immediately by the Catslxill mountains, they being quite noticeable on the right hand side as you go up. So he decided to make a good, thorough job in the discov- cry line while he was at 1t, and he put on his brass breastplate and his tin hat and his full-jewelled- movement sword and proceeded to land and discover them too. And I've no doubt that at the time old Chief Henry Hen Hawk, of the original Mohawk family, peered down over the face of the cliff at him, and said to his wife, Mrs. Swampetta Hawk. who was getting the to Hawk children. Tommie and Sparrow, ready for dancing school, Mother, for the love of Mike, come and look! There's a nervy foreigner, all dressed up like a dollar watch, down here under the edge of our lot. that thinks he's discovering Sullivan county What do you know about that? I'm a great mind to go down and hit him rap on his