The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-02-18
KANSAS c0MAENT
NEwsPAPER FABLES.


The Hiawatha World is doing Yeo-
man Service in behalf of paved
streets Tor that town, and nearly ev-
cry issue of the paper contains some
interesting little story showing how
the place will benefit if the paving is
done, and how it will lose out if the
work is neglected. The following is
sample anecdote from the World:
Heres where we lose: A man came
70 town "Wednesday looking for a
nome. he looked at the muddy main
street and said, why don't you pave
that street," He was told that a large
number of the townspeople We're
against paving, "All right, them" he
said til hunt up another place to
live. l don't want to live in town
where people are against paving
Now. that's an extremely affecting
ilttIe parable, and there is no doubt
that 1T moved many people to tears,
but it is a fake just the same. 1t
was written by the girl who does the
society department, and who is anx-
ious to earn her wages.
NO man would go to town on We'd
nesday looking for a home. He
would go early on Monday morning,
SO that he might devote the entire
week to the work; and if he was real
ly hunting for a home, he wouldn't
waste time looking at the mud in the
main street. He is pictured as look
ing upon the mud with great stern
ness, and asking why the street was
not paved. Assuming that he was
stranger there, it was none of his
business why the street was not paw
ed. If he wasn't stranger, he knew
why the street wasn't paved, and his
question was superfluous and absurd.
In either case he was a cheap skate,
and If he had moved into the town
lot of good people would have moved
out.
When he was told that many of the
citizens We're opposed to paving he
said he would hunt up another place
to live. and it may be hoped that he
did SO, for he would have been no
credit to HiaWatha. In all probable
ity he'd have run up big grocery bill
and then jumped town. You never
can place any confidence in man
who talks too much, who starts to
look for a home in the middle of the
week, instead of advertising for
home; who stands around looking at
the muddy streets instead of getting
a shovel and cleaning the crossings.
OF course such a man as the hero
of the Worlds narrative never went
to Hiawatha to look for a home or
anything else. Men of that sort are
merely pipe dreams, but without
them it would be almost impossible to
do newspaper work in dull days. But
some skill should be used in introduce
ing them. 1t always pains the Ga
zette to see these pipe dream men
dragged into an argument like a sack
of bran, as in the present instance.
Anybody would know that this Hia-
watha home-hunter is a fake.-Em-
poria Gazette.
MORMONS AND PUGILISM.
With the chances favoring the pros
pect that Jeffries and Johnson will set
tie their differences and divide the
purse in Salt Lake City, some interest
attaches to the statement accredited to
Jeffries that the Mormon church is be-
hind the move to secure the fight for
Salt Lake. To prove it, the boiler
maker points out that it would be i'm
possible to hold the fight in the Titan
capital if it We're opposed by the Nor
mon church, which is able to elect sen
ators. and perform other miracles out
Of the reach of most churches. Still, it
is unlikely that the Mormons are ex-
ercising their well known enterprise to
promote pugilslns which, will gain little
for the town but patronage of hotels
and bars. But the occasion offers the
ever welcome opportunity to abuse the
Mormons, which has been apparent
ever since the followers of Joseph
Smith We're chased out of Nauvoo. Ill.
Perhaps the plan of Jeffries is to COM
pei Utah to bar the fight, thus sending
1t to California, where he wants it. for
the only reason to believe that the Nor
mons might want to see fight is that
their own church has been notably free
from conflicts between the MEMBERS
Atchison Globe