The star. (Reynoldsville, Pa.) 1892-1946, 1910-07-20
A
SPECULATIVE ENTERPRISE
By Max Adeler.


"If you only had little capital to
invest" said the young man, as he
took a chair and sat down close to
my desk, 81 might put you in the way
of good thing"
"Mine?"
"Oh, no. It's petriiaction COM
pany; the Columbia Petrifaction Com
pany, OF Clarion County. could
spare you hundred shares
What does the company do?"
'Why, you know, 1t owns n lime
stone spring up here in Clarion Coun-
ty. That spring used to belong to a
man named Herkimer Jones. One
day, when his well ran dry, Jones
went off and brought bucket of water
from that spring and the family drank
1t. What was the consequence? Next
morning when the neighbors called,
Herkimer Jones was sitting at the sup
per table turned to solid stone. He
had had sausage in his mouth;
that was turned to stone, too. SO was
Mrs. Jones, and Ellen p. Jones, and
Herkimer Jones, Jr, and the baby.
The limestone water did 1t. The heirs
closed the whole lot out to sculptor
named Ferguson, who arranged them
I'm q group and sold them to the Brit
fsh Museum as models from the an
tique. That Is, excepting the baby.
He put plaster paris wings on the
baby and passed him off as an original
design Of Cupid
What about the company?"
well, you see, the company at
once bought up the spring property,
and they intend to go into the petrify-
ing business upon large scale. For
example, S'pose'n you get contract
from Congress to execute an eques-
trian statue of General Washington.
First you find a horse; you make
that horse drink at the spring, and
there he is! Perfectly splendid! Then
you find man who bears a sort of
a general resemblance to Washington.
You arrange picnic; get that man
up there in the woods; offer him a
drink; and in eleven minutes you
can chip spalls off of him with a stone
chisel. Then you mount your man on
your horse and there you have a
group of statuary such as Greece in
her palmiest days would have given
her bottom dollar to get"
II see."
"The company, you know, purposes
to have the county poorhouse located
near to the spring; and as the pres
ident of the board of trustees owns
sixty shares, we calculate to solidify
paupers right along, without intermis-
sion, say twenty or thirty day. Do
you not see what magnificent pros
pect 1t opens up for high art in Am
erica? We can fill any order. Say
you want statue Of General Jackson
and the only available pauper is too
fat. What do we do? We petrify him,
and then we chip him down and touch
up his countenance maybe, with a
chisel. Suppose you want a pair of
saints to work into the front door of
q church. We select couple Of ven
cradle vagrants, harden them, turn
their noses down, to give them dig
nifty of expression, and the bricklayers
then can build them right into the
door jambs."
Suppose the demand for that kind
of statuary be small"
"Then we come down to basis of
utility of once. S'posin' .here's a
pauper with inflammatory rheumat-
ism in his leg? We petrify him. We
sell him to doctor. That doctor cuts
off the leg with marble saw, and
there he has that infammatory rheu-
matism right before him turned into
granite. S'posin' one of them has
torpid liver? In two hours the doc
tors can examine that liver just as il
1t was brickbat, with the torpidty
sticking out all over it. Mind you,
II the supply Of paupers holds o.,
venture to say tha. the day is not far
distant when you can take petrified
livers and hearts, and muscles, and
brain pans and build a story-house
with them, with all the modern con-
veniences, a mighty sight cheaper
than you can build 1t out of common
stone. Imagine living in a house
made of ossified livers! Be unique,
wouldn't it? 1t would attract atten-
ton. But you buy into the company
and will guarantee you such
house, with all tho mantelpieces
made Of a mosaic of human remains.
Perfectly beautiful, tool"
Il don't care for such things my.
self, but"
General Bangs, he tried some curl
GUS experiments with the water out
of that spring. He threw bucket
lful on a cat tina. was jumping about
on his back fence one, night; and
there she is now, fur up, tail elevated,
mouth open, picturesque and natural
as life! Next night he soused an
other one: same effect, of course; and
now General Bangs has thirteen ex-
Quisite statuettes Of cats in various
attitudes Of grace ranged around ON
hts fence. Ferguson, the sculptor,