The Ekalaka eagle. [volume] (Ekalaka, Mont.) 1909-1920, 1910-01-14
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lust a h~eart-to-heart talk upon the
- twin subjects of servants and
murders. One naturally leads to the
other.
And, at the start, l want to say that
/ totally disapprove of servants as a
subject of conversation. The trials
of ~housekeepers should be a tabooed
topic. And l will say the same of
murder trials.
For myself, l make it a point never
to read about murders. l can get all
want from the headlines. To be
sure, there are exceptions to every
rule; there was Robin Graves, who
murdered his great-grandmother on a
dare from his fellow medical students.
l didn't read anything about it, but
heard people discussing it, and it had
lements of interest in it. And l al
ways thought that Probyn-Clew case
far from dull. You may remember
that PrObyn sent Clew a poisoned car
amel on the very day that Clew sent
Probyn a poisoned peppermint. and
The papers were full of it. I gathered
SiouSu W tlldDlC ne W DOlu lily cIu
up when | encountered a person with
bad enough taste to discuss the sub
lest. 1t was deplorable the way
people harped on that case.
Then take the affair of the land
lady who murdered all her boarders
because they resented a raise in the
price Of board. What a mine Of wealth
that was to the reporters. My paper
had six columns a day for 20 days and
| just had to read that because there
was nothing else, but politics, in the
paper; but | felt that it was no sub
Ject for a person of any refinement.
Yet | knew one man who makes quite
a p%retense of being up in the English
classics, and he knew every point in
the trial. | could not trip him up on
a single bit of evidence. That expert
ence just about destroyed my faith in
humanity. My brother said that l
talked of nothing else but that trial,
and he was quite right. l was com
pletely absorbed in trying to find
some person who knew nothing of it.
And at last | did find an old lady who
never reads the papers. She had not
even heard about it. She wanted to
dlscuss one of Fishes books on evolu-
ton, but | said, See here, Mrs. De-
lancey, you're a rara avis. You're the
first person I've met who has not
heard about this unique series of muir.
ders. and I'm just going to tell you
the whole story so that you may see
for yourself what it is that fills
peoples minds in these degenerate
days. And so I told her the whole
story and she listened breathless; this
cultivated woman was positively as
interested as if she had been a police
man, off tor ON duty, and discussing
shop with a brother officer. Oh, l was
sickencd.
After a while she wanted to shift
Off to evolution so that she wouldn't
dream of the horrible murders, but
looked al my watch and saw that
had a train to catch, and again Fiske
was side-tracked. Fiske, with his lu
cidity and logic and sweet reasonable
ness. was side-tracked for a horrible
murder.
Just as | was coming away l asked
my hostess, casually, if she remem
bered the Bond street murder and she
did remember that, for her fathel
lived on the very same block at tn
time it was committed. | actual.
missed my train because I sat dow
to hear her talk about it. 1t was lik'
a bit out of AinswOrth. l was no
born when it happened, and she wa
but a girl, but her father had the bat
habit of discussing such things in tn
presence of his children, and it hat
made such an impression Upon he
infant mind that here she was retail
ing it to me. AS a bit of local histor,
contemporaneous with the days of II
wing and Cooper, it had a certain
value; and that is what appealed t.
me.
But to return to servants. There |
absolutely no excuse for talking abou
the Bridgets and Christmas and Ma
ries and Dinahs hat come and go
Mind you, l am not narrow-minded
there are circumstances that alte
cases. If there is a servant who e,
cites your interest in humanity, it
allowable to talk about her. Now W
had a maid for a couple of days las
week who had evidently seen bette
days and many of them. The way sh
broke crockery showed that she di
not do it with malice prepense, nc
yet out Of sheer carelessness as a
ordinary maid would have done. Sh
had evidently been used to being wal
ed upon and had no manual dexterit