The Julesburg grit-advocate., 1911-11-09
THE SCANDAL MAKER
OF BABYLON
BY Win Carleton

Reprinted. by request. from the issue of
"Harper's for February 23. 1889.
He was rather picturesque old man.
upon q pettily complex plan.
With grim ability, never hid, to super
intend what others did,
And state-an efforts race being run
how things that were done should
have been done.
Nought e'er was made but he could tell
how he could have made it twice as
well.
Nought e'er destroyed but he would bet
that he could have smashed it finer
yet.
And this erratum of mankind sat, all
day, moral and mental cat.
And threw the claws of his intellect at
every merit and defect,
And into the palace ard the cot, and in
to what men were and were not,
And into the deeds they struggled
through, and into the things they
failed to do,
Using the most uncalled-for cares with
other people and their affairs,
And viewed with superci;oSs smile
the work of the world; and made
meanwhile,
The poorest sandals under the sum the
sandal-naker of Babylon.
No one was ever since earth began, re-
ligious enough to please this man;
No one to the gods e'er bowed a knee
that could have done it as low as he;
The tower of Eelus itself, he thought,
if men had builded it as they ought,
Had been much pleasantcr to the eye.
1sand several hundred times as high.
He knew just how it came to pass that
NebuchadEezzar vas fed With grass
Could he have only had his way, the
monarch's feed Should have been o.
hay.
In fact, no person, high or low, had
fault to conceal or merit 10 show,
But be could figure it to notch. and
hold it up for the world to watch.
And yet, withal, his moral gait was
that of a deepold reprobate,
Full of foolish actions shrewdly done
the sandal maker of Babylon.
No man was better able to tell how dead
men might have been living and well.
He knew the parts of the human
frame, and every organ he called by
name.
A theory of his own had he. that man
wasn't made as he ought to be;
Could have creation by him been done,
the Job would have been better
one.
No i'll to mankind ever came but he had
remedies for the same,
But never a word about them said un-
til the suffering man was dead
And yet, in spite of his mental wealth
he never had any kind of health;
The sicklisst creature under the sun
was the sandal maker of Babylon.
You'd d think to hear him talk, that he
had invented money itself. He'd see
1he gone-by chances of every trade
how every bargain should have been
made.
He'd tell the rich why they We're So;
the poor, why they were not; could
show
How even the kings great national
purse might have been managed bet
ter or worse.
Yet had he one financial lack; he might
be kicked to Susa and back,
And not a coin of any shape, from his
habiliments would escape;
Wealth had always contrived to shun
the sandal-maker of Babylon.
But he began, unlucky elf, at criticizing
the king himself;
And SO his head. as one might say, en-
dangered even itself one day;
For soon the king, with humorous
sense, requested of him an audience;
And said, 81 have heard you cannot live
beneath such government as give:
There's no necessity for the same, and
no one but ourselves to blame.
So, sage of the lapstone, 60 not grieve;
will give you every chance to leave:
This gallows you shall be hanged upon,
o sandal-maker of Babylon!''
The engine of death the old man scan
ned, and murmered, in accents soft
and bland,
"Well, hang if it does you any good;
but want it expressly understood
That were this gallows made by me, a
deadlier weapon it would be.