The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1912-10-28
BY ESTHER GRIFFIN WHITE.

One of the most internal instru-
ments of civilization is conceded to be
the stove-pipe.
Some American humourist has i'm
mortaliZed it.
Whether Artemus Warde, or not, the
| writer does not now recall
Only she remembers at one time to
have heard a reader" give an ex-
ceedingly funny dramatic performance
built round the stove-pipe.
However that may be it continues to
act as an incubator for profanity.
Oh, pshaw, says some one or other,
there aren't any stove-pipes any more.
| That's a thing of the past.
Back in the stone age, maybe, they
wrestled with 'em but not in this mod
ern day.
It's furnaces and steam heat and all
that, you know.
All you need to do is to go to the
stove stores and make an inquiry or
two to disprove this.
There are more stoves and attend
dant pipes sold to the square inch
| than ever before.
| And it's fact that the art of stove
| pipe manipulation is no farther ad-
vanced than it was in pioneer days.
The early settlers, may, indeed, for
all anybody knows, been far more
| 1t is to be hoped they were.
For certainly the experts nowadays
who ride up to your house in wagons
and enter your domicile bearing eel
bows" and other portions of the stove
pipes anatomy, give no evidence Of
having received a college degree.
Rather would you say they were the
opponents of the correspondence
! schools.
Their information, to make a bad
joke, seems to have been acquired at
long range.
What a pother we all make about
our menages and our possessions.
| More people are lying awake at
nights worrying over what will be-
come of their things" than from hav-
| ing eaten not wisely but too much
The truth is We all have too many
things"
attic, stuff the cellar and overflow into
the storage houses.
Once in a while some heroic soul
will make a feint at cleaning out.
But they generally end in despair.
And wind up by throwing a mess of
stuff into a trunk and sending it off
to relatives in the country
For, when you really start out to
separate the household sheep from the
goats it is surprising how many sheep
you have.
You gaze regretfully at a green and
red satin checked evening waist with
bertha of lavender chiffon which you
have had wrapped up in tissue paper
| for the last ten years and think that,
after all, you can use it in some way
It's a pity to send that to Eliza or
give it to cousin Nathan's daughter
, because they never go to parties and
| wouldn't wear it if they did.
Eliza is tall and bony and would not
shine in decollete.
Cousin Nathan's daughter, while
having plenty of avoirdupois, is study
ing to be a missionary and would scorn
a red and green evening waist.
Still you might let her have it for
the natives" suggests Tom. cts the
kind of thing they wear, you know.
| With that and a fig leaf or two they
would be ready for anything"
Have you no shame!" exclaims Ma
ria severely.
! you women shouldn't be so squam-
ich hot ~
gr1nned Tom. Everything is legiti-
mate subject for conversation It's only
the way you look at it. Now l repeat
that a feminine aborigine with that
waist, door-mat, a turkey-wing and a
few beads would look quite as we'll as
you girls do in hobble skirts and per-
forated lingerie"
"How dare you!" cried Maria. Il
never wore a hobble skirt in my like
and if I did I regarded myself as SUI
perior to an aborigine. Besides I don't
see what that's got to do with stove
pipes"
! 1t is the truth, however, that you
wind up by wrapping the red and
green satin waist again in it's tissue
paper and depositing it in an upper
drawer.
You don't remember why you have
it.
Or where you got 1t.
The only thing about which you are
perfectly certain is that you have new
er worn it.
! And never will.
And still you hate to part with it.
Because the silk is good and the
chiffon better than they make now
In this manner you repack your pos.
sessions in moth-balls and go to bed
with a headache.
| Householders spend half their time
mauling over their old things They
pull them out in the spring and hang
them out the line to air
They pound and beat and dust and
wash and iron and stretch on frames
And sit down and gaze blankly the
while they gibber to themselves.
That's too good a coat to give away
Maybe can get into that skirt my.
self"
Mary Ann may as we'll have those
shoes"
There's no use giving away that
flannel petticoat-'