The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1912-11-24
Yarns Of the Courthouse Gang
by wELLlNGT on vANDrvER

I am sorter gun-shy of a church,
said the sheriff. but in the fall of
the year when we have these red sun
sets. when the water from most any
clear branch tastes good and cold,
when the leaves are falling and spare
rib and sausage is getting fashionable,
I have n variety OF unusual thinks
which makes me incline to the idea
that maybe I'm edging up TO some re-
ligion 1 think II Is wise for cit
izen to join some sort Of church, ex-
cept the Mormon. because the broth
ren will dun him for the pastors sal
airy, and the Ladies' Aid society Will
hit him for a donation to buy a new
Jim Swinger coat for the parson, ana
the children's auxiliary Busy Bee,
Young Peoples Epworth League. Phil
athea society win nail him fer ticlS-
cts TO the church supper. and his wife
will get into society bossing about Is
church entertainments per yeer-all of
which will keep him from getting lazy
And when he runs for office 1t is q
good thing to have the brethren lined
up solidly behind him. though they
don't get really enthusiastic nowadays
about a church candidate unless the
aforesaid candidate leads in prayer and
speaks his head Off at every little dis
triet Sunday school convention in 40
miles of him. l am told that It's aw-
full hard work to be a religious can
didate---a leader OF the flock has got to
stay ahead of the sheep. And then
you are liable TO meet the lady pres
ident of the Church Temperance So
ciety just after you have taken a
snifter of corn juice with Bill Bled-
soc, your political heeler in beat 80
and the old lady goes off and tells the
danes at the next meeting that she
is afraid the brother has backslid--you
know, one of them temperance female
work ers can smell your breath through
brick Jail. What q wonderful inyen-
tion 1t would be il Tom Edison or Mar
conf or Orlando Gault or some of them
great wizards of the century, was TO
invent some drops or beverages that
would kill the scent of whisky on d
! mans breath.
81 have tried pine tops, peach tree
leaves, cloves, parsley, mnsk, cachous,
chewing gum, listerine, assafoetida,
rank pipes, limberger cheese dried
herring and parched peanuts. but these
simple remedies only added to the
strength of corn whlsky's smell and
my wife would sniff the air by the time
4 had turned the corner a block away
and tell me how many and what kinds
of drinks l had surrounded before hit
the front porch.
'If some gifted genius with pale brow,
will only find out some substance That
will knock the smell of liquor on a
mans breath salley-west and cause hinl
to look like a Sunday school superin-
1 F,,f ftfN.1 rr-c
fellows who occasionally look upon the
wine when 1t Is red, win build him a
monument more lasting than the war
"reminiscences of the old Confederate SOL
diers, and the inventor will accumulate
plunks faster than Rucnafellow. I'd buy
gallon of ii, for domestic use l don I
really enjoy my drinks because I know
l am going to get q lecture from iny
wife, but IL could just fool her a few
| times l would be the happiest man In
| the"
Fool your wife, Nothingl" exclaimed
the old Confederate-there amt no such
| thing as fooling your wife. She may pre-
| tend like you have deceived her, but you
haven't come in a mile of doing it,
| Buddy. She knows you clear through and
| through, and for ten feet out on the o.heI
side; 1 have tried for fifty years 10 fool
mine, and the only time ever succeeded
| in doing it was once when l promised
! her I would keep sober at a barbecue
| and by granny 1 done 1t? | have told hen
| ten thousand lies, and she has never be
| lieved one of them yet. Two or three
| times when I would go ever to BirmnS-
ham, and get little colty and gay In the
Magic City, and when I'd come back
home would tell her about the attend
ance at the prayer meeting, and how
| liked the church service over there, and
she's sniff and shew the cat out of the
| room, and sing at the top of her voice
! that old-time Harl From the Toombs
| hymn that says I'VE Living Men Come
View the Ground Where | Must Shortly
LIE''-until l would just have TO tell hei
that l had met few of my old comrades
and they had held me, and by force
poured a couple of beers into my system
and me lighting all the time like wildcats
TO keep EN- from doing 1t.
! "One night | told her thatI was goina
out to the Masonic lodge that evening
| Some of the boys downtown had a little
! 'possum supper, and some kyards with
nickel limit, lilxewisely they had, also
few stimulants of a mild order, which
circulated toleraby frequent--including a
| jug of Old Jordan Corn Whskey, bottled
In bond by jeff Bum, the moonshine
chemist, over on PeclSerwood creeh-real
| white, pure stuff that made a fellow feel
like he had taken a torch-light procession
down his throat. When l got back home
about p. M, escorted by a majority
of the boys able to walk l slipped in the
front door, after some hard labor In
finding an evasive key hole, and feeling
that the last dozen of Rard-boiled eggs
and shorter made me dizzy, slipped off
my shoes, and cooned 1t up the stair way
1T was one of these still, frosty star
light nights when everything is as quiet
as graveyard. l managed to creep into
the bed room without making any more
fuss than the law allows, and I was
just hugging myself at making the land
Ing so easily when | ran afoul of one