South Bend news-times. (South Bend, Ind.) 1913-1938, 1914-04-17
STATESMEN
REAL AND NEAR
BY FIRED O. KELLY.

WASHINGTON, April Howard
Acton, publicity man for the National
Geographical society, is one of the
most persistent practical jokerS in
Washington. Usually. however. his
are comparatively harmless jokes and
hurt no one any more than himself.
He is his own worst enemy, so far as
practical jokes are concerned.
One day Acton was compelled to go
TO a dentist and when he had finished
having a tooth fixed, he coaxed the
dentist to give him a small handful of
loose false teeth that were lying hos
pitably on a nearby tea table.
What do you want them for?"
asked the dentist.
"Oh, I don't know" admitted Acton,
and in truth he didn't know. He sim
ply felt that they might come in
handy.
The next day as he was boarding a
street car. Acton happened to think
of his false teeth. He took six or
seven Of them out Of his vest pocket
and placed them in his mouth. When
he could see out of the tail of his eye
that two passengers across the aisle
were looking at him, he made a wry
face, reached into his mouth, tugged
d
vexatiously threw a tooth on the
floor, after which he went on uncon-
cernedly reading his paper. Two
women gaSped, so Acton knew his
Joke was working. He waited a min
ute, then made another face, if in
great physical and mental distress,
and jerked out another tooth. When
he had removed five OF his teeth in
that way. a woman rang the bell and
her stop, to avoid fainting clear away.
On another occasion Acton went to
the theater with a lovely young wom-
an he had just met. During the in
PERMISSION following the second act.
their conversation dragged a bit and
Acton, seeking a little quiet diversion,
began to snatch imaginary objects out
of the air. As rapidly as he caught
one he put it in his pocket.
The helpless young woman shifted
uneaSily i'm her seat, and asked:
Wha-what are you dOing?"
Catching germs" explained Acton.
soothingly, they might have got on
some woman who wouldn't know how
to handle them, and given her "a hor
Tible disease"
John T. McCutcheon. when in
Washington recently, was recalling
Eugene Fields love for just such
harmless practical jokes
HE would go to more trouble and
pains to gain quiet little joke" says
McCutcheon, than any man L ever
knew.
When he was working on the old
Chicago News. the managing editor of
that paper was "a man whose main
hobby was horses. He owned a good
horse or two and his thoughts in so
far as possible were about horses. One
morning Field got up bright and
early, hurried down to- the office
couple of hours to drawing horses
hOof prints in chalk from the curb
in front of the building. across the
sidewalk. and up the stairs clear to
the managing editors office.
Many of his jokes were incidental
ly schemes to get his salary raised.
remember one time he got all the
ragged clothes he could find and
dressed up in them, and dressed his
four or five children up in similar
pOverty-stricken fashion. Then he
brought the youngsters down 10 the
office and they all marched into the
publishers Office as evidence of his
need for more wages.
Another time he sent down to
Joliet for q convict suit and he ac-
tually wore the thing about for near
~ a week. 1t looked so bizarre to
see a man going about the office in
convict stripes that the thing got con-
siderably on the nerves Of the pub
Usher and he asked Field why he
wore such garb.
TO tell you the truth said Field,
in his solemn. serious way. ii is all
the suit I can afford on my meager
wages / can't save enough 10 buy
clothes very often
so that, of course. meant one more
raise"
When Wallace Irwin. the writer.
was attending Leland Stanford uni
versity, he hired out one summer Va
/ cation as a farm hand TO assist in
baling a vast tonnage Of hay. Up to
! that time he had been leading a
rather sedentary life and the manual
I labor of feeding the hay baler be
+ came extremely irksome. II. seemed
like futile sort Of task, too. because
I no matter how much hay he tossed 20
the machine IL acted ever eager for
more. Toward noon Of the second
I day at the JOB. Irwin. more dead than
alive, was trying TO so through the
| motions OF pitching hay without ac-
/ tually using up much strength, for he
had no more strength. All physical
and mental ambition had been sap
ped from him by the ruthless hay
baling machine. The boss came alOng
and Irwin saw him staring az him He
/ realized that he was making "A failure
| Of his efforts 10 look as il he were
I working. tie ceased his hay tossing
brought his pitchfOrk 10 his shoulder
with a military movement, stood al