The weekly soliphone., 1917-05-03

NGhIll Su IO uIopoOt OL iilc ihib'Ni purchase after holiday of two months duration. In it's place he bought a one-lunged Cadillac of the internal combustion persuasion, valve-in- head and wheels-out-of- head. Let this paragraph be mod flied with the explanation that Smiths first Cadillac was an in ternal combustion machine when it could be persuaded to combust. It occasionally happened, however, that the Cad had indigestion. At such times Gene would put on a pair of overalls, call in the mechanical vet erinarians, hold it's nose to the ground and attempt the administra tion of cathartics calculated to start movement. It had a most ungodly appetite for oils and gaso- line, and a way of producing ex- Farmer Jones and his spirited nag. When Gene's Cadillac first went puffing and panting through the country on it's maiden voyage, blushing and bashful as an unkissed girl there were hurried councils of war The air became blue with sulphuric combinations, and men unaccustomed to expressing them selves in strong language found, to the abject horror of local minis ters, that they could converse free 1y without recourse to the Bible.
 More than once Mir. Smith was made the target for bricks and stones, and eggs of the mintage of '73. But he persevered. Even when an occasional revolver and trusty rifle were brought into the fray, the Cadillac kept running right along. At this time there were but five other "cars" in Ar kansas, four of which were owned by the "elite" at Little Rock, and one by a resident of Pine Bluff
 Today there are more than twen- ty thousand automobiles in the state They represent an initial million dollars and an annual bank oyerdraft for repairs of sufficient magnitude to produce gray hairs in the head of many a good-natur- ed and obliging cashier. In addi- tion to these small items they are of inestimable value to tombstone manufacturers and undertakers. No Wide-awake coffin man will today spread out in business in com munity that does not boast of at least half hundred "cars" Every well-regulated town cemetery can today point with pride to the last resting place of it's leading citizen, where emblaZoned in large type upon q conspicuous monument one may tearfullX read the following epitaph:
 Beneath this sod poor Speedo's
 bones are laid;
 The street flew up and hit him, And spade
 Performed the last sad rites.p
 One should not close a com mentary of this character without introducing, as an expense related to tho of l. ing. the thousands of dollars worth of youthful trousers that are worn out each year by irate fathers who have applied palmistry to sec tions of Sons anatomy protected only with thin cloth as a means of atonement for stolen joy-rides.
 In Greene county alone, up to date two hundred and siXty-three automobile licenses have been is sued for the year 1917. There are few who have not. yet made pay ment-perhaps enough to bring the entire list well up to the three hundred mark Of this number one hundred and twenty-seven are Fords. On April 18th fifty-one more licenses had been issued than were made out during the whole of 1916. From the best information available, local merchants have sold more than seventy cars this year, When license fees on all Greene county machines have been paid, the sum will amount to approximately three thousand dol lars. Under the terms of an act passed by the last Legislature, how ever, this fund goes to the state. Heretofore one-half the license fee, or five dollars, had been apportion- ed to the county in which the fee was paid It had also been held that the county's, part of the fee might be paid in scrip. Under the new law the full payment must be made in cash. Alla collections, throughout the entire state, enter into a fund which will be used for general road construction. The federal government has appropriat- ed a vast sum for road building, each state being permitted to par