The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1922-07-15

IL you nave TWO hours TO spare ana
a reasonable amount of curiosity about
relics of the past, you can have an
awfully good time up in the museum
in the Memorial building.
You saunter into the elevator, on
the first floor and demand to be taken
to the museum floor" probably hav-
ing overlooked the big sign which
says, Museum, fourth floor" The
elevator leisurely rises and sets you
out at the museum entrance, and right
away you see the totem pole.
1t is perhaps nine feet tall and set
against the wall, so that you see only
its profile Cor profiles), but you feel
that pole are turned sideways, just to
look at you. No matter where you
turn in the first hall, those wide, un-
blinking pop eyes stare at you over
the hook noses that protrude all the
way down the pole. You feel great
desire to go over and punch one of
those eyes or pull one of those noses.
But you cannot spend all day defy
ing the totem. as you look around you.
You are in a long hall, with wide doors
opening into other rooms. An old
spinning wheel sits near the elevator
entrance, and on the other side against
the wall, is a melodeon. A shabby
little trunk, whose inscription says 1t
was made in Germany in 1717 and
brought to America about 1920, is set
in the middle of the floor. There is
a what not covered with bullets and
bits of lead from Antietam. At the
far end a Victrola, sitting on a table,
announces by its placard that it was
with the doughboys from an Ameri-
can camp to France, thru two drives,
st. Mihiel and the Argonne, and back
to America again. OK yokes that went
overland in the days of '5S lean
against the wall.
Kicked Once Too Often.
You smooth your hair and adjust
your hat at a mirror that was saved,
tho badly scorched, from Quantrilrs
raid, and pass out into the next room,
right into the middle of a whole bat
terry of cannon. Most OF them are
from the World war, but they include
Old Kickapoo, a Mexican war veteran,
that kicked once too often, judging by
the piece that is broken out.
In a corner stand some old printing
presses. and the press bed of the Law
renee Tribune that was destroyed in
Quantrill's raid. An old stage coach,
which very closely resembles a milk
wagon. stands behind a railing. 1t
looks as tho it would be tremendously
uncomfortable to ride in over any
great distance, and the feeling would
of Indians and bandits. You read the
inscription with respect, and reflect
ing on the fact that the route taken
by this stage wagon was later fol-
1OWSQ Dy the SANTA re Ta1lEOdQ, you
go on to the bird room.
There are hundreds of birds there
in cases. You didn't know there were
so many birds of all kinds and sizes
and colors- They range from eagles
to cardinals and from pelicans to wild
canar1es. There are animals, too,
porcupines and beavers, minks, and
squirrels, skunks and opossums. In
one case stands a buffalo, whose soil
tary magnificence is always being ad-
n nF
At last you wander into the next
room, huge place filled with cases.
The first one you come to is of a
cosmopolitan nature. 1t contains a
fossilized tooth, some little white kid
gloves worn by bride in 1864. some
seashells, a Chinese lottery ticket, a
two-edged sword, piece of the table,
cloth from the captains cabin in the
"Resolute," a brass tray from a Chi
nese altar. one of the only two whisky
bottles left unbroken when Carrie Ma
ton smashed the Senate saloon. Feb
ruary 5, 1901, and "other articles too
numerous to mention"
1t Can't Seem True.
You look at case of German war
relics, and then pass on to the next.
You glance into it. and then look
around in amazement, with a some
what bewildered feeling that someone
is kidding you; for here are shingles
from George Washington's barn, a
vial OF tea leaveS from the Boston Tea
party, a block of wood from the Char
ter Oak, a fragment of Plymouth
Rock. a piece from the first court
dress worn by Benjamin Franklin at
the court of France, a powder horn
used in the Revolution, Egyptian linen
2.70O years old. a piece OF an apple
tree planted by Peregrine White. the
first white child born in New Eng
land, and other articles dating from
the seventeenth and sixteenth CEN
turies-
You at last go on. past case after
case of valuable relics of the past.
You gaze at the bones of Quantrin,
the desperate and border ruffian,
who raided Lawrence in 1853. reduc-
ing it 20 ashes and killing all its men,
at pieces of the trousers which the
Dalton boys were wearing when they
were killed. at a piece or the gallows