The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1922-05-05
ON SECOND THOUGHT
By JAY e. HOUSE
(From Philadelphia Public Ledger.l

Once in a while we find vein of
thought buried under some Trivial
story in the news. The simple annals
of the Wood family of Colorado, which
forged no further to the front than
the back pages of the newspapers,
nfomentarily arrested our interest
William Wood has Just been killed in a
row over prohibition. His grandfather
suffered the same fate. His younger
brother now has stepped into the
breach and has announced that, If il
seems necessary, he will also give his
life to the cause.
Prohibition may very well be an
admirable and desirable thing, but we
doubt that it is worth dying for. And.
in any event, the street brawl never
permanently advances any cause. If
prohibition is a good thing, and it
probably is good thing. it ultimately
will become part of the human
Qualification In the end every val
liable and important thing is retained;
every useless thing is thrown away. 4
If you care to leave it to us. the Wood
family was and is too impatient, and
its methods are of very doubtful value.
AS you already have perceived. this
is our day to be philosophical. Yes
terday, we shall add, was our day to
be smart and controversial.
It is one of our regrets that we
meyer knew Mick Carter" whose
sponsor has just died by his own hand.
except by hearsay- Our neighborhood
was SO far off the beaten path that
Nick" never succeeded in penetrating
it. We had slight acquaintance with
boy in town who owned stack of
Mick Carriers" Occasionally we
played baseball with him: but we
never knew him well enough to bor-
row his books.
Our boyhood reading. we observe
as we assemble pick and shovel and
make ready to prospect the remin-
iscent vein. had a more solid founda-
ton. The only library to which we
had access was a small one-it con-
tanned only four volumes-but that
which it held was vital stuff. OF all
its treasures, we liked the book about
the London barber best. 1t was a tale
of four or five hundred pages COW
cred in dullish brown cloth. Some
body had left it out in the rain and il
was sadly water-stained. but there
was thrill in nearly every paragraph.
one-chair tonsorial parlor next to n
meat-pie shop. 1t was q most ingen-
ious chair over which the tonsorial-
ist worked, attached, as it was to n
trapdoor which swung, at the ton
soriaHst's nghtest touch. to the yawn-
ing cellar beneath. When a customer
who seemed to promise good pick
ings" got into the chair, the tonsorial-
list touched the secret spring and the
unhappy man was dashed to uncon-
seriousness on the Jagged rocks in the
cellar below. There, after a decent
interval, the barber proceeded leisure
ly to rifle the pockets of the unfortu-
nate customer and to cut his throat
Having despoiled his victim and
seen to it that life was extinct, the bar
Hrav- --17.z l.
in the wall and into the cellar of the
meat-pfe shop. He had an arrange
ment" with the proprietor of the shop,
who later descended to cut the body
up and bake it into pies. His product
had a considerable vogue with such of
his patrons as were discriminating.
Unfortunately, the porter OF the barber
shop became suspicious and communi-
cative. The detectives horned in. the
barber was arrested and subsequently
hanged. We thought the book had a
good moral tone. 1t taught US if we
killed anybody we were likely to he
hanged.
Another treasure of the library was
a paper-bound volume on the cover
of which was the picture of hand
some gentleman with curling mus
tache who appeared to be about 3 5
years of age. He wore a frock coat
wing collar and an ascot cravat in
which a respondent jewel b1inked.
The book should have been called
1.-The Marital Adventures of Maurice
st. Clair; we do not now remember
what it was called. Maurice had mar
ried ten women in rapid succession
and without due regard for the for
maIities. They sent him to the peni-
tentiary for it, After he got out he
wrote the book which gave the detail
of his various coprtships and mar
riages in a pleasing and very intimate
vein.
Another book that interested us was
the life story of an English soldier.
It, too, was a dullish brown volume.
The soldier hated the army with all
of his capacity for hating, which was,
if you left it to him, a considerable