Year: 1877

John Binx is only one of several thou-
eand heads of families in Cincinnati
whose gas bills, month after month, are
like unto eonundrum propounded be-
fore the answer has been prepared. 1t
didn't do any good to econofnize in the
use of gas about the house. The bill
as big as an Irish girls foot, and stare
him out of countenance. For awhile
he bore it with about the same equa-
nimity that a turkey does Thanksgiving
Day, but he came to the conclusion after
awhile that if he could circumvent the
Gas Company by strategy it would do
him more good than d scholarship in
swearing academy, and at the same time
pry up heavy-set incubus that was
worrying his depressed pocket-book.
After forming this resolution, he put
tobacco juice in his eyes on Saturday
evening, and kept awake the best part
of the night wrestling with the problem.
simultaneously with the rattling by of
the first milk-cart, "Eureka!" tumbled
from his lips and he sank into a sweet
slumber.


On the day the last gas bill had made
his heart as uncomfortable as tenement
house, he had inspected the meter and
made memorandum of the figures:
"53, 1872" This furnished the basis to
start from, and on that pleasant Sabbath
morning, after breakfast and family
prayer, he picked up candle and went
down into the dark cellar to see what
the meter thought Of things at that
moment, and then carefully noted down
it's opinion. This done, he stationed
Mrs. Binx and each of the little Binxses
at separate burner, and told them to
take the same in their lips, open the
key, and blow until they saw blue rain
bows. Whereupon nine pairs of lungs
pumped all the atmosphere they could
handle into the gas-pipes, nine faces
swelled and redeemed, and nine pairs of
eyes bunged out for several minutes.
Meanwhile, Binx was down in the cellar,
with his best glasses on, talking sarcasm
to the meter, jumping and dancing with
delight as he watched that expensive in
dex hand take the back track, and make
his gas bill thing of the past.


When the old bald-headed inspector
came around at the end of the month,
and was told by a meter that he knew
could no more tell a lie than it could
talk Dutch, that the Gas Company
owed John Binx five dollars and seventy
three cents, it isn't any wonder, hardly,
that he sat down on an inverted wash
tub, and ruminated, and chewed a
whole plug of tobacco, and spit and pom
dered till the floor of the cellar looked
like an over-the-Rhine beer garden, and
rubbed his chin with broken file till
the blood started, and secured the
smooth part of his head with his sheep
skin pass book until it reflected the rays
from the candle all over the cellar.
Poor old man! He knew that if he went
down to the Gas Office and told the un,
whitewashed truth about the matter, he
should be regarded as crazy, and thrown
out of his job, and that's what made
him dumfound his old woman by going
home roaring blind drunk that night
for the first time in fifteen years.


Binx was SO highly elated over the
success of his little piece of strategy
that he couldn't keep it to himself, anG
that's how it comes that he happens t.
be counting shoe pegs out at the work
house now, while Mrs. Binx illuminate
the family home with coal oil.