Editorial Comments

1916

Alice B. Glines, editor

More and more newspapers are owned for ulterior purposes.

After the war Europe can engage in iron mining all over the lot.

If the Bremen keeps it up she will become another Flying Dutchman.

We must not think the presidential campaign has really started; Judge Hughes has not ridden on a locomotive yet.

What is a yegg? It used to be headwriters' short for highwayman, but now they are beginning to use it for a safe-blower.

Luckily it was only foggy, not a storm, or it would not have been such a picnic going to the Two Lights to see the Bay State.

Among the numerous plans to "help the farmer," the one that seems never to occur to folks is to keep their hands out of the farmer's pockets.

There is no knowing how soon the war may stop. The Germans are a people much devoted to logic, willing to base their actions on their mental processes. Once they see that every week's delay puts them in a worse position, how long will they then delay?

Portland has reckoned her temporary settlement from 1632 or 1633. If Biddeford is to reckon hers from 1616 Portland could reckon hers ten years' earlier. Christopher Levett did build a house to accommodate the annual fishing voyages, which was still standing in 1632 when the Trelawny settlement at Richmond's Island started. Vines built only temporary cabins if anything; Sir Ferdinando Gorge's book says Vines dwelt with the savages. Levett's house was about three miles from Portland proper; Vines's wintering place about five miles from Biddeford proper. Biddeford is in truth a year or two older than Portland, both in their preliminary settlements, which ended in 1690, and in their permanent settlements, a quarter of a century later.

A way by which our readers can help us in our unequal struggle with the paper mills is by reading the fewer papers the better. The reading public are in the final analysis the intended victims of the paper mills' greed. If subscription rates are raised, the people must pay the increase or stop reading, and if advertising rates are raised the people in the long run must pay the increase in the added cost of the merchandise they buy. But we are not obliged to read any more newspapers than we want to, and the sooner the demand falls below the supply the sooner the paper mills' raid will collapse and react on themselves. Of course if we receive paper for next week (at a high but not highway robbery price), we will issue as usual. At this writing no encouragement is offered us.

Ex-Governor St. John of Kansas, the Prohibitionist candidate for President in the Blaine-Cleveland campaign, has just gone to his reward without the satisfaciton of voting to back up President Wilson. The curious pranks fortune plays with us humans is illustrated by a personal anecdote told by Gov. St. John on the platform of the former City Hall in Portland. Governor St. John was being branded as a traitor to the party that freed the slaves, and John A. Logan was Blaine's running mate for Vice President. But before the war, when both men were young lawyers out in Illinois, St. John lay in jail for assisting in the underground railroad and helping fugitive slaves to escape into Canada, and John A. Logan was the Democratic prosecuting attorney who convicted him. Another memorable phrase in that speech of 1884 was his advance vision of the blight of trusts. "I was taught in Sunday school," he said, " that the world is 6,000 years old. Now if Eve had never got Adam to eat that apple, and if they were still alive in the Garden of Eden, and Adam had had a salary all this 6000 years at $25,000 a year, and never spent a cent of it because everything was gratis, he would now have $150,000,000. But John D. Rockefeller, who was a clerk in a grocery store out in Illinois when I was a young lawyer, has got more now than Adam would have had." "Did he earn it?" asked one of the clearest minds of our generation.

—The Fryeburg Post, Fryeburg, Maine, Sept. 26, 1916, p. 6.

"Mrs. Grundy Says" – Comments and Asides

1895

That some are confident Hades will have to be enlarged.

That as a reckless talker the girl of the period rivals the parrot.

That unbridled, malicious tongues do as much harm as unloaded guns.

That too many lawyers labor more for their fees than for their clients.

That the sycophant finds himself entirely at home in fashionable society.

That the "fine Italian hand" is seen in some late international engagements.

That women who never went near Worth are loudest deploring his death.

That the social ascendancy of the obscure does not interest the astronomer.

That women who compromise themselves are as lost as those who hesitate.

That society women who have special means of livelihood are numerous.

That he is a foolish fellow who thinks taking the Keeley cure is a distinction.

That it would be a good thing if some of the clubs went out of existence.

That some of the "lectures" under fashionable auspices are akin to twaddle.

That "how d'do" is the only thing that does not cost money in a court of law.

That fashionable sympathy is the kind extended to get further particulars.

That with so many comic papers it is to be expected that old jokes will reappear.

That high collars are the only thing that makes some men hold up their head.

That women interviewed about their divorce are not in need of any nerve tonic.

That the commercial feature of international marriages is not given publicity.

That a power of removal bill for operation in society would be a good thing.

That everybody who is anybody appears to have arranged to "go to Europe."

That amateur poets are sometimes as much a nuisance as dogs in Constantinople.

That it is a precarious thing to change one's religion for the sake of a marriage.

Clippings — "Miss Tanner Married Mr. Hyde"

Ohio, 1878

Clippings

Did you ever see a country town that hadn't the best brass band in the state?

When a man threatens to blow out his brains don't be alarmed — he can't find 'em.

The war just closed is the sixth Russia-Turkish war, of which four have been disastrous for the Turks.

A little boy asked his father the other day if the fight between the Roosters and the Turkeys was over.

Why can't some clairvoyant shut her eyes and open her mouth, and tell us whether there is to be a war or not?

'It is not proper for you to play school to-day, my child, for it is Sunday.' 'I know it, mother, but I am playing Sunday-school.'

A Miss Tanner, who recently married a widower named Hyde, with eleven children, says she has given up tanning and is now dressing Hydes.

'Jane,' cried a fond mother, sticking her head out of the bedroom door, 'it is eleven o'clock; tell that young man to shut the front door from the outside.'

The human body expands immensely with age. When eleven young men are seated on one side of a car, they can easily sit up a little closer to make room for a pretty girl, but six of them can manage to monopolize an entire seat of the car when an old woman comes in.

The potato bugs are getting anxious about the extent of the new potato crop.

—Daily Star, Marion, OH, April 18, 1878, p. 1.

Quips – A Dentist Whipped For Kissing A Patient

1926

TOM SIMS SAYS—

You can travel better with a wooden leg than with a wooden head.

The world gets right along now. In Columbia University, 51 law seniors flunked.

A man is trying to go around the world in 35 days, but if he succeeds it won't get him anywhere.

In Exeter, N. H., a dentist was whipped for kissing a patient, perhaps after telling her it wouldn't hurt a bit.

Our busiest citizen is one trying to make a living without working.

Strong language usually comes from a weak mind.

Camouflage stockings are the latest, but they won't become popular.

Here's a fine symbol for a 1928 political party: Camel in a canoe.

There's quite a bit of static in handling our radio industry.

—Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune, Wisconsin Rapids, WI, Aug. 12, 1926, p. 6.