News: Humbird (18 Nov. 1882)

Contact: Crystal Wendt
Email: crystal@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

Surnames: Wescott, Fowler, Holabird, Cross, Parks, Pierce

----Sources: Neillsville Times (Neillsville, Clark County, Wis.) 28 Nov. 1882

Humbird - 25 Nov. 1882

Editors Times: Miss Mary Burt who is teaching at Chippewa Falls, spent Saturday and Sunday at home. Her brother from Iowa also visited the partenal mansion at the same time.

The name of our new station agent is H. O. Wescott.

Ellis Fowler, who for the past few months has been clerking in a store at Merrillan, is at Humbird again.

W. H. Holabird, traveling railroad agent, while away a few hours yesterday, the guests of his Valparaiso friend, Mr. Cross.

The hunting party we mentioned last week, returned on Thursday. They left their game at Thorp. Messrs. Parks and Pierce took the train for Valparaiso last evening.

The Odd Fellows are making preparations for a dance at their hall on Thursday evening next.

The last general election has produced one resulted if no more. It has given the reporters for our metropolitan dailies the shadow of an excuse to dog the heels of nearly every man of note in the country with his silly questions. Who will be our next president? That sort of talk is insufferable nonsense. It is about as easy, and far more sensible, to predict which of our public men will be struck by lightning in 1884. The latter kind of prophecy would have this advantage; we could see at the glance that it was a mere joke. But these parasitical quill drivers are deadly in earnest about the matter. Mrs. Partington trying to beat back the Atlantic with her broom, never showed better pluck. In fact, her effort was not quite so meritorious, she had to give up. Newspaper men never do. When any body will do the length to capturing Ben Butler and impressing him into the presidential ranks, we cry for quarter. We are sometimes inclined to think editors regard this country in about the way Carlyle thought of England, "a nation of thirty millions, mostly fools." And it is true that if Americans read all the stuff in print, they are deserving of not better epithet. Paradoxical as is seems, it is nevertheless the fact, that the best reader of a newspaper is the one who reads least. The art of skipping is difficult to acquire. Judging by the twaddle that is gulped down every week, Wendell Phillips should hasten to include the practice of passing over bosh in his famous lecture on "The Lost Arts."

-- R. E. P.