Thursday, July 3, 2014

HOME AND HEREABOUT AT MARATHON, N. Y.



The Marathon Independent, Wednesday, February 27, 1884.
Independent Inklings.
   The hit of the season: pounding the pepper box.
    “Knot Guilty" is the verdict of the jury in a case of bigamy.
   A Marathon amateur who wrote to the manager of the Madison Square Theatre [New York City] to know if there was an opening on the stage there for a young actor, received a reply that there were several openings on the stage there and if he would come on he would drop him through one of them with pleasure.

HOME AND HEREABOUT.
   — Lent begins today.
   — Burgess Squires has a house to rent, 1 mile south of this village.
   ---Christopher Leach has purchased the house on Main st., in which he lives, of Wm. J. Mantanye, Esq.
   ---An exchange notes that this has been an open winter—open at both ends, with the wind blowing right through it.
   —A telephone line has been placed between the depot and the Marathon House. This will save the [omni] bus a good many trips, when the trains are late.
   —The Stockwell Wagon Company are turning out two wagons per day now, and have increased their force of men to about 25. They expect to make 500 lumber wagons during 1884.
   —George K. Burgess on Washington's Birthday, picked up a caterpillar on Cortland street, that was as lively and frisky as in midsummer.—A thing not often seen at this season of the year.
   —Burgess & Brink are preparing to build a new house on their lot on Academy street, this summer. We understand that V. H. Palmer intends to build on West Main street, this season.
   --- We understand that the firm of E. C. Carley & Son will dissolve by mutual consent, this week, J. C. Carley retiring, and that his place will be taken by Clark Smith of Chenango Forks, a miller of considerable experience.
   —C. M. Chapman has purchased the Machine cooperage building opposite the depot, and is engaged in fitting it up in shape for an extensive manufacture of Wheel-barrows. Sleds, and Butter Packages. A quantity of new machinery is being put in this week.
   —L. A. Burgess & Son are this week placing in the saw mill owned by them and operated by Burgess & Brink, a new and labor saving machine, for setting the logs. It is pronounced by those who have seen it in operation in other places to be a very perfect machine, and as it saves one man's labor, it will soon pay for itself.
   —The machinery in the building formerly owned by P. Gardiner & Son was sold by Wm. J. Mantanye, Esq., on Monday last to a Cortland party, who will remove the same to that Village. The building in which it is now located was purchased of Mr. Mantanye by Burgess Squires, who will remove the same to his lot, corner of Brink and Peck streets.
   — In our hurry to get out our extra last week, the types made it appear that the loss by the Cortland fire was $250,000 when later estimates put it at $125,000. The rumor which was published in our first edition, that the street was in ruins from the Dexter House to Dickinson & McGraw's block, reached us at about 7 o'clock that morning, and an hour later our forms were on the press. At 10:21 we received the letter published in our extra, from our regular correspondent, and as soon as this could he put in type it was issued and furnished to all our readers, except the packages which went on the way mail south. The first report, which was somewhat exaggerated, was all we could get at the hour of going to press.

NEIGHBORHOOD NOTES.
   CORTLAND, Feb. 23.—Tanner Bros. have rented the store in the Standard building recently occupied by Jay & Smith, and will open as soon as they can get a now stock of goods delivered at Cortland.
   S. E. Welch has rented the McFarlan store on Port Watson street, and will soon open for trade with a stock of dry goods.
   Charles Garrison of Troy, N. Y., the owner of the Garrison Block, reached here Wednesday. He brought plans with him for a new block which he thinks of erecting upon the ground of the former one, though he has not yet said positively that he will do so. There is no doubt however, but he will speedily rebuild an elegant block, until which time Levi Garrison will remain out of the grocery business.
   Adjusters for the various insurance companies have been very thick for the past few days. Insurance rates are being increased to quite a high figure—more than double on some of the wooden property.
   Wickwire Brothers intend to build a fine brick block in place of the one burned, and they have already begun to remove the debris. Fire continued to remain in the ruins until last Saturday.
   Last Friday O'Neil Wagon Co. received $10,000 of the insurance money for the loss on their stock at the fire of week before last.
   The Cortland Omnibus Company are moving into the O’Neil Wagon Works’ shops, the main buildings only being destroyed. It has not yet been decided by Mr. Fitzgerald  whether he will rebuild.
  
Benefits of Advertising.
   The subject of advertising has been more carefully and thoroughly studied during the past few years than in all the preceding years, and conclusions have been reached which are demonstrable. Some of them are these:
1. The judicious advertising of a good legitimate business always pays, sometimes enormously.
2. The best advertising medium is the live newspaper, bringing as it does, larger returns in proportion to the money invested than any other.
3. The best advertising medium for a local business is the most widely circulated local newspaper.
4. An old, established business needs advertising as well as a new one, because of competition, changes of population and the habitual forgetfulness of mankind.
5. To derive the greatest, possible benefit from business advertising, it should be systematically kept up and the advertisement frequently changed.

ADAM’S FALL.
   Ever since Adam's fall, which subjected human nature to diseases of the flesh there has been a demand for a blood purifier. We all realize the fact that upon the purity and vitality of the blood depend the health and vigor of the whole system, and that disease of various kinds is often only a sign that nature is trying to remove the disturbing cause; hence a reliable blood purifier is of greater importance to the people than is generally supposed. We are pleased to say that Hood's Sarsaparilla bears unmistakable proof of being this sort of a medicine, and we think it worthy of trial.

Items.
   Reports received by the Naval Hydrographic office indicate that the ice is coming down from the Arctic regions much earlier this season than usual.
This state of affairs is regarded as favorable for the Greely relief expedition, in there will be more open water in the polar regions than is usual at this period of the year, and there will consequently be less danger from ice pack.
   The funeral of Lieutenant DeLong and six of his companions was held Saturday in the Church of the Holy Trinity and was attended by a vast assemblage of naval, army and municipal officers. Mrs. DeLong, her little son and her father and her two brothers were present Bishop Potter, amid a silence of the profoundest, preached a touching sermon. After the services the remains were taken to the Grand Central Depot and conveyed by special train to Woodlawn Cemetery for interment—and thus sadly ends the Jennette Expedition.

Two Suicides at Binghamton.
   BINGHAMTON, Feb. 23.—Robert C. Parker, aged 35 years, committed suicide at Hotel Bennett, by taking laudanum. Dissipation was the cause.
   BINGHAMTON, Feb. 24.—John Jay committed suicide by cutting his throat with a razor last evening. The act was owing to poor health.

Bill Nye, journalist.
Lively Times in Calaveras School.
   "We had about as ornery and triflin' a crop of kids in Calaveras county 30 years ago as you could gather in with a fine-tooth comb and a brass band in fourteen states. For ways that were kittensome they was moderately active and abnormally protuberant. That was the prevailing style of Calaveras kid when Mr. George W. Mulqueen come there and wanted to engage the school at the old camp, where I hung up in the days when the country was new and the murmur of the six-shooter was heard in the land.
   "George W. Mulqueen was a slender young party from the effete east, with conscientious scruples and a hectic flush. Both of those was agin him for a promoter of school discipline and square root. He had a heap of information and big, sorrowful eyes.
   "So fur as I was concerned I didn't feel like swearing around George or using any language that would sound irrelevant in a ladies' boodore; but as for the kids of the school, they didn't care a blamed cent. They just hollered and whooped like a passel of Sioux.
   "They didn't seem to respect literary attainments or expensive knowledge. They just simply seemed to respect the genius that come to that country to win their young love with a long-handle shovel and a bloodshot tone of voice. That's what seemed to catch the Calaveras kids in the early days.
   "George had weak lungs, and they kept to work at him till they drove him into a mountain fever and finally into a metalic sarcophagus.
   "Along about the holidays the sun went down on George W. Mulqueen's life just as the eternal sunlight lit up the dewy eyes. You will pardon my manner, but it seemed to me just as if George had climbed up to the top of Mount Calvary, or wherever it was, with that whole school on his back, and had to give up at last.
   "It seemed kind of tough to me, and I couldn't help blamin' it onto the school some, for there was half a dozen big snoozers that didn't go to school to learn, but just to raise Ned and turn up Jack.
   "Well, they killed him, anyhow, and that settled it.
   "The school run kind of wild till Feboowary, and then a husky young tenderfoot, with a fist like a mule's foot in full bloom, made an application for the place, and allowed he thought he could maintain discipline if they'd give him a chance. Well, they ast him when he wanted to take his place as tutor, and he reckoned he could begin to tute about Monday follering.
   "Sunday afternoon he went up to the school house to look over the grounds and to arrange a plan for an active Injin campaign agin the hostile hoodlums of Calaveras.
   "Monday he sailed in about 9 a. m. with his grip-sack and began the discharge of his duties.
   "He brought in a bunch of mountain willers, and after driving a big railroad spike into the door-casing over the latch he said the senate and house would sit with closed doors during the morning session. Several large, white-eyed holy terrors gazed at him in a kind of dumb, inquiring tone of voice, but he didn't say much. He seemed considerably reserved as to the plan of the campaign. The new teacher then unlocked his alligator-skin grip and took out a bible and a new self-cocking weapon that had an automatic dingus for throwing out the empty shells. It was one of the bulldog variety and had the laugh of a joyous child.
   "He read a short passage from the scriptures, and then pulled off his coat and hung it on a nail. Then he made a few extemporaneous remarks, after which he salivated the palm of his right hand, took the self-cocking songster in his left, and proceeded to wear out the gads [willow sticks] over the various protuberances of his pupils.
   "People passing by thought they must be beating carpets in the school-house. He pointed the gun at his charge with his left and manipulated the gad with his right hand duke. One large, overgrown Missourian tried to crawl out of the window, but after he had looked down the barrel of the shooter a moment he changed his mind. He seemed to realize that it would be a violation of the rules of the school; so he came back and sat down.
   "After he wore out the foliage, he pulled the spike out of the door, put on his coat and went away. He never was seen there again. He didn't ask for any salary, but just walked off quietly, and that summer we accidentally heard that he was George W. Mulqueen's brother."—Bill Nye.

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