The Lampasas Daily Leader. (Lampasas, Tex.), Vol. 13, No. 223, Ed. 1 Tuesday, November 21, 1916 Page: 2 of 4
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THE LAMPASAS DAILY LEADER
y
I
*
m
10
BIRSKY
sn£ ZAPP
By"
MONTAGUE GLASS
“W
HAT are you fooling away
your time reading that
trash!” Louis Birsky, the
/real estater, exclaimed as he seated
[himself opposite Barnett Zapp in Was-
serbauer’s restaurant.
! “That’s what Old Man Zeppelin used
.to say,” Barnett Zapp, the waist man-
ufacturer, replied as he laid down the
current issue of “Sultry Stories.”
“Every once in a while he would find
his youngest son, Pincus Zeppelin,
reading a dime novel, and he would
catch him a box on the ear and ask
him what would become of him, and
that he had a kind father and a good
mother and this is the way he repays
them, and to look at his brother Sig,
which never read nothing but the pa-
|pers and now runs one of the biggest
delicatessen and fine grocery stores
jin Immendingen, Wurtemburg, where
jns Pincus Zeppelin couldn’t forget the
time he fooled away over “Ned Har-
rington, the Boy Aviator,” in the “Ned
Harrington” series till it affected his
mind, Birsky. He becomes crazy on
the subject of airships and before he
recovers his senses, y’understand, he
stands a show to get away with any-
wheres from ten to twenty million
dollars.”
“You are talking now from one sin-
gle for-instance out of hundreds,”
Birsky objected, “aber the shoe could
pinch on the other foot, too, Zapp. If
I would read, for example, in a ten-
cent inazagine that Ned Carruthers’
■uncle left him two million dollars prof-
its from the Cruller trust and Ned
[wouldn’t take a cent of the money on
[account it was tainted from being
[ground out of the blood of working
[women which has got to sit and see
[their husbands die because there isn’t
[so much as a cruller in the house, and
■that’s the way Old Man Caruthers—
Steel Trap Camithers they used to
[call him on the Cruller exchange—
made his money, y’understand, read-
ing such stuff couldn’t do me no harm,
Zapp. It wouldn’t make me turn down
any two million dofiar legacy from
my uncle, even though as a reward I
might stand a show to marry a girl
with five million dollars, the way Ned
Carruthers did in the story, because in
the first place, Zapp, such things only
^happen in stories.
“Zapp, you take here the other
day a lady which lives over in Brook-
lyn and rents for a few dollars a fur-
inished room, y’understand, and the
poor woman actually has got an uncle
die on her and leave her two hundred
tthousand dollars, Zapp.”
“Nebich!” Zapp exclaimed. “It
must of upset her something terrible.”
“Ordinarily it wouldn’t,” Birsky
agreed. “The chances is she would of
refused to take the money, Zapp, be-
cause she read the magazine^ so long
[she didn’t believe in real life no more.”
“Neither does a whole lot of other
people,” Zapp declared, “editors of pa-
pers for example. Every New York
newspaper editor has got an idea that
anyhow fifteen per cent of the com-
mon people which lives In New York,
or 600,000 people, takes su(*h a big
interest in gollef, y’understand, that
it’s necessary to get. once a week a
funny gollef picture done by the news-
paper’s cartoonist. Now as such a
cartoonist is paid a salary equivalence
to the President of the United States,
supposing Mr. Wilson also received a
royalty of ten per cent on the rights
jto reproduce in moving pictures as
comics, the carryings-on of the Senate
and House of Representatives, y’un-
derstand, take one-seventh of such a
cartoonist’s salary, Birsky, and it
makes gollef a very expensive game
for a newspaper, even supposing it
was ns popular as the editor thinks
U is. However, Birsky, if you was an
editor aud was able to read ail the
magazines, free, you wouldn’t act no
dlfferencely, because it don’t make no
difference if a author is writing a love
story, a business story, a deteeative
story or a sea story, he thinks he
must got to ring in something about
gollef, tlie Idee being to make the rest
of the story sound more refined and
give people the impression that al-
though writing under an alias he is
really kin to the Astors aud Vander-
bilts.”
“What is there so becoming about
playing gollef?” Birsky asked.
“Well, for one thing, it’s taking ex-
ercise.” Zapp continued, “which tak-
ing exerclso Is considered such a prop-
er thing nowadays, Birsky, that when
some fellers tell you about the exer-
cise they are taking, y’understand,
they act like they would be admitting
ithfit they just giro a hundred thou-.
sand dollars to the Belgium Relief
Fund.”
“If taking exercise is such a won-
derful thing,” Birsky. said, “a shipping
clerk must be a athlete already.”
“He is justSsuch a athlete as a gol-
lef player is anyhow,” Zapp said, “be-
cause packing and shipping goods IS
a great deal like playing gollef,
Birsky. It exercises every part of
the body except the head—the only
difference being that gollef couldn’t
be done in such close quarters as
shipping goods.”
“And yet you say people gets good
idees out of magazine stories,” Birsky
commented.
“I said they get Idees,” Zapp admit-
ted, “but not always GOOD idees. For
instance, when them mining people
run off that strike there in Colorado,
they got their idees from a serial story
by the name ‘The Guilty Dollar,’ which
at the time he bought it the maga-
zine editor said was terribly exagger-
ated, because in this day and gener-
ation, y’understand, when a million-
aire has got sense enough to make a
hundred million dollars in platinum
like Senator Caruthers—Steer Trap
Carruthers, they used to call him on
the Platinum Exchange—it stood to
reason that he wouldn’t stand for his
associates shooting down strikers and
their wives and children in cold blood,
Birsky. The magazine owner also
says to the author that^ he should
ought to be ashamed to write a story
where -an American mine owner paid
foreign mine workers such a miserable
wages, y’understand, and that for
writing such an exaggerated and un-
true story he couldn’t give the author
the regular amount for the story, hut
paid him $35 for it, which the author
figured was at the rate of 6c. an hour
for his vvork. Later the magazine
owner got to like the story better, so
naturally when them "Colorado mining
people reads on the front page of the
magazine- that ‘The Guilty Dollar’ is
a marvellous, gripping, genius-inspired
story of the Iowa Platinum Mines,
y’understand, and is a masterly and
accurate study of the problem of min
ing capital and labor, they want to
find out what it is about. First the
Acting Geneial Manager reads it and
says to the Second Assistant Vice
president: what some people wouldn’t
do for monfery! And to make a note
in the story they used machine guns
on the strikers. When the Second As-
sistant Vice President got through
with it, he said that a feller who could
imagine such a rotten state of affairs
in any big industrial community was
a tiger in human form and made a
memorandum of the bull-ring idee, the
shutting, off of supplies to the strik-
ers, including milk for their babies,
and one or two other pointers about
strikes, and then he passed it on to
the Jgead Actuary and says to him
that no wonder people hated the trusts
when such lies were allowed to be
printed about them, and that he
should look over the story aud report
tomorrow morning at the latest what
could be done to equalize the wages
of the foreign mine laborers out in
Colorado with the foreign mine labor-
ers in the story.”
“Aber don’t people get no good idees
out of magazine stories?” Birsky
asked.
“Well,” Zapp said, “I myself got a
couple designs for waists from maga-
zine covers and I figured I made five
per cent of the regular cost of the gar-
ment or the goods I didn’t use In the
neck and sleeves.”
“You could have made more than
that if you would be as sparing with
dress goods as the artists that draws
some magazine pictures,” Birsky said.
“If a lady would select the kind and
amount of clothes that some maga-
zine artists thinks plenty sufficient for
their pictures, and if she would wear
such clothes on Fifth Avenue, Zapp,
before the patrol wagon arrives, she
would attract a crowd of twenty thou-
sand people."
“But there wouldn’t be no magazine
readers among them,” Zapp retorted.
“The magazines has given people very
liberal idees in the matter of dress
and etiquette, Birsky. Yes, Birsky, a
lot of people have changed their way
of living from reading magazine sto-
ries. Some of ’em moves into other
neighborhoods on account of it. Take,
for instance, Sam Zarodnik of Zarod-
nik and Karpas, in the fur business
and Sam tells me he is going to move
from 8th Street to 26th Street.”
“It’s funny how people changes,”
Birsky said. “Ten years ago when^Za-
rodnik & Karpas signed checks, Kar-
pas wrote the Zarodnik and the Kar-
pas, and it was as much as Sam could
do to write the ‘and.’ Yet nowadays
that feller is reading magazines yet.”
“What are you talking nonsense—
Sam Zarodnik reading nmgnzines?”
Zapp exclaimed. “Sam couldn’t even
read electric "signs in words of one
syllable, like ‘Lunch’ and ‘Cafe.’ I
said he was moving away from 8th
Street on account of other people
reading magazine stories, Birsky,
which if you read anything from mag-
azines, Birsky, you would know it
that every magazine has got in it at
least two stories where the scene is
laid in a studio close to Washington
Square, and what nearly happens in
them studios, according to the stories,
Birsky, lias created such a demand
for studios close to Washington
Square that all the furriers and cheap
clothing contractors has. got to move
away from there; and the old run-
down houses they used to occupy is
being made over into studios and filled
with magazine readers at rentals
which a furrier or a clothing contrac-
tor would consider high for a sprinkled
fireproof loft with two elevators and
light on three sides.”
“Aber what does all the people want
studios for?” Birsky asked. “They
ain’t artists, are they?”
“Listen, Birsky,” Zapp said. “If all
the people which rented studios in
New York was artists, y’understand,
the competition in the picture painting
business would make the cloak and
suit business look like it was run by
a virtuous monopoly. As a real es-
tater you should know it, that from
reading magazine stories a lot of peo-
ple has come to consider as a studio
any cold water flat above the third
floor without elevator service and
within ten blocks of Washington
Square, and in changing over such
flats into studios, Birsky, the only dec-
orating that the landlord must do Is
to raise the rent from $20 a month
up to $60 a month, payable strictly in
advance.” \
“Well,” Birsky commented, “it’s
time somebody done something for the
real estate business in New York.”
Zapp disregarded the interruption.
“Another idee people gets from mag-
azine fiction,” he continued, “is that
spectacles ain’t a matter of eyesight
no more, Birsky. They come under
the head of clothing, and a young fel-
ler that reads the stories in an up-to-
date magazine would consider himself,
practically naked if he was seen on
the streets without his rubber tired
spectacles. Then again in former
time a young feller was lucky if he
had three suits of clothes, y’under-
stand—his working clothes, his best
clothes and suit of clothes he kept
to go fishing in, supposing he ever did
go fishing—aber nowadays not alone
does young fellers like to act in real
life like the young fellers in maga-
zine stories, but they also want to
look like the illustrations. An up-to-
date young feller has got a different
suit clothes for every purpose men-
tioned in a magazine story, even if
he has to go without lunches to do it.
Yes, Birsky, the magazine artists
which is always drawing pictures from
a young-man in a full dress suit, a cut-
away or a tuxedo leaning over a
grand piano while a lady is playing
her hardest to keep the blood circulat-
ing so she wouldn’t freeze from the
waist up, y’understand, such a maga-
zine artist is doing more to make
young men who are good dressers
raise checks and practice double-dou-
ble entry than all the poolrooms, race-
tracks, poker games and roulette
wheels in America.”
“Then, after all, Zapp,” Birsky said,
“magazine stories has a bad influ-
ence.”
“Not on the dress suit, tuxedo and
cutaway business,” Zapp replied, “nor
on the, rubber tired spectacle business
neither.”
“And how about gollef?” Birsky
asked.
“I got no kick about gollef, Birsky,”
Zapp concluded. “If my competitors
only devote enough time to it, Birsky,
I am satisfied.”
' (Copyright, New York Tribune.)
Inflammation of the Mouth.
An acute catarrhal inflammation of
the mouth occurs frequently from'
mechanical thermic or chemical irri-
tation. It is a frequent accompani-
ment of specific fevers and wasting
diseases. In children it is commonly
seen in association with digestive dis-
turbances, the result of improper food
or faulty hygiene, especially of the
mouth. They are restless and disin-
clined to nurse. The temperature is
slightly elevated, the breath Is fetid
and the mucous membrane of the
mouth is red and swollen. The treat-
ment consists in removal of the cause.
In infants the cleansing of the mouth
and of the mother’s nipples, or of arti-
ficial nipples, if these be used, is im-
perative. The mother’s nipples should
be washed with boric acid water after
each nursing. Bottle nipples should
be turned wrong side out and scrubbed
(with a brush kept for this purpose),
with bcric acid water, then rinsed in
clean boric acid water and then put to
souk in clean, cold water which has
been boiled) until It is to be used.
The mouth must be kept clean by fre-
quent washing with boric acid water
and glycerin mixture, 20 grains of bor-
ic acid and one teaspoonful of glycerin
and eight teaspoonfuls of boiled wa-
ter, mixed together. If there is con-
stipation or diarrhea milky magnesia
may be given to correct this trouble.
Hissing Valves.
Of course when you hear r hissinff
that comes from escaping compres-
sion you naturally think of valve
grinding. But it does not always fol-
low. A small piece of grit may be-
come fastened to a valve-head sur-
face and prevent the valve seating
tightly, or a variation in stem adjust-
ment by vibration may cause the
valve to seat imperfectly, and in ei-
ther case there will be a hissing
sound.
I John Carey’s |
| Boots |
% By H. M. EGBERT I
(Copyright, 1916. by W. G. Chapman.)
I suspected Louise Carey from the
first; but in that I was no different
from the farmer’s neighbors. John
Carey had married a second time, l^ite
in life, when his three sons were grow-
ing up to manhood. Jim, the eldest,
was twenty ; Frank eighteen; Leonard,
the youngest, fourteen.
John Car.-y was rich, and Louise
Brand had been a poor girl in the city
when the elderly i*an, making a busi-
ness trip there, saw her working as
a stenographer in tfie lawyer’s office.
The courtship was brief, and they were
married three weeks after their
first meeting.
John Carey had been a close-fisted
man, but a good neighbor and had been
generally esteemed. He fell under the
rule of his young wife. His sons re-
sented the stranger’s presence in the
home. Quarrels between father and
sons ensued. There was a bad one a
week before the farmer’s death. He
changed his will, leaving everything
to his wife, with reversion to Leonard,
the youngest, the only one who cared
for his stepmother. Between the two
a devoted attachment sprang up.
The motive for murdering John
Carey? Fear lest he should change his
will again. Three days later Carey
came in from the field, where he had
beftn binding, in high spirits. He had
his supper, pulled off his boots, lit his
pipe, complained of feeling ill, and lay
ra?-
“Leonard!” She Gasped.
down on the lounge. Nobody else was
in the. room. When his wife entered,
an hour later, he was dead, his lower
limbs and body terribly swollen.
"It was like snake poison; the experts
said the condition of the body resem-
bled that of a man who had been
struck by a rattler. But there was no
rattler in the house, though they were
plentiful in the field. _If Carey had
been killed by a snake, the poison
would, have taken effect before he en-
tered his home.
John Carey was buried, and the few
whispers on the part of the neigh-
bors died away. Jim and Frank hajl
left the house at the time of the quar-
rel. They started suit, alleging undue
influence. They had removed their
personal effects, including some cloth-
ing, the property of their father. Close-
fisted like him, they not see the
sense of leaving his effects to Louise;
and she offered no objection.
It was just a month later that tlffi
second death occurred. Jim Carey had
gone to the stepmother’s house to talk
things over with her. Louise Carey
was a sensible woman and had volun-
teered to come to a settlement. Ac-
cording to her story, they had practi-
cally reached an agreement. She had
given her stepson tea, and he had com-
plained that his father’s boots hurt
him and pulled them off. A few mo-
ments later he began to complain. She
ran to the telephone and summoned
the doctor, recognizing the same symp-
toms as those of whiph her husband
had died. Before the doctor arrived,
Jim was dead, and dreadfully swollen.
The boots? They w'ere a pair of
high, farmers’ boots, and John Carey
had v'orn them for nearly a year before
his diAth. If there was poison-in the
boots, it would have taken effect long
before. Jim had worn them during his
four-mile tramj) from where he lived
to his stepmother’s house. It was sus-
pected that she had a store of poison,
which she had secretly administered.
The police ransacked tne house
roof to cellar, but could find notl
It was then that I was called in.
Universally suspected, universall
siiupned, Mrs. Carey lived a wretch^
life. The little boys had begun to cie
out after her in the street. She woul
have left the house but for Leonarl
who believed in her, and to whom si* 1
was passionately devoted. I resided
the village, assumed the guise of
Intending purchaser of real estate, ar
in that capacity I visited the Care
farm, to talk over the price. MrJ
Carey was willing to sell, after
trouble had Ijeen cleared up. SI
struck me as a sensible woman, and j
had my doubts as to her culpability.
The farmer’s boots had been throwl
away in the attic, with the rest of hi[
clothing. I found an opportunity, bl
going to the house when Mrs. CareJ
was away, to look at them. It dil
occur to me that there might be soml
snake venom in them, but I assure^
myself that this was not the case. Be
sides, as most people know, snake ver
ora acts as a toxic agent only when i]|
troduced through an abrasion.
Quite by accident, however, I learne<|
that a circus had passed through tt
villajie six months before. Among i^
attractions had been a Hindu snakt
charmer, who had amused and astonj
ished the rustics until the circuq
passed, to be soon forgotten. I learnec
that Mrs. Carey had attended the cir-|
cus with Leonard, and had been seer
to speak to the man.
This looked bad. After all, if it
was snake poison, Mrs. Carey was the
only person with a motive to kill,
withdrew my favorable opinion,
watched her more narrowly.
I had actually invested $200 in an op-|
tion on the property. This gave me
plenty of opportunity to visit there,
was at the farm one afternoon wher
Leonard came out of tlie house; anc
I saw the woman’s face blanch.
“Leonard!” she gasped. “Your fa-
ther’s boots!”
I looked and saw that the boy was
wearing the identical boots which the
two men had worn before their death.
They were much too large for him, but|
they calne up toward the knee, azic
were very serviceable for liarvejstl
work. \
“Why, that’s all right, mom,” he an-1
swered. “They’ll come in handy out in|
the field. , Why, mom, I’ve had thes‘-f
on for nearly two hours, and if thea
was poison in them I guess I’d hav^
felt it before now.”
“Take them off!” screamed MrsJ
Carey. And yet, agitated though shf
was, there was no sound of guiltj
knowledge in her voice, only of fear.
He sat down in the sun and pulled|
off the boots. Then, carrying them ii
his hand, he ran in his stockinged^
feet back into the house.
I saw the tension on Mrs. Carey’sl
face. Presently Leonard came back,[
wearing a pair of ordinary boots. He|
looked very sober and paler than be-J
fore. He came rather unsteadily up to|
his mother.
“I don’t feel well, mom,” he gasped, I
and fell at her feet. Mrs. CareyJ
screamed wildly, and I carried the bo)
into the house and called the doctor.
The doctor arrived in half an hour]
and diagnosed the case as hopeless. By'
that time Leonard’s legs were swollen I
to three times their size, and he was]
black below the waist. But I refused
to accept the verdict.
Mrs. Carey and I worked over hin>i
all that day. It was a desperate effort
to keep him awake, and we could not
walk him on his swollen feet. But we
punched and struck him, and pulled
up his drooping eyelids. We struck
him and pushed him from side to side,
trundling him about the room. Some-
how we managed to prevent the coma
of death from developing that night,
and by morning the boy was better.
The doctor, who called expecting him
to be dead, was amazed.
The next day was a critical one, but
by nightfall Leonard was able to go to
sleep, and by the next morning the
swelling had gone down a little and he
was on the way to recovery.
The story had spread through the vil-
lage, and a warrant for Mrs. Carey’s
arrest had already beqn issued. It was
I who confronted the constable at the
door with my evidence. For I had
slashed the boots to pieces and discov-
ered the mystery.
In the left boot was nothing. But in
the right boot, set near the ankle, was
a tiny snake-fang, with a portion of
the venom sack attached to it. It had
been thrust out with such violence
that it had penetrated the leather and
carried this minute portion of the poi-
son sack with it.
It was set downward at such an
angle that it would not abrade the
skin when the boot was put on, but
must inevitably do so when it was
pulled off.
The explanation was an obvious one,
and it cleared Mrs. Carey, who now re-
sides, with Frank and Leonard, on the
old place, esteemed by everyone. The
deadly poison was identified with that
of the Indian hooded cobra. The snake
had escaped from the charmer and had
struck at the farmer’s leg, without his
knowledge. The fang, remaining in the
tough leather, had done no injury until
John Carey pulled off bM Then
it had killed him.
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The Lampasas Daily Leader. (Lampasas, Tex.), Vol. 13, No. 223, Ed. 1 Tuesday, November 21, 1916, newspaper, November 21, 1916; Lampasas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth906525/m1/2/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Lampasas Public Library.