At Champion City

HEEE were several unique features connected with the observation of one Christmas e v e at Champion City during the time that I was editing the Clarion there, and, I may add, cutting hair in the then prevailing s t y 1 e , dealing in hides and pelts, leading the choir, sellina1 land. pullmg teetli with neatness and dispatch, and otherwise making myself useful as well as ornamental. The Christmas tree was erected in the Spread Eag-le theater, and there the pride and chivalry of the settlement assembled at even-tide, and "bright the lanips shone o'er fair women and brave imen," as I so appropriately remarked ,in the issue of the Clarion. At the conclusión of the regular programme, which was interspersed with impromptu fits by Eickety Wadkins.the presents ivere distributed. I do not now remember the character of any of the gifts except those in which I was personally interested. I distinctly recall, however, that Col. Corkright, a g-entleman of the old school, who had taken exception to one of my editorial utterances, hung a neatly written invitation on the tree for me to cali at his office any time during the week and have my nose pulled. I forgot to accept, and three days later the colonel called on me and made his word good. Some eight months befpre, three sanguine souls in a neighboring town had formed a copartnership for the purpose of conquering the world anew with liver pills. They purchased a doublé column of advértising spaco in the Clarion for six months, therefor in advanco and puls. While their peculiar talents might have won them renown in the days of Alexander the Great, they were not appreeiated in the deg-encrate present, and the pill syndicate collapsed in five weeks, leaving me with several bushels of beáutiful pills on hand. As they were homeopathie pills and had never jeen medicated, I won the gratitude of my subscribers without taking any risks when I made each a Christmas gift of a box of pills. The entertainment coneluded with the partial hanging of paralytie John Lanks by Dr. Slade. The physician had but iust learned of tlie discovery by a Kansas City scientist of the efficacy of partial hanging as a remedial agent in the treatment of locomotor ataxia and paralysis. He recognized that the Christmas eve entertainment offered an excellent opportunïty for familiarizing the public with this method of treatment and at the same timo providing them with a tlirilling spectaele. Accórdingly, a temporary gallows was ereeted on the stage, and upon this poor Lanks was duly hanged while the hghls ere turned down to a yellow haze. So realistic was this bit of acting that even the little ehildrén shouted their approbation. The expe-iment wüs a signal snecess in every purticular exeept that it seemed to exei-cise no beneficial effect whatever upon Mr. Lanks. Then we all went our several ways, feeling, as f also appropriately remarked in the Clarion, that "it had iniodeed been good to be there."