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CLOWNS DYINGFIVE circus clowns dying this year, morning newspapers told their lives, how each one horizontal in a last
gesture of hands arranged by an undertaker, shook thousands into convulsions of laughter from behind rouge-red lips and
powder-white face.
STEAMBOAT BILLWhen the boilers of the Robert E. Lee exploded, a steamboat winner of many races on the Mississippi went
to the bottom of the river and never again saw the wharves of Natchez and New Orleans.
And a legend lives on that two gamblers were blown toward the sky and during their journey laid bets on which of the two
would go higher and which would be first to set foot on the turf of the earth again.
FOOT AND MOUTH PLAGUEWhen the mysterious foot and mouth epidemic ravaged the cattle of Illinois, Mrs. Hector Smith wept
bitterly over the government killing forty of her soft-eyed Jersey cows; through the newspapers she wept over her loss for
millions of readers in the Great Northwest.
SEVENSThe lady who has had seven lawful husbands has written seven years for a famous newspaper telling how to find love and
keep it: seven thousand hungry girls in the Mississippi Valley have read the instructions seven years and found neither
illicit loves nor lawful husbands.
PROFITEERI who saw ten strong young men die anonymously, I who saw ten old mothers hand over their sons to the nation
anonymously, I who saw ten thousand touch the sunlit silver finalities of undistinguished human glory—why do I sneeze
sardonically at a bronze drinking fountain named after one who participated in the war vicariously and bought ten farms?
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