Cortland Contrarian: Teaching a Calf to Drink and Cleveland-Blaine Election Aftermath

The Cortland News, Friday, November 21, 1884.

Teaching a Calf to Drink.

Those who have had the mournful experience know there is nothing more trying to the temper than the operation of teaching a young call to drink. The process is familiar to every man who has brought up a calf from infancy. You seize a pail of warm milk, go into the stable, catch the calf by the ears, back him into a corner, and bestride his neck. The idiot rather likes this, and while you are reaching for the pail he employs his time in slobbering the lower corners of your jacket.

You discover what the blockhead is about and box his ears. You can't help it. You feel that way, and let him have it. But the calf can't tell for the life of him why he is struck, and he gives a sudden and unexpected "flounce." He believes he will go and stay on the other side of the stable, but he doesn't announce this beforehand.

He starts on the impulse of the moment; and you can’t tell just when he arrives there. You ride along with him a little way. But the laws of gravitation are always about the same. Your legs, one on each side of the critter, keep up with the calf for about a second, but your body doesn't. You slide over the calf and your back kisses the floor. Your head is soaking in the pail of milk.

When you get up you are mad—uncommonly so. Milk runs from your hair, and imprecations out of your mouth, and you solemnly declare that you will teach that call to drink or break his neck.

Calfy don't know of this resolve, and he glares at you in a stupid fright across the stable. He was not aware that he was the cause of your downfall, and wonders ignorantly what is the matter. You don't try to explain it to him, but furiously catch him by the ears, look back over your shoulder at the milk pail, and back up to it, dragging the calf after you.

The calf is out of wind, and you haven't a particle of grace left in your heart. You are astride of the calf's neck, and, jamming the fingers of one hand into his mouth, you place the other on the back of his head and shove his nose into the pail, fully resolved to strangle him if he don't drink. The calf holds perfectly still—ominously so—and there is silence for the space of half a minute, at which time the blockhead, who hasn't drank a drop, suddenly makes a splurge and knocks the pail over; you are again reduced to a horizontal from a perpendicular, and when you rise the excitement is intense.

You have been soaked with milk, "slobbered" on and hurt. Not a drop of milk has gone down the brute's throat, and there he stands glaring at you, ready to furnish you with another free ride whenever you want to go. With an affidavit you seize the empty pail and hobble out of the pen, fully resolved to let the four-footed fool starve; and thus endeth the first lesson.

CORTLAND AND VICINITY.

The Democrats are to have a big "blow out" to night. Torchlight procession, fireworks, cannon, etc. Well, we don't know but they have a right to paint the town red, seeing it has been twenty-four years since they last had the chance.

Mrs. H. A. Fuller will sell at auction on the A. S. Waters farm one and one-half miles southwest of Cortland, this Friday afternoon, one pair of good work horses, one seven-year old dark bay mare, one lumber wagon, one open buggy, one cutter, one bob-sled, one Oliver chilled plow, and other farming utensils.

The three public drinking fountains on Main street have been located, at the Cortland House, Messenger House and at the intersection of Court and Main streets.

A twenty-four-year-old beard will be removed from the face of S. D. Perkins, of Little York, at Willowdale Hall in that place to-day in honor of the election of a Democratic President.

South Cortland.

Our little village is still very much excited over politics. The question very naturally arises, if Cleveland is President, who will be our next post-master?

OUR WASHINGTON LETTER.

A Large Democratic Parade—The Old School of Bourbonism to the Front—The South Will be Satisfied—Preparing for the Republican Exodus—All Ready for Congress.

WASHINGTON, November 15, 1884.

Last night witnessed the greatest Democratic parade ever seen in this city. It was marshaled by "Bill" Dickson, who was prominent as a juror in the Star Route trial, and was afterward tried himself on the charge of having accepted a bribe from the Star Route defendants. I mention this only to show what kind of men the party of reform (?) is bringing to the front in the morning freshness of its victory.

There has been a wonderful resurrection of Democracy in Washington since it is thought that Cleveland is to be the next President. Old whiskey soaked fellows that the Washington world had forgotten have hobbled forth, and like old Hamlet's ghost are re-visiting the glimpses of the moon. Verily something is rotten in Denmark when these old rebel sympathisers are again in the ascendant.

It is understood in political circles here that Southern Democrats expect to have much to say in the formation and the policy of the new administration. They will demand their full share of the loaves and fishes, and occupy prominent places at the council table. They have taken back seats and eaten humble pie long enough. They have voted in a solid mass through years of political adversity. The day of official, usufruct has come. They want the offices. They had no part in civil service legislation, and they do not believe in it

They know that they have furnished about three-fourths of the electoral vote that made Cleveland President, and they will be satisfied with that proportion of the patronage.

The Republican office holders here are at a loss to know what to do. Some of them are lulled with the talk that Mr. Cleveland is committed to civil service reform, and cannot consistently dismiss honest and competent public servants. But the majority of them are preparing to travel in the spring or early summer.

It is not believed that Mr. Cleveland will be able to withstand the pressure that will be brought to bear upon him by the hungry vandals who have made him President. His Cabinet will begin by appointing as their chief clerks and immediate assistants, personal and political friends. Then they will appoint the friends of certain senators and members. This will open the way to unlimited removals, and, sooner or later, Republican office holders will have to go.

Some clerks are well off, and quite a number have saved a little money, but the great majority have not only not a dollar ahead, but are hopelessly in debt, many of them borrowing money to bet on the election. I know a number who are paying from 5 to 10 per cent interest per month for money staked on the election of Blaine.

Economy is the watchword here now, and it is felt in every avenue and artery of commercial, industrial and social life. Merchants say that trade was never more dull at this season. Tailors report a great increase in the business of renovating and mending old coats and pantaloons. Fashionable dressmakers and milliners are in despair. Even butchers, grocers, and saloon keepers feel the pinch of retrenchment. Ten thousand government employees and five times as many who are dependent upon them are endeavoring to save a little money for the rainy day predicted after the fourth of March.

The Capitol is in readiness for Congress which will convene in two weeks. The hotels, boarding houses are ready too. Mere living will be comparatively cheap this winter. Boarding houses and restaurants have adjusted themselves to the new order of things. The hungry Democrats who are already pouring into the city will be able to find subsistence at a cost of from seventy- five cents to one dollar a day. The better class of hotels will maintain their old prices but they expect a diminution of patronage.

There is no end to gossip in political circles about the Cabinet and policy of the new administration. The Democrats are not entirely sure of the man for whom they gave their votes and money. The suggestion that Schurz will have a place in the Cabinet is gall and wormwood to them, and it is not at all improbable that the first month of the new administration will develop a Democratic split as wide and as fatal as that which followed the inauguration of Garfield in the Republican party. They are not a happy family by any means. Clouds, storms, winds, and dangers are in their sea road.

MERIMAC.

Fogey and Anti-Fogey.

Many politicians govern their principles by their politics, while we prefer to hold our politics subject to our principles. The former would have us, of two evils choose the least, while we prefer, of two or more evils to choose neither, and as for those who choose evil large or small, let them bear the responsibilities and consequences of their choice, we do not wish to share with them.

And now that one more election is over and the day of burning in effigy has come, we would say the abolitionists can well afford to have “John Brown's body lies moldering in the grave while his soul goes marching on." So the Prohibitionists can afford to be burned in effigy while their vote is increased from 12,000 four and eight years ago to some 100,000 this time.

A. PECK.

Cortland, Nov. 14, 1884.

EDITORIAL NOTES.

At last the official count [New York] has been declared. Cleveland's plurality is 1,078. He received 562,961 votes; Blaine 561,883; St. John 25,075; Butler 16,945. Four years ago Garfield received 555,544, and Hancock 534,511. The vote this year shows a Republican gain of 5,339, and a Democratic gain of 28,450. The Democratic gain came principally from the Republican party of four years ago, as did also about two thirds of the St. John vote and some of the Butler vote. The Republican party, therefore, must have gained from new sources about 50,000 votes to sustain the loss caused by the loss of the Prohibitionists, Independents and Butler voters, and came through with a substantial gain over the Garfield vote.

The election of Mr. Cleveland to the Presidency will make Mr. Hill governor of the state. In the ordinary course of affairs Mr. Cleveland will resign in December and Mr. Hill will assume office in January. This promotion of the Lieutenant Governor will probably make Mr. McCarthy President pro tem of the senate and a Republican Lieutenant Governor of the State.

A great many of the newspapers of this country are very busy just now in making up Mr. Cleveland's Cabinet. We prefer to wait awhile and let the President-elect do that business himself.

The way in which the Democrats watched the official canvass to see that no fraud was perpetrated reminds us that perhaps foxes will soon be sworn in as guardians of chicken coops.

A Superintendent, at a salary of $4,000 a year, is to be appointed in the Ovid Asylum for the Chronic Insane. and a second assistant physician at $2,000, both with board and lodgings. A Superintendent, at $3,000 a year, with board and lodging, is also to be appointed for the State Asylum tor Idiots at Syracuse.