﻿Marathon 
 
Contrary to the general belief that a hen could cackle only a few minutes at a time, and that even then only when given the key, note or tone by the rooster, it is now established by the parasite’s press that is possible for a hen to gargle a longer period. The non-stop cackling mark is set by a Kentucky hen belonging among the worldly possessions of Perry J. McCord, Paris, Ky. 
The other day it flew from its nest, after, relieving itself of an egg, and began to cackle. For a period of about 60 hours it has not ceased cackling a moment. Neighbors who have passed sleepless nights are out for its bleed and it is feared the hen will be assassinated. The Governor stands ready to send militia to quell any possible riot that may ensue. 
At first all the hens in the neighborhood joined in the cackling chorus, but the McCord hen soon cackled them to a finish. Every time a rooster crows the hen renews its cackling, which soon relapses into a faint gurgle. It has broken all records and is still going strong. 

Many of the established institutions we have cherished have “gone by the board” and are dissipated into thin air. Only recently the women of our fair republic outstripped everything in the line of dancing which the prostituted press dutifully reported to the pulsating public. 
Marathon after marathon was reeled off by these nimble-footed swirling sisters; and the nation held its breath in appropriate astonishment. Forty-eight hours, fifty-four hours, sixty hours, and still the ukelele never hesitated ; the plunging, gliding, willowy forms never faltered. Like a monster of steel approaching a station they would rush towards us panting, to deliver us a rythmic knockout, a terpsichorean “close-up;” only to glide and fade, an undulating poem in the perfumed zephyrs of the distance 
A few hundred years ago a Chinaman discovered he could live on live cents a day by eating rice—since then he has been paid six cents per day for every day he worked. 
So, too, the “frailer sex” in this country has established to the satisfaction of our employer, that frailty in the sex is mental more than physical; that it was only a chivalrous attitude taken by the males, contrary to the facts, and to bolster up their dissipated monopoly on strength. 
By their superb dancing of 48 hours they have proven conclusively that they are physically fit to step in between the handles of a wheelbarrow running an eight-hour day. The sweet girl “steno” and matronly business woman can no longer put up a plea for a half day off on account of physical infirmities; nor can she plead the old periodical-indisposition for going home. She will have to full back on the old tried and true excuses the men have: “brother getting spliced, uncle croaked, or none of your business”—the latter being the more efficacious if not quite so hypothetical, since it closes debate, suddenly. 
Come the sweet girl graduate bucking the typewriter at $20 per. Last week a plumber, a counter-jumper and a financier liquidated as ninny suppers for her und she, feeling opulent, decides a day off would be a delirium of joy. Consequently she powders her face heavily, so as to look as ghastly as possible, and puts to the boss the simple unvarnished lie that she is “sick.” 
The boss looks up in surprise and says, “Indeed, Miss Pickleswathe, you are looking terribly. See the cashier as you go out—we do not wish to owe money to dead people. You know, you may never again be, well and besides, our firm recognizes the work here is very trying— we shall have to make arrangements to hire none but marathoners hereafter. Good day, Miss, that will be all. I would advise you to take up dancing. Don’t mention it. Good day.” 
This marathon craze has greatly clarified the issue between master and man; between master and servant; between master and slave. The issue is clearer—when the boss asks you where you were yesterday tell him, “Mr. Swivelcat, aren’t you getting to be just the least bit personal?” No other excuse will do for the reasons that if the ladies can go sixty hours the men should make the same on a gallon . . . 
Men too, frequently, as piecemaking marathoners, give the boss an accurate idea of their superior stamina. Three o’clock in the morning we “dunce” the whole day long — plunging, surging, performing — nothing to us seems wrong. “All the world is a playhouse; everything in it is dross.” Why should we worry the while we hurry to serve our boss? Indeed, why? 
Ed. note: Slim shouldn’t believe all he sees in the papers. The ladies no doubt stop for meat and mustard.