﻿SHORT CUTS 
 
The “substitute wrapping paper” and toilet first-aids have it that a new synthetic way has been discovered for making imitation silk. 
That is a hard blow to the hard-working industrious silk worms. 

It is evident the worms are booked to lose their jobs––or an overproduction will result. 
The latter condition will be very unhandy. Yes, terrible––I may say––to have too much silk. 
Just like having too many clothes when walking 22 miles to a lumber camp. Terrible . . . 

It may be the worm will have to do like labor––run for office––the way jobs are getting “tight.” 
Note: Aforesaid heartfelt reference to “toilet first-aid” has nothing sinister on either side––merely a shaving sheet. 

“Odd, how thirsty a logger gets in town,” says T-B. S., as he turns away from the W. C. T. U. water “cooler.” 
Mebbe that’s why they turn to cooked beveridges and refreshments 
“The worst burst of thirst thus becomes first nursed, then rehearst and finally cursed. . . . 

“Politeness is the life of trade.” Now, I’m polite as can be––after I have swamped and swamped for hours; and after I have three logs swamped I don’t holler for a skinner to come and get ‘em. No; I walk over to him and whisper in his ear, “bring your skilled horses out and try those logs.” “Skilled horses!” he roars, “they ‘ain’t skilled, they’re just common laborers––I’m the skilled hombre of the outfit,” he added. 

Strange how lumberjacks take exceptions to the most ordinary phenomena: Recently I heard that a friend of mine, a confirmed “self-batcher” and ex-sheepherder was cooking in a lumber camp. I hurried out there as fast as my habitual rheumatism would allow. . . . 
When I arrived there he was busy making pies but greeted me heartily. He complained sorrowfully about a severe cold––and I believed him for every little while (while we were talking) and as he rolled the piecrust a clear crystal of “snot” would drop from his leaky nose on the crust in the making and he would roll it in with the rest of the material. 
He assured me that I could get a job, as he said, “32 men quit this morning over something or t’other––nothing probably.” 
That’s the way they are, I consoled him, they quit for no reason at all, at all. . . . 
He ruined my appetite. 
So it goes. 
Once upon a time a worker had occasion to criticize “the pie” for being stiffened with corn starch––He wouldn’t eat it. 
The cook, upon hearing about his remark, took him to task about it: “When you have anything to say, I wish you would say it to my face.” . . . 
“If you refer to my remark about the pie, I wish you would understand that I had reason to kick about the corn starch.” 
“Well sir,” says the cook, “if I don’t use corn starch it will run ––you can’t cut it.” 
“And if you do use it you can’t eat it––What do you make it for, to cut or to eat?” 
The meeting adjourned. 
Lumberjacks don’t get much sleep now-a-days––”The “newer” men were greatly surprised Sunday to find the camp is painted––and red. 

“I suppose the bull cook ‘don’t sleep at I––wonder when he sleeps?” 
“He sleeps every third winter.” 

If “Jack” get fired, it makes no difference––he’s the only man living that can’t lose. 
“We get $1.73 per day.” 
“Yes, that’s quite a bit less than the $3.50 the farmer offered.” 
“Yes, that’s right, but consider that when we earn $3.50 here, we get two day’s board free.” 
Hallelujah, the victory is lost. 

Basswood is nothing but aristocratic poplar––and the value of organization shows in its latest “trial” (or test in the negative)––not a fair or final test: The gyppoes, individualists speculating in various piece-making “fliers,” have been unable to maintain a high piece-work “price” in the face of increasing difficulties –– brush, rough timbe: and scattering swamp roads, more and more––”picking up” and so on. 
The gyppo, alone, has most absolutely and miserably failed! 
He’ll organize. 
True, a sawyer by tucking his tongue under his belt, can make $100 per month. But true it is also that every “logger” can make $120 per month simply by organizing into a union––the L. W. I. U. No. 120––and up-to-the-minute union––He won’t have to stick his tongue under his belt, either. . . . He can let it bulge out of either cheek like two Lands full of Peerless. 

The “rights” of workers to strike is under discussion at this time because the exploiting dumb bells have discovered that “a strike interferes with the operation of the capitalist system––in any of all of its parts . . . where workers participate (as ameture owners) in petty business, the question of “right” becomes terribly INVOLVED. . .  
It all goes to show that emancipation, or “relief for ills,” lies not in joining the parasites’ game. 
Stud poker would be b[etter.] 
Organization is the [cure.]