﻿FISH TALES 
 
New York Evening Journal is editorially edificated ecause it has seen a queen—Her Majesty—that doesn’t look like a “woebegone” housemaid: Just how much of the queen was under inspection is not given out, but it is reasonable to suppose that the Journal overhauled the queen thoroughly, else it would not venture into print comparing her to housemaids that are not woe-begone. 
The author of this article is very highly pleased that the Journal has found one queen that can be compared to housemaids (he, the author, in his ignorance, supposed that all majesty was thoroughly maggotty). 

Coolidge Lands Five-Pound Pike.—Headline.—Notice of this event should be “wired” the president instantly. He may not see it in the papers—and the goodly fish will spoil. Pretty big fish that—nothing smaller should be printed. God! I can almost smell it! 
The Great T-Bone Slim (T-Bone The Great) was kidnaped and Shanghaied into the Goodrich, Silvertown Cord Advertisement, at the Strand Theatre, Brooklyn, N. Y., to hear said “orchestras” render Tchaikovski limb from limb . . . The piece under discussion was “1812.” I will say that the mechanical execution was precise as the ambulations of a print-press—but words fail me when I try to describe the mellow melody of the composition. The heavenly inspiration can be compared only to the plaintive tones of a loaded sheep car on rock-ballast, undertones of car included—and Strindberg riding it 
If this Tchaikowski wrote that piece, as rendered by Knecht’s accomplices, he could be pinched for sabotage—a word coined by Quackenbush in his immortal words, “possibility of sabotage,” just as if he knew what the company was going to do in the I. R. T. subway strike. 

AS A CAUSE: 
In automobile-accident deaths, intoxication with liquor stands at the bottom of the list despite the fact that newspapers give it first place in headlines. (Note.—Headlines and hawsers pre two different things: hawsers are rope and headlines are string) . 
Now, if intoxication causes least deaths in automobile accidents it proves but one of three things: 
First, Newspapers are liars. 
Second, Few drivers drink. 
Third, All drivers should drink. 
Further: Drunken drivers break many bottles on boulevards, preventing sober ones prilling anybody—they can’t kill with “a flat tire”—too expensive. 
Further: When a drunk is too drunk to recognize caution, he parks his car and sleeps it off. (The judge fines him $12.50 for his failure to be on duty killing the people). The drunk, of course, pays it gladly for he thinks “the saving of even one life is worth that much.” 
Besides: He might only cripple them! 

IDLE RATTLE TRAPS 
I see where the New York City I. R. T. is sueing 62 strikers to recover $239,000 in loss of revenues suffered by the company since the inception of the strike ten days ago.  
It means nothing—insofar as the company didn’t wait until all the losses were in. Besides, that stunt may have worked in Danbury, Connecticut, but ‘twill not work in derepublicanized Gotham. What will work is a suit of the strikers to recover wages up to the zero-hour when the company separated them from the pay-roll—that, on the grounds that the company refused to meet them to have its recalcitrant ignorance dissipated. 
Warning.— Don’t buy houses and lots — it isn’t safe—the fond companies will sue you for them and GET THEM. 
DANBURY ! 
Join the I. W. W.! 

SPECTACLE 
Good times are setting in for the eyespecialists (opticians) in New York—examination free! 
An epidemic of blindness has struck the city a terrible blow. Thousands and thousands of workers are so blind they cannot see that signing agreement with the bosses, as a union, compels them to withdraw from the union and organize a so-called “outlaw” union whenever they feel like striking. 
In other words, they were so near sighted that they paid dues to a union merely for the purpose of getting the union to hook them to an agreement. 

The genuineness of the failing eyesight is evidenced by the fact that those men, after withdrawing from the union and forming an “outlaw” union, are now flirting with the A. F. of L. to get it to tie them to a contract—only to withdraw again and form another “outlaw” . . . 
The blindness is general, and although I’m fully aware of the shenanigan being attempted, I cannot for the life of me see the sense of paying dues, for the privilege of getting hog-tied. 
It is useless to’ tell these blindbirds about the I. W. W.—a union that doesn’t tie its members for the boss. 
They’re blind, I tell you; and the only help for them is eye-glasses—Spectacles!