﻿It’s Like This 

By T-BONE SLIM 

It is said snuff drives a person crazy. How well I know it! My snuff-box has been empty these many days and if any man is batty, it’s I’m. 

Now, I’ve used it fifty years and if it drives a man nuts, how about some of these farmers around here? They must have used it 150 years . . . ? 
(But that isn’t why I haven’t been writing much, lately.) 
It’s like this: 
My old fractured ribs are bothering me again to such an extent that I can scarce hold a pencil beween my toes. You see, a few years ago I had some heavy lifting to do and you know when I get “hold of a thing” something must give—It did. It was my ribs. My short ribs, front and back. My partner here has a theory my ribs are all right but are starting to cave because I have failed to keep a proper amount of stuffing behind ‘em, vitamins, etc., and are starting to buckle-up for that reason — 
Reason? —why, that’s unreasonable. 

A certain uneasiness is pervading the chests of our crack writers in this land of greatest wealth —Hearst papers are no longer hollering for additional immigration but are on the contrary offering their properties to stockholders, via, also, the curb market — (Chi. “Herald-Examiner.” N. Y “Americar” qot mentioned; in rural districts of the Omaha “Bee”) This uneasiness is a natural condition although lacking the proper “horsepower” that would be present had the crack writers gone without their daily rations and had they left their three daily hungers. 
Therefore his somewhat tardy uneasiness stands out as a mere shadow temporarily crossing the horizon of their consciousness. The real, genuine uneasiness rests temporarily secure within the hearts of Mr. Hearst’s countrymen —how long it will remain secure is a question that may well inspire our crack writers to greater realization of the calamities that an almost upon us—are upon us. There being no call at present for more “assimilable foreigners.” Finns, Swedes, Danes, Norwegians, Germans, French etc., the assumption we have all the foreigners we can skin profitably at this time, and that our skinners must remove their o[a]tfits to lands that are capable of supporting the “to be skinned” until the peaceful penetra[tor] is a fact—and the hide is safely removed and strung on the fence. 
There is a certain popularity about the skinning process that makes it an even present nightmare to all skin-bearing animals. Whether the critter has much or little epidermis there’s always a long row of skinners whetting their knives (in plain sight and casting appraising eyes at the sunkissed coat of pores . . . Not infrequently a skinner himself is horrified to recognize his own hide decorating the bulwarks of privacy and breastworks of spite . . .Not a hide seems secure (in it’s original location) in these days of super-civilization and civilized brainlessness . . . 
Existence under a program of fears! Progres tempered with worry and tears! 
— T-b. S.