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Show I GD Years Ag TMay Making the Fourth a sparkling success Prince or Count have donned a clean shirt or some other garment," the Record noted acidly. "Foreign news must be getting scarce to notice such little things, and yet such items are so edifying to the American public, you know." While men's tempers were flaring because of the women's wo-men's rights meetings being ...held, by . Susan B. Anthony , and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, things were warming up The biggest news in the June 30, 1883 issue of the Park Mining Record was the upcoming celebration of the Fourth of July. The newspaper news-paper offered this advice to Parkites on how they might make the day a sparkling success: "Yes, give the boys a chance. The Fourth comes Wednesday next and every man and boy will want to-be as patriotic as his neigfibor, and a little more so, if possible. He may want his skyrocket to go higher, his Roman candle to send forth brighter and more variegated varie-gated colors, or his firecrackers fire-crackers to snap louder; and perhaps he would like to have the colors of his flag shine brighter, and attract general attention as he carries it through the streets, or have his horses's heads adorned with them. In fact, if you want to excel your neighbor in every respect when you celebrate, and do not understand under-stand just exactly how to do it, listen a moment and we will give you the secret. Take your change and tie it in one corner of your pocket handkerchief, hand-kerchief, put the handkerchief handker-chief in your pistol pocket, (all good little boys have one, the men can do likewise), and make a beeline for Keeler's News Depot. Do not stop at a Chinaman's shop, if you do, your"patriotism will be no more enthusiastic than your neighbor." Once the selection of fireworks has been made, the Record suggested, "sail out into the street and turn the American Eagle loose, and if he does not fly higher and scream louder than your neighbor's who bought it off a Chinaman, and not as cheap as Keeler's goods, then simply remark . that our revelation was premature." An advertisement in that week's issue boldly proclaimed pro-claimed the upcoming spectacle spec-tacle at the 59th Annual Tour of John Robinson, which boasted of 10 BIG SHOWS COMBINED, including menagerie, museum, a-viary, a-viary, aquarium, Egyptian caravan, School of Trained animals, calisthentics, exhibition ex-hibition and Strictly Moral Circuses Requiring and using three separate and distinct tents. Children and adults alike anxiously awaited the arrival ar-rival of the circus, which headlined a woman who "astonishes the public by riding a velocipede over an almost invisible wire stretched nearly 100 feet in midair." As readers paged through the newspaper and made mental notes of the parades, picnics, games and circus planned, news of a more sobering note must have caught their eyes. Dispatches Dis-patches from across the nation lamented the damages dam-ages caused during the season of excessive rain and severe flooding. In just three townships in St. Louis, more than 7,000 acres of farmland were destroyed, while Pennsylvania's Penn-sylvania's city of Wilkes-barre Wilkes-barre was plagued with cave-ins that threatened stretches of the Delaware and Hudson railroad line. Other news included that of a "colored" cadet who had been admitted to the West Point Academy. "People are anxious to know whether he will chop off his ears and mutilate himself like Cadet Whittaker did a few years ago," the Record noted soberly. A more lighthearted story reported that Prince Bismark was suffering with pains in his side. "We shall next hear of some European dignitary having his toenails toe-nails trimmed on a certain day, or that the Queen, Czar, near Salt Lake City, too. "Ogdenites are to be pitied," claimed the Record. "When the thermometer records 104 in the shade, how hot can it be in a Mormon five-ply harem?" The Record was constantly offering editorial advice, including how to deal with the Indians. The paper noted that an epidemic of yellow fever had hit Havana, Cuba. "Why not send Apache raiders to Havana?" asked the Record. "It would forever for-ever settle the question of what shall be done with them, and they would be a light expense to the Government Govern-ment as their carcasses would furnish excellent food for the sharks that prey around the shores of Cuba." |