RK-664

317

[printed] Mississippi and Missouri Rail Road Co. GENERAL TICKET AGENT'S OFFICE,

Chicago, [handwritten] Dec 19th [printed] 185 [handwritten] 8

Dear Old Don Bobus:

A letter from Your good pater nal, received yesterday, furnishing me with a motive, other than the ordinary one, - behold me attempting the epistolary. Old Brown, Cobb - or whatever benevolent old Casley it is that has charge of such arangments, who recommends elevating the rates of letter postage deserves to be canonized! He's a brick of the reddest kind & hardest bake. What a blessing it would be now if it cost as much to send a letter to that polit ical Sodom & Gomorrah

whose character reflects such lustre & dignity on the name of the old Pater Patria, and from which you date your duties-to-society - what a godsend if it cost as much as a dinner or a concert ticket. Of course, you know, no one would exceptpect any one else to throw away the price of a "dozen on the half shell", or a woodcock & the relief, on such nonsense as this I'm writing; and what a blessing to chaps like myself, to whom a too partial nature has denied the gift of letter-writing, and who never mount a pen the a sheet of letter paper but the pen takes the ink in its teeth and runs away - with him me on a genuine John Gilpin

gallop back & forth past the Edmonton, of my subject, in such a guise that the behold er, if not immensely tickled is apt to be hugely disgusted

However we cannot all be Model Letter Writers, fortunate ly for the lawyers & publishers. - and as for myself there is so much else lacking in me, that the Micawberish verbosity of my correspondence stands a fair chance of being overlooked, except by such minute philosophers as yourself, whose researches in Entom ology may aid you in classify ing my letters under that very useful & comprehensive word which Webster has seen fit, (so I am told, - I've never had curiosty enough to examine) to ignore.

2

[printed] Mississippi and Missouri Rail Road Co. GENERAL TICKET AGENT'S OFFICE, Chicago, 185

If I knew the exact value you placed on the enclosed list, which votre pere requested me to send you, I should be be better able to judge how much of this I might be am justified in inflicting upon you; - but as "doubtful things are mighty onsartain", to give you the multurn in paroe of the Bunsbian philosophy, I shall give my pen, like any other culprit, the benefit of a doubt, and let it run on till the supper-bell rings, anyhow. You are not entirely defenceless you know; if like Cobb's tales it's too much for you to swallow at once, take it in serial form - From the one or two dockyments of your's, with a glance at which

I have been favored, I under stand you are fond of "gossip", and I may make some amends by detailing some of the current events hereaway - as they occur to me. You have of course heard of the assignment of the Press & Tribune Consolidated - Part of the concerted scheme of Joe Medill's & Doc Ray's, in my opinion. The Trib. folks were doing well but wished the com'l reputation of the Press & so consolidated with a concern over head & ears in debt. The first move was to get rid of Spears, which they have done. Then by assigning they caused Deacon Rross to fail and the current on dit is that the latter will step out of the convern in Jan'y. & that the paper will soon be publish ed as the Chi Daily Tribune again with the old proprietors - having dis-