CHEATED OF THE REWARD. By Bill Nye, (In Detriot Free Press.)

Waikato Times, Volume XVIII, Issue 1553, 17 June 1882, Page 2 (Supplement)

CHEATED OF THE REWARD. By Bill Nye, (In Detriot Free Press.)

■ " These Western Territories of the United States have some allfired vioioua and injurious laws," saia a solemn stranger who oftme in to read the President's message And fire » few random shots »t oar office louspidoro. , .. , - " Ton will otrtainly agree with me that many of the crude it»tmes ol the young Commonwealth of Wyoming Territory are weak and iacffioieni, fco say the least, and; many of them oonfliot in a way that makes, ma tired. For instance, the commissioners; of the countries are generally empowered to offer • reward for the persons of murderer* and highway robbers. Generally the law il snch that the murderer may be brought in dead or alive. This made it unpleasant for the commissioners, for they thus beoame a board of stiff-viewers and post-morteni experts, and the office beoame enshrouded in gloom 10 that there wasn't much of a struggle for the position. So anamendmem was made to the law, whieh' provided that i man who wanted • reward on the remains of a bad man could bring in the head in alanott basket and get it hypothecated for- its faoej if you will allow me the expression. • <« I simply refer to this lav in partion!** because I have had some experience with it myself, but there are other statutes in this aonntry that are equally obnoxious. "To return to my subjeot,|however, I wasn't doing muoh two years' ago, and a* there was a reward of 5000dols. on the head of an outlaw that they called Asiatic 0 holer aj who had killed a small village in Arizona, I oonoluded to go and get him and. make some; money out of him. It seems that nobody knew this man's name exactly. They just oalled him Asiatio Oholera because he was so deadly and so uniformly fatal. The oiroum^ stances of his last murder were particularly annoying and exasperating, and. most every 4 one in Arizona felt as though something ought to be done. People felt as though Arizona would never be a State if two or three men tike Asiatic Cholera could go into. a county seat about Iranrise and wipe out a growing city before breakfast. They talked it up and deoided that they oould afford to give; 5000dols. for the head of this man rather than; to have the census of the young territory out down fifty per cent, in one season. What was the use, they argued, to try to call the attention of Eastern capital and emigrants to the boundless wealth and resources of Arizona if two or three bad men could get Into! the community and not leave enough to holler fire. <• So I went down to where Aiiatio had been heard from last, and travelled over the ooun-! try, inoog, as it were. * I disguised myself as 1 a crank, and leotured all through the Southwest on phrenology and how to win the affeo-i tions of the oppoiite sex. " Well, I lectured to crowded houses and pawed the bumps of everybody I could find till the middle ol: August betoro I struck Asiatic. One night I was lecturing at a little camp they called ' The New Made Grave." I saw Asiatio in the back part of the room when I commenced lecturing,' ■ and bo got ready for the bump feeling! exerciee right away. Asiatio seemed a little reticent about having any experiments made on his head, but I asked if the' embryo statesman on the back seat did not desire to have his intel- 1 leotual ranche gnawed over and that fetched him. 1 rattled on at some length giving him a pretty good game till; I got down to alimentiveneSß when I slid a' No. 44 out of my pocket wrapped up in a' red handkerchie and made a large irregular aperture through the organ called; love of home, " That closed the exercises for the evening. •' The audierce were delighted. They, never had attended a phrenological lecture that introduced so much variety and sueh 1 pleasing illustrations. " They wanted me to lecture the nexfc evening, and examine the head of a holy terror there named Yellow Fever Burns, but as there was no reward on him I did not prospeot him phrenologically. "The following day I put the still, calm features of Asiatic Cholera ia a salt bag and started for home. The weather was very hob and riding a broncho all day iv an Arizona sun with the intellectual dome of a criminal on the pommel Jof the saddle gebs wearisome after a while, so I got drowsy, and going up a little canyon I fell off my horse. He was a little skittish any, way, and rather coy and reluctant about being caught, co I chased him about 2SO milea I guess before I caught him. Unfortunately, the 250 miles were not in the direction X wanted to go, so that when I got to the courthouse and presented the* partial remains of Asiatic Cholera to the board, the chairman jumped through the window, and the other members had to be resuscitated with 3 dollars worth of whisky. Asiatic Cholera, from a red-headed blonde, had changed to a pronounced brunette of about the Blind Tom school, and had a fixed smilo on his face that you oould shut your eyes and see for years afterward. " Death hadn't seemed to tone down his rough, coarse features very muoh. I can't tell you exaotly how he lopked, I haven't the ability or the space, but there was a charm about it that made a drivelling idiot of the Chairman of the Board of County Commissioners and the hair in an old haircloth mattress down stairs, though originally as black as jet, turn white in a single night. Still the Chairman had lucid in-, tervals after that. During one of these sane moments he disallowed my olaim for? 5000 dols. on tbe ground that the head presented could not ba identified as that of Asiatio Cholera. " That is why I claim that the law in the West should be changed, and a regular county taxidermist elected every two years, whose duty ib should be to taxiderin the heads of prize murderers, etc, and that he should be required to -furnish at least ten specimens to the county museum each year, mounted in good shepa for preservation. " The old style of preserving dead road agents in a pail of brine, pending a session of the commissioners is gradually losing public favour, and will scon become obsolete."