The duties of a newspaper correspondent are as varied as they
are laborious. He has to rejoice with those who rejoice and sigh
with those who sigh. Your correspondent has had his seasons of
sadness and his moments of mourning, as well as others of the craft
but amidst them all he is buoyed up with the hope that the time
is not far distant when fallen humanity will recognize his
self-sacrificing devotion in its interest and reward him
accordingly.
One of the saddest experiences he has been called upon to undergo
in the discharge of his duties as salaried reporter of the first
paper in the county was that associated with the inquiry into the
causes, that produced the untimely death of poor Carlo, the
faithful guardian of the Times, and whose achievements
in the field of gore you were pleased to chronicle in one of your
late issues.
No more will Carlo bay at the moon at midnight amid a shower of
boot-jacks from the nearest attic window, or hum sweet lulabies
to teething puppies beneath the kitchen range. No longer will the
feline concerts be untimely closed by his unexpected entrance, or
the Thomas cat perched on the gate post, listen with palpitating
heart to the melody of his musical tones.
Never again will he parade our streets in the triumph of victory
with his candal appendage decorated with last years oyster can.
So accustomed had he become, poor fellow, to this sort of past-time
that whenever or wherever he saw a small boy and a tin can, he
immediately backed up to the same, and stood in meek expectancy of
the honored decoration.
An inquest and past mortem by the dogs of the village revealed
the fact that he had not received fair treatment in his late
encounter. At the very moment when Jumbo had formed an
attachment for the back of his neck, his owner, from whom he had
reason to expect better things, seized him from behind and thus
placed him entirely at the mercy of his antagonist.
This was the most unkindest cut of all and in the minds
of the jury, was deserving of the severest censure. The jury
returned a verdict that the deceased came to his death from heart
disease and general debility arising from the want of proper
nourishment, and aggravated by his late encounter with Jumbo.
After the finding of the jury had been concurred in, the assembled
canines performed the last sad rites over the remains of their
champion to the tune of Poor Dog Tray.
With eyes dimmed, with tears and flashing reproachful glances
at the proprietor of the Times, who stood afar off with
conscience stricken mien, that late companions of Poor Carlo dropped
a bone on his sunken bier and with drooped tails and pendent ears
passed through a hole in the fence and left chief constable Wilson
to stand alone as chief mourner. During the solemn ceremony a
black flag hung at half mast in front of the Times
office expressive of public grief at the fate of Carlo.
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