The Arizona Kicker.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1024, 16 October 1891, Page 12

The Arizona Kicker.

We take the following extracts from the last issue of the Arizona Ricker : Why we Laugh. One of the funniest things that ever occurred in this town was pulled off in good shape Tuesday afternoon. On Monday we got a keg of red ink from Chicago, being the first thing of the sort ever seen in this pait of Arizona. Our esteemed contemporary down the street has had a great many things to bear from us, and the red ink was the last straw. He sent us word that he intended to shoot us on sight, but we’d forgotten about it when we started for the post-office at 3 o’clock. As we passed Santa Fe alley we heard a pistol go off, followed by several successive reports, but as there was nothing unusual in a fusilade of that sort we kept on. It was not until we had entered the post-office that Col. Irwin came running in to inform ns that we had been shot at. It seems that our esteemed contemporary ambushed us at the alley and fired his first shot. Then he followed on and piugged away five times more without our suspecting it, and finding he could not accomplish anything he sat down on a barrel and cried like a boy. When we undei-stood the case we went back and offered to stand against the wall and let him pop away for half a day, but he went off in a petulant spirit without even thanking us. Poor old daddy ! A Word to Major Jones. We unierstand that Major Jones is making it his business to circulate around town and tell everybody that we have decided not to run for Mayor, even if the nomination were offered us by acclamation. In telling this the Major lies and knows he lies ! No one has authorised him to make any such statements, and he is actuated only by the basest motives. We not only want the nomination, but we want to be elected, and we shall work tooth and toenail to get her. A word with you, Major: If, after .your attention has been ca'led to this notice, you persist in your malicious conduct, we shall take it as a personal insult. That is, we shall strap on our gun and meander around town, and as we meander we shall look for you. If you get the drop on us we shan’t kick, but if you don’t you better have instructions already written out as to where you want to be buried. It’s Our Way. There are over two hundred subscriber's on our books who are owing us for two years’ subscription. Most of these are Eastern people who have been accustomed to paying for their paper about once in fifty years. It will probably astonish them to know that we run things on a different basis out here. We don’t want to be too sudden with them, and therefore announce that this notice is only preparatory. During

tli© next thirty days the delinquents can settle up with hay, oats, corn, live stock, barbed wire, hides, pelts, whisky, tobacco, or most anything else. After that wo shall mount our mule and look up the rest of them, and we shall decline to be held responsible for results. Explanatory. We understand that Col. Childers is making a great blow around town about the little affair of last Saturday, and that he has induced some of our best citizens to believo that wo attempted to assassinate him. While wo have lived here too long for any solid business man to believe any such tiling of us, an explanation is perhaps duo to all parties. The Colonel’s wife is a poetess. That is, she Ims copied poetry/from standard poets, and brought it to us as original, and it has been published as such in Tl:e Kicker. On several occasions we have suspected that all was not right, but we are kind-hearted and willing to give a poetess a show. Saturday morning she brought in a poem, entitled ‘The Old Oaken Bucket.’ We thought we’d heard of it somewhere but she assured us that it was strictly original. She hadn’t been gone half an hour when our literary editor, who also thought he’d heard of such a poem, found that our suspicions were correct. The poetess had stolen the whole thing. The Colonel happened to be passing by and we called him in and broke the news as gently as possible. He flew mad in a moment and attempted to draw on us. It turned out, however, that he had left his gun at home, and we held him up against the wall, and slit his right ear and let him go. This is a plain and honest statement of all the facts, and we challenge denial.