Page:History of Oregon Newspapers.pdf/490

Rh list of passengers on the Columbia for San Francisco; new books at the Portland library; hotel arrivals. The last two columns were taken up with a big ad for Millis Bros. & Co., 126, 127, 190 First street—A New Deal in the Toy Business.

On page 4 the first two columns were miscellaneous clipped matter interesting in varying degree to various groups; then three columns of general news by wire, from America and abroad. Guiteau was on trial for the murder of Garfield and a column was taken up with the testimony of Guiteau on the stand. Then, finally, two columns of advertising.

The paper was doubled in size the next Sunday. The same features were back, and someone else, tempted, no doubt, by the success of the Man About Town, was in with "Trespasses, by Grizzly," humorous stories from around town. An added feature was a column and a half on trotting-horses in Oregon and elsewhere, on page one. There was also a review of inventions—headed "Things That Busy Brains Effect While Sluggards Sleep."

The society column ends with the following dignified note, which, somehow, suggests a male society editor— the rule in those days, as a matter of fact. Here is the last stanza of a six-section ballad from the Toledo Blade which appealed to the society editor for the column:

"They eloped on a clear April night,

When the orchards with blossoms were whight;

Now she cares not for style —

She's been married a whyle,

And is cured of such foolishness quight."

Comics, colored or otherwise, were conspicuously absent in '81. The processes were not yet invented.

The absence of sport features is noticeable. Organized sports were in their infancy.

Naturally there was no automobile department, no aviation department, no radio; no counterpart of the columns devoted to bridge instruction, and no movies or talkies, of course.

A feature of the papers that was popular a generation ago and appears to have faded out, is "Tales of the Streets and Town," gossipy little yarns told to the reporters, most frequently to the hotel man, and served up, usually, as Sunday features. Lute Pease had such a column in the Oregonian in 1905. In one issue he had four rather smart little anecdotes, dealing with persons well known in Portland and over the Northwest. One of these dealt with W. W. Cotton, prominent railroad official, and another played up Leonard Fowler, picturesque editor of a Wenatchee daily (the Republic) in those days. Let's retell the Fowler one, which, perhaps, is better ap