208 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 



majority continues to thrive in a bedlam of 

 street and other sounds well calculated to 

 drive members of any other civilized race 

 to the shelter of the first convenient lunatic 

 asylum. 



The citizens of a certain great city of the 

 Middle West recently demanded that a bell 

 which was about to be cast for one of their 

 public buildings should be, not the most 

 beautiful from an artistic point of view, or 

 the most melodious in tone, but the loiidest 

 ever produced by the hand of man. The 

 national holidays are remarkable principally 

 for noise senseless, rampant noise. The 

 Fourth of July a day surely filled with 

 stirring and solemn memories becomes each 

 year more noted for the encouragement it 

 offers to the American boy to outdo himself 

 in noise and rudeness, and to banal oratory 

 with a voice of brass,, than to the suitable 

 celebration of a tremendous national event. 

 Tin horns, steam-whistles, and fire-crackers 

 are deemed the fittest exponents of a great 

 nation's emotions ; and the musical chimes 

 ushering in a new and untried year are 

 drowned in a clatter which can only be 



