KinSource - Tale of the Week - Just Couldn't Help It

KinSource

Minnesota Tales

The St. Paul Daily Globe, October 11, 1895, p. 8

JUST COULDN'T HELP IT.

Why C. J. Clark Followed Mrs. Stella Brown.

In the municipal court, yesterday, C. J. Clark, colored, a Pullman car conductor, appeared as the hero of "The Love Chase." He was charged with allowing himself to become so seriously smitten with the graces of Mrs. Stella Brown that he formally introduced himself to her at Seventh and Cedar streets, was rejected with Alaskan hauteur, smothered a sigh of anguish, and lingering in her footsteps until she took a street car going west at Wabasha and Seventh. "Beauty leads us by a single hair," were the words of Attorney McGhee, who tried to prove that Mr. Clark could not help taking his bleeding heart aboard the car graced by the presence of the eyes whence shot the fatal arrow. Mr. McGhee proved by the united decisions of Judges Moore, Byron and Swinburne that it was equally impossible for the stricken Mr. Clark to avoid [alighting] at Tuscarora street simultaneously with the cause of his anguish. Nor indeed was it strange that he pleaded in vain for one little, little word. The remarkable feature of the transaction was that Officer Smith should have arrested Clark on the charge of annoying a lady in the street. Mr. Clark ceased sighing yesterday morning long enough to deposit $100 bail. Attorney McGhee will fortify his legal position this morning with two songs of Beranger and a selection from Martin Farquar Tupper.

John Mullery, a lather who lives with his widowed mother on Pennsylvania avenue, was yesterday sent to the workhouse for sixty days. His mother alleges that John's filial devotion is displayed by his spending all his money for whisky and refusing to contribute anything towards the support or comfort of his mother.

John Gralich was again charged with drunkenness and sent to Como for sixty days. John has seldom become intoxicated, although might keep closer to the straight and narrow path were he not confused by the aberrations of his wooden leg.