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Intimate
Relationships
NINTH EDITION
Rowland S. Miller
Sam Houston State University
Published by McGraw Hill LLC, 1325 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10121. Copyright ©2022
by McGraw Hill LLC. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Previous editions
©2018, 2015, and 2012. No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by
any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written consent of McGraw Hill
LLC, including, but not limited to, in any network or other electronic storage or transmission, or
broadcast for distance learning.
Some ancillaries, including electronic and print components, may not be available to customers outside
the United States.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 LCR 26 25 24 23 22 21
All credits appearing on page or at the end of the book are considered to be an extension of the
copyright page.
The Internet addresses listed in the text were accurate at the time of publication. The inclusion of a
website does not indicate an endorsement by the authors or McGraw Hill LLC, and McGraw Hill LLC
does not guarantee the accuracy of the information presented at these sites.
mheducation.com/highered
PREFACE ix
ABOUT THE AUTHOR xii
2. Research Methods 59
the short history of relationship science 60
developing a question 64
obtaining participants 64
choosing a design 68
the nature of our data 70
the ethics of such endeavors 76
iii
3. Attraction 87
the fundamental basis of attraction 87
proximity: liking those near us 88
physical attractiveness: liking those who are lovely 94
reciprocity: liking those who like us 105
similarity: liking those who are like us 107
so, what do men and women want? 116
for your consideration 119
key terms 119
chapter summary 119
suggestions for satisfaction 121
references 121
5. Communication 179
nonverbal communication 181
verbal communication 193
dysfunctional communication and what to do about it 203
for your consideration 209
key terms 209
chapter summary 209
suggestions for satisfaction 211
references 211
6. Interdependency 221
social exchange 221
the economies of relationships 229
are we really this greedy? 241
the nature of commitment 249
for your consideration 254
key terms 255
chapter summary 255
suggestions for satisfaction 257
references 257
7. Friendship 266
the nature of friendship 266
friendship across the life cycle 275
differences in friendship 279
friendship difficulties 285
for your consideration 295
key terms 296
chapter summary 296
suggestions for satisfaction 297
references 298
8. Love 308
a brief history of love 308
types of love 310
individual and cultural differences in love 327
does love last? 331
for your consideration 335
key terms 336
chapter summary 336
suggestions for satisfaction 337
references 337
9. Sexuality 343
sexual attitudes 343
sexual behavior 348
sexual satisfaction 366
sexual coercion 374
for your consideration 377
key terms 377
chapter summary 377
suggestions for satisfaction 379
references 379
Welcome to Intimate Relationships! I’m very pleased that you’re here. I’ve been deeply
honored by the high regard this book has enjoyed, and I’m privileged to offer you
another very thorough update on the remarkable work being done in relationship
science. The field is busier, broader, and more innovative than ever, so a new edition
is warranted—and this one contains almost 800 citations of brand-new work published
in the last 3 years. No other survey of relationship science is as current, comprehen-
sive, and complete.
Readers report that you won’t find another textbook that’s as much fun to read,
either. I’m more delighted by that than I can easily express. This is a scholarly work
primarily intended to provide college audiences with broad coverage of an entire field
of inquiry, but it’s written in a friendly, accessible style that gets students to read
chapters they haven’t been assigned—and that’s a real mark of success! But really,
that’s also not surprising because so much of relationship science is so fascinating.
No other science strikes closer to home. For that reason, and given its welcoming,
reader-friendly style, this book has proven to be of interest to the general public, too.
(As my father said, “Everybody should read this book.”)
So, here’s a new edition. It contains whole chapters on key topics that other books
barely mention and has a much wider reach, citing hundreds more studies, than other
books do. It draws on social psychology, communication studies, family studies,
sociology, clinical psychology, neuroscience, demography, economics, and more. It’s
much more current and comprehensive and more fun to read than any other overview
of the modern science of close relationships. Welcome!
ix
friendly and to make some key points (and because I can’t help myself). I relish the
opportunity to introduce this dynamic, exciting science to a newcomer—what a remark-
able privilege!—and readers report that it shows.
Finally, this new edition is again available as a digital SmartBook that offers a
personalized and adaptive reading experience. Students do better when their text tells
them which concepts are giving them trouble, so if you haven’t examined the Smart-
Book for Intimate Relationships, I encourage you to do so.
Kudos and fond remembrance are due to Sharon Stephens Brehm, the original
creator of this book, who was the first person to write a text that offered a compre-
hensive introduction to relationship science. Her contributions to our field endure. And
despite the passage of some years, I remain deeply grateful to Dan Perlman, the co-
author who offered me the opportunity to join him in crafting a prior edition. No
colleague could be more generous. I’ve also been grateful during this edition for the
wonderful support and assistance of editorial and production professionals, Elisa
Odoardi, Susan Raley, Carrie Burger, Beth Blech, Danielle Clement, Maria McGreal,
and Jitendra Uniyal. Thanks, y’all!
And I’m glad you’re here! I hope you enjoy the book.
The 9th edition of Intimate Relationships is now available online with Connect,
McGraw-Hill Education’s integrated assignment and assessment platform. Connect also
offers SmartBook® 2.0 for the new edition, which is the first adaptive reading experi-
ence proven to improve grades and help students study more effectively. All of the title’s
website and ancillary content is also available through Connect, including:
• A full Test Bank of multiple choice questions that test students on central concepts
and ideas in each chapter.
• An Instructor’s Manual for each chapter with full chapter outlines, sample test
questions, and discussion topics.
• Lecture Slides for instructor use in class.
xii
Writing Assignment
Available within McGraw-Hill Connect® and McGraw-Hill Connect® Master, the Writing
Assignment tool delivers a learning experience to help students improve their written
communication skills and conceptual understanding. As an instructor you can assign,
monitor, grade, and provide feedback on writing more efficiently and effectively.
O
NCE, when a section-crew came down the mountain on the
South Park road, from Alpine Tunnel to Buena Vista, a very
singular thing occurred, which has never been given to the
public. Every one who knows anything at all, knows that riding down
that mountain on a push-car, descending at the rate of over 200 feet
to the mile, means utter destruction, unless the brake is on. This
brake is nothing more nor less then a piece of scantling, which is
applied between one of the wheels and the car-bed, in such a way
as to produce great friction.
The section-crew referred to, got on at Hancock with their bronzed
and glowing hides as full of arsenic and rain-water as they could
possibly hold. Being recklessly drunk, they enjoyed the accumulated
velocity of the car wonderfully, until the section boss lost the break
off the car, and then there was a slight feeling of anxiety. The car at
last acquired a velocity like that of a young and frolicsome bob-tailed
comet turned loose in space. The boys began to get nervous at last,
and asked each other what should be done.
There seemed to be absolutely nothing to do but to shoot onward
into the golden presently.
All at once the section boss thought of something. He was drunk,
but the deadly peril of the moment suggested an idea. There was a
rope on the car which would do to tie to something heavy and cast
off for an anchor. The idea was only partially successful, however, for
there was nothing to tie to but a spike hammer. This was tried but it
wouldn't work. Then it was decided to tie it to some one of the crew
and cast him loose in order to save the lives of those who remained.
It was a glorious opportunity. It was a heroic thing to do. It was like
Arnold Winklered's great sacrifice, by which victory was gained by
filling his own system full of lances and making a toothpick holder of
himself, in order that his comrades might break through the ranks of
their foes.
George O'Malley, the section boss, said that he was willing that
Patsy McBride should snatch the laurels from outrageous fortune and
bind them on his brow, but Mr. McBride said he didn't care much for
the encomiums of the world. He hadn't lost any encomiums, and
didn't want to trade his liver for two dollars' worth of damaged
laurels.
Everyone declined. All seemed willing to go down into history
without any ten-line pay-local, and wanted someone else to get the
effulgence. Finally, it was decided that a man by the name of
Christian Christianson was the man to tie to. He had the asthma
anyhow, and life wasn't much of an object to him, so they said that,
although he declined, he must take the nomination, as he was in the
hands of his friends.
So they tied the rope around Christian and cast anchor.
******
The car slowed up and at last stopped still. The plan had
succeeded. Five happy wives greeted their husbands that night as
they returned from the jaws of destruction. Christian Christianson
did not return. The days may come and the days may go, but
Christian's wife will look up toward the summit' of the snow-crowned
mountains in vain.
He will never entirely return. He has done so partially, of course,
but there are still missing fragments of him, and it looks as though
he must have lost his life.
WHY WE SHED THE SCALDING.
I
N justice to ourself we desire to state that the Cheyenne Sun
has villified us and placed us in a false position before the
public. It has stated that while at Rock Creek station, in the
early part of the week, we were taken for a peanutter, and otherwise
ill-treated at the railroad eating corral and omelette emporium, and
that in consequence of such treatment we shed great scalding tears
as large as watermelons. This is not true. We did shed the tears as
above set forth, but not because of ill-treatment on the part of the
eating-house proprietor.
It was the presence of death that broke our heart and opened the
fountains of our great deep, so to speak. When we poured the
glucose syrup on our pancakes, the stiff and cold remains of a large
beetle and two cunning little twin cockroaches fell out into our plate,
and lay there hushed in an eternal repose.
Death to us is all powerful. The King of Terrors is to us the mighty
sovereign before whom we must all bow, from the mighty emperor
down to the meanest slave, from the railroad superintendent, riding
in his special car, down to the humblest humorist, all alike must
some day curl up and die. This saddens us at all times, but more
peculiarly so when Death, with his relentless lawn mower, has
gathered in the young and innocent. This was the case where two
little twin cockroaches, whose lives had been unspotted, and whose
years had been unclouded by wrong and selfishness, were called
upon to meet death together. In the stillness of the night, when
others slept, these affectionate little twins crept into the glucose
syrup and died.
We hope no one will misrepresent this matter. We did weep, and
we are not ashamed to own it. We sat there and sobbed until the
tablecloth was wet for four feet, and the venerable ham was floating
around in tears. It was not for ourself, however, that we wept. No
unkindness on the part of an eating-house ever provoked such a
tornado of woe. We just weep when we see death and are brought
in close contact with it. And we were not the only one that shed
tears. Dickinson and Warren wept, strong men as they were. Even
the butter wept. Strong as it was it could not control its emotions.
We don't very often answer a newspaper attack, but when we are
accused of weeping till people have to take off their boots and wring
out their socks, we want the public to know what it is for.
ANOTHER SUGGESTION.
W
E were surprised and grieved to see, on Monday evening, a
man in the dress circle at the performance of Hazel Kirke at
Blackburn's Grand Opera House, who had communed with
the maddening bowl till he was considerably elated. When Pitticus
made a good hit, or Hazel struck a moist lead, and everybody wept
softly on the carpet, this man furnished a war-whoop that not only
annoyed the audience, but seemed also to break up the actors a
little. Later, he got more quiet, and at last went to sleep and slid out
of his chair on the floor. It is such little episodes as these that make
strangers dissatisfied with the glorious west. When you go to see
something touchful on the stage, you do not care to have your finer
feelings ruffled by the yells of a man who has got a corner on
delirium tremens.
It is also humiliating to our citizens to be pulled up off the floor by
the coat-collar and steered out the door by a policeman.
We hope that as progress is more plainly visible in Wyoming, and
as we get more and more refined, such things will be of less and
less frequent occurrence, till a man can go to see a theatrical
performance with just as much comfort as he would in New York and
other eastern towns.
Another point while we are discussing the performance of Hazel
Kirke. There were some present on Monday night, sitting hack in the
third balcony, who need a theatrical guide to aid them in discovering
which are the places to weep and which to gurgle.
It was a little embarrassing to Miss Ellsler to make a grand
dramatic hit that was supposed to yank loose a freshet of woe, to be
greeted with a snort of demoniac laughter from the rear of the
grand opera house.
It seemed to unnerve her and surprise her, but she kept her
balance and her head. When death and ruin, and shame and
dishonor, were pictured in their tragic horror, the wild, unfettered
humorist of a crude civilization fairly yelled with delight. He thought
that the tomb and such things were intended to be synonymous with
the minstrel show and the circus. He thought that old Dunstan Kirke
was there with his sightless eyes to give Laramie the grandest,
riproaringest tempest of mirth that she had ever experienced. That
is why we say that we will never have a successful performance in
the theatrical line, till some of this class are provided with laugh-
and-cry guide books.
PISCATORIAL AND EDITORIAL
A
CORRESPONDENT of the New York Post says that the codfish
frequents "the table lands of the sea." The codfish, no doubt,
does this to secure as nearly as possible a dry, bracing
atmosphere. This pure air of the submarine table lands gives to the
codfish that breadth of chest and depth of lungs which we have
always noticed.
The glad, free smile of the codfish is largely attributed to the
exhilaration of this oceanic altitoodleum.
The correspondent further says, that "the cod subsists largely on
the sea cherry." Those who have not had the pleasure of seeing the
codfish climb the sea cherry tree in search of food, or clubbing the
fruit from the heavily-laden branches with chunks of coral, have
missed a very fine sight.
The codfish, when at home rambling through the submarine
forests, does not wear his vest unbuttoned, as he does while loafing
around the grocery stores of the United States.
ANOTHER FEATHERED SONGSTER
A
FORT STEELE taxidermist has presented this office with a
stuffed bird of prey about nine feet high, which we have put
up in The Boomerang office, and hereby return thanks for. It
is a kind of a cross between a dodo and a meander-up-the-creek. Its
neck is long, like the right of way to a railway, and its legs need
some sawdust to make them look healthy. Those who subscribe for
the paper, can look at this great work of art free.
This bird is noted for its brief and horizontal alimentary canal. It
has no devious digestive arrangements, but contents itself with an
economical and unostentatious trunk-line of digestion so simple that
any child can understand it. He (or she, as the case may be) in his
(or her) stocking feet can easily look over into next fall, and when
standing in our office, peers down at us from over the stove-pipe in
a reproachful way that fills us with remorse.
We have labeled it "The Democrat Wading Up Salt Creek" and filed
it away near the skull of an Indian that we killed years ago when we
got mad and wiped out a whole tribe. The geological name of this
bird we do not at this moment recall, but it is one of those
sorrowful-looking fowls that stick their legs out behind when they fly,
and are not good for food.
Parties wishing to see the bird, and subscribe for the Home
Journal can obtain an audience by kicking three times on the last
hall door on the left and throwing two dollars through the transom.
ABOUT THE OSTRICH
T
HERE is some prospect of ostrich farming developing into
quite an industry in the southwest, and it will sometime be a
cold day when the simple-minded rustic of that region will not
have ostrich on toast if he wants it. Ostrich farming, however, will
always have its drawbacks. The hen ostrich is not a good layer as a
rule, only laying two eggs per annum, which, being about the size of
a porcelain wash bowl, make her so proud that she takes the
balance of the year for the purpose of convalescing.
The ostrich is chiefly valuable for the plumage which he wears,
and which, when introduced into the world of commerce, makes the
husband almost wish that he were dead.
Probably the ostrich will not come into general use as an article of
food, few people caring for it, as the meat is coarse, and the gizzard
full of old hardware, and relics of wrecked trains and old irons left
where there has been a fire.
Carving the ostrich is not so difficult as carving the quail, because
the joints are larger and one can find them with less trouble. Still,
the bird takes up a great deal of room at the table, and the best
circles are not using them.
The ostrich does not set She don't have time. She does not squat
down over something and insist on hatching it out if it takes all
summer, but she just lays a couple of porcelain cuspidors in the hot
sand when she feels like it, and then goes away to the seaside to
quiet her shattered nerves.
TOO MUCH GOD AND NO FLOUR.
O
LD CHIEF POCOTELLO, now at the Fort Hall agency, in
answer to an inquiry relative to the true Christian character
of a former Indian agent at that place, gave in very terse
language the most accurate description of a hypocrite that was ever
given to the public. "Ugh! Too much God and no flour."
WE ARE GETTING CYNICAL
I
T begins to look now as though Major F. G. Wilson, who stopped
here a short time last week and week before, might be a
gentleman in disguise. He has done several things since he left
here, that look to a man up a tree like something irregular and
peculiar. The major has not only prevaricated, but he has done so in
such a way as to beat his friends and to make them yearn for his
person in order that they may kick him over into the inky night of
space. He has represented himself as confidential adviser and
literary tourist of several prominent New York, Chicago, Omaha and
Tie Siding dailies, and had such good documents to show in proof of
his identity in that capacity that he has received many courtesies
which, as an ordinary American dead-beat, he might have
experienced great difficulty in securing. We simply state this in order
to put our esteemed contemporaries on their guard, so that they will
not let him spit in their overshoes and enjoy himself as he did here.
He wears a white hat on his head and a crooked tooth in the piazza
of his mouth. This pearly fang he uses to masticate and reduce little
delicate irregular fragments of plug tobacco, which he borrows of
people who have time to listen to the silvery tinkle of his bazoo.
When last seen he was headed west, and will probably strike
Eureka, Nevada, in a week or two. His mission seems to be mainly to
make people feel a goneness in their exchequer, and to distribute
tobacco dados over the office stoves of our great land. He is a man
who writes long letters to the New York Herald that are never
printed. His freshly blown nose is red, but his newspaper articles are
not. He claims to represent the Mutual Reserve Fund Life Association
lately, too. The company represents the Insurance and he attends to
the Mutual Reserve Fund. He has mutually reserved all the funds he
could get hold of since he struck the west, besides mutually
reserving enough strong drink to eat a hole through the Ames
monument.
Such men as Major Wilson make us suspicious of humanity, and
very likely the next man who comes along here and represents that
he is a great man, and wants five dollars on his well-rounded figure
and fair fame will have to be identified. We have helped forty or fifty
such men to make a bridal tour of Wyoming and now we are going
to saw off and quit. When a great journalist comes into this office
again with an internal revenue tax on his breath and nineteen dollars
back on his baggage, we will probably pick up a fifty pound chunk of
North Park quartz and spread his intellectual faculties around this
building till it looks like the Custer massacre.
ASK US SOMETHING DIFFICULT.
W
HAT becomes of our bodies?" asks a soft eyed scientist,
and we answer in stentorian tones, that they get inside of a
red flannel undershirt as the maple turns to crimson and
the sassafras to gold. Ask us something difficult, ethereal being, if
you want to see us get up and claw for our library of public
documents.
A MINING EXPERIMENT
A
MILD-EYED youth, wearing a dessert-spoon hat and polka-dot
socks, went into Middle Park the other day and claimed to be
a mining expert. The boys inveigled him into driving a stick of
giant powder into a drill-hole at the bottom of a shaft with an old
axe, and now they are trying to get him out of the ground with
ammonia and a tooth-brush.
A NEW INDUSTRY.
T
HE want column of the Chicago News for October 10th has the
following: "Twelve frightful examples' wanted, to travel with
Scott Marble's new drama and appear in the realistic bar-room
scene of the 'Drunkard's Daughter.' Arthur G. Cambridge, dramatic
agent, 75 South Clark street."
This throws open a field of usefulness to a class of men who
hitherto have seen no prospect whatever for the future. It brings
within the reach of such men a business which, requiring no capital,
still gives the actor much time to do as he chooses. Beauty often
wins for itself a place in the great theatrical world, but it is rare that
the tomato nose and the watery eye secure a salary for their
proprietors. Business must be picking up when the wiggly legs and
danger-signal nose will bring so much per week and railroad fare.
Perhaps prohibition has got the "frightful example" business down to
where it commands the notice of the world because of its seldom
condition.
THE MIMIC STAGE.
A
T the performance of "The Phoenix" here, the other night,
there was a very affecting place where the play is transferred
very quickly from a street scene to the elegant apartments of
Mr. Blackburn, the heavy villain. The street scene had to be raised
out of the way, and the effect of the transition was somewhat
marred by the reluctance of the scenery in rolling up out of the way.
It got about half way up, and stopped there in an undecided
manner, which annoyed the heavy villain a good deal. He started to
make some blood-curdling remarks about Mr. Bludsoe, and had got
pretty well warmed up when the scenery came down with a bang on
the stage. The artist who pulls up the curtain and fills the hall lamps,
then pulled the scene up so as to show the villain's feet for fifteen or
twenty minutes, but he couldn't get it any farther. It seemed that the
clothes line, by which the elaborate scenery is operated, got tangled
up some way, and this caused the delay. After that another effort
was made, and this time the street scene rolled up to about the third
story of a brick hotel shown in the foreground, and stopped there,
while the clarionet and first violin continued a kind of sad tremulo.
Then a dark hand, with a wart on one finger and an oriental dollar
store ring on another, came out from behind the wings and began to
wind the clothes-line carefully around the pole at the foot of the
scene. The villain then proceeded with his soliloquy, while the street
scene hung by one corner in such a way as to make a large
warehouse on the corner of the street stand at an angle of about
forty-five degrees.
Laramie will never feel perfectly happy until these little hitches are
dispensed with. Supposing that at some place in the play, where the
heroine is speaking soft and low to her lover and the proper moment
has arrived for her to pillow her sunny head upon his bosom, that
street scene should fetch loose, and come down with such
momentum as to knock the lovers over into the arms of the bass-viol
player. Or suppose that in some death-bed act this same scene,
loaded with a telegraph pole at the bottom, should settle down all at
once in such a way as to leave the death-bed out on the corner of
Monroe and Clark streets, in front of a candy store.
Modern stage mechanism has now reached such a degree of
perfection that the stage carpenter does not go up on a step ladder,
in the middle of a play, and nail the corner of a scene to a stick of
2x4 scantling, while a duel is going on near the step ladder. In all the
larger theatres and opera houses, now, they are not doing that way.
Of course little incidents occur, however, even on the best stages,
and where the whole thing works all right. For instance, the other
day, a young actor, who was kneeling to a beautiful heiress down
east, got a little too far front, and some scenery, which was to come
together in the middle of the stage to pianissimo music, shut him
outside and divided the tableau in two, leaving the young actor
apparently kneeling at the foot of a street lamp, as though he might
be hunting for a half a dollar that he had just dropped on the
sidewalk.
There was a play in New York, not long ago, in which there was a
kind of military parade introduced, and the leader of a file of soldiers
had his instructions to march three times around the stage to martial
music, and then file off at the left, the whole column, of course,
following him. After marching once around, the stage manager was
surprised to see the leader deliberately wheel, and walk off the
stage, at the left, with the whole battalion following at his heels. The
manager went to him and abused him shamefully for his haste, and
told him he had a mind to discharge him; but the talented hack
driver, who thus acted as the military leader, and who had over-
played himself by marching off the stage ahead of time, said:
"Well, confound it, you can discharge me if you want to, but what
was a man to do? Would you have me march around three times
when my military pants were coming off, and I knew it? Military
pride, pomp, parade, and circumstance, are all right; but it can be
overdone. A military squadron, detachment, or whatever it is, can
make more of a parade, under certain circumstances, than is
advertised. I didn't want to give people more show than they paid
for, and I ask you to put yourself in my place. When a man is paid
three dollars a week to play a Roman soldier, would you have him
play the Greek slave? No, sir; I guess I know what I'm hired to play,
and I'm going to play it. When you want me to play Adam in the
Garden of Eden, just give me my fig leaf and salary enough to make
it interesting, and I will try and properly interpret the character for
you, or refund the money at the door."
DECLINE OF AMERICAN HUMOR
D
EAR, mellow-voiced, starry-eyed reader, did you ever see
something about "the decline of American humor?" Well, we
got a gob of American humor, yesterday, written by a yahoo
with pale pink hair, which was entitled "Marriage in Mormondom on
the Tontine Plan." Well, we declined it. Decline of American humor.
Sabe?
CHICAGO CUSTOM HOUSE
T
HE Chicago custom house and post office, built from designs
by Oscar Wild, and other delirum tremens artists, is getting
wiggly, and bids fair to some day fall down and scrunch about
500 United States employes into the great billowy sea of the eternal
hence. It is a sick looking structure, with little gothic warts on top,
and red window sashes, and little half-grown smoke houses
sprouting out of it in different places. It is grand, gloomy and
peculiar, and looks as though it might be cursed with an inward pain.
FOREIGN OPINION
W
E are indebted to Fred J. Prouting, correspondent of the
foreign and British newspaper press, for a copy of the
London Daily of the 9th inst., containing the following
editorial notice:
"If ever celebrity were attained unexpectedly, most assuredly it
was that thrust upon Bill Nye by Truthful James. It is just possible,
however, that the innumerable readers of Mr. Bret Harte's 'Heathen
Chinee' may have imagined Bill Nye and Ah Sin to be purely mythical
personages. So far as the former is concerned, any such conclusion
now appears to have been erroneous. Bill Nye is no more a phantom
than any other journalist, although the name of the organ which he
'runs' savors more of fiction than of fact. But there is no doubt about
the matter, for the Washington correspondent of the New York
Tribune telegraphed on the 29th instant, that Bill Nye had accepted
a post under the government. He has lately been domiciled in
Laramie City, Wyoming territory, and is editor of The Daily
Boomerang. In reference to Acting-Postmaster-Gen. Hatton's
appointment of him as postmaster at Laramie City, the opponent of
Ah Sin writes an extremely humorous letter, 'extending' his thanks,
and advising his chief of his opinion that his 'appointment is a
triumph of eternal truth over error and wrong.' Nye continues: 'It is
one of the epochs, I may say, in the nation's onward march toward
political purity and perfection. I don't know when I have noticed any
stride in the affairs of state which has so thoroughly impressed me
with its wisdom.' In this quiet strain of banter, Bill Nye continues to
the end of his letter, which suggests the opinion that whatever the
official qualifications of the new postmaster may be, the inhabitants
of Laramie City must have a very readable newspaper in The Daily
Boomerang."
While thanking our London contemporary for its gentle and
harmless remarks, we desire to correct an erroneous impression that
the seems to have as to our general style: The British press has in
some way arrived at the conclusion that the editor of this fashion-
guide and mental lighthouse on the rocky shores of time (terms
cash), is a party with wild tangled hair, and an like a tongue of
flame.
That is not the case, and therefore our English co-worker in the
great field of journalism is, no doubt, laboring under a popular
misapprehension. Could the editor of the News look in upon us as
we pull down tome after tome of forgotten lore in our study; or, with
a glad smile, glance hurriedly over the postal card in transit through
our postoffice, he would see, not as he supposes, a wild and cruel
slayer of his fellow men, but a thoughtful, scholarly and choice
fragment of modern architecture, with lines of care about the firmly
chiseled mouth, and with the subdued and chastened air of a man
who has run for the legislature and failed to get there, Eli.
The London News is an older paper than ours, and we therefore
recognize the value of its kind notice. The Boomerang is a young
paper, and has therefore only begun fairly to do much damage as a
national misfortune, but the time is not far distant, when, from
Greenland's icy mountains to India's coral strand, we propose to
search out suffering humanity and make death easier and more
desirable, by introducing this choice malady.
Regarding the postoffice, we wish to state that we shall aim to
make it a great financial success, and furnish mail at all times to all
who desire it, whether they have any or not. We shall be pretty
busy, of course, attending to the office during the day, and writing
scathing editorials during the night, but we will try to snatch a
moment now and then to write a few letters for those who have
been inquiring sadly and hopelessly for letters during the past ten
years. It is, indeed, a dark and dreary world to the man who has
looked in at the same general delivery window nine times a day for
ten years, and yet never received a letter, nor even a confidential
postal card from a commercial man, stating that on the 5th of the
following month he would strike the town with a new and attractive
line of samples.
We should early learn to find put such suffering as that, and if we
are in the postoffice department we may be the means of much
good by putting new envelopes on our own dunning letters and
mailing them to the suffering and distressed. Let us, in our
abundance, remember those who have not been dunned for many a
weary year. It will do them good, and we will not feel the loss.
THEY HAVE CURBED THEIR WOE.
T
HEY say that Brigham Young's grave is looking as bare and
desolate as a boulevard now. At first, while her grief was
fresh, his widow used to march out there five abreast, and
just naturally deluge the grave with scalding tears, and at that time
the green grass grew luxuriantly, and the pig-weed waved in the soft
summer air; but as she learned to control her emotions, the
humidity of the atmosphere disappeared, and grief's grand irrigation
failed to give down. We should learn from this that the man who
flatters himself that in marrying a whole precinct during life, he is
piling up for the future a large invoice of ungovernable woe, is liable
to get left. The prophet's tomb looks to-day like a deserted buffalo
wallow, while his widow has dried her tears, and is trying to make a
mash on the Utah commission. Such is life in the far west, and such
the fitting resting place of a red-headed old galvanized prophet, who
marries a squint-eyed fly-up-the-creek, and afterward gets a special
revelation requiring him to marry a female mass-meeting. Let us be
thankful for what we have, instead of yearning for a great wealth of
wife. Then the life insurance will not have to be scattered so, and
our friends will be spared the humiliating spectacle of a bereft and
sorrowing herd of widow, turned loose by the cold hand of death to
monkey o'er our tomb.
HUNG BY REQUEST.
T
HIS county has had two hemp carnivals during the past few
weeks, and it begins to look like old times again. In each case
the murder was unprovoked, and the victim a quiet
gentleman. That is why there was a popular feeling against the
murderer, and a spontaneous ropestretching benefit as a result.
While we deplore the existence of a state of affairs that would
warrant these little expressions of feeling, we cannot come right out
and condemn the exercises which followed.
The more we read the political record of the candidate for office,
as set forth in opposing journals, the more we feel that there are
already few enough good men in this country, so that we do not
care to spare any of them. If, therefore, the mischievous bad man is
permitted to thin them out this way, the day is not distant when we
won't have good men enough to run the newspapers, to say nothing
of other avocations.
We know that eastern people will speak of us as a ferocious tribe
on the Wyoming reservation, but we desire to call the attention of
our more law-abiding brethren to the fact that there has been in the
past year a lynching in almost every state in the Union, to say
nothing of several hundred cases where there should have been. Do
you suppose Wyoming young ladies would consent to play the waltz
known as "Under the Elms," composed by Walter Malley, if Walter
had been as frolicsome here as he was down on the Atlantic coast?
Scarcely. We may be the creatures of impulse here, but not that kind
of impulse.
Minneapolis hung a man during the past year, and so did
Bloomington and other high-toned towns, and shall we, because we
are poor and lonely, be denied this poor boon? We hope not.
Because we have left the East and moved out here to make some
money and build up a new country, shall we be refused the