MR. LORD Arizona Republican Newspaper August 25, 1897 There is an old man by the name of Lord living alone in a small hut thirty miles north of Phoenix, not far from Cave Creek. He is slowly dying of what is called miners' consumption, induced by the poisonous fumes which succeed to the explosion of dynamite and giant powder. The old man contracted the ailment while working in the Colorado Mines and was recommended to this climate as the only place in which his life can be prolonged. Those who have visited him say that his case is as pitiable as may be imagined. Not that he is in want or lonely, for he is neither. He receives a small pension upon which he lives as luxuriously as he desires and his loneliness is not oppressive. The philosophy with which he regards his condition occasional fits of melancholy, almost constant physical agony and the means he employs to relieve both melancholy and pain re pitiful. A couple of gentlemen who returned yesterday from the Phoenix Mine stopped at his hut on their way out. They shared the contents of their grub box with him and when the old man had finished his lunch he went into another room from which there soon proceeded the strains of "Home, Sweet Home," so mournful that they were almost sickened. The instrument was an organette which the old man said gave him a great deal of pleasure. "Sometimes when I feel a little blue," he said, "I put in this, taking up a perforated roll upon which was printed Annie Rooney. "If that don't touch the spot I put in Silver Threads among the Gold. Then if that don't do any good I play the Devil's Dream. That most always brightens me up." But he explained that often his melancholy fits were so deep that music wouldn't penetrate them, that the lighter and livelier the music the more inharmonious it seemed. "When I get in that fix and want to give myself the worst of it all around I put in "Home Sweet Home." That knocks me out and brings things into focus. I have the blues so bad that they can't lest long and after awhile I get to feeling better. "I've got a great deal to be thankful for," said the old man, "in the first place I've lived longer than I expected to and I think I'll live five years more. That will be as long as I want to live for do you know I believe that that is as long as the United States will live. All the other nations of the earth are combining against us. We're going to have trouble about Hawaii and we're getting mixed up with Canada about the Klondike. Then I think we'll get in a war with Spain. When things get ripe the other countries will come over here and clean us out. The country will be turned into a monarchy and the United States will be ended. USGenWeb Project NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the internet, data may be used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages may not be reproduced in any format for profit, nor for commercial presentation by any other organization. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain express written permission from the author, or the submitter and from the listed USGenWeb Project archivist. submitted by burns@asu.edu