Sam Greene's 1902 list of Chariton pests

Sam Greene, editor and publisher of The Chariton Herald, seems to have gotten up on the wrong side of the bed during late March, 1902, compiled a list of minor annoyances and then published them on the front page of his edition of the 27th under the headline, "A Few of Chariton's Pests."

We all have our lists of minor pests, but it's encouraging to see than many of Sam's no longer plague us. Few wear large hats these days, other than would-be cowboys; dairy cattle no longer are common inside city limits; and few still attend church on Sunday evenings.

But the spitters are still with us and good old boys these days, rather than gathering on street corners, pull up beside each other in their pickups in the middle of streets, roll down their windows and chat.

Here's Sam's 1902 list. Who is on your 2022 list?

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Chariton is blessed in many ways, and on the other hand has many disagreeable little things to contend with. If someone will devise an effective remedy for any one or all of the  following annoying little pests, the Herald will reward him with a free subscription to the paper while he lives and a top-of-column-next-to-reading obituary when he dies, not forgetting a card of thanks from his wife to the kind friends who assisted in his death. Here they are:

The noisy and seemingly brainless gang of school children that crowd the post office lobby as soon as school is out twice each day, and monopolize the time and floor space asking for mail that they never get and never expect to get.

The frisky young animals that stand on their hind legs around church doors each Sunday night after church and stick their noses out at the church goers as they pass by.

The little fools and the big fools who ride their horses across people's lawns in pursuit of crazy cows which they are attempting to drive to pasture.

The little red-backed bugs and the big red-nosed bugs that collect on the sunny corners of the square on warm days and seem to think they are doing something.

The women who act the hog at entertainments by keeping a lot of big barn-storming millinery on their heads, either because it is new and they think they don't look quite so homely with it on, or because their heads are flat on top and they can't fix their hair and switches to hide it.

The pavement spit squirters who daily soak the sidewalks wherever they go with dirtier stuff out of their mouths than most slop buckets can boast of, and never seem to think that people have to walk in it.

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Note: The Chariton Post Office, where "brainless gangs of school children" plagued Sam Greene, was located during 1902 in the Kubitshek Block at the west end of the south side of the Chariton square --- current site of the U.S.Bank drive-up.