it.  Statistics show that.  The first city in Wisconsin that bought one was Madison.  The city owned it for a year or two, and after that no man that was in the council when it was bought could ever get in it again.  The mayor that winked at the purchase of the stone crusher was defeated, and there was trouble.  No person would ever say what was the matter, but you say “stone crusher” to a citizen of Madison, and he would reach his right hand around to his pistol pocket, and the conversation would cease.

La Crosse heard that Madison had a stone crusher, and so she wanted one.  La Crosse is bound to have anything that any other town has, whether it is a railroad, an insane asylum, or a speckled hen.  La Crosse could have bought Madison’s stone crusher at a discount, but she wanted one new, with the paint all on, fresh.  Second-hand stone crusher?  Not any for La Crosse.  So the city ordered a brand new one, right from the mint, at an expense of about $5,000.

The idea was that it would be about as big as a straw cutter, or a job press, and people were anxious to see it work.

Finally the city was notified that one train of cars loaded with the stone crusher had arrived, with red flags on, betokening extra trains running wild behind, and the city was told to come down to the depot and pay the first installment of freight, and take the stone crusher away—­that part of it that had arrived.  The aldermen went down and took an inventory of the hardware, and some of them went and jumped in the river.  At a cent a pound one can buy a good deal of cast iron for five thousand dollars.  The city bonded itself, and paid the freight, and during the spring all of the trains loaded with the stone crusher arrived.  It was argued that the only way to get the stone crusher up to the city building would be to give the railroad the right of way up town, right through Main street.

Some were in favor of letting the railroad company keep it for freight, but the company threatened to get out an injunction on the city.  Finally a man who took contracts to move brick buildings agreed to move it up town on shares, and during the summer the most of it was got up there and corded up on some vacant lots.  If all the cast iron in it came out of one mine it must have been an immense mine.  People would look at it and weep.  Every alderman swore he voted against buying it.  Occasionally some one in the council would suggest that the stone crusher be taken out to the bluffs, a couple of miles, and set to work, when another one would move, to amend by inserting a clause that the bluffs be moved into the city to be crushed, as it would save expense.  Then the matter would drop.  For three years that stone crusher stood there, and it never crushed a pebble.  New mayors and aldermen were elected, and every day they passed that crusher, but they never spoke to it.  Finally a job was put up to get rid of it.  There was a man there who owned a stone quarry, and