The Daily Ardmoreite

If there is anything in having a noisy birth, the year of 1913 will be a holy terror. Promptly at twelve o'clock, according to the watches of the attending physicians, the New Year was born in Ardmore, London, New York City, Milo, Deese and several other places. A fraction of a second earlier the year 1912 had shuffled off the mortal coil. And from the hoarse and guttural throats of several hundred thousand whistles—most of which were located and working overtime in that section of the universe of which Ardmore is the capital—the glad tidings were heralded to the world that the old, the true, the tried, was dead and the new, untried, had been enthroned. "Off with the old love, on with the new. The king is dead, long live the king," were the messages the whistles, the shoutings and the laughter bore forth upon the air of the stilly night.

And now, following the paths trodden by hundreds of generations of the fickle members of the human family, the people of the universe will dance upon the grave of 1912 and forget the many blessings given us during her reign, while we coddle and pet the baby: "1913!"