GOODBYE, MR. CURLEY

Mr. Curley, when asked what he planned to do after giving up his office tomorrow said that he was going to tend to his own business. This declaration is enough to evoke a respiration by the people of the state that will create a typhoon in the Indian Ocean and at least a zephyr in the Himalayas. Too long have they had the impression that he was at one and the same time mismanaging other people's business and attending to his own, in the usual sense of the word.

His consuming activity in the past few stories, that of "taking care" of friends at state expense, has provided a fitting climax to a long and thoroughly unenviable career. But even had he given a sugary pill at the end of his doctoring of the state, he could not overcome the evil taste left by large doses of sickening medicines.

His successor, Mr. Hurley, has delivered himself of several promising statements regarding expenditure and other state matters. Such talk may be little more than pre-nuptial fantasy, but at any rate the citizens of the state can rest assured that he will not sink to the Curley level. Mr. Curley can depart in peace, sure that his leave-taking will be unwept, unhonored, and unsung in local history, except by writers of verse with unusually long and scurrilous memories.