ALONG THE HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS

Along the Highways and Byways . . . INVITATION TO A HANGING:

The good sheriff of Navajo county on December 1, 1899, issued a formal invitation to a hanging, which read as follows:

You are hereby invited to the hanging of one GEORGE SMILEY, MURDERER. His soul will be swung into eternity on December 8, 1899, at 2:00 P. M. The latest improved methods in the art of strangulation will be employed and everything possible will be done to make the surroundings cheerful and the execution a success.

F. W. WATTRON, Sheriff, Navajo County, Holbrook, Arizona.

There was a stay in execution and the good sheriff of Navajo county, in his second invitation, evidently felt that the first was too curt, possibly too abrupt even for the tough ways of the frontier. His second invitation read as follows: Holbrook, Arizona, January 1, 1900.

With feelings of profound regret and sorrow, I hereby invite you to attend and witness the private, decent and humane execution of a human being, the said GEORGE SMILEY, MURDERER, will be executed January 8th, 1900, at 2:00 P. M.

You are expected to deport yourself in a respectful manner and any flippant or unseeming language, or conduct on your part will not be allowed. Conduct on anyone's part bordering on the ribaldry and tending to mar the solemnity of the occasion will not be tolerated.

F. W. WATTRON, Sheriff Navajo County, Holbrook, Arizona.

It was reported by the scribes of the day that George Smiley went to his death like a man and "exhibited the most remarkable nerve from the first to the last."

MR. WILDER SENDS REGRETS:

Mr. Thornton Wilder, famed American author, was asked to "do" a sketch for ARIZONA HIGHWAYS. Mr. Wilder, it will be remembered, spent last winter on the desert near Tucson, and it would have been a feather in our hat to have had him with us for an issue.

He wrote as follows: "Mighty enthusiastic about your state, but can't write an article about it; deep in work and never could write non-fiction anyway, if that.

"Besides, I was the only person in Arizona who didn't have a car; the only person who walked anywhere; not on Highways.

"But all best wishes to the magazine. Impossible to overpraise your country."

For which we are grateful, and even if you can't do a piece for our magazine, Mr. Wilder, we would all be happy to have you spend another winter with us.

MUSIC AT THE GRAND CANYON:

Mr. Ferdie Grofe, American composer, who put the Grand Canyon to music with his haunting, beautiful "Grand Canyon Suite" has promised us an article. He will tell us how "Grand Canyon Suite" came to be written. Your music is grand, Mr. Grofe, and we are looking forward to your article.

Mr. Grofe, when we first heard of him, was arranger for Paul Whiteman, when the Whiteman music was the "dancing-est" in the land.

He gained fame with "Mississippi Suite," musical interpretation of Old Man River in all the moods of that big, strong river. Anyone who has taken the trip to the bottom of the Canyon by mule train, will instantly recognize the rhythmic similarity in "On the Trail," from "Grand Canyon Suite." Classic in music of a classic in rock!

FIESTA IN MAGDALENA, SONORA

A fiesta in honor of the good saint San Francisco will be held in the village of Magdalena, state of Sonora, republic of Mexico, October 4. Magdalena is 63 miles and not many more minutes south of Nogales. It is a typical Mexican village, a sleepy, drowsy town around an ancient church.

A modern highway carrying automobiles to Hermosillo and Guaymas passes through Magdalena, and that modern instrument of our hurrying civilization strikes a jarring note amid the quiet, restfulness of a town and people happy in an Age of Yesterday.

Magdalena is Old Mexico, typically so. It is a gay and happy village during the Fiesta of San Francisco. People come from all over northern Sonora to sing and dance and be gay in the sunshine. Magdalena is crowded with the visitors. It is alive with the carnival spirit. It is so busy and the people in the streets shout and sing and there is music in the square and then when the fiesta is over, everyone goes back to the hills and Magdalena dozes and sleeps, and the silence is broken by the automobiles hurrying by, bound for Hermosillo and Guaymas to the south.

And later in November, you must take in the Helzapopen festival at Buckeye. Helz is really a popen!