to be serious. One had the drunkard Grady's little girl come shivering to Dooley's door on a winter's night with a can to be filled with beer for her father. Dooley accompanies her home, and tries to beat some decency into the sodden Grady. Another, with Dooley's recollections of a long-ago Christmas in Roscommon, caused Dunne to be brought to tears by his own writing. In another, Dooley joins with Father Kelly, the parish priest, in getting relief for "the man Carey down the street that nobody likes, him being a notorious infidel". Dooley and the priest gather provisions for the atheist, later getting him a job, and endure his speech against the Bible until Kelly cuts him off, "What talk have ye? Go an' starve no more." Although he applauded such acts of individual charity, Dunne through Dooley denigrated charitable organizations, wondering that "a man can square himself with his conscience by giving one thousand dollars to a policeman and telling him to distribute it! Why don't they get the poor up in a cage in Lincoln Park and hand them food on the end of a window pole, if they're afraid they'll bite[?]" Among the comic themes during the Chicago years was that of courtship and marriage, with much humor made from the supposed aversion of many Irish males to the altar. The local plumber, Dacey, does not fall to matrimony until he enters the wrong city building and comes out with a marriage license rather than one for a dog. The fireman Hannigan's courting of Dolan's daughter is broken off after fifteen years when he is embarrassed by her giving him a wig as a Christmas present to cover his bald head; but for that she would be courted still. With Danny Duggan too shy to propose, Father Kelly acts on his behalf, resulting in "the dear little colleen trembling and crying, but holding on to him like a pair of ice tongs". By 1895, the Mr. Dooley columns had attracted a large following in Chicago, though because he did not sign them, few knew the name of the author outside the newspaper trade. The two Democratic morning newspapers in Chicago at that time were the Herald, owned by James W. Scott, and the Times, which like the Post was owned by Walsh. In early 1895, Scott bought Walsh's two papers, and merged the Times and Herald.