Part 10

A teacher in a western county in Canada, while making his first visit to his "constituents," came into conversation with an ancient "Varmount" lady, who had taken up her residence in the "backwoods." Of course, the school and former teachers came in for criticism; and the old lady, in speaking of his predecessor, asked: "Wa'll, master, what do yer think he larnt the schollards?" "Couldn't say, ma'am. Pray, what did he teach?" "Wa'al, he told 'em that this 'ere airth was _reound_, and went areound; and all that sort 'o thing. Now, master, what do _you_ think about sich stuff? Don't you think he was an ignorant feller?" Unwilling to come under the category of the ignorami, the teacher evasively remarked: "It really did seem strange; but still there are many learned men who teach these things." "Wa'al," says she, "if the airth is reound, and goes reound, what holds it _up_?" "Oh, these learned men say that it goes around the sun, and that the sun holds it up by virtue of the law of attraction." The old lady lowered her "specs," and, by way of climax, responded: "Wa'al, if these high larn't men sez the sun holds up the airth, _I should like tu know what holds the airth up when the sun goes down_!"

GRIEVING FOR A WIFE.--302.

A man in New Hampshire had the misfortune recently to lose his wife. Over the grave he caused a stone to be placed, on which, in the depth of his grief, he had ordered to be inscribed--"Tears cannot restore her, therefore I weep."

WHAT IRISHMEN DO!--303.

George Penn Johnson, one of our most eloquent stump speakers, who loves a good thing too well to let it slip upon any occasion, addressing a meeting where it was a great point to obtain the Irish vote, after alluding to the native American party in no flattering terms, inquired, "Who dig our canals? Irishmen. Who build our railroads? Irishmen. (Great applause.) Who build all our gaols? Irishmen. (Still greater applause.) Who fill all our gaols? Irishmen!" This capping climax, if it did not bring down the house, did the Irish in a rush for the stand. Johnson did not wait to receive them.

SAD SCARCITY OF PAPER.--304.

Paper is so scarce in the South that the editor of the _Morning Traitor_ writes his editorials with stolen chalk on the sole of his boot, and goes barefooted while his boy sets up the manuscript!

THE DATE WANTED.--305.

At a concert recently, at the conclusion of the song, "There's a Good Time Coming," a country farmer got up and exclaimed, "Say, mister, you couldn't fix the date, could you?"

THE HEIGHT OF MEANNESS.--306.

The meanest fellow in Onondaga county is a fellow who once had the plate of his grandmother's coffin made over into a tobacco-box.

COLUMBUS'S DISCOVERY.--307.

A country editor thinks that Columbus is not entitled to much credit for discovering America, as the country is so large he could not well have missed it.

THE LONG AND THE SHORT OF IT.--308.

One of the American papers observes of Mr. Wentworth, a member of Congress for a district of Illinois, that "he is so tall, that when he addresses the people, instead of mounting a stump, as is usual in the West, they have to dig a hole for him to stand in!" Another paper, which goes the whole ticket against Mr. Wentworth, politely observes that they "dig a hole for him not because he is tall, but because he never feels at home except when he is up to his chin in dirt."

COOLNESS.--309.

He would eat oysters while his neighbour's house was in flames--always provided that his own was insured. Coolness! he's a piece of marble carved into a broad grin.

NAMING CHILDREN IN AMERICA.--310.

On Long Island, a Mr. Crabb named a child "Through-much-tribulation-we-enter-into-the-kingdom-of-Heaven Crabb." The child went by the name of Tribby. Scores of such names could be cited. In Saybrook, Connecticut, is a family by the name of Beman, whose children are successively named as follows:--1. Jonathan Hubbard Lubbard Hunk Dan Dunk Peter Jacobus Lackny Christian Beman. 2. Prince Fredrick Henry Jacob Zaccheus Christian Beman. 3. Queen Caroline Sarah Rogers Ruhamah Christian Beman. 4. Charity Freelove Ruth Grace Mercy Truth Faith and Hope and Peace Pursue I'll-have-no-more-to-do-for-that-will-go-clear-through-Christian Beman.

A POLITE MAN.--311.

"My deceased uncle," says an American writer, "was the most polite man in the world. He was making a voyage on the Mississippi and the boat sank. My uncle was just on the point of drowning. He got his head above water for once, took off his hat, and said, 'Ladies and gentlemen, will you please excuse me?' and down he went."

FINE WRITING.--312.

We like fine writing when it is properly applied, so we appreciate the following burst of eloquence:--"As the ostrich uses both legs and wings when the American courser bounds in her rear--as the winged lightnings leap from the heavens when the thunderbolts are loosed--so does a little boy run when a big dog is after him."

"MAILS" AND FEMALES.--313.

A New England postmaster complains that too much courting goes on in his office. The females give him more trouble than the "mails."

AN UNKIND REMINDER.--314.

A negro boy was driving a mule, when the animal suddenly stopped short and refused to move. "Won't go, eh?" said the boy; "feel grand, do you? I s'pose you forget your fader was a jackass."

"CLIMACTERIC SUBLIMITY."--315.

The following peroration to an eloquent harangue, addressed to a jury by a lawyer in Ohio, is a rare specimen of climacteric sublimity:--"And now the shades of night had shrouded the earth in darkness. All nature lay wrapped in solemn thought, when these defendant ruffians came rushing like a mighty torrent from the hills, down upon the abodes of peace, broke open the plaintiff's door, separated the weeping mother from her crying infant, and took away--my client's rifle, gentlemen of the jury, for which we claim fifteen dollars."

MORE LAUGHABLE THAN LOGICAL.--316.

A temperance lecturer, in addressing an audience in Boston, said, "Parents, you have children, or, if you have not, your daughters may have."

THE LAW OF COMPENSATION.--317.

Joe being rather remiss in his Sunday-school lesson, the teacher remarked that he hadn't a very good memory. "No, ma'am," said he, hesitating, "but I have got a first-rate forgettery!"

COULDN'T MAKE AN IMPRESSION.--318.

A little boy, of four years, who had been lectured by his aunt on the evil of disobedience to parents, was shown the example of a boy who disobeyed his mother, and went to the river and got drowned. "Did he die?" said Bobby, who had given the story due attention. "Yes," was the serious reply. "What did they do with him?" asked Bobby, after a moment's reflection. "Carried him home," replied his aunt, with due solemnity. After turning the matter over in his mind, as it was hoped profitably, he looked up and closed the conversation by asking, "Why didn't they chuck him in again."

THE MINISTER'S RECEPTION.--319.

A certain lady one day had been much annoyed by the ringing of her door-bell by the mischievous boys in the vicinity, and determined to be made no more a fool of by going to the door. In the course of the forenoon, however, her minister called to see her, dressed in his nicest manner. He ascended the steps, and gently drew the bell-handle, when the lady shouted from the entry--"I see you, my boy! if I catch you I'll wring your neck!" The affrighted gentleman rushed down the steps through a crowd of young scamps, and was not seen at the lady's house again.

PRINTERS' MISTAKES.--320.

During the Mexican war, one newspaper hurriedly announced an important item of news from Mexico, that General Pillow and thirty-seven of his men had been lost in a _bottle_. Some other paper informed the public not long ago "that a man in a brown surtout was yesterday brought before the police court, on a charge of having stolen a small _ox_ from a lady's workbag. The stolen property was found in his waistcoat pocket." "A _rat_" says another paper, "descending the river, came in contact with a steamboat, and so serious was the injury done to the boat that great exertions were necessary to save it." An English paper once stated that the Russian General Raekinoffkowsky "was found dead with a long _word_ in his mouth." It was, perhaps, the same paper that, in giving a description of a battle between the Poles and the Russians, said that "the conflict was dreadful, and the enemy was repulsed with great _laughter_." Again: "A gentleman was yesterday brought up to answer the charge of having _eaten_ a stage driver for demanding more than his fare. At the late Fourth of July dinner, in the town of Charlestown, none of the poultry were eatable except the _owls_."

PLAIN ENOUGH.--321.

A Western editor, in reply to a contemporary, says to him, "The fact is as evident as the nose on your face, or the whisky blossoms on the countenance of your Mayor."

ONE OF THE PRESS.--322.

A very fat man having taken his seat in an omnibus already crowded, to the great annoyance of the passengers, several, with partial breathing and muttering lips, inquired who such a lump of flesh as the new comer could be. "I don't know," said a wag, "but, judging from the effect he produces, I should suppose him a member of the Press."

ANOTHER BURST OF ELOQUENCE.--323.

In a stump speech somewhere out West--the usual locality--a windy orator recently got up before an assemblage of his intelligent countrymen, and said: "Sir, after much reflection, consideration, and examination, I have calmly, deliberately, and carefully come to the determined conclusion, that in cities where the population is very large there are a greater number of men, women, and children, than in cities where the population is less. And I firmly believe there is not a man, woman, or child in all this vast assembly that has reached the age of fifty or upwards but has felt this mighty truth rolling through his breast for centuries."

THE REASON WHY.--324.

An American wag says that the reason why more marriages take place in winter than in summer is because the gentlemen require comforters and the ladies muffs.

THE CLERGYMAN AND THE LAWYER.--325.

The following incident is of recent date, and the witness was a clergyman. Scene, a crowded court: trial, an action on the warranty of a horse, commonly called a horse cause. Witness, a clergyman, who was sworn in his examination-in-chief that in his opinion the horse was sound.--Counsel: Well, you don't know anything about horses. You're a parson, you know.--Witness: I have a good deal of knowledge respecting horses.--Counsel: You think you have, I dare say, but we may think otherwise. I wonder, now, whether you know the difference between a horse and a cow.--Witness: Yes, I dare say I do.--Counsel: Now, then, tell the jury the difference between a horse and a cow.--Witness: Gentlemen, one great difference between these two animals is, that the one has horns and the other has not; much the same difference, gentlemen, that exists between a _bull_ and a _bully_ (turning to counsel). (Roars of laughter, Judge joining.)--Counsel (very angrily): I dare say you thought that very funny, sir?--Witness: Well, I don't think it was bad, and several of the audience seem to be of the same opinion.

EDITORIAL FIX.--326.

A Western editor must be in a bad fix. Having dunned a subscriber for his subscription, he not only refused to pay, but threatened to flog the editor if he stopped the paper.

A MEAT BABY.--327.

A wee little girl in Boston besought her mother, when she was going out shopping the other day, to bring her home a baby. The indulgent parent selected a pretty doll, and on her return made the presentation, expecting to see her daughter greatly pleased with it. But the precious child could hardly keep the tears from her eyes, as she disappointedly exclaimed, "I don't want that--I want a _meat_ baby!"

THE LAPSE OF AGES.--328.

An exchange asks, very innocently, if it is any harm for young ladies to sit in the lapse of ages? Another replies, that it all depends on the kind of ages selected. Those from eighteen to twenty-five it puts down as extra hazardous.

PERILS OF THE "FOURTH ESTATE."--329.

It takes three editors to start a paper in New Orleans--one to get killed in a duel, one to die with the yellow fever, and one to write an obituary of the defunct two.

MODEL ADVERTISEMENTS.--330.

Model of First-rate Advertisements for a Modern High-Pressure Sentimental Novel:--

Startling, terrific, paralyzing.--_Ditchville Chronicle._

We understand that the publishers of this extraordinary work, in consequence of the immense demand, were obliged to issue three editions at once, and that the united energies of steam and manual labour in New York, have in vain been employed to satisfy the incessant applications for it. On various occasions the police have been called in to protect the booksellers against the insolence of disappointed customers, while several suits for libel are pending against persons who, in a paroxysm of rage, have vented their spleen on the innocent authoress. The excitement has reached a fearful pitch, and all business has been brought to a stand by the absorbing devotion of the public to this great work of genius. In some cases the engineers on the railroads, in perusing it, have been so lost to a sense of duty, as to let the fires of their locomotives go out, and cause the stoppage of trains for hours. Porters may be seen sitting on their wheelbarrows at every corner enjoying its contents. Omnibus horses are growing fat from the refusal of drivers to ply the lash, until they have read it through, line by line, to the fearful catastrophe of the last page, and even the clamorous voice of the newsboy is no longer heard, for he sits crouching over its fascinating pages in his cheerless garret. On the first day of the sale, the doors of the book-stores were strongly barricaded, extra clerks were provided, and yet, despite these precautions, fearful riots took place among the contending crowd, in which, as the historians say, "neither age, sex, nor condition were respected." The truth is, that if many more such books are written in the country, there is great danger that agriculture, commerce, and manufactures will be abandoned, and we shall become nothing else than a nation of novel readers.--_The Flambeau of Literature._

NOT PARTICULAR.--331.

A Western editor says:--"Wood, chips, coke, coal, corn-cobs, feathers, rosin, sawdust, shavings, splinters, dry leaves, old rags, fence-rails, barn-doors, flints, or anything that will burn or strike fire, taken on subscription at this office."

TRUE AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.--332.

A Down-Easter thus distinguishes between different sorts of patriotism:--"Some esteem it sweet to die for one's country; but most of our patriots hold it sweeter still to live _upon_ one's country."

POETICAL PATCHWORK.--333.

Rock'd in the cradle of the deep, Old Casper's work was done; Piping on hollow reeds to his pent sheep, Charge, Chester, charge! On, Stanley, on!

There was a sound of revelry by night, On Linden, when the sun was low; A voice replied, far up the height, Tall oaks from little acorns grow.

What, if a little rain should say, I have not loved the world, nor the world me! Ah! well a-day; Woodman spare that tree!

My heart leaps up with joy to see A primrose by the water's brim; Zaccheus, he did climb that tree; Few of our youth could cope with him.

The prayer of Ajax was for light, The light that never was on sea or shore; Pudding and beef make Britons fight; Never more!

Under a spreading chestnut tree, For hours the gither, sat I and my Annabel Lee; A man's a man for a' that.

Truth crush'd to earth shall rise again, And waste its sweetness on the desert air; In thunder, lightning, or in rain, None but the brave deserve the fair.

Tell me not in mournful numbers, The child is father of the man; Hush, my dear, lie still in slumber. They can conquer who believe they can.

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream; Whatever is, is right, And things are not what they seem; My native land, good night!

SO HUMANE.--334.

A lady in Brooklyn is known to be so humane that she will not allow even her carpet to be beaten; and was frightfully shocked on hearing a boy, who was relating a story about a donkey, tell his comrades to cut his tail short. She actually fainted away when a relative said he had been killing time.

THE LYING AT THE TOP.--335.

"Truth lies at the bottom of the well." All very well, as long as it stays there; but it is the lying at the top and thereabouts that does all the mischief!

"BRAGGIN' SAVES ADVERTISIN'."--336.

"Well," said the doctor, "I didn't want to put myself forward, for it ain't pleasant to speak of oneself." "Well, I don't know that," sais I; "I ain't above it, I assure you. If you have a horse to sell, put a thunderin' long price on him, and folks will think he must be the devil and all; and if you want people to vally you right, appraise yourself at a high figure. Braggin' saves advertisin'. I always do it; for, as the Nova Scotia magistrate said, who sued his debtor before himself, 'What's the use of being a justice, if you can't do yourself justice.'"--_Sam Slick._

CONCLUSIVE.--337.

A story that General Hooker has been left immensely rich by the death of a Mexican wife is thus disposed of by the San Francisco _Atta_:--"1st, General Hooker's wife was not rich when he married her, nor at any other time. 2nd, General Hooker's wife was not a Mexican. 3rd, General Hooker's wife is not dead. 4th, General Hooker never had a wife. 5th, General Hooker is not a Croesus, never was, and never will be."

VERDICT OF A NEGRO JURY.--338.

"We, the undersigned, being a Kurnet's Juray to sit on de body of de nigger Sambo, now dead and gone before us, hab been sittin' on de said nigger aforesaid, did on de night of de fusteenth of November, come to def by falling from de bridge ober the riber in de said riber, whar we find he was subsequently drowned, and afterwards washed on the riber side, whar we s'pose he was frose to death."

VERY CIVIL WAR.--339.

On our left, where our lines were close to the rebs, two videttes from opposite sides were moved out towards the same tree. After remaining for some time near the tree unknown to each other, our vidette discovered that he had lost his cap-box, and commenced calling for the corporal. After calling several times without effect, the reb vidette called out, "I say, Yank, what's the matter on your side of the tree?" The "Yank" immediately replied that he wanted to go for some water. "Well, go ahead," answered "Johnny;" "I'll watch both sides till you come back."

A REAL HEAVY GALE.--340.

"Was you ever in a real heavy gale of wind?" "Warn't I," said I; "the fust time I returned from England it blew great guns all the voyage, one gale after another, and the last always wuss than the one before. It carried away our sails as fast as we bent them." "That's nothing unusual," said Cutter; "there are worse things than that at sea." "Well, I'll tell," sais I, "what it did; and if that ain't an uncommon thing, then my name ain't Sam Slick. It blew all the hair off my dog, except a little tuft atween his ears."

AN APPROPRIATE GIFT.--341.

The _New York Atlas_ says:--"Judge Kelly and other citizens of Philadelphia have presented a medal to President Lincoln. The medallion has the bust of Washington on one side, and that of Mr. Lincoln on the other. The peculiar felicity of this design is apparent to the most obtuse. Washington was a patriot and a hero, and Lincoln is unquestionably _the reverse_. It seems somewhat superfluous, however, to strike a medal to perpetuate the knowledge of a fact so indisputable."

THE CROOKED STICK.--342

Maria, just at twenty, swore That no man less than six feet four Should be her chosen one; At thirty, she was glad to fix A spouse exactly four feet six, As better far than none.

A SPARE GIRL.--343.

"I never," says Sam Slick, "see so spare a gal since I was raised. Pharaoh's lean kine warn't the smallest part of a circumstance to her. She was so thin, she actilly seemed as if she would have to lean agin the wall to support herself when she scolded, and I had to look twice at her before I could see her at all, for I warn't sure _she warn't her own shadow_."

NEW WAY TO AFFIX A STAMP.--344.

"You remind me," says I, "of a feller in Slickville, when the six-cent letter-stamps came in fashion. He licked the stamp so hard, he took all the gum off, and it wouldn't stay on nohow he could fix it, so what does he do but put a pin through it, and writes on the letter, 'Paid, if the darned thing will only stick.'"--_Sam Slick._

THE ORIGINAL BROTHER JONATHAN.--345.

When General Washington, after being appointed Commander of the Army of Revolutionary War, came to Massachusetts to organize it, and make preparations for the defence of the country, he found a great want of ammunition and other means necessary to meet the powerful foe he had to contend with, and great difficulty to obtain them. If attacked in such condition, the cause at once might be hopeless. On one occasion, at that anxious period, a consultation of the officers and others was held, when it seemed no way could be devised to make such preparations as were necessary. His Excellency Jonathan Trumbull, the elder, was then Governor of the State of Connecticut, on whose judgment and aid the general placed the greatest reliance, and remarked: "We must consult 'Brother Jonathan' on the subject." The general did so, and the governor was successful in supplying many of the wants of the army. When difficulties arose, and the army was spread over the country, it became a by-word, "We must consult Brother Jonathan." The term Yankee is still applied to a portion, but "Brother Jonathan" has become a designation of the whole country, as John Bull is for England.

THOUGHTFUL MOTHERS.--346.

It is said that some mothers in America are grown so affectionate that they give their children chloroform previous to whipping them.

GRACE ONCE FOR ALL.--347.

Benjamin Franklin, when a child, found the long graces used by his father before and after meals very tedious. One day after the winter's provisions had been salted, "I think father," said Benjamin, "if you were to say _grace_ over the whole cask once for all, it would be a great saving of time."

PAINTING TO THE LIFE.--348.

Slick says: "I think, without bragging, I may say I can take things off to the life. Once I drawed a mutton chop so nateral, my dog broke his teeth in tearing the panel to pieces to get at it; and at another time I painted a shingle so like stone, when I threw it into the water, it sunk right kerlash to the bottom."

COLUMBUS AND THE EGG.--349.

Columbus, speaking with great humility of his discovery of America, some of the company spoke in very depreciating terms of the expedition. "There is no more difficulty," replied Columbus, "than in putting this egg on its end." They tried the experiment, and all failed. Columbus, breaking a little off the end, set it upright. The company sneered at the contrivance. "Thus," observed Columbus, "a thing appears very easy after it is done."

THE HEAVENLY "BODIES."--350.

"Mamma, mamma," cried a little one, whose early hour of retirement had not permitted much study of the starry heavens, "here is the moon come, and brought a sight of little babies with her!"

THE HAPPIEST OF VOWELS.--351.

One of the neatest and latest conundrums is as follows:--"Why is i the happiest of vowels? Because it is in the midst of bliss; e is in hell, and all the others in purgatory."

A TOUGH YANKEE.--352.