Project Gutenberg's The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun;, by Various
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Title: The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun;
containing a collection of over one thousand of the most
laughable sayings and jokes of celebrated wits and
humorists.
Author: Various
Release Date: July 15, 2009 [EBook #29419]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BOOK OF ANECDOTES ***
Produced by Chuck Greif, Patricia Ann Doyle Saumell and
the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
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THE
AND
CONTAINING
A COLLECTION OF OVER
OF THE MOST LAUGHABLE SAYINGS AND JOKES
OF CELEBRATED WITS AND
HUMORISTS.
PHILADELPHIA:
GEO. G. EVANS, PUBLISHER,
NO. 439 CHESTNUT STREET.
1860.
Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by
G. G. EVANS
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Eastern District of
Pennsylvania.
Nothing is so well calculated to preserve the healthful action of the human system as a good, hearty laugh. It is with this indisputable and important sanitary fact in view, that this collection of anecdotes has been made. The principle in selecting each of them, has been, not to inquire if it were odd, rare, curious, or remarkable; but if it were really funny. Will the anecdote raise a laugh? That was the test question. If the answer was "Yes," then it was accepted. If "No," then it was rejected.
Anything offensive to good taste, good manners, or good morals, was, of course, out of the question.
AND
The following is an anecdote of the late Lord Mansfield, which his lordship himself told from the bench:—He had turned off his coachman for certain acts of peculation, not uncommon in this class of persons. The fellow begged his lordship to give him a character. "What kind of character can I give you?" says his lordship. "Oh, my lord, any character your lordship pleases to give me, I shall most thankfully receive." His lordship accordingly sat down and wrote as follows:—"The bearer, John ——, has served me three years in the capacity of coachman. He is an able driver, and a very sober man, I discharged him because he cheated me."—(Signed) "Mansfield." John thanked his lordship, and went off. A few mornings afterwards, when his lordship was going through his lobby to step into his coach for Westminster Hall, a man, in a very handsome livery, made him a low bow. To his surprise he recognized his late coachman. "Why, John," says his lordship, "you seem to have got an excellent place; how could you manage this with the character I gave you?" "Oh! my lord," says John, "it was an exceeding good character, and I am come to return you thanks for it; my new master, on reading it, said, he observed your lordship recommended me as an able driver and a sober man. 'These,' says he, 'are just the qualities I want in a coachman; I observe his lordship adds he discharged you because you cheated him. Hark you, sirrah,' says he, 'I'm a Yorkshireman, and I'll defy you to cheat me.'"
General Zaremba had a very long Polish name. The king having heard of it, one day asked him good humouredly, "Pray, Zaremba, what is your name?" The general repeated to him immediately the whole of his long name. "Why," said the king, "the devil himself never had such a name." "I should presume not, Sire," replied the general, "as he was no relation of mine."
"Cæsar," said a planter to his negro, "climb up that tree and thin the branches." The negro showed no disposition to comply, and being pressed for a reason, answered: "Well, look heah, massa, if I go up dar and fall down an' broke my neck, dat'll be a thousand dollars out of your pocket. Now, why don't you hire an Irishman to go up, and den if he falls and kills himself, dar won't be no loss to nobody?"
Mr. Newman is a famous New England singing-master; i. e., a teacher of vocal music in the rural districts. Stopping over night at the house of a simple minded old lady, whose grandson and pet, Enoch, was a pupil of Mr. Newman, he was asked by the lady how Enoch was getting on. He gave a rather poor account of the boy, and asked his grandmother if she thought Enoch had any ear for music.
"Wa'al," said the old woman, "I raaly don't know; won't you just take the candle and see?"
There was once a clergyman in New Hampshire, noted for his long sermons and indolent habits. "How is it," said a man to his neighbour, "Parson ----, the laziest man living, writes these interminable sermons?" "Why," said the other, "he probably gets to writing and he is too lazy to stop."
"Bring in the oysters I told you to open," said the head of a household growing impatient. "There they are," replied the Irish cook proudly. "It took me a long time to clean them; but I've done it, and thrown all the nasty insides into the strate."
Quoth Patrick of the Yankee: "Bedad, if he was cast away on a dissolute island, he'd get up the next mornin' an' go around sellin' maps to the inhabitants."
A poor son of the Emerald Isle applied for employment to an avaricious hunks, who told him he employed no Irishmen; "for," said he, "the last one died on my hands, and I was forced to bury him at my own expense."
"Ah! your honour," said Pat, brightening up, "and is that all? Then you'll give me the place, for sure I can get a certificate that I niver died in the employ of any master I iver sarved."
A country editor perpetrates the following upon the marriage of a Mr. Husband to the lady of his choice:
"This case is the strongest we have known in our life; The husband's a husband, and so is the wife."
At a recent exhibition of paintings, a lady and her son were regarding with much interest, a picture which the catalogue designated as "Luther at the Diet of Worms." Having descanted at some length upon its merits, the boy remarked, "Mother, I see Luther and the table, but where are the worms?"
"A sturdy-looking man in Cleveland, a short time since, while busily engaged in cow-hiding a dandy, who had insulted his daughter, being asked what he was doing, replied: "Cutting a swell;" and continued his amusement without further interruption.
To a lady who had lost her husband, Talleyrand once addressed a letter of condolence, in two words: "Oh, madame!" In less than a year, the lady had married again, and then his letter of congratulation was, "Ah, madame!"
A man, hearing of another who was 100 years old, said contemptuously: "Pshaw! what a fuss about nothing! Why, if my grandfather was alive he would be one hundred and fifty years old."
The most capacious pocket-book on record is the one mentioned by a coroner's jury in Iowa, thus:—"We find the deceased came to his death by a visitation of God, and not by the hands of violence. We find upon the body a pocket-book containing $2, a check on Fletcher's Bank for $250, and two horses, a wagon, and some butter, eggs, and feathers."
We once heard of a rich man, who was badly injured by being run over. "It isn't the accident," said he, "that I mind; that isn't the thing, but the idea of being run over by an infernal swill-cart makes me mad."
A New Orleans paper states, there is in that city a hog, with his ears so far back, that he can't hear himself squeal.
Dr. Parr had a great deal of sensibility. When I read to him, in Lincoln's Inn Fields, the account of O'Coigly's death, the tears rolled down his cheeks.
One day Mackintosh having vexed him, by calling O'Coigly "a rascal," Parr immediately rejoined, "Yes, Jamie, he was a bad man, but he might have been worse; he was an Irishman, but he might have been a Scotchman; he was a priest, but he might have been a lawyer; he was a republican, but he might have been an apostate."
During a recent trial at Auburn, the following occurred to vary the monotony of the proceedings:
Among the witnesses was one, as verdant a specimen of humanity as one would wish to meet with. After a severe cross-examination, the counsel for the Government paused, and then putting on a look of severity, and an ominous shake of the head, exclaimed:
"Mr. Witness, has not an effort been made to induce you to tell a different story?"
"A different story from what I have told, sir?"
"That is what I mean."
"Yes sir; several persons have tried to get me to tell a different story from what I have told, but they couldn't."
"Now, sir, upon your oath, I wish to know who those persons are."
"Waal, I guess you've tried 'bout as hard as any of them."
The witness was dismissed, while the judge, jury, and spectators, indulged in a hearty laugh.
The following story is told of a revolutionary soldier who was running for Congress.
It appears that he was opposed by a much younger man who had "never been to the wars," and it was his practice to tell the people of the hardships he had endured. Says he:
"Fellow-citizens, I have fought and bled for my country—I helped whip the British and Indians. I have slept on the field of battle, with no other covering than the canopy of heaven. I have walked over frozen ground, till every footstep was marked with blood."
Just about this time, one of the "sovereigns," who had become very much affected by this tale of woe, walks up in front of the speaker, wiping the tears from his eyes with the extremity of his coat-tail, and interrupting him, says:
"Did you say that you had fought the British and the Injines?"
"Yes, sir, I did."
"Did you say you had followed the enemy of your country over frozen ground, till every footstep was covered with blood?"
"Yes!" exultingly replied the speaker.
"Well, then," says the tearful "sovereign," as he gave a sigh of painful emotion, "I'll be blamed if I don't think you've done enough for your country, and I'll vote for the other man!"
Taking shelter from a shower in an umbrella shop.
"Ben," said a politician to his companion, "did you know I had declined the office of Alderman?"
"You declined the office of Alderman? Was you elected?"
"O, no."
"What then? Nominated?"
"No, but I attended our party caucus last evening, and took an active part; and when a nominating committee was appointed, and were making up the list of candidates, I went up to them and begged they would not nominate me for Alderman, as it would be impossible for me to attend to the duties?"
"Show, Jake; what reply did they make?"
"Why, they said they hadn't thought of such a thing."
An Attorney before a bench of magistrates, a short time ago, told the bench, with great gravity, "That he had two witnesses in court, in behalf of his client, and they would be sure to speak the truth; for he had had no opportunity to communicate with them!"
"Ah! I feel the torments of hell," said a person, whose life had been supposed to be somewhat of the loosest. "Already?" was the inquiry suggested to M. Talleyrand. Certainly, it came natural to him. It is, however, not original; the Cardinal de Retz's physician is said to have made a similar exclamation on a like occasion.
During Colonel Crockett's first winter in Washington, a caravan of wild animals was brought to the city and exhibited. Large crowds attended the exhibition; and, prompted by common curiosity, one evening Colonel Crockett attended.
"I had just got in," said he; "the house was very much crowded, and the first thing I noticed, was two wild cats in a cage. Some acquaintance asked me if they were like wild cats in the backwoods; and I was looking at them, when one turned over and died. The keeper ran up and threw some water on it. Said I, 'Stranger, you are wasting time: my look kills them things; and you had much better hire me to go out of here, or I will kill every varmint you've got in the caravan.' While I and he were talking, the lions began to roar. Said I, 'I won't trouble the American lion, because he is some kin to me; but turn out the African lion—turn him out—turn him out—I can whip him for a ten dollar bill, and the zebra may kick occasionally, during the fight.' This created some fun; and I then went to another part of the room, where a monkey was riding a pony. I was looking on, and some member said to me, 'Crockett, don't that monkey favor General Jackson?' 'No,' said I, 'but I'll tell you who it does favor. It looks like one of your boarders, Mr. ——, of Ohio.' There was a loud burst of laughter at my saying so, and, upon turning round, I saw Mr. ——, of Ohio, within three feet of me. I was in a right awkward fix; but bowed to the company, and told 'em, I had either slandered the monkey, or Mr. ——, of Ohio, and if they would tell me which, I would beg his pardon. The thing passed off, but the next morning, as I was walking the pavement before my door, a member came to me and said, 'Crockett, Mr. ——, of Ohio, is going to challenge you.' Said I, 'Well, tell him I am a fighting fowl. I s'pose if I am challenged, I have the right to choose my weapons?' 'Oh yes,' said he. 'Then tell him,' said I, 'that I will fight him with bows and arrows.'"
When the great Lord Clive was in India, his sisters sent him some handsome presents from England; and he informed them by letter, that he had returned them an "elephant;" (at least, so they read the word;) an announcement which threw them into the utmost perplexity; for what could they possibly do with the animal? The true word was "equivalent."
Mr. Pitt, once speaking in the House of Commons, in the early part of his career, of the glorious war which preceded the disastrous one in which the colonies were lost, called it "the last war." Several members cried out, "The last war but one." He took no notice; and soon after, repeating the mistake, he was interrupted by a general cry of "The last war but one—the last war but one." "I mean, sir," said Mr. Pitt, turning to the Speaker, and raising his sonorous voice, "I mean, sir, the last war that Britons would wish to remember." Whereupon the cry was instantly changed into an universal cheering, long and loud.
When an impudent fellow attempts to kiss a Tennessee girl, she "cuts your acquaintance;" all their "divine luxuries are preserved for the lad of their own choice." When you kiss an Arkansas girl, she hops as high as a cork out of a champagne bottle, and cries, "Whew, how good!" Catch an Illinois girl and kiss her, and she'll say, "Quit it now, you know I'll tell mamma!" A kiss from the girls of old Williamson is a tribute paid to their beauty, taste, and amiability. It is not accepted, however, until the gallant youth who offers it is accepted as the lord of their hearts' affections, and firmly united with one, his "chosen love," beneath the same bright star that rules their destiny for ever. The common confectionery make-believe kisses, wrapped in paper, with a verse to sweeten them, won't answer with them. We are certain they won't, for we once saw such a one handed to a beautiful young lady with the following:—
I'd freely give whole years of bliss,
To gather from thy lips one kiss.
To which the following prompt and neat response was immediately returned:—
Young men present these to their favourite Miss,
And think by such means to entrap her;
But la! they ne'er catch us with this kind of kiss,
The right kind hain't got any wrapper.
If you kiss a Mississippian gal she'll flare-up like a scorched feather, and return the compliment by bruising your sky-lights, or may-be giving the quid pro quo in the shape of a blunder-buss. Baltimore girls, more beautiful than any in the world, all meet you with a half-smiling, half-saucy, come-kiss-me-if-you-dare kind of a look, but you must be careful of the first essay. After that no difficulty will arise, unless you be caught attempting to kiss another—then look out for thundergust. When a Broome girl gets a smack, she exclaims, "If it was anybody else but you, I'd make a fuss about it."
"She be a pretty craft, that little thing of yours," observed old Tom. "How long may she take to make the run?" "How long? I expect in just no time; and she'd go as fast again, only she won't wait for the breeze to come up with her." "Why don't you heave to for it?" said young Tom. "Lose too much time, I guess. I have been chased by an easterly wind all the way from your Land's-end to our Narrows, and it never could overhaul me." "And I presume the porpusses give it up in despair, don't they?" replied old Tom with a leer; "and yet I've seen the creatures playing before the bows of an English frigate at her speed, and laughing at her." "They never play their tricks with me, old snapper; if they do, I cut them in halves, and a-starn they go, head part floating one side, and tail part on the other." "But don't they join together again when they meet in your wake?" inquired Tom. "Shouldn't wonder," replied the American Captain. "My little craft upset with me one night, in a pretty considerable heavy gale; but she's smart, and came up again on the other side in a moment, all right as before. Never should have known anything about it, if the man at the wheel had not found his jacket wet, and the men below had a round turn in all the clues of their hammocks." "After that round turn, you may belay," cried Tom laughing. "Yes, but don't let's have a stopper over all, Tom," replied his father. "I consider all this excessively diverting. Pray, Captain, does everything else go fast in the new country?" "Everything with us clear, slick, I guess." "What sort of horses have you in America?" inquired I. "Our Kentuck horses, I've a notion, would surprise you. They're almighty goers at a trot, beat a N. W. gale of wind. I once took an Englishman with me in a gig up Alabama country, and he says, 'What's this great church yard we are passing through?' 'Stranger,' says I, 'I calculate it's nothing but the mile-stones we are passing so slick.' But I once had a horse, who, I expect, was a deal quicker than that; I once seed a flash of lightning chase him for half an hour round the clearance, and I guess it couldn't catch him."
"Mother," said a little fellow the other day, "is there any harm in breaking egg shells?" "Certainly not, my dear, but why do you ask?" "Cause I dropt the basket jist now, and see what a mess I'm in with the yolk."
An Irishman, observing a dandy taking his usual strut in Broadway, stepped up to him and inquired:
"How much do you ax for thim houses?"
"What do you ask me that for?"
"Faith, an' I thought the whole strate belonged to ye," replied the Irishman.
An old Dutch farmer, just arrived at the dignity of justice of the peace, had his first marriage case. He did it up in this way. He first said to the man: "Vell, you vants to be marrit, do you? Vell, you lovesh dis voman so goot as any voman you have ever seen?" "Yes," answered the man. Then to the woman: "Vell, do you love dis man so better as any man you have ever seen?" She hesitated a little, and he repeated: "Vell, vell, do you like him so vell as to be his vife?" "Yes, yes," she answered. "Vell, dat ish all any reasonable man can expect. So you are marrit; I pronounce you man and vife." The man asked the justice what was to pay. "Nothing at all, nothing at all; you are velcome to it if it vill do you any good."
A rich old farmer at Crowle, near Bantry, England, speaking to a neighbour about the "larning" of his nephew, said:—"Why I shud a made Tom a lawyer, I think, but he was sich a good hand to hold a plough that I thought 'twere a pity to spoil a good ploughboy."
If your sister, while tenderly engaged in a tender conversation with her tender sweetheart, asks you to bring a glass of water from an adjoining room, you can start on the errand, but you need not return. You will not be missed—that's certain; we've seen it tried. Don't forget this, little boys.
A traveler, relating his adventures, told the company that he and his servant had made fifty wild Arabs run; which startling them, he observed that there was no great matter in it—"for," said he, "we ran, and they ran after us."
A tipsy Irishman, leaning against a lamp post as a funeral was passing by, was asked who was dead. "I can't exactly say, sir," said he, "but I presume it's the gentleman in the coffin."
A certain lord wished Garrick to be a candidate for the representation of a borough in parliament. "No, my lord," said the actor, "I would rather play the part of a great man on the stage than the part of a fool in parliament."
The people live uncommon long at Vermont. There are two men there so old that they have quite forgotten who they are, and there is nobody alive who can remember it for them.
A Scotch blacksmith, being asked the meaning of metaphysics, explained it as follows:—"When the party who listens disna ken what the party who speaks means, and when the party who speaks disna ken what he means himsel'—that is metaphysics."
The Wheeling Gazette gives the following, as an extract from the recent address of a barrister "out west," to a jury:—"The law expressly declares, gentlemen, in the beautiful language of Shakspeare, that where no doubt exists of the guilt of the prisoner, it is your duty to fetch him in innocent. If you keep this fact in view, in the case of my client, gentlemen, you will have the honor of making a friend of him, and all his relations; and you can allers look upon this occasion, and reflect with pleasure, that you have done as you would be done by. But if, on the other hand, you disregard the principle of law, and set at nought my eloquent remarks, and fetch him in guilty, the silent twitches of conscience will follow you over every fair cornfield, I reckon; and my injured and down-trodden client will be apt to light on you one of these dark nights, as my cat lights on a sasserful of new milk."
"Will you never learn, my dear, the difference between real and exchangeable value?" The question was put to a husband, who had been lucky enough to be tied up to a political economist in petticoats. "Oh yes, my dear, I think I begin to see." "Indeed!" responded the lady. "Yes," replied the husband. "For instance, my dear, I know your deep learning, and all your other virtues. That's your real value. But I know, also, that none of my married friends would swap wives with me. That's your exchangeable value.
"Ah, Pat, Pat," said a schoolmistress to a thick-headed urchin into whose muddy brain she was attempting to beat the alphabet—"I'm afraid you'll never learn anything. Now, what's that letter, eh?"
"Sure, and I don't know ma'am," replied Pat.
"Thought you might have remembered that."
"Why, ma'am?"
"Because it has a dot over the top of it."
"Och, ma'am, I mind it well; but sure I thought it was a speck."
"Well, now remember, Pat, it's I."
"You, ma'am?"
"No! no! not U but I."
"Not I, but you, ma'am—how's that?"
"Not U, but I, blockhead!"
"Och, yis, faith; now I have it, ma'am. You mean to say, that not I but you are a blockhead?"
"Fool! fool!" exclaimed the pedagoguess bursting with rage.
"Just as you please," quietly responded Pat, "fool or blockhead—it's no matter, so long as yer free to own it!"
At a cattle show, recently, a fellow who was making himself ridiculously conspicuous, at last broke forth—"Call these ere prize cattle? Why, they ain't nothin' to what our folks raised. My father raised the biggest calf of any man round our parts."
"I don't doubt it," remarked a bystander, "and the noisiest."
"Ma, I am going to make some soft soap, for the Fair this fall!" said a beautiful Miss of seventeen, to her mother, the other day.
"What put that notion into your head, Sally?"
"Why, ma, the premium is just what I have been wanting."
"Pray, what is it?"
"A 'Westchester Farmer,' I hope he will be a good looking one!"
A correspondent from Northampton, Mass., is responsible for the following:—"A subscriber to a moral-reform paper, called at our post office, the other day, and enquired if The Friend of Virtue had come. "No," replied the postmaster, "there has been no such person here for a long time."
The late Rev. Dr. Sutton, Vicar of Sheffield, once said to the late Mr. Peach, a veterionary surgeon, "Mr. Peach, how is it you have not called upon me for your account?"
"Oh," said Mr. Peach, "I never ask a gentleman for money."
"Indeed!" said the Vicar, "then how do you get on if he don't pay?"
"Why," replied Mr. Peach, "after a certain time I conclude that he is not a gentleman, and then I ask him."
I saw Lunardi make the first ascent in a balloon, which had been witnessed in England. It was from the Artillery ground. Fox was there with his brother, General F. The crowd was immense. Fox, happening to put his hand down to his watch, found another hand upon it, which he immediately seized. "My friend," said he to the owner of the strange hand, "you have chosen an occupation which wilt be your ruin at last." "O Mr. Fox," was the reply, "forgive me, and let me go! I have been driven to this course by necessity alone; my wife and children are starving at home." Fox, always tender-hearted, slipped a guinea into the hand, and then released it. On the conclusion of the show, Fox was proceeding to look what o'clock it was. "Good God!" cried he, "my watch is gone!" "Yes," answered General F., "I know it is; I saw your friend take it." "Saw him take it! and you made no attempt to stop him?" "Really, you and he appeared to be on such good terms with each other, that I did not choose to interfere."—Rogers' Table-talk.
Stothard the painter happened to be, one evening, at an inn on the Kent Road, when Pitt and Dundas put up there on their way from Walmer. Next morning, as they were stepping into their carriage, the waiter said to Stothard, "Sir, do you observe these two gentlemen?" "Yes," he replied; "and I know them to be Mr. Pitt and Mr. Dundas." "Well, sir, how much wine do you suppose they drank last night?"—Stothard could not guess.—"Seven bottles, sir."
Dr. Parr and Lord Erskine are said to have been the vainest men of their time. At a dinner some years since, Dr. Parr, in ecstasies with the conversational powers of Lord Erskine, called out to him, though his junior, "My Lord, I mean to write your epitaph." "Dr. Parr," replied the noble lawyer, "it is a temptation to commit suicide."
A few days since, says the New York Courier, Mr. Wise appealed to the Speaker of the House of Representatives for protection against Mr. Adams, who, he alleged, was "making mouths at him." Precisely the same complaint was subsequently made by a gentleman from Massachusetts, against Mr. Marshall of Kentucky; but the latter gentleman defended himself by saying, "It was only a peculiar mode he had of chewing his tobacco."
When the late Lord Erskine, then going the circuit, was asked by his landlord how he slept, he replied, "Union is strength; a fact of which some of your inmates seem to be unaware; for had they been unanimous last night, they might have pushed me out of bed." "Fleas!" exclaimed Boniface, affecting great astonishment, "I was not aware that I had a single one in the house." "I don't believe you have," retorted his lordship, "they are all married, and have uncommonly large families."
One day, Naisr-ed-din ascended the pulpit of the Mosque, and thus addressed the congregation:—"Oh, true believers, do you know what I am going to say to you?" "No," responded the congregation. "Well, then," said he, "there is no use in my speaking to you." And he came down from the pulpit. He went to preach a second time, and asked the congregation, "Oh, true believers, do you know what I am going to say to you?" "We know," replied the audience. "Ah, as you know," said he, quitting the pulpit, "why should I take the trouble of telling you?" When next he came to preach, the congregation resolved to try his powers; and when he asked his usual question, replied, "Some of us know, and some of us do not know." "Very well," said he, "let those who know, tell those who do not know."—Turkish Jest-book.
The other day, Mrs. Snipkins being unwell, sent for a medical man, and declared that she was poisoned, and that Mr. Snipkins did it. "I didn't do it," shouted Snipkins. "It's all gammon; she isn't poisoned. Prove it, doctor—open her on the spot—I'm willing."
"May I help you to some beef?" said the master of the house to the late Mr. Brummell. "I never eat beef, nor horse, nor anything of that sort," answered the astonished and indignant epicure.
Some years ago, during a discussion respecting the Bank of Waterford, an Honourable Member said, "I conjure the Right Honourable the Chancellor of the Exchequer to pause in his dangerous career, and desist from a course only calculated to inflict innumerable calamities on my country—to convulse the entire system of society with anarchy and revolution—to shake the very pillars of civil government itself—and to cause a fall in the price of butter in Waterford."
A person who was recently called into court, for the purpose of proving the correctness of a doctor's bill, was asked by the lawyer whether the doctor did not make several visits after the patient was out of danger? "No," replied the witness, "I considered the patient in danger as long as the doctor continued his visits!"
Being asked to give a definition of nonsense, Dr. Johnson replied, "Sir, it is nonsense to bolt a door with a boiled carrot."
I believe every created crittur in the world thinks that he's the most entertainin' one on it, and that there's no gettin' on anyhow without him. Consait grows as natural as the hair on one's head, but is longer in comin' out.—Sam Slick's Wise Saws.
One of the deacons of a certain church asked the bishop if he usually kissed the bride at weddings.
"Always," was the reply.
"And how do you manage when the happy pair are negroes?" was the next question.
"In all such cases," replied the bishop, "the duty of kissing is appointed to the deacons!"
"I reckon I couldn't drive a trade with you to-day, squire?" said a genuine specimen of a Yankee pedler, as he stood at the door of a certain merchant in St. Louis.
"I reckon you calculate about right, for you can't," was the sneering reply.
"Wall, I guess you needn't get huffy 'bout it. Now here's a dozen ginooine razer strops—worth two dollars and a half; you may have 'em for two dollars."
"I tell you I don't want any of your strops—so you may as well be going along."
"Wall, now, look here, squire, I'll bet you five dollars, that if you make me an offer for them 'ere strops, we'll have a trade yet!"
"Done!" replied the merchant, placing the money in the hands of a bystander. The Yankee deposited a like sum.
"Now," said the merchant, "I'll give you a picayune for the strops."
"They're yourn," said the Yankee, as he quietly pocketed the stakes.
"But," said he, after a little reflection, and with great apparent honesty, "I'll trade back."
The merchant's countenance brightened.
"You are not so bad a chap, after all," said he. "Here are your strops—give me the money."
"There it is," said the Yankee, as he received the strops and passed over the sixpence. "A trade is a trade; and, now you are wide awake, the next time you trade with that 'ere sixpence you'll do a little better than buy razer strops."
And away walked the pedler with his strops and his wager, amidst the shouts of the laughing crowd.
What is the difference between a big man and a little man?—One is a tall fellow and the other not at all.
Why is a betting-list keeper like a bride?—Because he's taken for better or worse.
Why is a person asking questions the strangest of all individuals?—Because he's the querist.
Why is a thief called a "jail-bird?"—Because he has been a "robbin."
Why should an editor look upon it as ominous when a correspondent signs himself "Nemo?"—Because there is an omen in the very letters.
A gentleman asked a friend, in a somewhat knowing manner, "Pray, sir, did you ever see a cat-fish?" "No," was the response, "but I've seen a rope walk."
In the State of Ohio, there resided a family, consisting of an old man, of the name of Beaver, and his three sons, all of whom were hard "pets," who had often laughed to scorn the advice and entreaties of a pious, though very eccentric, minister, who resided in the same town. It happened one of the boys was bitten by a rattlesnake, and was expected to die, when the minister was sent for in great haste. On his arrival, he found the young man very penitent, and anxious to be prayed with. The minister calling on the family, knelt down, and prayed in this wise:—"O Lord! we thank thee for rattlesnakes. We thank thee because a rattlesnake has bit Jim. We pray thee send a rattlesnake to bite John; send one to bite Bill; send one to bite Sam; and, O Lord! send the biggest kind of a rattlesnake to bite the old man; for nothing but rattlesnakes will ever bring the Beaver family to repentance."
Counsellor (afterwards Chief Justice) Bushe, being asked which of Mr. Power's company of actors he most admired, maliciously replied, "The prompter; for I heard the most, and saw the least of him."
I once observed to a Scotch lady, "how desirable it was in any danger to have presence of mind." "I had rather," she rejoined, "have absence of body."—Rogers' Table-talk.
A man hearing the drum beat up for volunteers for France, in the expedition against the Dutch, imagined himself valiant enough, and thereupon enlisted himself; returning again, he was asked by his friends, "what exploits he had performed there?" He said, "that he had cut off one of the enemy's legs;" and being told that it would have been more honorable and manly to have cut off his head, said, "Oh! you must know his head was cut off before."
Witticisms are often attributed to the wrong people. It was Lord Chesterfield, not Sheridan, who said, on occasion of a certain marriage, that "Nobody's son had married Everybody's daughter."
Lord Chesterfield remarked of two persons dancing a minuet, that "they looked as if they were hired to do it, and were doubtful of being paid."
A Scotch parson, in his prayer, said, "Lord, bless the grand council, the parliament, and grant that they may hang together." A country fellow standing by, replied, "Yes, sir, with all my heart, and the sooner the better—and I am sure it is the prayer of all good people." "But, friends," said the parson, "I don't mean as that fellow does, but pray they may all hang together in accord and concord." "No matter what cord," replied the other, "so 'tis but a strong one."
The Bishop of Oxford, having sent round to the churchwardens in his diocese a circular of inquiries, among which was:—"Does your officiating clergyman preach the gospel, and is his conversation and carriage consistent therewith?" The churchwarden near Wallingford replied:—"He preaches the gospel, but does not keep a carriage."
A lady solicitor for the Mount Vernon fund visited one of the schools in Boston, says the Bee, to collect offerings from the children. On the dismission of the school, one of the boys went home, and said to his father—"Papa! General Washington's wife came to our school to-day, trying to raise some money to buy a graveyard for him where he's buried, and I want a dime to put into the contribution-box." In an ecstasy of patriotism the gentleman contributed.
Sheridan was one day much annoyed by a fellow-member of the House of Commons, who kept crying out every few minutes, "Hear! hear!" During the debate he took occasion to describe a political contemporary that wished to play rogue, but had only sense enough to act fool. "Where," exclaimed he, with great emphasis, "where shall we find a more foolish knave or a more knavish fool than he?" "Hear! hear!" was shouted by the troublesome member. Sheridan turned round, and, thanking him for the prompt information, sat down amid a general roar of laughter.
The late Mr. Bush used to tell a story of a brother barrister:—As the coach was about starting, before breakfast, the modest limb of the law approached the landlady, a pretty Quakeress, who was seated near the fire, and said he "could not think of going without giving her a kiss." "Friend," said she, "thee must not do it." "Oh! by heavens, I will!" replied the barrister. "Well, friend, as thou hast sworn, thee may do it; but thee must not make a practice of it."
In the Bristol market, a lady laying her hand on a joint of veal, said, "I think, Mr. F., this veal is not quite so white as usual." "Put on your glove, madam," replied the dealer, "and you will think differently." It may be needless to remark, that the veal was ordered home without another word of objection.
A gentleman finding his servant intoxicated, said—"What, drunk again, Sam! I scolded you for being drunk last night, and here you are drunk again." "No, massa, same drunk, massa, same drunk," replied Sambo.
A lively Hibernian exclaimed, at a party where Theodore Hook shone as the evening star, "Och, Master Theodore, but you're the hook that nobody can bait."
Paris, December 10th, 1823.
My dear Mr. Bull,—Having often heard travelers lament not having put down what they call memorybillious of their journies, I was determined while I was on my tower, to keep a dairy (so called from containing the cream of one's information), and record everything which recurred to me—therefore I begin with my departure from London.
Resolving to take time by the firelock, we left Montague Place at 7 o'clock by Mr. Fulmer's pocket thermometer, and proceeded over Westminister Bridge to explode the European Continent. I never pass Whitehall without dropping a tear to the memory of Charles the Second, who was decimated, after the rebellion of 1745, opposite the Horse Guards—his memorable speech to Archbishop Caxon rings in my ears whenever I pass the spot. I reverted my head and affected to look to see what o'clock it was by the dial, on the opposite side of the way. It is quite impossible not to notice the improvements in this part of the town, the beautiful view which one gets of Westminster Hall and its curious roof, after which, as everybody knows, its builder was called William Roofus.
Amongst the lighter specimens of modern architecture is Ashley's ampletheatre, on your right, as you cross the bridge (which was built, Mr. Fulmer informed me, by the Court of Arches and House of Peers). In this ampletheatre there are Equestrian performances, so called because they are exhibited nightly during the season.
The toll at the Marsh Gate is ris since we last came through—it was here we were to have taken up Lavinia's friend, Mr. Smith, who has promised to go with us to Dover—but we found his servant instead of himself with a billy, to say he was sorry he could not come, because his friend, Sir John Somebody, wished him to stay and go down to Poll at Lincoln. I have no doubt that this Poll, whoever she may be, is a very respectable young woman, but mentioning her by her Christian name only in so abrupt a manner had a very unpleasant appearance at any rate. Nothing remarkable occurred till we reached the Obstacle in St. George's Fields, where our attention was arrested by those great Institutions—the school for the Indignant Blind, and the Misanthropic Society for making shoes, both of which claim the gratitude of the nation. At the bottom of the lane, leading to Peckham, I saw that they had removed the Dollygraph which used to stand upon the declivity to the right of the road—the Dollygraphs are all to be superseded by Serampores.
When we came to the Green Man at Blackheath, we had an opportunity of noticing the errors of former travellers, for the heath is green and the man is black. Mr. Fulmer endeavoured to account for this, by saying, that Mr. Colman has discovered that Moors being black, and heaths being a kind of moor, he looks upon the confusion of words as the cause of the mistake. N. B.—Mr. Colman is the itinerary surgeon, who constantly resides at St. Pancras. As we went near Woolwich, we saw at a distance the Artillery Officers on a common, a firing away in mortars like anything. At Dartford they make gunpowder—here we changed horses. At the inn we saw a most beautiful Roderick Random in a pot covered with flowers—it is the finest I ever saw, except those at Dropmore. When we got to Rochester, we went to the Crown Inn and had a cold collection—the charge was absorbant. I had often heard my poor dear husband talk of the influence of the Crown, and the Bill of Wrights, but I had no idea what it really meant, till we had to pay one.
As we passed near Chatham, I saw several Pitts, and Mr. Fulmer shewed me a great many buildings—I believe he said they were fortyfications, but I think there must have been fifty of them; he also showed me the Lines at Chatham, which I saw quite distinctly, with the clothes drying on them. Rochester was remarkable in King Charles's time, for being a very witty and dissolute place, as I have read in books.
At Canterbury, we stopped ten minutes to visit all the remarkable buildings and curiosities in it, and about its neighborhood; the church is most beautiful. When Oliver Cromwell conquered William the Third, he perverted it into a stable—the stalls are now standing. The old Virgin, who shewed us the church, wore buckskin breaches and powder—he said it was an archypiscopal sea—but I saw no sea, nor do I think it possible he could see it either, for it is at least seventeen miles off. We saw Mr. Thomas à Beckett's tomb—my poor husband was extremely intimate with the old gentleman, and one of his nephews, a very nice young man, who lives near Golden Square, dined with us twice, I think, in London. In Trinity Chapel is the monument of Eau de Cologne, just as it is now exhibiting at the Diarrhœa in the Regent's Park. It was late when we got to Dover. We walked about while our dinner was preparing, looking forward to our snug tête-à-tête of three. We went to look at the sea—so called, perhaps, from the uninterrupted view one has when upon it. It was very curious to see the locks to keep the water here, and the keys which are on each side of them, all ready, I suppose, to open them if they are wanted. We were awake with the owl next morning, and a walking away before eight, we went to see the castle,—which was built, the man told us, by Seizer, so called, I conclude, from seizing everything he could lay his hands upon. The man said moreover that he had invaded Britain and conquered it, upon which I told him, that if he repeated such a thing in my presence again, I should write to the Government about him. We saw the inn where Alexander the Autograph of all the Russians lived when he was here—and as we were going along, we met twenty or thirty dragons mounted on horses, and the ensign who commanded them was a friend of Mr. Fulmer's—he looked at Lavinia and seemed pleased with her Tooting assembly—he was quite a "sine qua non" of a man, and wore tips on his lips, like Lady Hopkins' poodle. I heard Mr. Fulmer say he was a son of Marrs; he spoke as if everybody knew his father, so I suppose he must be the son of the poor gentleman who was so barbarously murdered some years ago, near Ratcliff Highway—if he is, he is uncommon genteel. At 12 o'clock we got into a boat and rowed to the packet; it was a very fine and clear day for the season, and Mr. Fulmer said he should not dislike pulling Lavinia about all the morning—this, I believe, was a naughty-call phrase—which I did not rightly comprehend, because Mr. F. never offered to talk in that way on shore to either of us. The packet is not a parcel, as I imagined, in which we were to be made up for exportation, but a boat of very considerable size; it is called a cutter—why I do not know, and did not like to ask. It was very curious to see how it rolled about—however I felt quite mal-á-propos—and instead of exciting any of the soft sensibility of the other sex, a great unruly man, who held the handle of the ship, bid me lay hold of a companion, and when I sought his arm for protection, he introduced me to a ladder, down which I ascended into the cabin, one of the most curious places I ever beheld—where ladies and gentlemen are put upon shelves like books in a library, and where tall men are doubled up like bootjacks, before they can be put away at all. A gentleman in a heavy cap without his coat laid me perpendicular on a mattrass, with a basin by my side, and said that was my birth. I thought it would have been my death, for I never was so ill-disposed in all my life. I behaved extremely ill to a very amiable middle-aged gentleman, who had the misfortune to be attending on his wife, in a little bed under me. There was no symphony to be found among the tars (so called from their smell), for just before we went off I heard them throw a painter overboard, and directly after they called out to one another to hoist up the ensign. I was too ill to inquire what the poor young gentleman had done; but after I came up stairs, I did not see his body hanging anywhere, so I conclude they cut him down—I hope it was not young Mr. Marr, a venturing after my Lavy. I was quite shocked to find what democrats the sailors are—they seem to hate the nobility—especially the law lords. The way I discovered this apathy of theirs to the nobility, was this—the very moment we lost sight of England and were close to France, they began, one and all, to swear first at the Peer, and then at the Bar, in such gross terms as made my very blood run cold. I was quite pleased to see Lavinia sitting with Mr. Fulmer in the traveling carriage on the outside of the packet; but Lavinia afforded great proofs of her good bringing up, by commanding her feelings. It is curious what could have agitated the billy ducks of my stomach, because I took every precaution which is recommended in different books to prevent ill-disposition. I had some mutton chops at breakfast, some Scotch marmalade on bread and butter, two eggs, two cups of coffee, and three of tea, besides toast, a little fried whiting, some potted char, and a few shrimps, and after breakfast I took a glass of warm white wine negus and a few oysters, which lasted me till we got into the boat, where I began eating gingerbread nuts all the way to the packet, and there was persuaded to take a glass of bottled porter to keep everything snug and comfortable.
Adieu,
Yours truly,
Dorothea Julia Ramsbottom.
[*] This jeu d'esprit is attributed to Theodore Hook.
Some one asked a lad how it was he was so short for his age? He replied, "Father keeps me so busy I haint time to grow."
The English are a calm, reflecting people; they will give time and money when they are convinced; but they love dates, names, and certificates. In the midst of the most heart-rending narratives, Bull requires the day of the month, the year of our Lord, the name of the parish, and the countersign of three or four respectable householders. After these affecting circumstances, he can no longer hold out; but gives way to the kindness of his nature—puffs, blubbers, and subscribes!—Sydney Smith.
In some of our towns we don't allow smokin' in the streets, though most of them we do, and where it is agin law, it is two dollars fine in a gineral way. Well, Sassy went down to Boston, to do a little chore of business there, where this law was, only he didn't know it. So, soon as he gets off the coach, he outs with his case, takes a cigar, lights it, and walks on, smoking like a furnace flue. No sooner said than done. Up steps a constable and says, "I'll trouble you for two dollars for smokin' agin law, in the streets." Sassy was as quick as wink on him. "Smokin'!" says he; "I warn't a smokin'." "O, my!" says constable, "how you talk, man! I won't say you lie, 'cause it aint polite, but it's very like the way I talk when I fib. Didn't I see you with my own eyes?" "No," says Sassy, "you didn't. It don't do always to believe your own eyes, they can't be depended on more than other people's. I never trust mine, I can assure you. I own I had a cigar in my mouth, but it was because I liked the flavor of tobacco, but not to smoke. I take it don't convene with the dignity of a free and enlightened citizen of our almighty nation, to break the law, seein' that he makes the law himself, and is his own sovereign, and his own subject, too. No, I warn't smokin', and if you don't believe me, try this cigar yourself, and see if it aint so. It han't got no fire in it." Well, constable takes the cigar, puts it into his mug, and draws away at it, and out comes the smoke like anythin'. "I'll trouble you for two dollars, Mr. High Sheriff's representative," says Sassy, "for smokin' in the streets; do you underconstand, my old coon?" Well, constable was taken all aback; he was finely bit. "Stranger," says he, "where was you raised?" "To Canady line," says Sassy. "Well," says he, "you're a credit to your broughtens up. We'll let the fine drop, for we are about even, I guess. Let's liquor," and he took him into a bar and treated him to a mint julep. It was generally considered a great bite, that, and I must say, I don't think it was bad—do you?—Sam Slick.
Theodore Hook, when surprised, one evening, in his arm-chair, two or three hours after dinner, is reported to have apologised, by saying: "When one is alone, the bottle does come round so often." It was Sir Hercules Langrishe, who, being asked, on a similar occasion, "Have you finished all that port (three bottles) without assistance?" answered, "No, not quite that; I had the assistance of a bottle of Madeira."
When Horne Tooke was at school, the boys asked him "what his father was?" Tooke answered, "A Turkey merchant." (He was a poulterer.)
He once said to his brother, a pompous man, "You and I have reversed the natural course of things; you have risen by your gravity; I have sunk by my levity."
To Judge Ashhurst's remark, that the law was open to all, both to the rich and to the poor, Tooke replied, "So is the London tavern."
He said that Hume wrote his history, as witches say their prayers—backwards.
Counsellor Lamb, an old man when Lord Erskine was in the height of his reputation, was of timid manners and nervous disposition, usually prefacing his pleadings with an apology to that effect; and on one occasion, when opposed, in some cause, to Erskine, he happened to remark that "he felt himself growing more and more timid as he grew older." "No wonder," replied the witty, but relentless barrister; "every one knows the older a lamb grows, the more sheepish he becomes."
I shall not easily forget the sarcasm of Swift's simile as he told us of the Prince of Orange's harangue to the mob of Portsmouth:—"We are come," said he, "for your good—for all your goods." "A universal principle," added Swift, "of all governments; but, like most other truths, only told by mistake."—Ethel Churchill.
Talleyrand being asked, if a certain authoress, whom he had long since known, but who belonged rather to the last age, was not "a little tiresome?" "Not at all," said he, "she was perfectly tiresome."
A gentleman in company was one day making a somewhat zealous eulogy of his mother's beauty, dwelling upon the topic at uncalled for length—he himself having certainly inherited no portion of that kind under the marriage of his parents. "It was your father, then, apparently, who may not have been very well favoured," was Talleyrand's remark, which at once released the circle from the subject.
When Madame de Staël published her celebrated novel of Delphine, she was supposed to have painted herself in the person of the heroine, and M. Talleyrand in that of an elderly lady, who is one of the principal characters. "They tell me," said he, the first time he met her, "that we are both of us in your novel, in the disguise of women."
Rulhières, the celebrated author of the work on the Polish revolution, having said, "I never did but one mischievous work in my life." "And when will it be ended?" was Talleyrand's reply.
"Is not Geneva dull?" asked a friend of Talleyrand. "Especially when they amuse themselves," was the reply.
"She is insupportable," said Talleyrand, with marked emphasis, of one well known; but, as if he had gone too far, and to take off something of what he had said, he added, "it is her only defect."
Buss—to kiss. Re-bus—to kiss again. Blunder-buss—two girls kissing each other. Omni-bus—to kiss all the girls in the room. Bus-ter—a general kisser. E pluri-bus unum—a thousand kisses in one.
"You want a flogging, that's what you do;" said a parent to his unruly son. "I know it, dad; but I'll try to get along without it," replied the brat.
The following anecdotes were told by the late Bishop of Chichester, as having occurred to himself.
At the annual examination of the Charity Schools, around the city of Chichester, he was seated in the front row of the school room, together with his daughters, and the family of the noble house of Richmond, when the Bishop kindly took part in the examination, and put several questions. To one boy, he said, "We have all sinned and come short of the glory of God. Now, does that passage mean that every one of us has sinned?" The boy hesitated—but upon a repetition of the question, the lad replied, "Every one except your Lordship, and the company sitting on the front form." The same Bishop, at one of his Confirmations, saw a school girl inclined to be inattentive and troublesome; he therefore held up his finger as a warning. These children, being accustomed to signs from their teachers, of which they were expected to declare the meaning, did not suppose that the elevation of the Bishop's finger, was an exception to their general rule of reply to such tokens, they therefore all arose together, and from the middle of the Church exclaimed in an exulting tone, "perpendicular," to the astonishment and consternation of the better inclined, and to the amusement, we fear, of not a few of the congregation.
"So there's another rupture of Mount Vociferous," said Mrs. Partington, as she put up her specs; "the paper tells us about the burning lather running down the mountain, but it don't tell how it got a fire."
A very laughable incident occurred in the House of Commons. An Irish member, whose name I will not mention, having risen, he was assailed by loud cries of "Spoke! Spoke!" meaning, that having spoken once already, he had no right to do it a second time. He had, evidently, a second speech struggling in his breast for an introduction into the world, when seeing after remaining for some time on his legs, that there was not the slightest chance of being suffered to deliver a sentence of it, he observed, with imperturbable gravity, and in a rich Tipperary brogue, "If honorable gintlemin suppose that I was going to spake again, they are quite mistaken. I merely rose for the purpose of saying that I had nothing more to say on the subject." The house was convulsed with laughter, for a few seconds afterwards, at the exceeding ready wit of the Hibernian M. P.—Random Recollections of the Lords and Commons.—New Series.
There is a young lady down east, so excessively modest, that every night before retiring, she closes the window curtain, to prevent the "man in the moon" from looking in. She is related to the young lady who would not allow the Christian Observer to remain in her room over night.
"The ladies; the only endurable aristocracy, who rule without laws—judge without jury—decide without appeal, and are never in the wrong."
Diggs saw a note lying on the ground, but knew that it was a counterfeit, and walked on without picking it up. He told the story to Smithers, when the latter said:
"Do you know, Diggs, you have committed a very grave offence?"
"Why, what have I done?"
"You have passed a counterfeit bill, knowing it to be such," said Smithers, without a smile, and fled.
Lord Chesterfield being given to understand that he would die by inches, very philosophically replied, "If that be the case, I am happy that I am not so tall as Sir Thomas Robinson."
A good woman called on Dr. B—— one day in a great deal of trouble, and complained that her son had swallowed a penny. "Pray madam," said the Doctor, "was it a counterfeit?" "No, Sir, certainly not;" was the reply. "Then it will pass, of course," rejoined the facetious physician.
A lady, after performing, with the most brilliant execution, a sonata on the pianoforte, in the presence of Dr. Johnson, turning to the philosopher, took the liberty of asking him if he was fond of music? "No madam," replied the doctor; "but of all noises I think music is the least disagreeable."
Upon Frederick Prince of Wales, son of George the Second, a prince whom people of all parties are now agreed in thinking no very great worthy, nor superior to what a lively woman has here written upon him; for if we understand Horace Walpole rightly, who says the verses were found among her papers, they were the production of the Honourable Miss Rollo, probably daughter of the fourth Lord Rollo, who was implicated in the rebellion. Frederick was familiarly termed Feckie and Fed.
"Here lies Prince Fed,
Gone down among the dead.
Had it been his father,
We had much rather;
Had it been his mother,
Better than any other;
Had it been his sister,
Few would have miss'd her;
Had it been the whole generation,
Ten times better for the nation;
But since 'tis only Fed,
There's no more to be said."
A good story is told of a "country gentleman," who, for the first time, heard an Episcopal clergyman preach. He had read much of the aristocracy and pride of the church, and when he returned home he was asked if the people were "stuck up." "Pshaw! no," replied he, "why the minister preached in his shirt-sleeves."
The Boston Herald, in announcing the death of Elder G. Adams, a Mormon preacher, says:—"On his second visit to Boston, the Elder preached, baptized converts, whipped a newspaper editor, and played a star engagement at the National Theatre. He was industrious, and filled up all his time. We have a fund of anecdotes concerning this strange mortal, which we shall be glad to print at some other time. We close this article by briefly adverting to the chastisement he gave an editor, for strongly criticising his performance of Richard III. The office of the editor was in Washington street, where Propeller now keeps. Adams armed himself with a cowhide, and watched for his victim. Soon, the unsuspecting fellow came down the stairs, and Adams sprang upon him, exclaiming, "The Lord has delivered thee into my hands, and I shall give thee forty stripes, save one, Scripture measure. Brother Graham, keep tally." So saying, he proceeded to lay on the punishment with hearty good will. In the meantime, a large crowd had gathered around the avenging priest and the delinquent. When the tally was up, Adams let the man go, and addressed the crowd as follows: "Men and brethren, my name is Elder George J. Adams, preacher of the everlasting gospel. I have chastised mine enemy. I go this afternoon to fulfil an engagement at the Providence Theatre, where I shall play one of Shakspeare's immortal creations. I shall return to this city, at the end of the week, and will, by divine permission, preach three times next Sabbath, on the immortality of the soul, the eternity of matter, and in answer to the question 'Who is the Devil?' May grace and peace be with you.—Amen!"
John Kemble was often very amusing when he had had a good deal of wine. He and two friends were returning to town, in an open carriage, from the Priory, (Lord Abercorn's,) where they had dined; and as they were waiting for change at a toll-gate, Kemble, to the amazement of the toll-keeper, called out, in the tone of Rolla, "We seek no change; and, least of all, such change as he would bring us."
A green 'un, who had never before seen a steamboat, fell through the hatchway, down into the hold, and being unhurt, thus loudly expressed his surprise—"Well, if the darned thing aint holler."
An Englishman and a Frenchman having quarrelled, they were to fight a duel. Being both great cowards, they agreed (for their mutual safety, of course) that the duel should take place in a room perfectly dark. The Englishman had to fire first. He groped his way to the hearth, fired up the chimney, and brought down—the Frenchman, who had taken refuge there.
"A lawyer," said Lord Brougham, in a facetious mood, "is a learned gentleman, who rescues your estate from your enemies, and keeps it himself."
Sir—In the course of my study in the English language, which I made now for three years, I always read your periodically, and now think myself capable to write at your Magazin. I love always the modesty, or you shall have a letter of me very long time pass. But, never mind. I would well tell you, that I am come to this country to instruct me in the manners, the customs, the habits, the policies, and the other affairs general of Great Britain. And truly I think me good fortunate, being received in many families, so as I can to speak your language now with so much facility as the French.
I am but a particular gentleman, come here for that what I said; but, since I learn to comprehend the language, I discover that I am become an object of pleasantry, and for himself to mock, to one of your comedians even before I put my foot upon the ground at Douvres. He was Mr. Mathew, who tell of some contretems of me and your word detestable Box. Well, never mind. I know at present how it happen, because I see him since in some parties and dinners; and he confess he love much to go travel and mix himself altogether up with the stage coach and vapouring boat for fun, what he bring at his theatre.
Well, never mind. He see me, perhaps, to ask a question in the paque-bot—but he not confess after, that he goed and bribe the garçon at the hotel and the coachman to mystify me with all the boxes; but, very well, I shall tell you how it arrived, so as you shall see that it was impossible that a stranger could miss to be perplexed, and to advertise the travellers what will come after, that they shall converse with the gentleman and not with the badinstructs.
But, it must that I begin. I am a gentleman, and my goods are in the public rentes, and a chateau with a handsome propriety on the banks of the Loire, which I lend to a merchant English, who pay me very well in London for my expenses. Very well. I like the peace nevertheless that I was force, at other time, to go to war with Napoleon. But it is passed. So I come to Paris in my proper post-chaise, where I selled him, and hire one, for almost nothing at all, for bring me to Calais all alone, because I will not bring my valet to speak French here where all the world is ignorant.
The morning following, I get upon the vapouring boat to walk so far as Douvres. It was fine day, and after I am recover myself of a malady of the sea, I walk myself about the ship, and I see a great mechanic of wood with iron wheel, and thing to push up inside, and handle to turn. It seemed to be ingenious, and proper to hoist great burdens. They use it for shoving the timber, what come down of the vessel, into the place; and they tell me it was call "Jacques in the box:" and I was very much pleased with the invention so novel.
Very well. I go again promenade upon the board of the vessel, and I look at the compass, and little boy sailor come and sit him down, and begin to chatter like the little monkey. Then the man that turns a wheel about and about laugh, and say, "Very well, Jacques," but I not understand one word the little fellow say. So I make inquire, and they tell me he was "box the compass." I was surprise, but I tell myself, "Well, never mind;" and so we arrive at Douvres. I find myself enough well in the hotel, but as there has been no table d'hôte, I ask for some dinner, and it was long time I wait: and so I walk myself to the customary house, and give the key to my portmanteau to the douaniers, or excisemen, as you call, for them to see as I had no smuggles in my equipage. Very well. I return at my hotel, and meet one of the waiters, who tell me (after I stand little moment to the door to see the world what pass by upon a coach at the instant), "Sir," he say, "your dinner is ready." "Very well," I make response, "where was it?" "This way, Sir," he answer, "I have put it in a box in the café room." "Well, never mind," I say to myself, "when a man himself finds in a stranger country, he must be never surprised. 'Nil admirari.' Keep the eyes open and stare at nothing at all."
I found my dinner only there there, because I was so soon come from France; but, I learn, another sort of the box was a partition and table particular in a saloon, and I keep there when I eated some good sole fritted, and some not cooked mutton cutlet; and a gentleman what was put in another box, perhaps Mr. Mathew, because nobody not can know him twice, like a cameleon he is, call for the "pepper-box." Very well. I take a cup of coffee, and then all my hards and portmanteau come with a wheel-barrow; and, because it was my resolution to voyage up at London with the coach, and I find my many little things was not convenient, I ask the waiter where I may buy a night sack, or get them tie up all together in a burden. He was well attentive at my cares, and responded, that he shall find me a box to put them all into. Well, I say nothing to all but "Yes," for fear to discover my ignorance; so he brings the little box for the clothes and things into the great box what I was put into; and he did my affairs in it very well. Then I ask him for some spectacle in the town, and he sent boot boy with me so far as the theatre, and I go in to pay. It was shabby poor little place, but the man what set to have the money, when I say, "How much," asked me if I would not go into the boxes. "Very well," I say, "never mind—oh yes—to be sure;" and I find very soon the box was the loge, same thing. I had not understanding sufficient in your tongue then to comprehend all what I hear—only one poor maiger doctor, what had been to give his physic too long time at a cavalier old man, was condemned to swallow up a whole box of his proper pills. "Very well," I say, "that must be egregious. It is cannot be possible," but they bring a little box not more grand nor my thumb. It seemed to be to me very ridiculous; so I returned to my hotel at despair how I could possibility learn a language what meant so many differents in one word.
I found the same waiter, who, so soon as I come in, tell me—"Sir, did you not say that you would go by the coach to-morrow morning?" I replied—"Yes; and I have bespeaked a seat out of the side, because I shall wish to amuse myself with the country, and you have no cabriolets in your coaches." "Sir," he say, very polite, "if you shall allow me, I would recommend you the box, and then the coachman shall tell everything." "Very well," I reply, "yes—to be sure—I shall have a box then—yes;" and then I demanded a fire into my chamber, because I think myself enrhumed upon the sea, and the maid of the chamber come to send me in bed: but I say, "No so quick, if you please; I will write to some friend how I find myself in England. Very well—here is the fire, but perhaps it shall go out before I have finish." She was pretty laughing young woman, and say, "Oh no, Sir, if you pull the bell, the porter, who sits up all night, will come, unless you like to attend to it yourself, and then you will find the coal-box in the closet." Well—I say nothing but "Yes—oh yes." But, when she is gone, I look direct into the closet, and see a box not no more like none of the other boxes what I see all day than nothing.
Well—I write at my friends, and then I tumble about when I wake, and dream in the sleep what should possible be the description of the box, what I must be put in to-morrow for my voyage.
In the morning, it was very fine time, I see the coach at the door, and I walk all around before they bring the horses; but I see nothing what they can call boxes, only the same kind as what my little business was put into. So I ask for the post of letters at a little boots boy, who showed me by the Quay, and tell me, pointing by his finger at a window—"There see, there was the letter-box," and I perceive a crevice. "Very well—all box again to-day," I say, and give my letter to the master of postes, and go away again at the coach, where I very soon find out what was coach-box, and mount myself upon it. Then come the coachman habilitated like the gentleman, and the first word he say was—"Keep horses! Bring my box-coat!" and he push up a grand capote with many scrapes.
"But—never mind," I say; "I shall see all the boxes in time." So he kick his leg upon the board, and cry "cheat!" and we are out into the country in lesser than one minute, and roll at so grand pace, what I have had fear we will be reversed. But after little times, I take courage and we begin to entertain together: but I hear one of the wheels cry squeak, so I tell him, "Sir, one of the wheel would be greased;" then he make reply nonchalancely, "Oh it is nothing but one of the boxes what is too tight." But it is very long time after as I learn that wheel a box was pipe of iron what go turn round upon the axle.
Well—we fly away at the pace of charge. I see great castles, many; then come a pretty house of country well ornamented, and I make inquire what it should be. "Oh!" responded he, "I not remember the gentleman's name, but it is what we call a snug country box."
Then I feel myself abymed at despair, and begin to suspect that he amused himself. But, still I tell myself, "Well, never mind; we shall see." And then after sometimes, there come another house, all alone in a forest, not ornated at all. "What, how you call that?" I demand of him—"Oh!" he responded again, "that is a shooting-box of Lord Killfot's." "Oh!" I cry at last out," that is little too strong;" but he hoisted his shoulders and say nothing. Well, we come at a house of country, ancient with the trees cut like some peacocks, and I demand—"What you call these trees?" "Box, Sir," he tell me. "Devil is in the box," I say at myself. "But, never mind; we shall see." So I myself refreshed with a pinch of snuff and offer him, and he take very polite, and remark upon an instant—"That is a very handsome box of yours, Sir."
"Morbleu!" I exclaimed with inadvertencyness, but I stop myself. Then he pull out his snuff-box, and I take a pinch, because I like at home to be sociable when I am out at voyages, and not show some pride with inferior. It was of wood beautiful with turnings, and colour of yellowish. So I was pleased to admire very much, and inquire the name of the wood, and again he say—"Box, Sir."—Well, I hold myself with patience, but it was difficilly; and we keep with great gallop, till we come at a great crowd of the people. Then I say, "What for all so large concourse?" "Oh!" he response again, "there is one grand boxing match—a battle here to-day." "Peste!" I tell myself, "a battle of boxes! Well, never mind! I hope it can be a combat at the outrance, and they all shall destroy one another, for I am fatigued."
Well—we arrive at an hotel, very superb, all as it ought, and I demand a morsel to refresh myself. I go into a saloon, but, before I finish, great noise come into the passage, and I pull the bell's rope to demand why so great tapage? The waiter tell me, and he laugh at same time, but very civil no less—"Oh, Sir, it is only two of the women what quarrel, and one has given another a box on the ear."
Well—I go back on the coach-box, but I look, as I pass, at all the women ear, for the box; but not none I see. "Well," I tell myself once more, "never mind, we shall see;" and we drive on very passable and agreeable times till we approached ourselves near London: but then come one another coach of the opposition to pass by, and the coachman say—"No, my boy, it shan't do!" and then he whip his horses, and made some traverse upon the road, and tell to me, all the times, a long explication what the other coachman have done otherwhiles, and finish not till we stop, and the coach of opposition come behind him in one narrow place. Well—then he twist himself round, and, with full voice, cry himself out at the another man, who was so angry as himself—"I'll tell you what, my hearty! If you comes some more of your gammon at me, I shan't stand, and you shall yourself find in the wrong box." It was not for many weeks after as I find out the wrong box meaning.
Well—we get at London, at the coaches office, and I unlightened from my seat, and go at the bureau for pay my passage, and gentleman very polite demanded if I had some friend at London. I converse with him very little time in voyaging, because he was in the interior; but I perceive he is real gentleman. So, I say—"No, Sir, I am stranger." Then he very honestly recommend me at an hotel, very proper, and tell me—"Sir, because I have some affairs in the Banque, I must sleep in the City this night; but to-morrow I shall come at the hotel, where you shall find some good attentions if you make the use of my name." "Very well," I tell myself, "this is best." So we exchange the cards, and I have hackney coach to come at my hotel, where they say—"No room, Sir—very sorry—no room." But I demand to stop the moment, and produce the card what I could not read before, in the movements of the coach with the darkness. The master of the hotel take it from my hand, and become very polite of the instant, and whisper to the ear of some waiters, and these come at me, and say—"Oh yes, Sir, I know Mr. Box very well. Worthy gentleman, Mr. Box. Very proud to incommode any friend of Mr. Box. Pray inlight yourself, and walk in my house." So I go in, and find myself very proper, and soon come so as if I was in my own particular chamber; and Mr. Box come next day, and I find very soon that he was the right Box, and not the wrong box. Ha, ha! You shall excuse my badinage—eh? But never mind—I am going at Leicestershire to see the foxes hunting, and perhaps will get upon a coach-box in the spring, and go at Edinburgh; but I have fear I cannot come at your "Noctes," because I have not learn yet to eat so great supper. I always read what they speak there twice over, except what Mons. Le "Shepherd" say, what I read three time; but never could comprehend exactly what he say, though I discern some time the grand idea, what walk in darkness almost "visible," as your divine Milton say. I am particular fond of the poetry. I read three books of the "Paradise Lost" to Mr. Box, but he not hear me no more—he pronounce me perfect.
After one such compliment, it would be almost the same as ask you for another, if I shall make apology in case I have not find the correct idiotism of your language in this letter; so I shall not make none at all—only throw myself at your mercy, like a great critic.
I have the honour of subscribe myself,
Your much obedient servant,
Louis le Cheminant.
P. S. Ha! ha! It is very droll! I tell my valet, we go at Leicestershire for the hunting fox. Very well. So soon as I finish this letter, he come and demand what I shall leave behind in orders for some presents, to give what people will come at my lodgments for Christmas Boxes.—Blackwood's Magazine.
To attempt to borrow money on the plea of extreme poverty.—To lose money at play, and then fly into a passion about it.—To ask the publisher of a new periodical how many copies he sells per week.—To ask a wine merchant how old his wine is.—To make yourself generally disagreeable, and wonder that nobody will visit you, unless they gain some palpable advantage by it.—To get drunk, and complain the next morning of a headache.—To spend your earnings on liquor, and wonder that you are ragged.—To sit shivering in the cold because you won't have a fire till November.—To suppose that reviewers generally read more than the title-page of the works they praise or condemn.—To judge of people's piety by their attendance at church.—To keep your clerks on miserable salaries, and wonder at their robbing you.—Not to go to bed when you are tired and sleepy, because "it is not bed time."—To make your servants tell lies for you, and afterwards be angry because they tell lies for themselves.—To tell your own secrets, and believe other people will keep them.—To render a man a service voluntarily, and expect him to be grateful for it.—To expect to make people honest by hardening them in a jail, and afterwards sending them adrift without the means of getting work.—To fancy a thing is cheap because a low price is asked for it.—To say that a man is charitable because he subscribes to an hospital.—To keep a dog or a cat on short allowance, and complain of its being a thief.—To degrade human nature in the hope of improving it.—To praise the beauty of a woman's hair before you know whether it did not once belong to somebody else.—To expect that your tradespeople will give you long credit if they generally see you in shabby clothes.—To arrive at the age of fifty, and be surprised at any vice, folly, or absurdity your fellow creatures may be guilty of.
An Irishman being asked why he wore his stockings wrong side out, replied, "Because there's a hole on the ither side ov 'em."
At a religious meeting, a lady persevered in standing on a bench, and thus intercepting the view of others, though repeatedly requested to sit down. A reverend old gentleman at last rose, and said, gravely, "I think, if the lady knew that she had a large hole in each of her stockings, she would not exhibit them in this way." This had the desired effect—she immediately sunk down on her seat. A young minister standing by, blushed to the temples, and said, "O brother, how could you say what was not the fact?" "Not the fact!" replied the old gentleman; "if she had not a large hole in each of her stockings, I should like to know how she gets them on."
Miss Lucy Stone, of Boston, a "woman's rights" woman, having put the question, "Marriage—what is it?" an Irish echo in the Boston Post inquires, "Wouldn't you like to know?"
A boy was caught in the act of stealing dried berries in front of a store, the other day, and was locked up in a dark closet by the grocer. The boy commenced begging most pathetically to be released, and after using all the persuasion that his young imagination could invent, proposed, "Now, if you'll let me out, and send for my daddy, he'll pay you for them, and lick me besides." This appeal was too much for the grocer to stand out against.
An elector of a country town, who was warmly pressed during the recent contest to give his vote to a certain candidate, replied that it was impossible, since he had already promised to vote for the other. "Oh," said the candidate, "in election matters, promises, you know, go for nothing." "If that is the case," rejoined the elector, "I promise you my vote at once."—Galignani's Messenger.
The New Orleans Picayune defines a quandary thus:—"A baker with both arms up to the elbows in dough, and a flea in the leg of his trowsers." We have just heard a story which conveys quite as clever an idea of the thing as the Picayune's definition. An old gentleman, who had studied theological subjects rather too much for the strength of his brains, determined to try his luck in preaching; nothing doubting but that matter and form would be given him, without any particular preparation on his own part. Accordingly on Sunday he ascended the pulpit, sung and prayed, read his text, and stopped. He stood a good while, first on one leg, and then on the other, casting his eyes up towards the rafters, and then on the floor, in a merciless quandary. At length language came to his relief:—"If any of you down there think you can preach, just come up here and try it!"—North Carolina Patriot.
A perfumer should make a good editor, because he is accustomed to making "elegant extracts."
The following dialogue was lately heard at an assizes:—
Counsel: What was the height of the horse?—Witness: Sixteen feet.
Counsel: How old was he?—Witness: Six years.
Counsel: How high did you say he was?—Witness: Sixteen hands.
Counsel: You said, just now, sixteen feet.—Witness: Sixteen feet! Did I say sixteen feet?
Counsel: You did.—Witness: If I did say sixteen feet, it was sixteen feet!—you don't catch me crossing myself!
A Yankee visiting Boston, introduced himself, as follows:
"My name is Ichabod Eli Erastus Pickrel; I used to keep a grocery store deown Cape Cod. Patience Doolittle, she kept a notion store, right over opposite. One day, Patience come into my store arter a pitcher of lasses, for home consumption, (ye see, I'd had a kind of a sneaking notion arter Patience, for some time,) so, ses I, 'Patience, heow would you like to be made Mrs. Pickrel?' Upon that, she kerflounced herself rite deown on a bag of salt, in a sort of kniption fitt. I seased the pitcher, forgetting what was in it, and soused the molasses all over her, and there she sat, looking like Mount Vesuvius, with the lava running deown its sides; ye see, she was kivered with love, transport, and molasses. She was a master large gal, of her bigness, she weighed three hundred averdupoise, and a breakfast over. She could throw eanermost any feller in our neighborhood, at Indian hugs. Arter awhile, she kum tu, and I imprinted a kiss right on her bussers, that is, as near as I could for the molasses, and twan't more than a spell and a half, before we caught a couple of little Pickrels. The whooping cough collered one of them, and snaked him rite eout of town. The other one had a fight with the measles, and got licked. Mrs. Pickrel took to having the typhus fever for a living, and twan't more than a half a spell, before she busted up, and left me a disconsolate wider-er-er. If you know of any putty gals that is in the market, just tell them that I'm thar myself."
A Dutch boy, being asked why Joseph would not sleep with Potiphar's wife, replied, after considerable hesitation, "I schpose he vash not schleepy."
A little girl, after returning from church, where she saw a collection taken up for the first time, related what took place, and, among other things, she said, with all her childish innocence, "That a man passed round a plate that had some money on it, but she didn't take any."
A lady walking with her husband on the beach, inquired of him, the difference between exportation and transportation. "Why, my dear," replied he, "if you were on board yonder vessel, you would be exported, and I should be transported."
Every animal has its enemies; the land tortoise has two enemies—man and the boa constrictor. Man takes him home and roasts him; and the boa constrictor swallows him whole, shell and all, and consumes him slowly in the interior, as the Court of Chancery does a great estate.—Sydney Smith.
First class in astronomy, stand up. "Where does the sun rise?" "Please, sir, down in our meadow; I seed it yesterday!" "Hold your tongue, you dunce; where does the sun rise?" "I know—in the east!" "Right, and why does it rise in the east?" "Because the 'east makes everything rise." "Out, you booby!"
Mrs. Partington lately remarked to a legal friend: "If I owes a man a debt, and makes him the lawless tenant of a blank bill, and he infuses to incept it, but swears out an execration and levels it upon my body, if I wouldn't make a pollywog of him drown me in the Nuxwine sea."
To him that goes to law, nine things are requisite:—1st, a good deal of money; 2nd, a good deal of patience; 3rd, a good cause; 4th, a good attorney; 5th, a good counsel; 6th, good evidence; 7th, a good jury; 8th, a good judge; 9th, good luck. Even with all these, a wise man should hesitate before going to law.
The Rev. Sydney Smith, preaching a charity sermon, frequently repeated the assertion that, of all nations, Englishmen were the most distinguished for generosity and the love of their species. The collection happened to be inferior to his expectations, and he said that he had evidently made a great mistake, for that his expression should have been, that they were distinguished for the love of their specie.
Which travels at the greater speed, heat or cold? Heat: because you can easily catch cold.
Tom Brown says, "A woman may learn one useful doctrine from the game of backgammon, which is, not to take up her man till she's sure of him."
Monsieur de Semonville, one of the ablest tacticians of his time, was remarkable for the talent with which, amidst the crush of revolutions, he always managed to maintain his post and take care of his personal interests. He knew exactly where to address himself for support, and the right time of availing himself of it. When Talleyrand, one of his most intimate friends, heard of his death, he reflected for a few minutes, and then drily observed, "I can't for the life of me make out what interest Semonville had to serve by dying just now."
A friend of mine, in Portland place, has a wife who inflicts upon him, every season, two or three immense evening parties. At one of those parties, he was standing in a very forlorn condition, leaning against the chimney-piece, when a gentleman coming up to him, said, "Sir, as neither of us is acquainted with any of the people here, I think we had best go home."
"Well, just as I was ready to start away, down comes Lucy to the keepin' room, with both arms behind her head, a fixin' of the hooks and eyes. 'Man alive,' says she, 'are you here yet? I thought you was off gunnin' an hour ago; who'd a thought you was here?' 'Gunnin'?' says I, 'Lucy, my gunnin' is over, I shan't go no more, now, I shall go home; I agree with you; shiverin' alone under a wet bush, for hours, is no fun; but if Lucy was there'—'Get out,' says she, 'don't talk nonsense, Sam, and just fasten the other hook and eye of my frock, will you?' She turned round her back to me. Well, I took the hook in one hand, and the eye in the other; but arth and seas! my eyes fairly snapped again; I never see such a neck since I was raised. It sprung right out o' the breast and shoulder, full round, and then tapered up to the head like a swan's, and the complexion would beat the most delicate white and red rose that ever was seen. Lick, it made me all eyes! I jist stood stock still, I couldn't move a finger, if I was to die for it. 'What ails you, Sam,' says she, 'that you don't hook it?' 'Why,' says I, 'Lucy, dear, my fingers is all thumbs, that's a fact, I can't handle such little things as fast as you can.' 'Well, come,' says she, 'make haste, that's a dear, mother will be comin' directly;' and at last I shut to both my eyes, and fastened it; and when I had done, says I, 'There is one thing I must say, Lucy.' 'What's that?' says she. 'That you may stump all Connecticut to show such an angeliferous neck as you have. I never saw the beat of it in all my born days—it's the most——' 'And you may stump the State, too,' says she, 'to produce such another bold, forrard, impedent, onmannerly tongue, as you have—so there now—so get along with you.'"—Sam Slick.
Sir William B., being at a parish meeting, made some proposals which were objected to by a farmer. Highly enraged, "Sir," says he to the farmer, "do you know that I have been at two universities, and at two colleges at each university?" "Well, sir," said the farmer, "what of that? I had a calf that sucked two cows, and the observation I made was, the more he sucked, the greater calf he grew."—Flowers of Anecdote.
There is one passage in the Scriptures, to which all the potentates of Europe seem to have given their unanimous assent and approbation, and to have studied so thoroughly, as to have it at their fingers' ends:—"There went out a decree in the days of Augustus Cæsar, that all the world should be taxed."—C. C. Colton.
"Jim," said one fast man, yesterday to another, "it is reported that you left the East, on account of your belief, an itinerant martyr." "How," replied Jim, flattered by the remark, "how's that?" "Why, a police officer told me that you believed everything you saw belonged to you, and as the public didn't, you left."
"Noggs, Jr," speaking of a blind wood sawyer, says: "While none ever saw him see, thousands have seen him saw."
A countryman was dragging a calf by a rope in a cruel manner. An Irishman asked him if that was the way "he threated a fellow creathur?"
The misapplication of English words by foreigners is often very ludicrous. A German friend saluted us once with, "Oh, good bye, good bye!"—meaning, of course, "How d'ye do?" It is said that Dr. Chalmers once entertained a distinguished guest from Switzerland, whom he asked if he would be helped to kippered salmon. The foreign divine asked the meaning of the uncouth word "kippered," and was told that it meant "preserved." The poor man, in a public prayer, soon after, offered a petition that the distinguished divine might long be "kippered to the Free Church of Scotland."
A "spoon" is a thing that is often near a lady's lips without kissing them. This is like the definition of a "muff," viz., a thing which holds a lady's hand without squeezing it.
"You say, Mrs. Smith, that you have lived with the defendant for eight years. Does the Court understand from that, that you are married to him?" "In course it does." "Have you a marriage certificate?" "Yes, your honor, three on 'em—two gals and a boy." Verdict for the plaintiff.
One of the best things lately said upon age—a very ticklish subject by the way—was the observation of Mr. James Smith to Mr. Thomas Hill. "Hill," said the former gentleman, "you take an unfair advantage of an accident: the register of your birth was burnt in the great fire of London, and you avail yourself of the circumstance to give out that you are younger than you are."
Sir Fletcher Norton was noted for his want of courtesy. When pleading before Lord Mansfield, on some question of manorial right, he chanced unfortunately to say, "My Lord, I can illustrate the point in an instant in my own person: I myself have two little manors." The judge immediately interposed, with one of his blandest smiles, "We all know it, Sir Fletcher."
An Englishman was bragging of the speed on English railroads to a Yankee traveler seated at his side in one of the cars of a "fast train," in England. The engine bell was rung as the train neared a station. It suggested to the Yankee an opportunity of "taking down his companion a peg or two." "What's that noise?" innocently inquired the Yankee. "We are approaching a town," said the Englishman; "they have to commence ringing about ten miles before they get to a station, or else the train would run by it before the bell could be heard! Wonderful, isn't it? I suppose they haven't invented bells in America yet?" "Why, yes," replied the Yankee, "we've got bells, but can't use them on our railroads. We run so 'tarnal fast that the train always keeps ahead of the sound. No use whatever; the sound never reaches the village till after the train gets by." "Indeed!" exclaimed the Englishman. "Fact," said the Yankee; "had to give up bells. Then we tried steam whistles—but they wouldn't answer either. I was on a locomotive when the whistle was tried. We were going at a tremendous rate—hurricanes were nowhere, and I had to hold my hair on. We saw a two-horse wagon crossing the track about five miles ahead, and the engineer let the whistle on, screeching like a trooper. It screamed awfully, but it wasn't no use. The next thing I knew, I was picking myself out of a pond by the roadside, amid the fragments of the locomotive, dead horses, broken wagon, and dead engineer lying beside me. Just then the whistle came along, mixed up with some frightful oaths that I had heard the engineer use when he first saw the horses. Poor fellow! he was dead before his voice got to him. After that we tried lights, supposing these would travel faster than the sound. We got some so powerful that the chickens woke up all along the road when we came by, supposing it to be morning. But the locomotive kept ahead of it still, and was in the darkness, with the lights close on behind it. The inhabitants petitioned against it; they couldn't sleep with so much light in the night time. Finally, we had to station electric telegraphs along the road, with signal men to telegraph when the train was in sight; and I have heard that some of the fast trains beat the lightning fifteen minutes every forty miles. But I can't say as that is true; the rest I know to be so."—New York Tribune.
Not long since a certain noble peer in Yorkshire, who is fond of boasting of his Norman descent, thus addressed one of his tenants, who, he thought, was not speaking to him with proper respect: "Do you not know that my ancestors came over with William the Conqueror?" "And, mayhap," retorted the sturdy Saxon, nothing daunted, "they found mine here when they comed." The noble lord felt that he had the worst of it.
Mr. Canning was once asked by an English clergyman how he had liked the sermon he had preached before him.
"Why, it was a short sermon," quoth Canning. "Oh, yes," said the preacher; "you know I avoid being tedious." "Ah, but," replied Canning, "you were tedious."
A certain man of pleasure, about London, received a challenge from a young gentleman of his acquaintance; and they met at the appointed place. Just before the signal for firing was given, the man of pleasure rushed up to his antagonist, embraced him, and vehemently protested that he could not lift his arm "against his own flesh and blood!" The young gentleman, though he had never heard any imputation cast upon his mother's character, was so much staggered, that (as the ingenious man of pleasure had foreseen) no duel took place.
Humphrey Howarth, the surgeon, was called out, and made his appearance in the field, stark naked, to the astonishment of the challenger, who asked him what he meant. "I know," said H., "that if any part of the clothing is carried into the body, by a gunshot wound, festering ensues; and therefore I have met you thus." His antagonist declared, that fighting with a man in puris naturalibus, would be quite ridiculous; and accordingly they parted, without further discussion.
Lord Alvanley, on returning home, after his duel with young O'Connell, gave a guinea to the hackney-coachman, who had driven him out, and brought him back. The man, surprised at the largeness of the sum, said, "My lord, I only took you to ——." Alvanley interrupted him, "My friend, the guinea is for bringing me back, not for taking me out."
To kneel before your goddess, and burst both pantaloon straps.
My friend, the foreigner, called on me to bid me farewell, before he quitted town, and on his departure, he said, "I am going at the country." I ventured to correct his phraseology, by saying that we were accustomed to say "going into the country." He thanked me for this correction and said he had profited by my lesson, and added, "I will knock into your door, on my return."—Memorials.
Experimental philosophy—asking a man to lend you money. Moral philosophy—refusing to do it.
Sydney Smith, once upon a time, despatched a pretentious octavo, in the Edinburgh, with a critique, one paragraph in length; that achievement is matched by the disposal of a work in the Courier and Enquirer, as follows, by ingeniously employing the opening sentence of the book itself:—
"The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia. A Tale by Samuel Johnson, LL. D. A new edition, with illustrations. 12mo., pp. 206. New York: C. S. Francis & Co.
"Ye who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, and pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope; who expect that age will perform the promises of youth, and that deficiencies of the present day will be supplied by the morrow; attend to the history of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia."
Sutton was part of the demesne of John of Gaunt, the celebrated Duke of Lancaster, who gifted it to an ancestor of the proprietor, Sir J. M. Burgoyne, as appears from the following quaint lines:—
"I, John of Gaunt,
Do give and do grant,
Unto Roger Burgoyne,
And the heirs of his loin,
Both Sutton and Potton,
Until the world's rotten."
A Kentuckian visited a merchant at New York, with whom, after dinner, he drank wine and smoked cigars, spitting on the carpet, much to the annoyance of his host, who desired a spittoon to be brought for his troublesome visitor; he, however, pushed it away with his foot, and when it was replaced, he kicked it away again, quite unaware of its use. When it had been thrice replaced, the Kentuckian drawled out to the servant who had brought it: "I tell you what; you've been pretty considerable troublesome with that ere thing, I guess; if you put it there again, I'm hung if I don't spit in it."
Mr. Landseer, the best living animal painter, once asked the late Rev. Sydney Smith if he would grant him a sitting, whereupon the Rev. Canon biblically replied—"Is thy servant a dog that he should do this thing?"
"Do you want to buy a real lot of butter?" said a Yankee notion dealer, who had picked up a load at fifty different places, to a Boston merchant.
"What kind of butter is it?" asked the buyer.
"The clean quill; all made by my wife; a dairy of forty cows, only two churnings."
"But what makes it so many different colors?" said the merchant.
"Darnation! hear that, now. I guess you wouldn't ax that question if you'd see my cows, for they are a darned sight speckleder than the butter is."
The post of baggage master on a railroad train is not an enviable one. There is often a wide difference between the company's regulations, and the passenger's opinion of what articles, and what amount of them, properly come under the denomination of baggage; and this frequently subjects the unlucky official of the trunks and bandbox department to animated discussions with a certain class of the traveling public. We heard lately an anecdote of George, the affable B. M. on Capt. Cobb's train on the Virginia and Tennessee road, which is too good to be lost. A passenger presented himself at a way station on the road, with two trunks and a saddle for which he requested checks. The baggage master promptly checked the trunks, but demanded the extra charge of twenty-five cents for the saddle. To this the passenger demurred, and losing his temper, peremptorily asked:—
"Will you check my baggage, sir?"
"Are you a horse?" quietly inquired George.
"What do you mean, sir?" exclaimed the irritated traveler.
"You claim to have this saddle checked as baggage?"
"Certainly—it is baggage," positively returned the passenger.
"Well," said the imperturbable George, "by the company's regulations nothing but wearing apparel is admitted to be baggage, and if the saddle is your wearing apparel, of course you must be a horse! Now, sir, just allow me to strap it on your back, and it shall go to the end of the road without any extra charge whatever."
The traveller paid his quarter and offered George his hat.—Bristol News.
Nothing vexes a physician so much as to be sent for in great haste, and to find, after his arrival, that nothing, or next to nothing, is the matter with his patient. We remember an "urgent case" of this kind, recorded of an eminent English surgeon.
He had been sent for by a gentleman who had just received a slight wound, and gave his servant orders to go home with all haste imaginable, and fetch a certain plaster. The patient turning a little pale, said:
"Heavens, sir! I hope there is no danger!"
"Indeed there is!" answered the surgeon: "for if the fellow doesn't run there like a cart horse, the wound will be healed before he can possibly get back."
The following conversation occurred between a theatrical manager and an aspirant for Thespian honors:
"What is your pleasure?" asked the manager.
"An engagement at your theatre," said the applicant.
"But you stammer."
"Like Hatterton."
"You are very small."
"Like Kean."
"You speak monotonously."
"Like Macready."
"And through the nose."
"Like Booth."
"And you make faces."
"Like Burton."
"You have badly shaped legs."
"Like Wallack."
"And brawny arms."
"Like Forrest."
"An obese person."
"Like Blake."
"But you unite the defects of all these stars."
"Th-th-that's just it. If you engage me, you will need no stars at all."
"Pa, what is the interest of a kiss?" asked a sweet sixteen of her sire. "Well, really, I don't know. Why do you ask?" "Because George borrowed a kiss from me last night, and said he would pay it back with interest after we were married."
One long summer afternoon there came to Mr. Davidson's the most curious specimen of an old bachelor the world ever heard of. He was old, gray, wrinkled, and odd. He hated women, especially old maids, and wasn't afraid to say so. He and aunt Patty had it hot and heavy, whenever chance threw them together; yet still he came, and it was noticed that aunt Patty took unusual pains with her dress whenever he was expected. One day the contest waged unusually strong. Aunt Patty left him in disgust and went out into the garden. "The bear!" she muttered to herself, as she stooped to gather a blossom which attracted her attention.
"What did you run away for?" said a gruff voice close to her side.
"To get rid of you."
"You didn't do it, did you?"
"No, you are worse than a burdock bur."
"You won't get rid of me neither."
"I won't! eh?"
"Only in one way."
"And what?"
"Marry me!"
"What! us two fools get married? What will people say?"
"That's nothing to us. Come, say yes or no, I'm in a hurry."
"Well, no, then."
"Very well, good bye. I shan't come again."
"But stop a bit—what a pucker to be in!"
"Yes or no?"
"I must consult"—
"All right—I thought you was of age. Good bye."
"Jabez Andrews, don't be a fool. Come back, come back, I say. Why, I believe the critter has taken me for earnest. Jabez Andrews, I'll consider."
"I don't want no considering. I'm gone. Becky Hastings is waiting for me. I thought I'd give you the first chance. All right. Good bye."
"Jabez! Jabez! That stuck up Becky Hastings shan't have him, if I die for it. Jabez—yes. Do you hear? Y-e-s!"
At the Durham assizes, a very deaf old lady, who had brought an action for damages against a neighbor, was being examined, when the Judge suggested a compromise, and instructed counsel to ask her what she would take to settle the matter. "What will you take?" asked a gentleman in a bob-tailed wig, of the old lady. The old lady merely shook her head at the counsel, informing the jury, in confidence, that "she was very hard o' hearing." "His lordship wants to know what you will take?" asked the counsel again, this time bawling as loud as ever he could in the old lady's ear. "I thank his lordship kindly," the ancient dame answered stoutly, "and if it's no ill convenience to him, I'll take a little warm ale." (Roars of laughter.)—English Paper.
Theodore Hook, in describing a badly dressed dinner, observed that everything was sour but the vinegar.
Seldom does a live Dutchman get the credit of more smart things than are set down to him in this catechism that he puts to a journeyman printer.
A Dutchman sitting at the door of his tavern in the Far West, is approached by a tall, thin Yankee, who is emigrating westward on foot, with a bundle on a cane over his shoulder:
"Vell, Misther Valking Sthick, vat you vant?"
"Rest and refreshments," replied the printer.
"Super and lotchin, I reckon?"
"Yes, supper and lodging, if you please."
"Pe ye a Yankee peddler, mit chewelry in your pack, to sheat the gals?"
"No, sir, I am no Yankee peddler."
"A singin'-master, too lazy to work?"
"No, sir."
"A shenteel shoemaker, vat loves to measure te gals' feet and hankles petter tan to make te shoes?"
"No, sir, or I should have mended my own shoes."
"A pook achent, vat podders te school committees till they do vat you vish, shoost to get rid of you?"
"Guess again, sir. I am no book agent."
"Te tyfels! a dentist, preaking te people's jaws at a dollar a shnag, and running off mit my daughter?"
"No sir, I am no tooth-puller."
"Prenologus, ten, feeling te young folks, heads like so much cabbitch?"
"No, I am no phrenologist."
"Vell, ten, vat the mischief can you be? Shoost tell, and ye shall have te pest sassage for supper, and shtay all night, free gratis, mitout a cent, and a shill of whiskey to start mit in te morning."
"I am an humble disciple of Faust—a professor of the art that preserves all arts—a typographer at your service."
"Votch dat?"
"A printer, sir: a man that prints books and newspapers."
"A man vat printish nooshpapers! oh yaw! yaw! ay, dat ish it. A man vat printish nooshpapers! Yaw! yaw! Valk up! a man vat printish nooshpapers! I vish I may pe shot if I didn't dink you vas a poor old dishtrict schoolmaster, who verks for notting and poards around—I tought you vas him!"
A New Orleans lady recently eloped, leaving a note, bidding her idolizing husband good bye, and requesting him not to mourn for the children, as "none of them were his."
A lady, complaining how rapidly time stole away, said, "Alas! I am near thirty." Scarron, who was present, and knew her age, said, "Do not fret at it, madam; for you will get further from that frightful epoch every day."
"Mamma," said a promising youth of some four or five years, "if all people are made of dust, ain't niggers made of coal-dust?"
At a time when public affairs were in a very unsettled state, a gentleman, who squinted terribly, asked Talleyrand how things were going on. "Why, as you see, Sir," was the reply.
The most celebrated wits and bon vivans of the day graced the dinner-table of the late Dr. Kitchiner, and, inter alios, the late George Colman, who was an especial favourite; his interpolation of a little monosyllable in a written admonition which the doctor caused to be placed on the mantel-piece of the dining-parlour will never be forgotten, and was the origin of such a drinking bout as was seldom permitted under his roof. The caution ran thus: "Come at seven, go at eleven." Colman briefly altered the sense of it; for, upon the Doctor's attention being directed to the card, he read, to his astonishment, "Come at seven, go it at eleven!" which the guests did, and the claret was punished accordingly.
Among the witty aphorisms upon this unsafe topic, are Lord Alvanley's description of a man who "muddled away his fortune in paying his tradesmen's bills;" Lord Orford's definition of timber, "an excrescence on the face of the earth, placed there by Providence for the payment of debts;" and Pelham's argument, that it is respectable to be arrested, because it shows that the party once had credit.
In the reign of King William, it happened that the king had either chosen or actually taken this motto for his stage coach in Ireland: "Non rapui, sed recepi,"—"I did not steal it, but received it," alluding to his being called to the throne by the people. This was reported to Swift by one of the court emissaries. "And what," said he to the Dean, "do you think the Prince of Orange has chosen for his motto?" "Dutch cheese," said the Dean. "No," said the gentleman, "but 'non rapui, sed recepi.'" "Aye," said the Dean, "but it is an old saying and a true one, 'The receiver is as bad as the thief.'"
A showman giving entertainments in Lafayette, Ind., was offered by one man a bushel of corn for admission. The manager declined it, saying that all the members of his company had been corned for the last week.
"What do you think of the new sewing machine?" inquired a gentleman of his friend, who was somewhat of a wag. "Oh," replied the punster, "I consider it a capital make shift."
An Irish officer, in battle, happening to bow, a cannon ball passed over his head, and took off the head of a soldier who stood behind him; "You see," said he, "that a man never loses by politeness."
George Selwyn, as everybody knows, delighted in seeing executions; he never missed being in at a death at Tyburn. When Lord Holland (the father of Charles Fox) was confined to bed, by a dangerous illness, he was informed by his servant that Mr. Selwyn had recently called to inquire for him. "On his next visit," said Lord Holland, "be sure you let him in, whether I am alive or a corpse; for, if I am alive, I shall have great pleasure in seeing him; and if I am a corpse, he will have great pleasure in seeing me."
Lord Eldon (the Chancellor) related of his predecessor, Lord Erskine, that, being at a dinner party with Captain Parry, after his first voyage of discovery, he (Lord Erskine) asked the intrepid navigator, what himself and his hardy crew lived on, when frozen up in the polar seas. "On the Seals, to be sure," replied Parry. "And a very good living, too," said the ex-chancellor, "if you keep them long enough!"—Twiss's Life of Lord Eldon.
I shall be off to the Highlands this fall; but cuss 'em, they han't got no woods there; nuthin' but heather, and that's only high enough to tear your clothes. That's the reason the Scotch don't wear no breeches; they don't like to get 'em ragged up that way for everlastinly; they can't afford it; so they let 'em scratch and tear their skin, for that will grow agin, and trousers won't.—Sam Slick.
Lord Ellenborough had infinite wit. When the income-tax was imposed, he said that Lord Kenyon (who was not very nice in his habits) intended, in consequence of it, to lay down—his pocket-handkerchief.
A lawyer, one day, pleading before him, and using several times, the expression, "my unfortunate client," Lord Ellenborough suddenly interrupted him: "There, sir, the court is with you."
The following is the next best thing to the evidence concerning the stone "as big as a piece of chalk." "Were you traveling on the night this affair took place?" "I should say I was, Sir." "What kind of weather was it? Was it raining at the time?" "It was so dark that I could not see it raining; but I felt it dropping, though." "How dark was it?" "I had no way of telling; but it was not light, by a jug full." "Can't you compare it to something?" "Why, if I was going to compare it to anything, I should say it was about as dark as a stack of black cats."
During the examination of a witness, as to the locality of stairs in a house, the counsel asked him, "Which way the stairs ran?" The witness, who, by the way, was a noted wag, replied, that "One way they ran up stairs, but the other way they ran down stairs." The learned counsel winked both eyes and then took a look at the ceiling.
A Western statesman, in one of his tours in the Far West, stopped all night at a house, where he was put in the same room with a number of strangers. He was very much annoyed by the snoring of two persons. The black boy of the hotel entered the room, when our narrator said to him:
"Ben, I will give you five dollars if you will kill that man next to me who snores so dreadfully."
"Can't kill him for five dollars, but if massa will advance on the price, I'll try what I can do."
By this time the stranger had ceased his nasal fury. The other was now to be quieted. So stepping to him he woke him, and said:
"My friend, [he knew who he was,] you're talking in your sleep, and exposing all the secrets of the Brandon Bank, [he was a director,] you had better be careful."
He was careful, for he did not go to sleep that night.
"Daddy," said a hopeful urchin to his parental relative, "why don't our schoolmaster send the editor of the newspaper an account of all the lickings he gives to the boys?"
"I don't know, my son," replied the parent, "but why do you ask me such a question?"
"Why, this paper says that Mr. B. has tanned three thousand hides at his establishment during the past year, and I know that old Grimes has tanned our hides more'n twice that many times—the editor ought to know it."
A suit came on the other day in which a printer named Kelvy was a witness. The case was an assault and battery that came off between two men named Brown and Henderson.
"Mr. Kelvy, did you witness the affair referred to?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, what have you to say about it?"
"That it was the best piece of punctuation I have seen for some time."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Why, that Brown dotted one of Henderson's eyes, for which Henderson put a period to Brown's breathing for about half a minute."
The court comprehended the matter at once, and fined the defendant fifty dollars.
"Sir," said a pompous personage who once undertook to bully an editor, "do you know that I take your paper?" "I've no doubt you take it," replied the man of the quill, "for several of my honest subscribers have been complaining lately about their papers being missing in the morning."
It is stated that the Rev. George Trask, of Pittsburg, lectured so powerfully in Webster, a few days ago, against the use of tobacco, that several of his audience went home and burned their cigars—holding one end of them in their mouths.
A short time since, a young man living in Ogdensburgh, N. Y., whose name we shall call George, took to drinking rather more than usual, and some of his friends endeavored to cure him. One day, when he was in rather a loose condition, they got him in a room, and commenced conversing about delirium tremens, directing all their remarks to him, and telling him what fearful objects, such as snakes and rats, were always seen by the victims of this horrible disease. When the conversation had waxed high on this theme, one of the number stepped out of the room, and from a trap which was at hand let a large rat into the room. None of his friends appeared to see it, but the young man who was to be the victim seized a chair and hurled it at the rat, completely using up the piece of furniture in the operation. Another chair shared the same fate, when his friends seized him, and with terror depicted on their faces, demanded to know what was the matter.
"Why, don't you see that cursed big rat?" said he, pointing to the animal, which, after the manner of rats, was making his way round the room, close to the walls.
They all saw it, but all replied that they didn't see it—"there was no rat."
"But there is!" said he, as another chair went to pieces in an ineffectual attempt to crush the obnoxious vermin.
At this moment they again seized him, and after a terrific scuffle threw him down on the floor, and with terror screamed—
"Charley! run for a doctor!"
Charley started for the door, when George desired to be informed "what the devil was up."
"Up!" said they, "why, you've got the delirium tremens!"
Charley opened the door to go out, when George raised himself on his elbow, and said, "Charley, where are you going?"
"Going!" said Charley, "going for a doctor."
"Going for a doctor!" rejoined George; "for what?"
"For what?" repeated Charley, "why, you've got the delirium tremens!"
"The delirium tremens—have I?" repeated George. "How do you know I've got the delirium tremens?"
"Easy enough," says Charley; "you've commenced seeing rats."
"Seeing rats!" said George, in a sort of musing way; "seeing rats. Think you must be mistaken, Charley."
"Mistaken!" said Charley.
"Yes, mistaken," rejoined George. "I ain't the man—I haven't seen no rat!"
The boys let George up after that, and from that day to this he hasn't touched a glass of liquor, and "seen no rats"—not the first rat.
Bishop Burnet, once preaching before Charles II., was much warmed by his subject, and uttering a religious truth in a very earnest manner, with great vehemence struck his fist upon the desk, and cried out in a loud voice, "Who dare deny this?" "Faith," observed the king, in a tone not quite so loud as the preacher, "nobody that is within the reach of that great fist of yours."
Mercer mentioned that, on the death of the Danish ambassador here, (in Paris,) some commissaire of police, having come to the house for the purpose of making a procès verbal of his death, it was resisted by the suite, as an infringement of the ambassador's privilege, to which the answer of the police was, that Un ambassadeur dès qu'il est mort, rentre dans la vie privée.—"An ambassador, when dead, returns to private life." Lord Bristol and his daughters came in the evening; the Rancliffes, too. Mr. Rich said, at dinner, that a curé (I forget in what part of France) asked him once, whether it was true that the English women wore rings in their noses? to which Mr. R. answered, that "in the north of England, near China, it was possible they might, but certainly not about London."
We talked of Wordsworth's exceedingly high opinion of himself; and she mentioned, that one day, in a large party, Wordsworth, without anything having been previously said that could lead to the subject, called out suddenly, from the top of the table to the bottom, in his most epic tone, "Davy!" and, on Davy's putting forth his head, in an awful expectation of what was coming, said, "Do you know the reason why I published the 'White Doe' in quarto?" "No, what was it?" "To show the world my own opinion of it."
Bushe told of an Irish country squire, who used, with hardly any means, to give entertainments to the militia, &c., in his neighborhood; and when a friend expostulated with him, on the extravagance of giving claret to these fellows, when whiskey punch would do just as well, he answered, "You are very right, my dear friend; but I have the claret on tick, and where the devil would I get credit for the lemons?" Douglas mentioned the story of some rich grazier, in Ireland, whose son went on a tour to Italy, with express injunctions from the father, to write to him whatever was worthy of notice. Accordingly, on his arrival in Italy, he wrote a letter, beginning as follows: "Dear Father, the Alps is a very high mountain, and bullocks bear no price." Lady Susan and her daughters, and the Kingstons, came in the evening, and all supped. A French writer mentions, as a proof of Shakspeare's attention to particulars, his allusion to the climate of Scotland, in the words, "Hail, hail, all hail!"—Grêle, grêle, toute grêle.
Met Luttrell on the Boulevards, and walked with him. In remarking rather a pretty woman who passed, he said, "The French women are often in the suburbs of beauty, but never enter the town." Company at Lord Holland's, Allen, Henry Fox, the black Fox, (attached to the embassy,) Denon, and, to my great delight, Lord John Russell, who arrived this morning. Lord Holland told, before dinner, (a propos of something,) of a man who professed to have studied "Euclid," all through, and upon some one saying to him, "Well, solve me that problem," answered, "Oh, I never looked at the cuts."
After Williams and I had sung one of the "Irish melodies," somebody said, "Everything that's national, is delightful." "Except the National Debt, ma'am," says Poole. Took tea at Vilamil's, and danced to the piano-forte. Wrote thirteen or fourteen lines before I went out. In talking of the organs in Gall's craniological system, Poole said he supposed a drunkard had a barrel organ.
Dined at Lattin's: company, Lords Holland, John Russell, Thanet, and Trimelstown; Messrs. Maine de Biron and Denon, Luttrel and Concannon. Abundance of noise and Irish stories from Lattin; some of them very good. A man asked another to come and dine off boiled beef and potatoes, with him. "That I will," says the other; "and it's rather odd it should be exactly the same dinner I had at home for myself, barring the beef." Some one, using the old expression about some light wine he was giving, "There's not a head-ache in a hogshead of it," was answered; "No, but there's a belly-ache in every glass of it." Denon told an anecdote of a man, who, having been asked repeatedly to dinner, by a person whom he knew to be but a shabby Amphitryon, went at last, and found the dinner so meagre and bad, that he did not get a bit to eat. When the dishes were removing, the host said, "Well, now the ice is broken, I suppose you will ask me to dine with you, some day."—"Most willingly." "Name your day, then."—"Aujourd'hui par example," answered the dinnerless guest. Luttrel told of a good phrase of an attorney's, in speaking of a reconciliation that had taken place between two persons whom he wished to set by the ears, "I am sorry to tell you, sir, that a compromise has broken out between the parties."
A person meeting a friend running through the rain, with an umbrella over him, said, "Where are you running to in such a hurry, like a mad mushroom?"
A Yankee, whose face had been mauled in a pot-house brawl, assured General Jackson that he had received his scars in battle. "Then," said Old Hickory, "be careful the next time you run away, and don't look back."
"There can be no doubt," said Mrs. Nickleby, "that he is a gentleman, and has the manners of a gentleman, and the appearance of a gentleman, although he does wear smalls, and gray worsted stockings. That may be eccentricity, or he may be proud of his legs. I don't see why he shouldn't be. The Prince Regent was proud of his legs, and so was Daniel Lambert, who was also a fat man; he was proud of his legs. So was Miss Biffin: she was—no, "added Mrs. Nickleby, correcting herself, "I think she had only toes, but the principle is the same."—Dickens.
There is a young man in Cincinnati, who is so modest that he will not "embrace an opportunity." He would make a good mate for the lady who fainted when she heard of the naked truth.
Somebody once remarked, that the Englishman is never happy, but when he is miserable; the Scotchman is never at home, but when he is abroad; and the Irishman is never at peace, but when he is fighting.
Judge Jones, of Indiana, who never allows a chance for a joke to pass him, occupied the bench when it became necessary to obtain a juryman in a case in which L——and B—— were employed as counsel. The former was an illiterate Hibernian, the latter decidedly German in his modes of expression:
The sheriff immediately proceeded to look around the room in search of a person to fill the vacant seat, when he espied a Dutch Jew, and claimed him as his own. The Dutchman objected.
"I can't understant goot Englese."
"What did he say?" asked the judge.
"I can't understant goot Englese," he repeated.
"Take your seat," cried the judge, "take your seat; that's no excuse. You are not likely to hear any of it!"
Under that decision he took his seat.
The Mobile Advertiser, of the 19th ult., tells the following good story of a notorious practical joker of that city, yclept "Straight-back Dick." Dick was at the wharf, one day last week, when one of the up river boats arrived. He watched closely the countenance of each passenger as he stepped from the plank upon the wharf, and at length fastened his gaze upon an individual, who, from his appearance and manner, was considerably nearer Mobile than he had ever been before. He was evidently ill at ease, and had probably heard the reports which were rife in the country relative to the hundreds dying in Mobile every hour from yellow fever. The man started off towards Dauphin street, carpet sack in hand, but had not proceeded far when a heavy hand was laid upon his shoulder, and he suddenly stopped. Upon turning round, he met the cold, serious countenance of Dick, and it seemed to send a thrill of terror throughout his whole frame. After looking at him steadily for about a minute, Dick slowly ejaculated:
"Yes, you are the man. Stand straight!"
With fear visible in his countenance, the poor fellow essayed to do as commanded.
"Straighter yet!" said Dick. "There, that will do," and taking from his pocket a small tape measure, he stooped down and measured him from the sole of his boot to the crown of his hat, took a pencil and carefully noted the height in his pocket book, to the utter amazement of the stranger; after which he measured him across the shoulders, and again noted the dimensions. He then looked the stranger firmly in the face and said:
"Sir, I am very sorry that it is so, but I really will not be able to finish it for you before morning."
"Finish what?" asked the stranger, endeavoring in vain to appear calm.
"Why, your coffin, to be sure! You see, I am the city undertaker, and the people are dying here so fast, that I can hardly supply the demand for coffins. You will have to wait until your turn comes, which will be to-morrow morning—say about 9 o'clock."
"But what do I want with a coffin? I have no idea of dying!"
"You haven't, eh? Sir, you will not live two hours and a half. I see it in your countenance. Why, even now, you have a pain—a slight pain—in your back."
"Y-yes, I believe I h-have," replied the trembling hoosier.
"Exactly," said Dick, "and in your limbs too?"
"Yes, stranger, you're right, and I begin to feel it in the back of my neck and head."
"Of course you do, and unless you do something for it, you'll be dead in a short time, I assure you. Take my advice now, go back aboard the boat, swallow down a gill of brandy, get into your state-room, and cover up with blankets. Stay there till you perspire freely, then leave here like lightning!"
Hoosier hurried on board the boat, and followed Dick's instructions to the letter. He says he never will forget the kindness of the tall man in Mobile, who gave him such good advice.
"Boy! did you let off that gun?" exclaimed an enraged schoolmaster.
"Yes, master."
"Well, what do you think I'll do to you?"
"Why, let me off!"
A gentleman expatiating upon the good looks of women, declared that he had never yet seen an ugly woman. One who was extremely flat nosed, said,
"Sir, I defy you not to find me ugly."
"You, madam," he replied, "are an angel fallen from heaven, only you have fallen on your nose."
A priest said to a peasant whom he thought rude, "You are better fed than taught." "Shud think I was," replied the clodhopper, "as I feeds myself and you teaches me."
An auctioneer, vexed with his audience, said: "I am a mean fellow—mean as dirt—and I feel at home in this company."
Mr. Lover tells a good anecdote of an Irishman giving the pass-word at the battle of Fontenoy, at the same time the great Saxe was marshal.
"The pass-word is Saxe; now don't forget it, Pat," said the Colonel.
"Saxe! faith an' I won't. Wasn't me father a miller?"
"Who goes there?" cries the sentinel, after he had arrived at the pass.
Pat looked as confidential as possible, and whispered in a sort of howl,
"Bags, yer honor."
A servant girl, on leaving her place, was accosted by her master as to her reason for leaving.
"Mistress is so quick-tempered that I cannot live with her," said the girl.
"Well," said the gentleman, "you know it is no sooner begun than it's over."
"Yes, Sir, and no sooner over than begun again."
In a case tried at the King's Bench, a witness was produced who had a very red nose; and one of the counsel, an impudent fellow, being desirous to put him out of countenance, called out to him, after he was sworn,
"Well, let's hear what you have to say, with your copper nose."
"Why, Sir," said he, "by the oath I have taken, I would not exchange my copper nose for your brazen face."
A gentleman from New York, who had been in Boston for the purpose of collecting some money due him in that city, was about returning, when he found that one bill of a hundred dollars had been overlooked. His landlord, who knew the debtor, thought it a doubtful case; but added that if it was collectable at all, a tall, rawboned Yankee, then dunning a lodger in another part of the hall, would "worry it out" of the man. Calling him up, therefore, he introduced him to the creditor, who showed him the account.
"Wall, Squire," said he, "'taint much use o' tryin', I guess. I know that critter. You might as well try to squeeze ile out of Bunker Hill Monument as to c'lect a debt out of him. But any how, Squire, what'll you give, sposin' I do try?"
"Well, Sir, the bill is one hundred dollars, I'll give you—yes, I'll give you half, if you'll collect it."
"'Greed," replied the collector, "there's no harm in tryin', any way."
Some weeks after, the creditor chanced to be in Boston, and in walking up Tremont street, encountered his enterprising friend.
"Look o' here," said he, "Squire. I had considerable luck with that bill o' yourn. You see, I stuck to him like a log to a root, but for the first week or so 'twant no use—not a bit. If he was home, he was short; if he wasn't home I could get no satisfaction. 'By the by,' says I, after goin' sixteen times, 'I'll fix you!' says I. So I sat down on the door-step, and sat all day and part of the evening, and I began airly next day; but about ten o'clock he 'gin in.' He paid me MY half, and I gin him up the note!"
An Irishman was about to marry a Southern girl for her property. "Will you take this woman to be your wedded wife?" said the minister. "Yes, your riverence, and the niggers too," said Pat.
"Well, Pat, Jimmy didn't quite kill you with a brickbat, did he?" "No, but I wish he had." "What for?" "So I could have seen him hung, the villain!"
"Is Mr. Brown a man of means?" asked a gentleman of old Mrs. Fizzleton, referring to one of her neighbors. "Well I reckon he ought to be," drawled out the old bel-dame, "for he is just the meanest man in town."
Arter we wus married, we'll say about a year, wun mornin' thar wus a terrible commoshun in our house—old wimmin a runnin in an out, and finally the Doctor he cum. I was in a great hurry myself, wantin to heer, I hardly noed what, but after a while, an ole granny of a woman, as had been very busy about that, poked her head into the room whar I was a walkin' about and ses:
Ses she, "Mr. Sporum, hit's a gal."
"What," ses I.
"A gal," ses she, an with that she pops her head back agin.
Well, thinks I, I'm the daddy uv a gal, and begin to feel my keepin' mitely—I'd rather it was a boy tho', thinks I, fur then he'd feel neerur to me, as how he'd bare my name and there be less chance fur the Sporums to run out, but considerin' everything, a gal will do mi'ty well. Jist then the ole nuss pokes her head out agin and ses,
Ses she, "Anuther wun, Mr. Sporum; a fine boy."
"Anuther," ses I, "that's rather crowdin' things on to a feller."
She laffed and poked her he'd back. Well, thinks I, this is no joke sure, at this lick I'll have family enuff to do me in a few years.
Jis then the ole she devil (always shall hate her) pokes her he'd in, and ses,
Ses she, "Anuther gal, Mr. Sporum."
"Anuther whot," ses I.
"Anuther gal," ses she.
"Well," ses I, "go rite strate and tell Sal I won't stand it, I don't want 'em, and I ain't goin' to have 'em; dus she think I'm a Turk? or a Mormon? or Brigham Young? that she go fur to have tribbles?—three at a pop! Dus she think I'm wurth a hundred thousand dollars? that I'm Jo'n Jacob Aster, or Mr. Roschile? that I kin afford thribbles, an clothe an feed an school three children at a time? I ain't a goin' to stand it no how, I didn't want 'em, I don't want 'em, and ain't a going to want 'em now, nur no uther time. Hain't I bin a good and dootiful husband to Sal? Hain't I kep' in doors uv a nite, an quit chawn tobacker and smokin' segars just to please her? Hain't I attended devine worship reg'lar? Hain't I bought her all the bonnets an frocks she wanted? an then for her to go an have thribbs. She noed better an hadn't orter dun it. I didn't think Sal wud serve me such a trick now. Have I ever stole a horse? Have I ever done enny mean trick, that she should serve me in this way?" An with that I laid down on the settee, an felt orful bad, an the more I tho't about it, the wus I felt.
Presently Sal's mammy, ole Miss Jones, cums in an ses,
Ses she, "Peter, cum in and see what purty chillun you've got."
"Chillun!" says I, "you'd better say a 'hole litter. Now Miss Jones, I luv Sal you no, an have tried to make a good husban', but I call this a scaly trick, an ef thar's any law in this country I'm goin' to see ef a woman kin have thribbs, an make a man take keer uv 'em. I ain't goin' to begin to do it," ses I.
With that she laffed fit to kill herself, an made all sorts of fun of me, an sed enny uther man would be proud to be in my shoes. I told her I'd sell out mi'ty cheap ef enny body wanted to take my place. Well, the upshot uv it wus that she pursuaded me that I wus 'rong, an got me to go into the room whar they all wus.
When I got in, Sal looked so lovin' at me, an reached out her little hands so much like a poor, dear little helpless child, that I forgot everything but my luv for her, and folded her gently up tu my h'art like a precious treasure, and felt like I didn't keer ef she had too and forty uv em. Jist then number wun set up a whine like a young pup, an all the ballance follered. Them thribbles noed their daddy.
Well, everything wus made up, an Sal promised she wud never do it agin; an sense then I have bin at work sertin, workin all day to make bred for them thribs, an bissy nus'n uv 'em at nite. The fact is, ef I didn't have a mi'ty good constitushun, I'd had to giv' in long ago. Number wun has the collick an wakes up number too an he wakes up number three, an so it goes, an me a flying about all the time a tryin' to keep 'em quiet.
Mother—Here, Tommy, is some nice castor oil, with orange ice in it.
Doctor—Now, remember, don't give it all to Tommy, leave some for me.
Tommy—(who has "been there")—Doctor's a nice man, ma, give it all to the Doctor!
"Can you return my love, dearest Julia?" "Certainly, Sir, I don't want it I'm sure."
A few days since, as a lady of rather inquisitive character was visiting our county seat, among other places she called at the Jail. She would ask the different prisoners for what crime they were in there. It went off well enough, till she came to a rather hard looking specimen of humanity, whom she asked:
"What are you in here for?"
"For stealing a horse."
"Are you not sorry for it?"
"Yes."
"Won't you try and do better next time?"
"Yes! I'll steal two."
A Dutchman's heart-rending soliloquy is described thus: "She lofes Shon Mickle so much better as I, pecause he's cot koople tollers more as I has!"
A stuttering man at a public table, had occasion to use a pepper box. After shaking it with all due vengeance, and turning it in various ways, he found that the pepper was in no wise inclined to come forth.
"T-th-this-p-pep-per box," he exclaimed, with a sagacious grin, "is so-something like myself."
"Why?" asked a neighbor.
"P-poor-poor delivery," he replied.
Lord Ellenborough was once about to go on the circuit, when Lady E. said that she should like to accompany him. He replied that he had no objections, provided she did not encumber the carriage with bandboxes, which were his utter abhorrence. They set off. During the first day's journey, Lord Ellenborough, happening to stretch his legs, struck his feet against something below the seat. He discovered that it was a bandbox. His indignation is not to be described. Up went the window, and out went the bandbox. The coachman stopped; and the footman, thinking that the bandbox had tumbled out of the window by some extraordinary chance, was going to pick it up, when Lord Ellenborough furiously called out, "Drive on!" The bandbox accordingly was left by a ditch side. Having reached the county-town, where he was to officiate as judge, Lord Ellenborough proceeded to array himself for his appearance in the court-house. "Now," said he, "where's my wig,—where is my wig?" "My Lord," replied his attendant, "it was thrown out of the carriage window."
Sir Walter Scott, in his article in the Quarterly Review, on the Culloden papers, mentions a characteristic instance of an old Highland warrior's mode of pardon. "You must forgive even your bitterest enemy, Kenmuir, now," said the confessor to him, as he lay gasping on his death-bed. "Well, if I must, I must," replied the Chieftain, "but my curse be on you, Donald," turning towards his son, "if you forgive him."
We have just now heard a cabbage story which we will cook up for our laughter loving readers:
"Oh! I love you like anything," said a young countryman to his sweetheart, warmly pressing her hand.
"Ditto," said she gently returning his pressure.
The ardent lover, not happening to be over and above learned, was sorely puzzled to understand the meaning of ditto—but was ashamed to expose his ignorance by asking the girl. He went home, and the next day being at work in a cabbage patch with his father, he spoke out:
"Daddy, what's the meaning of ditto?"
"Why," said the old man, "this here is one cabbage head, ain't it?"
"Yes, daddy."
"Well, that ere's ditto."
"Rot that good-for-nothing gal!" ejaculated the indignant son; "she called me a cabbage head, and I'll be darned if ever I go to see her again."
An old sailor, at the theatre, said he supposed that dancing girls wore their dresses at half-mast as a mark of respect to departed modesty.
Some one having lavishly lauded Longfellow's aphorism, "Suffer, and be strong," a matter-of-fact man observed that it was merely a variation of the old English adage, "Grin, and bear it."
Some years ago, a bill was up before the Alabama Legislature for establishing a Botanical College at Wetumpka. Several able speakers had made long addresses in support of the bill when one Mr. Morrisett, from Monroe, took the floor. With much gravity he addressed the House as follows: "Mr. Speaker, I cannot support this bill unless assured that a distinguished friend of mine is made one of the professors. He is what the bill wishes to make for us, a regular root doctor, and will suit the place exactly. He became a doctor in two hours, and it only cost him twenty dollars to complete his education. He bought a book, Sir, and read the chapter on fevers, that was enough. He was called to see a sick woman indeed, and he felt her wrist, looked into her mouth, and then, turning to her husband, asked solemnly, if he had a 'sorrel sheep?' 'Why, no, I never heard of such a thing.' Said the doctor, nodding his head knowingly, 'Have you got a sorrel horse then?' 'Yes,' said the man, 'I drove him to the mill this morning.' 'Well,' said the doctor, 'he must be killed immediately, and some soup made of him for your wife.' The woman turned her head away, and the astonished man inquired if something else would not do for the soup, the horse was worth a hundred dollars, and was all the one he had. 'No,' said the doctor, 'the book says so, and if you don't believe it I will read it to you: Good for fevers—sheep sorrel or horse sorrel. There, Sir.' 'Why, doctor,' said the man and his wife, 'it don't mean a sorrel sheep or horse, but—' 'Well, I know what I am about,' interrupted the doctor; 'that's the way we doctors read it, and we understand it.' "Now," continued the speaker, amidst the roars of the house, "unless my sorrel doctor can be one of the professors, I must vote against this bill." The blow most effectually killed the bill, it is needless to state.
A noted chap once stepped in the sanctum of a venerable and highly respected editor, and indulged in a tirade against a citizen with whom he was on bad terms. "I wish," said he, addressing the man with the pen, "that you would write a severe article against R——, and put it in your paper." "Very well," was the reply. After some more conversation the visitor went away. The next morning he came rushing into the office, in a violent state of excitement. "What did you put in your paper? I have had my nose pulled and been kicked twice." "I wrote a severe article, as you desired," calmly returned the editor, "and signed your name to it."—Harrisburgh Telegraph.
A miserly old farmer, who had lost one of his best hands in the midst of hay-making, remarked to the sexton, as he was filling up the grave: "It's a sad thing to lose a good mower, at a time like this—but after all, poor Tom was a great eater."
"Is that clock right over there?" asked a visitor. "Right over there? Certainly; 'tain't nowhere else."
Lord Seaforth, who was born deaf and dumb, was to dine, one day, with Lord Melville. Just before the time of the company's arrival, Lady Melville sent into the drawing-room, a lady of her acquaintance, who could talk with her fingers to dumb people, that she might receive Lord Seaforth. Presently, Lord Guilford entered the room, and the lady, taking him for Lord Seaforth, began to ply her fingers very nimbly: Lord Guilford did the same; and they had been carrying on a conversation in this manner for about ten minutes, when Lady Melville joined them. Her female friend immediately said, "Well, I have been talking away to this dumb man." "Dumb!" cried Lord Guilford; "bless me, I thought you were dumb."—I told this story (which is perfectly true) to Matthews; and he said that he could make excellent use of it, at one of his evening entertainments; but I know not if he ever did.—Rogers' Table-talk.
"If ever I wanted anything of my father," said Sam, "I always asked for it in a very 'spectful and obliging manner. If he didn't give it to me, I took it, for fear I should be led to do anything wrong, through not having it. I saved him a world o' trouble this way, Sir."—Dickens.
"Well, Robert, how much did your pig weigh?" "It did not weigh as much as I expected, and I always thought it wouldn't."—Detroit Spectator.
Copied, three years ago, from a card in the Hôtel du Rhin, at Boulogne.
"Special omnibus, on the arrived and on the départure, of every convoy of the railway. Restoration on the card, and dinners at all hour.
Table d'hôte at ten half-past, one, and five o'clock.
Bathing place horses and walking carriage.
Interpreter attached to the hôtel. Great and little apartments with saloon for family.
This établissement entirely new, is admirably situed, on the centre of the town at proximity of the theatre and coach office, close by the post horses offer to the travellers all the comfortable désirable and is proprietor posse by is diligence and is good tenuous justifyed the confidence wich the travellers pleased to honoured him."
(The orthography and pointing of the stops, are precisely as printed in the card.)
Admiral Duncan's address to the officers, who came on board his ship for instructions previous to the engagement with Admiral de Winter, was both laconic and humorous, "Gentlemen, you see a severe winter approaching; I have only to advise you to keep up a good fire."
Poor Tom Dibdin, a convivial, but always a sober man, gives a delicate allusion to the drinking propensity, in the following toast:—"May the man who has a good wife, never be addicted to liquor (lick her.)"—Bentley's Miscellany.
A very handsome friend of ours, who a few weeks ago was poked out of a comfortable office up the river, has taken himself to Bangor for a time to recover from the wound inflicted upon his feelings by our "unprincipled and immolating administration."
Change of air must have had an instant effect upon his spirits, for, from Galena, he writes us an amusing letter, which, among other things, tells of a desperate quarrel that took place on board of a boat, between a real live tourist and a real live Yankee settler. The latter trod on the toes of the former, whereupon the former threatened to "kick out of the cabin" the latter.
"You'll kick me out of this cabing?"
"Yes, Sir, I'll kick you out of this cabin!"
"You'll kick me, Mr. Hitchcock, out of this cabing?"
"Yes, Sir, I'll kick you, Mr. Hitchcock!"
"Well, I guess," said the Yankee, very coolly, after being perfectly satisfied that it was himself that stood in such imminent danger of assault, "I guess, since you talk of kicking, you've never heard me tell about old Bradly and my mare to hum?"
"No, Sir, nor do I wish—"
"Wall, guess it won't set you back much, any how, as kicking's generally best to be considered on. You see old Bradly is one of those sanctimonious, long-faced hypocrites who put on a religious suit every Sabbath day morning, and with a good deal of screwing, manage to keep it on till after sermon in the afternoon; and as I was a Universalist, he allers picked me out as a subject for religious conversation—and the darned hypocrite would talk about heaven, and hell, and the devil—the crucifixion and prayer without ever winking. Wall, he had an old roan mare that would jump over any fourteen rail fence in Illinois, and open any door in any barn that hadn't a padlock on it. Tu or three times I found her in my stable, and I told Bradly about it, and he was 'very sorry—an unruly animal—would watch'—and a hull lot of such things; all said in a serious manner, with a face twice as long as old deacon Farrar's on sacrament day.
"I knew, all the time, he was lying, and so I watched him and his old roan tu; and for three nights regular, old roan came to my stable about bed-time, and just at day-light Bradly would come, bridle her, and ride off. I then just took my old mare down to a blacksmith's shop and had some shoes made with corks about four inches long, and had 'em nailed on her hind feet. Your heels, mister, ain't nuthin to 'em. I took her hum—gave her about ten feet halter, tied her right in the centre of the stable, fed her well with oats at nine o'clock, and after taking a good smoke, went to bed, knowing that my old mare was a truth-telling animal, and that she'd give a good report of herself in the morning.
"I hadn't got fairly asleep before the old woman hunched me, and wanted to know what on airth was the matter out in the stable. So says I, 'Go to sleep, Peggy, it's nothing but Kate—she's kicking off flies, I guess.' Putty soon she hunched me again, and says, 'Mr. Hitchcock, du get up, and see what in the world is the matter with Kate, for she is kicking most powerfully.'
"'Lay still, Peggy, Kate will take care of herself, I guess.'
"Well the next morning, about daylight, Bradly, with bridle in hand, cum to the stable, and true as the book of Genesis, when he saw the old roan's sides, starn, and head, he cursed and swore worse than you did, mister, when I came down on your toes. After breakfast that morning, Joe Davis cum down to my house, and says he—
"'Bradly's old roan is nearly dead—she's cut all to pieces, and can scarcely move.'
"'I want to know,' says I; 'how on airth did it happen?'
"Now Joe was a member of the same church with Bradly, and whilst we were talking, up cum the everlastin hypocrite, and says he,
"'My old mare is ruined!'
"'Du tell!' says I.
"'She is all cut to pieces,' says he; 'do you know whether she was in your stable, Mr. Hitchcock, last night?'
"Wall, mister, with this I let out: 'Do I know it?'—(the Yankee here, in illustration, made way for him, unconsciously, as it were.) 'Do I know it, you no-souled, shad-bellied, squash-headed old night owl, you!—you hay-lookin, corn-cribbin, fodder-fudgin, cent-shavin, whitlin-of-nothin, you? Kate kicks like a dumb beast, but I have reduced the thing to a science!'"
The Yankee had not ceased to advance, nor the dandy, in his astonishment, to retreat; and now the motion of the latter being accelerated by the apparent demonstration on the part of the former to suit the action to the word, he found himself in the "social hall," tumbling backwards over a pile of baggage, tearing the knees of his pants as he scrambled up, and a perfect scream of laughter stunning him on all sides. The defeat was total. A few moments afterward he was seen dragging his own trunk ashore, while Mr. Hitchcock finished his story on the boiler deck.—St. Louis Reveille.
Two unsophisticated country lasses visited Niblo's in New York during the ballet season. When the short-skirted, gossamer clad nymphs made their appearance on the stage they became restless and fidgety.
"Oh, Annie!" exclaimed one sotto voce.
"Well, Mary?"
"It ain't nice—I don't like it."
"Hush."
"I don't care, it ain't nice, and I wonder aunt brought us to such a place."
"Hush, Mary, the folks will laugh at you."
After one or two flings and a pirouette, the blushing Mary said:
"Oh, Annie, let's go—it ain't nice, and I don't feel comfortable."
"Do hush, Mary," replied the sister, whose own face was scarlet, though it wore an air of determination: "it's the first time I ever was at a theatre, and I suppose it will be the last, so I am just going to stay it out, if they dance every rag off their backs!"
"Husband, I have the asthma so bad that I can't breathe." "Well, my dear, I wouldn't try; nobody wants you to."
A bachelor editor out West, who had received from the fair hand of a bride, a piece of elegant wedding-cake to dream on, thus gives the result of his experience.
"We put it under the head of our pillow, shut our eyes sweetly as an infant blessed with an easy conscience, and snored prodigiously. The God of dreams gently touched us, and lo! in fancy we were married! Never was a little editor so happy. It was 'my love,' 'dearest,' 'sweetest,' ringing in our ears every moment. Oh! that the dream had broken off here. But no! some evil genius put it into the head of our ducky to have pudding for dinner just to please her lord.
"In a hungry dream, we sat down to dinner. Well, the pudding moment arrived, and a huge slice almost obscured from sight the plate before us.
"'My dear,' said we fondly, 'did you make this?'
"'Yes, my love, ain't it nice?'
"'Glorious—the best bread pudding I ever tasted in my life.'
"'Plum pudding, ducky,' suggested my wife.
"'O, no, dearest, bread pudding. I was always fond of 'em.'
"'Call them bread pudding!' exclaimed my wife, while her lips slightly curled with contempt.
"'Certainly, my dear—reckon I've had enough at the Sherwood House, to know bread pudding, my love, by all means.'
"'Husband—this is really too bad—plum pudding is twice as hard to make as bread pudding, and is more expensive, and is a great deal better. I say this is plum pudding, sir!' and my pretty wife's brow flushed with excitement.
"'My love, my sweet, my dear love,' exclaimed we soothingly, 'do not get angry. I am sure it is very good, if it is bread pudding.'
"'You mean, low wretch,' fiercely replied my wife, in a higher tone, 'you know it's plum pudding.'
"'Then, ma'am, it's so meanly put together and so badly burned, that the devil himself wouldn't know it. I tell you, madam, most distinctly and emphatically, that it is bread pudding and the meanest kind at that.'
"'It is plum pudding,' shrieked my wife, as she hurled a glass of claret in my face, the glass itself tapping the claret from my nose.
"'Bread pudding!' gasped we, pluck to the last, and grasped a roasted chicken by the left leg.
"'Plum pudding!' rose above the din, as I had a distinct perception of feeling two plates smashed across my head.
"'Bread pudding!' we groaned in a rage, as the chicken left our hand and flying with swift wing across the table landed in madam's bosom.
"'Plum pudding!' resounded the war-cry from the enemy, as the gravy-dish took us where we had been depositing a part of our dinner, and a plate of beets landed upon our white vest.
"'Bread pudding forever!' shouted we in defiance, dodging the soup tureen, and falling beneath its contents.
"'Plum pudding!' yelled the amiable spouse; noticing our misfortune, she determined to keep us down by piling upon our head the dishes with no gentle hand. Then in rapid succession, followed the war-cries. 'Plum pudding!' she shrieked with every dish.
"'Bread pudding,' in smothered tones, came up from the pile in reply. Then it was 'plum pudding,' in rapid succession, the last cry growing feebler, till just as I can distinctly recollect, it had grown to a whisper. 'Plum pudding' resounded like thunder, followed by a tremendous crash as my wife leaped upon the pile with her delicate feet, and commenced jumping up and down, when, thank heaven! we awoke, and thus saved our life. We shall never dream on wedding cake again—that's the moral."
A gentleman was threatening to beat a dog who barked intolerably. "Why," exclaimed an Irishman, "would you beat the poor dumb animal for spakin' out?"
A gentleman was speaking the other day of the kindness of his friends in visiting him. One old aunt in particular visited him twice a year, and stayed six months each time.
"I'd have you to know, Mrs. Stoker, that my uncle was a banister of the law."
"A fig for your banister," retorted Mrs. Grumly, turning up her nose, "haven't I a cousin as is a corridor in the navy?"
A philosophical old gentleman was one day passing a new school-house, erected somewhere towards the setting sun borders of our glorious Union, when his attention was suddenly attracted to a crowd of persons gathered around the door. He inquired of a boy, whom he met, what was going on.
"Well, nothin', 'cept the skule committy, and they're goin' in."
"A committee meets to-day! What for?"
"Well," continued the boy, "you see Bill, that's our biggest boy, got mad at the teacher, and so he went all round and gathered dead cats. Nothin' but cats, and cats, and cats. Oh! it was orful, them cats!"
"Pshaw! what have the cats to do with the school committee?"
"Now, well, you see Bill kept a bringing cats and cats; allers a pilin' them up yonder," pointing to a huge pile as large in extent as a pyramid, and considerably aromatic, "and he piled them. Nothing but cats, cats!"
"Never mind, my son, what Bill did; what has the committee met for?"
"Then Bill got sick haulin' them, and everybody got sick a nosin' them, but Bill got madder, and didn't give it up, but kept a pilin' up the cats and—"
"Can you tell what the committee are holding a meeting for?"
"Why, the skule committy are goin' to hold a meetin' up here to say whether they'll move the skule house or the cats."
The old gentleman evaporated immediately.
If a husband were to see his wife drowning, what single letter of the alphabet would he name?—Answer. Let-her B.
What is most like a hen stealing?—Ans. A cock robbing (robin).
What wind would a hungry sailor wish for, at sea?—Ans.—A wind that blows fowl and then chops.
When is a lane dangerous to walk in?—Ans. When the hedges are shooting, and the bull-rushes out.
In what color should a secret be kept?—Ans. In violet (inviolate).
What proof is there that Robinson Crusoe found his island inhabited?—Ans. Because he saw a great swell pitching into a little cove.
What was Joan of Arc made of?—Ans. Maid of Orleans.
Why is the county of Bucks, like a drover's stick?—Ans. Because it runs into Oxon (oxen) and Herts (hurts).
Who is the greatest dandy you meet at sea?—Ans. The great swell of the ocean.
Why may it be presumed that Moses wore a wig?—Ans. Because he was sometimes seen with Aaron (hair on), and sometimes without.
A little sighing, a little crying, a little dying, and a deal of lying.—Jonathan.
The great Duke of Marlborough, passing the gate of the Tower, after having inspected that fortress, was accosted by an ill-looking fellow, with, "How do you do, my Lord Duke? I believe your Grace and I have now been in every jail in the kingdom?" "I believe, my friend," replied the Duke, with surprise, "this is the only jail I ever visited." "Very like," replied the other, "but I have been in all the rest."
A devotee lamented to her confessor, her love of gaming. "Ah, madam," replied the priest, "it is a grievous sin:—in the first place, consider the loss of time." "Yes," replied the fair penitent, "I have often begrudged the time lost in shuffling and dealing."
A preacher, in Arabia, having for his text, a portion of the Koran, "I have called Noah," after twice repeating his text, made a long pause; when an Arab present, thinking that he was waiting for an answer, exclaimed, "If Noah will not come, call somebody else."
"I will save you a thousand pounds," said a young buck to an old gentleman. "How?" "You have a daughter, and you intend to give her ten thousand pounds as her portion." "I do." "Sir, I will take her with nine thousand."
Friend Grace, it seems, had a very good horse and a very poor one. When seen riding the latter, he was asked the reason (it turned out that his better half had taken the good one). "What!" said the bantering bachelor, "how comes it you let your mistress ride the better horse?" The only reply was—"Friend, when thee beest married theel't know."
The Hartford Times vouches for the truth of the following story:
"Pat Malone, you are fined five dollars for assault and battery on Mike Sweeney."
"I have the money in me pocket, and I'll pay the fine, if your honor will give me the resate."
"We give no receipts here. We just take the money. You will not be called upon a second time for your fine."
"But your honor, I'll not be wanting to pay the same till after I get the resate."
"What do you want to do with it?"
"If your honor will write one and give it to me, I'll tell you."
"Well, there's your receipt. Now what do you want to do with it?"
"I'll tell your honor. You see, one of those days I'll be after dying, and when I go to the gate of heaven I'll rap, and St. Peter will say, 'Who's there?' and I'll say, 'It's me, Pat Malone,' and he'll say, 'What do you want?' and I'll say, 'I want to come in,' and he'll say, 'Did you behave like a dacent boy in the other world, and pay all the fines and such things?' and I'll say, 'Yes, your holiness,' and then he'll want to see the resate, and I'll put my hand in my pocket and take out my resate and give it to him, and I'll not have to go ploddin' all over hell to find your honor to get one."
An old gentleman says, he is the last man in the world to tyrannize over a daughter's affections. So long as she marries the man of his choice, he don't care who she loves.
A capital story is told of a young fellow who one Sunday strolled into a village church, and during the service was electrified and gratified by the sparkling of a pair of eyes which were riveted upon his face. After the service he saw the possessor of the shining orbs leave the church alone, and emboldened by her glances, he ventured to follow her, his heart aching with rapture. He saw her look behind, and fancied she evinced some emotion at recognizing him. He then quickened his pace, and she actually slackened hers, as if to let him come up with her—but we will permit the young gentleman to tell the rest in his own way:
"Noble young creature!" thought I, "her artless and warm heart is superior to the bonds of custom.
"I had reached within a stone's throw of her. She suddenly halted, and turned her face toward me. My heart swelled to bursting. I reached the spot where she stood, she began to speak, and I took off my hat as if doing reverence to an angel.
"'Are you a peddler?'
"'No, my dear girl, that is not my occupation.'
"'Well, I don't know,' continued she, not very bashfully, and eyeing me very sternly, 'I thought when I saw you in the meetin' house that you looked like a peddler who passed off a pewter half dollar on me three weeks ago, an' so I just determined to keep an eye on you. Brother John has got home now, and says if he catches the fellow he'll wring his neck for him; and I ain't sure but you're the good-for-nothing rascal after all!'"
Sir Allen McNab was once traveling by steamer, and as luck would have it, was obliged to occupy a state-room with a full blooded Yankee. In the morning, while Sir Allen was dressing, he beheld his companion making thorough researches into his (Sir Allen's) dressing case. Having completed his examination, he proceeded coolly to select the tooth-brush, and therewith to bestow on his long yellow teeth an energetic scrubbing. Sir Allen said not a word. When Jonathan had concluded, the old Scotchman gravely set the basin on the floor, soaped one foot well, and taking the tooth-brush, applied it vigorously to his toes and toe-nails.
"You dirty fellow," exclaimed the astonished Yankee, "what the mischief are you doing that for?"
"Oh," said Sir Allen coolly, "that's the brush I always do it with."
Dinner was spread in the cabin of that peerless steamer, the New World, and a splendid company were assembled about the table. Among the passengers thus prepared for gastronomic duty, was a little creature of the genus Fop, decked daintily as an early butterfly, with kids of irreproachable whiteness, "miraculous" neck-tie, and spider-like quizzing glass on his nose. The little delicate animal turned his head aside with,
"Waitah!"
"Sah!"
"Bwing me a pwopellah of a fwemale woostah!"
"Yes, Sah!"
"And, waitah, tell the steward to wub my plate with a vegetable, wulgarly called onion, which will give a delicious flavow to my dinnah."
While the refined exquisite was giving his order, a jolly western drover had listened with opened mouth and protruding eyes. When the diminutive creature paused, he brought his fist down upon the table with a force that made every dish bounce, and then thundered out:
"Here you darned ace-of-spades!"
"Yes, Sah!"
"Bring me a thunderin' big plate of skunk's gizzards!"
"Sah!"
"And, old ink pot, tuck a horse blanket under my chin, and rub me down with brickbats while I feed!"
The poor dandy showed a pair of straight coat-tails instanter, and the whole table joined in a "tremenjous" roar.
David Ditson was and is the great Almanac man, calculating the signs and wonders in the heavens, and furnishing the astronomical matter with which those very useful annuals abound. In former years it was his custom, in all his almanacs, to utter sage predictions as to the weather, at given periods in the course of the revolving year. Thus he would say, 'About—this—time—look—out—for—a—change—of—weather; and by stretching such a prophecy half-way down the page, he would make very sure that in some one of the days included, the event foretold would come to pass. He got cured of this spirit of prophecy, in a very remarkable manner. One summer day, clear and calm as a day could be, he was riding on horseback; it was before railroads were in vogue, and being on a journey some distance from home, and wishing to know how far it was to the town he was going to visit, he stopped at the roadside and inquired of a farmer at work in the field. The farmer told him it was six miles; "but," he added, "you must ride sharp, or you will get a wet jacket before you reach it."
"A wet jacket!" said the astronomer; "you don't think it is going to rain, do you?"
"No, I don't think so, I know so," replied the farmer; "and the longer you sit there, the more likely you are to get wet."
David thought the farmer a fool, and rode on, admiring the blue sky uncheckered by a single cloud. He had not proceeded more than half the distance to the town before the heavens were overcast, and one of those sudden showers not unusual in this latitude came down upon him. There was no place for shelter, and he was drenched to the skin. But the rain was soon over, and David thought within himself, that old man must have some way of guessing the weather that beats all my figures and facts. I will ride back and get it out of him. It will be worth more than a day's work to learn a new sign. By the time he had reached the farmer's field again, the old man had resumed his labor, and David accosted him very respectfully:
"I say, my good friend, I have come all the way back to ask you how you were able to say that it would certainly rain to-day?"
"Ah," said the sly old fellow, "and wouldn't you like to know!"
"I would certainly; and as I am much interested in the subject, I will willingly give you five dollars for your rule."
The farmer acceded to the terms, took the money, and proceeded to say:
"Well, you see now, we all use David Ditson's almanacs around here, and he is the greatest liar that ever lived; for whenever he says 'it's going to rain,' we know it ain't; and when he says 'fair weather,' we look out for squalls. Now this morning I saw it put down for to-day Very pleasant, and I knew for sartin it would rain before night. That's the rule. Use David's Almanac, and always read it just t'other way."
The crest-fallen astronomer plodded on his weary way, another example of a fool and his money soon parted. But that was the end of his prophesying. Since that he has made his almanacs without weatherwise sayings, leaving every man to guess for himself.
The Philadelphia Chronicle calls the hero of the following story a Yankee, but he will wager a sixpence that he was born in Pennsylvania. But no matter, it is a good joke:—"'What do you charge for board?' asked a tall Green Mountain boy, as he walked up to the bar of a second-rate hotel in New York—'what do you ask a week for board and lodging?' 'Five dollars.' 'Five dollars! that's too much; but I s'pose you'll allow for the times I am absent from dinner and supper?' 'Certainly; thirty-seven and a half cents each.' Here the conversation ended, and the Yankee took up his quarters for two weeks. During this time, he lodged and breakfasted at the hotel, but did not take either dinner or supper, saying his business detained him in another portion of the town. At the expiration of the two weeks, he again walked up to the bar, and said, 'S'pose we settle that account—I'm going, in a few minutes.' The landlord handed him his bill—'Two weeks board at five dollars—ten dollars.' 'Here, stranger,' said the Yankee, 'this is wrong—you've made a mistake; you've not deducted the times I was absent from dinner and supper—14 days, two meals per day; 28 meals, at 37½ cents each; 10 dollars 50 cents. If you've not got the fifty cents that's due to me, I'll take a drink, and the balance in cigars!"
"The politicians have thrown me overboard," said a disappointed politician; "but I have strength enough to swim to the other side."
Sposin' it's pictures that's on the carpet, wait till you hear the name of the painter. If it's Rubens, or any o' them old boys, praise, for it's agin the law to doubt them; but if it's a new man, and the company ain't most especial judges, criticise. "A leetle out o' keeping," says you. "He don't use his grays enough, nor glaze down well. That shadder wants depth. General effect is good, though parts ain't. Those eyebrows are heavy enough for stucco," says you, and other unmeaning terms like these. It will pass, I tell you. Your opinion will be thought great. Them that judged the cartoons at Westminster Hall, knew plaguey little more nor that. But if this is a portrait of the lady of the house, hangin' up, or it's at all like enough to make it out, stop—gaze on it, walk back, close your fingers like a spy-glass, and look through 'em amazed like—enchanted—chained to the spot. Then utter, unconscious like, "That's a most beautiful pictur'. By heavens! that's a speakin' portrait. It's well painted, too. But whoever the artist is, he is an unprincipled man." "Good gracious!" she'll say, "how so?" "'Cause, madam, he has not done you justice."—Sam Slick.
"I bought them boots to wear only when I go into genteel society," said one of the codfish tribe, to a wag, the other day.
"Oh, you did, eh?" quoth the wag. "Well, then, in that case, them boots will be likely to last you a lifetime, and be worth something to your heirs."—Exit codfish, rather huffy.
When the territory now composing the State of Ohio was first organized into a government, and Congressmen about being elected, there were two candidates, both men of standing and ability, brought out in that fertile region watered by the beautiful Muskingum.
Mr. Morgan, the one, was a reluctant aspirant for the honor, but he payed his respects to the people by calling meetings at various points and addressing them. In one part of the district there was a large and very intelligent German settlement, and it was generally conceded that their vote, usually given one way, would be decisive of the contest. To secure this important interest, Mr. Morgan, in the course of the campaign, paid this part of the district a visit, and by his condescension and polite manner, made a most favourable impression on the entire population—the electors, in fact, all pledging themselves to cast their votes for him.
Colonel Jackson, the opposing candidate, and ambitious for the office, hearing of this successful move on the part of his opponent, determined to counteract it if possible. To this end he started for the all-important settlement. On introducing himself, and after several fruitless attempts to dissipate the favourable effects of Mr. Morgan's visit, he was finally informed by one of the leading men of the precinct that:
"It ish no good you coming hare, Colonel Shackson, we have all promisht to vote for our friendt, Meisther Morgans."
"Ah! ha!" says the Colonel: "but did you hear what Mr. Morgan did when he returned from visiting you?"
"No, vat vas it?"
"Why, he ordered his chamber-maid to bring him some soap and warm water, that he might wash the sour krout off his hands."
The Colonel left, and in a few days the election coming off, each candidate made his appearance at the critical German polls.
The votes were then given viva voce, and you may readily judge of Mr. Morgan's astonishment as each lusty Dutchman announced the name of Colonel Shackson, holding up his hand toward the outwitted candidate, and indignantly asking:
"Ah! ha! Meisther Morgans, you zee ony zour krout dare?"
It is needless to say that Colonel Shackson took a seat in the next Congress.
"Susan, stand up and let me see what you have learned. What does c-h-a-i-r spell?"
"I don't know, marm."
"Why, you ignorant critter! What do you always sit on?"
"Oh, marm, I don't like to tell."
"What on earth is the matter with the gal?—tell what is it."
"I don't like to tell—it was Bill Crass's knee, but he never kissed me but twice."
"Airthquake and apple-sarse!" exclaimed the schoolmistress, and she fainted.
An old gentleman who was always bragging how folks used to work in his young days, one time challenged his two sons to pitch on a load of hay as fast as he could load it.
The challenge was accepted and the hay-wagon driven round and the trial commenced. For some time the old man held his own very creditably, calling out, tauntingly, "More hay! more hay!"
Thicker and faster it came. The old man was nearly covered; still he kept crying, "More hay! more hay!" until struggling to keep on the top of the disordered and ill-arranged heap, it began first to roll, then to slide, and at last off it went from the wagon, and the old man with it.
"What are you down here for?" cried the boys.
"I came down after hay," answered the old man, stoutly.
Which was a literal fact. He had come down after the wagon load, which had to be pitched on again rather more deliberately.
Mr. Dickson, a colored barber, was shaving one of his customers, a respectable citizen, one morning, when a conversation occurred between them respecting Mr. Dickson's former connection with a colored church in the place.
"I believe you are connected with the church in ——street, Mr. Dickson," said the customer.
"So, Sah, not at all."
"What! are you not a member of the African Church?"
"Not dis year, Sah."
"Why did you leave their communion, Mr. Dickson? if I may be permitted to ask."
"Why, I tell you, Sah," said Mr. Dickson, strapping a concave razor on the palm of his hand.
"It was just like dis. I jined dat church in good faif. I gib ten dollars toward de stated preaching ob de Gospel de fus' year, and de peepil all call me Brudder Dickson. De second year my business not good, and I only gib five dollars. Dat year the church peepil call me Mr. Dickson.
"Dis razor hurt you, Sah?"
"No; the razor goes very well."
"Well, Sah, de third year I felt very poor, sickness in my family, and didn't gib nuffin for the preaching. Well, Sah, after dat they call me Old Nigger Dickson, and I leff 'em."
So saying, Mr. Dickson brushed his customer's hair and the gentleman departed, well satisfied with the reason why Mr. Dickson left the church.
A young lady in the interior, thinks of going to California to get married, for the reason that she has been told that in that country the men folks "rock the cradle."
What is the difference between an attempted homicide, and a hog butchery? One is an assault with intent to kill, and the other is a kill with intent to salt.
Here, reader, is a little picture of one kind of "human nature," that, while it will make you laugh, conveys at the same time a lesson not unworthy of heed. The story is of a gentleman traveling through Canada in the winter of 1839, who, after a long day's ride, stopped at a roadside inn called the "Lion Tavern," where the contents of the stage coach, numbering some nine persons, soon gathered round the cheerful fire.
Among the occupants of the room was an ill-looking cur, who had shown its wit by taking up its quarters in so comfortable an apartment. After a few minutes the landlord entered, and observing the dog, remarked:
"Fine dog, that! is he yours, Sir?" appealing to one of the passengers.
"No, Sir."
"Beautiful dog! yours, Sir?" addressing himself to a second.
"No!" was the blunt reply.
"Come here, Pup! Perhaps he is yours, Sir?"
"No!" was again the reply.
"Very sagacious animal! Belongs to you, I suppose, Sir?"
"No, he doesn't!"
"Then he is yours, and you have a treasure in him, Sir?" at the same time throwing the animal a cracker.
"No, Sir, he is not!"
"Oh!" (with a smile) "he belongs to you, as a matter of course, then?" addressing the last passenger.
"Me! I wouldn't have him as a gift!"
"Then, you dirty, mean, contemptible whelp, get out!" And with that the host gave him such a kick as sent him howling into the street, amidst the roars of the company.
There was one honest dog in that company, but the two-legged specimen was a little "too sweet to be wholesome."
Moore mentions in his diary a very amusing anecdote of John Kemble. He was performing one night at some country theatre, in one of his favourite parts, and being interrupted from time to time by the squalling of a child in one of the galleries, he became not a little angry at the rival performance. Walking with solemn step to the front of the stage, and addressing the audience in his most tragic tone, he said:
"Unless the play is stopped, the child can not possibly go on!"
The loud laugh which followed this ridiculous transposition of his meaning, relaxed even the nerves of the immortal Hamlet, and he was compelled to laugh with his auditors.
A priest of Basse Bretagne, finding his duty somewhat arduous, particularly the number of his confessing penitents, said from the pulpit one Sunday:
"Brethren, to avoid confusion at the confessional this week, I will on Monday confess the liars, on Tuesday the thieves, Wednesday the gamblers, Thursday the drunkards, Friday the women of bad life, and Saturday the libertines."
Strange to relate, nobody came that week to confess their sins.
There are times and seasons when sleep is never appropriate, and with these may be classed the sleep of the good old Cincinnati deacon.
The deacon was the owner and overseer of a large pork-packing establishment. His duty it was to stand at the head of the scalding trough, watch in hand, to "time" the length of the scald, crying "Hog in!" when the just slaughtered hog was to be thrown into the trough, and "Hog out!" when the watch told three minutes. One week the press of business compelled the packers to unusually hard labor, and Saturday night found the deacon completely exhausted. Indeed, he was almost sick the next morning, when church time came; but he was a leading member, and it was his duty to attend the usual Sabbath service, if he could. He went. The occasion was of unusual solemnity, as a revival was in progress. The minister preached a sermon, well calculated for effect. His peroration was a climax of great beauty. Assuming the attitude of one intently listening, he recited to the breathless auditory:
"Hark, they whisper; angels say—
"Hog in!" came from the deacon's pew, in a stentorian voice. The astonished audience turned their attention from the preacher. He went on, however, unmoved—
"Sister spirit, come away."
"Hog out!" shouted the deacon, "tally four."
This was too much for the preacher and the audience. The latter smiled, some snickered audibly, while a few boys broke for the door, to "split their sides," laughing outside, within full hearing. The preacher was entirely disconcerted, sat down, arose again, pronounced a brief benediction, and dismissed the anything else than solemn minded hearers. The deacon soon came to a realizing sense of his unconscious interlude, for his brethren reprimanded him severely; while the boys caught the infection of the joke, and every possible occasion afforded an opportunity for them to say, "Hog in!" "Hog out!"
"Suppose you are lost in a fog," said Lord C—— to his noble relative, the Marchioness, "what are you most likely to be?" "Mist, of course," replied her ladyship.
"You don't seem to know how to take me," said a vulgar fellow to a gentleman he had insulted. "Yes, I do," said the gentleman, taking him by the nose.
On a Sunday, a lady called to her little boy, who was tossing marbles on the side walk, to come in the house.
"Don't you know you should not be out there, my son?" said she. "Go into the back yard, if you want to play marbles; it is Sunday."
"I will," answered the little boy; "but ain't it Sunday in the back yard, mother?"
An ignorant fellow, who was about to get married, resolved to make himself perfect in the responses of the marriage service; but, by mistake, he committed the office of baptism for those of riper years; so when the clergyman asked him in the church, "Wilt thou have this woman to be thy wedded wife?" the bridegroom answered, in a very solemn tone, "I renounce them all." The astonished minister said, "I think you are a fool!" to which he replied, "All this I steadfastly believe."
An ill-looking fellow was asked how he could account for nature's forming him so ugly. "Nature was not to blame," said he; "for when I was two months old, I was considered the handsomest child in the neighborhood, but my nurse one day swapped me away for another boy just to please a friend, whose child was rather plain looking."
Mrs. Partington was much surprised to find Ike, one rainy afternoon, in the spare room, with the rag-bag hung to the bed-post, which he was belaboring very lustily with his fists as huge as two one cent apples.
"What gymnastiness are you doing here?" said she, as she opened the door.
He did not stop, and merely replying, "Training," continued to pitch in. She stood looking at him as he danced around the bag, busily punching its rotund sides.
"That's the Morrissey touch," said he, giving one side a dig; "and that," hitting the other side, "is the Benicia Boy."
"Stop!" she said, and he immediately stopped after he had given the last blow for Morrissey. "I am afraid the training you are having isn't good," said she, "and I think you had better train in some other company. I thought your going into compound fractures in school would be dilatorious to you. I don't know who Mr. Morrissey is, and I don't want to, but I hear that he has been whipping the Pernicious Boy, a poor lad with a sore leg, and I think he should be ashamed of himself." Ike had read the "Herald," with all about "the great prize fight" in it, and had become entirely carried away with it.
George Selwyn was telling at dinner-table, in the midst of a large company, and with great glee, of the execution of Lord Lovat, which he had witnessed. The ladies were shocked at the levity he manifested, and one of them reproached him, saying,
"How could you be such a barbarian as to see the head of a man cut off?"
"Oh," said he, "if that was any great crime, I am sure I made amends for it; for I went to see it sewed on again."
A fop in company, wanting his servant, called out:
"Where's that blockhead of mine?" A lady present, answered, "On your shoulders, Sir."
"Murphy," said an employer, the other morning, to one of his workmen, "you came late this morning, the other men were an hour before you." "Sure, and I'll be even wit 'em to-night, then." "How, Murphy?" "Why, faith, I'll quit an hour before 'em all, sure."
A groom is a chap, that a gentleman keeps to clean his 'osses, and be blown up, when things go wrong. They are generally wery conceited consequential beggars, and as they never knows nothing, why the best way is to take them so young, that they can't pretend to any knowledge. I always get mine from the charity schools, and you'll find it wery good economy, to apply to those that give the boys leather breeches, as it will save you the trouble of finding him a pair. The first thing to do, is to teach him to get up early, and to hiss at everything he brushes, rubs, or touches. As the leather breeches should be kept for Sundays, you must get him a pair of corderoys, and mind, order them of large size, and baggy behind, for many 'osses have a trick of biting at chaps when they are cleaning them; and it is better for them to have a mouthful of corderoy, than the lad's bacon, to say nothing of the loss of the boy's services, during the time he is laid up.—John Jorrock's Sporting Lectures.
A coquette is said to be an imperfect incarnation of Cupid, as she keeps her beau, and not her arrows, in a quiver.
Yankees are supposed to have attained the greatest art in parrying inquisitiveness, but there is a story extant of a "Londoner" on his travels in the provinces, who rather eclipses the cunning "Yankee Peddler." In traveling post, says the narrator, he was obliged to stop at a village to replace a shoe which his horse had lost; when the "Paul Pry" of the place bustled up to the carriage-window, and without waiting for the ceremony of an introduction, said:
"Good-morning, Sir. Horse cast a shoe I see. I suppose, Sir, you are going to—?"
Here he paused, expecting the name of the place to be supplied; but the gentleman answered:
"You are quite right; I generally go there at this season."
"Ay—ahem!—do you? And no doubt you are now come from—?"
"Right again, Sir; I live there."
"Oh, ay; I see: you do! But I perceive it is a London shay. Is there anything stirring in London?"
"Oh, yes; plenty of other chaises and carriages of all sorts."
"Ay, ay, of course. But what do folks say?"
"They say their prayers every Sunday."
"That isn't what I mean. I want to know whether there is anything new and fresh."
"Yes; bread and herrings."
"Ah, you are a queer fellow. Pray, mister, may I ask your name?"
"Fools and clowns," said the gentleman, "call me 'Mister;' but I am in reality one of the clowns of Aristophanes; and my real name is Brekekekex Koax! Drive on, postilion!"
Now this is what we call a "pursuit of knowledge under difficulties" of the most obstinate kind.
There is a good story told recently of Baron Rothschild, of Paris, the richest man of his class in the world, which shows that it is not only "money which makes the mare go" (or horses either, for that matter), but "ready money," "unlimited credit" to the contrary notwithstanding. On a very wet and disagreeable day, the Baron took a Parisian omnibus, on his way to the Bourse or Exchange; near which the "Nabob of Finance" alighted, and was going away without paying. The driver stopped him, and demanded his fare. Rothschild felt in his pocket, but he had not a "red cent" of change. The driver was very wroth:
"Well, what did you get in for, if you could not pay? You must have known that you had no money!"
"I am Baron Rothschild!" exclaimed the great capitalist; "and there is my card!"
The driver threw the card in the gutter: "Never heard of you before," said the driver, "and don't want to hear of you again. But I want my fare—and I must have it!" The great banker was in haste. "I have only an order for a million," he said. "Give me change;" and he proffered a "coupon" for fifty thousand francs.
The conductor stared, and the passengers set up a horselaugh. Just then an "Agent de Change" came by, and Baron Rothschild borrowed of him the six sous.
The driver was now seized with a kind of remorseful respect; and turning to the Money-King, he said:
"If you want ten francs, Sir, I don't mind lending them to you on my own account!"
One of the best chapters in "Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures," is where that amiable and greatly abused angel reproaches her inhuman spouse with loaning the family umbrella:
"Ah! that's the third umbrella gone since Christmas! What were you to do? Why, let him go home in the rain. I don't think there was any thing about him that would spoil. Take cold, indeed! He does not look like one o' the sort to take cold. He'd better taken cold, than our only umbrella. Do you hear the rain, Caudle? I say do you hear the rain? Do you hear it against the windows? Nonsense; you can't be asleep with such a shower as that. Do you hear it, I say? Oh, you do hear it, do you? Well, that's a pretty flood, I think, to last six weeks, and no stirring all the time out of the house. Poh! don't think to fool me, Caudle: he return the umbrella! As if any body ever did return an umbrella! There—do you hear it? Worse and worse! Cats and dogs for six weeks—always six weeks—and no umbrella!
"I should like to know how the children are to go to school, to-morrow. They shan't go through such weather, that I'm determined. No; they shall stay at home, and never learn anything, sooner than go and get wet. And when they grow up, I wonder who they'll have to thank for knowing nothing. People who can't feel for their children ought never to be fathers.
"But I know why you lent the umbrella—I know very well. I was going out to tea to mother's, to-morrow;—you knew that very well; and you did it on purpose. Don't tell me; I know: you don't want me to go, and take every mean advantage to hinder me. But don't you think it, Caudle. No; if it comes down in buckets-full, I'll go all the more: I will; and what's more, I'll walk every step of the way; and you know that will give me my death," &c., &c., &c.
"Pray, Sir, what makes you walk so crookedly?" "Oh, my nose, you see, is crooked, and I have to follow it!"
Lorenzo Dow is still remembered by some of the "old fogies" as one of the most eccentric men that ever lived. On one occasion he took the liberty, while preaching, to denounce a rich man in the community, recently deceased. The result was an arrest, a trial for slander, and an imprisonment in the county jail. After Lorenzo got out of "limbo," he announced that, in spite of his (in his opinion) unjust punishment, he should preach, at a given time, a sermon about "another rich man." The populace was greatly excited, and a crowded house greeted his appearance. With great solemnity he opened the Bible, and read, "And there was a rich man who died and went to ——;" then stopping short, and seeming to be suddenly impressed, he continued: "Brethren, I shall not mention the place this rich man went to, for fear he has some relatives in this congregation who will sue me for defamation of character." The effect on the assembled multitude was irresistible, and he made the impression permanent by taking another text, and never alluding to the subject again.
The following story, although latterly related of "a distinguished Southern gentleman, and former member of the cabinet," was formerly told, we are almost quite certain, of the odd and eccentric John Randoph of Roanoke, with certain omissions and additions. Be that as it may, the anecdote is a good one, and "will do to keep."
"The gentleman was a boarder in one of the most splendid of the New York hotels; and preferring not to eat at the table d'hôte, had his meals served in his own parlor, with all the elegance for which the establishment had deservedly become noted.
"Being somewhat annoyed with the airs of the servant who waited upon him—a negro of 'the blackest dye'—he desired him at dinner one day to retire. The negro bowed, and took his stand behind the gentleman's chair. Supposing him to be gone, it was with some impatience that, a few minutes after, the gentleman saw him step forward to remove his soup.
"'Fellow!' said he, 'leave the room! I wish to be alone.'
"'Excuse me, Sah,' said Cuffee, drawing himself stiffly up, 'but I'se 'sponsible for de silver!'"
Mr. Slocum was not educated in a university, and his life has been in by-paths, and out-of-the-way places. His mind is characterized by the literalness, rather than the comprehensive grasp of great subjects. Mr. Slocum can, however, master a printed paragraph, by dint of spelling the hard words, in a deliberate manner, and manages to gain a few glimpses of men and things, from his little rocky farm, through the medium of a newspaper. It is quite edifying to hear Mr. Slocum reading the village paper aloud, to his wife, after a hard day's work. A few evenings since, farmer Slocum was reading an account of a dreadful accident, which happened at the factory in the next town, and which the village editor had described in a great many words.
"I declare, wife, that was an awful accident over to the mills," said Mr. Slocum.
"What was it about, Mr. Slocum?"
"I'll read the 'count, wife, and then you'll know all about it."
Mr. S. began to read:
"Horrible and Fatal Accident.—It becomes our melancholy and painful duty, to record the particulars of an accident that occurred at the lower mill, in this village, yesterday afternoon, by which a human being, in the prime of life, was hurried to that bourne from which, as the immortal Shakspeare says, 'no traveler returns.'"
"Du tell!" exclaimed Mrs. S.
"Mr. David Jones, a workman, who has but few superiors this side of the city, was superintending one of the large drums—"
"I wonder if 'twas a brass drum, such as has 'Eblubust Unum' printed on't," said Mrs. Slocum.
—"When he became entangled. His arm was drawn around the drum, and finally his whole body was drawn over the shaft, at a fearful rate. When his situation was discovered, he had revolved with immense velocity, about fifteen minutes, his head and limbs striking a large beam a distinct blow at each revolution."
"Poor creeter! how it must have hurt him!"
"When the machinery had been stopped, it was found that Mr. Jones's arms and legs were macerated to a jelly."
"Well, didn't it kill him?" asked Mrs. S., with increasing interest.
"Portions of the dura mater, cerebrum, and cerebellum, in confused masses, were scattered about the floor; in short, the gates of eternity had opened upon him."
Here, Mr. Slocum paused to wipe his spectacles, and the wife seized the opportunity to press the question.
"Was the man killed?"
"I don't know—haven't come to that place yet; you'll know when I've finished the piece." And Mr. Slocum continued reading:
"It was evident, when the shapeless form was taken down, that it was no longer tenanted by the immortal spirit—that the vital spark was extinct."
"Was the man killed? that's what I want to come at," said Mrs. Slocum.
"Do have a little patience, old woman," said Mr. Slocum, eyeing his better half, over his spectacles, "I presume we shall come upon it right away." And he went on reading:
"This fatal casualty has cast a gloom over our village, and we trust that it will prove a warning to all persons who are called upon to regulate the powerful machinery of our mills."
"Now," said Mrs. Slocum, perceiving that the narration was ended, "now, I should like to know whether the man was killed or not?"
Mr. Slocum looked puzzled. He scratched his head, scrutinized the article he had been perusing, and took a graceful survey of the paper.
"I declare, wife," said he, "it's curious, but really the paper don't say."
The following, which we have heard told as a fact, some time ago, may be beneficial to some gentleman who has a young and unsuspecting wife:
A certain man, who lived about ten miles from K——, was in the habit of going to town, about once a week, and getting on a regular spree, and would not return until he had time to "cool off," which was generally two or three days. His wife was ignorant of the cause of his staying out so long, and suffered greatly from anxiety about his welfare. When he would return, of course his confiding wife would inquire what had been the matter with him, and the usual reply was, that he was caught on the jury, and couldn't get off.
Having gathered his corn, and placed it in a large heap, he, according to custom, determined to call in his neighbors, and have a real corn-shucking frolic. So he gave Ned, a faithful servant, a jug and an order, to go to town and get a gallon of whiskey—a very necessary article on such occasions. Ned mounted a mule, and was soon in town, and, equipped with the whiskey, remounted to set out for home, all buoyant with the prospect of fun at shucking.
When he had proceeded a few hundred yards from town, he concluded to take the "stuff," and not satisfied with once, he kept trying until the world turned round so fast, that he turned off the mule, and then he went to sleep, and the mule to grazing. It was now nearly night, and when Ned awoke it was just before the break of day, and so dark, that he was unable to make any start towards home until light. As soon as his bewilderment had subsided, so that he could get the "point," he started with an empty jug, the whiskey having run out, and afoot, for the mule had gone home. Of course he was contemplating the application of a "two year old hickory," as he went on at the rate of two forty.
Ned reached home about breakfast time, and "fetched up" at the back door, with a decidedly guilty countenance.
"What in thunder have you been at, you black rascal?" said his master.
Ned knowing his master's excuse to his wife, when he went on a spree, determined to tell the truth, if he died for it, and said:
"Well, massa, to tell the truth, I was kotch on the jury, and couldn't get off."—Nashville News.
An aged widow had a cow, which fell sick. In her distress for fear of the loss of this her principal means of support, she had recourse to the rector, in whose prayers she had implicit faith, and humbly besought his reverence to visit her cow, and pray for her recovery. The worthy man, instead of being offended at this trait of simplicity, in order to comfort the poor woman, called in the afternoon at her cottage, and proceeded to visit the sick animal. Walking thrice round it, he at each time gravely repeated: "If she dies she dies, but if she lives she lives." The cow happily recovered, which the widow entirely attributed to the efficacy of her pastor's prayer. Some short time after, the rector himself was seized with a quinsy, and in imminent danger, to the sincere grief of his affectionate parishioners, and of none more than the grateful widow. She repaired to the parsonage, and after considerable difficulty from his servants, obtained admission to his chamber, when thrice walking round his bed, she repeated "If he dies he dies, but if he lives he lives;" which threw the doctor into such a fit of laughter, that the imposthume broke, and produced an immediate cure.
A witty lawyer once jocosely asked a boarding-house keeper the following question:
"Mr. ——, if a man gives you five hundred dollars to keep for him, and he dies, what do you do? Do you pray for him?"
"No, sir," replied ——, "I pray for another like him."
A noble and learned lord, when attorney general, being at a consultation where there was considerable difference of opinion between him and his brother counsel, delivered his sentiments with his usual energy, and concluded by striking his hand on the table, and saying, "This, gentlemen, is my opinion." The peremptory tone with which this was spoken so nettled the solicitor, who had frequently consulted him when a young barrister, that he sarcastically repeated, "Your opinion! I have often had your opinion for five shillings." Mr. Attorney with great good humour said, "Very true, and probably you then paid its full value."
One winter day, the Prince of Wales went into the Thatched House Tavern, and ordered a steak: "But," said his royal highness, "I am devilish cold, bring me a glass of hot brandy and water." He swallowed it, another, and another. "Now," said he, "I am comfortable, bring my steak." On which Mr. Sheridan took out his pencil, and wrote the following impromptu:
"The Prince came in, said it was cold,
Then put to his head the rummer;
Till swallow after swallow came,
When he pronounced it summer."
Adam, the goodliest of men since born His sons; the fairest of her daughters Eve.
At the grand entertainment given at Vauxhall in July, 1813, to celebrate the victories of the Marquis of Wellington, the fire-works, prepared under the direction of General Congreve, were the theme of universal admiration. The General himself was present, and being in a circle where the conversation turned on monumental inscriptions, he observed that nothing could be finer than the short epitaph on Purcel, in Westminster Abbey.
"He has gone to that place where only his own Harmony can be exceeded."
"Why, General," said a lady, "it will suit you exactly, with the alteration of a single word.
"He is gone to that place, where only his own Fire-Works can be exceeded."
A certain cabinet minister being asked why he did not promote merit? "Because," answered he, "merit did not promote me."
An eminent barrister arguing a cause respecting the infringement of a patent for buckles, took occasion to hold forth on its vast improvement; and by way of example, taking one of his own out of his shoe, "What," exclaimed he, "would my ancestors have said to see my feet ornamented with this?" "Aye," observed Mr. Mingay, "what would they have said to see your feet ornamented with either shoes or stockings?"
B. met on the train an elderly Hoosier, who had been to the show-case exhibition at New York, and who had seen the hi po dro me, as he called it.
"Did you remain long in New York?" asked B.
"Well, no," he answered thoughtfully, "only two days, for I saw there was a right smart chance of starving to death, and I'm opposed to that way of going down. I put up at one of their taverns, and allowed I was going to be treated to the whole."
"Where did you stop?" said B., interrupting him.
"At the Astor House. I allow you don't ketch me in no such place again. They rung a gong, as they call it, four times after breakfast, and then, when I went to eat, there wasn't nary vittles on the table."
"What was there?" B. ventured to inquire.
"Well," said the old man, enumerating the items cautiously, as if from fear of omission—"there was a clean plate wrong side up, a knife, a clean towel, a split spoon, and a hand bill, and what was worse," added the old man, "the insultin' nigger up and asked me what I wanted. 'Vittles,' said I, 'bring in your vittles and I'll help myself!'"
"Bubby, why don't you go home and have your mother sew up that awful hole in your trowsers?"
"Oh, you git eout, old 'oman," was the respectful reply, "our folks are economizing, and a hole will last longer than a patch any day."
Old Jacob J—— was a shrewd Quaker merchant in Burlington, New Jersey, and, like all shrewd men, was often a little too smart for himself.
An old Quaker lady of Bristol, Pennsylvania, just over the river, bought some goods at Jacob's store, when he was absent, and in crossing the river on her way home, she met him aboard the boat, and, as was usual with him upon such occasions, he immediately pitched into her bundle of goods and untied it to see what she had been buying.
"Oh now," says he, "how much a yard did you give for that, and that?" taking up the several pieces of goods. She told him the price, without, however, saying where she had got them.
"Oh now," says he again, "I could have sold you those goods for so much a yard," mentioning a price a great deal lower than she had paid. "You know," says he, "I can undersell every body in the place;" and so he went on criticising and undervaluing the goods till the boat reached Bristol, when he was invited to go to the old lady's store, and when there the goods were spread out on the counter, and Jacob was asked to examine the goods again, and say, in the presence of witnesses, the price he would have sold them at per yard, the old lady, meanwhile, taking a memorandum. She then went to the desk and made out a bill of the difference between what she had paid and the price he told her; then coming up to him, she said,
"Now, Jacob, thee is sure thee could have sold those goods at the price thee mentioned?"
"Oh now, yes," says he.
"Well, then, thy young man must have made a mistake; for I bought the goods from thy store, and of course, under the circumstances, thee can have no objection to refund me the difference."
Jacob, being thus cornered, could, of course, under the circumstances, have no objection. It is to be presumed that thereafter Jacob's first inquiry must have been, "Oh now, where did you get such and such goods?" instead of "Oh now, how much did you pay?"
Mr. Oberon (a man about town) was lately invited to a sewing party. The next day a friend asked him how the entertainment came off. "Oh, it was very amusing," replied Oberon, "the ladies hemmed and I hawed."
On one occasion a country gentleman, knowing Joseph Green's reputation as a poet, procured an introduction to him, and solicited a "first-rate epitaph" for a favorite servant who had lately died. Green asked what were the man's chief qualities, and was told that "Cole excelled in all things, but was particularly good at raking hay, which he could do faster than anybody, the present company, of course, excepted." Green wrote immediately—
"Here lies the body of John Cole:
His master loved him like his soul;
He could rake hay; none could rake faster,
Except that raking dog, his master."
Two candidates disputed the palm for singing, and left the decision to Dr. Arne, who having heard them exert their vocal abilities, said to the one, "You, Sir, are the worst singer I ever heard." On which the other exulting, the umpire, turning to him, said, "And as for you, Sir, you cannot sing at all."
A member of parliament took occasion to make his maiden speech, on a question respecting the execution of a particular statute. Rising solemnly, after three loud hems, he spoke as follows: "Mr. Speaker, have we laws, or have we not laws? If we have laws, and they are not executed, for what purpose were they made?" So saying, he sat down full of self-consequence. Another member then rose, and thus delivered himself: "Mr. Speaker, did the honourable member speak to the purpose, or not speak to the purpose? If he did not speak to the purpose, to what purpose did he speak?"
An Irish gentleman, of tolerable assurance, obtruded his company where he was far from being welcome; the master of the house, indeed, literally kicked him down stairs. Returning to some acquaintance whom he had told his intention of dining at the above house, and being asked why he had so soon returned, he answered, "I got a hint that my company was not agreeable."
Mr. Addison, whose abilities no man can doubt, was from diffidence totally unable to speak in the house. In a debate on the Union act, desirous of delivering his sentiments, he rose, and began, "Mr. Speaker, I conceive"—but could go no farther. Twice he repeated, unsuccessfully, the same attempt; when a young member, possessed of greater effrontery than ability, completely confused him, by rising and saying, "Mr. Speaker, the honourable gentleman has conceived three times, and brought forth nothing."
The late Duke of Grafton, one of the last of the old school of polished gentlemen, being seated with a party of ladies in the stage-box of Drury-lane theatre, a sprig of modern fashion came in booted and spurred. At the end of the act, the duke rose, and made the young man a low bow:
"I beg leave, Sir, in the name of these ladies, and for myself, to offer you our thanks for your forbearance."
"I don't understand you; what do you mean?"
"I mean, that as you have come in with your boots and spurs, to thank you for that you have not brought your horse too."
A foreigner would be apt to suppose that all the dogs of England were literary, on reading a notice on a board stuck up in a garden at Millbank: "All dogs found in this garden will be shot."
A traveler coming, wet and cold, into a country ale-house on the coast of Kent, found the fire completely blockaded. He ordered the landlord to carry his horse half a peck of oysters. "He cannot eat oysters," said mine host. "Try him," quoth the traveller. The company all ran out to see the horse eat oysters. "He won't eat them, as I told you," said the landlord. "Then," coolly replied the gentleman, who had taken possession of the best seat, "bring them to me, and I'll eat them myself."
Over the chimney-piece, in the parlor of a public house, in Fleet street, is this inscription: "Gentlemen learning to spell, are requested to use yesterday's paper."
A country parish clerk, being asked how the inscriptions on the tombs in the church-yard were so badly spelled? "Because," answered Amen, "the people are so niggardly, that they won't pay for good spelling."
While a counsellor was pleading at the Irish bar, a louse unluckily peeped from under his wig. Curran, who sat next to him, whispered what he saw. "You joke," said the barrister. "If," replied Mr. Curran, "you have many such jokes in your head, the sooner you crack them the better."
A dignified clergyman, possessor of a coal mine, respecting which he was likely to have a law-suit, sent for an attorney in order to have his advice. Our lawyer was curious to see a coal-pit, and was let down by a rope. Before he was lowered, he said to the parson, "Doctor, your knowledge is not confined to the surface of the world, but you have likewise penetrated to its inmost recesses; how far may it be from this to hell?" "I don't know, exactly," answered he, gravely, "but if you let go your hold, you'll be there in a minute."
A young officer being indicted for an assault on an aged gentleman, Mr. Erskine began to open the case thus: "This is an indictment against a soldier for assaulting an old man." "Sir," indignantly interrupted the defendant, "I am no soldier, I am an officer!" "I beg your pardon," said Mr. Erskine; "then, gentlemen of the jury, this is an indictment against an officer, who is no soldier, for assaulting an old man."
I once met a free and easy actor, who told me he had passed three festive days at the Marquis and Marchioness of —— without any invitation, convinced (as proved to be the case) that my lord and my lady, not being on speaking terms, each would suppose the other had asked him.—Reynold's Life and Times.
When Mr. Thelwell was on his trial for high treason, he wrote this note to his counsel, Mr. Erskine: "I am determined to plead my own cause." Erskine answered, "If you do, you'll be hanged." Thelwell replied, "I'll be hanged if I do."
A dramatic author, not unconscious of his own abilities, observed, that he knew nothing so terrible as reading a play in the green-room, before so critical an audience. "I know something more terrible," said Mrs. Powell. "What is that?" "To be obliged to sit and hear it read."
Walking Stuart, being cast away on an unknown shore, where, after he and his companions had proceeded a long way without seeing a creature, at length, to their great delight, they descried a man hanging on a gibbet. "The joy," says he, "which this cheering sight excited, cannot be described; for it convinced us that we were in a civilized country."
A gentleman asked his black diamond merchant the price of coals. "Ah!" said he, significantly shaking his head, "coals are coals, now." "I am glad to hear that," observed the wit, "for the last I had of you, were half of them slates."
"What is your name?" "My name is Norval, on the Grampian Hills."
"Where did you come from?" "I come from a happy land, where care is unknown."
"Where are you lodging now?" "I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls."
"Where are you going to?" "Far, far o'er hill and dell."
"What is your occupation?" "Some love to roam."
"Are you married?" "Long time ago. Polly put the kettle on."
"How many children have you?" "There's Doll, and Bet, and Moll, and Kate, and—"
"What is your wife's name?" "O no, we never mention her."
"Did your wife oppose your leaving her?" "She wept not, when we parted."
"In what condition did you leave her?" "A rose tree in full bearing."
"Is your family provided for?" "A little farm, well tilled."
"Did your wife drive you off?" "Oh, sublime was the warning."
"What did your wife say to you, that induced you to slope?" "Come, rest in this bosom."
"Was your wife good-looking?" "She wore a wreath of roses."
"Did your wife ever treat you badly?" "Oft in the stilly night."
"When you announced your intention of emigrating, what did she say?" "Oh, dear, what can the matter be?"
"And what did you reply?" "Sweet Kitty Clover, you bother me so!"
"Where did you last see her?" "Near the lakes, where drooped the willow."
"What did she say to you, when you were in the act of leaving?" "A place in thy memory, dearest!"
"Do you still love her?" "'Tis said that absence conquers love."
"What are your possessions?" "The harp that once through Tara's halls—"
"What do you propose to do with it?" "I'll hang my harp on a willow tree."
"Where do you expect to make a living?" "Over the water with Charley."
Mr. Campbell, a Highland gentleman, through whose estate in Argyleshire runs the military road which was made under the direction of General Wade, in grateful commemoration of its benefits, placed a stone seat on the top of a hill, where the weary traveler may repose, after the labour of his ascent, and on which is judiciously inscribed, Rest, and be thankful. It has, also, the following sublime distich:
"Had you seen this road, before it was made,
You would lift up your hands, and bless General Wade."
"There was a man hanged this morning; one Vowel." "Well, let us be thankful, it was neither U nor I."
An argument took place in a coffee-house, between two men of taste, as to the best method of dressing a beefsteak. They referred the matter to a comedian, who, having an eye to the shop, said he preferred Shakspeare's recipe to either of theirs, "Shakspeare's recipe!" they both exclaimed. "Aye, Shakspeare's recipe:
'If when 'twere done, 'twere well done, then 'twere well,
It were done quickly.'"
Mr. King and Mr. Lewis walking together in Birmingham, a chimney sweeper and his boy passed them. The lad stared at them, exclaiming, "They be players!" "Hush! you dog," says the old sweep, "you don't know what you may come to yourself yet."
An undertaker waited on a gentleman, with the bill for the burial of his wife, amounting to 67l. "That's a vast sum," said the widower, "for laying a silent female horizontally; you must have made some mistake!" "Not in the least," answered the coffin-monger, "handsome hearse—three coaches and six, well-dressed mutes, handsome pall—nobody, your honor, could do it for less." The gentleman rejoined: "It is a large sum, Mr. Crape; but as I am satisfied the poor woman would have given twice as much to bury me, I must not be behind her in an act of kindness; there is a check for the amount."
The Marquis della Scallas, an Italian nobleman, giving a grand entertainment, his major domo informed him that there was a fisherman below with a remarkably fine fish, but who demanded for it a very uncommon price—he won't take any money, but insists on a hundred strokes of the strappado on his bare shoulders. The marquis surprised, ordered him in, when he persisted in his demand. To humor him the marquis complied, telling his groom not to lay on too hard. When he had received the fiftieth lash, he cried, "Hold! I have got a partner, to whom I have engaged that he should have half of whatever I was to receive for my fish—your lordship's porter, who would admit me only on that condition." It is almost unnecessary to add, that the porter had his share well paid, and that the fisherman got the full value for his prize.
James II., when Duke of York, found his brother, King Charles, in Hyde-park, unattended, at what was considered a perilous time. The duke expressed his surprise that his majesty should venture alone in so public a place. "James," said the king, "take care of yourself; no man in England will kill me to make you king."
In a pool across a road in the county of Tipperary is stuck up a pole, having affixed to it a board, with this inscription: "Take notice, that when the water is over this board the road is impassable."
A poor man, with a family of seven children, complained to his richer neighbor of his hard case, his heavy family, and the inequality of fortune. The other callously observed, that whenever Providence sent mouths it sent meat. "True," said the former, "but it has sent to you the meat, and me the mouths."
A fellow was tried for stealing, and it was satisfactorily proved that he had acknowledged the theft to several persons, yet the jury acquitted him. The judge, surprised, asked their reason. The foreman said that he and his fellows knew the prisoner to be such an abominable liar, that they could not believe one word he said.
A German prince being one day on a balcony with a foreign minister, told him, "One of my predecessors made an ambassador leap down from this balcony." "Perhaps," said his excellency, "it was not the fashion then for ambassadors to wear swords."
An auctioneer having turned publican, was soon after thrown into the King's Bench; on which the following paragraph appeared in the Morning Post: "Mr. A., who lately quitted the pulpit for the bar, has been promoted to the bench."
A lady bespoke a pair of dress shoes from an eminent shoemaker in Jermyn-street. When they were brought home she was delighted with them. She put them on the same evening, and went to a ball, where she danced. Next day, examining her favorite shoes, she found them almost in pieces. She sent for the tradesman, and showed him them. "Good God!" said he, "it is not possible." At length, recollecting himself, he added, "How stupid I am! as sure as death your ladyship must have walked in them."
In the time of the persecution of the protestants in France, the English ambassador solicited of Louis XIV. the liberation of those sent to the galleys on account of their religion. "What," answered the monarch, "would the king of England say, were I to demand the liberation of the prisoners in Newgate?" "The king, my master," replied the minister, "would grant them to your majesty, if you reclaimed them as brothers."
A beggar asking alms under the character of a poor scholar, a gentleman put the question, Quomodo vales? The fellow, shaking his head, said he did not understand his honor. "Why," said the gentleman, "did you not say you were a poor scholar?" "Yes," replied the other, "a very poor scholar; so much so that I don't understand a word of Latin."
A baronet scientifically skilled in pugilism, enjoyed no pleasure so much as giving gratuitous instructions in his favorite art. A peer paying him a visit, they had a sparring-match, in the course of which he seized his lordship behind, and threw him over his head with a violent shock. The nobleman not relishing this rough usage, "My lord," said the baronet, respectfully, "I assure you that I never show this manœuvre except to my particular friends."
Buchanan the historian was, from his learning, thought in his days of superstition to be a wizard. An old woman, who kept an ale-house in St. Andrews, consulted George, in hopes that by necromantic arts he might restore her custom, which was unaccountably decreasing. He readily promised his aid. "Every time you brew, Maggy," says he, "go three times to the left round the copper, and at each round take out a ladle-full of water in the devil's name; then turn three times round to the right, and each time throw in a ladle-full of malt in God's name; but above all, wear this charm constantly on your breast, and never during your life attempt to open it, or dread the worst." She strictly conformed, and her business increased astonishingly. On her death her friends ventured to open and examine the charm, when they found it to contain these words:
"If Maggy will brew good ale,
Maggy will have good sale."
Lady: You can not imagine, captain, how deeply I feel the want of children, surrounded as I am by every comfort—nothing else is wanting to render me supremely happy.
Captain O'Flinn: Faith, ma'am, I've heard o' that complaint running in families; p'rhaps your mother had not any childer either?
At a late term of the Court of Sessions a man was brought up by a farmer, accused of stealing some ducks.
"How do you know they are your ducks?" asked the defendant's counsel.
"Oh, I should know them any where," replied the farmer; and he went on to describe their different peculiarities.
"Why," said the prisoner's counsel, "those ducks can't be such a rare breed; I have some very like them in my own yard."
"That's not unlikely, Sir," replied the farmer; "they are not the only ducks I have had stolen lately!"
"Call the next witness!"
A mathematician being asked by a stout fellow,
"If two pigs weigh twenty pounds, how much will a large hog weigh?"
"Jump into the scales," was the reply, "and I'll tell you in a minute!"
The mathematician "had him there!"
A company of performers announced in their bills the opening of a theatre at Montrose, with the Farce of The Devil to Pay, to be followed with the Comedy of The West Indian. Adverse winds, however, prevented the arrival of their scenes from Aberdeen, in time for representation, on the evening appointed. It was therefore found necessary to give notice of the postponement of the performance, which was thus delivered by the town-crier:
"O yes! O yes! O yes! this is to let you to wit, that the play-ackers havena' got their screens up yet frae Aberdeen, and so canna begin the night; but on Monday night, God willing, there will be the Deevil to pay in the West Indies."
A gentleman had a son who was deemed an idiot. The little fellow, when nine or ten years of age, was fond of drumming, and once dropt his drum-stick into the draw-well. He knew that his carelessness would be punished by its not being searched for, and therefore did not mention his loss, but privately took a large silver punch-ladle, and dropped it into the same well. Strict inquiry took place; the servants all pleaded ignorance, and looked with suspicion on each other; when the young gentleman, who had thrust himself into the circle, said he had observed something shine at the bottom of the draw-well. A fellow was dropt down in the bucket, and soon bawled out from the bottom, "I have found the punch-ladle, so wind me up." "Stop," roared out the lad, "stop, now your hand's in, you may as well bring up my drum-stick."
A gentleman having sent a turbot as a present to Swift, the servant who carried it entered the doctor's study abruptly, and laying down the fish, said, "Master has sent you this turbot." "Heyday! young man," exclaimed the Dean, "is this the way you behave yourself? Let me teach you better. Sit down on this chair, and I will show you how to deliver such a message." The boy sat down, and the Dean going to the door, with the fish in his hand, came up to the table, and making a low bow, said, "Sir, my master presents his kind compliments, and begs your acceptance of this turbot." "Does he?" answered the boy, assuming all the consequence of his situation. "Here, John! (ringing,) take this honest lad down to the kitchen, and let him have as much as he can eat and drink; then send him up to me, and I'll give him half a crown."
A gentleman, who used to frequent the Chapter Coffee-house, being unwell, thought he might make so free as to steal an opinion concerning his case; accordingly, one day he took an opportunity of asking one of the faculty, who sat in the same box with him, what he should take for such a complaint? "I'll tell you," said the doctor, "you should take advice."
The author of the life of St. Francis Xavier, asserts, that "by one sermon he converted ten thousand persons in a desert island."
A gentleman, talking of the tenacity of life in turtles, asserted that he had himself seen the head of one, which had been cut off three weeks, open its jaws. The circle around did not exactly contradict him, but exhibited expressive appearances of incredulity. The historian referred himself to a stranger, whose polite attention to the tale flattered him that it had received his full credence, which was corroborated by the other observing that he had himself seen strong instances of the turtle's tenaciousness of life. The stranger answered, "Your account is a very extraordinary one; could you have believed it if you had not seen it yourself?" The narrator readily answered, "No." "Then," replied the other, to his infinite mortification, and the gratification of the company, "I hope you will pardon me if I do not believe it."
A servant telling her master that she was going to give her mistress warning, as she kept scolding her from morning till night, he exclaimed with a sigh, "Happy girl! I wish I could give her warning too!"
A serjeant enlisted a recruit, who on inspection turned out to be a woman. Being asked by his officer how he made such a blunder, he said, "Plase your honor I could not help it; I enlisted this girl for a man, and he turns out to be a woman."
The prisoner in this case, whose name was Dickey Swivel, alias "Stove Pipe Pete," was placed at the bar, and questioned by the Judge to the following effect:
Judge: Bring the prisoner into court.
Pete: Here I am, bound to blaze, as the spirits of turpentine said, when he was all a fire.
Judge: We'll take a little fire out of you. How do you live?
Pete: I ain't particular, as the oyster said when they asked if he'd be roasted or fried.
Judge: We don't want to know what the oyster said or the turpentine either. What do you follow?
Pete: Anything that comes in my way, as the engine said when he run over a little nigger.
Judge: Don't care anything about the locomotive. What's your business?
Pete: That's various, as the cat said when she stole the chicken off the table.
Judge: If I hear any more absurd comparisons, I will give you twelve months.
Pete: I am done, as the beef steak said to the cook.
Judge: Now, Sir, your punishment shall depend on the shortness and correctness of your answers. I suppose you live by going around the docks?
Pete: No, Sir. I can't go around docks without a boat, and I hain't got none.
Judge: Answer me now, Sir. How do you get your bread?
Pete: Sometimes at the baker's, and sometimes I eat taters.
Judge: No more of your stupid nonsense. How do you support yourself?
Pete: Sometimes on my legs, and sometimes on a cheer, (chair.)
Judge: How do you keep yourself alive?
Pete: By breathing, Sir.
Judge: I order you to answer this question correctly. How do you do?
Pete: Pretty well, thank you, Judge. How do you do?
Judge: I shall have to commit you.
Pete: Well, you have committed yourself first, that's some consolation.
A youth of more vanity than talent, bragging that during his travels he never troubled his father for remittances, and being asked how he lived on the road, answered, "By my wits." "Then," replied his friend, "you must have traveled very cheaply."
Two sailors on board of a man of war had a sort of religious dispute over their grog, in which one of them referred to the apostle Paul. "He was no apostle," said the other; and this minor question, after much altercation, they agreed to refer to the boatswain's mate, who after some consideration declared "that Paul was certainly never rated as an apostle on the books, because he is not in the list, which consisted only of twelve; but then he was an acting apostle."
Dr. Radcliff and Dr. Case being together in a jovial company over their bottle, the former, filling his glass, said, "Come, brother Case, here's to all the fools that are your patients." "I thank you, my wise brother Radcliff," answered Case, "let me have all the fools, and you are heartily welcome to all the rest of the practice."
In the Jamaica House of Assembly, a motion being made for leave to bring in a bill to prevent the frauds of wharfingers, Mr. Paul Phipps, member for St. Andrew, rose and said, "Mr. Speaker, I second the motion; the wharfingers are to a man a set of rogues; I know it well; I was one myself for ten years."
A player applied to the manager of a respectable country company for an engagement for himself and his wife, stating that his lady was capable of all the first line of business; but as to himself, he was the worst actor in the world. They were engaged, and the lady answered the character given of her. The husband having had the part of a mere walking gentleman sent him for his first appearance, asked the manager, indignantly, how he could put him into so paltry a part. "Sir," answered the other, "here is your own letter, stating that you are the worst actor in the world." "True," replied the other, "but then I had not seen you."
During the riots of 1780, when most persons, to save their houses, wrote on their doors, No popery, Grimaldi, to avoid all mistakes, chalked up on his, No religion.
Louis XI. in his youth used to visit a peasant, whose garden produced excellent fruit. When he ascended the throne, his friend presented him a turnip of extraordinary size. The king smiled, and remembering his past pleasures, ordered a thousand crowns to the peasant. The lord of the village hearing of this liberality, thus argued with himself: "If this fellow get a thousand crowns for his turnip, I have only to present a capital horse to the munificent monarch, and my fortune is made." Accordingly he carries to court a beautiful barb, and requests his majesty's acceptance of it. Louis highly praised the steed, and the donor's expectation was raised to the highest, when the king called out, "Bring me my turnip!" and presenting it to the seigneur, added, "This turnip cost me a thousand crowns, and I give it you for your horse."
In a trial in the King's Bench, Mr. Erskine, counsel for the defendant, was charged by his opponent with traveling out of his way. Mr. Erskine in answer said, it reminded him of the celebrated Whitefield, who being accused by some of his audience of rambling in his discourse, answered, "If you will ramble to the devil, I must ramble after you."
An Oxford scholar, calling early one morning on another, when in bed, says,
"Jack, are you asleep?"
"Why?"
"Because, I want to borrow half a crown of you."
"Then I am asleep."
Dr. Johnson, about the end of the year 1754, completed the copy of his dictionary, not more to his own satisfaction, than that of Mr. Millar, his bookseller, who, on receiving the concluding sheet, sent him the following note:
"Andrew Millar sends his compliments to Mr. Samuel Johnson, with the money for the last sheet of the copy of the dictionary, and thanks God he has done with him."
To which, the lexicographer returned the following answer:
"Samuel Johnson returns his compliments to Mr. Andrew Millar, and is very glad to find, as he does by his note, that Andrew Millar has the grace to thank God for anything."
The keeper of a mad-house, in a village near London, published an address in a newspaper, inviting customers, and commencing with, "Worthy the attention of the insane!"
Moody, the actor, was robbed of his watch and money. He begged the highwayman to let him have cash enough to carry him to town, and the fellow said, "Well, master Moody, as I know you, I'll lend you half a guinea; but, remember, honor among thieves!" A few days after, he was taken, and Moody hearing that he was at the Brown Bear, in Bow street, went to enquire after his watch; but when he began to speak of it, the fellow exclaimed, "Is that what you want? I thought you had come to pay the half guinea you borrowed of me."
A student, showing the Museum at Oxford to a party, among other things produced a rusty sword. "This," said he, "is the sword with which Balaam was going to kill his ass." "I thought," said one of the company, "that Balaam had no sword, but only wished for one." "You are right, sir," replied the student, nowise abashed, "this is the very sword he wished for."
M. Bouret, a French farmer-general, of immense fortune, but stupid to a proverb, being one day present, when two noblemen were engaged, in a party, at piquet, one of them happening to play a wrong card, exclaimed, "Oh, what a Bouret I am!" Offended at this liberty, Bouret said instantly, "Sir, you are an ass." "The very thing I meant," replied the other.
Executions not being very frequent in Sweden there are a great number of towns in that country without an executioner. In one of these a criminal was sentenced to be hanged which occasioned some little embarrassment, as it obliged them to bring a hangman from a distance at a considerable expense, besides the customary fee of two crowns. A young tradesman, belonging to the city council, giving his sentiments, said, "I think, gentlemen, we had best give the malefactor the two crowns, and let him go and be hanged where he pleases."
The humors of the telegraph are very amusing. A year or so since, the agent of the Delaware and Hudson Freighting Line, at Honesdale, Pennsylvania, sent the following dispatch to the agent at New York:
"D. Horton—Dear Sir: Please send me a shipping-book for 1859."
The dispatch received, read as follows:
"D. Horton:—Please send me a shipping-box eighteen feet by nine."
The following might have been more disastrous in its results; the same parties were concerned. Mr. Horton wrote to the proprietor of the line that he had been subpœnaed on a trial to be held in the Supreme Court of New York, and that as navigation was about to open, it would be necessary to send a man to perform his office duties. The following reply was entrusted to the tender care of the telegraph wire:
"See the Judge at once and get excused. I cannot send a man in your place."
When received, it read as follows:
"See the Judge at once and get executed; I can send a man in your place."
Mr. H. claims on the margin of the dispatch a stay of execution.
Not long since a gentleman telegraphed to a friend at Cleveland an interesting family affair, as follows:
"Sarah and little one are doing well."
The telegraph reached its destination, when it read thus:
"Sarah and litter are doing well."
The recipient telegraphed back the following startling query:
"For Heaven's sake, how many?"
A clergyman observed in his sermon, that this was unpardonable, as people did it with their eyes open. Wrapt up in the admiration of his own discourse, he did not observe that from its tediousness his audience one by one had slipped away, until there only remained a natural. Lifting up his eyes, he exclaimed, "What! All gone, except this poor idiot!" "Aye," says the lad, "and if I had not been a poor idiot I had been gone too."
A lady asked her butler how she might best save a barrel of excellent small beer; he answered, "By placing a cask of strong beer by it."
A letter written during the Irish rebellion.
My dear Sir:—Having now a little peace and quietness, I sit down to inform you of a dreadful bustle and confusion we are in from these blood-thirsty rebels, most of whom are, however, thank God, killed or dispersed.
We are in a pretty mess; can get nothing to eat, nor any wine to drink, except whiskey; and when we sit down to dinner, we are obliged to stand with arms in both hands: whilst I write this letter, I hold a sword in one hand and a pistol in the other. I concluded, from the beginning, that this would be the end of it; and I see I was right, for it is not half over yet. At present there is such goings on, that every thing is at a stand.
I should have answered your letter a fortnight ago, but it only came this morning. Indeed, hardly a mail arrives safe, without being robbed. Yesterday the coach with the mails from Dublin was robbed near this town: but the bags had been judiciously left behind, for fear of accidents; and by good luck there was nobody in the coach, except two outside passengers, who had nothing for the thieves to take.
Last Thursday an alarm was given, that a gang of rebels were advancing hither, under the French standard; but they had no colors, nor any drums except bagpipes. Immediately every man in the place, including women and children, ran out to meet them. We soon found our force much too little; and they were far too near for us to think of retreating; so to it we went: death was in every face; but by the time half our little party was killed, we began to be all alive. The rebels fortunately had no guns, except cutlasses and pikes; and as we had plenty of muskets and ammunition, we put them all to the sword: not a soul of them escaped, except some that were drowned in the adjoining bog; and in a very short time nothing was to be heard but silence. Their uniforms were all of different shapes and colours—in general they were green. After the action we rummaged their camp; all we found was a few pikes without heads, a parcel of empty bottles full of water, and a bundle of blank French commissions filled up with Irishmen's names.
Troops are now stationed every where round the country, which exactly squares with my ideas. Nothing, however, can save us but a union, which would turn our barren hills into fruitful valleys. I have only leisure to add, that I am in great haste.
Yours truly,
J. B.
P. S. If you do not receive this in course, it must have miscarried, therefore write immediately to let me know.
A farmer's son, who had been bred at the university, coming home to visit his parents, a couple of chickens were brought to the table for supper. "I can prove," said he, "by logic, that these two chickens are three." "Well, let us hear," said the old man. "This," cried the scholar, "is one; and this is two; one and two make three." "Very good," replied the father, "your mother shall have the first chicken, I will have the second, and you, for your great learning, shall have the third."
The captain of the Magnanime found it necessary one day to order a negro on board a flogging. Being tied up, the captain harangued him on his offence. Quaco, naked and shivering in the month of December, exclaimed, "Massa! if you preachee, preachee; if you floggee, floggee; but no preachee and floggee too."
In a party of wits an argument took place as to the definition of a reasonable animal. Speech was principally contended for; but on this Dr. Johnson observed, that parrots and magpies speak; were they therefore rational? "Women," he added, "we know, are rational animals; but would they be less so if they spoke less?" Jamie Boswell contended that cookery was the criterion of reason; for that no animal but man did cook. "That," observed Burke, "explains to me a proverb, which I never before could understand—There is reason in the roasting of eggs."
The lieutenant colonel of one of the Irish regiments in the French service being dispatched from Fort Keil by the Duke of Berwick to the King of France, with a complaint of some irregularities that had occurred in that regiment, his majesty observed passionately, that the Irish troops gave him more trouble than all his forces besides. "Sir," said the officer, "all your majesty's enemies make the same complaint."
In the action off Camperdown, Admiral de Winter asked one of his lieutenants for a quid of tobacco. In the act of presenting it, the lieutenant was carried off by a cannon-ball. "I must be obliged to you then," said the admiral, turning to another officer, "for you see our friend is gone away with his tobacco box."
A traveler coming into an inn in a very cold night, stood rather too close before the kitchen fire. A rogue in the chimney corner told him, "Sir, you'll burn your spurs." "My boots, you mean," said the gentleman. "No, Sir," replied the other, "they are burnt already."
A French marquis boasted of the inventive genius of his nation, especially in matters of dress and fashion; "For instance," said he, "the ruffle, that fine ornament of the hand, which has been followed by all other nations." "True," answered the Englishman, "but we generally improve on your inventions; for example, in adding the shirt to the ruffle."
At the time of the jubilee, 1809, a meeting was held of the felons in Newgate to pray his majesty for their pardon and liberation on the auspicious occasion. One of them observed, that it would be better, for them and their successors, to petition that all felonies be tried in the Court of Chancery.
Frank Sims, the theatrical registrar, had a dog named Bob, and a sagacious dog he was; but he was a pusillanimous dog, in a word, an arrant coward, and above all things he dreaded the fire of a gun. His master having taken him once to the enclosed part of Hyde Park next to Kensington Gardens, when the guards were exercising, their first fire so alarmed Bob that he scampered off, and never after could be prevailed on to enter that ground. One day he followed his master cordially till he arrived at its entrance, where a board is placed, with this inscription: "Do shoot all dogs who shall be found within this inclosure;" when immediately he turned tail, and went off as fast as his legs could carry him. A French gentleman, surprised at the animal's rapid retreat, politely asked Mr. Sims what could be the cause. "Don't you see," said Sims, "what is written on the board?" to the utter astonishment of the Frenchman, who had never before seen a dog that could read.
Sir Richard Steele, being asked why his countrymen were so addicted to making bulls, said, he believed there must be something in the air of Ireland, adding, "I dare say, if an Englishman were born there he would do the same."
A noted miser boasted that he had lost five shillings without uttering a single complaint. "I am not at all surprised at that," said a wit, "extreme sorrow is mute."
A widow, desirous of marrying her servant John, consulted the curate on the subject.
"I am not yet beyond the age of marriage."
"Marry then."
"But people will say that my intended is too young for me."
"Don't marry."
"He would assist me in managing the business."
"Marry then."
"But I am afraid he would soon despise me."
"Don't marry."
"But on the other hand a poor widow is despised who has no protector."
"Marry then."
"I am sadly afraid, however, that he would take up with the wenches."
"Then don't marry."
Uncertain from these contradictory responses, the dame consulted the bells when ringing, and which seemed to repeat, "Marry your man John." She took this oracular advice, married, and soon repented. She again applied to the curate, who told her, "You have not observed well what the bells said; listen again." She did so, when they distinctly repeated, "Don't marry John."
A gentleman inspecting lodgings to be let, asked the pretty girl who showed them, "And are you, my dear, to be let with the lodgings?" "No," answered she, "I am to be let—alone."
Charles II. asked Bishop Stillingfleet how it happened that he preached in general without book, but always read the sermons which he delivered before the court. The bishop answered, that the awe of seeing before him so great and wise a prince made him afraid to trust himself. "But will your majesty," continued he, "permit me to ask you a question in my turn? Why do you read your speeches to parliament?" "Why doctor," replied the king, "I'll tell you very candidly. I have asked them so often for money, that I am ashamed to look them in the face."
In a company of artists, the conversation turned on the subject, whether self-taught men could arrive at the perfection of genius combined with instruction. A German musician maintained the affirmative, and gave himself as an example. "I have," said he, "made a fiddle, which turns out as good as any Cremona I ever drew a bow over, all out of my own head; aye, and I have got wood enough left to make another."
A gentleman traveling from Paris to Calais, was accosted by a man walking along, who begged the favor of him to let him put his great coat in his carriage. "With all my heart," said the gentleman, "but if we should be going different ways, how will you get your great coat?" "Sir," answered the other, with apparent naïvetè, "I shall be in it."
A young gentleman, a clerk in the Treasury, used every morning, as he came from his lady mother's to the office, to pass by the canal in the Green Park, and feed the ducks then kept there, with bread and corn, which he carried in his pocket for the purpose. One day, having called his grateful friends, the ducky, ducky, duckies, he found unfortunately that he had forgotten them. "Poor duckies!" he cried, "I am sorry I have not brought your allowance, but here is sixpence for you to buy some," and threw in a sixpence, which one of them caught and gobbled up. At the office he very wisely told the story to the other gentlemen there, with whom he was to dine next day. One of the party putting the landlord up to the story, desired him to have ducks at the table, and put a sixpence in the body of one of them, which was taken care to be placed before our hero. On cutting it up, and discovering the sixpence in its belly, he ordered the waiter to send up his master, whom he loaded with the epithets of rascal and scoundrel, swearing that he would have him prosecuted for robbing the king of his ducks; "For," said he, "gentlemen, I assure you, on my honor, that yesterday morning, I gave this sixpence to one of the ducks in the Green Park."'
A certain clergyman having been examined as a witness in the King's Bench, the adverse counsel, by way of brow-beating, said, "If I be not mistaken, you are known as the bruising parson." "I am," said the divine, "and if you doubt it I will give it you under my hand."
A man who was sentenced to be hung was visited by his wife, who said: "My dear, would you like the children to see you executed?" "No," replied he. "That's just like you," said she, "for you never wanted the children to have any enjoyment."
In the Irish Bank-bill, passed in June 1808, there is a clause, providing, that the profits shall be equally divided; and the residue go to the Governor.
In a bill for pulling down the old Newgate in Dublin, and rebuilding it on the same spot, it was enacted, that the prisoners should remain in the old jail till the new one was completed.
The deeds themselves, though mute, spoke loud the doer.
I will strive with things impossible,
Yea, get the better of them.
Turn from the glittering bribe your scornful eye,
Nor sell for gold what gold can never buy.
Every monumental inscription should be in Latin; for that being a dead language, it will always live.
Nor yet perceived the vital spirit fled,
But still fought on, nor knew that he was dead.
Shakspeare has not only shown human nature as it is, but as it would be found in situations to which it cannot be exposed.
These observations were made by favor of a contrary wind.
A horrid silence first invades the ear.
When first young Maro, in his noble mind,
A work t'outlast immortal Rome designed.
An itinerant clergyman preaching on this subject, said that little children, who could neither speak nor walk, were to be seen running about the street, cursing and swearing.
A monk having intruded into the chamber of a nobleman, who was at the point of death, and had lost his speech, continued crying out, "My lord, will you make the grant of such and such a thing to our monastery? It will be for the good of your soul." The peer, at each question, nodded his head. The monk, on this, turned round to the son and heir, who was in the room: "You see, sir, my lord, your father, gives his assent to my request." To this, the son made no reply; but turning to his father, asked him, "Is it your will, sir, that I kick this monk down stairs?" The nod of assent was given, and the permission put in force with hearty good will.
A dealer in the marvellous was a constant frequenter of a house in Lambeth-walk, where he never failed to entertain the company with his miraculous tales. A bet was laid, that he would be surpassed by a certain actor, who, telling the following story, the palm was not only given to him by the company, but the story teller, ashamed, deserted the house:
"Gentlemen," said the actor, "when I was a lad, at sea, as we lay in the Bay of Messina, in a moonlight night, and perfectly calm, I heard a little splashing, and looking over the ship's bow, I saw, as I thought, a man's head, and to my utter surprise, there arose out of the water a man, extremely well-dressed, with his hair highly powdered, white silk stockings, and diamond buckles, his garment being embroidered with the most brilliant scales. He walked up the cable with the ease and elegance of a Richer. Stepping on deck, he addressed me in English, thus: 'Pray, young man, is the captain on board?' I, with my hair standing on end, answered, 'Yes, sir.' At this moment, the captain, overhearing our conversation, came on deck, and received the visitor very courteously, and without any apparent surprise. Asking his commands, the stranger said, 'I am one of the submarine inhabitants of this neighborhood. I had, this evening, taken my family to a ball, but on returning to my house, I found the fluke of your anchor jammed so close up to my street door, that we could not get in. I am come therefore, to entreat you, sir, to weigh anchor, so that we may get in, as my wife and daughters are waiting in their carriage, in the street.' The captain readily granted the request of his aquatic visitor, who took his leave with much urbanity, and the captain returned to bed."
One evening, at the Haymarket theatre, the farce of the Lying Valet was to be performed, Sharp, by Mr. Shuter; but that comedian being absent, an apology was made, and it was announced that the part would be undertaken by Mr. Weston, whose transcendent comic powers were not then sufficiently appreciated. Coming on with Mrs. Gardner, in the part of Kitty Pry, there was a tumultuous call of "Shuter! Shuter!" but Tom put them all in good temper, by asking, with irresistibly quaint humor, "Why should I shoot her? She plays her part very well."
The Abbé Tegnier, secretary to the French academy, one day made a collection of a pistole a head from the members, for some general expense. Not observing that the President Rose, who was very penurious, had put his money in the hat, he presented it to him a second time. M. Rose assured him that he had put in his pistole. "I believe it," said the Abbé, "though I did not see it." "And I," said Fontenelle, "saw it, and could not believe it."
At a party of noblemen of wit and genius, it was proposed to try their skill in composition, each writing a sentence on whatsoever subject he thought proper, and the decision was left to Dryden, who formed one of the company. The poet having read them all, said, "There are here abundance of fine things, and such as do honor to the noble writers, but I am under the indispensable necessity of giving the palm to my lord Dorset; and when I have read it, I am convinced your lordships will all be satisfied with my judgment—these are the inimitable words:
"'I promise to pay to John Dryden, on order, the sum of five hundred pounds.
DORSET.'"
A butcher's boy, running against a gentleman with his tray, made him exclaim, "The deuce take the tray!" "Sir," said the lad, "the deuce can't take the tray."
The late Sir Thomas Robinson was a tall, uncouth figure, and his appearance was still more grotesque, from his hunting-dress: a postilion's cap, a tight green jacket, and buckskin breeches. Being at Paris, and going in this habit to visit his sister, who was married, and settled there, he arrived when there was a large company at dinner. The servant announced M. Robinson, and he entered, to the great amazement of the guests. Among others, an Abbé thrice lifted his fork to his mouth, and thrice laid it down, with an eager stare of surprise. Unable longer to restrain his curiosity, he burst out with, "Excuse me, Sir, are you the Robinson Crusoe so famous in history?"
Two Irish soldiers being stationed in a borough in the west of England, got into a conversation respecting their quarters. "How," said the one, "are you quartered?" "Pretty well." "What part of the house do you sleep in?" "Upstairs." "In the garret, perhaps?" "The garret! no, Dennis O'Brien would never sleep in the garret." "Where then?" "Why, I know not what you call it; but if the house were turned topsy turvy, I should be in the cellar."
A distinguished wag about town says, the head coverings the ladies wear now-a-days, are barefaced false hoods. The perpetrator of this is still at large.
A French Field Marshal who had attained that rank by court favour, not by valour, received from a lady the present of a drum, with this inscription—"made to be beaten."
The same hero, going one evening to the Opera, forcibly took possession of the box of a respectable Abbé, who for this outrage brought a suit in a court of honour, established for such cases under the old government. The Abbé thus addressed the court: "I come not here to complain of Admiral Suffrein, who took so many ships in the East Indies. I come not to complain of Count de Grasse, who fought so nobly in the West; I come not to complain of the Duke de Crebillon, who took Minorca; but I come to complain of the Marshal B——, who took my box at the Opera, and never took any thing else." The court paid him the high compliment of refusing his suit, declaring that he had himself inflicted sufficient punishment.
A French officer, just arrived, and introduced to the Court at Vienna, the Empress told him she heard he had in his travels visited a lady renowned for her beauty; and asked if it was true that she was the most handsome princess of her time. The courtier answered, "I thought so yesterday."
At a circuit dinner, a counsellor observed to another, "I shall certainly hang your client." His friend answered, "I give you joy of your new office."
A Frenchman, taken into slavery by an Algerine, was asked what he could do. His answer was, that he had been used to a sedentary employment. "Well, then," said the pirate, "you shall have a pair of feather breeches, to sit and hatch chickens."
The Princess of Prussia, having ordered some silks from Lyons, they were stopped for duties by an excise officer, whom she ordered to attend her with the silks, and receive his demand. On his entrance into her apartment, the princess flew at the officer, and seizing the merchandise, gave him two or three hearty cuffs on the face. The mortified exciseman complained to the king in a memorial, to which his majesty returned the following answer:
"The loss of the duties belonging to my account, the silks are to remain in the possession of the princess, and the cuffs with the receiver. As to the alleged dishonor, I cancel the same, at the request of the complainant; but it is, of itself, null; for the white hand of a fair lady cannot possibly dishonor the face of an exciseman.
Frederick."
Berlin, Nov. 30th, 1778.
A lady's favorite dog having bitten a piece out of a male visitor's leg, she exclaimed, "Poor dear little creature! I hope it will not make him sick."
Two gentlemen, wishing to go into a tavern on one of the national fast-days, found the door shut; and on their knocking, the waiter told them from within, that his master would allow no one to enter during service on the fast-day. "Your master," said one of them, "might be contented to fast himself, without making his doors fast too."
A noble lord asked a clergyman at the foot of his table, why, if there was a goose at dinner, it was always placed next the parson. "Really," said he, "I can give no reason for it; but your question is so odd, that I shall never after see a goose without thinking of your lordship."
A captain in a volunteer corps, drilling his company, had occasion to desire one of the gentlemen to step farther out in marching. The order not being attended to, was repeated in a peremptory tone, when the private exclaimed, "I cannot, captain, you have made my breeches too tight."
Two contractors, who had made large fortunes, had a quarrel. One of them, in the midst of the altercation, asked the other contemptuously, "Do you remember, Sir, when you were my footman?" The other answered, "I do; and had you been my footman, you would have been a footman still."
A sailor being about to set out for India, a citizen asked him:
"Where did your father die?"
"In shipwreck."
"And where did your grandfather die?"
"As he was fishing, a storm arose, and the bark foundering, all on board perished."
"And your great-grandfather?"
"He also perished on board a ship which struck on a rock."
"Then," said the citizen, "if I were you, I would never go to sea."
"And pray, Mr. Philosopher," observed the seaman, "where did your father die?"
"In his bed."
"And your grandfather?"
"In his bed."
"And your great-grandfather?"
"He and all my ancestors died quietly in their beds."
"Then, if I were you, I would never go to bed."
When the School for Scandal was first performed, Mr. Cumberland sat in the front of the stage box with the most complete apathy; its wit and humor never affected his risible muscles. This being reported to Mr. Sheridan, he observed, "That was very ungrateful, for I am sure I laughed heartily at his tragedy of The Battle of Hastings."
A gentleman in a coffee-house called, "Waiter! bring me a glass of brandy; I am very hot." Another, "Waiter! a glass of brandy; I am devilish cold." Mr. Quin, "Waiter! give me a glass of brandy; because I like it."
A lady asked a silly but conceited Scotch nobleman, how it happened that the Scots who came out of their own country were in general of more abilities than those who remained at home. "Madam," said he, "the reason is obvious; at every outlet there are persons stationed to examine those who pass, that for the honor of the country no one be permitted to leave it who is not a person of understanding." "Then," said she, "I presume your lordship was smuggled."
A gentleman desired his boot-maker, as he took measure, to observe particularly that one of his legs was bigger than the other, and of course to make one of his boots bigger than the other. When they were brought home, trying the larger boot on the small leg, it went on easily, but when he attempted the other, his foot stuck fast. "You are a pretty tradesman," said he, "I ordered you to make one of the boots larger than the other; and, instead of that, you have made one of them smaller than the other."
"How can you call these blackberries, when they are red?" "Don't you know that black berries are always red when they are green?"
When General and Mrs. V. were in Dublin, they were perpetually teased by an old woman whom they had relieved, but whose importunity had no bounds; every time she could find an opportunity she had a fresh tale to extract money from their pockets. One day as they were stepping into their carriage, Molly accosted them: "Ah! good luck to your honor's honor, and your ladyship's honor,—to be sure I was not dreaming of you last night; I dreamt that your honor's honor gave me a pound of tobacco, and her ladyship gave me a pound of taa." "Aye, my good woman," says the general, "but you know dreams always go by contraries." "Do they so?" replied she, "then it must be that your honor will give me the taa, and her ladyship the tobacco."
A tailor dying said to his wife, who was plunged in tears, "My dear, don't let my death afflict you too much. I would recommend you to marry Thomas, our foreman; he is a good lad and a clever workman, and would assist you to carry on the trade." "My love," answered the disconsolate dame, "make yourself easy on that score, for Tom and I have settled the matter already."
Sut Lovingood sends the following to an exchange. A full-blooded Cockney who is now taking notes on the United States, chanced to be on one of our southern trains, when a "run off" took place, and a general mixing up of things was the consequence. Cockney's first act, after straightening out his collapsed hat, was to raise a terrible 'ubbub about 'is baggage, and among other things, wanted to know, "hif railroads hin Hamerika wasn't responsible for baggage stolen, smashed, or missing?"
"Well, yes," said the Tennessean addressed, "but it is a deuce of a job to get your pay."
"Why so?"
"They will perhaps admit your claim, but then they offer to fight you for it; that's a standing American rule. There is the man employed by this road to fight for baggage," pointing to a huge bewhiskered train-hand, who stood by with his sleeves rolled up, "I think, if my memory serves me, he has fought for sixty-nine lots, an' blamed if he haint won 'em all. They gave him the empty trunks for his pay, and he is making a hundred dollars a month in selling trunks, valises, carpet-bags, and satchels. Have you lost any baggage?"
"No, no, not hat hall. Hi just hasked to learn your custom hin case hi did lose hany. Hi don't think hi'll lose mine 'owever."
Here the train-hand who overheard the talk, stepped up, and inquired, "Have you lost anything?"
"Ho no! ho no!" replied Cockney, with unusual energy.
"Can't I sell you a trunk?"
"Thank you, Sir. No, I think I have a supply."
"Well, if you do either lose baggage or want to buy a trunk already marked, deuced if I ain't the man to call on."
It is needless to say that instead of raising Cain generally, as Cockney had been doing, he betook him to zealously writing notes on American customs during the remainder of the delay. Probably he indited something fully equal to the London Times Georgia railroad story.
A scholar put his horse into a field belonging to Morton College, on which the Master sent him a message, that if he continued his horse there, he would cut off his tail. "Say you so!" answered the scholar, "go tell your master, if he cuts off my horse's tail, I will cut off his ears." This being delivered to the Master, he in a passion sent for the scholar, who appearing before him, he said sternly, "How now, Sir, what mean you by that menace you sent me?" "Sir," said the youth, "I menaced you not; I only said, if you cut off my horse's tail, I would cut off his ears."
A servant being sent with half a dozen living partridges in a present, had the curiosity to open the lid of the basket containing them, when they all made their escape. He proceeded, however, with the letter: the gentleman to whom it was addressed having read it, said, "I find in this letter half a dozen of partridges." "Do you, indeed?" cried Pat, "I am glad you have found them in the letter, for they all flew out of the basket."
The Earl of St. Albans was, like many other staunch loyalists, little remembered by Charles II. He was, however, an attendant at court, and one of his majesty's companions in his gay hours. On one such occasion, a stranger came with an important suit for an office of great value, just vacant. The king, by way of joke, desired the earl to personate him, and ordered the petitioner to be admitted. The gentleman, addressing himself to the supposed monarch, enumerated his services to the royal family, and hoped the grant of the place would not be deemed too great a reward. "By no means," answered the earl, "and I am only sorry that as soon as I heard of the vacancy I conferred it upon my faithful friend the Earl of St. Albans [pointing to the king], who has constantly followed the fortunes both of my father and myself, and has hitherto gone unrewarded." Charles granted for this joke what the utmost real services looked for in vain.
A physician, during his attendance on a man of letters, remarking that the patient was very punctual in observing his regimen and taking his prescriptions, exclaimed with exultation, "My dear sir, you really deserve to be ill!"
A Londoner told his friend that he was going to Margate for a change of hair. "You had better," said the other, "go to the wig-maker's shop."
Mr. Balfour, a Scotch advocate of dry humour, but much pomposity, being in a large company, where the convivial Earl of Kelly presided, was requested to give a song, which he declined. Lord Kelly, with all the despotism of a chairman, insisted that if he would not sing, he must tell a story or drink a pint bumper of wine. Mr. Balfour, being an abstemious man, would not submit to the latter alternative, but consented to tell a story. "One day," said he, "a thief, prowling about, passed a church, the door of which was invitingly open. Thinking that he might even there find some prey, he entered, and was decamping with the pulpit-cloth, when he found his exit interrupted, the doors having been in the interim fastened. What was he to do to escape with his plunder? He mounted the steeple, and let himself down by the bell-rope; but scarcely had he reached the bottom when the consequent noise of the bell brought together people, who seized him. As he was led off to prison he addressed the bell, as I now address your lordship; said he, 'Had it not been for your long tongue and your empty head I had made my escape.'"
A dispute arose as to the site of Goldsmith's Deserted Village. An Irish clergyman insisted that it was the little hamlet of Auburn, in the county of Westmeath. One of the company observed that this was improbable, as Dr. Goldsmith had never been in that part of the country. "Why, gentlemen," exclaimed the parson, "was Milton in hell when he wrote his Paradise Lost?"
A correspondent sends the Buffalo Express the following good thing for the hot weather:
K——, the Quaker President of a Pennsylvania railroad, during the confusion and panic last fall, called upon the W—— Bank, with which the road had kept a large regular account, and asked for an extension of a part of its paper falling due in a few days. The Bank President declined rather abruptly, saying, in a tone common with that fraternity,
"Mr. K., your paper must be paid at maturity. We cannot renew it."
"Very well," our Quaker replied, and left the Bank. But he did not let the matter drop here. On leaving the Bank, he walked quietly over to the depot and telegraphed all the agents and conductors on the road, to reject the bills on the W—— Bank. In a few hours the trains began to arrive, full of panic, and bringing the news of distrust of the W—— Bank all along the line of the road. Stock-holders and depositors flocked into the Bank, making the panic, inquiring,
"What is the matter?"
"Is the Bank broke?"
A little inquiry by the officers showed that the trouble originated in the rejection of the bills by the railroad. The President seized his hat, and rushed down to the Quaker's office, and came bustling in with the inquiry:
"Mr. K., have you directed the refusal of our currency by your agents?"
"Yes," was the quiet reply.
"Why is this? It will ruin us!"
"Well, friend L., I supposed thy Bank was about to fail, as thee could not renew a little paper for us this morning."
It is needless to say Mr. L. renewed all the Quaker's paper, and enlarged his line of discount, while the magic wires carried all along the road to every agent the sedative message,
"The W—— Bank is all right. Thee may take its currency."
Henry VIII. hunting in Windsor Forest, struck down about dinner to the abbey of Reading, where, disguising himself as one of the Royal Guards, he was invited to the abbot's table. A sirloin was set before him, on which he laid to as lustily as any beef-eater. "Well fare thy heart," quoth the abbot, "and here in a cup of sack I remember the health of his grace your master. I would give a hundred pounds that I could feed on beef as heartily as you do. Alas! my poor queasy stomach will scarcely digest the wing of a chicken." The king heartily pledged him, thanked him for his good cheer, and departed undiscovered. Shortly after, the abbot was sent to the Tower, kept a close prisoner, and fed on bread and water, ignorant of the cause, and terrified at his situation. At last, a sirloin of beef was set before him, on which his empty stomach made him feed voraciously. "My lord!" exclaimed the king entering from a private closet, "instantly deposit your hundred pounds, or no going hence. I have been your physician, and here, as I deserve it, I demand my fee."
A certain tavern-keeper, who opened an oyster-shop as an appendage to his other establishment, was upbraided by a neighboring oyster-monger, as being ungenerous and selfish; "and why," said he, "would you not have me sell-fish?"
A good deacon making an official visit to a dying neighbor, who was a very churlish and universally unpopular man, put the usual question—"Are you willing to go, my friend?"
"Oh, yes," said the sick man, "I am."
"Well," said the simple minded deacon, "I am glad you are, for all the neighbors are willing!"
A noble Lord being in his early years much addicted to dissipation, his mother advised him to take example by a gentleman, whose food was herbs, and his drink water. "What! Madam," said he, "would you have me to imitate a man, who eats like a beast, and drinks like a fish!"
A "fat and greasy citizen," having made a ridiculous motion in the Common Council, observed afterwards at a select dinner party, (or rather party dinner,) that he was afraid he should be hauled over the coals for it. An alderman present observed, "Then all the fat would be in the fire."
A lad, seeing a gentleman in a public house eating eggs, said,
"Be so good, Sir, as give me a little salt."
"Salt, for what?"
"Perhaps, Sir, you'll ask me to eat an egg, and I should like to be ready."
"What country are you from, my lad?"
"I's Yorkshire, Sir."
"I thought so—Well, there take your egg."
"Thank you, Sir."
"Well, they are great horse-stealers in your country are not they?"
"Yes; my father, though an honest man, would think no more of taking a horse, than I would of drinking your glass of ale," taking it off.
"Yes, I see you are Yorkshire."
On a very wet day in the west of Scotland, a traveler, who had been detained a week by bad weather, peevishly asked a native, if it always rained in that country? He replied, drily, "No, it snows sometimes."
A boy on the stage danced very finely and obtained much applause. A senior dancer enviously observed, that he never knew a clever boy turn out a great man. The boy said, "Sir, you must have been a very clever boy."
Dobbs was up and doing, April Fool Day. A singular phenomenon was to be seen in the vicinity of his place of business. Dobbs went home from his store, the last evening in March, and while taking his tea, remarked to his wife, that his colored porter had been blessed with an increase in his family.
"Why," said Mrs. D., "that makes nine!"
"Exactly," said he; "but the singularity about this new comer, is, that one half of its face is black."
"Dear me!" exclaimed Mrs. D., "that is singular, indeed. How strange! What can be the cause of such disfigurement?"
"Can't say," replied Dobbs, "but it is a curiosity worth seeing, to say the least of it."
"So I should think," returned his better half. "I will go down in the morning, and take such delicacies as the woman needs, and see the child at the same time."
Dobbs knew she would, so he went out to smoke a cigar, and the subject was dropped for the evening. Next morning after he went to his store, the kind-hearted woman made up a basket of nice things, and taking the servant girl, went down to cheer up the mother, and see the singular child. When Dobbs came home to dinner, his wife looked surprised. Before he had time to seat himself, she said:
"Have you seen cousin John? He was here, this morning, to pay you the money you lent him, and as he could not wait for you, and must leave town again to-day; I told him you would be at the store, at half-past two.
"How fortunate!" said he; "I need just that amount to take up a note to-morrow. Just two, now," said Dobbs, looking at his watch, "I will go down at once, for fear of missing him."
"Can't you have dinner first?" said his affectionate wife, "you will be in time."
"No," said he, "I want that money, and would not like to miss him, so I will go at once."
"By the by," said the lady, "how came you to tell me such a story about one side of that child's face being white?"
"No, no," said he, as he put on his hat, "you are mistaken. I said one side was black. You did not ask me about the other side; that was black, too. First of April, my dear, first of April, you know."
Dobbs departed in haste, and did not return again until tea time, and then he looked disappointed.
"What is the matter, my dear?" said Mrs. D.
"Why, I missed cousin John, and I needed the thousand dollars to take up a note to-morrow. And every one is so short, I cannot raise it."
"Oh! is that all?" returned she, "then it's all right. Cousin John paid me the money, and said you could send him a receipt by mail."
"But," asked Dobbs, "why couldn't you tell me so at dinner time, and not say he would be at the store, to pay me, at half-past two, and so send me off without my dinner, besides causing me so much anxiety for nothing?"
"I am sorry you have had so much anxiety and trouble," returned his wife; "but you are mistaken in supposing I told you he would be at the store, at that time. I said I told him you would be there, at half-past two, and knowing you were in want of that money, I knew you would not fail. First of April, my dear, first of April, you know!"
Dobbs caved in; he acknowledged the corn, and Mr. and Mrs. Dobbs enjoyed a pleasant supper.
Joseph II. Emperor of Germany, traveling incognito, stopped at an inn in the Netherlands, where, it being fair time, and the house crowded, he readily slept in an outhouse, after a slender supper of bacon and eggs, for which, and bed, he paid the charge of about three shillings and sixpence, English. A few hours after, some of his majesty's suite coming up, the landlord appeared very uneasy at not having known the rank of his guest. "Pshaw! man," said one of the attendants, "Joseph is accustomed to such adventures, and will think nothing of it." "Very likely," replied mine host, "but I shall. I can never forgive myself for having an emperor in my house, and letting him off for three and sixpence."
A person, more ready to borrow than to pay, prevailed on a friend to lend him a guinea, on a solemn promise of returning it the ensuing week, which, to the surprise of the lender, he punctually kept. Shortly after, he made an application for a larger sum. "No," said the other, "you have deceived me once, and I will take care you shall not do so a second time."
A clergyman preaching against lending money on usury, asserted it to be as great a sin as murder. Some time after, he applied to a parishioner to lend him twenty pounds. "What!" said the other, "after declaring your opinion that to lend money on usury, was as bad as murder?" "I do not mean," answered the parson, "that you should lend it to me on usury, but gratis." "That," replied the parishioner, "would, in my opinion, be as bad as suicide."
A son of Galen, when a company was making merry by ridicule on physicians, exclaimed, "I defy any person I ever attended, to accuse me of ignorance or neglect." "That you may do, doctor, dead men tell no tales."
A young nobleman, lately admitted a member of the Board of Agriculture, observed, as he took his seat, that he himself was an extensive farmer. The company knowing his lordship's pursuits to be very different, stared a little at the declaration; but he explained it, by saying, he had sowed a great deal of wild oats.
Mrs. Partington, speaking of the rapid manner in which wicked deeds are perpetrated, said that it only required two seconds to fight a duel.
A calm, blue-eyed, self-composed, and self-possessed young lady, in a village "down east," received a long call the other day, from a prying old spinster, who, after prolonging her stay beyond even her own conception of the young lady's endurance, came to the main question which brought her thither: "I've been asked a good many times if you was engaged to Dr. C——. Now, if folks enquire again whether you be or not, what shall I tell them I think?" "Tell them," answered the young lady, fixing her calm blue eyes in unblushing steadiness upon the inquisitive features of her interrogator, "tell them that you think you don't know, and you're sure it's none of your business."
A Dutchman having suddenly lost an infant son, of whom he was very fond, thus vented his inconsolable grief over the loss of his child. "I don't see wot dit make him die; he was so fatter as butter. I wouldn't haf him tie for five dollars!"
A negro, whom Dr. Franklin brought over from America, observed, that the only gentleman in this country was the hog—"Everything work: man work, woman work, horse work, bullock work, ass work, fire work, water work, smoke work, dog work, cat work; but the hog, he eat, he sleep, he do nothing all day—he be the only gentleman in England."
The late Caleb Whitefoord, seeing a lady knotting fringe for a petticoat, asked her, what she was doing? "Knotting, Sir," replied she; "pray Mr. Whitefoord, can you knot?" He answered, "I can-not."
A very diminutive man, instructing his young son, told him if he neglected his learning he would never grow tall. The child observed, "Father, did you ever learn anything?"
"John, what is the past of see?"
"Seen, Sir."
"No, John, it is saw."
"Yes, Sir, and if a sea-fish swims by me it becomes a saw-fish, when it is past and can't be seen."
"John, go home. Ask your mother to soak your feet in hot water, to prevent a rush of brains to the head."
Eight callow infants filled the mossy nest,
Herself the ninth.
Beneath a mountain's brow, the most remote
And inaccessible by shepherds trod.
A sailor examined on an assault committed on board of ship, was asked by the counsel, whether the plaintiff or defendant struck first. "I know nothing," said he, "of plaintiff and defendant; I only know, as I have said already, that Tom knocked Jack down with a marlinspike." "Here," said the counsel, "is a pretty witness, who does not know the plaintiff from the defendant!" Proceeding in his cross examination, the counsel asked where the affray happened? The answer was, "Abaft the binnacle." "Abaft the binnacle! where's that?" "Here," said the witness, "is a pretty counsel for you, that does not know abaft the binnacle!" The counsel, not yet abashed, asked, "And pray, my witty friend, how far were you from Tom when he knocked down Jack?" "Just five feet seven inches." "You are very accurate; and how do you happen to know this so very exactly?" "I thought some fool would ask me, and so I measured it."
Lord Mansfield examining a witness, asked,
"What do you know of the defendant?"
"O! my lord, I was up to him."
"Up to him! what do you mean by that?"
"Mean, my lord! why, I was down upon him."
"Up to him and down upon him! what does the fellow mean?"
"Why I mean, my lord, I stagged him."
"I do not understand your language, friend."
"Lord! what a flat you must be!"
An eminent physician, and Fellow of the Royal Society, seeing over the door of a paltry ale-house, The Crown and Thistle, by Malcolm Mac Tavish, M.D., F.R.S., walked in, and severely rebuked the landlord for this presumptuous insult on science. Boniface, with proper respect, but with a firmness that showed he had been a soldier, assured the doctor that he meant no insult to science. "What right then," asked he, "have you to put up those letters after your name?" "I have," answered the landlord, "as good a right to these as your honor, as Drum Major of the Royal Scots Fusileers."
A soldier having been sentenced to receive military punishment, one of the drummers refused to inflict it, saying it was not his duty. "Not your duty, Sirrah!" said the adjutant, "what do you mean?" "I know very well," replied Tattoo, "that it is not my duty; I was present at the court martial, and heard the colonel say he was to receive corporal punishment. I am no corporal, but only a drummer."
Lieutenant O'Brien, called sky-rocket Jack, was blown up in the Edgar, but saved on the carriage of a gun. Having got on board the admiral's ship, all dirty and wet, he said, "I hope, Sir, you will excuse my appearing before you in this dishabille, as I came away in such a devil of a hurry."
A blind man having hidden a hundred guineas in the corner of his garden, a neighbor, who observed him in the act, dug them up, and took them. The blind man, missing his money, suspected who was the thief; but to accuse him would serve no purpose. He called on him, saying he wished to take his advice; that he was possessed of two hundred guineas, one hundred of which he had deposited in a secret spot; now he wished to have his opinion, whether he should conceal the remainder in the same place, or if he had better put it in the hands of a banker. The neighbor advised him, by all means, as the safest way, to hide it along with the rest, and hastened to replace what he had taken, in the hope of catching double the sum. But the blind man, having recovered his treasure, took occasion to tell his neighbor, "Blind as I am, I can see as far into a mill-stone as you."
A spendthrift rallying a miser, among other things, said, "I'll warrant these buttons on your coat were your great-grandfather's." "Yes," answered he, "and I have likewise got my great-grandfather's lands."
A physician seeing old Bannister about to drink a glass of brandy, said, "Don't drink that poisonous stuff! brandy is the worst enemy you have." "I know that," answered Charles, "but we are commanded to love our enemies."
A consequential Scotch laird riding on the footpath of the high road between Edinburgh and Dalkeith, met a respectable farmer-looking man on foot, whom he insolently ordered to get out of the way. The other answered,
"I am in the proper way, while you very improperly ride on the footpath."
"Do you know, Sir, to whom you are talking?"
"Not I, indeed."
"I am Mr. ——, of ——."
"Very likely."
"And I am one of the trustees for this road."
"Then you are a very bad trustee, thus to misuse the foot-way, and interrupt passengers."
"You are an impudent scoundrel, and I have a great mind to have you laid by the heels. What is your name, fellow?"
"Henry, Duke of Montague."
A miser having heard of another still more parsimonious than himself, waited on him to gain instruction. He found him reading over a small lamp, and having explained the cause of his visit, "If that be all," said the other, "we may as well put out the lamp, we can converse full as well in the dark." "I am satisfied," said the former, "that as an economist I am much your inferior, and I shall not fail to profit by this lesson."
An Irish member, adverting to the great number of suicides that had occurred, moved for leave to bring in a bill to make it a capital offence!
Mr. Elwes, who united the most rigid parsimony with the most gentlemanly sentiments, received a present of some very fine wine from a wine merchant, who knew that nothing could so win his heart as small gifts. It had the effect to obtain from him the loan of several hundred pounds. Mr. Elwes, who could never ask a gentleman for money, and who was a perfect philosopher as to his losses, used jocularly to say, "It was indeed very fine wine; for it cost him twenty pounds a bottle."
A gentleman being out a-shooting with Mr. Elwes, missed a dozen times successively. At length, firing at a covey of partridges, he lodged two pellets in Mr. Elwes's cheek, which gave him considerable pain; but on the other apologizing, and expressing his sorrow for the unfortunate accident, "My dear Sir," said the old man, "I give you joy of your improvement; I knew you would hit something by and by."
"What makes you spend your time so freely, Jack?"
"Because it's the only thing I have to spend."
An attorney traveling with his clerk to the circuit, the latter asked his master what was the chief point in a lawsuit. He answered, "If you will pay for a couple of fowls to our supper, I'll tell you." This being agreed to, the master said, "The chief point was good witnesses." Arrived at the inn, the attorney ordered the fowls, and when the bill was brought in, told the clerk to pay for them according to agreement. "O Sir," said he, "where are your good witnesses?"
A clergyman meeting a chimney sweeper, asked whence he came?
"I have been sweeping your reverence's chimneys."
"How many were there?"
"Twenty, Sir."
"Well, and how much do you get a chimney?"
"Only a shilling a piece, Sir."
"Why, I think a pound is pretty well for your morning's work."
"Yes, Sir, we black-coats get our money easy enough."
Richard II., on the Pope reclaiming, as a son of the church, a bishop whom he had taken prisoner in battle, sent him the prelate's coat of mail, and in the words of the Scripture asked him, "Know now whether this be thy son's coat or not?"
The Welsh formerly drank their ale, mead, or metheglin out of earthen vessels, glazed and painted, within and without, with dainty devices. A farmer in the principality, who had a curious quart mug, with an angel painted on the bottom, on the inside, found that a neighbor who very frequently visited him, and with the customary hospitality had the first draught, always gave so hearty a swig as to leave little for the rest of the party. This, our farmer three or four times remonstrated against, as unfair; but was always answered, "Hur does so love to look at that pretty angel, that hur always drinks till hur can see its face." The farmer on this set aside his angel cup, and the next Shrewsbury fair, bought one with the figure of the devil painted at the bottom. This being produced, foaming with ale, to his guest, he made but one draught, and handed it to the next man quite empty. Being asked his reason, as he could not now wish to look at the angel, he replied, "No, but hur cannot bear to leave that ugly devil a drop."
General Craig, when in Dublin, called his servant to get ready his horse, but Pat was missing, and when he did make his appearance, he was not perfectly sober. The general asked where he had been? "I have been, sir," answered he, "where you dare not show your face, and doing what you dare not do, brave as you are." "Where, and what?" demanded the general, sternly. "Why, I have been at the whiskey shop, spending my last sixpence."
A SAILOR on ship-board, having fallen from the mizen-top, but his fall having been broken by the rigging, got up on the quarter deck, little hurt. The lieutenant asked where he came from? "Plase your honor," replied he, "I came from the north of Ireland."
When Lord Chesterfield was in administration, he proposed a person to his late majesty, as proper to fill a place of great trust, but which the king himself was determined should be given to another. The council, however, resolved not to indulge the king, for fear of a dangerous precedent. It was Lord Chesterfield's business to present the grant of the office for the king's signature. Not to incense his majesty, by asking him abruptly, he, with accents of great humility, begged to know with whose name his majesty would be pleased to have the blanks filled up? "With the devil's!" replied the king, in a paroxysm of rage. "And shall the instrument," said the earl, coolly, "run as usual—to our trusty and well-beloved cousin and counsellor?"
LIEUTENANT CONNOLLY, an Irishman, in the service of the United States, during the American war, having himself taken three Hessians prisoners, and being asked by the general, how he took them, he answered, "I surrounded them."
An Irish counsellor, author of one of the numerous pamphlets which emanated from the press on the subject of the union, meeting a brother barrister, asked him if he had seen his publication. The other answered, that he had, that very day, been dipping into part of it, and was delighted with its contents. Quite elated, the author asked his friend what part of the contents pleased him so much. "It was," answered the other, "a mince pie which I got from the pastry cook's, wrapped up in half a sheet of your work."
A very plain man was acting the character of Mithridates, in a French theatre, when Monima said to him, "My lord, you change countenance;" a young fellow in the pit, cried, "For heaven's sake, let him."
A stone mason was employed to engrave the following epitaph on a tradesman's wife: "A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband." The stone, however, being narrow, he contracted the sentence in the following manner: "A virtuous woman is 5s. to her husband."
A bricklayer fell through the rafters of an unfinished house, and nearly killed himself; a bystander declared that he ought to be employed, as he went smartly through his work.
Dr. Brown courted a lady for many years unsuccessfully; during which time, he had always accustomed himself to propose her health, whenever he was called upon for a lady. But being observed, one evening, to omit it, a gentleman reminded him that he had forgotten to toast his favorite lady. "Why, indeed," said the doctor, "I find it all in vain; I have toasted her so many years, and cannot make her Brown, that I am determined to toast her no longer."
An Irish sergeant, on a march, being attacked by a dog, pierced the animal with his halbert. On the complaint of the owner, the superior officer said to the offender, "Murphy, you were wrong in this. You should have struck the dog with the butt end of your halbert, and not with your blade." "Plaise your honor," says Murphy, "and I would have been glad for to save myself the trouble of claining my iron, if he had only been so kind as to bite me with his tail, instead of his teeth."
A lawyer, in Ireland, who was pleading the cause of an infant plaintiff, took the child up in his arms, and presented it to the jury, suffused with tears. This had a great effect, till the opposite lawyer asked what made him cry? "He pinched me!" answered the little innocent. The whole court was convulsed with laughter.
As Louis XIV. was, one severe frosty day, traveling from Versailles to Paris, he met a young man, very lightly clothed, tripping along in as much apparent comfort as if it had been in the midst of summer. He called him,—"How is it," said the king, "that, dressed as you are, you seem to feel no inconvenience from the cold, while, notwithstanding my warm apparel, I cannot keep from shivering?" "Sire," replied the pedestrian, "if your majesty will follow my example, I engage that you will be the warmest monarch of Europe." "How so?" asked the king. "Your majesty need only, like me, carry all your wardrobe on your back."
"George, what does C A T spell?"
"Don't know, Sir."
"What does your mother keep to catch mice?"
"Trap, Sir."
"No, no, what animal is very fond of milk?"
"A baby, Sir."
"You dunce, what was it scratched your sister's face?"
"My nails, Sir."
"I am out of all patience! There, do you see that animal on the fence?"
"Yes, Sir."
"Do you know its name?"
"Yes, Sir."
"Then tell me what C A T spells."
"Kitten, Sir."
The American General Lee, being one day at dinner where there were some Scotch officers, took occasion to say, that when he had got a glass too much, he had an unfortunate propensity to abuse the Scotch, and therefore should such a thing happen, he hoped they would excuse him. "By all means," said one of the Caledonians, "we have all our failings, especially when in liquor. I have myself, when inebriated, a very disagreeable propensity, if I hear any person abusing my country, to take the first thing I can lay hold of, and knock that man down. I hope therefore the company will excuse me if anything of the kind should happen." General Lee did not that afternoon indulge his propensity.
A culprit having been adjudged, on a conviction of perjury, to lose his ears, when the executioner came to put the sentence in force, he was rather disappointed at finding the fellow had been cropped before. The criminal with great sang froid exclaimed, "What! do you think I am always obliged to find you ears?"
An Irish gentleman, hearing that his widowed mother was married again, said, in great perturbation, "I hope she won't have a son older than me, to cut me out of the estate!"
Soon after the settlement of New England, Governor Dudley saw a stout Indian idling in the market-place of Boston, and asked him why he did not work? He said he had nobody to employ him, but added, "Why don't you work, massa?" "Oh!" says the Governor, "my head works; but come, if you are good for any thing I will give you employment." He accordingly took him into his service, but soon found him to be an idle and thievish vagabond. For some tricks one day, his Excellency found it necessary to order him a whipping, which he did by a letter he desired him to carry, addressed to the provost marshal. Jack's guilty conscience made him suspect the contents, and meeting another Indian, he gave him a glass of rum to carry it for him. The poor devil willingly undertook to deliver it, and the marshal, as directed, caused the bearer to receive a hearty flogging. When this reached the Governor's ears, he asked Mr. Jack how he dared do such a thing. "Ah! massa," said he, "head work!"
Mrs. Partington says that she did not marry her second husband because she loved the male sex, but just because he was the size of her first protector, and would come so good to wear his old clothes out.
At a dinner in Springfield, Mass., recently, a lady sent the following volunteer toast:—"Spruce old bachelors—the ever greens of society."
A counsel having been retained to oppose a person justifying bail in the Court of King's Bench, after asking some common-place questions, was getting rather aground, when a waggish brother, sitting behind, whispered him to interrogate the bail as to his having been a prisoner in Gloucester gaol. Thus instructed, our learned advocate boldly asked, "When, Sir, were you last in Gloucester gaol?" The bail, a reputable tradesman, with astonishment declared that he never was in a gaol in his life. The counsel persisted; but not being able to get any thing more out of him, turned round and asked his friendly brother, for what the man had been imprisoned? The answer was, "For suicide." Without hesitation, he then questioned him thus: "Now, Sir, I ask you on your oath, and remember I shall have your words taken down, were you not imprisoned in Gloucester gaol for the crime of suicide?"
An ignorant rector had occasion to wait on a bishop, who was so incensed at his stupidity that he exclaimed, "What blockhead gave you a living?" The rector respectfully bowing, answered, "Your lordship."
A country booby boasting of the numerous acres he enjoyed, Ben Jonson peevishly told him, "For every acre you have of land, I have an acre of wit." The other, filling his glass, said, "My service to you, Mr. Wiseacre!"
Mr. Bensley, before he went on the stage, was a captain in the army. One day he met a Scotch officer who had been in the same regiment. The latter was happy to meet his old messmate, but was ashamed to be seen with a player. He therefore hurried Bensley to an unfrequented coffee-house, where he asked him very seriously, "Hoo could ye disgrace the corps by turning a play-actor?" Mr. Bensley answered, that he by no means considered it in that light; on the contrary, that a respectable performer of good conduct was much esteemed, and kept the best company. "And what, man," said the other, "do you get by this business of yours?" "I have," replied Mr. B., "at present an income of near a thousand a year." "A thousand a year!" exclaimed Saunders, astonished, "hae ye ony vacancies in your corps?"
A little girl, who was at dinner among a large party, fearing she had been forgotten to be helped, crumbled some bread upon her plate, saying at the same time to a boiled chicken near her, "Come biddy, come!"
Dominico, the harlequin, going to see Louis XIV. at supper, which was served in gold, fixed his eyes on a dish of partridges. The king, of whom he was a favourite, said, "Give that dish to Dominico." "And the partridges too, Sire?" said the actor. The king repeated, smiling, "And the partridges too."
The following advertisement was some years ago posted up at North Shields:
"Whereas several idle and disorderly persons have lately made a practice of riding on an ass belonging to Mr. ——, the head of the Ropery stairs; now, lest any accident should happen, he takes this method of informing the public, that he has determined to shoot his said ass, and cautions any person who may be riding on it at the time, to take care of himself, lest by some unfortunate mistake he should shoot the wrong one."
A beau highwayman and a miserable chimney sweeper were to be hanged together at Newgate for their respective deserts. When the ordinary was exhorting them, previously to the execution, the latter brushed rather rudely against the former, to hear what the parson was saying. "You black rascal!" said the highwayman, "what do you mean by pressing on me so?" Poor sweep, whimpering, said, "I am sure I have as good a right here as you have."
Dr. Franklin always wore spectacles. One day, on Ludgate hill, a porter passing him was nearly pushed off the pavement by an unintentional motion of the doctor. The fellow, with characteristic insolence, exclaimed, "Damn your spectacles!" Franklin, smiling, observed, "It is not the first time they have saved my eyes."
The following extract from the inimitable "Autocrat of the Breakfast Table," is a fair specimen of the author's genius for humor:
Do I think that the particular form of lying often seen in newspapers, under the title, "From our Foreign Correspondent," does any harm?—Why, no,—I don't know that it does. I suppose it doesn't really deceive people any more than the "Arabian Nights," or "Gulliver's Travels" do. Sometimes the writers compile too carelessly, though, and mix up facts out of geographies, and stories out of the penny papers, so as to mislead those who are desirous of information. I cut a piece out of one of the papers, the other day, which contains a number of improbabilities, and, I suspect, misstatements. I will send up and get it for you, if you would like to hear it.——Ah, this is it; it is headed
"Our Sumatra Correspondence."
"This island is now the property of the Stamford family,—having been won, it is said, in a raffle, by Sir ——Stamford, during the stock-gambling mania of the South-Sea Scheme. The history of this gentleman may be found in an interesting series of questions (unfortunately not yet answered) contained in the 'Notes and Queries.' This island is entirely surrounded by the ocean, which here contains a large amount of saline substance, crystallizing in cubes remarkable for their symmetry, and frequently displays on its surface, during calm weather, the rainbow tints of the celebrated South-Sea bubbles. The summers are oppressively hot, and the winters very probably cold; but this fact cannot be ascertained precisely, as, for some peculiar reason, the mercury in these latitudes never shrinks, as in more northern regions, and thus the thermometer is rendered useless in winter.
"The principal vegetable productions of the island are the pepper tree and the bread-fruit tree. Pepper being very abundantly produced, a benevolent society was organized in London during the last century for supplying the natives with vinegar and oysters, as an addition to that delightful condiment. [Note received from Dr. D. P.] It is said, however, that, as the oysters were of the kind called natives in England, the natives of Sumatra, in obedience to a natural instinct, refused to touch them, and confined themselves entirely to the crew of the vessel in which they were brought over. This information was received from one of the oldest inhabitants, a native himself, and exceedingly fond of missionaries. He is said also to be very skillful in the cuisine peculiar to the island.
"During the season of gathering the pepper, the persons employed are subject to various incommodities, the chief of which is violent and long-continued sternutation, or sneezing. Such is the vehemence of these attacks, that the unfortunate subjects of them are often driven backwards for great distances at immense speed, on the well-known principle of the æolipile. Not being able to see where they are going, these poor creatures dash themselves to pieces against the rocks or are precipitated over the cliffs, and thus many valuable lives are lost annually. As, during the whole pepper-harvest, they feed wholly on this stimulant, they become exceedingly irritable. The smallest injury is resented with ungovernable rage. A young man suffering from the pepper-fever, as is called, cudgeled another most severely for appropriating a superannuated relative of trifling value, and was only pacified by having a present made him of a pig of that peculiar species of swine called the Peccavi by the Catholic Jews, who, it is well known, abstain from swine's flesh in imitation of the Mahometan Buddhists.
"The bread-tree grows abundantly. Its branches are well known to Europe and America under the familiar name of maccaroni. The smaller twigs are called vermicelli. They have a decided animal flavor, as may be observed in the soups containing them. Maccaroni, being tubular, is the favourite habitat of a very dangerous insect, which is rendered peculiarly ferocious by being boiled. The government of the island, therefore, never allows a stick of it to be exported without being accompanied by a piston with which its cavity may at any time be thoroughly swept out. These are commonly lost or stolen before the maccaroni arrives among us. It therefore always contains many of these insects, which, however, generally die of old age in the shops, so that accidents from this source are comparitavely rare.
"The fruit of the bread-tree consists principally of hot rolls. The buttered-muffin variety is supposed to be a hybrid with the cocoa-nut palm, the cream found on the milk of the cocoa-nut exuding from the hybrid in the shape of butter, just as the ripe fruit is splitting, so as to fit it for the tea-table, where it is commonly served up with cold"—
—There,—I don't want to read any more of it. You see that many of these statements are highly improbable.—No, I shall not mention the paper.—No, neither of them wrote it, though it reminds me of the style of these popular writers. I think the fellow who wrote it must have been reading some of their stories, and got them mixed up with his history and geography. I don't suppose he lies;—he sells it to the editor, who knows how many squares off "Sumatra" is. The editor, who sells it to the public——By the way, the papers have been very civil——haven't they?—to the—the—what d'ye call it?—"Northern Magazine,"—isn't it?—got up by some of those Come-outers, down East, as an organ for their local peculiarities.
A vile scraper making a discordant sound with his violin, a friend observed, "If your instrument could speak, it would address you in the words of Hamlet: "Though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me."
A German baron at a gaming house, being detected in an odd trick, one of the players fairly threw him out of the one pair of stairs window. On this outrage he took the advice of Foote, who told him never to play so high again.
A criminal being asked, in the usual form, what he had to say why judgment of death should not be passed against him, answered, "Why, I think there has been quite enough said about it already—if you please we'll drop the subject."
A pedantic fellow called for a bottle of hock at a tavern, which the waiter, not hearing distinctly, asked him to repeat. "A bottle of hock—hic, hæc, hoc," replied the visitor. After sitting, however, a long time, and no wine appearing, he ventured to ring again, and enquire into the cause of delay. "Did I not order some hock, sir? Why is it not brought in?" "Because," answered the waiter, who had been taught Latin grammar, "you afterwards declined it."
A person asking another, while viewing the front of Covent-garden theatre, of what order the pillars at the entrance were, received the answer, "Why, sir, I am not very conversant in the orders of architecture; but from their being at the entrance of the house, I take it for granted, it must be the Dor-ic."
A Yankee, speaking of his children, said he had seven sons, none of whom looked alike but Jonathan, and Jonathan did look just alike.
"La me! good old neighbor," cried Mrs. Popps, "what are you going to do with that great ugly crow?" "Why, you see, we hear as how they live a hundred years, so husband and I got one to try."
A man being convicted of bigamy, at the Wexford assizes, the judge, in pronouncing sentence, thus addressed the prisoner: "Yours is a most atrocious case, and I am sorry that the greatest punishment which the law allows me to inflict, is, that you be transported to parts beyond the seas, for seven years; but if I had my will, you should not escape thus easily; I would sentence you to reside in the same house with both your wives, for the term of your natural life."
A smart old Yankee lady, being called into court as a witness, grew impatient at the questions put to her, and told the judge she would quit the stand, for he was "raly one of the most inquisitive old gentlemen she ever see."
A lady, being so unfortunate as to have her husband hang himself on an apple tree, the wife of a neighbor immediately came to beg a branch of the tree for grafting. "For who knows," said she, "but it may bear the same kind of fruit?"
A country squire introduced his baboon, in clerical habits, to say grace. A clergyman, who was present, immediately left the table, and asked ten thousand pardons for not remembering, that his lordship's nearest relation was in orders.
A humorous divine, visiting a gentleman whose wife none of the most amiable, overheard his friend say, "If it were not for the stranger in the next room, I would kick you out of doors." Upon which, the clergyman stepped in, and said, "Pray, sir, make no stranger of me."
An honest clergyman, in the country, was reproving a married couple for their frequent dissensions, seeing they were both one. "Both one!" cried the husband; "were you to come by our door sometimes, when we quarrel, you would swear we were twenty."
A Frenchman having frequently heard the word press made use of to imply persuade, as, "press that gentleman to take some refreshment," "press him to stay to-night," thought he would show his talents, by using a synonymous term; and therefore made no scruple, one evening, to cry out in company, "Pray squeeze that lady to sing."
A certain gentleman, not well skilled in orthography, requested his friend to send him too monkeys. The t not being distinctly written, his friend concluded his too was intended for 100. With difficulty, he procured fifty, which he sent; adding, "The other fifty, agreeable to your order, will be forwarded as soon as possible."
A gentleman having put out a candle, by accident, one night, ordered his waiting-man, who was a simple being, to light it again in the kitchen. "But take care, John," added he, "that you do not hit yourself against anything, in the dark." Mindful of the caution, John stretched out both his arms at full length, before him; but unluckily, a door, which stood half open, passed between his hands, and struck him a woful blow upon the nose. "Dickens!" muttered he, when he recovered his senses a little, "I always heard that I had a plaguey long nose, but I vow I never have thought, before, that it was longer than my arm."
An Irish sailor, as he was riding, made a pause; the horse, in beating off the flies, caught his hind foot in the stirrup. The sailor observing it, exclaimed, "How now, Dobbin, if you are going to get on, I will get off; for, by the powers, I will not ride double with you."
An Irishman, some years ago, attending the University of Edinburgh, waited upon one of the most celebrated teachers of the German flute, desiring to know on what terms he would give him a few lessons. The flute-player informed him that he generally charged two guineas for the first month, and one guinea for the second. "Then, by my sowl," replied the cunning Hibernian, "I'll come the second month."
The Thomas Hunt had arrived, she lay at the wharf at New Town, and a rumor had reached our ears that "the Judge" was on board. Public anxiety had been excited to the highest pitch to witness the result of the meeting between us. It had been stated publicly that "the Judge" would whip us the moment he arrived; but though we thought a conflict probable, we had never been very sanguine as to its terminating in this manner. Coolly we gazed from the window of the Office upon the New Town road; we descried a cloud of dust in the distance; high above it waved a whip lash, and we said, "'The Judge' cometh, and 'his driving is like that of Jehu the son of Nimshi, for he driveth furiously.'"
Calmly we seated ourselves in the "arm chair," and continued our labors upon our magnificent Pictorial. Anon, a step, a heavy step, was heard upon the stairs, and "the Judge" stood before us.
"In shape and gesture proudly eminent, he stood like a tower: ... but his face deep scars of thunder had intrenched, and care sat on his faded cheek; but under brows of dauntless courage and pride, waiting revenge."
"We rose, and with an unfaltering voice said: "Well, Judge, how do you do?" He made no reply but commenced taking off his coat.
We removed ours, also our cravat.
* * * * * * *
The sixth and last round, is described by the pressman and compositors, as having been fearfully scientific. We held "the Judge" down over the Press by our nose (which we had inserted between his teeth for that purpose), and while our hair was employed in holding one of his hands we held the other in our left, and with the "sheep's foot" brandished above our head, shouted to him, "Say Waldo," "Never!" he gasped—
"O my Bigler!" he would have muttered,
But that he "dried up," ere the word was uttered.
At this moment we discovered that we had been laboring under a "misunderstanding," and through the amicable intervention of the pressman, who thrust a roller between our faces (which gave the whole affair a very different complexion), the matter was finally settled on the most friendly terms—"and without prejudice to the honor of either party." We write this while sitting without any clothing, except our left stocking, and the rim of our hat encircling our neck like a "ruff" of the Elizabethan era—that article of dress having been knocked over our head at an early stage of the proceedings, and the crown subsequently torn off, while "the Judge" is sopping his eye with cold water, in the next room, a small boy standing beside the sufferer with a basin, and glancing with interest over the advertisements on the second page of the San Diego Herald, a fair copy of which was struck off upon the back of his shirt, at the time we held him over the Press. Thus ends our description of this long anticipated personal collision, of which the public can believe precisely as much as they please; if they disbelieve the whole of it, we shall not be at all offended, but can simply quote as much to the point, what might have been the commencement of our epitaph, had we fallen in the conflict,
"Here Lies Phœnix."
Phœnixiana.
A gentleman telling a very improbable story, and observing one of the company cast a doubtful eye, "Zounds, Sir," says he, "I saw the thing happen." "If you did," says the other, "I must believe it; but I would not have believed it if I had seen it myself."
A statuary was directed to inscribe on a monument the age of the deceased, namely 81. The person who gave the order recollecting, however, that it should have been 82, desired the sculptor to add one year more; and the veteran to whose memory this stone was erected, is recorded as having "departed this life at the advanced age of 811!"
A gentleman from Swampville, State of New York, was telling how many different occupations he had attempted. Among others he had tried school teaching. "How long did you teach?" asked a by-stander.
"Wal, I didn't teach long; that is, I only went to teach."
"Did you hire out?"
"Wal, I didn't hire out; I only went to hire out."
"Why did you give it up?"
"Wal, I gave it up—for some reason or nuther. You see, I traveled into a deestrict and inquired for the trustees. Somebody said Mr. Snickles was the man I wanted to see. So I found Mr. Snickles,—named my objic—interduced myself—and asked him what he thought about lettin' me try my luck with the big boys and unruly gals of the deestrict. He wanted to know if I really thought myself capable; and I told him I wouldn't mind him asken me a few easy questions in 'rithmetic, jography, or showin' my handwritin'. But he said, No, never mind, he could tell a good teacher by his gait. 'Let me see you walk off a little ways,' says he, 'and I can tell jis's well's I'd heared you examined,' says he.
"He sot in the door as he spoke, and I thought, he looked a little skittish; but I was consider'bly frustrated, and didn't mind much; so I turned about and walked off as smart as I know'd how. He said he would tell me when to stop, so I kep' on 'till I tho't I'd gone far 'nough; I then 'spected suthin' was to pay, and looked round. The door was shet, and Snickles was gone!"
"Sancho," said a dying planter to his faithful slave, "for your services I shall leave it in my will, that you shall be buried in our family vault." "Ah, Massa!" replied Sancho, "me rather have de money or de freedom. Besides, if the devil come in the dark to look for massa, he make the mistake, and carry away poor negro man."
A Frenchman in a coffee-house called for a gill of wine, which was brought him in a glass. He said it was the French custom to bring wine in a measure. The waiter answered, "Sir, we wish for no French measures here."
A sprightly school girl who attends the "Central High," where the teachers have a way of inciting the pupils to understand what they say in the classes, was reading the "Last of the Huggermuggers;" and stirred by the spirit of inquiry, stimulated by her teachers, if not by natural feminine curiosity, asked a boy cousin of hers, the meaning of huggermugger. John looked thoughtful for a moment, and then said—"I'll show you;" and before the incipient woman had time to make any further remark, John had his arm around her waist, and subjected it to a gentle pressure—"That's hugger; and this," putting his lips to hers in affectionate collision, "is mug ger!" "Yes," said the not more than half displeased Sarah Ann, "and this is the last of the huggermuggers, for if you ever attempt to give me another such definition, I'll box your ears. I've a great mind to tell Mr. Hall, as I go to school, what sort of dictionary you are carrying about you all the time."—Boston Transcript.
"I don't care much about the bugs," said Mr. Wormly to the head of a genteel private boarding house, "but the fact is, Madam, I havn't the blood to spare—you see that yourself."
A question for the Spike Society. "Would the devil beat his wife if he had one?" "Guess not—for the women generally beat the devil."
"Hallo, boy, did you see a rabbit cross the road there just now?"
"A rabbit?"
"Yes, be quick! a rabbit."
"Was it a kinder gray varmint?"
"Yes, yes!"
"A longish critter, with a short tail?"
"Yes, be quick or he'll gain his burrow."
"Had it long legs behind, and big ears?"
"Yes, yes!"
"And sorter jumps when it runs?"
"Yes, I tell you; jumps when it runs!"
"Well, I hain't seen such a critter about here."
On Davy Crocket's return to his constituents after his first session in Congress, a nation of them surrounded him one day, and began to interrogate him about Washington.
"What time do they dine in Washington, Colonel?"
"Why," said he, "common people, such as you are, get their dinners about one o'clock, but the gentry and big bugs dine at three. As for representatives we dine at four, and the aristocracy and the Senators don't get theirs till five."
"Well, when does the President fodder?" asked another.
"Old Hickory!" exclaimed the Colonel, attempting to appoint a time appropriate to the dignity of the station. "Old Hickory! well he don't dine until the next day!"
A few weeks ago a wealthy family in Philadelphia, having hired a cook who had been highly recommended to them, she was ordered one day to prepare among other things, a hash for dinner. The hash came and was charming—all eagerly partaking of it until the dish was scraped out. So popular after this did the hash of the new cook become, that it was nothing but hash every day. At last the poor cook, bringing in a large dish of it, the perspiration pouring down her face, which was red as a coal of fire, she set it down, and turned to her mistress and drawing herself up said:
"Madam, I strikes!"
"Strikes! why, what is the matter, Betty?"
"Cause, ma'am, I can't give you hash every day and forever—me jaws is all broke down, and me teeth is all wore out, chawing it up for ye's!"
A schoolmaster in a neighboring town, wishing to discover the talents of his scholars for geography, asked one of the youngest of them, what State he lived in? To which the boy replied, "A state of sin and misery."
A poor fellow, in Scotland, creeping through the hedge of an orchard, with an intention to rob it, was seen by the owner, who called out to him, "Sawney, hoot, hoot, man, where are you ganging?" "Back agen," says Sawney.
An Irish "gintleman" had occasion to visit the South some time since. When he returned, he remarked to a friend that the Southern people were very extravagant. Upon being asked why so, he remarked, that where he stayed they had a candlestick worth eleven hundred dollars.
"Why, how in the world could it cost that much?" inquired a friend.
"Och, be gorry, it was nuthin' mor'n a big nager fellow holdin a torch for us to eat by."
A lady who gave herself great airs of importance, on being introduced to a gentleman for the first time, said, with much cool indifference, "I think, Sir, I have seen you somewhere." "Very likely you may," replied the gentleman, with equal sang froid, "as I have been there very often."
A physician, who lived in London, visited a lady who resided in Chelsea. After continuing his visits for some time, the lady expressed an apprehension that it might be inconvenient for him to come so far on her account. "Oh! by no means," replied the doctor; "I have another patient in the neighborhood, and I always set out hoping to kill two birds with one stone."
A young man, going on a journey, intrusted a hundred deenars to an old man. When he came back, the old man denied having had any money deposited with him, and he was had up before the Khazee. "Where were you, young man, when you delivered this money?" "Under a tree." "Take my seal and summon that tree," said the judge. "Go, young man, and tell the tree to come hither, and the tree will obey you when you show it my seal." The young man went in wonder. After he had been gone some time, the Khazee said to the old man, "He is long—do you think he has got there yet?" "No," said the old man; "it is at some distance; he has not got there yet." "How knowest thou, old man," cried the Khazee, "where that tree is?" The young man returned and said the tree would not come. "He has been here, young man, and given his evidence—the money is thine."
An Irish gentleman, in company, observing that the lights were so dim as only to render the darkness visible, called out lustily, "Here, waiter, let me have a couple of dacent candles, that I may see how those others burn."
Two brothers having been sentenced to death, one was executed first. "See," the other brother said, "what a lamentable spectacle my brother makes! in a few minutes I shall be turned off; and then you will see a pair of spectacles."
A country girl, riding by a turnpike-road without paying toll, the gate-keeper hailed her and demanded his fee. On her demanding his authority, he referred her to his sign, where she read, "A man and horse, six cents." "Well," says she, "you can demand nothing of me, as this is but a woman and a mare."
As a number of persons were lately relating to each other the various extraordinary incidents which had fallen within their observation, a traveler attracted their attention by the following: "As I was passing through a forest, I heard a rustling noise in the bushes near the road: and being impelled by curiosity, I was determined to know what it was. When I arrived at the spot, I found it was occasioned by a large stick of wood, which was so very crooked that it would not lie still."
Grace Greenwood, in speaking of a certain and too fashionable kind of parental government, in her lecture at Cleveland, a few evenings since, told this refreshing little story: A gentleman told his little boy, a child of four years, to shut the gate. He made the request three times, and the youngster paid no sort of attention to it. "I have told you three times, my son, to shut the gate," said the gentleman sorrowfully. "And I've told you free times," lisped the child, "that I won't do it. You must be stupid."
A barber having a dispute with a parish clerk on a point of grammar, the latter said it was a downright barbarism, indeed. "What!" exclaimed the other, "do you mean to insult me? Barberism, indeed! I'd have you to know that a barber can speak as good grammar as a parish clerk any day in the week."
FROM PHŒNIXIANA.
The following recipe from the writings of Miss Hannah More, may be found useful to your readers:
In a climate where the attacks of fleas are a constant source of annoyance, any method which will alleviate them becomes a desideratum. It is, therefore, with pleasure I make known the following recipe, which I am assured has been tried with efficacy.
Boil a quart of tar until it becomes quite thin. Remove the clothing, and before the tar becomes perfectly cool, with a broad flat brush, apply a thin, smooth coating to the entire surface of the body and limbs. While the tar remains soft, the flea becomes entangled in its tenacious folds, and is rendered perfectly harmless; but it will soon form a hard, smooth coating, entirely impervious to his bite. Should the coating crack at the knee or elbow joints, it is merely necessary to retouch it slightly at those places. The whole coat should be renewed every three or four weeks. This remedy is sure, and having the advantage of simplicity and economy, should be generally known.
So much for Miss More. A still simpler method of preventing the attacks of these little pests, is one which I have lately discovered myself;—in theory only—I have not yet put it into practice. On feeling the bite of the flea, thrust the part bitten immediately into boiling water. The heat of the water destroys the insect and instantly removes the pain of the bite.
You have probably heard of old Parry Dox. I met him here a few days since, in a sadly seedy condition. He told me that he was still extravagantly fond of whiskey, though he was constantly "running it down." I inquired after his wife. "She is dead, poor creature," said he, "and is probably far better off than ever she was here. She was a seamstress, and her greatest enjoyment of happiness in this world was only so, so."
A carpenter having neglected to make a gibbet ordered, on the ground of his not having been paid for a former one, was severely rated by the sheriff. "Fellow," said he, "how dared you neglect making the gibbet that was ordered for me?" "I humbly beg your pardon," said the carpenter, "had I known that it was for your worship, I should have left everything else to do it."
A lady who strove by the application of washes, paint, &c., to improve her countenance, had her vanity not a little flattered by a gentleman saying, "Madam, every time I look at your face I discover some new beauty."
A young fellow in a coffee house venting a parcel of common place abuse on the clergy, in the presence of Mr. Sterne, and evidently leveled at him, Laurence introduced a panegyric on his dog, which he observed had no fault but one, namely, that whenever he saw a parson he fell a barking at him. "And how long," said the youth, "has he had this trick?" "Ever since he was a puppy."
"I understand, Jones, that you can turn anything neater than any other man in town."
"Yes, Mr. Smith, I said so."
"Well, Mr. Jones, I don't like to brag, but there is no man on earth that can turn a thing as well as I can whittle it, Mr. Jones. Jest name the article that I can't whittle, that you can turn, and I'll give you a dollar if I don't do it to the satisfaction of those gentlemen present."
"Well, Mr. Smith, suppose we take two grindstones, just for a trial, you may whittle and I'll turn."
Shuter, one day meeting a friend with his coat patched at the elbow, observed, he should be ashamed of it. "How so?" said the other, "it is not the first time I have seen you out at the elbows." "Very true," replied Ned, "I should think nothing of exhibiting twenty holes; a hole is the accident of the day; but a patch is premeditated poverty."
In a party of young fellows, the conversation turned on their learning and education, and one of the company having delivered his thoughts on the subject very respectably, his neighbor, neither extremely wise nor witty, said, "Well, Jack, you are certainly not the greatest fool living." "No," answered he, "nor shall I be while you live."
"My Dear," said an affectionate wife, "what shall we have for dinner to-day?"
"One of your smiles," replied the husband. "I can dine on that every day."
"But I can't," replied the wife.
"Then take this," and he gave her a kiss and went to his business.
He returned to dinner.
"This is excellent steak," said he, "what did you pay for it?"
"Why, what you gave me this morning, to be sure," replied the wife.
"You did!" exclaimed he; "then you shall have the money next time you go to market."
A tradesman pressing one of his customers for payment of a bill, the latter said, "You need not be in such a hurry; I am not going to run away." "But," says the creditor, "I am."
FROM SIR JONAH BARRINGTON'S SKETCHES.
I met with a ludicrous instance of the dissipation of even latter days, a few months after my marriage. Lady B—— and myself took a tour through some of the southern parts of Ireland, and among other places visited Castle Durrow, near which place my brother, Henry French Barrington, had built a hunting-cottage, wherein he happened to have given a house-warming the previous day.
The company, as might be expected at such a place and on such an occasion, was not the most select; in fact, they were "hard-going" sportsmen.
Among the rest, Mr. Joseph Kelly, of unfortunate fate, brother to Mr. Michael Kelly (who by-the-by does not say a word about him in his Reminiscences), had been invited, to add to the merriment by his pleasantry and voice, and had come down from Dublin for the purpose.
Of this convivial assemblage at my brother's, he was, I suppose, the very life and soul. The dining-room had not been finished when the day of the dinner-party arrived, and the lower parts of the walls having only that morning received their last coat of plaster, were, of course, totally wet.
We had intended to surprise my brother; but had not calculated on the scene I was to witness. On driving to the cottage-door I found it open, while a dozen dogs, of different descriptions, showed ready to receive us not in the most polite manner. My servant's whip, however, soon sent them about their business, and I ventured into the parlor to see what cheer. It was about ten in the morning: the room was strewed with empty bottles—some broken—some interspersed with glasses, plates, dishes, knives, spoons, &c., all in glorious confusion. Here and there were heaps of bones, relics of the former day's entertainment, which the dogs, seizing their opportunity, had picked. Three or four of the Bacchanalians lay fast asleep upon chairs—one or two others on the floor, among whom a piper lay on his back, apparently dead, with a table-cloth spread over him, and surrounded by four or five candles, burnt to the sockets; his chanter and bags were laid scientifically across his body, his mouth was wide open, and his nose made ample amends for the silence of his drone. Joe Kelly and a Mr. Peter Alley were fast asleep in their chairs, close to the wall.
Had I never viewed such a scene before, it would have almost terrified me; but it was nothing more than the ordinary custom which we called waking the piper, when he had got too drunk to make any more music.
I went out, and sent away my carriage and its inmate to Castle Durrow, whence we had come, and afterward proceeded to seek my brother. No servant was to be seen, man or woman. I went to the stables, wherein I found three or four more of the goodly company, who had just been able to reach their horses, but were seized by Morpheus before they could mount them, and so lay in the mangers awaiting a more favourable opportunity. Returning hence to the cottage, I found my brother, also asleep, on the only bed which it then afforded: he had no occasion to put on his clothes, since he had never taken them off.
I next waked Dan Tyron, a wood-ranger of Lord Ashbrook, who had acted as maitre d'hôtel in making the arrangements, and providing a horse-load of game to fill up the banquet. I then inspected the parlor, and insisted on breakfast. Dan Tyron set to work: an old woman was called in from an adjoining cabin, the windows were opened, the room cleared, the floor swept, the relics removed, and the fire lighted in the kitchen. The piper was taken away senseless, but my brother would not suffer either Joe or Alley to be disturbed till breakfast was ready. No time was lost; and, after a very brief interval, we had before us abundance of fine eggs, and milk fresh from the cow, with brandy, sugar, and nutmeg, in plenty; a large loaf, fresh butter, a cold round of beef, which had not been produced on the previous day, red herrings, and a bowl dish of potatoes roasted on the turf ashes; in addition to which, ale, whiskey, and port, made up the refreshments. All being duly in order, we at length awakened Joe Kelly, and Peter Alley, his neighbor: they had slept soundly, though with no other pillow than the wall; and my brother announced breakfast with a view holloa!
The twain immediately started, and roared in unison with their host most tremendously! It was, however, in a very different tone from the view holloa, and perpetuated much longer.
"Come, boys," says French, giving Joe a pull, "come!"
"Oh, murder!" says Joe, "I can't!"—"Murder!—murder!" echoed Peter. French pulled them again, upon which they roared the more, still retaining their places. I have in my lifetime laughed till I nearly became spasmodic; but never were my risible muscles put to greater tension than upon this occasion. The wall, as I said before, had only that day received a coat of mortar, and of course was quite soft and yielding, when Joe and Peter thought proper to make it their pillow; it was, nevertheless, setting fast, from the heat and lights of an eighteen hours' carousal; and, in the morning, when my brother awakened his guests, the mortar had completely set and their hair being the thing most calculated to amalgamate therewith, the entire of Joe's stock, together with his queue, and half his head, was thoroughly and irrecoverably bedded in the greedy and now marble cement, so that, if determined to move, he must have taken the wall along with him, for separate it would not. One side of Peter's head was in the same state of imprisonment. Nobody was able to assist them, and there they both stuck fast.
A consultation was now held on this pitiful case, which I maliciously endeavored to prolong as much as I could, and which was, in fact, every now and then interrupted by a roar from Peter or Joe, as they made fresh efforts to rise. At length, it was proposed by Dan Tyron to send for the stone cutter, and get him to cut them out of the wall with a chisel. I was literally unable to speak two sentences for laughing. The old woman meanwhile tried to soften the obdurate wall with melted butter and new milk—but in vain. I related the school story how Hannibal had worked through the Alps with hot vinegar and hot irons: this experiment likewise was made, but Hannibal's solvent had no better success than the old crone's.
Peter Alley, being of a more passionate nature, grew ultimately quite outrageous: he roared, gnashed his teeth, and swore vengeance against the mason; but as he was only held by one side, a thought at last struck him: he asked for two knives, which being brought, he whetted one against the other, and introducing the blades close to his skull, sawed away at cross corners till he was liberated, with the loss only of half his hair and a piece of his scalp, which he had sliced off in zeal and haste for his liberty. I never saw a fellow so extravagantly happy! Fur was scraped from the crown of a hat, to stop the bleeding; his head was duly tied up with the old woman's praskeen; and he was soon in a state of bodily convalescence. Our solicitude was now required solely for Joe, whose head was too deeply buried to be exhumed with so much facility. At this moment, Bob Casey, of Ballynakill, a very celebrated wig-maker, just dropped in, to see what he could pick up honestly in the way of his profession, or steal in the way of anything else; and he immediately undertook to get Mr. Kelly out of the mortar by a very expert but tedious process, namely clipping with his scissors, and then rooting out with an oyster-knife. He thus finally succeeded, in less than an hour, in setting Joe once more at liberty, at the price of his queue, which was totally lost, and of the exposure of his raw and bleeding occiput. The operation was, indeed, of a mongrel description—somewhat between a complete tonsure and an imperfect scalping, to both of which denominations it certainly presented claims. However, it is an ill wind that blows nobody good! Bob Casey got the making of a skull-piece for Joe, and my brother French had the pleasure of paying for it, as gentlemen in those days honored any order given by a guest to the family shopkeeper or artisan.
After divine service at Worcester cathedral, where a remarkably fine anthem had been performed, the organ-blower observed to the organist, "I think we have performed mighty well to-day." "We performed!" answered the organist, "if I am not mistaken it was I that performed." Next Sunday, in the midst of a voluntary, the organ stopped all at once. The organist, enraged, cried out, "Why don't you blow?" The fellow, popping out his head, said, "Shall it be we then?"
A lady of vivacity was by a waggish friend proposed to be made acquainted with a gentleman of infinite wit, an offer she gladly accepted. After the interview, her friend asked how she liked him. She said, "Delightfully! I have hardly ever found a person so agreeable." The damsel, uninterrupted in her own loquacity, had not discovered that this witty gentleman was——dumb!
An officer relating his feats to the Marshal de Bessompiere, said, that in a sea-fight he had killed 300 men with his own hand: "And I," said the Marshal, "descended through a chimney in Switzerland to visit a pretty girl." "How could that be," said the captain, "since there are no chimneys in that country?" "What, Sir!" said the Marshal, "I have allowed you to kill 300 men in a fight, and surely you may permit me to descend a chimney in Switzerland."
A traveled London lady gives the following incident, among others, to a circle of admiring friends, on her return from America: "I was a dinin' haboard a first-class steamboat on the Hoeigho river. The gentleman next me, on my right, was a Southerner, and the gentleman on my left was a Northerner. Well, they gets into a kind of discussion on the habbolition question, when some 'igh words hariz. 'Please to retract, Sir,' said the Southerner. 'Won't do it,' said the Northerner. 'Pray, ma'am,' said the Southerner, 'will you 'ave the goodness to lean back in your chair?' 'With the greatest pleasure,' said I, not knowin' what was a comin'. When what does my gentleman do but whips out an 'oss pistil as long as my harm, and shoots my left 'and neighbor dead! But that wasn't hall! for the bullet, comin' out of the left temple, wounded a lady in the side. She huttered an 'orrifick scream. 'Pon my word, ma'am,' said the Southerner, 'you needn't make so much noise about it, for I did it by a mistake.'" "And was justice done the murderer?" asked a horrified listener. "Hinstantly, dear madam," answered Miss L——. "The cabin passengers set right to work, and lynched him. They 'ung 'im in the lamp chains right hover the dinin' table, and then finished the dessert. But for my part, it quite spoiled my happetite."
A Hibernian, seeing an old man and woman in the stocks, said that they put him in mind of "the babes in the wood."
The river Monitor tells the following story:
A countryman (farmer) went into a store in Boston, the other day, and told the keeper that a neighbor of his had entrusted him some money to expend to the best advantage, and he meant to do it where he would be the best treated. He had been used very ill by the traders in Boston, and he would not part with his neighbor's money until he had found a man who would treat him about right. With the utmost suavity the trader says:
"I think I can treat you to your liking; how do you want to be treated?"
"Well," said the farmer, with a leer in his eye, "in the first place, I want a glass of toddy," which was forthcoming. "Now I will have a nice cigar," says the countryman. It was promptly handed him, leisurely lighted, and then throwing himself back with his feet as high as his head, he commenced puffing away like a Spaniard.
"Now what do you want to purchase?" says the store-keeper.
"My neighbor," said the countryman, "handed me two cents when I left home, to buy a plug of tobacco—have you got that article?"
The store-keeper sloped instanter.
A witty knave bargained with a seller of lace in London for as much as would reach from one of his ears to the other. When they had agreed, it appeared that one of his ears was nailed at the pillory in Bristol.
A few days since, writes an attorney, as I was sitting with Brother D——, in his office, Court Square, a client came in, and said—
"Squire D——, W——, the stabler, shaved me dreadfully, yesterday, and I want to come up with him."
"State your case," says D——.
"I asked him," said Client, "how much he would charge me for a horse and wagon to go to Dedham. He said one dollar and a half. I took the team, and when I came back, I paid him one dollar and a half, and he said he wanted another dollar and a half for coming back, and made me pay it."
D—— gave him some legal advice, which the client immediately acted upon as follows:
He went to the stabler and said—
"How much will you charge me for a horse and wagon to go to Salem?"
Stabler replied—"Five dollars."
"Harness him up!"
Client went to Salem, came back by railroad, and went to the stabler, saying—
"Here is your money," paying him five dollars.
"Where is my horse and wagon?" says W.
"He is at Salem," says Client; "I only hired him to go to Salem."
"You are always yawning," said a woman to her husband. "My dear friend," replied he, "the husband and wife are one; and when I am alone, I grow weary."
A correspondent of the Richmond Dispatch tells the following in a letter from one of the Springs:
An amusing incident occurred in the cars of the Virginia and Tennessee road, which must be preserved in print. It is too good to be lost. As the train entered the Big Tunnel, near this place, in accordance with the usual custom a lamp was lit. A servant girl, accompanying her mistress, had sunk in a profound slumber, but just as the lamp was lit she awoke, and half asleep imagined herself in the infernal regions. Frantic with fright, she implored her Maker to have mercy on her, remarking at the same time, "The devil has got me at last." Her mistress, sitting on the seat in front of the terrified negress, was deeply mortified, and called upon her—"Molly, don't make such a noise; it is I, be not afraid." The poor African immediately exclaimed, "Oh, missus, dat you? Jest what I 'spected; I always thought if eber I got to de bad place, I would see you dar." These remarks were uttered with such vehemence, that not a word was lost, and the whole coach became convulsed with laughter.
A minikin three-and-a-half-feet Colonel, being one day at the drill, was examining a strapper of six feet four. "Come, fellow, hold up your head; higher, fellow!" "Yes, Sir." "Higher, fellow—higher." " What—so, Sir?" "Yes, fellow." "And am I always to remain so?" "Yes, fellow, certainly." "Why then, good bye. Colonel, for I never shall see you again."
FROM PHŒNIXIANA.
Mr. Mudge has just arrived in San Diego from Arkansas; he brings with him four yoke of oxen, seventeen American cows, nine American children, and Mrs. Mudge. They have encamped in the rear of our office, pending the arrival of the next coasting steamer.
Mr. Mudge is about thirty-seven years of age, his hair is light, not a "sable silvered," but a yaller gilded; you can see some of it sticking out of the top of his hat; his costume is the national costume of Arkansas, coat, waistcoat, and pantaloons of homespun cloth, dyed a brownish yellow, with a decoction of the bitter barked butternut—a pleasing alliteration; his countenance presents a determined, combined with a sanctimonious expression, and in his brightly gleaming eye—a red eye we think it is—we fancy a spark of poetic fervor may be distinguished.
Mr. Mudge called on us yesterday. We were eating watermelon. Perhaps the reader may have eaten watermelon, if so, he knows how difficult a thing it is to speak, when the mouth is filled with the luscious fruit, and the slippery seed and sweet though embarrassing juice is squizzling out all over the chin and shirt-bosom. So at first we said nothing, but waved with our case knife toward an unoccupied box, as who should say sit down. Mr. Mudge accordingly seated himself, and removing his hat (whereat all his hair sprang up straight like a Jack in a box), turned that article of dress over and over in his hands, and contemplated its condition with alarming seriousness.
"Take some melon, Mr. Mudge," said we, as with a sudden bolt we recovered our speech and took another slice ourself. "No, I thank you," replied Mr. Mudge, "I wouldn't choose any, now."
There was a solemnity in Mr. Mudge's manner that arrested our attention; we paused, and holding a large slice of watermelon dripping in the air, listened to what he might have to say.
"Thar was a very serious accident happened to us," said Mr. Mudge, "as we wos crossin' the plains. 'Twas on the bank of the Peacus river. Thar was a young man named Jeames Hambrick along and another young feller, he got to fooling with his pistil, and he shot Jeames. He was a good young man and hadn't a enemy in the company; we buried him thar on the Peacus river, we did, and as we went off, these here lines sorter passed through my mind." So saying, Mr. Mudge rose, drew from his pocket—his waistcoat pocket—a crumpled piece of paper, and handed it over. Then he drew from his coat-tail pocket, a large cotton handkerchief, with a red ground and yellow figure, slowly unfolded it, blew his nose—an awful blast it was—wiped his eyes, and disappeared. We publish Mr. Mudge's lines, with the remark, that any one who says they have no poets or poetry in Arkansas, would doubt the existence of William Shakspeare:
DIRGE ON THE DEATH OF JEAMES HAMBRICK.
BY MR ORION W. MUDGE, ESQ.
it was on June the tenth
our hearts were very sad
for it was by an awful accident
we lost a fine young lad
Jeames Hambric was his name
and alas it was his lot
to you I tell the same
he was accidently shot
on the peacus river side
the sun was very hot
and its there he fell and died
where he was accidently shot
on the road his character good
without a stain or blot
and in our opinions growed
until he was accidently shot
a few words only he spoke
for moments he had not
and only then he seemed to choke
I was accidently shot
we wrapped him in a blanket good
for coffin we had not
and then we buried him where he stood
when he was accidently shot
and as we stood around his grave
our tears the ground did blot
we prayed to god his soul to save
he was accidently shot
This is all, but I writ at the time a epitaff which I think is short and would do to go over his grave:—
EPITAFF
here lies the body of Jeames Hambrick
who was accidently shot
on the bank of the peacus river
by a young man
he was accidently shot with one of the large size colt's revolver with no stopper for the cock to rest on it was one of the old fashion kind brass mounted and of such is the kingdom of heaven.
truly yourn,
Orion W Mudge Esq
A brace of partridges being brought in to supper for three gentlemen; "Come, Tom," said one of them, "you are fresh from the schools, let us see how learnedly you can divide these two birds among us three." "With all my heart;" answered Tom, "there is one for you two and here is one for me too."
Mrs. B. desired Dr. Johnson to give his opinion of a new work she had just written; adding, that if it would not do, she begged him to tell her, for she had other irons in the fire, and in case of its not being likely to succeed, she could bring out something else. "Then," said the Doctor, after having turned over a few leaves, "I advise you, Madam, to put it where your other irons are."
FROM SIR JONAH BARRINGTON'S SKETCHES.
The Baronet had certainly one great advantage over all other bull and blunder makers: he seldom launched a blunder from which some fine aphorism or maxim might not be easily extracted. When a debate arose in the Irish house of commons on the vote of a grant which was recommended by Sir John Parnel, chancellor of the exchequer, as one not likely to be felt burdensome for many years to come—it was observed in reply, that the house had no just right to load posterity with a weighty debt for what could in no degree operate to their advantage. Sir Boyle, eager to defend the measures of government, immediately rose, and in a very few words, put forward the most unanswerable argument which human ingenuity could possibly devise. "What, Mr. Speaker!" said he, "and so we are to beggar ourselves for fear of vexing posterity! Now, I would ask the honorable gentleman, and this still more honorable house, why we should put ourselves out of our way for posterity: for what has posterity done for us?"
Sir Boyle, hearing the roar of laughter which of course followed this sensible blunder, but not being conscious that he had said anything out of the way, was rather puzzled, and conceived that the house had misunderstood him. He therefore begged leave to explain, as he apprehended that gentlemen had entirely mistaken his words: he assured the house that "by posterity, he did not at all mean our ancestors, but those who were to come immediately after them." Upon hearing this explanation, it was impossible to do any serious business for half an hour.
Sir Boyle Roche was induced by government to fight as hard as possible for the union: so he did, and I really believe fancied, by degrees, that he was right. On one occasion, a general titter arose at his florid picture of the happiness which must proceed from this event. "Gentlemen," said Sir Boyle, "may titther, and titther, and titther, and may think it a bad measure; but their heads at present are hot, and will so remain till they grow cool again; and so they can't decide right now; but when the day of judgment comes, then honorable gentlemen will be satisfied at this most excellent union. Sir, there is no Levitical degrees between nations, and on this occasion I can see neither sin nor shame in marrying our own sister."
He was a determined enemy to the French revolution, and seldom rose in the house for several years without volunteering some abuse of it. "Mr. Speaker," said he, in a mood of this kind, "if we once permitted the villanous French masons to meddle with the buttresses and walls of our ancient constitution, they would never stop, nor stay, Sir, till they brought the foundation-stones tumbling down about the ears of the nation! There," continued Sir Boyle, placing his hand earnestly on his heart, his powdered head shaking in unison with his loyal zeal, while he described the probable consequences of an invasion of Ireland by the French republicans; "There Mr. Speaker! if those Gallican villains should invade us, Sir, 'tis on that very table, may-be, these honorable members might see their own destinies lying in heaps a-top of one another!' Here perhaps, Sir, the murderous Marshallaw-men (Marseillois) would break in, cut us to mince-meat, and throw our bleeding heads upon that table, to stare us in the face!"
Sir Boyle, on another occasion, was arguing for the habeas corpus suspension bill in Ireland: "It would surely be better, Mr. Speaker," said he, "to give up not only a part, but, if necessary, even the whole, of our constitution, to preserve the remainder!"
"I cannot conceive," said one nobleman to another, "how you manage; my estate is better than yours, yet you live better than I do."
"My lord, I have a place."
"A place! I never heard of it; what place?"
"I am my own steward."
Many years ago, while a clergyman on the coast of Cornwall was in the midst of his sermon, the alarm was given, A wreck! a wreck! The congregation, eager for their prey, were immediately making off, when the parson solemnly entreated them to hear only five words more. This arrested their attention until the preacher, throwing off his canonicals, descended from the pulpit, exclaiming, "Now, let's all start fair!"
An Irishman meeting his friend, said, "I've just met our old acquaintance Patrick, and he's grown so thin, I could hardly know him. You are thin, and I am thin; but he is thinner than both of us put together."
A poor curate for his Sunday dinner sent his servant to a chandler's shop, kept by one Paul, for bacon and eggs on credit. This being refused, the damsel, as she had nothing to cook, thought she might as well go to church, and entered as her master, in the midst of his discourse, referring to the apostle, repeated, "What says Paul?" The good woman, supposing the question addressed to her, answered, "Paul says, Sir, that he'll give you no more trust till you pay your old score."
A person of this description, seated with his pot companions, was in the midst of one of his best stories, when he was suddenly called away to go on board of a vessel, in which he was to sail for Jamaica. Returning in about a twelvemonth, he resumed his old seat, among his cronies. "Well, gentlemen," proceeded he, "as I was saying——"
An Irish Peer, who sports a ferocious pair of whiskers, meeting a celebrated barrister, the latter asked, "When do you mean to put your whiskers on the peace establishment?" His lordship answered, "When you put your tongue on the civil list."
"What are you writing such a big hand for, Pat?" "Why, you see my grandmother's dafe, and I'm writing a loud letter to her."
A peasant, being at confession, accused himself of having stolen some hay. The father-confessor asked him how many bundles he had taken from the stack: "That is of no consequence," replied the peasant; "you may set it down a wagon-load; for my wife and I are going to fetch the remainder soon."
A man driving a number of cattle to Boston, one of his cows went into a barn-yard, where there stood a young lad. The drover calls to the boy, "Stop that cow, my lad, stop that cow." "I am no constable, Sir." "Turn her out then." "She is right side out now, Sir." "Well, speak to her then." The boy took off his hat, and very handsomely addressed the cow, with "Your servant, madam." The drover rode into the yard, and drove the cow out himself.
A person was boasting that he was sprung from a high family in Ireland. "Yes," said a bystander, "I have seen some of the same family so high that their feet could not touch the ground."
"Mr. Jenkins, will it suit you to settle that old account of yours?"
"No, Sir, you are mistaken in the man, I am not one of the old settlers."
A lad, standing by while his father lost a large sum at play, burst into tears. On being asked the cause, "O Sir," answered he, "I have read that Alexander wept because his father Philip gained so many conquests that he would leave him nothing to gain; I on the contrary weep for fear that you will leave me nothing to lose."
A gentleman passing through Clement's Inn, and receiving abuse from some impudent clerks, was advised to complain to the Principal, which he did thus: "I have been abused here, by some of the rascals of this inn, and I come to acquaint you of it, as I understand you are the Principal."
Lord Lyttleton asked a clergyman the use of his pulpit for a young divine he had brought down with him. "I really know not," said the parson, "how to refuse your Lordship; but if the gentleman preach better than I, my congregation will be dissatisfied with me afterwards; and if he preach worse, he is not fit to preach at all."
A heretic in medicine being indisposed, his physician happened to call. Being told that the doctor was below, he said, "Tell him to call another time; I am unwell, and can't see him now."
Who is not carried back to good old times as he reads this sketch of Connecticut goin' to meetin' fifty years ago? It is a genuine story contributed to the Drawer:
"In the early part of the ministry of Rev. Jehu C——k, who preached many years in one of the pleasant towns in the western part of Connecticut, it was the custom of many of the good ladies from the distant parts of his parish to bring with them food, which they ate at noon; or as they used to say, 'between the intermission.' Some brought a hard-boiled egg, some a nut-cake, some a sausage; but one good woman, who had tried them all, and found them all too dry, brought some pudding and milk. In order to bring it in a dish from which it would not spill over on the road, and yet be convenient to eat from, she took a pitcher with a narrow neck at the top, but spreading at the bottom. Arrived at the meeting-house, she placed it under the seat. The exercises of the day soon commenced, and the old lady became wholly rapt in her devotional feelings. Though no philosopher, she knew by practice—as many church-goers seem to have learned—that she could receive and 'inwardly digest' the sermon by shutting her eyes, and opening her mouth, and allowing all her senses to go to sleep. While thus prepared, and lost to all external impressions, she was suddenly startled by a rustling and splashing under the seat. She had no time to consider the cause before she discovered her dog, Put, backing out with the neck of the pitcher over his head, and the pudding and milk drizzling out. Poor Put had been fixing his thoughts on material objects alone; and taking advantage of the quietness of the occasion, had crept under the seat of his mistress, where he was helping himself to a dinner. His head had glided easily through the narrow portion of the pitcher; but, when quite in, it was as securely fixed as an eel in a pot. Unable to extricate himself, he had no alternative but to be smothered or back out. The old lady bore the catastrophe in no wise quietly. A thousand terrible thoughts rushed into her mind; the ludicrous appearance of the dog and pitcher, the place, the occasion, the spattering of her garments, the rascally insult of the puppy—but, above all, the loss of her 'Sabber-day' dinner. At the top of her voice she cried,
"'Get out, Put! get out! Oh, Jehu! I'm speakin' right out in meetin'! Oh! I'm talkin' all the time!'
"The scene that followed is not to be described. The frightened old lady seized her dog and pitcher, and rushed out of meeting; the astonished preacher paused in the midst of his discourse, while the whole congregation were startled out of their propriety by the explosion; and it was some time before order and the sermon were again resumed."
Armond, the great comedian, had a great curiosity to see Louis XIV. in chapel, and accordingly presented himself one morning during service at the door. The sentinel refused to admit him.
"But, friend," said Armond, "you must let me pass; I am his majesty's barber."
"Ah, that may be," said the sentinel, "but the king does not shave in church."
"Where did you get so much money, Isaac?" said Mrs. Partington, as he shook a half handful of copper cents before her, grinning all the while like a rogue that he is; "have you found the hornicopia or has anybody given you a request?" She was a little anxious. "I got it from bets," said he, chucking them into the air, and allowing half of them to clatter and rattle about the floor with all the importance of dollars. "Got them from Bets, did you?" replied she; "and who is Bets that she should give you money?—she must be some low creature, or you would not speak of her so disrespectably. I hope you will not get led away by any desolate companions, Isaac, and become an unworthy membrane of society." How tenderly the iron-bowed spectacles beamed upon him! "I mean bets," said he, laughing, "that I won on Burlingame." "Dear me!" she exclaimed, "how could you do so when gaming is such a horrid habit? Why, sometimes people are arranged at the bar for it." She was really uneasy until he explained that, in imitation of older ones, he had bet some cents on Burlingame and had won.
At a late court, a man and his wife brought cross actions, each charging the other with having committed assault and battery. On investigation, it appeared that the husband had pushed the door against the wife, and the wife in turn pushed the door against the husband. A gentleman of the bar remarked that he could see no impropriety in a man and his wife a-door-ing each other.
Charles Lamb once, while riding in company with a lady, descried a party denuded for swimming a little way off. He remarked: "Those girls ought to go to a more retired place." "They are boys," replied the lady. "You may be right," rejoined Charlie, "I can't distinguish so accurately as you, at such a distance."
"Sallie," said a young man to his red-haired sweetheart, "keep your head away from me; you will set me on fire."
"No danger," was the contemptuous answer, "you are too green to burn."
A Gascon was vaunting one day, that in his travels he had been caressed wherever he went, and had seen all the great men throughout Europe. "Have you seen the Dardanelles?" inquired one of the company. "Parbleu!" says he; "I most surely have seen them, when I dined with them several times."
The force of emphasis is clearly shown in the following brief colloquy, between two lawyers:
"Sir," demanded one, indignantly, "do you imagine me to be a scoundrel?"
"No, Sir," said the other coolly, "I do not imagine you to be one."
A man, endowed with an extraordinary capacity for forgetfulness, was tried some time ago, at Paris, for vagabondage. He gave his name as Auguste Lessite, and believed he was born at Bourges. As he had forgotten his age, the registry of all the births in that city, from 1812 to 1822, was consulted, but only one person of the name of Lessite had been born there during that time, and that was a girl.
"Are you sure your name is Lessite?" asked the judge.
"Well, I thought it was, but maybe it ain't."
"Are you confident you were born at Bourges?"
"Well, I always supposed I was, but I shouldn't wonder if it was somewhere else."
"Where does your family live at present?"
"I don't know; I've forgotten."
"Can you remember ever having seen your father and mother?"
"I can't recollect to save myself; I sometimes think I have, and then again I think I haven't."
"What trade do you follow?"
"Well, I am either a tailor or a cooper, and for the life of me I can't tell which: at any rate, I'm either one or the other."
An Irish footman carrying a basket of game from his master to his friend, waited some time for the customary fee, but seeing no appearance of it, he scratched his head, and said, "Sir, if my master should say, Paddy, what did the gentleman give you?—what would your honor have me to tell him?"
I laid at my friend's house last night, and just as I laid me down to sleep, I heard a rumbling at the window of my chamber, which was just over the kitchen, a sort of portico, the top of which was just even with the floor of my room. Well, I just peeped up, and as the moon was just rising, I just saw the head of a man; so I got me up softly, just as I was, in my shirt, goes to where the pistols laid that I had just loaded, and laid them just within my reach. I hid myself behind the curtains, just as he was completely in the room. Just as I was about to lift my hand to shoot him, thinks I, would it be just to kill this here man, without one were sure he came with an unjust intention? so I just cried out hem! upon which he fell to the ground, and there he laid, and I could just see that he looked just as if he was dead; so I just asked him what business he had in that there room? Poor man! he could just speak, and said he had just come to see Mary!
To a gentleman who was continually lamenting the loss of his first wife before his second, she one day said, "Indeed, Sir, no one regrets her more than I do."
A polite young lady recently asserted that she had lived near a barn-yard, and that it was impossible for her to sleep in the morning, on account of the outcry made by a "gentleman hen."
The best hit we have lately seen at the rather American fashion of employing big crooked words, instead of little straight ones, is in the following dialogue between a highfalutin lawyer and a plain witness:
"Did the defendant knock the plaintiff down with malice prepense?"
"No, Sir; he knocked him down with a flat-iron."
"You misunderstand me, my friend; I want to know whether he attacked him with any evil intent?"
"O no, Sir, it was outside of the tent."
"No, no; I wish you to tell me whether the attack was at all a preconcerted affair?"
"No, Sir; it was not a free concert affair—it was at a circus."
A wealthy Jew, having made several ineffectual applications for leave to quit Berlin, at length sent a letter to the king imploring permission to travel for the benefit of his health, to which he received the following answer:
"Dear Ephraim,
"Nothing but death shall part us.
"FREDERICK."
When Woodward first played Sir John Brute, Garrick was present. A few days after, when they met, Woodward asked Garrick how he liked him in the part, adding, "I think I struck out some beauties in it." "I think," said Garrick, "that you struck out all the beauties in it."
Fredrick I. of Prussia, when a new soldier appeared on the parade, was wont to ask him, "How old are you?—how long have you been in my service?—have you received your pay and clothing?" A young Frenchman who had volunteered into the service, being informed by his officer of the questions which the monarch would ask, took care to have the answers ready. The king, seeing him in the ranks, unfortunately reversed the questions:
Q. How long have you been in my service?
A. Twenty-one years, and please your majesty.
Q. How old are you?
A. One year.
The king, surprised, said, "Either you or I must be a fool." The soldier, taking this for the third question, relative to his pay and clothing, replied, "Both, and please your majesty."
An Irish officer had the misfortune to be dreadfully wounded in one of the late battles in Holland. As he lay on the ground, an unlucky soldier, who was near him, and was also severely wounded, made a terrible howling, when the officer exclaimed, "What do you make such a noise for? Do you think there is nobody killed but yourself?"
"Mister, I say, I don't suppose you don't know of nobody who don't want to hire nobody to do nothing, don't you?" "Yes, I don't."
A person arrived from a voyage to the East Indies inquired of a friend after their mutual acquaintance, and, among the rest, one who had the misfortune to be hanged during his absence:
"How is Tom Moody?"
"He is dead."
"He was in the grocery line when I left this."
"He was in quite a different line when he died."
A Jamaica planter, with a nose as fiery and rubicund as that of the illuminating Bardolph, was taking his siesta after dinner, when a mosquito lighting on his proboscis, instantly flew back. "Aha! massa mosquito," cried Quacco, who was in attendance, "you burn your foot!"
In a very thin house in the country, an actress spoke very low in her communication with her lover. The actor, whose benefit it happened to be, exclaimed with a face of woeful humor, "My dear, you may speak out, there is nobody to hear us."
Louis XIV. traveling, met a priest riding post. Ordering him to stop, he asked hastily, "Whence? whither? for what?" He answered, "Bruges—Paris—a benefice." "You shall have it."
A gentleman having to fight a main in the country, gave charge to his servant to carry down two cocks. Pat put them together in a bag; on opening which, at his arrival, he was surprised to find one of them dead, and the other terribly wounded. Being rebuked by his master for putting them in the same bag, he said he thought there was no danger of them hurting each other, as they were going to fight on the same side.
An Irish soldier called out to his companion:
"Hollo! Pat, I have taken a prisoner."
"Bring him along, then; bring him along!"
"He won't come."
"Then come yourself."
"He won't let me."
A downright John Bull going into a coffee-house, briskly ordered a glass of brandy and water; "But," said he, "bring me none of your cursed French stuff." The waiter said respectfully, "Genuine British, Sir, I assure you."
A gentleman in the pit, at the representation of a certain tragedy, observed to his neighbor, he wondered that it was not hissed: the other answered, "People can't both yawn and hiss at once."
The late Caleb Whitfoord, finding his nephew, Charles Smith, playing the violin, the following hits took place:
W. I fear, Charles, you lose a great deal of time with this fiddling.
S. Sir, I endeavor to keep time.
W. You mean rather to kill time.
S. No, I only beat time.
A French gentleman congratulated Madame Denis on her performance of the part of Lara. "To do justice to that part," said she, "the actress should be young and handsome." "Ah, madam!" replied the complimenter, "you are a complete proof of the contrary."
In the campaign in Holland last war, a party marching through a swamp, was ordered to form two deep. A corporal immediately exclaimed, "I'm too deep already; I am up to the middle."
An uninformed Irishman, hearing the Sphinx alluded to in company, whispered to his neighbor, "Sphinx! who is that?" "A monster, man." "Oh!" said our Hibernian, not to seem unacquainted with his family, "a Munster-man! I thought he was from Connaught."
When the late Duchess of Kingston wished to be received at the Court of Berlin, she got the Russian minister there to mention her intention to his Prussian Majesty, and to tell him at the same time, "That her fortune was at Rome, her bank at Venice, but that her heart was at Berlin." The king replied, "I am sorry we are only intrusted with the worst part of her Grace's property."
A buck having his boots cleaned, threw down the money haughtily to the Irish shoe-black, who as he was going away said, "By my soul, all the polish you have is on your boots, and that I gave you."
A beggar importuned a lady for alms; she gave him a shilling. "God bless your ladyship!" said he, "this will prevent me from executing my resolution." The lady, alarmed, and thinking he meditated suicide, asked what he meant. "Alas, madam!" said he, "but for this shilling I should have been obliged to go to work."
A sailor being in a company where the shape of the earth was disputed, said, "Why look ye, gentlemen, they pretend to say the earth is round; now I have been all round it, and I, Jack Oakum, assure you it is as flat as a pancake."
Few persons in this part of the country are aware of the difference that exists between our manners and customs, and those of the people of the Western States. Their elections, their courts of justice, present scenes that would strike one with astonishment and alarm. If the jurors are not, as has been asserted, run down with dogs and guns, color is given to charges like this, by the repeated successful defiances of law and judges that occur, by the want of dignity and self-respect evinced by the judges themselves, and by the squabbles and brawls that take place between members of the bar. There is to be found occasionally there, however, a judge of decision and firmness, to compel decorum even among the most turbulent spirits, or at least to punish summarily all violations of law and propriety. The following circumstances which occurred in Kentucky were related to us by a gentleman who was an eye witness of the whole transaction.
Several years since, Judge R., a native of Connecticut, was holding a court at Danville. A cause of considerable importance came on, and a Mr. D., then a lawyer of considerable eminence, and afterwards a member of Congress, who resided in a distant part of the State, was present to give it his personal supervision. In the course of Mr. D.'s argument, he let fall some profane language, for which he was promptly checked and reprimanded by the Judge. Mr. D., accustomed to unrestrained license of tongue, retorted with great asperity, and much harshness of language.
"Mr. Clerk," said the Judge coolly, "put down twenty dollars fine to Mr. D."
"By ——," said Mr. D.; "I'll never pay a cent of it under heaven, and I'll swear as much as I ——please."
"Put down another fine of twenty dollars, Mr. Clerk."
"I'll see the devil have your whole generation," rejoined Mr. D., "before my pockets shall be picked by a cursed Yankee interloper."
"Another twenty dollar fine, Mr. Clerk."
"You may put on as many fines as you please, Mr. Judge, but by —— there's a difference between imposing and collecting, I reckon."
"Twenty dollars more, Mr. Clerk."
"Ha, ha!" laughed Mr. D. with some bitterness, "you are trifling with me, I see, Sir; but I can tell you I understand no such joking; and by ----, Sir, you will do well to make an end of it."
"Mr. Clerk," said the Judge with great composure, "add twenty dollars more to the fine, and hand the account to the Sheriff. Mr. D., the money must be paid immediately, or I shall commit you to prison."
The violence of the lawyer compelled the Judge to add another fine; and before night, the obstreperous barrister was swearing with all his might to the bare walls of the county jail. The session of the court was terminated, and the lawyer, seeing no prospect of escape through the mercy of the Judge, after a fortnight's residence in prison, paid his fine of a hundred and twenty dollars, and was released.
He now breathed nothing but vengeance.
"I'll teach the Yankee scoundrel," said he, "that a member of the Kentucky bar is not to be treated in this manner with impunity."
The Judge held his next court at Frankfort, and thither Mr. D. repaired to take revenge for the personal indignity he had suffered. Judge R. is as remarkable for resolute fearlessness as for talents, firmness, and integrity; and after having provided himself with defensive weapons, entered upon the discharge of his duties with the most philosophic indifference. On passing from his hotel to the court-house, the Judge noticed that a man of great size, and evidently of tremendous muscular strength, followed him so closely as to allow no one to step between. He observed also that Mr. D., supported by three or four friends, followed hard upon the heels of the stranger, and on entering the court room, posted himself as near the seat of the Judge as possible—the stranger meantime taking care to interpose his huge body between the lawyer and the Judge. For two or three days, matters went on this way; the stranger sticking like a burr to the Judge, and the lawyer and his assistants keeping as near as possible, but refraining from violence. At length, the curiosity of Judge R. to learn something respecting the purposes of the modern Hercules became irrepressible, and he invited him to his room, and inquired who he was, and what object he had in view in watching his movements thus pertinaciously.
"Why, you see," said the stranger, ejecting a quid of tobacco that might have freighted a small skiff, "I'm a ringtailed roarer from Big Sandy River; I can outrun, outjump, and outfight any man in Kentucky. They telled me in Danville, that this 'ere lawyer was comin down to give you a lickin. Now I hadn't nothin agin that, only he wan't a goin to give you fair play, so I came here to see you out, and now if you'll only say the word, we can flog him and his mates, in the twinkling of a quart pot."
Mr. D. soon learned the feeling in which the champion regarded him, and withdrew without attempting to execute his threats of vengeance upon the Judge.
On his entrance into Philadelphia, General Lafayette was accompanied in the barouche by the venerable Judge Peters. The dust was somewhat troublesome, and from his advanced age, &c., the General felt and expressed some solicitude lest his companion should experience inconvenience from it. To which he replied: General you do not recollect that I am a JUDGE—I do not regard the DUST, I am accustomed to it. The lawyers throw dust in my eyes almost every day in the court-house."
A physician calling one day on a gentleman who had been severely afflicted with the gout, found, to his surprise, the disease gone, and the patient rejoicing in his recovery over a bottle of wine. "Come along, doctor," exclaimed the valetudinarian, "you are just in time to taste this bottle of Madeira; it is the first of a pipe that has just been broached." "Ah!" replied the doctor, "these pipes of Madeira will never do; they are the cause of all your suffering." "Well, then," rejoined the gay incurable, "fill up your glass, for now that we have found out the cause, the sooner we get rid of it the better."
"Take a ticket, Sir, for the Widow and Orphans Fund of the Spike Society?" "Well, y-e-a-s!—don't care much though for the orphans, but I goes in strong for the widows!"
Mrs. Partington, after listening to the reading of an advertisement for a young ladies' boarding school, said:
"For my part, I can't deceive what on airth eddication is coming to. When I was young, if a girl only understood the rules of distraction, provision, multiplying, replenishing, and the common dominator, and knew all about the rivers and their obituaries, the covenants and domitories, the provinces and the umpires, they had eddication enough. But now they are to study bottomy, algierbay, and have to demonstrate supposition of sycophants of circuses, tangents and Diogenes and parallelogramy, to say nothing about the oxhides, corostics, and abstruse triangles!" Thus saying, the old lady leaned back in her chair, her knitting work fell in her lap, and for some minutes she seemed in meditation.
A certain General of the United States Army, supposing his favorite horse dead, ordered an Irishman to go and skin him.
"What! is Silver Tail dead?" asked Pat.
"What is that to you?" said the officer, "do as I bid you, and ask me no questions."
Pat went about his business, and in about two hours returned.
"Well, Pat, where have you been all this time?" asked the general.
"Skinning your horse, your honor."
"Did it take you two hours to perform the operation?"
"No, your honor, but then you see it took me about half an hour to catch the horse."
"Catch him! Fires and furies—was he alive?"
"Yes, your honor, and I could not skin him alive, you know."
"Skin him alive! did you kill him?"
"To be sure I did, your honor—and sure you know I must obey orders without asking questions."
As a nobleman was receiving from Louis XIII. the investiture of an Ecclesiastical Order, and was saying, as is usual on that occasion, Domine, non sum dignus.—"Lord, I am not worthy." "I know that well enough," replied the king, "but I could not resist the importunity of my cousin Cardinal Richelieu, who pressed me to give it you."
At an election, a candidate solicited a vote.
"I would rather vote for the devil than you," was the reply.
"But in case your friend is not a candidate," said the solicitor, "might I then count on your assistance?"
An anecdote, illustrative of the wit of Irish "jarveys," is going the rounds in Dublin. Mr. —— is a man of aldermanic proportions. He chartered an outside car, t'other day, at Island Bridge Barrack, and drove to the post-office. On arriving he tendered the driver sixpence, which was strictly the fare, though but scant remuneration for the distance. The jarvey saw at a glance the small coin, but in place of taking the money which Mr. ——held in his hands, he busied himself putting up the steps of the vehicle, and then, going to the well at the back of the car, took thence a piece of carpeting, from which he shook ostentatiously the dust, and straightway covered his horse's head with it. After doing so he took the "fare" from the passenger, who, surprised at the deliberation with which the jarvey had gone through the whole of these proceedings, inquired, "Why did you cover the horse's head?" To which the jarvey, with a humorous twinkle of his eye, and to the infinite amusement of approving bystanders, replied, "Why did I cover the horse's head? Is that what you want to know? Well, because I didn't want to let the dacent baste see that he carried so big a load so far for sixpence?" It should be added, in justice to the worthy citizen, that a half crown immediately rewarded the witty jarvey for his ready joke.
A gentleman complained that his apothecary had so stuffed him with drugs, that he was sick for a fortnight after he was quite well.
The captain of a man of war lost his chaplain. The first lieutenant, a Scotchman, announced his death to his lordship, adding he was sorry to inform him that the chaplain died a Roman Catholic. "Well, so much the better," said his lordship. "Oot awa, my lord, how can you say so of a British clergyman?" "Why, because I believe I am the first captain that ever could boast of a chaplain who had any religion at all."
A counsel, examining a very young lady, who was a witness in a case of assault, asked her, if the person who was assaulted did not give the defendant very ill language, and utter words so bad that he, the learned counsel, had not impudence enough to repeat? She replied in the affirmative. "Will you, Madam, be kind enough," said he, "to tell the Court what these words were?" "Why, Sir," replied she, "if you have not impudence enough to speak them, how can you suppose that I have?"
A lady came up one day to the keeper of the light-house near Plymouth, which is a great curiosity. "I want to see the light-house," said the lady. "It cannot be complied with," was the reply. "Do you know who I am, Sir?" "No, Madam." "I am the Captain's lady." "If you were his wife, Madam, you could not see it without his order!"
A pragmatical fellow, who travelled for a mercantile house in town, entering an inn at Bristol, considered the traveling room beneath his dignity, and required to be shown to a private apartment; while he was taking refreshment, the good hostess and her maid were elsewhere discussing the point, as to what class their customer belonged. At length the bill was called for, and the charges declared to be enormous. "Sixpence for an egg! I never paid such a price since I traveled for the house!" "There!" exclaimed the girl, "I told my mistress I was sure, Sir, that you was no gentleman."
Another gentleman going into a tavern on the Strand, called for a glass of brandy and water, with an air of great consequence, and after drinking it off, inquired what was to pay? "Fifteen pence, Sir," said the waiter. "Fifteen pence! fellow, why that is downright imposition: call your master." The master appeared, and the guest was remonstrating, when "mine host" stopped him short, by saying, "Sir, fifteen pence is the price we charge to gentlemen; if any persons not entitled to that character trouble us, we take what they can afford, and are glad to get rid of them."
A person who had resided some time on the coast of Africa, was asked if he thought it possible to civilize the natives? "As a proof of the possibility of it," said he, "I have known negroes who thought as little of a lie or an oath as any European whatever."
"I and Disraeli put up at the same tavern last night," said a dandified snob, the other day. "It must have been a house of accommodation then for man and beast," replied a bystander.
A noble, but not a learned lord, having been suspected to be the author of a very severe but well written pamphlet against a gentleman high in office, he sent him a challenge. His lordship professed his innocence, assuring the gentleman that he was not the author; but the other would not be satisfied without a denial under his hand. My lord therefore took the pen and began, "This is to scratify, that the buk called the ——" "Oh, my lord!" said the gentleman, "I am perfectly satisfied that your lordship did not write the book."
Charles V., speaking of the different languages of Europe, thus described them: "The French is the best language to speak to one's friend—the Italian to one's mistress—the English to the people—the Spanish to God—and the German to a horse."
Why is a man eating soup with a fork like another kissing his sweetheart? Do you give it up?
Because it takes so long to get enough of it.
Bob Pickering, short, squat, and squinting, with a yellow "wipe" round his "squeeze," was put to the bar on violent suspicion of dog-stealing.
Mr. Davis, Silk-mercer, Dover-street, Piccadilly, said:—About an hour before he entered the office, while sitting in his parlor, he heard a loud barking noise, which he was convinced was made by a favorite little dog, his property. He went out, and in the passage caught the prisoner in the act of conveying it into the street in his arms.
Mr. Dyer: What have you to say? You are charged with attempting to steal the dog.
Prisoner: (affecting a look of astonishment)—Vot, me steal a dog? Vy, I'm ready and villing to take my solomon hoth 'at I'm hinnocent of sitch an hadwenture. Here's the factotal of the consarn as I'm a honest man. I vos a coming along Hoxfud-street, ven I seed this here poor dumb hanimal a running about vith not nobody arter him, and a looking jest as if he vas complete lost. Vhile I vos in this here sittivation, a perfect gentleman comes up to me, and says he, "Vot a cussed shame," says he, "that 'ere handsome young dog should be vithout a nateral pertectur! I'm blow'd, young man," says he, "if I vos you if I vouldn't pick it up and prewent the wehicles from a hurting on it; and," says he, "I'd adwise you, 'cause you looks so werry honest and so werry respectable, to take pity on the poor dumb dog and go and buy it a ha'porth of wittles." Vell, my lord, you see I naterally complied vith his demand, and vos valking avay vith it for to look for a prime bit of bowwow grub, ven up comes this here good gentleman, and vants to swear as how I vos arter prigging on it!
Mr. Dyer: How do you get your living?
Prisoner: Vorks along vith my father and mother—and lives vith my relations wot's perticler respectable.
Mr. Dyer: Policeman, do you know anything of the prisoner?
Policeman: The prisoner's three brothers were transported last session, and his mother and father are now in Clerkenwell. The prisoner has been a dog-stealer for years.
Prisoner: Take care vot you say—if you proves your vords, vy my carrecter vill be hingered, and I'm blowed if you shan't get a "little vun in" ven I comes out of quod.
Mr. Dyer: What is the worth of the dog?
Mr. Davis: It is worth five pounds, as it is of a valuable breed.
Prisoner: There, your vership, you hear it's a waluable dog—now is it feasible as I should go for to prig a dog wot was a waluable hanimal?
The magistrate appeared to think such an occurrence not at all unlikely, as he committed him to prison for three months.
A Scotchman who put up at an inn, was asked in the morning how he slept. "Troth, man," replied Donald, "no very weel either, but I was muckle better aff than the bugs, for deil a ane o' them closed an e'e the hale nicht."
A Small-made man, with a carefully cultivated pair of carroty-colored mustaches, whose style of seedy toggery presented a tolerably good imitation of a "Polish militaire," came before the commissioners to establish his legal right to fifteen pence, the price charged for a whole-length likeness of one Mister Robert White, a member of the "black and thirsty" fraternity of coalheavers.
The complainant called himself Signor Johannes Benesontagi, but from all the genuine characteristics of Cockayne which he carried about him, it was quite evident he had Germanized his patronymic of John Benson to suit the present judicious taste of the "pensive public."
Signor Benesontagi, a peripatetic professor of the "fine arts," it appeared was accustomed to visit public-houses for the purpose of caricaturing the countenances of the company, at prices varying from five to fifteen pence. In pursuit of his vocation he stepped into the "Vulcan's Head," where a conclave of coalheavers were accustomed nightly to assemble, with the double view of discussing politics and pots of Barclay's entire. He announced the nature of his profession, and having solicited patronage, he was beckoned into the box where the defendant was sitting, and was offered a shilling for a full-length likeness. This sum the defendant consented to enlarge to fifteen pence, provided the artist would agree to draw him in "full fig:"—red velvet smalls—nankeen gaiters—sky-blue waistcoat—canary wipe—and full-bottomed fantail. The bargain was struck and the picture finished, but when presented to the sitter, he swore "he'd see the man's back open and shet afore he'd pay the wally of a farden piece for sitch a reg'lar 'snob' as he was made to appear in the portrait."
The defendant was hereupon required to state why he refused to abide by the agreement.
"Vy, my lords and gemmen," said Coaly, "my reasons is this here. That 'ere covey comes into the crib vhere I vos a sitting blowing a cloud behind a drop of heavy, and axes me if as how I'd have my picter draw'd. Vell, my lords, being a little 'lumpy,' and thinking sitch a consarn vould please my Sall, I told him as I'd stand a 'bob,' and be my pot to his'n, perwising as he'd shove me on a pair of prime welwet breeches wot I'd got at home to vear a Sundays. He said he vould, and 'at it should be a 'nout-a-nout' job for he'd larnt to draw phisogomony under Sir Peter Laurie."
"It's false!" said the complainant, "the brother artist I named was Sir Thomas Lawrence."
"Vere's the difference?" asked the coalheaver. "So, my lords, this here persecutor goes to vork like a Briton, and claps this here thingamy in my fist, vich ain't not a bit like me, but a blessed deal more likerer a bull with a belly-ache." (Laughter.)
The defendant pulled out a card and handed it to the bench. On inspection it was certainly a monstrous production, but it did present an ugly likeness of the coalheaver. The commissioners were unanimously of opinion it was a good fifteen-penny copy of the defendant's countenance.
"'Taint a bit like me?" said the defendant, angrily. "Vy, lookee here, he's draw'd me vith a bunch of ingans a sticking out of my pocket. I'm werry fond of sitch wegetables, but I never carries none in my pockets."
"A bunch of onions!" replied the incensed artist—"I'll submit it to any gentleman who is a real judge of the 'fine arts,' whether that (pointing to the appendage) can be taken for any thing else than the gentleman's watch-seals."
"Ha! ha! ha!" roared the coalheaver; "my votch-seals! Come, that's a good 'un—I never vore no votch-seals, 'cause I never had none—so the pictur can't be like me."
The commissioners admitted the premises, but denied the conclusion; and being of opinion that the artist had made out his claim, awarded the sum sought, and costs.
The defendant laid down six shillings one by one with the air of a man undergoing the operation of having so many teeth extracted, and taking up his picture, consoled himself by saying, that "pr'aps his foreman, Bill Jones, vould buy it, as he had the luck of vearing a votch on Sundays."
Soon after Whitefield landed in Boston, on his second visit to this country, he and Dr. Chauncey met in the street, and, touching their hats with courteous dignity, bowed to each other. "So you have returned, Mr. Whitefield, have you?" He replied, "Yes, Reverend Sir, in the service of the Lord." "I am sorry to hear it," said Chauncey. "So is the Devil!" was the answer given, as the two divines, stepping aside at a distance from each other, touched their hats and passed on.
"You see, grandma, we perforate an aperture in the apex, and a corresponding aperture in the base; and by applying the egg to the lips, and forcibly inhaling the breath, the shell is entirely discharged of its contents."
"Bless my soul," cried the old lady, "what wonderful improvements they do make! Now in my young days we just made a hole in each end and sucked."
The landlord of an hotel at Brighton entered, in an angry mood, the sleeping apartment of a boarder, and said, "Now, Sir, I want you to pay your bill, and you must. I've asked you for it often enough; and I tell you now, that you don't leave my house till you pay it!" "Good!" said his lodger; "just put that in writing; make a regular agreement of it; I'll stay with you as long as I live!"
Mistress: "I think, cook, we must part this day month."
Cook: (in astonishment)—"Why, ma'am? I am sure I've let you 'ave your own way in most everything?"
A son of Erin, while hunting for rabbits, came across a jackass in the woods, and shot him.
"By me soul and St. Patrick," he exclaimed, "I've shot the father of all the rabbits."
An action in the Court of Common Pleas, in 1794, between two Billingsgate fishwomen, afforded two junior Barristers an opportunity of displaying much small wit.
The counsel for the plaintiff stated, that his client, Mrs. Isaacs, labored in the humble, but honest vocation of a fishwoman, and that while she was at Billingsgate market, making those purchases, which were afterwards to furnish dainty meals to her customers, the defendant Davis grossly insulted her, and in the presence of the whole market people, called her a thief, and another, if possible, still more opprobrious epithet. The learned counsel expatiated at considerable length on the value and importance of character, and the contempt, misery, and ruin, consequent upon the loss of it. "Character, my lord," continued he, "is as dear to a fishwoman, as it is to a duchess. If 'the little worm we tread on feels a pang as great as when a giant dies;' if the vital faculties of a sprat are equal to those of a whale; why may not the feelings of an humble retailer of 'live cod,' and 'dainty fresh salmon,' be as acute as those of the highest rank in society?" Another aggravation of this case, the learned counsel said, was, that his client was an Old Maid; with what indignation, then, must she hear that foul word applied to her, used by the Moor of Venice to his wife? His client was not vindictive, and only sought to rescue her character, and be restored to that place in society she had so long maintained.
The Judge inquired if that was the sole object of the plaintiff, or was it not rather baiting with a sprat to catch a herring?
Two witnesses proved the words used by the defendant.
The counsel for the defendant said, his learned brother on the opposite side had been floundering for some time, and he could not but think that Mrs. Isaacs was a flat fish to come into court with such an action. This was the first time he had ever heard of a fishwoman complaining of abuse. The action originated at Billingsgate, and the words spoken (for he would not deny that they had been used) were nothing more than the customary language, the lex non scripta, by which all disputes were settled at that place. If the court were to sit for the purpose of reforming the language at Billingsgate, the sittings would be interminable, actions would be as plentiful as mackerel at midsummer, and the Billingsgate fishwomen would oftener have a new suit at Guildhall, than on their backs. Under these circumstances, the learned counsel called on the jury to reduce the damages to a shrimp.
Verdict. Damages, One Penny.
Richard Penn, one of the proprietors, and of all the governors of Pennsylvania, under the old régime, probably the most deservedly popular,—in the commencement of the revolution, (his brother John being at that time governor,) was on the most familiar and intimate terms with a number of the most decided and influential whigs; and, on a certain occasion, being in company with several of them, a member of Congress observed, that such was the crisis, "they must all hang together." "If you do not, gentlemen," said Mr. Penn, "I can tell you, that you will be very apt to hang separately."
In the somewhat famous case of Mrs. Bogden's will, which was tried in the Supreme Court some years ago, Mr. Webster appeared as counselor for the appellant. Mrs. Greenough, wife of Rev. William Greenough, late of West Newton, a tall, straight, queenly-looking woman with a keen black eye—a woman of great self-possession and decision of character, was called to the stand as a witness on the opposite side from Mr. Webster. Webster, at a glance, had the sagacity to foresee that her testimony, if it contained anything of importance, would have great weight with the court and jury. He therefore resolved, if possible, to break her up. And when she answered to the first question put to her, "I believe—" Webster roared out:
"We don't want to hear what you believe; we want to hear what you know!"
Mrs. Greenough replied, "That is just what I was about to say, Sir," and went on with her testimony.
And notwithstanding his repeated efforts to disconcert her, she pursued the even tenor of her way, until Webster, becoming quite fearful of the result, arose apparently in great agitation, and drawing out his large snuff-box thrust his thumb and finger to the very bottom, and carrying the deep pinch to both nostrils, drew it up with a gusto; and then extracting from his pocket a very large handkerchief, which flowed to his feet as he brought it to the front, he blew his nose with a report that rang distinct and loud through the crowded hall.
Webster: Mrs. Greenough, was Mrs. Bogden a neat woman?
Mrs. Greenough: I cannot give you very full information as to that, Sir; she had one very dirty trick.
Webster: What was that, Ma'am?
Mrs. Greenough: She took snuff!
The roar of the court-house was such that the future defender of the Constitution subsided, and neither rose nor spoke again until after Mrs. Greenough had vacated her chair for another witness—having ample time to reflect upon the inglorious history of the man who had a stone thrown on his head by a woman.
"Daddy, I want to ask you a question." "Well, my son." "Why is neighbor Smith's liquor shop like a counterfeit dollar?" "I can't tell, my son." "Because you can't pass it," said the boy.
A female writer says, "Nothing looks worse on a lady than darned stockings." Allow us to observe that stockings which need darning look much worse than darned ones—Darned if they don't!
It is astonishing how "toddy" promotes independence. A Philadelphia old "brick," lying, a day or two since, in the gutter in a very spiritual manner, was advised in a friendly way to economize, as "flour was going up." "Let it go up," said old bottlenose, "I kin git as 'high' as flour kin—any day."
A gentleman in the Highlands of Scotland was attacked with a dropsy, brought on by a too zealous attachment to his bottle; and it gained upon him, at length, to such a degree, that he found it necessary to abstain entirely from all spirituous liquors. Yet though discharged from drinking himself, he was not hindered from making a bowl of punch to his friends. He was sitting at this employment, when his physicians, who had been consulting in an adjoining room, came in to tell him, that they had just come to a resolution to tap him. "You may tap me as you please," said the old gentleman, "but ne'er a thing was ever tapped in my house that lasted long."
The saying was but too true, he was tapped that evening, and died the next day.
A few weeks ago a "sporting character" looked in at the Hygeia Hotel, just to see if he could fall in with any subjects, but finding none, and understanding from the respectful proprietor, Mr. Parks, that he could not be accommodated with a private room wherein to exercise the mysteries of his craft, he felt the time begin to hang heavy on his hands; so in order to dispel ennui he took out a pack of cards and began to amuse the by-standers in the bar-room with a number of ingenious tricks with them, which soon drew a crowd around him. "Now," said he, after giving them a good shuffle and slapping the pack down upon the table, "I'll bet any man ten dollars I can cut the Jack of hearts at the first attempt." Nobody seemed inclined to take him up, however, till at last a weather-beaten New England skipper, in a pea-jacket, stumped him by exclaiming, "Darned if I don't bet you! But stop; let me see if all's right." Then taking up and inspecting it, as if to see that there was no deception in it, he returned it to the table, and began to fumble about in a side pocket, first taking out a jack-knife, then a twist of tobacco, &c., till he produced a roll of bank notes, from which he took one of $10 and handed it to a by-stander; the gambler did the same, and taking out a pen-knife, and literally cutting the pack in two through the middle, turned with an air of triumph to the company, and demanded if he had not cut the Jack of hearts. "No, I'll be darned if you have!" bawled out Jonathan, "for here it is, safe and sound." At the same time producing the card from his pocket, whither he had dexterously conveyed it while pretending to examine the pack, to see if it was "all right." The company were convulsed with laughter, while the poor "child of chance" was fain to confess that "it was hard getting to windward of a Yankee."
Mr. Curran was once engaged in a legal argument; behind him stood his colleague, a gentleman whose person was remarkably tall and slender, and who had originally intended to take orders. The Judge observing that the case under discussion involved a question of ecclesiastical law; "Then," said Curran, "I can refer your lordship to a high authority behind me, who was once intended for the church, though in my opinion he was fitter for the steeple."
Col. Moore, a veteran politician of the Old Dominion, was a most pleasant and affable gentleman, and a great lisper withal. He was known by a great many, and professed to know many more; but a story is told of him in which he failed to convince either himself or the stranger of their previous acquaintance. All things to all men, he met a countryman, one morning, and in his usual hearty manner stopped and shook hands with him, saying—
"Why, how do you do, thir? am very glad to thee you; a fine day, thir, I thee you thill ride the old gray, thir."
"No, Sir, this horse is one I borrowed this morning."
"Oh! ah! Well, thir, how are the old gentleman and lady?"
"My parents have been dead about three years, Sir!"
"But how ith your wife, thir, and the children?"
"I am an unmarried man, Sir."
"Thure enough. Do you thill live on the old farm?"
"No, Sir; I've just arrived from Ohio, where I was born."
"Well, thir, I gueth I don't know you after all. Good morning, thir."
Neighbor T—— had a social party at his house a few evenings since, and the "dear boy," Charles, a five-year old colt, was favored with permission to be seen in the parlor.
"Pa" is somewhat proud of his boy, and Charles was of course elaborately gotten up for so great an occasion. Among other extras, the little fellow's hair was treated to a liberal supply of eau de cologne, to his huge gratification. As he entered the parlor, and made his bow to the ladies and gentlemen—
"Lookee here," said he proudly, "if any one of you smells a smell, that's me!"
The effect was decided, and Charles, having thus in one brief sentence delivered an illustrative essay on human vanity, was the hero of the evening.
A distinguished lawyer says, that in his young days, he taught a boy's school, and the pupils wrote compositions; he sometimes received some of a peculiar sort. The following are specimens:
"On Industry.—It is bad for a man to be idol. Industry is the best thing a man can have, and a wife is the next. Prophets and kings desired it long, and without the site. Finis."
"On the Seasons.—There is four seasons, Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter. They are all pleasant. Some people may like the Spring best, but as for me,—give me liberty, or give me death. The End."—Olive Branch.
An Irish housemaid who was sent to call a gentleman to dinner, found him engaged in using a tooth-brush. "Well, is he coming?" said the lady of the house, as the servant returned. "Yes, Ma'am, directly," was the reply; "he's just sharpening his teeth."
Between poets and prigs, though seemingly "wide as the poles asunder" in character, a strong analogy exists—and that list of "petty larceny rogues" would certainly be incomplete, which did not include the Parnassian professor. The difference, however, between Prigs and Poets appears to be—that the former hold the well-known maxim of "Honor among thieves" in reverence, and steal only from the public, while the latter, less scrupulous, steal unblushingly from one another. This truth is as old as Homer, and its proofs are as capable of demonstration as a mathematical axiom. Should the alliance between the two professions be questioned, the following case will justify our assertion.
Mike Smith, a ragged urchin, who, though hardly able to peep over a police bar, has been in custody more than a dozen times for petty thefts, was charged by William King, an industrious cobbler and ginger-beer merchant, with having stolen a bottle of "ginger-pop" from his stall.
The prosecutor declared the neighborhood in which his stall was situated—that more than Cretan Labyrinth called the "Dials"—was so infested with "young warmint" that he found it utterly impossible to turn one honest penny by his ginger-pop, for if his eyes were off his board for an instant, the young brigands who were eternally on the look-out, took immediate advantage of the circumstance, and on his next inspection, he was sure to discover that a bottle or two had vanished. While busily employed on a pair of boots that morning, he happened to cast his eyes where the ginger-pop stood, when, to his very great astonishment, he saw a bottle move off the board just for all the world as if it had possessed the power of locomotion. A second was about to follow the first, when he popped his head out at the door and the mystery was cleared up, for there he discovered the young delinquent making a rapid retreat on all-fours, with the "ginger-pop," the cork of which had flown out, fizzing from his breeches-pocket. After a smart administration of the strappado, he proceeded to examine the contents of his pinafore, which was bundled round him. This led to the discovery that the young urchin had been on a most successful forage for a dinner that morning. He had a delicate piece of pickled pork, a couple of eggs, half a loaf, part of a carrot, a china basin, and the lid of a teapot; all of which, on being closely pressed, he admitted were the result of his morning's legerdemain labor.
Mr. Dyer inquired into the parentage of the boy, and finding that they were quite unable, as well as unwilling, to keep him from the streets, ordered that he should be detained for the present.
The boy when removed to the lock-up room—a place which familiarity with had taught him to regard with indifference—amused himself by giving vent to a poetical inspiration in the following admonitory distich, which he scratched on the wall:
"Him as prigs wot isn't his'n—
Ven he's cotched—vill go to pris'n."
When Whitefield preached before the seamen at New York, he had the following bold apostrophe in his sermon:
"Well, my boys, we have a clear sky, and are making fine headway over a smooth sea, before a light breeze, and we shall soon lose sight of land. But what means this sudden lowering of the heavens, and that dark cloud arising from beneath the western horizon? Hark! Don't you hear distant thunder? Don't you see those flashes of lightning? There is a storm gathering! Every man to his duty! How the waves rise and dash against the ship! The air is dark! The tempest rages! Our masts are gone! The ship is on her beam ends! What next?"
It is said that the unsuspecting tars, reminded of former perils on the deep, as if struck by the power of magic, arose with united voices and minds, and exclaimed, "Take to the long boat."
A nobleman having given a grand party, his tailor was among the company, and was thus addressed by his lordship: "My dear Sir, I remember your face, but I forget your name." The tailor whispered in a low tone—"I made your breeches." The nobleman, taking him by the hand, exclaimed—"Major Breeches, I am happy to see you."
A tipsy loafer mistook a globe lamp with letters on it, for the queen of night: "I'm blessed," said he, "if somebody haint stuck an advertisement on the moon!"
Governor S—— was a splendid lawyer, and could talk a jury out of their seven senses. He was especially noted for his success in criminal cases, almost always clearing his client. He was once counsel for a man accused of horse-stealing. He made a long, eloquent, and touching speech. The jury retired, but returned in a few moments, and, with tears in their eyes, proclaimed the man not guilty. An old acquaintance stepped up to the prisoner and said:
"Jim, the danger is past; and now, honor bright, didn't you steal that horse?"
"Well, Tom, I've all along thought I took that horse; but since I've heard the Governor's speech, I don't believe I did!"
An Indian came to a certain "agency," in the northern part of Iowa, to procure some whiskey for a young warrior that had been bitten with a rattlesnake. At first the agent did not credit the story, but the earnestness of the Indian, and the urgency of the case, overcame his scruples, and turning to get the liquor, he asked the Indian how much he wanted.
"Four quarts," answered the Indian.
"Four quarts?" asked the agent in surprise; "so much as that?"
"Yes," replied the Indian, speaking through his set teeth, and frowning as savagely as though about to wage war against the snake tribe, "four quarts—snake very big."
Bob Smith and Bill Davis, a couple of boys in the full costume of the "order" chummy, were charged with the high crime and misdemeanor of having attempted to violate that portion of the British Constitution, contained in the act relating to the removal of rubbish, by carrying off a portion of the contents of Lord Derby's dusthole, the property of the dust contractor.
"Please your lordship's grace," said the dust contractor's deputy, "master and me has lately lost a hunaccountable lot o' dust off our beat, and as ve nat'rally know'd 'at it couldn't have vanished if no body had a prigged it, vy consekventlye I keeps a look out for them 'ere unlegal covies vot goes out a dusting on the cross. Vhile I vos out in Growener-skvare, I saw'd both these here two young criminals slip down his lordship's airy and begin a shoveling his lordship's stuff into von of their sackses. I drops on 'em in the werry hidentikle hact, and collers both on 'em vith master's property."
Mr. Conant: You hear the charge, my lads—what have you to say in defence?
Smith: Ve vorks for the house, my lud.
Mr. Conant: Is it your business to take away the dust?
Smith: No, my lud—ve're the rig'lar chimbly sveeps vot sveeps his ludship's chimblys. Both on us call'd on his ludship to arsk if his ludship's chimblys vonted sveeping—and ve larnt that they didn't; so, my lud, as ve happened to see a lady sifting cinders in his ludship's airy, ve arks'd her if she could be so werry hobliging as to let us have a shovelful. She granted our demand vith the greatest perliteness, and jest as ve vos about to cut our sticks, that there chap comes up and lugs us avay to this here hoffice.
Mr. Conant: The case is proved, and the act says you must be fined 10l. Have you got 10l. a-piece?
Smith: (grinning from ear to ear)—Me got ten pounds! I should like to see a cove vot ever had sitch a precious sum all at vonce. All as ever I got is threeha'pence-farden, and a bag of marbles; (to the other)—you got any capital, Bill?
Bill: Ain't got nuffin—spent my last brown on Vensday for a baked tater.
Mr. Conant looked over the act with a view of ascertaining if power had been granted to mitigate; but the legislature had so carefully provided for the enormity of the offence, that nothing less than the full penalty would, according to the act, satisfy the justice of the case.
The fine of 10l. each was imposed, or ten days' imprisonment.
A rather foolish man of great wealth, was asked one day, if he had his genealogical tree.
"I don't know," he replied; "I have a great many trees, and I dare say I have that one. I will ask my gardener."
In an Irish provincial journal there is an advertisement running thus:—
"Wanted—a handy laborer, who can plow a married man and a Protestant, with a son or daughter."
A Friend of ours was traveling lately, while afflicted with a very bad cough. He annoyed his fellow travelers greatly, till finally one of them remarked in a tone of displeasure—
"Sir, that is a very bad cough of yours."
"True, Sir," replied our friend, "but you will excuse me—it's the best I've got."
A Workman, who was mounted on a high scaffold to repair a town clock, fell from his elevated station, upon a man who was passing. The workman escaped unhurt, but the man upon whom he fell, died. The brother of the deceased accused the workman of murder, had him arrested, and brought to trial. He pursued him with the utmost malignity, and would not admit a word in his defence. At length the judge, provoked at his unfounded hostility, gave the following judgment:
"Let the accused stand in the same spot whereon the dead man stood, and let the brother mount the scaffold, to the workman's old place and fall upon him. Thus will justice be satisfied."
The brother withdrew his suit.
An Irish student was once asked what was meant by posthumous works. "They are such works," says the Paddy, "as a man writes after he is dead."
Knickerbocker Magazine picks up a good many good things. In the December number we find a story which runs thus:—"Judge B., of New Haven, is a talented lawyer and a great wag. He has a son, Sam, a graceless wight, witty, and, like his father fond of mint juleps and other palatable "fluids." The father and son were on a visit to Niagara Falls. Each was anxious to "take a nip," but (one for example, and the other in dread of hurting the old man's feelings) equally unwilling to drink in the presence of the other. "Sam," said the Judge, "I'll take a short walk—be back shortly." "All right," replied Sam, and after seeing the old gentleman safely around the corner, he walked out quickly, and ordered a julep at a bar-room. While in concocto, the Judge entered, and (Sam just then being back of a newspaper, and consequently viewing, though viewless,) ordered a julep. The second was compounded, and the Judge was just adjusting his tube for a cooling draught, when Sam stepped up, and taking up his glass, requested the bar-tender to take his pay for both juleps from the bill the old gentleman had handed out to him! The surprise of the Judge was only equalled by his admiration for his son's coolness; and he exclaimed, "Sam! Sam!—you need no julep to cool you!" Sam "allowed" that he didn't."
"Please, Sir," said a little beggar girl to her charitable patron, "you have given me a bad sixpence." "Never mind," was the reply, "you may keep it for your honesty."
A young man, who was a student in one of our colleges, being very vain of his knowledge of the Latin language, embraced every opportunity that offered, to utter short sentences in Latin before his more illiterate companions. An uncle of his, who was a seafaring man, having just arrived from a long voyage, invited his nephew to visit him on board of the ship. The young gentleman went on board, and was highly pleased with everything he saw. Wishing to give his uncle an idea of his superior knowledge, he tapped him on the shoulder, and pointing to the windlass, asked, "Quid est hoc?" His uncle, being a man who despised such vanity, took a chew of tobacco from his mouth, and throwing it in his nephew's face, replied, "Hoc est quid."
Mr. Bethel, an Irish counselor, as celebrated for his wit as his practice, was once robbed of a suit of clothes in rather an extraordinary manner. Meeting, on the day after, a brother barrister in the Hall of the Four Courts, the latter began to condole with him on his misfortune, mingling some expressions of surprise at the singularity of the thing. "It is extraordinary indeed, my dear friend," replied Bethel, "for without vanity, it is the first suit I ever lost."
An affectionate wife lamenting over her sick husband, he bade her dry her tears, for possibly he might recover. "Alas! my dear," said she, "the thought of it makes me weep."
A clergyman who is in the habit of preaching in different parts of the country, was not long since at an inn, where he observed a horse jockey trying to take in a simple gentleman, by imposing upon him a broken-winded horse for a sound one. The parson knew the bad character of the jockey, and taking the gentleman aside, told him to be cautious of the person he was dealing with. The gentleman finally declined the purchase, and the jockey, quite nettled, observed—"Parson, I had much rather hear you preach, than see you privately interfere in bargains between man and man, in this way." "Well," replied the parson, "if you had been where you ought to have been, last Sunday, you might have heard me preach." "Where was that?" inquired the jockey. "In the State Prison," returned the clergyman.
A gentleman who was severely cross-examined by Mr. Dunning, was repeatedly asked if he did not lodge in the verge of the court; at length he answered that he did. "And pray, Sir," said the counsel, "for what reason did you take up your residence in that place?" "To avoid the rascally impertinence of dunning," answered the witness.
A Paddy applied to work his passage on a canal, and was employed to lead the horses which drew the boat—on arriving at the place of destination, he swore, "that he would sooner go on foot, than work his passage in America."
According to his own account, was born in Malden, Massachusetts. "I was born," says he, (in his celebrated work, A Pikel for the Knowing Ones,) "1747, Jan. 22; on this day in the morning, a great snow storm in the signs of the seventh house; whilst Mars came forward, Jupiter stood by to hold the candle. I was born to be a great man."
Lord Dexter, after having served an apprenticeship to a leather dresser, commenced business in Newburyport, where he married a widow, who owned a house and a small piece of land; part of which, soon after the nuptials, was converted into a shop and tan-yard.
By application to his business, his property increased, and the purchase of a large tract of land near Penobscot, together with an interest which he bought in the Ohio Company's purchase, afforded him so much profit, as to induce him to buy up Public Securities at forty cents on the pound, which securities soon afterwards became worth twenty shillings on the pound.
His lordship at one time shipped a large quantity of warming pans to the West Indies, where they were sold at a great advance on prime cost, and used for molasses ladles. At another time, he purchased a large quantity of whalebone for ships' stays,—the article rose in value upon his hands, and he sold it to great advantage.
Property now was no longer the object of his pursuit: but popularity became the god of his idolatry. He was charitable to the poor, gave large donations to religious societies, and rewarded those who wrote in his praise.
His lordship about this time acquired his peculiar taste for style and splendor; and to enhance his own importance in the world, set up an elegant equipage, and at great cost, adorned the front of his house with numerous figures of illustrious personages.
By his order, a tomb was dug under his summer-house in his garden, during his life, which he mentions in "A Pikel for the Knowing Ones," in the following ludicrous style:
"Here will lie in this box the first lord in Americake, the first Lord Dexter made by the voice of hampsher state my brave fellows Affirmed it they give me the titel and so Let it gone for as much as it will fetch it wonte give me Any breade but take from me the Contrary fourder I have a grand toume in my garding at one of the grasses and the tempel of Reason over the toume and my coffen made and all Ready In my hous panted with white Lead inside and outside tuched with greane and bras trimings Eight handels and a gold Lock: I have had one mock founrel it was so solmon and there was so much Criing about 3000 spectators I say my hous is Eaqal to any mansion house in twelve hundred miles and now for sale for seven hundred pounds weight of Dollars by me
Timothy Dexter."
Lord Dexter believed in transmigration, sometimes; at others he was a deist. He died on the 22d day of Oct. 1806, in the 60th year of his age.
A husband telegraphed to his wife: "What have you got for breakfast, and how is the baby?" The answer came back, "Buckwheat cakes and the measles."
What tune is that which ladies never call for? Why, the spit-toon.
When is a lady's neck not a neck? When it is a little bare. (bear!)
When is music like vegetables? When there are two beats to the measure.
Why was the elephant the last animal going into Noah's ark? Because he waited for his trunk.
Why is a poor horse greater than Napoleon? Because in him there are many bony parts.
A lady wished a seat. A portly, handsome gentleman brought one and seated her. "Oh, you're a jewel," said she. "Oh, no," replied he, "I'm a jeweller—I have just set the jewel." Could there have been anything more gallant than that?
A speaker at a stump meeting out West, declared that he knew no East, no West, no North, no South.
"Then," said a tipsy bystander, "you ought to go to school and larn your geography."
"I wish," said a beautiful wife to her studious husband, "I wish I was a book." "I wish you were—an almanac," replied her lord, "and then I would get a new one every year." Just then the silk rustled.
"Blast your stingy old skin!" said a runner to a competitor, before a whole depot full of bystanders: "I knew you when you used to hire your children to go to bed without their suppers, and after they got to sleep you'd go up and steal their pennies to hire 'em with again the next night!"
The following story is told of a boy who was asked to take a jug and get some beer for his father, who had spent all his money for strong drink. "Give me the money, then, father," replied the son.
"My son, any body can get the beer with money, but to get it without money, that is a trick."
So the boy took the jug and went out. Shortly he returned, and placing the jug before his father, said, "Drink."
"How can I drink, when there is no beer in the jug?"
"To drink beer out of a jug," says the boy, "where there is beer, anybody could do that; but to drink beer out of a jug where there is no beer, that is a trick!"
A gentleman was one day arranging music for a young lady to whom he was paying his addresses.
"Pray, Miss D——," said he, "what time do you prefer?"
"Oh," she replied carelessly, "any time will answer, but the quicker the better."
There is a man who says he has been at evening parties out West, where the boys and girls hug so hard that their sides cave in. He says he has many of his own ribs broken that very way.
A professional beggar boy, some ten years of age, ignorant of the art of reading, bought a card to put on his breast, and appeared in the public streets as a "poor widow with eight small children."
"Does the razor take hold well?" inquired a darkey, who was shaving a gentleman from the country. "Yes," replied the customer, with tears in his eyes, "it takes hold first rate, but it don't let go worth a cent."
Cicero was of low birth, and Metellus was the son of a licentious woman. Metellus said to Cicero, "Dare you tell your father's name?" Cicero replied, "Can your mother tell yours?"
"Why, doctor," said a sick lady, "you give me the same medicine that you are giving my husband. Why is that?" "All right," replied the doctor, "what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander."
A minister was one Sabbath examining a Sunday school in catechism before the congregation. The usual question was put to the first girl, a strapper, who usually assisted her father, who was a publican, in waiting upon customers.
"What is your name?"
No reply.
"What is your name?" he repeated,
"None of your fun, Mr. Minister," said the girl; "you know my name well enough. Don't you say when you come to our house on a night, 'Bet, bring me some more ale?'"
The congregation, forgetting the sacredness of the place, were in a broad grin, and the parson looked daggers.
"Papa, can't I go to the zoologerical rooms to see the camomile fight the rhy-no-sir-ee-hoss?" "Sartin, my son, but don't get your trowsers torn. Strange, my dear, what a taste that boy has for nat'ral history. No longer ago than yesterday he had a pair of Thomas-cats hanging by their tails to the clothes line."
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