diff options
Diffstat (limited to '4793-h/4793-h.htm')
| -rw-r--r-- | 4793-h/4793-h.htm | 6426 |
1 files changed, 6426 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/4793-h/4793-h.htm b/4793-h/4793-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0fa6471 --- /dev/null +++ b/4793-h/4793-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,6426 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Fiend's Delight, by Ambrose Bierce</title> +<link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> +<style type="text/css"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +.p2 {margin-top: 2em;} + +p.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.center {text-align: center; + text-indent: 0em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.right {text-align: right; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +div.fig { display:block; + margin:0 auto; + text-align:center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em;} + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> + +</head> + +<body> + +<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Fiend’s Delight, by Dod Grile</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Fiend’s Delight</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Ambrose Bierce</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Pseudonym: Dod Grile</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: March 22, 2002 [eBook #4793]<br /> +[Most recently updated: February 18, 2022]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Charles Aldarondo</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FIEND’S DELIGHT ***</div> + +<div class="fig" style="width:45%;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="[Illustration]" /> +</div> + +<h1>The Fiend’s Delight</h1> + +<h2>by Dod Grile</h2> + +<h4>“Count that day lost whose low descending sun<br />Views from thy +hand no worthy action done.”</h4> + +<h5>New York: <br /><br />1873.</h5> + +<h4>TO THE IMMUTABLE AND INFALLIBLE GODDESS, GOOD TASTE,<br />IN GRATITUDE +FOR HER CONDEMNATION OF ALL SUPERIOR AUTHORS,<br />AND IN THE HOPE OF +PROPITIATING HER CREATORS AND EXPOUNDERS,<br /><br />This Volume is +reverentially<br />Dedicated BY HER DEVOUT WORSHIPPER,</h4> + +<h3>THE AUTHOR.</h3> + +<hr /> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#pref01">PREFACE</a><br /><br /></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#part01"><b>SOME FICTION</b></a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">One More Unfortunate</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">The Strong Young Man of Colusa</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">The Glad New Year</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">The Late Dowling, Senior</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">“Love’s Labour Lost”</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap06">A Comforter</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap07">Little Isaac</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap08">The Heels of Her</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap09">A Tale of Two Feet</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap10">The Scolliver Pig</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap11">Mr. Hunker’s Mourner</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap12">A Bit of Chivalry</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap13">The Head of the Family</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap14">Deathbed Repentance</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap15">The New Church that was not Built</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap16">A Tale of the Great Quake</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap17">Johnny</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap18">The Child’s Provider</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap19">Boys who Began Wrong</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap20">A Kansas Incident</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap21">Mr. Grile’s Girl</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap22">His Railway</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap23">Mr. Gish Makes a Present</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap24">A Cow-County Pleasantry</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap25">The Optimist, and What He Died Of</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap26">The Root of Education</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap27">Retribution</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap28">The Faithful Wife</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap29">Margaret the Childless</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap30">The Discomfited Demon</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap31">The Mistake of a Life</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap32">L. S.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap33">The Baffled Asian</a><br /><br /></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#part02"><b>TALL TALK</b></a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap34">A Call to Dinner</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap35">On Death and Immortality</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap36">Music—Muscular and Mechanical</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap37">The Good Young Man</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap38">The Average Parson</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap39">Did We Eat One Another?</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap40">Your Friend’s Friend</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap41">Le Diable est aux Vaches</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap42">Angels and Angles</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap43">A Wingless Insect</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap44">Pork on the Hoof</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap45">The Young Person</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap46">A Certain Popular Fallacy</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap47">Pastoral Journalism</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap48">Mendicity’s Mistake</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap49">Insects</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap50">Picnicking considered as a Mistake</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap51">Thanksgiving Day</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap52">Flogging</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap53">Reflections upon the Beneficent Influence of the Press</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap54">Charity</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap55">The Study of Human Nature</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap56">Additional Talk—Done in the Country</a><br /><br /></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#part03"><b>Current Journalings</b></a><br /><br /></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#part04"><b>OBITUARY NOTICES</b></a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap57">CHRISTIANS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap58">PAGANS</a><br /><br /></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#part05"><b>MUSINGS, PHILOSOPHICAL AND THEOLOGICAL</b></a><br /><br /></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#part06"><b>LAUGHORISMS</b></a><br /><br /></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#part07"><b>“ITEMS” FROM THE PRESS OF INTERIOR CALIFORNIA</b></a><br /><br /></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#part08"><b>POESY</b></a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap59">Ye Idyll of ye Hippopopotamus</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap60">Epitaph on George Francis Train</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap61">Jerusalem, Old and New</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap62">Communing with Nature</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap63">Conservatism and Progress</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap64">Inter Arma Silent Leges</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap65">Quintessence</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap66">Resurgam</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="pref01"></a>PREFACE</h2> + +<p> +The atrocities constituting this “cold collation” of diabolisms are +taken mainly from various Californian journals. They are cast in the American +language, and liberally enriched with unintelligibility. If they shall prove +incomprehensible on this side of the Atlantic, the reader can pass to the other +side at a moderately extortionate charge. In the pursuit of my design I think I +have killed a good many people in one way and another; but the reader will +please to observe that they were not people worth the trouble of leaving alive. +Besides, I had the interests of my collaborator to consult. In writing, as in +compiling, I have been ably assisted by my scholarly friend Mr. Satan; and to +this worthy gentleman must be attributed most of the views herein set forth. +While the plan of the work is partly my own, its spirit is wholly his; and this +illustrates the ascendancy of the creative over the merely imitative mind. +<i>Palmam qui meruit ferat</i>—I shall be content with the profit. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +DOD GRILE. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="part01"></a>SOME FICTION</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a>“One More Unfortunate.”</h2> + +<p> +It was midnight—a black, wet, midnight—in a great city by the sea. +The church clocks were booming the hour, in tones half-smothered by the +marching rain, when an officer of the watch saw a female figure glide past him +like a ghost in the gloom, and make directly toward a wharf. The officer felt +that some dreadful tragedy was about to be enacted, and started in pursuit. +Through the sleeping city sped those two dark figures like shadows athwart a +tomb. Out along the deserted wharf to its farther end fled the mysterious +fugitive, the guardian of the night vainly endeavouring to overtake, and +calling to her to stay. Soon she stood upon the extreme end of the pier, in the +scourging rain which lashed her fragile figure and blinded her eyes with other +tears than those of grief. The night wind tossed her tresses wildly in air, and +beneath her bare feet the writhing billows struggled blackly upward for their +prey. At this fearful moment the panting officer stumbled and fell! He was +badly bruised; he felt angry and misanthropic. Instead of rising to his feet, +he sat doggedly up and began chafing his abraded shin. The desperate woman +raised her white arms heavenward for the final plunge, and the voice of the +gale seemed like the dread roaring of the waters in her ears, as down, down, +she went—in imagination—to a black death among the spectral piles. +She backed a few paces to secure an impetus, cast a last look upon the stony +officer, with a wild shriek sprang to the awful verge and came near losing her +balance. Recovering herself with an effort, she turned her face again to the +officer, who was clawing about for his missing club. Having secured it, he +started to leave. +</p> + +<p> +In a cosy, vine-embowered cottage near the sounding sea, lives and suffers a +blighted female. Nothing being known of her past history, she is treated by her +neighbours with marked respect. She never speaks of the past, but it has been +remarked that whenever the stalwart form of a certain policeman passes her +door, her clean, delicate face assumes an expression which can only be +described as frozen profanity. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap02"></a>The Strong Young Man of Colusa.</h2> + +<p> +Professor Dramer conducted a side-show in the wake of a horse-opera, and the +same sojourned at Colusa. Enters unto the side show a powerful young man of the +Colusa sort, and would see his money’s worth. Blandly and with conscious +pride the Professor directs the young man’s attention to his fine +collection of living snakes. Lithely the blacksnake uncoils in his sight. +Voluminously the bloated boa convolves before him. All horrent the cobra exalts +his hooded head, and the spanning jaws fly open. Quivers and chitters the tail +of the cheerful rattlesnake; silently slips out the forked tongue, and is as +silently absorbed. The fangless adder warps up the leg of the Professor, lays +clammy coils about his neck, and pokes a flattened head curiously into his open +mouth. The young man of Colusa is interested; his feelings transcend +expression. Not a syllable breathes he, but with a deep-drawn sigh he turns his +broad back upon the astonishing display, and goes thoughtfully forth into his +native wild. Half an hour later might have been seen that brawny Colusan, +emerging from an adjacent forest with a strong faggot. +</p> + +<p> +Then this Colusa young man unto the appalled Professor thus: “Ther +ain’t no good place yer in Kerloosy fur fittin’ out serpence to be +subtler than all the beasts o’ the field. Ther’s enmity atween our +seed and ther seed, an’ it shell brooze ther head.” And with a +singleness of purpose and a rapt attention to detail that would have done +credit to a lean porker garnering the strewn kernels behind a deaf old man who +plants his field with corn, he started in upon that reptilian host, and +exterminated it with a careful thoroughness of extermination. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap03"></a>The Glad New Year.</h2> + +<p> +A poor brokendown drunkard returned to his dilapidated domicile early on New +Year’s morn. The great bells of the churches were jarring the creamy +moonlight which lay above the soggy undercrust of mud and snow. As he heard +their joyous peals, announcing the birth of a new year, his heart smote his old +waistcoat like a remorseful sledge-hammer. +</p> + +<p> +“Why,” soliloquized he, “should not those bells also proclaim +the advent of a new resolution? I have not made one for several weeks, and +it’s about time. I’ll swear off.” +</p> + +<p> +He did it, and at that moment a new light seemed to be shed upon his pathway; +his wife came out of the house with a tin lantern. He rushed frantically to +meet her. She saw the new and holy purpose in his eye. She recognised it +readily—she had seen it before. They embraced and wept. Then stretching +the wreck of what had once been a manly form to its full length, he raised his +eyes to heaven and one hand as near there as he could get it, and there in the +pale moonlight, with only his wondering wife, and the angels, and a cow or two, +for witnesses, he swore he would from that moment abstain from all intoxicating +liquors until death should them part. Then looking down and tenderly smiling +into the eyes of his wife, he said: “Is it not well, dear one?” +With a face beaming all over with a new happiness, she replied: +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed it is, John—let’s take a drink.” And they took +one, she with sugar and he plain. +</p> + +<p> +The spot is still pointed out to the traveller. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap04"></a>The Late Dowling, Senior</h2> + +<p> +My friend, Jacob Dowling, Esq., had been spending the day very agreeably in his +counting-room with some companions, and at night retired to the domestic circle +to ravel out some intricate accounts. Seated at his parlour table he ordered +his wife and children out of the room and addressed himself to business. While +clambering wearily up a column of figures he felt upon his cheek the touch of +something that seemed to cling clammily to the skin like the caress of a naked +oyster. Thoughtfully setting down the result of his addition so far as he had +proceeded with it, he turned about and looked up. +</p> + +<p> +“I beg your pardon, sir,” said he, “but you have not the +advantage of my acquaintance.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, Jake,” replied the apparition—whom I have thought it +useless to describe—“don’t you know me?” +</p> + +<p> +“I confess that your countenance is familiar,” returned my friend, +“but I cannot at this moment recall your name. I never forget a face, but +names I cannot remember.” +</p> + +<p> +“Jake!” rumbled the spectre with sepulchral dignity, a look of +displeasure crawling across his pallid features, “you’re +foolin’.” +</p> + +<p> +“I give you my word I am quite serious. Oblige me with your name, and +favour me with a statement of your business with me at this hour.” +</p> + +<p> +The disembodied party sank uninvited into a chair, spread out his knees and +stared blankly at a Dutch clock with an air of weariness and profound +discouragement. Perceiving that his guest was making himself tolerably +comfortable my friend turned again to his figures, and silence reigned supreme. +The fire in the grate burned noiselessly with a mysterious blue light, as if it +could do more if it wished; the Dutch clock looked wise, and swung its pendulum +with studied exactness, like one who is determined to do his precise duty and +shun responsibility; the cat assumed an attitude of intelligent neutrality. +Finally the spectre trained his pale eyes upon his host, pulled in a long +breath and remarked: +</p> + +<p> +“Jake, I’m yur dead father. I come back to have a talk with ye +’bout the way things is agoin’ on. I want to know ’f you +think it’s right notter <i>recognise</i> yur dead parent?” +</p> + +<p> +“It <i>is</i> a little rough on you, dear,” replied the son without +looking up, “but the fact is that [7 and 3 are 10, and 2 are 12, and 6 +are 18] it is so long since you have been about [and 3 off are 15] that I had +kind of forgotten, and [2 into 4 goes twice, and 7 into 6 you can’t] you +know how it is yourself. May I be permitted to again inquire the precise nature +of your present business?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, yes—if you wont talk anything but shop I s’pose I must +come to the p’int. Isay! you don’t keep any thing to drink +’bout yer, do ye—Jake?” +</p> + +<p> +“14 from 23 are 9—I’ll get you something when we get done. +Please explain how we can serve one another.” +</p> + +<p> +“Jake, I done everything for you, and you ain’t done nothin’ +for me since I died. I want a monument bigger’n Dave Broderick’s, +with an eppytaph in gilt letters, by Joaquin Miller. I can’t git into any +kind o’ society till I have ’em. You’ve no idee how exclusive +they are where I am.” +</p> + +<p> +This dutiful son laid down his pencil and effected a stiffly vertical attitude. +He was all attention: +</p> + +<p> +“Anything else to-day?” he asked—rather sneeringly, I grieve +to state. +</p> + +<p> +“No-o-o, I don’t think of anything special,” drawled the +ghost reflectively; “I’d like to have an iron fence around it to +keep the cows off, but I s’pose that’s included.” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Of</i> course! And a gravel walk, and a lot of abalone shells, and +fresh posies daily; a marble angel or two for company, and anything else that +will add to your comfort. Have you any other extremely reasonable request to +make of me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—since you mention it. I want you to contest my will. Horace +Hawes is having his’n contested.” +</p> + +<p> +“My fine friend, you did not make any will.” +</p> + +<p> +“That ain’t o’ no consequence. You forge me a good ’un +and contest that.” +</p> + +<p> +“With pleasure, sir; but that will be extra. Now indulge me in one +question. You spoke of the society where you reside. <i>Where</i> do you +reside?” +</p> + +<p> +The Dutch clock pounded clamorously upon its brazen gong a countless multitude +of hours; the glowing coals fell like an avalanche through the grate, spilling +all over the cat, who exalted her voice in a squawk like the deathwail of a +stuck pig, and dashed affrighted through the window. A smell of scorching fur +pervaded the place, and under cover of it the aged spectre walked into the +mirror, vanishing like a dream. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap05"></a>“Love’s Labour Lost”</h2> + +<p> +Joab was a beef, who was tired of being courted for his clean, smooth skin. So +he backed through a narrow gateway six or eight times, which made his hair +stand the wrong way. He then went and rubbed his fat sides against a charred +log. This made him look untidy. You never looked worse in your life than Joab +did. +</p> + +<p> +“Now,” said he, “I shall be loved for myself alone. I will +change my name, and hie me to pastures new, and all the affection that is then +lavished upon me will be pure and disinterested.” +</p> + +<p> +So he strayed off into the woods and came out at old Abner Davis’ ranch. +The two things Abner valued most were a windmill and a scratching-post for +hogs. They were equally beautiful, and the fame of their comeliness had gone +widely abroad. To them Joab naturally paid his attention. The windmill, who was +called Lucille Ashtonbury Clifford, received him with expressions of the +liveliest disgust. His protestations of affection were met by creakings of +contempt, and as he turned sadly away he was rewarded by a sound spank from one +of her fans. Like a gentlemanly beef he did not deign to avenge the insult by +overturning Lucille Ashtonbury; and it is well for him that he did not, for old +Abner stood by with a pitchfork and a trinity of dogs. +</p> + +<p> +Disgusted with the selfish heartlessness of society, Joab shambled off and was +passing the scratching-post without noticing her. (Her name was Arabella +Cliftonbury Howard.) Suddenly she kicked away a multitude of pigs who were at +her feet, and called to the rolling beef of uncanny exterior: +</p> + +<p> +“Comeer!” +</p> + +<p> +Joab paused, looked at her with his ox-eyes, and gravely marching up, commenced +a vigorous scratching against her. +</p> + +<p> +“Arabella,” said he, “do you think you could love a +shaggy-hided beef with black hair? Could you love him for himself alone?” +</p> + +<p> +Arabella had observed that the black rubbed off, and the hair lay sleek when +stroked the right way. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I think so; could you?” +</p> + +<p> +This was a poser: Joab had expected her to talk business. He did not reply. It +was only her arch way; she thought, naturally, that the best way to win any +body’s love was to be a fool. She saw her mistake. She had associated +with hogs all her life, and this fellow was a beef! Mistakes must be rectified +very speedily in these matters. +</p> + +<p> +“Sir, I have for you a peculiar feeling; I may say a tenderness. +Hereafter you, and you only, shall scratch against Arabella Cliftonbury +Howard!” +</p> + +<p> +Joab was delighted; he stayed and scratched all day. He was loved for himself +alone, and he did not care for anything but that. Then he went home, made an +elaborate toilet, and returned to astonish her. Alas! old Abner had been about, +and seeing how Joab had worn her smooth and useless, had cut her down for +firewood. Joab gave one glance, then walked solemnly away into a +“clearing,” and getting comfortably astride a blazing heap of logs, +made a barbacue of himself! +</p> + +<p> +After all, Lucille Ashtonbury Clifford, the light-headed windmill, seems to +have got the best of all this. I have observed that the light-headed commonly +get the best of everything in this world; which the wooden-headed and the +beef-headed regard as an outrage. I am not prepared to say if it is or not. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap06"></a>A Comforter</h2> + +<p> +William Bunker had paid a fine of two hundred dollars for beating his wife. +After getting his receipt he went moodily home and seated himself at the +domestic hearth. Observing his abstracted and melancholy demeanour, the good +wife approached and tenderly inquired the cause. “It’s a delicate +subject, dear,” said he, with love-light in his eyes; “let’s +talk about something good to eat.” +</p> + +<p> +Then, with true wifely instinct she sought to cheer him up with pleasing +prattle of a new bonnet he had promised her. “Ah! darling,” he +sighed, absently picking up the fire-poker and turning it in his hands, +“let us change the subject.” +</p> + +<p> +Then his soul’s idol chirped an inspiring ballad, kissed him on the top +of his head, and sweetly mentioned that the dressmaker had sent in her bill. +“Let us talk only of love,” returned he, thoughtfully rolling up +his dexter sleeve. +</p> + +<p> +And so she spoke of the vine-enfolded cottage in which she fondly hoped they +might soon sip together the conjugal sweets. William became rigidly erect, a +look not of earth was in his face, his breast heaved, and the fire-poker +quivered with emotion. William felt deeply. “Mine own,” said the +good woman, now busily irrigating a mass of snowy dough for the evening meal, +“do you know that there is not a bite of meat in the house?” +</p> + +<p> +It is a cold, unlovely truth—a sad, heart-sickening fact—but it +must be told by the conscientious novelist. William repaid all this +affectionate solicitude—all this womanly devotion, all this trust, +confidence, and abnegation in a manner that needs not be particularly +specified. +</p> + +<p> +A short, sharp curve in the middle of that iron fire-poker is eloquent of a +wrong redressed. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap07"></a>Little Isaac</h2> + +<p> +Mr. Gobwottle came home from a meeting of the Temperance Legion extremely +drunk. He went to the bed, piled himself loosely atop of it and forgot his +identity. About the middle of the night, his wife, who was sitting up darning +stockings, heard a voice from the profoundest depths of the bolster: +“Say, Jane?” +</p> + +<p> +Jane gave a vicious stab with the needle, impaling one of her fingers, and +continued her work. There was a long silence, faintly punctuated by the bark of +a distant dog. Again that voice—“Say—Jane!” +</p> + +<p> +The lady laid aside her work and wearily, replied: “Isaac, do go to +sleep; they <i>are</i> off.” +</p> + +<p> +Another and longer pause, during which the ticking of the clock became painful +in the intensity of the silence it seemed to be measuring. “Jane, +<i>what’s</i> off!” “Why, your boots, to be sure,” +replied the petulant woman, losing patience; “I pulled them off when you +first lay down.” +</p> + +<p> +Again the prostrate gentleman was still. Then when the candle of the waking +housewife had burned low down to the socket, and the wasted flame on the hearth +was expiring bluely in convulsive leaps, the head of the family resumed: +“Jane, who said anything about boots?” +</p> + +<p> +There was no reply. Apparently none was expected, for the man immediately rose, +lengthened himself out like a telescope, and continued: “Jane, I must +have smothered that brat, and I’m ’fernal sorry!” +</p> + +<p> +“What brat?” asked the wife, becoming interested. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, ours—our little Isaac. I saw you put ’im in bed last +week, and I’ve been layin’ right onto ’im!” +</p> + +<p> +“What under the sun <i>do</i> you mean?” asked the good wife; +“we haven’t any brat, and never had, and his name should not be +Isaac if we had. I believe you are crazy.” +</p> + +<p> +The man balanced his bulk rather unsteadily, looked hard into the eyes of his +companion, and triumphantly emitted the following conundrum: “Jane, +look-a-here! If we haven’t any brat, what’n thunder’s the use +o’ bein’ married!” +</p> + +<p> +Pending the solution of the momentous problem, its author went out and searched +the night for a whisky-skin. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap08"></a>The Heels of Her</h2> + +<p> +Passing down Commercial-street one fine day, I observed a lady standing alone +in the middle of the sidewalk, with no obvious business there, but with +apparently no intention of going on. She was outwardly very calm, and seemed at +first glance to be lost in some serene philosophical meditation. A closer +examination, however, revealed a peculiar restlessness of attitude, and a +barely noticeable uneasiness of expression. The conviction came upon me that +the lady was in distress, and as delicately as possible I inquired of her if +such were not the case, intimating at the same time that I should esteem it a +great favour to be permitted to do something. The lady smiled blandly and +replied that she was merely waiting for a gentleman. It was tolerably evident +that I was not required, and with a stammered apology I hastened away, passed +clear around the block, came up behind her, and took up a position on a +dry-goods box; it lacked an hour to dinner time, and I had leisure. The lady +maintained her attitude, but with momently increasing impatience, which found +expression in singular wave-like undulations of her lithe figure, and an +occasional unmistakeable contortion. Several gentlemen approached, but were +successively and politely dismissed. Suddenly she experienced a quick +convulsion, strode sharply forward one step, stopped short, had another +convulsion, and walked rapidly away. Approaching the spot I found a small iron +grating in the sidewalk, and between the bars two little boot heels, riven from +their kindred soles, and unsightly with snaggy nails. +</p> + +<p> +Heaven only knows why that entrapped female had declined the proffered +assistance of her species—why she had elected to ruin her boots in +preference to having them removed from her feet. Upon that day when the grave +shall give up its dead, and the secrets of all hearts shall be revealed, I +shall know all about it; but I want to know now. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap09"></a>A Tale of Two Feet</h2> + +<p> +My friend Zacharias was accustomed to sleep with a heated stone at his feet; +for the feet of Mr. Zacharias were as the feet of the dead. One night he +retired as usual, and it chanced that he awoke some hours afterwards with a +well-defined smell of burning leather, making it pleasant for his nostrils. +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Zacharias,” said he, nudging his snoring spouse, “I +wish you would get up and look about. I think one of the children must have +fallen into the fire.” +</p> + +<p> +The lady, who from habit had her own feet stowed comfortably away against the +warm stomach of her lord and master, declined to make the investigation +demanded, and resumed the nocturnal melody. Mr. Zacharias was angered; for the +first time since she had sworn to love, honour, and obey, this female was in +open rebellion. He decided upon prompt and vigorous action. He quietly moved +over to the back side of the bed and braced his shoulders against the wall. +Drawing up his sinewy knees to a level with his breast, he placed the soles of +his feet broadly against the back of the insurgent, with the design of +propelling her against the opposite wall. There was a strangled snort, then a +shriek of female agony, and the neighbours came in. +</p> + +<p> +Mutual explanations followed, and Mr. Zacharias walked the streets of Grass +Valley next day as if he were treading upon eggs worth a dollar a dozen. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap10"></a>The Scolliver Pig</h2> + +<p> +One of Thomas Jefferson’s maxims is as follows: “When angry, count +ten before you speak; if very angry, count a hundred.” I once knew a man +to square his conduct by this rule, with a most gratifying result. Jacob +Scolliver, a man prone to bad temper, one day started across the fields to +visit his father, whom he generously permitted to till a small corner of the +old homestead. He found the old gentleman behind the barn, bending over a +barrel that was canted over at an angle of seventy degrees, and from which +issued a cloud of steam. Scolliver <i>père</i> was evidently scalding one end +of a dead pig—an operation essential to the loosening of the hair, that +the corpse may be plucked and shaven. +</p> + +<p> +“Good morning, father,” said Mr. Scolliver, approaching, and +displaying a long, cheerful smile. “Got a nice roaster there?” The +elder gentleman’s head turned slowly and steadily, as upon a swivel, +until his eyes pointed backward; then he drew his arms out of the barrel, and +finally, revolving his body till it matched his head, he deliberately mounted +upon the supporting block and sat down upon the sharp edge of the barrel in the +hot steam. Then he replied, “Good mornin’ Jacob. Fine +mornin’.” +</p> + +<p> +“A little warm in spots, I should imagine,” returned the son. +“Do you find that a comfortable seat?” “Why-yes-it’s +good enough for an old man,” he answered, in a slightly husky voice, and +with an uneasy gesture of the legs; “don’t make much difference in +this life where we set, if we’re good—does it? This world +ain’t heaven, anyhow, I s’spose.” +</p> + +<p> +“There I do not entirely agree with you,” rejoined the young man, +composing his body upon a stump for a philosophical argument. “I +don’t neither,” added the old one, absently, screwing about on the +edge of the barrel and constructing a painful grimace. There was no argument, +but a silence instead. Suddenly the aged party sprang off that barrel with +exceeding great haste, as of one who has made up his mind to do a thing and is +impatient of delay. The seat of his trousers was steaming grandly, the barrel +upset, and there was a great wash of hot water, leaving a deposit of spotted +pig. In life that pig had belonged to Mr. Scolliver the younger! Mr. Scolliver +the younger was angry, but remembering Jefferson’s maxim, he rattled off +the number ten, finishing up with “You—thief!” Then +perceiving himself <i>very</i> angry, he began all over again and ran up to one +hundred, as a monkey scampers up a ladder. As the last syllable shot from his +lips he planted a dreadful blow between the old man’s eyes, with a shriek +that sounded like—“You son of a sea-cook!” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Scolliver the elder went down like a stricken beef, and his son often +afterward explained that if he had not counted a hundred, and so given himself +time to get thoroughly mad, he did not believe he could ever have licked the +old man. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap11"></a>Mr. Hunker’s Mourner</h2> + +<p> +Strolling through Lone Mountain cemetery one day my attention was arrested by +the inconsolable grief of a granite angel bewailing the loss of “Jacob +Hunker, aged 67.” The attitude of utter dejection, the look of matchless +misery upon that angel’s face sank into my heart like water into a +sponge. I was about to offer some words of condolence when another man, +similarly affected, got in before me, and laying a rather unsteady hand upon +the celestial shoulder tipped back a very senile hat, and pointing to the name +on the stone remarked with the most exact care and scrupulous accent: +“Friend of yours, perhaps; been dead long?” +</p> + +<p> +There was no reply; he continued: “Very worthy man, that Jake; knew him +up in Tuolumne. Good feller—Jake.” No response: the gentleman +settled his hat still farther back, and continued with a trifle less exactness +of speech: “I say, young wom’n, Jake was my pard in the mines. +Goo’ fell’r I ’bserved!” +</p> + +<p> +The last sentence was shot straight into the celestial ear at short range. It +produced no effect. The gentleman’s patience and rhetorical vigilance +were now completely exhausted. He walked round, and planting himself defiantly +in front of the vicarious mourner, he stuck his hands doggedly into his pockets +and delivered the following rebuke, like the desultory explosions of a bunch of +damaged fire-crackers: “It wont do, old girl; ef Jake knowed how +you’s treatin’ his old pard he’d jest git up and snatch you +bald headed—<i>he</i> would! You ain’t no friend o’ +his’n and you ain’t yur fur no good—you bet! Now you jest +’sling your swag an’ bolt back to heaven, or I’m hanged ef I +don’t have suthin’ worse’n horse-stealin’ to answer +fur, this time.” +</p> + +<p> +And he took a step forward. At this point I interfered. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap12"></a>A Bit of Chivalry</h2> + +<p> +At Woodward’s Garden, in the city of San Francisco, is a rather badly +chiselled statue of Pandora pulling open her casket of ills. Pandora’s +raiment, I grieve to state, has slipped down about her waist in a manner +exceedingly reprehensible. One evening about twilight, I was passing that way, +and saw a long gaunt miner, evidently just down from the mountains, and whom I +had seen before, standing rather unsteadily in front of Pandora, admiring her +shapely figure, but seemingly afraid to approach her. Seeing me advance, he +turned to me with a queer, puzzled expression in his funny eyes, and said with +an earnestness that came near defeating its purpose, “Good +ev’n’n t’ye, stranger.” “Good evening, +sir,” I replied, after having analyzed his salutation and extracted the +sense of it. Lowering his voice to what was intended for a whisper, the miner, +with a jerk of his thumb Pandoraward, continued: “Stranger, d’ye +hap’n t’know ’er?” “Certainly; that is Bridget +Pandora, a Greek maiden, in the pay of the Board of Supervisors.” +</p> + +<p> +He straightened himself up with a jerk that threatened the integrity of his +neck and made his teeth snap, lurched heavily to the other side, oscillated +critically for a few moments, and muttered: “Brdgtpnd—.” It +was too much for him; he went down into his pocket, fumbled feebly round, and +finally drawing out a paper of purely hypothetical tobacco, conveyed it to his +mouth and bit off about two-thirds of it, which he masticated with much +apparent benefit to his understanding, offering what was left to me. He then +resumed the conversation with the easy familiarity of one who has established a +claim to respectful attention: +</p> + +<p> +“Pardner, couldn’t ye interdooce a fel’r’s wants +tknow’er?” “Impossible; I have not the honour of her +acquaintance.” A look of distrust crept into his face, and finally +settled into a savage scowl about his eyes. “Sed ye knew +’er!” he faltered, menacingly. “So I do, but I am not upon +speaking terms with her, and—in fact she declines to recognise me.” +The soul of the honest miner flamed out; he laid his hand threateningly upon +his pistol, jerked himself stiff, glared a moment at me with the look of a +tiger, and hurled this question at my head as if it had been an iron +interrogation point: <i>“W’at a’ yer ben adoin’ to that +gurl?”</i> +</p> + +<p> +I fled, and the last I saw of the chivalrous gold-hunter, he had his arm about +Pandora’s stony waist and was endeavouring to soothe her supposed +agitation by stroking her granite head. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap13"></a>The Head of the Family</h2> + +<p> +Our story begins with the death of our hero. The manner of it was decapitation, +the instrument a mowing machine. A young son of the deceased, dumb with horror, +seized the paternal head and ran with it to the house. +</p> + +<p> +“There!” ejaculated the young man, bowling the gory pate across the +threshold at his mother’s feet, “look at that, will you?” +</p> + +<p> +The old lady adjusted her spectacles, lifted the dripping head into her lap, +wiped the face of it with her apron, and gazed into its fishy eyes with tender +curiosity. “John,” said she, thoughtfully, “is this +yours?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, ma, it ain’t none o’ mine.” +</p> + +<p> +“John,” continued she, with a cold, unimpassioned earnestness, +“where did you get this thing?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, ma,” returned the hopeful, “that’s +Pap’s.” +</p> + +<p> +“John”—and there was just a touch of severity in her +voice—“when your mother asks you a question you should answer that +particular question. Where did you get this?” +</p> + +<p> +“Out in the medder, then, if you’re so derned pertikeller,” +retorted the youngster, somewhat piqued; “the mowin’ machine lopped +it off.” +</p> + +<p> +The old lady rose and restored the head into the hands of the young man. Then, +straightening with some difficulty her aged back, and assuming a matronly +dignity of bearing and feature, she emitted the rebuke following: +</p> + +<p> +“My son, the gentleman whom you hold in your hand—any more pointed +allusion to whom would be painful to both of us—has punished you a +hundred times for meddling with things lying about the farm. Take that head +back and put it down where you found it, or you will make your mother very +angry.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap14"></a>Deathbed Repentance</h2> + +<p> +An old man of seventy-five years lay dying. For a lifetime he had turned a deaf +ear to religion, and steeped his soul in every current crime. He had robbed the +orphan and plundered the widow; he had wrested from the hard hands of honest +toil the rewards of labour; had lost at the gaming-table the wealth with which +he should have endowed churches and Sunday schools; had wasted in riotous +living the substance of his patrimony, and left his wife and children without +bread. The intoxicating bowl had been his god—his belly had absorbed his +entire attention. In carnal pleasures passed his days and nights, and to the +maddening desires of his heart he had ministered without shame and without +remorse. He was a bad, bad egg! And now this hardened iniquitor was to meet his +Maker! Feebly and hesitatingly his breath fluttered upon his pallid lips. +Weakly trembled the pulse in his flattened veins! Wife, children, +mother-in-law, friends, who should have hovered lovingly about his couch, +cheering his last moments and giving him medicine, he had killed with grief, or +driven widely away; and he was now dying alone by the inadequate light of a +tallow candle, deserted by heaven and by earth. No, not by heaven. Suddenly the +door was pushed softly open, and there entered the good minister, whose pious +counsel the suffering wretch had in health so often derided. Solemnly the man +of God advanced, Bible in hand. Long and silently he stood uncovered in the +presence of death. Then with cold and impressive dignity he remarked, +“Miserable old sinner!” +</p> + +<p> +Old Jonas Lashworthy looked up. He sat up. The voice of that holy man put +strength into his aged limbs, and he stood up. He was reserved for a better +fate than to die like a neglected dog: Mr. Lashworthy was hanged for braining a +minister of the Gospel with a boot-jack. This touching tale has a moral. +</p> + +<p> +M<small>ORAL OF THIS</small> T<small>OUCHING</small> +T<small>ALE</small>.—In snatching a brand from the eternal burning, make +sure of its condition, and be careful how you lay hold of it. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap15"></a>The New Church that was not Built</h2> + +<p> +I have a friend who was never a church member, but was, and is, a +millionaire—a generous benevolent millionaire—who once went about +doing good by stealth, but with a natural preference for doing it at his +office. One day he took it into his thoughtful noddle that he would like to +assist in the erection of a new church edifice, to replace the inadequate and +shabby structure in which a certain small congregation in his town then +worshipped. So he drew up a subscription paper, modestly headed the list with +“Christian, 2000 dollars,” and started one of the Deacons about +with it. In a few days the Deacon came back to him, like the dove to the ark, +saying he had succeeded in procuring a few names, but the press of his private +business was such that he had felt compelled to intrust the paper to Deacon +Smith. +</p> + +<p> +Next day the document was presented to my friend, as nearly blank as when it +left his hands. Brother Smith explained that he (Smith) had started this thing, +and a brother calling himself “Christian,” whose name he was not at +liberty to disclose, had put down 2000 dollars. Would our friend aid them with +an equal amount? Our friend took the paper and wrote “Philanthropist, +1000 dollars,” and Brother Smith went away. +</p> + +<p> +In about a week Brother Jones put in an appearance with the subscription paper. +By extraordinary exertions Brother Jones—thinking a handsome new church +would be an ornament to the town and increase the value of real +estate—had got two brethren, who desired to remain <i>incog</i>., to +subscribe: “Christian” 2000 dollars, and +“Philanthropist” 1000 dollars. Would my friend kindly help along a +struggling congregation? My friend would. He wrote “Citizen, 500 +dollars,” pledging Brother Jones, as he had pledged the others, not to +reveal his name until it was time to pay. +</p> + +<p> +Some weeks afterward, a clergyman stepped into my friend’s counting-room, +and after smilingly introducing himself, produced that identical subscription +list. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. K.,” said he, “I hope you will pardon the liberty, but I +have set on foot a little scheme to erect a new church for our congregation, +and three of the brethren have subscribed handsomely. Would you mind doing +something to help along the good work?” +</p> + +<p> +My friend glanced over his spectacles at the proffered paper. He rose in his +wrath! He towered! Seizing a loaded pen he dashed at that fair sheet and +scrabbled thereon in raging characters, “Impenitent Sinner—<i>Not +one cent, by G—!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +After a brief explanatory conference, the minister thoughtfully went his way. +That struggling congregation still worships devoutly in its original, +unpretending temple. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap16"></a>A Tale of the Great Quake</h2> + +<p> +One glorious morning, after the great earthquake of October 21, 1868, had with +some difficulty shaken me into my trousers and boots, I left the house. I may +as well state that I left it immediately, and by an aperture constructed for +another purpose. Arrived in the street, I at once betook myself to saving +people. This I did by remarking closely the occurrence of other shocks, giving +the alarm and setting an example fit to be followed. The example was followed, +but owing to the vigour with which it was set was seldom overtaken. In passing +down Clay-street I observed an old rickety brick boarding-house, which seemed +to be just on the point of honouring the demands of the earthquake upon its +resources. The last shock had subsided, but the building was slowly and +composedly settling into the ground. As the third story came down to my level, +I observed in one of the front rooms a young and lovely female in white, +standing at a door trying to get out. She couldn’t, for the door was +locked—I saw her through the key-hole. With a single blow of my heel I +opened that door, and opened my arms at the same time. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank God,” cried I, “I have arrived in time. Come to these +arms.” +</p> + +<p> +The lady in white stopped, drew out an eye-glass, placed it carefully upon her +nose, and taking an inventory of me from head to foot, replied: +</p> + +<p> +“No thank you; I prefer to come to grief in the regular way.” +</p> + +<p> +While the pleasing tones of her voice were still ringing in my ears I noticed a +puff of smoke rising from near my left toe. It came from the chimney of that +house. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap17"></a>Johnny</h2> + +<p> +Johnny is a little four-year-old, of bright, pleasant manners, and remarkable +for intelligence. The other evening his mother took him upon her lap, and after +stroking his curly head awhile, asked him if he knew who made him. I grieve to +state that instead of answering “Dod,” as might have been expected, +Johnny commenced cramming his face full of ginger-bread, and finally took a fit +of coughing that threatened the dissolution of his frame. Having unloaded his +throat and whacked him on the back, his mother propounded the following +supplementary conundrum: +</p> + +<p> +“Johnny, are you not aware that at your age every little boy is expected +to say something brilliant in reply to my former question? How can you so +dishonour your parents as to neglect this golden opportunity? Think +again.” +</p> + +<p> +The little urchin cast his eyes upon the floor and meditated a long time. +Suddenly he raised his face and began to move his lips. There is no knowing +what he might have said, but at that moment his mother noted the pressing +necessity of wringing and mopping his nose, which she performed with such +painful and conscientious singleness of purpose that Johnny set up a war-whoop +like that of a night-blooming tomcat. +</p> + +<p> +It may be objected that this little tale is neither instructive nor amusing. I +have never seen any stories of bright children that were. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap18"></a>The Child’s Provider</h2> + +<p> +Mr. Goboffle had a small child, no wife, a large dog, and a house. As he was +unable to afford the expense of a nurse, he was accustomed to leave the child +in the care of the dog, who was much attached to it, while absent at a distant +restaurant for his meals, taking the precaution to lock them up together to +prevent kidnapping. One day, while at his dinner, he crowded a large, +hard-boiled potato down his neck, and it conducted him into eternity. His clay +was taken to the Coroner’s, and the great world went on, marrying and +giving in marriage, lying, cheating, and praying, as if he had never existed. +</p> + +<p> +Meantime the dog had, after several days of neglect, forced an egress through a +window, and a neighbouring baker received a call from him daily. Walking +gravely in, he would deposit a piece of silver, and receiving a roll and his +change would march off homeward. As this was a rather unusual proceeding in a +cur of his species, the baker one day followed him, and as the dog leaped +joyously into the window of the deserted house, the man of dough approached and +looked in. What was his surprise to see the dog deposit his bread calmly upon +the floor and fall to tenderly licking the face of a beautiful child! +</p> + +<p> +It is but fair to explain that there was nothing but the face remaining. But +this dog did so love the child! +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap19"></a>Boys who Began Wrong</h2> + +<p> +Two little California boys were arrested at Reno for horse thieving. They had +started from Surprise Valley with a cavalcade of thirty animals, and disposed +of them leisurely along their line of march, until they were picked up at Reno, +as above explained. I don’t feel quite easy about those youths—away +out there in Nevada without their Testaments! Where there are no Sunday School +books boys are so apt to swear and chew tobacco and rob sluice-boxes; and once +a boy begins to do that last he might as well sell out; he’s bound to end +by doing something bad! I knew a boy once who began by robbing sluice-boxes, +and he went right on from bad to worse, until the last I heard of him he was in +the State Legislature, elected by Democratic votes. You never saw anybody take +on as his poor old mother did when she heard about it. +</p> + +<p> +“Hank,” said she to the boy’s father, who was forging a bank +note in the chimney corner, “this all comes o’ not +edgercatin’ ’im when he was a baby. Ef he’d larnt +spellin’ and ciferin’ he never could a-ben elected.” +</p> + +<p> +It pains me to state that old Hank didn’t seem to get any thinner under +the family disgrace, and his appetite never left him for a minute. The fact is, +the old gentleman wanted to go to the United States Senate. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap20"></a>A Kansas Incident</h2> + +<p> +An invalid wife in Leavenworth heard her husband make proposals of marriage to +the nurse. The dying woman arose in bed, fixed her large black eyes for a +moment upon the face of her heartless spouse with a reproachful intensity that +must haunt him through life, and then fell back a corpse. The remorse of that +widower, as he led the blushing nurse to the altar the next week, can be more +easily imagined than described. Such reparation as was in his power he made. He +buried the first wife decently and very deep down, laying a handsome and +exceedingly heavy stone upon the sepulchre. He chiselled upon the stone the +following simple and touching line: “She can’t get back.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap21"></a>Mr. Grile’s Girl</h2> + +<p> +In a lecture about girls, Cady Stanton contrasted the buoyant spirit of young +males with the dejected sickliness of immature women. This, she says, is +because the latter are keenly sensitive to the fact that they have no aim in +life. This is a sad, sad truth! No longer ago than last year the writer’s +youngest girl—Gloriana, a skin-milk blonde concern of fourteen—came +pensively up to her father with big tears in her little eyes, and a forgotten +morsel of buttered bread lying unchewed in her mouth. +</p> + +<p> +“Papa,” murmured the poor thing, “I’m gettin’ +awful pokey, and my clothes don’t seem to set well in the back. My days +are full of ungratified longin’s, and my nights don’t get any +better. Papa, I think society needs turnin’ inside out and +scrapin’. I haven’t got nothin’ to aspire to—no aim; +nor anything!” +</p> + +<p> +The desolate creature spilled herself loosely into a cane-bottom chair, and her +sorrow broke “like a great dyke broken.” +</p> + +<p> +The writer lifted her tenderly upon his knee and bit her softly on the neck. +</p> + +<p> +“Gloriana,” said he, “have you chewed up all that toffy in +two days?” +</p> + +<p> +A smothered sob was her frank confession. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, see here, Glo,” continued the parent, rather sternly, +“don’t let me hear any more about +‘aspirations’—which are always adulterated with <i>terra +alba</i>—nor ‘aims’—which will give you the gripes like +anything. You just take this two shilling-piece and invest every penny of it in +lollipops!” +</p> + +<p> +You should have seen the fair, bright smile crawl from one of that +innocent’s ears to the other—you should have marked that face +sprinkle, all over with dimples—you ought to have beheld the tears of joy +jump glittering into her eyes and spill all over her father’s clean shirt +that he hadn’t had on more than fifteen minutes! Cady Stanton is impotent +of evil in the Grile family so long as the price of sweets remains unchanged. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap22"></a>His Railway</h2> + +<p> +The writer remembers, as if it were but yesterday, when he edited the Hang Tree +<i>Herald</i>. For six months he devoted his best talent to advocating the +construction of a railway between that place and Jayhawk, thirty miles distant. +The route presented every inducement. There would be no grading required, and +not a single curve would be necessary. As it lay through an uninhabited alkali +flat, the right of way could be easily obtained. As neither terminus had other +than pack-mule communication with civilization, the rolling stock and other +material must necessarily be constructed at Hang Tree, because the people at +the other end didn’t know enough to do it, and hadn’t any +blacksmith. The benefit to our place was indisputable; it constituted the most +seductive charm of the scheme. After six months of conscientious lying, the +company was incorporated, and the first shovelful of alkali turned up and +preserved in a museum, when suddenly the devil put it into the head of one of +the Directors to inquire publicly what the road was designed to carry. It is +needless to say the question was never satisfactorily answered, and the most +daring enterprise of the age was knocked perfectly cold. That very night a +deputation of stockholders waited upon the editor of the <i>Herald</i> and +prescribed a change of climate. They afterward said the change did them good. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap23"></a>Mr. Gish Makes a Present</h2> + +<p> +In the season for making presents my friend Stockdoddle Gish, Esq., thought he +would so far waive his superiority to the insignificant portion of mankind +outside his own waistcoat as to follow one of its customs. Mr. Gish has a +friend—a delicate female of the shrinking sort—whom he favours with +his esteem as a sort of equivalent for the respect she accords him when he +browbeats her. Our hero numbers among the blessings which his merit has +extorted from niggardly Nature a gaunt meathound, between whose head and body +there exists about the same proportion as between those of a catfish, which he +also resembles in the matter of mouth. As to sides, this precious pup is not +dissimilar to a crockery crate loosely covered with a wet sheet. In appetite he +is liberal and cosmopolitan, loving a dried sheepskin as well in proportion to +its weight as a kettle of soap. The village which Mr. Gish honours by his +residence has for some years been kept upon the dizzy verge of financial ruin +by the maintenance of this animal. +</p> + +<p> +The reader will have already surmised that it was this beast which our hero +selected to testify his toleration of his lady friend. There never was a +greater mistake. Mr. Gish merely presented her a sheaf of assorted angle-worms, +neatly bound with a pink ribbon tied into a simple knot. The dog is an heirloom +and will descend to the Gishes of the next generation, in the direct line of +inheritance. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap24"></a>A Cow-County Pleasantry</h2> + +<p> +About the most ludicrous incident that I remember occurred one day in an +ordinarily solemn village in the cow-counties. A worthy matron, who had been +absent looking after a vagrom cow, returned home, and pushing against the door +found it obstructed by some heavy substance, which, upon examination, proved to +be her husband. He had been slaughtered by some roving joker, who had wrought +upon him with a pick-handle. To one of his ears was pinned a scrap of greasy +paper, upon which were scrambled the following sentiments in pencil-tracks: +</p> + +<p> +“The inqulosed boddy is that uv old Burker. Step litely, stranger, fer +yer lize the mortil part uv wat you mus be sum da. Thers arrest for the weery! +If Burker heddenta wurkt agin me fer Corner I wuddenta bed to sit on him. Ov +setch is the kingum of hevvun! You don’t want to moov this boddy til ime +summuns to hold a ninquest. Orl flesh are gras!” +</p> + +<p> +The ridiculous part of the story is that the lady did not wait to summon the +Coroner, but took charge of the remains herself; and in dragging them toward +the bed she exploded into her face a shotgun, which had been cunningly +contrived to discharge by a string connected with the body. Thus was she +punished for an infraction of the law. The next day the particulars were told +me by the facetious Coroner himself, whose jury had just rendered a verdict of +accidental drowning in both cases. I don’t know when I have enjoyed a +heartier laugh. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap25"></a>The Optimist, and What He Died Of</h2> + +<p> +One summer evening, while strolling with considerable difficulty over Russian +Hill, San Francisco, Mr. Grile espied a man standing upon the extreme summit, +with a pensive brow and a suit of clothes which seemed to have been handed down +through a long line of ancestors from a remote Jew peddler. Mr. Grile +respectfully saluted; a man who has any clothes at all is to him an object of +veneration. The stranger opened the conversation: +</p> + +<p> +“My son,” said he, in a tone suggestive of strangulation by the +Sheriff, “do you behold this wonderful city, its wharves crowded with the +shipping of all nations?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Grile beheld with amazement. +</p> + +<p> +“Twenty-one years ago—alas! it used to be but twenty,” and he +wiped away a tear—“you might have bought the whole dern thing for a +Mexican ounce.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Grile hastened to proffer a paper of tobacco, which disappeared like a wisp +of oats drawn into a threshing machine. +</p> + +<p> +“I was one among the first who—” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Grile hit him on the head with a paving-stone by way of changing the topic. +</p> + +<p> +“Young man,” continued he, “do you feel this bommy breeze? +There isn’t a climit in the world—” +</p> + +<p> +This melancholy relic broke down in a fit of coughing. No sooner had he +recovered than he leaped into the air, making a frantic clutch at something, +but apparently without success. +</p> + +<p> +“Dern it,” hissed he, “there goes my teeth; blowed out again, +by hokey!” +</p> + +<p> +A passing cloud of dust hid him for a moment from view, and when he reappeared +he was an altered man; a paroxysm of asthma had doubled him up like a +nut-cracker. +</p> + +<p> +“Excuse me,” he wheezed, “I’m subject to this; caught +it crossin’ the Isthmus in ’49. As I was a-sayin’, +there’s no country in the world that offers such inducements to the +immygrunt as Californy. With her fertile soil, her unrivalled climit, her +magnificent bay, and the rest of it, there is enough for all.” +</p> + +<p> +This venerable pioneer picked a fragmentary biscuit from the street and +devoured it. Mr. Grile thought this had gone on about long enough. He twisted +the head off that hopeful old party, surrendered himself to the authorities, +and was at once discharged. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap26"></a>The Root of Education</h2> + +<p> +A pedagogue in Indiana, who was “had up” for unmercifully waling +the back of a little girl, justified his action by explaining that “she +persisted in flinging paper pellets at him when his back was turned.” +That is no excuse. Mr. Grile once taught school up in the mountains, and about +every half hour had to remove his coat and scrape off the dried paper wads +adhering to the nap. He never permitted a trifle like this to unsettle his +patience; he just kept on wearing that gaberdine until it had no nap and the +wads wouldn’t stick. But when they took to dipping them in mucilage he +made a complaint to the Board of Directors. +</p> + +<p> +“Young man,” said the Chairman, “ef you don’t like our +ways, you’d better sling your blankets and git. Prentice Mulford tort +skule yer for more’n six months, and he never said a word agin the +wads.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Grile briefly explained that Mr. Mulford might have been brought up to +paper wads, and didn’t mind them. +</p> + +<p> +“It ain’t no use,” said another Director, “the children +hev got to be amused.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Grile protested that there were other amusements quite as diverting; but +the third Director here rose and remarked: +</p> + +<p> +“I perfeckly agree with the Cheer; this youngster better travel. I +consider as paper wads lies at the root uv popillar edyercation; ther a +necessary adjunck uv the skool systim. Mr. Cheerman, I move and second that +this yer skoolmarster be shot.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Grile did not remain to observe the result of the voting. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap27"></a>Retribution</h2> + +<p> +A citizen of Pittsburg, aged sixty, had, by tireless industry and the exercise +of rigid economy, accumulated a hoard of frugal dollars, the sight and feel +whereof were to his soul a pure delight. Imagine his sorrow and the heaviness +of his aged heart when he learned that the good wife had bestowed thereof upon +her brother bountiful largess exceeding his merit. Sadly and prayerfully while +she slept lifted he the retributive mallet and beat in her brittle pate. Then +with the quiet dignity of one who has redressed a grievous wrong, surrendered +himself unto the law this worthy old man. Let him who has never known the great +grief of slaughtering a wife judge him harshly. He that is without sin among +you, let him cast the first stone—and let it be a large heavy stone that +shall grind that wicked old man into a powder of exceeding impalpability. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap28"></a>The Faithful Wife.</h2> + +<p> +“A man was sentenced to twenty years’ confinement for a deed of +violence. In the excitement of the moment his wife sought and obtained a +divorce. Thirteen years afterward he was pardoned. The wife brought the pardon +to the gate; the couple left the spot arm in arm; and in less than an hour they +were again united in the bonds of wedlock.” +</p> + +<p> +Such is the touching tale narrated by a newspaper correspondent. It is in every +respect true; I knew the parties well, and during that long bitter period of +thirteen years it was commonly asked concerning the woman: “Hasn’t +that hag trapped anybody yet? She’ll have to take back old Jabe when he +gets out.” And she did. For nearly thirteen weary years she struggled +nobly against fate: she went after every unmarried man in her part of the +country; but “No,” said they, “we cannot—indeed we +cannot—marry you, after the way you went back on Jabe. It is likely that +under the same circumstances you would play us the same scurvy trick. +G’way, woman!” And so the poor old heartbroken creature had to go +to the Governor and get the old man pardoned out. Bless her for her steadfast +fidelity! +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap29"></a>Margaret the Childless</h2> + +<p> +This, therefore, is the story of her:—Some four years ago her husband +brought home a baby, which he said he found lying in the street, and which they +concluded to adopt. About a year after this he brought home another, and the +good woman thought she could stand that one too. A similar period passed away, +when one evening he opened the door and fell headlong into the room, swearing +with studied correctness at a dog which had tripped him up, but which upon +inspection turned out to be another baby. Margaret’s suspicion was +aroused, but to allay his she hastened to implore him to adopt that darling +also, to which, after some slight hesitation, he consented. Another twelvemonth +rolled into eternity, when one evening the lady heard a noise in the back yard, +and going out she saw her husband labouring at the windlass of the well with +unwonted industry. As the bucket neared the top he reached down and extracted +another infant, exactly like the former ones, and holding it up, explained to +the astonished matron: “Look at this, now; did you ever see such a sweet +young one go a-campaignin’ about the country without a lantern and +a-tumblin’ into wells? There, take the poor little thing in to the fire, +and get off its wet clothes.” It suddenly flashed across his mind that he +had neglected an obvious precaution—the clothes were not wet—and he +hastily added: “There’s no tellin’ what would have become of +it, a-climbin’ down that rope, if I hadn’t seen it afore it got +down to the water.” +</p> + +<p> +Silently the good wife took that infant into the house and disrobed it; +sorrowfully she laid it alongside its little brothers and sister; long and +bitterly she wept over the quartette; and then with one tender look at her lord +and master, smoking in solemn silence by the fire, and resembling them with all +his might, she gathered her shawl about her bowed shoulders and went away into +the night. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap30"></a>The Discomfited Demon</h2> + +<p> +I never clearly knew why I visited the old cemetery that night. Perhaps it was +to see how the work of removing the bodies was getting on, for they were all +being taken up and carted away to a more comfortable place where land was less +valuable. It was well enough; nobody had buried himself there for years, and +the skeletons that were now exposed were old mouldy affairs for which it was +difficult to feel any respect. However, I put a few bones in my pocket as +souvenirs. The night was one of those black, gusty ones in March, with great +inky clouds driving rapidly across the sky, spilling down sudden showers of +rain which as suddenly would cease. I could barely see my way between the empty +graves, and in blundering about among the coffins I tripped and fell headlong. +A peculiar laugh at my side caused me to turn my head, and I saw a singular old +gentleman whom I had often noticed hanging about the Coroner’s office, +sitting cross-legged upon a prostrate tombstone. +</p> + +<p> +“How are you, sir?” said I, rising awkwardly to my feet; +“nice night.” +</p> + +<p> +“Get off my tail,” answered the elderly party, without moving a +muscle. +</p> + +<p> +“My eccentric friend,” rejoined I, mockingly, “may I be +permitted to inquire your street and number?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly,” he replied, “No. 1, Marle Place, Asphalt Avenue, +Hades.” +</p> + +<p> +“The devil!” sneered I. +</p> + +<p> +“Exactly,” said he; “oblige me by getting off my tail.” +</p> + +<p> +I was a little staggered, and by way of rallying my somewhat dazed faculties, +offered a cigar: “Smoke?” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you,” said the singular old gentleman, putting it under his +coat; “after dinner. Drink?” +</p> + +<p> +I was not exactly prepared for this, but did not know if it would be safe to +decline, and so putting the proffered flask to my lips pretended to swig +elaborately, keeping my mouth tightly closed the while. “Good +article,” said I, returning it. He simply remarked, “You’re a +fool,” and emptied the bottle at a gulp. +</p> + +<p> +“And now,” resumed he, “you will confer a favour I shall +highly appreciate by removing your feet from my tail.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a slight shock of earthquake, and all the skeletons in sight arose to +their feet, stretched themselves and yawned audibly. Without moving from his +seat, the old gentleman rapped the nearest one across the skull with his +gold-headed cane, and they all curled away to sleep again. +</p> + +<p> +“Sire,” I resumed, “indulge me in the impertinence of +inquiring your business here at this hour.” +</p> + +<p> +“My business is none of yours,” retorted he, calmly; “what +are you up to yourself?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have been picking up some bones,” I replied, carelessly. +</p> + +<p> +“Then you are—” +</p> + +<p> +“I am—” +</p> + +<p> +“A Ghoul!” +</p> + +<p> +“My good friend, you do me injustice. You have doubtless read very +frequently in the newspapers of the Fiend in Human Shape whose actions and way +of life are so generally denounced. Sire, you see before you that maligned +party!” +</p> + +<p> +There was a quick jerk under the soles of my feet, which pitched me prone upon +the ground. Scrambling up, I saw the old gentleman vanishing behind an adjacent +sandhill as if the devil were after him. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap31"></a>The Mistake of a Life</h2> + +<p> +The hotel was in flames. Mr. Pokeweed was promptly on hand, and tore madly into +the burning pile, whence he soon emerged with a nude female. Depositing her +tenderly upon a pile of hot bricks, he mopped his steaming front with his warm +coat-tail. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, Mrs. Pokeweed,” said he, “where will I be most likely +to find the children? They will naturally wish to get out.” +</p> + +<p> +The lady assumed a stiffly vertical attitude, and with freezing dignity replied +in the words following: +</p> + +<p> +“Sir, you have saved my life; I presume you are entitled to my thanks. If +you are likewise solicitous regarding the fate of the person you have +mentioned, you had better go back and prospect round till you find her; she +would probably be delighted to see you. But while I have a character to +maintain unsullied, you shall not stand there and call me Mrs. Pokeweed!” +</p> + +<p> +Just then the front wall toppled outward, and Pokeweed cleared the street at a +single bound. He never learned what became of the strange lady, and to the day +of his death he professed an indifference that was simply brutal. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap32"></a>L. S.</h2> + +<p> +Early one evening in the autumn of ’64, a pale girl stood singing +Methodist hymns at the summit of Bush Street hill. She was attired, Spanish +fashion, in a loose overcoat and slippers. Suddenly she broke off her song, a +dark-browed young soldier from the Presidio cautiously approached, and seizing +her fondly in his arms, snatched away the overcoat, retreating with it to an +auction-house on Pacific Street, where it may still be seen by the benighted +traveller, just a-going for two-and-half-and never gone! +</p> + +<p> +The poor maiden after this misfortune felt a bitter resentment swelling in her +heart, and scorning to remain among her kind in that costume, took her way to +the Cliff House, where she arrived, worn and weary, about breakfast-time. +</p> + +<p> +The landlord received her kindly, and offered her a pair of his best trousers; +but she was of noble blood, and having been reared in luxury, respectfully +declined to receive charity from a low-born stranger. All efforts to induce her +to eat were equally unavailing. She would stand for hours on the rocks where +the road descends to the beach, and gaze at the playful seals in the surf +below, who seemed rather flattered by her attention, and would swim about, +singing their sweetest songs to her alone. Passers-by were equally curious as +to <i>her</i>, but a broken lyre gives forth no music, and her heart responded +not with any more long metre hymns. +</p> + +<p> +After a few weeks of this solitary life she was suddenly missed. At the same +time a strange seal was noted among the rest. She was remarkable for being +always clad in an overcoat, which she had doubtless fished up from the wreck of +the French galleon <i>Brignardello</i>, which went ashore there some years +afterward. +</p> + +<p> +One tempestuous night, an old hag who had long done business as a hermitess on +Helmet Rock came into the bar-room at the Cliff House, and there, amidst the +crushing thunders and lightnings spilling all over the horizon, she related +that she had seen a young seal in a comfortable overcoat, sitting pensively +upon the pinnacle of Seal Rock, and had distinctly heard the familiar words of +a Methodist hymn. Upon inquiry the tale was discovered to be founded upon fact. +The identity of this seal could no longer be denied without downright +blasphemy, and in all the old chronicles of that period not a doubt is even +implied. +</p> + +<p> +One day a handsome, dark, young lieutenant of infantry, Don Edmundo by name, +came out to the Cliff House to celebrate his recent promotion. While standing +upon the verge of the cliff, with his friends all about him, Lady Celia, as +visitors had christened her, came swimming below him, and taking off her +overcoat, laid it upon a rock. She then turned up her eyes and sang a Methodist +hymn. +</p> + +<p> +No sooner did the brave Don Edmundo hear it than he tore off his gorgeous +clothes, and cast himself headlong in the billows. Lady Celia caught him +dexterously by the waist in her mouth, and, swimming to the outer rock, sat up +and softly bit him in halves. She then laid the pieces tenderly in a +conspicuous place, put on her overcoat, and plunging into the waters was never +seen more. +</p> + +<p> +Many are the wild fabrications of the poets about her subsequent career, but to +this day nothing authentic has turned up. For some months strenuous efforts +were made to recover the wicked Lieutenant’s body. Every appliance which +genius could invent and skill could wield was put in requisition; until one +night the landlord, fearing these constant efforts might frighten away the +seals, had the remains quietly removed and secretly interred. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap33"></a>The Baffled Asian</h2> + +<p> +One day in ’49 an honest miner up in Calaveras county, California, bit +himself with a small snake of the garter variety, and either as a possible +antidote, or with a determination to enjoy the brief remnant of a wasted life, +applied a brimming jug of whisky to his lips, and kept it there until, like a +repleted leech, it fell off. +</p> + +<p> +The man fell off likewise. +</p> + +<p> +The next day, while the body lay in state upon a pine slab, and the bereaved +partner of the deceased was unbending in a game of seven-up with a friendly +Chinaman, the game was interrupted by a familiar voice which seemed to proceed +from the jaws of the corpse: “I say—Jim!” +</p> + +<p> +Bereaved partner played the king of spades, claimed “high,” and +then, looking over his shoulder at the melancholy remains, replied, +“Well, what is it, Dave? I’m busy.” +</p> + +<p> +“I say—Jim!” repeated the corpse in the same measured tone. +</p> + +<p> +With a look of intense annoyance, and muttering something about “people +that could never stop dead more’n a minute,” the bereaved partner +rose and stood over the body with his cards in his hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Jim,” continued the mighty dead, “how fur’s this thing +gone?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve paid the Chinaman two-and-a-half to dig the grave,” +responded the bereaved. +</p> + +<p> +“Did he strike anything?” +</p> + +<p> +The Chinaman looked up: “Me strikee pay dirt; me no bury dead +’Melican in ’em grave. Me keep ’em claim.” +</p> + +<p> +The corpse sat up erect: “Jim, git my revolver and chase that pig-tail +off. Jump his dam sepulchre, and tax his camp five dollars each fer +prospectin’ on the public domain. These Mungolyun hordes hez got to be +got under. And—I say—Jim! ’f any more serpents come +foolin’ round here drive ’em off. ’T’aint right to be +bitin’ a feller when whisky’s two dollars a gallon. Dern all +foreigners, anyhow!” +</p> + +<p> +And the mortal part pulled on its boots. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="part02"></a>TALL TALK</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap34"></a>A Call to Dinner</h2> + +<p> +When the starving peasantry of France were bearing with inimitable fortitude +their great bereavement in the death of Louis le Grand, how cheerfully must +they have bowed their necks to the easy yoke of Philip of Orleans, who set them +an example in eating which he had not the slightest objection to their +following. A monarch skilled in the mysteries of the <i>cuisine</i> must wield +the sceptre all the more gently from his schooling in handling the ladle. In +royalty, the delicate manipulation of an <i>omelette soufflé</i> is at once an +evidence of genius, and an assurance of a tender forbearance in state policy. +All good rulers have been good livers, and if all bad ones have been the same +this merely proves that even the worst of men have still something divine in +them. +</p> + +<p> +There is more in a good dinner than is disclosed by the removal of the covers. +Where the eye of hunger perceives but a juicy roast, the eye of faith detects a +smoking God. A well-cooked joint is redolent of religion, and a delicate pasty +is crisp with charity. The man who can light his after-dinner Havana without +feeling full to the neck with all the cardinal virtues is either steeped in +iniquity or has dined badly. In either case he is no true man. We stoutly +contend that that worthy personage Epicurus has been shamefully misrepresented +by abstemious, and hence envious and mendacious, historians. Either his +philosophy was the most gentle, genial, and reverential of antique systems, or +he was not an Epicurean, and to call him so is a deceitful flattery. We hold +that it is morally impossible for a man to dine daily upon the fat of the land +in courses, and yet deny a future state of existence, beatific with beef, and +ecstatic with all edibles. Another falsity of history is that of +Heliogabalus—was it not?—dining off nightingales’ tongues. No +true <i>gourmet</i> would ever send this warbler to the shambles so long as +scarcer birds might be obtained. +</p> + +<p> +It is a fine natural instinct that teaches the hungry and cadaverous to avoid +the temples of religion, and a short-sighted and misdirected zeal that would +gather them into the sanctuary. Religion is for the oleaginous, the +fat-bellied, chylesaturated devotees of the table. Unless the stomach be lined +with good things, the parson may say as many as he likes and his truths shall +not be swallowed nor his wisdom inly digested. Probably the highest, ripest, +and most acceptable form of worship is that performed with a knife and fork; +and whosoever on the resurrection morning can produce from amongst the lumber +of his cast-off flesh a thin-coated and elastic stomach, showing evidences of +daily stretchings done in the body, will find it his readiest passport and best +credential. We believe that God will not hold him guiltless who eats with his +knife, but if the deadly steel be always well laden with toothsome morsels, +divine justice will be tempered with mercy to that man’s soul. When the +author of the “Lost Tales” represented Sisyphus as capturing his +guest, the King of Terrors, and stuffing the old glutton with meat and drink +until he became “a jolly, rubicund, tun-bellied Death,” he gave us +a tale which needs no <i>hæc fabula docet</i> to point out the moral. +</p> + +<p> +We verily believe that Shakspeare writ down Fat Jack at his last gasp, as +babbling, not o’ green fields, but o’ green turtle, and that that +starvling Colley Cibber altered the text from sheer envy at a good man’s +death. To die well we must live well, is a familiar platitude. Morality is, of +course, <i>best</i> promoted by the good quality of our fare, but quantitative +excellence is by no means to be despised. <i>Cæteris paribus</i>, the man who +eats much is a better Christian than the man who eats little, and he who eats +little will pursue a more uninterrupted course of benevolence than he who eats +nothing. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap35"></a>On Death and Immortality</h2> + +<p> +Did it ever strike you, dear reader, that it must be a particularly pleasant +thing to be dead? To say nothing hackneyed about the blessed freedom from the +cares and vexations of life—which we cling to with such tenacity while we +can, and which, when we have no longer the power to hold, we let go all at +once, with probably a feeling of exquisite relief—and to take no account +of this latter probable but totally undemonstrable felicity, it must be what +boys call awfully jolly to be dead. +</p> + +<p> +Here you are, lying comfortably upon your back—what is left of +it—in the cool dark, and with the smell of the fresh earth all about you. +Your soul goes knocking about amongst an infinity of shadowy things, Lord knows +where, making all sorts of silent discoveries in the gloom of what was +yesterday an unknown and mysterious future, and which, after centuries of +exploration, must still be strangely unfamiliar. The nomadic thing doubtless +comes back occasionally to the old grave—if the body is so fortunate as +to possess one—and looks down upon it with big round eyes and a lingering +tenderness. +</p> + +<p> +It is hard to conceive a soul entirely cut loose from the old bones, and roving +rudderless about eternity. It was probably this inability to mentally divorce +soul from substance that gave us that absurdly satisfactory belief in the +resurrection of the flesh. There is said to be a race of people somewhere in +Africa who believe in the immortality of the body, but deny the resurrection of +the soul. The dead will rise refreshed after their long sleep, and in their +anxiety to test their rejuvenated powers, will skip bodily away and forget +their souls. Upon returning to look for them, they will find nothing but little +blue flames, which can never be extinguished, but may be carried about and used +for cooking purposes. This belief probably originates in some dim perception of +the law of compensation. In this life the body is the drudge of the spirit; in +the next the situation is reversed. +</p> + +<p> +The heaven of the Mussulman is not incompatible with this kind of immortality. +Its delights, being merely carnal ones, could be as well or better enjoyed +without a soul, and the latter might be booked for the Christian heaven, with +only just enough of the body to attach a pair of wings to. Mr. Solyman Muley +Abdul Ben Gazel could thus enjoy a dual immortality and secure a double portion +of eternal felicity at no expense to anybody. +</p> + +<p> +In fact, there can be no doubt whatever that this theory of a double heaven is +the true one, and needs but to be fairly stated to be universally received, +inasmuch as it supposes the maximum of felicity for terrestrial good behaviour. +It is therefore a sensible theory, resting upon quite as solid a foundation of +fact as any other theory, and must commend itself at once to the proverbial +good sense of Christians everywhere. The trouble is that some architectural +scoundrel of a priest is likely to build a religion upon it; and what the world +needs is theory—good, solid, nourishing theory. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap36"></a>Music—Muscular and Mechanical</h2> + +<p> +One cheerful evidence of the decivilization of the Anglo-Saxon race is the late +tendency to return to first principles in art, as manifested in substituting +noise for music. Herein we detect symptoms of a rapid relapse into original +barbarism. The savage who beats his gong or kettledrum until his face is of a +delicate blue, and his eyes assert themselves like those of an unterrified +snail, believes that musical skill is a mere question of brawn—a matter +of muscle. If not wholly ignorant of technical gymnastics, he has a theory that +a deftness at dumb-bells is a prime requisite in a finished artist. The +advance—in a circle—of civilization has only partially unsettled +this belief in the human mind, and we are constantly though unconsciously +reverting to it. +</p> + +<p> +It is true the modern demand for a great deal of music has outstripped the +supply of muscle for its production; but the ingenuity of man has partially +made up for his lack of physical strength, and the sublimer harmonies may still +be rendered with tolerable effectiveness, and with little actual fatigue to the +artist. As we retrograde towards the condition of Primeval Man—the man +with the gong and kettledrum—the blacksmith slowly reasserts his place as +the interpreter of the maestro. +</p> + +<p> +But there is a limit beyond which muscle, whether that of the arm or cheek, can +no further go, without too great an expenditure of force in proportion to the +volume of noise attainable. And right here the splendid triumphs of modern +invention and discovery are made manifest; electricity and gunpowder come to +the relief of puny muscle, simple appliance, and orchestras limited by sparse +population. Batteries of artillery thunder exultingly our victory over Primeval +Man, beaten at his own game—signally routed and put to shame, pounding +his impotent gong and punishing his ridiculous kettledrum in frantic silence, +amidst the clash and clang and roar of modern art. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap37"></a>The Good Young Man</h2> + +<p> +Why is he? Why defaces he the fair page of creation, and why is he to be +continued? This has never been explained; it is one of those dispensations of +Providence the design whereof is wrapped in profoundest obscurity. The good +young man is perhaps not without excuse for his existence, but society is +without excuse for permitting it. At his time of life to be “good” +is to insult humanity. Goodness is proper to the aged; it is their sole glory; +why should this milky stripling bring it into disrepute? Why should he be +permitted to defile with the fat of his sleek locks a crown intended to adorn +the grizzled pow of his elders? +</p> + +<p> +A young man may be manly, gentle, honourable, noble, tender and true, and +nobody will ever think of calling him a good young man. Your good young man is +commonly a sneak, and is very nearly allied to that other social pest, the +“nice young lady.” As applied to the immature male of our kind, the +adjective “good” seems to have been perverted from its original and +ordinary signification, and to have acquired a dyslogistic one. It is a term of +reproach, and means, as nearly as may be, “characterless.” That any +one should submit to have it applied to him is proof of the essential cowardice +of Virtue. +</p> + +<p> +We believe the direst ill afflicting civilization is the good young man. The +next direst is his natural and appointed mate, the nice young lady. If the two +might be tied neck and heels together and flung into the sea, the land would be +the fatter for it. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap38"></a>The Average Parson</h2> + +<p> +Our objection to him is not that he is senseless; this—as it concerns us +not—we can patiently endure. Nor that he is bigoted; this we expect, and +have become accustomed to. Nor that he is small-souled, narrow, and +hypocritical; all these qualities become him well, sitting easily and +gracefully upon him. We protest against him because he is always +“carrying on.” +</p> + +<p> +To carry on, in one way or another, seems to be the function of his existence, +and essential to his health. When he is not doing it in the pulpit he is at it +in the newspapers; when both fail him he resorts to the social circle, the +church meeting, the Sunday-school, or even the street corner. We have known him +to disport for half a day upon the kerb-stone, carrying on with all his might +to whomsoever would endure it. +</p> + +<p> +No sooner does a young sick-faced theologue get safely through his ordination, +as a baby finishes teething, than straightway he casts about him for an +opportunity to carry on. A pretext is soon found, and he goes at it hammer and +tongs; and forty years after you shall find him at the same trick with as +simple a faith, as exalted an expectation, as vigorous an impotence, as the day +he began. +</p> + +<p> +His carryings-on are as diverse in kind, as comprehensive in scope, as those of +the most versatile negro minstrel. He cuts as many capers in a lifetime as +there are stars in heaven or grains of sand in a barrel of sugar. Everything is +fish that comes to his net. If a discovery in science is announced, he will +execute you an antic upon it before it gets fairly cold. Is a new theory +advanced—ten to one while you are trying to get it through your head he +will stand on his own and make mouths at it. A great invention provokes him +into a whirlwind of flip-flaps absolutely bewildering to the secular eye; while +at any exceptional phenomenon of nature, such as an earthquake, he will project +himself frog-like into an infinity of lofty gymnastic absurdities. +</p> + +<p> +In short, the slightest agitation of the intellectual atmosphere sets your +average parson into a tempest of pumping like the jointed ligneous youth +attached to the eccentric of a boy’s whirligig. His philosophy of life +may be boiled down into a single sentence: Carry on and you will be happy. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap39"></a>Did We Eat One Another?</h2> + +<p> +There is no doubt of it. The unwelcome truth has long been suppressed by +interested parties who find their account in playing sycophant to that +self-satisfied tyrant Modern Man; but to the impartial philosopher it is as +plain as the nose upon an elephant’s face that our ancestors ate one +another. The custom of the Fiji Islanders, which is their only stock-in-trade, +their only claim to notoriety, is a relic of barbarism; but it is a relic of +<i>our</i> barbarism. +</p> + +<p> +Man is naturally a carnivorous animal. This none but greengrocers will dispute. +That he was formerly less vegetarian in his diet than at present, is clear from +the fact that market-gardening increases in the ratio of civilization. So we +may safely assume that at some remote period Man subsisted upon an exclusively +flesh diet. Our uniform vanity has given us the human mind as the <i>ne plus +ultra</i> of intelligence, the human face and figure as the standard of beauty. +Of course we cannot deny to human fat and lean an equal superiority over beef, +mutton, and pork. It is plain that our meat-eating ancestors would think in +this way, and, being unrestrained by the mawkish sentiment attendant upon high +civilization, would act habitually upon the obvious suggestion. <i>À +priori</i>, therefore, it is clear that we ate ourselves. +</p> + +<p> +Philology is about the only thread which connects us with the prehistoric past. +By picking up and piecing out the scattered remnants of language, we form a +patchwork of wondrous design. Oblige us by considering the derivation of the +word “sarcophagus,” and see if it be not suggestive of potted +meats. Observe the significance of the phrase “sweet sixteen.” What +a world of meaning lurks in the expression “she is sweet as a +peach,” and how suggestive of luncheon are the words “tender +youth.” A kiss itself is but a modified bite, and when a young girl +insists upon making a “strawberry mark” upon the back of your hand, +she only gives way to an instinct she has not yet learned to control. The fond +mother, when she says her babe is almost “good enough to eat,” +merely shows that she herself is only a trifle too good to eat it. +</p> + +<p> +These evidences might be multiplied <i>ad infinitum;</i> but if enough has been +said to induce one human being to revert to the diet of his ancestors, the +object of this essay is accomplished. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap40"></a>Your Friend’s Friend</h2> + +<p> +If there is any individual who combines within himself the vices of an entire +species it is he. A mother-in-law has usually been thought a rather +satisfactory specimen of total depravity; it has been customary to regard your +sweetheart’s brother as tolerably vicious for a young man; there is +excellent authority for looking upon your business partner as not wholly +without merit as a nuisance—but your friend’s friend is as far +ahead of these in all that constitutes a healthy disagreeableness as they +themselves are in advance of the average reptile or the conventional +pestilence. +</p> + +<p> +We do not propose to illustrate the great truth we have in hand by instances; +the experience of the reader will furnish ample evidence in support of our +proposition, and any narration of pertinent facts could only quicken into life +the dead ghosts of a thousand sheeted annoyances to squeak and gibber through a +memory studded thick with the tombstones of happy hours murdered by your +friend’s friend. +</p> + +<p> +Also, the animal is too well known to need a description. Imagine a thing in +all essential particulars the exact reverse of a desirable acquaintance, and +you have his mental photograph. How your friend could ever admire so hopeless +and unendurable a bore is a problem you are ever seeking to solve. Perhaps you +may be assisted in it by a previous solution of the kindred problem—how +he could ever feel affection for yourself? Perhaps your friend’s friend +is equally exercised over that question. Perhaps from his point of view +<i>you</i> are your friend’s friend. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap41"></a>Le Diable est aux Vaches.</h2> + +<p> +If it be that ridicule is the test of truth, as Shaftesbury is reported to have +said and didn’t, the doctrine of Woman Suffrage is the truest of all +faiths. The amount of really good ridicule that has been expended upon this +thing is appalling, and yet we are compelled to confess that to all appearance +“the cause” has been thereby shorn of no material strength, nor +bled of its vitality. And shall it be admitted that this potent argument of +little minds is as powerless as the dullards of all ages have steadfastly +maintained? Forbid it, Heaven! the gimlet is as proper a gimlet as any in all +Christendom, but the timber is too hard to pierce! Grant ye that “the +movement” is waxing more wondrous with each springing sun, who shall say +what it might not have been but for the sharp hatcheting of us wits among its +boughs? If the doctor have not cured his patient by to-morrow he may at least +claim that without the physic the man would have died to-day. +</p> + +<p> +And pray who shall search the vitals of a whale with a bodkin—who may +reach his jackknife through the superposed bubber? Pachyderm, thy name is +Woman! All the king’s horses and all the king’s men shall not bend +the bow that can despatch a clothyard shaft through thy pearly hide. The male +and female women who nightly howl their social and political grievances into +the wide ear of the universe are as insensible to the prickings of ridicule as +they are unconscious of logic. An intellectual Goliah of Gath might spear them +with an epigram like unto a weaver’s beam, and the sting thereof would be +as but the nipping of a red ant. Apollo might speed among them his silver +arrows, which erst heaped the Phrygian shores with hecatombs of Argive slain, +and they would but complain of the mosquito’s beak. Your female reformer +goes smashing through society like a tipsy rhinoceros among the tulip beds, and +all the torrent of brickbats rained upon her skin is shed, as globules of +mercury might be supposed to run off the back of a dry drake. +</p> + +<p> +One of the rarest amusements in life is to go about with an icicle suspended by +a string, letting it down the necks of the unwary. The sudden shrug, the quick +frightened shudder, the yelp of apprehension are sources of a pure, because +diabolical, delight. But these women—you may practise your chilling joke +upon one of them, and she will calmly wonder where you got your ice, and will +pen with deliberate fingers an ungrammatical resolution denouncing congelation +as tyrannical and obsolete. +</p> + +<p> +We despair of ever dispelling these creatures by pungent pleasantries—of +routing them by sharp censure. They are, apparently, to go on practically +unmolested to the end. Meantime we are cast down with a mighty proneness along +the dust; our shapely anatomy is clothed in a jaunty suit of sackcloth +liberally embellished with the frippery of ashes; our days are vocal with +wailing, our nights melodious with snuffle! +</p> + +<p> +Brethren, let us pray that the political sceptre may not pass from us into the +jewelled hands which were intended by nature for the clouting of babes and +sucklings. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap42"></a>Angels and Angles</h2> + +<p> +When abandoned to her own devices, the average female has a tendency to +“put on her things,” and to contrive the same, in a manner that is +not conducive to patience in the male beholder. Her besetting iniquity in this +particular is a fondness for angles, and she is unwavering in her determination +to achieve them at whatever cost. +</p> + +<p> +Now we vehemently affirm that in woman’s apparel an angle is an offence +to the male eye, and therefore a crime of no small magnitude. In the masculine +garb angles are tolerable—angles of whatever acuteness. The masculine +character and life are rigid and angular, and the apparel should, or at least +may, proclaim the man. But with the soft, rounded nature of woman, her bending +flexibility of temper, angles are absolutely incompatible. In her outward +seeming all should be easy and flowing—every fold a nest of graces, and +every line a curve. +</p> + +<p> +By close attention to this great truth, and a conscientious striving after its +advantages, woman may hope to become rather comely of exterior, and to find +considerable favour in the eyes of man. It is not impossible that, without any +abatement of her present usefulness, she may come to be regarded as actually +ornamental, and even attractive. If with her angles she will also renounce some +hundreds of other equally harassing absurdities of attire, she may consider her +position assured, and her claim to masculine toleration reasonably well +grounded. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap43"></a>A Wingless Insect</h2> + +<p> +It would be profitable in the end if man would take a hint from his lack of +wings, and settle down comfortably into the assurance that midair is not his +appointed element. The confession is a humiliating one, but there is a +temperate balm in the consciousness that his inability to “shave with +level wing” the blue empyrean cannot justly be charged upon himself. He +has done his endeavour, and done it nobly; but he’ll break his precious +neck. +</p> + +<p> +In Goldsmith’s veracious “History of Animated Nature” is a +sprightly account of one Nicolas, who was called, if our memory be not at +fault, the man-fish, and who was endowed by his Creator—the late Mr. +Goldsmith aforesaid—with the power of conducting an active existence +under the sea. That equally veracious and instructive work “The Arabian +Nights’ Entertainments,” peoples the bottom of old ocean with +powerful nations of similarly gifted persons; while in our own day “the +Man-Frog” has taught us what may be done in this line when one has once +got the knack of it. +</p> + +<p> +Some years since (we do not know if he has yet suffered martyrdom at the hand +of the fiendish White) there lived a noted Indian chieftain whose name, being +translated, signifies “The-Man-Who-Walks-Under-the-Ground,” +probably a lineal descendant of the gnomes. We have ourselves walked under the +ground in wine cellars. +</p> + +<p> +With these notable examples in mind, we are not prepared to assert that, though +man has as a rule neither the gills of a fish nor the nose of a mole, he may +not enjoy a drive at the bottom of the sea, or a morning ramble under the +subsoil. But with the exception of Peter Wilkins’ Flying +Islanders—whose existence we vehemently dispute—and some similar +creatures whom it suits our purpose to ignore, there is no record of any person +to whom the name of The-Man-Who-Flies-Over-the-Hills may be justly applied. We +make no account of the shallow device of Mongolfier, nor the dubious +contrivance of Marriott. A gentleman of proper aspirations would scorn to +employ either, as the Man-Frog would reject a diving-bell, or the subterranean +chieftain would sneer at the Mont Cenis tunnel. These “weak +inventions” only emphasize our impotence to strive with the subtle +element about and above. They prove nothing so conclusively as that we +<i>can’t</i> fly—a fact still more strikingly proven by the +constant thud of people tumbling out of them. To a Titan of comprehensive ear, +who could catch the noises of a world upon his single tympanum as Hector caught +Argive javelins upon his shield, the patter of dropping aeronauts would sound +like the gentle pelting of hailstones upon a dusty highway—so thick and +fast they fall. +</p> + +<p> +It is probable that man is no more eager to float free into space than the +earth—if it be sentient—is to shake him off; but it would appear +that he and it must, like the Siamese twins, consent to endure the +disadvantages of a mutually disagreeable intimacy. We submit that it is hardly +worth his while to continue “larding the lean earth” with his +carcase in the vain endeavour to emulate angels, whom in no respect he at all +resembles. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap44"></a>Pork on the Hoof</h2> + +<p> +The motto <i>aut Cæsar aut nullus</i> is principally nonsense, we take it. If +one may not be a man, one may, in most cases, be a hog with equal satisfaction +to his mind and heart. +</p> + +<p> +There is Thompson Washington Smith, for example (his name is not Thompson, nor +Washington, nor yet Smith; we call him so to conceal his real name, which is +perhaps Smythe). Now Thompson, there is reason to believe, tried earnestly for +some years to be a man. Alas! he began while he was a boy, and got exhausted +before he arrived at maturity. He could make no further effort, and manhood is +not acquired without a mighty struggle, nor maintained without untiring +industry. So having fatigued himself before reaching the starting-point, +Thompson Washington did not re-enter the race for manhood, but contented his +simple soul with achieving a modest swinehood. He became a hog of considerable +talent and promise. +</p> + +<p> +Let it not be supposed that Thompson has anything in common with the typical, +ideal hog—him who encrusts his hide with clay, and inhumes his muzzle in +garbage. Far from it; he is a cleanly—almost a godly-hog, preternaturally +fair of exterior, and eke fastidious of appetite. He is glossy of coat, +stainless of shirt, immaculate of trousers. He is shiny of beaver and refulgent +of boot. With all, a Hog. Watch him ten minutes under any circumstances and his +face shall seem to lengthen and sharpen away, split at the point, and develop +an unmistakeable snout. A ridge of bristles will struggle for sunlight under +the gloss of his coat. This is your imagination, and that is about as far as it +will take you. So long as Thompson Washington, actual, maintains a vertical +attitude, Thompson Washington, unreal, will not assume an horizontal one. Your +fancy cannot “go the whole hog.” +</p> + +<p> +It only remains to state explicitly to whom we are alluding. Well, there is a +stye in the soul of every one of us, in which abides a porker more or less +objectionable. We don’t all let him range at large, like Smith, but he +will occasionally exalt his visage above the rails of even the most cleverly +constructed pen. The best of us are they who spend most time repressing the +beast by rapping him upon the nose. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap45"></a>The Young Person</h2> + +<p> +We are prepared, not perhaps to prove, but to maintain, that civilization would +be materially aided and abetted by the offer of a liberal reward for the scalps +of Young Persons with the ears attached. Your regular Young Person is a living +nuisance, whose every act is a provocation to exterminate her. We say +“her,” not because, physically considered, the Y. P. is necesarily +of the she sex; more commonly is it an irreclaimable male; but morally and +intellectually it is an unmixed female. Her virtues are merely +milk-and-morality-her intelligence is pure spiritual whey. Her conversation (to +which not even her own virtues and intelligence are in any way related) is +three parts rain-water that has stood too long and one part cider that has not +stood long enough—a sickening, sweetish compound, one dose of which +induces in the mental stomach a colicky qualm, followed, if no correctives be +taken, by violent retching, coma, and death. +</p> + +<p> +The Young Person vegetates best in the atmosphere of parlours and ball-rooms; +if she infested the fields and roadsides like the squirrels, lizards, and +mud-hens, she would be as ruthlessly exterminated as they. Every passing +sportsman would fill her with duck-shot, and every strolling gentleman would +step out of his way to smite off her head with his cane, as one decapitates a +thistle. But in the drawing-room one lays off his destructiveness with his hat +and gloves, and the Young Person enjoys the same immunity that a sleepy mastiff +grants to the worthless kitten campaigning against his nose. +</p> + +<p> +But there is no good reason why the Spider should be destroyed and the Young +Person tolerated. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap46"></a>A Certain Popular Fallacy</h2> + +<p> +The world makes few graver mistakes than in supposing a man must necessarily +possess all the cardinal virtues because he has a big dog and some dirty +children. +</p> + +<p> +We know a butcher whose children are not merely dirty—they are fearfully +and wonderfully besmirched by the hand of an artist. He has, in addition, a big +dog with a tendency to dropsy, who flies at you across the street with such +celerity that he outruns his bark by a full second, and you are warned of your +danger only after his teeth are buried in your leg. And yet the owner of these +children and father of this dog is no whit better, to all appearance, than a +baker who has clean brats and a mild poodle. He is not even a good butcher; he +hacks a rib and lacerates a sirloin. He talks through his nose, which turns up +to such an extent that the voice passes right over your head, and you have to +get on a table to tell whether he is slandering his dead wife or swearing at +yourself. +</p> + +<p> +If that man possessed a thousand young ones, exaltedly nasty, and dogs enough +to make a sub-Atlantic cable of German sausage, you would find it difficult to +make us believe in him. In fact, we look upon the big dog test of morality as a +venerable mistake—natural but erroneous; and we regard dirty children as +indispensable in no other sense than that they are inevitable. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap47"></a>Pastoral Journalism</h2> + +<p> +There shall be joy in the household of the country editor what time the rural +mind shall no longer crave the unhealthy stimuli afforded by fascinating +accounts of corpulent beets, bloated pumpkins, dropsical melons, aspiring +maize, and precocious cabbages. Then the bucolic journalist shall have surcease +of toil, and may go out upon the meads to frisk with kindred lambs, frolic +familiarly with loose-jointed colts, and exchange grave gambollings with solemn +cows. Then shall the voice of the press, no longer attuned to the praises of +the vegetable kingdom, find a more humble, but not less useful, employment in +calling the animal kingdom to the evening meal beneath the sanctum window. +</p> + +<p> +To the over-worked editor life will have a fresh zest and a new significance. +The hills shall hump more greenly upward to a bluer sky, the fields blush with +a more tender sunshine. He will go forth at dawn with countless flipflaps of +gymnastic joy; and when the white sun shall redden with the blood of dying day, +and the hogs shall set up a fine evening hymn of supplication to the Giver of +Swill, he will stand upon the editorial head, blissfully conscious that his +intellect is a-ripening for the morrow’s work. +</p> + +<p> +The rural newspaper! We sit with it in hand, running our fingers over the big +staring letters, as over the black and white keys of a piano, drumming out of +them a mild melody of perfect repose. With what delight do we disport us in the +illimitable void of its nothingness, as who should swim in air! Here is nothing +to startle—nothing to wound. The very atmosphere is saturated with +“the spirit of the rural press;” and even our dog stands by, with +pendant tail, slowly dropping the lids over his great eyes; and then, jerking +them suddenly up again, tries to look as if he were not sleepy in the least. A +pleasant smell of ploughed ground comes strong upon us. The tinkle of ghostly +cow-bells falls drowsily upon the ear. Airy figures of phenomenal esculents +float dreamily before our half-shut eyes, and vanish ere perfect vision can +catch them. About and above are the drone of bees, and the muffled thunder of +milk streams shooting into the foaming pail. The gabble of distant geese is +faintly marked off by the bark of a distant dog. The city with its noises sinks +away from our feet as from one in a balloon, and our senses are steeped in +country languor. We slumber. +</p> + +<p> +God bless the man who first invented the country newspaper!—though Sancho +Panza blessed him once before. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap48"></a>Mendicity’s Mistake</h2> + +<p> +Your famishing beggar is a fish of as sorry aspect as may readily be scared up. +Generally speaking, he is repulsive as to hat, abhorrent as to vesture, squalid +of boot, and in <i>tout ensemble</i> unseemly and atrocious. His appeal for +alms falls not more vexingly upon the ear than his offensive personality smites +hard upon the eye. The touching effectiveness of his tale is ever neutralized +by the uncomeliness of his raiment and the inartistic besmirchedness of his +countenance. His pleading is like the pathos of some moving ballad from the +lips of a negro minstrel; shut your eyes and it shall make you fumble in your +pocket for your handkerchief; open them, and you would fain draw out a pistol +instead. +</p> + +<p> +It is to be wished that Poverty would garb his body in a clean skin, that +Adversity would cultivate a taste for spotless linen, and that Beggary would +address himself unto your pocket from beneath a downy hat. However, we cannot +hope to immediately impress these worthy mendicants with the advantage of +devoting a portion of their gains to the purchase of purple and fine linen, +instead of expending their all upon the pleasures of the table and riotous +living; but our duty unto them remains. +</p> + +<p> +The very least that one can do for the offensive needy is to direct them to the +nearest clothier. That, therefore, is the proper course. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap49"></a>Insects.</h2> + +<p> +Every one has observed, a solitary ant breasting a current of his fellows as he +retraces his steps to pack off something he has forgotten. At each meeting with +a neighbour there is a mutual pause, and the two confront each other for a +moment, reaching out their delicate antennae, and making a critical examination +of one another’s person. This the little creature repeats with tireless +persistence to the end of his journey. +</p> + +<p> +As with the ant, so with the other insect—the sprightly “female of +our species.” It is really delightful to watch the fine frenzy of her +lovely eye as she notes the approach of a woman more gorgeously arrayed than +herself, or the triumphant contempt that settles about her lips at the advance +of a poorly clad sister. How contemplatively she lingers upon each detail of +attire—with what keen penetration she takes in the general effect at a +sweep! +</p> + +<p> +And this suggests the fearful thought—what <i>would</i> the darlings do +if they wore no clothes? One-half their pleasure in walking on the street would +vanish like a dream, and an equal proportion of the philosopher’s +happiness in watching them would perish in the barren prospect of an inartistic +nudity. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap50"></a>Picnicking considered as a Mistake</h2> + +<p> +Why do people attend public picnics? We do not wish to be iterative, but why do +they? Heaven help them! it is because they know no better, and no one has had +the leisure to enlighten them. +</p> + +<p> +Now your picnic-goer is a muff—an egregious, gregarious muff, and a +glutton. Moreover, a nobody who, if he be male wears, in nine cases in ten, a +red necktie and a linen duster to his heel; if she be female hath soiled hose +to her calf, and in her face a premonition of colic to come. +</p> + +<p> +We hold it morally impossible to attend a picnic and come home pure in heart +and undefiled of cuticle. For the dust will get in your nose, clog your ears, +make clay in your mouth and mortar in your eyes, and so stop up all the natural +passages to the soul; whereby the wickedness which that subtle organ doth +constantly excrete is balked of its issue, tainting the entire system with a +grievous taint. +</p> + +<p> +At picnics, moreover, is engendered an unpleasant perspiration, which the +patient must perforce endure until he shall bathe him in a bath. It is not +sweet to reek, and your picnicker must reek. Should he chance to break a leg, +or she a limb, the inevitable exposure of the pedal condition is alarming and +eke humiliating. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap51"></a>Thanksgiving Day</h2> + +<p> +There be those of us whose memories, though vexed with an oyster-rake would not +yield matter for gratitude, and whose piety though strained through a sieve +would leave no trace of an object upon which to lavish thanks. It is easy +enough, with a waistcoat selected for the occasion, to eat one’s +proportion of turkey and hide away one’s allowance of wine; and if this +be returning thanks, why then gratitude is considerably easier, and vastly more +agreeable, than falling off a log, and may be acquired in one easy lesson +without a master. But if more than this be required—if to be grateful +means anything beyond being gluttonous, your true philosopher—he of the +severe brow upon which logic has stamped its eternal impress, and from whose +heart sentiment has been banished along with other small vices—your true +philosopher, say we, will think twice before he “crooks the pregnant +hinges of the knee” in humble observance of the day. +</p> + +<p> +For here is the nut of reason he is obliged to crack before he can obtain the +kernel of emotion proper to the day. Unless the blessings we enjoy are favours +from the Omnipotent, to be grateful is to be absurd. If they are, then, also +the ills with which we are afflicted have the same origin. Grant this, and you +make an offset of the latter against the former, or are driven either to the +ridiculous position that we must be equally grateful for both evils and +blessings, or the no less ridiculous one that all evils are blessings in +disguise. +</p> + +<p> +But the truth is, my fine friend, your annual gratitude is a sorry sham, a +cloak, my good fellow, to cover your unhandsome gluttony; and when by chance +you do take to your knees, it is only that you prefer to digest your bird in +that position. We understand your case accurately, and the hard sense we are +poking at you is not a preachment for your edification, but a bit of harmless +fun for our own diversion. For, look you! there is really a subtle but potent +relation between the gratitude of the spirit and the stuffing of the flesh. +</p> + +<p> +We have ever taught the identity of Soul and Stomach; these are but different +names for one object considered under differing aspects. Thankfulness we +believe to be a kind of ether evolved by the action of the gastric fluid upon +rich meats. Like all gases it ascends, and so passes out of the esophagus in +prayer and psalmody. This beautiful theory we have tested by convincing +experiments in the manner following:— +</p> + +<p> +<i>Experiment 1st.</i>—A quantity of grass was placed in a large bladder, +and a gill of the gastric fluid of a sheep introduced. In ten minutes the neck +of the bladder emitted a contented bleat. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Experiment 2nd.</i>—A pound of beef was substituted for the grass, and +the fluid of a dog for that of the sheep. The result was a cheerful bark, +accompanied by an agitation of the bottom of the bladder, as if it were +attempting to wag an imaginary tail. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Experiment 3rd.</i>—The bladder was charged with a handful of chopped +turkey, and an ounce of human gastric juice obtained from the Coroner. At +first, nothing but a deep sigh of satisfaction escaped from the neck of the +bladder, followed by an unmistakeable grunt, similar to that of a hog. Upon +increasing the proportion of turkey, and confining the gas, the bladder was +very much distended, appearing to suffer great uneasiness. The restriction +being removed, the neck distinctly articulated the words “Praise God, +from whom all blessings flow!” +</p> + +<p> +Against such demonstration as this any mere theological theorizing is of no +avail. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap52"></a>Flogging</h2> + +<p> +It may justly be demanded of the essayist that he shall give some small thought +to the question of corporal punishment by means of the “cat,” and +“ground-ash.” We have given the subject the most elaborate +attention; we have written page after page upon it. Day and night we have +toiled and perspired over that distressing problem. Through Summer’s sun +and Winter’s snow, with all unfaltering purpose, we have strung miles of +ink upon acres of paper, weaving wisdom into eloquence with the tireless +industry of a silkworm fashioning his cocoon. We have refused food, scorned +sleep, and endured thirst to see our work grow beneath our cunning hand. The +more we wrote the wiser we became; the opinions of one day were rejected the +next; the blind surmising of yesterday ripened into the full knowledge of +to-day, and this matured into the superhuman omniscience of this evening. We +have finally got so infernally clever that we have abandoned the original +design of our great work, and determined to make it a compendium of everything +that is accurately known up to date, and the bearing of this upon flogging in +general. +</p> + +<p> +To other, and inferior, writers it is most fortunate that our design has taken +so wide a scope. These can go on with their perennial wrangle over the petty +question of penal and educational flagellation, while we grapple with the +higher problem, and unfold the broader philosophy of an universal walloping. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap53"></a>Reflections upon the Beneficent Influence of the Press</h2> + +<p> +<i>Reflection 1.</i>—The beneficent influence of the Press is most talked +about by the Press. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Reflection 2.</i>—If the Press were less evenly divided upon all +social, political, and moral questions the influence of its beneficence would +be greater than it is. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Reflection 3.</i>—The beneficence of its influence would be more +marked. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Reflection 4.</i>—If the Press were more wise and righteous than it +is, it might escape the reproach of being more foolish and wicked than it +should be. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Reflection 5.</i>—The foregoing Reflection is <i>not</i> an identical +proposition. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Reflection 6.</i>—(<i>a</i>) The beneficent influence of the Press +cannot be purchased for money. (<i>b</i>) It can if you have enough money. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap54"></a>Charity</h2> + +<p> +Charity is certain to bring its reward—if judiciously bestowed. The +Anglo-Saxons are the most charitable race in the world—and the most +judicious. The right hand should never know of the charity that the left hand +giveth. There is, however, no objection to putting it in the papers. Charity is +usually represented with a babe in her arms—going to place it +benevolently upon a rich man’s doorstep. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap55"></a>The Study of Human Nature</h2> + +<p> +To the close student of human nature no place offers such manifold attractions, +such possibilities of deep insight, such a mine of suggestion, such a +prodigality of illustration, as a pig-pen at feeding time. It has been said, +with allusion to this philosophical pursuit, that “there is no place like +home;” but it will be seen that this is but another form of the same +assertion.—<i>End of the Essay upon the Study of Human Nature.</i> +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap56"></a>Additional Talk—Done in the Country</h2> + +<h3>I.</h3> + +<p> +.... Life in the country may be compared to the aimless drifting of a house-dog +professing to busy himself about a lawn. He goes nosing about, tacking and +turning here and there with the most intense apparent earnestness; and finally +seizes a blade of grass by the middle, chews it savagely, drops it; gags +comically, and curls away to sleep as if worn out with some mighty exercise. +Whatever pursuit you may engage in in the country is sure to end in nausea, +which you are quite as sure to try to get recognised as fatigue. +</p> + +<h3>II.</h3> + +<p> +.... A windmill keeps its fans going about; they do not stop long in one +position. A man should be like the fans of a windmill; he should go about a +good deal, and not stop long—in the country. +</p> + +<h3>III.</h3> + +<p> +.... A great deal has been written and said and sung in praise of green trees. +And yet there are comparatively few green trees that are good to eat. Asparagus +is probably the best of them, though celery is by no means to be despised. Both +may be obtained in any good market in the city. +</p> + +<h3>IV.</h3> + +<p> +.... A cow in walking does not, as is popularly supposed, pick up all her feet +at once, but only one of them at a time. Which one depends upon circumstances. +The cow is but an indifferent pedestrian. <i>Hæc fabula docet</i> that one +should not keep three-fourths of his capital lying idle. +</p> + +<h3>V.</h3> + +<p> +.... The Quail is a very timorous bird, who never achieves anything notable, +yet he has a crest. The Jay, who is of a warlike and powerful family, has no +crest. There is a moral in this which Aristocracy will do well to ponder. But +the quail is very good to eat and the jay is not. The quail is entitled to a +crest. (In the Eastern States, this meditation will provoke dispute, for there +the jay has a crest and the quail has not. The Eastern States are exceptional +and inferior.) +</p> + +<h3>VI.</h3> + +<p> +.... The destruction of rubbish with fire makes a very great smoke. In this +particular a battle resembles the destruction of rubbish. There would be a +close resemblance even if a battle evolved no smoke. Rubbish, by the way, is +not good eating, but an essayist should not be a <i>gourmet</i>—in the +country. +</p> + +<h3>VII.</h3> + +<p> +.... Sweet milk should be taken only in the middle of the night. If taken +during the day it forms a curd in the stomach, and breeds a dire distress. In +the middle of the night the stomach is supposed to be innocent of whisky, and +it is the whisky that curdles the milk. Should you be sleeping nicely, I would +not advise you to come out of that condition to drink sweet milk. +</p> + +<h3>VIII.</h3> + +<p> +.... In the country the atmosphere is of unequal density, and in passing +through the denser portions your silk hat will be ruffled, and the country +people will jeer at it. They will jeer at it anyhow. When going into the +country, you should leave your silk hat at a bank, taking a certificate of +deposit. +</p> + +<h3>IX.</h3> + +<p> +.... The sheep chews too fast to enjoy his victual. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="part03"></a>CURRENT JOURNALINGS</h2> + +<p> +... Following is the manner of death incurred by Dr. Deadwood, the celebrated +African explorer, which took place at Ujijijijiji, under the auspices of the +Royal Geographical Society of England, assisted, at some distance, by Mr. +Shandy of the <i>New York Herald:</i>— +</p> + +<p> +An intelligent gorilla has recently been imported to this country, who had the +good fortune to serve the Doctor as a body servant in the interior of Africa, +and he thus describes the manner of his master’s death. The Doctor was +accustomed to pass his nights in the stomach of an acquaintance—a +crocodile about fifty feet long. Stepping out one evening to take an +observation of one of the lunar eclipses peculiar to the country, he spoke to +his host, saying that as he should not return, until after bedtime, he would +not trouble him to sit up to let him in; he would just leave the door open till +he came home. By way of doing so, he set up a stout fence-rail between his +landlord’s distended jaws, and went away. +</p> + +<p> +Returning about midnight, he took off his boots outside, so as not to awaken +his friend, entered softly, knocked away the prop, and prepared to turn in. But +the noise of pounding on the rail had aroused the householder, and so great was +the feeling of relief induced by the relaxation of the maxillary muscles, that +he unconsciously shut his mouth to smile, without giving his tenant time to get +into the bedroom. The Doctor was just stooping to untie his drawers, when he +was caught between the floor and ceiling, like a lemon in a squeezer. +</p> + +<p> +Next day the melancholy remains were given up to our informant, who displays a +singular reticence regarding his disposition of them; merely picking his teeth +with his claws in an absent, thoughtful kind of way, as if the subject were too +mournful to be discussed in all its harrowing details. +</p> + +<p> +None of the Doctor’s maps or instruments were recovered; his bereaved +landlord holds them as security for certain rents claimed to be due and unpaid. +It is probable that Great Britain will make a stern demand for them, and if +they are not at once surrendered will—submit her claim to a Conference. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... The prim young maidens who affiliate with the Young Men’s Christian +Association of San Francisco—who furnish the posies for their festivals, +and assist in the singing of psalms—have a gymnasium in the temple. +Thither they troop nightly to display their skill in turning inside out and +shutting themselves up like jack-knives of the gentler kind. +</p> + +<p> +Here may be seen the godly Rachel and the serious Ruth, suspended by their +respective toes between the heaven to which they aspire and the wicked world +they do abhor. Here the meek-eyed Hannah, pendent from the horizontal bar, +doubleth herself upon herself and stares fixedly backward from between her +shapely limbs, a thing of beauty and a joy for several minutes. Mehitable Ann, +beloved of young Soapenlocks, vaults lightly over a barrier and with unspoken +prayer lays hold on the unstable trapeze mounting aloft in air. Jerusha, +comeliest of her sex, ties herself in a double bow-knot, and meditates upon the +doctrine of election. +</p> + +<p> +O, blessed temple of grace divine! O, innocence and youth and simple faith! O, +water and molasses and unsalted butter! O, niceness absolute and godly whey! +Would that we were like unto these ewe lambs, that we might frisk and gambol +among them without evil. Would that we were female, and Christian, and +immature, with a flavour as of green grass and a hope in heaven. Then would we, +too, sing hymns through our blessed nose, and contort and musculate with much +satisfaction of soul, even in the gymnasium of The Straight-backed. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... Some raging iconoclast, after having overthrown religion by history, upset +history by science, and then toppled over science, has now laid his impious +hands upon babies’ nursing bottles. +</p> + +<p> +“The tubes of these infernal machines,” says this tearing beast, +“are composed of india-rubber dissolved in bisulphide of carbon, and +thickened with lead, resin, and sometimes oxysulphuret of antimony, from which, +when it comes in contact with the milk, sulphuretted hydrogen is evolved, and +lactate of lead formed in the stomach.” +</p> + +<p> +This logic is irresistible. Granting only that the tubes are made in that +simple and intelligible manner (and anybody can see for himself that they are), +the sulphuretted hydrogen and the lactate of lead follow (down the œsophagus) +as a logical sequence. But the scientific horror seems to be profoundly unaware +that these substances are not only harmless to the child, but actually +nutritious and essential to its growth. Not only so, but nature has implanted +in its breast an instinctive craving for these very comforts. Often have we +seen some wee thing turn disgusted from the breast and lift up its thin voice: +“Not for Joseph; give me the bottle with the oxysulphuret of antimony +tube. I take sulphuretted hydrogen and lactate of lead in mine every +time!” And we have said: “Nature is working in that darling. What +God hath joined together let no man put asunder!” +</p> + +<p> +And we have thought of the wicked iconoclast. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... There are a lot of evil-minded horses about the city, who seem to take a +fiendish delight in letting fly their heels at whomsoever they catch in a godly +reverie unconscious of their proximity. This is perfectly natural and human, +but it is annoying to be always getting horse-kicked when one is not in a mood +for it. +</p> + +<p> +The worst of it is, these horses always manage it so as to get tethered across +the sidewalk in the most populous thoroughfares, where they at once drop into +the semblance of a sound slumber. By this means they lure the unsuspecting to +their doom, and just as some unconscious pedestrian is passing astern of them +they wake up, and without a preliminary yawn, or even a warning shake of the +tail like the more chivalrous rattlesnake, they at once discharge their feet at +him with a rapidity and effect that are quite surprising if the range be not +too long. Usually this occurs in Merchant-street, below Montgomery, and the +damage is merely nominal; some worthless Italian fisherman, market gardener, or +decayed gentleman oozing out of a second-class restaurant being the only +sufferer. +</p> + +<p> +Rut not infrequently these playful brutes get themselves tethered in some +fashionable promenade, and the consequence is demoralizing to white people. We +speak within the limits of possibility when we say that we have seen no less +than seven women and children in the air at once, impelled heavenward by as +many consecutive kicks of a single skilled operator. No longer ago than we can +remember we saw an aged party in spectacles and a clawhammer coat gyrating +through the air like an irregular bolt shot out of a catapult. Before we could +ascertain from him the site of the quadruped from whom he had received his +impulsion, he had passed like a vague dream, and the equine scoundrel went +unwhipped of justice. +</p> + +<p> +These flying squadrons are serious inconveniences to public travel; it is +conducive to profanity to have a whizzing young woman, a rattling old man, or a +singing baby flung against one’s face every few moments by the hoofs of +some animal whom one has never injured, and who is a perfect stranger. +</p> + +<p> +It ought to be stopped. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... In the telegraphic account of a distressing railway accident in New York, +we find the following:—“The body of Mr. Germain was identified by +his business partner, John Austin, who seemed terribly affected by his +loss.” +</p> + +<p> +O, reader, how little we think upon the fearful possibilities hidden away in +the womb of the future. Any day may snatch from our life its light. One moment +we were happy in the possession of some dear object, about which to twine the +tendrils of the heart; the next, we cower and shiver in the chill gloom of a +bereavement that withers the soul and makes existence an intolerable burden! +To-day all nature smiles with a sunny warmth, and life spreads before us a +wilderness of sweets; to-morrow—we lose our business partner! +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... Mr. J. L. Dummle, one of our most respected citizens, left his home to go, +as he said, to his office. There was nothing unusual in his demeanour, and he +appeared to be in his customary health and spirits. It is not known that there +was anything in his financial or domestic affairs to make life distasteful to +him. About half an hour after parting with his family, he was seen conversing +with a friend at the corner of Kearny and Sutter-streets, from which point he +seems to have gone directly to the Vallejo-street wharf. He was here seen by +the captain of the steamer <i>New World</i>, standing upon the extreme end of +the wharf, but the circumstance did not arouse any suspicion in the mind of the +Captain, to whom he was well known. At that moment some trivial business +diverted the Captain’s attention, and he saw Mr. Dummle no more; but it +has been ascertained that the latter proceeded directly home, where he may now +be seen by any one desiring to obtain further particulars of the melancholy +event here narrated. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Dummle speaks of it with perfect frankness and composure. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... In deference to a time-worn custom, on the first day of the year the +writer swore to, affixed a revenue stamp upon, and recorded the following +document:— +</p> + +<p> +“I will not, during this year, utter a profane word—unless in +sport—without having been previously vexed by something. +</p> + +<p> +“I will murder no one that does not offend me, except for his money. +</p> + +<p> +“I will commit highway robbery upon none but small school children, and +then only under the stimulus of present or prospective hunger. +</p> + +<p> +“I will not bear false witness against my neighbour where nothing is to +be made by it. +</p> + +<p> +“I will be as moral and religious as the law shall compel me to be. +</p> + +<p> +“I will run away with no man’s wife without her full and free +consent, and never, no never, so help me heaven! will I take his children +along. +</p> + +<p> +“I wont write any wicked slanders against anybody, unless by refraining I +should sacrifice a good joke. +</p> + +<p> +“I wont beat any cripples who do not come fooling about me when I am +busy; and I will give all my neighbours’ boots to the poor.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +....A town in Vermont has a society of young men, formed for the express +purpose of rescuing young ladies from drowning. We warn these gentlemen that we +will not accept even honorary membership in their concern; we do not sympathize +with the movement. Upon several occasions we have stood by and seen young +ladies’ noses disappear beneath the waters blue, with a stolid +indifference that would have been creditable in a husband. It was a trifle +rough on the darlings, but if we know our own mind we do not purpose, just for +the doubtful pleasure of saving a female’s life, to surrender our +prerogative of marrying when and whom we like. +</p> + +<p> +If we take a fancy to a woman we shall wed her, but we’re not to be +coerced into matrimony by any ridiculous school-girl who may chance to fall +into a horse-pond. We know their tricks and their manners—waking to +consciousness in a fellow’s arms and throwing their own wet ones about +his neck, saying, “The life you have preserved, noble youth, is yours; +whither thou goest I will go; thy horses and carriages shall be my horses and +carriages!” +</p> + +<p> +We are too old a sturgeon to be caught with a spoon-hook. Ladies in the +vicinity of our person need not hesitate to fling themselves madly into the +first goose-puddle that obstructs their way; their liberty of action will be +scrupulously respected. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... There is a bladdery old nasality ranging about the country upon free +passes, vexing the public ear with “hallowed songs,” and making of +himself a spectacle to the eye. This bleating lamb calls himself the +“Sacred Singer,” and has managed to get that pleasing title into +the newspapers until it is become as offensive as himself. +</p> + +<p> +Now, therefore, we do trustfully petition that this wearisome psalm-sharp, this +miauling meter-monger, this howling dervish of hymns devotional, may strain his +trachea, unsettle the braces of his lungs, crack his ridiculous gizzard and +perish of pneumonia starvation. And may the good Satan seize upon the catgut +strings of his tuneful soul, and smite therefrom a wicked, wicked waltz! +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... We hold a most unflattering opinion of the man who will thieve a dog, but +between him and the man who will keep one, the moral difference is not so great +as to be irreconcilable. +</p> + +<p> +Our own dog is a standing example of canine inutility. The scurvy cur is not +only totally depraved in his morals, but his hair stands the wrong way, and his +tail is of that nameless type intermediate between the pendulously pitiful and +the spirally exasperating—a tail which gives rise to conflicting emotions +in the mind of the beholder, and causes the involuntarily uplifted hand to +hesitate if it shall knuckle away the springing tear, or fall in thunderous +vengeance upon the head of the dog’s master. +</p> + +<p> +That dog spends about half his elegant leisure in devouring the cold victuals +of compassion, and the other half in running after the bricks of which he is +the provocation and we are the target. Within the last six years we employed as +editors upon the unhappy journal which it was intended that this article should +redeem, no less than sixteen pickpockets, hoping they would steal him; but with +an acute intelligence of which their writing conveyed but an imperfect idea, +they shunned the glittering bait, as one walks to windward of the deadly upas +tree. We have given him away to friends until we haven’t a friend left; +we have offered him at auction-sales, and been ourselves knocked down; we have +decoyed him into strange places and abandoned him, until we are poor from the +payment of unpromised rewards. In the character of a charitable donation he has +been driven from the door of every orphan asylum, foundling hospital, and +reform school in the State. Not a week passes but we forfeit exemplary damages +for inciting him to fall foul of passing gentlemen, in the vain hope of getting +him slain. +</p> + +<p> +If any one would wish to purchase a cheap dog, we would sell this beast. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... A religious journal published in the Far West says that Brothers Dong, +Gong, and Tong are Chinese converts to its church. There is a fine religious +nasality about these names that is strongly suggestive of the pulpit in the +palmy days of the Puritans. +</p> + +<p> +By the way, we should dearly love to know how to baptize a Chinaman. We have a +shrewd suspicion that it is done as the Mongolian laundryman dampens our linen: +by taking the mouth full of water and spouting it over the convert’s head +in a fine spray. If so, it follows that the pastor having most +“cheek” is best qualified for cleansing the pagan soul. +</p> + +<p> +An important question arises here. Suppose Dong, Gong, and Tong to have been +baptized in this way, who pronounced that efficacious formula, “I baptize +thee in the name,” etc.? Clearly the parson, with his mouth full of +water, could not have done so at the instant of baptism, and if the sentence +was spoken by any other person it was a falsehood. It must therefore have been +spoken either before the minister distended his cheeks, or after he had +exhausted them. In either case, according to the learned Dr. Sicklewit, the +ceremony is utterly null and void of effect. (<i>Study of Baptism</i>, vol. +ix., ch. cxix. § vi. p. 627, line 13 from bottom.) +</p> + +<p> +Possibly, however, D., G. and T. were not baptized in this way. Then how the +devil were they baptized?—and why? +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... Henry Wolfe, of Kentucky, aged one hundred and eight years, who had never +been sick in his life, lay down one fine day and sawed his neck asunder with a +razor. Henry did not believe in self-slaughter; he despised it. It was +Henry’s opinion that as God had placed us here we should stay until it +was His pleasure to remove us. That is also our opinion, and the opinion of all +other good Christians who would like to die but are afraid to do it. It will be +observed that Henry could not claim originality of opinion. +</p> + +<p> +But there is a point beyond which hope deferred maketh the heart sick, and +Henry had passed that point. He waited patiently till he was naked of scalp and +deaf of ear. He endured without repining the bent back, the sightless eyes, and +the creaking joints incident to over-maturity. But when he saw a man perish of +senility, who in infancy had called him “Old Hank,” Mr. Wolfe +thought patience had ceased to be commendable, and he abandoned his post of +duty without being regularly relieved. +</p> + +<p> +It is to be hoped he will be hotly punished for it. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... One day an obscure and unimportant person pitched himself among the +rolling porpoises, from a ferry-boat, and an officious busy-body, not at once +clearly apprehending that the matter was none of his immediate business, hied +him down to the engineer and commanded that official to “back her, +hard!” As it is customary upon the high seas for such orders to emanate +from the officer in command, that particular boat kept forging ahead, and the +unimportant old person carried out his original design—that is, he went +to the bottom like an iron wedge. Rises the press in its wrath and prates about +a Grand Jury! Shrieks an intelligent public, in chorus, at the heartless +engineer! +</p> + +<p> +Meantime the pretty fish are running away with choice bits of God’s image +at the bottom of the bay; the cunning crab makes merry with a dead man’s +eye, the nipping shrimp sweetens himself for the table upon the clean juices of +a succulent corpse. Below all is peace and fat feasting; above rolls the +sounding ocean of eternal Bosh! +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... There is war! The woman suffrage folk go up against one another, because +that a portion of them cleave to the error that the Bible is a collection of +fables. These will probably divest themselves of this belief about the time +that Mr. Satan stands over them with a toasting-fork, points significantly to a +glowing gridiron, and says to each suffrager: +</p> + +<p> +“Madame, I beg your pardon, but you will please retire to the +ladies’ dressing-room, disrobe, unpad, lay off your back-hair; and make +yourself as comfortable as possible while some fresh coals are being put on the +fire. When you have unmade your toilet you may touch that bell, and you will be +nicely buttered and salted for the iron. A polite and gentlemanly attendant +will occasionally turn you, and I shall take pleasure in looking in upon you +once in a million years, to see that you are being properly done. Exceedingly +sultry weather, Madame. <i>Au revoir</i>.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... The funeral of the Rev. Father Byrne took place from the Church of the +Holy Cross. The ceremonies were of the most solemn and impressive character, +and were keenly enjoyed by the empty benches by which the Protestant clergy +were ably represented. Why turned ye not out, O Biblethump, and Muddletext, and +you, Hymnsing? Is it thus that the Master was wont to treat the dead? +</p> + +<p> +Now get thee into the secret recesses of thy closet, Rev. Lovepreach; knuckle +down upon thy knees and pray to a tolerant God not to smite thee with a plague. +For lo! thou hast been a bigoted, bat-eyed, cat-hearted fraud—a preacher +of peace and a practiser of strife. For these many years thy tongue hath been +dropping gospel honey, and thy soul secreting bitterness. Thy voice has been as +the sound of glad horns upon a hill, but thy ways are the ways of a gaunt hound +tracking the hunted stag. “Holier than we,” are you? And when the +worker of differing faith is gone to his account, you turn your sleek back upon +the God’s image as it is given to the waiting worms. Perdition seize thee +and thy holiness! we’ll none of it. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... Two hundred dollars for biting a woman’s neck and arms! That was the +sentence imposed upon the gentle Mr. Hill, because His Eminence set his +incisors into the yielding tissue of Mrs. Langdon, a lady with whom his wife +happened to be debating by means of a stew-kettle. +</p> + +<p> +If this monstrous decision stand, the writer owes the treasury about ten +thousand dollars. Though by nature of a mild and gentle appetite, preferring +simple roots and herbs, yet it has been his custom to nip all female necks and +arms that have been willingly submitted unto his teeth. He hath found in this +harmless, and he had supposed lawful, practice, an exceeding sweetness of +sensation, and a satisfaction wherewith the delights of sausage, or the bliss +of pigs’ feet, can in nowise compare. Having commonly found the +gratification mutual, he thinks he is justified in maintaining its innocence. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... We are tolerably phlegmatic and notoriously hard to provoke. We look on +with considerable composure while our favourite Chinaman is being dismembered +in the streets, and our dog publicly insulted. Detecting an alien hand in our +trousers pocket excites in us only a feeling of temperate disapprobation, and +an open swindle executed upon our favourite cousin by an unscrupulous +shopkeeper we regard simply as an instance of enterprise which has taken an +unfortunate direction. Slow to anger, quick to forgive, charitable in judgment +and to mercy prone; with unbounded faith in the entire goodness of man and the +complete holiness of woman; seeking ever for palliating circumstances in the +conduct of the blackest criminal—we are at once a model of moderation and +a pattern of forbearance. +</p> + +<p> +But if Mrs. Victoria Woodhull and her swinish crew of free lovers had but a +single body, and that body lay asleep under the upturned root of a prostrate +oak, we would work with a dull jack-knife day and night—month in and +month out—through summer’s sun and winter’s storm—to +sever that giant trunk, and let that mighty root, clasping its mountain of +inverted earth, back into the position assigned to it by nature and by +nature’s God! +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... We like a liar—a thoroughly conscientious, industrious, and +ingenious liar. Not your ordinary prevaricator, who skirts along the coast of +truth, keeping ever within sight of the headlands and promontories of +probability—whose excursions are limited to short, fair-weather reaches +into the ocean of imagination, and who paddles for port as if the devil were +after him whenever a capful of wind threatens a storm of exposure; but a bold, +sea-going liar, who spurns a continent, striking straight out for blue water, +with his eyes fixed upon the horizon of boundless mendacity. +</p> + +<p> +We have found such a one, and our hat is at half-mast in token of profound +esteem and conscious inferiority. This person gravely tells us that at the +burning of the Archiepiscopal Palace at Bourges, among other valuable +manuscripts destroyed was the original death-warrant of Jesus Christ, signed at +Jerusalem by one Capel, and dated U. C. 783. Not only so, but he kindly favours +us with a literal translation of it! +</p> + +<p> +One cannot help warming up to a man who can lie like that. Talk about +Chatterton’s Rowley deception, Macpherson’s Ossian fraud, or +Locke’s moon hoax! Compared with this tremendous fib they are as but the +stilly whisper of a hearth-stone cricket to the shrill trumpeting of a wounded +elephant—the piping of a sick cocksparrow to the brazen clang of a donkey +in love! +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... For the memory of the late John Ridd, of Illinois, we entertain the +liveliest contempt. Mr. Ridd recently despatched himself with a firearm for the +following reasons, set forth in a letter that he left behind. +</p> + +<p> +“Two years ago I discovered that I was worthless. My great failings are +insincerity of character and sly ugliness. Any one who watched me a little +while would discover my unenviable nature.” +</p> + +<p> +Now, it is not that Mr. Ridd was worthless that we hold his memory in +reprobation; nor that he was insincere, nor sly, nor ugly. It is because +possessing these qualities he was fool enough to think they disqualified him +for the duties of life, or stood in the way of his being an ornament to society +and an honour to his country. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +....“About the first of next month,” says a pious contemporary, +“we shall discontinue the publication of our paper in this city, and +shall remove our office and fixtures to—, where we hope for a blessing +upon our work, and a share of advertising patronage.” +</p> + +<p> +A numerous editorial staff of intelligent jackasses will accompany the caravan. +In imagination we behold them now, trudging gravely along behind the moving +office fixtures, their goggle eyes cast down in Christian meditation, their +horizontal ears flopping solemnly in unison with their measured tread. Ever and +anon the leader halts, uprolls the speculative eye, arrests the oscillation of +the ears, laying them rigidly back along the neck, exalts the conscious tail, +drops the lank jaw, and warbles a psalm of praise that shakes the blind hills +from their eternal repose. His companions take up the parable in turn, +“and the echoes, huddling in affright, like Odin’s hounds,” +go baying down the valleys and clamouring amongst the pines, like a legion of +invisible fiends after a strange cat. Then again all is hush, and tramp, and +sanctity, and flop, and holy meditation! And so the pilgrimage is accomplished. +Selah! Hee-haw! +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... A man in California has in his possession the rope with which his father +was hanged by a vigilance committee in ’49 for horse-stealing. He keeps +it neatly coiled away in an old cheese-box, and every Sunday morning he lays +his left hand reverently upon it, and with uncovered head and a look of stern +determination in his eye, raises his right to heaven, and swears by an avenging +God it served the old man right! +</p> + +<p> +It has not been deemed advisable to put this dutiful son under bonds to keep +the peace. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... A contemporary has some elaborate obituary commendation of a boy seven +years of age, who was “a child of more than ordinary sprightliness, loved +the Bible, and was deeply impressed with a veneration for holy things.” +</p> + +<p> +Now we would sorrowfully ask our contemporary if he thinks flattery like this +can soothe the dull cold ear of young Dobbin? Dobbin <i>père</i> may enjoy it +as light and entertaining reading, but when the resurrecting angel shall stir +the dust of young Theophilus with his foot, and sing out “get up, +Dobbin,” we think that sprightly youth will whimper three times for +molasses gingerbread before he will signify an audible aspiration for the +Bible. A sweet-tooth is often mistaken for early piety, and licking a sugar +archangel may be easily construed as veneration for holy things. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... A young physician of Troy became enamoured of a rich female patient, and +continued his visits after she was convalescent. During one of these he had the +misfortune to give her the small-pox, having neglected to change his clothes +after calling on another patient enjoying that malady. The lady had to be +removed to the pest-house, where the stricken medico sedulously attends her for +nothing. His generosity does not end here: he declares that should she recover +he will marry her—if she be not too badly pitted. +</p> + +<p> +Apparently the legal profession does not enjoy a monopoly of all the +self-sacrifice that is current in the world. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... A young woman stood before the mirror with a razor. Pensively she twirled +the unaccustomed instrument in her jewelled fingers, fancying her smooth cheek +clothed with a manly beard. In imagination she saw her pouting lips shaded by +the curl of a dark moustache, and her eyes grew dim with tears that it was not, +never could be, so. And the mirrored image wept back at her a silent sob, the +echo of her grief. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah,” she sighed, “why did not God make me a man? Must I +still drag out this hateful, whiskerless existence?” +</p> + +<p> +The girlish tears welled up again and overran her eyes. Thoughtfully she +crossed her right hand over to her left ear; carefully but timidly she placed +the keen, cold edge of the steel against the smooth alabaster neck, twisted the +fingers of her other hand into her long black hair, drew back her head and +ripped away. There was an apparition in that mirror as of a ripe watermelon +opening its mouth to address a public meeting; there were the thud and jar of a +sudden sitting down; and when the old lady came in from frying doughnuts in the +adjoining room she found something that seemed to interest her—something +still and warm and wet—something kind of doubled up. +</p> + +<p> +Ah! poor old wretch! your doughnuts shall sizzle and sputter and swim unheeded +in their grease; but the beardless jaw that should have wagged filially to chew +them is dropped in death; the stomach which they should have distended is +crinkled and dry for ever! +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... Miss Olive Logan’s lecture upon “girls” has suggested to +the writer the propriety of delivering one upon “boys.” He +doesn’t know anything about boys, and is therefore entirely unprejudiced. +He was never a boy himself—has always been just as old as he is now; +though the peculiar vagueness of his memory previously to the time of building +the pyramid of Cheops, and his indistinct impressions as to the personal +appearance of Job, lead to the suspicion that his faculties at that time were +partially undeveloped. He regards himself as the only lecturer extant who can +do justice to boys; and he prefers to do it with an axe-handle, but is willing, +like Olive Logan, to sacrifice his mere preferences for the purpose of making +money. +</p> + +<p> +This lecture will take place as soon as a sum of money has been sent to this +office sufficiently large to justify him in renting a hall for one hour’s +uninterrupted profanity—sixty minutes of careful, accurate, and elaborate +cursing. Admission—all the money you have about you. Boys will be charged +in proportion to their estimated depravity; fifty dollars a head for the +younger sorts, and from five hundred to one thousand for those more advanced in +general diabolism. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... Some women in New York have set the fashion of having costly diamonds set +into their front teeth. The attention of robbers and garotters is called to +this fact, with the recommendation that no greater force be used than is +necessary. The use of the ordinary bludgeon or slung shot would be quite +needless; a gentle tap on the head with a clay pipe or a toothpick will place +the victim in the proper condition to be despoiled. Great care should be +exercised in extracting the jewels; instead of the teeth being knocked inwards, +as in ordinary cases of mere purposeless mangling, they should be artistically +lifted out by inserting the point of a crowbar into the mouth and jumping on +the other end. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... The Coroner having broken his leg, inquests will hereafter be held by the +Justices of the Peace. People intending to commit suicide will confer a favour +by worrying along until the Coroner shall recover, as the Justices are all new +to the business. The cold, uncharitable world is tolerably hard to endure, but +if unfortunates will secure some respectable employment and go to work at it +they will be surprised to find how glibly the moments will glide away. The +Coroner will probably be ready for their carcases in about four weeks, and it +would be well not to bind themselves to service for a longer period, lest he +should find it necessary to send for them and do their little business himself. +A fair supply of street-cadavers and water-corpses can usually be counted on, +but it is absolutely necessary to have a certain proportion of suicides. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... John Reed, of Illinois, is a man who knows his rights, and knowing dares +maintain. Having communicated to a young lady his intention of conferring upon +her the honour of his company at a Fourth of July celebration, John was pained +and disgusted to hear the proposal quietly declined. John went thoughtfully +away to a neighbour who keeps a double-shotgun. This he secured, and again +sought the object of his hopeless preference. The object was seated at the +dinner-table contending with her lobscouse, and did not feel his presence near. +Mr. Reed poised and sighted his artillery, and with the very natural remark, +“I think this fetcher,” he exploded the twin charges. A moment +later might have been seen the rare spectacle of a headless young lady sitting +bolt upright at table, spooning a wad of hash into the top of her neck. The +wall opposite presented the appearance of having been bombarded with fresh +livers and baptized with sausage-meat. +</p> + +<p> +No one in the vicinity slept any that night. They were busy getting ready for +the Fourth: the gentlemen going about inviting the ladies to attend the +celebration, and the ladies hastily and unconditionally accepting. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... In answer to the ladies who are always bothering him for a photograph, Mr. +Grile hopes to satisfy all parties by the following meagre description of his +charms. +</p> + +<p> +In person he is rather thin early in the morning, and a trifle corpulent after +dinner; in complexion pale, with a suspicion of ruby about the gills. He wears +his hair brown, and parted crosswise of his remarkably fine head. His eyes are +of various colours, but mostly bottle-green, with a glare in them reminding one +of incipient hydrophobia—from which he really suffers. A permanent +depression in the bridge of his nose was inherited from a dying father what +time the son mildly petitioned for a division of the estate to which he and his +seventeen brothers were about to become the heirs. The mouth is gentlemanly +capacious, indicative of high breeding and feeding; the under jaw projects +slightly, forming a beautiful natural reservoir for the reception of beer and +other liquids. The forehead retreats rapidly whenever a creditor is met, or an +offended reader espied coming toward the office. +</p> + +<p> +His legs are of unequal length, owing to his constant habit of using one of +them to kick people who may happen to present a fairer mark than the nearest +dog. His hand is remarkably slender and white, and is usually inserted in +another man’s pocket. In dress he is wonderfully fastidious, preferring +to wear nothing but what is given him. His gait is something between those of a +mud-turtle and a jackass-rabbit, verging closely on to the latter at periods of +supposed personal danger, as before intimated. +</p> + +<p> +In conversation he is animated and brilliant, some of his lies being quite +equal to those of Coleridge or Bolingbroke; but in repose he resembles nothing +so much as a heap of old clothes. In conclusion, his respect for letter-writing +ladies is so great that he would not touch one of them with a ten-foot pole. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... Only one hundred and ten thousand pious pilgrims visited Mount Ararat in a +body this year. The urbane and gentlemanly proprietors of the Ark Tavern +complain that their receipts have hardly been sufficient to pay for the late +improvements in this snug retreat. These gentlemen continue to keep on hand +their usual assortment of choice wines, liquors, and cigars. +</p> + +<p> +Opposite the Noah House, Shem Street, between Ham and Japhet. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... It is commonly supposed that President Lopez, of Paraguay, was killed in +battle; but after reading the following slander upon him and his mother, +written some time since by a friend of ours, it is difficult to believe he did +not commit suicide:— +</p> + +<p> +“The telegraph informs us that President Lopez, of Paraguay, has again +murdered his mother for conspiring against his life. That sprightly, and active +old lady has now been executed three thousand times for the same offence. She +is now eighty-three years old, and erect as a telegraph pole. Time writes no +wrinkles on her awful brow, and her teeth are as sound as on the day of her +birth. She rises every morning punctually at four o’clock and walks ten +miles; then, after a light breakfast, enters her study and proceeds to hatch +out a new conspiracy against her first born. About 2 P. M. it is discovered, +and she is publicly executed. A light toast and a cup of strong tea finish the +day’s business; she retires at seven and goes to sleep with her mouth +open. She has pursued this life with the most unfaltering regularity for the +last fifty years. It is only by this unswerving adherence to hygienic +principles that she has attained her present green old age.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... There is a person resident in Stockton Street whom we cannot regard with +feelings other than those of lively disapproval. It is not that the +woman—for this person is a mature female—ever did us any harm, or +is likely to; that is not our grievance. What we seriously object to and +actively contemn—yea, bitterly denounce—is the nose of her. So +mighty a nose we have never beheld—so spacious, and open, and roomy a +human snout the unaided imagination is impotent to picture. It rises from her +face like a rock from a troubled sea-grand, serene, majestic! It turns up at an +angle that fills the spectator with admiration, and impresses him with an awe +that is speechless. +</p> + +<p> +But we have no space for a description of this eternal proboscis. Suffice it +that its existence is a standing menace to society, a threat to civilization, +and a danger to commerce. The woman who will harbour and cherish such an organ +is no better than a pirate. We do not know who she is, and we have no desire to +know. We only know that all the angels could not pull us past her house with a +chain cable, without giving us one look at that astounding feature. It is the +one prominent landmark of the nineteenth century—the special wonder of +the age—the solitary marvel of a generation! +</p> + +<p> +We would give anything to see her blow it. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... At the Coroner’s inquest in the case of John Harvey there was +considerable difficulty in ascertaining the cause of death, but as one witness +testified that the deceased was pounding fulminate of mercury at the Powder +Works just previously to his lamented demise, there is good reason to believe +he was hoist into heaven with his own petard. In fact, such fractions of him as +have come to hand, up to date, seem to confirm this view. This evidence is +rather disjointed and fragmentary, but it is sufficient to discourage the +brutal practice of pounding fulminate of mercury when our streets and +Sunday-schools are swarming with available Chinaman who seldom hit back. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... We find the following touching tale in all the newspapers. It belongs to +that class of tales concerning which the mildest doubt is hateful blasphemy. +</p> + +<p> +“A little girl in Ithaca, just before she died, exclaimed: ‘Papa, +take hold of my hand and help me across.’ Her father had died two months +before. Did she see him?” +</p> + +<p> +There is not a doubt of it; but interested relatives have somewhat misstated +the little girl’s exclamation, which was this:— +</p> + +<p> +“Papa, take hold of my hand, and I will help you out of that.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... We get the most distressing accounts of the famine in Persia. It is said +that cannibalism is as common among the starving inhabitants as pork-eating in +California. +</p> + +<p> +This is very sad; it shows either a very low state of Persian morality or a +conspicuous lack of Persian ingenuity. They ought to manage it as the +conscientious Indians do. In time of famine these gentle creatures never +disgrace themselves by feasting upon each other: they permit their dogs to +devour the dead, and then they eat the dogs. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... An old lady was set upon by a fiend in human apparel, and remorselessly +kissed in the presence of her daughter. +</p> + +<p> +This happened a few days since in Iowa, where the fiend now lies buried. Any +man who is so dead to shame, and so callous of soul generally, as to force his +unwelcome endearments upon a poor, defenceless old lady, while her beautiful +young daughter stands weeping by, equally defenceless, deserves pretty much all +the evil that can be done to him. Splitting him like a fish is so disgracefully +inadequate a punishment, that the man who should administer it might justly be +regarded as an accomplice. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... From London we have intelligence of the stabbing to death of a man by +mistake. His assassin mistook him for a person related to himself, whose loss +would be his own financial gain. Fancy the utter dejection of this stabber when +he discovered the absurd blunder he had committed! We believe a slip like that +would justify a man in throwing down the knife and discarding murder for ever; +while two such errors would be ample excuse for him to go into some kind of +business. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... A small but devout congregation were at worship. When it had become a free +exhibition, in which any brother could enact a part, a queer-looking person got +up and began a pious and learned exhortation. He spake for some two hours, and +was listened to with profound attention, his discourse punctuated with holy +groans and pious amens from an edified circle of the saintly. Tears fell as the +gentle rains from heaven. Several souls were then and there snatched as brands +from the eternal burning, and started on their way to heaven rejoicing. At the +end of the second hour, and as the inspired stranger approached +“eighty-seventhly,” some one became curious to know who the teacher +was, when lo! it turned out that he was an escaped lunatic from the Asylum. +</p> + +<p> +The curses of the elect were not loud but deep. They fumed with exceeding +wrath, and slopped over with pious indignation at the swindle put upon them. +The inspired, however, escaped, and was afterwards captured in a cornfield. +</p> + +<p> +The funeral was unostentatious. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... We hear a great deal of sentiment with regard to the last solar eclipse. +Considerable ink has been consumed in setting forth the terrible and +awe-inspiring features of the scene. As there will be no other good one this +season, the following recipe for producing one artificially will be found +useful:—Suspend a grindstone from the centre of a room. Take a cheese of +nearly the same size, and after blacking one side of it, pass it slowly across +the face of the grindstone and observe the effect in a mirror placed opposite, +on the cheese side. The effect will be terrific, and may be heightened by +taking a rum punch just at the instant of contact. This plan is quite superior +to that of nature, for with several cheeses graduated in size, all known +varieties of eclipse may be presented. In writing up the subsequent account, a +great many interesting phenomena may be introduced quite impossible to obtain +either by this or any other process. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... We have observed with considerable impatience that the authors of Sunday +School books do not seem to know anything; there is no reason why these +pleasant volumes should not be made as effective as they are deeply +interesting. The trouble is in the method of treating wicked children; instead +of being destroyed by appalling calamities, they should simply be made +painfully ridiculous. +</p> + +<p> +For example, the little scoundrel who climbs up an apple-tree to plunder a +bird’s-nest, ought <i>never</i> to fall and break his neck. He should be +permitted to garner his unholy harvest of eggs in his pocket, then lose his +balance, catch the seat of his pantaloons on a knot-hole, and hang doubled up, +with the smashed eggs trickling down his jacket, and getting into his hair and +eyes. Then the good little girls should be lugged in, to poke fun at him, and +ask him if he likes ’em hard or soft. This would be a most impressive +warning. +</p> + +<p> +The boy who neglects his prayers to go boating on a Sunday ought not to be +drowned. He should be spilled out into the soft mud along shore, and stuck fast +where the Sunday School scholars could pelt him with slush, and their teacher +have a fair fling at him with a dead cat. +</p> + +<p> +The small female glutton who steals jam in the pantry ought not to get +poisoned. She should get after a pot of warm glue, which should be made to +miraculously stiffen the moment she gets it into her mouth, and have to be +gouged out of her with a chisel and hammer. +</p> + +<p> +Then there is the swearing party, who is struck by lightning—a very +shallow and unprofitable device. He should open his face to swear, dislocate +his jaw, be unable to get closed up, and the rats should get in at night, make +nests there, and breed. +</p> + +<p> +There are other suggestions that might be made, but these will give a fair idea +of our method, the foundation of which is the substitution of potent ridicule +for the current grave but imbecile rebuke. It may be gratifying to learn that +we are embodying our views in a whole library of Sunday School literature, +adapted to the meanest capacity, and therefore equally edifying to pupil, +pastor, and parent. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... A young correspondent, who has lately read a great deal in the English +papers about “baby-farming,” wishes to know what that may be. It is +a new method of agriculture, in which the young of our species are used for +manure. +</p> + +<p> +The babies are collected each day and put into large vats containing equal +parts of hydrobicarbonate of oxygenated sulphide, and oxygenated sulphide of +hydrobicarbonate, where they are left to soak overnight. In the morning they +are carefully macerated in a mortar and are then poured into shallow copper +pans, where they remain until all the liquid portions have been evaporated by +the sun. The residuum is then scraped out, and after the addition of a certain +proportion of quicklime the whole is thrown away. Ordinary bone dust and +charcoal are then used for manure, and the baby farmers seldom fail of getting +a good crop of whatever they plant, provided they stick the seeds in right end +up. +</p> + +<p> +It will be seen that the result depends more upon the hydrobicarbonate than +upon the infants; there isn’t much virtue in babies. But then our +correspondent should remember that there is none at all in adults. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... A young woman writes to a contemporary, desiring to learn if it is true +that kissing a dead man will cure the tooth-ache. It might; it sometimes makes +a great difference whether you take your medicine hot or cold. But we would +earnestly advise her to try kissing a multitude of live men before taking so +peculiar a prescription. It is our impression that corpses are absolutely +worthless for kissing purposes, and if one can find no better use for them, +they might as well be handed over to the needy and deserving worm. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... Mr. Knettle, deceased, became irritated, and fired three shots from a +revolver into the head of his coy sweetheart, while she was making believe to +run away from him. It has seldom been our lot—except in the cases of a +few isolated policemen—to record so perfectly satisfactory target +practice. If that man had lived he would have made his mark as well as hit it. +He died by his own hand at the beginning of a brilliant career, and although we +cannot hope to emulate his shooting, we may cherish the memory of his virtues +just as if we could bring down our girl every time at ten paces. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... A pedagogue has been sentenced to the county gaol, for six months, for +whipping a boy in a brutal manner. The public heartily approves the sentence, +and, quite naturally, we dissent. We know nothing whatever about this +particular case, but upon general principles we favour the extreme flagellation +of incipient Man. In our own case the benefit of the system is apparent; had +not our pious parent administered daily rebukes with such foreign bodies as he +could lay his hands on we might have grown up a Presbyterian deacon. +</p> + +<p> +Look at us now! +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... A man who played a leading part in a late railroad accident had had his +life insured for twenty thousand dollars. Unfortunately the policy expired just +before he did, and he had neglected to renew it. This is a happy illustration +of the folly of procrastination. Had he got himself killed a few days sooner +his widow would have been provided with the means of setting up housekeeping +with another man. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... People ought not to pack cocked pistols about in the hip pockets of their +trousers; the custom is wholly indefensible. Such is the opinion of the last +man who leaned up against the counter in a Marysville drinking-saloon for a +quiet chat with the barkeeper. +</p> + +<p> +The odd boot will be given to the poor. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... A man ninety-seven years of age has just died in the State of New York. +The Sun says he had conversed with both President Washington and President +Grant. +</p> + +<p> +If there were any further cause of death it is not stated. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... The letter following was written by the Rev. Reuben Hankerlockew, a +Persian Christian, in relation to the late famine in his country. The Rev. +gentleman took a hopeful view of affairs. +</p> + +<p> +“Peace be with you—bless your eyes! Our country is now suffering +the direst of calamities, compared with which the punishment of +Tarantulus” (we suppose our correspondent meant Tantalus) “was +nice, and the agony of a dyspeptic ostrich in a junk shop is a condition to be +coveted. We are in the midst of plenty, but we can’t get anything that +seems to suit. The supply of old man is practically unlimited, but it is too +tough to chew. The market stalls are full of fresh girl, but the scarcity of +salt renders the meat entirely useless for table purposes. Prime wife is cheap +as dirt—and about as good. There is a ‘corner’ in pickled +baby, and nobody can ‘fill.’ The same article on the hoof is all +held by a ring of speculators at figures which appal the man of moderate means. +Of the various brands of ‘cemetery,’ that of Japan is most +abundant, owing to the recent pestilence, but it is, fishy and rank. As for +grain, or vegetable filling of any kind, there is none in Persia, except the +small lot I have on hand, which will be disposed of in limited quantities for +ready money. But don’t you foreigners bother about us—we shall get +along all right—until I have disposed of my cereals. Persia does not need +any foreign corn until after that.” +</p> + +<p> +It is improbable that the Rev. gentleman himself perished of starvation. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... We are filled with unspeakable gratification to record the death of that +double girl who has been in everybody’s mouth for months. This shameless +little double-ender, with two heads and one body—two cherries on a single +stem, as it were—has been for many moons afflicting our simple soul with +an itching desire that she might die—the nasty pig! Two half-girls, +joined squarely at the waist, and without any legs, are not a pleasant type of +the coming woman. +</p> + +<p> +Had she lived, she would have been a bone of social, theological, and political +contention, and we should never have heard the end—of which she had two +alike. If she had lived to marry, some mischief—making scoundrel would +have procured the indictment of her husband for bigamy. The preachers would +have fought for her, and if converted separately, her Methodist end might have +always been thrashing her Episcopal end, or <i>vice versâ</i>. When she came to +serve on a jury, nobody could have decided if there ought to be eleven others +or only ten; and if she ever voted twice, the opposite party would have had her +up for repeating; and if only once, she would have been read out of her own, +for criminal apathy in the exercise of the highest duty, etc. +</p> + +<p> +We bless God for taking her away, though what He can want with her is as +difficult a problem as herself or Himself. She will have to wear two golden +crowns, thus entailing a double expense; she wont be able to fly any, and +having no legs, she must be constantly watched to keep her from rolling out of +heaven. She will just have to lie on a soft cloud in some out-of-the-way +corner, and eternally toot two trumpets, without other exercise. If Gabriel is +the sensible fellow we think him, he wont wake her at the Resurrection. +</p> + +<p> +Look at this infant in any light you please, and it is evident that she was a +dead failure and is yet. She did but one good thing, and that was to teach the +Siamese Twins how to die. After they shall have taken the hint, we hope to have +no more foolish experiments in double folks born that way. Married couples are +sufficiently unpleasing. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... The head biblesharp of the New York <i>Independent</i> resigned his +position, because the worldly proprietor would insist upon running the +commercial column of that sheet in a secular manner, with an eye to the goods +that perish. The godly party wished him to ignore the filthy lucre of this +world, and lay up for himself treasures in heaven; but the sordid wretch would +seize every covert opportunity to reach out his little muckrake after the gold +of the gentile, to the neglect of the things that appertain unto salvation. +Therefore did the conscientious driver of the piety-quill betake himself to +some new field. +</p> + +<p> +Will the editors of all similar sheets do likewise? or have they more elastic +consciences? For, behold, the muckrake is likewise visible in all. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... Some of the Red Indians on the plains have discarded the songs of their +fathers, and adopted certain of Dr. Watts’s hymns, which they howl at +their scalp-dances with much satisfaction. +</p> + +<p> +This is encouraging, certainly, but we dare not counsel the good missionaries +to pack up their libraries and go home with the impression that the noble red +is thoroughly converted. There yet remains a work to do; he must be taught to +mortify, instead of paint, his countenance, and induced to abandon the savage +vice of stealing for the Christian virtue of cheating. Likewise he must be made +to understand that although conjugal fidelity is highly commendable, all +civilized nations are distinguished by a faithful adherence to the opposite +practice. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... Some raving maniac sends us a mass of stuff, which savours strongly of +Walt Whitman, and which, probably for that reason, he calls poetry. We have +room for but a single bit of description, which we print as an illustration of +the depth of literary depravity which may be attained by a “poet” +in love:— +</p> + +<p> +“Behold, thou art fair, my love: behold, thou art fair; thou hast +dove’s eyes within thy locks; thy hair is as a flock of goats that appear +from Mt. Gilead. Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep that are even shorn, which +came up from the washing; whereof every one bear twins, and none is barren +among them. Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet, and thy speech is comely; +thy temples are like a piece of pomegranate within thy locks. Thy neck is a +tower of ivory; thine eyes like the fishpools of Heshbon, by the gate of +Bath-rabbim; thy nose is as the tower of Lebanon looking towards +Damascus.” +</p> + +<p> +Really, we think that will do for one instalment. What the mischief this +“poet” means, with his goat’s hair, sheep’s teeth, and +temples like a piece of pomegranate, is quite beyond our mental reach. We would +suggest that the ignorance of English grammar displayed in the phrase +“every one bear twins,” is not atoned for by comparing his +mistress’s eyes to a duck pond, and her nose to the “tower of +Lebanon looking towards Damascus.” The latter simile is suggestive of +unpleasant consequences to the inhabitants of that village in case the young +lady should decide to blow that astounding feature! Our very young contributor +will consider himself dismissed with such ignominy as is implied by our frantic +indifference. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... A liberal reward will be paid by the writer for a suitably vituperative +epithet to be applied to the ordinary street preacher. The writer has himself +laboured with so unflagging a zeal in the pursuit of the proper word, has +expended the midnight oil with so lavish and matchless a prodigality, has +kneaded his brain with such a singular forgetfulness of self—that he is +gone clean daft. And all, without adequate result! From the profoundest deep of +his teeming invention he succeeded in evolving only such utterly unsatisfying +results as “rhinoceros,” “polypus,” and +“sheeptick” in the animal kingdom, and “rhubarb,” +“snakeroot,” and “smartweed” in the vegetable. The +mineral world was ransacked, but gave forth only “old red +sandstone,” which is tolerably severe, but had been previously used to +stigmatize a member of the Academy of Sciences. +</p> + +<p> +Now, what we wish to secure is a word that shall contain within itself all the +essential principles of downright abuse; the mere pronouncing of which in the +public street would subject one to the inconvenience of being rent asunder by +an infuriated populace—something so atrociously apt and so exquisitely +diabolical that any person to whom it should be applied would go right away out +and kick himself to death with a jackass. We covenant that the inventor shall +be slain the moment we are in possession of his infernal secret, as life would +of course be a miserable burden to him ever afterward. +</p> + +<p> +With a calm reliance upon the fertile scurrility of our readers, we leave the +matter in their hands, commending their souls to the merciful God who contrived +them. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... We have received from a prominent clergyman a long letter of earnest +remonstrance against what he is pleased to term our “unprovoked attacks +upon God’s elect.” +</p> + +<p> +We emphatically deny that we have ever made any unprovoked attacks upon them. +“God’s elect” are always irritating us. They are eternally +lying in wait with some monstrous absurdity, to spring it upon us at the very +moment when we are least prepared. They take a fiendish delight in torturing us +with tantrums, galling us with gammon, and pelting us with platitudes. Whenever +we disguise ourself in the seemly toggery of the godly, and enter meekly into +the tabernacle, hoping to pass unobserved, the parson is sure to detect us and +explode a bombful of bosh upon our devoted head. No sooner do we pick up a +religious weekly than we stumble and sprawl through a bewildering succession of +inanities, manufactured expressly to ensnare our simple feet. If we take up a +tract we are laid out cold by an apostolic knock straight from the clerical +shoulder. We cannot walk out of a pleasant Sunday without being keeled over by +a stroke of pious lightning flashed from the tempestuous eye of an irate +churchman at our secular attire. Should we cast our thoughtless glance upon the +demure Methodist Rachel we are paralysed by a scowl of disapprobation, which +prostrates like the shock of a gymnotus; and any of our mild pleasantry at the +expense of young Squaretoes is cut short by a Bible rebuke, shot out of his +mouth like a rock from a catapult. +</p> + +<p> +Is it any wonder that we wax gently facetious in conversing of “the +elect?”—that in our weak way we seek to get even? Now, good +clergyman, go thou to the devil, and leave us to our own devices; or an +offended journalist shall skewer thee upon his spit, and roast thee in a blaze +of righteous indignation. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... The New York <i>Tribune</i>, descanting upon the recent national +misfortune by which the writer’s red right hand was quietly chewed by an +envious bear, says it cannot commend the writer’s example, but hopes +“his next appearance in print may edify his readers on the dangers of +such a practice.” +</p> + +<p> +We had not hitherto deemed it necessary to raise a warning voice to a universe +not much given to fooling with bears anyhow, but embrace this opportunity to +declare ourself firmly and unalterably opposed to the whole business. We plant +our ample feet squarely upon the platform of non-intervention, so far as +affects the social economy and individual idiosyncrasies of bears. But if the +<i>Tribune</i> man expects a homily upon the sin of feeding oneself in courses +to wild animals, he is informed that we waste no words upon the senseless +wretch who is given to that species of iniquity. We regard him with ineffable +self-contempt. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... A young girl in Grass Valley having died, her father wrote some verses +upon the occasion, in which she is made to discourse thus:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Then do not detain me, for why should I stay<br /> +When cherubs in heaven call me away?<br /> +Earth has no pleasure, no joys that compare,<br /> +With the joys that await us in heaven so fair.” +</p> + +<p> +As the little darling was only two years and a fraction of age it is tolerably +impossible to divine upon what authority she sought to throw discredit upon the +joys of earth: her observation having been limited to mother’s milk and +treacle toffy. But that’s just the way with professing Christians; they +are always disparaging the delights which they are unfitted to enjoy. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... The Rev. Dr. Cunningham instructs his congregation that it is not enough +to give to the Church what they can spare, but to give and keep giving until +they feel it to be a burden and a sacrifice. These, brethren, are the inspired +words of one who has a deep and abiding pecuniary interest in what he is +talking about. Such a man cannot err, except by asking too little; and empires +have risen and perished, islands have sprung from the sea, mountains have burnt +their bowels out, and rivers have run dry, since a man of God has committed +this error. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="part04"></a>OBITUARY NOTICES</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap57"></a>CHRISTIANS</h2> + +<p> +.... It is with a feeling of professional regret that we record the death of +Mr. Jacob Pigwidgeon. Deceased was one of our earliest pioneers, who came to +this State long before he was needed. His age is a matter of mere conjecture; +probably he was less advanced in years than Methuselah would have been had he +practised a reasonable temperance in eating and drinking. Mr. Pigwidgeon was a +gentleman of sincere but modest piety, profoundly respected by all who fancied +themselves like him. Probably no man of his day exercised so peculiar an +influence upon society. Ever, foremost in every good work out of which there +was anything to be made, an unstinted dispenser of every species of charity +that paid a commission to the disburser, Mr. Pigwidgeon was a model of +generosity; but so modestly did he lavish his favours that his left hand seldom +knew what pocket his right hand was relieving. During the troubles of ’56 +he was closely identified with the Vigilance Committee, being entrusted by that +body with the important mission of going into Nevada and remaining there. In +1863 he was elected an honorary member of the Society for the Prevention of +Humanity to the Chinese, and there is little doubt but he might have been +anything, so active was the esteem with which he inspired those for whom it was +desired that he should vote. +</p> + +<p> +Originally born in Massachusetts, but for twenty-one years a native of +California and partially bald, possessing a cosmopolitan nature that loved an +English shilling as well, in proportion to its value, as a Mexican dollar, the +subject of our memoir was one whom it was an honour to know, and whose close +friendship was a luxury that only the affluent could afford. It shall even be +the writer’s proudest boast that he enjoyed it at less than half the +usual rates. +</p> + +<p> +The circumstances attending his taking off were most mournful. He had been for +some time very much depressed in spirits of one kind and another, and on last +Wednesday morning was observed to be foaming at the mouth. No attention was +paid to this; his family believing it to be a symptom of hydrophobia, with +which he had been afflicted from the cradle. Suddenly a dark-eyed stranger +entered the house, took the patient’s neck between his thumb and +forefinger, threw the body across his shoulder, winked respectfully to the +bereaved widow, and withdrew by way of the kitchen cellar. Farewell, pure soul! +we shall meet again. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... We are reluctantly compelled to relate the untimely death of Mrs. Margaret +Ann Picklefinch, which occurred about one o’clock yesterday morning. The +circumstances attending the melancholy event were these:— +</p> + +<p> +Just before the hour named, her husband, the well-known temperance lecturer, +and less generally known temperance lecturee, came home from an adjourned +meeting of the Cold-Water Legion, and retired very drunk. His estimable lady +got up and pulled off his boots, as usual. He got into bed and she lay down +beside him. She uttered a mild preliminary oath of endearment and suddenly +ceased speaking. It must have been about this time she died. About daylight he +invited her to get up and make a fire. Detecting no movement in her body he +enforced family discipline. The peculiar hard sound of his wife striking the +floor first aroused his suspicions of the bereavement he had sustained, and +upon rising later in the day he found his first fears realized; the lady had +waived her claim to his further protection. +</p> + +<p> +We extend to Mr. P. our sincere sympathy in the greatest calamity that can +befall an unmarriageable man. The inconsolable survivor called at our office +last evening, conversed feelingly some moments about the virtues of the dear +departed, and left with the air of a dog that has had his tail abbreviated and +is forced to begin life anew. Truly the decrees of Providence appear sometimes +absurd. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... Mr. Bildad Gorcas, whose death has cast a wet blanket of gloom over our +community, was a man comparatively unknown, but his life furnishes an +instructive lesson to fast livers. Mr. Gorcas never in his life tasted ardent +spirits, ate spiced meats, or sat up later than nine o’clock in the +evening. He rose, summer and winter, at two A. M., and passed an hour and three +quarters immersed in ice water. For the last twenty years he has walked fifteen +miles daily before breakfast, and then gone without breakfast. During his +waking hours he was never a moment idle; when not hard at work he was trying to +think. Up to the time of his death, which occurred last Sunday, he had never +spoken to a doctor, never had occasion to curse a dentist, had a luxurious +growth of variegated hair, and there was not a wrinkle upon any part of his +body. If he had not been cut off by falling across a circular saw at the early +age of thirty-two, there is no telling how long he might have weathered it +through. +</p> + +<p> +A life like his is so bright and shining an example that we are almost sorry he +died. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... During the week just rolled into eternity, our city has been plunged into +the deepest grief. He who doeth all things well, though to our weak human +understanding His acts may sometimes seen to savour of injustice, has seen fit +to remove from amongst us one whose genius and blameless life had endeared him +to friend and foe alike. +</p> + +<p> +In saying that Mr. Jowler was a dog of preeminent abilities and exceptional +virtues, we but faintly echo the verdict of a bereaved Universe. Endowed with a +gigantic intellect and a warm heart, modest in his demeanour genial in his +intercourse with friends and acquaintances, and forbearing towards strangers +(with whom he ever maintained the most cordial relations, unmarred by the gross +familiarity—too common among dogs of inferior breeds), inoffensive in his +daily walk and conversation, the deceased was universally respected and his +loss will be even more generally deplored. +</p> + +<p> +It would be a work of supererogation to give a <i>résumé</i> of the public +career of one so well known—one whose name has become a household word. +In private life his character was equally estimable. He had ever a wag of +encouragement for the young, the ill-favoured, the belaboured, and the mangy. +Though his gentle spirit has passed away, he has left with us the record of his +virtues as a shining example for all puppies; and the writer is pleased to +admit that so far as in him lay he has himself endeavoured to profit by it. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap58"></a>PAGANS</h2> + +<p> +.... Yo Hop is dead! He was last seen alive about three o’clock yesterday +morning by a white labourer who was returning home after an elongated orgie at +a Barbary Coast inn, and at the time seemed to be in undisputed possession of +all his faculties; the remainder of his personal property having been +transferred to the white labourer aforesaid. At the moment alluded to, Mr. Hop +was in the act of throwing up his arms, as if to ward off some impending danger +in the hands of the sole spectator. An instant later he experienced one of +those sudden deaths which have made this city popularly famous and surgically +interesting. +</p> + +<p> +The lamented was forty years of age; how much longer he might have lived, in +his own country, it is impossible to determine; but it is to be remarked that +the climate of California is a very trying one to people of his peculiar +organization. The body was kindly taken in charge by a resident of the +vicinity, and now lies in state in his back yard, where it is being carefully +prepared for burial by those skilful meathounds, Messrs. Lassirator, Mangler, +and Chure, whose names are a sufficient guarantee that the mournful rites will +be attended to in a manner befitting the solemn occasion. +</p> + +<p> +We tender the bereaved widow our sincere sympathy at the regular rates. The +cause of Mr. Hop’s demise is unknown. It is unimportant. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... A dead Asian was recently found in a ditch in Nevada county. His head, +like that of a toad, had a precious jewel imbedded in it, about the size of an +ordinary watermelon, and a clear majority of his fingers, toes, and features +had received Christian burial in the stomachs of several contiguous hogs with +roving commissions. As he seemed unwilling to state who he was, or how he got +his deserts, he was tenderly replaced in his last ditch, and his discoverers +proceeded leisurely for the coroner. Upon the arrival of that public +functionary some days later, a pile of nice clean bones was discovered, with +this touching epitaph inscribed with a lead pencil upon a segment of the skull: +</p> + +<p> +“Yur lize wot cant be chawd of Chineece jaik; xekewted bi me fur a +plitikle awfens, and et bi mi starven hogs, wich aint hed nuthin afore sence +jaix boss stoal mi korn. BIL ROPER, and ov sich is Kingdem cum.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... The following report of an autopsy is of peculiar interest to physicians +and Christians:—Case 81st.—<i>Felo de se</i>. Yow Kow, yellow, +male, Chinese, aged 94; found dead on the street; addicted to opium. +<i>Autopsy</i>—sixteen hours after death. Slobbering at the mouth; head +caved in; immense rigor mortis; eyes dilated and gouged out; abdomen lacerated; +hemorrhage from left ear. <i>Head</i>. Water on the brain; scalp congested, +rather; when burst with a mallet interior of head resembled a war map. +<i>Thorax</i>. Charge of buckshot in left lung; diaphragm suffused; heart +wanting—finger marks in that vicinity; traces of hobnails outside. +<i>Abdomen</i>. Lacerated as aforesaid; small intestines cumbered with brick +dust; slingshot in duodenum; boot-heel imbedded in pelvis; butcher’s +knife fixed rigidly in right kidney. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Remarks:</i> Chinese immigration will ruin any country in the world. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="part05"></a>MUSINGS, PHILOSOPHICAL AND THEOLOGICAL</h2> + +<p> +.... Seated in his den, in the chill gloom of a winter twilight, comforting his +stomach with hoarded bits of cheese and broad biscuits, Mr. Grile thinketh unto +himself after this fashion of thought: +</p> + +<h3>I.</h3> + +<p> +To eat biscuits and cheese before dining is to confess that you do not +expect to dine. +</p> + +<h3>II.</h3> + +<p> +“Once bit, twice shy,” is a homely saying, but singularly true. +A man who has been swindled will be very cautious the second time, and the +third. The fourth time he may be swindled again more easily and completely than +before. +</p> + +<h3>III.</h3> + +<p> +A four-footed beast walks by lifting one foot at a time, but a four-horse +team does not walk by lifting one horse at a time. And yet you cannot readily +explain why this is so. +</p> + +<h3>IV.</h3> + +<p> +If a jackass were to describe the Deity he would represent Him with long +ears and a tail. Man’s ideal is the higher and truer one; he pictures Him +as somewhat resembling a man. +</p> + +<h3>V.</h3> + +<p> +The bald head of a man is a very common spectacle. You have never seen the +bald head of a woman. +</p> + +<h3>VI.</h3> + +<p> +Baldheaded women are a very common spectacle. +</p> + +<h3>VII.</h3> + +<p> +Piety, like small-pox, comes by infection. Robinson Crusoe, however, +caught it alone on his island. It is probable that he had it in his blood. +</p> + +<h3>VIII.</h3> + +<p> +The doctrine of foreknowledge does not imply the truth of foreordination. +Foreordination is a cause antedating an event. Foreknowledge is an effect, not +of something that is going to occur, which would be absurd, but the effect of +its being going to occur. +</p> + +<h3>IX.</h3> + +<p> +Those who cherish the opposite opinion may be very good citizens. +</p> + +<h3>X.</h3> + +<p> +Old shoes are easiest, because they have accommodated themselves to the +feet. Old friends are least intolerable because they have adapted themselves to +the inferior parts of our character. +</p> + +<h3>XI.</h3> + +<p> +Between old friends and old shoes there are other points of resemblance. +</p> + +<h3>XII.</h3> + +<p> +Everybody professes to know that it would be difficult to find a needle in +a haystack, but very few reflect that this is because haystacks seldom contain +needles. +</p> + +<h3>XIII.</h3> + +<p> +A man with but one leg is a better man than a man with two legs, for the +reason that there is less of him. +</p> + +<h3>XIV.</h3> + +<p> +A man without any legs is better than a man with one leg; not because +there is less of him, but because he cannot get about to enact so much +wickedness. +</p> + +<h3>XV.</h3> + +<p> +When an ostrich is pursued he conceals his head in a bush; when a man is +pursued he conceals his property. By instinct each knows his enemy’s +design. +</p> + +<h3>XVI.</h3> + +<p> +There are two things that should be avoided; the deadly upas tree and soda +water. The latter will make you puffy and poddy. +</p> + +<h3>XVII.</h3> + +<p> +This list of things to be avoided is necessarily incomplete. +</p> + +<h3>XVIII.</h3> + +<p> +In calling a man a hog, it is the man who gets angry, but it is the hog +who is insulted. Men are always taking up the quarrels of others. +</p> + +<h3>XIX.</h3> + +<p> +Give an American a newspaper and a pie and he will make himself +comfortable anywhere. +</p> + +<h3>XX.</h3> + +<p> +The world of mind will be divided upon the question of baptism so long as +there are two simple and effective methods of baptising, and they are equally +disagreeable. +</p> + +<h3>XXI.</h3> + +<p> +They are not equally disagreeable, but each is disagreeable enough to +attract disciples. +</p> + +<h3>XXII.</h3> + +<p> +The face of a pig is a more handsome face than the face of a man—in +the pig’s opinion. +</p> + +<h3>XXIII.</h3> + +<p> +A pig’s opinion upon this question is as likely to be correct as +is a man’s opinion. +</p> + +<h3>XXIV.</h3> + +<p> +It is better not to take a wife than to take one belonging to some other +man: for if she has been a good wife to him, she has adapted her nature to his, +and will therefore be unsuited to yours. If she has not been a good wife to him +she will not be to you. +</p> + +<h3>XXV.</h3> + +<p> +The most gifted people are not always the most favoured: a man with twelve +legs can derive no benefit from ten of them without crawling like a centipede. +</p> + +<h3>XXVI.</h3> + +<p> +A woman and a cow are the two most beautiful creatures in the world. For +proof of the beauty of a cow, the reader is referred to an ox; for proof of the +beauty of a woman, an ox is referred to the reader. +</p> + +<h3>XXVII.</h3> + +<p> +There is reason to believe that a baby is less comely than a calf, for +the reason that all kine esteem the calf the more comely beast, and there is +one man who does not esteem the baby the more comely beast. +</p> + +<h3>XXVIII.</h3> + +<p> +To judge of the wisdom of an act by its result is a very shallow plan. +An action is wise or unwise the moment it is decided upon. +</p> + +<h3>XXIX.</h3> + +<p> +If the wisdom of an action may not be determined by the result, it is +very difficult to determine it. +</p> + +<h3>XXX.</h3> + +<p> +It is impossible. +</p> + +<h3>XXXI.</h3> + +<p> +The moon always presents the same side to the earth because she is +heaviest on that side. The opposite side, however, is more private and +secluded. +</p> + +<h3>XXXII.</h3> + +<p> +Camels and Christians receive their burdens kneeling. +</p> + +<h3>XXXIII.</h3> + +<p> +It was never intended that men should be saints in heaven until they +are dead and good for nothing else. On earth they are mostly +</p> + +<h3>XXXIV.</h3> + +<p> +Fools. +</p> + +<p> +I, Grile, have arranged these primal truths in the order of their importance, +in the hope that some patient investigator may amplify and codify them into a +coherent body of doctrine, and so establish a new religion. I would do it +myself were it not that a very corpulent and most unexpected pudding is +claiming my present attention. +</p> + +<p> +O, steaming enigma! O, savoury mountain of hidden mysteries! too long neglected +for too long a sermon. Engaging problem, let me reveal the secrets latent in +thy breast, and unfold thine occult philosophy! [<i>Cutting into the +pudding</i>.] Ah! here, and here alone is—[<i>Eating it</i>]. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="part06"></a>LAUGHORISMS</h2> + +<p> +.... When a favourite dog has an incurable pain, you “put him out of his +misery” with a bullet or an axe. A favourite child similarly afflicted is +preserved as long as possible, in torment. I do not say that this is not right; +I claim only that it is not consistent. There are two sorts of kindness; one +for dogs, and another for children. A very dear friend, wallowing about in the +red mud of a battle-field, once asked me for some of the dog sort. I suspect, +if no one had been looking, he would have got it. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... It is to be feared that to most men the sky is but a concave mirror, +showing nothing behind, and in looking into which they see only their own +distorted images, like the reflection of a face in a spoon. Hence it needs not +surprise that they are not very devout worshippers; it is a great wonder they +do not openly scoff. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... The influence of climate upon civilization has been more exhaustively +treated than studied. Otherwise, we should know how it is that some countries +that have so much climate have no civilization. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... Whoso shall insist upon holding your attention while he expounds to you +things that you have always thriven without knowing resembles one who should go +about with a hammer, cracking nuts upon other people’s heads and eating +the kernels himself. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... There are but two kinds of temporary insanity, and each has but a single +symptom. The one was discovered by a coroner, the other by a lawyer. The one +induces you to kill yourself when you are unwell of life; the other persuades +you to kill somebody else when you are fatigued of seeing him about. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... People who honour their fathers and their mothers have the comforting +promise that their days shall be long in the land. They are not sufficiently +numerous to make the life assurance companies think it worth their while to +offer them special rates. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... There are people who dislike to die, for apparently no better reason than +that there are a few vices they have not had the time to try; but it must be +confessed that the fewer there are of these untasted sweets, the more loth are +they to leave them. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... Men ought to sin less in petty details, and more in the lump; that they +might the more conveniently be brought to repentance when they are ready. They +should imitate the touching solicitude of the lady for the burglar, whom she +spares much trouble by keeping her jewels well together in a box. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... I once knew a man who made me a map of the opposite hemisphere of the +moon. He was crazy. I knew another who taught me what country lay upon the +other side of the grave. He was a most acute thinker—as he had need to +be. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... Those who are horrified at Mr. Darwin’s theory, may comfort +themselves with the assurance that, if we are descended from the ape, we have +not descended so far as to preclude all hope of return. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... There is more poison in aphorisms than in painted candy; but it is of a +less seductive kind. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... If it were as easy to invent a credible falsehood as it is to believe one, +we should have little else in print. The mechanical construction of a falsehood +is a matter of the gravest import. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... There is just as much true pleasure in walloping one’s own wife as +in the sinful enjoyment of another man’s right. Heaven gives to each man +a wife, and intends that he shall cleave to her alone. To cleave is either to +“split” or to “stick.” To cleave to your wife is to +split her with a stick. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... A strong mind is more easily impressed than a weak one: you shall not as +readily convince a fool that you are a philosopher, as a philosopher that you +are a fool. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... In our intercourse with men, their national peculiarities and customs are +entitled to consideration. In addressing the common Frenchman take off your +hat; in addressing the common Irishman make him take off his. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... It is nearly always untrue to say of a man that he wishes to leave a great +property behind him when he dies. Usually he would like to take it along. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... Benevolence is as purely selfish as greed. No one would do a benevolent +action if he knew it would entail remorse. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... If cleanliness is next to godliness, it is a matter of unceasing wonder +that, having gone to the extreme limit of the former, so many people manage to +stop short exactly at the line of demarcation. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... Most people have no more definite idea of liberty than that it consists in +being compelled by law to do as they like. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... Every man is at heart a brute, and the greatest injury you can put upon +any one is to provoke him into displaying his nature. No gentleman ever +forgives the man who makes him let out his beast. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... The Psalmist never saw the seed of the righteous begging bread. In our day +they sometimes request pennies for keeping the street-crossings in order. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... When two wholly irreconcilable propositions are presented to the mind, the +safest way is to thank Heaven that we are not like the unreasoning brutes, and +believe both. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... If every malefactor in the church were known by his face it would be +necessary to prohibit the secular tongue from crying “stop thief.” +Otherwise the church bells could not be heard of a pleasant Sunday. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... Truth is more deceptive than falsehood, because it is commonly employed by +those from whom we do not expect it, and so passes for what it is not. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... “If people only knew how foolish it is” to take their wine +with a dash of prussic acid, it is probable that they would—prefer to +take it with that addition. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... “A man’s honour,” says a philosopher, “is the best +protection he can have.” Then most men might find a heartless oppressor +in the predatory oyster. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... The canary gets his name from the dog, an animal whom he looks down upon. +We get a good many worse things than names from those beneath us; and they give +us a bad name too. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... Faith is the best evidence in the world; it reconciles contradictions and +proves impossibilities. It is wonderfully developed in the blind. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... He who undertakes an “Account of Idiots in All Ages” will find +himself committed to the task of compiling most known biographies. Some future +publisher will affix a life of the compiler. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... Gratitude is regarded as a precious virtue, because tendered as a fair +equivalent for any conceivable service. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... A bad marriage is like an electric machine: it makes you dance, but you +can’t let go. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... The symbol of Charity should be a circle. It usually ends exactly where it +begins—at home. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... Most people redeem a promise as an angler takes in a trout; by first +playing it with a good deal of line. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... It is a grave mistake to suppose defaulters have no consciences. Some of +them have been known, under favourable circumstances, to restore as much as ten +per cent. of their plunder. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... There is nothing so progressive as grief, and nothing so infectious as +progress. I have seen an acre of cemetery infected by a single innovation in +spelling cut upon a tombstone. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... It is wicked to cheat on Sunday. The law recognises this truth, and shuts +up the shops. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... In the infancy of our language to be “foolish” signified to be +affectionate; to be “fond” was to be silly. We have altered that +now: to be “foolish” is to be silly, to be “fond” is to +be affectionate. But that the change could ever have been made is significant. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... If you meet a man on the narrow crossing of a muddy street, stand quite +still. He will turn out and go round you, bowing his apologies. It is courtesy +to accept them. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... If every hypocrite in the United States were to break his leg at noon +to-day, the country might be successfully invaded at one o’clock by the +warlike hypocrites of Canada. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... To Dogmatism the Spirit of Inquiry is the same as the Spirit of Evil; and +to pictures of the latter it has appended a tail, to represent the note of +interrogation. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... We speak of the affections as originating in instinct. This is a miserable +subterfuge to shift the obloquy from the judgment. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... What we call decency is custom; what we term indecency is merely +customary. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... The noblest pursuit of Man is the pursuit of Woman. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... “Immoral” is the solemn judgment of the stalled ox upon the +sun-inspired lamb. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="part07"></a>“ITEMS” FROM THE PRESS OF INTERIOR CALIFORNIA.</h2> + +<p> +.... A little bit of romance has just transpired to relieve the monotony of our +metropolitan life. Old Sam Choggins, whom the editor of this paper has so often +publicly thrashed, has returned from Mud Springs with a young wife. He is said +to be very fond of her, and the way he came to get her was this: +</p> + +<p> +Some time ago we courted her, but finding she was “on the make,” +threw her off, after shooting her brother and two cousins. She vowed revenge, +and promised to marry any man who would horsewhip us. This Sam agreed to +undertake, and she married him on that promise. +</p> + +<p> +We shall call on Sam to-morrow with our new shot-gun, and present our +congratulations in the usual form.—<i>Hangtown “Gibbet.”</i> +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... The purposeless old party with the boiled shirt, who has for some days +been loafing about the town peddling hymn-books at merely nominal prices (a +clear proof that he stole them), has been disposed of in a cheap and +satisfactory manner. His lode petered out about six o’clock yesterday +afternoon; our evening edition being delayed until that time, by request. The +cause of his death, as nearly as could be ascertained by a single +physician—Dr. Duffer being too drunk to attend—was Whisky Sam, who, +it will be remembered, delivered a lecture some weeks ago entitled +“Dan’l in the Lion’s Den; and How They’d aEt ’Im +ef He’d Ever ben Ther”—in which he triumphantly overthrew +revealed religion. +</p> + +<p> +His course yesterday proves that he can act as well as talk.—<i>Devil +Gully “Expositor.”</i> +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... There was considerable excitement, in the street yesterday, owing to the +arrival of Bust-Head Dave, formerly of this place, who came over on the stage +from Pudding Springs. He was met at the hotel by Sheriff Knogg, who leaves a +large family, and whose loss will be universally deplored. Dave walked down the +street to the bridge, and it reminded one of old times to see the people go +away as he heaved in view. It was not through any fear of the man, but from the +knowledge that he had made a threat (first published in this paper) to clean +out the town. Before leaving the place Dave called at our office to settle for +a year’s subscription (invariably in advance) and was informed, through a +chink in the logs, that he might leave his dust in the tin cup at the well. +</p> + +<p> +Dave is looking very much larger than at his last visit just previous to the +funeral of Judge Dawson. He left for Injun Hill at five o’clock, amidst a +good deal of shooting at rather long range, and there will be an election for +Sheriff as soon as a stranger can be found who will accept the +honour.—<i>Yankee Flat “Advertiser.”</i> +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... It is to be hoped the people will all turn out to-morrow, according to +advertisement in another column. The men deserve hanging, no end, but at the +same time they are human, and entitled to some respect; and we shall print the +name of every adult male who does not grace the occasion with his presence. We +make this threat simply because there have been some indications of apathy; and +any man who will stay away when Bob Bolton and Sam Buxter are to be hanged, is +probably either an accomplice or a relation. Old Blanket-Mouth Dick was not the +only blood relation these fellows have in this vicinity; and the fate that +befell <i>him</i> when they could not be found ought to be a warning to the +rest. +</p> + +<p> +We hope to see a full attendance. The bar is just in rear of the gibbet, and +will be run by a brother of ours. Gentlemen who shrink from publicity will +patronize that bar.—<i>San Louis Jones “Gazette.”</i> +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... A painful accident occurred in Frog Gulch yesterday which has cast a good +deal of gloom over a hitherto joyous and whisky loving community. Dan +Spigger—or as he was familiarly called, Murderer Dan—got drunk at +his usual hour yesterday, and as is his custom took down his gun, and started +after the fellow who went home with his girl the night before. He found him at +breakfast with his wife and thirteen children. After killing them he started +out to return, but being weary, stumbled and broke his leg. Dr. Bill found him +in that condition, and having no waggon at hand to convey him to town, shot him +to put him out of his misery. +</p> + +<p> +Dan was dearly loved by all who knew him, and his loss is a Democratic gain. He +seldom disagreed with any but Democrats, and would have materially reduced the +vote of that party had he not been so untimely cut off.—<i>Jackass Gap +“Bulletin.”</i> +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... The dance-house at the corner of Moll Duncan Street and Fish-trap Avenue +has been broken up. Our friend, the editor of the <i>Jamboree</i>, succeeded in +getting his cock-eyed sister in there as a beer-slinger, and the hurdy-gurdy +girls all swore they would not stand her society; and they got up and got. The +light fantastic is not tripped there any more, except when the <i>Jamboree</i> +man sneaks in and dances a jig for his morning pizen.—<i>Murderburg +“Herald.”</i> +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... The Superintendent of the Mag Davis Mine requests us to state that the +custom of pitching Chinamen and Injins down the shaft will have to be stopped, +as he has resumed work in the mine. The old well, back of Jo Bowman’s, is +just as good, and is more centrally located.—<i>New Jerusalem +“Courier.”</i> +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... Three women while amusing themselves in Calaveras county met with a +serious accident. They were jumping across a hole eight hundred feet deep and +ten wide. One of them couldn’t quite make it, succeeding only in grasping +a sage-bush on the opposite edge, where she hung suspended. Her companions, who +had just stepped into an adjacent saloon, saw her peril, and as soon as they +had finished drinking went to her assistance. Previously to liberating her, one +of them by way of a joke uprooted the bush. This exasperated the other, and +she, threw her companion half-way across the shaft. She then attempted to cross +over to the other side in two jumps. +</p> + +<p> +The affair has made considerable talk.—<i>Red Head +“Tribune.”</i> +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... A family who for fifteen years have lived at the bottom of a mine shaft in +Siskiyou county, were all drowned by a rain-storm last Wednesday night. They +had neglected their usual precaution of putting an umbrella over the mouth of +the shaft. The man—who had always been vacillating in politics—was +taken out a stiff Radical.—<i>Dog Valley “Howl.”</i> +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... There is a fellow in town who claims to be the man that murdered Sheriff +White some months ago. We consider him an impostor, seeking admission into +society above his level, and hope people will stop inviting him to their +houses.—<i>Nigger Hill “Patriot.”</i> +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... A stranger wearing a stovepipe hat arrived in town yesterday, putting up +at the Nugget House. The boys are having a good time with that hat this +morning, and the funeral will take place at two o’clock.—<i>Spanish +Camp “Flag.”</i> +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... The scoundrel who tipped over our office last month will be hung +to-morrow, and no paper will be issued next day.—<i>Sierra +“Fire-cracker.”</i> +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... The old grey-headed party who lost his life last Friday at the jewelled +hands of our wife, deserves more than a passing notice at ours. He came to this +city last summer, and started a weekly Methodist prayer meeting, but being +warned by the Police, who was formerly a Presbyterian, gave up the swindle. He +afterward undertook to introduce Bibles and hymn-books, and, it is said, on one +occasion attempted to preach. This was a little more than an outraged community +could be expected to endure, and at our suggestion he was tarred and feathered. +</p> + +<p> +For a time this treatment seemed to work a reform, but the heart of a Methodist +is, above all things, deceitful and desperately wicked, and he was soon after +caught in the very act of presenting a spelling-book to old Ben Spoffer’s +youngest daughter, Ragged Moll, since hung. The Vigilance Committee <i>pro +tem</i>. waited upon him, when he was decently shot and left for dead, as was +recorded in this paper, with an obituary notice for which we have never +received a cent. Last Friday, however, he was discovered sneaking into the +potato patch connected with this paper, and our wife, God bless her, got an axe +and finished him then and there. +</p> + +<p> +His name was John Bucknor, and it is reported (we do not know with how much +truth) that at one time there was an improper intimacy between him and the lady +who despatched him. If so, we pity Sal.—<i>Coyote +“Trapper.”</i> +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... Our readers may have noticed in yesterday’s issue an editorial +article in which we charged Judge Black with having murdered his father, beaten +his wife, and stolen seven mules from Jo Gorman. The facts are substantially +true, though somewhat different from what we stated. The killing was done by a +Dutchman named Moriarty, and the bruises we happened to see on the face of the +Judge’s wife were caused by a fall—she being, doubtless, drunk at +the time. The mules had only strayed into the mountains, and have returned all +right. +</p> + +<p> +We consider the Judge’s anger at so trifling an error very ridiculous and +insulting, and shall shoot him the first time he comes to town. An Independent +Press is not to be muzzled by any absurd old buffer with a crooked nose, and a +sister who is considerably more mother than wife. Not as long as we have our +usual success in thinning out the judiciary with buck shot.—<i>Lone Tree +“Sockdolager.”</i> +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... Yesterday, as Job Wheeler was returning from a clean-up at the Buttermilk +Flume, he stopped at Hell Tunnel to have a chat with the boys. John Tooley took +a fancy to Job’s watch, and asked for it. Being refused, he slipped away, +and going to Job’s shanty, killed his three half-breed children and a +valuable pig. This is the third time John has played some scurvy trick, and it +is about time the Superintendent discharged him. There is entirely too much of +this practical joking amongst the boys, and it will lead to trouble +yet.—<i>Nugget Hill “Pickaxe of Freedom.”</i> +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... The stranger from Frisco with the claw-hammer coat, who put up at the Gag +House last Thursday, and was looking for a chance to invest, was robbed the +other night of three hundred ounces of clean dust. We know who did it, but +don’t be frightened, John Lowry; we’ll never tell, though we are +awful hard up, owing to our subscribers going back on us.—<i>Choketown +“Rocker.”</i> +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... Old Mother Gooly, who works a ranch on shares near Whiskyville, was +married last Sunday to the new Episcopalian preacher from Dogburg. It seems +that he laboured more faithfully to convert her soul than to save the crop, and +the bride protested against his misdirected industry, with a crowbar. The +citizens are very much grieved to lose one whose abilities they never fairly +appreciated until his brain was scraped off the iron and weighed. It was found +to be considerably heavier than the average. +</p> + +<p> +But the verdict of the people is unanimously given. He ought not to have fooled +with Mother Gooly’s immortal part, to the neglect of the wheat crop. That +kind of thing is not popular at Whiskyville. It is not +business.—“<i>Bullwhacker’s Own.”</i> +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... The railroad from this city north-west will be commenced as soon as the +citizens get tired of killing the Chinamen brought up to do the work, which +will probably be within three or four weeks. The carcases are accumulating +about town and begin to become unpleasant.—<i>Gravel Hill +“Thunderbolt.”</i> +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... The man who was shot last week at the Gulch will be buried next Thursday. +He is not yet dead, but his physician wishes to visit a mother-in-law at Lard +Springs, and is therefore very anxious to get the case off his hands. The +undertaker describes the patient as “the longest cuss in that +section.”—<i>Santa Peggie “Times.”</i> +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +.... There is some dispute about land titles at Little Bilk Bar. About half a +dozen cases were temporarily decided on Wednesday, but it is supposed the +widows will renew the litigation. The only proper way to prevent these +vexatious lawsuits is to hang the Judge of the County +Court.—<i>Cow-County “Outcropper.”</i> +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="part08"></a>POESY</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap59"></a>Ye Idyll of Ye Hippopopotamus</h2> + + +<p class="poem"> + With a Methodist hymn in his musical throat,<br /> + The Sun was emitting his ultimate note;<br /> + His quivering larynx enwrinkled the sea<br /> + Like an Ichthyosaurian blowing his tea;<br /> + When sweetly and pensively rattled and rang<br /> + This plaint which an Hippopopotamus sang:<br /> +<br /> + “O, Camomile, Calabash, Cartilage-pie,<br /> + Spread for my spirit a peppermint fry;<br /> + Crown me with doughnuts, and drape me with cheese,<br /> + Settle my soul with a codliver sneeze.<br /> + Lo, how I stand on my head and repine—<br /> + Lollipop Lumpkin can never be mine!”<br /> +<br /> + Down sank the Sun with a kick and a plunge,<br /> + Up from the wave rose the head of a Sponge;<br /> + Ropes in his ringlets, eggs in his eyes,<br /> + Tip-tilted nose in a way to surprise.<br /> + These the conundrums he flung to the breeze,<br /> + The answers that Echo returned to him these:<br /> +<br /> + “Cobblestone, Cobblestone, why do you sigh—<br /> + Why do you turn on the tears?”<br /> + “My mother is crazy on strawberry jam,<br /> + And my father has petrified ears.”<br /> +<br /> + “Liverwort, Liverwort, why do you droop—<br /> + Why do you snuffle and scowl?”<br /> + “My brother has cockle-burs into his eyes,<br /> + And my sister has married an owl.”<br /> +<br /> + “Simia, Simia, why do you laugh—<br /> + Why do you cackle and quake?”<br /> + “My son has a pollywog stuck in his throat,<br /> + And my daughter has bitten a snake.”<br /> +<br /> + Slow sank the head of the Sponge out of sight,<br /> + Soaken with sea-water—then it was night.<br /> +<br /> + The Moon had now risen for dinner to dress,<br /> + When sweetly the Pachyderm sang from his nest;<br /> + He sang through a pestle of silvery shape,<br /> + Encrusted with custard—empurpled with crape;<br /> + And this was the burden he bore on his lips,<br /> + And blew to the listening Sturgeon that sips<br /> + From the fountain of opium under the lobes<br /> + Of the mountain whose summit in buffalo robes<br /> + The winter envelops, as Venus adorns<br /> + An elephant’s trunk with a chaplet of thorns:<br /> +<br /> + “Chasing mastodons through marshes upon stilts of light ratan,<br /> + Hunting spiders with a shotgun and mosquitoes with an axe,<br /> + Plucking peanuts ready roasted from the branches of the oak,<br /> + Waking echoes in the forest with our hymns of blessed bosh,<br /> + We roamed—my love and I.<br /> +<br /> + By the margin of the fountain spouting thick with clabbered milk,<br /> + Under spreading boughs of bass-wood all alive with cooing toads,<br /> + Loafing listlessly on bowlders of octagonal design,<br /> + Standing gracefully inverted with our toes together knit,<br /> + We loved—my love and I.”<br /> +<br /> + Hippopopotamus comforts his heart<br /> + Biting half—moons out of strawberry tart.<br /> +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap60"></a>Epitaph on George Francis Train</h2> + +<p class="center"> + (Inscribed on a Pork-barrel.) +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Beneath this casket rots unknown<br /> + A Thing that merits not a stone,<br /> + Save that by passing urchin cast;<br /> + Whose fame and virtues we express<br /> + By transient urn of emptiness,<br /> + With apt inscription (to its past<br /> + Relating—and to his): “Prime Mess.”<br /> +<br /> + No honour had this infidel,<br /> + That doth not appertain, as well,<br /> + To haltered caitiff on the drop;<br /> + No wit that would not likewise pass<br /> + For wisdom in the famished ass<br /> + Who breaks his neck a weed to crop,<br /> + When tethered in the luscious grass.<br /> +<br /> + And now, thank God, his hateful name<br /> + Shall never rescued be from shame,<br /> + Though seas of venal ink be shed;<br /> + No sophistry shall reconcile<br /> + With sympathy for Erin’s Isle,<br /> + Or sorrow for her patriot dead,<br /> + The weeping of this crocodile.<br /> +<br /> + Life’s incongruity is past,<br /> + And dirt to dirt is seen at last,<br /> + The worm of worm afoul doth fall.<br /> + The sexton tolls his solemn bell<br /> + For scoundrel dead and gone to—well,<br /> + It matters not, it can’t recall<br /> + This convict from his final cell.</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap61"></a>Jerusalem, Old and New</h2> + +<p class="poem"> + Didymus Dunkleton Doty Don John<br /> + Is a parson of high degree;<br /> + He holds forth of Sundays to marvelling crowds<br /> + Who wonder how vice can still be<br /> + When smitten so stoutly by Didymus Don—<br /> + Disciple of Calvin is he.<br /> + But sinners still laugh at his talk of the New<br /> + Jerusalem—ha-ha, te-he!<br /> + And biting their thumbs at the doughty Don John—<br /> + This parson of high degree—<br /> + They think of the streets of a village they know,<br /> + Where horses still sink to the knee,<br /> + Contrasting its muck with the pavement of gold<br /> + That’s laid in the other citee.<br /> + They think of the sign that still swings, uneffaced<br /> + By winds from the salt, salt sea,<br /> + Which tells where he trafficked in tipple, of yore—<br /> + Don Dunkleton Johnny, D. D.<br /> + Didymus Dunkleton Doty Don John<br /> + Still plays on his fiddle-D. D.,<br /> + His lambkins still bleat in full psalmody sweet,<br /> + And the devil still pitches the key. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap62"></a>Communing with Nature</h2> + +<p class="poem"> + One evening I sat on a heavenward hill,<br /> + The winds were asleep and all nature was still,<br /> + Wee children came round me to play at my knee,<br /> + As my mind floated rudderless over the sea.<br /> + I put out one hand to caress them, but held<br /> + With the other my nose, for these cherubim smelled.<br /> + I cast a few glances upon the old sun;<br /> + He was red in the face from the race he had run,<br /> + But he seemed to be doing, for aught I could see,<br /> + Quite well without any assistance from me.<br /> + And so I directed my wandering eye<br /> + Around to the opposite side of the sky,<br /> + And the rapture that ever with ecstasy thrills<br /> + Through the heart as the moon rises bright from the hills,<br /> + Would in this case have been most exceedingly rare,<br /> + Except for the fact that the moon was not there.<br /> + But the stars looked right lovingly down in the sea,<br /> + And, by Jupiter, Venus was winking at me!<br /> + The gas in the city was flaring up bright,<br /> + Montgomery Street was resplendent with light;<br /> + But I did not exactly appear to advance<br /> + A sentiment proper to that circumstance.<br /> + So it only remains to explain to the town<br /> + That a rainstorm came up before I could come down.<br /> + As the boots I had on were uncommonly thin<br /> + My fancy leaked out as the water leaked in.<br /> + Though dampened my ardour, though slackened my strain,<br /> + I’ll “strike the wild lyre” who sings the sweet rain! +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap63"></a>Conservatism and Progress</h2> + +<p class="poem"> + Old Zephyr, dawdling in the West,<br /> + Looked down upon the sea,<br /> + Which slept unfretted at his feet,<br /> + And balanced on its breast a fleet<br /> + That seemed almost to be<br /> + Suspended in the middle air,<br /> + As if a magnet held it there,<br /> + Eternally at rest.<br /> + Then, one by one, the ships released<br /> + Their folded sails, and strove<br /> + Against the empty calm to press<br /> + North, South, or West, or East,<br /> + In vain; the subtle nothingness<br /> + Was impotent to move.<br /> + Ten Zephyr laughed aloud to see:—<br /> + “No vessel moves except by me,<br /> + And, heigh—ho! I shall sleep.”<br /> + But lo! from out the troubled North<br /> + A tempest strode impatient forth,<br /> + And trampled white the deep;<br /> + The sloping ships flew glad away,<br /> + Laving their heated sides in spray.<br /> + The West then turned him red with wrath,<br /> + And to the North he shouted:<br /> + “Hold there! How dare you cross my path,<br /> + As now you are about it?”<br /> + The North replied with laboured breath—<br /> + His speed no moment slowing:—<br /> + “My friend, you’ll never have a path,<br /> + Unless you take to blowing.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap64"></a>Inter Arma Silent Leges</h2> + +<p class="center"> + (An Election Incident.) +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + About the polls the freedmen drew,<br /> + To vote the freemen down;<br /> + And merrily their caps up-flew<br /> + As Grant rode through the town.<br /> +<br /> + From votes to staves they next did turn,<br /> + And beat the freemen down;<br /> + Full bravely did their valour burn<br /> + As Grant rode through the town.<br /> +<br /> + Then staves for muskets they forsook,<br /> + And shot the freemen down;<br /> + Right royally their banners shook<br /> + As Grant rode through the town.<br /> +<br /> + Hail, final triumph of our cause!<br /> + Hail, chief of mute renown!<br /> + Grim Magistrate of Silent Laws,<br /> + A-riding freedom down! +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap65"></a>Quintessence</h2> + +<p> +“To produce these spicy paragraphs, which have been unsuccessfully +imitated by every newspaper in the State, requires the combined efforts of five +able-bodied persons associated on the editorial staff of this +journal.”—<i>New York Herald</i>. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Sir Muscle speaks, and nations bend the ear:<br /> + “Hark ye these Notes—our wit quintuple hear;<br /> + Five able-bodied editors combine<br /> + Their strength prodigious in each laboured line!”<br /> +<br /> + O wondrous vintner! hopeless seemed the task<br /> + To bung these drainings in a single cask;<br /> + The riddle’s read—five leathern skins contain<br /> + The working juice, and scarcely feel the strain.<br /> +<br /> + Saviours of Rome! will wonders never cease?<br /> + A ballad cackled by five tuneful geese!<br /> + Upon one Rosinante five stout knights<br /> + Ride fiercely into visionary fights!<br /> +<br /> + A cap and bells five sturdy fools adorn,<br /> + Five porkers battle for a grain of corn,<br /> + Five donkeys squeeze into a narrow stall,<br /> + Five tumble-bugs propel a single ball! +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap66"></a>Resurgam</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +Dawns dread and red the fateful morn—<br /> +Lo, Resurrection’s Day is born!<br /> +The striding sea no longer strides,<br /> +No longer knows the trick of tides;<br /> +The land is breathless, winds relent,<br /> +All nature waits the dread event.<br /> +<br /> +From wassail rising rather late,<br /> +Awarding Jove arrives in state;<br /> +O’er yawning graves looks many a league,<br /> +Then yawns himself from sheer fatigue.<br /> +Lifting its finger to the sky,<br /> +A marble shaft arrests his eye—<br /> +This epitaph, in pompous pride,<br /> +Engraven on its polished side:<br /> +“Perfection of Creation’s plan,<br /> +Here resteth Universal Man,<br /> +Who virtues, segregated wide,<br /> +Collated, classed, and codified,<br /> +Reduced to practice, taught, explained,<br /> +And strict morality maintained.<br /> +Anticipating death, his pelf<br /> + He lavished on this monolith;<br /> + Because he leaves nor kin nor kith<br /> +He rears this tribute to himself,<br /> +That Virtue’s fame may never cease.<br /> +<i>Hic jacet</i>—let him rest in peace!”<br /> +<br /> +With sober eye Jove scanned the shaft,<br /> +Then turned away and lightly laughed<br /> +“Poor Man! since I have careless been<br /> +In keeping books to note thy sin,<br /> +And thou hast left upon the earth<br /> +This faithful record of thy worth,<br /> +Thy final prayer shall now be heard:<br /> + Of life I’ll not renew thy lease,<br /> +But take thee at thy carven word,<br /> + And let thee rest in solemn peace!” +</p> + +<h5>THE END</h5> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p> +“For my own part, I must confess to bear a very singular respect to this +animal, by whom I take human nature to be most admirably held forth in all its +qualities as well as operations; and, therefore, whatever in my small reading +occurs concerning this, our fellow creature, I do never fail to set it down by +way of commonplace; and when I have occasion to write upon human reason, +politics, eloquence or knowledge, I lay my memorandums before me, and insert +them with a wonderful facility of +application.”—S<small>WIFT</small>. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FIEND’S DELIGHT ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ +concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, +and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following +the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use +of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for +copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very +easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation +of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project +Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away--you may +do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected +by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark +license, especially commercial redistribution. +</div> + +<div style='margin:0.83em 0; font-size:1.1em; text-align:center'>START: FULL LICENSE<br /> +<span style='font-size:smaller'>THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE<br /> +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK</span> +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project +Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full +Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at +www.gutenberg.org/license. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™ +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or +destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your +possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a +Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be bound +by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person +or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this +agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™ +electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the +Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection +of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual +works in the collection are in the public domain in the United +States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the +United States and you are located in the United States, we do not +claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, +displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as +all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope +that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting +free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™ +works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the +Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can easily +comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the +same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when +you share it without charge with others. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are +in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, +check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this +agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, +distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any +other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes no +representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any +country other than the United States. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other +immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear +prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work +on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the +phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, +performed, viewed, copied or distributed: +</div> + +<blockquote> + <div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> + This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most + other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions + whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms + of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online + at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you + are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws + of the country where you are located before using this eBook. + </div> +</blockquote> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is +derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not +contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the +copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in +the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are +redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project +Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply +either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or +obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg™ +trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any +additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms +will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works +posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the +beginning of this work. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™ +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg™ License. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including +any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access +to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format +other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official +version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website +(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense +to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means +of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain +Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the +full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works +provided that: +</div> + +<div style='margin-left:0.7em;'> + <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> + • You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed + to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has + agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project + Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid + within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are + legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty + payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project + Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in + Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg + Literary Archive Foundation.” + </div> + + <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> + • You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™ + License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all + copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue + all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™ + works. + </div> + + <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> + • You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of + any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of + receipt of the work. + </div> + + <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> + • You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works. + </div> +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project +Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than +are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing +from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of +the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set +forth in Section 3 below. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project +Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™ +electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may +contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate +or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or +other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or +cannot be read by your equipment. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right +of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium +with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you +with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in +lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person +or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second +opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If +the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing +without further opportunities to fix the problem. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO +OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of +damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement +violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the +agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or +limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or +unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the +remaining provisions. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in +accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the +production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™ +electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, +including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of +the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this +or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or +additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any +Defect you cause. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™ +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of +computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It +exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations +from people in all walks of life. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future +generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see +Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by +U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, +Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up +to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website +and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact +</div> + +<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread +public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND +DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state +visit <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/donate/">www.gutenberg.org/donate</a>. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To +donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate +</div> + +<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project +Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be +freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and +distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of +volunteer support. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in +the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not +necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper +edition. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Most people start at our website which has the main PG search +facility: <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. +</div> + +</div> + +</body> + +</html> + + |