Chapter VII: Part 7

Among the Acul Mountains, in Hayti, there has been found, in an old house, a bust of Lord Nelson. It is of white marble, somewhat stained by time and neglect. Nelson is represented in his costume of admiral, and bears on his breast five decorations. One, in commemoration of the battle of Aboukir, has the inscription, “Rear Admiral Lord Nelson of the Nile.” Another medal bears the words, “Almighty God has blessed his Majesty’s glory!”

This bust, interesting in its artistic and historical association, was found on an altar devoted to the _fetish_ worship, where for half a century it has been reverenced as the Deity of the Mountain Streams. The names of the sculptors were Coale and Lealy, of Lambeth.

Thus for fifty years a bust of an English admiral has been worshipped as a heathen idol.

_Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?_

During the contest over the will of Samuel J. Tilden, himself an eminent lawyer, it was noted, among some of the failures of great lawyers to draw wills that will be indisputable, that Baron St. Leonards, Lord High Chancellor of England, who was the author of treatises on the law of property, to-day accepted as authorities, wrote a will which was overthrown by the courts. Intending testators may well wonder wherein safety and certainty for testamentary bequests may be found.

_None Such_

The stone in the Washington Monument contributed by the government of Switzerland bears this inscription: “This block is from the original chapel built to William Tell, in 1338, on Lake Lucerne, Switzerland, at the spot where he escaped from Gessler.” Since it was sent here the Historical Society of Switzerland has demonstrated that no such persons as Tell and Gessler ever existed.

_The Ants’ Habits_

Among the many mistakes prevalent in regard to the habits of animals and insects is the notion that ants in general gather food in harvest for a winter’s store. This is quite an error; in the first place, they do not live on grain, but chiefly on animal food; and in the next place, they are torpid in winter and do not require food. There is in Poonah a grain-feeding species which stores up millet seed, but certainly our ants have no claim to Jane Taylor’s stanza,—

“Who taught the little ant the way
Its narrow hole to bore,
And labor all the summer day
To gather winter store?”

_Caroline Herschel’s many Years_

The life of Caroline Herschel, one would imagine, was anything but favorable to long-lasting. Insufficient sleep, irregular and hasty meals, long fasts, excessive toil, both bodily and mental, were the conditions of her life—at least, during the fifteen years she was her brother’s housekeeper and astronomical assistant. A lady who devoted herself to hard work, one of the necessities of which was that she had to spend the whole of every starry night, covered with dew or hoar frost, on a grass-plot in the garden, would not, one would think, be likely to make old bones. At the age of eighty-two, however, according to her nephew’s account, she skipped up two flights of stairs and ran about like a girl of twenty. She died at the age of ninety-eight.

_Constitution of the Early Church_

Dean Stanley once remarked that the most learned of all the living bishops of England (Dr. Lightfoot) has, with his characteristic moderation and erudition, proved beyond dispute, in a celebrated essay attached to his edition of “St. Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians,” that the early council of the Apostolic churches of the first century was not that of a single bishop, but of a body of pastors indifferently styled bishops or presbyters, and that it was not till the very end of the apostolic age that the office which we now call Episcopacy gradually and surely made its way into the churches of Asia Minor; that Presbytery was not a later growth out of Episcopacy, but that Episcopacy was a later growth out of Presbytery; that the office which the apostles instituted was a kind of rule, not of bishops, but of presbyters; and that even down to the third century presbyters as well as bishops possessed the power of nominating and consecrating bishops.

“_Home, Sweet Home_”

“Clari; or, The Maid of Milan,” produced in 1823, contains one piece that is known in every English-speaking country,—“Home, sweet home.” Clari is a beautiful peasant girl, who has exchanged her father’s lowly cottage for the splendor of the duke’s palace and become his bride. But she pines for the simple life she has led, and as she enters, fatigued and melancholy, she sings this song. The words are by John Howard Payne, an American, and though the music was called by Bishop a “Sicilian air,” it is now generally agreed that it was really composed by him. “It is the song,” says Clari, “of my native village,—the hymn of the lowly heart, which dwells upon every lip there, and like a spell-word brings back to its home the affection which e’er has been betrayed to wander from it. It is the first music heard by infancy in its cradle; and our cottagers, blending it with all their earliest and tenderest recollections, never cease to feel its magic till they cease to live.” The air is heard again during the play; a chorus of villagers sing it when Clari revisits her home.

About a year before Payne’s death at Tunis, where he was serving as American Consul, he wrote the following letter:

WASHINGTON, March 3, 1851.

MY DEAR SIR,—It affords me great pleasure to comply with your request for the words of “Home, Sweet Home.” Surely there is something strange in the fact that it should have been my lot to cause so many people in the world to boast of the delights of home, when I never had a home of my own, and never expect to have one, now—especially since those here at Washington who possess the power seem so reluctant to allow me the means of earning one! In the hope that I may again and often have the gratification of meeting you, believe me, my dear sir,

Yours, most faithfully,
JOHN HOWARD PAYNE.

HON. C. E. CLARKE.

_Marriage in Undress_

A century ago the law of Maine obliged a husband to pay all the debts of his bride in case she brought him any clothing. As outer clothing was legal property which could be taken for debt, an unfortunate couple who were deeply in love resorted to the experiment described in the following certificate of marriage to be found to-day in the ancient records of Lincoln County:

“_Certificate of Marriage._”

From record of return marriages to the Court of Sessions, Lincoln County, under date of July 7, 1775:

This is to certify that John Gatchell and Sarah Cloutman, both inhabitants of Kennebec River, a little below Fort Halifax, and out of the bounds of any town, but within the county of Lincoln, were first published, as the law directs, at said court and there married; said Cloutman being in debt was desirous of being married with no more clothes on her than her shift, which was granted, and they married each other on the 21st day of November, A.D. 1767.

Attest: WILLIAM LITHGOW,
_Justice of Peace_.

_A City in Darkness_

The Romans, after they had attained a high culture, when they had filled their city with noble architecture, sculpture, engineering, monuments, and other accompaniments of maturity, had no system of street-lightning. Not a trace of anything of the kind has been discovered. It is referred to in no extant books. It is, in short, as certain as anything can be, short of absolute demonstration, that the masters of the world endured dark streets to the end. They had plenty of good oil-lamps in their houses. They even invented mechanical lamps, something like the Carcel burners, for use in their libraries. But after sunset it was always dangerous to walk the streets of Rome, and the Roman police (who were called “cops” in the slang of the period) had enough to do. In fact, they had more than enough to do, for they combined the functions of policemen and firemen. Rome had a regular body of men, some nine thousand strong. The police were well treated, if they were worked hard. Their quarters were palaces of marble and stone; spacious, airy, furnished with everything which could conduce to the comfort and even luxury of the inmates. Those old Roman roundsmen and policemen were, like all the ancient Italians, greatly addicted to scribbling on the walls. These scribblings, after being buried for twelve or fifteen hundred years or so, are now being uncovered and deciphered. They are called graffiti and from them many intimate details of the old life may be gathered. The police of ancient Rome were very human. They set down their complaints and their opinions of their captains and superintendents, their poor jokes (funny enough to them, no doubt) and all their little affairs.

_The Graffiti at Pompeii_

August Mau, of the German Archæological Institute in Rome, says, “The graffiti form the largest division of the Pompeiian inscriptions, comprising about three thousand examples, or one-half of the entire number; the name is Italian, being derived from a verb meaning to scratch. Writing upon walls was a prevalent habit in antiquity, as shown by the remains of graffiti at Rome and other places besides Pompeii, a habit which may be accounted for in part by the use of the sharp-pointed stylus with wax tablets; the temptation to use such an instrument upon the polished stucco was much greater than in the case of pens and lead-pencils upon the less carefully finished wall surfaces of our time. Pillars or sections of wall are covered with scratches of all kinds,—names, catchwords of favorite lines from the poets, amatory couplets, and rough sketches, such as a ship, or the profile of a face. The skit occasionally found on walls to-day,—

“‘Fools’ names, as well as faces,
Are often seen in public places,’—

has its counterpart in a couplet which has been preserved:

“‘Admiror, paries, te non cecidisse ruinas,
Qui tot scriptorum taedia sustineas.’

(Truly ’tis wonderful, wall, that you have not fallen in ruin;
You that have to support so many nauseous scribblings.)

“Taken as a whole, the graffiti are less fertile for our knowledge of Pompeiian life than might have been expected. The people with whom we should most eagerly desire to come into direct contact, the cultivated men and women of the ancient city, were not accustomed to scratch their names upon stucco or to confide their reflections and experiences to the surface of a wall. Some of the graffiti, to judge from the height at which we find them above the floor, were undoubtedly made by the hands of boys and girls; for the rest, we may assume that the writers were as little representative of the best elements of society as are the tourists who scratch their names upon ancient monuments to-day. Nevertheless, we gain from these scribblings a lively idea of individual tastes, passions, and experiences.”

Here and there in the collection we find imitations of the jests of Hierocles, and sometimes we are amused by inconsistencies and contradictions which remind us of the modern Hibernicism. Of this character is a Greek line scratched upon a wall on the Palatine hill in Rome: “Many persons have here written many things; I alone refrain from writing.”

_Superstition_

As to the amusing superstitions we so often witness in people of intelligence and impressible nature, the question, even for those who indulge in such fancies, is not whether they are reasonable. Lord Byron would not commence an undertaking of any kind on Friday. But even Byron, with his remarkable sensitiveness to impressions, and his habit of brooding over the mysteries of life, would not venture to assert that such conduct is reasonable. The “Autocrat of the Breakfast Table” says, “Jeremy Bentham’s logic, by which he proved he couldn’t possibly see a ghost, is all very well—in the daytime. All the reason in the world will never get impressions of childhood out of a man’s head.” Elsewhere, Dr. Holmes says, “We are all tattooed in our cradles with the beliefs of our tribe; the record may seem superficial, but it is indelible. You cannot educate a man wholly out of the superstitious fears which were early implanted in his imagination; no matter how utterly his reason may reject them, he will still feel as a famous French woman did about ghosts, ‘Je n’y crois pas; mais je les crains,’—‘I don’t believe in them; but I am afraid of them, nevertheless.’”

_An Itemized Bill_

An old church in Belgium decided to repair its properties and employed an artist to touch up some of its old paintings. Upon presenting his bill, the committee in charge refused payment unless the details were specified, whereupon he presented the items as follows:

To correcting Ten Commandments 3.12

Embellishing Pontius Pilate and putting new ribbon on his hat 3.02

Putting new tail on rooster of St. Peter and mending his coat 3.20

Repluming and regilding wing of Guardian angel 5.18

Washing servant of high priest and putting carmine on his cheeks 5.02

Renewing heaven, adjusting the stars, and cleaning up the moon 7.14

Touching up Purgatory and restoring lost souls 3.06

Taking spots off son of Tobias 1.30

Putting ear-rings in Sarah’s ears 1.31

Brightening up flames of hell, putting new tail on the devil,
cleaning left hoof, and doing several odd jobs for the damned 7.17

Rebordering the Robes of Herod and adjusting his wig 4.00

Cleaning Balaam’s ass and putting new shoes on him 1.70

Putting new stone in David’s sling, enlarging head of Goliath,
and extending Saul’s Leg 6.18

Decorating Noah’s ark and putting new head on Shem 4.31

Mending shirt of prodigal son and cleaning his ear 3.39

—————

Total 59.10

_Latin Pronunciation_

A French savant, M. Garaud, has just published a book which professes to settle the vexed question of pronunciation of Latin by the ancient Romans. He says: “The patois of Pamiers, in the Department of Ariège, is nothing else than Latin exiled on the borders of the Ariège. It has been brought there with its original pronunciation and accentuation. Without the aid of any book the ear has sufficed to preserve its first form and intonation after eighteen centuries’ use. The most delicate inflections of the voice have been kept. Thanks to the instinct of harmony and the love of sonority, Latin pronunciation has been exactly transmitted to us.”

_Prevention better than Cure_

We learn from the parish records of Oberammergau that when the plague of 1633 was sweeping the by-ways of the Bavarian Tyrol, eighteen peasants met together and vowed that if the plague were stayed they would, once in ten years, present in living pictures the Passion of Christ. That vow has been faithfully kept. On Fish Street Hill, in London, where the great fire of 1666 started, the citizens erected a commemorative monument as an expression of their gratitude that the fire had destroyed the last vestige of the pestilence which, in the course of a few months, had carried off sixty-eight thousand five hundred and ninety-six of the inhabitants of the metropolis. We who live in an age of broader enlightenment have learned that the line of practical beneficence leads to prophylaxis rather than to religious vows or sacrificial offerings, and points to higher promise and larger performance. We, too, are building a monument, but it will be more enduring than stone or bronze, and will immortalize its trust in one word, SANITATION.

FACETIÆ

_The Old Cock_

Many years ago the only inn at Keswick was called the “Cock,” and was much frequented by the visitors to the Lake district. But the late excellent Bishop of Llandaff, Dr. Richard Watson, happening to reside in the neighborhood, and being universally esteemed and loved, the landlord, out of compliment to his lordship, changed his sign to the “Bishop’s Head.” Another inn was shortly after opened in the village, and the proprietor selected the “Cock” as his sign. The landlord of the old inn, finding that the rival establishment, owing to its name, threatened to deprive him of many of his customers, in consequence of the guide-books recommending the “Cock” as the best inn, wrote under the bishop’s head at his door, “This is the original Old Cock,” to the great amusement of the bishop, who used to relate the story with much glee.

_Already had One_

The following story is told by General Harry Heth: “One day General Gordon and I were ordered to attack General Grant’s lines near Petersburg, and we accordingly moved out toward the front. Gordon, you know, was a preacher, and a man of pious devotional habits. Just before the action began, he said, ‘General, before we go into action, would it not be well to engage in prayer?’ ‘Certainly,’ I replied, and he and his staff retired into a little building by the roadside, and I and my staff prepared to follow. Just then I caught sight of my brother, who was with some artillery a little way down the road, and, thinking to have him join us, I called out to him by name. ‘Come,’ said I, pointing to the building we were just entering. ‘No, thank you,’ he answered, ‘I have just had one.’”

_Ask Papa_

A stanza went the rounds among the public men of Washington, the authorship of which, from the fact that it was first heard among senators and cabinet officers, is credited to various statesmen. Secretary Shaw recited it at a cabinet meeting, and was said to be its author, but he disclaimed the honor. It is:

“‘Go ask papa,’ the maiden said,
The young man knew papa was dead;
He knew the life papa had led;
He understood when the maiden said,
‘Go ask papa.’”

_Too Mild_

When his friends secured for him a commission in the army they confidently expected him to develop a military genius of the first order.

Great was their chagrin, then, when, in the thick of his first battle, a courier having dashed up and asked him how long he could hold his position, he did not reply:

“Till hell freezes over!”

But merely:

“As long as may be necessary!”

Now, of course, there was nothing for his friends to do, in simple justice to themselves, but advise him to resign and engage in trade.

_The Eye of the Fly_

Sydney Smith jokes have a delicate flavor of age, but an anecdote in “Memories of Half a Century” has not been told so often as some of the classic tales. Sydney was a guest at the dinner of an archdeacon, and a fellow-guest, whose hobby was natural history, was a bore, if once started on his subject. Smith promised to try to keep him in check. The naturalist got his opening.

“Mr. Archdeacon,” said he, “have you seen the pamphlet written by my friend, Professor Dickenson, on the remarkable size of the eye in a common housefly?”

The archdeacon courteously said he had not. The bore pursued his advantage.

“I can assure you it is a most interesting pamphlet, setting forth particulars, hitherto unobserved, as to the unusual size of that eye.”

“I deny the fact!” said a voice from the other end of the table. All smiled, save the bore.

“You deny the fact, sir?” said he. “May I ask on what authority you condemn the investigations of my most learned friend?”

“I deny the fact,” replied Smith, “and I base my denial on evidence wedded to immortal verse well known to every scholar, at least, at this table.”

The emphasis laid on scholar nettled the naturalist by its implication. “Well, sir,” he said, “will you have the kindness to quote your authority?”

“I will, sir. The evidence is those well known, I may say immortal, lines:

“‘Who saw him die?’
‘I,’ said the fly,
‘With my little eye!’”

The guests roared, and during the rest of the dinner nothing further was heard on the subject of natural history.

_Yale’s Way_

Once when President Dwight was at the head of Yale he was asked to lead in prayer at some religious gathering in Boston. Among his hearers was President Eliot, of Harvard. President Dwight ended his supplication by repeating the Lord’s Prayer, and spoke a certain part of it as follows: “Thy will be done in heaven as it is on earth.” At the close of the meeting President Eliot, of Harvard, was greeted by a friend, who said, “Dwight seemed a little lame on the Lord’s Prayer. He put earth ahead of heaven. Did you notice it?” “Yes,” replied Eliot, “but I didn’t pay any attention to it. That’s the way they are taught to say it down at New Haven.”

_Canard_

A canard, meaning in French, a duck, has come to mean in English a hoax or fabricated newspaper story. Its origin is amusing. About fifty years ago a French journalist contributed to the French press an experiment, of which he declared himself to have been the author. Twenty ducks were placed together, and one of them, having been cut up into very small pieces, was gluttonously gobbled up by the other nineteen. Another bird was then sacrificed for the remainder, and so on, until one duck was left, which thus contained in its inside the other nineteen! This the journalist ate. The story caught on, and was copied into all the newspapers of Europe.

_Sothern’s Practical Joke_

A Dublin paper relates, as follows, one of the practical jokes of Edward A. Sothern, the comedian: He called upon an undertaker one day, and ordered, on a most elaborate scale, all that was necessary for a funeral. Before the preparations could have gone far, he reappeared with great solicitude to ask how they were progressing. Again, at a brief interval, he presented himself, with an anxious face, to inquire when he could count upon possession of the body—a question which naturally amazed the undertaker, who was at a loss to discover his meaning. “Of course, you provide the body,” said Sothern. “The body?” cried the undertaker. “Why, do you not say,” exclaimed the actor, exhibiting a card of the shop, “‘All things necessary for funerals promptly supplied?’ Is not a body the first necessity?”

_High Art Advertising_

That German tradesmen are rapidly rising to the higher flights of the advertising art is shown by the following ingenious paragraphs from the advertisements in the _Berliner Tageblatt_ and the _Wiener Vorstadt-Zeitung_: “A German Knightly landowner wishes to find a female life-companion who resembles, externally as well as in character, the heroine of Sacher-Masoch’s novel, ‘Frau von Soldan,’ published in the April number of _Auf der Höhe_, by E. L. Morgenstern, Leipzig. Address Karl Egger, Beiderwiese, near Passau.” An enterprising Viennese tailor has hit upon this: “How to become a houseowner: Quite lately a gentleman made his fortune on the Weiden in an astonishing and absolutely original manner. At my shop he purchased a morning suit for ten florins, a dress suit for nineteen florins, a pair of summer trousers for three florins, and a complete costume for his little son at the low figure of three florins and a half. Having reflected that, had he bought these articles in any other shop, he would have been obliged to pay at least twenty florins more for them, he resolved to invest his savings to that amount in a ticket for the Crown Prince Rudolph Lottery. At the next drawing his number came out the first prize of twenty thousand florins, which sum this lucky person forthwith invested in a comfortable mansion. Thus, through dealing at my establishment, he became a houseowner and a wealthy man.”

_An Admissible Explanation_

The late Dr. Yandell was fond of telling the following joke: A lady patient one morning greeted him with the remark, “Doctor, I had such a singular dream about you last night.” “Indeed. What was it?” “Why, I dreamed that I died and went to heaven. I knocked at the Golden Gate, and was answered by Peter, who asked my name and address and told the recording angel to bring his book. He had considerable difficulty in finding my name, and hesitated so long over the entry when he did find it, that I was terribly afraid something was wrong; but he suddenly looked up and asked, ‘What did you say your name was?’ I told him again. ‘Why,’ said he, ‘you have no business here. You’re not due these ten or fifteen years yet.’ ‘Well,’ said I, ‘Dr. Yandell said——’ ‘Oh, you’re one of Yandell’s patients, are you? That accounts for it. Come right in! Come right in! That man’s always upsetting our calculations in some way.’”

_Second- or Third-Rate_

Bishop Lawrence, of Massachusetts, tells this joke on himself with keen relish. It was at the time when there was a vacancy in the bishopric, and Dr. Brooks was the most prominent candidate. Mr. Lawrence, then the Dean of the Theological School, in Cambridge, was walking with President Eliot of Harvard University, and the two were discussing the situation. “Don’t you hope Brooks will be elected?” asked the Dean. “No,” said Dr. Eliot; “a second- or third-rate man would do just as well; and we need Brooks in Boston and Cambridge.” Phillips Brooks was elected, and a little later Dr. Eliot and Mr. Lawrence again discussed the matter. “Aren’t you glad Brooks was elected?” queried the Dean. “Yes, I suppose so,” said Dr. Eliot, “if he wanted it; but, to tell the truth, Lawrence, you were my man.”

_The Wounded Amazon_

Gibson’s Wounded Amazon is a poem in marble, but how many of its admirers would ever suspect the grotesque suggestiveness of which it was the outgrowth? “Yes,” said Gibson to a friend who went to his studio to see the statue in clay, “I call it a Wounded Amazon, but that statue is a proof of how useful it is for an artist to keep his eyes open. Now, how do you think I found that pose? I was going along the street, and I found a girl catching a flea. Yes, I did; she was catching a flea! I stopped and said to myself, ‘That’s a pretty pose—a very pretty pose indeed,’ and I took it down. Then I thought it over; I sat up and worked it out, and there it stands now as my Wounded Amazon. But it is the very pose of the girl catching the flea, nevertheless. A very pretty pose it is, you see; and, as I said, it shows that an artist must not fail to keep his eyes always open.”

_Mr. Evarts’s Jocularity_

A friend read to Mr. William M. Evarts the statement of a newspaper that, in reply to the question “What part of the turkey will you have?” Mr. Evarts answered that it was “quite inconsequential to one of his recognized abstemiousness and supersensitive stomachic nervation whether he be tendered an infinitesimal portion of the opaque nutriment of the nether extremities, the superior fraction of a pinion, or a snowy cleavage from the cardiac region.” Mr. Evarts said that this was an attempt at condensing one of his despatches protesting against the dismemberment of Turkey. It was founded on an incident which occurred at one of his Thanksgiving dinners at home. “I had a roasted New England goose, well stuffed with sage, with plenty of apple-sauce and the usual accompaniments. At the close of the meal I said, ‘My children, you now see the difference between the condition of affairs before and after dinner. You then saw a goose stuffed with sage; now you see a sage stuffed with goose.’”

_Worse than Worst_

Two comedians having laid a wager as to which of them sang the best, they agreed to refer it to an arbitrator. A day was accordingly set, and both parties executed to the best of their abilities. When they had finished, he proceeded to give judgment in the following manner: “As for you, sir,” addressing himself to the first, “you are the worst singer I ever heard in all my life.” “Ah,” said the other, “I knew I should win the wager.” “Stop, sir,” said the arbitrator; “I have a word to say to you before you go, which is this, that as for you, you cannot sing at all.”

_A Poet-farmer in a Fix_

Long Island has a poet named Bloodgood H. Cutter, who, when an infant, “lisped in numbers.” He is a member of the agricultural profession, a practical farmer, and alternates between cultivation of his extensive family manor and his favorite muse monthly. One day the Long Island Byron, when on the way to the New York market, had the misfortune to break his tackling through the antics of his spirited team, that was drawing a big load.

Just at this moment, as the poet was in the road lugubriously viewing his ruptured tackling and broken traces, there appeared on the spot a wagon-load of his neighbors on their way home. “By Jove!” said S., “there is our rhyming neighbor Cutter, broke down; bet you the dinners all round at Tony’s that when we stop he will tell his trouble in good rhythm.” “Done,” said B. “I take that bet. Drive up and decide it.” Bloodgood looked around, saw a chance of relief, and his countenance radiating like an Edison lamp, opened his lips thusly:

“Glad to see your smiling faces;
I’ve broke down and want relief;
Come and help me mend these traces,
Or my trip will come to grief.
I’ve a load of pink-eyed beauties,
Rare potatoes—sure to sell—
Don’t forget your Christian duties,
Pious work, you know, pays well.”

A roar went up that could have been heard a mile. “All right, Bloodgood, that Christian duty shall be ‘did.’” They fixed him up and he went on his way rejoicing. In due time Tony Miller’s elegant dinner for four was partaken of, and B. footed the bill.

_A Venerable Joke_

The framework of jokes is handed down from one generation to another, like andirons and spinning-wheels. For instance, a Hartford paper, learning that there is a coin in Southern Russia so small that it takes two hundred and fifty of them to be worth one dollar, remarks that they must be very convenient for charitable purposes. The joke appears in every age, without much alteration. It is first noticed in English literature after the ascension of James I. to the throne had brought in a horde of hungry Scotch place-hunters, to the great disgust of the English, who wanted all the places themselves. Jokes at the expense of the Scotch, of course, became very popular, and this was one of the most popular: “Why are they coining farthings again?” “To give Scotchmen an opportunity to subscribe to benevolent objects.”

_The Graduate_

He could quote from musty pages, delve in geologic ages, and relax
himself in synthesis and such;
Could construct an exegesis, startle with a subtle Thesis, and involve a
tortured subject overmuch.
He was great in mathematics, as applied to hydrostatics, or eternal
revolution of the spheres;
His chronology was reckoned from the minimum of second to the
undiscovered maximum of years.
He was constantly amazing with philology and phrasing, with vocabulistic
plenitude and ease;
He was by his fellows quoted, as a lexicon is noted, his attainments
were superlative degrees.
On Commencement his oration was received with an ovation, oh, his
temporary glory was immense;
While the complimenting flowers fell around in fragrant showers, and the
fever of the moment was intense.
But behold the fellow later from his sheltering Alma Mater reach his
educated fingers for some necessary cash;
All the wisdom he may utter doesn’t turn to bread and butter, and his
Theses do not count for daily hash.

_Coldblooded Criticism_

Mr. Longfellow sent this little verse to the Columbus, Ohio, school children, who celebrated his birthday:

“If any thought of mine, e’er sung or told,
Has ever given delight or consolation,
Ye have repaid me back a thousand-fold
By every friendly sign and salutation.

With the compliments and good wishes of
H. W. LONGFELLOW.”

Whereupon a Cincinnati paper chaffed the poet in this fashion: “Certainly, Mr. Longfellow; but if you sung it you told it, didn’t you? It is rather your point to tell a thing in singing it! Why, then, ‘sung _or_ told?’ And why the _back_ in the third line? Break that back. Could one repay you forward? And is not a sign also a salutation?”

_Mock Heroics_

Out rode from his wild, dark castle
The terrible Heinz von Stein;
He came to the door of a tavern,
And gazed on the swinging sign.

He sat himself down at a table,
And growled for a bottle of wine;
Up came with a flask and a corkscrew
A maiden of beauty divine.

Then, seized with a deep love-longing,
He uttered, “O damosel mine,
Suppose you just give a few kisses
To the valorous Ritter von Stein!”

But she answered: “The kissing business
Is entirely out of my line;
And I certainly will not begin it
On a countenance ugly as thine!”

Oh, then the bold knight was angry,
And cursed both coarse and fine;
And asked, “How much is the swindle
For your sour and nasty wine?”

And fiercely he rode to the castle,
And set himself down to dine:
And this is the dreadful legend
Of the terrible Heinz von Stein.
CHARLES G. LELAND.

_Unwilling Willingness_

Dr. Guernsey, in an article on faith cure, in the _Medical Times_, cites a case in which will power appears to have successfully supplied the place of faith. Among the parishioners of the Rev. Dr. Taylor, of New Haven, was an invalid lady, who finally took to her bed, where she continued to receive her pastor’s visits. One bitter cold night she sent for him to console her dying moments, and declared herself ready to depart in peace. “If it is His will,” she said, “that I shall go to hell, I can still say, ‘Thy will be done.’” The physician who was present became a little impatient. “Well,” said he, “if that is God’s will, and both you and your family are reconciled to it, I do not know that I ought to object.” In a moment the woman was on her feet shouting, “I won’t die and I won’t go to hell!” She afterward enjoyed comfortable health for years.

_Companion Pictures_

The Rev. Dr. John Hall once suggested that an artist might paint “Enchantment” as “a bright young girl, on the deck of an ocean steamer at the wharf, chattering to the friends around her, grandly directing her bouquets to be sent to her room, full of the joys of the voyage and her first trip to Europe.” He adds that a companion picture might be called “Disenchanted,” representing the same girl, “like Jonah, gone down to the sides of the ship, not like him, asleep, but with great inward trouble, like that in the venerable sea story, ‘The first hour I feared I would die; the second hour I feared I would not.’ The faded bouquets, disordered garments, and a very crowded foreground would complete the scene.”

_Juxtaposition_

Dr. Henry Gibbons describes a kiss as “the anatomical juxtaposition of two orbicularis oris muscles in a state of contraction.” Upon this, a newspaper editor remarked, “A kiss may be one of those things, but it doesn’t taste like it. We once heard a young man describe a kiss as ‘bully,’ and he had quite as much experience in the osculatory business as Dr. Gibbons, but he didn’t have so much education.”

_Niagara_

An American tourist was visiting Naples and saw Vesuvius during an eruption. “Have you anything like that in the New World?” was the question of an Italian spectator. “No,” replied Jonathan; “but I guess we have a mill-dam that would put it out in five minutes.”

_Compliant Courts_

Edwin Booth, as Richelieu, once said, in a Chicago theatre,—

“France, my mistress, France, my wedded wife,
Who shall proclaim divorce ’twixt me and thee?”

And, after a solemn pause, somebody in the gallery said, “Most any Chicago Judge.”

_A Modern Judge on Portia’s Judgment_

The Home Secretary lately ventured to assert that Lord Bramwell entertained so vast a reverence for all kinds of property that if he had been called upon to decide the legal dispute in “The Merchant of Venice,” he would infallibly have declared that Antonio’s pound of flesh must be given to his creditor. Lord Bramwell, with the frankness which usually characterizes him, has met Sir William Harcourt’s little joke by an answer delivered from the judicial bench. In the course of an Appeal Court case the learned judge took occasion to respond to the witty illustration of the Home Secretary. Far from expressing the slightest shame or penitence for the views which he holds as to the sacredness of property of all descriptions, Lord Bramwell actually seems to glory in them. The session of the Court of Appeal was probably the earliest opportunity that was presented to him of answering Sir William Harcourt’s banter; but at all events, he seized on the opportunity and turned it to the best account. Portia’s statement of the case would, Lord Bramwell tells us, have induced him to give the pound of flesh to the usurer, except for one little flaw in her argument. The flesh had not been “appropriated,” and could not, therefore, be regarded as property to which Shylock had a good legal right until it had been cut from Antonio’s quivering body. Supposing Lord Bramwell to have been sitting in _banco_ with the Doge of Venice on the occasion of the famous trial, and the pound of flesh had been lying on a table ready cut; in that case the decision of the English judge would have been in favor of the plaintiff’s claim to the possession of the horrible piece of “property.” But then, as Lord Bramwell truly remarks, in order to get the flesh, assault, and even murder, would have had to be committed, and therefore the contract was null and void from the beginning. The moment Shylock had advanced toward his victim, knife in hand, he would have been technically guilty of an assault with intent, and would have been obliged to appear at the police court of the period next morning to hear what the sitting magistrate thought of the offence.

_A Legal Dilemma_

At an examination for admission to the bar of Ohio, the examiner propounded this question: “A great many years ago there lived a gentleman named Lazarus, who died possessed of chattels, real and personal. After this event to whom did they go?” The student replied, “To his administrators and his heirs.” “Well, then,” continued the examiner, “in four days he came to life again; inform us, sir, whose were they then?” Which interesting inquiry we submit to the lawyers. I am not a lawyer, but I see no difficulty in the inquiry. Lazarus died and was buried. As soon as he died, his property, if he left no will, vested in his heirs. The law gives no man the right to die for four days and then come to life again. Legally Lazarus couldn’t rise. I have no doubt the Supreme Court would decide that the Lazarus who rose was not the Lazarus who died; he was a new Lazarus. The new Lazarus would, of course, feel within himself that he was the old Lazarus, and go around boring his legal friends talking about his legal wrongs; but every lawyer would leave him as quickly as possible, saying, in parting, “It’s a hard case; but if your heirs can prove your death, and they came in legally under the statute, there is no way to make them disgorge. All you can do is this—you’re a young fellow about sixty; hire out as a clerk, try to save something from your salary so as to go into business again, build up a grand estate, and perhaps your heirs will recognize your identity.”

_Virgil’s Æneid Dissected_

In an English college journal our old and highly polished friend P. Virgilius Maro is quite thoroughly shaken up. After a little general discussion of the poet, the writer proceeds to quote a large number of passages in which Virgil is inconsistent and oftentimes contradictory. Take, for instance, the following:

“Down comes blind Cyclops to the shore—

‘Postquam altos tetigit fluctus, et ad æquora venit,
Luminis effusi fluidum lavit inde cruorem.’

‘He washes with its water the gore that trickled from his scooped-out eye.’ Now would anybody but a madman go and bathe a bleeding wound in the sea—the sea, of all places? Why, he would have made his head smart for a year; but Virgil wanted him down on the shore, and must make him do something. Note, too, ‘fluidum cruorem.’ Now, in line 645 of the same book (III), the fugitive tells Æneas that they put out the Cyclops’s eye three months ago, and so, according to Virgil, the wound bleeds incessantly for three months (three days of bleeding would, according to modern doctors, have taken the life of even a stout Cyclops), and then the giant comes down to the shore and bathes in salt water.... Again, in the celebrated athletic sports in Book V., everybody is rewarded with a prize. One man gets a prize because he comes in first; the second man gets one because he would have been first if something hadn’t happened, and the last man gets one because he fell down. The only parallel to such a practice is one afforded by Artemus Ward, who, in command of a volunteer force, makes all his men captains, to prevent jealousy. In V, 456, Virgil, after carefully telling us that Dares is wonderfully nimble and Entillus wonderfully slow, lets the slow man chase the fast one, _æquore toto_, hitting him all the while.”

_Relative Size_

Before the ocean leviathans of the Cunard and White Star steamship lines were built, an inquirer asked whether the “Great Eastern” was the largest vessel ever built. The editor replied, “An impression has got abroad that she is, but such is not the case. The ‘Mayflower,’ in which the Pilgrim fathers came to this country, was the largest ship that ever ploughed the waters. The old furniture scattered over this country, brought over by the ‘Mayflower,’ would fill the ‘Great Eastern’ a dozen times or more.”

_The Cardinal’s Curse_

“The Jackdaw of Rheims” is better known than the majority of the “Ingoldsby Legends,” with the dreadful curse which the cardinal called down upon the thief who had stolen his ring:

The Cardinal rose with a dignified look.
He called for his candle, his bell, and his book!
In holy anger and pious grief,
He solemnly cursed that rascally thief!
He cursed him at board, he cursed him in bed;
He cursed him in sleeping that very night,
He should dream of the devil and wake in a fright;
He cursed him in eating, he cursed him in drinking;
He cursed him in coughing, in sneezing, in winking;
He cursed him in sitting, in standing, in lying;
He cursed him in walking, in riding, in flying;
He cursed him in living, he cursed him dying!
Never was heard such a terrible curse!
But what gave rise to no little surprise,
Nobody seemed one penny the worse!

In twitting again at Holy Church, Mr. Barham makes Pope Gregory, in setting a penance for Sir Ingoldsby Bray, break out in the following extraordinary though highly entertaining dog Latin:

_O turpissime! Vir nequissime!
Sceleratissime!—quissime!—issime!_
Never, I trow, have the _Servi servorum_
Had before ’em such a breach of decorum,
Such a gross violation of _morum bonorum_,
And won’t have again _sæcula sæculoram_!

_The Berners Street Hoax_

In point of audacity and ingenuity in the line of practical joking, Theodore Hook is unrivalled. The most famous of his hoaxes was played on Mrs. Tottingham, an old lady living at No. 54 Berners Street, Oxford Road, London. The date of its occurrence was November, 26, 1810, so long since that the elders have forgotten it, and the later generations have never heard of it. For the sake of the latter, it is worth while to recall such a laughable incident.

In walking down Berners Street one day with a companion, their attention was attracted to the neat and modest appearance of the house referred to. “I’ll bet you a guinea,” said Theodore, “that in one week that nice quiet dwelling shall be the most famous in all London.” The bet was taken. In the course of the next four or five days, Hook wrote and despatched more than a thousand letters, conveying orders to tradesmen of every sort, all to be executed on one particular day, and as nearly as possible at one fixed hour. From wagons of coal and potatoes to books, prints, feathers, ices, jellies, tarts, anything and everything available was ordered from rival dealers scattered from Wapping to Lambeth, from Whitechapel to Paddington. In 1810 Oxford Road was not approachable from Westminster, or Mayfair, or from the city, otherwise than through a complicated series of lanes. Imagine the crash and jam and tumult that followed! Hook had provided himself with a temporary lodging on the opposite side of the street, and there, with a couple of trusty allies, he watched the development of the drama. But, for prudential reasons, some of the _dramatis personæ_ were seldom, if ever, alluded to afterwards. Hook had no objection to open references to the arrival of the Lord Mayor and his chaplain, invited to take the death-bed confession of a peculating common councilman, but he would rather have buried in oblivion that precisely the same sort of liberty was taken with the Governor of the Bank of England, the Chairman of the East India Company, the Lord Chief Justice, a cabinet minister, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and his Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief. They all obeyed the summons—every pious and patriotic feeling had been most movingly appealed to. We are not sure that they all reached Berners Street, but the Duke of York’s military punctuality and crimson liveries brought him to the point of attack before the poor widow’s astonishment had risen to terror and despair. No assassination, no conspiracy, no royal demise or ministerial revolution was a greater godsend to the newspapers than this daring piece of mischief. In Hook’s own theatrical world he was instantly suspected, but no sign escaped either him or his confidants. Beyond that circle the affair was serious. Fierce were the growlings of the doctors and surgeons, scores of whom had been cheated of valuable hours. Attorneys, teachers of all kinds (male and female), hair-dressers, tailors, preachers, and philanthropists had been victimized, and were vociferous in their complaints. The tangible material damage done was itself considerable. Beer casks and wine casks were overturned, glass and china were smashed, harpsichords and coach-panels were broken, and men and horses, under the resistless pressure of a countless multitude, were thrown down and trampled upon. It was a field-day for the pickpockets. A fervent hue and cry arose for the detection of the trickster, but he disappeared and did not return to his accustomed haunts until the storm had blown over.

_The Point of View_

The girl stood on the roller skates,
But then she could not go;
She was afraid to tempt the fates,
Because she wobbled so.
She called aloud, “Say, Chawley, say:
Do come; help me along!”
But Chawley went the other way,
Because his legs went wrong;
There came a crash—a thunder sound;
The girl, oh, where was she?
Ask of the giddy youth around,
Who viewed her hosiery.

_Vicissim_

A class of schoolgirls, highly educated on the newest principles, were pouring forth to the Bishop of Manchester a list of Latin words, with the English equivalents, and they came to the word which we elders should call _vicissim_, “We-kiss-im,” said the girls; “we-kiss-im—by turns.” “Oh, do you?” answered the bishop; “then I don’t wonder at your adopting the new pronunciation.”

_Jack and Jill_

’Twas not on Alpine snow nor ice,
But honest English ground;
Excelsior! was their device;
But sad the fate they found.

They did not climb for love nor fame,
But followed Duty’s call;
They were together in their aim,
But parted in their fall.

_High Diddle Diddle, the Cat and the Fiddle_

Heard ye that mirthful melody? Remote
It rose; and straight the strain, approaching near,
Caught of the careful cat the critic ear—
Proud dame, in tortoise decked or tabby coat,
The villain vermin’s vixen vanquisher.
Her frolic paw the festive fiddle smote,
Which, as high Hesper poured his glittering glance,
Inspired the not unawkward cow to dance
Above the beamy moon; all this beheld
The dog diminutive, while its strange romance
With laughter loud his simple bosom swelled:
The dish, high heaped with food of savory store,
Kissed the bright spoon by kindred love impelled,—
Such is the nursery tale of infant lore.

_Mary’s Little Lamb_

Mary possessed a diminutive sheep, Whose external covering was as devoid of color as the congealed aureous fluid which occasionally presents insurmountable barriers to railroad travel on the Sierras; And everywhere that Mary peregrinated The juvenile Southdown was certain to get up and get right after her. It tagged her to the alphabet dispensary one day, Which was in contravention of established usage;

It caused the other youthful students to cachinnate and skyfungle To perceive an adolescent mutton in an edifice devoted to the dissemination of knowledge. And so the preceptor ejected him from the interior. And he continued to roam in the immediate vicinity, And remained in the neighborhood until Mary Once more became visible. “What causes the juvenile sheep to hanker after Mary so?” Queried the inquisitive children of their tutor. “Why, Mary bestows much affection upon the little animal to which the wind is tempered when shorn, you must be aware,” The preceptor with alacrity responded.

_The Meeting_

They met; ’twas in the starry depths
Of August’s cloudless sky;
Fair Luna trod her silvery path
In matchless majesty:
The cricket chirped, the firefly
Pursued his fitful dance.
’Twas in the balmy slumb’rous night
That those two met by chance.

With throbbing heart and beating pulse
He spoke in accents low,
And in her glancing eye there came
A deeper, warmer glow:
Then up the apple tree she flew
And there vindictive spat,
For “he” was “Jack” my terrier,
And “she” our neighbor’s cat.

FLASHES OF REPARTEE

_Hereditary Transmission_

Madame Bonaparte (Betsy Patterson) once attended a state dinner, and was escorted to the table by Lord Dundas. He had already received some of her sarcastic speeches, and in a not very pleasant mood asked her whether she had read Mrs. Trollope’s book on America. She had. “Well, madame,” said the Englishman, “what do you think of her pronouncing all Americans vulgarians?” “I am not surprised at that,” answered sprightly Betsy Bonaparte. “Were all the Americans descendants of the Indians or the Esquimaux, I should be astonished; but being the direct descendants of the English, it would be very strange if they were not vulgarians.” There was no more heard from Lord Dundas that evening.

_Fitting Answers_

One sultry evening, Phœbe Cary, dressed as usual in a close-fitting bodice, entered the room where John G. Saxe and others were seated. Saxe greeted her with, “Miss Phœbe, why do you dress so closely in such hot weather? Look at me.” He had on a linen duster, and was fanning himself industriously. Phœbe replied instantly, “I never feel comfortable with loose sacks around me.”

On another occasion, at the tea-table, the question arose about the number of children John Rogers had—“nine small children and one at the breast.” The company were evenly divided whether there were nine or ten. Phœbe was appealed to, when she said, “Ten, of course.” “How do you reach such a positive decision?” some one asked. “Don’t nine and one to carry make ten?” was her reply.

_Left-Handed Compliments_

Leyden, having had a quarrel with the author of “The Pleasures of Hope,” once said to Sir Walter Scott,—

“You may tell Campbell that I hate him, but that he has written the best poetry that has been written for fifty years.”

Scott conveyed the message with fidelity, and Campbell replied,—

“Tell Leyden that I detest him, but I know the value of his critical approbation.”

_Not Beyond Reach_

Rev. Dr. Bethune asked a morose and miserly man how he was getting along. The man replied, “What business is that of yours?” Said the doctor, “Oh, sir, I am one of those who take an interest even in the meanest of God’s creatures.”

_Limitation of Authority_

Pope Paul IV. was so shocked at Michael Angelo’s undressed figures in his famous “Last Judgment,” that he employed Daniele da Volterra to clothe them; and he, in consequence, received the nickname of “Il Braghettone” (the breeches-maker). Michael Angelo, with his usual wit, punished Messer Biagio da Cesena, master of the ceremonies (who first suggested to the Pope the impropriety of nude figures), by painting him in hell, with ass’s ears, as Midas.

The story goes that Biagio implored the Pope to insist upon the removal of this caricature, whereupon Paul IV. replied:

“I might have released you from purgatory, but over hell I have no power!”

_Like Topsy_