Part 10 out of 14
A number of Confederate prisoners, during the Civil War, were detained
at one of the western military posts under conditions much less
unpleasant than those to be found in the ordinary military prison. Most
of them appreciated their comparatively good fortune. One young fellow,
though, could not be reconciled to association with Yankees under any
circumstances, and took advantage of every opportunity to express his
feelings. He was continually rubbing it in about the battle of
Chickamauga, which had just been fought with such disastrous results for
the Union forces.
"Maybe we didn't eat you up at Chickamauga!" was the way he generally
greeted a bluecoat.
The Union men, when they could stand it no longer, reported the matter
to General Grant. Grant summoned the prisoner.
"See here," said Grant, "I understand that you are continually insulting
the men here with reference to the battle of Chickamauga. They have
borne with you long enough, and I'm going to give you your choice of two
things. You will either take the oath of allegiance to the United
States, or be sent to a Northern prison. Choose."
The prisoner was silent for some time. "Well," he said at last, in a
resigned tone, "I reckon, General, I'll take the oath."
The oath was duly administered. Turning to Grant, the fellow then asked,
very penitently, if he might speak.
"Yes," said the general indifferently. "What is it?"
"Why, I was just thinkin', General," he drawled, "they certainly did
give us hell at Chickamauga."
Historical controversies are creeping into the schools. In a New York
public institution attended by many races, during an examination in
history the teacher asked a little chap who discovered America.
He was evidently thrown into a panic and hesitated, much to the
teacher's surprise, to make any reply.
"Oh, please, ma'am," he finally stammered, "ask me somethin' else."
"Something else, Jimmy? Why should I do that?"
"The fellers was talkin' 'bout it yesterday," replied Jimmy, "Pat McGee
said it was discovered by an Irish saint. Olaf, he said it was a sailor
from Norway, and Giovanni said it was Columbus, an' if you'd a-seen what
happened you wouldn't ask a little feller like me."
Our country! When right to be kept right; when wrong to be put
Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations, may she always be
in the right; but our country, right or wrong.--_Stephen Decatur_.
There are no points of the compass on the chart of true
patriotism.--_Robert C. Winthrop_.
Patriotic exercises and flag worship will avail nothing unless the
states give to their people of the kind of government that arouses
patriotism.--_Franklin Pierce II_.
WILLIS--"I wonder if there will ever be universal peace."
GILLIS--"Sure. All they've got to do is to get the nations to agree that
in case of war the winner pays the pensions."--_Puck_.
"Why was it you never married again, Aunt Sallie?" inquired Mrs. McClane
of an old colored woman in West Virginia.
"'Deed, Miss Ellie," replied the old woman earnestly, "dat daid nigger's
wuth moah to me dan a live one. I gits a pension."--_Edith Howell
If England had a system of pensions like ours, we should see that "all
that was left of the Noble Six Hundred" was six thousand pensioners.
A pessimist is a man who lives with an optimist.--_Francis Wilson_.
How happy are the Pessimists!
A bliss without alloy
Is theirs when they have proved to us
There's no such thing as joy!
A pessimist is one who, of two evils, chooses them both.
"I had a mighty queer surprise this morning," remarked a local stock
broker. "I put on my last summer's thin suit on account of this
extraordinary hot weather, and in one of the trousers pockets I found a
big roll of bills which I had entirely forgotten."
"Were any of them receipted?" asked a pessimist.
To tell men that they cannot help themselves is to fling them into
recklessness and despair.--_Fronde_.
With earth's first clay they did the last man knead,
And there of the last harvest sowed the seed:
And the first morning of creation wrote
What the last dawn of reckoning shall read.
Yesterday this day's madness did prepare;
Tomorrow's silence, triumph, or despair.
Drink! For you know not whence you came, nor why;
Drink! For you know not why you go, nor where.
A Staten Island man, when the mosquitoes began to get busy in the
borough across the bay, has been in the habit every summer of
transplanting his family to the Delaware Water Gap for a few weeks. They
were discussing their plans the other day, when the oldest boy, aged
eight, looked up from his geography and said:
"Pop, Philadelphia is on the Delaware River, isn't it?"
Pop replied that such was the case.
"I wonder if that's what makes the Delaware Water Gap?" insinuated the
Among the guests at an informal dinner in New York was a bright
"These are snails," said a gentleman next to her, when the dainty was
served. "I suppose Philadelphia people don't eat them for fear of
"Oh, no," was her instant reply; "it isn't that. We couldn't catch
Little grains of short weight,
Little crooked twists,
Fill the land with magnates
_See also_ Charity.
Philosophy is finding out how many things there are in the world which
you can't have if you want them, and don't want if you can have
PHYSICIANS AND SURGEONS
The eight-year-old son of a Baltimore physician, together with a friend,
was playing in his father's office, during the absence of the doctor,
when suddenly the first lad threw open a closet door and disclosed to
the terrified gaze of his little friend an articulated skeleton.
When the visitor had sufficiently recovered from his shock to stand the
announcement the doctor's son explained that his father was extremely
proud of that skeleton.
"Is he?" asked the other. "Why?"
"I don't know," was the answer; "maybe it was his first patient."
The doctor stood by the bedside, and looked gravely down at the sick
"I can not hide from you the fact that you are very ill," he said. "Is
there any one you would like to see?"
"Yes," said the sufferer faintly.
"Who is it?"
"Doctor, I want you to look after my office while I'm on my vacation."
"But I've just graduated, doctor. Have had no experience." "That's all
right, my boy. My practice is strictly fashionable. Tell the men to play
golf and ship the lady patients off to Europe."
An old darky once lay seriously ill of fever and was treated for a long
time by one doctor, and then another doctor, for some reason, came and
took the first one's place. The second physician made a thorough
examination of the patient. At the end he said, "Did the other doctor
take your temperature?"
"Ah dunno, sah," the patient answered. "Ah hain't missed nuthin' so far
but mah watch."
There had been an epidemic of colds in the town, and one physician who
had had scarcely any sleep for two days called upon a patient--an
Irishman--who was suffering from pneumonia, and as he leaned over to
hear the patient's respiration he called upon Pat to count.
The doctor was so fatigued that he fell asleep, with his ear on the sick
man's chest. It seemed but a minute when he suddenly awoke to hear Pat
still counting: "Tin thousand an' sivinty-six, tin thousand an'
FIRST DOCTOR--"I operated on him for appendicitis."
SECOND DOCTOR--"What was the matter with him?"--_Life_.
FUSSY LADY PATIENT--"I was suffering so much, doctor, that I wanted to
DOCTOR--"You did right to call me in, dear lady."
MEDICAL STUDENT--"What did you operate on that man for?"
EMINENT SURGEON--"Two hundred dollars."
MEDICAL STUDENT--"I mean what did he have?"
EMINENT SURGEON--"Two hundred dollars."
The three degrees in medical treatment--Positive, ill; comparative,
pill; superlative, bill.
"What caused the coolness between you and that young doctor? I thought
you were engaged."
"His writing is rather illegible. He sent me a note calling for 10,000
"I thought it was a prescription, and took it to the druggist to be
A tourist while traveling in the north of Scotland, far away from
anywhere, exclaimed to one of the natives: "Why, what do you do when any
of you are ill? You can never get a doctor."
"Nae, sir," replied Sandy. "We've jist to dee a naitural death."
When the physician gives you medicine and tells you to take it, you take
it. "Yours not to reason why; yours but to do and die."
Physicians, of all men, are most happy: whatever good success soever
they have, the world proclaimeth; and what faults they commit, the earth
This is the way that physicians mend or end us,
Secundum artem: but although we sneer
In health--when ill, we call them to attend us,
Without the least propensity to jeer.
_See also_ Bills.
_See_ Thieves; Wives.
"Oh, dear!" sighed the wife as she was dressing for a dinner-party, "I
can't find a pin anywhere. I wonder where all the pins go to, anyway?"
"That's a difficult question to answer," replied her husband, "because
they are always pointed in one direction and headed in another."
"How about that airship?"
"It went up in smoke."
"Oh, no. Made an ascension at Pittsburg."
SKYBOUGH--"Why have you put that vacuum cleaner in front of your
KLOUDLEIGH--"To clear a path. I have an engagement to sail over
A man just back from South America was describing a volcanic
"I was smoking a cigar before the door of my hotel," said he, "when I
was startled by a rather violent earthquake. The next instant the sun
was obscured and darkness settled over the city. Looking in the
direction of the distant volcano, I saw heavy clouds of smoke rolling
from it, with an occasional tongue of flame flashing against the dark
"Some of the natives about me were on their knees praying; others darted
aimlessly about, crazed with terror and shouting for mercy. The landlord
of the hotel rushed out and seized me by the arm.
"'To the harbor!' he cried in my ear.
"Together we hurried down the narrow street. As we panted along, the
dark smoke whirled in our faces, and a dangerous shower of red-hot
cinders sizzled about us. Do you know, I don't believe I was ever so
homesick in all my life!"
"Homesick?" gasped the listener. "Homesick at a time like that?"
"Sure. I live in Pittsburg, you know."
The mother heard a great commotion, as of cyclones mixed up with
battering-rams, and she hurried upstairs to discover what was the
matter. There she found Tommie sitting in the middle of the floor with a
broad smile on his face.
"Oh, Mama," said he delightedly, "I've locked Grandpa and Uncle George
in the cupboard, and when they get a little angrier I am going to play
Daniel in the lion's den."
BILLY--"Huh! I bet you didn't have a good time at your birthday party
WILLIE--"I bet I did."
BILLY--"Then why ain't you sick today?"
Winnie had been very naughty, and her mamma said: "Don't you know you
will never go to Heaven if you are so naughty?"
After thinking a moment she said: "Oh, well, I have been to the circus
once and 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' twice. I can't expect to go everywhere."
In Concord, New Hampshire, they tell of an old chap who made his wife
keep a cash account. Each week he would go over it, growling and
grumbling. On one such occasion he delivered himself of the following:
"Look here, Sarah, mustard-plasters, fifty cents; three teeth extracted,
two dollars! There's two dollars and a half in one week spent for your
own private pleasure. Do you think I am made of money?"
Here's to beauty, wit and wine and to a full stomach, a full purse and a
A dinner, coffee and cigars,
Of friends, a half a score.
Each favorite vintage in its turn,--
What man could wish for more?
The roses of pleasure seldom last long enough to adorn the brow of him
who plucks them; for they are the only roses which do not retain their
sweetness after they have lost their beauty.--_Hannah More_.
_See also_ Amusements.
Poetry is a gift we are told, but most editors won't take it even at
EDITOR--"Have you submitted this poem anywhere else?"
EDITOR--"Then where did you get that black eye?"--_Satire_.
"Why is it," asked the persistent poetess, "that you always insist that
we write on one side of the paper only? Why not on both?"
In that moment the editor experienced an access of courage--courage to
protest against the accumulated wrongs of his kind.
"One side of the paper, madame," he made answer, "is in the nature of a
"A compromise. What we really desire, if we could have our way, is not
one, or both, but neither."
Sir Lewis Morris was complaining to Oscar Wilde about the neglect of his
poems by the press. "It is a complete conspiracy of silence against me,
a conspiracy of silence. What ought I to do, Oscar?" "Join it," replied
God's prophets of the Beautiful,
These Poets were.
We call those poets who are first to mark
Through earth's dull mist the coming of the dawn,--
Who see in twilight's gloom the first pale spark,
While others only note that day is gone.
A man who was "wanted" in Russia had been photographed in six different
positions, and the pictures duly circulated among the police department.
A few days later the chief of police wrote to headquarters: "Sir, I have
duly received the portraits of the six miscreants. I have arrested five
of them, and the sixth will be secured shortly."
"I had a message from the Black Hand," said the resident of Graftburg.
"They told me to leave $2,000 in a vacant house in a certain street."
"Did you tell the police?"
"What did they do?"
"They said that while I was about it I might leave them a couple of
thousand in the same place."
Recipe for a policeman:
To a quart of boiling temper add a pint of Irish stew
Together with cracked nuts, long beats and slugs;
Serve hot with mangled citizens who ask the time of day--
The receipt is much the same for making thugs.
_See also_ Servants.
_See_ Courtesy; Etiquet.
ZOO SUPERINTENDENT--"What was all the rumpus out there this morning?"
ATTENDANT--"The bull moose and the elephant were fighting over their
"The donkey ate it."--_Life_.
Politicians always belong to the opposite party.
The man who goes into politics as a business has no business to go into
A political orator, evidently better acquainted with western geography
than with the language of the Greeks, recently exclaimed with fervor
that his principles should prevail "from Alpha to Omaha."
POLITICIAN--"Congratulate me, my dear, I've won the nomination."
HIS WIFE (in surprise)--"Honestly?"
POLITICIAN--"Now what in thunder did you want to bring up that point
"What makes you think the baby is going to be a great politician?" asked
the young mother, anxiously.
"I'll tell you," answered the young father, confidently; "he can say
more things that sound well and mean nothing at all than any kid I ever
"The mere proposal to set the politician to watch the capitalist has
been disturbed by the rather disconcerting discovery that they are both
the same man. We are past the point where being a capitalist is the only
way of becoming a politician, and we are dangerously near the point
where being a politician is much the quickest way of becoming a
At a political meeting the speakers and the audience were much annoyed
and disturbed by a man who constantly called out: "Mr. Henry! Henry,
Henry, Henry! I call for Mr. Henry!" After several interruptions of
this kind during each speech, a young man ascended the platform, and
began an eloquent and impassioned speech in which he handled the issues
of the day with easy familiarity. He was in the midst of a glowing
period when suddenly the old cry echoed through the hall: "Mr. Henry!
Henry, Henry, Henry! I call for Mr. Henry!" With a word to the speaker,
the chairman stepped to the front of the platform and remarked that it
would oblige the audience very much if the gentleman in the rear of the
hall would refrain from any further calls for Mr. Henry, as that
gentleman was then addressing the meeting.
"Mr. Henry? Is that Mr. Henry?" came in astonished tones from the rear.
"Thunder! that can't be him. Why, that's the young man that asked me to
call for Mr. Henry."
A political speaker, while making a speech, paused in the midst of it
and exclaimed: "Now gentlemen, what do you think?"
A man rose in the assembly, and with one eye partially closed, replied
modestly, with a strong Scotch brogue: "I think, sir, I do, indeed,
sir--I think if you and I were to stump the country together we could
tell more lies than any other two men in the country, sir, and I'd not
say a word myself during the whole time, sir."
The Rev. Dr. Biddell tells a lively story about a Presbyterian minister
who had a young son, a lad about ten years of age. He was endeavoring to
bring him up in the way he should go, and was one day asked by a friend
what he intended to make of him. In reply he said:
"I am watching the indications. I have a plan which I propose trying
with the boy. It is this: I am going to place in my parlor a Bible, an
apple and a silver dollar. Then I am going to leave the room and call in
the boy. I am going to watch him from some convenient place without
letting him know that he is seen. Then, if he chooses the Bible, I shall
make a preacher of him; if he takes the apple, a farmer he shall be; but
if he chooses the dollar, I will make him a business man."
The plan was carried out. The arrangements were made and the boy called
in from his play. After a little while the preacher and his wife softly
entered the room. There was the youngster. He was seated on the Bible,
in one hand was the apple, from which he was just taking a bite, and in
the other he clasped the silver dollar. The good man turned to his
consort. "Wife," he said, "the boy is a hog. I shall make a politician
Senator Mark Hanna was walking through his mill one day when he heard a
"I wish I had Hanna's money and he was in the poorhouse."
When he returned to the office the senator sent for the lad, who was
plainly mystified by the summons.
"So you wish you had my money and I was in the poorhouse," said the
great man grimly. "Now supposing you had your wish, what would you do?"
"Well," said the boy quickly, his droll grin showing his appreciation of
the situation, "I guess I'd get you out of the poorhouse the first
Mr. Hanna roared with laughter and dismissed the youth.
"You might as well push that boy along," he said to one of his
assistants; "he's too good a politician to be kept down."
_See also_ Candidates; Public Speakers.
Politics consists of two sides and a fence.
If I were asked to define politics in relation to the British public, I
should define it as a spasm of pain recurring once in every four or five
LITTLE CLARENCE (who has an inquiring mind)--"Papa, the Forty Thieves--"
MR. CALLIPERS--"Now, my son, you are too young to talk
"Many a man," remarked the milk toast philosopher, "has gone into
politics with a fine future, and come out with a terrible past." Lord
Dufferin delivered an address before the Greek class of the McGill
University about which a reporter wrote:
"His lordship spoke to the class in the purest ancient Greek, without
mispronouncing a word or making the slightest grammatical solecism."
"Good heavens!" remarked Sir Hector Langevin to the late Sir John A.
Macdonald, "how did the reporter know that!"
"I told him," was the Conservative statesman's answer.
"But you don't know Greek."
"True; but I know a little about politics."
Little Millie's father and grandfather were Republicans; and, as
election drew near, they spoke of their opponents with increasing
warmth, never heeding Millie's attentive ears and wondering eyes.
One night, however, as the little maid was preparing for bed, she
whispered in a frightened voice: "Oh, mamma, I don't dare to go
upstairs. I'm afraid there's a Democrat under the bed."
"The shortest after-dinner speech I ever heard," said Cy Warman, the
poet, "was at a dinner in Providence."
"A man was assigned to the topic, 'The Christian in Politics.' When he
was called upon he arose, bowed and said: 'Mr. Chairman, ladies and
gentlemen: The Christian in Politics--he ain't.'"
Politics is but the common pulse-beat of which revolution is the fever
Poverty is no disgrace, but that's about all that can be said in its
A traveler passing through the Broad Top Mountain district in northern
Bedford County, Pennsylvania, last summer, came across a lad of sixteen
cultivating a patch of miserable potatoes. He remarked upon their
unpromising appearance and expressed pity for anyone who had to dig a
living out of such soil.
"I don't need no pity," said the boy resentfully.
The traveler hastened to soothe his wounded pride. But in the offended
tone of one who has been misjudged the boy added; "I ain't as poor as
you think. I'm only _workin'_ here. I don't _own_ this place."
One day an inspector of a New York tenement-house found four families
living in one room, chalk lines being drawn across in such manner as to
mark out a quarter for each family.
"How do you get along here?" inquired the inspector.
"Very well," was the reply. "Only the man in the farthest corner keeps
There is no man so poor but that he can afford to keep one dog, and I
hev seen them so poor that they could afford to keep three.--_Josh
May poverty be always a day's march behind us.
Not he who has little, but he who wishes for more, is poor.--_Seneca_.
WIFE (complainingly)--"You never praise me up to any one."
HUB--"I don't, eh! You should hear me describe you at the intelligence
office when I'm trying to hire a cook."
"What sort of a man is he?"
"Well, he's just what I've been looking for--a generous soul, with a
A foreigner who attended a prayer meeting in Indiana was asked what the
assistants did. "Not very much," he said, "only they sin and
During the winter the village preacher was taken sick, and several of
his children were also afflicted with the mumps. One day a number of the
devout church members called to pray for the family. While they were
about it a boy, the son of a member living in the country, knocked at
the preacher's door. He had his arms full of things. "What have you
there?" a deacon asked him.
"Pa's prayers for a happy Thanksgiving," the boy answered, as he
proceeded to unload potatoes, bacon, flour and other provisions for the
A little girl in Washington surprised her mother the other day by
closing her evening prayers in these words: "Amen; good bye; ring off."
TEACHER--"Now, Tommy, suppose a man gave you $100 to keep for him and
then died, what would you do? Would you pray for him?"
TOMMY--"No, sir; but I would pray for another like him."
A well-known revivalist whose work has been principally among the
negroes of a certain section of the South remembers one service
conducted by him that was not entirely successful. He had had very poor
attendance, and spent much time in questioning the darkies as to their
reason for not attending.
"Why were you not at our revival?" he asked one old man, whom he
encountered on the road.
"Oh, I dunno," said the backward one.
"Don't you ever pray?" demanded the preacher.
The old man shook his head. "No," said he; "I carries a rabbit's
A little girl attending an Episcopal church for the first time, was
amazed to see all kneel suddenly. She asked her mother what they were
going to do. Her mother replied, "Hush, they're going to say their
"What with all their clothes on?"
The new minister in a Georgia church was delivering his first sermon.
The darky janitor was a critical listener from a back corner of the
church. The minister's sermon was eloquent, and his prayers seemed to
cover the whole category of human wants.
After the services one of the deacons asked the old darky what he
thought of the new minister. "Don't you think he offers up a good
"Ah mos' suhtainly does, boss. Why, dat man axed de good Lord fo' things
dat de odder preacher didn't even know He had!"
Hilma was always glad to say her prayers, but she wanted to be sure that
she was heard in the heavens above as well as on the earth beneath.
One night, after the usual "Amen," she dropped her head upon her pillow
and closed her eyes. After a moment she lifted her hand and, waving it
aloft, said, "Oh, Lord! this prayer comes from 203 Selden Avenue."
Willie's mother had told him that if he went to the river to play he
should go to bed. One day she was away, and on coming home about two
o'clock in the afternoon found Willie in bed.
"What are you in bed for?" asked his mother.
"I went to the river to play, and I knew you would put me in bed, so I
didn't wait for you to come."
"Did you say your prayers before you went to bed?" asked his mother.
"No," said Willie. "You don't suppose God would be loafing around here
this time of day, do you? He's at the office."
Little Polly, coming in from her walk one morning, informed her mother
that she had seen a lion in the park. No amount of persuasion or
reasoning could make her vary her statement one hairbreadth. That night,
when she slipped down on her knees to say her prayers, her mother said,
"Polly, ask God to forgive you for that fib."
Polly hid her face for a moment. Then she looked straight into her
mother's eyes, her own eyes shining like stars, and said, "I did ask
him, mamma, dearest, and he said, 'Don't mention it, Miss Polly; that
big yellow dog has often fooled me.'"
Prayer is the spirit speaking truth to Truth.--_Bailey_.
Pray to be perfect, though material leaven
Forbid the spirit so on earth to be;
But if for any wish thou darest not pray,
Then pray to God to cast that wish away.
_See also_ Courage.
The services in the chapel of a certain western university are from time
to time conducted by eminent clergymen of many denominations and from
On one occasion, when one of these visiting divines asked the president
how long he should speak, that witty officer replied:
"There is no limit, Doctor, upon the time you may preach; but I may tell
you that there is a tradition here that the most souls are saved during
the first twenty-five minutes."
One Sunday morning a certain young pastor in his first charge announced
"I will take for my text the words, 'And they fed five men with five
thousand loaves of bread and two thousand fishes.'"
At this misquotation an old parishioner from his seat in the amen corner
"That's no miracle--I could do it myself."
The young preacher said nothing at the time, but the next Sunday he
announced the same text again. This time he got it right:
"And they fed five thousand men on five loaves of bread and two
He waited a moment, and then, leaning over the pulpit and looking at the
amen corner, he said:
"And could you do that, too, Mr. Smith?"
"Of course I could," Mr. Smith replied.
"And how would you do it?" said the preacher.
"With what was left over from last Sunday," said Mr. Smith.
The late Bishop Foss once visited a Philadelphia physician for some
trifling ailment. "Do you, sir," the doctor asked, in the course of his
examination, "talk in your sleep?"
"No sir," answered the bishop. "I talk in other people's. Aren't you
aware that I am a divine?"
"Yes, sir," said the irate man, "I got even with that clergyman. I
slurred him. Why, I hired one hundred people to attend his church and go
to sleep before he had preached five minutes."
A noted eastern Judge when visiting in the west went to church on
Sunday; which isn't so remarkable as the fact that he knew beforehand
that the preacher was exceedingly tedious and long winded to the last
degree. After the service the preacher met the Judge in the vestibule
and said: "Well, your Honor, how did you like the sermon?"
"Oh, most wonderfully," replied the Judge. "It was like the peace of
God; for it passed all understanding, and, like His mercy, I thought it
would have endured forever."
The preacher's evening discourse was dry and long, and the congregation
gradually melted away. The sexton tiptoed up to the pulpit and slipped a
note under one corner of the Bible. It read:
"When you are through, will you please turn off the lights, lock the
door, and put the key under the mat?"
The new minister's first sermon was very touching and created much
favorable comment among the members of the church. One morning, a few
days later, his nine-year-old son happened to be alone in the pastor's
study and with childish curiosity started to read through some papers on
the desk. They happened to be this identical sermon, but he was most
interested in the marginal notes. In one place in the margin were
written the words, "Cry a little." Further on in the discourse appeared
another marginal remark, "Cry a little more." On the next to the last
sheet the boy found his good father had penned another remark, "Cry like
A young preacher, who was staying at a clergy-house, was in the habit of
retiring to his room for an hour or more each day to practice pulpit
oratory. At such times he filled the house with sounds of fervor and
pathos, and emptied it of almost everything else. Phillips Brooks
chanced to be visiting a friend in this house one day when the budding
orator was holding forth.
"Gracious me!" exclaimed the Bishop, starting up in assumed terror,
"pray, what might that be?"
"Sit down, Bishop," his friend replied. "That's only young D----
practising what he preaches."
A distinguished theologian was invited to make an address before a
Sunday-school. The divine spoke for over an hour and his remarks were of
too deep a character for the average juvenile mind to comprehend. At the
conclusion, the superintendent, according to custom, requested some one
in the school to name an appropriate hymn to be sung.
"Sing 'Revive Us Again,'" shouted a boy in the rear of the room.
A clergyman was once sent for in the middle of the night by one of his
"Well, my good woman," said he, "so you are ill and require the
consolations of religion? What can I do for you?"
"No," replied the old lady, "I am only nervous and can't sleep!"
"But how can I help that?" said the parson.
"Oh, sir, you always put me to sleep so nicely when I go to church that
I thought if you would only preach a little for me!"
I never see my rector's eyes;
He hides their light divine;
For when he prays, he shuts his own,
And when he preaches, mine.
A stranger entered the church in the middle of the sermon and seated
himself in the back pew. After a while he began to fidget. Leaning over
to the white-haired man at his side, evidently an old member of the
congregation, he whispered:
"How long has he been preaching?"
"Thirty or forty years, I think," the old man answered.
"I'll stay then," decided the stranger. "He must be nearly done."
Once upon a time there was an Indian named Big Smoke, employed as a
missionary to his fellow Smokes.
A white man encountering Big Smoke, asked him what he did for a living.
"Umph!" said Big Smoke, "me preach."
"That so? What do you get for preaching?"
"Me get ten dollars a year."
"Well," said the white man, "that's damn poor pay."
"Umph!" said Big Smoke, "me damn poor preacher."
_See also_ Clergy.
After a month's work in intensely warm weather a gardener in the suburbs
became ill, and the anxious little wife sent for a doctor, who wrote a
prescription after examining the patient. The doctor, upon departing,
said: "Just let your husband take that and you'll find he will be all
right in a short time."
Next day the doctor called again, and the wife opened the door, her face
beaming with smiles. "Sure, that was a wonderful wee bit of paper you
left yesterday," she exclaimed. "William is better to-day."
"I'm glad to hear that," said the much-pleased medical man.
"Not but what I hadn't a big job to get him to swallow it." she
continued, "but, sure, I just wrapped up the wee bit of paper quite
small and put it in a spoonful of jam and William swallowed it
unbeknownst. By night he was entirely better."
PRESENCE OF MIND
"What did you do when you met the train-robber face to face?"
"I explained that I had been interviewed by the ticket-seller, the
luggage-carriers, the dining-car waiters, and the sleeping-car porters
and borrowed a dollar from him."
The master of all trades: He beats the farmer with his fast "hoe," the
carpenter with his "rule," and the mason in "setting up tall columns";
and he surpasses the lawyer and the doctor in attending to the "cases,"
and beats the parson in the management of the devil.
A man arrested for stealing chickens was brought to trial. The case was
given to the jury, who brought him in guilty, and the judge sentenced
him to three months' imprisonment. The jailer was a jovial man, fond of
a smile, and feeling particularly good on that particular day,
considered himself insulted when the prisoner looking around the cell
told him it was dirty, and not fit for a hog to be put in. One word
brought on another, till finally the jailer told the prisoner if he did
not behave himself he would put him out. To which the prisoner replied:
"I will give you to understand, sir, I have as good a right here as you
SHERIFF--"That fellow who just left jail is going to be arrested again
"How do you know?"
SHERIFF--"He chopped my wood, carried the water, and mended my socks. I
can't get along without him."
"Why did the father of the prodigal son fall on his neck and weep?"
"Cos he had ter kill the fatted calf, an' de son wasn't wort' it."
THE RECTOR--"It's terrible for a man like you to make every other word
THE MAN--"Oh, well, I swear a good deal and you pray a good deal, but we
don't neither of us mean nuthin' by it."
FIRST DEAF MUTE--"He wasn't so very angry, was he?"
SECOND DEAF MUTE--"He was so wild that the words he used almost
blistered his fingers."
The little daughter of a clergyman stubbed her toe and said, "Darn!"
"I'll give you ten cents," said father, "if you'll never say that word
A few days afterward she came to him and said: "Papa, I've got a word
worth half a dollar."
Very frequently the winter highways of the Yukon valley are mere trails,
traversed only by dog-sledges. One of the bishops in Alaska, who was
very fond of that mode of travel, encountered a miner coming out with
his dog-team, and stopped to ask him what kind of a road he had come
The miner responded with a stream of forcible and picturesque profanity,
winding up with:
"And what kind o' trail did you have?"
"Same as yours," replied the bishop feelingly.--_Elgin Burroughs_.
A scrupulous priest of Kildare,
Used to pay a rude peasant to swear,
Who would paint the air blue,
For an hour or two,
While his reverence wrestled in prayer.
Donald and Jeanie were putting down a carpet. Donald slammed the end of
his thumb with the hammer and began to pour forth his soul in language
befitting the occasion.
"Donald, Donald!" shrieked Jeanie, horrified. "Dinna swear that way!"
"Wummun!" vociferated Donald; "gin ye know ony better way, now is the
time to let me know it!"
"It is not always necessary to make a direct accusation," said the
lawyer who was asking damages because insinuations had been made against
his client's good name. "You may have heard of the woman who called to
the hired girl, 'Mary, Mary. come here and take the parrot
downstairs--the master has dropped his collar button!'"
Little Bartholomew's mother overheard him swearing like a mule-driver.
He displayed a fluency that overwhelmed her. She took him to task,
explaining the wickedness of profanity as well as its vulgarity. She
asked where he had learned all those dreadful words. Bartholomew
announced that Cavert, one of his playmates, had taught him.
Cavert's mother was straightway informed and Cavert was brought to book.
He vigorously denied having instructed Bartholomew, and neither threats
nor tears could make him confess. At last he burst out:
"I didn't tell Bartholomew any cuss words. Why should I know how to cuss
any better than he does? Hasn't his father got an automobile, too?"
They were in Italy together.
"If you would let me curse them black and blue," said the groom, "we
shouldn't have to wait so long for the trunks."
"But, darling, please don't. It would distress me so," murmured the
The groom went off, but quickly returned with the porters before him
trundling the trunks at a double quick.
"Oh, dearest, how did you do it? You didn't--?"
"Not at all. I thought of something that did quite as well. I said,
'_S-s-s-susquehanna, R-r-r-rappahannock!'"--Cornelia C. Ward_.
A school girl was required to write an essay of two hundred and fifty
words about a motorcar. She submitted the following:
"My uncle bought a motorcar. He was riding in the country when it busted
up a hill. I guess this is about fifty words. The other two hundred are
what my uncle said when he was walking back to town, but they are not
fit for publication."
The ashman was raising a can of ashes above his head to dump the
contents into his cart, when the bottom of the can came out. Ethel saw
it and ran in and told her mother.
"I hope you didn't listen to what he said," the mother remarked.
"He didn't say a word to me," replied the little girl; "he just walked
right off by the side of his cart, talking to God."
A young man entered the jeweler's store and bought a ring, which he
ordered engraved. The jeweler asked what name.
"George Osborne to Harriet Lewis, but I prefer only the initials, G.O.
For it comes to pass oft that a terrible oath, with a swaggering accent
sharply twanged off, gives manhood more approbation than ever proof
itself would have earned him.--_Shakespeare_.
"Talking about dry towns, have you ever been in Leavenworth, Kansas?"
asked the commercial traveler in the smoking-car. "No? Well, that's a
dry town for you, all right."
"They can't sell liquor at all there?" asked one of the men.
"Only if you had been bitten by a snake," said the drummer. "They have
only one snake in town, and when I got to it the other day after
standing in line for nearly half a day it was too tired to bite."
It was prohibition country. As soon as the train pulled up, a seedy
little man with a covered basket on his arm hurried to the open windows
of the smoker and exhibited a quart bottle filled with rich, dark fluid.
"Want to buy some nice cold tea?" he asked, with just the suspicion of a
Two thirsty-looking cattlemen brightened visibly, and each paid a dollar
for a bottle.
"Wait until you get outer the station before you take a drink," the
little man cautioned them. "I don't wanter get in trouble."
He found three other customers before the train pulled out, in each case
repeating his warning.
"You seem to be doing a pretty good business," remarked a man who had
watched it all. "But I don't see why you'd run any more risk of getting
in trouble if they took a drink before the train started."
"Ye don't, hey? Well, what them bottles had in 'em, pardner, was real
Mr. Harcourt, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, at the British
North Borneo dinner, said that a City friend of his was approached with
a view to floating a rubber company. His friend was quite ready. "How
many trees have you?" he asked. "We have not got any trees," was the
answer. "How much land have you?" "We have no land." "What then have you
got?" "I have a bag of seeds!"
There are many tales about the caution of Russell Sage and the
cleverness with which he outwitted those who sought to get some of his
money from him. Two brilliant promoters went to him one time and
presented a scheme. The financier listened for an hour, and when they
departed they were told that Mr. Sage's decision would be mailed to them
in a few days.
"I think we have got Uncle Russell," said one of the promoters. "I
really believe we have won his confidence."
"I fear not," observed the other doubtfully. "He is too suspicious."
"Suspicious? I didn't observe any sign of it."
"Didn't you notice that he counted his fingers after I had shaken hands
with him and we were coming away?"
Promotion cometh neither from the east nor the west, but from the
cemetery.--_Edward Sanford Martin_.
"Are you first in anything at school, Earlie?"
"First out of the building when the bell rings."
The head of a large business house bought a number of those "Do it now"
signs and hung them up around his offices. When, after the first few
days of those signs, the business man counted up the results, he found
that the cashier had skipped out with $20,000, the head bookkeeper had
eloped with the stenographer, three clerks had asked for a raise in
salary, and the office boy had lit out for the west to become a
"Are you waiting for me, dear?" she said, coming downstairs at last,
after spending half an hour fixing her hat.
"Waiting," exclaimed the impatient man. "Oh no, not
A tale is told of a Kansas minister, a great precisionist in the use of
words, whose exactness sometimes destroyed the force of what he was
saying. On one occasion, in the course of an eloquent prayer, he
"O Lord! waken thy cause in the hearts of this congregation and give
them new eyes to see and new impulse to do. Send down Thy lev-er or
lee-ver, according to Webster's or Worcester's dictionary, whichever
Thou usest, and pry them into activity."
"I'm at the head of my class, pa," said Willie.
"Dear me, son, how did that happen?" cried his father.
"Why, the teacher asked us this morning how to pronounce
C-h-i-h-u-a-h-u-a, and nobody knew," said Willie, "but when she got down
to me I sneezed and she said that was right."
_See also_ Liars.
A middle-aged colored woman in a Georgia village, hearing a commotion in
a neighbor's cabin, looked in at the door. On the floor lay a small boy
writhing in great distress while his mother bent solicitously over him.
"What-all's de matter wif de chile?" asked the visitor sympathetically.
"I spec's hit's too much watermillion," responded the mother.
"Ho! go 'long wif you," protested the visitor scornfully. "Dey cyan't
never be too much watermillion. Hit mus' be dat dere ain't enough boy."
A love-smitten youth who was studying the approved method of proposal
asked one of his bachelor friends if he thought that a young man should
propose to a girl on his knees.
"If he doesn't," replied his friend, "the girl should get off."
A gentleman who had been in Chicago only three days, but who had been
paying attention to a prominent Chicago belle, wanted to propose, but
was afraid he would be thought too hasty. He delicately broached the
subject as follows: "If I were to speak to you of marriage, after having
only made your acquaintance three days ago, what would you say of it?"
"Well, I should say, never put off till tomorrow that which should have
been done the day before yesterday."
There was a young man from the West,
Who proposed to the girl he loved best,
But so closely he pressed her
To make her say, yes, sir,
That he broke two cigars in his vest.
They were dining on fowl in a restaurant. "You see," he explained, as he
showed her the wishbone, "you take hold here. Then we must both make a
wish and pull, and when it breaks the one who has the bigger part of it
will have his or her wish granted." "But I don't know what to wish for,"
she protested. "Oh! you can think of something," he said. "No, I can't,"
she replied; "I can't think of anything I want very much." "Well, I'll
wish for you," he explained. "Will you, really?" she asked. "Yes."
"Well, then there's no use fooling with the old wishbone," she
interrupted with a glad smile, "you can have me."
"Dear May," wrote the young man, "pardon me, but I'm getting so
forgetful. I proposed to you last night, but really forget whether you
said yes or no."
"Dear Will," she replied by note, "so glad to hear from you. I know I
said 'no' to some one last night, but I had forgotten just who it was."
The four Gerton girls were all good-looking; indeed, the three younger
ones were beautiful; while Annie, the oldest, easily made up in
capability and horse sense what she lacked in looks.
A young chap, very eligible, called on the girls frequently, but seemed
unable to decide which to marry. So Annie put on her thinking cap, and,
one evening when the young chap called, she appeared with her pretty
arms bare to the elbow and her hands white with flour.
"Oh, you must excuse my appearance," she said. "I have been working in
the kitchen all day. I baked bread and pies and cake this morning, and
afterward, as the cook was ill, I prepared dinner."
"Miss Annie, is that so?" said the young man. He looked at her, deeply
impressed. Then, after a moment's thought, he said:
"Miss Annie, there is a question I wish to ask you, and on your answer
will depend much of my life's happiness."
"Yes?" she said, with a blush, and she drew a little nearer. "Yes? What
"Miss Annie," said the young man, in deep earnest tones, "I am thinking
of proposing to your sister Kate--will you make your home with us?"
It was at Christmas, and he had been calling on her twice a week for six
months, but had not proposed.
"Ethel," he said, "I--er--am going to ask you an important question."
"Oh, George," she exclaimed, "this is so sudden! Why, I--"
"No, excuse me," he interrupted; "what I want to ask is this: What date
have you and your mother decided upon for our wedding?"
A Scotch beadle led the maiden of his choice to a churchyard and,
pointing to the various headstones, said:
"My folks are all buried there, Jennie. Wad ye like to be buried there
IMPECUNIOUS LOVER--"Be mine, Amanda, and you will be treated like an
WEALTHY MAIDEN--"Yes, I suppose so. Nothing to eat, and less to wear.
No, thank you."
The surest way to hit a woman's heart is to take aim kneeling.--_Douglas
There was a young lady of Wilts,
Who walked up to Scotland on stilts;
When they said it was shocking
To show so much stocking,
She answered: "Then what about kilts?"
--_Gilbert K. Chesterton_.
May bad fortune follow you all your days
And never catch up with you.
PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH
One of our popular New England lecturers tells this amusing
A street boy of diminutive stature was trying to sell some
very young kittens to passers-by. One day he accosted the
late Reverend Phillips Brooks, asking him to purchase, and
recommending them as good Episcopal kittens. Dr. Brooks
laughingly refused, thinking them too small to be taken from
their mother. A few days later a Presbyterian minister who
had witnessed this episode was asked by the same boy to buy the
same kittens. This time the lad announced that they were faithful
"Didn't you tell Dr. Brooks last week that they were Episcopal
kittens?" the minister asked sternly.
"Yes sir," replied the boy quickly, "but they's had their eyes
opened since then, sir."
An Episcopal clergyman who was passing his vacation in
a remote country district met an old farmer who declared that
he was a "'Piscopal."
"To what parish do you belong?" asked the clergyman.
"Don't know nawthin' 'bout enny parish," was the answer.
"Who confirmed you, then?" was the next question.
"Nobody," answered the farmer.
"Then how are you an Episcopalian?" asked the clergyman.
"Well," was the reply, "you see it's this way: Last winter
I went to church, an' it was called 'Piscopal, an' I heerd them
say that they left undone the things what they'd oughter done
and they'd done some things what they oughtenter done, and I
says to myself says I: 'That's my fix exac'ly,' and ever sence
then I've been a 'Piscopalian."
A Protestant mission meeting had been held in an Irish town and this
was the gardener's contribution to the controversy that ensued:
"Pratestants!" he said with lofty scorn, "'Twas mighty little St. Paul
thought of the Pratestants. You've all heard tell of the 'pistle he
wrote to the Romans, but I'd ax ye this, did any of yez iver hear of
his writing a 'pistle to the Pratestants?"
"Why did papa have appendicitis and have to pay the doctor a thousand
"It was God's will, dear."
"And was it because God was mad at papa or pleased with the
There's a certain minister whose duties sometimes call him out of the
city. He has always arranged for some one of his parishioners to keep
company with his wife and little daughter during these absences.
Recently, however, he was called away so suddenly that he had no
opportunity of providing a guardian.
The wife was very brave during the early evening, but after dark had
fallen her courage began to fail. She stayed up with her little girl
till there was no excuse for staying any longer and then took her
upstairs to bed.
"Now go to sleep, Dearie," she said. "Don't be afraid. God will
"Yes, Mother," answered the little girl, "that'll be all right
tonight, but next time let's make better arrangements."
Some time ago an English friend of Colonel W.J. Lampton's living in
New York and having never visited the South, went to Virginia to spend
a month with friends. After a fortnight of it, he wrote back:
"Oh, I say, old top, you never told me that the South was anything
like I have found it, and so different to the North. Why, man, it's
The Colonel, who gets his title from Kentucky, answered promptly by
"Of course it is," he wrote. "You didn't suppose God was a Yankee, did
A southerner, with the intense love for his own district, attended a
banquet. The next day a friend asked him who was present. With a
reminiscent smile he replied: "An elegant gentleman from Virginia, a
gentleman from Kentucky, a man from Ohio, a bounder from Chicago, a
fellow from New York, and a galoot from Maine."
They had driven fourteen miles to the lake, and then rowed six miles
across the lake to get to the railroad station, when the Chicago man
"How in the world do you get your mail and newspapers here in the
winter when the storms are on?"
"Wa-al, we don't sometimes. I've seen this lake thick up so that it
was three weeks before we got a Chicago paper," answered the man from
"Well, you were cut off," said the Chicago man.
"Ya-as, we were so," was the reply. "Still, the Chicago folks were
just as badly off."
"Wa-al," drawled the man, "we didn't know what was going on in
Chicago, of course. But then, neither did Chicago folks know what was
going on down here."
PUBLIC SERVICE CORPORATIONS
The attorney demanded to know how many secret societies the witness
belonged to, whereupon the witness objected and appealed to the court.
"The court sees no harm in the question," answered the judge. "You may
"Well, I belong to three."
"What are they?"
"The Knights of Pythias, the Odd Fellows, and the gas company."
"Yes, he had some rare trouble with his eyes," said the celebrated
oculist. "Every time he went to read he would read double."
"Poor fellow," remarked the sympathetic person. "I suppose that
interfered with his holding a good position?"
"Not at all. The gas company gobbled him up and gave him a lucrative
job reading gas-meters."
ORATOR--"I thought your paper was friendly to me?"
EDITOR--"So it is. What's the matter?"
ORATOR--"I made a speech at the dinner last night, and you didn't
print a line of it."
EDITOR--"Well, what further proof do you want?"
TRAVELING LECTURER FOR SOCIETY (to the remaining listener)--"I should
like to thank you, sir, for so attentively hearing me to the end of a
rather too long speech."
LOCAL MEMBER OF SOCIETY--"Not at all, sir. I'm the second speaker."
Ex-senator Spooner of Wisconsin says the best speech of introduction
he ever heard was delivered by the German mayor of a small town in
Wisconsin, where Spooner had been engaged to speak.
The mayor said:
"Ladies und shentlemens, I haf been asked to indrotoose you to the
Honorable Senator Spooner, who vill make to you a speech, yes. I haf
now done so; he vill now do so."
"When I arose to speak," related a martyred statesman, "some one
hurled a base, cowardly egg at me and it struck me in the chest."
"And what kind of an egg might that be?" asked a fresh young man.
"A base, cowardly egg," explained the statesman, "is one that hits you
and then runs."
"Uncle Joe" Cannon has a way of speaking his mind that is sometimes
embarrassing to others. On one occasion an inexperienced young fellow
was called upon to make a speech at a banquet at which ex-speaker
Cannon was also present.
"Gentlemen," began the young fellow, "my opinion is that the
generality of mankind in general is disposed to take advantage of the
"Sit down, son," interrupted "Uncle Joe." "You are coming out of the
same hole you went in at."
A South African tribe has an effective method of dealing with bores,
which might be adopted by Western peoples. This simple tribe considers
long speeches injurious to the orator and his hearers; so to protect
both there is an unwritten law that every public orator must stand on
only one leg when he is addressing an audience. As soon as he has to
place the other leg on the ground his oration is brought to a close,
by main force, if necessary.
A rather turgid orator, noted for his verbosity and heaviness, was
once assigned to do some campaigning in a mining camp in the
mountains. There were about fifty miners present when he began; but
when, at the end of a couple of hours, he gave no sign of finishing,
his listeners dropped away.
Some went back to work, but the majority sought places to quench their
thirst, which had been aggravated by the dryness of the discourse.
Finally there was only one auditor left, a dilapidated, weary-looking
old fellow. Fixing his gaze on him, the orator pulled out a large
six-shooter and laid it on the table. The old fellow rose slowly and
"Be you going to shoot if I go?"
"You bet I am," replied the speaker. "I'm bound to finish my speech,
even if I have to shoot to keep an audience."
The old fellow sighed in a tired manner, and edged slowly away, saying
as he did so:
"Well, shoot if you want to. I may jest as well be shot as talked to
The self-made millionaire who had endowed the school had been invited
to make the opening speech at the commencement exercises. He had not
often had a chance of speaking before the public and he was resolved
to make the most of it. He dragged his address out most tiresomely,
repeating the same thought over and over. Unable to stand it any
longer a couple of boys in the rear of the room slipped out. A
coachman who was waiting outside asked them if the millionaire had
finished his speech.
"Gee, yes!" replied the boys, "but he won't stop."
Mark Twain once told this story:
"Some years ago in Hartford, we all went to church one hot, sweltering
night to hear the annual report of Mr. Hawley, a city missionary who
went around finding people who needed help and didn't want to ask for
it. He told of the life in cellars, where poverty resided; he gave
instances of the heroism and devotion of the poor. When a man with
millions gives, he said, we make a great deal of noise. It's a noise
in the wrong place, for it's the widow's mite that counts. Well,
Hawley worked me up to a great pitch. I could hardly wait for him to
get through. I had $400 in my pocket. I wanted to give that and borrow
more to give. You could see greenbacks in every eye. But instead of
passing the plate then, he kept on talking and talking and talking,
and as he talked it grew hotter and hotter and hotter, and we grew
sleepier and sleepier and sleepier. My enthusiasm went down, down,
down, down--$100 at a clip--until finally, when the plate did come
around, I stole ten cents out of it. It all goes to show how a little
thing like this can lead to crime."
_See also_ After dinner speeches; Candidates; Politicians.
A parent who evidently disapproved of corporal punishment wrote the
"Dear Miss: Don't hit our Johnnie. We never do it at home
except in self-defense."
"No, sirree!" ejaculated Bunkerton. "There wasn't any of that nonsense
in my family. My father never thrashed me in all his life."
"Too bad, too bad," sighed Hickenlooper. "Another wreck due to a
James the Second, when Duke of York, made a visit to Milton, the poet,
and asked him among other things, if he did not think the loss of his
sight a judgment upon him for what he had writen against his father,
Charles the First. Milton answered: "If your Highness think my loss of
sight a _judgment_ upon me, what do you think of your father's losing
A white man during reconstruction times was arraigned before a colored
justice of the peace for killing a man and stealing his mule. It was
in Arkansas, near the Texas border, and there was some rivalry between
the states, but the colored justice tried to preserve an impartial
frame of mind.
"We's got two kinds ob law in dis yer co't," he said: "Texas law an'
Arkansas law. Which will you hab?"
The prisoner thought a minute and then guessed that he would take the
"Den I discharge you fo' stealin' de mule, an' hang you fo' killin' de
"Hold on a minute, Judge," said the prisoner. "Better make that Texas
"All right. Den I fin' you fo' killin' de man, an' hang you fo'
stealin' de mule."
A lawyer was defending a man accused of housebreaking, and said to the
"Your Honor, I submit that my client did not break into the house at
all. He found the parlor window open and merely inserted his right arm
and removed a few trifling articles. Now, my client's arm is not
himself, and I fail to see how you can punish the whole individual for
an offense committed by only one of his limbs."
"That argument," said the judge, "is very well put. Following it
logically, I sentence the defendant's arm to one year's imprisonment.
He can accompany it or not, as he chooses."
The defendant smiled, and with his lawyer's assistance unscrewed his
cork arm, and, leaving it in the dock, walked out.
Muriel, a five-year-old subject of King George, has been thought by
her parents too young to feel the weight of the rod, and has been
ruled by moral suasion alone. But when, the other day, she achieved
disobedience three times in five minutes, more vigorous measures were
called for, and her mother took an ivory paper-knife from the table
and struck her smartly across her little bare legs. Muriel looked
astounded. Her mother explained the reason for the blow. Muriel
thought deeply for a moment. Then, turning toward the door with a
grave and disapproving countenance, she announced in her clear little
"I'm going up-stairs to tell God about that paper-knife. And then I
shall tell Jesus. And if _that_ doesn't do, I shall put flannel on my
During the reconstruction days of Virginia, a negro was convicted of
murdering his wife and sentenced to be hanged. On the morning of the
execution he mounted the scaffold with reasonable calmness. Just
before the noose was to be placed around his neck the sheriff asked
him if he had anything to say. He studied a moment and said:
"No, suh, boss, thankee, suh, 'ceptin' dis is sho gwine to be a lesson
"What punishment did that defaulting banker get?" "I understand his
lawyer charged him $40,000."
An Indian in Washington County once sized up Maine's game laws thus:
"Kill cow moose, pay $100; kill man, too bad!"
TEACHER--"Willie, did your father cane you for what you did in school
PUPIL--"No, ma'am; he said the licking would hurt him more than it
TEACHER--"What rot! Your father is too sympathetic."
PUPIL--"No, ma'am; but he's got the rheumatism in both arms."
"Boohoo! Boohoo!" wailed little Johnny.
"Why, what's the matter, dear?" his mother asked comfortingly.
"Boohoo--er--p-picture fell on papa's toes."
"Well, dear, that's too bad, but you mustn't cry about it, you know."
"I d-d-didn't. I laughed. Boohoo! Boohoo!"
The fact that corporal punishment is discouraged in the public schools
of Chicago is what led Bobby's teacher to address this note to the
DEAR MADAM:--I regret very much to have to tell you that your
son, Robert, idles away his time, is disobedient, quarrelsome,
and disturbs the pupils who are trying to study their lessons.
He needs a good whipping and I strongly recommend that you
give him one.
To this Bobby's mother responded as follows:
Dear Miss Blanks--Lick him yourself. I ain't mad at him.