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                    _English
               As She is Wrote_,

                    SHOWING

       Curious ways in which the English
         Language may be made to convey
             Ideas or obscure them.

  _A Companion to "English as She is Spoke."_



                  _NEW YORK:_
  _D. Appleton & Co., 1, 3, & 5 Bond Street._


                  COPYRIGHT BY
            D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,
                     1883.




                    _Contents._

                                               Page

  I.    How she is wrote by the Inaccurate        9
  II.   By Advertisers and on Sign-boards        20
  III.  For Epitaphs                             28
  IV.   By Correspondents                        42
  V.    By the Effusive                          56
  VI.   How she can be oddly wrote               71
  VII.  By the Untutored                         91




                   _Prefatory._


"Anybody," said an astute lawyer, addressing the jury to whom the
opposing counsel had reflected upon inaccuracies in the spelling of his
brief--"anybody can write English correctly, but surely a man may be
allowed to spell a word in two or three different ways if he likes!"
This was a claim for independence of action which so commended itself to
the jury that it won a verdict for his client. The same plea may be
considered in regard to the truly wonderful way in which the
mother-tongue is often written, by the educated sometimes as well as by
the uneducated.

A man, it may be urged, has a right to spell as he chooses, and to
express his ideas, when he has any, as best he can; while, when he
suffers from a dearth of those rare articles, he has still more reason
to rejoice in liberty of choice in respect to the language he selects to
cover his poverty of thought. Hence there are doubtless good and
sufficient reasons for every specimen of "English as she is wrote,"
which it is the object of this little book to rescue from oblivion, and
which have, one and all, been written with the sober conviction, upon
the part of the writers, that they accurately conveyed the meaning they
desired. Intentionally humorous efforts have been carefully excluded,
and the interest of the collection consists in the spontaneity of
expression and in the fact that it offers fair samples of the
possibilities which lie hidden in the orthography and construction of
our language. Let it be remembered, then, that _anybody_ can
write English as she "should be wrote," and hence that a certain meed of
admiration is due to those who, exercising their right of independent
action, succeed in making it at once original and racy, and in
conveying, without the least effort, meanings totally opposed to their
intention, affording thereby admirable examples of English as "she is
wrote" by thousands.




I.

By the Inaccurate.


In the account of an inaugural ceremony it was asserted that "the
procession was very fine, and nearly two miles long, as was also the
report of Dr. Perry, the chaplain."

A Western paper says: "A child was run over by a wagon three years old,
and cross-eyed, with pantalets on, which never spoke afterward."

Here is some descriptive evidence of personal peculiarities:

  "A fellow was arrested with short hair."

  "I saw a man digging a well with a Roman nose."

  "A house was built by a mason of brown stone."

  "Wanted--A room by two gentlemen thirty feet long and twenty feet wide."

  "A man from Africa called to pay his compliments tall and
      dark-complexioned."

  "I perceived that it had been scoured with half an eye."

A sea-captain once asserted that his "vessel was beautifully painted
with a tall mast."

In an account of travels we are assured that "a pearl was found by a
sailor in a shell."

A bill presented to a farmer ran thus: "To hanging two barn doors and
myself, 4_s._ 6_d._"

A store-keeper assures his customers that "the longest time and easiest
terms are given by any other house in the city."

Here is a curious evidence of philanthropy: "A wealthy gentleman will
adopt a little boy with a small family."

A parochial report states that "the town farm-house and almshouse have
been carried on the past year to our reasonable satisfaction, especially
the almshouse, at which there have been an unusual amount of sickness
and three deaths."

A Kansas paper thus ends a marriage notice: "The couple left for the
East on the night train where they will reside."

In the account of a shipwreck we find the following: "The captain swam
ashore. So did the chambermaid; she was insured for a large sum and
loaded with pig-iron."

A notice at the entrance to a bridge asserts that "any person driving
over this bridge in a faster pace than a walk shall, if a white person
be fined five dollars, and if a negro receive twenty-five lashes, half
the penalty to be bestowed on the informer."

The following notice appeared on the west end of a country
meeting-house: "Anybody sticking bills against this church will be
prosecuted according to law or any other nuisance."

A gushing but ungrammatical editor says: "We have received a basket of
fine grapes from our friend ----, for which he will please accept our
compliments, some of which are nearly one inch in diameter."

On the panel under the letter-receiver of the General Post-Office,
Dublin, these words are printed: "Post here letters too late for the
next mail."

An Ohio farmer is said to have the following warning posted
conspicuously on his premises: "If any man's or woman's cows or oxen
gits in this here oats his or her tail will be cut off, as the case may
be."

A lady desired to communicate by electricity to her husband in the city
the size of an illuminated text which she had promised for the
Sunday-school room. When the order reached him it read, "Unto us a child
is born, nine feet long by two feet wide."

A farmer who wished to enter some of his live-stock at an agricultural
exhibition, in the innocence of his heart, but with more truth in his
words than he dreamed of, wrote to the committee, saying, "Enter me for
one jackass."

An Irishman complained to his physician that "he stuffed him so much
with drugs that he was ill a long time after he got well."

A correspondent of a New York paper described Mr. C.'s journey to
Washington to attend "the dying bedside of his mother."

A dealer in engravings announced: "'Scotland Forever.' A Cavalry Charge
after Elizabeth Thompson Butler, just published."

A Western paper says that "a fine new school-house has just been
finished in that town capable of accommodating three hundred students
four stories high."

A coroner's verdict read thus: "The deceased came to his death by
excessive drinking, producing apoplexy in the minds of the jury."

An old edition of Morse's geography declares that "Albany has four
hundred dwelling-houses and twenty-four hundred inhabitants, all
standing with their gable-ends to the street."

A member of a school committee writes, "We have two school-rooms
sufficiently large to accommodate three hundred pupils, one above the
other."

A Harrisburg paper, answering a correspondent on a question of
etiquette, says: "When a gentleman and lady are walking upon the street,
the lady should walk inside of the gentleman."

A clergyman writes, "A young woman died in my neighborhood yesterday,
while I was preaching the gospel in a beastly state of intoxication."

A certain friendly society, which was also a sort of mutual insurance
organization, had this among its printed notices to the members: "In the
event of your death, you are requested to bring your book, policy, and
certificate at once to Mr. ----, when your claims will have immediate
attention."

A New York paper, describing a funeral in Jersey City, says: "At the
ferry four friends of the deceased took possession of the carriage and
followed the remains to Evergreen Cemetery, where they were quietly
interred in a new lot without service or ceremony." The devotion of the
friends of the deceased was certainly remarkable, but one can not help
wondering what became of the remains.

A newspaper gives an account of a man who "was driving an old ox when he
became angry and kicked him, hitting his jawbone with such force as to
break his leg." "We have been fairly wild ever since we read the paper,"
writes a contemporary, "to know who or which got angry at whom or what,
and if the ox kicked the man's jaw with such force as to break the ox's
leg, or how it is. Or did the man kick the ox in the jawbone with such
force as to break the ox's leg, and, if so, which leg? It's one of those
things which no man can find out, save only the man who kicked or was
being kicked, as the case may be."

One of Sir Boyle Roche's invitations to an Irish nobleman was rather
equivocal. He wrote, "I hope, my lord, if you ever come within a mile of
my house you will stay there all night."

A German tourist expresses himself in regard to his Scottish experiences
as follows: "A person angry says to-day that he was from the theatre
gallary spit upon. Very fine. I also was spit upon. Not on the dress but
into the eye strait it came with strong force while I look up angry to
the gallary. Befor I come to your country I worship the Scotland of my
books, my 'Waverly Novel,' you know, but now I dwell here since six
months, in all parts, the picture change. I now know of the bad smell,
the oath and curse of God's name, the wisky drink and the rudeness. You
have much money here, but you want what money can not buye--heart
cultivating that makes respect for gentle things. O! to be spit in the
eye in one half million of peopled town. Let me no longer be in this
cold country, where people push in the street, blow the noze with naked
finger, empty the dish at the house door, chooze the clergy from the
lower classes and then go with them to death for an ecclesiastical
theory which none of them can understand. I go home three days time."
There is more in this than grotesque English, however. It abounds with
good sense and penetration.

The following is a pattern piece of modern style, sanctioned by an
English Board of Trade, and drawn up by an eminent authority: "Tickets
are nipped at the Barriers, and passengers admitted to the platforms
will have to be delivered up to the Company in event of the holders
subsequently retiring from the platforms without travelling, and cannot
be recognized for readmission."

A college professor, describing the effect of the wind in some Western
forests, wrote, "In traveling along the road, I even sometimes found the
logs bound and twisted together to such an extent that a mule couldn't
climb over them, so I went round."

A mayor in a university town issued the following proclamation: "Whereas
a Multiplicity of Dangers are often incurred by Damage of outrageous
Accidents by Fire, we whose names are undesigned have thought proper
that the Benefit of an Engine bought by us for the better extinguishing
of which by the Accidents of Almighty God may unto us happen to make a
Rate togather Benevolence for the better propagating such useful
Instruments."




II.

By Advertisers and on Sign-boards.


Two young women want washing.

Teeth extracted with great pains.

Babies taken and finished in ten minutes by a country photographer.

Wood and coal split.

Wanted, a female who has a knowledge of fitting boots of a good moral
character.

For sale, a handsome piano, the property of a young lady who is leaving
Scotland in a walnut case with turned legs.

A large Spanish blue gentleman's cloak lost in the neighborhood of the
market.

To be sold, a splendid gray horse, calculated for a charger, or would
carry a lady with a switch tail.

Wanted, a young man to take charge of horses of a religious turn of
mind.

A lady advertises her desire for a husband "with a Roman nose having
strong religious tendencies."

Wanted, a young man to look after a horse of the Methodist persuasion.

A chemist inquires, "Will the gentleman who left his stomach for
analysis please call and get it, together with the result?"

Wanted, an accomplished poodle nurse. Wages, $5.00 a week.

In the far West a man advertises for a woman "to wash, iron and milk one
or two cows."

Lost a cameo brooch representing Venus and Adonis on the Drumcondra Road
about 10 o'clock on Tuesday evening.

An advertiser, having made an advantageous purchase, offers for sale, on
very low terms, "six dozen of prime port wine, late the property of a
gentleman forty years of age, full of body, and with a high bouquet."

A steamboat-captain, in advertising for an excursion, closes thus:
"Tickets, 25 cents; children half price, to be had at the captain's
office."

Among carriages to be disposed of, mention is made of "a mail phaeton,
the property of a gentleman with a moveable head as good as new."

An inducement to return property is offered as follows: "If the
gentleman who keeps the shoe store with a red head will return the
umbrella of a young lady with whalebone ribs and an iron handle to the
slate-roofed grocer's shop, he will hear of something to his advantage,
as the same is a gift of a deceased mother now no more with the name
engraved upon it."

An English matrimonial advertisement reads as follows: "A young man
about 25 years of Age, in a very good trade, whose Father will make him
worth £1000, would willingly embrace a suitable MATCH. He has been
brought up a Dissenter with his Parents, and is a sober man."

A landlady, innocent of grammatical knowledge, advertises that she has
"a fine, airy, well-furnished bedroom for a gentleman twelve feet
square"; another has "a cheap and desirable suit of rooms for a
respectable family in good repair"; still another has "a hall bedroom
for a single woman 8 × 12."

A photographer's sign reads: "This style 3 pictures finished in fifteen
minutes while you wait for twenty-five cents beautifully colored."

A cheap restaurant displays this sign: "Oyster pies open all night," and
"Coffee and cakes off the griddle."

A baker displays the sign, "Family Baking Done Here." The sign would
look more appropriate if it were in front of some of our "cool and
well-ventilated" summer-resort hotels.

The sign at Abraham Lowe's inn, Douglas, Isle of Man, is accompanied by
this quaint verse:

  "I'm Abraham Lowe, and half way up the hill,
  If I were higher up wat's funnier still,
  I should be Lowe. Come in and take your fill
  Of porter, ale, wine, spirits what you will.
  Step in, my friend, I pray no further go,
  My prices, like myself, are always low."

On a vacant lot back of Covington, Kentucky, is posted this sign: "No
plane base Boll on these Primaces."

Notice in a Hoboken ferry-boat: "The seats in this cabin are reserved
for ladies. Gentlemen are requested not to occupy them until the ladies
are seated."

A sign in a Pennsylvania town reads as follows: "John Smith, teacher of
cowtillions and other dances--grammar taut in the neatest manner--fresh
salt herrin on draft--likewise Goodfreys cordjial--rutes sassage and
other garden truck--N. B. bawl on friday nite--prayer meetin
chuesday--also salme singing by the quire."

The following notice appeared on the fence of a vacant lot in Brooklyn:
"All persons are forbidden to throw ashes on this lot under penalty of
the law or any other garbage."

A barber's sign in Buffalo, N.Y., has the following: "This is the place
for physiognomical hair-cutting and ecstatic shaving and shampooing."

A San Francisco boot-black, of poetic aspirations, proclaims his
superior skill in the following lines, pasted over the door of his
establishment:

  "No day was e'er so bright,
  So black was never a night,
  As will your boots be, if you get
  Them blacked right in here, you bet!"

The following appears on a Welsh shoemaker's sign-board: "Pryce Dyas
Coblar, dealer in Bacco Shag and Pig Tail Bacon and Ginarbread, Eggs
laid by me, and very good Paradise in the summer, Gentlemen and Lady can
have good Tae and Crumpets and Straw berry with a scim milk, because I
can't get no cream. N. B. Shuse and Boots mended very well."

An Irish inn exhibits the following in large type:

  "Within this hive we're all alive,
    With whiskey sweet as honey;
  If you are dry, step in and try,
    But don't forget your money."

An inn near London displays a board with the following inscription:

  "_Call_--Softly,
  _Drink_ Moderately,
  Pay _Honourably_;
  Be good Company,
  Part FRIENDLY,
  Go HOME quietly.
  Let those lines be no MAN'S sorrow,
  Pay to DAY and i'll TRUST tomorrow."




III.

For Epitaphs.


A terse account of an untimely end is given upon a stone in a Mexican
church-yard:

  "He was young, he was fair
  But the Injuns raised his hair."

The following may be read upon the tombstone of Lottie Merrill, the
young huntress of Wayne County, Pennsylvania: "Lottie Merrill lays hear
she dident know wot it wuz to be afeered but she has hed her last tussel
with the bars and theyve scooped her she was a good girl and she is now
in heaven. It took six big bars to get away with her. She was only 18
years old."

Upon the tomb of a boy who died of eating too much fruit, this quaint
epitaph conveys a moral:

  "_Currants_ have check'd the _current_ of my blood,
  And _berries_ brought me to be _buried_ here;
  _Pears_ have _par'd_ off my body's hardihood,
  And _plums_ and _plumbers_ _spare_ not one so _spare_.
  _Fain_ would I _feign_ my fall; so _fair_ a _fare_
  _Lessens_ not hate, yet 'tis a _lesson_ good.
  _Gilt_ will not long hide _guilt_, such thin washed _ware_
  _Wears_ quickly, and its _rude_ touch soon is _rued_.
  _Grave_ on my _grave_ some sentence _grave_ and terse,
  That _lies_ not as it _lies_ upon my clay,
  But in a gentle _strain_ of _unstrained_ verse,
  _Prays_ all to pity a poor patty's _prey_,
  _Rehearses_ I was fruitful to my _hearse_,
  _Tells_ that my days are _told_, and soon I'm _toll'd_ away."

In Glasgow Cathedral is an epitaph, which is engraved on the lid of a
very old sarcophagus, discovered in the crypt:

  "Our Life's a flying Shadow, God's the Pole,
  The Index pointing at him is our Soul,
  Death's the Horizon, when our Sun is set,
  Which will through Chryst a Resurrection get."

In a grave-yard at Montrose, in Scotland, this inscription may still be
seen:

     "Here lies the Body of
          George Young
  And of all his posterity for
     fifty years backwards."

This brief announcement may be read in Wrexham church-yard, Wales:

  "Here lies five babies and children dear
  Three at Owestry and two here."

In a church-yard near London the following may be deciphered:

  "Killed by an omnibus why not?
    So quick a death a boon is
  Let not his friends lament his lot
    For mors omnibus communis."

There is an unqualified Hibernianism in the following:

  "Here lies the remains of
  Thomas Melstrom who died
  in Philadelphia March 17th
  Had he lived he would have
      been buried here."

A good deal of positive information is conveyed in this epitaph:

  "Here lies, cut down like unripe fruit
  The wife of Deacon Amos Shute;
  She died of drinking too much coffee,
  Anny dominy eighteen forty."

To the victim of an accident:

"Here lies the body of James Hambrick which was accidentally shot in the
Pacas River by a young man with one of Colts large revolvers with no
stopper for the hand for to rest on. It was one of the old fashioned
sort, brass mounted and of such is the Kingdom of Heaven."

William Curtis, who was famous for his bad grammar, may have composed
his own epitaph:

  "Here lies William Curtis
    Our late Lord Mayor
  Who has left this world,
    And gone to that there."

In a church-yard in London, evidently written by a Cockney:

  "Here lies John Ross.
  Kicked by a Hoss."

In Trinity church-yard, New York, this inscription may be read:

  "Val. ----
          Sidney Breese.
           June 9 17--.
         Made by himself.
        Ha! Sidney, Sidney
         Liest thou here?
            I lye here
    Till Times last Extremity."

Upon a stone, under the Grocers' Arms, is this inscription, in memory of
Garrard, a tea-dealer:

  "Garret some called him
    But that was too lye
  His name is Garrard
    Who now here doth lye
  Weepe not for him
    Since he is gone before
  To heaven where Grocers
    There are many more."

The value of phonetic spelling is set forth in this terse memorial:

  "Here lies two brothers by misfortune surrounded
  One died of his wounds, the other was drounded."

Resignation and an eye to the main chance are combined in the following:

  "Beneath this stone, in hope of Zion
  Doth lie the landlord of the Lion,
  His son keeps in the business still
  Resigned unto the heavenly Will."

In a church-yard in Wiltshire, England:

  "Beneath this stone lies our dear child
  Whos' gone away from we
  For evermore into eternity;
  When we do hope that we shall go to he
  But him can never come back to we."

On Mrs. Sarah Newman:

  "Pain was my portion
    Physic was my food
  Groans was my devotion
    Drugs done me no good.
  Christ was my physician
    Knew what way was best
  To ease me of my pain
    He took my soul to rest."

An inscription to four wives:

"To the memory of my four wives, who all died within the space of ten
years, but more perteckler to the last Mrs. Sally Horne who has left me
and four dear children, she was a good, _sober_ and _clean_ soul and may
i soon go to her.

  "Dear wives if you and i shall all go to heaven,
  The Lord be blest for then we shall be even.

    "William Joy Horne, Carpenter."

On a dyer:

"He died to live and lived to dye."

On Mrs. Lee and her son:

  "In her life she did her best
  Now I hope her soul's at rest.
  Also her son Tom lies at her feet
  He lived till he made both ends meet."

At Edinburgh:

  "John Mc pherson
  Was a wonderful person
  He stood 6 ft 2 without his shoe
  And he was slew.
  At Waterloo."

One John Round was lost at sea, and in the grave-yard of his native
place a stone was erected with the following couplet inscribed thereon:

  "Under this bed lies John Round
  Who was lost at sea and never found."

In an old church-yard in Ireland:

"Here lies John Highley whose father and mother were drownded on their
passage to America. Had they lived they would have been buried here."

In a church-yard in Ohio:

  "Under this sod
    And under these trees
  Lieth the Bod
    Y of Solomon Pease.
  He's not in this hole
    But only his pod.
  He shelled out his soul
    And went up to his God."

From a tombstone in Cornwall, England:

  "Father and mother and I
  Lie buried here asunder;
  Father and mother lie buried here,
  And I lie buried yonder."

On Eliza Newman:

  "Like a tender Rose Tree was my Spouse to me;
  Her offspring Pluckt too long deprived of life was she.
  _Three went before._ Her Life went with the Six
  I stay with 3 Our sorrows for to mix
  Till Christ our only hope, Our Joys doth fix."

On a drummer, in an English church-yard:

  "Tom Clark was a drummer, who went to the war,
  And was killed by a bullet, and his soul sent for;
  There were no friends to mourn him, for his virtues were rare,
  He died like a man, and like a Christian bear."

On a stone near Appomattox Court-house, Virginia:

"Robert C Wright was born June 26th 1772 Died July 2. 1815 by the blood
thrusty hand of John Sweeny Sr Who was massacred with the Nife then a
London Gun discharge a ball penetrate the Heart that give the immortal
wound."

At Middletown, Connecticut, is the following:

  "This lovely, pleasant child--
    He was our only one,
  Altho' we've buried three before--
    Two daughters and a son."

The controlling power of rhyme is well illustrated in the subjoined,
from a tombstone in Manchester:

  "Here lies alas! more's the pity,
  All that remains of Nicholas Newcity.

      "N. B.--His name was Newtown."

Another instance of how rhyming difficulties may be overcome is as
follows:

  "Here lies the remains of Thomas Woodhen,
  The most amiable of husbands and excellent of men.

    "N. B.--His real name was Woodcock, but it wouldn't
    come in rhyme. _His Widow._"

The subjoined contains a solemn warning:

  "My wife has left me, she's gone up on high,
  She was thoughtful while dying, and said 'Tom, don't cry.'
  She was a great beauty, so every one knows,
  With Hebe like features and a fine Roman nose;
  She played the piany, and was learning a ballad,
  When she sickened and die-did from eating veal salad."

Upon a tombstone in Pennsylvania:

       "Battle of Shiloh.
          April 6 1862

    John D L was born March 26 1839 in the town of West
    Dresden State of New York where the wicked cease from
    troubling and the weary are at rest."

A tombstone in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, has these lines:

  "When you my friends are passing by,
  And this inform you where I lie,
  Remember you ere long must have,
  Like me, a mansion in the grave,
  Also 3 infants, 2 sons and a daughter."




IV.

By Correspondents.


From a butcher at Berhampoor, India, to a customer:

"To his Highness--Kid Esquire

"The humble butcher, Nows Rouny, Restpectfully sheweth that for your
honor has sent a good beef, 1 rump and pleased to take it and pay day
labor of bearer coolly. As your obedient butcher shall ever pray."

From a scholar in India to his master:

"My dear Sir: I humbly beg to inform you pleas to give me leaf for one
week because I cannot walk with my feet, I am very uncomfortable. Give
my compliments to My Master. I pray to God for Everlasting life. I am
your humble Servant Shebart Lall."

From an Indian school-boy:

"Benevolent Sir: The wolf of sickness has laid hold on the flock of my
health."

From an Indian clerk:

"Sir. Being afflicted to the stomach and vomiteng I am sorry I cannot
attend to office today."

From a Canadian lady to eligible gentleman:

"Dear Mr. B. I, Mrs. Wigston wish you would call on my daughter Amelia.
She is very amusing and is a regular young flirt. She can sing like a
hunny bee and her papa can play on the fiddle nicely and we might have a
rare ho-down. Amelia is highely educated, she can dance like a
grasshopper looking for grub and she can meke beautiful bread, it tastes
just like hunny bees' bread and for pumpkin pies she can't be beat. In
fact she's ahead of all F girls and will make a good wife for any man.

  "Yours truly
      "Mrs. Wigston.

  "Bring your brother."

From a school-boy to the elder Booth:

    "West House School. Prospect N.Y.
  "Dear Sur and Frend.

"Heering that you was going to come to Uttica to perform in a play
called Hamlit I would like to say that us boys is gitting up a Exibition
for the benefit of diseased soldiers and their widows and orfans and
would like to engage you to do the leading part. I have talked it up
with the boys and we will do the squire thing by you and I am arterised
to make you the following offer. We will come doun after you with a good
conveyance and will give you at the rate of 10 dollars a day and board
and shall want you one week. If you think it necessary you can have one
or two of our best women actors to come up with you but we can't pay
them over three dollars a day and feed. You can have some fun at a
hunting deer and foxes around Flamburgs and Ed Wilkisun's. Pleas let me
know as soon as you can.

  "Yours truly James Sweet.

"If you come callating to hunt get Frank Meyer's hound she is a good
one."

We subjoin several letters received by a New York publishing house:

  "---- La, Nov 18, 188-.

"Dear Sir. I have seated my self down to pen you a few lines in reguards
off your high degrode Tex Books Sir I wish you would forward to me in
the next Mail a Cataloudge off all of your Edgucational old and latest
publish books in Market I stand in need off a good set of books and when
I receive your Cataloudge I will send on immeadily and get a Selecticed
outfit of your books. By so doing you will oblidge yours & Etc."

"dear Sr I saw A smawl list of yours embraces standard works in every
department of study and for every grade of classes from the _primary_
school to the _university_ I desire to have correspondence with you and
as I taught school for threw 3 seson in the ninth district of Fuentress
County tennessee and i quit eimet with Cooper and our country need
instruction and except we get the implement for instruction we may all
ways espect ignorant. turn over. Mr I want you to send educational list
of your standard works and also A copy Book that I may instruct my
studentes more correctly and I profer to take Agents if hit is not
contrary to law if your work can sold with out paing tax or lison

"and A blige youres truley Joel E Atkinson school teacher 9 deistrict
Fuentress co Logan Finch Chareles Atkinson J Hall e school directers in
my distrectes."

"Dear Sir I want you to send me a catalogue the Emblem book and tell me
what it will cost I think I can Sell as Many as Fifteen be sure and give
the Price that is what they want to know Dear Sir I Received your Copy
Oct 9th 1881 if you charge Any thing for composeing them letters write
to me and I will pay will Send it by Mail in one cent stamps you need
not to think I want to swinle you out of one cent I will do Every thing
I say I will do So if you will write and give the Price of the Emblem
and the love writer and chart and key of the Spenserion cystem and they
like I will get up a subscription and send the Money for them
immediately Dear Sir tell me what is the Emblem of a red rose and white
rose of a boca."

"Dear Sir:

"Wilt please send me a description of your outfit of Books and give me
one or two iedies abought the catalogue price of your English, Latin
Greek brench and stanish Italian Hebrew and Siyuriak books to my
address. I has issued out orders bot comisition &c--my trustee tell me
that only two D V z and in New York at the time it Feby. the 15 my No of
books is twenty five and I desire one complet Example of your best books
if you can Conven'y furnish my needs wright at once I will be more an
obliged to you. Looking by every mail for your returns Soon, so please
your truly servant.

  "I am dear Sir:
    "My name in Full
      "* * * *."

"Dear Sir:

"Understanding that You possess some Influence among the Bord of
Directors of your fine books and for useful learning for Schools I beg
to Solicit your interest for Me I want to Purchase Some Usful Books and
Messrs please send me one of your Cataloges you well obligde me Much in
so doing, & Far my Friends I Will tell You I have a great many of
Relitives who would wish to Purchase some book if could be bought from
you below Price My Frend you must excuse my Hasty note for the Small
time Was at Hand and all so my Frend you must excuse my Led Pensel.
Wright my soon Frend I will close and will shew you that you will be
remembered by Sirs Your Obedient & Fathful Servants ----."

"Sir: I now write to you to ask you information on book lines Sir. i
have seen some of your books and the suited me very much on Edjucational
and Sir i did suspect to start To Teach School in the Same Ward And i
Wanted to get a fenel Resortment of of Books and i Wanted To get My
books from you and i Wanted Like to know how you Would Reply me them And
i hope when you Riseived this Letter that you Would Write Wright away At
once And give me the full Address how to send for These Books And i Want
to Know Wethe I give you the Wright Address Sir your Friend ---- Would
like To Read A Letter from under your Hand And i Want you To please To
give me your Address of All kines of Books that yu have i Exspect to
start School soon & i had much Applications By pupils that Lives A.
Rounds in the Sections Where i Lives ses ef i gets the Books they Would
Buy them from me i hope that you Would Wright As Soon as Posable And Let
me know so that i Can Write Again And please To Send me some of your
paper so that i Can Read them to the people so Them Can Believe that i
did wrote here When you Write please To Direct your Letter to ---- so i
hope you Will Write Soon And please fail not To Send me some of your
Papers And Direct me how To Get Money to you When i Send for Books fail
not To Direct your Letter to ---- Post-office. So i have no more to
Write i Will Close & Remain

  "Your Truly Friend."
    "M---- Ala.

"Oct 13th 1881. Dear Sir Dear Friend you will please Send me one line of
capitals letters one line of the small letters and Show me the space how
far up and how far down and write & tell me what the chart and frey with
cost, the chart of the Standard System is the one I want. there is Eight
men I have shewn your copy you sent to me they say they intend to have
one chart a piece Dear Sir I have been talking with Several young Men
about love writers I want you to compose three letters consisting of
love and poetry write one as though you loved her and want to marry her.
one as though she had Slighted you. the Next one as you think best
Compose them and Send them to me and I will shew them to the Boys I am
satisfied they will be sure to by."

Letter to an editor:

"Dear Sir--:

"The hystoric apple that tossed about and struck Sir Isaac Newton landed
finally, in revealing its inner nature its hidden meaning, not only as a
consolation but also of universal utility in all scientific branges:

"Or out of the simbols of the ancient World, up to the real discoveries
of the present time proceeded the solution of the relation of the
Eternal time, motion, and distance. Which set forte the discovery of the
generational cosmological Parents of this planet, are discovered that
these can be seen by all mankind.

    "Resp."

Letter received by a cotton-broker:

    "Flat Town Dec. 30th

"Messrs.
  "J---- W---- & Co

      "Sir. Gentlemen.

"The shipments from this out the balance of the season will be for more
on the count. last year was a short crop and two weeks erly than this
season and people sold rite strate a long here last season and the
biggest and best farmers this season are holding looking forward to
Biger prices I have gathered 80 bales and 15 or 16 more in the field yet
to pick so you see when I make my estimate in this county they are a
power of cotton on the fields yet to pick and a grate eel in houses not
gined up yet, gust act as if those deals were your own shood you close
them out gust credit my account with the profitts but dont close them
out until you think it has tuch bottom then I want you to by me the same
amount but don't by till you think it the rite time and then shood you
see a proffit in it Turn it loose without ever consulting me if it
clears up cold we will have Kilan frost but it can't hurt here for the
crop is made.

  "I remain yours very truly."

Another letter to a cotton-broker:

"Messrs. W---- W---- & Co.

"Sir Gents

"I have gust got in form the West and find your letter stating that corn
had touched bottom which I do think myself it has, but it has avanced so
much now I don't noe that it wood pay me much either way now. had I bin
at home I shood of closed out and of Bout the same amount was my Idee.
we are from ten days to fully two weeks backwards with our crops owing
to our wet weather but that donte say they won't be as much made as was
last year while we are backward there are more fertilizers yoused than
ware last year and more Acreage our country is in a better condision to
make a crop and I expect the west ginerally that way at the same time I
am only one neighbourhood. pleas let me hear from you more fully on the
matter hoping to hear from you soon I remain

  "yours verry truly

    "I will act according to your council."

A Georgia merchant received a short time since the following order from
a customer:

"Mr. B----, please send me $1 worth of coffy and $1 worth of shoogar,
some small nales. My wife had a baby last nite, also two padlocks and a
monkey rench."




V.

By the Effusive.


Professor Huxley is credited with the assertion that the primrose is "a
corollifloral dicotyledonous exogen, with a monopetalous corolla and a
central placenta."

A reporter with a large imagination, writing about the decoration of a
church at a fashionable wedding in this city, said that "the church was
ensconced in flowers."

A scientific writer defines sneezing as "a phenomenon provoked either by
an excitation brought to bear on the nasal membrane or by a sudden shock
of the sun's rays on the membranes of the eye. This peripheral
irritation is transmitted by the trifacial nerve to the Gasserian
ganglion, whence it passes by a commissure to an agglomeration of
globules in the medulla oblongata or in the protuberance; from this
point, by a series of numerous reflex and complicated acts, it is
transformed by the mediation of the spinal cord into a centrifugal
excitation which radiates outward by means of the spinal nerves to the
expiratory muscles."

The school committee in Massachusetts recommend exercises in English
composition in these terms:

"Next to the pleasure that pervades the corridors of the soul when it is
entranced by the whiling witchery that presides over it consequent upon
the almost divine productions of Mozart, Haydn, and Handel, whether
these are executed by magician concert parts in deep and highly matured
melody from artistic modulated intonations of the finely cultured human
voice, or played by some fairy-fingered musician upon the trembling
strings of the harp or piano, comes the charming delight we experience
from the mastery of English prose, and the spell-binding wizards of song
who by their art of divination through their magic wand, the pen, have
transformed scenes hitherto unknown and made them as immortal as those
spots of the Orient and mountain haunts of the gods, whether of sunny
Italy or of tuneful, heroic Greece."

A farmer's daughter expresses herself in the following terms:

"Dear Miss:

"The energy of the race prompts me to assure you that my request is
forbidden, the idea of which I awkwardly nourished, notwithstanding my
propensity to reserve. Mr. T will be there--Let me with confidence
assure you that him and brothers will be very happy to meet you and
brothers. Us girls cannot go, for reasons. The attention of cows claims
our assistance this evening.

  "Unalterably yours."

The following is probably the longest sentence ever written, containing,
as it does, eight hundred words:

"I propose, then, to give your readers some description of this old yet
still strange and wild country, that has been settled for three hundred
years, and is not yet inhabited--a land of shifting sand and deep mud--a
land of noble rivers that rise in swamps and consist merely of chains of
shallow lakes, some of them twenty miles long and two miles across, and
only twelve feet deep--of wide, sandy plains, covered with
solemn-sounding pines--of spots so barren that nothing can be made to
grow upon them, and yet with a soil so fertile that if you tickle it
with a hoe, it will laugh out an abundant harvest of sugar, cotton, and
fruit--a land of oranges, lemons, pomegranates, pineapples, figs, and
bananas; whose rivers teem with fish, its forests with game, and its
very air with fowl; where everything will grow except apples and wheat;
where everything can be found except ice; yet where the people, with a
productive soil, a mild climate and beautiful nature, affording every
table luxury, live on corn-grist, sweet potatoes, and molasses; where
men possessing forty thousand head of cattle never saw a glass of milk
in their lives, using the imported article when used at all, and then
calling it consecrated milk; where the very effort to milk a cow would
probably scare her to death, as well as frighten a whole neighborhood by
the unheard of phenomenon; where cabbages grow on the tops of trees, and
you may dig bread out of the ground; where, below the frost-line, the
castor-oil plant becomes a large tree of several years' growth, and a
pumpkin or bean-vine will take root from its trailing branches, and thus
spread and live year after year; where cattle do not know what hay is,
and refuse it when offered, so that the purchase of a yoke of oxen is
not considered valid if the animals will not eat in a stable; and where
in the mild winter, when the land grass is dried up, horses and cattle
may be seen wading and swimming in the ponds and streams, plunging their
heads under water grasses and moss; where many lakes have holes in the
bottom and underground communication, so that they will sometimes shrink
away to a mere cupful, leaving many square miles of surface uncovered,
and then again fill up from below and spread out over their former area;
where some of them have outlets in the ocean far from shore, bursting up
a perpetual spring of fresh water in the very midst of the briny
saltness of the sea; where in times of low water, during a long
exhaustive dry season, men have gone under ground in one of these
subterranean rivers, from lake to lake, a distance of eight miles; where
the ground will sometimes sink and the cavity fill with water, until
tall trees, that had stood and sunk upright, will have their topmost
branches deeply covered; where rivers will disappear in the earth and
rise again, thus forming natural bridges, some of them a mile in
breadth; where, instead of spring, summer, autumn, and winter, there are
two seasons only--eight months summer, and four months warm weather;
where the winter is the dry season, and the summer almost a daily rain;
where, in order to take a walk, you first wade through a light sand
ankle deep and then get into a mud-puddle, and some of these mud-puddles
cover a whole county; where no clay is found fit for brick-making, and
people build houses without chimneys; where to make a living is so easy
a task, that every one possesses the laziness of ten ordinary men, every
one you wish to employ in labor says he is tired and would seem to have
been born so; where ague would prevail if the people would take the
trouble to shake; where a large orange-tree will bear several thousand
oranges--leaves, buds, blossom, half-grown and full-grown fruit, all at
once--and every twenty-five feet square of sand will sustain such a
tree; where, in many parts, cold weather is an impossibility, and
perpetual verdure reigns; where the Everglades are found, covering many
large counties with water from one to six feet deep, with a bottom, mud
covered, yet underneath solid and firm, from which grasses grow up to
the surface--a sea of green, and with islands large and small scattered
over the surface, covered with live oaks and dense vegetation; where
alligators, or gators as they are called in Florida parlance, possess
undoubted aboriginal rights of citizenship, and mosquitoes pay constant
visits and are instructive and even penetrating in their attention to
strangers."

An Irish paper contained this account of Mrs. Siddons's appearance:

"On Sunday, Mrs. Siddons, about whom all the world has been talking,
exposed her beautiful, adamantine, soft, and lovely person, for the
first time at Smock Alley Theatre in the bewitching, melting, and all
tearful character of Isabella. From the repeated panegyrics of the
impartial London newspapers, we were taught to expect the sight of a
heavenly angel, but how were we supernaturally surprised into almost
awful joy at beholding a mortal goddess! The house was crowded with
hundreds more than it could hold, with thousands of admiring spectators
who went away without a sight. This extraordinary phenomenon of tragic
excellence! this star of Melpomene! this comet of the stage! this sun of
the firmament of the Muses! this moon of blank verse! this queen and
princess of tears! this Donellan of the poisoned dagger! this empress of
pistol and dagger! this chaos of Shakespeare! this world of weeping
clouds! this Juno commanding aspects! this Terpsichore of the curtains
and scenes! this Proserpine of fire and excitement! this Katterfelto of
wonders! exceeded expectation, went beyond belief and soared above all
the natural powers of description! She was nature itself! She was the
most exquisite work of art! She was the very daisy, primrose, tuberose,
sweet brier, furze blossom, gilliflower, wall flower, cauliflower,
auricula, and rosemary! In short, she was the bouquet of Parnassus! When
expectations were so high, it was thought she would be injured by her
appearance, but it was the audience who were injured: several fainted
before the curtain drew up! When she came to the scene of parting with
her wedding ring, ah! what a sight was there! the very fiddlers in the
orchestra, albeit unused to melting mood, blubbered like hungry children
crying for their bread and butter! and when the bell rang for music
between the acts the tears ran from the bassoon players' eyes in such
plentiful showers that they choked the finger stops, and making a spout
of the instrument poured in such torrents on the first fiddler's book
that not seeing the overture was in two sharps, the leader of the band
played it in one flat. But the sobs and sighs of the groaning audience
and the noise of corks drawn from smelling bottles prevented the
mistakes between sharps and flats being heard. One hundred and nine
ladies fainted! forty-six went into fits! and ninety-five had strong
hysterics. The world will scarcely credit the truth when they are told
that fourteen children, five old men, one hundred tailors, and six
common councilmen were actually drowned in the inundation of tears that
flowed from the galleries, the slips, and the boxes, to increase the
briny pond in the pit. The water was three feet deep. An Act of
Parliament will certainly be passed against her playing any more!"

Few poems have been more generally admired or paraphrased in the various
tongues of earth than that commencing with the lines--

  "Mary had a little lamb,
    Its fleece was white as snow,
  And everywhere that Mary went
    This lamb was sure to go."

The story is current at the national capital that Mr. Evarts, when
Secretary of State, on one occasion, in a jocular crowd of his friends,
was desired to condense into prose these immortal verses. Urgently
solicited, Mr. Evarts yielded, and wrote as follows:

"Mary, a female, judged to be of the race of man, whose family name is
unknown, whether of native or foreign birth, of lofty or lowly lineage,
and whose appearance, manners, and mental cultivation are involved in
the most profound mystery, which probably will never be fully
ascertained unless through the most profound researches of an historian
admirably trained in his profession, who shall devote the ablest efforts
of his life to the investigation of the subject, uninfluenced by either
passion or prejudice, and having only in view the sacred truth, at the
same time being utterly regardless of the plaudits or censures of the
world, we are informed by one who, it has been stated, at one time while
living in that part of the United States of America known as
Massachusetts, whose fishermen have frequently been involved in
difficulties with the authorities of her Majesty Queen Victoria, Queen
of Great Britain and Empress of the Indies, whose domains extended over
a large share of the habitable globe, thereby endangering the peace
which should so happily exist between nations of the same blood and
language, had an infant sheep, of which there are many millions of
various stocks and qualities now in our country, constantly adding
wealth and prosperity to our republic, and enabling us to be entirely
independent of all other nations for our supply of wool, now ample for
the use of factories already busily employed, and for those which ere
long will be constructed in all parts of our land, working both by water
and steam power, and in whatever direction the said Mary traveled, this
animal, whose fleece was snow-white, even as the lofty mountain-regions
in the silent solitudes of eternal winter, as the ethereal vapors which
oft float over an autumnal sky, 'darkly, deeply, beautifully blue' or as
the lacteal fluid covered with masses of delicate froth, found in the
buckets of the rosy dairymaid, whether meandering through the meadows in
midsummer, gathering the luscious strawberry, strolling in the woodland
paths in search of wild flowers, visiting the church with her uncles,
cousins, and aunts, to listen to the inspired words which come from the
lips of the minister of the sanctuary, or when retiring to her blissful
couch to seek rest and enjoy sweet repose after the cares and labors of
the day; in fact, 'everywhere that Mary went' this youthful sheep,
influenced doubtless by that affection which is oft so conspicuously
manifested by the lower animals in their association with human beings,
was ever observed to accompany her."




VI.

How she can be Oddly Wrote.


The following amusing rhyme clipped from an old paper shows to advantage
some of the peculiarities of the English language:

    SALLY SALTER.

  Sally Salter, she was a young teacher, that taught,
  And her friend Charley Church was a preacher, who praught;
  Though his friends all declared him a screecher, who scraught.

  His heart, when he saw her, kept sinking, and sunk,
  And his eyes, meeting hers, kept winking, and wunk;
  While she, in her turn, fell to thinking, and thunk.

  He hastened to woo her, and sweetly he wooed,
  For his love for her grew--to a mountain it grewed,
  And what he was longing to do, then he doed.

  In secret he wanted to speak, and he spoke:
  To seek with his lips what his heart had long soke;
  So he managed to let the truth leak, and it loke.

  He asked her to ride to the church and they rode;
  They so sweetly did glide, that they both thought they glode,
  And they came to the place to be tied, and were tode.

  Then "Homeward," he said, "let us drive," and they drove,
  As soon as they wished to arrive they arrove;
  For whatever he couldn't contrive she controve.

  The kiss he was dying to steal, then he stole,
  At the feet where he wanted to kneel, there he knole,
  And he said, "I feel better than ever I fole."

  So they to each other kept clinging, and clung,
  While Time his swift circuit was winging, and wung;
  And this was the thing he was bringing, and brung:

  The man Sally wanted to catch, and had caught--
  That she wanted from others to snatch, and had snaught,
  Was the one that she now liked to scratch, and she scraught.

  And Charley's warm love began freezing and froze,
  While he took to teasing, and cruelly tose
  The girl he had wished to be squeezing and squoze.

  "Wretch!" he cried, when she threatened to leave him, and left,
  "How could you deceive me, as you have deceft?"
  And she answered, "I promised to cleave, and I've cleft!"

PLODDING CHANGES.--Some of our plodding readers may like to peruse the
following curious variations of the well-known line from Gray's "Elegy,"
"The ploughman homeward plods his weary way":

The weary ploughman homeward plods his way.

The weary ploughman plods his homeward way.

The homeward ploughman plods his weary way.

The homeward ploughman, weary, plods his way.

The homeward, weary, ploughman plods his way.

The weary, homeward ploughman plods his way.

Homeward the weary ploughman plods his way.

Homeward, weary, the ploughman plods his way.

Homeward the ploughman plods his weary way.

Homeward the ploughman, weary, plods his way.

Weary, the homeward ploughman plods his way.

Weary, homeward the ploughman plods his way.

Weary, the ploughman plods his homeward way.

The ploughman plods his homeward, weary way.

The ploughman plods his weary homeward way.

The ploughman homeward, weary, plods his way.

The ploughman, weary, homeward plods his way.

The ploughman, weary, plods his homeward way.

  "My Madeline! My Madeline!
  Mark my melodious midnight moans;
  Much may my melting music mean,
  My modulated monotones.

  "My mandolin's mild minstrelsy,
  My mental music magazine,
  My mouth, my mind, my memory,
  Must mingling murmur, 'Madeline.'

  "Muster 'mid midnight masquerades,
  Mark Moorish maidens', matrons' mien,
  'Mongst Murcia's most majestic maids,
  Match me my matchless Madeline.

  "Mankind's malevolence may make
  Much melancholy music mine;
  Many my motives may mistake,
  My modest merits much malign.

  "My Madeline's most mirthful mood
  Much mollifies my mind's machine;
  My mournfulness' magnitude
  Melts--makes me merry, Madeline!

  "Match-making mas may machinate,
  Manoeuvring misses me misween;
  Mere money may make many mate,
  My magic motto's--'Madeline!'

  "Melt, most mellifluous melody,
  'Midst Murcia's misty mounts marine,
  Meet me by moonlight--marry me,
  Madonna mia!--Madeline."

It is well known that the letter _e_ is used more than any other letter
in the English alphabet. Each of the following verses contains every
letter of the alphabet except the letter _e_:

  "A jovial swain should not complain
    Of any buxom fair
  Who mocks his pain and thinks it gain
    To quiz his awkward air.

  "Quixotic boys who look for joys,
    Quixotic hazards run;
  A lass annoys with trivial toys,
    Opposing man for fun.

  "A jovial swain may rack his brain,
    And tax his fancy's might;
  To quiz is vain, for 'tis most plain
    That what I say is right"

    _Northampton_ (_England_) _Courier._

Here is the result of a rhyming punster's efforts:

  "A pretty deer is dear to me,
    A hare with downy hair,
  A hart I love with all my heart,
    But barely bear a bear.

  "'Tis plain that no one takes a plane
    To pare a pair of pears,
  Although a rake may take a rake
    To tear away the tares.

  "Sol's rays raise thyme, time raises all,
    And through the whole holes wears.
  A scribe in writing right may write
    To write and still be wrong;
  For write and rite are neither right,
    And don't to right belong.

  "Robertson is not Robert's son,
    Nor did he rob Burt's son,
  Yet Robert's sun is Robin's sun,
    And everybody's sun.

  "Beer often brings a bier to man,
    Coughing a coffin brings,
  And too much ale will make us ail,
    As well as other things.

  "The person lies who says he lies
    When he is not reclining;
  And when consumptive folks decline,
    They all decline declining.

  "Quails do not quail before a storm.
    A bow will bow before it;
  We cannot rein the rain at all,
    No earthly power reigns o'er it.

  "The dyer dyes awhile, then dies--
    To dye he's always trying;
  Until upon his dying bed
    He thinks no more of dyeing.

  "A son of Mars mars many a son,
    All Deys must have their days;
  And every knight should pray each night
    To him who weighs his ways.

  "'Tis meet that man should mete out meat
    To feed one's fortune's sun;
  The fair should fare on love alone,
    Else one cannot be won.

  "Alas, a lass is sometimes false;
    Of faults a maid is made;
  Her waist is but a barren waste--
    Though stayed she is not staid.

  "The springs shoot forth each spring and shoots
    Shoot forward one and all;
  Though summer kills the flowers, it leaves
    The leaves to fall in fall.

  "I would a story here commence,
    But you might think it stale;
  So we'll suppose that we have reached
    The tail end of our tale."

And here is a zoölogical romance, by C. F. Adams, inspired by an unusual
flow of animal spirits:

  No sweeter girl ewe ever gnu
  Than Betty Martin's daughter Sue.

  With sable hare, small tapir waist,
  And lips you'd gopher miles to taste;

  Bright, lambent eyes, like the gazelle,
  Sheep pertly brought to bear so well;

  Ape pretty lass it was avowed,
  Of whom her marmot to be proud.

  Deer girl! I loved her as my life,
  And vowed to heifer for my wife.

  Alas! A sailor on the sly,
  Had cast on her his wether eye.

  He said my love for her was bosh,
  And my affection I musquash.

  He'd dog her footsteps everywhere,
  Anteater in the easy-chair;

  He'd setter round, this sailor chap,
  And pointer out upon the map

  Where once a pirate cruiser boar
  Him captive to a foreign shore.

  The cruel captain far outdid
  The yaks and crimes of Robert Kid.

  He oft would whale Jack with the cat,
  And say, "My buck, doe you like that?

  "What makes you stag around so, say?
  The catamounts to something, hey?"

  Then he would seal it with an oath,
  And say: "You are a lazy sloth!

  "I'll starve you down, my sailor fine,
  Until for beef and porcupine!"

  And, fairly horse with fiendish laughter,
  Would say, "Henceforth, mind what giraffe ter!"

  In short, the many risks he ran
  Might well a llama braver man;

  Then he was wrecked and castor shore
  While feebly clinging to anoa;

  Hyena cleft among the rocks
  He crept, _sans_ shoes and minus ox.

  And when he fain would go to bed,
  He had to lion leaves instead.

  Then Sue would say, with troubled face,
  "How koodoo live in such a place?"

  And straightway into tears would melt,
  And say, "How badger must have felt!"

  While he, the brute, woodchuck her chin,
  And say, "Aye-aye, my lass!" and grin.

  Excuse these steers.... It's over now;
  There's naught like grief the hart can cow.

  Jackass'd her to be his, and she--
  She gave Jackal, and jilted me.

  And now, alas! the little minks
  Is bound to him with Hymen's lynx.

    --_Detroit Free Press._

While upon the subject of puns, we might quote the following, clipped
from the "Graphic":

"On being consulted about it Spikes says that Uncle Sam aunticipates the
transfer of the Indian Bureau to some mother department, and if this
should father improve the condition of the children of the forest, in
sondry ways, by cousin them to be more comfortable, it would be a niece
arrangement and daughter be made." We are inclined, in nephew instances,
to agree with the gramma, but not the spelling.

The "Graphic" is also responsible for the following English stanza
transformed into Russian, said to have been found in a room after it had
been vacated by Alexis while in this country. It is introduced as an
example of how "she can be oddly wrote":

  "Owata jollitimiv ad
  Sinci tooklevov mioldad!
  Owata merricoviv bin--
  Ivespenta nawful pilovtin!
  Damsorri tolevami now,
  But landigoshenjingo vow,
  Thetur kishwar mustavastop
  Gotele graphitoff topop."

The following clever paraphrase of the old rhythmic story of "Jack's
House" is a good illustration of the scope and flexibility of our
language, and suggests the fact that tautological errors of writing need
seldom be committed.

  Behold the mansion reared by dædal Jack.

  See the malt stored in many a plethoric sack,
  In the proud cirque of Ivan's bivouac.

  Mark how the Rat's felonious fangs invade
  The golden stores in John's pavilion laid.

  Anon, with velvet foot and Tarquin strides,
  Subtle Grimalkin to his quarry glides--
  Grimalkin grim, that slew the fierce _rodent_
  Whose tooth insidious Johann's sackcloth rent.

  Lo! now the deep-mouthed canine foe's assault,
  That vexed the avenger of the stolen malt,
  Stored in the hallowed precincts of that hall
  That rose complete at Jack's creative call.

  Here stalks the impetuous Cow with crumpled horn,
  Whereon the exacerbating hound was torn,
  Who bayed the feline slaughter-beast that slew
  The Rat predaceous, whose keen fangs ran through
  The textile fibers that involved the grain
  That lay in Hans' inviolate domain.

  Here walks forlorn the Damsel, crowned with rue,
  Lactiferous spoils from vaccine dugs, who drew
  Of that corniculate beast whose tortuous horn
  Tossed to the clouds, in fierce vindictive scorn,
  The harrowing hound, whose braggart bark and stir
  Arched the lithe spine and reared the indignant fur
  Of Puss, that with verminicidal claw
  Struck the weird Rat, in whose insatiate maw
  Lay reeking malt, that erst in Ivan's courts we saw
  Robed in senescent garb that seems in sooth
  Too long a prey to Chronos' iron tooth.

  Behold the man whose amorous lips incline,
  Full with young Eros' osculative sign,
  To the lorn maiden whose lact-albic hands,
  Drew albu-lactic wealth from lacteal glands
  Of that immortal bovine, by whose horn
  Distort, to realm ethereal was borne
  The beast catulean, vexer of that sly
  Ulysses quadrupedal, who made die
  The old mordacious Rat, that dared devour
  Antecedaneous Ale, in John's domestic bower.

  Lo, here, with hirsute honors doffed, succinct
  Of saponaceous locks, the Priest who linked
  In Hymen's golden bands the torn unthrift,
  Whose means exiguous stared from many a rift,
  Even as he kissed the virgin all forlorn,
  Who milked the cow with implicated horn,
  Who in fine wrath the canine torturer skied,
  That dared to vex the insidious muricide,
  Who let the auroral effluence through the pelt
  Of the sly Rat that robbed the palace Jack had built.

  The loud cantankerous Shanghai comes at last,
  Whose shouts arouse the shorn ecclesiast,
  Who sealed the vows of Hymen's sacrament,
  To him who robed in garments indigent,
  Exosculates the damsel lachrymose,
  The emulgator of that horned brute morose,
  That tossed the dog, that worried the cat, that kilt
  The Rat that ate the malt, that lay in the house that Jack built.




VII.

By the Untutored.


Care should be taken in writing for the young, or they may get a wholly
different meaning from the language than that intended. The Bishop of
Hereford was examining a school-class one day, and, among other things,
asked what an average was. Several boys pleaded ignorance, but one at
last replied, "It is what a hen lays on." This answer puzzled the bishop
not a little; but the boy persisted in it, stating that he had read it
in his little book of facts. He was then told to bring the little book,
and, on doing so, he pointed triumphantly to a paragraph commencing,
"The domestic hen lays _on an average_ fifty eggs each year."

If English is "wrote" as she is often "spoke" by the ignorant and
careless, she would bear little resemblance to the original Queen's
English. A listener wrote out a short conversation heard the other day
between two pupils of a high-school, and here is the phonetic result:

"Warejergo lasnight?"

"Hadder skate."

"Jerfind th'ice hard'n'good?"

"Yes, hard'nough."

"Jer goerlone?"

"No; Bill'n Joe wenterlong."

"Howlate jerstay?"

"Pastate."

"Lemmeknow wenyergoagin, woncher? I wantergo'n'show yer howterskate."

"H'm, ficoodn't skate better'n you I'd sell-out'n'quit."

"Well, we'll tryeranc'n'seefyercan."

Here, as they took different streets, their conversation ceased.

A writer in the "School-boy Magazine" has gathered together the
following dictionary words as defined by certain small people:

Bed-time--Shut eye time.

Dust--Mud with the juice squeezed out.

Fan--A thing to brush warm off with.

Fins--A fish's wings.

Ice--Water that staid out in the cold and went to sleep.

Monkey--A very small boy with a tail.

Nest-Egg--The egg that the old hen measures by, to make new ones.

Pig--A hog's little boy.

Salt--What makes your potato taste bad when you don't put any on.

Snoring--Letting off sleep.

Stars--The moon's eggs.

Wakefulness--Eyes all the time coming unbuttoned.

The following specimens from scholars' examinations in making sentences
to illustrate the definitions of words, found in their small
dictionaries, will have a familiar sound to some of our readers:

Frantic = Wild: I picked a bouquet of frantic flowers.

Retorted = Returned: We retorted home at six o'clock.

Summoned = Called: I summoned to see Mary last week.

Athletic = Strong: The vinegar was too athletic to be used.

Poignant = Sharp: My knife is very poignant.

Ordinances = Rules: We learned the ordinances for finding the greatest
common divisor.

Turbid = Muddy: The road was so turbid that we stuck fast in the mud.

Tandem = One behind another: The scholars sit tandem in school.

Akimbo = With a crook: I saw a dog with an akimbo in his tail.

Atonement = Satisfaction: There is no atonement in boat-riding in a cold
day.

Composure = Calmness: The composure of the day was remarkable.

We have the authority of the late Dr. Hart as to the genuineness of the
following extracts, taken from the papers of a class seeking admission
into a high-school, to which had been given a list of words for their
meanings and applications:

Fabulous--Full of threads: Silk is fabulous.

Accession--The act of eating a great deal: John got very sick after
dinner by accession.

Atonement--A small insect: Queen Mab was pulled by atonements.

Develop--To swallow up: God sent a whale to develop Jonah.

Circumference--Distance through the middle: Distance around the middle
of the outside.

Mobility--Belonging to the people: The mobility of St. Louis has greatly
increased.

Adequate--A land animal: An elephant is an adequate.

Gregarious--Pertaining to idols: The Sandwich-Islanders are gregarious.

Fluctuation--Coming in great numbers: There was a great fluctuation of
immigrants.

Alternate--Not ternate.

Intrinsic--Not trinsic: weak, feeble: He was a very intrinsic old man.

Subservient--One opposed to the upholding of servants.



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