Peck's Compendium of Fun Part 16

That is the kind of practical religion a worldly man can occasionally practice without having a gospel car.

BANKS AND BANKING.

The subject of banking has engrossed the attention of your excellent Governor for, lo! these many weeks, and he is constrained to say that some radical changes must be made in the method of receiving deposits by banks, where an equivalent is not rendered, of His Excellency will be compelled to emerge from his present aristocratic quarters and take up his abode in the poor-house. I would call your attention to the practice certain banks have of issuing checks in lieu of cash. If these checks were available at the groceries it would be better than it is. Banks have got in a habit of issuing a species of ivory b.u.t.ton in receipt for the green coin of the realm which is only good at the counter of the bank. These checks are not issued by the National Banks, but by the State Banks, denominated "Keno"

and "Faro." I would not charge that there is "skullduggery" or "shenanagen" going on in these inst.i.tutions, as the president of one of them informed me, confidentially, that he dealt on the "square," but it is a noticeable fact that the dividends received by those who do business with the banks, are almost, as it were, imperceptible. I trust that you will cause this branch of industry to be thoroughly investigated, and report by bill or otherwise. Our finances should be beyond suspicion of dishonesty.

LARGE MOUTHS ABE FAs.h.i.+ONABLE.

The fas.h.i.+on papers, which are authority on the styles, claim that ladies with large mouths are all the fas.h.i.+on now, and that those whose mouths are small and rosebud like are all out of style. It is singular the freaks that are taken by fas.h.i.+on. Years ago a red-headed girl, with a mouth like a slice cut out of a muskmelon, would have been laughed at, and now such a girl is worth going miles to see.

It is easier to color the hair red, and be in fas.h.i.+on, than it is to enlarge the mouth, though a mouth that has any give to it can be helped by the constant application of a glove stretcher during the day, and by holding the cover to a tin blacking box while sleeping. What in the world the leaders of fas.h.i.+on wanted to declare large mouths the style for, the heavens only can tell.

Take a pretty face and mortise about a third of it for mouth, and it seems to us as though it is a great waste of raw material. There is no use that a large mouth can be put to that a small mouth would not do better, unless it is used for a pigeon hole to file away old sets of false teeth. They can't certainly, be any better for kissing.

You all remember the traveling man who attended the church fair at Kalamazoo, where one of the sisters would give a kiss for ten cents. He went up and paid his ten cents, and was about to kiss her when he noticed that her mouth was one of those large, open face, cylinder escapement, to be continued mouths. It commenced at the chin and went about four chains and three links in a northwesterly direction, then around by her ear, across under the nose and back by the other ear to the place of beginning, and containing twelve acres, more or less.

The traveling man said he was only a poor orphan, and had a family to support, and if he never came out alive it would be a great hards.h.i.+p upon those dependent upon him for support, and he asked her as a special favor that she take her hand and take a reef in one side of the mouth so it would be smaller. She consented, and puckered in a handful of what would have been cheek, had it not been mouth. He looked at her again and found that the mouth had become a very one-sided affair, and he said he had just one more favor to ask.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "GET THEE TO A NUNNERY!"]

He was not a man that was counted hard to suit when he was at home in Chicago, but he would always feel as though he had got his money's worth, and go away with pleasanter recollections of Kalamazoo, if she would kindly take her other hand and draw the other side of her mouth together, and he would be content to take his ten cents' worth out of what was left unemployed.

This was too much, and she gave him a terrible look, and returned him his ten cents, saying, "Do you think, sir, because you are a Chicago drummer, that for ten cents you can take a kiss right out of the best part of it? Go! Get thee to a nunnery," and he went and bought a lemonade with the money.

We would not advise any lady whose mouth is small to worry about this new fas.h.i.+on, and try to enlarge the one nature has given her. Large mouths will have their run in a few brief months and will be much sought after by the followers of fas.h.i.+on, but in a short time the little ones that pout, and look cunning, will come to the front and the large ones will be for rent. The best kind of a mouth to have is a middling sized one, that has a dimple by its sides, which is always in style.

INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS.

Under this heading I can think of nothing that appears more appropriate than the subject of the artificial propagation of fish. It is a subject that has arrested the attention of many of the ablest minds of the country, and the results of experiments have been thus far so satisfactory that it is almost safe to predict that within the next ten centuries every man, however poor, may pick bull-heads off of his crab apple vines and gather his winter supply of fresh shad from his sweet potato trees at less than fifty cents a pound. The experiments that have been made in our own state warrant us in going largely into the fish business. A year ago a quant.i.ty of fish seeds were sub soil plowed into the ice of Lake Mendota, and to-day I am informed that boarders at the hotels there have all the fish to eat that any reasonable man could desire. The expense is small and the returns are enormous. It is estimated that from the six quarts of fish seeds that were planted in the lake there are now ready for the market at least 11,000,000 car loads of brain-producing food, if you spit on your bait when you go fis.h.i.+ng.

PECK'S BAD BOY AND HIS PA.

HIS PA GETS BOXED.

"You don't want to buy a good parrot, do you?" said the bad boy to the grocery man as he put his wet mittens on the top of the stove to dry, and kept his back to the stove so he could watch the grocery man, and be prepared for a kick, if the man should remember the rotten egg sign that the boy put up in front of the grocery last week.

"Naw, I don't want no parrot. I had rather have a fool boy around than a parrot. But what's the matter with your Ma's parrot? I thought she wouldn't part with him for anything."

"Well, she wouldn't until Wednesday night, but now she says she will not have him around, and I may have half I can get for him. She told me to go to some saloon or some disreputable place and sell him, and I thought maybe he would about suit you," and the boy broke into a bunch of celery, and took out a few tender stalks and rubbed them on a codfish to salt them, and began to bite the stalks, while he held the sole of one wet boot up against the stove to dry it, making a smell of burned leather that came near turning the stomach of the cigar sign.

"Look-a-here boy, don't you call this a disreputable place. Some of the best people in this town come here," said the grocery man as he held up the cheese knife and grated his teeth as though he would like to jab it into the youth.

"O, that's all right, they come here 'cause you trust; but you make up what you lose by charging it to other people. Pa will make it hot for you the last of the week. He has been looking over your bill, and comparing it with the hired girl, and she says we haven't ever had a prune, or a dried apple, or a raisin, or any cinnamon, or crackers and cheese out of your store, and he says you are worse than the James brothers, and that you used to be a three card monte man, and he will have you arrested for highway robbery, but you can settle that with Pa. I like you, because you are no ordinary sneak thief, you are a high-toned, gentlemanly sort of a bilk, and wouldn't take anything you couldn't lift. O, keep your seat, and don't get excited. It does a man good to hear the truth from one who has got the nerve to tell it.

"But about the parrot. Ma has been away from home for a week, having a high old time in Chicago, going to theatres and things, and while she was gone, I guess the hired girl or somebody learned the parrot some new things to say. A parrot that can only say 'Polly wants a cracker,' don't amount to anything--what we need is new style parrots that can converse on the topics of the day, and say things original. Well, when Ma got back I guess her conscience hurt her for the way she had been carrying on in Chicago, and so when she heard the bas.e.m.e.nt of the church was being frescoed, she invited the committee to hold the Wednesday evening prayer meeting at our house. First, there were four people came, and Ma asked Pa to stay to make up a quorum, and Pa said seeing he had two pair, he guessed he would stay in, and if Ma would deal him a queen he would have a full hand. I don't know what Pa meant, but he plays draw poker sometimes.

Anyway there was eleven people came including the minister, and after they had talked about the neighbors a spell, and Ma had showed the women a new tidy she had worked for the heathen, with a motto on it which Pa had taught her: 'A contrite heart beats a bob-tailed flush,'--and Pa had talked to the men about a religious silver mine he was selling stock in, which he advised them as a friend to buy for the glory of the church, they all went in the back parlor and the minister lead in prayer. He got down on his knees right under the parrot's cage, and you'd a dide to see Polly hang on to the wires of the cage with one foot, and drop an apple core on the minister's head. Ma shook her handkerchief at Polly, and looked sa.s.sy, and Polly got up on the perch, and as the minister got warmed up and began to raise the roof, Polly said, 'O, dry up.' The minister had his eyes shut, but he opened one of them a little and looked at Pa. Pa was tickled at the parrot, but when the minister looked at Pa as though it was him that was making irreverent remarks, Pa was mad.

"The minister got to the 'amen,' and Polly shook hisself and said 'What you giving us?' and the minister got up and brushed the bird seed off his knees, and he looked mad. I thought Ma would sink with mortification, and I was sitting on a piano stool looking as pious as a Sunday school superintendent the Sunday before he skips out with the bank's funds; and Ma looked at me as though she thought it was me that had been tampering with the parrot. Gosh, I never said a word to that parrot, and I can prove it by my chum.

"Well, the minister asked one of the sisters if she wouldn't pray, and she wasn't engaged, so she said with pleasure, and she kneeled down, but she corked herself, cause she got one knee on a cast-iron dumb bell that I had been practising with. She said 'O my,' in a disgusted sort of a way, and then she began to pray for the reformation of the youth of the land, and asked for the spirit to descend on the household, and particularly on the boy that was such a care and anxiety to his parents, and just then Polly said 'O, pull down your vest.' Well, you'd a dide to see that woman look at me. The parrot cage was partly behind the window curtin, and they couldn't see it, and she thought it was me. She looked at Ma as though she was wondering why she didn't hit me with a poker, but she went on, and Polly said 'wipe off your chin,' and then the lady got through and got up, and told Ma it must be a great trial to have an idiotic child, and then Ma she was mad, and said it wasn't half so bad as it was to be a kleptomaniac, and then the woman got up and said she wouldn't stay no longer, and Pa said to me to take that parrot outdoors, and that seemed to make them all good natured again. Ma said to take the parrot and give it to the poor. I took the cage and pointed my finger at the parrot and it looked at the woman and said 'old catamaran,' and the woman tried to look pious and resigned, but she couldn't. As I was going out the door the parrot ruffed up his feathers and said 'Dammit, set 'em up,' and I hurried out with the cage for fear he would say something bad, and the folks all held up their hands and said it was scandalous. Say, I wonder if a parrot can go to h.e.l.l with the rest of the community. Well, I put the parrot in the woodshed, and after they all had their innings, except Pa, who acted as umpire, the meeting broke up, and Ma says it is the last time she will have that gang at her house.

"That must have been where your Pa got his black eye," said the grocery man, as he charged the bunch of celery to the boy's Pa. "Did the minister hit him, or was it one of the sisters?"

"O, he didn't get his black eye at prayer meeting!" said the boy, as he took his mittens off the stove, and rubbed them to take the stiffening out. "It was from boxing. Pa told my chum and me that it was no harm to learn to box, cause we could defend ourselves, and he said he used to be a holy terror with the boxing gloves when he was a boy, and he has been giving us lessons. Well, he is no slouch, now I tell you, and handles himself pretty well for a church member. I read in the paper how Zack Chandler played it on Conkling by getting Jem Mace, the prize fighter, to knock him silly, and I asked Pa if he wouldn't let me bring a poor boy who had no father to teach him boxing, to our house to learn to box, and Pa said certainly, fetch him along. He said he would be glad to do anything for a poor orphan. So I went down in the Third ward and got an Irish boy by the name of Duffy, who can knock the socks off any boy in the ward. He fit a prize fight once. It would have made you laugh to see Pa telling him how to hold his hands and how to guard his face. He told Duffy not to be afraid, but strike right out and hit for keeps. Duffy said he was afraid Pa would get mad if he hit him, and Pa said, 'nonsense, boy, knock me down if you can, and I will laugh ha! ha!' Well, Duffy he hauled back and gave Pa one on the nose, and another in both eyes, and cuffed him on the ear and punched him in the stomach, and lammed him in the mouth and made his teeth bleed, and then he gave him a side winder in both eyes, and Pa pulled off his boxing gloves and grabbed a chair, and we adjourned and went down stairs as though there was a panic. I haven't seen Pa since. Was his eye very black?"

"Black, I should say so," said the grocery man. "And his nose seemed to be trying to look into his left ear. He was at the market buying beefsteak to put on it."

"O, beefsteak is no account. I must go and see him and tell him that an oyster is the best thing for a black eye. Well, I must go. A boy has a pretty hard time running a house the way it should be run," and the boy went out and hung up a sign in front of the grocery: "_Frowy b.u.t.ter a Speshulty_."

CHRISTMAS TREES.

There is too much dress parade about Christmas. Too many Christmas trees where rich children get club skates, and gold napkin rings, and poor children get pop corn strung on a string, and cornucopias full of peppermint candy.

THE BOB-TAILED BADGER.

The last legislature, having nothing else to do, pa.s.sed a law providing for a change in the coat-of-arms of the State. There was no change particularly, except to move the plows and shovels around a little, put on a few more bars of pig lead, put a new-fas.h.i.+oned necktie on the sailor who holds the rope, the emblem of lynch law, tuck the miner's breeches into his boots a little further, and amputate the tail of the badger. We do not care for the other changes, as they were only intended to give the engraver a job, but when an irresponsible legislature amputates the tail of the badger, the emblem of the Democratic party, that crawls into a hole and pulls the hole in after him, it touches us in our patriotism.

The badger, as nature made him, is a n.o.ble bird, and though he resembles a skunk too much to be very proud of, they had no right to cut off his tail and stick it up like a sore thumb. As it is now the new comer to our Garden of Eden will not know whether our emblem is a Scotch terrier, smelling into the archives of the State for a rat, or a defalcation, or a _sic semper America.n.u.s scunch_. We do not complain that the sailor with a Pinafore s.h.i.+rt on, on the new coat-of-arms, is made to resemble Senator Cameron, or that the miner looks like Senator Sawyer. These things are of minor importance, but the docking of that badger's tail, and setting it up like a bob-tail horse, is an outrage upon every citizen of the State, and when the Democrats get into power, that tail shall be restored to its normal condition if it takes all the blood and treasure in the State, and this work of the Republican incendiaries shall be undone. The idea of Wisconsin appearing among the galaxy of States with a bob-tailed badger is repugnant to all our finer feelings.

TERROR IN CHURCH.

A ridiculous scene occurred at Palmyra, the other day. The furnace in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the church is reached by a trap door, which is right beside the pulpit. There was a new preacher there from abroad, and he did not know anything about the trap door, and the s.e.xton went down there to fix the fire, before the new minister arrived. The minister had just got warmed up in his sermon, and was picturing to his hearers h.e.l.l in all its heat. He had got excited and told of the lake of burning brimstone below, where the devil was the stoker, and where the heat was ten thousand times hotter than a political campaign, and where the souls of the wicked would roast, and fry, and stew until the place froze over.

Wiping the perspiration from his face, he said, pointing, to the floor, "Ah, my friends, look down into that seething, burning lake, and--" Just at this point the trap door raised a little, and the s.e.xton's face, with coal s.m.u.t all over it, appeared. He wanted to come up and hear the sermon.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "AH, MY FRIENDS, LOOK DOWN INTO THAT BURNING LAKE!"]

If h.e.l.l had broke loose, the new minister could not have been more astonished. He stepped back, grasped his ma.n.u.script, and was just about to jump from the pulpit, when a deacon on the front seat said, "It's all right, brother; he has only _been down below to see about the fire_." The s.e.xton came up and shut down the trap door, the color came back to the face of the minister, and he went on, though the incident seemed to take the tuck all out of him.

A traveling man who happened to be at the church tells us that he knows the minister was scared, for he sweat so that the perspiration run right down on the carpet and made a puddle as though a dipper of water had been tipped over there. The minister says he was not scared, but we don't see how he could help it.

FISH HATCHING IN WISCONSIN.

I would suggest that you permit the subject of the artificial hatching of fish to engage your attention, and that you appropriate several dollars to purchase whale's eggs, vegetable oysters and mock turtle seeds. The hatching of fish is easy, and any man can soon learn it; and it is a branch of industry that many who are now out of employment, owing to circ.u.mstances beyond their control, will be glad to avail themselves of.

How, I ask you, could means better be adapted to the ends than for the retiring officers of our State to go to setting on fish eggs?

TRAINS WITHOUT CONDUCTORS.

Since the introduction of the patent air brake on pa.s.senger trains, by which brakemen have been dispensed with, a number of patent right men have been studying up some contrivance to do away with conductors. All have failed except one, and that fortunate inventor is Col. Johnson, of the Railroad Eating House, Milwaukee. He has been engaged for two years on this patent, and has got it so near completed that he has filed a caveat at the Patent Office, and as his rights are secured, it can do no harm to describe the invention, as it is destined to work quite a revolution in the railroad business. It has been Col. Johnson's idea that an arrangement could be made so that an engineer of a train could have the whole train under his charge, to stop it, start it, collect fares, and bounce impecunious pa.s.sengers, from his position on the engine, and do it all by steam, wind and water. A series of pneumatic tubes run from the door of each car to the engine, with speaking tubes. A pa.s.senger gets on the platform, and through the speaking tube asks the engineer what the fare is to such a place. The answer is returned, the fare is put in the hopper of the pneumatic tube, it goes to the engineer, he pulls a string, the door flies open and the pa.s.senger enters. Not the least important part of the machinery is the patent "aeolian bouncer," as it is called. A pair of ice tongs are placed so as to grasp the pa.s.senger by the seat of the pants or the polonaise, as the case may be, when he or she gets on the platform.