Peck's Compendium of Fun Part 5

The _Wisconsin_ asks, "What will the Democrats do?" We trust it is not betraying a confidence reposed in us by the manager of a party, but we can not allow our neighbor to remain in such dense ignorance, as long as we are possessed of the desired information. "What will the Democrats do?"

The Democrats will prove an _alibi!_

A SEWING MACHINE GIVEN TO THE BOSS GIRL.

In response to a request from W.T. Vankirk, George W. Peck presented the Rock County Agricultural Society with a sewing machine, to be given to the "boss combination girl" of Rock County. With the machine he sent the following letter, which explains his meaning of a "combination girl,"

etc.:

MILWAUKEE, June 7, 1881.

W.T. VANKIRK--_Dear Sir:_ Your letter, in reference to giving some kind of a premium to somebody, at your County Fair, is received, and I have been thinking it over. I have brought my ma.s.sive intellect to bear upon the subject, with the follow result:

I s.h.i.+p you to-day, by express, a sewing machine, complete, with cover, drop leaf, hemmer, tucker, feller, drawers, and everything that a girl wants, except corsets and tall stockings. Now, I want you to give that to the best "combination girl" in Rock County, with the compliments of the _Sun_.

What I mean by a "combination," is one that in the opinion of your Committee has all the modern improvements, and a few of the old-fas.h.i.+oned faults, such as health, etc. She must be good-looking, that is not too handsome, but just handsome enough. You don't want to give this machine to any female statue, or parlor ornament, who don't know how to play a tune on it, or who is as cold as a refrigerator car, and has no heart concealed about her person. Our girl, that is, our "Fair Girl," that takes this machine, must be "the boss." She must be jolly and good-natured, such a girl as would make the young man that married her think that Rock County was the next door to heaven, anyway. She must be so healthy that nature's roses will discount any preparation ever made by man, and so well-formed that nothing artificial is needed to--well, Van, you know what I mean.

You want to pick out a thoroughbred, that is, all wool, a yard wide--that is, understand me, I don't want the girl to be a yard wide, but just right. Your Committee don't want to get "mashed" on some ethereal creature whose belt is not big enough for a dog collar. This premium girl wants to be able to do a day's work, if necessary, and one there is no danger of breaking in two if her intended should hug her.

[Ill.u.s.tration: I WANT TO BE AN ANGEL.]

After your Committee have got their eyes on a few girls that they think will fill the bill, then they want to find out what kind of girls they are around their home. Find if they honor their fathers and their mothers, and are helpful, and care as much for the happiness of those around them as they do for their own. If you find one who is handsome as Venus--I don't know Venus, but I have heard that she takes the cake--I say, if you find one that is perfect in everything, but s.h.i.+rks her duties at home, and plays, "I Want to Be an Angel," on the piano, while her mother is mending her stockings, or ironing her picnic skirts, then let her go ahead and be an angel as quick as she wants to, but don't give her the machine. You catch the idea?

Find a girl who has the elements of a n.o.ble woman; one whose heart is so large that she has to wear a little larger corset than some, but one who will make her home happy, and who is a friend to all; one who would walk further to do a good deed, and relieve suffering, than she would to patronize an ice cream saloon; one who would keep her mouth shut a month before she would say an unkind word, or cause a pang to another. Let your Committee settle on such a girl, and she is as welcome to that machine as possible.

Now, Van, you ought to have a Committee appointed at once, and no one should know who the Committee is. They should keep their eyes open from now till the time of the Fair, and they should compare notes once in a while. You have got some splendid judges of girls there in Janesville, but you better appoint married men. They are usually more unbiased. They should not let any girl know that she is suspected of being the premium girl, until the judgment is rendered, so no one will be embarra.s.sed by feeling that she is competing for a prize.

Now, Boss, I leave the const.i.tution and the girls in your hands; and if this premium is the means of creating any additional interest in your Fair, and making people feel good natured and jolly, I shall be amply repaid.

Your friend

GEO. W. PECK.

SHE WAS NO GENTLEMAN.

From an article in the _Leader_ we gather that Frank Drake, editor of the Rushford _Star_, was horsewhipped by a woman who was dissatisfied with some article of his that appeared against her, in the _Star_. A woman that cowhides an editor is no gentleman.

JOKE ON THE HAT.

Somehow, during the election excitement, Frank Hatch happened to bet right just once. He bet a hat, and on Monday he went to Putnam & Philbrick and selected one of the finest silk ones. When he went out in the street every body noticed it, and a reception was held. They all congratulated Frank, except Ike Usher. Ike's hat was a year old, and the contrast was so remarkable that Ike would not walk on the street with Hatch. Frank said that Ike's hat used to be a very fine looking hat, but at present it was a disgrace to the force. Mr. Usher was offended, and he swore revenge. He went to a professional drunkard on Division street, and said that if he should happen to get drunk Monday night and Hatch should happen to arrest him, he would give the drunkard five dollars if the drunkard would mash Frank's new hat. The fellow said he would flatten it flatter than flatness itself. Just after dark Mr. Hatch was walking down Third street, "Whoop, hurrah for Tilden, (hic) 'endrix." The remark seemed so out of place that Frank went down there. The man was lying on the sidewalk, and telling the barrel to roll over and not take up all the bed. Mr. Hatch accosted the man gently, telling him he would catch cold there, and that he had better go with him to the city hotel. The man said he would--be counted in if he did, and Hatch bent over him to take him by the lily white hand, when a drunken boot came down on the top of that hat, and drove it clean down to Frank's nose. Of course it could go no further. Then the man pulled Frank down, and the hat struck the end of a salt barrel, knocked it off, and the man raised up and sat down on it, and kicked it into the street. Frank got the man away, and a boy brought his hat to the police station, just as Usher and Littlejohn and Knutson, and all the policeman entered. It is said that all stood on the corner over by Kevin's watching the arrest. The hat was a sight to behold, as it laid in state on the safe, and all the boys making comments on it. It looked like a six-inch stove pipe elbow that a profane man had been attempting to fit to a five-inch stove pipe. It looked like some old dripping pan that had been thrown out in the street, and had been run over by wagons. It looked like the very d.i.c.kens. And yet we have no doubt Hatch will say this is a lie, because he now wears a good hat, but we know the hat he now wears he got by trading a flannel s.h.i.+rt to a gra.s.shopper sufferer, and it no more resembles the beautiful new hat he won on election than nothing. After Hatch went out of the office, Usher let the man "escape," and he is five dollars ahead, and Ike has got even with Hatch.

[Ill.u.s.tration: IT LOOKED LIKE AN OLD DRIPPING PAN.]

THE THIRSTY GOPHER.

A Minnesota town got a fire steamer on trial, and tested it by trying to drown out a gopher. After working it six hours, the gopher came out to get a drink. He would have died of thirst if they had kept the hole closed much longer.

COLORED CONCERT TROUPES.

Sometimes it seems as though the colored people ought to have a guardian appointed over them. Now, you take a colored concert troupe, and though they may have splendid voices, they do not know enough to take advantage of their opportunities. People go to hear them because they are colored people, and they want to hear old-fas.h.i.+oned negro melodies, and yet these mokes will tackle Italian opera and high toned music that they don't know how to sing.

They will sing these fancy operas and people will not pay any attention.

Along toward the end of the programme they will sing some old n.i.g.g.e.r song, and the house fairly goes wild and calls them out half a dozen times. And yet they do not know enough to make up a programme of such music as they can sing, and such as the audience want.

They get too big, these colored people do, and can't strike their level.

People who have heard Kellogg, and Marie Rose, and Gerster, are sick when a black cat with a long red dress comes out and murders the same pieces the prima donnas have sung. We have seen a colored girl attempt a selection from some organ-grinder opera, and she would howl and screech, and catch her breath and come again, and wheel and fire vocal shrapnel, limber up her battery and take a new position, and unlimber and send volleys of soprano grape and cannister into the audience, and then she would catch on to the highest note she could reach and hang to it like a dog to a root, till you would think they would have to throw a pail of water on her to make her let go, and all the time she would be biting and shaking like a terrier with a rat, and finally give one kick at her red trail with her hind foot, and back off the stage looking as though she would have to be carried on a dust pan, and the people in the audience would look at each other in pity and never give her a cheer, when, if she had come out and patted her leg, and put one hand up to her ear, and sung, "Ise a Gwine to See Ma.s.sa Jesus Early in de Mornin'," they would have split the air wide open with cheers, and called her out five times.

The fact is, they haven't got sense.

There was a hungry-looking, round-shouldered, sick-looking colored man in the same party, that was on the programme for a violin solo. When he came out the people looked at each other, as much as to say, "Now we will have some fun." The moke struck an att.i.tude as near Ole Bull as he could with his number eleven feet and his hollow chest, and played some diabolical selection from a foreign cat opera that would have been splendid if Wilhelmj or Ole Bull had played it, but the colored brother couldn't get within a mile of the tune. He rasped his old violin for twenty minutes and tried to look grand, and closed his eyes and seemed to soar away to heaven,--and the audience wished to heaven he had, and when he became exhausted and squeezed the last note out, and the audience saw that he was in a profuse perspiration, they let him go and did not call him back. If he had come out and sat on the back of a chair and sawed off "The Devil's Dream," or "The Arkansaw Traveler," that crowd would have cheered him till he thought he was a bigger man than Grant.

But he didn't have any sense.

MATTIE MASHES MINNESOTA.

Mrs. Mattie A. Bridge is meeting with great success in Minnesota. In some places she is retained until she lectures four times. She says the heart of Minnesota is warm towards her. We shall feel inclined to put a head on Minnesota, if it don't quit allowing its heart to get warm.

WHY THE FEVER DIDN'T SPREAD.

Portage City has had a sensation which, though at one time it looked serious, turned out to be a farce. A girl was taken sick, and a physician was called who p.r.o.nounced it a case of yellow fever, and he made out a prescription for that disease. Mr. Brannan, editor of the Portage Register, who lives near, got the news, and imparted it to all whom he met, and they in turn told it to others, and a stampede was looked for.

Fox turned the Fox House over to Bunker, and had his trunks checked for the Hot Springs. Corning and Jack Turner hired a wagon to take them to Briggsville. Haertel, the brewery man, offered to sell out his brewery and all his property for eight hundred dollars, and he bought a ticket for Germany. Bunker left the Fox House to run itself, and went to Devil's Lake. Sam. Branuan, telegraphed to George Clinton, at Denver, not to come home, as the yellow fever was raging, and people were dying off like rotton sheep. And Sam got vaccinated and went to Beaver Dam. The excitement was intense. Men became perfectly wild, and were going to rush off and leave the women and children to the mercies of the dead plague.

Chicago and Milwaukee b.u.mmers could be seen at the hotels, kneeling beside their sample cases trying to pray, but they couldn't. Just before the train started that was to carry away the frightened populace, the doctor came up town and said that the girl with the yellow fever was better, and that she was the mother of a fine nine pound boy. The authorities took every precaution to prevent the spread of the yellow fever, by arresting the brakemen whom the girl said was the cause of all the trouble. All is quiet on the Wisconse now.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DRUMMERS TRYING TO PRAY.]

TOO PARTICULAR BY HALF.

It is one of the mottoes of THE SUN never to publish anything that would cause a blush to mantle the cheek of innocence, or anybody. And yet, occasionally, a person finds fault. Not long since a man said he liked THE SUN well enough, only it had too much to say about patched breeches, which was offensive to some. Well, some people are so confounded high toned that if they were going to have a patch put on they would have it way up on the small of their back. Some of the best women in the world have sat up nights to sew a patch on their husband's pants. Martha Was.h.i.+ngton used to do it. But, G. Lordy, a family newspaper must not speak of a patch. When you take patches away from the people you strike a blow at their liberties. Don't be too nice.

THE WAY TO NAME CHILDREN.

The names of Indians are sometimes so peculiar that people are made to wonder how the red men became possessed of them. That of "Sitting Bull,"

"Crazy Horse," "Man Afraid of his Horses," "Red Cloud," etc., cause a good deal of thought to those who do not know how the names are given. The fact of the matter is that after a child of the forest is born the medicine man goes to the door and looks out, and the first object that attracts his attention is made use of to name the child. When the mother of that great warrior gave birth to her child, the medicine man looked out and saw a bull seated on its haunches, hence the name "Sitting Bull." It is an evidence of our superior civilization that we name children on a different plan, taking the name of some eminent man or woman, some uncle or aunt to fasten on to the unsuspecting stranger. Suppose that the custom that is in vogue among the Indians should be in use among us, we would have instead of "George Was.h.i.+ngton" and "Hanner Jane," and such beautiful names, some of the worst jaw-breakers that ever was. Suppose the attending physician should go to the door after a child was born and name it after the first object he saw. We might have some future statesman named "Red Headed Servant Girl with a Rubber Bag of Hot Water," or "Bald Headed Husband Walking Up and Down the Alley with His Hands in His Pockets swearing this thing shall never Happen Again." If the doctor happened to go to the door when the grocery delivery wagon was there, he would name the child "Boy from d.i.c.kson's Grocery with a Codfish by the Tail and a Bag of Oatmeal,"

or if the ice man was the first object the doctor saw, some beautiful girl might go down to history with the name, "Pirate with a Lump of Ice About as Big as a Soltaire Diamond." Or suppose it was about election time and the doctor should look out, he might name a child that had a right to grow up a minister, "Candidate for Office so full of Bug Juice that His Back Teeth are afloat;" or suppose he should look out and see a woman crossing a muddy street, he might name a child "Woman with a Sealskin Cloak and a Hole in Her Stocking going Down Town to Buy a Red Hat." It wouldn't do at all to name children the way Indians do, because the doctors would have the whole business in their hands, and the directories are big enough now.

AN EDITOR BURGLARIZED.

The residence of John Turner, of the Mauston _Star_, was entered by burglars a few nights since, and his clothes were stolen, containing all his money and his railroad pa.s.s. We can imagine an editor around bare as to legs, etcetery, and out of money, but to be without a railroad pa.s.s must indeed be a sad state of affairs. When burglars burgle an editor it is a sign that confidence is restored under Hayes' administration. We trust that editors throughout the State who are blessed with this world's goods to the extent of more than one pair of pants, will send one pair at least to John Turner, Mauston, Wis., by express. We are probably as poor as any editor, but we have sent him those alligator pants that have created such a sensation in years gone by. It is true they are a little bit fringy about the bottoms, and the knees are worn through, and concealment, like a worm in the bud, has gnawed the foundation all out of them, but in a little town like Mauston, such things will not be noticed.

John, take them, in welcome, and when the cold winds--but you better carry bricks in your coat tail pockets. That is the way we wore them the last three or four years.