On inquiry it was found that the girl had been carried down stairs six times and left on the sidewalk. She described the man who carried her out, and said he was excited, and no sooner would she get up stairs than he would grab her and carry her down again, until she was almost froze. He told her the last time that he had saved six girls from a fiery grave.
THE WAY WOMEN BOSS A PILLOW.
Among the recent inventions is a pillow holder. It is explained that the pillow holder is for the purpose of holding a pillow while the case is being put on. We trust this new invention will not come into general use, as there is no sight more beautiful to the eyes of man than to see a woman hold a pillow in her teeth while she gently manipulates the pillow case over it.
We do not say that a woman is beautiful with her mouth full of pillows. No one can ever accuse us of saying that, but there is something home-like and old-fashioned about it that can not be replaced by any invention.
We know that certain over-fastidious women have long clamored for some new method of putting on a pillow case, but these people have either lost their teeth, or the new ones do not grasp the situation. They have tried several new methods, such as blowing the pillow case up, and trying to get the pillow in before the wind got out, and they have tried to get the pillow in by rolling up the pillow case until the bottom is reached, and then placing the pillow on end and gently unrolling the pillow case, but all these schemes have their drawbacks.
The old style of chewing one end of the pillow, and holding it the way a retriever dog holds a duck, till the pillow case is on, and then spanking the pillow a couple of times on each side, is the best, and it gives the woman’s jaws about the only rest they get during the day.
If any invention drives this old custom away from us, and we no more see the matrons of our land with their hair full of feathers and their mouths full of striped bed-ticking, we shall feel that one of the dearest of our institutions has been ruthlessly torn from us, and the fabric of our national supremacy has received a sad blow, and that our liberties are in danger.
THE DEADLY PAPER BAG
There is a woman on the West Side who has learned a lesson that will last her a lifetime. She has been for years wearing these paper bags, such as the green grocers use, for bustles. The paper is stiff, and sticks out splendid, and makes the dress look well. Last Sunday morning while she was dressing, her young son got in the room and blew the paper bag full of wind and tied a string around the mouth of it, and left it in a chair. The good lady took it and tied it on and dressed herself for church. She bribed her husband to go to church with her, though he is a sort of Bob Ingersoll christian.
As they went down the aisle the minister was reading a hymn about “Sounding the Loud Hosan-na,” and the lady went into the pew first, and sat down while her husband was putting his hat on the floor. There was a report like distant thunder. You have heard how those confounded paper bags explode when boys blow them up, and crush them between their hands.
Well, it was worse than that, and everybody looked at the innocent husband, who was standing there a perfect picture of astonishment. He looked at his wife as much as to say: “Now, this is the last time you will catch me in church, if you are going to play any of your tricks on me. You think you can scare me into getting religion?”
The minister stopped reading the hymn and looked over his spectacles at the new comers as though it would not surprise him if that bad man should blow the church up. The poor lady blushed and looked around as much as to say, “I did not know it was loaded,” and she looked the hymn book through for the hymn, and as the choir rose to sing she offered one side of the book to her husband, but he looked mad and pious, and stood at the other end of the pew and looked out of the stained glass window.
After the service they started home together, and as they turned the first corner he said to his wife, “Well, you played hell on your watch, didn’t you?” She told him there was no such thing as hell in the Bible now, but that she would make that boy think there had been no revision of the Bible that left hell out, when she got home. We only get the story from the husband.
He said he didn’t know what it was that made the noise until they got home, and after a little skirmishing around his wife held up a bursted paper bag, and asked the boy if he blew that bag up. He said he did, but he did not know there was anything wrong about it. The boy and his mother and a press board paid a visit to the back kitchen, and there was a sound of revelry. Boys will be boys.
THE VIRGINIA DUEL.
The proposed duel between Senator Mahone and Jubal Early did not come off, for reasons that have not been made public. It is well known that Mahone is the thinnest man in Virginia. We do not allude to his politics, or his ability, in speaking of his being thin, but to his frame. He does not make a shadow. He could hide behind a wire fence. Gen. Early, after challenging Mahone, went to practicing at a piece of white wire clothes line, hung to the limb of a tree, but he could not hit it, and he felt that all the advantage would be on Mr. Mahone’s side, so he asked Mahone to do the only thing in his power that would make the thing even, and that was to eat a quantity of dried apples the day before the duel, in order to swell his stomach out so that a gentleman could stand some show of hitting him.
Gen. Early pledged himself, on the honor of a Virginia gentleman, that he would not shoot at Mahone’s stomach, but would aim at it, and then make a line shot either above or below.
Mahone replied that, while he appreciated the advantage he had over his opponent, and was willing to do anything reasonable to make the thing even, he could not consistently eat dried apples, as they would certainly kill him. He was willing to take his chances on the bullets of his opponent, because statistics showed that dueling was the most healthy business a man could engage in; and he pointed to the number of duellists that were now living at a ripe old age, who had fought hundreds of duels and never received a scratch or scratched an opponent, but on the other hand he could produce proof to show that many people had been injured, if not killed, by an over-indulgence in dried apples.
Mr. Mahone said he thought it was late in the day for him to produce any proof as to his own bravery, but in the face of the fact that he would be pointed at as one who had not sand, he should have to decline to eat dried apples in order to make himself a target.
Gen. Early said he appreciated the delicacy of his honorable and high-toned opponent, and respected his feelings, and would not insist on the dried apple act, but that he would go into training to reduce himself in flesh to the size of Mahone, and hoped that the affair might be declared off until he could diet himself. He said he should at once begin a course of treatment to reduce his flesh, by boarding at a summer resort hotel that he had heard of, where the desired effect might be produced.
So the duel is postponed for the present. Both Mahone and Early are high-toned gentlemen, and they will do nothing rash.
THE DIFFERENCE.
One of the great female writers on dress reform, in trying to illustrate how terrible the female dress is, says:
“Take a man and pin three or four table-cloths about him, fastened back with elastic and looped up with ribbons, draw all his hair to the middle of his head and tie it tight, and hairpin on five pounds of other hair and a big bow of ribbon. Keep the front locks on pins all night, and let them tickle his eyes all day, pinch his waist into a corset, and give him gloves a size too small and shoes the same, and a hat that will not stay on without torturing elastic, and a little lace veil to blind his eyes whenever he goes out to walk, and he will know what a woman’s dress is.”
Now you think you have done it, don’t you, sis? Why, bless you, that toggery would be heaven compared to what a man has to contend with. Take a woman and put a pair of men’s four-shilling drawers on her that are so tight that when they get damp, from perspiration, sis; they stick so you can’t cross your legs without an abrasion of the skin, the buckle in the back turning a somersault and sticking its points into your spinal meneng
itis; put on an undershirt that draws across the chest so you feel as though you must cut a hole in it, or two, and which is so short that it works up under your arms, and allows the starched upper shirt to sand paper around and file off the skin until you wish it was night, the tail of which will not stay tucked more than half a block, though you tuck, and tuck, and tuck; and then fasten a collar made of sheet zinc, two sizes too small for you, around your neck; put on vest and coat, and liver pad and lung pad and stomach pad, and a porous plaster, and a chemise shirt between the two others, and rub on some liniment, and put a bunch of keys and a jack-knife and a button-hook and a pocket-book and a pistol and a plug of tobacco in your pockets, so they will chafe your person, and then go and drink a few whisky cocktails, and walk around in the sun with tight boots on, sis, and then you will know what a man’s dress is.
Come to figure it up, it is about an even thing, sis,—isn’t it?
SPURIOUS TRIPE.
Another thing that is being largely counterfeited is tripe. Parties who buy tripe cannot be too careful. There is a manufactory that can make tripe so natural that no person on earth can detect the deception. They take a large sheet of rubber about a sixteenth of an inch thick for a background, and by a process only known to themselves veneer it with a Turkish towel, and put it in brine to soak. The unsuspecting boarding-house keeper, or restaurant man, buys it and cooks it, and the boarder or transient guest calls for tripe. A piece is cut off the damnable tripe with a pair of shears used in a tin shop for cutting sheet iron, and it is handed to the victim. He tries to cut it, and fails; he tries to gnaw it off, and if he succeeds in getting a mouthful, that settles him. He leaves his tripe on his plate, and it is gathered up and sewed on the original piece, and is kept for another banquet.
The tripe is expensive, owing to the royalty that has to be paid to the rubber company, and often the boarder succeeds in eating off some of the towel, so it has to be veneered over again; but take it the year round, and the tripe pays its way in a boarding-house.
A CASE OF PARALYSIS.
About as mean a trick as we ever heard of was perpetrated by a doctor at Hudson last Sunday. The victim was a justice of the peace named Evans. Mr. Evans is a man who has the alfiredest biggest feet east of St. Paul, and when he gets a new pair of shoes it is an event that has its effect on the leather market.
Last winter he advertised for sealed proposals to erect a pair of shoes for him, and when the bids were opened it was found that a local architect in leather had secured the contract, and after mortgaging his house to a Milwaukee tannery, and borrowing some money on his diamonds of his “uncle,” John Comstock, who keeps a pawnbrokery there, he broke ground for the shoes.
Owing to the snow blockade and the freshets, and the trouble to get hands who would work on the dome, there were several delays, and Judge Evans was at one time inclined to cancel the contract, and put some strings in box cars and wear them in place of shoes, but sympathy for the contractor, who had his little awl invested in the material and labor, induced him to put up with the delay.
On Saturday the shoes were completed, all except laying the floor and putting on a couple of bay windows for corns, and conservatories for bunions, and the judge concluded to wear them on Sunday. He put them on, but got the right one on the left foot, and the left one on the right foot. As he walked down town the right foot was continually getting on the left side, and he stumbled over himself, and he felt pains in his feet. The judge was frightened in a minute. He is afraid of paralysis, all the boys know it, and when he told a wicked republican named Spencer how his feet felt, that degraded man told the judge that it was one of the surest symptoms of paralysis in the world, and advised him to hunt a doctor.
The judge pranced off, interfering at every step, skinning his shins, and found Dr. Hoyt. The doctor is one of the worst men in the world, and when he saw how the shoes were put on he told the judge that his case was hopeless unless something was done immediately. The judge turned pale, the sweat poured out of him, and taking out his purse he gave the doctor five dollars and asked him what he should do. The doctor felt his pulse, looked at his tongue, listened at his heart, shook his head, and then told the judge that he would be a dead man in less than sixty years if he didn’t change his shoes.
The judge looked down at the vast expanse of leather, both sections pointing inwardly, and said, “Well, dam a fool,” and “changed cars” at the junction. As he got them on the right feet, and hired a raftsman to tie them up for him, he said he would get even with the doctor if he had to catch the smallpox. O, we suppose they have more fun in some of these country towns than you can shake a stick at.
MALE AND FEMALE MASHING.
There has been a great deal of talk in the papers about arresting “mashers,” that is, young men who stand on the corners and pulverize women, and a great many good people got the idea that it was unsafe to travel the streets. This is not the case. A woman might travel all day and half the night and not be insulted. Of course, once in a great while, a woman will be insulted by a man, the same as a man will be by a woman.
No woman, unless she throws out one eye, kind of cunning, is in danger of having a male man throw out his other eye the same way. There has got to be two parties to a mashing match, and one must be a woman. Too many women act sort of queer just for fun, and the poor male man gets to acting improper before he realizes the enormity of the crime, and then it is everlastingly too late.
But a female masher, one who is thoroughly bad, like the male loafers that have been driven from the corners, is a terror. She will insult a respectable man and laugh at his blushes. One of them was arrested the other day for playing her act on a policeman who was disguised as a respectable granger from Stevens Point. These female mashers are a tornado.
Why, one of them met a respectable church member the other night, and asked him how his liver complaint was. He was a man who had been troubled with the liver complaint, and supposing she was some acquaintance, he stopped on the corner and talked with the pullet for about ten minutes, explaining to her the course of treatment he had used to cure him, and dozens of people passing by that knew him, and knew that she was clear off.
Finally she asked him if he wouldn’t take her to a restaurant and buy her a spring chicken and a small bottle. He told her if she would come up to his house she should have a hen, and there were lots of bottles, both large and small, that she was welcome to. She told him to go to Hades, and he went in a drug store and asked a clerk who that lady was he had been talking with, and when the clerk, who knew her, told him she was a road agent, a street walker, a female masher, the old man had to sit down on a box of drugs and fan himself with his hat.
We mention this to show that ladies are not the only portion of the population that is liable to be accosted and insulted. The other night a respectable merchant was going to the opera with a friend from the country, when a couple of sirens met them and one said to the other, “Look at his nibs,” and she locked arms with him and asked him if he was not her own darling. He said his name was not “Nibs,” and he would have to look at his memorandum book before he could tell whether he was her darling or not, but from the smell of gin about her person he would blush to extemporize.
We do not give his exact language, but in the heat of debate he shook her and told her if she ever clawed on him again he would everlastingly go and tell her parents. And while he was talking with her the other one had seated herself beside his country friend on a salt barrel in front of a grocery and was feeling in his vest pocket to see if he had any cloves.
A female masher is much worse than a male masher as you can imagine. Who ever heard of a male masher feeling in an unprotected female’s vest pocket for cloves? O, the men are simply unprotected, and at the mercy of wicked, designing women, and the police ought to protect them.
THE USES OF THE PAPER BAG.
A First Ward man was told by his wife to bring home a quart of oysters on New Year’s night, to fry for supper. He d
rank a few prescriptions of egg nog, and then took a paper bag full of selects and started for home. He stopped at two or three saloons, and the bag began to melt, and when he left the last saloon the bottom fell out of the bag and the oysters were on the sidewalk.
We will leave the man there, gazing upon the wreck, and take the reader to the residence where he is expected.
A red-faced woman is putting the finishing touches to the supper table, and wondering why her husband does not come with the oysters. Presently a noise as of a lead pencil in the key-hole salutes her ear, and she goes to the door and opens it, and finds him taking the pencil out of the key-hole. Not seeing any oysters, she asks him if he has forgotten the oysters.
“Forgot noth(hic)ing,” says he.
He walks up to the table and asks for a plate, which is given him by the unsuspicious wife.
“Damsaccident you ever(hic)see,” said the truly good man, as he brought his hand out of his overcoat pocket, with four oysters, a little smoking tobacco, and a piece of cigar-stub.
“Slipperysoystersev (hic)er was,” said he, as he run his hands down in the other pocket, bringing up five oysters, a piece of envelope, and a piece of wire that was used as a bail to the pail.
“Got all my pock(hic)ets full,” said he, as he took a large oyster out of his vest pocket. Then he began to go down in his pants pocket, and finding a hole in it, he said:
“Six big oys(hic)ters gone down my trousers leg. S’posi’ll find them in my boot,” and he sat down to pull off his boot, when the lady took the plate of oysters and other stuff into the kitchen and threw them in the swill, and then she put him to bed, and all the time he was trying to tell her how the bag busted just as he was in front of All Saints Ca(hic)thedral.
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