A keen, genteely dressed, gentlemanly man “put up” at Beltzhoover’s Hotel, in Baltimore, one day some years ago, and after dining very sumptuously every day, drinking his Otard, Margieux and Heidsic, and smoking his “Tras,” “Byrons,” and “Cassadoras,” until the landlord began to surmise the “bill” getting voluminous, he made the clerk foot it up […]

We are astounded at the incredulity of some people. Every now and then you run afoul of somebody who does not believe in spiritual knockers. Enter any of our drinking saloons, take a seat, or stand up, and look on for an hour or two, especially about the time “churchyards yawn!” and if you are […]

It’s poor human natur’, all out, to wrangle and quarrel now and then, from the kitchen to the parlor, in church and state. Even the fathers of the holy tabernacle are not proof against this little weakness; for people will have passions, people will belong to meetin’, and people will let their passions rise, even […]

Dobbs walked into a Dry Goodery, on Court street, and began to look around. A double jinted clerk immediately appeared to Dobbs. “What can I do for you, sir?” says he. “A good deal,” says Dobbs, “but I bet you won’t.” “I’ll bet I will,” says the knight of the yard-stick, “if I can.” “What’ll […]

I am tempted to believe, that few–very few men can start in the world–say at twenty, with a replete invoice of honesty, free and easy–kind, generous–good-natured disposition, and keep it up, until they greet their fortieth year. There are, doubtless, plenty of men–I hope there are, who would be entirely and perfectly generous-hearted, if they […]

Say what you will, it’s no use talking, poverty is more potent and powerful, as a moral engine, than all the “sermons and soda water,” law, logic, and prison discipline, ever started. All a man wants, while he has a chance to be honest, and to get along smoothly, is a good situation and two […]

I love to speak, I love to write of the mighty West. I have passed ten happy and partly pleasant years travelling over the immense tracts of land of the West and South. I have, during that time, garnered up endless themes for my pen. It was my custom, during my travels, to keep a […]

Meanness is as natural to some people, as gutta percha beefsteaks in a cheap boarding-house. Schoodlefaker says he saw a striking instance in Quincy market last Saturday. An Irish woman came up to a turkey merchant, and says she– “What wud yees be after axin’ for nor a chicken like that?” “That’s a turkey, not […]

Office-Seeking has become a legitimatized branch of our every-day business, as much so as in former times “reduced gentlemen” took to keeping school or posting books. In former times, men took to politics to give zest to a life already replete with pecuniary indulgences, as those in the “sere and yellow leaf” are wont to […]

A hard-fisted “old hunker,” who has made $30,000 in fifty-one years, by saving up rags, old iron, bones, soap-grease, snipping off the edges of halves, quarters, and nine-pences, raised the whole neighborhood t’other evening. He came across a full-faced Spanish ninepence, and in an attempt to extract the jaw-teeth of the head, the poor thing […]

In 1800 the most of the State of Ohio, and nearly all of Indiana, was a dense wilderness, where the gaunt wolf and naked savage were masters of the wild woods and fertile plains, which now, before the sturdy blows of the pioneer’s axe, and the farmer’s plough, has been with almost magical effect converted […]

If you have ever “been around” some, and taken notice of things, you have doubtless seen the man who knows pretty much every thing and every body! I’ve seen them frequently. As the old preacher observed to a venerable lady, in reference to forerunners, “I see ’em now.” Well, talking of that rare and curious […]

It is the easiest thing under heaven to be sick, if you can afford it. What it costs some rich men for family sickness per annum, would keep all the children in “a poor neighborhood” in “vittels” and clothes the year round. When old Cauliflower took sick, once in a long life-time, he was prevailed […]

In 183-, it chanced in the big city of New York, that the aldermen elect were a sort of tie; that is, so many whigs and so many democrats. Such a thing did not occur often, the democracy usually having the supremacy. They generally had things pretty much all their own way, and distributed their […]

It seems to be just as natural for a subordinate in a “grocery” to levy upon the till, for material aid to his own pocket, as for the sparks to fly upwards or water run down hill. Innumerable stories are told of the peculations of these “light-fingered gentry,” but one of the best of the […]

Fifty years ago, Uncle Sam was almost a stranger on the maps; he hadn’t a friend in the world, apparently, while he had more enemies than he could shake a stick at. Every body snubbed him, and every body wanted to lick him. But Sam has now grown to be a crowder; his spunk, too, […]

Have you ever had the tooth-ache? If not, then blessed is your ignorance, for it is indeed bliss to know nothing about the tooth-ache, as you know nothing, absolutely nothing about pain–the acute, double-distilled, rectified agony that lurks about the roots or fangs of a treacherous tooth. But ask a sufferer how it feels, what […]

During the “great excitement” in Boston, relative to the fugitive slave “fizzle,” a good-natured country gentleman, by the name of Abner Phipps; an humble artisan in the fashioning of buckets, wash-tubs and wooden-ware generally, from one of the remote towns of the good old Bay State, paid his annual visit to the metropolis of Yankee […]

Some years ago, I was one of a convivial party, that met in the principal hotel in the town of Columbus, Ohio, the seat of government of the Buckeye State. It was a winter evening when all without was bleak and stormy, and all within were blythe and gay; when song and story made the […]

“Sir!” said Fieryfaces, the lawyer, to an unwilling witness, “Sir! do you say, upon your oath, that Blinkins is a dishonest man ?” “I didn’t say he was ever accused of being an honest man, did I?” replied Pipkins. “Does the court understand you to say, Mr. Pipkins, that the plaintiff’s reputation is bad?” inquired […]