FullReads

But we have no space for a description of this eternal proboscis. Suffice it that its existence is a standing menace to society, a threat to civilization, and a danger to commerce. The woman who will harbour and cherish such an organ is no better than a pirate. We do not know who she is, and we have no desire to know. We only know that all the angels could not pull us past her house with a chain cable, without giving us one look at that astounding feature. It is the one prominent landmark of the nineteenth century-the special wonder of the age-the solitary marvel of a generation!

We would give anything to see her blow it.

…. At the Coroner’s inquest in the case of John Harvey there was considerable difficulty in ascertaining the cause of death, but as one witness testified that the deceased was pounding fulminate of mercury at the Powder Works just previously to his lamented demise, there is good reason to believe he was hoist into heaven with his own petard. In fact, such fractions of him as have come to hand, up to date, seem to confirm this view. This evidence is rather disjointed and fragmentary, but it is sufficient to discourage the brutal practice of pounding fulminate of mercury when our streets and Sunday-schools are swarming with available Chinaman who seldom hit back.

…. We find the following touching tale in all the newspapers. It belongs to that class of tales concerning which the mildest doubt is hateful blasphemy.

“A little girl in Ithaca, just before she died, exclaimed: ‘Papa, take hold of my hand and help me across.’ Her father had died two months before. Did she see him?”

There is not a doubt of it; but interested relatives have somewhat misstated the little girl’s exclamation, which was this:–

“Papa, take hold of my hand, and I will help you out of that.”

…. We get the most distressing accounts of the famine in Persia. It is said that cannibalism is as common among the starving inhabitants as pork-eating in California.

This is very sad; it shows either a very low state of Persian morality or a conspicuous lack of Persian ingenuity. They ought to manage it as the conscientious Indians do. In time of famine these gentle creatures never disgrace themselves by feasting upon each other: they permit their dogs to devour the dead, and then they eat the dogs.

…. An old lady was set upon by a fiend in human apparel, and remorselessly kissed in the presence of her daughter.

This happened a few days since in Iowa, where the fiend now lies buried. Any man who is so dead to shame, and so callous of soul generally, as to force his unwelcome endearments upon a poor, defenceless old lady, while her beautiful young daughter stands weeping by, equally defenceless, deserves pretty much all the evil that can be done to him. Splitting him like a fish is so disgracefully inadequate a punishment, that the man who should administer it might justly be regarded as an accomplice.

…. From London we have intelligence of the stabbing to death of a man by mistake. His assassin mistook him for a person related to himself, whose loss would be his own financial gain. Fancy the utter dejection of this stabber when he discovered the absurd blunder he had committed! We believe a slip like that would justify a man in throwing down the knife and discarding murder for ever; while two such errors would be ample excuse for him to go into some kind of business.

…. A small but devout congregation were at worship. When it had become a free exhibition, in which any brother could enact a part, a queer-looking person got up and began a pious and learned exhortation. He spake for some two hours, and was listened to with profound attention, his discourse punctuated with holy groans and pious amens from an edified circle of the saintly. Tears fell as the gentle rains from heaven. Several souls were then and there snatched as brands from the eternal burning, and started on their way to heaven rejoicing. At the end of the second hour, and as the inspired stranger approached “eighty-seventhly,” some one became curious to know who the teacher was, when lo! it turned out that he was an escaped lunatic from the Asylum.