The So-called Human Race

I love to see the different colors so bright —
That grow around brooks & grottoes.
Leaves that are pressed are a pleasant sight
To make photograph frames & mottoes.

Dr. Johnson or somebody said that a surgical operation was necessary to get a joke into a Scotchman’s head; but the Glasgow Herald, reporting the existence of a London detective named Leonard Jolly Death, conjectures that it was probably an ancestor of his who was drowned in the butt of Malmsey wine.

One is usually mistaken in such matters, but we visualize Mr. Imer Pett, general manager of the Bingham Mines, in Salt Lake City, as quite otherwise.

THE SECOND POST

[Received by a wholesale grocery house, from an Italian customer.]

Gentlemen: My wife wants me to suggest that you observe one of our Italian customs by remembering her with a bit of Christmas cheer. As she is the only wife I got I trust you will help me keep her. Joe.

DENTAL FLOSS

Sir: D. Seiver is a dentist on Kedzie avenue. If I were a complete contrib, I might head this, “Now, this isn’t going to hurt a bit,” but, as I am not, I merely proceed to nominate C. O. Soots, of North Salem, Ind., as chief chimney sweep to the Academy, and propose the Rev. Ed. V. Belles of the First Presbyterian Church of Northville, Mich., to ring in the new for the members. As a substitute for Mr. D. Seiver, you might induce the nominating committee to accept Dr. J. Byron Ache, a dentist of Uniontown, Pa. Ballysloughguttery.

The melancholy days have come
For him who’s naturally glum:
But for the man whose liver’s right
These Autumn days are pure delight.

“Complains He Was Called Sexagenarian – Candidate Says Many Voters Thought It Had to Do With Sex.” – Boston Herald.

Flattered, but unappreciative.

Lady Godiva writes from Loz Onglaze: “Have been having wonderful weather. Quite warm yesterday, the first of December. Riding around with just my fur cape on.”

Some people hold potatoes for higher prices, while others, like Scribner’s Sons, hold sets of Henry James’ novels at $130, an increase of $82 over the original price.

JUST ABOUT

Sir: How long do you suppose the Snow Ball Laundry will last in Quinter, Kansas? The proprietor is G. W. Burns. P. V. W.

In an almanack, which is printed once a year, or in a dictionary or encyclopedia, which is republished after ten or twenty years, you would expect to find fewer errors than in a daily newspaper; but apparently time has little to do with it. Consulting the Britannica’s article on Anatole France, we were inexpressibly shocked to find therein the atrocities, “L’Ile des Penguins” and “Maurice Bàrrès.”

We were looking through the France sketch to see whether there was mention of a story he wrote before he became well known, entitled “Marguerite.” A Paris publisher found it recently in a magazine and asked M. France to write a preface to it, that it might be issued as a book. Quoth France: “It would be an excess of literary vanity on my part to resurrect the story. But my vanity would, perhaps, be greater were I to try to suppress it.”

Reference books, as is well known, improve like wine with age, and the efficiency of our proof room is to be accounted for, in part, by the vintage volumes that line its library shelf. There are sixty of these rare old tomes, and five of them are useful; these being, we think, first editions. There is a Who’s Who of the last century that is still in good condition, and the dictionary of biography with which Lippincotts began business. Bibliophiles would, we believe, enjoy looking over the shelf.

JAW JINGLES

If a Hottentot taught a Hottentot tot
To talk ere the tot could totter,
Ought the Hottentot tot be taught to say “ought,”
Or “naught,” or what ought to be taught her?

If to hoot and to toot a Hottentot tot
Be taught by a Hottentot tutor,
Ought the Hottentot tutor get hot if the tot
Hoot and toot at the Hottentot tutor?G. B.

“NATURE NEVER DID DECEIVE …”

No sooner had blundering man accomplished the ruin of Halifax than Mother Nature sent a blizzard with a foot or two of snow. A kindly dame – as kindly as the old lady of Endor. She has her gentle, her amorous moods, in which we adore her, and write ballads to her beauty; but we know, if we are wise, that her beauty is “all in your eye,” to speak in the way of science, not of slang, and that she is savage as a jungle cat. Like some women and much medicine, she should be well shaken before taken, and always one must keep an eye upon Nature, or one may feel her claws in one’s back. So we have reflected on a summer’s day in woods; but the forest seemed not less beautiful, nor was our meditation melancholy. To be saddened by the inescapable is a great mistake.

NO. 68, COUNTING FROM LEFT TO RIGHT

[From the Goshen, Ind., Democrat.]

Albert E. Compton, 68, a former well known Elkhart taxi driver, went to California last summer and told his friends he was going into the movies. A communication from him yesterday informed them of his appearance in a mob scene.

“Mrs. Fred L. Olson is on the programme to sing vocal selections.” – Portland Telegram.

That’s the trouble. They will sing them.

Our young friend who is about to become a colyumist might lead off with the jape about the switchman who asked for red oil for his lantern. Then there is that side-stitching sign, “Pants pressed, 10 cents a leg, seats free.”

COMMERCIAL CANDOR

Sir: A tailor in Denver advertises: “If your clothes don’t fit we make them.” W. V. R.

Heard, by R. M., in a department store: Shoe-polish demonstrator: “And if you haven’t already ruined your shoes with other cleaners this will do the work.”

FAREWELL!

(By Poeta.)

Comet, Comet, shining bright
In the spaces of the night,
Every hour swinging higher
From the Sun of thy desire;
Astral vagrant, stellar rover,
Dipping under, dipping over
Path of Venus, Earth, and Mars
Till there’s naught beyond but stars;
Cutting, in thy lane elliptic,
Thro’ the plane of the ecliptic,
Far beyond pale Neptune’s track —
Good-by, Comet! Hurry back!

AN UNCOMMONLY HAPPY THOUGHT

(A. J. Balfour, Letter to Mary Gladstone, 1891.)

“It is unfortunate, considering that enthusiasm moves the world, that so few enthusiasts can be trusted to speak the truth.”