Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. XXVII, August 1852, Vol. V

Dentist.– A person who finds work for his own teeth by taking out those of other people.

A singular anecdote of Thomas Chittenden the first Governor of the State of Vermont, has found its way into our capacious receptacle. "Mum," said he, one night (his usual way of addressing his wife), "Mum, who is that stepping so softly in the kitchen?"

It was midnight, and every soul in the house was asleep, save the Governor and his companion. He left his bed as stealthily as he possibly could, followed the intruder into the cellar, and, without himself being perceived, heard him taking large pieces of pork out of his meat-barrel, and stowing them away in a bag.

"Who's there?" exclaimed the Governor, in a stern, stentorian voice, as the intruder began to make preparations to "be off."

The thief shrank back into the corner, as mute as a dead man.

"Bring a candle, Mum!"

The Governor's wife went for the light.

"What are you waiting for, Mr. Robber, Thief, or whatever your Christian-name may be?" said the Governor.

The guilty culprit shook as if his very joints would be sundered.

"Come, sir," continued Governor Chittenden, "fill up your sack and be off, and don't be going round disturbing honest people so often, when they want to be taking their repose."

The thief, dumb-founded, now looked more frightened than ever.

"Be quick, man," said the Governor, "fill up, sir! I shall make but few words with you!"

He was compelled to comply.

"Have you got enough, now? Begone, then, in one minute! When you have devoured this, come again in the day-time, and I'll give you more, rather than to have my house pillaged at such an hour as this. One thing more, let me tell you, and that is, that, as sure as fate, if I ever have the smallest reason to suspect you of another such an act, the law shall be put in force, and the dungeon receive another occupant. Otherwise, you may still run at large for any thing that I shall do."

The man went away, and was never afterward known to commit an immoral act.

This story is related, as a veritable fact, of a Dutch justice, residing in the pleasant valley of the Mohawk not a thousand miles from the city of Schenectady:

He kept a small tavern, and was not remarkable for the acuteness of his mental perceptions, nor would it appear was at least one of his customers much better off in the matter of "gumption." One morning a man stepped in and bought a bottle of small-beer. He stood talking a few minutes, and by-and-by said:

"I am sorry I purchased this beer. I wish you would exchange it for some crackers and cheese to the same amount."

The simple-minded Boniface readily assented, and the man took the plate of crackers and cheese, and ate them. As he was going out, the old landlord hesitatingly reminded him that he hadn't paid for them.

"Yes, I did," said the customer; "I gave you the beer for 'em."

"Vell den, I knowsh dat; but den you haven't give me de monish for de beersh."

"But I didn't take the beer: there stands the same bottle now!"

The old tavern-keeper was astounded. He looked sedate and confused; but all to no purpose was his laborious thinking. The case was still a mystery.

"Vell den," said he, at length, "I don't zee how it ish: I got de beersh – yaäs, I got de beersh; but den, same times, I got no monish! Vell, you keeps de grackers – und – gheese; but I don't want any more o' your gustoms. You can keeps away from my davern!"

Some years ago, at the Hartford (Conn.) Retreat for the Insane, under the excellent management of Doctor B – , a party used occasionally to be given, to which those who are called "sane" were also invited; and as they mingled together in conversation, promenading, dancing, &c., it was almost impossible for a stranger to tell "which was which."

On one of these pleasant occasions a gentleman-visitor was "doing the agreeable" to one of the ladies, and inquired how long she had been in the Retreat. She told him; and he then went on to make inquiries concerning the institution, to which she rendered very intelligent answers; and when he asked her, "How do you like the Doctor?" she gave him such assurances of her high regard for the physician, that the stranger was entirely satisfied of the Doctor's high popularity among his patients, and he went away without being made aware that his partner was no other than the Doctor's wife!

She tells the story herself, with great zest; and is very frequently asked by her friends, who know the circumstances, "how she likes the Doctor!"

A fine and quaint thought is this, of the venerable Archbishop Leighton:

"Riches oftentimes, if nobody take them away, make to themselves wings, and fly away; and truly, many a time the undue sparing of them is but letting their wings grow, which makes them ready to fly away; and the contributing a part of them to do good only clips their wings a little, and makes them stay the longer with their owner."

This last consideration may perhaps be made "operative" with certain classes of the opulent.

Is not the following anecdote of the late King of the French not only somewhat characteristic, but indicative of a superior mind?

Lord Brougham was dining with the King in the unceremonious manner in which he was wont to delight to withdraw himself from the trammels of state, and the conversation was carried on entirely as if between two equals. His Majesty (inter alia) remarked:

"I am the only sovereign now in Europe fit to fill a throne."

Lord Brougham, somewhat staggered by this piece of egotism, muttered out some trite compliments upon the great talent for government which his royal entertainer had always displayed, &c., when the King burst into a fit of laughter, and exclaimed:

"No, no; that isn't what I mean; but kings are at such a discount in our days, that there is no knowing what may happen; and I am the only monarch who has cleaned his own boots – and I can do it again!"

His own reverses followed so soon after, that the "exiled Majesty of France" must have remembered this conversation.

Mrs. P. was a dumpy little Englishwoman, with whom and her husband we once performed the voyage of the Danube from Vienna to Constantinople. She was essentially what the English call "a nice person," and as adventurous a little body as ever undertook the journey "from Cheapside to Cairo." She had left home a bride, to winter at Naples, intending to return in the spring. But both she and her husband had become so fascinated with travel, that they had pushed on from Italy to Greece, and from Greece to Asia Minor. In the latter country, they made the tour of the Seven Churches – a pilgrimage in which it was our fortune afterward to follow them. Upon one occasion, somewhere near Ephesus, they were fallen upon by a lot of vagabonds, and Mr. P. got most unmercifully beaten. His wife did not stop to calculate the damage, but whipping up her horse, rode on some two miles further, where she awaited in safety her discomfited lord. Upon the return of the warm season, our friends had gone up to Ischl in the Tyrol, to spend the summer, and when we had the pleasure of meeting them, they were "en route" for Syria, the Desert, and Egypt.

Mrs. P., although a most amiable woman, had a perverse prejudice against America and the Americans. Among other things, she could not be convinced that any thing like refinement among females could possibly exist on this side of the Atlantic. We did our utmost to dispel this very singular illusion, but we do not think that we ever entirely succeeded. Upon one occasion, when we insisted upon her giving us something more definite than mere general reasons for her belief, she answered us in substance as follows: She had met, the summer before, she said, at Ischl, a gentleman and his wife from New York, who were posting in their own carriage, and traveling with all the appendages of wealth. They were well-meaning people, she declared, but shockingly coarse. That they were representatives of the best class at home, she could not help assuming. Had she met them in London or Paris, however, she said, she might have thought them mere adventurers, come over for a ten days' trip. The lady, she continued, used to say the most extraordinary things imaginable. Upon one occasion, when they were walking together, they saw, coming toward them, a gentleman of remarkably attenuated form. The American, turning to her companion, declared that the man was so thin, that if he were to turn a quid of tobacco, from one cheek to the other, he would lose his balance and fall over. This was too much for even our chivalry, and for the moment we surrendered at discretion.

Our traveling companion for the time was a young Oxonian, a Lancashire man of family and fortune. T. C. was (good-naturedly, of course,) almost as severe upon us Americans as was Mrs. P. One rather chilly afternoon, he and ourselves were sitting over the fire in the little cabin of the steamer smoking most delectable "Latakea," when he requested us to pass him the tongues (meaning the tongs).

"The what!" we exclaimed.

"The tongues," he repeated.

"Do you mean the tongs?" we asked.

"The tongs! and do you call them tongs? Come, now, that is too good," was his reply.

"We do call them the tongs, and we speak properly when we call them so," we rejoined, a little nettled at his contemptuous tone; "and, if you please, we will refer the matter for decision to Mrs. P., but upon this condition only, that she shall be simply asked the proper pronunciation of the word, without its being intimated to her which of us is for tongues, and which for tongs." We accordingly proceeded at once to submit the controversy to our fair arbitrator. Our adversary was the spokesman, and he had hardly concluded when Mrs. P. threw up her little fat hands, and exclaimed, as soon as the laughter, which almost suffocated her, permitted her to do so, "Now, you don't mean to say that you are barbarous enough to say tongues in America?" It was our turn, then, to laugh, and we took advantage of it.

A pilgrim from the back woods, who has just been awakened from a Rip-Van-Winkleish existence of a quarter of a century by the steam-whistle of the Erie Railroad, recently came to town to see the sights – Barnum's anacondas and the monkeys at the Astor Place Opera House included. Our friend, who is of a decidedly benevolent and economical turn of mind, while walking up Broadway, hanging on our arm, the day after his arrival, had his attention attracted to a watering-cart which was ascending the street and spasmodically sprinkling the pavement. Suddenly darting off from the wing of our protection, our companion rushed after the man of Croton, at the same time calling out to him at the top of his voice, "My friend! my friend! your spout behind is leaking; and if you are not careful you will lose all the water in your barrel!"

He of the cart made no reply, but merely drawing down the lid of his eye with his fore-finger, "went on his way rejoicing."

The following epigram was written upon a certain individual who has rendered himself notorious, if not famous, in these parts. His name we suppress, leaving it to the ingenuity of the reader to place the cap upon whatever head he thinks that it will best fit:

"'Tis said that Balaam had a beast,
The wonder of his time;
A stranger one, as strange at least,
The subject of my rhyme;
One twice as full of talk and gas,
And at the same time twice – the ass!"