AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
91 
“I know it; you will have them on your 
arms, back, breast' and head; you will be cov¬ 
ered all over with them.” 
‘‘Well, may be I will,” said Bill. 
“ Come, Bill,” said the landlord, “let’s drink 
together,” at the same time pouring the red stuff 
from a decanter into his glass—gug, gug, gug. 
“No,” said Johnston, “I can’t for I have 
signed the pledge again.” 
“ You hain’t though! You’re a fool.” 
“ Yes, that old sailor coaxed so hard I could’nt 
get off.” 
“I wish the devil had the old rascal—Well, 
how long do you go this time ?” 
“ For nine hundred and ninety-nine years,” 
whispered Bill.” 
“ You won’t live a year.” 
“ Well, if I drink, are you sure the lump on 
my side will go away ?” 
“ Yes.” 
“Well, I guess I won’t drink; here’s the 
lump,” continued Bill, holding up something 
with a hundred dollars in it; “and you say I’ll 
have more such lumps—that’s what I want?” 
--- - 
A FOWL SLANDER. 
The PeecLee Times, (S. C.,) thus discourses 
of the new “invention:”—“We are averse to 
all big things, except big mountains, and we 
love them because they are the immediate cre¬ 
ation of God, and are indices pointing to heaven. 
We never saw a big hog or ox, but had cost 
more than he came to, in making him grow up 
to his size. So with big roosters—and in reply 
to a Shanghai friend, afflicted with the declining 
furore, we here give it as our opinion that two 
pair of legs attached to small and thrifty fowls, 
like the Mexican game and Dorking, will sustain 
and keep in a better condition, more flesh and 
feather than a pair of gouty stilts under a mod¬ 
ern Chinaman. And, too, careful comparison, 
deduced from the realities of cause and effect, 
teaches us that, as scratching is one of the ele¬ 
ments of good living to a rooster, the smaller 
breeds, in this particular, have greatly the ad¬ 
vantage over the automaton monsters of the 
poultry-yard. With bountiful crops and good 
seasons, they may be made to do ; but 1853 was 
wholesale sorrow to practical Shanghai breeders. 
Give us a Dorking or Mexican game for the spit 
—a bantam to crow—a turkey to roast, and 
guinea fowls for eggs, and we will give up all 
other fowl fancies to those who choose to in¬ 
dulge in them. ‘ Cock-a-doodle-doo,' was the 
good old-fashioned smart crow of the roosters 
in the days of our boyhood—the insupportable 
‘ Come and f-e-e-d me m-o-tf-e,' of the Shanghai, 
is doleful enough to announce the funeral of a 
corn crib.” 
-•» •- 
A Touchtng Scene. —A beautiful infant had 
been taught to say, and it could say little else, 
“ God will take care of baby.” It was seized 
with sickness, at a time when both parents were 
just recovering from a dangerous illness. Every 
day it grew worse, and at last it was given up 
to die. Almost agonized, the mother begged to 
be carried into the room of her darling to give 
it one last embrace. Both parents succeeded in 
reaching the apartment just as it was thought 
the baby had breathed its last. The mother 
wept aloud, when once more the little creature 
opened its eyes, looked lovingly up in her face, 
smiled, moved its lips, and in a faint voice said, 
“ God will take care of baby.” Sweet, consol¬ 
ing words! they had hardly ceased when the 
infant spirit was in heaven. 
-»••—— 
“Sammy, my son, how many weeks belong to 
the year?” “Forty-six, sir.” “Why, Sammy, 
how do you make that out?” “The other six 
are Lent." “ Mother, put this boy to bed. He’s 
getting-too for’ard.” 
Pretty Good. —The Cincinnati Columbian 
says that Miss Eliza Pretty was married to Mr. 
John Good on Friday last. 
Purgatory. —An Italian noble being at 
church one day, and finding a priest who begged 
for the souls in purgatory, gave him a piece of 
gold. “Ah, my Lord, said the good father, you 
have now delivered a soul.” The Count threw 
upon the plate another piece. “ Here is another 
soul delivered,” said the priest. “Arc you posi¬ 
tive of it?” inquired the Count; “I am certain 
they are now in heaven.” “ Then,” said the 
Count, suiting the action of the word, “I’ll take 
back my money, for it signifies nothing to you 
now, seeing that the souls have already got to 
heaven, and there can be no danger of their re¬ 
turning to purgatory 1” 
Rules for the Journey of Life. —The follow¬ 
ing rules, from the papers of Dr. West, are 
thrown together as general way-marks in the 
journey of life: Never ridicule sacred things, 
or what others may esteem as such, however 
absurd they may appear to you. Never show 
levity when the people are engaged at worship, 
never to resent a supposed injury till I know 
the views and motives of the author of it. On 
no occasion to relate it. Always to take the 
part of an absent person who is censured in 
company, so far as truth and propriety will al¬ 
low. Never to think worse of another on ac¬ 
count of his differing from me in political and 
religious subjects. Not to dispute with a man 
who is more than seventy years of age, nor with 
any enthusiast. Not to affect to be witty, or to 
jest as to wound the feelings of another. To 
say as little as possible of myself and of those 
who are near to me. To aim at cheerfulness 
without levity. Never to court the favor of the 
rich, by flattering either their vanities or their 
vices. To speak with calmness and deliberation 
on all occasions, especially in circumstances 
which tend to irritate. 
-• © •- 
Enemies.— A man who has no enemies is sel¬ 
dom good for any thing. He is made of that 
kind of material which is so easily worked that 
every one tries a hand in it. A sterling charac¬ 
ter—one who speaks for himself, ahd speaks 
what he thinks—is always sure to have enemies. 
They arc as necessary to him as fresh air. 
They keep him alive and active. A celebrated 
person, who was surrounded by enemies, used 
to say :■—“ They are sparks, which, if you do 
not blow them, go out of themselves.” Let 
this be your feeling, while endeavoring to live 
down the scandal of those who are bitter against 
you. If you stop to dispute, you, do but as 
they desire, and open the way for more abuse. 
Let the poor fellows talk. There will be a re¬ 
action if you do but perform your duty; and 
hundreds who were once alienated from you, 
will flock to you acknowledge their error. 
-• © •- 
A Newspaper. —A man eats up a pound of 
spgar, and the pleasure he has enjoyed is 
ended; but the information he gets from a 
newspaper is treasured up in the mind, to be 
used whenever occasion or inclination calls for 
it. A newspaper is not the wisdom of a man, 
or two men; it is the wisdom of the age—of 
past ages too. A family without a newspaper 
is always half an age behind the times in general 
information; besides, they never think much, 
nor find much to think about. And there are 
the little ones growing up in ignorance without 
a taste for reading. 
Besides all these evils, there’s the wife, who, 
when her work is done, has to sit down with 
her hands in her lap, and nothing to amuse her 
mind from the toils and cares of the domestic 
circle. Who would be without a newspaper.— 
Dr. Franklin. 
A Small Soul. —AYc once heard a Ver- 
mounter express his opinion of a person in the 
following style of classics : “I could take,” said 
he, “ the little end of nothing, whittle it down 
to a point, punch out the pith of a horse-hair, 
put in forty thousand such souls as his, shake 
them up, and they’d rattle!” 
A Definite Witness. —An inquisitive lawyer, 
famous for examining witnesses, had a nice old 
gentleman, and witty withal, upon the stand, 
questioning him upon his ability to loan money 
and give credit, resorting to all sorts of interro¬ 
gatories to draw from him a statement of the 
amount of his property and in what it consisted 
—in fact how much he was worth. The old 
gentleman considering the questions rather im¬ 
pudent, for he was quite wealthy, answered that 
he had a wife, he always called her dear—a boy 
and girl that he would not sell for any money— 
a mortgage on two cows down east—a nice litter 
of pigs and the mother of the same—a barrel of 
cider that never saw daylight, and “a puppy 
that knows more than you do, for which I have 
been offered twenty-five dollars!”— Boston Post. 
-« © ©- 
Badly Corned. —A traveler, fatigued with the 
monotony of a long ride through a sparsely set¬ 
tled section of the country, rode up to a small 
lad who was engaged in trimming and dressing 
out a sickly-looking field of corn, and relieved 
the oppression of his spirits, thus: 
“ My young friend, it seems to me your corn 
is rather small.” 
“ Yes, daddy planted the small kind.” 
“Ah, but it appears to look rather yellow, 
too.” 
“ Yes, sir, daddy planted the yallar kind.” 
“From appearances, my lad, you won’t get 
more than half a crop.” 
“Just half, stranger—-daddy planted it on 
halves.” 
The horseman proceeded on his way, and has 
not been known to speak to a boy since. He 
considers them bores. 
-© © ©- 
It is said that Sir Charles Napier told some 
one, on the night of the reform dinner, that in 
three weeks from that date he “ would either 
be in St. Petersburg or in heaven.” 
We believe too much in the doctrines of 
Quakerism to think that a vessel of war armed 
to the teeth, and bent on a mission of destruc¬ 
tion, is just the pneket to take passage in for 
heaven.— Providence Journal. 
-• © • - 
Plowing Often. —Often breaking up a sur¬ 
face keeps a soil in health ; for when it lies in a 
hard-bound state, enriching showers run off, and 
the salubrious air cannot enter. 
-» ©0 - 
Rather Mulisii. —Paris, Kentucky, is the 
greatest live stock market in the West. Eight 
hundred and thirty mules were recently sold in 
one day. 
■-- 
Fallacy of an Old Axiom. —To say “as dif¬ 
ferent as chalk is from cheese.” When we con¬ 
sider that cheese is made from milk, and milk 
is made from chalk, there is not such a great 
difference after all. 
Fast Anchored.— One of the Albany editors 
says,- that the only reason why his house was 
not blown away in the late gale was, that it had 
a heavy mortgage upon it! 
-© © ©- 
While in America the proportion of per¬ 
sons who go to school of some kind is one in 
five, in Russia it is one in two hundred and 
twenty! 
- © © O- 
Corn Bread.—A New Recife. —Every body 
who has been at the Mansion House, Buffalo, 
N. Y., has learned the luxury of the corn bread 
there provided. The clerk is often taxed to 
write direction for home manufacture, and I 
thus procured a recipe for domestic use, which 
I copy for you, so that those who wish may try 
a piece of bread from the Mansion. It is as fol¬ 
lows : One quart of sour milk, two table-spoon¬ 
fuls of saleratus, four ounces of butter, three 
table-spoonfuls of flour, three eggs, and corn 
meal sufficient to make a stiff batter. 
