AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
219 
DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND. 
The Placer Times and Transcript relates 
the following incident as having occurred 
lately at a shoe store in San Francisco. 
The parties concerned were the proprietor 
of the store and a John Chinaman. Exam¬ 
ining a pair of boots, the price of which were 
five dollars, John inquired— 
“ How muchee you axee for um bootee ?” 
In a spirit of waggery, it is presumable, the 
owner replied— 
“Two dollar and a halfee, John. Very 
cheap bootee, ain’tee ?” 
“ Cheap bootee,” said John; who there¬ 
upon examined a pair, and concluding to buy 
offered a quarter eagle. 
“ But,” said the dealer in leather, “ this is 
only enough for one boot. They are two 
dollars and a half apiece ; two boots cost five 
dollars.” 
John was somewhat astonished, said he 
would not buy, and demanded the return of 
his money, but the dealer was inexorable. 
“ No, John,” said the latter ; “ you have 
got one boot and paid for it. Now give me 
another piece like this, and take the other.” 
John saw the drift of the game, and was 
at once resolved. 
“ Well,” said he, “this bootee be mine, 
maybe. I paid for um ?” 
“ Yes,” said the dealer. 
“ And you no give me the other bootee ?” 
asked John. 
“ Not without the money,” said the other. 
“ Well,” said John, “I do with um bootee 
what I please ; I cuttee him up.” 
And thereupon John whipped out a knife, 
cut the boot to pieces and threw it into the 
street, exclaiming, as he departed— 
“ That am my bootee ; that other be your 
bootee; you sell um to next fool Chinaman 
what come along.” 
At last accounts, the boot dealer was look¬ 
ing for the man with the wooden leg, to 
whom he might sell the odd boot, and thus 
save expense. 
Be Always Busy. —The more a man ac¬ 
complishes, the more he may. You always 
find those men who are the most forward to 
do good, or to improve the times and man¬ 
ners, always busy. Who starts our rail¬ 
roads, or steamboats, our machine shops, 
and our manufactories'? Men of industry 
and enterprize. As long as they live they 
work—doing something to benefit them¬ 
selves and others. It is just so with a man 
who is benevolent—the more he gives the 
more he feels like giving. We go for activ¬ 
ity—in body, in mind, in everything. Let 
the gold grow not dim, nor the thought be¬ 
come stale. 
Language. —Language is the amber in 
which a thousand precious thoughts have 
been safely embedded and preserved. It has 
arrested ten thousand lightning-flashes of 
genius, which, unless thus fixed and arrested 
might have been as bright, but would have 
also been as quickly passing and perishing 
as the lightning. Words convey the mental 
treasures of one period to the generations 
that follow ; and laden with this, their pre¬ 
cious freight, they sailsafely across gulfs of 
time in which empires have suffered ship¬ 
wreck, and the languages of common life 
have sunk into oblivion. 
One of the Sheep. —A young man from 
the country came to the city to see his in¬ 
tended wife, and for a long time could think 
of nothing to say. At last, a great snow fall¬ 
ing, he took occasion to tell her that his 
father’s sheep would all be undone. “Well,” 
said she, kindly taking him by the hand, “I’ll 
keep one of them.” 
A GOOD RECOMMENDATION. 
“ Please, sir don’t you want a cabin boy ?” 
“ I do want a cabin boy, my lad,|but what,s 
that to you ? A little chap like you ain’t fit 
for the berth.” 
“ Oh, sir, I’m real strong. I can do a 
great deal of work, if I ain’t so very old.” 
“ But what are you here for? You don’t 
look like a city boy. Run away from home 
hey?” 
“ Oh no indeed, sir, my father died and my 
mother is very poor, and I want to do some¬ 
thing to help her. She let me come.” 
“ Well sonny, where are your letters of 
recommendation. Can’t take any boy with¬ 
out those.” 
Here was a damper. Willie had never 
thought of its being necessary to have letter 
from his minister, or his teachers, or from 
some proper person, to prove to strangers 
that he was an honest good boy. Now what 
should he do ? He stood in deep thought, 
the captain meanwhile curiously watching 
the workings of his expressive face. At 
length he put his hand into his bosom, and 
drew out his little Bible, and without one 
word put it into the captain’s hand. The 
captain opened to the blank leaf and read: 
“ WILLIE GRAHAM, 
“ Presented as a reward for regular and 
punctual attendance at Sabbath School, and 
for his blameless conduct there and else¬ 
where. From his Sunday School Teacher.” 
Capt. McLeod, was not a pious man, but 
he could not consider the case before him 
with a heart unmoved. The little fatherless 
child, standing humbly before him, referring 
him to the testimony of his Sunday School 
teacher, as it was given in his little Bible 
touched a tender spot in the breast of the 
noble seaman, and clapping Willie heartily 
on the shoulder, said. 
“ You are the boy for me;” you shall sail 
with me, and if you are as good a lad as I 
think you are, your pockets shan’t be empty 
when you go back to your good mother. 
The Prince and the Banker. —The Wan¬ 
derer, at Vienna, relates the following anec¬ 
dote : “ A Jewish banker, of Frankfort, 
while proceeding to Vienna by railway not 
long since, fell into conversation with a gen¬ 
tleman of very pleasing manners, who was 
in the same carriage with him, and so de¬ 
lighted was the banker with his new acquain¬ 
tance, that he offered to give him a letter of 
recommendation to his daughter, who was 
well married in Vienna, and might be of serv¬ 
ice to him. The gentleman thanked him, 
and, with a smile, said : ‘ I also have one 
of my daughters married at Vienna, and she 
has made a very tolerable match.’ ‘ Pray, 
may I presume,’ said the banker, ‘ to ask the 
name of her husband?’ ‘It is the Emperor 
of Austria,’ was the answer, the gentleman 
being the Prince Maximilian of Bavaria.” 
Spinning Women. —Among our forefathers 
it was a maxim that a young woman should 
never marry until she had spun enough wool 
to furnish her own house ; and from this 
custom all unmarried women were called 
“ spinsters,” an appellation they still retain 
in.all law proceedings. If the above regula¬ 
tions were enforced at the present day, what 
a vast number would die old maids ! 
No Mother. —“She has no mother!” 
What a volume of sorrowful truth is com¬ 
prised in that single utterance—no mother! 
Deal gently with the child. Let not the cup 
of her sorrows be overflowed by the harsh¬ 
ness of your bearing, or your unsympathiz¬ 
ing coldness. Is she heedless of her doings ? 
forgetful of duty ? Is she careless of her 
movements ? Remember, oh, remember, 
“ she has no mother!” 
A Spiritual Story. —A lady at Columbus, 
Ohio, recently inquired of the Spirit rap¬ 
pers how many children she had. 
“ Four,” rapped the spirit. 
The husband, startled at the accuracy, 
stepped up and inquired— 
“ How many children have I.” 
“ Two answered the rapping medium. 
The husband and wife looked at each 
other, with an odd smile on their faces, a 
moment, and then retired non-believers. 
There had been a mistake made somewhere. 
A Wise Answer. —“ You must not play 
with that little girl, my dear,” said an inju¬ 
dicious parent. 
“But, ma, I like her, she is a good little 
girl, and I’m sure she dresses as prettily as 
I do ; and she has lots of toys.” 
“ I can’t help that, my dear,” responded 
the foolish anti-American, “her father is a 
shoemaker.” 
“ But 1 don’t play with her father, 1 play 
with her ; she ain’t a shoemaker.” 
A solemn murmur in the soul 
Fills up the world to be, 
As travelers hear the billows roll 
Before they reach the sea. 
Keep out of the Brambles. —That which 
happens to the soil, when it ceases to be cul¬ 
tivated by the social man, happens to man 
himself when he foolishly forsakes society 
for solitude; the brambles grow up in his 
desert heart. 
Genteel People. —The young lady who 
lets her mother do the ironing, for fear of 
spreading her hands ; the Miss who wears 
thin shoes on a rainy day ; and the young 
gentleman who is ashamed to be seen walk¬ 
ing with his father. 
Industrious People. —The young lady who 
reads romances in bed ; the friend who is 
always engaged when you call; and the 
correspondent who can not find time to an¬ 
swer your letters. 
Sensible. —Judge Kent says there are few 
evils to which [a man is subjected that he 
might not avoid, if he would converse more 
with his wife, and follow her advice.” 
“ Pray, Mr. Professor, what is a periphra¬ 
sis ?” “ Madam, it is simply a circumlocu¬ 
tory cycle of oratorical sonorosity, circum¬ 
scribing an atom of ideality, lost in a verbal 
profundity.” “ Thank you, sir.” 
“ See here, Gripps, I understand you have 
a superior way of curing hams. I should 
like to learn it.” “ Well, yes ; I know very 
well how to cure them ; but the trouble with 
me, just now, is to find out a way iopro-cure 
them.” 
“ My brudders,” said a wagish colored man 
to a crowd—“ in all indication, in all ob yer 
trubbles, dar is one place you can always 
find sympathy !” “ Whar ? whar ?” shout¬ 
ed several. “ In de dictionary,” he replied, 
rolling his eyes skyward. 
Superficial persons judge men rather by 
their dress and occupations, than by their 
intrinsic merits. The great inventor of the 
spinning-jenny was a barber ; and one of the 
most profound of American statesmen, a 
shoemaker. 
That kind of moral instruction is always 
the best which is conveyed in the fewest 
words, and those always to the point. It is 
easyto.be brief without harshness, and point¬ 
ed without severity. 
