AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST 
75 
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HONORABLE COURTSHIP. 
We heard a very pretty little incident the 
other day, which we cannot help relating. A 
young lady from the South, it seems, was 
wooed and won by a youthful physician liv¬ 
ing in California. When the engagement 
was made the doctor was rich, having been 
very successful at San Francisco. It had 
not existed six months, however, when, by 
an unfortunate investment, he lost his entire 
“ heap.” This event came upon him, it 
should be added, just as he was about to 
claim his bride. What does he do ? Why, 
like an honorable and chivalrous young fel¬ 
low as he is, he sits down and writes the 
lady every particular of the unhappy turn 
which has taken place in his fortunes, assur¬ 
ing her that, if the fact produced any change 
in her feelings towards him, she is released 
from every promise she has made him. And 
what does the dear, good girl 1 Why, she 
takes a lump of pure gold, which her lover 
had sent her in his prosperity as a keepsake, 
and having it manufactured into a ring, for¬ 
wards it to him, with the following Bible in¬ 
scription, engraved in distinct characters on 
the outside : 
—“ Entreat me not to leave thee, or to re¬ 
turn from following after thee ; for whither 
thou goest will I go, and whither thou 
lodgest will I lodge ; thy people will be my 
people and thy God my God ; where thou 
diest will I die ; and there will I be buried ; 
the Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught 
but death part me and thee.” The lover idol¬ 
ised his sweetheart more than ever when he 
received this precious evidence of her devo¬ 
tion to him, both in storm and sunshine. We 
may add, that fortune soon smiled again upon 
the young physician, and that he subsequent¬ 
ly returned to the north to wed the sweet 
girl he loved, and who loved him with such 
undying affection. Reader this is all true. 
Young ladies who read the Bible as closely 
as the heroine of this incident seems to have 
done, are pretty sure to make good sweet¬ 
hearts, and better wives. 
[Liverpool Weekly Journal. 
RUFUS CHOATE. 
Rufus Choate is a picture to look at, and 
a crowder to spout. He is about six feet six 
or six feet seven in his socks, supple as an 
eel and wiry as a corkscrew. His face is a 
compound of wrinkles, “ yellow janders and 
jurisprudence.” He has small, keen, pierc¬ 
ing eyes, and a head shaped like a mammoth 
goose egg, big end up ; his hair, black and 
frizzled, much resembling a bag of avooI in 
“ admirable disorder.” or a brush heap in a 
gale of wind. His body has no particular 
shape, and his wit and legal “ dodges” have 
set many a judge into a snicker, and so con¬ 
founded jurors as to make it almost impos¬ 
sible for them to speak plain English, or to 
tell the truth for the rest of their natural 
lives. Rufus is great for twisting himself 
up, squirming himself around, and prancing, 
jumping, and kicking up the dust when 
steam is up. His oratory is first-rate, argu¬ 
mentative, ingenious, and forcible. He gen¬ 
erally makes a “ ten strike” down judge and 
jury at the end of every sentence. He is 
great on flowery expressions and highfalutin 
“ Hubbubs.” Strangers mostly think he is 
crazy, and the rest scarcely understand what 
he is about. He invoices his time and elo¬ 
cution 4,000 per cent over ordinary charges 
for having one’s self put through a course of 
law.; 
Rufus Choate is about 50 years of age, 
perhaps over. He is considered the ablest 
lawyer in New-England, or perhaps in the 
United States. His hand can’t be deciphered 
without the aid of a pair of compasses and a 
quadrant. His autograph somewhat resem¬ 
bles a map of Ohio, and looks like a piece of 
crayon sketching done in the dark with a 
three pronged fork. He has been in the 
Senate, and may be, if he has time to fish for 
it, President of the United States. [Exchange. 
A BULL AND BEAR FIGHT- 
A Comedy Rather than a Tragedy. —On 
Saturday last a grand bear and bull fight was 
advertised to come off in Auburn, California. 
At 10 o’clock in the morning a crowd of about 
two thousand persons had assembled to wit¬ 
ness the encounter between bruin and his 
bullship. A large amphitheater had been 
erected, with ample accommodations for the 
spectators, underneath which they crowded 
in anxious expectancy, to witness the rare 
entertainment. The sports of the day com¬ 
menced with a cock fight; after which the 
bull, Chihuahua, was ushered into the ring. 
The bear, a full grown animal of the grizzly 
species, was led from his cage, tethered by a 
rawhide lariat and a chain. Chihuahua sur¬ 
veyed his antagonist, pawed the dirt over his 
neck, and prepared to pitch into bruin, who, 
not relishing such sport, made one bound, 
freed himself from the thongs which bound 
him, and commenced ascending the seats on 
which sat the spectators. A scrambling 
scene ensued which beggars description. 
Bruin succeeded in attaining to the fourth 
tier of seats, when he either fell through or 
leaped to the ground, on the heads of the 
dense mass below. One unfortunate gentle¬ 
man raised the canvass to effect his escape. 
Bruin perceiving the opening made, darted 
through, overturning the man in his passage, 
and made for the deep canon which runs by 
the foot of the town. In ascending the lull 
he overtook Mr. Courtney, of Mad Canon, 
and with one stroke of his paw almost denu¬ 
ded him. Happily, however, he sustained 
no other injury than the loss of his “ unmen¬ 
tionables.” The gentleman who was upset 
in making his escape through the canvass 
suffered a severe contusion, and had his head 
gashed to the skull from the center of his 
forehead to the crown. Meanwhile, the rage 
of the bull having reached boiling heat, with 
a bound and bellow, he dashed through the 
crowd, overturning all in his way, and in the 
opposite direction from Bruin, disappeared 
in the woods. The scene, altogether, our 
informant assures us, was indescribable. 
Hog Story. —We heard a capital anecdote 
about hogs the other day. In Madison and 
other counties, mast and acorn are very 
scarce. It abounds, however, in the County 
of Estill. Many hogs were driven there, 
which the Estill people considered an in¬ 
fringement on their rights. Councils were 
called to deliberate how to rid themselves of 
the nuisance. Many plans were proposed, 
but finally, after a good deal of debate, one 
was adopted. It seems that hogs have a 
great fear of bears. Accordingly the skin 
of a bear was procured, and a large sow was 
caught from one of the droves. She was 
covered with the bear skin and then let 
loose. She immediately returned among the 
droves, but on her approach all the hogs 
took flight, pursued by the sow with the 
bear skin. It is stated that since this exper¬ 
iment not a hog has crossed the confines of 
Estill County .—Louisville Jour. 
Short Crops and a Surplus of Pigeons.— 
The plentifulness of pigeons in this region 
this year is attributed by the knowing ones 
to the drouth at the West, and the conse¬ 
quent barrenness of the fields upon which they 
usually rely for sustenance. There is one 
man in Southwick now who has a collection 
of 250 dozen living pigeons, which he is fat¬ 
tening for market. They consumed fifteen 
bushels of corn last week. Others in the 
same town have similar quantities on hand. 
[Spingfield Republican. 
REMARKABLE COINCIDENCE. 
A correspondent of the Petersburg (Va.,) 
Express , writing from Charlestown in that 
State, relates the following series ofincidents, 
which, if true, are certainly very singular 
Washington was accustomed to wear two 
seals on his watch, one of gold, and the 
other of silver. Upon both of them the let¬ 
ters 1 G W.’were engraved, or rather cut. 
The seals he wore as early as 1754, and they 
were about his person on the terrible day of 
Braddock’s defeat. On,that day he lost the 
silver seal. The gold one remained with the 
General until the day of his death, and was 
then given by him to his nephew, a gentle¬ 
man of Virginia, who carefully preserved it 
until about seventeen years ago, when in 
riding over his farm, he dropped it, and could 
never recover it. The other day, the gold 
seal, lost seventeen years ago, was plowed 
up, recognised from the letters ‘ G. W.’ on 
it, and restored to the son of the gentleman 
to whom Washington had presented it. At 
almost the same moment, the silver seal, lost 
in 1754, just one hundred years ago, was 
plowed up on the site'of the battle in which 
Braddock was defeated, and in like manner 
recognized from the letters ‘ G. W.’ so that 
in a very short time the two companions will 
be again united. I have this whole statement 
from the most reliable source possible, name¬ 
ly, from the gentleman himself, who has thus 
restored to him these precious mementoes 
of his great ancestor. The affair is but one 
more proof of an oft stated maxim, that truth 
beggars fiction in strangeness. I repeat, 
there is not the slightest exaggeration or 
misstatement in the matter, and no room for 
mistake. In legal phraseology, the proof 
excludes every other hypothesis. 
A Drove of Heifers vs. an Alpine Bear. 
—The Gazette de Savoie, relates the fol¬ 
lowing somewhat singular adventure, which 
is said to have taken place in the Com¬ 
mune of Villard (Upper Savoy): Two 
shepherds who had charge of a drove 
of heifers, had just laid out their provisions 
on the ground in order to take their meal, 
when they were suddenly pounced upon by 
a large bear, who, after having devoured all 
the provender he found, threw himself on 
one of the shepherds and began to tear his 
clothes to pieces. While the bear was thus 
occupied, the heifers, eighty in number, form¬ 
ed into a semicircle, and making a regular 
charge on the intruder, drove him from the 
ground and released their keeper from certain 
death. The other man had taken to flight at 
the first appearance of bruin, and having 
climbed a tree, witnessed the whole affair in 
safety. 
An Apple in the Mouth. —About eigh¬ 
teen.months ago, a young«nan eating an ap¬ 
ple, got one of the “ pips ” fixed in a decayed 
tooth, which occasioned him great pain, but 
was totally unable to be extraced. At length 
the pip, by dint of pushing was driven down 
below the tooth into the gum, and no more 
pain was felt. Six weeks ago, however, a 
swelling was seen in the gum, and ultimate¬ 
ly an abscess formed, medical men examined 
it and found the pipin had begun to germi¬ 
nate ! It was a habit of the young man to 
keep cotton in his tooth, and this is supposed 
to have hastened vegetation. 
Bui.wer, the novelist, in a letter to a gen¬ 
tleman in Boston, said : “ I have closed my 
career as a writer of fiction. I am gloomy 
and unhappy. I have exhausted the powers 
of life, chasing pleasure where it is not to be 
found,” 
