150 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
IJmilkneoitfL 
. HAVING AN EYE TO THE MAIN CHANCE 
We were a good deal amused the other day, 
at a circumstance which occurred in one of the 
cars of the New-Yorlc and Erie Railroad. It was 
witnessed by a friend whom no “ good thing” 
ever escapes, and who thus describes it: 
On a seat two or three “ removes” from me, 
sat a smart Yanlcee-looking woman, with a dash¬ 
ing new silk gown, and a new bonnet, set jaunt¬ 
ily upon her head ; and beside her, looking out 
of the window, and every now and then thrust¬ 
ing out his head, sat a man, with a somewhat 
foreign air and manner. 
The woman watched him with every appear¬ 
ance of interest, and at last said to him— 
“Do you see that hand-bill there, telling you 
not to put your arms and head out of the car 
windows ?” 
The man made no reply, save to fix upon the 
speaker a pair of pale, watery blue eyes; and 
presently out went his head again, and half his 
body from the car-window. 
“Do you understand English?” asked the 
woman. 
“Yah!” was the reply. 
“Then why don’t you keep your head out of 
the window ?” 
There was no reply of any kind, to this ap¬ 
peal. 
At length he put out his head a third time, 
just as the cars were passing a long wooden 
bridge. The lady started back, and once more 
exclaimed: 
“Do you understand English ?” 
“Yaw—yaw!” 
“ Then why don’t you keep your head out of 
the window ? Want to get killed ?” 
No response. And a fourth time he nar¬ 
rowly escaped “ collusion” with some passing 
object. 
The woman could “stand it” no longer: 
a Why don't you Tceep your head out of the win¬ 
dow ? The next thing you know, your head 
will be smashed into a jelly, and your brains 
will be all over my new silk dress—that is if 
you’ve got any —and I don’t much believe you 
have.” 
We had all mistaken the object of the wo¬ 
man’s solicitude; which at first seemed to be a 
tender regard for the safety of her fellow pas¬ 
senger ; but when the true motive “ leaked out,” 
coupled with so very equivocal a compliment to 
his intelligence, a laugh was heard in the car that 
drowned the roaring of the wheels.— Harper's 
Magazine. 
-- «<- 
Abbas Pasha and his Dog.— Abbas Pasha 
lately obtained from England, by great exertion, 
a gigantic mastiff, of the celebrated Lyme breed, 
and the monster was the talk of the whole city 
of Cairo. As the Pasha’s private Secretary pro¬ 
ceeded through the narrow streets, accompanied 
by his very docile but very formidable-looking 
acquisition, the Turks did not fly, nor did they 
seek shelter, nor put themselves in attitude of 
resistance. They stood still and trembled. 
Some muttered only. “Wonderful! wonderful!” 
Others adopted literally the Haydon phrase. 
“ Our trust is in God.” One old man we heard 
exclaim. “Many of the creations of God are 
terrible!” and another gravely asked the digni¬ 
fied dog, “Art thou sent to consume us utterly ?” 
The general expression, however, was, “God 
can protect us even from thee, oh terrible one! ”— 
New Quarterly Review for October. 
-- 
A Note on Noses. —It was Napoleon who said, 
“Strange as it may appear, when I want any 
good head work done, I choose a man, provided 
his education has been suitable, with a long nose. 
His breathing is bold and free, and his brain, as 
well as his lungs and heart, cool and clear. In 
my observations of men, I have almost unvaria- 
bly found a long nose and head go together.” 
Napoleon said, at St. Helena, “ America is a 
fortunate country. She grows by the follies of 
our European nations." 
A BIG GRASSHOPPER STORY. 
None of the family had been to New-Yorlc, 
and after listening eagerly to my account of its 
wonders, and especially the shad poles and the 
tides, the old lady repaid me by giving an ac¬ 
count of the grasshoppers, which I will repeat 
as nearly as possible in her own words; taking 
no note of the various interruptions she met 
with; but allowing her, like Mrs. Caudle, to 
speak for both sides. 
“ There wasn’t none of ’em on the P’int,” she 
said, “for a good while; but they came over on 
the water all at once. You never seed sich a 
sight.” How did they come on the water? 
“Why, you see, they was mighty thick over in 
Henderson, t’other side of the bay, and the folks 
there got together, men, women and children, 
and made a line, and druv them all into the 
water, and they corned right over here.” Couldn’t 
drive’em! “Yes, you could. They’d hop up 
before you, every step you took; and you could 
shue them along jest like a drove of sheep.” 
“ No, they wouldn’t drown neither; couldn’t 
drown ’em. My little boy there kept one on ’em 
at the bottom of a hogshead of water for a whole 
day; and two hours afterwards it was hopping 
about as brisk as ever. They was terrible thick 
on the lake. There was so many on ’em at 
Mexico Harbor, that it was as much as ever the 
steamboat could git in. You don’t believe that, 
eh ? W’all, they was three or four feet thick, 
and half a mile across, anyhow.” What differ¬ 
ence would that make to a steamboat ? “ Why, 
it might make a difference, I should think. They 
stopped the cars on the Rome railroad; that’s 
true, enyhow, for I read it in the paper. They 
were heaped up in a ridge all round the P’int, 
and folks thought they was dead. But, Lor me, 
they warn’t dead no more than I be, and in an 
hour or two they come to and went all over.” 
Might have been burnt? “No, you couldn’t. 
They wouldn’t burn no more than drown. Some 
folks tried it, but they only scorched the top 
ones, and the rest on ’em didn’t mind it a bit. 
Oh, there was a heap on ’em I tell you. They 
sot so thick on the fences that you couldn’t see 
a rail nor a board nowhere. And they went 
straight along, and eat up every thing before 
’em. They eat the pith of the potato stalk clear 
down into the ground, and they eat up all the 
inions, and every thing there was to them, and 
all the rest of the garden sarse, except beet tops 
and cabbages. Them was all we had left. It 
was enough to frighten any body, to go out in 
the garden and hear the noise they made a 
crunching their jaws together, all on ’em at 
once .”—Journal Commerce. 
Eloquence. —“ Feller citizens,” said a candi¬ 
date for the legislative honors of the American 
republic:—“ I am a candidate for the Legislator, 
and as all good Republicans should do, I will 
give you my view of matters and things in gin- 
eral. The ginerality of mankind in gineral, 
ginerally speaking, are most ginerally in favor 
of Republicanism, and so am I. I am also in 
favor of a liberal expropriation of the public 
funds for building bridges. I am also in favor 
of a most liberal expropriation of the funds for 
the profane assilum. 1 am in favor of expro¬ 
priating money for the gineral scattering of the 
Scripters. Yes, feller citizens, these is my con¬ 
victions, and, if there is no chiclc-a-ree (chican¬ 
ery) used in the election, I am bound to be elect¬ 
ed to the Legislator.” 
-* © ©-- 
A Bachelor’s Reply to a young lady, who 
significantly sent him, as a present, some worm¬ 
wood : 
I’m glad your gift is not a-miss, 
Much worse might me befall; 
The wormwood’s bad alone, but worse. 
The wormwood and the gal(l.) 
The Etiquette op Smoking. —Light your cigar 
first, and, after you have taken one or two whiffs, 
turn around and inquire most politely, “If 
smoking is disagreeable to any one present ?”— 
Punch, 
THE AUTHOR OF SWEET HOME. 
As I sit in my garret here in Washington, 
watching the course of great men, and the des¬ 
tiny of party, I meet often with strange contra¬ 
dictions in this eventful life. The most remark¬ 
able was that of J. Howard Payne, author of 
“ Sweet Home.” I knew him personally. He 
occupied the rooms under me for some time, and 
his conversation was so captivating that I often 
spent whole days in his apartment. He was an 
applicant for office at the time—counsul at Tu¬ 
nis—from which he had been removed. What 
a sad thing it was to see the poet subjected to 
all the humiliation of office seeking. Of an 
evening we would walk along the streets. Once 
in a while we would see some family circle so 
happy, and forming so beautiful a group, that 
we would both stop, and then pass silently on. 
On such occasions he would give a history of 
his wanderings—his trials, and all the cares in¬ 
cident to his sensitive nature and poverty. 
“ How often,” said he once, “ I have been in the 
heart of Paris, Berlin, and London, or some other 
city, and heard persons singing, or the hand- 
organ playing “ Sweet Home,” without a shilling 
to buy the next meal, or a place to lay my head. 
The world has literally sung my song until every 
heart is familiar with its melody. Yet I Have 
been a wanderer from my boyhood. My coun¬ 
try has turned me rutherlessly from my office : 
and in my old age I have to submit to humilia¬ 
tion for bread. Thus he would complain of his 
hapless lot. His only wish was to die in a for¬ 
eign land, to be buried by strangers, and sleep 
in obscurity. 
I met him one day looking unusually sad. 
“ Have you got your consulate ?” said I. 
“ Yes, and leave in a week for Tunis; I shall 
never return.” 
The last expression was not a political faith. 
Far from it. Poor Payne! his wish was reali¬ 
zed, he died at Tunis. Whether his remains 
have been brought to this country I know not. 
They should be, and if none others would do it, 
let the homeless throughout the world give a 
penny for a monument to Payne. I knew him, 
and will give my penny for an inscription like 
the following: 
here lies 
J. HOWARD PAYNE, 
The Author of “ Sweet Home." 
A Wanderer in life; he whose songs were sung 
in every tongue, and found an echo in every 
NEVER HAD A HOME. 
HE DIED 
In a Foreign Land ! 
Not so poor as I look. —One day as Judge 
Parsons was jogging along on horseback over 
a desolate road, he came to a log house, dirty, 
smoky, and miserable. He stopped to con¬ 
template the too evident poverty of the scene. 
A poor half-starved fellow, with uncombed hair 
and unshaven beard, thrust his head through a 
square which served for a window, with, “ I say 
Judge, I ain’t so poor as you think me to be, 
for I don’t own this ’ere land.” 
The Natural Style. —“Dick, I say, why 
don’t you turn that buffalo robe t’other side out ? 
the hair side is the warmest.”—“ Poh, Tom 
don’t you suppose the animal himself didn’t 
know how to wear his own hide? T follow his 
style.” 
TnE Model Lady. —She puts her children out 
to nurse, and tends lap-dogs—lies in bed till 
noon—weares paper-soled shoes, and pinches 
her waist—gives the piano fits, and forgets to 
pay her milliner—cuts her poor relations, and 
goes to church when she has a new bonnet— 
turns the cold shoulder to her husband, and 
flirts with his “ friend”—never saw a thimble— 
don’t know a darning-needle from a crow-bar— 
wonders where puddings grow—eats ham and 
eggs in private, and dines on a pigeon’s leg in 
public—runs mad after the last new fashion— 
doats on Byron—adores any man who grins be¬ 
hind a moustache, and, when asked the age of 
her youngest child, replies “ Don’t know, indeed ; 
ask Betty Fanny Fern. 
