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                      THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY

                                by

                          AMBROSE BIERCE

Copyright 1911 by Albert and Charles Boni, Inc.

                              PREFACE

"This more reverent title had previously been forced upon him by

Meantime, too, some of the enterprising humorists of the country

A conspicuous, and it is hope not unpleasant, feature of the book

                                                                  A.B.

                                  A

Poor Isabella's Dead, whose abdication
Set all tongues wagging in the Spanish nation.
For that performance 'twere unfair to scold her:
She wisely left a throne too hot to hold her.
To History she'll be no royal riddle --
Merely a plain parched pea that jumped the griddle.

                                                                  G.J.

By _Abracadabra_ we signify

An infinite number of things.

'Tis the answer to What? and How? and Why?

And

Whence? and Whither? -- a word whereby
The Truth (with the comfort it brings)

Is open to all who grope in night,
Crying for Wisdom's holy light.
Whether the word is a verb or a noun

Is knowledge beyond my reach.

I only know that 'tis handed down.

From sage to sage,
From age to age --
An immortal part of speech!

Of an ancient man the tale is told
That he lived to be ten centuries old,

In a cave on a mountain side.
(True, he finally died.)

The fame of his wisdom filled the land,

For

his head was bald, and you'll understand
His beard was long and white And his eyes uncommonly bright.

Philosophers gathered from far and near
To sit at his feat and hear and hear,

Though he never was heard
To utter a word

But

"_Abracadabra, abracadab_,
_Abracada, abracad_,

_Abraca, abrac, abra, ab!_"
'Twas all he had,

'Twas all they wanted to hear, and each
Made copious notes of the mystical speech,

Which they published next --
A trickle of text

In the meadow of commentary.

Mighty big books were these,
In a number, as leaves of trees;

In learning, remarkably -- very!

He's dead,
As I said,

And the books of the sages have perished,
But his wisdom is sacredly cherished.
In _Abracadabra_ it solemnly rings,
Like an ancient bell that forever swings.

O, I love to hear
That word make clear

Humanity's General Sense of Things.

                                                       Jamrach Holobom

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for

people to abridge their king, a decent respect for the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

                                                       Oliver Cromwell

Spring beckons! All things to the call respond;
The trees are leaving and cashiers abscond.

                                                             Phela Orm

To men a man is but a mind. Who cares
What face he carries or what form he wears?
But woman's body is the woman. O,
Stay thou, my sweetheart, and do never go,
But heed the warning words the sage hath said:
A woman absent is a woman dead.

                                                            Jogo Tyree

Said a man to a crapulent youth: "I thought

You a total abstainer, my son."

"So

I am, so I am," said the scrapgrace caught --
"But not, sir, a bigoted one."

                                                                  G.J.

"My

accountability, bear in mind,"
Said the Grand Vizier: "Yes, yes,"

Said the Shah: "I do -- 'tis the only kind

Of ability you possess."

                                                            Joram Tate

Consigned by way of admonition,
His soul forever to perdition.

                                                              Judibras

"The man was in such deep distress,"
Said Tom, "that I could do no less
Than give him good advice." Said Jim:
"If less could have been done for him
I know you well enough, my son,
To know that's what you would have done."

                                                         Jebel Jocordy

"Cheer up! Have you no aim in life?"

She tenderly inquired.

"An

aim? Well, no, I haven't, wife;
The fact is -- I have fired."

                                                                  G.J.

Allah's good laws I faithfully have kept,

And

ever for the sins of man have wept;
And sometimes kneeling in the temple I

Have reverently crossed my hands and slept.

                                                         Junker Barlow

This thing Allegiance, as I suppose,
Is a ring fitted in the subject's nose,
Whereby that organ is kept rightly pointed
To smell the sweetness of the Lord's anointed.

                                                                  G.J.

In contact, lo! the flint and steel,
By spark and flame, the thought reveal
That he the metal, she the stone,
Had cherished secretly alone.

                                                           Booley Fito

They stood before the altar and supplied
The fire themselves in which their fat was fried.

    In vain the sacrifice! -- no god will claim
    An offering burnt with an unholy flame.
                                                           M.P. Nopput

As sovereigns are anointed by the priesthood,
So pigs to lead the populace are greased good.

                                                              Judibras

The flabby wine-skin of his brain
Yields to some pathologic strain,
And voids from its unstored abysm
The driblet of an aphorism.

                                           "The Mad Philosopher," 1697

When Jove sent blessings to all men that are,
And Mercury conveyed them in a jar,
That friend of tricksters introduced by stealth
Disease for the apothecary's health,
Whose gratitude impelled him to proclaim:
"My deadliest drug shall bear my patron's name!"

                                                                  G.J.

If I were a jolly archbishop,
On Fridays I'd eat all the fish up --
Salmon and flounders and smelts;
On other days everything else.

                                                              Jodo Rem

God made the world in six days and was arrested on the seventh.

                                            _The Unauthorized Version_

"Eat arsenic? Yes, all you get,"

Consenting, he did speak up;

"'Tis better you should eat it, pet,

Than put it in my teacup."

                                                             Joel Huck

One day a wag -- what would the wretch be at? --
Shifted a letter of the cipher RAT,
And said it was a god's name! Straight arose
Fantastic priests and postulants (with shows,
And mysteries, and mummeries, and hymns,
And disputations dire that lamed their limbs)
To serve his temple and maintain the fires,
Expound the law, manipulate the wires.
Amazed, the populace that rites attend,
Believe whate'er they cannot comprehend,
And, inly edified to learn that two
Half-hairs joined so and so (as Art can do)
Have sweeter values and a grace more fit
Than Nature's hairs that never have been split,
Bring cates and wines for sacrificial feasts,
And sell their garments to support the priests.

"Hail, holy Ass!" the quiring angels sing;
"Priest of Unreason, and of Discords King!"
Great co-Creator, let Thy glory shine:
God made all else, the Mule, the Mule is thine!"

                                                                  G.J.

_Facilis descensus Averni,_

The poet remarks; and the sense

Of it is that when down-hill I turn I

Will get more of punches than pence.

                                                        Jehal Dai Lupe

                                  B

Ere babes were invented
The girls were contended.
Now man is tormented

Until to buy babes he has squandered
His money. And so I have pondered

This thing, and thought may be
'T were better that Baby

The First had been eagled or condored.

                                                               Ro Amil

Is public worship, then, a sin,

That for devotions paid to Bacchus

The

lictors dare to run us in,
And resolutely thump and whack us?

                                                                Jorace

But whether the plan of immersion
Is better than simple aspersion

Let those immersed
And those aspersed

Decide by the Authorized Version,
And by matching their agues tertian.

                                                                  G.J.

The man who taketh a steam bath
He loseth all the skin he hath,
And, for he's boiled a brilliant red,
Thinketh to cleanliness he's wed,
Forgetting that his lungs he's soiling
With dirty vapors of the boiling.

                                                          Richard Gwow

Who is that, father?

                          A mendicant, child,

Haggard, morose, and unaffable -- wild!
See how he glares through the bars of his cell!
With Citizen Mendicant all is not well.
Why did they put him there, father?

                                         Because

Obeying his belly he struck at the laws.
His belly?

Oh, well, he was starving, my boy --

A state in which, doubtless, there's little of joy. No bite had he eaten for days, and his cry
Was "Bread!" ever "Bread!"

                                What's the matter with pie?

With little to wear, he had nothing to sell;
To beg was unlawful -- improper as well.
Why didn't he work?

                         He would even have done that,

But men said: "Get out!" and the State remarked: "Scat!" I mention these incidents merely to show
That the vengeance he took was uncommonly low.
Revenge, at the best, is the act of a Siou,
But for trifles --

                        Pray what did bad Mendicant do?

Stole two loaves of bread to replenish his lack
And tuck out the belly that clung to his back.
Is that _all_ father dear?

                                There's little to tell:

They sent him to jail, and they'll send him to -- well, The company's better than here we can boast,
And there's --

Bread for the needy, dear father?

                                                       Um -- toast.
                                                              Atka Mip

Recordare, Jesu pie,
Quod sum causa tuae viae.
Ne me perdas illa die.

Pray remember, sacred Savior,
Whose the thoughtless hand that gave your
Death-blow. Pardon such behavior.

She

thought it a crow, but it turn out to be
A monk of St. Benedict croaking a text.

"Here's one of an order of cooks," said she --

"Black friars in this world, fried black in the next."

                                   "The Devil on Earth" (London, 1712)

Her locks an ancient lady gave
Her loving husband's life to save;
And men -- they honored so the dame --
Upon some stars bestowed her name.
But to our modern married fair,
Who'd give their lords to save their hair,
No stellar recognition's given.
There are not stars enough in heaven.

                                                                  G.J.

"One night," a doctor said, "last fall,
I and my comrades, four in all,

When visiting a graveyard stood

Within the shadow of a wall.
"While waiting for the moon to sink
We saw a wild hyena slink

About a new-made grave, and then

Begin to excavate its brink!
"Shocked by the horrid act, we made
A sally from our ambuscade,

And, falling on the unholy beast,

Dispatched him with a pick and spade."

                                                      Bettel K. Jhones

Philippe of Orleans wishing to appoint one of his favorites, a

A single swallow, it is said, devours ten millions of insects

every year. The supplying of these insects I take to be a signal instance of the Creator's bounty in providing for the lives of His creatures.

                                                    Henry Ward Beecher

O Brahma, thou rare old Divinity,
First Person of the Hindoo Trinity,
You sit there so calm and securely,
With feet folded up so demurely --
You're the First Person Singular, surely.

                                                        Polydore Smith

                                  C

The cabbage is so called from Cabagius, a prince who on ascending

When Zeno was told that one of his enemies was no more he was

As Death was a-rising out one day,
Across Mount Camel he took his way,

Where he met a mendicant monk,
Some three or four quarters drunk,

With a holy leer and a pious grin,
Ragged and fat and as saucy as sin,

Who held out his hands and cried:

"Give, give in Charity's name, I pray.
Give in the name of the Church. O give,
Give that her holy sons may live!"

And Death replied,
Smiling long and wide:
"I'll give, holy father, I'll give thee -- a ride."
With a rattle and bang
Of his bones, he sprang

From his famous Pale Horse, with his spear;

By the neck and the foot
Seized the fellow, and put

Him astride with his face to the rear.
The Monarch laughed loud with a sound that fell
Like clods on the coffin's sounding shell:
"Ho, ho! A beggar on horseback, they say,

Will ride to the devil!" -- and _thump_
Fell the flat of his dart on the rump

Of the charger, which galloped away.
Faster and faster and faster it flew,
Till the rocks and the flocks and the trees that grew By the road were dim and blended and blue

To the wild, wild eyes
Of the rider -- in size
Resembling a couple of blackberry pies.

Death laughed again, as a tomb might laugh

At a burial service spoiled,
And the mourners' intentions foiled
By the body erecting
Its head and objecting

To further proceedings in its behalf.
Many a year and many a day
Have passed since these events away.
The monk has long been a dusty corse,

And

Death has never recovered his horse.
For the friar got hold of its tail, And steered it within the pale

Of the monastery gray,
Where the beast was stabled and fed
With barley and oil and bread
Till fatter it grew than the fattest friar,
And so in due course was appointed Prior.

                                                                  G.J.

This is a dog,

This is a cat.

This is a frog,

This is a rat.

Run, dog, mew, cat.
Jump, frog, gnaw, rat.

                                                             Elevenson

His virtues were so conspicuous that his enemies, unable to

overlook them, denied them, and his friends, to whose loose lives they were a rebuke, represented them as vices. They are here commemorated by his family, who shared them.

In the earth we here prepare a
Place to lay our little Clara.

                                             Thomas M. and Mary Frazer

P.S. -- Gabriel will raise her.

I dreamed I stood upon a hill, and, lo!
The godly multitudes walked to and fro
Beneath, in Sabbath garments fitly clad,
With pious mien, appropriately sad,
While all the church bells made a solemn din --
A fire-alarm to those who lived in sin.
Then saw I gazing thoughtfully below,
With tranquil face, upon that holy show
A tall, spare figure in a robe of white,
Whose eyes diffused a melancholy light.
"God keep you, strange," I exclaimed. "You are
No doubt (your habit shows it) from afar;
And yet I entertain the hope that you,
Like these good people, are a Christian too."
He raised his eyes and with a look so stern
It made me with a thousand blushes burn
Replied -- his manner with disdain was spiced:

    "What!  I a Christian?  No, indeed!  I'm Christ."
                                                                  G.J.

A busy man complained one day:
"I get no time!" "What's that you say?"
Cried out his friend, a lazy quiz;
"You have, sir, all the time there is.
There's plenty, too, and don't you doubt it --
We're never for an hour without it."

                                                          Purzil Crofe

"Close-fisted Scotchman!" Johnson cried

To thrifty J. Macpherson;

"See me -- I'm ready to divide

With any worthy person."

Sad

Jamie: "That is very true --
The boast requires no backing;

And

all are worthy, sir, to you,
Who have what you are lacking."

                                                         Anita M. Bobe

O Coenobite, O coenobite,

Monastical gregarian,

You

differ from the anchorite,
That solitudinarian:

With vollied prayers you wound Old Nick;
With dropping shots he makes him sick.

                                                          Quincy Giles

This commonwealth's capitol's corridors view,
So thronged with a hungry and indolent crew
Of clerks, pages, porters and all attaches
Whom rascals appoint and the populace pays
That a cat cannot slip through the thicket of shins Nor hear its own shriek for the noise of their chins. On clerks and on pages, and porters, and all,
Misfortune attend and disaster befall!
May life be to them a succession of hurts;
May fleas by the bushel inhabit their shirts;
May aches and diseases encamp in their bones,
Their lungs full of tubercles, bladders of stones; May microbes, bacilli, their tissues infest,
And tapeworms securely their bowels digest;
May corn-cobs be snared without hope in their hair, And frequent impalement their pleasure impair.
Disturbed be their dreams by the awful discourse
Of audible sofas sepulchrally hoarse,
By chairs acrobatic and wavering floors --
The mattress that kicks and the pillow that snores! Sons of cupidity, cradled in sin!
Your criminal ranks may the death angel thin,
Avenging the friend whom I couldn't work in.

                                                                  K.Q.

An old wine-bibber having been smashed in a railway collision,

In controversy with the facile tongue --
That bloodless warfare of the old and young --
So seek your adversary to engage
That on himself he shall exhaust his rage,
And, like a snake that's fastened to the ground,
With his own fangs inflict the fatal wound.
You ask me how this miracle is done?
Adopt his own opinions, one by one,
And taunt him to refute them; in his wrath
He'll sweep them pitilessly from his path.
Advance then gently all you wish to prove,
Each proposition prefaced with, "As you've
So well remarked," or, "As you wisely say,
And I cannot dispute," or, "By the way,
This view of it which, better far expressed,
Runs through your argument." Then leave the rest
To him, secure that he'll perform his trust
And prove your views intelligent and just.

                                                    Conmore Apel Brune

Fiercely the battle raged and, sad to tell,
Our corporal heroically fell!
Fame from her height looked down upon the brawl
And said: "He hadn't very far to fall."

                                                         Giacomo Smith

In this small fish I take it that human wisdom is admirably

figured and symbolized; for whereas the crayfish doth move only backward, and can have only retrospection, seeing naught but the perils already passed, so the wisdom of man doth not enable him to avoid the follies that beset his course, but only to apprehend their nature afterward.

                                                    Sir James Merivale

There is a land of pure delight,

Beyond the Jordan's flood,

Where saints, apparelled all in white,

Fling back the critic's mud.

And

as he legs it through the skies,
His pelt a sable hue,

He sorrows sore to recognize

The missiles that he threw.

                                                            Orrin Goof

"Be

good, be good!" the sisterhood
Cry out in holy chorus,

And, to dissuade from sin, parade

Their various charms before us.

But

why, O why, has ne'er an eye
Seen her of winsome manner

And

youthful grace and pretty face
Flaunting the White Cross banner?

Now

where's the need of speech and screed
To better our behaving?

A simpler plan for saving man

(But, first, is he worth saving?)

Is,

dears, when he declines to flee
From bad thoughts that beset him,

Ignores the Law as 't were a straw,

And wants to sin -- don't let him.

                                  D

A savage beast which, when it sleeps,

Man girds at and despises,

But

takes himself away by leaps
And bounds when it arises.

                                                          Ambat Delaso

Done with the work of breathing; done
With all the world; the mad race run
Though to the end; the golden goal
Attained and found to be a hole!

                                                        Squatol Johnes

As, pent in an aquarium, the troutlet
Swims round and round his tank to find an outlet,
Pressing his nose against the glass that holds him, Nor ever sees the prison that enfolds him;
So the poor debtor, seeing naught around him,
Yet feels the narrow limits that impound him,
Grieves at his debt and studies to evade it,
And finds at last he might as well have paid it.

                                                        Barlow S. Vode

Thou shalt no God but me adore:
'Twere too expensive to have more.
No images nor idols make
For Robert Ingersoll to break.
Take not God's name in vain; select
A time when it will have effect.
Work not on Sabbath days at all,
But go to see the teams play ball.
Honor thy parents. That creates
For life insurance lower rates.
Kill not, abet not those who kill;
Thou shalt not pay thy butcher's bill.
Kiss not thy neighbor's wife, unless
Thine own thy neighbor doth caress
Don't steal; thou'lt never thus compete
Successfully in business. Cheat.
Bear not false witness -- that is low --
But "hear 'tis rumored so and so."
Cover thou naught that thou hast not
By hook or crook, or somehow, got.

                                                                  G.J.

A leaf was riven from a tree,
"I mean to fall to earth," said he.
The west wind, rising, made him veer.
"Eastward," said he, "I now shall steer."
The east wind rose with greater force.
Said he: "'Twere wise to change my course."
With equal power they contend.
He said: "My judgment I suspend."
Down died the winds; the leaf, elate,
Cried: "I've decided to fall straight."
"First thoughts are best?" That's not the moral;
Just choose your own and we'll not quarrel.
Howe'er your choice may chance to fall,
You'll have no hand in it at all.

                                                                  G.J.

All hail, Delusion! Were it not for thee
The world turned topsy-turvy we should see;
For Vice, respectable with cleanly fancies,
Would fly abandoned Virtue's gross advances.

                                                        Mumfrey Mappel

"Chief Deputy," the Master cried,
"To-day the books are to be tried
By experts and accountants who
Have been commissioned to go through
Our office here, to see if we
Have stolen injudiciously.
Please have the proper entries made,
The proper balances displayed,
Conforming to the whole amount
Of cash on hand -- which they will count.
I've long admired your punctual way --
Here at the break and close of day,
Confronting in your chair the crowd
Of business men, whose voices loud
And gestures violent you quell
By some mysterious, calm spell --
Some magic lurking in your look
That brings the noisiest to book
And spreads a holy and profound
Tranquillity o'er all around.
So orderly all's done that they
Who came to draw remain to pay.
But now the time demands, at last,
That you employ your genius vast
In energies more active. Rise
And shake the lightnings from your eyes;
Inspire your underlings, and fling
Your spirit into everything!"
The Master's hand here dealt a whack
Upon the Deputy's bent back,
When straightway to the floor there fell
A shrunken globe, a rattling shell
A blackened, withered, eyeless head!
The man had been a twelvemonth dead.

                                                       Jamrach Holobom

Hearst kept a diary wherein were writ
All that he had of wisdom and of wit.
So the Recording Angel, when Hearst died,
Erased all entries of his own and cried:
"I'll judge you by your diary." Said Hearst:
"Thank you; 'twill show you I am Saint the First" -- Straightway producing, jubilant and proud,
That record from a pocket in his shroud.
The Angel slowly turned the pages o'er,
Each stupid line of which he knew before,
Glooming and gleaming as by turns he hit
On Shallow sentiment and stolen wit;
Then gravely closed the book and gave it back.
"My friend, you've wandered from your proper track: You'd never be content this side the tomb --
For big ideas Heaven has little room,
And Hell's no latitude for making mirth,"
He said, and kicked the fellow back to earth.

                                                 "The Mad Philosopher"

A cube of cheese no larger than a die
May bait the trap to catch a nibbling mie.

His right to govern me is clear as day,
My duty manifest to disobey;
And if that fit observance e'er I shut
May I and duty be alike undone.

                                                         Israfel Brown

Let us dissemble.

                                                                  Adam

Druids performed their religious rites in groves, and knew nothing

That dueling's a gentlemanly vice

I hold; and wish that it had been my lot
To live my life out in some favored spot --

Some country where it is considered nice
To split a rival like a fish, or slice

A husband like a spud, or with a shot
Bring down a debtor doubled in a knot

And ready to be put upon the ice.
Some miscreants there are, whom I do long

To shoot, to stab, or some such way reclaim

The scurvy rogues to better lives and manners,
I seem to see them now -- a mighty throng.

It looks as if to challenge _me_ they came,

Jauntily marching with brass bands and banners!

                                                          Xamba Q. Dar

Sir Lavender Portwine, in favor at court,
Was wroth at his master, who'd kissed Lady Port.
His anger provoked him to take the king's head,
But duty prevailed, and he took the king's bread,

Instead.

                                                                  G.J.

                                  E

"I was in the drawing-room, enjoying my dinner," said Brillat-

A lady with one of her ears applied
To an open keyhole heard, inside,
Two female gossips in converse free --
The subject engaging them was she.
"I think," said one, "and my husband thinks
That she's a prying, inquisitive minx!"
As soon as no more of it she could hear
The lady, indignant, removed her ear.
"I will not stay," she said, with a pout,
"To hear my character lied about!"

                                                        Gopete Sherany

O, the Lord of Law on the Throne of Thought,

A gilded impostor is he.

Of shreds and patches his robes are wrought,

His crown is brass,
Himself an ass,
And his power is fiddle-dee-dee.

Prankily, crankily prating of naught,
Silly old quilly old Monarch of Thought.

Public opinion's camp-follower he,

Thundering,

blundering, plundering free.
Affected,

                        Ungracious,
                    Suspected,
                        Mendacious,
    Respected contemporaree!
                                                      J.H. Bumbleshook

Megaceph, chosen to serve the State
In the halls of legislative debate,
One day with all his credentials came
To the capitol's door and announced his name.
The doorkeeper looked, with a comical twist
Of the face, at the eminent egotist,
And said: "Go away, for we settle here
All manner of questions, knotty and queer,
And we cannot have, when the speaker demands
To be told how every member stands,
A man who to all things under the sky
Assents by eternally voting 'I'."

"Monsieur Franqulin, inventor of electricity. This

illustrious savant, after having made several voyages around the world, died on the Sandwich Islands and was devoured by savages, of whom not a single fragment was ever recovered."
Electricity seems destined to play a most important part in the

The

cur foretells the knell of parting day;
The loafing herd winds slowly o'er the lea;

The

wise man homeward plods; I only stay
To fiddle-faddle in a minor key.

He was a slave: at word he went and came;
His iron collar cut him to the bone.

Then Liberty erased his owner's name,

Tightened the rivets and inscribed his own.

                                                                  G.J.

The

man was perishing apace
Who played the tambourine;

The

seal of death was on his face --
'Twas pallid, for 'twas clean.

"This is the end," the sick man said

In faint and failing tones.

A moment later he was dead,

And Tambourine was Bones.

                                                         Tinley Roquot

Enough is as good as a feast -- for that matter
Enougher's as good as a feast for the platter.

                                                      Arbely C. Strunk

We know better the needs of ourselves than of others. To

serve oneself is economy of administration.

In each human heart are a tiger, a pig, an ass and a

nightingale. Diversity of character is due to their unequal activity.

There are three sexes; males, females and girls.
Beauty in women and distinction in men are alike in this:

they seem to be the unthinking a kind of credibility.

Women in love are less ashamed than men. They have less to be

ashamed of.

While your friend holds you affectionately by both your hands

you are safe, for you can watch both his.

Here lie the bones of Parson Platt,
Wise, pious, humble and all that,
Who showed us life as all should live it;
Let that be said -- and God forgive it!

So wide his erudition's mighty span,
He knew Creation's origin and plan
And only came by accident to grief --
He thought, poor man, 'twas right to be a thief.

                                                           Romach Pute

A dispute once unhappily arose among the members of this sect as

Hail, high Excess -- especially in wine,

To thee in worship do I bend the knee
Who preach abstemiousness unto me --

My skull thy pulpit, as my paunch thy shrine.
Precept on precept, aye, and line on line,

Could ne'er persuade so sweetly to agree
With reason as thy touch, exact and free,

Upon my forehead and along my spine.
At thy command eschewing pleasure's cup,

With the hot grape I warm no more my wit;
When on thy stool of penitence I sit

I'm quite converted, for I can't get up.
Ungrateful he who afterward would falter
To make new sacrifices at thine altar!

This "excommunication" is a word
In speech ecclesiastical oft heard,
And means the damning, with bell, book and candle, Some sinner whose opinions are a scandal --
A rite permitting Satan to enslave him
Forever, and forbidding Christ to save him.

                                                            Gat Huckle

LUNARIAN: Then when your Congress has passed a law it goes
directly to the Supreme Court in order that it may at once be known whether it is constitutional?

TERRESTRIAN: O no; it does not require the approval of the

Supreme Court until having perhaps been enforced for many years somebody objects to its operation against himself -- I mean his client. The President, if he approves it, begins to execute it at once.

LUNARIAN: Ah, the executive power is a part of the legislative.

Do your policemen also have to approve the local ordinances that they enforce?

TERRESTRIAN: Not yet -- at least not in their character of

constables. Generally speaking, though, all laws require the approval of those whom they are intended to restrain.

LUNARIAN: I see. The death warrant is not valid until signed by

the murderer.

TERRESTRIAN: My friend, you put it too strongly; we are not so

consistent.

LUNARIAN: But this system of maintaining an expensive judicial

machinery to pass upon the validity of laws only after they have long been executed, and then only when brought before the court by some private person -- does it not cause great confusion?

TERRESTRIAN: It does.
LUNARIAN: Why then should not your laws, previously to being

executed, be validated, not by the signature of your President, but by that of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court?

TERRESTRIAN: There is no precedent for any such course. LUNARIAN: Precedent. What is that?
TERRESTRIAN: It has been defined by five hundred lawyers in three

volumes each. So how can any one know?

An English sea-captain being asked if he had read "The Exile of

Aug. 3d, 1842. Made a joke on the ex-Isle of Erin. Coldly received. War with the whole world!

A transient, horrible, fantastic dream,
Wherein is nothing yet all things do seem:
From which we're wakened by a friendly nudge
Of our bedfellow Death, and cry: "O fudge!"

To one who, journeying through night and fog,
Is mired neck-deep in an unwholesome bog,
Experience, like the rising of the dawn,
Reveals the path that he should not have gone.

                                                        Joel Frad Bink

                                  F

Done to a turn on the iron, behold

Him who to be famous aspired.

Content? Well, his grill has a plating of gold,

And his twistings are greatly admired.

                                                       Hassan Brubuddy

A king there was who lost an eye

In some excess of passion;

And

straight his courtiers all did try
To follow the new fashion.

Each dropped one eyelid when before

The throne he ventured, thinking

'Twould please the king. That monarch swore

He'd slay them all for winking.

What should they do? They were not hot

To hazard such disaster;

They dared not close an eye -- dared not

See better than their master.

Seeing them lacrymose and glum,

A leech consoled the weepers:

He spread small rags with liquid gum

And covered half their peepers.

The

court all wore the stuff, the flame
Of royal anger dying.

That's how court-plaster got its name

Unless I'm greatly lying.

                                                            Naramy Oof

The Maker, at Creation's birth,
With living things had stocked the earth.
From elephants to bats and snails,
They all were good, for all were males.
But when the Devil came and saw
He said: "By Thine eternal law
Of growth, maturity, decay,
These all must quickly pass away
And leave untenanted the earth
Unless Thou dost establish birth" --
Then tucked his head beneath his wing
To laugh -- he had no sleeve -- the thing
With deviltry did so accord,
That he'd suggested to the Lord.
The Master pondered this advice,
Then shook and threw the fateful dice
Wherewith all matters here below
Are ordered, and observed the throw;
Then bent His head in awful state,
Confirming the decree of Fate.
From every part of earth anew
The conscious dust consenting flew,
While rivers from their courses rolled
To make it plastic for the mould.
Enough collected (but no more,
For niggard Nature hoards her store)
He kneaded it to flexible clay,
While Nick unseen threw some away.
And then the various forms He cast,
Gross organs first and finer last;
No one at once evolved, but all
By even touches grew and small
Degrees advanced, till, shade by shade,
To match all living things He'd made
Females, complete in all their parts
Except (His clay gave out) the hearts.
"No matter," Satan cried; "with speed
I'll fetch the very hearts they need" --
So flew away and soon brought back
The number needed, in a sack.
That night earth range with sounds of strife --
Ten million males each had a wife;
That night sweet Peace her pinions spread
O'er Hell -- ten million devils dead!

                                                                  G.J.

When David said: "All men are liars," Dave,
Himself a liar, fibbed like any thief. Perhaps he thought to weaken disbelief

By proof that even himself was not a slave
To Truth; though I suspect the aged knave

Had been of all her servitors the chief
Had he but known a fig's reluctant leaf

Is more than e'er she wore on land or wave.

No,

David served not Naked Truth when he
Struck that sledge-hammer blow at all his race;

Nor did he hit the nail upon the head:

For

reason shows that it could never be,
And the facts contradict him to his face.

Men are not liars all, for some are dead.

                                                        Bartle Quinker

To Rome said Nero: "If to smoke you turn
I shall not cease to fiddle while you burn."
To Nero Rome replied: "Pray do your worst,
'Tis my excuse that you were fiddling first."

                                                            Orm Pludge

Folly! although Erasmus praised thee once

In a thick volume, and all authors known,
If not thy glory yet thy power have shown,

Deign to take homage from thy son who hunts
Through all thy maze his brothers, fool and dunce,

To mend their lives and to sustain his own,
However feebly be his arrows thrown,

Howe'er each hide the flying weapons blunts.
All-Father Folly! be it mine to raise,

With lusty lung, here on his western strand
With all thine offspring thronged from every land,

Thyself inspiring me, the song of praise.
And if too weak, I'll hire, to help me bawl,
Dick Watson Gilder, gravest of us all.

                                                     Aramis Loto Frope

"Force is but might," the teacher said --

"That definition's just."

The boy said naught but through instead,
Remembering his pounded head:

"Force is not might but must!"

When Adam long ago in Cupid's awful court

(For Cupid ruled ere Adam was invented)

Sued for Eve's favor, says an ancient law report,

He stood and pleaded unhabilimented.

"You sue _in forma pauperis_, I see," Eve cried;

"Actions can't here be that way prosecuted."

So all poor Adam's motions coldly were denied:

He went away -- as he had come -- nonsuited.

                                                                  G.J.

Freedom, as every schoolboy knows,

Once shrieked as Kosciusko fell;

On every wind, indeed, that blows

I hear her yell.

She

screams whenever monarchs meet,
And parliaments as well,

To bind the chains about her feet

And toll her knell.

And

when the sovereign people cast
The votes they cannot spell,

Upon the pestilential blast

Her clamors swell.

For

all to whom the power's given
To sway or to compel,

Among themselves apportion Heaven

And give her Hell.

                                                          Blary O'Gary

The sea was calm and the sky was blue;
Merrily, merrily sailed we two.

(High barometer maketh glad.)

On the tipsy ship, with a dreadful shout,

The

tempest descended and we fell out.
(O the walking is nasty bad!)

                                                     Armit Huff Bettle

Old

Nick was summoned to the skies.
Said Peter: "Your intentions

Are

good, but you lack enterprise
Concerning new inventions.

"Now, broiling in an ancient plan

Of torment, but I hear it

Reported that the frying-pan

Sears best the wicked spirit.

"Go

get one -- fill it up with fat --
Fry sinners brown and good in't."

"I know a trick worth two o' that,"

Said Nick -- "I'll cook their food in't."

The savage dies -- they sacrifice a horse
To bear to happy hunting-grounds the corse.
Our friends expire -- we make the money fly
In hope their souls will chase it to the sky.

                                                            Jex Wopley

                                  G

Whether on the gallows high

Or where blood flows the reddest,

The

noblest place for man to die --
Is where he died the deadest.

                                                            (Old play)

Observe with care, my son, the distinction I reveal: A gentleman is gentle and a gent genteel.
Heed not the definitions your "Unabridged" presents, For dictionary makers are generally gents.

                                                                  G.J.

Habeam, geographer of wide reknown,
Native of Abu-Keber's ancient town,
In passing thence along the river Zam
To the adjacent village of Xelam,
Bewildered by the multitude of roads,
Got lost, lived long on migratory toads,
Then from exposure miserably died,
And grateful travelers bewailed their guide.

                                                        Henry Haukhorn

He saw a ghost.

It occupied -- that dismal thing! --
The path that he was following.
Before he'd time to stop and fly,
An earthquake trifled with the eye

That saw a ghost.

He fell as fall the early good;
Unmoved that awful vision stood.
The stars that danced before his ken
He wildly brushed away, and then

He saw a post.

                                                      Jared Macphester

Accounting for the uncommon behavior of ghosts, Heine mentions

There is one insuperable obstacle to a belief in ghosts. A ghost

A hunter from Kew caught a distant view

Of a peacefully meditative gnu,

And

he said: "I'll pursue, and my hands imbrue
In its blood at a closer interview."

But

that beast did ensue and the hunter it threw
O'er the top of a palm that adjacent grew;

And

he said as he flew: "It is well I withdrew
Ere, losing my temper, I wickedly slew That really meritorious gnu."

                                                           Jarn Leffer

The Gorgon was a maiden bold
Who turned to stone the Greeks of old
That looked upon her awful brow.
We dig them out of ruins now,
And swear that workmanship so bad
Proves all the ancient sculptors mad.

Hail noble fruit! -- by Homer sung,

Anacreon and Khayyam;

Thy

praise is ever on the tongue
Of better men than I am.

The

lyre in my hand has never swept,
The song I cannot offer:

My humbler service pray accept --

I'll help to kill the scoffer.

The

water-drinkers and the cranks
Who load their skins with liquor --

I'll gladly bear their belly-tanks

And tap them with my sticker.

Fill up, fill up, for wisdom cools

When e'er we let the wine rest.

Here's death to Prohibition's fools,

And every kind of vine-pest!

                                                       Jamrach Holobom

Beside a lonely grave I stood --

With brambles 'twas encumbered;

The

winds were moaning in the wood,
Unheard by him who slumbered,

A rustic standing near, I said:

"He cannot hear it blowing!"

"'Course not," said he: "the feller's dead --

He can't hear nowt [sic] that's going."

"Too true," I said; "alas, too true --

No sound his sense can quicken!"

"Well, mister, wot is that to you? --

The deadster ain't a-kickin'."

I knelt and prayed: "O Father, smile

On him, and mercy show him!"

That countryman looked on the while,

And said: "Ye didn't know him."

                                                         Pobeter Dunko

"I'm great," the Lion said -- "I reign
The monarch of the wood and plain!"
The Elephant replied: "I'm great --
No quadruped can match my weight!"
"I'm great -- no animal has half
So long a neck!" said the Giraffe.
"I'm great," the Kangaroo said -- "see
My femoral muscularity!"

The 'Possum said: "I'm great -- behold,
My tail is lithe and bald and cold!"

An Oyster fried was understood
To say: "I'm great because I'm good!"
Each reckons greatness to consist
In that in which he heads the list,
And Vierick thinks he tops his class
Because he is the greatest ass.

                                                      Arion Spurl Doke

In his great work on _Divergent Lines of Racial Evolution_, the

Secretary Wilson became interested in gunpowder through an event

                                  H

Among the ancients the idea of Hades was not synonymous with our

"O bury the hatchet, irascible Red,

For

peace is a blessing," the White Man said.
The Savage concurred, and that weapon interred,

With imposing rites, in the White Man's head.

                                                           John Lukkus

In ancient times there lived a king
Whose tax-collectors could not wring
From all his subjects gold enough
To make the royal way less rough.
For pleasure's highway, like the dames
Whose premises adjoin it, claims
Perpetual repairing. So
The tax-collectors in a row
Appeared before the throne to pray
Their master to devise some way
To swell the revenue. "So great,"
Said they, "are the demands of state
A tithe of all that we collect
Will scarcely meet them. Pray reflect:
How, if one-tenth we must resign,
Can we exist on t'other nine?"
The monarch asked them in reply:
"Has it occurred to you to try
The advantage of economy?"
"It has," the spokesman said: "we sold
All of our gray garrotes of gold;
With plated-ware we now compress
The necks of those whom we assess.
Plain iron forceps we employ
To mitigate the miser's joy
Who hoards, with greed that never tires,
That which your Majesty requires."
Deep lines of thought were seen to plow
Their way across the royal brow.
"Your state is desperate, no question;
Pray favor me with a suggestion."
"O King of Men," the spokesman said,
"If you'll impose upon each head
A tax, the augmented revenue
We'll cheerfully divide with you."
As flashes of the sun illume
The parted storm-cloud's sullen gloom,
The king smiled grimly. "I decree
That it be so -- and, not to be
In generosity outdone,
Declare you, each and every one,
Exempted from the operation
Of this new law of capitation.
But lest the people censure me
Because they're bound and you are free,
'Twere well some clever scheme were laid
By you this poll-tax to evade.
I'll leave you now while you confer
With my most trusted minister."
The monarch from the throne-room walked
And straightway in among them stalked
A silent man, with brow concealed,
Bare-armed -- his gleaming axe revealed!

                                                                  G.J.

Heat, says Professor Tyndall, is a mode

Of motion, but I know now how he's proving

His

point; but this I know -- hot words bestowed
With skill will set the human fist a-moving,

And where it stops the stars burn free and wild.
_Crede expertum_ -- I have seen them, child.

                                                          Gorton Swope

"The Hebrews are heathens!" says Howison. He's

A Christian philosopher. I'm

A scurril agnostical chap, if you please,

Addicted too much to the crime
Of religious discussion in my rhyme.

Though Hebrew and Howison cannot agree

On a _modus vivendi_ -- not they! --

Yet

Heaven has had the designing of me,
And I haven't been reared in a way To joy in the thick of the fray.

For

this of my creed is the soul and the gist,
And the truth of it I aver:

Who

differs from me in his faith is an 'ist,
And 'ite, an 'ie, or an 'er -- And I'm down upon him or her!

Let

Howison urge with perfunctory chin
Toleration -- that's all very well,

But

a roast is "nuts" to his nostril thin,
And he's running -- I know by the smell -- A secret and personal Hell!

                                                           Bissell Gip

"Now, why is yer wife called a helpmate, Pat?"

Says the priest. "Since the time 'o yer wooin'

She's niver [sic] assisted in what ye were at --

For it's naught ye are ever doin'."

"That's true of yer Riverence [sic]," Patrick replies,

And no sign of contrition envices;

"But, bedad, it's a fact which the word implies,

For she helps to mate the expinses [sic]!"

                                                         Marley Wottel

Of Roman history, great Niebuhr's shown
'Tis nine-tenths lying. Faith, I wish 'twere known, Ere we accept great Niebuhr as a guide,
Wherein he blundered and how much he lied.

                                                           Salder Bupp

So skilled the parson was in homiletics
That all his normal purges and emetics
To medicine the spirit were compounded
With a most just discrimination founded
Upon a rigorous examination
Of tongue and pulse and heart and respiration.
Then, having diagnosed each one's condition,
His scriptural specifics this physician
Administered -- his pills so efficacious
And pukes of disposition so vivacious
That souls afflicted with ten kinds of Adam
Were convalescent ere they knew they had 'em.
But Slander's tongue -- itself all coated -- uttered Her bilious mind and scandalously muttered
That in the case of patients having money
The pills were sugar and the pukes were honey.

                                          _Biography of Bishop Potter_

Delicious Hope! when naught to man it left --
Of fortune destitute, of friends bereft;
When even his dog deserts him, and his goat
With tranquil disaffection chews his coat
While yet it hangs upon his back; then thou,
The star far-flaming on thine angel brow,
Descendest, radiant, from the skies to hint
The promise of a clerkship in the Mint.

                                                       Fogarty Weffing

Twaddle had a hovel,
Twiddle had a palace;
Twaddle said: "I'll grovel
Or he'll think I bear him malice" --

A sentiment as novel

As a castor on a chalice.
Down upon the middle
Of his legs fell Twaddle

And

astonished Mr. Twiddle,
Who began to lift his noddle.

Feed upon the fiddle-
Faddle flummery, unswaddle

A new-born self-sufficiency and think himself a [mockery.]

                                                                  G.J.

Lo! the poor humorist, whose tortured mind
See jokes in crowds, though still to gloom inclined -- Whose simple appetite, untaught to stray,
His brains, renewed by night, consumes by day.
He thinks, admitted to an equal sty,
A graceful hog would bear his company.

                                                        Alexander Poke

Some heaps of trash upon a vacant lot
Where long the village rubbish had been shot
Displayed a sign among the stuff and stumps --
"Hypochondriasis." It meant The Dumps.

                                                        Bogul S. Purvy

                                  I

Fair Venus, speared by Diomed,
Restrained the raging chief and said:
"Behold, rash mortal, whom you've bled --
Your soul's stained white with ichorshed!"

                                                             Mary Doke

Dumble was an ignoramus,
Mumble was for learning famous.
Mumble said one day to Dumble:
"Ignorance should be more humble.
Not a spark have you of knowledge
That was got in any college."
Dumble said to Mumble: "Truly
You're self-satisfied unduly.
Of things in college I'm denied
A knowledge -- you of all beside."

                                                               Borelli

There was once a man in Ispahan

Ever and ever so long ago,

And

he had a head, the phrenologists said,
That fitted him for a show.

For

his modesty's bump was so large a lump
(Nature, they said, had taken a freak)

That its summit stood far above the wood

Of his hair, like a mountain peak.

So modest a man in all Ispahan,

Over and over again they swore --

So humble and meek, you would vainly seek;

None ever was found before.

Meantime the hump of that awful bump

Into the heavens contrived to get

To so great a height that they called the wight

The man with the minaret.

There wasn't a man in all Ispahan

Prouder, or louder in praise of his chump:

With a tireless tongue and a brazen lung

He bragged of that beautiful bump

Till the Shah in a rage sent a trusty page

Bearing a sack and a bow-string too,

And

that gentle child explained as he smiled:
"A little present for you."

The

saddest man in all Ispahan,
Sniffed at the gift, yet accepted the same.

"If

I'd lived," said he, "my humility
Had given me deathless fame!"

                                                          Sukker Uffro

A toy which people cry for,
And on their knees apply for,
Dispute, contend and lie for,

And if allowed
Would be right proud

Eternally to die for.

                                                                  G.J.

"Lo! by the laying on of hands,"

Say parson, priest and dervise,

"We

consecrate your cash and lands
To ecclesiastical service.

No doubt you'll swear till all is blue
At such an imposition. Do."

                                                          Pollo Doncas

His tale he told with a solemn face

And

a tender, melancholy grace.
Improbable 'twas, no doubt, When you came to think it out, But the fascinated crowd Their deep surprise avowed

And all with a single voice averred
'Twas the most amazing thing they'd heard --

All

save one who spake never a word,
But sat as mum As if deaf and dumb,

Serene, indifferent and unstirred.

Then all the others turned to him
And scrutinized him limb from limb --
Scanned him alive;
But he seemed to thrive
And tranquiler grow each minute,
As if there were nothing in it.

"What! what!" cried one, "are you not amazed
At what our friend has told?" He raised
Soberly then his eyes and gazed

In a natural way
And proceeded to say,

As he crossed his feet on the mantel-shelf:
"O no -- not at all; I'm a liar myself."

But as records of courts of justice are admissible, it can easily

A Roman slave appeared one day
Before the Augur. "Tell me, pray,
If --" here the Augur, smiling, made
A checking gesture and displayed
His open palm, which plainly itched,
For visibly its surface twitched.
A _denarius_ (the Latin nickel)
Successfully allayed the tickle,
And then the slave proceeded: "Please
Inform me whether Fate decrees
Success or failure in what I
To-night (if it be dark) shall try.
Its nature? Never mind -- I think
'Tis writ on this" -- and with a wink
Which darkened half the earth, he drew
Another denarius to view,
Its shining face attentive scanned,
Then slipped it into the good man's hand,
Who with great gravity said: "Wait
While I retire to question Fate."
That holy person then withdrew
His scared clay and, passing through
The temple's rearward gate, cried "Shoo!"
Waving his robe of office. Straight
Each sacred peacock and its mate
(Maintained for Juno's favor) fled
With clamor from the trees o'erhead,
Where they were perching for the night.
The temple's roof received their flight,
For thither they would always go,
When danger threatened them below.
Back to the slave the Augur went:
"My son, forecasting the event
By flight of birds, I must confess
The auspices deny success."
That slave retired, a sadder man,
Abandoning his secret plan --
Which was (as well the craft seer
Had from the first divined) to clear
The wall and fraudulently seize
On Juno's poultry in the trees.

                                                                  G.J.

Victor Hugo relates that in the Channel Islands Satan himself --

and

satisfactory exposition on the matter.
"Your prompt decision to attack," said Genera Grant on a certain

"Yes, sir," answered the victorious subordinate, "it is a great

"Do you mean to say that's what you did this time?" "Yes, General; but for Heaven's sake don't reprimand me: I

"You tiresome man!" cried Indolentio's wife,
"You've grown indifferent to all in life."
"Indifferent?" he drawled with a slow smile;
"I would be, dear, but it is not worth while."

                                                     Apuleius M. Gokul

Two theologues once, as they wended their way
To chapel, engaged in colloquial fray --
An earnest logomachy, bitter as gall,
Concerning poor Adam and what made him fall.
"'Twas Predestination," cried one -- "for the Lord Decreed he should fall of his own accord."
"Not so -- 'twas Free will," the other maintained, "Which led him to choose what the Lord had ordained." So fierce and so fiery grew the debate
That nothing but bloodshed their dudgeon could sate; So off flew their cassocks and caps to the ground
And, moved by the spirit, their hands went round.
Ere either had proved his theology right
By winning, or even beginning, the fight,
A gray old professor of Latin came by,
A staff in his hand and a scowl in his eye,
And learning the cause of their quarrel (for still As they clumsily sparred they disputed with skill
Of foreordination freedom of will)
Cried: "Sirrahs! this reasonless warfare compose: Atwixt ye's no difference worthy of blows.
The sects ye belong to -- I'm ready to swear
Ye wrongly interpret the names that they bear.
_You_ -- Infralapsarian son of a clown! --
Should only contend that Adam slipped down;
While _you_ -- you Supralapsarian pup! --
Should nothing aver but that Adam slipped up.
It's all the same whether up or down
You slip on a peel of banana brown.
Even Adam analyzed not his blunder,
But thought he had slipped on a peal of thunder!

                                                                  G.J.

"All men are ingrates," sneered the cynic. "Nay,"

The good philanthropist replied;

"I did great service to a man one day
Who never since has cursed me to repay,

Nor vilified."

"Ho!" cried the cynic, "lead me to him straight --

With veneration I am overcome,

And fain would have his blessing." "Sad your fate -- He cannot bless you, for AI grieve to state

This man is dumb."

                                                            Ariel Selp

"In the sky my soul is found,
And my body in the ground.
By and by my body'll rise
To my spirit in the skies,

Soaring

up to Heaven's gate.
1878."

"Sacred to the memory of Jeremiah Tree. Cut down May 9th, 1862,

"Affliction sore long time she boar,
Phisicians was in vain,
Till Deth released the dear deceased
And left her a remain.

Gone to join Ananias in the regions of bliss."
"The clay that rests beneath this stone
As Silas Wood was widely known.
Now, lying here, I ask what good
It was to let me be S. Wood.
O Man, let not ambition trouble you,
Is the advice of Silas W."
"Richard Haymon, of Heaven. Fell to Earth Jan. 20, 1807, and had

"See," cries the chorus of admiring preachers,
"How Providence provides for all His creatures!"
"His care," the gnat said, "even the insects follows: For us He has provided wrens and swallows."

                                                         Sempen Railey

INSURANCE AGENT: My dear sir, that is a fine house -- pray let me
insure it.

HOUSE OWNER: With pleasure. Please make the annual premium so

low that by the time when, according to the tables of your actuary, it will probably be destroyed by fire I will have paid you considerably less than the face of the policy.

INSURANCE AGENT: O dear, no -- we could not afford to do that.

We must fix the premium so that you will have paid more.

HOUSE OWNER: How, then, can _I_ afford _that_?
INSURANCE AGENT: Why, your house may burn down at any time.

There was Smith's house, for example, which --

HOUSE OWNER: Spare me -- there were Brown's house, on the

contrary, and Jones's house, and Robinson's house, which --

INSURANCE AGENT: Spare _me_!
HOUSE OWNER: Let us understand each other. You want me to pay

you money on the supposition that something will occur previously to the time set by yourself for its occurrence. In other words, you expect me to bet that my house will not last so long as you say that it will probably last.

INSURANCE AGENT: But if your house burns without insurance it

will be a total loss.

HOUSE OWNER: Beg your pardon -- by your own actuary's tables I

shall probably have saved, when it burns, all the premiums I would otherwise have paid to you -- amounting to more than the face of the policy they would have bought. But suppose it to burn, uninsured, before the time upon which your figures are based. If I could not afford that, how could you if it were insured?

INSURANCE AGENT: O, we should make ourselves whole from our

luckier ventures with other clients. Virtually, they pay your loss.

HOUSE OWNER: And virtually, then, don't I help to pay their

losses? Are not their houses as likely as mine to burn before they have paid you as much as you must pay them? The case stands this way: you expect to take more money from your clients than you pay to them, do you not?

INSURANCE AGENT: Certainly; if we did not --
HOUSE OWNER: I would not trust you with my money. Very well

then. If it is _certain_, with reference to the whole body of your clients, that they lose money on you it is _probable_, with reference to any one of them, that _he_ will. It is these individual probabilities that make the aggregate certainty.

INSURANCE AGENT: I will not deny it -- but look at the figures in

this pamph --

HOUSE OWNER: Heaven forbid!
INSURANCE AGENT: You spoke of saving the premiums which you would

otherwise pay to me. Will you not be more likely to squander them? We offer you an incentive to thrift.

HOUSE OWNER: The willingness of A to take care of B's money is

not peculiar to insurance, but as a charitable institution you command esteem. Deign to accept its expression from a Deserving Object.

Two Seidlitz powders, one in blue
And one in white, together drew
And having each a pleasant sense
Of t'other powder's excellence,
Forsook their jackets for the snug
Enjoyment of a common mug.
So close their intimacy grew
One paper would have held the two.
To confidences straight they fell,
Less anxious each to hear than tell;
Then each remorsefully confessed
To all the virtues he possessed,
Acknowledging he had them in
So high degree it was a sin.
The more they said, the more they felt
Their spirits with emotion melt,
Till tears of sentiment expressed
Their feelings. Then they effervesced!
So Nature executes her feats
Of wrath on friends and sympathetes
The good old rule who don't apply,
That you are you and I am I.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are

created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, and the right to make that of another miserable by thrusting upon him an incalculable quantity of acquaintances; liberty, particularly the liberty to introduce persons to one another without first ascertaining if they are not already acquainted as enemies; and the pursuit of another's happiness with a running pack of strangers."

                                  J

The

widow-queen of Portugal
Had an audacious jester

Who

entered the confessional
Disguised, and there confessed her.

"Father," she said, "thine ear bend down --

My sins are more than scarlet:

I love my fool -- blaspheming clown,

And common, base-born varlet."

"Daughter," the mimic priest replied,

"That sin, indeed, is awful:

The

church's pardon is denied
To love that is unlawful.

"But since thy stubborn heart will be

For him forever pleading,

Thou'dst better make him, by decree,

A man of birth and breeding."

She

made the fool a duke, in hope
With Heaven's taboo to palter;

Then told a priest, who told the Pope,

Who damned her from the altar!

                                                            Barel Dort

                                  K

He willed away his whole estate,

And then in death he fell asleep,

Murmuring: "Well, at any rate,

My name unblemished I shall keep."

But when upon the tomb 'twas wrought
Whose was it? -- for the dead keep naught.

                                                     Durang Gophel Arn

A king, in times long, long gone by,

Said to his lazy jester:

"If I were you and you were I
My moments merrily would fly --

Nor care nor grief to pester."

"The reason, Sire, that you would thrive,"

The fool said -- "if you'll hear it --

Is that of all the fools alive

Who

own you for their sovereign, I've
The most forgiving spirit."

                                                             Oogum Bem

a crowd of wretched souls

That stay his cure: their malady convinces
The great essay of art; but at his touch,
Such sanctity hath Heaven given his hand,
They presently amend,

                            'tis spoken

To the succeeding royalty he leaves
The healing benediction.
But the gift somewhere dropped out of the line of succession: the

Ye Kynge his evill in me laye,
Wh. he of Scottlande charmed awaye.
He layde his hand on mine and sayd:
"Be gone!" Ye ill no longer stayd.
But O ye wofull plyght in wh.
I'm now y-pight: I have ye itche!
The superstition that maladies can be cured by royal taction is

                        strangely visited people,

All swoln and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye,
The mere despair of surgery,

Once a warrior gentle of birth,
Then a person of civic worth,
Now a fellow to move our mirth.
Warrior, person, and fellow -- no more:
We must knight our dogs to get any lower.
Brave Knights Kennelers then shall be,
Noble Knights of the Golden Flea,
Knights of the Order of St. Steboy,
Knights of St. Gorge and Sir Knights Jawy.
God speed the day when this knighting fad
Shall go to the dogs and the dogs go mad.

                                  L

A life on the ocean wave,

A home on the rolling deep,

For

the spark the nature gave
I have there the right to keep.

They give me the cat-o'-nine

Whenever I go ashore.

Then ho! for the flashing brine --

I'm a natural commodore!

                                                                 Dodle

Ah,

punster, would my lot were cast,
Where the cobbler is unknown,

So that I might forget his last

And hear your own.

                                                          Gargo Repsky

Once Law was sitting on the bench,

And Mercy knelt a-weeping.

"Clear out!" he cried, "disordered wench!

Nor come before me creeping.

Upon your knees if you appear,
'Tis plain your have no standing here."
Then Justice came. His Honor cried:

"_Your_ status? -- devil seize you!"

"_Amica curiae,_" she replied --

"Friend of the court, so please you."

"Begone!" he shouted -- "there's the door --
I never saw your face before!"

                                                                  G.J.

Hail, holy Lead! -- of human feuds the great

And universal arbiter; endowed
With penetration to pierce any cloud

Fogging the field of controversial hate,

And

with a sift, inevitable, straight,
Searching precision find the unavowed But vital point. Thy judgment, when allowed

By the chirurgeon, settles the debate.
O useful metal! -- were it not for thee

We'd grapple one another's ears alway:

But

when we hear thee buzzing like a bee
We, like old Muhlenberg, "care not to stay."

And when the quick have run away like pellets
Jack Satan smelts the dead to make new bullets.

The electric light invades the dunnest deep of Hades. Cries Pluto, 'twixt his snores: "O tempora! O mores!"
It should be explained that Mrs. Silcox does not undertake to

God said: "Let Spirit perish into Form,"
And lexicographers arose, a swarm! Thought fled and left her clothing, which they took, And catalogued each garment in a book. Now, from her leafy covert when she cries: "Give me my clothes and I'll return," they rise And scan the list, and say without compassion: "Excuse us -- they are mostly out of fashion." Sigismund Smith

The rising People, hot and out of breath,
Roared around the palace: "Liberty or death!"
"If death will do," the King said, "let me reign;
You'll have, I'm sure, no reason to complain."

                                                      Martha Braymance

"Life's not worth living, and that's the truth,"
Carelessly caroled the golden youth.
In manhood still he maintained that view
And held it more strongly the older he grew.
When kicked by a jackass at eighty-three,
"Go fetch me a surgeon at once!" cried he.

                                                             Han Soper

'Twas a pair of boots that the lady bought,

And the salesman laced them tight
To a very remarkable height --

Higher, indeed, than I think he ought --

Higher than _can_ be right.

For

the Bible declares -- but never mind:
It is hardly fit

To censure freely and fault to find
With others for sins that I'm not inclined

Myself to commit.

Each has his weakness, and though my own

Is freedom from every sin,
It still were unfair to pitch in,

Discharging the first censorious stone.
Besides, the truth compels me to say,
The boots in question were _made_ that way.
As he drew the lace she made a grimace,

And blushingly said to him:

"This boot, I'm sure, is too high to endure,
It hurts my -- hurts my -- limb."
The salesman smiled in a manner mild,
Like an artless, undesigning child;
Then, checking himself, to his face he gave
A look as sorrowful as the grave,

Though he didn't care two figs

For her paints and throes,
As he stroked her toes,
Remarking with speech and manner just
Befitting his calling: "Madam, I trust

That it doesn't hurt your twigs."

                                                      B. Percival Dike

_Major Premise_: Sixty men can do a piece of work sixty times as

_Minor Premise_: One man can dig a posthole in sixty seconds;

_Conclusion_: Sixty men can dig a posthole in one second. This may be called the syllogism arithmetical, in which, by

'Tis said by divers of the scholar-men
That poor Salmasius died of Milton's pen.
Alas! we cannot know if this is true,
For reading Milton's wit we perish too.

The King of Manchuria had a magic looking-glass, whereon whoso

the

Universe!"
Please with the speech, the king commanded that the mirror be

Miss Sallie Ann Splurge, of her own accord,
Wedded a wandering English lord --
Wedded and took him to dwell with her "paw,"
A parent who throve by the practice of Draw.
Lord Cadde I don't hesitate to declare
Unworthy the father-in-legal care
Of that elderly sport, notwithstanding the truth
That Cadde had renounced all the follies of youth; For, sad to relate, he'd arrived at the stage
Of existence that's marked by the vices of age.
Among them, cupidity caused him to urge
Repeated demands on the pocket of Splurge,
Till, wrecked in his fortune, that gentleman saw
Inadequate aid in the practice of Draw,
And took, as a means of augmenting his pelf,
To the business of being a lord himself.
His neat-fitting garments he wilfully shed
And sacked himself strangely in checks instead;
Denuded his chin, but retained at each ear
A whisker that looked like a blasted career.
He painted his neck an incarnadine hue
Each morning and varnished it all that he knew.
The moony monocular set in his eye
Appeared to be scanning the Sweet Bye-and-Bye.
His head was enroofed with a billycock hat,
And his low-necked shoes were aduncous and flat.
In speech he eschewed his American ways,
Denying his nose to the use of his A's
And dulling their edge till the delicate sense
Of a babe at their temper could take no offence.
His H's -- 'twas most inexpressibly sweet,
The patter they made as they fell at his feet!
Re-outfitted thus, Mr. Splurge without fear
Began as Lord Splurge his recouping career.
Alas, the Divinity shaping his end
Entertained other views and decided to send
His lordship in horror, despair and dismay
From the land of the nobleman's natural prey.
For, smit with his Old World ways, Lady Cadde
Fell -- suffering Caesar! -- in love with her dad!

                                                                  G.J.

Here Huntington's ashes long have lain
Whose loss is our eternal gain,
For while he exercised all his powers
Whatever he gained, the loss was ours.

I sit astride Parnassus with my lyre,
And pick with care the disobedient wire.
That stupid shepherd lolling on his crook
With deaf attention scarcely deigns to look.
I bide my time, and it shall come at length,
When, with a Titan's energy and strength,
I'll grab a fistful of the strings, and O,
The word shall suffer when I let them go!

                                                    Farquharson Harris

                                  M

So plain the advantages of machination
It constitutes a moral obligation,
And honest wolves who think upon't with loathing
Feel bound to don the sheep's deceptive clothing.
So prospers still the diplomatic art,
And Satan bows, with hand upon his heart.

                                                                R.S.K.

When I was young the world was fair

And amiable and sunny.

A brightness was in all the air,

In all the waters, honey.
The jokes were fine and funny,

The

statesmen honest in their views,
And in their lives, as well,

And

when you heard a bit of news
'Twas true enough to tell.

Men were not ranting, shouting, reeking,
Nor women "generally speaking."

The

Summer then was long indeed:
It lasted one whole season!

The

sparkling Winter gave no heed
When ordered by Unreason To bring the early peas on.

Now, where the dickens is the sense

In calling that a year

Which does no more than just commence

Before the end is near?

When I was young the year extended
From month to month until it ended.
I know not why the world has changed

To something dark and dreary,

And

everything is now arranged
To make a fellow weary. The Weather Man -- I fear he

Has

much to do with it, for, sure,
The air is not the same:

It chokes you when it is impure,

When pure it makes you lame.

With windows closed you are asthmatic;
Open, neuralgic or sciatic.
Well, I suppose this new regime

Of dun degeneration

Seems eviler than it would seem

To a better observation,
And has for compensation

Some blessings in a deep disguise

Which mortal sight has failed

To pierce, although to angels' eyes

They're visible unveiled.

If Age is such a boon, good land!
He's costumed by a master hand!

                                                        Venable Strigg

The two definitions immediately foregoing are condensed from the

A lovelorn maiden she sat and sang --

This quaint, sweet song sang she;

"It's O for a youth with a football bang

And a muscle fair to see!
The Captain he
Of a team to be!

On the gridiron he shall shine,
A monarch by right divine,

And never to roast on it -- me!"

                                                         Opoline Jones

He swore that all other religions were gammon,
And wore out his knees in the worship of Mammon.

                                                            Jared Oopf

When the world was young and Man was new,

And everything was pleasant,

Distinctions Nature never drew

'Mongst kings and priest and peasant.
We're not that way at present,

Save here in this Republic, where

We have that old regime,

For

all are kings, however bare
Their backs, howe'er extreme

Their hunger. And, indeed, each has a voice
To accept the tyrant of his party's choice.
A citizen who would not vote,

And, therefore, was detested,

Was

one day with a tarry coat
(With feathers backed and breasted) By patriots invested.

"It

is your duty," cried the crowd,
"Your ballot true to cast

For

the man o' your choice." He humbly bowed,
And explained his wicked past:

"That's what I very gladly would have done,
Dear patriots, but he has never run."

                                                         Apperton Duke

Material things I know, or fell, or see;
All else is immaterial to me.

                                                      Jamrach Holobom

It is related of Bismark, who had been awarded a medal for

M is for Moses,

Who slew the Egyptian.

As sweet as a rose is
The meekness of Moses.
No monument shows his

Post-mortem inscription,

But

M is for Moses
Who slew the Egyptian.

                                           _The Biographical Alphabet_

There was a youth (you've heard before,

This woeful tale, may be),

Who

bought a meerschaum pipe and swore
That color it would he!

He shut himself from the world away,

Nor any soul he saw.

He smoke by night, he smoked by day,

As hard as he could draw.

His

dog died moaning in the wrath
Of winds that blew aloof;

The

weeds were in the gravel path,
The owl was on the roof.

"He's gone afar, he'll come no more,"

The neighbors sadly say.

And

so they batter in the door
To take his goods away.

Dead, pipe in mouth, the youngster lay,

Nut-brown in face and limb.

"That pipe's a lovely white," they say,

"But it has colored him!"

The

moral there's small need to sing --
'Tis plain as day to you:

Don't play your game on any thing

That is a gamester too.

                                                      Martin Bulstrode

By misdemeanors he essays to climb
Into the aristocracy of crime.
O, woe was him! -- with manner chill and grand
"Captains of industry" refused his hand,
"Kings of finance" denied him recognition
And "railway magnates" jeered his low condition.
He robbed a bank to make himself respected.
They still rebuffed him, for he was detected.

                                                          S.V. Hanipur

The man who writes in Saxon
Is the man to use an ax on

                                                              Judibras

The bones of Agammemnon are a show,
And ruined is his royal monument,

It is sayd there be a raunge of mountaynes in the Easte, on

                                                 _Gooke's Meditations_

By means of the Mummy, mankind, it is said,
Attests to the gods its respect for the dead.
We plunder his tomb, be he sinner or saint,
Distil him for physic and grind him for paint,
Exhibit for money his poor, shrunken frame,
And with levity flock to the scene of the shame.
O, tell me, ye gods, for the use of my rhyme:
For respecting the dead what's the limit of time?

                                                          Scopas Brune

                                  N

Juno drank a cup of nectar,
But the draught did not affect her.
Juno drank a cup of rye --
Then she bad herself good-bye.

                                                                  J.G.

There's a man with a Nose,
And wherever he goes

The

people run from him and shout:
"No cotton have we For our ears if so be

He blow that interminous snout!"

So the lawyers applied
For injunction. "Denied,"

Said the Judge: "the defendant prefixion,

Whate'er it portend,
Appears to transcend

The bounds of this court's jurisdiction."

                                                         Arpad Singiny

                                  O

The popular type and exponent of obstinacy is the mule, a most

the

advance of an army against its enemy.
"Were the enemy's tactics offensive?" the king asked. "I should

"Old books? The devil take them!" Goby said.
"Fresh every day must be my books and bread."
Nature herself approves the Goby rule
And gives us every moment a fresh fool.

                                                           Harley Shum

Disraeli once described the manner of Bishop Wilberforce as

His name the smirking tourist scrawls
Upon Minerva's temple walls,
Where thundered once Olympian Zeus,
And marks his appetite's abuse.

                                                           Averil Joop

The actor apes a man -- at least in shape;
The opera performer apes and ape.

How lonely he who thinks to vex
With bandinage the Solemn Sex!
Of levity, Mere Man, beware;
None but the Grave deserve the Unfair.

                                                     Percy P. Orminder

The King of Ghargaroo, who had been abroad to study the science of

"What shall we do now?" the King asked. "Liberal institutions

"Splendor of the universe," replied the Prime Minister, "it is

So the Minister had the bodies of his Majesty's Opposition

A pessimist applied to God for relief.
"Ah, you wish me to restore your hope and cheerfulness," said God. "No," replied the petitioner, "I wish you to create something that

"The world is all created," said God, "but you have overlooked

A spelling reformer indicted

For

fudge was before the court cicted.
The judge said: "Enough -- His candle we'll snough,

And his sepulchre shall not be whicted."

I climbed to the top of a mountain one day

To see the sun setting in glory,

And

I thought, as I looked at his vanishing ray,
Of a perfectly splendid story.

'Twas about an old man and the ass he bestrode

Till the strength of the beast was o'ertested;

Then the man would carry him miles on the road

Till Neddy was pretty well rested.

The

moon rising solemnly over the crest
Of the hills to the east of my station

Displayed her broad disk to the darkening west

Like a visible new creation.

And

I thought of a joke (and I laughed till I cried) Of an idle young woman who tarried

About a church-door for a look at the bride,

Although 'twas herself that was married.

To poets all Nature is pregnant with grand

Ideas -- with thought and emotion.

I pity the dunces who don't understand

The speech of earth, heaven and ocean.

                                                       Stromboli Smith

"I had an ovation!" the actor man said,

But I thought it uncommonly queer,

That people and critics by him had been led

By the ear.

The

Latin lexicon makes his absurd
Assertion as plain as a peg;

In "ovum" we find the true root of the word.

It means egg.

                                                          Dudley Spink

Hail, Gastronome, Apostle of Excess,
Well skilled to overeat without distress!
Thy great invention, the unfatal feast,
Shows Man's superiority to Beast.

                                                             John Boop

                                  P

Formerly, painting and sculpture were combined in the same work:

In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the

O, what's the loud uproar assailing

Mine ears without cease?

'Tis the voice of the hopeful, all-hailing

The horrors of peace.

Ah,

Peace Universal; they woo it --
Would marry it, too.

If only they knew how to do it

'Twere easy to do.

They're working by night and by day

On their problem, like moles.

Have mercy, O Heaven, I pray,

On their meddlesome souls!

                                                               Ro Amil

The editor of an English magazine having received a letter

"Persevere, persevere!" cry the homilists all,
Themselves, day and night, persevering to bawl.
"Remember the fable of tortoise and hare --
The one at the goal while the other is -- where?"
Why, back there in Dreamland, renewing his lease
Of life, all his muscles preserving the peace,
The goal and the rival forgotten alike,
And the long fatigue of the needless hike.
His spirit a-squat in the grass and the dew
Of the dogless Land beyond the Stew,
He sleeps, like a saint in a holy place,
A winner of all that is good in a race.

                                                          Sukker Uffro

"There is no art," says Shakespeare, foolish man,

"To read the mind's construction in the face."

The

physiognomists his portrait scan,
And say: "How little wisdom here we trace!

He knew his face disclosed his mind and heart,
So, in his own defence, denied our art."

                                                         Lavatar Shunk

"Behold great Daubert's picture here on view --
Taken from Life." If that description's true,
Grant, heavenly Powers, that I be taken, too.

                                                             Jali Hane

Cold pie was highly esteemed by the remains.

                                                       Rev. Dr. Mucker
                         (in a funeral sermon over a British nobleman)

Cold pie is a detestable
American comestible.
That's why I'm done -- or undone --
So far from that dear London.

(from the headstone of a British nobleman in Kalamazoo)

The pig is taught by sermons and epistles
To think the God of Swine has snout and bristles.

                                                              Judibras

His light estate, if neither he did make it
Nor yet its former guardian forsake it,
Is portable improperly, I take it.

                                                        Worgum Slupsky

Precipitate in all, this sinner
Took action first, and then his dinner.

                                                              Judibras

Precipitate in all, this sinner
Took action first, and then his dinner.

                                                              Judibras

An ancient philosopher, expounding his conviction that life is no

It is longer.

He lived in a period prehistoric,
When all was absurd and phantasmagoric.
Born later, when Clio, celestial recorded,
Set down great events in succession and order,
He surely had seen nothing droll or fortuitous
In anything here but the lies that she threw at us.

                                                         Orpheus Bowen

and

place.
In Boorioboola-Gha a man is presentable on occasions of ceremony

The

Headliner, holding the copy in hand,
Read with a solemn face:

"The music was very uncommonly grand --

The best that was every provided,
For our townsman Brown presided
At the organ with skill and grace."

The

Headliner discontinued to read,
And, spread the paper down

On the desk, he dashed in at the top of the screed:

"Great playing by President Brown."

                                                         Orpheus Bowen

If that's an honor surely 'tis a greater
To have been a simple and undamned spectator.
Behold in me a man of mark and note
Whom no elector e'er denied a vote! --
An undiscredited, unhooted gent
Who might, for all we know, be President
By acclimation. Cheer, ye varlets, cheer --
I'm passing with a wide and open ear!

                                                        Jonathan Fomry

"Stone walls do not a prison make,"

For

purposes of humor it is popularly called a trunk.
Asked how he knew that an elephant was going on a journey, the

Blow, blow, ye spicy breezes --

O'er Ceylon blow your breath,

Where every prospect pleases,

Save only that of death.

                                                         Bishop Sheber

                                  Q

He extracted from his quiver,

Did the controversial Roman,

An argument well fitted
To the question as submitted,
Then addressed it to the liver,

Of the unpersuaded foeman.

                                                        Oglum P. Boomp

When ignorance from out of our lives can banish
Philology, 'tis folly to know Spanish.

                                                            Juan Smith

Intent on making his quotation truer,
He sought the page infallible of Brewer,
Then made a solemn vow that we would be
Condemned eternally. Ah, me, ah, me!

                                                          Stumpo Gaker

                                  R

He held at court a rank so high
That other noblemen asked why.
"Because," 'twas answered, "others lack
His skill to scratch the royal back."

                                                          Aramis Jukes

"Now lay your bet with mine, nor let

These gamblers take your cash."

"Nay, this child makes no bet." "Great snakes!

How can you be so rash?"

                                                        Bootle P. Gish

This is a truth, as old as the hills,

That life and experience teach:

The

poor man suffers that keenest of ills,
An impediment of his reach.

                                                                  G.J.

We know by one's reading
His learning and breeding;
By what draws his laughter
We know his Hereafter.
Read nothing, laugh never --
The Sphinx was less clever!

                                                          Jupiter Muke

Fresh from the farm or factory or street,

His

marching, in pursuit or in retreat,
Were an impressive martial spectacle

Except for two impediments -- his feet.

                                                      Thompson Johnson

We must awake Man's spirit from his sin,

And take some special measure for redeeming it;

Though hard indeed the task to get it in

Among the angels any way but teaming it,
Or purify it otherwise than steaming it.

I'm awkward at Redemption -- a beginner:
My method is to crucify the sinner.

                                                           Golgo Brone

Among the Anglo-Saxon a subject conceiving himself wronged by the

The Sultan said: "There's evidence abundant
To prove this unbelieving dog redundant." To whom the Grand Vizier, with mien impressive, Replied: "His head, at least, appears excessive." Habeeb Suleiman

Mr. Debs is a redundant citizen.

                                                    Theodore Roosevelt

"What is your religion my son?" inquired the Archbishop of Rheims. "Pardon, monseigneur," replied Rochebriant; "I am ashamed of it." "Then why do you not become an atheist?"
"Impossible! I should be ashamed of atheism."
"In that case, monsieur, you should join the Protestants."

I touched the harp in every key,

But found no heeding ear;

And

then Ithuriel touched me
With a revealing spear.

Not

all my genius, great as 'tis,
Could urge me out of night.

I felt the faint appulse of his,

And leapt into the light!

                                                        W.J. Candleton

Desirous to avoid the pains of Hell,
You will repent and join the Church, Parnell?
How needless! -- Nick will keep you off the coals
And add you to the woes of other souls.

                                                         Jomater Abemy

"More dear than all my bosom knows, O thou
Whose 'lips are sealed' and will not disavow!"
So sang the blithe reporter-man as grew
Beneath his hand the leg-long "interview."

                                                          Barson Maith

'Twas rumored Leonard Wood had signed

A true renunciation

Of title, rank and every kind

Of military station --
Each honorable station.

By his example fired -- inclined

To noble emulation,

The

country humbly was resigned
To Leonard's resignation -- His Christian resignation.

                                                       Politian Greame

Altgeld upon his incandescend bed
Lay, an attendant demon at his head.
"O cruel cook, pray grant me some relief --
Some respite from the roast, however brief."
"Remember how on earth I pardoned all
Your friends in Illinois when held in thrall."
"Unhappy soul! for that alone you squirm
O'er fire unquenched, a never-dying worm.
"Yet, for I pity your uneasy state,
Your doom I'll mollify and pains abate.
"Naught, for a season, shall your comfort mar,
Not even the memory of who you are."
Throughout eternal space dread silence fell;
Heaven trembled as Compassion entered Hell.
"As long, sweet demon, let my respite be
As, governing down here, I'd respite thee."
"As long, poor soul, as any of the pack
You thrust from jail consumed in getting back."
A genial chill affected Altgeld's hide
While they were turning him on t'other side.

                                                       Joel Spate Woop

The Knights of Dominion were so resplendent in their velvet-

and-gold that their masters would hardly have known them.

                                           "Chronicles of the Classes"

Alas, things ain't what we should see
If Eve had let that apple be;
And many a feller which had ought
To set with monarchses of thought,
Or play some rosy little game
With battle-chaps on fields of fame,
Is downed by his unlucky star
And hollers: "Peanuts! -- here you are!"

                                                   "The Sturdy Beggar"

In the lines following, addressed to an Emperor in exile by Father

What, what! Dom Pedro, you desire to go

Back to Brazil to end your days in quiet?

Why, what assurance have you 'twould be so?

'Tis not so long since you were in a riot,
And your dear subjects showed a will to fly at

Your throat and shake you like a rat. You know
That empires are ungrateful; are you certain
Republics are less handy to get hurt in?

To set your wisdom (holding not a doubt of it,

Although in truth there's neither bone nor skin to it)

At work upon a book, and so read out of it

The qualities that you have first read into it.

A gift from Heaven signifying, "This is my beloved son, in

whom I am well pleased."

                                                   John D. Rockefeller

The reward of toil and virtue.

                                                           J.P. Morgan

The sayings of many in the hands of one.

                                                           Eugene Debs

To these excellent definitions the inspired lexicographer feels

By what right, then, do royal rulers rule?
Whose is the sanction of their state and pow'r? He surely were as stubborn as a mule
Who, God unwilling, could maintain an hour

His uninvited session on the throne, or air
His pride securely in the Presidential chair.

Whatever is is so by Right Divine;
Whate'er occurs, God wills it so. Good land! It were a wondrous thing if His design
A fool could baffle or a rogue withstand!

If so, then God, I say (intending no offence)
Is guilty of contributory negligence.

"Now righteousness consisteth not merely in a holy state of

mind, nor yet in performance of religious rites and obedience to the letter of the law. It is not enough that one be pious and just: one must see to it that others also are in the same state; and to this end compulsion is a proper means. Forasmuch as my injustice may work ill to another, so by his injustice may evil be wrought upon still another, the which it is as manifestly my duty to estop as to forestall mine own tort. Wherefore if I would be righteous I am bound to restrain my neighbor, by force if needful, in all those injurious enterprises from which, through a better disposition and by the help of Heaven, I do myself restrain."

The rimer quenches his unheeded fires,
The sound surceases and the sense expires.
Then the domestic dog, to east and west,
Expounds the passions burning in his breast.
The rising moon o'er that enchanted land
Pauses to hear and yearns to understand.

                                                         Mowbray Myles

All roads, howsoe'er they diverge, lead to Rome,
Whence, thank the good Lord, at least one leads back home.

                                                        Borey the Bald

It is related of Voltaire that one night he and some traveling

Sharp, irresistible by mail or shield,

By guard unparried as by flight unstayed,

O serviceable Rumor, let me wield

Against my enemy no other blade.

His

be the terror of a foe unseen,
His the inutile hand upon the hilt,

And

mine the deadly tongue, long, slender, keen,
Hinting a rumor of some ancient guilt.

So shall I slay the wretch without a blow,
Spare me to celebrate his overthrow,
And nurse my valor for another foe.

                                                           Joel Buxter

                                  S

Six days shalt thou labor and do all thou art able, And on the seventh holystone the deck and scrape the cable.
Decks are no longer holystoned, but the cable still supplies the

All things are either sacred or profane.
The former to ecclesiasts bring gain;
The latter to the devil appertain.

                                                       Dumbo Omohundro

Once I seen a human ruin

In an elevator-well,

And

his members was bestrewin'
All the place where he had fell.

And

I says, apostrophisin'
That uncommon woful wreck:

"Your position's so surprisin'

That I tremble for your neck!"

Then that ruin, smilin' sadly

And impressive, up and spoke:

"Well, I wouldn't tremble badly,

For it's been a fortnight broke."

Then, for further comprehension

Of his attitude, he begs

I will focus my attention

On his various arms and legs --

How

they all are contumacious;
Where they each, respective, lie;

How

one trotter proves ungracious,
T'other one an _alibi_.

These particulars is mentioned

For to show his dismal state,

Which I wasn't first intentioned

To specifical relate.

None is worser to be dreaded

That I ever have heard tell

Than the gent's who there was spreaded

In that elevator-well.

Now

this tale is allegoric --
It is figurative all,

For

the well is metaphoric
And the feller didn't fall.

I opine it isn't moral

For a writer-man to cheat,

And

despise to wear a laurel
As was gotten by deceit.

For

'tis Politics intended
By the elevator, mind,

It will boost a person splendid

If his talent is the kind.

Col. Bryan had the talent

(For the busted man is him)

And

it shot him up right gallant
Till his head begun to swim.

Then the rope it broke above him

And he painful come to earth

Where there's nobody to love him

For his detrimented worth.

Though he's livin' none would know him,

Or at leastwise not as such.

Moral of this woful poem:

Frequent oil your safety-clutch.

                                                           Porfer Poog

The Duchess of Orleans relates that the irreverent old

"Name it."
"Man, I understand, is about to be created. He will need laws." "What, wretch! you his appointed adversary, charged from the dawn

his

laws?"
"Pardon; what I have to ask is that he be permitted to make them

It was so ordered.

Hail Satire! be thy praises ever sung
In the dead language of a mummy's tongue,
For thou thyself art dead, and damned as well --
Thy spirit (usefully employed) in Hell.
Had it been such as consecrates the Bible
Thou hadst not perished by the law of libel.

                                                          Barney Stims

A penny saved is a penny to squander.
A man is known by the company that he organizes.
A bad workman quarrels with the man who calls him that.
A bird in the hand is worth what it will bring.
Better late than before anybody has invited you.
Example is better than following it.
Half a loaf is better than a whole one if there is much else.
Think twice before you speak to a friend in need.
What is worth doing is worth the trouble of asking somebody to

do it.

Least said is soonest disavowed.
He laughs best who laughs least.
Speak of the Devil and he will hear about it.
Of two evils choose to be the least.
Strike while your employer has a big contract.
Where there's a will there's a won't.

He fell by his own hand
Beneath the great oak tree.
He'd traveled in a foreign land.
He tried to make her understand

The

dance that's called the Saraband,
But he called it Scarabee.

He had called it so through an afternoon,

And she, the light of his harem if so might be, Had smiled and said naught. O the body was fair to see,

All frosted there in the shine o' the moon --

                        Dead for a Scarabee
    And a recollection that came too late.
                            O Fate!
                    They buried him where he lay,
                    He sleeps awaiting the Day,
                            In state,

And two Possible Puns, moon-eyed and wan,
Gloom over the grave and then move on.

                        Dead for a Scarabee!
                                                       Fernando Tapple

When the great Gichi-Kuktai was Mikado he condemned to

decapitation Jijiji Ri, a high officer of the Court. Soon after the hour appointed for performance of the rite what was his Majesty's surprise to see calmly approaching the throne the man

who

should have been at that time ten minutes dead! "Seventeen hundred impossible dragons!" shouted the enraged

monarch. "Did I not sentence you to stand in the market-place and have your head struck off by the public executioner at three o'clock? And is it not now 3:10?"

"Son of a thousand illustrious deities," answered the

condemned minister, "all that you say is so true that the truth is a lie in comparison. But your heavenly Majesty's sunny and vitalizing wishes have been pestilently disregarded. With joy I ran and placed my unworthy body in the market-place. The executioner appeared with his bare scimetar, ostentatiously whirled it in air, and then, tapping me lightly upon the neck, strode away, pelted by the populace, with whom I was ever a favorite. I am come to pray for justice upon his own dishonorable

and

treasonous head."
"To what regiment of executioners does the black-boweled

caitiff belong?" asked the Mikado.

"To the gallant Ninety-eight Hundred and Thirty-seventh -- I

know the man. His name is Sakko-Samshi."

"Let him be brought before me," said the Mikado to an

attendant, and a half-hour later the culprit stood in the Presence.

"Thou bastard son of a three-legged hunchback without thumbs!"

roared the sovereign -- "why didst thou but lightly tap the neck that it should have been thy pleasure to sever?"

"Lord of Cranes of Cherry Blooms," replied the executioner,

unmoved, "command him to blow his nose with his fingers."

Being commanded, Jijiji Ri laid hold of his nose and trumpeted

like an elephant, all expecting to see the severed head flung violently from him. Nothing occurred: the performance prospered peacefully to the close, without incident.

All eyes were now turned on the executioner, who had grown as

white as the snows on the summit of Fujiama. His legs trembled

and

his breath came in gasps of terror.
"Several kinds of spike-tailed brass lions!" he cried; "I am a

ruined and disgraced swordsman! I struck the villain feebly because in flourishing the scimetar I had accidentally passed it through my own neck! Father of the Moon, I resign my office."

So saying, he gasped his top-knot, lifted off his head, and

advancing to the throne laid it humbly at the Mikado's feet.

Dear Frank, that scrap-book where you boast

You keep a record true

Of every kind of peppered roast

That's made of you;

Wherein you paste the printed gibes

That revel round your name,

Thinking the laughter of the scribes

Attests your fame;

Where all the pictures you arrange

That comic pencils trace --

Your funny figure and your strange

Semitic face --

Pray lend it me. Wit I have not,

Nor art, but there I'll list

The daily drubbings you'd have got

Had God a fist.

The

devil casting a seine of lace,
(With precious stones 'twas weighted)

Drew it into the landing place

And its contents calculated.

All

souls of women were in that sack --
A draft miraculous, precious!

But

ere he could throw it across his back
They'd all escaped through the meshes.

                                                      Baruch de Loppis

The late James F. Bowman was writing a serial tale for a weekly

Lo! the poor Indian whose unsuited mind
Saw death before, hell and the grave behind;
Whom thrifty settler ne'er besought to stay --
His small belongings their appointed prey;
Whom Dispossession, with alluring wile,
Persuaded elsewhere every little while!
His fire unquenched and his undying worm
By "land in severalty" (charming term!)
Are cooled and killed, respectively, at last,
And he to his new holding anchored fast!

John Elmer Pettibone Cajee
(I write of him with little glee)
Was just as bad as he could be.
'Twas frequently remarked: "I swon!
The sun has never looked upon
So bad a man as Neighbor John."
A sinner through and through, he had
This added fault: it made him mad
To know another man was bad.
In such a case he thought it right
To rise at any hour of night
And quench that wicked person's light.
Despite the town's entreaties, he
Would hale him to the nearest tree
And leave him swinging wide and free.
Or sometimes, if the humor came,
A luckless wight's reluctant frame
Was given to the cheerful flame.
While it was turning nice and brown,
All unconcerned John met the frown
Of that austere and righteous town.
"How sad," his neighbors said, "that he
So scornful of the law should be --
An anar c, h, i, s, t."
(That is the way that they preferred
To utter the abhorrent word,
So strong the aversion that it stirred.)
"Resolved," they said, continuing,
"That Badman John must cease this thing
Of having his unlawful fling.
"Now, by these sacred relics" -- here
Each man had out a souvenir
Got at a lynching yesteryear --
"By these we swear he shall forsake
His ways, nor cause our hearts to ache
By sins of rope and torch and stake.
"We'll tie his red right hand until
He'll have small freedom to fulfil
The mandates of his lawless will."
So, in convention then and there,
They named him Sheriff. The affair
Was opened, it is said, with prayer.

                                                     J. Milton Sloluck

The

wheels go round without a sound --
The maidens hold high revel;

In sinful mood, insanely gay,
True spinsters spin adown the way

From duty to the devil!

They laugh, they sing, and -- ting-a-ling!

Their bells go all the morning;

Their lanterns bright bestar the night

Pedestrians a-warning.

With lifted hands Miss Charlotte stands,

Good-Lording and O-mying,

Her

rheumatism forgotten quite,
Her fat with anger frying.

She

blocks the path that leads to wrath,
Jack Satan's power defying.

The

wheels go round without a sound
The lights burn red and blue and green.

What's this that's found upon the ground?

Poor Charlotte Smith's a smithareen!

                                                     John William Yope

His bad opponent's "facts" he sweeps away,
And drags his sophistry to light of day;
Then swears they're pushed to madness who resort
To falsehood of so desperate a sort.
Not so; like sods upon a dead man's breast,
He lies most lightly who the least is pressed.

                                                        Polydore Smith

"Concerning the nature of the soul," saith the renowned author of

One evening Mr. Rudolph Block, of New York, found himself seated

"Mr. Pollard," said he, "my book, _The Biography of a Dead Cow_,

"I am very sorry, sir," replied the critic, amiably, "but it did

Mr. W.C. Morrow, who used to live in San Jose, California, was

"Why, Owen," said one, "what brings you here on such a night as

you

are a believer. Aren't you afraid to be out?"
"My dear fellow," the journalist replied with a drear autumnal

Rear-Admiral Schley and Representative Charles F. Joy were

"I don't hear any band," said Schley.
"Come to think, I don't either," said Joy; "but I see General

While the Admiral was digesting this hasty meal of philosophy

"He seems to be enjoying himself," said the Admiral. "There is nothing," assented Joy, thoughtfully, "that he enjoys

The illustrious statesman, Champ Clark, once lived about a mile

"Champ, it is not right to leave that mule out there in the sun.

"O, he's all right," said Clark, lightly; "he's an inveterate

The neighbor took a lemonade, but shook his head and repeated that

He was a conspirator. There had been a fire the night before: a

man

entered the saloon.
"For mercy's sake!" he said, taking it with sugar, "do remove that

"Yes," interposed Clark, "that animal has the best nose in

In the course of human events Mr. Clark went out, and there,

General H.H. Wotherspoon, president of the Army War College, has a

his

master's best uniform coat, epaulettes and all.
"You confounded remote ancestor!" thundered the great strategist,

Adam rose and with a reproachful look got down on all fours in the

"Spoon, old man, when leaving you last evening I forgot to ask you

General Wotherspoon did not deign to reply, but walked away. "Pardon me, please," said Barry, moving after him; "I was joking

The

bard who would prosper must carry a book,
Do his thinking in prose and wear

A crimson cravat, a far-away look

And a head of hexameter hair.

Be thin in your thought and your body'll be fat;
If you wear your hair long you needn't your hat.

As the lean leech, its victim found, is pleased
To fix itself upon a part diseased
Till, its black hide distended with bad blood,
It drops to die of surfeit in the mud,
So the base sycophant with joy descries
His neighbor's weak spot and his mouth applies,
Gorges and prospers like the leech, although,
Unlike that reptile, he will not let go.
Gelasma, if it paid you to devote
Your talent to the service of a goat,
Showing by forceful logic that its beard
Is more than Aaron's fit to be revered;
If to the task of honoring its smell
Profit had prompted you, and love as well,
The world would benefit at last by you
And wealthy malefactors weep anew --
Your favor for a moment's space denied
And to the nobler object turned aside.
Is't not enough that thrifty millionaires
Who loot in freight and spoliate in fares,
Or, cursed with consciences that bid them fly
To safer villainies of darker dye,
Forswearing robbery and fain, instead,
To steal (they call it "cornering") our bread
May see you groveling their boots to lick
And begging for the favor of a kick?
Still must you follow to the bitter end
Your sycophantic disposition's trend,
And in your eagerness to please the rich
Hunt hungry sinners to their final ditch?
In Morgan's praise you smite the sounding wire,
And sing hosannas to great Havemeyher!
What's Satan done that him you should eschew?
He too is reeking rich -- deducting _you_.

They say 'tis conscience feels compunction;
I hold that that's the stomach's function,
For of the sinner I have noted
That when he's sinned he's somewhat bloated,
Or ill some other ghastly fashion
Within that bowel of compassion.
True, I believe the only sinner
Is he that eats a shabby dinner.
You know how Adam with good reason,
For eating apples out of season,
Was "cursed." But that is all symbolic:
The truth is, Adam had the colic.

                                                                  G.J.

                                  T

Old

Paunchinello, freshly wed,
Took Madam P. to table,

And

there deliriously fed
As fast as he was able.

"I dote upon good grub," he cried,

Intent upon its throatage.

"Ah, yes," said the neglected bride,

"You're in your _table d'hotage_."

                                                      Associated Poets

The Enemy of Human Souls
Sat grieving at the cost of coals;
For Hell had been annexed of late,
And was a sovereign Southern State.
"It were no more than right," said he,
"That I should get my fuel free.
The duty, neither just nor wise,
Compels me to economize --
Whereby my broilers, every one,
Are execrably underdone.
What would they have? -- although I yearn
To do them nicely to a turn,
I can't afford an honest heat.
This tariff makes even devils cheat!
I'm ruined, and my humble trade
All rascals may at will invade:
Beneath my nose the public press
Outdoes me in sulphureousness;
The bar ingeniously applies
To my undoing my own lies;
My medicines the doctors use
(Albeit vainly) to refuse
To me my fair and rightful prey
And keep their own in shape to pay;
The preachers by example teach
What, scorning to perform, I teach;
And statesmen, aping me, all make
More promises than they can break.
Against such competition I
Lift up a disregarded cry.
Since all ignore my just complaint,
By Hokey-Pokey! I'll turn saint!"
Now, the Republicans, who all
Are saints, began at once to bawl
Against _his_ competition; so
There was a devil of a go!
They locked horns with him, tete-a-tete
In acrimonious debate,
Till Democrats, forlorn and lone,
Had hopes of coming by their own.
That evil to avert, in haste
The two belligerents embraced;
But since 'twere wicked to relax
A tittle of the Sacred Tax,
'Twas finally agreed to grant
The bold Insurgent-protestant
A bounty on each soul that fell
Into his ineffectual Hell.

                                                            Edam Smith

Of such tenacity his grip
That nothing from his hand can slip.
Well-buttered eels you may o'erwhelm
In tubs of liquid slippery-elm
In vain -- from his detaining pinch
They cannot struggle half an inch!
'Tis lucky that he so is planned
That breath he draws not with his hand,
For if he did, so great his greed
He'd draw his last with eager speed.
Nay, that were well, you say. Not so
He'd draw but never let it go!

                          TO MY PET TORTOISE

My friend, you are not graceful -- not at all;
Your gait's between a stagger and a sprawl.
Nor are you beautiful: your head's a snake's
To look at, and I do not doubt it aches.
As to your feet, they'd make an angel weep.
'Tis true you take them in whene'er you sleep.
No, you're not pretty, but you have, I own,
A certain firmness -- mostly you're [sic] backbone.
Firmness and strength (you have a giant's thews)
Are virtues that the great know how to use --
I wish that they did not; yet, on the whole,
You lack -- excuse my mentioning it -- Soul.
So, to be candid, unreserved and true,
I'd rather you were I than I were you.
Perhaps, however, in a time to be,
When Man's extinct, a better world may see
Your progeny in power and control,
Due to the genesis and growth of Soul.
So I salute you as a reptile grand
Predestined to regenerate the land.
Father of Possibilities, O deign
To accept the homage of a dying reign!
In the far region of the unforeknown
I dream a tortoise upon every throne.
I see an Emperor his head withdraw
Into his carapace for fear of Law;
A King who carries something else than fat,
Howe'er acceptably he carries that;
A President not strenuously bent
On punishment of audible dissent --
Who never shot (it were a vain attack)
An armed or unarmed tortoise in the back;
Subject and citizens that feel no need
To make the March of Mind a wild stampede;
All progress slow, contemplative, sedate,
And "Take your time" the word, in Church and State.
O Tortoise, 'tis a happy, happy dream,
My glorious testudinous regime!
I wish in Eden you'd brought this about
By slouching in and chasing Adam out.

While in yt londe I was carried to see ye Ghogo tree, whereof

I had hearde moch talk; but sayynge yt I saw naught remarkabyll in it, ye hed manne of ye villayge where it grewe made answer as followeth:

"Ye tree is not nowe in fruite, but in his seasonne you shall

see dependynge fr. his braunches all soch as have affroynted ye King his Majesty."

And I was furder tolde yt ye worde "Ghogo" sygnifyeth in yr

tong ye same as "rapscal" in our owne.

                                               _Trauvells in ye Easte_

Moses Mendlessohn having fallen ill sent for a Christian

"Pork?" shrieked the patient -- "pork? Nothing shall induce me to

"Do you mean that?" the doctor gravely asked.
"I swear it!"
"Good! -- then I will undertake to cure you."

                                  U

Having received an ultimatum from Austria, the Turkish Ministry

met

to consider it.
"O servant of the Prophet," said the Sheik of the Imperial Chibouk

"Upholder of the Faith," that dignitary replied after examining

his

memoranda, "they are in numbers as the leaves of the forest!" "And how many impenetrable battleships strike terror to the hearts

"Uncle of the Full Moon," was the reply, "deign to know that they

For eight hours the broad brow of the Sheik of the Imperial

"My son," said the priest, "this is what we fear."

His understanding was so keen
That all things which he'd felt, heard, seen,
He could interpret without fail
If he was in or out of jail.
He wrote at Inspiration's call
Deep disquisitions on them all,
Then, pent at last in an asylum,
Performed the service to compile 'em.
So great a writer, all men swore,
They never had not read before.

                                                       Jorrock Wormley

The owner of a powder mill

Was

musing on a distant hill --
Something his mind foreboded --

When from the cloudless sky there fell
A deviled human kidney! Well,

The man's mill had exploded.

His hat he lifted from his head;
"I beg your pardon, sir," he said;

"I didn't know 'twas loaded."

                                                               Swatkin

                                  V

"Why have you halted?" roared the commander of a division and

"General," said the commander of the delinquent brigade, "I am

They say that hens do cackle loudest when

There's nothing vital in the eggs they've laid; And there are hens, professing to have made

A study of mankind, who say that men
Whose business 'tis to drive the tongue or pen

Make the most clamorous fanfaronade
O'er their most worthless work; and I'm afraid

They're not entirely different from the hen.

Lo!

the drum-major in his coat of gold,
His blazing breeches and high-towering cap --

Imperiously pompous, grandly bold,

Grim, resolute, an awe-inspiring chap!

Who'd think this gorgeous creature's only virtue
Is that in battle he will never hurt you?

                                                     Hannibal Hunsiker

                                  W

Carnegie the dauntless has uttered his call
To battle: "The brokers are parasites all!"
Carnegie, Carnegie, you'll never prevail;
Keep the wind of your slogan to belly your sail,
Go back to your isle of perpetual brume,
Silence your pibroch, doff tartan and plume:
Ben Lomond is calling his son from the fray --
Fly, fly from the region of Wall Street away!
While still you're possessed of a single baubee
(I wish it were pledged to endowment of me)
'Twere wise to retreat from the wars of finance
Lest its value decline ere your credit advance.
For a man 'twixt a king of finance and the sea,
Carnegie, Carnegie, your tongue is too free!

                                                         Anonymus Bink

                        heard from afar

Ancestral voices prophesying war.
One of the greatest of poets, Coleridge was one of the wisest of

They took away his vote and gave instead
The right, when he had earned, to _eat_ his bread. In vain -- he clamors for his "boss," pour soul,
To come again and part him from his roll.

                                                       Offenbach Stutz

Once I dipt into the future far as human eye could see, And I saw the Chief Forecaster, dead as any one can be -- Dead and damned and shut in Hades as a liar from his birth, With a record of unreason seldom paralleled on earth. While I looked he reared him solemnly, that incadescent youth, From the coals that he'd preferred to the advantages of truth. He cast his eyes about him and above him; then he wrote On a slab of thin asbestos what I venture here to quote -- For I read it in the rose-light of the everlasting glow: "Cloudy; variable winds, with local showers; cooler; snow."

                                                         Halcyon Jones

Some Bavarian peasants having caught a wolf one evening, tied it

Should you ask me whence this laughter,
Whence this audible big-smiling,
With its labial extension,
With its maxillar distortion
And its diaphragmic rhythmus
Like the billowing of an ocean,
Like the shaking of a carpet,
I should answer, I should tell you:
From the great deeps of the spirit,
From the unplummeted abysmus
Of the soul this laughter welleth
As the fountain, the gug-guggle,
Like the river from the canon [sic],
To entoken and give warning
That my present mood is sunny.
Should you ask me further question --
Why the great deeps of the spirit,
Why the unplummeted abysmus
Of the soule extrudes this laughter,
This all audible big-smiling,
I should answer, I should tell you
With a white heart, tumpitumpy,
With a true tongue, honest Injun:
William Bryan, he has Caught It,
Caught the Whangdepootenawah!
Is't the sandhill crane, the shankank,
Standing in the marsh, the kneedeep,
Standing silent in the kneedeep
With his wing-tips crossed behind him
And his neck close-reefed before him,
With his bill, his william, buried
In the down upon his bosom,
With his head retracted inly,
While his shoulders overlook it?
Does the sandhill crane, the shankank,
Shiver grayly in the north wind,
Wishing he had died when little,
As the sparrow, the chipchip, does?
No 'tis not the Shankank standing,
Standing in the gray and dismal
Marsh, the gray and dismal kneedeep.
No, 'tis peerless William Bryan
Realizing that he's Caught It,
Caught the Whangdepootenawah!

An animal usually living in the vicinity of Man, and having a

rudimentary susceptibility to domestication. It is credited by many of the elder zoologists with a certain vestigial docility acquired in a former state of seclusion, but naturalists of the postsusananthony period, having no knowledge of the seclusion, deny the virtue and declare that such as creation's dawn beheld, it roareth now. The species is the most widely distributed of all beasts of prey, infesting all habitable parts of the globe, from Greeland's spicy mountains to India's moral strand. The popular name (wolfman) is incorrect, for the creature is of the cat kind. The woman is lithe and graceful in its movement, especially the American variety (_felis pugnans_), is omnivorous and can be taught not to talk.

                                                       Balthasar Pober

Ambitious fool! so mad to be a show!

How

profitless the labor you bestow
Upon a dwelling whose magnificence

The tenant neither can admire nor know.
Build deep, build high, build massive as you can,

The

wanton grass-roots will defeat the plan
By shouldering asunder all the stones

In what to you would be a moment's span.
Time to the dead so all unreckoned flies
That when your marble is all dust, arise,

If wakened, stretch your limbs and yawn --

You'll think you scarcely can have closed your eyes.
What though of all man's works your tomb alone
Should stand till Time himself be overthrown?

Would it advantage you to dwell therein

Forever as a stain upon a stone?

                                                             Joel Huck

                                  X

                                  Y

But

yesterday I should have thought me blest
To stand high-pinnacled upon the peak Of middle life and look adown the bleak

And unfamiliar foreslope to the West,
Where solemn shadows all the land invest

And stilly voices, half-remembered, speak
Unfinished prophecy, and witch-fires freak

The haunted twilight of the Dark of Rest.
Yea, yesterday my soul was all aflame

To stay the shadow on the dial's face

At manhood's noonmark! Now, in God His name

I chide aloud the little interspace

Disparting me from Certitude, and fain
Would know the dream and vision ne'er again.

                                                      Baruch Arnegriff

It is said that in his last illness the poet Arnegriff was

Youth is the true Saturnian Reign, the Golden Age on earth

again, when figs are grown on thistles, and pigs betailed with whistles and, wearing silken bristles, live ever in clover, and clows fly over, delivering milk at every door, and Justice never is heard to snore, and every assassin is made a ghost and, howling, is cast into Baltimost!

                                                        Polydore Smith

                                  Z

When Zeal sought Gratitude for his reward
He went away exclaiming: "O my Lord!"
"What do you want?" the Lord asked, bending down.
"An ointment for my cracked and bleeding crown."

                                                            Jum Coople

He zedjagged so uncomen wyde
Thet non coude pas on eyder syde;
So, to com saufly thruh, I been
Constreynet for to doodge betwene.

                                                               Munwele

                                 -)(-
.