A Collection of College Words and CustomsHall, Benjamin Homer
History
A Collection of College Words and Customs
Hall, Benjamin Homer
College students -- United States -- Language; English language -- United States -- Slang; Slang
"The representative of the Church Militant was properly backed up
by the Flying Artillery. Their banner announced that they were
'for the reduction of Sebastopol,' and it is safe to say that they
will certainly take that fortress, if they get a chance. If the
Russians hold out against those four ghostly steeds, tandem, with
their bandy-legged and kettle-stomached riders,--that gun, so
strikingly like a joint of old stove-pipe in its exterior, but
which upon occasion could vomit forth your real smoke and sound
and smell of unmistakable brimstone,--and those slashed and
blood-stained artillerymen,--they will do more than anybody did on
Wednesday.
"The T.L.N. Horn-et Band, with Sackbut, Psaltery, Dulcimer, and
Shawm, Tanglang, Locofodeon, and Hugag, marched next. They
reserved their efforts for special occasions, when they woke the
echoes with strains of altogether unearthly music, composed for
them expressly by Saufylur, the eminent self-taught New Zealand
composer.
"Barnum's Baby-Show, on four wheels, in charge of the great
showman himself, aided by that experienced nurse, Mrs. Gamp, in
somewhat dilapidated attire, followed. The babies, from a span
long to an indefinite length, of all shapes and sizes, black,
white, and snuff-colored, twins, triplets, quartettes, and
quincunxes, in calico and sackcloth, and in a state of nature,
filled the vehicle, and were hung about it by the leg or neck or
middle. A half-starved quadruped of osseous and slightly equine
appearance drew the concern, and the shrieking axles drowned the
cries of the innocents.
"Mr. Joseph Hiss and Mrs. Patterson of Massachusetts were not
absent. Joseph's rubicund complexion, brassy and distinctly
Know-Nothing look, and nasal organ well developed by his
experience on the olfactory committee, were just what might have
been expected. The 'make up' of Mrs. P., a bright brunette, was
capital, and she looked the woman, if not the lady, to perfection.
The two appeared in a handsome livery buggy, paid for, we suppose,
by the State of Massachusetts.
"A wagon-load of two or three tattered and desperate looking
individuals, labelled 'Recruits for the Crimea,' with a generous
supply of old iron and brick-bats as material of war, was dragged
along by the frame and most of the skin of what was once a horse.
"Towards the rear, but by no means least in consequence or in the
amount of attention attracted, was the army hospital, drawn by two
staid and well-fed oxen. In front appeared the snowy locks and
'fair round belly, with good _cotton_ lined' of the worthy Dr.
Esculapius Liverwort Tarand Cantchuget-urlegawa Opodeldoc, while
by his side his assistant sawbones brayed in a huge iron mortar,
with a weighty pestle, much noise, and indefatigable zeal, the
drugs and dye-stuffs. Thigh-bones, shoulder-blades, vertebræ, and
even skulls, hanging round the establishment, testified to the
numerous and successful amputations performed by the skilful
surgeon.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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