Frontier Humor in Verse, Prose and PictureCox, Palmer
General
Frontier Humor in Verse, Prose and Picture
Cox, Palmer
Canadian wit and humor
Now charge they up and down the way,
Like jockeys on the “Derby day;”
And we poor wights must waltz aside,
And let the pulpit princes glide;
Or have a phaeton o’er us wheeled,
Or have our heels adroitly peeled.
Oh, money! money! root and start
Of every sin, ’tis claimed thou art;
But let them doubt the fact who will,
’Tis money spreads the gospel still.
A COUNTRY TOUR.
Yesterday I took a trip to a quiet country resort. On entering the town
I was surprised at the scarcity of men in the place. There were plenty
of women—fashionably dressed and otherwise—to be seen in the houses or
gardens, but I rarely encountered one of the male sex in my travels
through the streets. This, I at first supposed, was owing to the number
of gentlemen residing there who carry on business in the city by the
sea, and are consequently in the latter place during the day. I was
informed, however, by the proprietor of the hotel at which I stopped,
that such was not the case. He assured me it was mainly owing to the
fact that the County Court commenced that morning, and most of the male
inhabitants, as was their custom on such occasions, had taken to the
surrounding woods and mountains to escape jury duty.
The place is beautifully situated between high green hills, and said to
possess the healthiest climate of any town in the State. During the
summer months people flock there from all parts of the country. Healthy
people pay high prices at the hotels for the privilege of living there,
and sickly people do likewise, for the privilege of dying there.
The peculiarities of the town, and the distinctive manners and customs
of the inhabitants, have been ably described by a poet whose effusions
have not yet been translated into the foreign languages. Following is a
part of the poem which bears directly on the town in question:—
“Here rest we now by sulphur well,
Where invalids and nurses dwell;
Where yelping dogs run through the street
Like wolves across a prairie wide,
And cattle wild as bison meet
You face to face, on every side;
With tails in air, and frothy nose,
And leveled horns, they round you close.
“Where people sit around the door,
In lazy groups of three or four,
And still their chronic thirst abate
With copious draughts of ‘sulphur straight.’”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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