Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. XXVII, August 1852, Vol. VVarious
History
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. XXVII, August 1852, Vol. V
Various
American literature -- Periodicals; Civilization -- Periodicals; Culture -- Periodicals
Here two stable-boys were called to the stand, who testified that
Signor Léonard Vidaillon, late cooper, did approach their master's
jackass by the tail; and furthermore, that the mule (or jackass) was
ordinarily of a quiet and peaceable disposition. This being shown to
the satisfaction of the Court, and since it appeared that an
inexperience, arising out of ignorance of the nature of the beast,
had occasioned the injury to Signor Vidaillon, the case was decided
for the plaintiff. Poor Léonard was mulcted in the cost of the mule,
the costs of the suit, the cost of a hundred and fifty leeches, and
the cost of broader shafts to his family wagon.
We have entertained our reader with this report--first, to show how
parties to a French suit plead their own cause; and next, to show
how the French reporters render the cause into writing. The story is
headed in the French journal, like a farce--"A little mule will
grow."
* * * * *
As for the town, in these hot days of summer, it looks slumberous.
The hundreds who peopled the up-town walks with silks and plumes,
are gone to the beach of Newport, or the shady verandas of the
"United States." Even now, we will venture the guess, there are
scores of readers running over this page under the shadow of the
Saratoga colonnades, or in view of the broad valley of the Mohawk,
who parted from us last month in some cushioned _fauteuil_ of the
New York Avenues.
The down-town men wear an air of _ennui_, and slip uneasily through
the brick and mortar labyrinths of Maiden-lane and of John-street.
Brokers, even, long for their Sunday's recess--when they can steal
one breath of health and wideness at New Rochelle, or Rockaway.
Southerners, with nurses and children, begin to show themselves in
the neighborhood of the Union and Clarendon, and saunter through
our sunshine as if our sunshine were a bath of spring.
Fruits meantime are ripening in all our stalls; and it takes the
edge from the sultriness of the season to wander at sunrise, through
the golden and purple show of our Washington market. Most of all, to
such as are tied, by lawyer's tape or editorial pen, to the desks of
the city, does it bring a burst of country glow to taste the
firstlings of the country's growth, and to doat upon the garden
glories of the year--as upon so many testimonial clusters, brought
back from a land of Canaan.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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