Josh Billings on Ice, and Other ThingsBillings, Josh
General
Josh Billings on Ice, and Other Things
Billings, Josh
American wit and humor
A gentleman who haz travelled extensively thru the western states, sez
that vast quantitys ov korn are raized thare, which iz made into
whiskee, tew say nothing ov what iz annually wasted for bred. He sez
thare iz lots ov people out west, who are better judges ov whiskee than
they are ov water, and that you might easily phool them with poor
water, but you couldn't with poor whiskee. They hav made whiskee a
specialty aul their lives, and they kan't even go tew church Sundays,
without a bottle ov it in their pockets. (I think he must hav lied when
he made this last statement.)
In my honest opinyun, whiskee is seckund only tew original sin; it is
the mill stun, hung upon the neck ov poor degraded humin nature, and if
the devil was allowed leave ov absence for six months, tew visit this
earth, the fust thing he would do, would be to lobby our legislatures
for a repeal ov the excise laws, and then invest his pile in gin mills.
But since whiskee haz got into this world, I don't think it kan be got
out, enny more than small pox kan, but it kan be made komparitively
harmless, in the same way, and only in the same way, and that iz by
constant vaccination. * * * *
BEER.
I hav finally cum tew the konclusion, that _lager beer_ iz not
intoxikatin.
I hav been told so bi a german, who sed he had drank it aul nite long,
just tew tri the experiment, and was obliged tew go home entirely sober
in the morning. I hav seen this same man drink sixteen glasses, and if
he was drunk, he was drunk in german, and noboddy could understand it.
It iz proper enuff tew state, that this man kept a lager-beer saloon,
and could have no object in stating what want strictly thus.
I beleaved him tew the full extent ov mi ability. I never drank but 3
glasses ov lager beer in mi life, and that made my hed untwist, as tho
it was hung on the end ov a string, but i was told that it was owing
tew my bile being out ov place, and I guess that it was so, for I never
biled over wuss than i did when I got home that nite. Mi wife was
afrade i was agoing tew die, and i was almoste afrade i shouldn't, for
it did seem az tho evrything i had ever eaten in mi life, was cuming
tew the surface, and i do really beleave, if mi wife hadn't pulled oph
mi boots, just az she did, they would have cum thundering up too.
Oh, how sick i was! it was 14 years ago, and i kan taste it now.
I never had so much experience, in so short a time.
If enny man should tell me that lager beer was not intoxikating, i
should beleave him; but if he should tell me that i want drunk that
nite, but that my stummuk was only out ov order, i should ask him tew
state over, in a few words, just how a man felt and akted when he was
well set up.
If i want drunk that nite, i had sum ov the moste natural simptoms a
man ever had, and keep sober.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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