Peck's Compendium of Fun: Comprising the Choicest Gems of Wit, Humor, Sarcasm and Pathos of America's Favorite HumoristPeck, George W. (George Wilbur)
General
Peck's Compendium of Fun: Comprising the Choicest Gems of Wit, Humor, Sarcasm and Pathos of America's Favorite Humorist
Peck, George W. (George Wilbur)
American wit and humor
There was a hungry-looking, round-shouldered, sick-looking colored man in
the same party, that was on the programme for a violin solo. When he came
out the people looked at each other, as much as to say, "Now we will have
some fun." The moke struck an attitude as near Ole Bull as he could with
his number eleven feet and his hollow chest, and played some diabolical
selection from a foreign cat opera that would have been splendid if
Wilhelmj or Ole Bull had played it, but the colored brother couldn't get
within a mile of the tune. He rasped his old violin for twenty minutes and
tried to look grand, and closed his eyes and seemed to soar away to
heaven,--and the audience wished to heaven he had, and when he became
exhausted and squeezed the last note out, and the audience saw that he was
in a profuse perspiration, they let him go and did not call him back. If
he had come out and sat on the back of a chair and sawed off "The Devil's
Dream," or "The Arkansaw Traveler," that crowd would have cheered him till
he thought he was a bigger man than Grant.
But he didn't have any sense.
MATTIE MASHES MINNESOTA.
Mrs. Mattie A. Bridge is meeting with great success in Minnesota. In some
places she is retained until she lectures four times. She says the heart
of Minnesota is warm towards her. We shall feel inclined to put a head on
Minnesota, if it don't quit allowing its heart to get warm.
WHY THE FEVER DIDN'T SPREAD.
Portage City has had a sensation which, though at one time it looked
serious, turned out to be a farce. A girl was taken sick, and a physician
was called who pronounced it a case of yellow fever, and he made out a
prescription for that disease. Mr. Brannan, editor of the Portage
Register, who lives near, got the news, and imparted it to all whom he
met, and they in turn told it to others, and a stampede was looked for.
Fox turned the Fox House over to Bunker, and had his trunks checked for
the Hot Springs. Corning and Jack Turner hired a wagon to take them to
Briggsville. Hærtel, the brewery man, offered to sell out his brewery and
all his property for eight hundred dollars, and he bought a ticket for
Germany. Bunker left the Fox House to run itself, and went to Devil's
Lake. Sam. Branuan, telegraphed to George Clinton, at Denver, not
to come home, as the yellow fever was raging, and people were dying off
like rotton sheep. And Sam got vaccinated and went to Beaver Dam. The
excitement was intense. Men became perfectly wild, and were going to rush
off and leave the women and children to the mercies of the dead plague.
Chicago and Milwaukee bummers could be seen at the hotels, kneeling beside
their sample cases trying to pray, but they couldn't. Just before the
train started that was to carry away the frightened populace, the doctor
came up town and said that the girl with the yellow fever was better, and
that she was the mother of a fine nine pound boy. The authorities took
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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