Judge — January 14, 1882 — page 13: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE JUDGE. THE SAME DEAR HAND. Tue bells ring out a happy sound, ‘The earth is mantled o'er with white It is the merry Christmas night, And love and mirth and Joy abound. nnd here sit you and here sit I— I should be happiest in the land, For ob! I bold the same dear hand Ive held for many a year gone by! It is not withered up with caro— It is as fresh and fair to seo— As sweet to hold and dear to mo As when with chimes upon the air, On Christmas nights of years ao T held the same dear, little thi And felt its soft caresses bi The flushes to my th Ab, we were born to never part— This little hand I bold to-night And I—so, with a strange delight 1 press it to my beating heart. And in the midnight’s solemn bush T bless the little hand I hold— In broken whispers be it told— It Is the old-time bob-tail flush! —Eugene Piel. The Vestibule Abomination. Or all my friends, I honestly regard Perci- val Petticarp as least an iconoclast. He be- lieves in himself in an infinitesimal degree which shames the most. modest appreciation of his not notoriously modest sex. Hence he has plenty of heart and brain for faith in e thing tangible, whether animate or inani- mate. And he believes in the good old times, and honors their customs and traditions. He has an unquenchable passion for bric-a-brac. He dotes on earthenware ugliness, and revels in monstrosities of carved furniture. His and- irons are more uncouth than brassy, like a country lawyer when he’s first admitted to practice in Uncle Sam's Supreme Court. But of all the length, breadth and thickness of heirloom with which Percival Petticarp has surrounded himself, his favorite joint-combina- tion of umbrella-stand and hat-rack is decided- ly the loomiest. Even as that ready-made superlative (just written) towers above the common dictionary adjectives, so does this yestibule abomination tower above the de- scribable, In the course of inhuman events, its multitudicous projections have several times been mixed with my susceptible legs. The beastly hat-rack has invariably come out of the muddle unscathed and unruffled. I’ve tumbled across it, clean over it, and slap into it, and pledge my solid comfort that I had rather fall into a reverie, an error, or an in- heritance. Yet, that unwieldy piece of furniture has quite a history. When Petticarp used to cling to the eyelids of Hope, and exist on a salary of ten dollars a week, he boarded with a cork- screw-curled landlady in Clinton Place. He was not a bit proud of cither his abode or his poverty, but he became infatuated with this identical hat-rack. He followed its May re- movals for twenty years, from one house to another, and in all that time he never used but one peg for his five or six hats. - A regular built “Knox” plug usually lasted my friend over the third winter. Now, this might possibly have been the fault of the hat, for Petticarp | But what has it not since cost me and othy was not a bit economical on headgear when he had any spare change. As the song goeth “Time, thot ‘And years th old, is swift in int fleetly by and just as Petticarp came into a snug for- tune his landla t out of a queerish + Empty is the eraitte, baby's gone.” world, Her effects, in’ due were knocked down to very indifferent bidders, with one exception. Percival was there, and s cured the hat-rack. And, because he wanted it, the outsiders made him pay all that it ever cost, originally, and in arnish or repair visitors at Petticarp’s house? never come round when my own bill of dam- ages against it will be squai Patience, The day can “Gone to join the angels, Peaceful evermore. good humor, and unclassical anathemas have all been exhausted, but that hat-rack con- tinues wildly offensive to a big majority of Percival’s invited guests and poor relation Yet I verily believe the latter callers will bear with most anythin; “Tell me, ye bark-ed shins, That feel so lame and sore, Is there no quiet hall That's clear from stair to door? Is there no vestibule Where hat-racks do not stand, With outstretched arms and tripping base, To try one's temper bland?” Tho bark-ed shins deign no reply, And Petticarp, may, by-and-by— as likely as not, make me sole legateo of that hated absurdity. MAX SIMS, To Whom? Pray. Ovr ever “able, accurate and alert” ¢ temporary, the Evening Post, contains this standing advertisement : NEW YORK CITY For Sale. Disappointed politicians have long told us that New York could be bought, but this is the first public offer to purchasers we have yet seen, It is related that Artemus Ward once told an inquisitive fellow railroad pas in reply to a query respecting. th t of his visit to the Metropolis, that ‘ was going to look about the | nd, if he liked it, he would buy it.” ‘This assertion regarded at the time somewhat in the light of ajoke. If Avtemus had lived twenty years longer, apparently, his little joke would have lost its point, as per advertisement above quoted, The chief thing that puzzles us about this most gi the purchaser or purchasers is or are to be. Credulity might: suggest: the names of Jay Gould and Cyrus W. Field; but current re- port, not without some show of reliability ready ts these twin worthies with owning New York already. Perhaps they are going to sell—hen the advertisement. At all events we submit it is not fair for the Eren- ing Post and its advertisers to be quite so reti- cent on eet of more or less personal interest to a if not more, of our un: pecting citizens, When it comes to so high- handed a proposition asthe sale of a city, it is higher time for hands to be shown, Let us know who sells and buys. ob- he antic business operation is, who a subj Disaster Most Extraordinary! Tue following in the daily pres rtling news item appears “The General Sheridan, «pring a leak on Friday morning and sunk.” Well, if this isn't a “news item” for the country in general, and War Department in particular!“ Sprung a leak” and “sunk” withal! Shocking mishap! and most disas- trous misfortune, if true! That General She idan may have been “sprung” will surprise nobody acquainted with his habits. Other men have been the same way before, and may be again, if they live long enough. But why should General Sheridan spring @ leak, or an onion, even, for that matter? And sink” under it, in the bargain! There is some mystery, deep, dark and designing, in this announcement—for the solution of which an aroused public feeling awaits with impa- tience. Noan Contest that was, is Noah discon- tent that is, since the adverse decision of Judge Lawrence in his suit against the Me- tropolitan Elevated Railroad Company. Itis evident, from the Daily Indicator, that Noah no longer regards the M. E. R. as the true and only financial Ark of Safety. And it is just possible that Noah Content or otherwise, is not alone in the regard aforesaid. ‘Tuere is one place thut Guiteau will not be able to laugh himself of comicbooks.com