Judge — January 24, 1885 — page 11: what you’re looking at

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

( } 4 | j | | | THE JUDGE. Mr. Jackason’s New Year's Eve. How Ho Takes Account of His Sina, and is Haunted by Spectres—mostly Drank. *Tis the first New Year of the season. It will also be the last, A Solomon reflection! Let me see—where do I stand this night? Do I stand on my head, or do I stand in an unnatural posish? What have I done that I feel half ashamed to look myself in the naked eye. Out with it my Jackason; though it breaks thy liver and fill thy stomach with re- morse. Never mind the weather Jackason, but haul thy sins by the heels out from be- tween the feather-beds, Strip them to the night shirt, and expose them to the gaze of Thermometer, who is stopping down at Zero’s. It will do thee Foul. All the rest of the saints do it. For is there no balm in vad? ‘Truly there be, and this be the way to fetch it out— I had been sworn in a member of the church only a day or two before our beloved paster, the Rev. Dedbeets, and I got on a eautiful bender. As Mr. D. remarked, the night was calm and sereneful. We left Pal- mer’s saloon arm in arm, singing the grand old hymn, “We Won't Go Home "Till Morning,” and soon after fell into a half-dug out cellar. I was the first to get awake in the morning, and, of course, went through my unfortunate companion. Besides some coins, which I spent next day for remembrance sake, I found the broken stem of a valuable clay pipe. In the hurry of operation I stuck this in my pocket, and thought no more about it at the time. But now the hour has come, and the pipe stem stands before me mounted on the { of this solemn occasion like the spectres—must mean the spectators—that haunted the ghost of Bunco in one of the back streets of Shakespeare-on-Avon, Not many days after being delivered from the cellar the Rev, Dedbeets was holding forth so strongly and so longly t! he at last got two ward politicians under conviction, and their toughness was so great that brother Bibbers and I wrestled with them ‘till we were tired out and felt like taking some of nature’s sweet restorer balmy; so we went over to Palmer’s and when it came to my turn to set her up, I gave Palmer a counter- feit trade dollar, which he took without look- ing at it much—forgetting, I suppose, that I had joined the church—and, in a rush of business, gave me five quarters change. And did I on any of the numerous occasions that I have been at Palmer’s since, act like a humble Christian and say, ‘‘ Palmer, thou hast done me a grievous injury, but we are all poor sinners, Palmer, and I forgive thee?” Never; and now methinks me hears myself saying to myself, Jackason, thou hast faults, but the hardness of heart that would not forgive that trade dollar is what stuns me. But this is not all. It was a Sabbath eve- ning about three o’clock on Monday morning, that brother Moonlightly and I assembled to transact some business. Hearing, however, that brother Flintstone and his whole family were down in the blackberry bushes with lanterns, hunting the cent which he had lost on his way home from church, we changed the programme and went for brother Flint- stone's poultry-yard, and cleaned out every- thing—everything, that is, except the father gobbler, who, in the course of a somewhat checkered life, had learned to roost high. Tim we had to leave, bereft of family and kindred, alone, all alone on the tree. In vain do the remains of the unregenerate man within me persuasively say; ‘ You know, DUMB, Oxp Party—* Hey! Business Like Boy— BUT Jackason, that you had rather have taken a gobbler of that size, considering what he would fetch in the Philadelphia market, than any two of the rest. But what could you d Flintstone’s return was not expected, yet before the gobbler could be rescucd, here was brother F. coming down your rear, his old war-musket loaded to the brim with rusty shingle nails, while the dog was already tal ing care of the slack in brother Moonlightly’s pants. No, Jackason, all that morta could do was to git with the plunder leave the unfortunate gobbler to his All in vain, for conscience hoarsely asks, ‘ Jackason wert thou afraid to risk thy old hide for the rescue of that lonely gobbler?” Let him sit heavy on thy soul this night for every every more! And he doth, he doth, ster Lenore. Sitteth ghostlike and fat, good for thirty pounds dressed. But the night drives on. T bought Flint- stone’s bay (as soon us Moonlightly had sufficently convinced the owner that the animal had an ig-cholera) for five dollars to be So far, good. I gave myself a receipt in full, duty ‘sign with Flintstone’s name, but here, forgetting the duty which I owed to society and to the church, I signed without crossing the t, and when the receipt was brought up April first, Flintstone saw that the t wasn’t crossed and —oh Jackason, what a crime that to leave that t uncrossed! And now the un- crossed t hung himself onto the neck of the gobbler and will not down. And more. Last Fourth of July, when I ‘ot that splendid dinner at the Carter Hot taking in sufficient forage to save two meals at home) I succeeded, under favor of Provi- dence, in escaping without paying a cent Yet what had I done to merit such a bless- ing? Alas, worse than nothing. For in partaking of that very dinner I had violated the divine law which forbids frail mortals to shovel in our grub with a knife. And now the ghostly blade hisses from the dinner tables of memory and says (making believe to speak only for the information of itself) i NOT DUMB-FOUNDED, top the car—yell to it!” Why, dern it, don’t you see Lm dumb.” 18 y be white- washed away, but he that grubbeth his grub with a knife, after the manner of a Dutch og, while Providence hath provided him h fingers, deserveth to be guilty of his own death.” . The minutes move on. when the police cam Oh that day, over to my place with of alot of pigs, ed everything without finding an I returned thanks only in a general for the great mercies of that day, but made no mention of the special providence which came to me, as it were in a vision or dream, saying, “Lide them in the churn, ly himself would never churn, No, v8 one of the sams?—sich is hnman nature; once hefhas licked all the butter off don’t give a con- tinental fur the hand that spread it on. But not for always. The New Year come then the conscience stroked wretch is glad to return to his butter The end is not ye March |; broth found himself with a great hoarseness in the pit of his stomach, so that the eminent colored divine, the Re Buckwasher Strugg) filled his stormy night of pulpit and fleck that might. This aged child of grace who had been fighting the Satan ever since he “fast sot out on de pilgrim- age” (the Satan being generally on top) dwelt so strongly in his sermon on the ragged pathway of life, that the fountain of sorrow was broke loose in the bosom of Moonlightly and me, and we agreed to smooth the brother's pathway for one night at least by pouring water on the ruggedest part of the alley that led to brother Didler’s house. The consequence was that something broke, But what? The Rev, Backwasher’s shins, and the Rev, Dedbect’s hand plug. And when the Rev. leseent he plunged with his Ne into the passing body of Mr. auch, and carried Mr. S. with him, All this was to be expected under the circumstances, and might be regarded asa dispensation; bu comicbooks.com