Judge — December 1887 — page 31: what you’re looking at

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

CHRISTMAS JUDGE 29 A TALK WITH ST. NICHOLAS. 1 talk with that philanthropic saint as time, the other day, old Santa said Santa, alter we had lighted aums, “this is a funny world, | isn’t it?” “Yes, indeed,” said I. “L suppose you have an opportunity to see a great many queer things. I don’t like to appear too inquisi- tive,” I ventured, “but there are something | more than a million readers of Ju yho would like to know your history. Would you object to giving me the outlines of it?” “I was born,” said Santa, “four thou- sand years ago yesterday, on an iceberg in the Arctic ocean. I don’t look like it, but I was. My parents were in excellent circumstances—my father was in the ice business. 1 presume this had something to do with thesubsequent coolness that sprang up later between the old gentleman and myself, for when I was twenty years old 1 left the roof of my father’s ice house, but how spared to earn my own living! I was an icicle, the people said, and they would have nothing to do with me. Social ostracism was more than I could bear, and so, after hanging around some eavestroughs for two or three years, and hearing that my paternal ancestor melting towards me, I hastened back to his house. B, too late, for when I arrived I found that he 7) was dead. He had left a will, carefully f ep) is) done up and laid away in a first-class burglar-proof Arctic chill, which was found to contain a provision that I was to expend his vast fortune—gained in furnishing ice- bergs to ocean steamship companies—for the benefit of humanity. 1 thought of a thousand and one ways in which humanity might be benefited by the vast fortune at my disposal, and finally settled on the p that I have been carrying out ever since. As you doubtless well k : competition to fight agains me lose heart of late years, and now that most of the Claus fortune has gone | have come to the conclusion that unless I stop - pretty soon my name will be Denis—and . death would be far preferable to that. Don’t f Lp you think so, yourself?” FU SF St . L admitted that the sting of death wouldn't a 7 ; ¥ be half so hard to bear as the name of Denis. = Ss “To tell the truth,” he continued, “I don’t see how I have stood it so long as I have. LET : I look jolly and round and fat, but my Tol ite oe philanthropic work has made a_ perfect wreck of my nerves. Why,Ican’tgo down % the chimney of a Boston house and cram a pER piano into one of those Massachusetts girls’ ‘Ow stockings, that is only large enough for a 2 No. 1 Faber lead-pencil, without an attack ‘i of the horrors. Then just think of the years Fe A and years I have been lugging succulent & OAp ‘ Ps hams to the Chicago girls and ear-muffs to i the Buffalo damsels, not to mention the thousand and one things that I hav: cart around to the rest of the femal this glorious country. ‘The strain has been enough to wear out the Keely motor, I think I’ve done my duty, and if you hear of a fine lot of reindeer being offered for sale soon after the 25th of December you may = know that I have concluded to get what 1 : ae can out of the outfit and leave the country. } . . | Of course, I may change my mind if I find ‘ . this year that every one of the sixty million N iN} NI R people of this country don’t ask for the earth; - : but I'm afraid it is too much to hope for. Are you going down-town? Well, I've got to get my beard trimmed, and T guess in step down on the street with you. And thus ended the only authentic inter- ‘TE THR HIGH COURT OF JUBTIOR—Gommll v. Durrant—On Jan. 28, 1887, Mr. Justice Ohitty granted a Pespetual ‘ p ; Unfanetion with costa, restraining Mr. George Reynolds Durrant from Infringing Messrs. Joh Gosnell and Oa's vlewsever had wittish paar ; Registered Trade Mark, CHERRY BLOSSOM ‘eo. S. Criltenden. comicbooks.com