Life — August 16, 1888 — page 10: what you’re looking at

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

- LIFE: SUMMER STUDIES IN NATURAL HISTORY. THE PARROT, E must regard the parrot, dear reader, as one of Nature's practical jokes; and yet, even when she perpetrated the parrot, Nature had an eye to the useful, and many people, maiden ladies particularly, who can get no one else to talk to them, find in the parrot a perfect mine of con- versational amusement. To be sure, a parrot’s conversa- tion, judged by the purely intellectual standard, does not rank high, but the zaéve/é with which it sometimes says the very thing which its owner thinks might better have been left unsaid atones for its shortcomings in other respects. Parrots are, of course, particularly adapted to-the require- ments of apartment houses. One able-bodied parrot, with lungs in good order, is enough to go around in an apartment house, and none of the tenants will complain that they are robbed of their share of parrot. For this use should be selected a parrot that alternately squawks and shrieks, and its cage should be hung where it will be struck by the first rays of the rising sun. Then the owner can sit by the air- shaft and enjoy hearing what the other tenants think about parrots. A bad little boy once grew tired of hearing his maiden aunt's parrot inform people that it wanted a cracker, so he gave it acracker. It happened to be a fire-cracker with the fuse lighted, and the parrot laughed with fiendish glee while the bad little boy's maiden aunt applied her slipper where it would do the most good to the bad little boy. In Nature's scheme, even the parrot may become an in- strument of good, and it is recorded that once an Anglo- A CANDIDATE'S TRIALS. IMPKINS: I was grieved, Maria, to see Tommie looking over the morning papers to-day. Mrs, S.: Why, I can’t see what harm it can do the boy to keep informed on the questions of the day. SIMPKINS: Madame, don’t you know that I am running for office? 1 don’t want my son to disown me, A SHORT STOP. PASSENGER: Do we stop long enough at the next station to eat a sand- wich ? CONDUCTOR: No, sir; we only stop maniac committed suicide because his parrot insisted on saying “ Polly wants a cracker,” in spite of all his efforts to make it say “ Polly wants a biscuit.” The immoral parrot that has been educated by profane sailors is oftentimes brought into Christian families, where its conversion to piety becomes a work of love. When the young ladies of the family address it as “ Pretty Polly,” and in return are requested to go to Hades, or to stow their guff, they receive a shock which is one of the best tests to which Christian forbearance can be subjected. Thus, dear reader, you will see that even the loquacity of the parrot, which, like a good many human beings, often talks of things that he knows nothing about, has its place in Nature's scheme, and, like other apparently useless things, is in reality of great utility. One of the things that a parrot is most useful for is to test the sharpness of a new hatchet pur- chased for that purpose. Metcalfe. MATCHED. NDIGNANT CABBY (holding in his palm a trade dollar which he has just received from his fare): Here, Cap‘n, wot d'yer call dis? Fare: Heads. And heads it is, by gad! [Grads tt and escapes.) AT THE BOSTON SYMPHONY. ISS SONATA (fo western escort): Do you know Wagner, Mr. Hamlard ? Mr. HAMLARD: No; but I'm well acquainted with Pull- man. He lives in Chicago, you know. BOOMING THE PAPER. ITIZEN (40 office-boy in counting-room): Your durned paper had an outrageous attack on me this morning, and—— OrFIcE-Boy (4réskly): Yessir. you have ? How many copies will AN AZTEC FRAGMENT. twenty minutes. SUPPOSED TO BE A MISSIONARY PREACHING TO NATIVES IN A GROVE, comicbooks.com