THE 'FAT CONTRIBUTOR' AS A GYMNAST.
'But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks.'
RICHARD III.
Says the cardinal in the play—'In the bright lexicon of youth there's no such word as fail.' Without stopping to discuss the reliability of a lexicon that omits words in that careless manner, I must say that in the dictionary of fat men who aspire to gymnastics that word distinctly occurs. I had my misgivings, but was over-persuaded by my friends. They said gymnastics would develop muscular strength, thus enabling me to hold my flesh in case it attempted to run away. They added, as an additional incentive, that the spectacle of a man who weighs nearly three hundred pounds, doing the horizontal ladder, climbing a slack-rope hand over hand, or suspending his weight by his little finger, would be a 'big thing.' I asked them how I was to attain that end. 'By practice,' was the reply; 'practice makes perfect.' It did;—it made a perfect fool of me, as you shall see.
I never had much taste for feats requiring physical effort, except lifting—lifting with my teeth. The amount of beef, pork, mutton and vegetables that I have lifted in that way is immense. After hearing Dr. WINSHIP lecture, I practiced lifting a flour barrel with a man inside of it, and finally succeeded in holding it out at arm's length. [I may remark incidentally that the barrel had no heads in it.]
To return to the case in hand (and a case in hand is worth two in the bush): I was deluded into purchasing a season ticket in the gymnasium, and one afternoon I sought the locality. A number were exercising in various ways, and I laid off my coat preparatory to 'going in.' As I bent down to adjust a pair of slippers, I heard some rapid steps behind me, and the next instant a pair, of hands and a man's head fell squarely on my back, a pair of heels smote together in the air, and with a somersault the gymnast regained the ground several feet in advance of me. I assumed an indignant perpendicular, when the fellow turned with well-feigned amazement and stammered forth an apology. Bent over as I was, he had mistaken me for a heavily padded 'wooden horse,' which formed a portion of the apparatus.
Desiring to be weighed from time to time, in order that I might note the effect of gymnastics upon my tonnage, I asked one, who was resting after prodigious efforts to wrench his arms off at a lifting machine, if there were scales convenient. He surveyed me for a moment—looked puzzled—and finally replied hesitatingly,—'Y-e-s, I think we can manage it.' He led the way to a window overlooking the Ohio canal. 'Do you see that building?' said he, pointing to a low structure on the heel path side, extending partly over the canal. I intimated that the fabric in question produced a distinct impression on the optic nerves, and inquired its use. 'Weigh-lock' he shrieked; 'go and be weighed!'
'Go and be d——d!' I yelled, furious at being thus victimized; but my angry and profane rejoinder was lost in the shout of laughter that went up from the assembled athletes.
Natural abhorrence of jokes, practical or otherwise, is a trait among my people; it runs in the family, like wooden legs. I immediately sought the boss gymnaster and related the manner in which I had been introduced to his elevating establishment. I told him I had come there neither to be made a horse of by one nor an ass of by another. He pledged his word that the like should not occur again, and I was appeased.
I first attempted the parallel bars, but they were never intended for men of my breadth. My hands giving way, I became so firmly wedged between the bars that it was necessary to cut one of them away in order to release me. A wag pronounced it a feat without a parallel.
The horizontal bar next claimed my attention. I had seen others hang with their heads down, suspended by their legs alone, and the trick appeared quite easy of execution. I succeeded in suspending myself in the manner indicated, but—revocare gradum—when I attempted to regain the bar with my hands, it was no go. I was in a perspiration of alarm at once; my legs grew weak; my head swam from the rush of blood; twist and squirm as I would, I couldn't reach the bar with the tip end of a finger even. My head was four or five feet from the ground, so that a fall was likely to break my neck, and when my frantic efforts to clutch the bar with my hands failed, I shrieked in very desperation. Men came running to my aid. They raked the tan bark, with which the ground was strewn, in a pile beneath me, to break my fall as much as possible, and, relaxing my hold of the bar, I came down in a heap, rolled up like a gigantic caterpillar, and dived head and shoulders into the tan bark, where I was nearly smothered before I could be extracted. It was a terrible fright, but I escaped with a few bruises.
My brief career as a gymnast terminated with the 'ladder act.' I felt unequal to the task of drawing myself up the ladder (which was slightly inclined from the perpendicular), as I had seen others do, but once at the top I believed I could lower myself down. A purchase was rigged in the roof, by which I was hoisted to the top of the ladder, some thirty feet from the ground, when, grasping a round firmly with my hands, the purchase was disconnected from my waist belt, and I began the descent. It was very severe on the arms, and I desired to rest myself by placing my feet on a round, but my protuberant paunch would not permit it. When I had accomplished about half the distance in safety, a round snapped suddenly with the unusual weight. I remember clutching frantically at the next, which broke as did the other; then followed a sensation of falling, succeeded by a collision as between two express trains at full speed, and I knew no more. When I recovered consciousness, I was in my own bed, and four surgeons were endeavoring to set my broken leg with a stump extractor. Gymnastics are a little out of my line.
FAT CONTRIBUTOR.
Unlike BRUMMEL, we know who our fat friend is, and shall be happy to see him again.
'Talbot,' of Washington, one of those who keep the many chronicles of government, gives us the following from his repertoire:—
Shortly after the inauguration of President Lincoln, and during the period in which the throng of office-seekers was greatest, an applicant for a clerkship in one of the departments received notification to appear before the 'examining committee' for examination as to qualifications. In due time he appeared, and announced himself 'ready.' The aforesaid 'committee,' supposing that they had before them a decidedly 'soft one,' determined to enjoy a little 'sport' at the poor fellow's expense. After having put a great many questions to him, none of which in the least applied to the duties he would be expected to perform, he was asked how he would ascertain the number of square feet occupied by the Patent Office building. This question aroused in him suspicions that 'all was not right,' and, with a promptness and emphasis that effectually dampened the hopes of his questioners, he replied, 'Well, gentlemen, I should employ an experienced surveyor.'
The same correspondent tells us that—
In one of the rural towns of Illinois lived, a few years agone, a very eccentric individual known as 'DICKEY BULARD,' whose original sayings afforded no little amusement to his neighbors.
DICKEY had his troubles, the saddest of which was the loss of his only son. Shortly after this event, in speaking of it to some friends, he broke out in the following pathetic expression of feeling:
'I'd rather a' lost the best cow I have, and ten dollars besides, than that boy. If it had been a gal, it wouldn't a' made so much difference; but it was the only boy I had.'
On another occasion, in referring to the death of his grandmother, who had been fatally injured by a butt from a pet ram, DICKEY gave vent to his feelings as follows:
'I never felt so bad in all my life as I did when grandmother died. She had got so old, and we had kept her so long, we wanted to see how long we could keep her.
It is the 'turn of the tune' which gives point to the far-famed legend of 'The Arkansaw Traveler,'—which legend, in brief, is to the effect that a certain fiddling 'Rackensackian,' who could never learn more than the first half of a certain tune, once bluntly refused all manner of hospitality to a weary wayfarer, avowing with many an oath that his house boasted neither meat nor whisky, bed nor hay. But being taught by the stranger the 'balance' of the tune,—'the turn,' as he called it,—he at once overwhelmed his musical guest with all manner of dainties and kindnesses. And it is the 'turn of the tune,' in the following lyric, from the soft tinkle of the guitar to the harsh notes of the 'beaten parchment,' which gives it a peculiar charm.
The Guitar And The Drum.
By R. Wolcott, Co. B., Tenth Illinois
Evening draws nigh, and the daylight
In golden splendor dies;
And the stars look down through the gloaming
With soft and tender eyes.
I sit alone in the twilight,
And lazily whiff my cigar,
Watching the blue wreaths curling,
And thrumming my old guitar:
Old, and battered, and dusty,—
A veteran covered with scars;
Yet to me the most precious of treasures,
The sweetest of all guitars.
For a gentle spirit dwells in it,
That speaks through the trembling strings,
And in echo to my thrumming
A wonderful melody sings.
As I softly strike the measures,
The spirit murmurs low
A song of departed pleasures,
A dream of the long ago.
And like a weird enchanter
It paints in the star-lit sky
Pictures from memory's record,
Scenes of the days gone by.
And as the ripples of music
Float out on the evening air,
There comes to me a vision
Of the girl with the golden hair.
Kindly she turns upon me.
Those lustrous, violet eyes,
And my heart with passionate yearnings
To meet her eagerly flies.
Nearer she comes, and yet nearer,
At the beck of the spirit's wand,
And I feel the gentle pressure
On my brow of her warm, white hand—
Tr-r-r-rum-ti-tum-tum, tr-r-r-rum-ti-tum-tum!
'Tis the warning voice of the rolling drum.
Through the awakened night air come
The stern command and the busy hum
Of hurried preparation.
'Tis no time now for idle strumming
Of light guitars: in that loud drumming
Is fearful meaning; the hour is coming
That for some of us will be the summing
Of all life's preparation.
Quick, quick, my boys: fall in! fall in!
Now is the hour when we begin
The battle with this monstrous sin.
Onward to victory!—or to win
A patriot's martyrdom!
Stay no longer to bandy words;
Trust we now to our gleaming swords;
For foul rebellion's dastardly hordes
A terrible hour has come.
By all that you love beneath the skies;
By the world of cherished memories;
By your hopes for the coming years;
By the tender light of your loved one's eyes;
By the warm, white hands you so highly prize;
By your mothers' parting tears,
Swear the horrible wrong to crush!
What though you fall in the battle's rush,
And the velvet leaves of the greensward blush
With your young life's crimson tide?
The angels look down with pitying love,
And your tale will be told in the record above:
'For his country's honor he died.'
The gentle strings of the light guitar,
Waking soft echoes from memory's chords,
And tender dreams of home—
The noise, and the pomp, and the glitter of war;
The furious charge, and the clashing swords;
The song of the rolling drum.
How many a young heart has, in these later days, been turned from soft guitar-tones of idleness, to the brave, rattling measures of drum-life! It will do good, this war of ours; and many a brave fellow will, in after years, look back upon it as the school in which he first learned to be a thoroughly practical and sensible MAN.
We are indebted to a gossiping and ever most welcome New Haven friend for the following anecdote of one of the men who, clothed in a little brief authority, 'go about 'restin' people:'
Our village we consider one of the most pleasant in the country; our boys full of life and activity, and our officers men of energy and perseverance, and men who understand their importance. In proof of these assertions, I offer the following sketch of an occurrence a few years ago.
DICK BARNES was a blacksmith, and a man of considerable notoriety in those days, and from the peculiar prominence of his front upper teeth he had derived, from the boys of the village, the singular nick-name of 'Tushy.' For two or three successive years he had been elected constable, and the duties of this great public office appeared to demand that he should neglect his legitimate private business, so that it was said that the safest place for him to secrete himself—the most unlikely place where he would be sought—would be behind his own anvil. Like many others 'clothed with a little brief authority' he was not overmodest in showing his importance.
The boys were then, as they are now, fond of skating, and there was a large pond near the centre of the village on which they used to have fine times on moonlight evenings, and especially Sunday evenings, and, as a natural consequence, when large numbers of boys are engaged in sport, they were somewhat noisy.
One Sunday evening, when the ice was very smooth and the boys were enjoying themselves, BARNES made his appearance on the ice and ordered them off, in tones, and exclamations of authority. The boys did not like this interference in their sports and couldn't see the justice of his demand. 'That's old Tushy,' says one, and the cry of 'Tushy,' 'Tushy,' soon passed among the crowd of skaters, till BARNES began to think it personal, and was determined to catch one of them and make of him an example. The ice was 'glib,' as they termed it, and as they all had skates except 'Tushy,' they were rather rude in their behavior towards him,—a not very uncommon circumstance,—and though they were careful to keep out of harm's way, they kept near enough to him to annoy him. Finding all efforts to catch one of them fruitless, with the advantage they had,—for 'the wicked stand on slippery places,'—he announced his determination to catch one of them anyhow, and started for the shore.
Boys are usually quicker in arriving at conclusions than older people, and one of them suggested that he had gone for his skates. 'Good! now we'll have some fun, boys,' says Phil Clark, who was a good skater, and withal a good leader in a frolic. 'You follow me and do as I tell you, and I don't believe old "Tushy" will follow us far.' By general consent he led them to the dry, sandy shore, and such as had them filled their handkerchiefs, and such as could not boast of that superfluity filled their caps, with sand. 'Now,' says Phil, 'when he comes back, and it won't be long, we'll form a line and wait till he gets his skates on, when he'll put chase for some of us. If he gets near any of us, some one sing out "Bully," and every boy drop his sand, and if he catches any one we'll all pitch in.'
'Tushy' in a little while made his appearance, and soon had his skates strapped to his feet, and after a few stamps upon the ice, to see that they were properly secured, glided a few strokes and started off for the boys. The moon was shining 'as bright as day,' and old Tushy's movements were perfectly apparent. The pond was huge, and afforded a good opportunity for a trial of speed, and, though many of the boys were good skaters, 'Tushy' perseveringly determined to capture one of them, and started for the one nearest. This was 'Phil,' who was the master spirit of the frolic, and as 'Tushy' approached with almost the certainty of capturing him, he would glide gracefully aside and let him pass on. He had almost caught up with a group of the smaller boys who were going at full speed, when 'Phil' shouted out the word 'Bully.' In an instant the contents of handkerchiefs and caps was deposited on the glaring ice, the boys continuing their flying course. 'Tushy,' elated with the prospect of capturing at least one of the urchins, increased his speed with lunger strides, and was in the act of grasping one, when the sparks from his steel runners, the sudden arrest of his feet and the onward movement of his body, convinced him that he was caught. The impetus he had acquired with the few last strokes on the smooth ice, and the sudden check his feet had received from the sand, sent him sliding headlong many yards towards an air-hole,—one of those dangerous places on ponds suddenly frozen,—and soon the ice began to crack around him. The water in the pond was not deep, but the ice continued to break with his efforts to extricate himself. He found that the boys had successfully entrapped him, and it was not until he had made a promise not again to interfere with their sport that they consented to assist him out. He kept his promise, and the boys ever after, when they designed any extra sport on the ice, had his nick-name for a by-word.
JAY G. BEE.
'Salt,' according to MORESINUS, 'is sacred to the infernal deities,'—for which reason, we presume, those who were seated 'below the salt' at the banquets of the Middle Ages were always 'poor devils.' Attic salt is always held to be more pungent when there is a touch of the diabolical and caustic in it,—and therefore caustic itself is known as lapis infernalis. 'Poor Mr. N——,' said a country dame, of a recently deceased neighbor who was over-thrifty, 'he always saved his salt and lost his pork.' 'Yes,' replied a friend, 'and now the salt has lost its Saver.' The reader has doubtless heard of the lively young lady, named Sarah, whom her friends rechristened Sal Volatile. Apropos—a New Haven friend writes us that—
My chum, Dr. B., is not a little of a wag. At a social gathering, shortly after he had received his diploma, the young ladies were very anxious to put his knowledge of medicine to the test. 'Doctor,' queried one of the fair, 'what will cure a man who has been hanged?' 'Salt is the best thing I know of,' replied the tormented, with great solemnity.
According to a cotemporary—the Boston Herald—the best Christians may be known by the pavements before their houses being cleaned of ice and snow. This reminds us of a spiritual anecdote. A deceased friend having been summoned through a medium and asked where he had spent the first month after his decease, rapped out,—
'I-n—p-u-r-g-a-t-o-r-y.'
'Did you find it uncomfortable?'
'Not very. While I lived I always had my pavements cleared in winter, and all the ice and snow shoveled away was given back to me in orange-water ices, Roman punch, vanilla and pistachio creams, frozen fruits, cobblers, juleps, and smashes.'
Somebody has spoken in an Arctic voyage of the musical vibrations of the ice. There is certainly music in the article. 'Take care,' said a Boston girl to her companion, as they were navigating the treacherously slippery pavement of our city a few days since; 'it's See sharp or Be flat.'
Somebody once wrote a book on visiting-cards. There is a great variety of that article; an English ambassador once papered his entire suit of rooms with that with which a Chinese mandarin honored him. MICHAEL ANGELO left a straight line as a card, and was recognized by it. Our friend H—— once distributed blank pasteboards in Philadelphia, and everybody said, 'Why, H—— has been here!' Not long since, a lady dwelling in New York asked her seven-year-old GEORGY where he had been.
'Out visiting.'
'Did you leave your card?'
'No; I hadn't any, so I left a marble!'
GEORGY'S idea was that cards were playthings. And cartes de visite are most assuredly the playthings for children of an older growth, most in vogue at the present day. Go where you will, the albums are examined, nay, some collectors have even one or two devoted solely to children, or officers, or literary men, or young ladies. The following anecdote records, however, as we believe, 'an entirely new style' of visiting-card:—
Madam X. was busy the other morning. Miss Fanny Z. 'just ran in to see her' en amie, without visiting-cards.
The waiter carried her name to Madam X. Meanwhile Miss Fannie, circulating through the parlors, saw that there was dust on the lower shelf of an étagére, so she delicately traced the letters
Smut
thereon and therefore. Waiter enters, and regrets that Madam X. is so very much engaged that she is invisible. Miss Fanny flies home.
In the evening she meets Madam X., who is 'perfectly enchanted' to see her. 'Ah, Fanny, dear, I am charmed to see you; the waiter forgot your name this morning, but I was delighted to see your ingenuity. Would you believe it, the first thing I saw on entering the parlor was your card on the étagére!'
The Naugatuck railroad, according to a friend of the CONTINENTAL,
Is in many places cut through a rugged country, and the rocks thereabout have an ugly trick of rolling down upon the track when they get tired of lying still. So the company employ sentinels who traverse the dangerous territory before the morning train goes through. One of these,—Pat K. by name,—while on his beat, met Dennis, whose hand he had last shaken on the 'Green Isle.' After mutual inquiries and congratulations, says Dennis, 'What are you doin' these days, Pat?' 'Oh, I'm consarned in this railroad company. I go up the road fur the likes o' four miles ivry mornin' to see is there ony rocks on the thrack.' 'And if there is?' 'Why, I stops the trains, sure.' 'Faith,' said Dennis, 'what the divil's the good o' that—wouldn't the rocks stop 'em?'
The Hibernian idea of a meeting is, we should judge, peculiar, and not, as a rule, amicable. 'What are ye doing here, Pat?' inquired one of the Green Islanders who found a friend one morning in a lonely spot. 'Troth, Dinnis, and it's waiting to mate a gintleman here I'm doing.' 'Waiting for a frind is it?' replied Dennis; 'but where is yer shillaly thin?' This was indeed a misapprehension, and of the kind which, as a benevolent clergyman complained, who was actively engaged in home mission work, was one of the most constant sources of his frequent annoyances. 'Why,' he remarked, 'it was only the other morning that I heard of a poor girl who was dying near the Five Points, and went to administer to her such comfort as it might be in my power to render. I met an impudent miss leaving the room, who, when I inquired for the sufferer by name, replied, "It's no use; you're too late, old fellow,—she's give me her pocket-book and all her things."'
A friend has called our attention to the following extract from an advertisement in a New York evening paper, and requests an explanation:—
STRABISMUS, OR CROSS-EYE, IN ITS WORST STAGES, CURED IN ONE MINUTE. READ!
NEWARK, August 14th, 1861.
Dear Doctor: I write to express my thanks for the great difference you have made in my appearance by your operation on my eye. I have had a squint, or cross-eye, since birth, and in less than one minute, and with VERY LITTLE PAIN, you have made my eyes perfectly straight and natural. Having consulted in Europe the greatest Aurists, I, therefore, can testify that your system of restoring the hearing to the deaf is at once scientific, safe and sure; and I confidently recommend all deaf to place themselves under your care.
W.T.
There's a nut to crack. Having had a cross-eye cured in one minute, Mr. T. can therefore testify that the system by which he was enabled to see is just the thing to enable the deaf to hear! But an instant's reflection convinced us of the true state of the case. There is an old German song which translated saith:
'I am the Doctor Iron-beer,
The one who makes the blind to hear,
The man who makes the deaf to see:—
Come with your invalids to me.'
We evidently have a Doctor Iron-beer among us. 'He still lives,' and enables people to outdo the clairvoyants, who read with their fingers, by qualifying his patients to peruse the papers with their auricular organs.
Walter will receive our thanks for the following æsthetic communication:—
DEAR CONTINENTAL:
Do you know the superb picture of Judith and Holofernes, by ALLORI? Of course. But the legend?
The painter ALLORI was blessed and cursed with a mistress, one of the most beautiful women in an age of beauty. He loved her, and she tormented him, until, to set forth his sufferings, he painted la belle dame sans mercy as Judith, holding his own decapitated head by the hair.
'She was more than a match for her lover,' said a young lady, who—between us—I think is more beautiful than the 'Judith.'
'Yes,' was the answer; 'the engraving proves that she got a-head of him.'
Of course it was Holofernally bad. I once heard a better one on the same subject, of scriptural be-head-edness. Where is a centaur first mentioned? John's head on a charger. The postage stamp on your lawyer's bill—mine especially—represents the same thing, with the substitution of General Washington for John. Rarey tamed Cruiser—I wonder if he could do anything by way of 'taking down' this legal 'charger' of mine.
Yours truly,
WALTER
Much has been written on oysters. There was a time when England sent nothing else abroad. 'The poor Britons—they are good for something,' says SALLUST, in 'The Last Days of Pompeii;' 'they produce an oyster.' In these days, they export no oysters, but in lieu thereof give us plenty of pepper-sauce. But to the point,—we mean to the poem,—for which we are indebted to a Philadelphia contributor:—