The world’s stock of wit is increasing. We Americans are the principal inventors of it, and are especially strong in the hyperbolical variety. A recent specimen worth preserving is the story that a Florida man recently killed an alligator, in whose stomach he found a hen sitting on a dozen eggs. The exaggeration turns upon the capacity of an alligator for swallowing, and the equanimity of the sitting hen. Another example is the statement that Puget Sound oysters often weigh sixty pounds apiece, and are not served on the half shell, since “nothing less than a flatboat will answer the purpose.” A good collection of American hyperboles would make a very marketable book. “Turning a howitzer loose on a June bug” is a fresh specimen which we find in a daily newspaper. A “funny editor” having to report that locomotives have fallen from $15,000 to $8,000, adds: “We would not advise our readers to lay in their winter stock of locomotives just yet; they may go lower.”
The preachers who indulge in vacations are not allowed any peace. The New York Examiner has found a new tender spot to thrust a pin into. A resting pastor, it thinks, has no business to work or study. He is defrauding his church if he does. But then the Examiner rubs the sore spot it has made by the more athletic remark that it is a sin to grind all the year through. Yes, fifty-two days of rest are required of us all. It is pleasant, by the way, to read that “the pastors are returning to their flocks,” a statement which lets out the fact that the flocks did not take a vacation.
A new thing under the sun this year is the meeting of the great British Association for the Advancement of Science on American soil. The Montreal meeting was still further novel in the presence and participation of distinguished United States Americans. “Greater Britain” will doubtless more and more take part in these annual gatherings of British science. The success of the Montreal meeting will provoke the emulation of Australia, New Zealand, and British India and Africa.
Vegetarians object to eating meat because animals must be killed to supply such food. One of our quick-witted exchanges has discovered a counter argument, or rather an ad hominem of the you’re another variety. “According to some scientists vegetables feel and perhaps think.” The London Graphic suggests that “the blushing carrot is susceptible of tender emotions, and that the retiring ways of the truffle are due to a well-reasoned aversion to the wickedness which is to be witnessed above ground.” “Perhaps” this is rather speculative.