The reporter was following sound. Here is another illustration:
Those lovely eyes bedimmed,
Those lovely eyes be dammed.
A Congressman advocated grants of public land to "actual settlers." It got in the paper as "cattle stealers." A reporter tried to write that "the jury disagreed and were discharged," but the compositor set it up "the jury disappeared and were disgraced." The last words in a poorly written sentence, "Alone and isolated, man would become impotent and perish," were set up as "impatient and peevish."
A MYSTERIOUS TELEGRAM.
A certain church society in Vermont resolved on a Christmas festival, and determined to have a scripture motto, handsomely illuminated, in a space back of the pulpit. One of the deacons, who had business in Boston, took with him the proposed motto and the measure of the space to be occupied by it, but unfortunately lost the memorandum. He therefore sent this telegram to his wife in Vermont. "Send motto and space." She promptly complied, but the Boston telegraph girl fell off her chair in a faint when she read off the message, "Unto us a child is born four feet wide and eight feet long." The deacon, however, thought it nothing uncommon.
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Mistress: Did the fisherman who stopped here this morning have frog legs?
Nora: Sure, mum, I dinnaw. He wore pants.--Cornell Widow.
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