We nearly catapillered! After all this circumlocution, the man came to the pint, and—sold his eggs in two minutes!
Jolly Old Times.
Either mankind or his constitution has changed since "the good old times," for we read in an old medicine book, that bleeding at the nose, and cramp, could be effectually prevented by wearing a dried toad in a bag at the pit of the stomach; while for rheumatism and consumption, a snake skin worn in the crown of your hat, was a sovereign remedy! Dried toads and snake skins are quite out of use around these settlements, and we think the Esculapius who would recommend such nostrums, would be looked upon as a poor devil with a fissure in his cranium, liable to cause his brains to become weather-beaten! We remember hearing of a learned old cuffy, who lived down "dar" near Tallahassee, who invariably recommended cayenne pepper in the eye to cure the toothache! Had this venerable old colored gem'n lived 200 years ago, he would doubtless have created a sensation in the medical circles!
The Pigeon Express Man.
In nearly all yarns or plays in which Yankees figure, they are supposed to be "a leetle teu darn'd ceute" for almost any body else, creating a heap of fun, and coming out clean ahead; but that even Connecticut Yankees—the cutest and all firedest tight critters on the face of the yearth, when money or trade's in the question—are "done" now and then, upon the most scientific principles, we are going to prove.
It is generally known, in the newspaper world, that two or three Eastern men, a few years ago, started a paper in Philadelphia, upon the penny principle, and have since been rewarded as they deserved. They were, and are, men of great enterprise and liberality, as far as their business is concerned, and thereby they got ahead of all competition, and made their pile. The proprietors were always "fly" for any new dodge, by which they could keep the lead of things, and monopolize the news market. The Telegraph had not "turned up" in the day of which we write—the mails, and, now and then, express horse lines, were the media through which Great Excitements! Alarming Events!! Great Fires and Awful Calamities!! were come at. One morning, as one of these gentlemen was sitting in his office, a long, lank genius, with a visage as hatchet-faced and keen as any Connecticut Yankee's on record, came in, and inquired of one of the clerks for the proprietors of that institution. Being pointed out, the thin man made a lean towards him. After getting close up, and twisting and screwing around his head to see that nobody was listening or looking, the lean man sat down very gingerly upon the extreme verge of a chair, and leaning forward until his razor-made nose almost touched that of the publisher, in a low, nasal, anxious tone, says he,
"Air yeou one of the publishers of this paper?"
"I am, sir."