PIG WIT.
"May it please your worship," said Mr. Richard Stewart—an elderly, well-fed man, of a jolly and pleasant countenance—"May it please your worship, I keeps a stand in Covent-garden Market, and have done so any time these ten years; and Mr. Ephraim's stand is next to mine. Now, your worship, on Wednesday morning I'd a hamper o' pork up out o' Hertfordshire; and so I opened the hamper; and, at the top on it, lay a nice head; off of as sweet a pig as ever suck'd; and I takes the head, and holds it up; and, says I, 'Here's a bootiful head!' says I. 'Did ever any body see such a handsome un?'—And sure enough, your worship, it was the most bootiful as ever was; and would have done anybody's heart good to see it—it was cut so clean off the quarter (drawing his finger slowly and scientifically across the brawn of his own neck,) and was so short i' the snout, and as white as a sheet it was, your worship; quite remarkable handsome. And so I said, says I, 'Look here! Did ever anybody see sich a picture?' holding it up just in this manner. With that, 'Ah!' says Mr. Ephraim, says he, 'now my dream's out—I dreamt last night that I saw two pigs' heads together, and there they are!'—meaning my head and the pig's head, your worship. Well, I took no notice o' that, but I goes me gently behind Mr. Ephraim, and slides the pig's head by the side of his head, claps my own o' the other side—all a-row—with the pig's i' the middle, your worship; and says I to the folks, says I, 'Now, who'll say which is the honestest face of the three?' With that, your worship, all the folks fell a laughing, and I goes myself quietly back again to my stall. But poor Ephraim fell in such a passion!—Lord! Lord! it were a moral to see what a pucker he were in!—he danced, and he capered, and he rubbed his whiskers—though I verily believe the pig's head never touched him—and he jumped and fidgeted about all as one as if he was mad, till at last he tumbled into the orange-chest, your worship, of his own accord, as it were; and that's the long and short of it, your worship, as my neighbours here can specify."
His worship having listened attentively to these conflicting statements, decided that the defendant had acted indecently in insulting the religious feelings of the plaintiff; though, at the same time, the affair was hardly worth carrying to the sessions, and therefore he would recommend the plaintiff to be satisfied with an apology.
The defendant expressed the greatest willingness to apologise—"For," says he, leaning over the table, and sinking his voice to a whisper, "I asked another Jew what could make Mr. Ephraim in such a passion, and he told me, your worship, that if you get a rale Jew and rub him with a bit o' pork, it's the greatest crime as ever was."
Plaintiff and defendant then retired, and the matter was compromised.
AN IRISH TAILOR.
Edward Leonard was charged with having assaulted Mary, the wife of Thomas Reid.
This was a watch-house charge, and appeared to have originated thus:—Mr. Leonard lodges in the house of Mr. Reid, and like most of his countrymen of the like class, he is given to imbibing more beer than his brains will bear. This seems to have been the case with him on Saturday night, for he came home at a most unseasonable hour, and because Mr. Reid would not get up and light a candle for him, he most unconscionably threatened to fracture his skull, break his back, and put his nose out of joint. Now Mr. Reid is a quiet, harmless, little man, and, being at that time warm and comfortable in his bed, he thought it best to lie still and take no notice. But Mrs. Reid—knowing Ted Leonard's furious propensities, and fearing he would really attempt to do some one or other of those things he had mentioned—got up to remonstrate with him; and in so doing she was rudely pushed about by Ted Leonard, who talked of the liberties he ought to be allowed as a lodger. The d——l a bit he cared for the whole house put together, he said; and, if it was not for the trouble of it, he would make every man and woman in the place fly out of the top of the chimney! And still he kept calling upon poor Mr. Reid to get up and have his nose put out of joint; and he made such a tremendous hubbub, not only in the house, but in the whole neighbourhood, that at last, by common consent, he was sent off to the watch-house.