It is pretty well known among the circle of his acquaintances, and the townspeople generally, that Mr ——, the old established and highly respectable tradesman of THIS NEIGHBOURHOOD is much addicted to wenching, and that he is known to nearly every boy and girl in the town, big or little, as the “Old Ram,” or “Billy Goat.” And it is also well-known that his wife, who is as nice and amiable a little body as ever laid on a husband’s shirt-tail—can never keep a maid-servant with a tolerable agreeable face, but he is sure to be in pursuit of her; and only this year they have had in their service Mary Carter, Jane Baker, Martha Price, Jemima Smith, Harrietta Johnson, Sarah Tompkins, and Betsy Rogers, all of whom have left at a short notice in consequence of the rumbustiousness of Mr ——. A few weeks ago Mrs —— engaged with a very pretty girl named Fanny H——, but no sooner did “The Old Ram” behold her than he was smitten with her charms, considering her as a domestic treasure, of which, he flattered himself, he should soon be possessed. Accordingly, Mr —— took every opportunity in the absence of her mistress to say civil things, which so tormented the girl, that she soon gave her mistress warning. Mrs ——, the tradesman’s wife, having taken a great liking to this servant, was very sorry to part with her, offered to increase her wages, and diminish her labour; but these kind overtures had no effect, the young woman saying it was impossible for her to stay. This peremptory declaration excited Mrs ——’s curiosity to know what could give the girl so great a disgust of the place, when, upon being interrogated closely upon the subject, she replied, “Why then, Madam, to tell the truth, my master teazes me so much in your absence that I have no comfort of my life. I would not mind, continued the girl, if he was a handsome and a young man, but to be tormented by such an ugly fellow is insupportable.” “An ugly fellow! resumed Mrs ——, with great warmth,—what, call my husband an ugly fellow? Get out of the house this instant, you jade,”—then stamping her foot in great rage, she immediately discharged the girl.
Printed by J. Pitts, Wholesale Toy Warehouse, Great St Andrew Street, Seven Dials.
THE WONDERFUL
Adventures of Mr. O’Flynn in Search
OF
OLD MOTHER CLIFTON.
Understanding that old Mother Clifton’s house was blown away 366 miles above the moon, I went in search of her. I was searching nine days, running hard as I could with my two shin bones in my pocket, and my head under my arm, by order of Old Joe Buck, the Pensioner, who lost his middle eye at the Battle of Waterloo, chewing half-boiled stirabout. I then got upon a buck-flea’s back, which carried me over large hills of skilligalee and bog holes of buttermilk, till I met Jarvis the coachmaker driving two dead horses under an empty post-chaise loaded with 18 milliners, 2 tambour workers, 5 loads of apples, a roasted milestone, and half-a-dozen grenadier cock magpies, belonging to the French flying artillery, drinking tea till they were black in the face. I asked Mr Jarvis did he get any account of the Old Woman of Ratcliffe Highway, who was drowned in a shower of feathers last night about three weeks ago, and he told me he had got no account of her whatever, but if I went to John Ironsides I’d get some intelligence, and where John Ironsides lived he told me was two miles beyond all parts of the parish, up and down a street where a mad dog bit a hatchet next week, and pigs wrestle for stirabout: I thanked him for his information and bid him good night. I than began to run as fast as I could sit down by the side of a ditch with my two shin bones and my head in my pocket, till I met a gentleman with the custom-house of Dublin on his back, the Manchester exchange in his pocket, and Lord Nelson’s pillar in London stuck in his eye for a walking-stick. The Lord help you, poor man, said I, I am sorry for you, and the devil skewer you, why had you no better luck? I asked him what was the matter, and he told me he was bad with the gravel in his eye, the daddy grumble in his guts, and the worm cholic in his toe. I then put him into a coach and drove him into a druggist’s shop and ordered him two pennyworth of pigeon’s milk, three ounces of the blood of a grasshopper, a pint of self basting, the head and pluck of a buck flea, the ribs of a roasted chew of tobacco, and the lights and liver of a cobbler’s lapstone, boiled separately altogether in a leather iron pot.
Immediately after taking the mixture he was delivered of a pair of blacksmith’s bellows, and a small tomb-stone only a ton weight. Then proceeding on to Johnny Gooal’s house, said I to him, John, did you get any account of Mother Clifton’s house, that was blown 366 miles above the moon by a gale of wind from a sow gelder’s horn. I got no account, says Johnny, only I wrote a letter to her to-morrow night, when I was snoring fast asleep with my eyes open, knowing her father to be a smith and farrier to a pack of wild geese, and her mother nurse to a nest of young monkies that was held in the said parish of Up-and-down, where pigs wrestle for stirabout; but John told me I should not go till I had dined with them; we then sat down, and what should be brought up but a dish of stewed paving stones,, well mixed with tho oil and ribs of a chew of tobacco, and two quarts of the blood of a lamplighter’s snuff-box. The next great wonder she showed me, she brought me into a fine garden and placed me by a cabbage-stalk, which only covered 52 acres of ground, and where I saw ten regiments of artillery firing a royal salute of 21 guns.
The next wonder she showed me was a big man standing upon a small table made of heath, dressed in a scarlet black cloak, who made a very great sermon, but a north country buck flea bit him in the pole of the neck, and made him roar murder. The next great wonder I saw was a small boy only a thousand years old, thrashing tobacco into peas, and one of the peas started through a wall eighteen feet thick, and killed a dead boy on the other side. Then there was the London privateer and the Channel royal mail coach in a desperate engagement; firing boiled oyster shells, stewed lapstones, and roasted wigs one at the other, one of the lapstones struck Mother Clifton over the right eye and delivered her of the old woman of Ratcliffe Highway, who was sister to Mother Clifton, who had nine rows of bees-wax teeth and a three cocked hat made of the right side of a crab’s nostril. I then took the Old Hag and made a short leap from Liverpool to Naas in the North of Ireland, where I saw a French frigate coming with Nelson’s monument on the top of her mainmast. So now to bring my story to an end this Old Woman and me stepped out of the vessel into the port-hole; I made my escape, but the Old Woman was always tipsy with drinking Chandler’s tobacco, so she sunk to the bottom, and if you go there you will find her making straw hats of deal boards.