Two passengers coming down the Mississippi in a steamboat were amusing themselves with shooting birds on the shore from the deck. Some sporting conversation ensued; one remarked that he would turn his back to no man in killing racoons—that he had repeatedly shot fifty a day. "What o' that?" said a Kentuckian; "I make nothing of killing a hundred 'coon a day, or'nary luck." "Do you know Captain Scott, of our State?" asked a Tennessean bystander; "he, now, is something like a shot. A hundred 'coon! why he never points at one without hitting him. He never misses, and the 'coons know it. T'other day he levelled at an old 'un, in a high tree; the varmint looked at him a minute, and then bawled out, 'Hallo, Cap'n Scott, is that you?' 'Yes,' was the reply. 'Well, pray don't shoot, I'll come down to you—I'll give in—I'm dead beat.'"
ABSENCE OF MIND.—137.
A highly respectable inhabitant in the city of New York lately died under very remarkable circumstances. He was subject to fits of extreme absence of mind from childhood; and one night, upon retiring to rest, having carefully tucked his pantaloons under the bed-clothes, he threw himself over the back of a chair, and expired from the severe cold he experienced during the night. The editor of the New York Herald, who relates this extraordinary fact, assures his readers, as a guarantee of its truth, that he received his information from the individual in question.
A REMARKABLE MAN.—138.
There is a man in the West who is described as being so remarkably tall that he requires a ladder to shave himself! The same individual never troubles his servant to sit up for him when he is out late at night, for he can, with the most perfect ease, put his arm down the chimney and unbolt the street-door.
SPECTACLES AND BIBLE READING.—139.
The will of Elias Boudinot, of New Jersey, has just been proved. It contains the following clause:—"I give to the president and managers of the New Jersey Bible Society 200 dollars, to be laid out in the purchase of spectacles, to be given by them to the poor old people; it being in vain to give a Bible to those who cannot obtain the means of reading it."
TO THE POINT.—140.
An officer who was inspecting his company one morning spied one private whose shirt was sadly begrimed. "Patrick O'Flynn!" called out the captain. "Here, yer honour!" promptly responded Patrick, with his hand to his cap. "How long do you wear a shirt?" thundered the officer. "Twenty-eight inches," was the rejoinder.