"In anshient times there was a Filosifer. HORRIS GREELEY was his cognovit.
"He was Editor of a daily noosepaper. He took it into his nozzle one day to rite some essays 'on what he knowed of farmin,' which he was about as well posted on as a porpoise is about climbin' a tree.
"One day this Jerkt farmer, by brevet, writ an artikle about irrigation.
"He told farmers that, in dry seasons, if they dammed the little streems which crossed their farms, the water would set back, and overflow their land, and keep their garden sas sozzlin' wet, and make things grow bully.
"He was a great advocate of Dams.
"He useter become so absorbed in his favorite pastime, that a feller man, if he irritated the Filosifer, became small streems pro temper, and were dammed pooty sudden."
"What, you don't mean to say that an Editor swore in them days?" sed I, interuptin' the old man.
"They occashunly took a hand in that ere biziness, and when they got onto a fit, could cuss and swear ekal to the beet of us," sed he.
"Wall," sed I, "I thought they was all good moral men, like THEODORE TILTON & ANNER DICKINSON."
"Oh! no," he replide. "Editors in them days use to fat up on swearin'".