SPRINGFIELD, MASS.
DEAR CONTINENTAL:
I have a friend who would be sound on the goose, as I verily believe, and a patriotic anti-Jeff Davis platform Emancipator, if he hadn't unfortunately picked up a fine learned word. That word is
ISOTHERMAL.
And that word he carries about as a hen carries a boiled potato—something too big to swallow but nice to peck at. And he pecks at it continually.
'I could admit that the slaves should be free,' he says, 'but then nature, you know, has fixed an isothermal line. She has isothermally deemed that south of that line the black is isothermally fitted to isothermalize or labor according to the climate as a slave.'
'Good,' I replied. 'So you admit that all anthropological characteristics as developed by climate are quite right?'
[He liked that word 'anthropological,' and assented.]
'Good again. Well, then, you must admit that to judge by statistics there is an isothermal line of unchastity, or "what gods call gallantry," and further north, one of drunkenness? How much morality is there in a tropical climate? How many temperate men to the dozen in Scandinavia or Russia?'
My isothermalist attempted a weak parry, but failed. When he recovers I will inform you.