Irishmen are generally sweet—at least in their own green isle.—So are Scotchmen. Whereas, blindfolded, take a cockney's hand, immediately after it has been washed and scented, and put it to your nose—and you will begin to be apprehensive that some practical wit has substituted in lieu of the sonnet-scribbling bunch of little fetid fives, the body of some chicken-butcher of a weasel, that died of the plague. We have seen as much of what is most ignorantly and malignantly denominated dirt—one week's earth—washed off the feet of a pretty young girl on a Saturday night, at a single sitting, in the little rivulet that runs almost round about her father's hut, as would have served a cockney to raise his mignionette in, or his crop of cresses. How beautifully glowed the crimson-snow of the singing creature's new-washed feet!
It will be seen, from these hurried remarks, that there is more truth than Dr. Kitchiner was aware of in his apophthegm—that a clean skin may be regarded as next in efficacy to a clear conscience. But the doctor had but a very imperfect notion of the meaning of the words—clean skin—his observation being not even skin-deep. A wash-hand basin—a bit of soap—and a coarse towel—he thought would give a cockney on Ludgate-hill a clean skin—just as many good people think that a Bible, a prayer-book, and a long sermon can give a clear conscience to a criminal in Newgate. The cause of the evil, in both cases, lies too deep for tears. Millions of men and women pass through nature to eternity clean-skinned and pious—with slight expense either in soap or sermons; while millions more, with much week-day bodily scrubbing, and much Sabbath spiritual sanctification, are held in bad odour here, while they live, by those who happen to sit near them, and finally go out like the snuff of a candle.—Blackwoods Magazine.
QUACKERY.
A short time since a soi-disant doctor sold water of the pool of Bethesda, which was to cure all complaints, if taken at the time when the angel visited the parent spring, on which occasion the doctor's bottled water manifested, he said, its sympathy with its fount by its perturbation. Hundreds purchased the Bethesda-water, and watched for the commotion and the consequence, with the result to be expected. At last one, less patient than the rest, went to the doctor, and complained that though he had kept his eye constantly on the water for a whole year, he had never yet discovered anything like the signs of an angel in his bottle.
"That's extremely strange," exclaimed the doctor. "What sized bottle did you buy, sir?"
Patient.—"A half-guinea-one, doctor."
Doctor.—"Oh, that accounts for it. The half-guinea bottles contain so small a quantity of the invaluable Bethesda-water, that the agitation is scarcely perceptible; but if you buy a five-guinea bottle, and watch it well, you will in due season see the commotion quite plain, sympathizing with that of the pool when visited by the angel."
The patient bought the five guinea bottle as advised, and kept a sharp look out for the angel till the day of his death.
London Magazine.