ANOTHER THEORY BUSTED.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2179, 18 February 1881, Page 3

ANOTHER THEORY BUSTED.

A widow who was going to leave the city held an auction of her household effects yesterday, and everything went at promot sale until little but the bedstead was left. Just before this was put up some of the women wont to spying around, and discovered that it was infested by bed-bugs. The fact was noised around until it camo to the ears of the auctioneer, who mounted his box and said:

“Words cannot express the poignancy of my sorrow over the base canard which has been put in ciroulotion in this crowd. I have sold goods in this town for twentynine long years, and this is the first instance in which bugs have been permitted to stop between mo and the purchasing public. Ladies and gentlemen, if there is a bug in or about that bedstead I wont to see him. I cannot and will not believe there is. It would be a slander—a most foul slander on the character of this worthy widow, who is about to remove to the State of Ohio.”

Being invited to step down and view the bugs for himself, he made an inspection. They were there. They were galloping in and out and up and down, and it was no usjto dispute the fact.”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” said the auctioneer, as bo resumed bis post, “I found bugs. I don’t exactly remember the Latin name for them, but they are there. And now let me talk to yon as a friend. Bedbugs were not made for gaudy show, nor were they made for a life of ease. It is a law of nature that they should inhabit bedsteads. They oan no more go out under the born and make a living than o dog can become an eagle and float through space. The aversion among you to this insect is founded on false principle*. His bite scarcely irritates the sleeper, but it cleanses and purifies the blood. But for the bedbugs of this country we should all have boils and carbuncles. They keep down wartu. They cause moles to disappear. Give them a chance and they would remove corns without pain. The groat—” “Fifty cents!” called an old woman who remembered that she had a remedy at homo. “ Hifty cents ! lam offered fifty cents for a ten-dollar bedstead, and as I was going to say, the great Njpdeon always asked for a bed with bugs in it. lam offered fifty cents, and yot Croiar had his bugs. lam ” “ One dollar.”

“ 1 am offered one dollar, and yot the poets of Greece immortalized tho insects beforeyou. This widow tells me that she has not had an ache or a pain since the first bug mado his appearance. How many of you have road what Homer wrote of them ? What was the fountain of Mozart’s twelfth mass ? And yot “ Two dollars.” “ And yet I bear only two dollars ! Do you have headache P Are you nffiictod with giddiness ? Do you have roaring in the oars ? ” “ Three dollars!” “My friends, lot mo go homo and get ray copy of Paradise Lost, and read to you one short chapter. Whut did Milton ? ” “ Eour dollars!” “ Ah 1 I begin to soo that art and culture are not unknown to tho audience. Did Alexander tho Great have boils? Never, not a one ! And why ?” “ Five dollars 1” “ I am bid five dollars. I would like to quote one verse from a well-known Latin poet, bat time presses, and this bedstead is sold for five dollars, cash on tho nail, 1 will now direct your cultured attention to that cook•tore with a cracked oven.”