humour.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1109, 29 July 1882, Page 2 (Supplement)

humour.

THE BEADY LETTER WRITER. Thoroughly appreciating the popular hunger for information, and more especially in the line of instruction and example relative to the subject of correspondence, we have consented at enormous expense to give our readers a few sample. letters which will greatly aid those who are not fluent and graceful correspondents. The whole number will ultimately be bound in elegant style and sold in book form. Our first letter will be the form that should be used in addressing a soulless corporation relative to a railway pass : Office of Freedom’s Bugle Horn, Wahoo, Neb., February 22,1882. To Hon. J. Q. A. Gall, General Passenger and Ticket Agent J. I. M. C. B. O. W. By., Chicago, Ill.:

Dear Sir—Unfortunately you have never experienced the glad thrill and holy joy of my

acquaintance. You have groped through the long and dreary heretofore without the solemn gladness that you might have enjoyed had Providence thrown you in the golden sunlight of my smile. I have addressed you at this moment for the purpose of ascertaining your mental convictions relative to an annual pass over your voluptuous line. The Bugle Horn being only a semi-annual, you will probably have some little reservation about issuing an annual on the strength of it. This, hdWever, is a fatal error on your part. It is true that this literary blood-searcher and kidney-polisher, if I may be allowed that chaste and eccentric expression, doesnot occur very often, but when it does 'shoot athwart the journalistic horizon, error and cock-eyed ignorance begin to yearn for tall grass. You will readily see how it is in my power to throw your road into the hands of a receiver in a few days. It will occur to you instantly that, with the enormous power in my hands, something should be done at once to muzzle and subsidize me. The Bugle‘Horn stands upon the pinnacle of pure and untarnished independence. Her clarion notes are ever heard above the din of war and in favor of the poor, the down-trodden and the oppressed. Still it is my duty to foster and encourage a few poor and deserving monopolies. I have already taken your road and, so to speak, placed it upon its feet. Time and again I have closeed my eyes to unpleasant facts relative to your line, because I did not wish to crush a young and growing industry. I can point to many instances where hot boxes and other outrages upon the traveling public have been ignored by me and allowed to pass by. Last fall you had a washout at Jim-town which was criminally inexcusable in its character, but I passed silently over the occurrence in order that you might redeem yourself. One of your conductors, an overgrown bald headed pelican from Laramie, and a man of no literary ability and who could not write a poem to save his measly, polluted soul from perdition, once started the train out of Wahoo when I was within a quarter of a mile of the depot and left me gazing thoughtfully down the track with a 150 pound hand trunk to carry back home with me. What did I do? Did I go to the telegraph office and wire you to stop the train and kill the conductor with a coal pick? Did I cut short his unprofitable life and ruin the road with my cruel pen ? No, sir. I hushed the matter up. I kept it out of the papers so far as possablc in order that your soulless corporation might have a new lease of life. Another time when my pass and pocket money had expired at about the same moment and I undertook to travel upon my voluptuous shape, a red-headed conductor whose soul has never walked upon the sunlit hills of potent genius, caught me by the bottom of my pants and forcibly ejected me from the train while it was in motion, and with such vigor and enthusiasm that I rolled down an embankment 100 feet with frightful rapidity and loss of life. A large bottle of tanzy and sweet spirit hear my prayer, which I had concealed about my person to keep off malaria End rattle-snakes. Others would have burn A down a water tank, or dusted off a crossirypvith the mangled corpse of the General Passenger Agent, but I did not. I bound up my bleeding heart, and walked home beneath the cold, unblinking stars and forgave the cruel wrong. I now ask you whether, in view of all this, you will or will not stand in the way of your company’s success. Will you refuse me a pass and call down upon yourself the avalanche of my burning wrath, or will you grant me an annual, and open up such an era of prosperity for the .1. I. M. C. R. O. W. Rahway as it never before knew ? Do you want the aid and encouragement of the Bugle Horn and success, or do you want its opposition and a pauper’s grave beneath the blue-eyed Johnny jump-ups in the valley ? Ostensibly I am independent and fearless, but if you arc looking around for a journal to subsidize, do not forget the number of my postoffice box. I have made and unmade several railroads already, and it makes me shudder to think of the horrible fate which awaits you if you hold your nose too high and stiffen your official neck. Hoping to hear from you favorably in the contiguous ultimately, I beg leave to wish you a very pleasant bon vivant. Very sincerely yours. EPHRAIM BATES. Molder of public sentiment. A FINANCIAL ANECDOTE. Theodore was a poor lad. One day when he was very hungry he espied a five-cent piece on the floor of tht^brokcr’s. office, which he was sweeping up. 9 He had remembered stories wherein little boys had picked up a small piece of money, handed it to the great merchant or rich banker and had been immediately taken into partnership. So Theodore stepped up in the door of the broker’s private room and said : “ Please, sir, here’s a five-cent piece I found on the floor.” The broker looked at Theodore a moment and then said: “ You found that on my floor, did you ? And you are hungry, aren’t you?” “Yes, sir,” replied Theodore. “Well, give it to me and get out. I was looking around for a partner, but a boy who dosen’t know enough to buy bread when he is starving to death would make but a sorry broker. No, boy, I can’t take you into the firm.” And Theodore never became a great broker. Honesty is the best policy, children, but it is not indispensable to success in the brokerage business.— Boiton-Trawicript. THE DARLING LITTLE CUPBOARD WHERE THE JAMPOTS OROW ! Master Jack’s song, [written by him after spending the holidays at Gradmamma’s. ] You may talk about your groves, Where you wander with your loves ; You may talk about your moonlit waves that fall and flow; Something fairer far than these I can show you if you please : ’Tis the charming little cupboard where the jam-pots grow— Where the jam-pots grow, Where the jam-pots grow, Where the jelly jolly, jelly jolly jam-pots grow ! ’Tis the dearest spot to me On the land or on the sea, Is the charming little cupboard where the jampots grow. There the golden peaches shine, In their syrup clear and fine : And the raspberries are blushing with a dusky glow; And the cherry and the plum Seem to beckon me to come To the charming little cupboard where the jam-pots grow. There the sprightly pickles stand, With the catsup close at hand, And the marmalades and jellies in a goodly row And the quinces’ ruddy fire Would an anchorite inspire To seek the little cupboard where the jampots grow. Never tell me of your bowers That are full of bugsand flowers! Never tell me of your meadows where the breezes blow! But sing me, if you will,* Of the house beneath the hill, And the darling little cupboard where the jampots grow— Where the jam-pots grow, Where the jam-pots grow, Where the jelly jolly, jelly jolly jam-pots grow. ’Tis the dearest spot to me On the land or on the sea, Is the charming little cupboard where the jampots grow. —Laura E. Richardm 277.