WHAT WASHINGTON DIDN'T KNOW.

Samoa Times and South Sea Gazette, Issue 26, 30 March 1878, Page 2

WHAT WASHINGTON DIDN'T KNOW.

(" Washington Union.") Wb don't wish to bo irreverent, but would liko to ask, What did our forefathers know ? What, for instance; diet Cloorge Washington know? He never saw a steamboat; ho never saw a fast mail train ; he never held his ear to a telephone ; he never sat for his picture in a photograph gallery ; he never received a telegraph dispatcli; he never sighted a Krupp gun ; he never saw a pretty girl run a sewing machine ; he never saw a. self-propelling engine go down the street to a tire; he never heard of evolution he never took laughing gas; he never had a set of .'tore teeth; he never attended an International Exposition ; ho never opened a bonanza mine ; he never knew " Old Prob ; " he—but why go on '. No; when he took an excursion it was on a Hat boat. When he went oil on a train it was a mule train. When he wanted to talk with a man in Milwaukee; he had to go there. When he had his picture taken it was done in profile with a piece of block paper and a pair of shears. Whpn he got the returns from back counties they had to be brought in by a man with an ox cart. When he took aim at the enemy he had to trust to a crooked barreled old flintlock. When, he wrote it was with a goose quill. When he had anything to mend his grandmother did it with .a darning-needle. When he went to a fire he stood in line and passed buckets. When he looked at a elalu he never dreamed it was any relation of his. When he went to a concert he heard a cracked fiddle and an insane clarionet. When he had a tooth pulled he sat down and never left oil' yelling. When he got out of teeth he. mummed his victuals. When he wanted an international show he sent for Lafayette and ordered his friends up from Old Virginia with the specimen carefully labeled in bettles. When he once got hold of a nugget of gold from an Indian chief he felt rich. When he wanted to know anything about the weather he consulted the groundhog or goosebono. When—but why go on ? What did such a man know '. Who was he, anyway ?