A PRINTER DEVIL'S JOKE.

Thames Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2947, 26 July 1878, Page 3

A PRINTER DEVIL'S JOKE.

A rather amusing affair occurred a few Sundays ago at a country church near one of our largest towns in Lancashire, says an Enjzliph paper. The incumbent, anxious to^&ae funds for some repairs to the church, and having but a modest opinion- of his own powers as a " pickpocket," and being also unable to use the services of his clerical neighbors, thought he would write his appeal, get it printed and placed in the pews on the following fcunday. Me sent his copy to the prin.ter's and told the sexton to get the bills on Saturday night, and to place them in the pews. On Saturday night the sexton sent his son to. the printer's office, where no o&e but the " devil " of the establishment was present. This youth handed a bundle of bills to the sexton's son, by whom thej' were duly distributed in the pews. The astonishment of the congregation and the horror of the clergyman the next morning on finding every pew in the church contained copies of an announcement of the entertainments at the local assembly rooms of a clevor negro minstrel, and the fun during the ensuing week, may be "better imagined than described.". The whole affair was literally the work of the "devil," who jokingly gave the youthful sexton the bills of the black entertainer in place of those of the parson, not imagining they would be distributed.