THE FAMILY HAMMER.

Thames Star, Volume IX, Issue 3034, 5 November 1878, Page 2

THE FAMILY HAMMER.

No well-regulated familypretends to be without a hammer. And yet there is nothing that goes to make up the equipment of a domestic establishment that causes one-half as much agony and profanity as a hammer. It is always An old hammer, and with a handle that is inclined to silver, and always bound to slip. The face is always as round as a full / moon and as smooth as class. When it glides off a nail and smashes a finger we unhesitatingly deposit it in the back-yard, and observe that we will not use it again. But the blood has scarcely dried on the

rag before we are in search of that same hammer again, and ready to make another trial. The result rarely varies, but we never profit by it. The awful weapon goes knocking off our nails, and smashing whole joints, and slipping off the handle to the confusion of mantle ornaments, and breaking the commandments. Yet we put up with it, and put the handle on again and lay it away where it won't get lost, and do up our smarting and mutilated fingers; and, after all, if the outrageous thing should disappear, we kick up a terrible hullabello until it is found again. Talk about the tyrannizing influence of a bad habit. It is not to be compared with |he family hammer.