THE ART OF SWEARING.

Tuapeka Times, Volume V, Issue 244, 3 October 1872, Page 4

THE ART OF SWEARING.

Our author gives an illustration of this. A waggon drawn by a team of 12 mules had stuck fast in a soft spot, bunging' to a half a mile of teams behind. One of the teamsters came up, and in a bland, almost tender, voice he said to the -unfortunate driver, " My friend, perhaps I can help you." Gently disentangling- and patting the leaders he headed them round in'tibe right direction, and then, says Mr, King, "he began to swear, pouring it out louder and more profane till he utterly eclipsed the most horrid blast phemies I ever heard, piling them up thicker and more fiendish till it seemed as if the earth must open and engulf him." It had its effect, One mule after another laid itself to its work, till only one obstinate old animal held out. The Pike walked up and yelled one gigantic oath — her eai's sprang forward, she squatted in terror, and the iron links grated under her strain. The waergon was soon in motion again, and as they were " liquoring up" at an adjoining bar, the driver observed, " Well Billy you can swear." " Swear," repeated Pike, in a tone of incredulous questioning — " me swear?" as if the compliment were greater than his modest desert. " No, I can't blaspheme worth a cuss. You'd jest orter hear Pete Green. He can exhort the impenitent mule. I've known a tenmule team to renounce the flesh and haul thirty-one thousand through a foot of clay mud under one of his ouk pourings." — King's Sierra Nevada.