A PUZZLING PARAGRAPH.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 462, 6 February 1869, Page 3

A PUZZLING PARAGRAPH.

The following is an extract from [ series of American sketches publishe under the name of "The Jumpin Frog:"— Our estesred friend, Mr Job William Skae, of Virginia City, walke into the office where we are sub-edito at a late hour last nighty with an ex pression of profound and heartfelt sul fering upon his countenance, and sighing heavily, laid the following iten reverentially upon the desk, and walkec slowly out again. He paused a inomeh at the door, and seemed Btrngglin ,r t< command his feelings sufficiently t< enable him to speak, and then nodding his head towards his manuscript, ejaculated in a broken voice, " Friend ol mine—oh! how sad!" and burst into tears. We were so moved by his disl ress that we did not think to call him back and endeavour to comfort him until he was gone, and it was too late. The paper had already gone to press, but knowing that our friend would consider the publication of this item important and cherishing the hope that to print it would afford a melancholy satisfaction to bis sorrowing heart, we slopped the press at once and inserted it iu our columns : "Distressing Accident. Last evening about G o'clock, as Mr William Schuyler, an old and respectable citizen of South Park, was leaving his residence to go down town, as has bepn his usual custom for many years, with the exception only of a short interval in the spring of 1850, during which he was confined to his bed by injuries re ceived in attempting to stop a runaway horse by thoughtlessly placing himself directly in its wake and throwing up his hand and shouting, which, if lie had done so even a single moment sooner, must inevitably have frightened the animal still more instead of checking its speed, although disastrous enough to himself as it was, and rendered more melancholy and distressing by reason of the presence of his wife's mother, who was there and saw the sad occurrence, notwithstanding it is at least likely, though not necessarily so, that she should be reconuoitering in another direction when incidents occur, not being vivacious and on the look out, as a general thing, but even the reverse as her own mother is said to have stated, who is no more, but died in the full hope of a glorious resurrection upwards of three years ago, aged. SG, being a Christian woman and without guile, as it were, or property, in consequence of the fire of 1849, which destroyed every blasted thing she had in the world. But such is life. Let us all take warning by this solemn occurrence, and let us endeavour so to conduct ourselves that when we come to die we can do it. Let us place our hands upon our hearts, and say with earnestness and sincerity that' from this day forth we will beware of the intoxicating bowl.— First Edition of the Calif or niati." The boss-editor has been in here ' raising the very mischief, and tearing his hair and kicking the furniture about, lie says the first time he leaves ; me in charge of the paper for half-an-h.our, I get imposed upon by the first infant, or the first idiot that comes along. And he says that distressing item of Johnny Skae's is nothing but a lot of distressing bosh, and has got no point to it and no sense in it and no information in it, and that there was no earthly necessity for stopping the the press to publish it. He says that evei*y man he meets has insinuated that somebody about The Califoiinian office has gone crazy. All this comes of being good-hearted. If I had been as un-accommodating and un-sympathetic as some people, I would have told Jhonny Skae that I wouldn't receive a communication at such a late hour, and to so to blazes with it ; but no, his snuffing distress touched my heart, and I jumped at the chance of doing something to modify his misery. I never read his item to see whether there was any thing wrong about it, but hastily wrote the few lines which preceded it, and sent it to the printers. And what has my kindness done for me ? It has done nothing but bring down upon me a storm of abuse aud ornamental blasphemy. * * # * * # I have read it, and I am bound to admit that it seems a little mixed at a first glance. However, I will peruse it once more. I have read it again, and it does really seem a good deal more mixed than ever. I have read it over five times, but if I can get at the meaning of it, I wish I may get my just deserts. It won't bear analvsis. There are things about it which I can't understand at all. It don't say what ever became of William Schuyler. It just says enough about him to get one interested in his career, and then drops him. Who is William Schuyler, anyhow, and what part of South Park did he come from, and if he started down town at six o'clock did he ever get there, and and if he did, did anything happen to him ? Is he the individual that met with the " distressing accident"? Considering the elaborate circumstantiality of detail observable in the item, it seems to me that it ought to contain more information than it does. On the contrary, it is obscure —and not only obscure, but utterly incomprehensible. Was the breaking of Mr Schuyler's leg fifteen years ago, the " distressing accident " that plunged Mr Skae into tmspeakable grief, and and caused him to come up here at

idead of night and stop our press to acquaint the world with the unfortunate circumstance? Or did the " distressing accident" consist in the destruction of Schuyler's mother-in-law's property in early times? Or did it consist in the death of that per- , son herself three years ago ? (albeit it | does not appear that she died by accident). In a word, what did that " disI tressing accident " eopsist in ? What did that drivelling ass of a Schuyler stand in the wake of a runaway horse for, with his shouting and gesticulating, it he wanted to stop him ? And [ how the mischief could he get run over by a horse that had already passed beyond him ? And what are we to take "warning?, by? and how is this extraordinary chapter of incomprehensibilities going to be a "lesson" to in ? And abt)Ve ail, what has the " intoxieating bowl" got to'do with it, anyhow? It is not stated that Schuyler drank, or that his wife drank, or that his mother-in-law drank, or that the horse drank—wherefore then, the reference to the intoxicating bowl? [t does seem to me that, if Mr Skae had let the intoxicating bowl alone himself, he never would have got into so much trouble about this infernal imaginary distressing accident. I have read his absurd item over and over again, with all its insinuating plausibility, until my head swims; but I can make neither head nor tail of it. There certainly seems to have been an accident of some kind or other, but it is impossible to determine what the nature of it was ; or who was the sufferer by it. Ido not like to do it, but I feel compelled to request that the n<-xt time anything happens to one of Mr Skae's friends, he will append explanatory notes to his account of it is will enable me to find out what sort af an accident it was and whom it happened to. I had rather all his friends should die than that I should be driven to the verge of lunacy again n try to cipher out the meaning of mother such production as the above.

On List Gruy Faukes Day, in Londod, among the subjects chosen for caricature the principal "actors "in the " Bond-street Mystery" were conspicuous. In one instance Madame Rachel was represented in a sitting position, with Mrs Borradaile standing close by —the hand of the former pointing to a bottle labelled " Arabian Perfume." Another case was that of a most grotesque figure of a female, wearing a pork-pie hat, and attached to a broom-hanule fixed at the back of the head was a large chignon, and placards around it suggested, " .Madame Rachel will make her beautiful for eve'-." The heads of political parties were also borne about in effigy, as well as the Queen of Spain, &c. At Rochester, New York, a woman named Mary Swingle* has just been sentenced to six months' imprisonment for cruelty to her adopted daughter seven years of age. The woman had burnt the child's hands by forcibly holding them over a cooking stove until neighbours interfered. The woman's reason was that the child had stolen a piece of candy, and " she intended to give her an idea of what Hell is." A rakish-looking craft arrived at Queenstown, Ireland, on Wednesday, Nov. 4, from Labrador, with the unusual appellation of the Devil, and had for a figure-head a full-sized representation of his satanic majesty. When entering the harbour an exciting contest took place between her and the Cuuard mail tender Jackal, resulting in the defeat of the Devil.