THE FIRST BABY.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 521, 24 June 1869, Page 2

THE FIRST BABY.

I have had one of these interesting animals at my house. It came when it rained like blazes, dark as pitch, and my umbrella at the store, no cars running. The doctor lived miles due west, and the nurse six miles due, east; and when I got home to the bosom of my family, the milk-man was at the door. It's a funny little chap, that baby; Solferino color, and the length of a Bologna sausage. Cross ? I guess not. Um, um ; it commenced chasing me down the valley of life just when muslin, liucn, and white flannel were the highest they had been since Adam built a hen-house for Mrs Eve's chickens. Doctors charge two dollars a squint, four dollars a grunt, and on the scarcity of rain in the country, take what is left in a man's pocket; no discount for cash, and send bill for balance on the Ist of January. A queer little thing is that baby ; a speck of a nose like a wart; head as bald as a squash, and no place to hitch a waterfall; a mouth just suited to come the gum game and chew milk. O crikey! you should hear it sing. I have bumped it. given it the smoothing iron to play with, but that little red lump looks as if it couldn't hold blood enough to keep a mosquito from fainting, and persists in yelling liko thunder. It shows a great desire to swallow its fists, and the other clay they dropped down his throat, and all that prevented them going clean through was the crook in his elbows. It stopped its music and was happy for one and a

half minute. It's a pleasant thing to have a baby in your house—one of your colicky kind. Think of the pleasures of a father in dishabille, trembling in the midnight hour, with his warm feet upon a square yard of cold oil cloth, dropping paregoric in a tea-spoon by moonlight, thumping on the door, wife ot your bosom shouting "hurry," and the baby yelling till the fresco drops from the ceiling. It's a nice time to think of dresscoats, pants, ties, and white kids. Shades of departed cocktails ! What a picture for an article in plaster of Paris! Its mother says the darling is troubled with wind on the stomach ; it beats all the wind instruments you ever heard of. 1 have to get up in the cold, and shiver while the milk warms ; it uses the bottle. I have a cradle with the representation of miraculous soothing syrup bottle on the dashboard. I tried to stop its breath the other night—it was no go. I rocked it so hard that I missed stays and sent it clear across the room, upsetting a jar of preserves. It didn't make ar.y noise then! Oh, no ! Its mother says, only wait till it's breeched (it's been vaccinated) and old enough to crawl about and feed on pins. Yes, I am going to wait. Won't it be delightful ! John, run for the doctor; Sis has fell in a sloppail, and is choking with a potato skin; Sis has fell downstairs ; Sis has swallowed the tack hammer; shows signs of mumps, measles, croup, whooping-cough, small-pox, colic, dysentry, cholera infantum, or some other darned thing, to let the doctor take all the money laid by for my winter's corn-beef; and all this comes of my shampooing and curling my Lair, wearing nice clothes and looking handsome, going a-courting, and making my wife fall in love and marry me. — American Paper.

Earthquake-proof Architecture. —The recent earthquakes on the Pacific coast have necessitated the adoption of some new style of building in that section of the country. Mere kick shells will not stand many heavy land-shocks, and the architects of San Fraucisco are now busy over earth-quake-proof plans of architecture. One of the now plans proposed is to build a compact wooden frame structure, and surround it with brick walls. A large publishing-house in San Francisco is soon to erect a store upon this plan. Another method proposed is to build thick walls with iron girders inserted in them, and rivetted at the angles. There has been considerable discussion among builders on this matter, and a new field is open for the ingenuity of architects. Anybody who will guarantee to put up a house that will stand an ordinary earthquake without damage, whether it be built of wood, stone, iron, or rubber, can make his fortune on the Pacific coast.

Something like a Stomach.— i SMrk Gowdah, anative of Ceylon, is cmployed at Tattersall'a Hotel "in Dublo. He possesses a stomach of extraordinary digestive powers, beating the ostrich by long odds, for this bird—by all accounts —can only digest ! >aviug-stones. He cannot, however, ike some of his countrymen, swallow a sheep—wool, tail, horns, and trotters included; but he can drink a glass of Hennessy's battle-axe, and swallow a tumbler afterwards. Cut wine glasses are apparently as great a luxury to him as sweet biscuits are to a child. He crushes the globe of the glass between his teeth, without injuring his gurus, and then swallows the pieces. A wine glass disappears in two mouthfuls, a tumbler in four. He leaves the pedestal of the former, and the base of the latter, as being too hard and coarse. He has been known to swallow the globes of four wine glasses in a day, when he has met a ' new chum 'to stake a bet on the experiment. He is aaparently in good health, does his work, and never complains of illness.

Miss Anna Swan, a young lady of amazing stature, gave a reception at St George's Hall, Liverpool, lately. It is well known that a woman who is as a man of only middle height must be a " strapper." What, then, will be said of a youug woman nearly a foot taller than the late Mr Hales, the "Norfolk giant?" Miss Swan, who is said to bo still growing, has reached the extraordinary height of eight feet one inch. She is well proportioned, of decidedly prepossessing appearance, and seems to be tolerably well educated. A Life Guardsman by her side ia completely dwarfed, and those of her own sex who mustered courage to approach her looked like girls not yet out of the nursery. Miss Swan, like all big people, seems very good-natured, which is rather fortunate, in the event of her entering into the marriage state, for, judging from the muscular development of her arm, any differences of opinion of a conjugal nature would be settled in a manner anything but satisfactory to her husband. Miss Swan is a native of Halifax, and is twenty years of age. Were General Tom Thumb in this country, it would he a curious spectacle to see this extraordinary pair dance a minuet together.— London Dispatch. The Wat to Extinguish Kerosene Lamps.—A safe and ingenious plan of extinguishing the light of kerosene lamps has been suggested. A usual plan is to turn it down low, and then blow from under the glass; this, however, requires some dexterity and a good bit of wind. The Proposal we refer to is to turn the wick up so as to produce a large

flame, but not high enough to smoke ; then blow squarely across (not down) the top of the chimney. By so doing a strong current of air is forced across the top of the chimney, and produces a corresponding current up through the chimney ; the latter current lifts the flame off the wick, and instantly extinguishes it. A Cross Family—Martin county, Indiana, has a family named Cross, and the fact of Mrs Cross having given birth to a daughter for the eleventh time, has made Mr Cross unusually cross. On the last occasion Mr Cross observed to his wife—" Amelia Jane, this is not to be borne." " But it is born," replied his wife, meekly, " Don't be cross, love; we all have our little crosses to bear." Mr Cross groaned in bitterness of spirit. " Amelia Jane, this thing has been going on long enough ; if you have any more little crosses to bear, I won't help you to support them." Choosing iiis Profession.—lt was customary with a certain professor to inquire of each graduating class what each proposed to be or do in the world. One would be a doctor, one a lawyer, one a merchant, and so on. "And what do you propose to be, Simon ?" "I am going to be a Pithcopal minister," was the answer of the lisping graduate, "for three reasons—first, the prayers are all in print, and I can read them easily; second, tho sermons of the Pithcopal ministers are short; and, third, Pithcopal ministers generally marry rich wives."

A tavern keeper in one of the small towns of Wisconsin employed an houest old German blacksmith to do a certain job, for which he paid the cash at once. Afterwards a neighbour got a similar job done, on credit, for a less price. Upon being asked the reason, the blacksmith replied: " You zee, I have so much sharge on my book, aud I zometimes lose 'em ; and zo, ven I have a good customer, I sharge good price ; but ven I puts it on my book, I do not like to sharge so much: zo if 'em never pays, I no lose zo much."

Dobbs, the portrait painter, says that everything should be in character. For instance, search warrants should be printed on " tracing paper," and wedding notices on " foolscap." An Irishwoman, complaining to a magistrate of a person who was in the habit of throwing slops into her yard, was told that it was a nuisance, and ought to be abated. " Bated, is it ? Faith, and I'll bate her mysilf, if your honor only says the word."