PRACTICAL JOKING: A SAD EXAMPLE.

Westport Times, Volume VIII, Issue 1181, 2 June 1874, Page 4

PRACTICAL JOKING: A SAD EXAMPLE.

A man who plays practical jokes upon his wifo deserves to be punished —and Slattery of Muncy, was punished His wife has a dread of cats, and before retiring at night she always looks carefully under the bed to see that no straj r puss and no man, on robbery intent, was concealed there.

A few nights ago, after Mr and Mrs Slattery had retired, Slattery, who has heen learning ventriloquism, thought he would amuse himself and scare his wife by gently yowling and making the sound come from under the hed. Mrs Slattery instantly sat up and exclaimed. " Josiah, I do hclieve there is a cat in the room." " O, nonsense," grunted Slattery ; and then he made a noise again. "I tell you Josiah," exclaimed Mrs S. " I can hear a cat under the bed. I wish you'd get out and drive it away." " Oh. do go sleep Matilda,'' said Slattery, " I don't hear anything There's no cat about." Then Josiah with his mouth beneath the covers, uttered the screech luodor than before. " Well if you won't clear that cat out you brute, I will" said Mrs Slattery. S .ho reached over, picked up Josiah's boots, and put them on in bed in order to protect her feet and ankles from the infuriated animal. Then she took Slattery'a cane and stooped down to sweep it around beneath the bed. Just as she did so, Tosiah emitted a fearful yell which might have como from a cat in the last paroxysms of hydrophobia. This

startled Mrs Slattery so that she sprang backward, and in doing so she stumbled against the baby's cradle, which was overturned, and she went head foremost against the twenty-five dollar looking glass on the bureau, while tho cane flew out of her hand and lighted with considerable force on Mr Slattery's head. The screams of Mrs Slattery aroused all the neighborhood, and even brought out the fire department, so that by the time the baby was rescued from tho wreck and the broken glass picked up, two engines had streams playing upon the house, and the front door had been burst open by the police and the firemen were engaged in dragging a wot hose over the entry carpet and up the front stairs just as Slattery came down to explain things. The ventriloquism cost him ninety dollars for carpets and looking glasses, and contusion on the head, which his friends to this hour believe he received in a pugilistic encounter with , his wife.