155 University of California Berkeley MVT OF THE S PICAYUNE ILLUSTRATIONS BY PARLEY PHILADELPHIA, J.PETERSON &BRQ I shave you oiie time You say you pay I say vera good.' ? (He shrugs the shoulders.) Page 172. PICKINGS FROM THE PORTFOLIO OF THE REPORTER OF THE NEW ORLEANS " PICAYUNE." 'Charley, old feller," said Jim, " I's not what 1 used to was I ain't myself I ain't nobody I ain't nothing I wish I was ! I have wound up my affaiz-s, and am in a state of liquwr-dation." Page 9. PHILADELPHIA: T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS. PICKINGS THE PORTFOLIO OF THE REPORTER NEW ORLEANS "PICAYUNE: COMPRISING SKETCHES OP THE EASTERN YANKEE, THE WESTERN HOOSIER, THE QUAINT COCKNET, THE DROLL IRISHMAN, THE PATIENT HOLLANDER, THE VOLATILE FRENCHMAN, THE SELF-SUFFICIENT EXQUISITE. THE HENPECKED HUSBAND, THE JOLLY TAR, THE ECCENTRIC AFRICAN, AND SUCH OTHERS AS MAKE UP Sorietg in tlje rmt Metropolis of tl)e 0ontl) WITH ORIGINAL DESIGNS, BY FELIX O. C. P^R,LEY. $ Ij i I a b e I p I) i a : T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS, 306 CHESTNUT STREET. Ente.tr 1 *TX>rding to Act of Congress, in the year 1846, ty CAREY & HART, ID the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States in and for th Eastern District of Pennsylvania. "-OL1IKS, PRIIfTKE, JOSEPH C. NEAL, ESQ. SIR Without the privilege of your personal acquaintance, I take the liberty to dedicate to you the accompanying volume of sketches. If in them I have succeeded in holding the mirroi^ up to nature," than you there is none more capable of discerning the truth and PC- curacy of the reflection. I shall cheerfully submit their defects to the impartial criticism of one so competent to judge of their merits as you we. Your obedient servant, The Author, D. CORCORAN. 730794 CONTENTS. Page Jim Joyce, who tried to be a Temperance Man, but couldn't come it ! 9 An Artist in Trouble 10 "Irish Evenings" 13 A Veteran of the Imperial Army 16 Artificial Flowers and the Flowers of Poesy 18 National Rivalry 20 The Last Card 23 A Double Shave Bill Brown vs. Augustus Jones 25 An Absconding Partner 27 Tom Trotter in Trouble 29 Kissing A New Year's Custom 31 The Wandering Minstrel 33 A Mrs. Caudle in Court 35 The Shaksperian Boot-Black 37 Towers in Trouble 39 Laying Ghosts and raising Spirits 41 A Scientific Subject 44 A Sketch " Ower True," having a Hoosier for its Hero 46 Lap Dogs and Lobelia 50 A Breach of Promise 53 A Fight about the Fashions 55 Turkey and Grease, or domestic economy exemplified in the preparation of Gombo 56 An Enthusiastic Phrenologist 58 6 CONTENTS. On a Jolly Spree 61 The School Master Abroad 63 A Scotch Melodist 65 An Irish Row 66 A Trial of Skill The Rival Boot-blacks 68 Happy Jack His Story 70 Tongue vs. Chop 72 Tom Towns, who don't like (Vgee 74 The Great Regulator 75 The Lapidary and the Sea-Captain A Vertical Saw 76 The Poet Spouse 80 Recorder's Court Two of a Trade can never agree 83 A Serenader Christopher Cramer and his Cremona 85 "Lay on, Mick Duff !" 87 Domestic Difficulties ; or, The One Woman Power 87 A Scotch Fee-Losopher 89 An attempt to Shave a Shaver 90 A Small Tea Party Showing the connection between scandal and souchong 92 Ned Brown done brown 95 L-a-w! 96 Regulating the Currency 98 Vagaries of the Moon 100 Tom Star 101 A Jollification in Jail 104 Tim Flanigan's Ghost A story of the Charity Hospital Founded on fact 107 Poor Jack 109 Ned Knox on Elections Ill Jack Burns, the Busier 112 Con O'Donnell the Corned 114 A real Game Cock of the Wilderness 115 A Tailor's Needle magnified into a Bowie-knife 117 CONTENTS. 7 Page George Washington Wimple, the Man who prefers the Ballad to the Ballot 119 A Muddled Millerite 121 The Loss of a Character 122 A Brandy and Peppermint Parly broken up 125 Boot Blacks and Bad Times 126 Pleasant Neighbours 128 Cookery and Calumny Restaut versus Jones 130 Bob Battle .... 133 Cabmen's Contentions 134 An Obsolete Idea 136 Jack Gallagher 136 Bill Blummell 138 The way to make a Tetoialler ; Evaporation, its Power or, The Ingenuity of Tippling Rats 140 Seeing the Elephant Jim Griswell 142 The Victim of Ambition 143 Jealousy 146 A Cabman in a Dilemma Out-door Theatricals 148 A Tourist in Trouble 150 The Head vs. The Feet 152 Living made easy , 154 Adjusting Ballast 156 Jimmy M'Gowan, who aided Nations in establishing their Inde pendence, but could not secure his own 157 Whiskers; or, A Clean Shave 160 Soap Suds 163 An Imposture 165 Law in Mississippi ; or, An offensive Defence 167 The Danger of Diddling a Barber 171 Cabbage 172 Jack Robinson A Salt who was fresh 1 74 A Dancing Master in a Dilemma 176 8 CONTENTS. Pago The Fancy not Fancied 178 Mick Fan-el's Serenade 180 A Musical Melee , 181 A violation of the Treaty 183 Allwell, not All Right 184 Love and Letter-writing 18? ALiveHoosier 190 A Negative Beauty 191 A Public Patriot ; or, An Acute Alleghanian 192 Animal Magnetism ; or, The Attractive Venison 195 A Tar in Troubl e 198 A Mistake ; or, The Broken Pledge and the Fat Girl's Portrait. 200 How to make a Raise 201 A Strike among the Tailors 203 The Mistakes of a Night 205 Rival Suitors ., 207 Morgan Manly, the Man that never said " No !" 209 Theophilus Twist ; or, A Taker-off taken off. 210 Patriotism in a sad Plight 212 A Rum'Un 214 The American Eagle and Daniel O'Connell 215 PICKINGS FROM THE JIM JOYCE, WHO TRIED TO BE A TEMPERANCE MAN, BUT COULD** 1 ! COME IT.' AN individual who rejoices in the name of Jim Joyce, was lecturing the lamp-post on the mutability of matter, at the cor ner of Lafayette Square, on Sunday night. His remarks, which were delivered in a loud voice, brought the watchman on his legs, as they say in parliamentary phrase; for he had just, by way of showing his extraordinary vigilance, been taking a comfortable snooze or, to speak more refinedly, he had been indulging in the luxuriance of an hour's somnolency. " Keep silent !" said Joyce to the lamp-post, as the watch man approached him, " and I'll explain the whole matter to you." " What's the matter with you ?" said the watchman. "Who are you ? eh ? Let me see. Why, I'm blowed if you aim Jim Joyce ! What ! Jirn, my old covey, not taken the pledge yet ! Ah, Jim ! you must be elected president of the Unre- formed Drunkards ; you can go the anti-Washingtonian ticket strong !" " Charley, old feller," said Jim, " I's not what I used to was I aint myself I aint nobody I aint nothing I wish I was. I have wound up my affairs, and am in a state of Hquor-ddL- tion !" "Yes, I guess as how you have accepted a great many draughts lately," said the watchman " you seem like it." 9 10 PICKINGS FROM THE "PICAYUNE." " You're right, boss I has," said Jim ; " but, dang it, the legislature won't come to my relief. Don't you see I haint got no i movement,' and I'm used up with ' dead weight.' " '"Well, come move along," said Charley. "You haint bin out of prison three days. I'll refer you to a committee of one, composed of Recorder Baldwin : I guess he'll move for your recommitment, c with a view to your amendment !' " "Yes," says Jim; "but the Temperance Society has had me nrider confide CEftion 1 find I can't be amended I didn't take no'thing for three days ; but I couldn't stand it no longer, aad was blig s 'd % e resume my drinks. O! it's an awful state. C&ariey, For a feller to be without his bitters when he's used to them !" " Well, come along," said the watchman. " Thirty days in the new workhouse may have more virtue in bringing about your reformation than a Father Mathew medal. We'll try it." " Well, I aint agoin' to go," said Jim. " I never keeps low company, and you is so cussedly vulgar that they say you have to strike the curb-stones, to force them to keep your society !" This was touching Charley in a tender point : it was a per sonal aspersion a misdemeanour of no common magnitude, inasmuch as it was calculated to bring the officers of the law, and, per consequence, the law itself into disrepute. There was, therefore, no further parley between the parties, and Charley's stave, applied divers and sundry times to Jim Joyce's ribs, operated as a motive power to his locomotion'until they arrived at the Baronne-street watchhouse. He is now developing the resources of the state in the new workhouse. AN ARTIST IN TROUBLE. As Recorder Baldwin was yesterday disposing of some case of ordinary importance, a low, chubby, cabbage-headed Dutch man, and a thin, tall, attenuated man in a seedy black coat, pants to match, and a well brushed faded silk hat entered the office. The first notice of their presence which the court had was the Dutchman telling the tall, thin, attenuated gentleman in the seedy dress and faded silk hat, that he " wash a tarn shon of a pitch." AN ARTIST IN TROUBLE. 11 At this wanton interruption of the general order of the court, the Recorder cried " Silence !" and every officer in court echoed the order. " What is the matter ?" asked the Recorder. "Vhy, here pe von tarn imposthure vhat say he painted my shon, and it aint my shon, not at all, Got tarn." Here the Dutchman looked sourcrout at the tall, thin gentleman in the seedy black suit with the faded silk hat. The Dutchman got a hint to " shut up," from one of the officers, and was told if he did not treat the court with more deference, he would have to rusticate in the calaboose for twenty-four hours. u Will you," said the Recorder, addressing the tall, thin man " will you explain the matter at issue between this man, who seems inclined to be so noisy, and yourself. What is it that has brought both of you here?" " I shall endeavour," said the tall, thin man in the seedy suit of black, " to comply with the request of the court; and although in the absence of my legal adviser I feel the weight of the responsibility which rests on me, yet trusting to the truth of my cause, to the enlightened and liberal feeling that pervades this court and this great community in every thing which relates to the fine arts, and firmly believing that in this intellectual age when genius is fostered, when true taste is appreciated, when brilliant talents are succoured and encouraged in a word, may it please the court, when mind predominates over mere matter I fearlessly enter on the task which the court has imposed on me, regardless of the results, when I have no one to combat but the vegetable individual the ani mated pumpkin who now stands by my side." " Got tarn !" said the Dutchman. " Silence !" said the officer. And the man in the seedy suit proceeded. "As I was saying to the court," continued the man who looked like a target " my picture of the transaction, like all which I have ever drawn, shall be life-like. I shall use only the brush of truth, and my colouring shall be natural and in strict accordance with facts. The part which I have acted in the affair, will, I am sanguine to say, furnish me with light. This individual's conduct," pointing to the Dutchman "supplies more than a sufficient share of shade." " Have you any complaint to make ?" asked the Recorder, appearing somewhat tired of listening to the speech of ihe tall, 12 PICKINGS FROM THE " PICAYUNE.*' thin man, which smelt strongly of vermillion, black lead and yellow ochre. " Ah," said the tall, thin man, ' there's the rub. Allow lie for one moment to brush up my memory, and I shall an * unvarnished tale deliver' of the transaction." " You tarn humpug," said the Dutchman, in a tone which did not reach the bench. " My name, may it please the court," said the tall, thin man, "is Jones Sylvester Jones, at the service of the court. I am a professor of the fine arts, or as it is vulgarly called, a painter. I am a F. R. S., and R. A., and an A. S. S. This individual here, whose name, as well as I can pronounce it, is Johan Vonhickenslaughter. What an abominable, unpoetical name !" " No matter about the euphony of the name," said the Recorder. " What has he done ?" " W T hy," said the artist, " he employed me to take a por trait of his eldest son, a mere human animalcula I assure you, with no more expression in his face than there is in a peeled turnip. Well, of course I gave a life-likeness of the boy. My great forte is in catching the expression of the eye and the muscles of the mouth, but d n me (beg the court's par don) -he, I say, had no expression to catch. Well, I took the picture home, and would the court believe it, instead of paying me for it, this individual offered me personal violence because his son's portrait did not resemble a picture of the younger Bonaparte, which he had hanging up in his room, and whom, he says, his son resembles, ha! ha! ha! Beg the court's pardon again, but really cannot avoid laughing at the individual's idea a perfect monomania, I assure you." " Got tarn, doesh you shay dat pe like my shon ? It ish like not no one, Got tarn." Here the Dutchman exhibited what the artist called a perfect likeness of Mrs. Vonhickenslaughter's first born, but which was in truth as like an antiquated Dutch doll, Admiral Vonbroom, or a pair of twin apples grafted to gether, as it was like the human face divine of either the young Dutchman or any one else. " Whesh mhy shon's nose, or mhy shon's eyh's, or mhy shon's red cheeks ? Got tarn," said the Dutchman, as he point ed to where those different features should be on the painting. The Recorder said he was not prepared to say what were the talents of the artist, or how far his own account of his professional abilities was correct, but he certainly did not look on th<* picture exhibited as a chef d'ceuvre in the way of por- "IRISH EVENINGS." 13 trait painting, nor could he undertake to tell how nearly it resembled the original, as the amiable youth whose likeness it purported to be was not present. As there was no actual assault proven he refused to grant a warrant, and dismissed the parties, advising Mr. Vonhickenslaughter to permit little Vonhickenslaughter to set once more to Sylvester Jones, the artist. The Dutchman left the office, swearing that no " tarn hum- pug should nhever phaint hishshon." "Mhyshon," he said, " ish like young Bhonaparte, put that phicter whashn't like nhopody, Got tarn." "IRISH EYENINGS." MODERN language and novel interpretation have changed in a great degree the meaning of words. For instance, " Irish Evenings" may mean evenings in England, evenings in France, evenings in Timbuctoo, or, in fact,, evenings in any part of the globe. Will the gentle reader all readers are gentle by courtesy, just as members of congress are all " honourable" will the gentle reader, then, allow us to illustrate. The last we heard of Samuel Lover, the gifted poet, painter and musi cian, he was giving a series of entertainments in Liverpool, England, which he called " Irish Evenings ;" and Brougham, the comedian, who was here last winter, was, per last news paper report, giving " Irish Evenings" in one of the New Eng land cities. We say thus much to show that when we speak of " Irish Evenings" in New Orleans, we are guilty of neither bull nor blunder we but follow in the wake of others, to take our cue from whom is, we contend, both legal and legit imate. Whether Mick Maguire, the hero of our " Irish Evenings," meant to copy after Lover or Brougham we know not; but certes it is that he, like them, has had his u Irish Evenings." The scene of the last of them was laid in Girod street, and the time was Friday, ten o'clock, P. M. Of this fact we be came informed by seeing at the police office yesterday the aforesaid Mick Maguire, Terence Tooley, and we know not how many others, all parties either plaintiffs or defendants. Mick Maguire, it appeared, was the great feature in the even ing's fun, and on him fell the burden of the charge, rather a 14 PICKINGS FROM THE " PICAYUNE." serious one in its nature, embracing the crimes of disturbing the peace, assault and battery, interfering with the watchman in the discharge of his duty, &c. After a careful notation of the charge, or series of charges, by the Recorder, he asked " What have you got to say in your defence, Mr. Maguire ?" "O, murther ! murther! Recorder, jewel," said Mick, "is me life goin' to be sworn away by a vagabone haythin' like Ned Nowlan, who never crassed his forehead, and has no more b'lief in the forgiveness o' sins and the communion o' saints than I have in the prophecies of Parson Miller." Recorder. " It is evident from the testimony of the watch man, that there was a violent disturbance of the peace. How did it come or who was the cause of it?" Mick. " O, faith, I'll tell you that your honour, in less time than I'd be tuning my pipes, though the story don't furnish altogether so sweet music." Mick, it is necessary here to premise, is one of those wan dering minstrels, vulgarly called a piper, who supports himself by his execution on the bagpipes. The race is almost extinct, and Mr. Maguire, it must be confessed, is a degenerate speci men of the Carolans of a former period. "In the first place, your honour," continued Mick, "here's the billydoo, as they call it, that I got to attind at 377 Girod street last evenin'." Here he handed a soiled and awkwardly folded note to the Recorder, which read thus " Miss Margaret O'Hern presints her compliments to Mr. Maguire, Begs he will make one of a small tay party at her house this evenin'. P. S. Coffee will be on the table at 8 o'clock. Let Mr. M. not forget to bring the sticks with him." " Yis, sir," said Mick, she manes the pipes, and faith I wint with them yoked on to me arm as tight as if the ribbon attached to the chaunther was put there by Cohen, the bleedher." Recorder. " But what was the cause of the quarrel and disturbance of the peace that occurred ?" JMick. " Divil a haporth at all, your honour. You see, whin I wint to Margaret's, there was as dacent a crowd of boys and girls assimbled there as iver I saw at the pathren of siven churches. ' YeVe wilcome, Mr. Maguire,' sis one. 4 How is every rope's length of you, Mick ?' sis another. ' The divil burn the roof o' the house ye're not welcome to,' sis a third. 4 Musha, more power to your elbow for bringin' the pipes,' "IRISH EVENINGS." 15 sis a fourth ; and that was the way they most kilt me with compliments. ' Yer sarvints, gintales,' sis myself, and sorra a word more I sed, but took me sate in the corner. ' Lit's have a blow o' yer bags,' sis Murty Malone. c Ah, whisht, Murty, avic,' sis me murneen lawn. Miss O'Hern, 'don't ask Mick to play till he wets his whistle.' " Recorder. " But come to the assault and disturbance of he peace." Mick. " Why, your honour don't think, I hope, that the tongue of a poor Irish piper a wandherin minsthrel, as Tom Moore sis is a locomotive or a magnetic tiligraph, that can go through a story in a minit. I'm an me oath, an' want to tell the whole truth." Recorder. "Go on, then." Mick. " Well, thin, as I was sayin', I tould Miss O'Hern that I felt much obleeged to her, but that sorra a dhrop I took sthronger than tay or could wather since I took the pledge, barrin' lemonade, and with that she makes me a tumbler as swate as her own bewitchin' smile." Recorder." Well, about the assault ?" Mick. "Faith, that's what I'm comin' to; but did you ever hear a good tune played unless the symphony went be fore it ?" Recorder. "Go on." Mick. " Well, be gor, I'd scarcely time to screw on the sticks, whin up they wor on the floor, paired as purty as pi geons. They called for an Irish jig, and I sthruck up ' Moll Roe on the Mountain.' Well, me dear I beg yer honour's pardon well, your honour, I mane to say to it they wint, and sure enough they had it ' hands acrass' c turn yer part ner' ' right an' lift ;' be joxty, they wint the whole figure, as the sayin' is, till I was tired, an' they wor twice as tired as I was." Recorder. " I can stand this no longer ; I insist on your coming to the case before the court." Mick. "Sure I am comin'. Well, whin the dance was over you see, Tom Fosther comes up to me troth it's himself has the bad Cromwellian blood in him and sis he to me, ' play us a tune, Mick,' sis he, ' while the boys is gittin' their part ners.' 'With the gratest pleasure in life,' sis I, ' what's your favourite ?' 'Croppy lie down,' sis he. ' I'd lose me life be fore I'd disgrace me pipes with the like of it,' sis I. ' More power to your elbow, Mick,' sis Fa~-ell Farley ; ' play us the 16 PICKINGS FROM THE u PICAYUNE." Shanvanvouth,' or the Battle of Tara.' ' ut,' sis Tom. ' An' didn't you want to throw Shamus ahocka (King James) in our teeth ?' 4 You lie,' sis Tom. ' You lie,' sis Farrell. ' Take that,' sis Tom. 4 An' that,' sis Farrell ; an' thin, your honour, there was a gineral ruckawn a sort of a permiscous skrimmage and divil a haporth more do I know about it. Me own pipes was made kippeens of in the row, and I b'lieve I'd have been kilt intirely, only for me gardian angel, Miss O'Hern may the cloud o' misfortune never darken her bright looks." The Recorder, finding it impossible to discriminate between the plaintiffs and defendants, bound all the parties over to keep the peace. A VETERAN OF THE IMPERIAL ARMY. THE most prominent picture in the Recorder's gallery of portraits yesterday morning was Macenat Fournier. Poor Macenat! adversity has left its traces deep and visible on thy features, and however bright your sun of life may have risen, it will set ere long, obscured by the clouds of misfortune. In order to see Macenat in the mind's eye, a brief outline of his outer man is indispensably necessary. He must have seen some fifty summers ; aye, and a like number of winters. The summers have embrowned his features, and given to his face a mandarin kind of colour ; the winters have frosted his hair, and left Time's tracks on his forehead. He was dressed in a much- worn military frock, in a hat of feltless antiquity, and in trousers which were once white, but now needed no committee to decide that they wanted washing. Two or three faded tri-coloured ribands were suspended to thebreast of his coat ; the remnant of what was once a moustache clung to his upper lip ; he held in his hand a cane stick, to which was attached a leather tassel, and at his feet lay a half-starved long-haired French terrier dog. " Where did you find this man ?" said the Recorder, address ing the captain of the guard, and referring to Fournier. " He was sleeping in the cathedral," said the officer, " and his dog well nigh bit me when I went to arrest him." u What brought you into the church?" said the Recorder, speaking tc Fournier, "why were you sleeping there?" A VETERAN OF THE IMPERIAL ARMY. 17 "Ah!" said Fournier, "I went to pay my respect my devoir to the memory of le grand Empereur ! great shen- eral ! mighty man !" and his lustreless eye was for a moment lit up by his enthusiastic recollection of the hero of a hundred fights. " What did you know of the General ?" said the Recorder. " What I know of him ?" said the little veteran, shrugging his shoulders, "ah, 'Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu ! I know'd all of him; I much wid him; I mess wid him; I fight w id him; I retreat wid him from Moscow ; I die wid him. He be one very little, big, great General !" " Bow ! ow ! ow !" barked the little dog that lay at Fournier' s feet, looking up wistfully in his master's face, as if he intuitively had learned that he was in difficulties. " Ah, poor doggy !" said the Frenchman, and a tear drop started into the puckered corner of his eye, " you is de only one friens old Fournier has left. De French Republic gone Bonaparte gone wife gone son gone daughter gone all be gone but you. You stick to old Macenat whether he have money, whether he have bread, whether he have house, or whether he have nothin'. Doggy ! master have no Hospital of Invalides to shelter him, and when he die you have no one to give you de crust of bread, and you die too. Ah, Mon Dieu ! Mon Dieu!" " Have you belonged to the imperial army ?" said the Re corder. " Ow/, ow?," said the little Frenchman, " me 'bliged to sell my medals^ but there be rny certificate of service," pointing to a sabre wound on his jaw, to another on his head, and to a gun shot wound on his leg, " dere, dere, dere !" Here the little dog barked again, and the Frenchman patted him affectionately on the back. " How long have you been in this country ?" said the Recorder. " Twenty and one two years," said the Frenchman. "Why did you come to this country ?" said the Recorder. " Ah, that be too much sorrowful to tell," said the French man. "My sheneral, the brave Napoleon, he be sent to St. Helena, my wife she die, my son and my daughter fine boy fine girl ! dey come to dis country of liberty ; de imperial army be disbanded, and poor Macenat have no friend in France but his dog, and he come after his children and take his dog wid him, but he nevare find dem, nevare, nevare dey die, and 59 18 PICKINGS FROM THE * C PICAYUNE." leave him and his dog alone in strange country. Ah> Mon Dieu ! Mon Dieu !" " Then you went to the church, I suppose," said the Recorder, ; - to witness the funeral ceremony of your late Emperor." u Owi, owi," said the war-worn soldier, tt me had no friend to give me the entree ; but me determined to be there or to die, so I sleep there all night, and my good dog he watch for me." " Well, take this," said the Recorder, and he slipped a Mexican casting into the hand of Fournier, " go and get thee some wine for there will be no funeral service to-day." A crowd of conflicting passions rushed into the countenance of the old Frenchman, but whether joy at receiving the gift, pleasure at being released from durance, or sorrow that he could not gratify his feelings by assisting in the funeral celebra tion of le grand Empereur, predominated, the most discerning physiognomist could not discover. He left the office, making divers bows and gesticulations of gratitude, and his dog mutely seconded his motions by sundry subdued friskings and wags of his tail. ARTIFICAL FLOWERS AND THE FLOWERS OF POESY. A most romantic looking young lady, calling herself Lavina Allen, complained before Recorder Baldwin yesterday that she was in personal fear of sustaining bodily injury from Mrs. Harley, whom she prayed the court to bind over to the peace. Lavina's face resembled a hawthorn bush covered with white spray of a frosty morning, there was such a profusion of white powder stuck upon it ; her hair was drawn back a la Chinois, and her bonnet was so retiring that it covered but one half of her head. Her neck was long, and as she was squeezed into one of the modern, narrow sleeved, close fitting dresses, she looked like a finger board at a cross roads pointing opposite ways. Mrs. Harley was also present, and looked like a woman who slept twelve hours out of the twenty-four, and had both her washing and her fretting done out. " What has this lady done ?" said the Recorder, addressing the amiable Lavina and pointing to Mrs. Harley. " She's a nasty, vulgar creeter," said Lavina, looking dis dainfully at Mrs. Harley, " and has no soul for poetry. ARTIFICIAL FLOWERS, &C. 19 " ' Beautiful language ! Love's peculiar own. Not for the cold, the careless to impart, By such sweet signs, the language of the heart.' " " She may not be blessed with a very exuberant imagina tion," said the Recorder " she may not have the ' nack o' rhyme,' as Burns calls it, but although she have not, it is no evidence that she is of a quarrelsome disposition and should be bound over to keep the peace. To me the woman appears quiet and peaceable." Lavina. " ' Ah! that deceit should assume such gentle shapes.' Just you see her, sir, of a day when there aint good business done in the shop ; then she makes folks fly about." u Pray, of what does this young woman accuse you," said the Recorder to Mrs. Harley. Mrs. Harley. " Please your honour, I manufacture artificial flowers, and had this girl and three or four others to work for me." "Girl!" said Lavina; "there's more vulgarity." " Silence !" said the peace officer. "Well as I was saying sir," said Mrs. Harley, "I manufac ture artificial flowers, and work for several respectable families ; but Lavina here is eternally talking poetry about love and non sense, keeping the rest of the girls from their work. I some times remonstrate with her," continued Mrs. Harley. " I fear she is touched in the head, and have great compassion for her." Lavina. " ' What is compassion when 'tis void of love ? She pities me ! To one that asks the warm return of love, Compassion's cruelty 'tis scorn, 'tis death.' " " Do you owe her any thing ?" said the Recorder to Mrs. Harley. " Yes, sir," said Mrs. Harley, K I owe her five dollars, and I offered it to her but she refused to take it." " I despise your dollars," said Lavina, suiting the action to the word with a swing of her arm. " ' The wealth I request is that of the heari, The smiles of affection are riches to me. 1 " " Poor, dear girl," said Mrs. Harley, " it is coming on her now. She would be an excellent girl if she could be made to forget her poetry." 20 PICKINGS FROM THE " PICAYUNE." Lavina. u I would not be placed on an intellectual level with you for all the artificial flowers that you ever sold and manufactured. ' She alone all competition towers Who adds, to other gifts, high mental powers.' " Mrs. Harley. [To the Recorder, aside, and in an under tone] u Fact is, sir, I b'lieve, from scraps of writing which I saw in her room, that she is in love." Recorder. "You should mind your work, young woman, and forget those idle phantasies. This woman is not going to injure you." Lavina. Dost thou deem It such an easy lask for the fond breast To root affection out ? They sin who tell us love can die ; With life all other passions fly, All others are but vanity.' '* " Lavina," said the Recorder, " you may go : I shall be bail myself that Mrs. Harley won't assault you. If she should, come here and I will give you ample satisfaction." Lavina. " ' I have a greatful soul would give you thanks, And know not how to do it but with tears. [She weeps.] Take my thanks, that yet hath nothing else If fortune serves me, I'll requite thy kindness.' " Lavina bowed gracefully and withdrew, and Mrs. Harley closed her hands before her breast and looked up to the ceiling, as much as to say, La, me ! how I pity that poor crazed girl. NATIONAL RIVALRY. As the election excitement increases, so does the sale of whiskey punches, and so do the prisoners at the police office Why the effect follows the cause, we are not metaphysicians enough to divine, and therefore content ourselves by stating the facts. On Saturday night two men were arrested by a cabbage-faced Dutch watchman : the one was a tall Scotch man, with legs as long as a surveyor's instrument, and a nose speckled like Scotch plaid : the other was a dumpy, potato- faced Irishman each of them had a " wee drap in his 'ee," NATIONAL RIVALRY. 21 and each was as full of love for fatherland, as an inflated bal loon is full of gas. " To the d 1 I bob you and Scotland," said the Irish man, " sure it's no counthry at all at all nor never was. Where was Scotland, I'd like to know, whin there was no one in Ireland but saints, and kings, and princes ? and no houses, but all castles, that neither ould Nick nor ould Nol could make a braych in ?" " Weel, weel, Mr. O'Toole," said the Scotchman, it is nae the cook, or the rooster, as folks here ca' him it is na the rooster, I say, that craws loodest that maks the best fight. Auld Scotland was a'ways where she is noo mon that is just ayont the Tweed. 1 ' " O, ye're an uncivilized set of haythens, any how," said Mr. O'Toole. " Hav'nt ye always ran wild through the High lands, like logins, without as much as a bit of breeches on yer legs ?" " I acknowledge we have, Mr. O'Toole, and so ha' the ancient Romans they wore nae breeks when they conquered the world," said the Scotchman, whose name, we should before have told our readers, was Sandy MacPherson. " Thin, where's your national music ? where's your harp ? the're both like Brien Flanagan's cow, when she got drown'd in the bog-hole faith the're missin." " They're nae sick a thing," said MacPherson, " we ha' goot oor Highland bagpipes, and it can stir up the bluid o' a Scotch man any day as weel as your harp." " O, Holy Moses!" exclaimed O'Toole, " d'ye call the noise made by that bresna of sticks, music ! why, be jabers, I'd put a turkey-cock under my arm, catch his bill between my fingers, and make him play as good music as your bagpipes any day : music ! well, if that is'nt takin' a liberty with the king's Eng lish, there's no shamrocks in Ireland. The Scotch fiddle is the only instrument, that I know of, ye can lay any claim to !" " Vera weel, vera weel," said MacPherson, " let us nae quar rel aboot it." " Well thin, why don't ye whist ? said O'Toole, " don't be makin' a Judy Fitzimmons of yerself. I suppose you'll be afther tellin' me that yer poetry is as good as ours too !" " Yes" and I'll maintain it too," said MacPherson, evincing some warmth of manner for the first time. "You can't," said O'Toole, "no more than you can stop the Shannon with a pitchfork." 22 PICKINGS FROM THE fct PICAYUNE." MacPherson thought he could, and was determined he would, so from the compositions of the " Lyric singers of that high soul'd land," he made a selection from his favourite, Rabby Burns, and com menced singing at the top of his voice, " O Thou, my muse ! guid ould Scotch drink, Whether thro' wimpling worms thou jink ; Or, richly brown, ream o'er the brink In glorious faem Inspire me, till I lisp and wink, To sing thy name." " Stop that," said O'Toole, " jist drop it like a hot prayta, if you wish to have your head whole ; that's a national reflec tion it conveys a double on-ton-dray, as the French say ; it's an insinuation against Irish potheen, the shuperiority of which, above all other liquors, never was questioned before," and he began singing louder than the Scotchman, if not sweeter, " There's not in the wide world, a liquor yet known, That's as good as the potheen of famed Innesshoun." When a Dutch watchman came up, who looked like a mam moth locomotive head of cabbage, and said, " sthop that tarn noise what be for makin' such fush ?" " You be d d, old leather head," said O'Toole ; " be carefu', Charley," said MacPherson, " that you dinna go ayont the boonds o' your duty: if J ken the constitution rightly, it says naething aboot the impropriety of folks crooning a song in the public streets." " I whants no law from no one but the Recordher," said the Dutchman ; he struck the curb stone, put the pair of worthies under arrest, and marched them to the watch-house. Mac Pherson, when there, complained of the act as a wanton out rage on his personal liberty, and O'Toole said that his Milesian blood was ready to gush from his veins when he thought of it. When they got out they forgot their mutual national antipa thies, and conjointly heaped maledictions on the leather heads of all watchmen in general, and on that of the Dutch watch man in particular. THE LAST CARD. THE LAST CARD. WILLIAM TIMMONS, a sallow looking, nervous little man, was the most clamorous appellant for justice who appeared before Recorder Baldwin yesterday. A good natured looking woman, fat, fair and forty, who wore as many frills and fringes as a lady of the haul ton in the Elizabethean age, had a hold of him by the arm, and seemed to be using all the persuasive elo quence of which her sex in cases of emergency are so capable. When she found her tongue flagging, she called a pair of once bright eyes to her aid, which were still far from being lustre less; and if neither tongue nor eyes seemed to make the desired impression, she gave his arm a gentle pressure, or pulled him half playfully, half persuasively by the breast but ton hole of the coat. It being outside the bar, in the court, the conversation was carried on in an undertone. We were ignorant of the subject, but could see from the pantomime ia which Mr. Timmons indulged, that ' he heeded not the voice of the charmer Though charmed she never so wisely." " I don't care, I'm determined to," said Mr. Timmons. " Lor' bless you, Mr. Timmons," said the fat woman with the frills, "you know the hinnocent birds don't know nothing about whigs or locofocos, now don't Mr. Timmons." " 1 will," said Mr. Timmons ; " I'm determined ; I don't blame the birds ; but I want to have the fullest satisfaction which the law will allow." " Won't you listen to reason, Mr. Timmons ?" said the fat woman. " I'll listen to nothing," said Mr. Timmons, speaking as loudly as if the fat woman's sense of hearing was very imperfect. " What is that noise about ?" said the Recorder. "I wants to tell your honour all about it," said Mr. Tim mons. " So do I too, your honour," said the fat woman with the frills. " Which of you is the complainant ?" said the Recorder. " 1 am, please the court," said Mr. Timmons. 24 PICKINGS FROM THE " PICAYUNE." " He haint got no complaint to make," said the fat woman with the frills. " Silence," said one of the police officers. " Let us hear your complaint," said the Recorder, addressing Mr. Timmons. " Certainly sir," said Mr. T., and pushing the hair up off his forehead, applying a red pocket handkerchief to his pro boscis, and giving a couple of short coughs, he commenced. u You see, sir, this here woman and I is next door neigh bours. I am a locofoco as strong as plain, and she is a wio- lent vhig." " O, good gracious !" ejaculated the fat woman with the frills ; u did you ever !" " Silence," said the peace officer. "How do you know she's a whig?" asked the Recorder. " 'Cause, don't they say the vimen are all vigs ?" asked Mr. Timmons ; " besides I knows from what she has taught her birds." " O Lor' ha' mercy on me," ejaculated the fat woman with the frills, " I aint nothin' but a poor, lone widder." " What has she taught her birds ?" asked the Recorder. " Why, you see," said Timmons, " she's got what she calls a havery, (an aviary) where she keeps all kinds of foreign and domestic hanimals in the bird line, and she has taught them all to abuse me and my principles." u How so ?" asked the Recorder. " I don't understand you." " Why, just this here way, your honour," said Timmons : " she has got a crooked-nosed, green parrot at her door, and ven ever he sees me he begins to laugh at me, and he sings " ' Did you hear the news from Maine, Maine, Maine ?" " And more times he sings ' Van, Van, Van Van is a used-up man !' u Then she's got some other kinds of foreign birds that says ' Kinderhook cabbage, Kinderhook cabbage, sour crout, eour crout; Matty, go home; Matty, go home.' " I merely want's to have her bound over to keep the peace," said Mr. Timmons, " and not to be annoying me." " Won't your honour hear me ?" asked the fat woman with the frills. " Yes," said the Recorder ; " step forward." " Well, you see, your honour, I haint got a bird in the wide A DOUBLE SHAVE. 25 world but a parrot, an English lark, and a Guinea hen , and they are all the company I has since my poor, dear old man died. This here man, Mr. Timmons, is a werry good man, but he sometimes gets tipsy, and when he does he says my birds do be singing Tippecanoe- songs and talkin' politics : there aint one on 'em can speak a word, your honour, but the parrot, and she don't say nothin' but ' pretty Poll, pretty Poll.' 1 believes, your honour, it's all owin' to the influence of liquor, for when he's sober he don't say nothin'." " Are you afraid this woman will do you any injury r" asked the Recorder of Mr. Timmons. " I is not," said Mr. Timmons ; " but I or>ly requests that her birds won't be riggin' me 'bout my politics." u O, well," said the Recorder, " since the birds are not amen able to this court, I can't dwell longer on this case. It is dis charged." u O, Mr. Timmons, Mr. Timmons," said the fat woman with the frills, " aint you a pretty next door neighbour, to bring a poor, lone widder, that hain't got no one but herself and her birds, into court." A DOUBLE SHAYE. BILL BROWN VS. AUGUSTUS JONES. THIS case excited considerable interest in the Recorder's court, Saturday. Brown is an English sailor. Augustus Jones belongs to the sable race, and fills the vocation of mariner's tons^ur on the Levee. " State your complaint," said the Recorder. "To save this honourable court trouble," said a little six- and-eight-penny lawyer, u I have made a brief of my client, Mr. Brown's case, and shall read it, if the court will command silence." Here he pulled from the pocket of his thread-bare coat about a quire of foolscap, closely written over, and com menced " Whereas, this day " Recorder. "Stop stop, sir! You don't mean 10 read all that !" Jlltornzy. u Certainly, may it please your honour. My duty to my client, justice to my own professional reputation, 26 PICKINGS FROM THE "PICAYUNE." and my innate desire for the triumph of equity and the punisli ment of fraud, all bid me read it." Here the little attorney gave a thump to a volume of Moreau's Digest which lay before him on the table, that made its cover resound like Mr. Cripps' kettle-drums! Recorder. " I care not, sir, what or who bids you read it I forbid you to read it, so sit down. Are you aware, sir, that I have already heard the President's message read to-day ?" Attorney. " Sir, that is not a case in point." Recorder. " I tell you, sir, I'll point you out to a police man if you don't at once sit down." Attorney. " Then I appeal !" Policeman. "Silence! [in an under tone] Appeal and be d d !" The little lawyer left the office in disgust, and Bill Brown stept up to tell his own story in his own way. He plucked off his little glazed hat, made a deposit of the extract of his quid on the boards, rubbed the left cuff of his blue jacket across un der his nose, gave his canvass trousers a hitch up, and com menced " You see, your wu'ship " Policeman. " There's no one worshipped here." Brown. " O, Lord love you, messmate, it's all the same, for the matter o' that. The Admiral there (pointing to the Recorder) knows the way I'm steering." Recorder. " Go on with your complaint." Sailor. " Aye, aye, sir; but, Commodore, dang my buttons if I know what point I was sailing at, when I put my helm to, to talk to this lubber here." Recorder." State why you have summoned this coloured man here." Sailor. "All right, your honour ; I know my reckoning now. Well, you see, I goes into this here fellow's this morning, to have a shave to wash of decks like; well, he did shave me, and may I be food for sharks before another week, your honour, if I didn't suffer more by the operation than I did when I was shaved the first time I passed under the line." Recorder." Well, what followed ?" Sailor. " Why, your honour, I gave him a $2 bill, and he only gave me thirteen of these (ten cent pieces) in change ; and he threatened, your honour, unless I made sail, to scuttle me on the spot." Recorder. " Jones, what have you to say to this charge ?" AN ABSCONIING PARTNER. 27 Jones. " Pse got nuffin to say, no how, your honour, but 1 make dis statement in my own offence. As for de shabin' ob dis here gemmafi, nuffin wax neber nicerer don, for I jus oper ated per se right ober his face, as Captain Tyler would say, Yaw ! yaw !" Recorder. " No impertinence, sir, stick to your story." Jones. "'Cuser, massa, I will. Wai, you sees, I does bis- ness on cash princerples 'cause I doesn't look on dose banks, you see, as very 'stantial, no how. If a gemman comes in, 1 shaves him dat ere's a bit ; if he gives me a note I shaves dat too a bit in de dollar and dat's wat I calls de 'gitimate bankin' bisness." The Recorder made Jones refund the sailor two bits, and as he avowed he had no fear of being "scuttled" by the bar ber, the case was thus adjusted. AN ABSCONDING PARTNER. " Frailty, thy name is woman." WE lost our umbrella once, and know what a sadness comes over the heart on ascertaining the loss of that necessary ar ticle. Our new hat has been taken " by mistake" from a party, and a shocking bad one left in its stead, at which we felt "miffed." We lost our passage on board a steamboat on a certain momentous occasion, after having paid our fare, and our chagrin was considerable. But as we never had a wife we never lost one, and consequently cannot tell the degree of misery which such a bereavement is calculated to inflict ; nor, perhaps, sufficiently sympathize with those on whom such a thunderbolt of misfortune falls. If we* could be magnetized by the hero of our sketch, we know we would have tears to shed, and would be "prepared to shed them now." There was something very peculiar in the look of Alfred Keating, as he sat in the prisoner's box yesterday. His face was for the most part of the time covered in his hands ; but occasionally he would suddenly raise it up and placing hi? open hands before him at an angle of forty-five degrees, in an attitude expressive of dislike, he would say to an interesting looking woman who sat on the side bench "Away ! away' thou unit of a deceitful sex. I hate ye !" Now we have not a doubt that the lady to whom this 28 PICKINGS FROM THE "PICAYUNE." tragically told exhortation was addressed, would have willingly complied with the wish of Mr. Keating and gone off', but it happened that the Recorder had something professional to say to her ere she departed. "You were found in St. Charles street last night, Mr. Keating," remarked the Recorder, u making much noise and acting very strangely." " I know it, I know it," answered Mr. Keating, driving his fingers through his hair u I know it, sir ; but has she been found ? Where is the faithless one ?" "What one?" asked the Recorder "of whom do you speak ?" " Of Anna, lovely Anna ! faithless Anna ! my no, no, not my Anna !" said Mr. Keating, sinking his voice and falling back in his seat in a paroxysm of grief. " What was this man doing when you arrested him ?" asked the Recorder of the watchman. " O, he vas cutting up all kinds of extra shines," said Charley, "like these here theatric fellers. He catches me by the collar, and my eyes ! but he gave me a shake ' tell me vere she's gone,' he says, 'or, by heavens ! thou diest.' Yes, yer honour, I'm blowed if he didn't swear just so. 4 It is that ere voman you means,' said I, 4 that passed by about half an hour ago, under the influence o' liquor ? Vy, she's gone right to the vatch 'us.' ' Willian,' said he, * thou liest! she ran avay vith the bandy-legged tailor, and has left me here the sport of for tune.' Veil, your honour sees, I thought as how he had got the man with the poker, or sum'it o' that sort, and I brought him to the vatch 'us." " You hear the charge of the watchman," said the Recorder to the prisoner. " Hear !" said Alfred Keating " I hear nothing, I see no thing the world is a chaos to me, and every object in creation wears a loathsome hue. If a fitful light does for a moment break on in my mind, it is ' A. light like that with which hell-fire illumes The ghastly, writhing wretch whom it consumes !' 81 ' Like moonlight on a troubled sea, Bright'ning the storm it cannot calm.' I'm a miserable man, sir, I'm a miserable man." " But your misery, whatever be its source," said the Re corder, u does not give you a license to disturb the public peace." TOM TROTTER IN TROUBLE. 29 u Were he a man of comely person and fine proportions," said the semi-mad Mr. Keating, " the misfortune might have fallen lighter on me ; but to forsake me, who feared c the winds of heaven might visit her too roughly,' for a tailor a mere fraction of a man a human form made by one of nature's worst journeymen ! It is too much, too much but ' She's gone I am abused and my relief Must be to loaihe her. O. curse of marriage, That we can call these delicate creatures ours, And not their appetites !' " " That?ll do," said the Recorder, who had heard enough now to know that the better half of Mr. Alfred Keating had made a transfer of herself and her affections to some one whom Alfred deemed less worthy of both than himself. " Mr. Keating," added the Recorder, "I shall discharge you this morning ; but if brought up here again, I will find means to keep you from making a noise in the streets at an unseasonable hour." Mr. Keating left the office ejaculating " O ! Anna, Anna ! source of all my bliss and all my woe !" TOM TROTTER IN TROUBLE. " THAT was a mighty accurate remark of Newton's," said an individual who passed up Poydras street at a late hour Thurs day night, u it was a mighty accurate remark of his, that the world turned round. I only wonder that the fact was not discovered and promulgated long before. 1 knew it by intui tion, and I have ocular demonstration of it this instant. See there ; isn't the lamp turning round, and isn't it making as many faces at me as a clown in the circus would at the audi ence. Isn't that cotton bale dancing a quadrille with the mo lasses barrel, and isn't the curb-stone ' changing partners' with the mackerel cask. That's the way to do it ' hands across' ' down the middle.' " At this moment he lost his equilibrium and fell off the sidewalk into the gutter. " Look here, old fourth-proof Jamaica," said the watchman, "you is like some of these fellers wot goes about tell in' 'bout 'tarnal punishments and all that you doesn't practice wot you preaches ; instead of going ' down the middle' you have 30 PICKINGS FROM THE "PICAYUNE." gone down the side. Jest get up and try it again. Where abouts does you live ?" "Live!" said the now recumbent discoverer of centripetal force, " where do I live ? The question is a narrow one, and presupposes a littleness of soul and a contraction of the ideas. I live, sir, in the world my home is on it. Attachments for *}etty localities I despise in domestic matters I am purely osmopolitan. I live abroad, sir everywhere." " Why, you must be a werry nice man," said the watchman ; " I vonders vere you gets your vashin' done ; but it aint no. matter. I guess I'll supply you vith lodging, though, like the appearance of the vonderful voman, it may be but ' for von night only.'" " You're a gentleman," said the philosopher who was still in the gutter in a maudlin tone, " you're a gentleman ; though for one of that character most confoundedly disguised. But tell me, do you demand cash in advance do you require payment before going to bed ? because I've made it a rule never to do these things. It throws doubt on a man's respectability to do so. Prompt payments did very well, sir, for our igno rant and benighted ancestors, but it won't do for the present enlightened age. No, sir, the greatest men and the greatest nations go in debt, and the deeper they go the greater their respectability. Look at England, sir, there's a great nation ! And why is she great ? Because she is greatly in debt ; that's the secret of her greatness ; and if you ask Sir Robert Peel he'll tell you the same. I'd be a great man myself, but the people are so ineffably stupid that they won't give me credit. Why', for the last six weeks I have stopped at six several boarding houses, and the owners are so invincibly ignorant of the true principles of greatness, that they have, every one of them, refused to trust me for more than one week's board. Horrible state of society, sir." " Blow me," said the watchman, "if I doesn't b'lieve you is a 'tinerant lect'rer, or a mesmeriser, or summat o' that sort you talk like a book. But come with me, I'll show you the elephant." The watchman led him off to Baronne street, he assuring watchy,as they went along, that he'd be forever indebted to him, " Zcrology," he said, "is a favourite study of mine, and in the contemplation of nothing is my ideas of animated nature more expanded and elevated than in surveying the mighty elephant." KISSING A NEW YEARNS CUSTOM. 31 Changing his tone from one of admiration to one of inter rogation, he asked " Did you say brandy and water, my friend ? Thank you ; the night is somewhat chilly, that's a fact. I've no objection to take a little, though my habits generally speaking are tem perate, very." " Yes," said the watchman, " you look as much like a tem perance man as I do like a bishop. If I can't promise you brandy and water, you may rely on getting coffee without Sll g ar (this is the workhouse rations) come along," and here the watchman struck his club against the curb-stone. " A light breaks in on me," said the philosopher, " you're a watchman are you not ?" 44 Well I is, hoss," said the Charley, " and you is " " A gentleman in difficulties," said the philosopher. " No you don't," said the watchman, " you don't come the giraffe over me that a way, you is a great naturalist, and does like to see the elephant, I knows you, now that I gets a full look at you ; you is Tom Trotter, the loafer, and no mistake." The watchman was not mistaken in his man, for Tom was fully recognised by the Recorder yesterday and sent to take coffee without sugar for thirty days. KISSING A NEW YEAR'S CUSTOM. MICK MAHONY, Mrs. Biddy Mahony and Nancy Don^hoe were individually and collectively charged yesterday before the Recorder, by the watchman, with disturbing the peace. Miss Donahoe was a good-looking, round, red-faced, blve- eyed girl. Mrs. Mahony was a hard-featured, sharp-nos^d lady, with a tongue which seemed to operate on the principles of perpetual motion; and Mr. Mahony was a humorous-look- ing character, with a leer in his eye and a laugh playing about the corners of his mouth, which were well calculated to excite the jealousy of Mrs. M. when so comely a colleen ak Nancy Donahoe was in the case. The watchman was proceeding to state the charge with loquacious verbosity, but Mrs. Mahony claimed of the cour f the right to relate the matter herself, alleging that she was the injured individual. As she would not be silent, the Recorder assented, and she went on, her lord and master, Mick, looking 32 PICKINGS FROM THE "PICAYUNE." imploringly into her eyes in the meantime, and making an ap peal to her pity in the following words : " Biddy, Biddy, jewel, be aisy, and if ye can't be aisy, be as aisy as you can." Biddy heeded not the voice of the charmer, but proceeded. " Well, ye see on New Year's night, yer aner, I had a nice little tay party at me place ; and of coorse, whin the kimmecns (tea equipage) was removed, we had a dhrop of punch in aner of the night, though sarrah a dhrop of it did I take meself, on account of the pledge." " There's a good one !" said Mick, in sotto voce, turning to Nancy Donahoe. " Mrs. Mahony," said the Recorder, "you are too discursive too prolix. 1 only wish you to state the cause of the riot or disturbance." " I'm comin' to the point, yer aner," returned Biddy. " O, Biddy, acushla," said Mick, " ye know 'twas all a bit of a joke a New Year's night frolic." " A purty joke it was, ye desavin' villian !" exclaimed Biddy. "That's the father of me four childher to be kissin' that brazen-faced hussey there the instant ye got me back turned and you purdindin' to be so jealous of Tim Doolin all the time, that was me mother's cousin be his father's side, and " u Mrs. Mahony," said the Recorder, " I cannot sit here and listen to the genealogy of your family or the degree of con sanguinity that exists between you and Tim Doolin. I again call on you to come to the cause of the disturbance for which you were all arrested." " Well, thin," resumed Mrs. Mahony, " whin we were all sated round the table, as happy as ye plase, chattin' and talkin' about ould times, Mick sis to Harry Whelan, sis he < Harry, avick, lit's have a song.' 'Always contint,' sis Harry. ' What'll ye have, Mrs. Mahony ?' sis he to me. ' Plase yourself, Mis- ther Whelan,' sis I, ' and ye plase me ;' so with that he com- minced 'Hurra for O'Connell, who'll git us Repale!' Well, he hadn't well begun it whin me bowld Mick sis c I beg yer pardin, ginteels,' jist that a-way, quite purlitely like and up he gits and walks out, and out he stays, and sarrah a sign- of him there was comin' in whin the song, which has twinty one varses in it, was incored. Well, yer aner, I begins to smill a rat, and I ups and goes to the dure, and there I hears Miss Donahoe, the forward minx, though she looks now as if butthei wouldn't milt in her mouth singin' in great glee THE WANDERING MINSTREL. 33 Rory O'More.' Well, I stales to the windy she lives nixt Jure ail d, sure enough, whin she cum to the chorus of ' It's eight times to-day that ye kissed me afore,' the vagabone does shute the action to the word, and gives hr a smackin' thorum- pogue ! Well, 'twas too much for flesh and blud to stand, so of coorse I gev both of thim what they desarved I gev thim sugar in their tay !" " That's sufficient," said the Recorder. " What have you to say, Mr. Mahony ?" Mick smiled amorously, drew his hand over his face, and looked archly between his extended fingers at Nancy Donahoe* and Mrs. Mahony. He acknowledged the soft impeachment of kissing Nancy, but pleaded in extenuation the privilege of do ing so on New Year's night; and further, that Biddy kissed Tim Doolin right forninst his face ! The Recorder viewed the affair in the same hilarious light that Mick Mahony did, and discharged the parties on paying jail fees. THE WANDERING MINSTREL. WHEN we entered the police office yesterday we cast our eye along the file of prisoners as is our wont, with a view of picking out a " character," just as Bonaparte would run his quick glance along the lines to pick out a man for important duty or promotion. To the right of the column we perceived a prisoner whom we at once knew was above and beyond the ordinary class, of lock-up prisoners. He had the bearing of an Olympic god, the brow of Orpheus and the bust of an Apollo Belvidere. We at once set him down as some body, and we were not much mistaken. He was, or rather is, a musician a fiddler a, man of quavers and crotchets, who kills time by keeping time; who is at once the victor and victim of sharps and players, and is played on by flats. The time was when there was a halo of romance thrown round the troubadour or the wandering minstrel when he could write a sonnet to his " mistress' eyebrows," and accompanied by his harp or lute sing it under her latticed window without the fear of intrusion or interruption. But, alas ! the days of romance, like the days of chivalry, are now passed, and if a "child of song" attempts to tune his Cremona now in the highway or byway after gun 60 34 PICKINGS FROM THE "PICAYUNE." fire a Charley, with no more music in his soul than there is animation in a pumpkin, comes up and hustles him off to the .watchhouse before he can sound his A. From the statement made by the watchman it appeared that the prisoner, Jack Gamut, was arrested in Tchoupitoulas street on Wednesday night, echoing the sounds of silvery music. He was essaying, " With sweetest touches to pierce his mistress' ear And draw her home with music." Thus went his song; his tune on his fiddle was somewhat erratic^ not following exactly in the same musical track : JACK'S SONG- Air, " The Minstrel -Boy." The minstrel boy on a spree is gone, In the street you're sure to find him ; He plays on three strings instead of one, Thus leaving Paganini behind him. " ! spirit of music," the fiddler sung, Should the Charlies not alarm me, I'd rosin my bow 'till the evening's gun, I'd play night and day to charm ye." The watchman, who " heeded not the song of the charmer,'* came up and without parley, politeness, or explanation, took the wandering minstrel off to the calaboose. " Tour's is rather a hard case," said the Recorder, addressing Jack Gamut. U O, your honour," said Jack, " I don't care three thraw- neens about the case; I'm mighty anxious about the fiddle though." " You are charged with disturbing the peace," said the Recorder. " Be gor, your honour," said Jack, " that's impossible ; because the piece^ music, poethry and all was me own com position." " The watchman says you were annoying the whole neigh bourhood," said the Recorder. " O, the dirty haythen," said Jack, " sure he was fast asleep when I comminced playin', and would not wake 'till mornin* if it was not for me music ; and pon me sow], between you and me, I think there's more merit due to me in wakin' him up than there was to Orpheus, who made stones and trees dance quadrilles, they say." A MRS. CAUDLE IN COURT. 35 "Well, I'll discharge you this time," said the Recorder, " but mind that you're never caught out serenading so late again." "O, may the bow string of your honour's life never be broke," said Jack, " 'till its last jig is finished" and saying this he left the court, nothing the worse for his night's serenade. A MRS. CAUDLE IN COURT. MRS. TITMARSH, (a lady of the Caudle school,) and her hus band, made something of a stir in the Recorder's court yester day. The complaint made by the watchman was, that they were disturbing the peace when he arrested them : but in what manner, Mrs. Titmarsh would not permit him to tell : she would not allow Mr. Titmarsh to explain, nor would she be silenced by the Recorder. She evidently concluded there was talking to be done; a-nd having no mean opinion of her own powers of loquacity, was determined to take it all to herself indeed, it seemed to be with her a " labour of love." Recorder. ct Watchman, state the circumstances of these people's arrest." Mrs. Titmarsh. " Will your honour hear me ? I'm a decent married woman, and have got three small children two of them twins, that will be two years of age next 4th of July, provided they get over the measles ; and, besides, " Recorder. " And besides I don't see what your twins have to do with the arrest. Let the watch " Mrs. Titmarsh. " O, I don't want to have the ear of the court poisoned by a watchman, that never had no twins in his life that never had no husband to trifle with his feelings, and that doesn't know nothing of how the tender sensibilities of a confiding woman are lacerated and laid bare by the conduct of an ungrateful husband. O, Tit, Tit !" and here she looked a look both of mixed sorrow and of anger "O, Tit, Tit! I knew it would come to this ! and what w%uld I care if it was not for my little boy, that's at the public schools, and the two little twins, that's at home with the negro. What " Mr. Titmarsh, (in a peace-invoking voice.) u Well, dear, it was your own fault. If you had held your tongue, the watchman would have never minded us." Mrs. Tilmarsh." My fan)* ! if I held my tongue ! O ! 36 PICKINGS FROM THE " PICAYUNE." don't drive me mad, Titmarsh ! don't you talk to me about holding my tongue ! How could any poor woman, with two twins, hold her tongue- that would have such a husband such a hypocrite of a husband, 1 may say, as you are ? O, you " Recorder. " I must hear, madam, why it was that you have been brought before me." Mr. Titmarsh. "It was all a mistake of the watchman, your honour. Mrs. Titmarsh was speaking to me about some domestic matter; she has a habit of sometimes speaking rather loud ; so the watchman, thinking we were disputing, or doing something worse, arrested us." Mrs. Titmarsh. " O, this is all very fine, Tit very ! I speak rather loud sometimes do I ? and of course you never give me occasion not you ! harassed to death as I am, taking care of my eldest child anil my two twins !" Mr. Titmarsh." I never " Mrs. Titmarsh. " O, don't talk to me, Tit ! I can't bear your duplicity. 'You never." to be sure you never. You never pretend to go to the temperance meeting, and instead of going there spend the night at the ' Bunch of Grapes' with your old pot companions, while me and my poor twins and eldest child sit lonely and desolate at home. You never " Mr. Titmarsh." Mrs. T., this is no place " Mrs. Titmarsh. O, of course ! it's no place any place is no place for me to open my mouth and let the public know the way a poor, heart-broken woman, as I am, with my eldest child and two twins, is treated by you. It is no place, I sup pose, to tell how, when you said you were at mother's the other night, you were at the Amphitheatre ; but what did you care if little Tommy died of the whooping-cough ? you wouldn't go to mother's for the cure you'd rather go to see Madame Arraline dance the catchouca of course you would ; and you'd rather go to the lake to eat a soft-shell crab supper than take a comfortable cup of tea at home with your poor, heart-broken wife, her eldest boy aud two twins. Yes, I was speaking loud, antf I will speak loud, and I will " Recorder. " That will do, madam, you may go, and so may Mr. Titmarsh." The fact was, that while the batteries of Mrs. Titmarsh's volubility were levelled at poor " Tit," as she delighted to call him, the Recorder saw a neighbour of theirs in court, from whom he learned that the disturbance of the peace spoken of THE SHAKSPEARIAN BOOT BLACK. 37 / by the watchman, and for which they were arrested, was nothing more than one of her usual lectures spoken before the curtain, instead of beneath it. THE SHAKSPEARIAN BOOT BLACK. THERE is in one of our principal city hotels, a member of the masculine gender and genus Afric, who is a decided char acter, standing out in bold relief from those of his colour and kind, like a figure-head from the prow of a war frigate. He is of great muscular powers and athletic proportions, resem bling, when he throws himself into one of his fancy attitudes, a bronzed statue of Hercules. He is a fellow of " infinite jest of most excellent fancy," and quite an amateur in all that relates to theatricals. His voice is deep and sonorous as a diseased kettledrum, and tragedy is therefore his forte. He is eternally spouting Shakspeare, and he so humorously inter- lardes his replies to the questions propounded to him by his master's guests, that he is a perfect dyspepsia-dispeller, or laughter-provoking machine. Here follows a dialogue which he held yesterday morning with one of the boarders. About five o'clock A. M. the bell of No. 40 is vehemently rang, and immediately Ca3sar is to be seen hastening along the corridor, with a brow as pregnant of deep intent as that which Macbeth wears when he crosses the stage to murder Duncan in his chamber. He enters the room and places himself in a deferential position to receive the orders of No. 40, who, by the way is a perfect exquisite. No. 40.W Aw ! Cesaw, is that you ?" C entlemen, the American Eagle !" " Silence ! sit down, said the officer, going over to Brown, placing his hands on his shoulders and pushing him into his seat " sit down sir." The course being again clear, the Recorder proceeded " Charley Jones." " M-m-m-Mr. Chairman," said Jones, his c e_ye in a fine phrensy rolling,' " I respond to the call " " Bravo, Jones ! bravo, Jones ! Jones' song ! song !" shouted the half dozen fuddled prisoners, and before the officers had lime to interpose, Jones was singing " 'Tis the star-spangled banner, And long may it wave O'er the land of the free, And the home of the brave !" Jones was soon made to shut up, and Jonathan Svviller's name was called by the Recorder. " Wai, Squire," said Jonathan, " I kalk'late I was on an almighty big bender last night, I tell you, and the way we did walk into the highly concentrated hard cider or as you city folks call it, sham-pag-ne worn't slow, I tell you ; goody gracious, if mother knew I was carrying on so ! Jonathan was silenced, and Patrick O'Shaughnessy was called. "Gintlemen, said Patrick, "unaccustomed as I am to public spaykin', it can't be expicted I'll make a great speach intirely, but I'll howld any man twinty dollars that New York will go for Van Buren, body and sowl, Sixth Ward and all." No one seemed to notice Pat's speech, or his bet, and the Recorder called " Duncan McPherson." "Awe weel, mon," said Duncan, "I have tauld Patrick cover and oover again na to be so foond o' makin' his bleth- ?rin' speeches and thrawin' away his siller on kn whose mind no ray of the Promethean spark ever shed its lustre who are an utter stranger to ' The elegance, facility and golden cadence of poesy Heaven bred poesy !' Why I ask, should you offer such an insult to me in a public court as to speak to me of*poetry." u What's the matter with that woman?" said the Recorder. Policeman. " That's 'zactly the way she was carry in' on last night when I 'rested her she's a screamer, your honour, 1 tell you." Christopher Cribs, (with one of his usual insinuating smiles,) " O, it aint nothin', your honour; it was Mrs. Cribs here, as was just a talkin' to me. She's a werry good woman, sir, and werry intellectual and " Mrs. Cribs. "Cribs, I command you to be silent ; don't ex- p se your ignorance don't, I say. Will the court call on this 82 PICKINGS FROM THE " PICAYUNE." illiterate individual to cease annoying me ? O, Cribs ! had we " Never met, or had we parted, 1 had ne'er been broken hearted." Recorder. " Will any one tell me what this woman is say ing ?" Mr. Cribs. "Nothin' in the vide vorld, your honour. Mrs. Cribs Clem, I calls her, for love and shortness Clem is one of the most lovingest wives as I everknowed on. She aint got no fault, but that she's too fond of poetry books, and instead of mindin' her waking babe little Tommy, the bles- sedest infant you ever seed she keeps writin' sonnets to ' a sleepin' babe ;' and t'other day, when I brought home some fust rate croackers from the lake, and told her to dress them for dinner, instead ofdoin' it she sat down 'cause she said the inspiration was on her and she kegan writin' lines ' To a dead fish found on the strand ;' and kept at it till the dead fish which she might find in the basket were spoiled. Well, I s'pose the poetry on the dead fish was all very good, for Clem said it was ; but I'd be a better judge of the fish in the basket, if she had done them up for my dinner, instead of doin' up the poe try. When I told her I was gettin' right hungry, she says, says she, ' Cribs, have patience, you woracious wagabond ; you see I'm preparin' an intellectual feast.' Yes, said I, but Clem, my love, it'll be a feast arter a famine, for I'm right hungry now. It won't be the feast of reason, neither, for there aint no reason in fastin' for the sake of poetry." "Cribs," said Mrs. C., her eye in a fine frenzy rolling - " Cribs, you're an ingrate a deceiver a false one ! You knew when you plighted to me your eternal truth and undy ing constancy you knew my passion for poetry, my love of literature, my admiration for the romantic; but 'tis over! " The charm is broken ! Once betrayed, Oh, never can my heart rely On word or look, on oath or sigh ! Take back the gifts, so sweetly giv'n With promis'd faith and vows to Heav'n." Recorder. "O, I cannot be annoyed with this poetical woman and her fish-fond husband. Send them out of the court, and if brought up here again they shall find bail that they will not in future disturb the neighbourhood in which they live." Cribs left the office, supplicating the amiable Mrs. C. for orgiveness, which she seemed very adverse to granting. 83 RECORDER'S COURT. TWO OF A TRADE CAN NEVER AGREE. WE witnessed a lucitl illustration of this argument in the court of Recorder Baldwin yesterday. While standing at the door, on St. Charles street, waiting for the opening of the court, we saw two men in hot haste, making tracks for the police office. Here, thought we, here is not one, but here are two heroes for our next morning's report for we look out for a " character" with as much anxiety, almost, but not quite, as a merchant looks out for his ships at sea as a stock jobber looks out for a fall or a rise in the funds as an olcTmaid looks out for some one to" pop the question," or as a political editor looks out for "glorious victories." Jn the distance we could not see, " precisely," what they were ; though as they approached we felt we could not be mis taken in putting them down for a pair of wood-sawyers. One carried his saw slung on his arm, and the other had his "horse" mounted on his shoulder. At a first glance they looked like wandering minstrels ; the saw on No. One seemed " Like his wild harp slung behind him ;" and the " horse" on the shoulder of the other, like a hand organ. So far as the look of the outer-man was concerned, they were as like one another as the Siamese twins, or two plaster of Paris castings of Bonaparte ; with this single exception, that the two legs of one of them were not of equal longitude his life seemed a succession of ups and downs. They unburdened themselves of their " plunder" outside the office door, and boldly made their way up to the bench. '* I vants a varrant for this 'ere indiwidual," said he with the short leg and the long one. " Yes, and please your honour," said the other, who stood on equal footing with himself, at least, " I shall lodge hexam- inations agin this 'ere feller." The Recorder actuated by that fair-play-principle which distinguishes him as a magistrate, said he was prepared to hear both sides of the story, and bade the man with the imperfect ^understanding to proceed. 84 PICKINGS FROM THE "PICAYUNE." " First," said the Recorder, " what is your name ?" " Thomas, sir, Jim Thomas, but folks calls me Hop and Go Constantly way of a rig itaint my name though,'' said the odd legged man. " And yours, sir," said the Recorder, to the other. " George Villiams, sir," said the other ; " and I haint got no title 'cause as how it aint democratic." " Let us hear your story first, Thomas," said the Recorder. " Yes, sir," said Hop and Go Constant, u I'll tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth : Veil, your honour sees, 1 ha' follered this here purfession of wood sawin' for a long time, and I understands the business in all its branches. This here feller is but a new hand, and besides, he haint got no genius. 'Stead of learnin' to set his saw, he has made a dead set at my reg'lar business ; he goes round to my customers, your honour, and he circumwents me." " But has he assaulted you ?" said the Recorder. " Yes, sir-r," said Jim Thomas, " and he knocked out three of my teeth yesterday." . " Why, that is battery," said the Recorder, " according to our statutes ; but I can't perceive that your mouth is much disfigured by the blow, nor do I see the vacuum which the three knocked out teeth have left." u Why bless your hinnocent heys," said Thomas," it warn't out of my mouth, but. out of my saw that he knocked the three teeth, and I have it outside to prove the fact. I thinks myself, the offence is burglary in the second degree." " Silence," said the Recorder, " you have gone quite far enough. What have you to say to this, Williams ?" he asked of the man whose legs, instead of being like two sides of an irregular triangle, were like two sides of a square. " Veil, I haint nothin' to say but this here," said Williams ; " that I rests my defence altogether on constitutional grounds. In the first place, ven I saws vood no man cant interfere vith me, 'cause I'm in the pursuit o' happiness ; and, moreover, I thinks free trade and wood-sawyers' rights, is as much a con stitutional question as free trade and sailors' rights, about vich folks makes such a muss. Vy, I asks, should there be mo nopoly in wook-sawin' ? . Dont competition benefit every business ? I'm blow'd if I'll be put down by that 'ere man ; that's all about it." " That is enough about it," said the Recorder; " and as for you," he said, addressing the lame man, " because you charge RECORDER'S COURT. 85 this man with breaking the teeth of your saw, you come to a lame and impotent conclusion when you think you can sue him for an assault. To maintain such a charge you should prove personal violence. You may both go. 1 ' They left the office. The man not fully initiated in the mysteries of wood-sawing, seeming to regard the decision of the court as a great triumph. The lame man's short leg seemed shorter and his long leg longer than usual. A SERENADED CHRISTOPHER CRAMER AND HIS CREMONA. AMONG the cases brought up Saturday before the Recorder, was Christopher Cramer an old rusty fiddle was under his arm, and a bow, which had lost much of its original tension, was insinuated between its strings. Christopher's dress was superlatively shabby ; his jaws were thin and attenuated ; his nose was pimply and purple ; he was of the lamp-post shape, or rather of no shape at all ; and his fingers were as fleshless and long as if they had undergone an anatomical operation. He seemed to be as he was- a specimen of Paginini-ism done up on loafer principles ; and his face, which was covered with scratches, looked like a gamut written with red ink. " Christopher Cramer ?" said the Recorder. Christopher, whose spirits seemed sunk too low, was so ab sorbed in thought that he heeded not the authorative voice of the judicial functionary on the bench, but kept gazing on his fiddle, which was placed on his knees, with all the apparent affection with which a parent looks on an only child fading away from life under the corroding influence of a consumption. u Your case is called on," said a policeman, stirring up Chris topher with his short pole " your case is called on." u Ah, I've lost my case," said Cramer, " and I thought as much of it as I do of my fiddle itself my name was on it, C. C., done in brass nails." " You were found disturbing the peace last night," said the Recorder. " There is a discord between the charge and the fact, may it please the court," said Cramer ; " of nothing was I guilty but " Peace and gentle visitation." 86 PICKINGS FROM THE "PICAYUNE." " Why, your honour," said a watchman, "he says as how I cracked his fiddle ; but blow me if 1 don't think its his own head that's cracked you should ha' seen the shines he cut up in Burgundy street last night. lie called it a sur-in-aid ; but folks didn't like such aid thereabouts I know they didn't 'cause they all calls on me, and tells me to take him to the vatchhouse ; von young 'oman puts her head out of a two story vinder, and she hollers to me ' Vatchman ! you take that 'ere feller to the vatchhouse ; he comes here a cutting up these here didos every night he's a wagrant, and we don't know nothin' about him.' " Recorder. " What brought you, sir, to disturb a peaceable neighbour at that time of night ? I am told by the watchman it was one o'clock." Christopher. [Waving his right arm like a stump orator speaking of the constitution] "Because I have sworn it; and ' Not for all the sun sees, or The close earth wombs, or the profound seas hide In unknown fathoms, will I break my oath To her, my fair beloved !' " Watchman. " That's the vay he's alvays a goin' on. You ought to've heerd him a singin' ' Vake, lady, vake !' last night, and play it on the fiddle at the same time ! Vy, he's death on catgut, and a reg'lar vind instrument ! His notes is higher than any of the sol went banks ! he's a perfect roarer !" Recorder. " You will have to find bail to keep the peace, unless you promise to give up your serenading." Christopher. "To do so would jar with the vow I have taken and create a discord in the sounds of my soul's feelings ; besides ' I am advised to give her music o' mornings : They say it will penetrate.' " "Take him off," said the Recorder, "until he finds the ne cessary bail." *. In a moment a policeman grasped Christopher by the arm, and Christopher grasped his fiddle by the neck, displaying thereby a wonderful instance ofjiddle-hyl " LAY ON, MICK DUFF !" 87 "LAY ON, MICK DUFF!" MICHAEL DUFF and Tom Crowley were yesterday brought before the Recorder, for practically illustrating their bellicose propensities on the Levee, contrary to the statute in that case made and provided, and the peace and dignity of the state. Tom Tanner, a witness who was present, put the court in possession of the terms and conditions of the fight. The weapons were fists ; they stood at striking distance, and as much nearer as they could clutch one another. The battle was to be fought on the knock-down and drag-out principle, agreeably to the " sports of the ring," as laid down in the Kentucky code. " Who was the aggressor ?" said the Recorder to the wit ness, Tanner. " Why, Crowley was, of coorse," said Tanner : " he chal lenged Mick, and wouldn't give him pace noraze till he fought him." "Well, and what did you say?" inquired the Recorder. " Did you endeavour to make peace ?" " I did no such thing, yer anour," said Tanner, " for I seed Tom was itchin' for a batin', and I was detarmined to let him have it ; so, as soon as iver I seed Mick square at him, I said, as our counthryman Moore, the beautiful dramatic poet of na ture, ilegantly expresses it : ' Whoo ! lay on Mick Duff! Pitch into Crowley till he cries enough /' And so he did, yer anour as beautiful as if he tuck lessons from O'Rourke or deaf Burke himself!" They were all -fined for disturbing the peace, and discharged. DOMESTIC DIFFCULTIES. OR, THE ONE WOMAN POWER. " WHAT, here again this morning, Jemmy?" said the Re corder yesterday, to a withered looking little specimen of mor tality who stood before him, and with whom official intimacy 88 PlCKIiNGS FROM THE u PICAYUNE." appeared to have made him quite familiar. u What's the mat ter now ?" u The old story, your honour," said Jemmy. "The old woman heft" and he trembled with fear as he finished the sentence " was kicking up her shines last night again." The " old woman here" to whom Jemmy referred was a smirking, masculine looking young woman, with the word virago written in legible letters upon her features. When Jemmy made this "complimentary" allusion to her, she gave him a look that seemed to operate on his nervous system like a shock from a galvanic battery; and then, assuming a mild look of forbearance, she turned to the Recorder, and in a sub dued tone of voice assured his honour that "there was no living with Jemmy Galvin, he carried on so!" " Why, Galvin," said the Recorder, " it is not more than a week ago since I bound you over to keep the peace to your wife!" " I know it's not," said Jemmy, " but when you bound me over your honour missed a figure you took the wrong pig by the ear, as they say in Ohio it's the old woman here you should have kept from doing mischief; she's the head and front, soul and body, shoes and stockings of offending." " O," says Mrs. G., putting a white pocket handkerchief up to her eyes, and first looking vinegar at Jemmy and then looking tears and treacle at the Recorder, " O, I'm a miserable woman ! an ill used woman ! I calls for the protection of the court from the wiolence of that man !" and here Mrs. G. seemed affected even to false tears. " Are not you a pretty fellow," said the Recorder to Jemmy, u to treat your wife in this manner to act with violence and unkindness to one whom you should protect and cherish ?" " O, bless your hinnocent heyes," said Jemmy, " you does'nt know that ere woman ; them aint tears ; nor she aint crying now ; it's all hactin', your honour. You should see her last night when we were taken up by the watch ; the way she did pitch into me was a caution to the feller they called the Liverpool pet, wot taught the art of boxing here on scientific principles." The watchman was here called upon, and corroborated to a considerable extent the allegations of Mr. G. relative to the pugilistic prowess of Mrs. Galvin. " Is there no possibility of both of you living together," said the Recorder, " in more harmony ?" " I don't see none," said Jemmy, " I've tried every thing to please her, but it aint no use ; she scolds me and abuses me A SCOTCH FEE-LOSOPHER. 89 for every thing I says, and every thing I does. They may talk of John Tyler's vetoes, but he aint no circumstance in obstinacy to my wife. If I asks her to go to the lake with me she won't corne ; if I asks her to go to Carrollton or to the Tivoli theatre, she won't come ; if I asks her to make coffee for breakfast, she is sure to have tea; and if I takes a liking to fish and tells her to prepare some for dinner, she inwariably dresses meet and wegetables. In fact, your honour, it's veto and ditto veto, all the year round." Mrs. G. said not a word, but seemed " nursing her wrath to keep it warm." Jemmy continued : " It's very well for politicians to speak of the danger of the ' one man power;' but if they lived as long as I have with Mrs. Galvin, they'd know something I guess about the danger of the one woman power. I tell you, when I thinks of it, I trembles for my constitution." The Recorder having, it appears, previously bound Mr. Galvin to keep the peace, now made Mrs. G. enter into her recognisances, and then permitted them to return home to enjoy again the delights of domestic felicity ! A S-COTCH FEE-LOSOPHER. JAMES BURNS, who comes from the "land o' cakes," and may be, for aught we know to the contrary, a lineal descend ant of the Ayrshire bard, who was himself so honest that *' He wad na cheat the vera de^il !" was arrested in the neighbourhood of the Public Square on Wednesday evening. He was engaged in haranguing a la Prophet Munday, a promiscuous crowd. But in almost every thing he was the antipodes of the prophet. The prophet wears no hat he wore a shocking bad one; the prophet does not shave his chin Jim shaves his whole face, when he can get a barber to credit him ; the prophet is sharp and acute-looking Jim looks like a "daft" man; the prophet is short Jim is tall; the prophet, speaks sense Jim Burns talks nonsense ; Jim's theme was "education its ill effects ;" and in this it may be perceived that he not only takes ground against the great thinkers of his own country, but also against those of this. " A' the evils," we could hear Jim say as we 90 PICKINGS FROM THE " PICAYUNE." approached him, u a' the evils, ma freens, that affleect the coontry proceed fra superaboondant eedication ; the vera boys ken mair no$ muckle mair than oor grandfathers did een when their locks, as the song says o' John Anderson's. war white as the snaw. I teel ye again, ma freens," said Jirn, " that this thing o' eedication is like a Scootch broadsword, an unco dangerous weepon in the hands o 1 them as dinna ken the way to use it. Withoot the genius it's like a haggis with out the eengredients ; and wi 1 it, it is a' togitfier like a breeks to a Highlander a superfluous article. As my namesake Bob used to say ' Gi'e me a spark o' Nature's fire, That's a' the laming I desire.' " " O," said the watchman, coming up, " I'll give you a night in the calaboose." " Why, mon," said Jim, " this is a free coontry, and I'm only geein' expression to my seentiments." "Yes, you is a-breakin' the ordinance in favour of public education," said the watchman u I knows you is ;" and so he took off this Scotch philosopher of the new school a circumstance which seemed to edify his auditors just as much as his dissertation on, or rather against, education did. AN ATTEMPT TO SHAV^E A SHAVER. A LITTLE Frenchman, whose hair stood on an end a la Jack son, with short legs and large calves, kicked up almost as great a fuss in Recorder Baldwin's court yesterday, as Louis Napoleon did recently in Bologne. His nose was as sharp as a razor, and his face was as white from powder as if it were newly lathered. A large frill struck perpendicularly out from his bosom like an open oblong fan, and a large circular snuff box resembling the Grand Humbug Real Estate Lottery Wheel, protruded from his vest pocket. "You shave me, I shave you, eh? sacre ! one great impos ture," said the Frenchman, pulling his snuff box hurriedly from his vest pocket, giving it a wicked crack of his open hand on the lid, and raising a large pinch of the pungent powder to his nose between his two ringers and thumb, he snuffed up the lesser portion of it, the greater he let fall on his frill. " You shave me, I shave you, eh ?" again he repeated with a* AN ATTEMPT TO SHAVE A SHAVER. 91 much apparent assurance of success in the suit he was about to engage in, as a politician speaks of the election of his fa vourite presidential candidate " By gar, sare, I shall let you see by de law whethare you shave me for J shave you, eh ?" This was addressed to a man who, if he was not a worn out blackleg, looked extremely like one and notwithstanding the little Frenchman's tempestuous passion, retained the most placid equanimity of temper. " Have you any charge to make, sir ?" said the Recorder to the little Frenchman. ''By gar, Monsieur Judge," said the little Frenchman,"! have one twelve month charge to make against dis dere robbere." " If you bring it before this court," said the Recorder, "you will have to make it brief. I cannot occupy myself in hearing a twelve months' charge from you." " Pardonnez moi, Monsieur Judge, you no comprehend. I am de one grand barbere, freezuer and perruguier from Paree ; dis man comes to my emporium of fashion and he says, what you pay me no, sacre pay what you charge me, he says, for bartering for shave me, you call it, and cut my hair, for one year ? I do it, I said, and give your whiskers de grand Paree curl for tirty dollar, but you pay me cash down not no credit system for me, nevare." " Well, did he comply with your terms ?" said the Re corder. "Not one time, he no paid me at all," said the Frenchman " I now shave him one month and give his hair de fashionable cut and de finish off wid de bear's grease, and he nevare paid me one cent. Sacre! he be one grand wat you call humbug one shaver what don't be barbers you know, but wat live by shaving barbers and oder gentlemens. Sacre ! when I ask him for my tirty dollar dis vera mornin', he give me tree ten dollar bills of de fallen in Brandon Bank, and he say they be good as silvare next year. Man Dieu ! Mon Dieu ! they will nevare be no good till de whole world break up in one smash! What you say to dat, Monsieur Judge ?" continued the little Frenchman, anxious to draw from the Recorder his opinion of the man who could have the effrontery to offer a Parisian barber $30 in Brandon money for cutting his hair and shaving him for twelve months, and giving his whiskers the grand curl " wat you say do dat, Monsieur Judge, eh ?" " Why, I say that it was any thing but a legal tender," said 92 PICKINGS FROM THE " PICAYUNE." the Judge, " and the very worst representative of a specie currency which he could offer you." " I shave him, he want shave me," said the Frenchman, taking another large pinch of snuff. The defendant was now called on to state what he had to say to the charge made against him. He admitted a part and denied a part. It was true, he said, that the Frenchman had shaved him for a month, powdered his face, cut his hair, rubbed in the bear's grease, till he thought the hair of his head would be mistaken for a grenadier's cap, it grew so strong, and he took excessive pains to curl his whiskers ; but he em phatically denied offering to remunerate him with Brandon money. He merely pulled it out, he said, to show what a loss he sustained as a holder of it; and in proof that he did not do it as a fraud, he now offered to pay the barber in good and current Second Municipality bills for his services. The proposition was accepted the Frenchman's demand was liquidated, and he left the office snuffitig his snuff, and saying in triumph to the defendant "-By gar, 1 can shave you, but you can no shave me, not no how ha! ha!" A SMALL TEA PARTY. SHOWING THE CONNECTION BETWEEN SCANDAL AND SOUCHONG. 'TWAS eve. The sun tinged the west with a golden glow ; a light, gossamer veil, which undulated in the breeze, carpeted the earth ; the sapless tree leaves rustled as some feathered gallant flew from branch to branch in quest of his mate, and echoes mellowed down by distance breathed on the air softly and sweetly as a lover's wooings. This may be called a very poetical prelude to a very anti-poetical sketch. Be that as it may, it was at the time described above, that Miss Jones, on Sunday evening last, paid her usual weekly visit to the Misses Jenkins. The Misses Jenkins, to use their own fa vourite phrase, are "very peculiar remarkably peculiar" people, and Miss Jones, by some secret sympathy of nature, is just as peculiar as they are. The Misses Jenkins don't keep a house, but they rent apartments, and follow the fancy- dress making business; Miss Jones is in the bonnet line, and boards out. The consequence is, that Miss Jones calls A SMALL TEA PARTY. 93 oftener to see the Misses Jenkins than the Misses Jenkins do to see Miss Jones ; and the further%ffect of this state of things is, that Miss Jones drinks more of the Misses Jenkins's tea than they do of hers. This leaves the balance of trade in favour of the Misses Jenkins, and as individuals, like nations, feel a jealousy for their interests when they begin to find out that they give more than they receive, they sometimes put a protective tariff on their evening beverage by closing the front doors and window shutters, and reporting themselves, through the coloured Abigail, " not at home." Such a report was about to be made on Sunday evening. But, as Burns says, " The best laid schemes of mice and men Gang aft aglt-y." So say we, do often the plans and projects of women. Miss Jones was not to be "not at home'd" by the servant; so passing her, and going to the inner room, she found both the Misses Jenkins there asleep, of course. She soon applied to them the reverse passes, as a mesmeriser would say, and woke them up. They were so glad to see Miss Jones, and so angry with the servant for reporting them not at home, when they distinctly told her thtfy were always at home to Miss Jones but never to Miss Fitzfry ; and they would have been so lonesome, too, if she had not come, and she was such good com pany. After a mutual interchange of such compliments, they adjourned to the front room, where the buttered toast was on the table, and the tea was undergoing the progress of abstraction. But before we place them behind their favourite beverage, let us take a look at Miss Jones, her conjoint hostesses, and their front room. Miss Jones was but a woman's age is not to be spoken of; she had a cock-up nose, something like the lower half of the letter S, a wiry sort of face, and a tall, atten uated form, that was uniform in its want of fulness from the ankles to the ears. The Misses Jenkins were a pair of Siamese twins, so far as mutual resemblance, thoughts and tastes went. They were low of stature, with faces that plainly bespoke an irascible temper. The room in which they had assembled might be, and we believe was, some fifteen feet by twelve in diameter. The walls were ornamented with coloured plates of the fashions, cut from the monthly magazines. A sofa, from which the curled hair was protruding, had its place opposite the grate ; a ricketty arm chair undulated near the fonder; a small table, which contained the tea equipage, stood 94 PICKINGS FROM THE U PICAYL'NE. W near the centre, arid som half dozen ordinary chairs very ordinary ones filled up the intermediate space round the room. Miss Jenkins, the elder, did the honours of the table. Before pouring out the tea, she indulged in a dissertation on the injurious effects which strong narcotics have on the nervous system, and to prove that she practised what she preached that her practice was in consonance with her theory she proceeded to pour out the beverage, which looked, as it streamed from the pot, and as it proved to be, a most neutral concoction, which, if analyzed, would be found to contain one part of tea and ninety-nine parts of boiling water. The toast was but lightly buttered, but that the fair hostess ac counted for by saying there was no Goshen in the market, and who could use any thing else ; and if the brown sugar was too soft, it was accounted for by the rain's being too hard in Cuba. They commenced operations, however, and other themes than the strength of the tea or the rancid taste of the butter engrossed their attention. It is strange, but yet a fact, and one for which philosophers have never accounted, that drinking tea begets a desire to talk of one's neighbours. The trio of ladies in question, not being of course exempt from the general influences that operate on our* nature, were suddenly inoculated with the cacoethes loquendi. Miss Jones had seen the Misses Riptons return from church, and such frights of bonnets as they wore. She noticed for the first time that Maria squints most ruefully, and that Martha turns in her toes when she walks, like a shoemaker. Miss Jenkins, the elder, never liked to speak of people behind their backs ; she had an utter aversion to the practice, and believed that was the reason she hated Miss Smith, who had such an awful habit of speak ing of people in their absence. She could not avoid saying to Miss Jones in confidence, however, that there were some most scandalous stories afloat about Maria Ripton ; and one of them was that she was seen going down to the lake late one evening with Dick Fitwell, the tailor and another that she takes gin in her lemonade. She herself did not believe a word of these slanders, and would enjoin Miss Jones not to repeat them, ex cept in a confidential manner and to a particular friend. Miss Jones pledged herself never to open her lips on the subject unless it was as a secret. It seemed almost incredible, and still she was inclined to believe it ; some young women do such strange things now-a-days. There was Miss Hartwell, didn't she borrow Miss Meldon's dress to go to the ball last NED BROWN, DONE BROWN. 1)5 week, and actually had the assurance to send % it home without washing it ! "Did you ever!" said the two Miss Jenkins in concert, and Miss Jones echoed " never !" and so they went on, commencing with Miss Ripton, and going through the whole circle of their acquaintance, whose peculiarities and peccadilloes they dis sected and bisected canvassed and criticised till after the miniature alembic on the table refused to disgorge any more of its liquid beverage When they had got through with their tea and tired with their talk, Miss Jones rose to leave. The Misses Jenkins bid her an affectionate good night, and asked her if she would not soon come again, yet the door had not been well closed on her when they mutually wished never to see her face again. She had such a nasty habit of speaking of people behind their backs, a practice of which, they thanked goodness, they were never guilty. It is queer, how we thus censure others for conduct which very often forms the ruling passion of our own character, but as that astute philosopher Sam Slick says, we suppose " it's human natur." NED BROWN, DONE BROWN. NED BROWN was arrested in Camp street, opposite Lafayette Square on Friday night, as Hue, as brandy toddies could make him. "It was ,,ust at the time when the weary gun Told the niggert the time for retiring ; And Ned felt as though he'd be on tor some fun, He cried out " hallo ! stop that 'ere firing 1" "Stop that 'ere firing!" he cried out again " there aint no need of it. We've licked the Britishers, and we're able to do it again, but there aint no use making too much noise about it; it isn't magnanimous no how you can fix it, besides the troops is all dismissed and there's no need in fooling them. Popping off a gun at night aint poetical neither, and as I views it is an approach to amalgamation principles, because it is popping the question in a sorter way to the niggers It won't never furnish such an idea as * The curfew tolls the knell of parting day.' 96 PICKINGS FROM THE " PICAYUNE." The fact is, there's music in a bell, but there aint none in a cannon, except when its fired at the enemy. Hallo ! how every thing swims round like a woman in a wallz ; dang it, 1 believe I drank one glass too much to-day. Let me see : 1 took my bitters in the morning, I took a glass with a friend just before breakfast, and another before 1 turned out to see the procession, and and and O, dang it, I have lost the hang of them ; but why should I bring myself to the degraded level of my tavern keeper, and make an entry of my drinks he'll want them to fill up his schedule, then why should I give myself any trouble about it?" " I should like to know," said the watchman, coming up "I should like to know what you is a talking about." "About my private business the manner in which my domestic affairs is conducted," said Brown, " but I should like to know, old feller, if I can't talk about what I d n please without you coming and pokin' your nose in my face as if you wanted to smell what 1 was saying instead of hearing it." u It's part of my system," said the watchman. "O, dang your system," said Brown, " improve it right off Berker, the writing master, says as how he can improve the worst system in six lessons of one hour each ; put yourself under him and see if he don't teach you something as you don't know." " That's enough," says Charley, "I has a duty to perform, and, as the feller with the plaid kilt says in the play, ' If it were done, when 'tis done, then 'twere well It were done quickly.' " I'm O. K. off for the calaboose, and so is you." Charley placed Brown in the watchhouse without saying another word. He was discharged on paying jaifr fees. L-A-W! AMONG the prisoners in the Recorder's court of the First Municipality yesterday, were two individuals who claim to belong to one of the learned professions ! A singular coinci dence that, to have two men whose daily duty it is to unloose the manacles of the law when they are cast around others, caught themselves in its intricate and perplexing meshes. We will not give names, but shall call them No 1 and No. 2. L-A-W. 97 No. 1, whose face is familiar to the Recorder, was called. "Mr. ," said the Recorder, in a voice so loud that rendered a repetition by the crier unnecessary, " Come up here, sir !" and Mr. , whose " Right leg is good and whose left leg is wood," hobbled up to the bench. Recorder. " You have been drunk again ; 1 see you have ; I know you have ; aint you ashamed of yourself; you, who come here to get other people from prison every other day, to be so often yourself in that dock; are you not ashamed of your self?" No. 1, whose nerves appeared to be utterly powerless and his strength entirely prostrated from the effect of his debauch, said " No, no, Mr. Bertus, you form a wrong opinion of me : there is some one behind the curtain who poisons your ear to my prejudice some person who stabs in the dark who " " Come, clear out sir," says the Recorder, " and let me never see you brought to this place a prisoner again." No. 2 appeared to have more eccentricity and less brandy toddies in him than No. 1. He had one shabby, "shammy" glove which was drawn over his right hand, and which he took some pains to expose ; the rest of his dress was in the sere and yellow leaf. Recorder. " What are you ?" No. 2 " I am. may it please the court, an attornery at law, have just arrived in your city." Recorder. " How came you to be in street last evening in a state of intoxication ?" No. 2. "Lex neminem cogit ostendere quod nescire prcesum- itur which signifieth, when rendered in English, the law will oblige no man to declare that of which he is presumed to be ignorant. Recorder. " Will you promise not to get tipsy again ?" No. 2. Lex neminem cogit ad impossibilia the law com pels no man to impossibilities." Recorder. " Since you are such a rigid stickler for the law I shall fine you, agreeably to law, $20 for drawing a knife on the constable who took you." JVo. 2. u If you do, sir, I'll appeal to the legus legum." Orders were given to place a retainer on No. 2 and his body in safe custody, to keep until the fine be paid ; and so ended the case of the learned lawyers. 64 98 PICKINGS FROM THE "PICAYUNE." REGULATING THE CURRENCY. VARIOUS have been the ways suggested since the the " crisis '' of '37 for regulating the currency, and still the currency re mains unregulated, or in a state of disorder. About every man in the Union, from Van Buren, who suggested the sub-treasury, to the petty pedler in pumpkins, who issued his individual shinplasters from Tom Benton, of the better currency noto riety, to the directors of the Brandon Bank, of the worse cur rency notoriety lias exercised his financial skill in regulating the currency. Nicholas Biddle, who was considered the " great regulator," like all others, up to this time, having failed in the attempt, a thousand pigmy financiers have started into existence, each of them assuring the public that he and he alone has discovered the sure and certain method for regulat ing the currency. Their nostrums have all in turn been ap plied to the exchanges, and still the currency is deranged etill our suffering is intolerable. We are beginning to think that the currency, like the individual members of the family of chickens among which the donkey kept dancing, will have to take care of itself. If Jerry Brady's mode of regulating the currency does not display any striking points in the way of providing a general circulating medium, or facilitating trade and commerce, it cer tainly has originality about it. Jerry was yesterday arraigned before the Recorder, charged by Kitty Kane with stealing from her two $3 municipality notes and a specie dollar. Recorder to Kitty. u Will you prove that he stole your money ?" Kitty. " O, the Lord be betune us an harm ! Recorder, avourneen ; do you think I'd tell ye a lie, after bein' yesther- day wid tire priest ?" Recorder. "What circumstances lead you to believe he stole it?" Kitty. " O, the crass of Christ about us ! who else could take it, barrin' the fairies ? and sure there's none of them in this counthry." REGULATING THE CURRENCY. 99 Recorder. "Where had you it?" Kitty. " That I may niver do hurt or harm, your anar, if I hadn't it rowled up in me trashbag, as careful as if it was a letther from home was in it." Recorder. " Had you anything in your purse but the two $3 bills and the silver dollar which the prisoner took ?" Kitty. " Nothin' in the world at all at all, your anar, but two three dollars more, another silver dollar and me karackter." Recorder. "Your what?" Kitty. " Me karackter, plase your riverence." Recorder. " Why, you don't carry your character in your pocket do you ?" Kitty. " Yis, sir I had the one in it I got from me last place." The Recorder now comprehended that Kitty alluded to a written certificate of good conduct ; and he was also in pos session of the main facts on which the accusation was founded. Telling Kitty to stand back, he addressed himself to Jerry Brady, who stood all this time scratching his head, now un buttoning and now buttoning his vest, raising his feet as if he was standing on heated iron, and laying them down again betraying, in fact, every possible symptom of uneasiness. Recorder. " Brady, what have you to say to this charge ?" Jerry. (Looking in the most imploring manner possible at Kitty.) "O, sarrah ha'porth I have to say, yer anar; sure Kitty knows it was all a joke." Recorder. "Rather a serious joke, my good fellow, to steal seven dollars from her." Jerry. " Well, I'll till your anar how it was, as thrue as if I kissed the Bible. You see I met twofrinds from theould country that I didn't put me two lookin' eyes on afore sense I left New Yark, and I axed thim to take somethin' ; but, be gor, I forgot that 1 hadn't a picayune in the world. I took thim in, howsomedever, and treated thim ; and sis I to thim, sis I, c Boys, stop here, I want to go out, but I'll be back to you in as short time as a cat 'ud be aitin' a ha'porth of 5utther. So I can run out to Kitty, and began to joke wid her about wheder she or I had the most money, though purshumin to the farthin' good or bad I had. She pulled out her fourteen dollars, and dared me to show as much ; whin 1, out of a joke, put siven of thim in me pocket, and ran away laughin'. ' Biddy,' sis 1, < you have siven dollars now, and I have siven dollars, and that is the nearest way that I know of for regulating 100 PICKINGS FROM THE "PICAYUNE." the currency.' I spint the money, sir, but I'm willin' to give her me I. O. U. for it." Certain friends interposed, Kitty accepted Jerry's terms for liquidating the debt, the prosecution was withdrawn, and all the parties left the office on the most friendly footing. VAGARIES OF THE MOON. THOMAS MOON was arrested on Friday night, for being eclipsed by a cloud of liquor. " What's your name ?" said the watchman. " Moon," said Tom. "You can't shine, Mr. Moon !" said the watchman. " I can't, that's a fact," said Tom, "though I have filled my horns, and emptied them, too ; but give me a hand help me to rise. You know what Byron says 'The Moon is up ! By heavens ! a glorious sight !' " " Yes, I knows all that," said the watchman ; " but it's no matter whether I does or not, 'cause it aint in the ordinance it aint nothing but poetry, and my old 'ooman always told me as how poetry is nonsense ; so come along to the watch- house, Mr. Moon." " I cry quarter," said Moon. " You shall get a quarter that is, three calendar months in the workhouse," said the watchman. "Then you extinguish the light of my prospects for ever," said Moon. " Not a bit of it," said the watchman ; " for instead of put ting you out, I put you in." And so, without saying more on the subject, he took off Moon to the calaboose, a place where he had often been before. He was immediately recognised by the officer of the night whose first salutation to him was " Why, Moon, how do you rise !" " 1 don't rise at all," said Moon " I'm on the decline." " And so you have let yourself be taken up again," said the officer. " Well, Mr. Moon," he added, " I will not pretend to say that you are made of green cheese ; but, from the number TOM STAR. 101 of times which you have recently let yourself fall into the hands of the watch, I do say that you must be composed of some very verdant material." Mr. Moon got his third quarter in the workhouse from the Recorder. TOM STAR } |\j I TOM STAR, a fellow of lean T dsage an,d, .^ whose wardrobe was made up of ^fireds &u(T. arrested in Carondelet street on Friday" night " strolling his hour" on the side walk. The stars of heaven were veiled in the hazy atmosphere of the night, and Tom Star thought it a fitting time for him to shine out in all the radiance of dra matic splendour. Tom. " 'O grim lock'd night ! O night with hue so black! O night, which ever art, when day is not ! night, night, alack, alack, alack.' D n me, I feel as if I could take another brandy toddy . is there no house open ?" " I say, my covey," says Charley, " I'm blow'd if you ain< either slewed, mad, or in love." Tom. " Yes, I own I have a distempered brain. But what's the cause ? Aye, there's the rub. 1 Lovers and madmen have such seething brains Such sharping phantasies, that apprehend More than cool reason ever comprehends : The lunatic, the lover and the poet Are of imagination all compact.' But tell me, hast thou seen my Julia r" M I doesn't know the young 'ooman," says Charley. " What's her number ? Who is she ?" " Her number ! who is she !" says Tom Star, echoing the queries of the watchman. " Her number I precisely know not, but well do I know she is all that painting can express or youthful poets fancy, when they love!" u O, I sees," says Charley, u that you is a reg'lar goner. I'm blow'd if Pease horehound candy, or Stillman's highly concentrated compound syrup of sarsaparilla and pills can cure you." 102 PICKINGS FROM THE " PICAYUNE." Tom Star. " Alas ! thou speakest truly, too truly. ' Oh could I feel as I have felt or be what I have been, Or weep as I could once have wept, o'er many a vanish'd scene: As springs in deserts found seern sweet, all brackish though they be, So 'midst the withered waste of life, those tears would flow to me." ' [Here Tom pulls from his coat pocket a faded and unwash ed remnant of a French silk pocket handkerchief, which he applies t,o his orbits and acts the pathetic. He then dashes on" at a tangent from sorrow to joy, and commenced sing ing]-^ ..... * -" * 'K' And fet me the' canakin clink, clink ; ' 'Ami 'let- ine 'tr*e ranakin clink ; A soldier's a man, A life's but a span Why then, let a soldier drink.' " " Stop that ere," said Charley ; " it aint agreeable to the stature in that case made and provided, to sing in the streets at this time o' night." Tom Star. " Fool ! knowest thou not that canticles are sung ' Where angels join in harmony : Preposterous ass ! that never read so far To know the cause why music was ojdained !' " " O, there aint no use in all this here poe-try and nonsense," said Charley. " You is evidently either mad or in love, which is about the same thing if it was figured out rightly. If J was to leave you here you might commit suicide, and the law would bring me in as accessary to the fact, for not doing my duty ; so you must come to the watch'us." Tom Star, assuming a firm step and in a theatrical stride, advanced to Charley, and grasping him like a maniac, he said in a voice a la Forrest " Good friend, for such I call thee, I am nor mad, nor do 1 love- I loved once, but away with the passion now! ButJ hate the world, and ' There is no passion More spectral or fantastical than hate \ Not even its opposite, love, so peoples the air With phantoms, as this madness of the heart !' " Very well," said Charley, " I'll argue that pint 'ud you to-morrow ;" and without listening to another word from Tom Star he took him to the watch house. Yesterday morning poor Tom looked like a tree prema- TOM STAR. 103 turely despoiled of its foliage, or like King Lear in the storm scene. " Tom Star," says the Recorder. " Tom Star," repeated the officer, " dont you hear yourself called ?" " When it is my cue to answer," said Tom, coolly folding his arms and casting a disdainful look at the watchman " I need no prompter. Sir," he continued, turning to the judge and sinking his head somewhat " I am your most obsequi ous servant." " Mr. Star," said the Recorder, " you are charged with being found drunk last night." "Yes," says Tom, " I own I was drunk. I got drunk in one of my weaknesses ; it seems to be a failing inseparable from genins. ' O, that a mighty man of such descent, Of such possessions, and so high esteem Should be infused with so foul a spirit !' " Recorder. " The watchman charges you with being abu sive to him." Tom Star. " Doubtless, your honour, I may have been ; but you know what the immortal Bard of Avon says ' Good wits will be jangling : but gentles agree.' But," continued Mr. Star, " where is my accuser ?" "Watchman Higgins," said the Recorder; and immediately a clean shaved watchman with a well starched, white collared shirt sticking up round his jaws made his appearance. " Here he is," said the Recorder. Tom Star. " ' That face of his do I remember well : Yet when I saw it last, it was besmear" d As black as Vulcan, in the smoke of war.' ' " No matter how he looked," said the Recorder , " he is the man who arrested you." " Well," said Tom Star," before this court and high heaven I" " Silence," said the Recorder. Tom Star. " ' I must have liberty Withal, as large a charter as the wind, To blow on whom I please ; for so fools have ; And they that are most galled with my folly, They most must laugh.' 104 PICKINGS FROM THE "PICAYUNE." Cruel Julia," he continued, first clasping his hands and look ing up at the ceiling and then striking his forehead " Cruel Julia ' The time was once, when thou unurged wouldst vow That never words were music to thine ear, That never object pleasing to thine eye, That never touch welcome to thy hand, That never meat weet savor' d to thy taste, Unless I spake, look'd, touch'd, or carv'd to thee !' " " That will do," said the Recorder, who found that Tom Star was neither a dangerous or suspicious character, but one the chamber of whose senses were partially empty " That will do, you may go ;" and Tom went off, R. H. U. E., which in stage parlance means, right hand upper entrance. A JOLLIFICATION IN JAIL. WITH even the poor outcast inmates of the parish jail Christmas-day was a day of festivity and temporary social enjoyment. Mr. Bouligny, the sheriff, gave them on Christmas-day what is termed in flash phrase " a blow out." He had prepared for them some fine pieces of roast beef, a couple of whole hogs, had plums put in their rice pudding, and gave them a double allowance of grog. In fact, he did every thing to make them happy for the day, and they did every thing, on their part, to second his humane intention. Many of them seemed to forget, for the time being, that the felons brand was on their forehead that crime had attainted their character, and that in a country where all are by right alike free, they have voluntarily forfeited that proud privilege, and are the manacled captives of their country, instead of enjoying as they should, all the immunities, social and political, of its citizenship. But a truce to moralizing. They were happy on the occasion. Why should not we be while describing it ? so we will fly off at a tangent from grave to gay. THE DINNER. The table was laid in the large yard of the prison, and the viands having been dished up, Jim Jones was by unanimous acclamation called on to take the stool, and John Smith was voted in Vice. A JOLIFICATION IN JAIL. 105 MR. JONES' SPEECH. Jim Jones, on taking the stool, said " Fellow-freemen ! [" Oh ! oh !" from two members on the right of the stool, and " Pm blowed if that ain't a good 'un !" from a little terrier- faced fellow on the left of the president. There were cries of "Order! order!" from several parts of the table, and order being restored, Mr. Jones proceeded.]- Fellow-prisoners : I now say, as I was about to say when I was interrupted by my friends on the right and left, I thank you for the honour you have conferred on me by calling me to preside at this festive board. Were I to tell you how deeply, how intensely I feel the compliment, I would be compelled to steal the language nay, the very ideas themselves, from the published proceedings of some political dinner party ; and this would be petty larceny, indeed a crime so mean, that were I guilty of it, I would deserve, and I feel certain I would receive, the scorn and con tempt of ever)*jgentleman at this table who has, like myself, made a profession of roguery, and is capable of appreciating honour among thieves." Here a long, hungry-looking fellow cried out "Why, look here, Mr. Chairman: this here gammon will do very well by- and-bye ; but doesn't you see that the soup is getting cold !" J\tr. Jones. "I assure the gentleman who leaves here for Baton Rouge on Saturday, with the advice and consent of twelve of his fellow-citizens, that I have not a word more to say on the present occasion." John Smith [rising]. " Vel, with the parmission of the chair, I has just a vord or two to slip in edgevize, I calls on the chairman to say if there vasn't nothin' personal in ap- pointin' me to the sitivation of wice." Chairman. "Mr. Vice, 1 cannot open the door for discus sion at the present time." Vice. "Veil then, I'm blowed if I don't break it open, and there von't be no burglary in that it ain't sunset yet !" Order being at length restored, the Rev. Mr. DePutron was called on to say grace, after which operations were commenced, and the tinkling of tin plates told of the justice which was being done to tl* re past. " Mr. Granger," said the chairman to a fellow with a swivel eye, who sat near the centre of the table, and was vigorously engaged in anatomizing a rib of roast beef " Mr. Granger, my friend on my right charges you with eating no dinner!" 106 PICKINGS FROM THE "PICAYUNE." Mr. Granger. [Holding the rib of beef horizontally across his mouth, and looking two ways at once] " Not guilty, your honour." J\fr. Smilh^ the Vice-President. [Addressing a savage, cut throat-looking customer who sat near him.] " I'm Mowed, Brown, if you ain't valkin' into that pork and beans vith a perfect looseness !" Brown [in a surly tone].*" Veil, there ain't no harm in that there ain't no wiolation of the hact unless it's taken and carried away /" Chairman. " Mr. Stealwell, won't you try this ham ?" This was addressed to a little, grey-eyed, sharp-nosed man, vho acts as prosecuting attorney in all the mock trials that are held in the prison. Mr. Stealwell [in a squeaking voice]. "No, thank you, Mr. Chairman; I have entered a noli prosequi in that case." Thus they bandied about their criminal quiffs and personal puns till the tin -plates and picked bones were removed, ft must be understood that they did not enjoy the luxury of a table cloth. Having arrived at this stage of the proceedings, the chairman called on the gentlemen to fill for a bumper, and in a few moments every man's saucepan was full to overflowing of pure Monongahela. Chairman. "Gentleman, I will give you 'The Law the Law, gentlemen : one of the principal pillars of a free State!'" Here there were cries of " D n the law !" " The law is a humbug, and so is the chairman !" " The law ought to be abolished it's a remnant of kingly tyranny !" The majority of the company protested against drinking the toast, although they all managed to drink the whiskey, when the chair called on them to fill again. They did so, and he gave ~-'- 9 " Our public institutions Baton Rouge and Sing-Sing Peni tentiaries monuments of the high state of civilization which we have attained !" ^ Here there was a general groan for the " silent system ;" and to show that they were not then under its control, every one seemed anxious to make as much noise as he could. Several tin saucepans were emptied of their contents and shyed TIM FLANIGAN'S GHOST. 107 at the head of the chairman, who was compelled to retire for safety to his cell. John Smith, the vice, was then promoted to the place vacated by the late chairman. We are admonished to report no further progress, and there fore close with the favourite phrase "The festivities were kept up till a late hour in the evening."" TIM FLANIGAN'S GHOST. A STORY OF THE CHARITY HOSPITAL I FOUNDED ON FACT. THERE is a strong prejudice call it vulgar if you will against the dissection of human bodies. However much the practice may subserve the cause of science, but few are willing that the corpse of their friend should be subjected to the opera tion of the scalpel. The march of intellect must be onward, un interrupted in its course, for another century at least, ere people altogether divest themselves of those old fashioned scruples. We like to have the bones of those we loved in life quietly interred in death we prefer to have them reposing beneath the green sward of the most humble grave yard, though no carved stone or sculptured monument marks the spot, than to see them gracing the lecture room of the most celebrated sur gical institution, and used as an anatomical ABC, for the study of some embryo Sir Astley Cooper. It was this feeling commendable in our opinion as it is which gave rise to a rather ludicrous scene at the Charity hospital on an evening of the past week. A wag, who knew an Irishman to be sick in the hospital, was determined to have a joke at the expense of poor Patrick's wife's feelings feelings which were as surcharged with love pure and virtuous love for that sick, penniless husband, as though honour and wealth were his and she basked in the sunshine of both. Here is a copy, verbatim et literatim, of a letter he sent her : " CHARITY HOSPITAL, ? Thursday evening, 4 o'clock. 3 " Dear Peggy I died this mornm* at tin o'clock. If you don't cum and take me away out of this, these butcherin', canibal docthors will ( away out 01 this, these butchenn , canibal docthors will cut me up in bits while you'd be fryin' a herrin, and they'll do it as uncon- sarned as you'd carve a St. Matin's goose. Peggy, a' colleen, you know none of the family iver died 'ithout a dacint funeral, barin' rne brother 108 PICKINGS FROM THE "PICAYUNE." Terry, and he didn't die at all at all, for he was kilt in the field of battle fightui the French; so, a cushla, tell all the boys I'm ded ; sell the furnil ture to get a hearse ; and let me have an illigant funeral. Do, Biddv bury me dacint. " Yours, till death does us part, " TIM "P. S. Hurry, or the docthors will have me, and they'll cut me up in bits to lecthur on me body just as Tom Horan, the school-master used to cut up a praytee, when he'd be lecthurin' on algebra and explaynin' the sides and angles of a parallelogram. The docthors ! Hurry ! T. F. 1 Poor Peggy opened the letter, saw the announcement of Tim's death, and read, her eyes suffused with tears, his dying injunction to her to save him from the scalpel of the surgeons. Without once perceiving the absurdity it contained, or stop ping to criticise its incongruities, she ran to the undertakers ; hired a hearse and carriage, and, accompanied by a couple of Tim's friends on horseback, hurried on to the hospital. Hav ing arrived there, Peggy, in that plaintive funeral cry half melody and half mourning peculiar to the peasantry of her sex in the west of Ireland, keaned out as she left the carriage : " thin, Tim, Tim, a vick-o-machree, why did you die ? And lave me in a furreign land, without a frind ; Sure, when you were by me side I didn't fear the fayver ; But now that you're gone, whose to protect me at all all !" " What's the matter, my good woman ?" says the gentleman who officiates as clerk of the hospital ; " what's the matter ?" Poor Biddy heeded not what he said. She had lost so she thought her Tim ; and her mind was too full of grief to entertain a thought that was not of him. One of Tim's equestrian friends, however, replied in a surly tone She wants the dead body of her husband, and she must have it too. Don't think you're goin' to larn the art of killin' people and cuttin' off limbs, upon him, tho' he did die in the Charity Hospital !" " Pray, what's his name ?" inquired the clerk. " His name was Tim Flanigan ; but he's dead now the Lord be'good to his sowl ! and in truth, if he was alive and in his own father's house to-day, it isn't dead he'd be in a Charity Hospital !" replied Tim's friend. " Tim Flanigan ! why he's not dead it is but a short time since he took his soup!" said the clerk. " Yis, and^e gor it isn't long till we give you your tay, if you don't let us have the body !" said Tim's friend. In short, they would have Tim vJead ; and they would have POOR JACK. 109 the body ; and they would go up to the room in which they knew him to be, or to have been. Up, therefore, they went. Tim had just fallen into a slumber, after having taken his soup. He was dreaming of the green fields of his childhood, or, may hap, of that period of life still green in his memory, which the frosts of adversity could never render withered or arid that period when the rosy cheek and soft blue eye of Peggy first " Caught his youthful fancy !" Whatever he was dreaming of, Peggy was thinking of but him. She flew to give him an embrace, but before she could clasp his horizontal form he had awoke, and sprung upright in the bed as suddenly as if he had been galvanized. Peggy fainted Tim's two courageous, equestrian friends ran to the gate, mounted their horses and galloped home, swearing they saw Tim Flanigan's ghost ; that every room in the hospital was haunted with sperets, and that they'd never go for Tim's corpse agin till there had been three masses said for the repose of his sowl. Peggy soon recovered, and instead of finding Tim a corpse was rejoiced to find him convalescent. POOR JACK. . " There's a sweet little cherub that sits up aloft, And keeps watch for the life of poor Jack !" THUS sang the poet Dibdin; but, like most all other poetry, it is more to be admired for its imagination than for its reality. That instances are innumerable where the life of poor Jack has been miraculously saved from destruction by Divine Providence, we will admit ; but for what good pur pose, we ask, does this sweet little cherub keep constant watch over him ? Is it to inure him to privations and perils at sea, such as few landsmen feel, and to lead him into intemperance and expose him to imposition when ashore ? It is really frightful to see the poor, honest, unsophisti cated sailors lavishing in riot and dissipation the meagre wages which they receive for their hazardous and laborious ser vices. It may be said that this language applies to sailors as they were^ not as they are. If they have improved in their 110 PICKINGS FROr.I THE " PICAYUNE." habits we rejoice at it, though, should any one take a walk by the taverns to which they resort, as we did very recently, he will see but little evidences of the desirable reformation. He will see them in dirty squads, sitting round dirty tables, playing dirty cards, drinking dirty-looking liquor, or other wise engaged in riotous dissipation. It would be indeed well if the sailor were taught to eschew these habits if he were taught a proper degree of self-respect, and that there were other incentives to his ambition than that of being first to mount the rigging or take in or make sail. One of them, a redfaced, unshaved fellow, with hair like the Mississippi water of a muddy, yellow colour, and wearing a dress distinctive of his calling, was yesterday brought before the Recorder, on the charge of being drunk and creating a disturbance in the street. Recorder (to the prisoner) " How came you to get so drunk ?" Sailor " Well, Lord love your honour, that's more nor I well knows. I met you sees, with an old shipmate that I hadn't seen for several years. We went, of course, to take a glass of grog together ; we then began to compare reckonings and read over log-books, and while at this, glass followed glass. Neither of us, it appeared, made very prosperous voy ages. Sal, my old shipmate's sweetheart that he left after him when he went on his last voyage to India, and who promised to splice braces with him on his return cut the fastenings while he was away, and put out with a ^ubberly tailor. And my Bess poor girl ! with whom I hoped to labour for life she didn't run away with a tailor oh, no but her timbers, your honour, were too weak for this stormy world, and though she was as trim and pretty a craft as was ever moored in a fellow's heart, she sunk into the grave ! while I was on my last whaling voyage. The telling of these things to one another, your honour, made our hearts spring a leak, like, and we took grog by way of caulking, to stop it." The Recorder asked the police officer if he was offensive, or had insulted any person. The officer said he was not; but he was staggering along the side-walk, scarcely able to walk, and was singing "A tar he is a jolly dog He loves his lass and he likes his grog" ;t Well, then," said the Recorder, " I shall dismiss him. But, u NED K.\o OJ\ T ELECTIONS. Ill said he addressing the prisoner, " if you should be brought up again, I shall send you to the calaboose." " Don't fear that, your honour ; I'll keep a look-out ahead for breakers hereafter while I'm in the city. You shan't find me hauled up again by such a piratical-looking wrecker as this here" alluding to the officer. He then drew two dollars from the pocket of his blue jacket, paid jail fees, and crowded sail out of the office. NED KNOX ON ELECTIONS. "I SAYS whooror! for the people," said Ned Knox on Monday night " and I says, whooror for 'lections too. Fel lers talk of inwentions, of locomotives, and lightin' rods, and lectrifyin' machines, and all that, but them aint nothin' compared with 'lections. 'Lections is the greatest inwen- tion of the age, and congress ought to give the man what fust made the model of them a patent right, renewable forever. I admit that the principle might be improved ; a feller with a genius could make it to move along with the enlightened spirit of the age, as Bill Brown, the candidate for the legislature, said. Now, if I was ingineer of the concern, I'd clap on steam I'd fire up, I tell you ; you wouldn't get me to stop the ingine, no way you could fix it; I'd never stop to wood, nor take in passengers ; Td go ahead all the time ; I'd hold perpetual 'lections and then a feller 'ud get his liquor gratis all the time, and he could go to the choosen candidate's swar-ee every night. Besides, these perpetual 'lec tions 'ud have more influence on the manners of the people than an act would, if one was to pass congress to inculcate the principles of politeness. Talk of the people being free and equal ! veil, folks that want somethin' to talk about may talk of it, but it's all talk and no toddies men aint never free and equal but at 'lection times. 'Lections, like orders of enlistment, brings all men to the same standard them that aint got no wote are too low for the service; them that's too aristocratic are too high for the ranks, and won't get the com mand. Therefore, I says again," said Ned Knox, " whooror f for 'lections." " I say, silence," said the watchman, who at a distance had heard Ned's dissertation on elections, and took him to be a 112 PICKINGS FROM THE " PICAYUNE." Millente holding forth. " Silence, I is the guardian of the peo ple's lives and properties, and it would be a wiolation of my dhuty, 'cordin' to the corporation ord'nance, to let you frighten folks out of their lives, or cheat them out of their property." " Shut up," said Ned, " I doesn't care if you was an alder- man I'm a hindependent woter." " Well, and what if you be," said the watchman ; " the polls is closed now." Who cares," said Ned ; " I'm like a bill before the House' I'm open for discussion." " Then I moves," said the watchman, " that you be referred and taken up before the Recorder to-morrow morning." " I calls for the yeas and nays," said Ned. " The question is carried," said the watchman, and he car ried Ned Knox off to the watchhouse, reported progress to the officer of the night, and, instead of asking leave to sit again, went and took his stand. JACK BURNS, THE BUSTER. THE oddest looking fellow up before the Recorder yester day was Jack Burns. He was a case of the superlative order, or highly concentrated kind. His eyes were like a pair of preserved beans ; nature had made an excavation in the centre of his nose ; his lips were like a large plumb that became cracked in the centre from being over ripe ; there was a hol low in his chin as if it had been made there by a butter taster; his hair was like a half-tanned fox skin, and his whole face was as ragged as a newly picked mill-stone. He was progressing along the Levee, if the term can be ap plied to making three steps forward, two to the right, four to the left, and an uncertain number backward. The motion of his tongue, like the motion of his feet, went every which way. He was singing, and whilst one of his notes was at D flat, the next one jumped clear up to A sharp. The watchman could not positively swear to what tune his song went, but from the measure we would say that it was to the air of "Roy's wife of Aldavallah." Thus it went : Though I go upon the batter To others it should make no matter ; Yet if I get high, Some watchman spy, Says, shut up why make so d d a clatter ? JACK BURNS, THE BUSTER. 113 " And then," said Burns, descending from poetry to prose, "he is sure to lay his grapling irons on me and take me right off to the watchhouse." " He does, does he," said the watchman, who had been listening to the melody of Burns. " I'm blamed if he dont," said Burns, " and I'll tell you what it is, old feller, I look upon these here Charlies, both in- diwidually and in the aggregate, as greater enemies to human happiness and the peace of society, than either musquitos or the Seminole Indians. I'm blow'd jf I doesn't have a law of general hextermination passed agin all vatchmen and vatch men's rattles by the next congress. They are the nat'ral enemies of the 'uman race, and I wants to put a general hex- tiuguisher on 'em." " The d 1 you do," says Charley, who became some what enraged at this wholesale denunciation of his whole " order." " Well now, I tell you one thing, old feller, you can't shine, no how you can fix it. Now, if you aint no ob jection you'll come along with me, and we'll see to-morrow how far you can carry out your principles." " Why, you haint no vatchman," said Burns. " Yes, but I are though," said Charley, "and a right up and down one at that." " Veil," said Burns, " you know I didn't mean vot I said I vas but larkin'." " I aint green," said Charley. " You can't throw sand in this child's eyes. I can't stand no more nonsense : business is business, as the Yankee said when he dived into the pump kin pie ; so come along." And off he took Burns to the Baronne street watchhouse. As they went along the prisoner took much pains to con vince his captor that the watchmen, taken as a body, or every body among them taken as himself, were the best disposed fellows in the world the protectors of men's lives and liberties, and in fact whole-souled fellows in every sense of the word. Charley was not to be caught in the trap, so he delivered Burns in " good order and condition" to the constable of the night at the Baronne street prison, where he was caged till yesterday morning. Before the Recorder he pleaded good intentions, but his honour having recognized him as one who had been up before and down before, to prevent him from being up again he sent him down again for thirty days. 65 114 TICKINGS FROM THE "PICAYUNE." CON O'DONNELL THE CORNED. CON O'DONNELL, the learned, liquoring, loafing Con O'Don- nell was again up before Recorder Baldwin yesterday. Con can solve the most difficult mathematical problem, but he can not keep sober. He can trace the ancient republics of Greece and Rome through their rise, the meridian of their glory, and their fall ; but he very often falls down, unable to trace his way home to his lodgings. He can describe the revolutions of the heavenly bodies ; to describe the revolutions of his own body would puzzle a Herschell. The philosophy of Franklin, the eloquence of Patrick Henry, the poetry of Shakspeare, and the romance of Scott are subjects upon which he can dwell with an ardour bordering on enthusiasm their respec tive beauties he can point out with the unerring eye of criti cism, and yet, strange to say, there are times times which too often occur when he actually cannot see " a hole through a forty foot ladder." " C0n O'Connell," said the Recorder. Con, whose eye was in a fine phrensy rolling his mania a potu stuck out a feet looked wildly round the court and ex claimed in most tragical accents " ' So this is Tyre, and this is the court. Here must I kill King Pericles ; and if I do not, I Am sure to be hanged at home.' " " You were found drunk again last night, Con," said the Recorder. Con. Addressing the policeman in a peremptory manner- " Give me my robe, put on my crown, I have Immortal longings in me." Recorder. " What does he say ?" Con. Slapping his forehead with his open hand looking up at the ceiling of the court, and throwing his body into a melo-dramatic attitude " Dissolve, thick cloud, and rain; that I may say The gods themselves do weep." The Recorder, without seeming to mind the strange antics of Con, or his incoherent though classical answers to the questions put to him, said A REAL GAMIi COCK OF THE WILDERNESS. 115 " Con, 1 shall send you clown this time for thirty days ; there seems to be no other mode of managing you." Here Con fell back into his seat and in a voice mellowed by the spirit of resignation, said " I knew, I knew it could not last 'Twas bright, 'twas heavenly, but 'tis past!" "Take him out," said the Recorder; and when the police men went to execute the order, Con in an instant again threw himself into an attitude of self-defence. "Unhand me, gentlemen; by heaven I swear I'll make a ghost of him that let's me." The policemen, nothing daunted at the threats of Con, took him out. A REAL GAME COCK OF THE WILDERNESS. CONSCIENCE, says Shakspeare, makes cowards of us all, and odd conceits, say we, make fools of us all. A live hoosier, who was returning from one of the fancy balls on Saturday night last, while on his way home to his flat-boat cut up such extraordinary shines and antics, that the watchman thought him in every way entitled to an introduction to our worthy Recorder. Two or three nights previous he had seen Dan Marble in the " Game Cock of the Wilderness," and the thing pleased him so well that he rigged himself out on Saturday evening as much like the game chicken as possible, and went to the ball. While there, he gave occasionally a crow and took occasionally a drink, until at length he found himself somewhat loaded down by the head, although elevated in spirits and perfectly ripe for any thing. The putting out of the lights at some two o'clock in the morning was the signal for our hero to put out for home. He felt so well, to use his own words, " that he couldn't hold himself still," and so wide awake that at every corner he came to he would flap his arms violently against his sides and crow so much like a chicken, that every rooster in the neighbour hood, thinking it the signal for day-break, joined in the chorus. Chapman himself, in his happiest efforts, never could excel this second Samson Hardhead. He had just given a specimen of his skill in crowing at the 116 PICKINGS FROM THE "PICAYUNE." corner of Poydras and Tchoupitoulas streets, when a watch man came up and told him he must make less noise. " Noise ! Ooh-a-ooh-a-oooh ! Do you call that a noise ?" said the fellow, giving another sample of his abilities at crow ing. "Noise, yes you must shut up. Who are you, any how ?" " I'm the second Game Cock of the Wilderness look out for my gaffs," at the same time jumping sideways at the watch man, hitting him with his right foot and elbow, and sending him stumbling into the middle of the street. "You're a hard chicken, at all events," said the Charley, recovering himself and walking up to this new species of cus tomer a second time. " Blow me if I can get the hang of you." " You will soon Ooh-a-ooh-a-oooh !" returned the droll customer, hopping up and giving the watchman another " side winder," as the latter called it in court. This was too much, and the Charley accordingly called in the assistance of one of his brethren and soon had the game cock safely under lock and key. He crowed several times on his way to*the watch- house, and once or twice tried to hop up and knock over the Charlies upon the same principle a regular game chicken goes to work at his adversary, but they soon understood his tricks and took measures to keep out of reach. On being pushed into the dark room, he broke out with " Well, this is a pretty place I dont think. Its as dark as a box of blackin'. Let me out or I'll butt the door down. I wish I had my big lamp here to light up with. Its a perfect prairie on fire. I sot -it out, once, the darkest night that ever come over, and all creation riz, Thinkin' it was day-light. Let me out. I'm a liberty pole and can't bear confinement." In this way he went on, using, a part of the time, ideas he recol lected from the play, and filling up the rest with original speci mens of his own. In the morning, on being brought before the Recorder, he said his old name was Bill Bloom, but that he had taken that of Samson Hardhead, Jr., because it pleased him better. " Well, Samson," said his honour, " what do you follow ?" " Crowing, principally," retorted Hardhead. " I've taken up the business lately." " You was fighting with a watchman last night," said the Recorder. A TAILOR'S NEEDLE MAGNIFIED INTO A BOWIE-KNIFE. 117 "Fighting! You dont call that fighting, do you? I was only prac//seing on a new principle. If you should see me 4 sure enough ' fighting onc't you'd think war had broke out in earnest. Fighting ! why, if J'd been really fighting with that chap I'd have jumped clean down his throat and stopped his digestion for a fortnight." " State the circumstances of the arrest," said his honour to the watchman. The latter was proceeding, when the hoosier sung out "'Squire, that varmint is telling lies so fast you can't find time to believe him. Look here, 'Squire, do the thing that's right by me, will you, but dont believe that chap." " Silence," said the Recorder. u Oh, well, if you're going in on the gagging principle I'm shut up; but there's one thing you must understand that I'm an American citizen, slightly touched with the game cock, and I go in on the broad principle that one country is just as good as another in time of peace, and a d d sight better. Ooh- i-ooh-a-ooh ! day's a breakin' !" " Silence !" again said the Recorder. " I shall fine you ten dollars for this offence, but if you are caught here again you wont get off so easy." " Go ahead," said the hoosier, as he walked o/ut of the of fice. He took one more crow, however, on the steps, arid then made for his flat-boat. A TAILOR'S NEEDLE MAGNIFIED INTO A BOWIE- KNIFE! THERE was nothing of consequence before the police offices on Monday, if we except a case to which the parties were The Stat.e vs. Antonio Rosendeau. The defendant was a stunted little man-milliner, with a pair of legs like the prongs of a pair of parlour tongs. "Watchman O'Haia," said the Recorder "What is your charge against Rosendeau ?" " Carryin' consaled waypons, yer honour. He dhrew a sharp ^insthrument on me last night. 1 don't know whether it was a bowie-knife or a dirk ; but it was mighty sharp, intirely. The night was dark as pitch, yer honour or as a nager's blushes." "O, Mon Dieu ! Mon Dieu ! said the French tailor. 118 PICKINGS FROM THE "PICAYUNE." " Silence !" said the Recorder. " Did you see the weapon ?" said the Recorder to O'Hara. " Blood-an'-turf ! to be sure I saw it," said O'Hara, "glistenin' like a cat's eye, or the scales of a herrin' in the dark ! and, be all that's holy ! I felt it, too ! Why, only for the way I de fended meself with me stick, he'd have run it through me body, jist as yer honour 'ud run a pin through a musquito ! Jis look at the little sharp nose of him, yer honour ! Doesn't he look like a spalpeen that wouldn't meet a man in a dacint stand-up fight, with his fists or a shillelagh ; but one that 'ud be afther takin' a dirty advantage of a dacint boy, by committin' suicide on him in the dark ?" During the delivery of this exordium by O'Hara, the little Frenchman agonised as if he had received religion at a camp meeting, or as if his shoulders and muscles were worked by invisible wires, and gave the witness the benefit of a consider able number of sacres, which he delivered in an under tone. " He did not inflict any severe wounds on you did he ?" said the Recorder. u Wound me, and I havin' a stick in me hand !" said O'Hara, with surprise. " That's a disgrace that niver occurred to the only son of Mick O'Hara (the Lord be good to him!) yet! Wound me! oh, bat her shin /" " What have you to say to this charge ?" said the Recorder to the bandy-legged Frenchman, who seemed to pant for an opportunity to contradict O'Hara. " Be gar !" said the Frenchman, shaking his head at the Re corder and his hands at O'Hara, " be gar ! it be all one grand lie humbug ! Dere, dere be de only weepon me carry !" pull ing out from the breast of his coat a formidable tailor's needle, technically called a button-needle ! u He be one so big cow ard, he thought it be one large sabre." Several witnesses corroborated the French tailor's story : he was discharged, and O'Hara was reprimanded for being guilty of such an ocular error as mistaking a tailor's needle for a bowie-knife! GEORGE WASHLVGTOX WIMPLE. . 119 GEORGE WASHINGTON WIMPLE. THE MAN WHO PREFERS THE BALLAD TO THE BALLOT. ABOUT last night's noon, an individual might be seen, and was by the watchman seen, wending his way up St. Charles street. His course was neither directly direct nor regularly irregular. It might have been a preparatory practice of the new Polka dance, or a succession of endeavours to kill cock roaches creeping on the banquette. Now the Charlies, who are all strict constructionists, and who enforce the letter of the municipal ordinances with as much rigour and exactness as the Medes and Persians did their laws, never interfere with a man's manner of walking, so long as he is able to walk at all ; for our city lawgivers, with a wisdom and liberality above all price and beyond all praise, have left it to every man to move along as best he can, and have laid down no legal, definite mode of locomotion. But although they have so ruled it with regard to men's walking, they are more strict with ref erence to men's talking, after a certain hour of night, whether that talking be in tune or out of tune a sermon or a serenade a political speech or a temperance exhortation. It was in the enforcement of this peace-preserving principle that the watchman at the corner of Poydras and St. Charles streets, in a tone of imperative official authority, bade our hero "shut up !" who had just then been singing a song equal in metre and melody to any of our modern political lyrics, the chorus of which ran thus ' ' Hurra for the stripes and stars, Hurra for annexation, Hurra for our Yankee tars, And our ' universal nation.' " " I orders you agin to shut up," said the watchman. "There aint no two ways about it you must either shut up yourself or I'll shut you up like winkin'. Some folks think watchmen aint nobody, but I'll let you know, old feller, that they are somebody, so sing small." " Charles," said the vocalist, looking half-vacant! y, half- scrutinizingly into the face of the watchman, "Charles, thou 120 PICKINGS FROM THE " PICAYUNE." / art a waking somnambulist, a moving mass of mindless matter. Thou hast got speculation in thine eye but thou hast got no music in thy soul. Thou art impenetrable to the tones that wake the thoughts to tenderness thou art impervious to the strains that rouse and stir up the slumbering spirit of patriotism. Thou " "O, that's all very fine," said the watchman, cutting off the peroration of the speaker, " it's all very fine, but it aint no part of the ord'nance. Now, disturbin' the peace is, which consequently brings you within' the act protectin' the citizens in the natural enjoyment of their sleep." It was in vain that the singer told the watchman that he transcended his duty ; that his was an unjust interference with, and violation of, the rights of a citizen ; the watchman " toted" him off to the calaboose. " What's your name ?" said thie officer of the night. " George Washington Wimple," replied the prisoner. " The watchman charges you," said the officer, " with dis turbing the peace." "The watchman is a songless, soulless individual," said Wimple, " with a mind as dark as Erebus. I was not disturb ing the peace, sir, I was singing singing for the million. I was essaying to revive and rekindle the smouldering fire of patriotism, now almost extinguished in the breasts of our citi zens. The time and the occasion called for it. The moon had already passed its meridian, and time in its unceasing travel had reached the sixty-eighth anniversary of our national inde pendence. Who, sir, would not sing at such a time ? Who would not send forth canticles burthened with patriotic pride on such an occasion ? Were not those guns fired in Lafayette Square charged with patriotic powder, and was not I charged with patriotic praise to an extent that I must go off or burst?" " My duty is to commit you for the night," said the officer. " It will rest with the Recorder to-morrow morning to say how far you have offended against the laws." " I protest," said Wimple, "against this arbitrary infringe ment on the rights of a citizen a patriotic citizen who loves nis country as that black rascal Othello did his beautiful wife, not wisely but too well' who " " O, look here, Mr. Thingamy," said the watchman, "nigger aint got nothin' to do with makin' the ord'nances." "I say again," said Wimple, you have been guilty of a violation of my natural rights and of the right election, too ; A MUDDLED MILLERITE. 121 because political science has become a branch of vocal music. Voting by ballot is decidedly vulgar and corrupt ; men will henceforth be sung into office election will be by ballad and not by ballot. What better way is there, I should like to know, of ascertaining the voice of the people than by their capacity for singing r" The officer told him he was not prepared to argue the uestion with him and locked him up. We trust the Recorder will take his patriotism into consideration this morning, and dispense with the usual " thirty days." A MUDDLED MILLERITE. tt BILL BRITTLE ?" said the Recorder yesterday. " T-e-s," answered a fellow in the dock, who seemed as bewildered as if he had been in a magnetic slumber. " You were found drunk last night," said the Recorder, "and could not find your way home." " I haint no home," said Bill. " The world's at an end, and I'm an antediluvian." "Oh, you have no fixed place of residence then ?" said the Recorder. " I'd like to know who has," said Bill. " I thought I could stand a blowing up pretty well I have had some experience in that way, as the old woman's tongue can testify; but last night put a finisher on every thing but I suppose it's all right." " No," said the Recorder, " it was not all right for you to be lying in the street at twelve o'clock last night." " Well, your honour," said Bill, "you know I couldn't help it, no how I could fix it: you know, what is to be will be, as Parson Miller said when he foretold the end of the world but I suppose it's all right." "Then you are a Millerite, and thought, nd*doubt, that you would be destroyed last night," said the Recorder. " Thought /" said Bill " I knew I would before it had happened at all. It was all well enough while the ascension lasted, but it was cussed unpleasant when we were all pitched into invisible darkness : a feller couldn't move without breakin* 1 his shins and fallin' over dead men's bodies. I could have sworn it was down lelow, only it wasn't hot enough for that. 12*2 PICKINGS FROM THE "PICAYUNE." I don't see, squire I don't see what occasion the world has had to kick up a general fuss of this kind but I suppose it's all right !" "You may compose your nerves," said the Recorder; "for although you may be a gone case, the world is still right side up. That very agreeable ascension sensation you had, was nothing more than the operation of brandy toddies on the brain ; and that darkness visible, which you fancied pervaded the world, did not extend beyond the limits of the watch- house." " I suppose it's all right," said Bill Brittle ; but he said it in such a tone that he did not seem to think it was. " Yes, it is about right," said the Recorder ; " but to make it righter, I'll send you down for thirty days." Bill was taken out of the court by a watchman, without making another observation. THE LOSS O.F A CHARACTER. JUST as the clock struck ten yesterday morning, a young woman, wearing a profusion of red ribbons in her bonnet, and E large McGregor worsted shawl, entered the office of Re corder Baldwin, followed by a leering looking young fellow in a blue coat and pants, and wearing his hat in a break-my- neart, one-sided fashion. The young man in the blue suit was evidently using his most persuasive powers to prevent the young woman who sported the red ribbons from dohi something which she seemed intent on doing, and the young woman with the red ribbons in her bonnet and the McGregor shawl on her shoulders, seemed determined to disregard the entreaties of him in blue, and to do the something which she intended to do, at all hazards. u Don't Bridget, a cmlila," said the man who wore his hat slantingdicular,*" don't be after exposin a daycent boy in a koort; and in troth if the truth was towld, that's not what I dasarve from your mother's daughter, and that's yourself," and he looked into Bridget's blue eyes with a look made up of two parts of love and one part of pity. u Ah, Barney, avic," said Biddy, apparently somewhat moved at the pathetic appeal of the young fellow in the blue suit, yet still determined to carry out her principles. " Ah, thin, Bar- THE LOSS OF A CHARACTER. 123 ney, avic, it's little use you have talkiu to me : sure I wons* believed you'd no more tell a lie than a priest, hut it's myself that was mistaken in you, you betrayin decayver." All this occurred outside the bar, and though began in an under tone, it ended in a tone of voice loud enough to attract the atten tion of the court. " What the matter, there ?" asked the Recorder. "O, it's mather enough,' 7 said Bridget, "here's a th ray tor (pointing to Barney) that purtinded to be braykin his hart about me, and if I wint to a dance or a party, he was sure to be there and putten his comehether on me, j 1st as if his intui tions was honest. Bridget, asthore, he'd say, your the pay tee blossom of my heart, and it's meself that 'ud be the happy boy for ever and a day, if you war only to say you love me." " What's your name ?" asked the court. " Bridget Boylan, your honour," said the fair complainant, " and it's daycently I was christened that." " And what is the young man's name ?" asked the Recorder, pointing to Barney. " O, Godee knows, what's his rale name," said Bridget, " but he calls himself Barney Doud." u Well, Bridget," said the Recorder, u what complaint have you to make against Barney ?" " O," said Bridget, in a manner which told that the < green- eyed monster' was working within her, " O, the thief of the world ! the two faced villain ! didn't I see him as grayt as you playse with Sally Farrell last evenin, and warn't they sittin on one of the binches in Layfayette Square together, and he usin all sorts of palaver to her, the same as if he intinded to make her his lawful married wife." " But there is nothing criminal in setting on a bench in Lafayette Square with Sally Farrell," said the Recorder, u and making any declaration that is consistent with propriety." " O, sarra a care I care about that," said Bridget, " I wouldn't look the side of the street he'd be, nor I don't mane to have one word more to say to him, hot or could, but he has taken my kracter, and I want your honour to make him return it !" " O, that's a very serious charge a very serious charge," said the Recorder, " and one which I have not the power to redress. If he has, by detraction or otherwise, injured your character, you had better sue him for slander. Our courts are always anxious to do justice to the injured, particularly when one of the gentler sex is in the case." This compliment to 124 PICKINGS FROM THE " PICAYUXE." Louisiana jurisprudence, and at the same time chivalric senti ment of the Recorder, seemed to meet a response in the breast ot every one in the court, not even excepting the amorous Barney Doud. - "O, your honour mistakes me altogither intirely. I defy him, or any body else, to molest my kracter in the layst. Thanks be to the Lord, I'm as ould as I am ; and there's no one, up to this blissid day, can say black is the white of your nail, Bridget Boylan." " Well, then," said the Recorder, " how am I to understand you. You say he did take your character, and then again you say he did not?" "Well, of course, I didn't lave it in his power to say any thing that was bad of me," said Bridget, in a spirit of conscious rectitude, " but didn't he snap me trash bag that had in it the kracter I got from Father Madden, the priest in Ireland, and I nivir saw a blissid sight of it since." " O, then it was of a written document he deprived you," said the Recorder. " Af course it was," said Bridget. " Oh, that entirely alters the case," said the Recorder, " how ever, you can sue him in one of the civil courts, laying the damages at whatever value you place on the written character given you by Father Madden. But, Barney," said he to the gay Hibernian Lothario, u Barney, Bridget's certificate can be of no use to you why do you not return it to her ?" " Ah, sure your honour,"" said Barney, " it all grew out of a bit of fun, and I had no more harm in takin it than I would in sayin me prayers ; troth Bridget needn't make such a hub bub about nothin, for there's nothin ill sed that's not ill taken, and there's nothin ill taken that's not ill intinded. I was only keepin the lines till Briget forgot all about Sally Farrell and the binch in Lafayette Square (And here Barney gave an arch smile.) She's the best natured craythur in the world, only when she takes the sulks now and agin." u Do you promise to return her character?" asked the Recorder. u Be all manner o' manes," answered Barney, " she must have it afore I take bit, bite or sup." This seemed to satisfy all parties, though it was evident T from Bridget's manner, that she did not forget Sally Farrell and the bench of Lafayette Square. A BRANDY AND PEPPERMINT PARTY BROKEN UP. 125 A BRANDY AND PEPPERMINT PARTY BROKEN UP. "MicK MALLEN," said the Recorder. " Yis, sir," said a man in the box, with a sunburnt face, no coat, and seedy trousers. " You are charged, Mr. Mallen," said the Recorder, " with beating your wife." "O faix, yer honour," said Mick, "the batin' was all the other way. Whoever was fightin', I resaved the blows !" " Yis, I'll swear ye sthruck me, ye desavin' thief ye ; arid I'll swear me life agin Mary Martin, the hussy, too." This was uttered by a woman with a very red face, and a very sharp nose, and a very "fighting" sort of an eye, who proved to be the spouse of Mr. Mallen. " O, ye're a darlint," said Mick. " Blur-an'-ages ! isn't it a pity I can't get a repale of the union from you!" u State your complaint, madam," said the Recorder, "and do so in a quiet and collected manner." u O to be sure I will, yer honour," said Mrs. Mallen, looking shillelaghs at Mick " to be sure I will. Well, as soon as me lad there come home from work last night, I had his supper, snug and warm, ready for him; and there I sat, jist as if I war his slave, till he tuck it, helpin' him to the tay, a nice bit of a rasher, and every thing on the table. So whin he was done, and 1 claned up the things 'Mick,' says 1, 'Nancy Fenerty,' says I, ' says she wants to see me,' says I ; ' so I've a mind to put on me cap and shawl,' says I, ' and go see what she wants may be she hard from me brother Billy, says I.'" " Come to the assault, Mrs. Mallen," said the Recorder. "O thin it's not so asy, yer honour," replied Mrs. Mallen, " for a poor, wake woman like me to come to any thing." "Yis, Biddy," interrupted Mick, "ye war mighty wake intirely whin ye gave me this Donnelly (a thump) undher the eye. Be gor, ye couldn't do it purtier if ye'd studied undher O'Rourke, the boxer !" " Silence, sir !" said the Recorder. " Let the woman tell her story : I only wish her to be brief about it." " Well, yer honour," said Mrs. Mallen, " as I was sayin', 1 puts on me cap and cloak, and towld me gay, sootherin' Mick there, that 1 wouldn't be back till nine o'clock. But what 'ud 126 PICKINGS FROM THE " PICAYUNE." you have of it, alania Nancy Fenerty was out whin I got there, and back I comes, and who does I see with me own two eyes, sittin' side-be-side, in me own house, and at me own table, but me bowld Mick there, and that brazen-faced hussy Mary Martin, and they two sittin' as cosy as ye plase, dhrinkin' their brandy and peppermint ! ' Good evenin', Mis sus Mallen,' says the doxy, as palaverin' as ye plase. c Yer sarvint, ginteels,' says meself, quite purlite like. ' Biddy,' says Mick, thinkin' to pass the thing off as asy as if it war the priest of the parish that war in it ' Biddy,' says he, 4 Mary called for to see ye, and as ye warn't within, I thought I couldn't let her go without axin' her to take a dhrop o' sotne- thin', but she tells me that she's jined the timperance society.' Well, yer honour, I couldn't howld meself any longer; so says I, ' O thin, ye desavin' blackguard ye,' says I, '. is that the way you sarve me the very moment 1 turn me back ! 7 and thin, bein' intirely mad with him, I let fly the pitcher at his head, sure enough ; and throth, if I had that other sthreel I'd make her bones sore, so I would !" " Very well," said the Recorder, " I have heard enough from you now. Is the watchman here that arrested this man ?" The watchman now came forward. He said he heard a noise ; that Mrs. Mallen was crying " murdher !" that he went to see what was the matter, when she complained of being beaten by her husband, whom he then arrested. " Well, 1 now discharge him," said the Recorder. " It is the woman that should have been arrested; and if I hear any more from her, I will bind her to keep the peace." Mrs. Mallen then left the court, threatening to give Miss Martin "jessy" when she would next meet her. BOOT BLACKS AND BAD TIMES. THE case of Johnson vs. Brown created considerable amuse ment in the Recorder's court yesterday. The plaintiff is no other than the veritable Sam Jonsing, the sable philosopher whose " wise saws and modern instances" we have so often recorded in the Picayune. The defendant is also a " gemman ob colour," and boasts of direct descent from Prince Lee-boo. "Johnson!" said the Recorder. " I'm dar, massa," said Sam. w Brown !" said ihc Recorder. BOOT BLACKS AND BAD TIMES. 127 "'Es, sar," said the defendant, and both took their positions immediately before the bench. " Well, Johnson," said the Recorder, " let us hear what you have got to say." " Why he aint got nuffin to say 'ginst me," said Brown, " 'cause " " Silence," said the Recorder, let me hear the plaintiff" " Yes, Massa 'Corder," said Sam, "if you hears me I tells de vhole truth, and nuffin 'cordin to the truth, sartin." " Go on, then," said the Recorder. " Wai, dis is it," said the sage Sam ; " you sees I keeps a boot polishin 'stablisment in Cussomhouse street. I'se pat ronized by de fus families and use 'clusively my own patent rain-resistin' dust dispellin' blackin. It's a great inwention, I tells you. I sent a pot ob it to Queen Wictoria, but as I dated my letter from Cussomhouse street, she mistook it for sasipreller and pills, and took it 'ternally ; but as there wasn't nothin' pernicious in it it didn't do her witals no harm; 'stead ob dat it has given de prince of Whales quite de polish, 'sides " " Stop," said the Recorder, " I cannot sit here to hear you expatiate on the virtues of your patent blackening; you charge this man with committing a breach of the peace come to that at once." "I'll 'splain all dat like a knife, massa," said Sam. "Den to come to de pint, I 'ploys dis nigger and 'gages to teach him de boot polishin bizriess on de Johnsonian scienterific princer- ples. Wai, affer givin him a trial I finds he haint got de genus to rise to de top ob de purfeshun, and dat he can't shine, no how, so I 'vises him to gib it up and try some oder bizness wot don't require so much nat'ral talent so much ob de Promethean spark, as poets call it as ours does. So when I tells him dis he gibs me sarse, and threatens to 'flict personal chastisement on me if J don't pay him $5 a week." " Yes, and you promised to," said Brown. " I know I did," said Sam, " but it was perwiden you show ed de dewelopment ob genus." " Well, can't you afford to pay him four dollars a week ?'* said the Recorder. "I cannot Masser 'Corder" said Sam, emphatically. " You es there's a wast reverlution in our purfeshun lately : fuss de prunellas gabe us a lick back, and den de French patent leder used us up alPgether. Now I goes in for puttin a tariff on 128 PICKINGS FROM THE "PICAYUNE." both dese articles, dat'll 'xclude dem from all competition wid de trade ; and " " stop this," said the Recorder, his patience worn out by the garrulous Sam Jonsing, u an exposition of your views of the tariff law is not pertinent to this complaint. I shall bind Brown over to keep the peace, and he may sue you civilly for the wages which he claims to be due." PLEASANT NEIGHBOURS. THERE was nothing before the Criminal Court yesterday but an assault and battery case. It was one of the usual and every day class in which " agreeable neighbours" turn out to be very disagreeable acquaintances. It was Jones vs. Smith and Smith vs. Jones. The domicil of Smith was only divided from that of Jones by a thin partition, which brought the street door of Jones in close contiguity with that of Smith. Smith's children used to sit on Jones' door step when mid-day sun was shining, and make castles without interruption of bits of broken earthen ware ; and Jones' favourite terrier dog and tabby cat had the run of Smith's kitchen without ever been struck with the tongs or having an old slipper thrown afLerthem. Mrs. S. and Mrs. J. used to go together in the morning to St. Mary's Market ; they would discuss the merits of their several neighbours as they went along speak of the imprudence of Miss Sowell in going to the play with Green the grocer, and how the widow Wilkins left herself open to the invidious remarks of the ill- natured by receiving the visits of young Darkley, who did nothing in particular for a living. If Mrs. Jones had buck wheat cakes for breakfast, she always sent in one to Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Smith was never known to have an oyster stew of an evening that she did not divide it with Mrs. Jones. The reciprocity of good feeling that existed between Mr. Jones and Mr. Smith was as cordial and familiar as that which was mu tually entertained by their respective helpmates. Jones, when u na' fou' but unco happy," frequently shook Smith's hand and told him he was a d n good fellow and Smith had so high an opinion of Jones, as a man and a gentleman, that he proposed him as a member of the Happy Husband Society, to which honourable fraternity he was unanimously elected But, as beatitude such as the Joneses and the Smiths and the Smiths a*J the Joneses enjoyed, is vouchsafed to no one in perpetu- " And thin, bein' intirely mad with him, I let fly the pitcher at his head." Page 126. PLEASANT NEIGHBOURS. 129 ity in this world of sin and Svvartwouting of rascality and repudiation it was abruptly and too prematurely sundered by the force of circumstances from them. On Thursday evening the coloured girl was seen by Mrs. Smith taking a bowl of something into Mrs. Jones' it might have been the material for an oyster stew, or it might not but a certain savoury smell that was shortly afterwards inhaled by Mrs. S., as she stood at her door, removed all her doubts relative to the contents of the bowl. But the usual act of hospitable and neighbourly courtesy was not extended to her. The spirit of revenge at once seized her soul. She determined never from that moment, to send Mrs. Jones a hot buckwheat cake never walk to market in company with her never to let her terrier dog or tabby cat cross her threshold. She, like Othello, was firm and decided in her resolve she was not going " To follow still the changes of the moon With fresh suspicions. No : to be once in doubt Was once to be resolved." She went to bed and arose the next morning full of wrath and fury against Mrs. Jones, Mr. Jones and all over which they claimed ownership. The tabby cat was soon made to squall from the effect of a blow of the tongs, and if she had not had the life of a cat she would have lost it on the occasion ; and shortly after the broom handle sent Jones' dog howling home to his mistress. Mrs. Jones retaliated by raising a blush in little Tommy Smith's cheek with a slap of her open hand, and thus the war was vigorously commenced on both sides. Each now called into requisition her wordy weapon the tongue which women in general can wield to such advantage. Mrs. S. and Mrs. J. was what we shall not tell our readers and Mrs. J., in retaliation, was equally eloquent. Jones now went to the door and told Mrs. J. to go in, and told Mrs. S. something that excited the pugnacity of Mr. Smith, who jumped out on the banquette and put himself in a pugilistic attitude before Jones, who at once pitched into him like " a thousand of brick." The woman ranged themselves on either side, and a quad ruple matrimonial fight at once commenced, and was only con cluded by the interposition of the police officers. The judge, having heard the complaints and counter com plaints of the parties ; having seen the black eye of Jones and the bloody nose of Smith, and having listened to the volubility 1UO PICKINGS FROM THE "PICAYUNE." with which the " ladies" urged their respective cause, in the double capacity of complainant and defendant, he ordered that all the parties be bound, in good and sufficient security, to keep the peace the Smiths to the Joneses, and the Jonesea to the Smiths. COOKERY AND CALUMNY. RESTAUT VerSUS JONES. WHEN a few ordinary cases were disposed of yesterday, the Recorder called " Jacques Restaut ?" "Oui, Monsieur le President," replied the owner of a voice in the crowd outside the bar, which was as shrill and as sharp as the sound of a tin trumpet, and about as musical as a jews- harp with a broken tongue. " John Jones ?" said the Recorder, and presently John Jones answered " 'ere, your honour !" Both plaintiff and defendant made their way up to the bench. The former, Mr. Restaut, is the proprietor of a cookshop down town ; he wore a brown paper cap, a white roundabout and apron to match ; his eyes were small, brown and restless, his face was of a sear and yellow leafish colour, his cheeks were puckered up like a half-closed fan, and he kept continually stirring his head and shoulders as if he were subject to some nervous affection. John Jones, the defendant, is as unlike him in personal ap pearance as a large pumpkin is unlike a Havana banana. He is a cockney of the purest water ; his round, ruddy face told of roast beef, plum-pudding, brown stout, and Welch-rabbits ; a glance at it would shame a Grahamite or teetotaller out of his abstinence principles. He was short, plump and dumpy, about as broad across as he was tall. " Now, Mr. Restaut,'' said the Judge, " what is your com plaint ?" u My complain ! Monsieur le President," said Restaut, with surprise, his shoulders moving like the piston rods of a steam engine, and his head in motion like the image of a mandarin in a grocer's window " My complain ! by gar I got no com plain ; my head be well, my stomach be well, I be well all over. It be Monsieur Anglais, John Jones here, have the one COOKERY AND CALUMNY. 131 eat-too-much gran 7 complain. O, mon Dieu ! he eat, eat, eat, and call for one dish and t'other dish by gar, I fear he eat myself up at last." u What ! do you think he'd turn cannibal and eat a French man ?" asked the Recorder. " Me links, Monsieur le President, dat he'd eat de vera dia- ble /" said Restaut emphatically, slapping his open hand on the lid of his snuff box. " Yes," said John Jones, quite composedly, and not at all affected by the series of charges which the Frenchman had made against him " yes, but I'm blowed, Mr. Monseer, if I'd eat your burned beef steaks nor your frog fricasee, no how.' " Silence!" said the Recorder, " I want to^come at the spe cific charge. Now, Mr. Restaut, you say this man disturbed the peace of your house, and would not pay for his breakfast state how he did so." "Oui, Monsieur le President," said Restaut, at the same time throwing out his hands, raising his shoulders and sinking his head, indicative of his willingness to proceed, and thus he did: " Veil, you see, this Monsieur John Jones come to my house, and he call for beefsteak vera rare vera rare. I give it to him dressed English style, no a la mode frajigais by gar he eat it and say it not worth nottin, it be one what you call fire not burning? one cindere, and he call for anoder more vera rare ; by gar, he eat dat and say it be one cindere too, and he call for anoder one, two, three more rarer ; and I said 4 sare, I had de honour to be grand cook to the Emperor le grants cook, and by gar you take care ; you shall no teach me my business, de grand art cuisine. If you wants one raw steak you go to mar ket, buy it from the butcher and eat it dere. 1 no sell de raw beefsteak.' " " Well, did he pay you for what he did take ?" asked the Recorder. " No, he no pay nottin ; he call for one dish, and for two, four dish, but he no pay one picayune," replied Restaut. " Well, Mr. Jones," said the Recorder, " what have you to say to this charge ? you appear to have acted very strangely." ^Vy, bless your vorship's eyes," said the defendant "that 'ere story is all gammon. I'm blowed if it aint a precious yarn. Vy, your vorship, I couldn't eat none on his beefsteaks. I'm blowed if they wasn't as dry and as tough as a piece of sole leather. I say, your vorship, I doesn't like to make no 132 PICKINGS FROM THE " PICAYUNE." insinivations, but don't old 'osses die about this time in this ere city ?" " Sacre Anglais /" muttered the Frenchman, taking a su perlative pinch of snuff. u Silence," said the constable. " Go on, sir," said the Recorder. u Veil, I haint got but this ere to say," continued Jones, " that I couldn't eat none of his steaks he don't know how to give a steak the first turn, your vorship." " O, mon Dieu /" ejaculated the Frenchman. u Be silent," said the Recorder authoritively. " It aint no use, your honour," said Jones, " for as I tells my wife Sally, a 'ooman, a parrot and a Frenchman will keep talking; there aint been nothing inwented yet to prevent it; and I doubts myself if there ever will. But as I was saying, your vorship, I only tried his beefsteaks I couldn't eat them. Veil, then, he lays his gombo before me, and be course I couldn't go that neither. Cause as how, your honour sees I took a nat'ral dislike to cat's meat in every shape, ven I vas a little 'un. Father gave me a piece of weal pie one day at Bart'lemy fair, and I'm blowed if the materials warnt pure catflesh." " 1 care nothing about your antipathies or predilections," said the Recorder " This man charges you two dollars for what he dressed for you, whether you eat it or not I don't know, nor do I care. But unless you pay him, I shall fine you $5 for disturbing the peace of his house, and he can sue you afterwards for the two dollars." A few moments reflection suggested to Mr. Jones the pro priety of submitting to the compromise which the Recorder proposed. He paid the two dollars and d d the optics [aside] of American judges and French cooks and cookery. The Frenchman stretched out his hand to receive it as po litely as if he was going to lead a lady to her place in a cotil lion, gave Mr. Jones a u mercie, monsieur," in exchange for his two dollars, and holding his paper cap in his right hand, and bowing obsequiously to the judge, he said, " adieu Mon sieur le President, adieu," but no sooner had he left the office than he gave a look at respectable old Jones, as sour as some of his own pickles, and energetically exclaimed, " sacre le las Anglais!" BOB BATTLE. 133 BOB BATTLE. BOB BATTLE is what is technically called a hard customer He drinks hard ; he eats hard, for he is often hard set to get any thing ta eat ; and he sleeps hard, for his bed is most fre quently a hard flag in the market. He thinks that the man who invented lunches is a greater benefactor to mankind than Fulton or Arkwright, and that the credit system, advocated by politicians, is but a partial and restricted measure. To carry it out to its legitimate lengths, he argues that money should never be demanded for drinks ; that toddies, like lost pocket- books, should be delivered, and a no questions asked." Bob, in his peregrinations last night, met with that very ubiquitious character, the watchman, who is in so many places at the same time. " Cuss me if I care," said Bob, as He tottled along" no, not the fust red cent. Parson Miller is right, and I knows it. Yes, I knows there'll be a general blow up, but I'm blowed if I care. Let every feller take care of himself, as the donkey said what danced among the chickens." " Yes, and you had better take care of yourself," said the watchman, " or else you goes to the calaboose, sure." u Oh, you're a watchman are you ?" said Bob. " I is," said Charley, " though 1 doesn't think there's any law what compels an officer of the government to answer ques tions out of court. U O, dang the government!" said Bob; " it aint no use." " Hallo, there !" said Charley ; " mind what you say. Doesn't you know its grand larceny some calls it fel-o-de-see to speak against the government ?" " Well, I do say," replied Bob, " that the government aint no account : it \vont reciprocate favours. 1 is willin' to take care of the government, but the government aint willin' to take care of me. It wont pass no law for my protection, and it protects Lowell domestics ; that aint free trade, no how you can fix it." "O, you don't know nothing about free trade," said the watchman ; " besides, it aint a constitutional question, because the council haint passed no ordinance on the subject. I goes 134 PICKINGS FROM THF " PICAYUNE." in for duty, and for every one doing his duty ; therefore, 4 thinks it's my duty to take you to the calaboose." " Hold on, Charley; hold on !" said Bob. " Let us settle this matter in a genteel way ; let us arrange h by treat-y, as they does in Washington. Lend me a dime anu I'll stand the liquors. Come, now, watchey, don't back out. " No," said the watchman, " but you shall back in ;" and, as by this time they had got to the Baronne street prison, in he backed Mr. Battle to the watchhouse for the night. CABMEN'S CONTENTIONS. JOHN ELLIS and Bill Thorp were two of the most conspicu ous characters who appeared before Recorder Baldwin yester day. They were of the hobble-de-hoy age neither men nor boys. Both of them chewed tobacco freely, wore old pilot cloth great coats, had shocking bad hats, and carried a long whip acro'ss the left arm, as a soldier does his musket at the "'port arms." They were both knights of the whip, and instead of being lashed together in the harness of friendship, they seemed actuated altogether by a spirit of envious rivalry, and were a living illustration of the old adage " two of a trade," &c. " You'll see," said Ellis. u Yes, and you'll see," replied Thorp. " I isn't to be driven from my persition by you, no how you can fix it." " Well, I guess there's law for the purtection of the reg'lar cabmen, as well as gemmen what follors other business," said Ellis. " We'll see," said Thorp. " Yes, we>ll see," replied Ellis. This episode was carried on in the hall of the court, aftei which both parties went in that the Recorder might pronounce his dictum on the question at issue between them. " Are Bill Thorp and John Ellis ready to go into their case ?" asked the Recorder. " I is ready," said Thorp. " I is always ready," said Ellis ; " there's no back out in me." "Then let us hear what you have got to say," said the Re corder. " Well, I wants to bind this here feller over to keep the peace," replied Ellis CABMEN'S CONTENTIONS. 135 u What has he done ?" asked the Recorder. " Well I'll tell you God's truth about it," said Ellis ; " you see I's gone lately into the cab line. I drives one of those newly imported conwenient wehicles with two wheels, what aint like nothing else ; but they're reg'lar flare-up concerns, 1 tell you." " I dare say," said the Recorder ; but what has all this to do with the assault ?" Ci Why, just this here," replied Ellis, " that when I drives up to the stand he gets all the old cabmen to jaw me, and call me the milk-and-water cabman." " What does he mean by that ?" asked the Recorder. " Why, your honour sees, I was in the milk business afore I got in the cab line, and he has a spite against me 'cause I am advancing in my purfession." " But he has not assaulted you, has he ?" asked the Recorder. u Well, he has assaulted my 'oss," replied Ellis, " and that's personal, aint it ?" " Not exactly," said the Recorder j " but we'll hear what Thorp has to say." If your honour listens," said Thorp, "I'll tell it while I'd be cracking my whip, without any gammon whatsumdever. You see I knows all the branches of our bisness, and a wery critical bisness it is if your horses aint got a proper mouth. I've driv' a one horse wagon, a coach and pair, and at one time driv' an omnibus and four for a whole day, and had but one break down ; now I asks your honour if it's fair for a feller like this here, vot's never had a more scientific job than driving a milk cart, to intrude himself on the bisness and take em ployment from the reg'lar hands. Is it honour bright, your honour ? Haint cabmen and coachmen got wested rights as veil as other folks ? Ve has ' ve knows our rights, and knowin', dares maintain 'em,' as the feller said at the political meetin' t'other night and I'm bio wed if ve don't." u O, I see," said the Recorder, " all this has originated from a spirit of rivalry in business." u No," said Ellis, u but this 'ere feller goes in for monopo lies and chartered privileges ; he' s against fair competition in business. " I have heard enough now," replied the Recorder, " to know what you and he would be driving at. Let both of you go and drive your cabs, and if one of you assault the other I shall give the injured party redress." 136 PICKINGS FROM THE " PICAYUNE." They both cracked their whips as they left the office, and like politicians in cases of doubtful elections, each seemed to claim the decision as a victory. AN OBSOLETE IDEA. " WHAT are you ?" said the Recorder yesterday to a nonde script looking character, who stood up in the dock before him. u I aint nothing," said Bill Button for such was his name. " You are nothing," said the Recorder. "No, I aint," said Bill; "I'm an hobselete idear. I guess as how the vatchman took me to be the vonderful lion or the Bengal tiger, 'cause he stirred" me up vith a long pole ; but I aint nobody, and haint got no friends." " What do you follow for a living ?" asked the Recorder. " I follers nothing, and I don't live at all !" replied Bill . " I exists on the mysterious principles of wilality, and am a teetotaller from compulsion." " Why, you are quite a character," said the Recorder. "No, I aint a character, neither," said Bill : " 1 haint got a character, no how. I'd have no objection to go in cahoot vith a decent feller for a character, but I haint got funds to pur chase on my own account." " Well, I shall send you to the workhouse for thirty days," said the Recorder. " Perhaps, when you comes out you will find times easier." Bill was forthwith walked off by a watchman. JACK GALLAGHER; OR, THE MYSTERIES OF A MESMERIC SLUMBER. ANY one who visited the police office yesterday could not have failed to notice the little man who occupied the seat at the extreme end of the dock, to the left. It was easy to per ceive, as the charge proved, that he was a striking character. Like Diogenes in the tub, he seemed wrapt in thought. His feet were perched on the sill of the railing before him, his elbows rested on his knees, his hands supported his chin and his fingers spread out over his face. There was a round, bald JERRY GALLAGHER. 137 spot on the crown of his head which made him look like a Capuchin friar, but his nose, which seemed to be ornamented by several ripe strawberries, destroyed all illusion relative to a monkish life or abstemious habits. " Jerry Gallagher !" said the Recorder. " Jerry Gallagher," echoed the policeman , but there was none to answer " here, sir!" The clerk of the court took the night watch report and commenced reading it over, to see if the name was not on it, or if there was any mistake in the matter. There was none for there stood Jerry's sponsorial name and sirname, in as good chirography as the sergeant who took the charge could indite. "Jerry Gallagher!" was called out again, and again there was no answer. The officer then commenced putting the question to the prisoners severally, u Are you Jerry Gal lagher?" "Are you Jerry Gallagher ?" till he came to the real Simon Pure, and finding him somewhat under the influ ence of Morpheus, he gave him a shake and cried out in a higher pitch of voice than he had before spoken in, " Are you Jerry Gallagher ?" " O, divii's in it, how inquisitive you are," said Jerry, " ask me no questions and Til tell you no lies. Can't you lit me injoy me mesmeric slumber; begor I was in me glory. I thought I was at home at the fair of Bally kill duff, in ould Ireland, and that every thing looked as nat'ral as it did before Father Mathew converted the people into mimbers of the timperance society, and before Dan O'Connell began to praych up l passive resistance.' I mane the good old times whin, instead of passive resistance, we offered active resistance to our friends and foes indiscriminately, and arranged all our little difficulties by punishing the police and the poteen, and taychin 7 phrenology on first principles by raising bumps quite nat'ral entirely with the shillelah. Oh, the L,ord save us ! how the world is degeneratin' it'll be soon next to nothin'." "Stand up there," said the Recorder. " O, bad scran to me," said Jerry, " If I'll stand it any longer; begor I b'lceve your mesmerism, animal magnetism, or whatever you call it, is like the remains of Bill Buckley's flitch of bacon all ^ammon.^ "You have not been brought here to discuss the merits of mesmerism," said the Recorder," you are charged with com mitting an assault and battery on this man here," pointing to a person who stood inside the bar, and whose face was all blue and green, like the sea scene of a theatre. " See," said 138 PICKINGS FROM THE " PICAYUNE." the Recorder, again addressing Jerry, and again pointing to the third party, " See the condition* in which yon have left that man's eyes." " Av coorse I see it," said Jerry, but didn't I do it for the advancement of science it was altogither an intillictual opera tion, 'pon me conscience it was, I assure you don't you see how well I magnei-eye^sd him ? The facts turned out to be that Jerry was prevailed on by a fellow who affected to be a professor of animal magnetism, to undergo the operation necessary to bring about a mesmeric slumber; it was a failure, and Jerry, having divers and sundry times in his life been magnetized by the crathur, thought he would have recourse to it in this instance. He, therefore, again tried the experiment and found it highly successful. It was while in a state of " glorious uncertainty" thus brought about, and not under the influence of ahimal magnetism, that he met the man with the battered face and black eyes. Mis taking him for one of a rival faction, and believing while he was in Girod street that he' was actually at the fair of Bally- killduff, he operated on him to some purpose, as the marks on his face showed. The Recorder took the affidavit against Jerry, who gave bail for his appearance to answer to the charge of assault and bat- iery before the criminal court. BILL BLUMMELL. HAVE you ever seen a pig in a parlour, a cat in a pond, a cockney on horseback, or a goose on ice ? If you have you can form a faint conception of the manner in which a true- bred, down-right jack tar progresses on terra firma, if he chance to be three sheets in the wind. It is all reeling, and keeling, and rolling with him. Now he lurches and now he careens; now he keeps to leeward and now to windward; now he goes right "afore" the wind, and the next moment he backs his tack. If a log-book were onl^ kept of his voyage, what a droll affair it would be ! Bill Bkimmell is a case in point. Bill appeared every inch a sailor, and there was therefore nothing peculiar about him. His hat was glazed, with a small leaf, as every sailor's hat has ; his jacket was blue and pitchy, just like every sailor's jacket; BILL BLUMMELL. 139 his neck'kerchief was black and tied in a swivel knot, as usual, and his trousers were canvass and had no seam on the outside of the leg. We were in error, however, in saying that there was nothing peculiar about Bill there was, and he felt there was. Bill wore a vest yes, he actually wore a vest a gar ment unknown to legitimate sailors since the first experiments were made in navigation. " Bill Blummell," said the Recorder. " Aye, aye, sir," said Bill. " But, commodore, I have got too much canvass on ; just hold on till I take in a reef and put myself in ship-shape somewhat. Bear a hand here, ship mate," said he to the prisoner who sat next him in the dock " bear a hand ; don't you see, you lubber, the commodore has hailed me." He put out one of the arms of his blue jacket to the ' shipmate' and pulled his own arm out of it, he did the same with his- other arm stripped off his vest as quick as he would belay a rope in a storm got again into his blue jacket and told the commodore to steer ahead, that the docks were clear. "You were found drunk last night," said the Recorder, "and neither knew where you were, or where you should be.' 5 "O, as for ihe matter of being drunk, your honour," said Bill, " I don't see as how it's against the rules of the navy for a sailor to take his grog when he gets it. I b'leve I had a little too much ballast on board, that's a fact." "Why didn't you go on board your ship?" asked the Recorder. " Why, bless your eyes, commodore," said Bill, " you might as well endeavour to navigate through the icebergs at the North poles, as make your way through those mountains of cotton bales on the Levee." "You are liable to a fine," said the Recorder. "Well, if your honour lets me off this time," said Bill, " I'll clear right out of port, and keep a sharp look out for break ers ahead in future." He was discharged 140 PICKINGS FROM THE " PICAYUNE." THE WAY TO MAKE A TETOTALLEK EVAPORATION, ITS POWER OR, THE INGENUITY OF TIPPLING RATS. MR. C., commission merchant of this city, is known as an extensive holder of western produce, and his stock is not more noted for its variety than for the superiority of the several articles which he keeps on hand. His per centage on the sale of Monongahela whiskey through the year would, by a man of moderate notions, be reckoned a liberal in-coming Customers came so quick to purchase, that, to save the trouble of too frequent a recurrence to the barrel, he has been in the habit of keeping a sample bottle in the store, always full or partially so, for their trial and inspection. He had found for a long time that the contents of the sample bottle decreased very rapidly, daily, and in a manner, at first, very mysteriously. He soon learned, however, that " Sampson," the negro who staid in the store, was any thing but a Washingtonian, and that he tried the strength of the Monongahela oftener than the whole of his customers. Desirous to know if his conscien tiousness were as large as his alimentiveness, he said to him on Monday se'n-night, " Sampson, how is it that the whiskey in the sample bottle diminishes so fast ? Why it has to be filled daily !" " Clar go', massa, I doesn't know," said Sampson, look ing as serious as a converted sinner at a camp-meeting, " but I tinks, massa, it is carried off by the princerples ob wot white folks calls 'waporation." " O, you do, Sampson ?" said Mr. C. " I does, sartin, massa," said Sampson, " 'cause I tells you dat ere 'waporation's right strong ; gosh, it aint left a drop o' hard cider in de country. I tinks it's dat wot makes de whiskey so scarce, and not de temp'rance movement, as dey calls it." " Well, then, Sampson," said Mr. C., " fill the bottle now, and I will cork it so tight as to prevent evaporation." " 'Es, sa," said Sampson. He filled the bottle, his master corked it, evaporation tight, and again it was placed on the shelf. Again on Tuesday morning it was found to have decreased considerably in quan tity, and still more towards noon. THE WAY TO MAKE A TETOTALLER. 141 " Well, Sampson," said Mr. C., " I find the whiskey is still rapidly decreasing. How do you acount for it now ?" " Wa-wall, it be berry hard to 'splain, massa," said Sampson, u it be one ob dose 'sterious disappearances wot niggers can't 'count for, arid wot sometimes puzzles white folks, I tell you." " But what is your opinion?" said Mr. C. " Wal-al, I links," said Sampson, " to tell goramighty's truf, dat de rats be drinkin' it, for dey hasn't joined de temp'rance 'siety, as I knows on." "Yes," said Mr. C., " but when it would get down as low as the centre of the bottle, how would the rats manage to get at it then ?" " Yah ! yah ! yah !" said Sampson, but, suppressing sud denly his cachinnations, he added, u look heah, massa, I was just a goin' to say as how you was green. Now, does you tink as how dem ere rats wot you sees 'bout de store, and wot's so much in de cabaret at de corner does you tink, 1 axes, dat seein' so many takin' juleps on de suction princerple, dat dey doesn't know the use ob a straw ? Wai, 1 reckons dey does, massa." " Well, then, Sampson," said Mr. C., " if the sample bottle can neither be preserved from the rats or evaporation, I must only submit to the loss, and fill it whenever it is empty. Fill it now and leave it again on the shelf, and I care not whether you cork it not." Mr. C. told an acquaintance of his, an apothecary, of Samp son's partiality for the sample bottle, and asked him if he could noNgive him some decoction to mix with it, which, while it would not visibly alter its colour or taste, would prove less agreeable to Sampson's system than the pure Monongahela. The apothecary told him he could, and, on the Tuesday be fore last, he furnished the required preparation. Sampson was sent out on an errand in the early part of the day, and in his absence the obnoxious ingredients were introduced into the whiskey. To give Sampson a better scope, when he returned, his master went out and staid away long enough to give the sample-tasting Sampson full play at the bottle. When he re turned, he noticed a strange and peculiar rolling of Sampson's eyes ; his lips were the colour of stale venison, and he had all the singular characteristics in his appearance of " a sick nigger." Mr. C. managed to keep him pretty busy, and although appear ing not to notice him, closely watched his movements. 142 PICKINGS FROM THE " PICAYUNE." " Wo !" he'd shout, raising his leg up against his stomacn, but still endeavouring to conceal his pain from his master, and again he would exclaim, " ah ! e-eeh ! wo-o! goramighty!" and he would brace his belly round with his hands and arms. At length, finding himself growing worse that there was no chance of the pain abating, he threw himself on the floor and roared out, " O, massa, massa, dis child's a gone nigger oh ! a-ah ! o-o-oh !" SEEING THE ELEPHANT. JIM GRISWELL. A HARD looking case was Jim Griswell as he stood up yesterday before the Recorder, to answer to the charge of being found gloriously corned the previous night. He stood at least six feet high in his pegged boots ; his face was of a clayey colour, like the Mississippi at high water mark ; his hair, which was of a ginger dye, hung down over his coat collar after the old cavalier fashion; his pantaloons just de scended as far as his brogans ascended, no farther; and his Kentucky jean coat was minus one of the skirts. He held before him, in both his hands, a crownless hat, against the leaf of which he kept bobbing his knee while speaking. u Griswell," said the Recorder, "you have been found drunk." " I know it squire," said Jim, " I know it " and this he repeated in the most contrite accents, and looking round at that part of his body over which the skirt of his coat should hang he exclaimed, " now ain't I a nice lookin' coon ?" The Recorder, seeing he felt uneasy at parting company with the skirt of his coat, remarked, " why, you have lost the crown of your hat too!" "Yes, I have ! I know I have, squire," said Jim, " and I tell you what it is, I don't feel any thing the more comfortable for it, particularly when it rains; and J must say, squire, you have some of the loudest kind of showers in these diggins." " But surely," said the Recorder, " you did not imagine that wearing a hat without a crown would contribute to your com fort ?" " Yes, I did, squire," and Jim, "but now I find 1 was the biggest kind of a fool. Didn^t the player that performed in Squire Boon's barn in our town say, Uneasv lies the head that wears a erown;' THE VICTIM Of AMBITION. 143 but I now find it's a d n sight better for a feller to wear a crown in his hat that to be without one." 44 Well," said the Recorder, u how came you to be drunk in the streets at so late an hour last night ?" " Squire," said Jim and his eye showed a desire to assume the melting mood, u Squire, it's a delicate pint for a young man like me to touch on, but Jim Griswell will tell the truth if he loses his hat. You see I came down from old Kaintuck with a right decent sort of a broad horn and considerable plunder. I sold them off at a smart chance of a profit, and as I never was in Orleans before, I thought I wouldn't go hum without letting folks know I seed sumthin'. So I went on a regular wake snakes sort of a spree, and I went here and there, turnin' twistin' and doublin' about, until I didn't know where or who I was. But spare my feelings, squire, and don't ask me to tell any more. Here I am in town without a rock in my pocket, without a skirt to my coat or a crewn to my hat; without but, squire, I'll say no more, Pve seen the elephant, and if you let me off now I'll make a straight shute for old Kaintuck, and I'll give you leave to bake me into hoe cakes if ever you catch me here again." The Recorder let Jim Griswell off on his parole, as he con fessed he had seen the elephant! THE VICTIM OF AMBITION. THE fourth man on whom the Recorder, in his own polite yet dignified way, called yesterday to show cause why he had been arrested, was Richard Wright. Richard did not respond with the usual u Here, sir," but stood up in the dock. He looked like a monument erected to misery like a nag-staff divested of its ensign, still standing over the ruins of a Tippe- canoe log-cabin like a man turned out of office weeping over the danger which threatened his country, and inveighing against the profligacy of men in power like any thing and every thing which told of hopes blasted, anticipations never realized, and the mind's greeny freshness prematurely withered by the storms of adversity. Could he be placed as a beacon- light on the shoal of misfortune, the most unskilful mariner would not fail to perceive there were "breakers ahead." But we'll to his examination. 144 PICKINGS FROM THE " PICAYUNE." "Mr. Wright," said the Recorder, "you were found drunk last night by the watchman. What are you ?" u A victim, sir a victim !" said poor Richard, emphatically, pursing up his brow, folding up his arms, and extending his legs in a latitudinal direction, evincing by his attitude and eye that he was prepared to meet with fortitude whatever further broadsides fortune was about to let fly at him. Recorder. u Of whom have you been the victim ?" Richard. "I have been the victim of mankind of the world of my own ambition that feeling which beacons us onward but to deceive that lures us forth but to disappoint; that feeling which ' Makes the madmen who have made men mad !' " Here Richard buried his face in his hands, as if the thought of what he had been overcome him for a moment. Recorder. "What has all this to do with your being drunk ?" Richard. " Short-sighted mortal superficial observer of human nature knowest thou not that there are secret im pulses and unseen machinery operated on by outward causes or external agents, that set in motion and control all our actions ? Ambition has been frae locomotive by which I ever have been propelled along the railway of life, and never did I start my steam to perform a journey, that I had not a blow-up before J got to the end of it." Recorder. "But the charge against you is that you were drunk." Richard. " Yes, and I have been so for the last ten years drunk with disappointment and affliction ; a species of inebri ation for which the tee-total society have yet offered no antidote." " That's vot he always says," remarked the watchman who had the honour of arresting Richard "he's ever a goin' on with that 'ere gammon, swingin' his arms about like a horator on the Fourth of July, and talkin' such big vords that I'm blowed but I vunders he don't get the lock-jaw! "Vy, yer honour, he's a valkin' dixonary, that feller is; but a reg'lar hard von on the liquor." ' Base scavenger in the bye-ways of justice, hist thee !" said Richard, scornfully, to the watfchmari ; and then, addressing the Recorder, he continued " My bark of hope, your honour, was long since split on the rock of ambition, and you now see THE VICTIM OF AMBITION- 145 before you but the wreck of my original self. " Sir, when I set out on my first voyage in life, my sails were well trimmed, the horizon was bright, the wind fair, and the sea such as a mariner could wish ; but, sir, I made for the port of Lrve, and got wrecked ere I had made half the voyage." Here he turned up his eyes, and in an apostrophizing tone exclaimed " Ever- adorable Eliza!" and then despondingly added " She was not made Thrp ? years or moons the inner weight to bear Which colder hearts endure ! But she sleeps well, By the sea-shore whereon she loved to dwell." Recorder. u I do not sit here to listen to a memoir of your life, nor a monody to your Eliza." Richard. "Nor do I come here to tell it. I am charged with being drunk : I admit the charge, and claim the right of being h "MEM. New Orleans is a wery wile, wicious place : they kills men there with Bowie-knives and dogs with pisoned sassengers. They berries the former holesale in the swamp, and retails the latter, tails and all, as sassenger meat. It's a 'orrible state of society !" THE HEAD vs. THE FEET. THOMAS TOPPLETON belongs to that class of society who beautify the human head and operate largely in bear's grease he is a hair dresser. Henry Hendover claims brotherhood with the sons of Crispin his business is to adorn the foot; but being a genius in his way, he confines himself exclusively to the manufacture of ladies' boots. Thomas Toppleton enjoys the felicity of being a married man. Mr. Hendover has to suf fer all the miseries incidental to single blessedness. Both of them live within the romantic limits of Love street; they are near, but not, it would seem, good neighbours. We acquired our first knowledge of the parties at the police office yesterday. There they sat, Toppleton to the right of the Recorder, with a nose as sharp as his own razor, and his hair slick as grease. Hendover to the left of his honour his face as bright as a lap-stone, and his black eyes shining like balls of patent leather and he himself looking altogether a strapping fellow. Mrs. Toppleton took her seat right in front of the Recorder, and at an angle of about 45 degrees from her liege lord and the ladies' boot-maker. Toppleton looked hot curling tongs at Hendover Hendover looked pincers at Toppleton Mrs. T. looked like herself and unlike either of them. It was evident the two former were plaintiff' and defendant in some important case, the particulars of which the investigation was to develope. The Recorder commanded silence, and five constables simul taneously echoed the call, after which the Recorder raised in his hand a paper folded in an oblong form, and called "Thomas Toppleton?" "Henry Hendover?" "Mrs. Helen Hour: Toppleton ?" Each of them answered to their names, and stood up round the bench. Recorder. " Now, Mr. Toppleton, state your complaint." Toppleton. "Yes, I'll tell about it, your honour. You see I aint long from Lunnun ; the shop I vorked in there had THE HEAD VS. THE FEET. 153 letters patent for shaving the Queen and the royal family ; J have frequently myself, your honour, given the royal curl to Prince Albert's royal moustache. Recorder. " What has the curling of Prince Albert's mou stache to do with your charge of assault and battery against Mr. ITendover ?" Toppleton. " I'm coming to 'that point, your honour. You see when I comes here I takes a house in Love street, right opposite this here snob's." Policeman. " Order." Recorder. " Use no disrespectful language in court, sir." Toppleton. " Veil, he aint no reg'lar ladies' man, no how If my vife vas a wirtuous 'ooman, she vouldn't speak to him that she vouldn't." Mrs. Toppleton. " Thomas, Thomas, my love, is not this pretty language to be used to your lawfully married wife, in a public court ?" Recorder. "But how did the accused assault you ?" Toppleton. " Veil, you see ven T opens a shop in Love stieet, this here man, Hendover, begins to look queerish at my vife, and she begins to look queerish at him, and she calls him a wery nice man, and says, she vill leave her measure vith him for a pair of prunella boots. She's alvays a goin out, and ven I says to her, c Helen my dear, vere have you been ?' 4 Thomas, my dear, I've been listening to Mr. Hendover's ca nary, that sings so nice.'' Veil, your honour, I didn't suspect nothing till last night, ven I vent out to dress a lady's head for the ball, and ven I comes back, I looks in through the vinder, and there J sees this shoemaker vith his hand round my vife's neck, and he singing, c I give thee awl, I can no more,' and saying every thing to her about 'heartand love,' and all that." Mrs. Toppleton. " He wasn't doing no such a thing. He came over to chow me the kind of leather he was going to put into my boots. Hendover. "His charge is the weak invention of a malignant mind. Recorder. " But what of the assault and battery ? Did ht? strike you ?" Toppleton. "No, but he entered my premises without my consent, and vould'nt leave ven I ordered him out." Recorder. " Well, then, you must enter suit against him for a trespass. This case is dismissed." Mrs. Toppleton left the office a perfect picture of " Niobe, all tears." 154 PICKINGS FROM THE "PICAYUNE." LIVING MADE EASY. WILLIAM BROWN and Dan Steppy were arrested in a new building. " This kind of a life will never do," said Brown. " Never," said Steppy ; u it required some talent to carry it on as long as we have." u I have some talent in a literary way," said Brown, " and I was thinking of writing a work called the ' Strangers' Guide, or Boarding House Reference.' You know there is not one of them I have not tried, and not one of them that has not trusted me when they could not help it." "Yes," said Steppy, " you beat me in making out breakfasts and dinners, but you can't shine in making a raise of drinks as well as 1 can." " I knock under," said Brown. " Do you know how I do it ?" said Steppy. " Utterly ignorant of the modus operand?^ my dear fellow," said Brown, " but always thought you had a peculiar talent that way." u I have, sir; so I have, sir," said Steppy. " Superior edu cation a knowledge of physiognomy and of human natur does it." " Explain," said Brown. " Be silent," said Steppy. " I'm mum," said Brown, slapping his open mouth with the palm of his hand, a la Captain Copp. " Well then, you see, unless I'm really shook, I always goes it in the bit houses doggeries aint genteel. When I sees fel lows going up to the bar, I says, how do you do ? how are you now ? I knows at one by my knowledge of physiognomy whether the crowd be whigs or locofocos I don't believe in the bump business. If they're whigs, 1 at once begins to speak of ' glorious victories' the triumph of correct principles the annihilation of locofocoism, and all that sort of thing, and they at once says, what'll you take, sir ? If I find they are locofocos,*! damn coon skins, log cabins, and hard cider; and thus, in either case, walk into a horn and something else :f it be snack time." LIVING MADE EASY. 155 " But there are three things that are a puzzle to me," said Steppy, u which are these : who wrote Junius' letters ? who is elected governor of Maine ? how do you pull wool over the eyes of the boarding house keepers ?" " System, sir, system. My gentlemanly address and pre possessing appearance. I find a pair of spectacles indispens able in carrying out my plans, and a good cane has, in many instances, a prodigious effect." " Let us have light," said Steppy. " I will," said Brown, " but you are the first person to whom I ever revealed the secret. Well then, like making the egg stand on end, the process is simple when it is made known. Every boarding house has a label with a black ground and golden letters on the door, saying that it is a boarding house. You have nothing therefore to do but hover near the door at breakfast or dinner hour, salute one of the boarders as he pas ses in and continue the conversation till dinner is announced; sit next him at dinner if possible, to keep up the delusion; but this is not indispensable : walk out when he walks out, and it will be at once concluded that you're his particular friend, and no questions will be ever asked. I've tried it a thousand times and it never failed in a solitary instance." " Why donH you follow it up ?" said Steppy. "Because I have no new customers to do," said Brown. " But I have an idea a thought has struck me." "What is it ?" said Steppy. "Why, that we exchange situations; let you take the run of the boarding houses, and I'll take your place in the hotel business." " Capital ! capital ! excellent ! excellent !" said Steppy. "If you have got capital," said the watchman, just as they had made arrangements for a new start in business u if you have got capital, this is rather a suspicious place to be in." Without listening to a word from them he calaboosed them. The Recorder would listen to no explanation, but sent them to the calaboose for thirty days each. 156 PICKINGS FROM THE ;; PICAYUNE." ADJUSTING BALLAST. CONSIDERING that we are now ii\the centre of the dull sea son, there was a liberal patronage in the way of business extended to Recorder Baldwin, yesterday. The victims having been all dove-tailed into the dock, the Recorder having seated himself on the bench, one policeman having called "order !" two or three others having instinctively echoed " order,' 1 and the motley audience outside the bar having "shut up," and prepared themselves to pay due atten tion to the proceedings of the court, the Recorder called "John French," and immediately a short man, with a short neck and a short nose, answered shortly "Aye, aye, sir." French is a regular old ironsides of a fellow, with shoulders as broad as the keel of a Dutch built vessel; there was a patch over each of his sky-lights, as if he had been newly caulked, though his proboscis was any thing but ship-shape. The night was not sufficiently long to dissipate the effects of his dissipa tion, and when he rose to reply to the Recorder, he lurched on every side like a water-logged ship. " French," said the Recorder, " you were found drunk last night." French, through the agency of his tongue, caused his quid to revolve in his jaw or in other words, like many of our present politicians, he made it change sides ; he then gave a sudden jerk to his canvass trousers, smoothed down with his dexter hand some stray hairs that grew on the deck of his head, and replied to the interrogatory of the judge : " Well, I b'lieves your honour, as how I was on a bit of a cruise." Recorder. " What do you follow for a living ?" French. " I follows the sea, your honour, and have done so, man and boy, for the last forty years ; yes, your honour, Jack French has weathered many a gale he has often been cast away on the leeshore of poverty, though he never saw a mess mate yet raise the flag of distress, that he did not bear up to his aid and assist him, while a shot remained in the locker." Recorder. "There were two bottles of whiskey found on your person one in each pocket of your jacket." JIMMY M' GO WAN. 157 French. " Why yes, commodore, you see as how I was bent on a voyage, and I took on board a regular supply of sea store ; them there two bottles of Monongahela I stowed away in each of my pockets, by way of ballast, but may I be food for sharks if I could get along. I kept continually keeling over to the right; avast there, said I to myself, I don't set fair in the water, and with that, your honour, I took the bottle out that was to my starboard side, took a jolly good swig out of it, and put it back again. Now thinks I, I guess I'll go right before the wind no danger in putting out studding sails, but then, your honour, I found I lurched to the larboard side ; I took out the bottle that was stowed away there and I lightened that, by anticipating my regular grog time, and taking a hearty swig. Now, again I found myself inclining to the right, and I again took out the bottle. After having spun this yarn for your honour, you will see that I was doing no more than adjusting my ballast, when that piratical looking craft there (pointing to the watchman) hauled me into port for the night. I only wish I was skipper over the lubber for one month, and if I wouldn't stop his grog may I never double Cape Horn again." Jack having thus stated his case at length, he drew from his pocket a large piece of pigtail and replenished his quid. He hoped his honour would allow him to raise his anchor and put to sea this time, and he assured him that he would not be again caught water-logged in this port. The Recorder assented, first giving him some wholesome advice that may serve him on future voyages. Jack paid dock fees, as he called the jail dues, and with a " heave ahead my hearty !" he left the office. JIMMY M'GOWAfl, WHO AIDED NATIONS IN ESTABLISHING THEIR INDEPENDENCE, BUT COULD NOT SECURE HIS OWN. A MOST imaginative class of beings are your police court reporters : their pens do turn to shapes The form of things unknown " And give to airy nothing, A local habitation and a name." But how often in seeking after the fanciful, do they pass over the real ? How often, to indulge in the poetry of romance, 158 PICKINGS FROM THE " PICAYUNE." do they forget the prose of reality that appears before them. Let a daguerreotype picture of the Recorder's court be any day given, thus: Frst, high above all others, sits the presidium judge all decorum and dignity, " Like a comet wondered at." Beneath and before him sits his clerk, mutely intent and busily employed in registering the edicts of the court: next are the police officers, all silence and submission themselves, and exacting from others a like deference ; then there are the pris oners in the dock, to whom we shall again advert, and lastly, there is the indiscriminate audience in the back ground, laughing at they know not what, and deferential they know not why. The lawyers, reporters and others whose appearance is but occasional, we omit, not wishing to crowd them into the pic ture. Now, after having taken a farther glance at the Recorder, police officers and audience, let us dwell for a moment on the tenants of the dock. Among them may be traced improvi dence, poverty, idleness and dissipation. There is the father less boy, having neither moral mentor nor parental protector, arrested for some petty theft on the Levee : there is the thought less young man, who, heedless of friendly admonition, plunges into the vortex of profligacy and dissipation : there is the man to whom a loving wife and fond children look for succour and support, and who, forgetful of their claims, has mixed in the orgies of the tavern, and been arrested for being engaged in a bacchanalian row : and, lastly, there are those between whom and the world all friendship, all fellowship have ceased, and who move along, seeking no sympathy, alike regardless of the envy or approbation of mankind. Whilst in the lives of such men there is much to condemn, there may also be much to pity ; and were we to scan over their lives, we would indeed find that " Truth is strange stranger than fiction." Let us, by way of illustration, take the case of Jim M'Gowan, who, for the hundredth and odd time, appeared before his honour a few days since. What a chequered life has been his ! how in it has fortune and adversity, hope and despond ency, alternated ! But to give the reader an idea of what it has been, let us briefly sketch it over. Jim Jim M'Gowan, was born in the north of Ireland His parents were in the linen trade and weaving line a business in which was then centred all the wealth and capital of th JIMMY M'GOWAN. 159 northern country. Jim, in the spirit of true Irish independ ence, disdaining every thing pertaining to the shuttle and the hank of yarn, came out to the United States of America. Re port says that love and a lady had something to do with his migration ; and that, as Burns says " A jillet brak his heart at last, 111 may she be ; So he took a birth atbre the mast And over the sea." The states, it appears, he did not find altogether to his notion, and so, unlike the Scotchman, he went u bock again." He next joined Gen. Devereaux's expedition to overthrow the power of old Spain in Colombia, South America. In this capacity, as a soldier of liberty, he passed through many u moving accidents by flood and field." He was equally suc cessful in making love to the dark-eyed daughters of Colombia, and in defeating those who held their country in colonial vas salage. The war of Independence being over in Colombia the Spanish power having been prostrated Jimmy, though having gilded his humble name with many a daring deed, began to cast about for other theatres on which to play the hero's part. Mexico was yet struggling for independence, and to Mexico Jimmy went. There he fought till matters were finally adjusted ; and their having been favourably adjusted, as it was believed, for freedom, Jimmy again found himself with nothing to do. His was not a peace mission ; so he could not remain idle he went to Buenos Ayres, and there, too, he fought on the side of liberty. His last and final strug gle was at the far-famed battle of San Jacinto, in Texas, where he taught the Mexicans that, when he aided in achieving their liberty, he meant not to confer on them the power to enslave others. Jimmy's broils and battles are now over, and with all he has fought and all he has bled, he cannot now call one spot of all the world his own ! He is almost perpetually an inmate of the workhouse, and his frequent theme of regret is that, after having aided in achieving the liberty of four repub lics, liberty is not now vouchsafed to himself. Alas, poor Jimmy M'Gowan ! 160 PICKINGS FROM THE "PICAYUNE." WHISKERS. OR, A CLEAN SHAVE. WE have long been thinking of writing an essay on whis kers of reviewing their shape, kind and colour of dwelling on their utility, as ornamental appendages to the "human face divine," and discussing wherein and how far they add to the masculineness of manhood. We think there is a natural science, though yet undeveloped, in whiskers a something that we might call ivhiskerology which if properly and practically understood, would as unerringly indicate character, as eiiher physiognomy or phrenology. Our own imperfectly digested reflections on the matter have led us to these conclusions : With large and naturally glossy black whiskers, we always associate honesty of mind and firmness of purpose ; with a moderately sized cresent-formed whisker, good nature and a tolerable share of self-esteem ; with a whisker forming two sides of an angle, caution and cunning ; with a short, ill- shaped whisker, an inordinate love of riches and penuriousness. A moustache, except when worn by military men, we look upon as an unerring indication of a lack of brains ; and a tuft of beard below the under lip, as ditto in a less evident degree. Thus it may be seen that in whiskers, as well as in bumps of the head and lines of the face, there is an unwritten philoso phy ; and what we have stated goes farther to show the truth of the inspired maxim, that there is nothing, not even whiskers, made in vain. But we meant to speak of a pair of whiskers in particular, not of whiskers in general, and we shall now carry out our intention, placing in. abeyance, at least for the present, our speculative opinions on the philosophy of whis kers and their relative connexion with the physiology of char acter. The whiskers of which we shall now speak, were worn by one Joseph Rogers. They were long, black and bushy, and were regarded by Joseph as precious pearls yea, pearls be yond all price. As a further ornament to his person, Joe wore a full and abundant crop of hair, which curled down over his face and shoulders, like bunches of vermicelli in a grocer's window. His profession was and is a sailor, and in such WHISKERS. 181 capacity he shipped as cook on board the good ship William Tell, whereof Captain Gardner is master, then (in May last) lying in the port of Marseilles, and bound for this port, at which she has since arrived. Joseph had not been long on board when Captain Gardner discovered that the curls of his hair, nor the length nor the size of his whiskers, added to his natural or his acquired capacity, or his cleanliness as a cook. He found that Joseph devoted more time to his facial orna ments than he did to the making of lobscouse, and that the pork and beans were often allowed to spoil, in consequence of extra and unnecessary time being devoted to the exercise of the curling tongs. The captain remonstrated ; he told the cook that he did not approve of having his galley turned into afriseur^s shop; be sides, he said he liked his rations well cooked, and he should have it so : he therefore ordered that Joe clip off his curls and shave off his beard, whiskers and all. Joe rejoined that the thing was impossible : he admitted that good cooking was very well in its way, but it sunk into insignificance when compared with the fulness and style of his hair and whiskers ; besides, he said he had no razor no scissors. The captain offered him the use of both. Joe still said "No." He gave his flame in Marseilles a lock of his hair, but from all others he held it as sacred as Mahomet held his beard. The captain, finding remonstrance of no use, and that the cookery was every day going to pot, had Joseph seized by the mate, and held per force by some of the men, while he clipped off his elfin locks and shaved his whiskers, leaving not a vestage of them behind ! When the ship came into port, Joseph straightway proceeded to a legal adviser, whom he found in the person of Mr. Wolfe, who instantly, on behalf of his client, commenced suit against the captain, laying the damages for hair and whiskers at $150. The case came up before Judge Preval, who gave judgment in favour of the plaintiff for $100. From this judgment an appeal was taken before Judge Col- lens, of the City Court, and here it was that those fine subtle ties of the law, the sophistries of the special pleader, and a high order of forensic eloquence were indulged in. Mr. Wolfe found an able professional opponent in the person of Jacob Barker, who appeared for Captain Gardner. " May it please the court," said the plaintiff's counsel, " is there any thing in the history of our mercantile marine that 68 162 PICKINGS FROM THE " PICAYUNE." equals in indignity the case now before this court ? We have heard tell of pirates making men walk the plank, but that, your honour, is a mode of punishment, the pain inflicted by which has at least the merit of being brief; but crop a man's hair against his will, cut off his whiskers, and you place on him a mark of disgrace which is never washed away never effaced, if I may use a pun when speaking on so important a subject. To be sure, I may be told that men shave and are shaved every day : I grant it, your honour ; but then, again, there are men whom no earthly consideration could induce to submit to the operation. Thinkest thou, sir, or does the gen tleman on the other side think, that a Mussulman would permit his whiskers to be shorn ? No ! rather would he incur the curse of Mahomet himself! If Captain Gardner and his crew, like the Philistines of old, when they shore Samsom of his locks and his strength at the same time if, 1 say, like them, they took advantage of him in his sleep, the case might pre sent some palliation 5 but to seize on him in his waking hours, and pinion him while they divested him of his beard, in which he so much prided himself oh ! it was wicked, cruel and un requitable ! Sir, what does the great bard of nature say on the subject ? He says, your honour, and I endorse his language,' that ' He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath none is less than a man.' " Sir, I will not dwell on the amount of damages we claim ; they are as a drop of water in the ocean as a grain of sand upon the sea shore, compared with the personal loss and injury we have sustained. J would, however, in fixing the damages, hav^ your honour bear in mind the value at tached even to false hair, that you may the better come at the value of the natural article. Why, sir, I have been informed by one of the first peruke makers in the city, that the value of a good spring wig is sometimes as high as $50, and that, with whiskers and moustache, or imperial to match, they fre quently sell for $80. With these remarks I shall submit my case to the court." Mr. Barker who had been, while this speech was making, looking now at the speaking counsel, now at the court, now at some one r and now at no one, and laughing a silent laugh with his mouth all the time now rose. We should here re mark, that Mr. Barker's laugh is a peculiar one he absolutely SOAP SUDS. 163 laughs through his specs : it is an extraordinary mode of laugh ing, and yet it is his. The learned gentleman, still indulging in his peculiar laugh, said that the whole affair was a bagatelle & mere trifle a trifle light as hair ! He said he could not see it possible how any man could claim damages for a clean shave. Shaving was a business in which he had much experience; he shaved closely indeed, he might say he shaved every day. People sometimes complained, it was true ; but still, of their own free will and consent, they submitted to the operation, and never thought of bringing an action for damages. Besides being a shaver, he had some experience as a shavee : indeed, while he shaved hundreds himself daily, John Parsons, the barber, shaved him ; and, instead of finding fault with him, he paid him monthly for the job. He did not conceive that the case called for any argument, and would, without further re mark, submit it. The judge, after having received the testimony and argu ment, and the law which in his opinion covered the case, ad judged and decreed, that the judgment of the court below be set aside and annulled, and that Captain Gardner pay to Joseph Rogers, for the assault on his person, $25. We would not be understood to insinuate that Judge Col- lens had any personal bias in this case, or that he is ignorant of the bonajlde value of a pair of profuse whiskers ; but cer tain it is, that he has none himself! SOAP SUDS. " O the furrin blackguard ! I'll swear me life against him, and me childer's life, and the life o' me ould man the Lord rest his sowl in glory ! that's dead six months come next Aysther." This was spoken by a woman of Amazonian proportions, with carroty hair, and a nose to match. The thrill of her tongue told she was from the land of shillelaghs and sham rocks, and the fire and fury that blazed in her eye gave occular evidence of her dander being up or, in other words, told that the thermometer of her passion ranged at or about ninety- two degrees in the shade. " Silence, woman !" said the Recorder. 164 PICKINGS FROM THL u PICAYUNE." "How can I be silent, yer honour?" said the indignant representative of Erin's pride " how can I be silent whin that bluebeard of a Robinson Cruis [Crusoe] wants to chate me out o' me hard airnings afore me two lookin' eyes !" u My heyes !" said a constable, u if she haint a reg'lar wixen of a voman !" In speaking of Robinson Crusoe, the lady with the deeply tinged auburn hair, held out her bared arm, and pointed the index finger of her dexter hand at a bilious-looking man, who was rather profuse in the display of whiskers and moustache, and who kept working his shoulders up and down, like a patent sawing machine, while the aforesaid volley of Irish eloquence was poured out at him. " What is your name ?" said the Recorder, addressing the lady. " Me father's name was Flaherty," she replied ; " but me mother was of the Dorans, of Ballymackduff, the rale ould stock." Recorder. " I don't care if your mother could trace her ancestry back to Noah : I ask you what is your name r" Complainant. " O, af coorse I'm called Bridget McMona han sence I marrid ; and if you don't b'lieve I was lawfully \marrid, I've the priest's lines at home, in the corner o' the box, and can sind for thim." " Mon Dieu ! Mon Dieu !" said the defendant in this case, turning up his eyes in astonishment at the volubility of Mrs Bridget McMonahan. " Now," said the Recorder, addressing Bridget in a stern, emphatic tone " now state the complaint you have to make against this gentleman ; and if you don't confine yourself to it, I'll confine you to the calaboose." Bridget." Well, yer honour, I jist want to swear the pace agin him, for chatin' me out o' the money he honestly owes me, and there's the bill." The following is the copy of the account handed in by Bridget in evidence : Jacobus De Vitol, To Bridget McMonahan, Dr. To washing a dickey four times, $00 50 To do a pair of wrist frills twice [4 pieces] 00 50 To do a shirt collar four times, 00 50 $1 50 The Frenchman being called upon to explain why lie re- AN IMPOSTURE. 165 pudiated the payment of his just debts, he told the Recorder, in broken English, it was one grand imposition, for in France, he said, " you see, de collair, de ruffle, de dickey, de tout en semble, be reckon de one whole shirt. Me will pay for de shirt me no comprehend de pieces." The fact was, that the Frenchman conceived that four bits, instead of one dollar and a half, was the legal amount due and owing to Mrs. McMonahan. 1 On the code of practice adopted by the washerwoman, how ever, being explained to him, he " footed" the bill, and footed out of the office in a rage. AN IMPOSTURE. " Hypocrisy ! in mercy spare it ! That holy robe oh, dinna tear it !" IF a mental microscope were constructed by which we could discern men's motives and scan their incentives to action, how many impostures would we find in the world ! what un- revealed mysteries would be brought to light ! We would find men bearing the livery of religion, pointing to heaven, and professing to lead the way, with hearts black as their clothing men concealing under the garb of piety souls leavened with sin. We would find affected patriots thundering their anathe mas against the corruption of men in power, whilst their own boasted political purity might be properly construed as love of place. We would see the man who in public is most loud in his laudations of morality, in private the most active abettor of vice. We would see men professing a universal or unbounded love for all mankind, inveighing at the success of his friend or neighbour. We would see, in a word, that men are not, in every instance, what they seem to be. But we did not mean to write an essay on hypocrisy in general we meant but to speak of humbug in particular; or rather, to tell of William Weithman, a loafer of the upper crust soap-lock order, whom we sa\v up before the Recorder yesterday. " William Weithman ?" said the Recorder, in a tone which told there was something not very complimentary in store for William. A full-faced, fuddled-looking individual answered, " Here, sir," to his honour's call. 166 PICKINGS FROM THE " PICAYUNE." " Johanna Van Dernwall ?" cried out the Recorder and a flaxen-haired, blue-eyed, plump-looking girl instantly made her appearance. " Are you not a pretty fellow ?" said the magistrate to Wil liam, viewing him with an eye of disapprobation. William, without making any reply, put his hand on the crown of his head, and let it fall down over his coat collar to the extremity of his chesnut-coloured locks, as much as to say " Well, I rather guess I am." " State your complaint against this man," said the Recorder, addressing Miss Johanna. " Veil, I vill," said the pretty Dutch girl, curtseying to his honour, and she continued " Ven I vash in de market dish mornin', he comes up and he says, ' I vansh a cup o' coffee,' and he says, 4 1 vansh a tother cup o' coffee, and I vansh egghs, and pred, and a tother cup o' coffee, and ven he drankhs all me cuphs o' coffee, and hates mine egghs and mine pred, I says 4 yoush siksh bit to pay,' and he say ' I no pay ; I be- longhs to de shick soshiety : I sthays upvid every von vot ish not veil ; I'm de charity man !' sho I calls dish man, [the Com missary of the market] and he takesh him up." " Yes," said the Commissary, " J know him to be a loafer and an impostor. The men who belong to the different benevo lent societies are young gentlemen of standing and character they would not associate with such a fellow as that ! Why, it was only a few minutes before I arrested him, that I saw him turned out of the 4 Pig and Whistle !' he had two drinks, and would not pay for them, because he said he belonged to the .Fi/-anthropic Association ! I'll be swoun, your honour, if he don't look like a quack-doctor !" William begged to be heard in his defence. u May it please the court," he said, " you see before you the victim of a wicked, malignant and undeserved persecution. I never said I belonged to any humane society ; I never said I was a member of any charitable association ; but I did say, sir, I repeat it now, that I was a poor, penniless individual; that the epidemic stared me in the face, and that, were it for no other motive than to prevent me being a burthen on the benevolence of your citizens, it behooved me to partake of the means of sustenance where- ever I found it. Sir, I maintain that this was acting on first principles that it was obeying the dictates of nat " "Silence, sir," said the Recorder, " I have heard enough from you. I shall commit you for thirty days. Take him out," LAW IN MISSISSIPPI. 167 and in an instant an officer, who had been all along waiting for the closing word of condemnation, took him out. Weithman muttered something as he went with the officer about " Man, vain man, dressed in a little brief authority." The Recorder paid the Dutch girl, from his own private re sources, her six bits, and so the trial terminated. LAW IN MISSISSIPPI; OR, AN OFFENSIVE DEFENCE. PERHAPS the jurisprudence of Mississippi within the last few years has given birth to a wider range of pleading, and brought forth more pure, native, forensic eloquence than the highest tribunal of our country in the mean time. Few per sons, being strangers and not u to the manner born," who should enter one of the roughly constructed temples of justice in the interior counties of the state, before the solemn " Oyez f oyez ! oyez !" of the crier proclaimed its formal opening, could, from a hasty glance at the bench, the bar, the inferior officers, litigants and loafers, anticipate the legal research, the great professional ability and lofty eloquence which, like a subter ranean stream struggling to be free, were shortly to burst forth to the light of day and the edification of all whose good for tune it might be to obtain a verdict in their favour. Who could suppose not knowing the parties that he in the threadbare black coat, with the bran bread countenance, who asks the man in the brown flannel frock for a chew of tobacco who, we say, could suppose that he holds the fortunes, aye, the lives of free and independent Mississippians within his grasp ; that he it is that wields the sword of justice and poises its scales in the air of law and equity. And again, who could imagine that that rollicking, good looking young man. with his feet on the bench, or rather on the deal table before the bench, who is arguing with the ex-bank director on the right of repudiation who could imagine that under so rough an exterior there lay hidden so much law, so much learning, so much pristine talent, so much pure pathos. But the report of a single case will illustrate our several points better than if *e generalized through whole pages We shall, therefore. 168 PICKINGS FROM THE " PICAYUNE." * select a case from the records of the late term of the Copiah county court, which, we think, will bear us but in our pref atory remarks. This case stood No. 9 on the docket, and was endorsed " Thomas Taylor vs. William Mackew." "Taylor vs. Mackew Holwell and Harriett?" said the clerk, reading from the fixed cases. " Ready," said Holwell. " Ready," echoed Harnett. The crier called silence, first expectorating as much tobacco juice on the floor as would send Charley Dickens into a swoon ; the witnesses were called, the jury were empannelled and the case proceeded. It was an action by which the plaintiff claimed right to the possession of three negroes, the property of the defendant. The case was opened by one of plaintiff's counsel, who, by the way, had secured the professional services of three of the legal luminaries of Copiah county. His witnesses were called their evidence went point blank to the matter at issue, and the general impression was that the unanimous opinion of the jury would be w verdict for the plaintiff." When the case for the plaintiff' had closed, the judge told Harnett, for the defence, to call his witnesses. u We mean to dispense with witnesses in this case, may it please the court," said Harnett, and this he uttered with an air of confidence that seemed to astonish every body. u Then do you mean to let the case go by default ?" said the judge. U D n clear of it," said Harnett aside and in an under tone to his client, who seemed to look at the thing as "a gone case" and then turning to the court he added, " We do not, may it please the court, but the plaintiff's counsel have so palpably failed to establish the grounds of this action they have so evidently shown that the plaintiff's right to my client's ne groes is futile and without foundation, that I deem it a waste of time of this honourable court, and a libel on the good sense of that intelligent jury, to offer any evidence or quote one word of the law which applies to the case. Indeed, so clear does the case appear to me, that I was thinking of sub mitting it to the jury without a single remark ; but on reflec tion I have concluded to offer a few observations, that my client may stand before this community in his proper character, that of an honest, honourable and injured man !" When he spoke of the clearness of the case in his client's LAW IN MISSISSIPPI. 169 | favour, the judge looked at the jury and the jury looked at the judge, and one of plaintiff's counsel whistled w whew !" But this did not disconcert Harriett, and into the defence he went, jumping over very wisely, as he said he would, all law and evidence, for it would puzzle a Philadelphia lawyer, much less a Mississippi lawyer, to find any of either in his favour. " Gentlemen," he said, " I will suppose, for argument sake for it is only for the sake of argument that such a supposition can be for a moment entertained I will suppose, I say, that the plaintiff had made out his case ; would you, when the debt is but a surety one. deprive my client of his negroes, the only prop and support of his fast declining years ? Shall it be said that in the free, independent and repudiating state of Missis sippi, the last remnant of my client's property shall be swept away to pay a debt, the first red cent of which he never handled ? Shall it be told abroad, among the bank men of New Orleans, the brokers of Wall street, New York, the Jews of the Royal Exchange in London, and the millionaries of the Bourse of Paris, that the three negroes, and the three only which the tornado of bad times, the crash of banks and the surges of suspension had spared him, are now to be gambled away by your verdict ? J say gambled away, gentlemen ; for such a verdict, in point of injustice, would sink below playing at brag or poker with marked cards mind you, I say with marked cards, gentlemen." He next launched into the pathetics. " Gentlemen," said he, "you all have wives young, amiable, interesting, lovely wives. Gentlemen, my client too has a wife ; but alas ! she is neither young, amiable, interesting or lovely. She is old, gentlemen, very oiu. AmiaDle she is not, for the vicissitudes of fortune and a constitution broken down by disease, have rendered her an object more to be pitied than admired ; interesting or lovely she cannot be, for she has long since passed that period pf life when beauty lends its blandishments to the cheek and sprightliness and vivacity add their lustre to personal attrac tions. Take these negroes away from her and you prostrate her as the immortal Shakspeare so elegantly expresses it ' You do take the cra That doth sustain ner nouse; you take her life When you do take the means whereby she lives.' " In fact, gentlemen, I pledge you my professional reputa- 170 PICKINGS FROM THE " PICAYUNE." tion that you would be all liable to indictment for murder in the first degree, should you find a verdict against my client." At this announcement the jury looked startled, the judge looked astonished, and at the several negative compliments paid to his better half, the plaintiff seemed nowise pleased. The counsel next referred to the head of his client, silvered o'er with age no, not with age, for he was comparatively a young man, but with the frosts of misfortune. Here the defendant darted out of the court in an apparent rage. The counsel continued his ingenious defence, and finally wound up by an ardent appeal to the virtue, intelligence, independ ence and magnanimity of the jury, to find for the defendant. The opposite counsel replied. They referred to the con clusive nature of the evidence, to the clearness of the law and the naked facts of the case. The judge charged in favour of the plaintiff, and censured the erratic and unprofessional couse of defendant's counsel, but it was all of no avail. The eloquence of Harnett, the pity-exciting picture which he drew of Mackew's wife, (in which by the way there was not one word of truth, for she happened to be a brisk, bouncing woman,) but above all his threat about arraigning them for murder, did the business with the jury, and without retiring from their seats they brought in a verdict for the defendant. Harnett immediately left the court, and on his way up to the tavern met his client, who seemed flushed with liquor and much excited. u Joy ! my boy, joy !" said the delighted coun sel, " I've gained the suit." " D n the suit and d n you and d n the negroes," said Mackew, " I would'nt suffer the abuse you gave the old woman and myself for the whole concarn. I'll lick you for it ' any way you can fix it ;' " and here he brandished a large stick over his zealous lawyer's head, and would have repaid him for his dexterous professional service with a sound beating, had npt mutual friends interposed. Explanations were made to Mackew, who at length became convinced ihat the talk about his wife's age, ugliness, &c., and about his o\vj gray hair, was "all in his eye and Elizabeth Martin ;" so they adjourned to the tavern and had a a-enerl drink. THE DANGER OF DIDDLING A BARBER. 171 THE DANGER OF DIDDLING A BARBER. A QUEER looking genius is Paul Preshraini. He looks as if nature had formed him while under a state of mesmeric influ ence, or at a time when she was unconscious of what she was doing. Paul has never made an effort to thwart her design ; au contraire, as the Algerines say, he invariably seconds her intention by acting oddly in a way that nobody else but Paul would act. He studied the science of shaving under a Parisian tonseur ; it is a business that affords a wide field for the exercise of his eccentricities, and he lets no available opportunity pass without playing one of his odd pranks. His rainbow-coloured pole graces the door of a shanty in. Basin street at the present writing. This shaving saloon is like himself queer, very queer. Besides the p<"le, the door is ornamented with the heraldic device of a blooclj arm, which is an intimation to the world that Paul is a phlebotomist as well as an exterminator of beards. The interior of the apart ment is graced with a miniature Bonaparte in large boots and a cocked hat, a mirror, through which a man can see his face f course," said Mrs. Ringwood, "and endeavouring to win clandestinely the affections of this young and amiable child." Here Mr. Twing turned up his eyes, as if he were attempting to descry a bottle-fly on the ceiling, and Eugenia turned down " her'n," as if she was looking for a pin on the floor. u Stale what steps he took to accomplish his purposes," said the Recorder. "Steps !" exclaimed Mrs. Ringwood, "why he took no steps at all. If he did, I'd have no fault to find with him. Didn't he promise to teach Eugenia all sorts of steps the Pol-/tfl/, the CaZ-chouka and the Crack-a-vein, and all these things ; but instead of that, he never gave her a lesson. She doesn't know no more than her three first positions, and them her poor dear father taught her. Eugenia, show his honour how gracefully you understand the attitudes." A DANCING-MASTER IN A DILEMMA. 177 " Not now, Mrs. Ringwood," said the Recorder. " I sit here to decide a question of law and fact, and not to act as umpire m the Court Terpsichorean. Mr. Twing makes a counter complaint against you. He says you retain a silver-keyed flute of his, worth fifteen dollars." " O gracious me!" exclaimed Mrs. Ringwood, "didn't he make a present of it to Eugenia ' didn't I hear him with my own two ears singing " ' I give thee all, I can nomore, Though poor the ofFring be ; My heart and flute are all the store That I can bring to thee !' " " I suppose, Mrs. Ringwood," said the Recorder, u that it was but a poetical presentation." " Nothing more in life, your honour," said Mr. Twing. " On the occasion which she refers to, J was but indulging in a fa vourite retrospective scene, which from association made that song dear to me a scene which impressed itself on my memory long before I saw these vulgar people, and which will remain graven there long after every trace of their ignorance will be obliterated." Here Mr. Twing sighed an audible sigh, placed his left hand over his right elbow, and placed the nail on the thumb of his right hand between his teeth. He was a fine study fora painter who would wish to present Bonaparte in a contemplative mood the night before the battle of Austerlitz. " Mr. Twing," said the Recorder, " did you agree, as Mrs. Ringwood says you did, to teach her daughter to dance ?" " There certainly was such an agreement, your honour," replied Mr. Twing, " and I have performed my part of it. I do not wish to be ungallant, for you know what Shakspeare says " u It matters not what Shakspeare says," said the Recorder : " what have you got to say touching your failure to instruct this young lady in dancing, as you had agreed to do ?" " That success in the undertaking were impossible," replied Mr. Twing. u Why, your honour sees the girl before you - you see her carriage and bearing. By perseverance 1 think I could teach an elephant to move through a quadrille, or a buffalo to understand the gallope ; but as for perfecting Miss Eugenia Ringwood in the ' poetry of motion,' lord ! your honour, the thing is an impracticable impossiblity ! You see, sir, that she is no figure no cut, but all shuffle!" 69 178 PICKINGS FROM THE " PICAYUNE " Here Eugenia began to weep, and Mrs. Ringwood began to apply epithets to Mr. Twing such as " good-for-nothing fel low," " impostor," " bolrayer of innocence," and all that to suffer which was deemed by the Recorder beneath the dignity df his court, and so he had her silenced. He ordered Mrs. Ringwood to give to Mr. Twing his silver-keyed flute, and advised her to sue Mr. T. in a civil court for the amount which she claimed as due and owing her. Mr. Twing chasse-ed out of the room as gracefully as if he were going through the second figure in Paine's quadrilles, and Mrs. Ringwood left, emphatically affirming that she would never more let such a good-for-nothing scamp enter her door. THE FANCY NOT FANCIED. BILL SMITH, a fellow who looked like a flash Bowery boy, was brought up yesterday before the Recorder on the compla nt of a little oldish man who called himself Alfred Granger. J ill wore a small, straight-leafed hat ; a short skirted coat v ith brass buttons and pockets outside ; he sported a Belcher hand kerchief, and a remarkably large brooch in his shirt bosom. " What is the nature of your complaint ?" asked the Re corder of Mr. Granger. " Why, I charges this here man with being a himposter," said Granger. " You see as how I have got a son who is a wery promising young man a wery promising young man indeed ; he has great genius, only it wants to be brought out to be developed, as the phrenologists say. He makes the prettiest kind of paper kites, and paints wings and all on 'em. Well, you see, this here man introduces himself to me as a professor of the arts and sciences, and one that could paint and draw, and do any thing that nobody could do ; and he says to me, says he, won't you have your son taught a few lessons, says he my terms will be moderate. I doesn't mind about the terms, says I, but I think he is rather old ; yet I know he has taste and fancy. He aint too old, said he, and I fancy he's just the sort of a feller to make one of the fancy Well, we agrees, and I leaves him in the room with my son, telling him to commence on a landscape scene. Would your honour be lieve that when I returned I found this here Smith and ir-y son boxing one another for the bare life, though neither oi fJ?oi THE FANCY NOT FANCIED. 179 seemed in a passion, and they both wore gloves as large as bed pillows." ; What is this for ?" I asked. " It's only a set-to," replied Smith. " Is this what you calls the fine arts ?" said I. " No, I calls this the noble art of self-defence," said he. " I thought you were master of the sciences," said L " Don't you call this science ?" said he. "You told me you could draw," said I. " So I can," said he, and he hits my boy a blow on the nose that brings the blood from it. " Don't you call that drawing^ old feller," said he ; and he turns round and squares up at me, and he says " Where'll you take it." "I'll not take it nowhere," said I, running out; " but you'll catch it, that you will, when I bring you up before the Re corder ; and here he is now, your honour." As the Recorder adopts the old fashioned custom of hearing both sides of a story, he thought he would hear Mr. Smith before deciding. Smith declared that Granger gave a very erroneous version of the transaction. He professed, he said, the science of pu gilism, and taught it agreeably to the most approved rules of the ring. He agreed with the plaintiff to give his son lessons in the noble art of self-defence, and these were the only pro fessions he made about his knowledge of the arts and sciences. As for painting, he said it was never mentioned, nor did he believe that Sir Joshua Reynolds, if he were alive, could make a painter of the young man ; he's a regular thick head, your honour, and won't even make a good boxer. The Recorder, finding that Mr. Granger "mistook his man" in the person of Mr. Smith, and that the misunderstanding orig inated in his commendable zeal to foster and improve the genius of his son, he discharged the case, cautioning Smith at the same time against giving any more lessons to young Grangei in opposition to the wishes of his anxious parent. 180 PICKINGS FROM THE u PICAYUNE." MICK PARREL'S SERENADE. RFCORDER BALDWIN was liberally patronised on _unday and yesterday. Among the victims was Mick Farrell. Mick took it into his head to get " high" on Saturday night, and being in liquor and in love, he also took it into his head to saranade Bridget Donahoe, his soul's idol, who officiates as Ude in a gentleman's mansion in Carondelet street. Mick having taken his last toddy, tottled on to where Bridget acted as principal cook, determined to soften her obdurate heart with his syren voice, and ii he did not succeed, to commit " infan ticide," as he called it, by drowning himself in the Mississippi. In fact, he had made up his mind " It was the night That was to make him or undo him quite !" Having arrived at the house that held all his hopes, he look ed into the basement apartment, vulgarly called the kitchen. He saw a light but did not see his beloved Bridget. He at once commenced singing his song or serenade. It depicted the beauty of Bridget in the most glowing and poetical colours, and represented his own sufferings as " intolerable." Bridget's eyes were like "diamonds bright," her cheeks were like u the rose," her teeth (which, to speeak the truth, were none of the whitest) were by Mick likened unto ivory, and her neck, to which the sun and the fire had imparted a glow resembling a par boiled beefsteak, he imaginatively compared to alabaster ! He spoke of his own heart bleeding, of burning with love, of suffer ing divers other torments, and wound up by saying of Bridget " She seems like a goddess or some young divine, That came as a torment to torture makind!" " Are you there, Bridget darlin' ?" said Mick, when he finish ed his song, " or don't ye hear me spakin' to ye ? Git up there and come down here, cushlamachree, or I'll lose me sinses in- tirely. I've lost me appetite alriddy : I've thried sassaprilla pills, and they wont cure me. Oh, Bridget dear, if ye don't say ye love me right off, widout goin' round the bush about it, I'll sartinly go cracked and commit infanticide!" u Is that Mick ?" said Bridget, putting her head out of an attic window. A MUSICAL MELEE. 181 "TThroth, thin it's me own self, acushla," said Mick; "all o' me that's in it. I'm wasted away like a withered praty stalk, thinkin' of yer purty face, sleepiu' and wakin,' night, noon and mornin'!" " Mick !" said Bridget. "What's that, a colleen ?" says Mick. u Yoii're an ass, Mick!" said Bridget, very composedly. u Omille-o'-murdher! fire! robbery! I'm kilt!" roared Mick, and he commenced cutting up fantastic tricks like one actually beside himself. The simple monosyllable ass applied to him by Bridget seemed to have in a moment quenched the light of reason in him. Fortunately the watchman came up as he was in the height of his vagaries, and took him to the watchhouse. On Sunday morning, when called on by the Recorder to account for his strange conduct, he said it was u all ovvin' to the dhrop o' dhrink and a sort of a tindher regard" he had for Bridget Donahoe. The Recorder told him he should let him go on paying jail fees, but if he should be ever caught again annoying the quiet of the city, he would be sent down \ it would matter not whether the cause was love or liquor. Mick made his best bow and departed. A MUSICAL MELEE. THE Recorder recently received a visit from a customer who looked as though he had been roughly used in more ways than one. His coat appeared to have been rudely handled, and bore strong evidence that some other hand than that of Time had been at work upon it. His eyes had variegated borders about them, and the balls themselves had evidently been operated upon for strabismus on the Kentucky system. His nose was twisted about " every which way," as the saying is, and his forehead had more bumps upon it than can be found on any phrenological chart in Christendom. In short, his whole visage looked as though some young beginner had been scratch ing the notes of the more difficult passages of the Battle of Prague upon it. Walking up to the Recorder with a mincing, sliding, shuffling gait, and politely removing his hat, which also bore evident maik/s of having been " out" with him in some recent hard skrimmage, he began with 182 PICKINGS FROM THE U PICATLNE." "Monsieur le President, sare, you see I be killed vid one d n salt and batter, and I calls for you to hang all de d n rascal in de vorld vera quick." " Who are you " said the Recorder. " I am de first fiddle, sare." " And can discourse most eloquent music, no doubt," con tinued the Recorder. " Oui, very much," retorted the first fiddle, with an air of ludicrous importance. " And who blacked your eyes ?" " D n, by gar, it was de rascal double bass did black my two eye." " I didn't suppose him to be so base, so low a character," ^said the Recorder. "Solo! by gar it was one quartette, sare. De double bass he blacky my eye, ad de trombone did put in vat you call de big licks in my vat you call dis ?" placing his hand on his forehead. "And those hieroglyphics on your face let us hear who else was in the row," continued the Recorder. " I will explain de whole affair, sare, in two minit. You see, dat while de big fiddle was black my two eye and de trombone was develop dese bumps, de French horn and de clarionet was playin' at my face and nose, and " " Why the whole orchestra was performing away on you at the same time." " Yes, sare, and very much out ob de tune, at dat. I feel so very much provoke dat I could tear my shirt in forty piece. D n, dey knock me into de middle of nex week." "Were you in liquor at the time ?" said the Recorder. " Wat you call in liquor, eh ?" " Were you drunk, to speak plainly ?" " Entre deux vins," said the first fiddle, with an assenting shrug of the shoulders ; " I was leetle drunk, leetle how come you to be so, dat's a fac." " Well, sir," you call again when 1 am not so busy, and I will take your affidavit against every instrument in the orchestra \hat was engaged in the affray, for they evidently played upon you to some purpose. It was certainly a most inharmonious proceeding." The first fiddle bowed and left the office, threatening to blow the French horn sky high, cram the trombone down its owner's throat and kick the big fiddle into perfect fits. A VIOLATION OP THE TREATY. 183 A VIOLATION OF THE TREATY. AMONG the appellants for justice at the Recorder's office yes terday, was Damon Dunfield, an old Ethiopian, whose wood- saw was hung on his shoulder like the guitar of a troubadour, ere the days of chivalry had gone by. Damon looked about as wise as an owl in daylight; he appeared to have borrowed for the occasion, the dilapidated hat of Jacques Strop, and the remainder of his wardrobe seemed made to match. His hair was a grizzly gray, and his face wrinkled and puckery, like a postillion's boot. u I wants to hab dis 'ere business settled, massa 'Corder, dagreeable to de constirtushun." " What business is that ?" said the Recorder. " Whoy, you sees, massa 'Corder, dis 'ere nigga has wior- lated de treaty affer de boundary line was 'greed to 'tween us." " Dis 'ere nigga," to which Damon alluded, was a big, burly black, with teeth enough to form the stock in trade of a den tist, and a pair of eyes that curvetted about in their sockets like the revolving lamp of a light-house. " And pray," said the Recorder, " what has this negro to do with the violation of the treaty or the tracing of the boundary line ?" u I aint got nuffin at all," said the fellow with the mouthful of bones. M But I says you hab," said Damon," and I'll just 'splain d* whole ting to massa Judge, in less time dan I'd be sharpenin' my saw." " Well, then, let us hear you," said the Recorder. " Wai, it's jus' dis, massa," said Damon, " you sees dis chil' is an old squatter and no mistake. I's had what you may call de pre-emption right to de cuttin' ob all de wood 'tween Canal and Customhouse streets and de Lebee and Dau phin streets, I doesn't know how long; wal, dis 'ere nigga comes and he cuts into my cus'omers wood, and cuts me out, for he interferes wid my wested rights. Wal, massa, yon sees I speak to him like a book, or jus' as massa Webster did to Lord Ass-bur'on, and I conwinces him right up and down dat he aint no right to 'trude on my bound'ry." " Guess, ol' fella, I knows de science ob wood sawin' well as you do," said the big negro, " dere aint notin' in the con stirtushun to perwent me, neider," 184 PICKINGS FROM THE "PICAYUNE." "Silence, sir," said the Recorder; and silence having pre vailed, Damon continued " Wai, as 1 was sayin', massa Judge, when I showed him my exclusib pribileges, he tho't to come de diplermatics ober me, but he couldn't shine, no how, so finerly he 'grees not to cut no wood widin my limerts no way, no somedevor." "I didn't sign no documents," said the big negro. " You pledged de word ob a wood-sawyer and a darkey dat you wouldn't," said Damon, "and now I cotches you at it ebery day." " Did he commit any assault and battery on you ?" said the Recorder. "He didn't," said Damon, "but you sees, massa Judge, he's a strange nigga, and I calls on you to purtect home industry. 1 wants you to go in for what massa Clay calls de'Merican system." The Recorder assured Damon that he would do all in his power to protect home industry, and to support the American system, but that he could not interfere with his rival in busi ness, or prevent his sawing wood within the imaginary boun dary lines to which he (the plaintiff) seemed to set up a pre scriptive right. The case was dismissed. Damon shouldered his saw, and pledged himself to bring the case before a higher court. ALLWELL, NOT ALL RIGHT. THE proceedings of the police office were yesterday varied by the rehearsal of what would be called in the playbills "a drama of domestic interest." The principal characters those whose names would be underlined, if the subject had been dramatized were Dudley Dobbs, and what out of court esy we shall call his better half. Oliver All well, too, had a part assigned to him in the piece; but as it was not a main one, we shall for the present pass him over. Dobbs has passed the summer of life, though his appearance as yet gives but little evidence of the sear leaf of autumn. He is a pursy little man, with a round, red face, and evidently of 3, bilious, nervous temperament. Before his case was called Wai, it's jus' dis, massa," said DamoD, "you sees dis chil' is an. old squatter, and no mistake." Page 183. ALLWELL, NOT ALL WELL. 185 up he paced the court-room backward and forward, sometimes suddenly striking the boards with his cane; at other times striking his forehead, which was bald, with the palm of his hand, and exclaiming in a semi-suppressed voice " J'm a miserable man ! False, fickle Fanny ! envious Allwell." u Mrs. Dobbs' " human face divine" was concealed beneath the folds of a green veil. What her personal charms were, at that stage of the proceedings, it was impossible to discover. She kept up a pendulum kind of movement with her body, as if she were practising experiments on perpetual motion. In the course of human events or, more strictly speaking, when the names that preceded those of Dobbs and Allwell on the watch report had been called over and disposed of, then did the clerk call out " Allwell versus Dobbs witness, Mrs. Dobbs." "I call on the court to dismiss this case at once," said Mr. Dobbs. " It was a prostitution of judicial power to have ever brought me here, and I protest against any investigation, as an unnecessary and illegal exposure of domestic privacy." " The court knows its duty, Mr. Dobbs," said the Recorder, "and will perform it. You have been subpoenaed here to answer to an assault, and not to instruct the court in its duty. It is vested with a power to shield itself from insult, or at least with a power to punish for any insult offered. Beware sir, how you address it." "Dobbs, dear, be calm," interposed Mrs. Dobbs, partially raising her green veil and looking entreaty ; " don't offend his honour." " I will," Dobbs ; that is, I will not suffer myself to be brought before a public court by that scoundrel Allwell, whose very name is a misnomer, without protesting against it !" During these preliminary remarks Mr. Oliver Allwell sat with his chair poised back against the wall, the hind feet of it only touching the boards, and his feet resting on the front rung. He was paring his nails, and we could hear him hum ming, soto voce " Dance, the boatman dance." Being the complainant, however, he was called on to state his charge. He did so briefly, and in a manner which showed that he feared not Mr. Dobbs, either in or out of a passion. "May it please your honour, sir," said Allwell, " I recently arrived in the city,- and accidentally met with Mrs. Dobbs, who 186 PICKINGS FROM THE "PICAYUNE." was an old acquaintance of mine in fact, I was her beau, as we say." Here Dobbs looked daggers at Mrs. Dobbs, and bowie- knives at Allwell. Allwell continued " In short, your honour, she invited me to tea on Friday evening, when every thing passed off well. Again, on invitation, I took tea with her and her husband on Monday evening. Mrs. D. and I talked of old times, and dwelt upon by-gone reminiscences, when Dobbs, without any previous intimation of his design, actually pushed me out of his house ! I could, but I would not, inflict upon him personal chastisement, preferring to have him punished by the strong arm of the law." " Now J shall hear you, Mrs. Dobbs," said the Recorder. "Dobby, my duck," said Mrs. Dobbs, "ask Mr. Allwell's pardon ; do, my dear, he is such a nice gentleman." " Yes, Mrs. Dobbs," said Mr. Dobbs, " and I thought you were a nice gentlewoman a discreet woman a but I'm deceived in you, Mrs. D. You " " What have you to say to this charge, Mr. Dobbs ?" asked the Recorder. " This, your honour," said Mr. Dobbs: "On Thursday last my wife was out shopping, and when she came in she said to me, 'Dobby, my dear,' says she, (she always calls me Dobby, and I call her Fan, for short her Christian name is Fanny) ' Dobby, my dear,' says she. ' What is it, Fan, my love,' says I. ' I just met my cousin Allwell, from New York, and I invited him to tea to-morrow evening,' says she. ' I s'pose it's all right, my love,' says I. ' It is Dobby, dear,' says she, ' he's such a nice man.' ' Well, your honour, he did tea it with us on Friday evening, and between them they engrossed the whole conversation ; I seemed to be nobody with them, and I certainly did not feel like myself. They talked of nothing but pic-nics at Hoboken, drives to Harlem, boating parties to Staten Island, and society balls in all parts of the city. I bore it, your honour bore it like a man ; but, would you believe it, when I came home, on Monday evening, " Oh ! Dobby dear, d " interrupted Mrs. Dobbs. "Never c Dobby' or 'dear' me again, madam!" exclaimed Mr. Dobbs: "I detest deception, ma'am." [Here Mrs. D. insinuated her white handkerchief to the corper of her eye.] Dobbs continued : "Yes, your honour, when I came home LOVE AND LETTER WRITING. 187 on Monday evening, I actually found him with his arm round her neck, and he reading ' The Mysteries of Paris' to her ! 4 Dobby,' says she. 'Mrs. D.,' says I. ' Love !' says she. 'Fiddlesticks!' says I. 'That scoundrel,' says I 'your coz, as you call him quits this house instantly.' 'You'll drive me mad, Dobbs,' says she. ' You have driven me crazy, madam,' says I ; ' but, at all events, out he goes,' and so out I put him." Mrs. Dobbs was called on by both plaintiff and defendant to give testimony in their favour; but she preferred to remain neutral, except so far as her entreaties to both Allwell and "Dobby" went, to settle the affair amicably. As there was no " battery" proven, the Recorder simply bound Dobbs over to keep the peace; but he advised Mrs. Dobbs never to invite even a cousin to tea. unless her husband approved of the invitation. LOVE AND LETTER WRITING. YESTERDAY a most romantic looking young gentleman made his appearance at the police office. An unsealed note, which came "greeting" from the Recorder, politely command ing him to " be and appear" there at ten o'clock and answer to the complaint of Mrs. Martha Williamson, and which ended by a hint to "fail not at his peril," bringing visions of the calaboose before his excitable imagination was the immediate cause of his presence in that particular temple of justice. His face Mas overhung by a profusion of coal-black hair, which he wove in ringlets he called them hyperion curls and his face was as pale and pensive as if he were preparing to act the ghost in a melo-drama. He gazed through his eye-glass with an air of supercilious scorn, and seemed even to regard the Recorder as some fel-low beneath his dignity. He looked like one who breakfasted on love-sonnets, who dined on sentiment, supped on serenades, and slept on romance. He seemed, in a word The very extasy of love ; Whose violent property forebodes itself, And leads the will to desperate undertakings, As oft as any passion under heaven That does afflict our natures." When Mrs. Martha Williamson was called, a woman entei 188 PICKINGS FROM THE " PICAYUNE." ing the sere and yellow leaf of life made her appearance. Though her eyes had lost some of their pristine brilliancy, their glances were still quick and subtle, and evinced a dis trustful watchfulness of all over which she had control. She was told by the Recorder to state the complaint she had to make against Theophilus Travere and this led us into the secret of the romantic gentleman's nomenclature. The old, or rather the more than middle-aged woman, be fore commencing a recital of her wrongs, adjusted her gloves and threw back her black veil over her bonnet, leaving the margin of it to hang gracefully over her forehead as so much drapery : u O, sir," said Mrs. Williamson, cooling her temples, with an artificial current of air created by the motion of her fan " O, sir, I wants to have this here man put in the peni tentiary." "In the penitentiary!" said the Recorder, with surprise; " why what has he been doing ?" " There's what he has been doing," said Mrs. Williamson, drawing a pocket-book from her reticule and drawing from the pocket-book some half dozen letters, fancifully folded, some in diamond shape, and others in the form of a triangle. ' There's what he has been a doing ; writing love-letters to my daughter till he has fairly turned her head." They were addressed to Miss Clementha Clarinda Levina Williamson, and were "sure enough" love-letters, as full of rhapsody and romance, of poetry and plighted vows, as a bal loon is full of gas. The Recorder was proceeding to open these missives, forged in Cupid's arsenal and aimed at the heart of the amiable and interesting Clementha Clarinda Lavina Williamson, when Theophilus Travere entered his protest against such a pro ceeding in the following words : " I waise my pwotest against any man, even the Rocawdaw of this onowable court weading my pwiwate lettaws or pa- paws." " It is necessary I should read them," said the Recorder, " in order to discover the nature of your offence." " Well then, to save the cooat twoble," said Theophilus, "I at once admit I am the awthaw of those pwoductions. I have, fo* the first time, felt the tendaw passion fo' the admiw- able Miss Williamson, and have made these bwief epwistles the medium of communicawting to my soul's idol the intensity of my passion." LOVE AND LETTER WRITING. 189 Here is one of the billet deaux, which we think should find a place in the next " Ready Letter Writer." No. 17. , street, March, 1841. " Doubt thou the stars are fire ; Doubt that the sun would move ; Doubt truth to be a liar; But never doubt I love !" " Angelic Clementha Clarinda Lavina "Fairest of creation's fair ! most adorable of thy sex ! my soul's best idol ! will not love, pity or compassion move you to grant me an inter view ? Will the admonitions of a morose mother, prevail over the ardent solicitations of your impassioned lover ? Can it be that a soul enshrined in a form so lovely as yours, is insensible to the influences of the platoruc passion, and that eyes beaming with such beauty will apply no salve to the wound which they have, unconsciously no doubt, made ? O, dearest Clementha Clarinda Lavina! I am being consumed by the wasiing tire of love, which your charms have enkindled in rny bosom, and unless you form some scheme of seeing me ere long, you will leave me like the phcsnix in my nest to burn ! " Alas ! that love, so gentle in his mien, Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof! Adorably ever thine, THEOPHILUS TRAVERE. " P. S. I send this by the negro woman Dinah, who will wait on you this afternoon for an answer. T. T. "P. S. S. Don't let that petrified piece of mortality, your anxious mother, see this. T. T. " P. P. S. S. My name is not signed with red ink, but with my blood my heart's blood. Is not that a proof of the sacrifice I am prepared to make for your sake. T. T." The Recorder having perused this document and the others which were of a similar import, facetiously smiled and informed Mrs. Williamson that, so far as he could judge from the letters before him, Mr. Theophilus Travere was not guilty of a peni tentiary offence, or indeed of any offence at all of which the law could take cognisance, unless writing nonsense might be considered a capital offence a supposition which any thing 6e read in " the books" did not warrant him in coming to. He discharged the case, but cautioned Theophilus against doing any thing that would disturb the peace of Mrs. William son's family. Theophilus bowed and retired. Mrs. W. retired without lowing. 190 PICKINGS FROM THE ' IrJAYUNE." A LIVEHOOSIER. WE love to look at a real, genuine, live Hoosier, and we love to talk to him. We do not mean those fever and ague affected fellows who find their way into Indiana and out of it again, and who are little better than locomotive medicine chests ; we mean those stalworth sons of the soil, with sound hearts and strong arms, who are " to the manner born." Such a one is John Whitworth, whom we met yesterday in the Second Municipality police office. John came to Orleans in his favourite mode of conveyance, a flatboat. The captain of the flatboat, in paying off John, gave him a bad ten dollar bill, of which he was not aware. John caught our fancy wonderfully, and while setting on a side seat, waiting for proof of his inno cence, we sat beside him with a view of bringing him out. " What height are you ?" said we. " Six feet three, scant," said John. " Why, how did you find room for yourself in the watch- house ?" said we. " 1 coiled myself up, 5 ' said John. " What age are you," said we. " Twenty-two, come next husking time," said John. "Ever been in a calaboose before ?" said we. "No, sir-r-r; it was my first time to look through the iron bars," said John. u What is your politics ?" said we. " I'm touched off mighty strong with whiggery, I tell you, stranger," said John. " Why are you not a locofoco ?" said we. " I couldn't no how," said John " 1 live too near the old coon (Harrison) for that." " Indiana is a fine country to live in, no doubt," said we " plenty of corn, bread, whiskey and all that." " Yes, sir-r-r," said John " it's an extensive country ; plenty of corn, bread, pork and all that, as you say, and whiskey out of the ashes" What this last phrase meant, we could not divine, and we candidly confessed our ignorance to John, who seemed to pity us for our limited comprehension, but told us it meant "lots," "plenty." The dialogue broke off here. We need not say that John was honourably discharged. A NEGATIVE BEAUTY. 191 A NEGATIVE BEAUTY. IN the countenance of Catharine Gafney many of the es sentials to beauty exist, but they are not arranged or regulated well. But for a slight misplacing of these essentials, Catharine would be a charming creature, and indeed as it is, we can only say that her style of countenance differs from our beau ideal, though to others she may still be all fascination. We were early prejudiced in favour of red lips, and consequently we cannot easily reconcile ourselves to seeing the ruby of beauty transferred from the lips to the nose. Neither can we easily surrender our preference for a full row of pearly teeth, instead of a cavern of stumps " Like broken bottles on an old dead wall." We like blue eyes and black eyes, but we have a foolish an tipathy to eyes that are black and blue. Hair is undoubtedly an ornament to man and woman, yet, as there may sometimes be too much of it, so there may sometimes be too little. Cath arine has just thirty-seven hairs, and as she scorns to wear a wig, this fact is fully apparent. Of these thirty-seven hairs, Catharine at any rate boasts a pleasant variety in the way of colour, ten of them being gray, ten brown, ten red. and seven yellow. Catharine's eyes are red, caused, probably, by her looking crosswise continually at her ripe red nose. Qitha- rine's lips are blue, her cheeks yellow, her forehead and neck brown, and with admirable taste her dress is composed of an assortment of these same colours blue, brown, black, red, gray, saffron, every colour but white is mingled in Catharine's dress ; and with commendable independence of mind she has, in spite of the tyranny of fashion, abandoned the health-destroying corset, so that her motley coloured gown " Floats as wild as summer breezes, Leaving every beauty free To sink or swell as heaven pit Catharine stood yesterday in the Recorder's court not like a Madonna, nor a Muse, nor like Madame Lecomte, nor like Venus " When she rose Out of the sea, and with her life did fill The Grecian Isles with everlasting verdure." 192 PICKINGS FROM THE " PICAYUNE." but like her own identical and not-to-be-counterfeited sel y Catharine Gafney. Recorder. " So, Mrs. Gafney, you're here again." Catharine. " Troth, thin, I dare say I am here, since yout honour says so. Sure it's not there ye are sittin' to be tellin' lies." Recorder. " What could I do for you now, Mrs. Gafney , to induce you to give over drinking and become a respectable woman ?" Catharine. " Seduce ! Is it me ? me, is it your honour would seduce ? Troth thin, yer a broth of a boy, and I'll be yer bonny Kate, and " Recorder. "Silence, woman ! You are wilfully perverse." Catharine. "Divil a bit of it, I'm Catharine Gafney." Recorder. " Lock her up." Catharine. " What, on a ' Patrick's day in the morning !' " Recorder. " Take her away." Catharine commenced blubbering; in the middle of her tears breaking out into a plaintive song, and stretching her arms imploringly towards the magistrate, she breathed forth, in soul- touching pathos, " Though Heave thee now in sorrow ;" the exquiste words receiving new beauty from the melodious brogue of Catharine. She continued, " We will meet again to-rnorrow." " No we wont," said the magistrate. " Officer, lock her up for thirty days. We'll keep her sober for a month, at any rate." Poor Kate was led away to durance. A PUBLIC PATRIOT. OR, AN ACUTE ALLEGHANIAN. THOMAS JEFFERSON WASHINGTON JONES vras yesterday brought before the Recorder, on the charge of gathering a crowd and creating a disturbance the evening previous, at the corner of St. Charles and Gravier streets. Mr. Thomas Jefferson Washington Tones is a gentleman of a full habit but scanty wardrobe plus of patriotism, but minus of means. A PUBLIC PATRIOT. 193 u In what manner did the prisoner gather a crowd ?" said the Recorder, "or how create a disturbance ?" " Why, he was a-cuttin' up all kinds of didoes," said the watchman " a-talkin' about Annexation and Oregon, and all that, and cussin' the 'Istorical Society, I thinks he called it." u I protest against any charge made by that individual being recorded against me," said the prisoner; "he has neither ca pacity to understand my position, nor patriotism to appreciate it." " He is a municipal officer," said the Recorder, " and I am bound to receive his statement." " Then if such be one of the streams through which justice flows," replied the prisoner " if he be one of the conduits through which law is administered, justice necessarily needs filtering law requires a less impure course. If it please you, however, let him proceed, and Heaven help the Republic, I say !" This appeal he accompanied by a reverential twist of his eyes upwards. The Recorder told the watchman to go on and state the cir cumstances under which he arrested the prisoner. He stated the same in substance as was written in the charge. The prisoner was haranguing a crowd about Texas, Oregon and Alleghania, and he knew not what. He told him to go on, but instead of complying, he abused him and went on with his speech. " Fool !" exclaimed the prisoner, " what else should I do but abuse you ? Praise of you would be censure in disguise , besides " " I shall not allow you, Mr. what's-your-name," replied the Recorder, " to use such language to the watchman in my presence. If you have any thing to say in your defence, I shall hear it ; preserve your vituperation for another place your invective for a more fitting opportunity." "I thank you, most worthy judge," said the prisoner, "for the advice, and shall be guided by it : and now for my defence. But first of my name, which you seem to have forgotten, but which I thought was graven on the door-plate that opened the door I mean, your honour, not the plate to the inner chamber of every American heart. Who, sir what American can forget a name linked by association of ideas, at least with the sage of Monticello and the hero of Mount Vernon ; for both of whom History has erected her monuments more solid than marble, and more enduring than brass! Now " 70 194 PICKINGS FROM THE "PICAYUNE." u This is all very well, Mr. Thomas Jefferson Washington Jones, I now remember your name," interrupted the Re corder ; " but what has it to do with the watchman's charge ?" " I was about to come to that, sir," said the prisoner, " but thought it necessary before doing so, to say so much in vindi cation of the honoured names I bear. And now, sir, for the charge. I was creating no disturbance ; and if a crowd did gather round me, it was done of their own volition ; if they did wrong, I cannot perceive by what rule of law or ethics I am to be visited with punishment for their transgressions. I was speaking somewhat loudly, it is true, but J am yet to learn that there is any Municipal ordinance instituting a voice-ometer, and making it penal to pitch the voice above a given standard. I was speaking, sir, of the wisdom and the policy of Annexa tion, and our right our imprescriptible right to Oregon; and he whom these subjects would not arouse and cause to speak loud at the present crisis, would suffer a man to take his julep from before him and drink it without remonstrance, nor would he cry 'stop thief!' if a fellow ran away with his last shirt. I touched too, sir, on the attempt made by a club of pedantic litterateurs to change desecrate, I call it the name of my beloved country, and is it to be wondered at that I felt indig nant and spoke loudly ? Take the name of the United States away, sir, and will not after ages be puzzled to know the land of my illustrious namesakes ? and then, to propose giving it such a name Alle Alleghania ! why it's a name fit only for a country inhabited by Turks ! I would not, so help me " " That will do," said the Recorder. " I perceive, that al though you did err, your motives render the act excusable. You may go, but in future find some more appropriate place for your lectures on Oregon, Annexation and Alleghania, than the sidewalk ; for however much, in such a place, you impel the march of mind, you retard considerably the movement of the body." Thomas Jefferson Washington Jones, regarding the watch man as mere human animalculae, left the court impressed with the belief that his release was a decided triumph of mind over matter. ANIMAL MAGNETISM 195 ANIMAL MAGNETISM; OR, THE ATTRACTIVE VENISON. A FELLOW was yesterday brought before the Recorder, for stealing off a hook in the lower market a quarter of venison. It was a dark, semi-decomposed looking joint. A calendar month, at least, must have elapsed since the deer to which it belonged, and part of which it was, trod the forest ; yet, strange to say, it bore within itself evidences innumerable of life and animation. Bating that it was not dressed, it was in that state which epicures call "just right" for eating. The fellow charged with stealing it seemed as lean and hungry as if he had gradua ted at Dotheboys' Hall Academy, and appeared as if he could help himself to a plentiful cut of the venison, without being ceremonious about the length of time it had been killed, or the manner in which it had been cooked. The butcher looked meat axes and chopping blocks at the Recorder, and the Recorder looked penitentiaries at the prisoner, and the prisoner looked, like Pharaoh's lean kine, a warning of future famine to every body. " How did he take it ?" asked the Recorder, requiring of the butcher a distinct statement of the modus operandi by which the prisoner possessed himself of the quarter of venison. " Why, he hooked it off the hook, your honour," said the knight of the steel. " O, he's a knowin' 'un, he is, I tell you. I'm blessed if he did'nt vatch me for a quarter of an hour, just as if he vas a custom-house officer, and as if I had the carcase of the dead cow before me stuffed wit Havaner cigars ; till, at last, ven he sees me cuttin' a sirloin steak for jjlrs. Timkins, the vidder lady vot keeps the ecornomical bordin' 'ouse and takes payment in adwance, and " " O, no matter about the manner in which Mrs. Timkins conducts her boarding house," said the Recorder. " How did he take the venison ?" " Veil, just as I was engaged vith Mrs. Timkins," said the oulcher, " he vheels round the pillar, like the feller in the play that's goin' to assassirnate the two hinnocent babes in the vood, ven he pokes himself behind a tree, and off he vhips the wenison. I follored him, but he looked so wery woracious 196 PICKINGS FROM THE " PICAYUNE." that Pm blessed if I didn't think he'd dewour it, rawr and all as it vas, before I came up to him." The Recorder shook his head, as if shocked at the palpable guilt of the prisoner. The idea of a starving man stealing a piece of steak was not to be tolerated. " All such outrageous cases should be met," he said, " with the most exemplary punishment, or there was an end to all law, and no protection under the constitution." He was about to consign the prisoner to jail, when a young lawyer with a large nose and who, having a large nose, fancied himself very like Lord Brougham stepped up and begged the permission of the court to say a few words in behalf of the unfortunate prisoner. It having been granted him, the modern Brougham placed an antiquated- looking volume of "Russell on Crimes," which he had under his arm, on the table. He then unbuttoned and threw back the breasts of a seedy black coat, ran the fingers of his right hand through his hair, coughed short and commenced : " May it please the court : I would say without meaning a pun Lord Brougham never made puns that the work of this morning seems likely to prove deer (dear,) in more respects than one, to the starving individual whom I now see before me. I fully agree with this honourable court in its abhorrence of small vices : they are the acorns of evil, of which the large and wholesale acts of swindling are the grown oaks. If a more rigid execution of our laws had been adopted heretofore if the practice had prevailed of meting out severe and rigid punish ment to the vulgar for their petty peccadilloes, we would not now, as my friend Lord Brougham remarks in his Essay on the Spread of Demoralization, find it fashionable and aristo cratic to cheat and swindle in sums of thousands ! By the way, I would here inform the court that my friends are flatter ing enough to say that I resemble his lordship " Here he attempted to put the nerves of his nose in motion, so as to stir tnat organ after the manner of the ex-chancellor. "What has all this to do with the charge of stealing the vension ?" said the Recorder. " A great deal, sir : it is my way it was Lord Brougham's way of treating all his cases I give scope weight, sir, to my arguments. Your honour knows the French proverb Les grands hommes ne se bornent jamals dans leurs desseins 4 Great men never limit themselves in their plans.' " " Well," said the Recorder, " I feel bound to put a limit to your plan of defence, or I fear it would be interminable. Have ANIMAL MAGNETISM. 197 you any argument based on law, to offer for the act of larceny charged against the prisoner ?" " Certainly I have," said the counsel: " what 1 have said was no more than my opening; Lord Brougham always made an extensive opening before he entered on the merits." Here he lookup "Russell on Crimes," and thumbed several of the leaves over in quick succession ; but, at last, throwing it down, he said u Oh, your honour, the whole case lies within a nutshell. It is not .to be found in the books, because none of our legal authorities have yet incorporated the influence of the science into their works. It's all all animal magnetism all science, sir!" " Why," said the Recorder, " what can animal magnetism have to do with stealing a quarter of venison ?" " Every thing every thing, sir. It is the quo animo the ratio justified the head and front of the offence. Lord Brougham, sir, used precisely the same argument in the cele brated Queen Caroline case." " But, sir," said the Recorder, " I say again, what " " I crave but one moment from the court," interrupted the counsel. " I say it's all animal magnetism, and I prove it thus : My client is passing through the market ; he sees the quar ter of venison hanging there ; the worms of hunger are gnawing at his stomach ; thousands of aniamalculae, visible to the naked eye, are feasting to repletion in and upon the quarter of venison ; from the latter to the former the magnetic fluid is instantly and invisibly conveyed, and and then and then let me ask the court, what's the necessary nay, the inevitable consequence, as my friend Lord Brougham would say ? Why, sir, it is this that my client, obeying the instinct of nature and the all-per vading rules of animal magnetism, goes and puts himself in com munication with the quarter of venison at once right off, sir !" " Yes," said the Recorder ; " and for that I shall send him to the Criminal Court." Lord Brougham buttoned up his coat to the neck, drew on a pair of black kid gloves, having between them three torn fingers and one whole thumb, slapped his hat professionally on his head, and left the court uttering anthemas against the judicial incapacity of recorders and the ignorance of the age, in not fully appreciating the power and influence of animal magnetism over a hungry man, when a quarter of venison hanors in the market before him! 198 PICKINGS FROM THE " PICAYUNE." A TAR IN TROUBLE. WHILE in the office of Recorder Genois yesterday, a police officer, big with brief authority, entered, leading in a " Son of Neptune," who looked as dispirited as if he had been cast among the unfriendly savages of the Friendly Islands. The police officer said something sotto voce to the Recorder a rather pretty young woman, with dimpled cheeks, who sat within the railings, made a pantomimic motion to an old woman with wrinkled cheeks who was by her side the sailor looked imploringly at Dimpled cheeks, gave a hitch with his sinister hand to his pantaloons, and expectorated a portion of the juice of the tobacco quid from his mouth. Poor fellow ! he seemed to say, " Here I am like a bark driven on the breakers, without compass or chart; I hung out my flag of distress, but instead of that trim and well-beloved craft (dim pled cheeks) coming to my assistance, she sent that there piratical-looking cruiser (the police officer) to haul me into harbour." " John Connor ?" said the Recorder. "Aye, aye, your honour," said John, advancing up to the desk of that functionary in a rocking, walk-the-deck kind of gait. John at that moment appeared every inch a sailor. His trousers were blue, and of capacious width at the extremities ; his jacket was of a like colour, and cloth, and was plentifully supplied with pearl studs ; his black silk handkerchief was loosely tied in a swivel knot, and the collar of his check shirt was spread out over his shoulders. " Connor," said the Recorder, " this woman here, Ann Hays, says you have been to her house, and threatened to commit murder. What have you to say to the charge ?" " Why, Lord love your honour," sajd Connor, again ejecting i* 4i,a;iti!y of iubaccv, juice, and twirling his little glazed hat round on his thumb ; " why, Lord love your honour, Ann is the little ' painter' that I got hitched on to my bows in Boston four years ago. Murder her ! I'd as soon a stove in the bul warks of my own existence." Ann Hays. u Well, your honour, I'm afraid of my life of him." A TAR IN TROUBLE. 199 " Ah, Nancy ! Nancy !" said John, drawing the cuff of his jacket across his right eye, and wiping away a tear that stood in its corner " Ah, Nancy ! I have encountered many a breeze since T left you four years ago in Boston, but this blow does more injury to the rigging of my heart than all I have yet had to contend with; to be let into shoal water by the false lights of an enemy is bad, but to be deserted and disowned by a craft that one took in convoy with him for life, is a little too much for the timbers of my constitution: it is, Nancy !" Recorder. "This language is altogether too figurative too technical for me. Can't you speak, Connor, in a manner in which I can better understand you. ?" Connor. " Certainly, your honour. Then, keeping right ahead, without making a tack either to windward or leeward, I will read over the log-book of my life, as I have it in my memory, since first I hailed Nance. As 1 said before, your honour, we got braced in Boston about four years ago. A chaplain, I forget his name, but here's his certificate," pro ducing the certificate of their marriage "made it all taut, and I felt as happy as if I was sailing before a three months' trade wind. I unfortunately got on a spree and put to sea first in the U.S. ship Ohio, and then in the frigate Columbia. During my cruise I never forgot my Nance, and many a time in the silent watches of the night used 1 to look aloft, and fancy I could see her pretty dimpled cheeks and bright eyes smiling on me among the stars ; and often did I fancy, as the wind sung through the rigging, that I heard her sweet voice say, 4 Pm true to you still true as the compass to its point, Jack Connor.'" " But it hasn't been so, your honour ; for when I came home with my pay in my pocket, to throw into her apron, I found she had hauled in her anchor and put to see with a lubber, who knows nothing about any thing except boiling duff' and making lobscouse. Oh, sir, it has shivered the timbers of Jack Connor, and never, never more does he expect to see his sails filled with the winds of domestic content." Here Jack applied the cuff of his blue jacket to his eyes again, and "mopped up," as it were, the tears, as they sprung out one after another. Nancy then undertook to tell her story in her own way ; from all of which we learned that they had been married in Boston, as Jack said ; Jack ran off to sea, and she ran off to 200 PICKINGS FROM THE "PICAYUNE." New Orleans with a French cuisinier, under whose " protec tion" she now is and wishes to remain. Jack remains in the calaboose till he " ships" or finds some one to go security that he will keep the peace. The moral atmosphere that surrounds him at the present time looks de cidedly squally. A MISTAKE: OR, THE BROKEN PLEDGE AND THE FAT GIRL 5 S PORTRAIT. OPPOSITE the St. Charles Hotel there stands at the present writing, or did stand on Friday night, a painting of the fat girl in a blue frock, white apron, and pantaletts. As an artistical production it is nothing to brag of. It can never be mistaken as an emanation from the pencil of a Raphael or an Angelo, still it is a likeness of a human being, the softest of the softer sex ; in fact the colouring for flesh and blood is laid on thick, and by a man high, or up a tree, it might be mistaken for a breathing being. We are told that there be those who, " See Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt," and of like perverted vision is Michael Grace a most grace less fellow is Mike for he thought, on Friday night, that the picture of the fat girl was the fat girl herself that the coun terfeit presentment was the original. " Ah, thin, you're welcome down stairs, darlin'," says Mike, addressing the painting (the fat girl, be it remembered, is ex hibited in a room over where the portrait hung.) You're wel come down stairs, a-lanna. O, blud-in-ages but it's yoursel 1 is the fine armful ; but what signifies what you are now to what you'll be when you are twenty. Why be jakes you'd make a wife for a man that 'ud be as big as Finn McCoul." (Here the canvass was agitated by the wind.) Oh don't go off in a huflf, a cushla," said Mike; "d 1 a word I sed of you but what's thrue, for as the ould song ses : ' Was I Paris, whose deeds were various, Or if, like Homer, I could indite, I'd sound your praise and your fame I'd raise, I'd thrate your frinds and your foes I'd fight." Mike sung this in a key so loud that it attracted the ear of ' Oh, sir, it has shivered the timbers of Jack Connor, and never, never more does he expect to see his sails filled with the winds of domestic content." Page 199 HOW TO MAKE A RAISE. 201 the watchman who has as great an aversion to street minstrels at night as a toper has to water straight. He hurried to where Mike was holding forth, and in a manner as summarily as the revolutionary mobs of Paris hurried off their victims to the guillotine, forced him along to the watchhouse. " Aisy Misther," said Mike. " Off with you, you vagrant," said the watchman. If you e poet laureat to the fat girl, I'll let you see that I'm watch man Ian-writ to the Recorder." " Why you contankerous ould thief," said Mike, " can't you let me bid the craythur good night and tell her to take care she don't ketch could ?" " O, look here, old feller," said the watchman, you are la bouring under a hoptical illusion, that was'nt nothin' but the picture o' the fat girl you was a singin' to and a precious ugly picture it is." u O, d 1 fry me," says Mike, " if I could have belther luck all this comes from breaking the pledge." When he arrived at the watchhouse he was searched a temperance medal and three picayunes were found in his pocket. Yesterday morning he acknowledged to the Recorder he was so drunk the night before he could not see a hole through a ladder he renewed his broken temperance pledge and was discharged. HOW TO MAKE A RAISE. . > MOSES A. TRASH was yesterday inducted to a seat in the prisoner's box by one of the police officers. Moses looked like a man against whom misfortune had been blowing a hard wind all his life time ; his flag of distress seemed never to have been taken in. He was indeed a ragocrat legitimately and of right. " The vorld," said Moses, as he wended his way up Magazine street about twelve o'clock on Wednesday night, "the vorld is a vicious vicked vorld and haint got no sympathy for no one. If a feller vishes to rise in an honest vay, the ladder is pulled from under his feet 'fore he gets up two steps, and down he comes. If he tries to go ahead on vot's called equitable principles, he runs off the track in a short time, I tell you. I've rewolved the thing over in my mind ; I looked at it every vhich vay and find it aim to bV 202 PICKINGS FROM THE " PICAYUNE." done but by gammon gammon is a far better article than anthracite coal for firing up and keeping on steam if you vant to keep on the railroad of fortune. I have a scheme now in my mind a 'grand scheme' and if that don't succeed I'll report myself at vonce unfit for service but it will, it must, ] know it must; and other fellers vill have a chance of making a fortune right off as veil as I vill." cc I say, mister, vot do you mean by placing your thumb on your nose and vorking your fingers ?" asked Moses of some imaginary, or at least imperceptible person. "Don't you think it's true ; veil I'm blowed if you don't see it in the papers. Yes, I'll adwertise some real estate vhich, if I don't own I should own ; and the 4 fortunate holders' shall be told of all kinds of prizes. Tickets vill be sold off cheap and it vill be a c rare chance' for making an inwestment. Vhat's that you say ? (speaking again to the invisible gentleman,) I don't own no real estate ? Vot of it ; aint a veil painted map prettier any day than real estate ; can't I have theatres and hotels and all that sort of things drawn out on a piece of parchment and made to look jest as nat'ral as life ; and if I can raise the vind to pay the artist, vont it be all right, because then it vill be vot I calls unincumlered property. That's the only vay as I knows on of making a fortin. It's vonderful how men suffer dust to be thrown in their eyes ven a lottery is in the case ; I attributes it myself to a constirtutional veakness in their natur, jest like drinking juleps or any other wice ; and I doesn't think it can be 'radicated by the state legislature either, nor jn fact I aint anxious it should till I dispose of my tickets for the unseen, unknown, unincumbered, grand hum bug, imaginary, real estate, situated and lying and being, as the lawyers say, in the extensive, flourishing, prosperous, and favourably situated city of Smithville, which is to be the future seat of government of all America; the starting place of the Columbian and European steam balloon carriages, and the depot of the Atlantic and Pacific marine railroads. There, I'd like 10 know who vouldn't buy my lottery tickets vith such a grand flourish as that in an adwertisement vy they'll go off like Colt's repeating rifle ; they vill, and no mistake about it." Feeling in an extasy of delight that he had at length found out the pleasant art of money catching, a science of which he had been in pursuit all his life but could never get the hang of it he commenced cutting up as many capers as a man ivith the poker, or a drunken Indian. A STRIKE AMONG THE TAILORS. 203 Charley, with that anxiety which he ever evinces for the safety and well being of the citizens, took Moses up and se cured for him for the night in the calaboose. The Recorder on hearing his story yesterday morning, came to the conclusion that he followed no honest occupation for a living, and ordered him to be sent to the calaboose for thirty days. There he will have leisure to arrange his plans for the drawing of his Grand Real Estate Lottery Scheme. A STRIKE AMONG THE TAILORS. IN Boston, New York and Philadelphia the tailors have their strikes, and from a case which came before the Recorder recently, it would appear that a portion at least of the " knights of the thimble" in this city are determined not to be behind the age. There seems to be this difference, however, between those of the craft at the north and the two for that was their number who were up before the Recorder; the former struck for higher wages, the latter struck one another. The Recorder having intimated to the clerk that he was ready to investigate the case of the State vs. Fursey, or rather Stackwell vs. Fursey, that official, with grave intonation and distinct emphasis, called out the names of the parties. Fursey, who was standing near, responded on his part to the call, and Stackwell rose from one of the back benches and answered the summons. They were in every thing but their calling per fectly antipodal. Fursey's age was some where in the forties Stackwell's in the twenties. Fursey was short and shapeless as a bag of coffee Stackwell was tall and attenuated as a fishing pole. Fursey's legs were bowed like a saddler's clamps Stackwell's projected out from the knees like a dis tended compass. Fursey had beard on his face as strong as the bristles of a flesh brush Stackwell's was as light and downy as the feathers of a young duck. Fursey had his hair cropped in roundhead fashion Stackwell had his combed over his collar a la cavalier. Fursey's nose, as if attracted by the stars, seemed to turn up to heaven Stackwell's was of the most approved acquiline order. But it is unnecessary to pursue the contrast, for it was carried out in every feature and lineament of the parties. Fursey was buttoned up in a seedy 204 PICKINGS FROM THE " PICAYUNE. 1 ' black frock Stackwell sported a fashionably made snuff- coloured dress coat. " Well, Mr. Stackwell," said the Recorder, " you complain that the defendant has assaulted you state how." tf May it please the court," said Stackwell, pressing his hair smoothly round his head with his left hand, and drawing a white " wipe" from his coat with his right, " May it please the court, the annoyance which I receive from this individ ual [pointing to Fursey] personally and professionally, is too much for any gentleman to put up with in silence. I have therefore brought him before your honour, that measures may be taken to prevent a recurrence of such treatment." " Gammon !" said Fursey, casting a disdainful glance at Stackwell, and a look of reliance at the Recorder, as much as to say, " wait till you hear my story." " But how or why does he annoy you ?" said the Recorder. Stackwell applied the white cambric to his forehead, and proceeded with as much affected dignity as a young barrister would in arguing his first brief. " We ar.e both tailors, or rather I am, and he professes to be one ; but he is altogether ignorant of the science and fashion able mysteries of our art " " More gammon !" said Fursey. " Silence !" said a police man. " Well, 1 aint agoin' to let my karacter be cabbaged away right before my face by that ere locomotive scissors, no how you can fix it," said Fursey. Stackwell proceeded : " We unfortunately live in the same street are near neighbours ; I cut, exclusively, on geomet rical principles " "Yes," said Fursey, interrupting him, "and, Needle-nose, you cut and run away with the rent from the last house you were in, in Royal street. You call that cutting on geometry principles do you ?" The Recorder told Fursey he should confine him for con tempt of court, unless he kept silent. He bade the complain ant proceed. " To be brief, your honour, said Stackwell to press off the suit, if I may use the expression he sees the patronage with which I am honoured, and he envies me for it; he knows the style of work I make up work unequalled in point of style and elegance of finish, in London or Paris itself ; and knowing he cannot approach it, he feels jealous professionally jeal- THE MISTAKES OF A NIGHT. 205 ous he takes every method of annoying me. No later than this morning I found this disgraceful libel pasted upon my door, and I have the best authority for saying it was done by this individual.' 1 Here he exhibited a pen and ink caricature of himself represented with a head of cabbage under each arm, underneath which was written, "STACKWELL, Green Grocer, and Dealer in CABBAGE." He closed his complaint by saying he merely wanted Fursey bound over to keep the peace, and prevented from in any way annoying him. " I never says nothing to him, your honour," said Fursey. "He aint no regular tailor at all, he can cut up airs much better than he can cut up a piece of cloth ; he's an innovater on the old chalk system, and knows precious little about the new one. My thimble, and it hain't got no bottom, would hold all the sense he's got; they calls him the dandy tailor, and the cracked tailor but I b'lieve he's not only cracked, but broke right into smash, he aint got but two negro journey men now " The Recorder said he had heard enough to understand the merits of the case. He told Fursey he should bind him not to offer personal violence to Stackwell, and advised them both to act in a spirit of mutual forbearance towards each other. THE MISTAKES OF A NIGHT. THERE he is !" "Where?" " Why, there ; that feller with the shocking bad hat, next to him what's got the long beard and a nose so red that its reflection would blow up a powder magazine !" " What, he there what's got the plug of tobacco in his cheek that raises it out and makes it look like an Indian mound on a prairie ?" "Yes." " That ain't he, be it ?" " Yes, but it is ; haint the watchman taken down bis name, and haint he acknowledged it himself." " He haint got no sword though." w No, but he had a thunderin' long knife." 208 PICKINGS FROM THE "PICAYUNE." This dialogue caught our ear as we entered the police office yesterday ; it was carried on between two persons who ap peared to be police officers, and who seemed to think that great honours awaited the watch department for the arrest of the incognito prisoner. Several other persons in court were pointing to him too; we could hear some of them speak of $5000 reward." Indeed he seemed to be the " observed of 11 observers," and from the attention which he attracted we t once concluded that there was some more serious charge against him than "found drunk." Circumstances soon en lightened us. " Thomas W. Dorr ?" said the Recorder. "Thomas W. Dorr!" involuntarily exclaimed we, adding the drop of our surprise to the sea of astonishment that already filled the court. " Thomas W. Dorr ?" said the Recorder a second time, and as he did the man who seemed such a practical advocate for the home consumption of tobacco, stood up in the dock. Expectorating a large quantity of the concentrated extract of the article on the floor, he replied in an indolent, loaferish tone, u that aint my name, your honour." " What," said the Recorder, " are you not Thomas Dorr ?" " Yes, I is." " Thomas W. -Dorr ?" "No, your honour; the watchman said I was Hue, but I doesn't think I was so far gone. I could distinguish him werry well from a gentleman." "Yes, your honour," said the watchman, "and he said as how he was the sure-enough 'Governor Dorr.'" "Why, Charley," said the prisoner, " you're coming the large licks now, sure. When you asked me if I wasn't Gov. Dorr I could scarcely keep from larfin right out, and I said I was, cause they used to call me Governor when I owned a broad-horn. But I ask the Squire himself if I look like a real live Governor? besides, I hadn't no sword like Governor Dorr, nor I didn't run away." These, the Recorder now began to think, were pretty strong proofs that the prisoner was not the great proclaimed, as the watchman had erroneously concluded that in fact he was a poor loafer who bore the name of Tom Dorr without any W. to it. and that the watchman drew his conclusions from prem ises not based on facts. The prisoner was dismissed ; the watchman was dissatisfied RIVAL SUITORS. 207 at the expose of his blunders, and nothing was left him of the $5000 reward but its visions. The audience now began to laugh at the watchman and the Dorr denouement. Several of them said they knew very well the prisoner was not the Rhode Island hero nor no more like him than a mud turtle is like the white horse of the prairies ! RIVAL SUITORS. " Beware of jealousy." BRIDGET MORAN is a nice young 'ooman, as Mr. Weller, junior, would say. She coolis a nice dinner daily, wears a nice gown and goes to church on Sunday; she lives in the basement story of a nice house in Canal street, is admired by more than one nice young man, and is occasionally visited by a few friends, who form a nice but small tea party. Martin Donahoe is an advocate of internal improvement, and unlike many advocates of many other systems, Martin practices what he preaches ; he is a pavier, and with a philanthropy truly commendable, is ever improving the public ways, though often unmindful of the error of his own ways. Bridget has been seen more than once in conversation with Martin, as he pound ed his paving stones, and Martin more than once has dropt into the kitchen in Canal street of an evening to take tea with Bridget. Martin believes that " The heart that once truly loves never forgets, But truly loves on to the close." And his affections therefore clung tp Bridget like moss to a pine tree. Bridget, on the contrary, thinks a little flirtation allowable, and Martin, unfortunately for his own peace of mind, has found out that others than he shares the hospitality of the kitchen in Canal street, over which, or in which, Bridget rules Fupreme. On Wednesday evening Martin had his face operated on by the barber ; he donned his blue cloth coat, put himself in courting order, and without previously giving intimation of his design, he popped into the kitchen in Canal street; but, mirabih visu ! there sat Bridget at the little square tea-table where Martin himself had so often sat with her before, and right opposite to her an outlandish looking fellow, who seemed 208 PICKINGS FROM THE " PICAYUNE." to have registered a vow against ever shaving of or being ever shaved his whole face was covered with an overgrown mou stache. "Good evening to you, Mr. Donahoe," said Bridget, endeav ouring to conceal the trepidation which Martin's presence threw her into. Martin made no reply, but he gave a look at the man with the long blue beard that would have shaved it off if the pro cess of lathering had been previously performed. "Mr. Donahoe," said Bridget, introducing Martin to the man with the long beard. The man with the long beard stood up, stretched his hand to Martin and said " Ah, Senor Donwho, me vera glad to see you, vera." " Why, who the d 1 cares whether you are or not, you ourang outang you ?" said Martin. " O, behave daycent, Martin," said Bridget ; " this is a Frinch gintleman that came on business up stairs don't offind him." "And if he came on business up stairs," says Martin," what brought him down stairs, the baboon ?" He a Frinch gintle man ! he's just as much like one as a hedgehog is like an anty- lope. Why, I'd make a fortune wid the animal if I carried him round the counthry in a cage." " O, you ought to respect me if you don't respect yourself," said Bridget. "By gar, Senor Donwho, you be one vera offend fellow, and not no gentleman," said blue beard. " Shut your potato chopping machine ;" said Martin " you haythen, you, or I'll give you a polthogue that'll knock you into the middle of next week ; what brought a vizard faced fellow like you here, to parley-vous with a daycent girl ; clear out now or I'll macadamize you while you'd be sayin' pavin' stones." Martin made a grab at the Frenchman, and in doing so, knocked the tea-table and its contents over. The broken china rattled on the floor, the tea kettle poured out on the pants of the Frenchman as it fell, and he cried fire ! fire ! Bridget shouted Martin ! Martin ! and in a few minutes there was a posse of watchmen in the basement story of the nice house in Canal street. Martin arid the man with the long beard were instantly ar rested and taken to the calabo ; ose. When the Recorder heard the whole story yesterday morn- MORGAN MANLY. 209 ing, he saw with one glance of his quick eye, that the beautiful Biddy Moran and the " green-eyed monster," were at the bot tom of the whole affray. He merely required the parties to enter on their own recognisances to keep the peace. MORGAN MANLY; THE MAN THAT NEVER SAID " NO !" MORGAN MANLY was among those who figured before the Recorder yesterday, and a very sorry figure poor Morgan cut. He was, as he said himself, a unit in the numerical popula tion of mankind, but a mere cipher in the social scale an affirmative abstractedly, but a negative practically a machine incapable of self-action till put in motion by others an in strument that was mute till played on by interested parties a sound that but echoed other men's voices. Such were some of the attributes of Mr. Manly, as announced by himself when the Recorder asked him what he was. " The watchman says you were tipsy when he arrested you, Mr. Manly," said the Recorder. " Let it be so written," retorted Manly. " He says, too, that you were abusive to him," continued the Recorder. " I have no denial to offer," answered Manly. " And that, in coming to the watchhouse, you made an at tempt to escape from him," added the Recorder. " Let the presumption be in favour of the truth of the watch man's allegation," said Manly. u Then you admit it all," said the Recorder. " Every word of it," said Manly. "And have no negative testimony to offer," said the Recorder. " Not a word," said Manly. " I have made it a principle of my life never to deny any thing ; never to say no ! to any thing ; and it is this peculiarity that has influenced my whole life. JVb is a word, sir, not in my vocabulary, and I doubt if I know its meaning. If a man asks me to take a drink, I never say no ! If a man asks me to lend a V, and I have it, I never say no. If a man asks me to play a game of cards, I never say no. If I am asked to go a gunning, I never say no, what ever may be the personal inconvenience to myself. If I am 71 210 PICKINGS FROM THE " PICAYUNE." asked to subscribe to a charity, I never say no, however much I may need contributions myself. If a quack asks me to re commend his medicines, I never say no, though it may be as poisonous as aquafortis, for all I know to the contrary. When asked to endorse for a friend, I never said no ; and if a travel ling mesmeriser call on me to vouch for his clairvoyant ca pacity, I never say no, though I were to know him to be a very juggler. Why, sir, my own miserable unhappy marriage was the consequence of my never saying no. It was leap year, sir : she knew my weakness took advantage of it, popped the question, and I said yes /" The Recorder told Mr. Manly that he thought him altogether too pliant-minded for the present times, when the prevailing axiom seemed to be that every one should take care of himself. He dismissed him, however, hoping that in future he would not be so prodigal of his u noes," whenever he was asked or invited to do any thing to his own or the public prejudice. THEOPHILUS TWIST; OR, A TAKER-OFF TAKEN OFF. THEOPHILUS TWIST is a nice young man a very nice young man at least so Miss Sweetwell calls him. He sports an imperial, carries an ebony cane, wears patent polished-leather boots, cheats his tailor, smokes cigars, sings patriotic songs at public dinners, and sentimental ones at private parties. The- ophilus loves he swears he loves Miss Sweetwell. Not satisfied with singing for her, when they met at the house of a mutual friend, on Wednesday evening " Be mine, dear maid, this faithful heart Shall never prove untrue, 'Twere easier far from life to part, Than cease to live with you" he many hours afterwards went to her window and warbled forth " Could deeds my heart discover, Could valour gain thy charms, I'd prove myself thy lover,- Before a world in arms!" Now be it known that the mind of Miss Sweetwell is not altogether free from the promptings of the green-eyed monster THEOPHILUS TWIST. 211 She thinks the love of Theophilus is divided, or rather tripli cated ; she thinks he loves Arabella Rodwell in this she is mistaken ; she believes he loves brandy toddies in this she is not mistaken. Theophilus has an attachment for the ardent; it is, he says, but an acquired one, while his passion for Miss Sweetwell is, he swears, deep rooted in the labyrinths of his innermost heart. The latter he calls, in his lighter moods, an affection of the heart the former he dubs a constitutional weakness. Theophilus, too, has his patriotic attachments. He loves his country with a love deep as the fathomless ocean, wide as the western prairies, and impetuous as the torrent of Niagara. Having on Wednesday night poured out his lay to his lady love, and having heard no tone nor received any token of recip rocation, other than an intimation from an ebony-faced Abigail that if he would not clear out the watch would be called, he " turned and left the spot, Ah, do not deem him weak" for although he staggered as he walked, whiskey punch and not unrequited love was the cause. It is characteristic of great minds not to brood over blighted hopes nor to dwell on dissolved prospects ; so Theophilus, suddenly forgetting the faithlessness of his mistress, turned to soliliquize on his country and its capacities : " It's a noble country it's a great country it's an exten sive I may say an expansive country it's a glorious coun try," said Theophilus, emphasizing his words as he approached the climax. " It can ' swaller' Mexico, gouge both eyes out of Great Britain, and whip all creation ! And yet some folks say it's in danger. Danger ! Why, I'd insure it myself for a quarter per cent., and include Texas and Oregon in the policy; who's afraid?" * " I doesn't know as there is any one," said the watchman. "You doesn't look like one as 'ud strike terror into the soul of any body, as the feller's dreams did in the play. But I say stranger, what's the use of you mussing ?" u Use," said Theophilus ; " what's the use of a man living if he can't dwell with patriotic pride on the merits of his country. To be sure, Horace Walpole once said that patriotism was the last resort of rascals ; but I say it is the last resort of dis carded lovers. Hurra, then, for my country, and hurra for the con stitution that guaranties to every one the liberty of speech; hurra!" " O, that ere's a wulgar error," said the watchman ; " the constitution don't guarantee to men as is dumb the right of 212 PICKINGS FROM THE " PICAYUNE." speech, 'cause it can't do it no how it can fix it. Besides the ordinances guaranties to every citizen, 'cept watchmen, the right of sleep, and as the old 'oman of eighty said, when she got married, i there's a time for every thing ;' so, if you don't shut up, I take you off, sure." " What ! take me off!" said Theophilus " me !" pointing the forefinger of his right hand to his breast " who have taken-off the most celebrated native and foreign actors our most distinguished public speakers and most eccentric private citizens take me off!" u Yes, take you off," said the watchman "right off, and right off he took him. After having taken off so many, Theophilus was permitted to take himself off yesterday by the Recorder, on paying his jail fees. PATRIOTISM IN A SAD PLIGHT. ILLUSTRATION is a pervading principle of the present times. We have illustrated books, illustrated newspapers, illustrated sciences and illustrated -systems. Ours may be considered illustrated police reports; for instead of giving every name to be found on the docket, of persons who were arrested for being high and found ZOMJ, we select one as an illustration of the lot. To-day we make choice of John Mason, who was yesterday on Recorder Baldwin's roll, and who was evidently into his liquor the night before like "a thousand of brick." " John Mason ?" said the Recorder. " In my more palmy days," said an individual, standing up in the dock, who from his appearance had been engaged in a knock-down and drag-out fight with Fortune, and had got the worst in the rencounter " in my more palmy days, I say, your honour, when friends, like bees with a full-blown butter cup in June, buzzed around me ; when that fickle jade, Fortune, scattered flowers o'er my path ; and when the still more false and far more fickle Elizabeth Jenkins loved or said and vowed she loved me that was a name which I never denied never disowned ; and I shall not do it now, when even the posses sion of a good name seems of doubtful tenure. J\fy name, sir, is John Mason." Recorder. u Mr. Mason, you were found lying drunk last night. What are you ?" Mason [Drawing himself up to his full height, and with PATRIOTISM IN A SAD PLIGHT. 213 his right hand brushing his clotted and uncombed hair off his forehead]. u I am a man, your honour, more sinned against it may be than sinning. Slightly inebriated I may have been, 'tis true ; true it is, also, that the watchman may have been influenced by a proper sense of duty in arresting me; but I protest against all such gratuitous solicitude for my welfare. Your honour will recollect that Pope says ' Not always actions show the man ; we find Who does a kindness is not therefore kind.' " Recorder. "My object is not to criticise the 'Beauties of Pope,' but to ascertain who Mason is, and why he got drunk." J\tason. " Then I shall vouchsafe to your honour such in formation on these subjects as I am myself possessed of. I, sir, am a victim the victim of patriotism. You see that hat, sir! [Here he held up for the examination of the Recorder, a shock ing bad hat.] That hat, sir had once a brim and an unbro ken crown ; was once a whole hat but that was before I became a patriot. This coat, sir now of thread-bare grain and at elbows broken this was, in times gone by, a coat of fashion able cut, which would not have shamed the wearer ; this, too, was before I became a patriot. These pants but I will not proceed. Suffice it to say, sir, had I minded my business better, and felt in the fate of my country less interest, J would not be standing before you to-day. But no, I neglected my business because I was a patriot! I made speeches which made me enemies because I was a patriot ! I went to public political meetings when I should have been at private prayer- meetings because 1 was a patriot! I sung political songs, and got politically and personally drunk because 1 was a patriot ! I now, however, your honour, begin to discover my error; I begin to think that Curtius was but a Sam Patch, who leaped into the gulf, to attain notoriety for himself, not to save his country ; and 1 begin to find out that ' He that takes Deep in his soft credulity the stamp Design'd by loud declaimers on the part Of liberty, ihemselves the slaves of lust, Incurs derision for his easy faith And lack ot knowledge.' I begin" The Recorder here stopped him short, and seeing that Mr. Mason had seen the error of his ways, and was about to do more for himself and less for his country in future, let him off without even exacting jail fees from him. 214 PICKINGS FROM THE " PICAYUNE." A RUM 'UN. JOHN HOXY made his obeisance to the Recorder on Sunday morning. He was arrested the previous night on the Levee, but whether he was travelling towards Carrollton, the Third Municipality, the river, or the swamp, the watchman for the life of him could not tell. He would strike of at a tangent here, and trace out an obtuse angle here or a parallelogram there, as if he were supplying the place of a compass in draw ing out geometrical figures. Hoxy was an old looking fellow. Nature drew lines across his forehead which the non-application of water rendered black, so that it would be naturally concluded his brains were expunged ; his proboscis seemed to have been stuck on his face out of spite. There was a curl in his upper lip like a horizontal 01 in the front of a fiddle, and his face was as varied in colour as a dying dolphin. " Hoxy," says the Recorder, " you were arrested last night on the Levee, so late as twelve o'clock. Where were you going ?" " Well, Judge," said Hoxy, " that's a puzzler; Pm bless'd if I knew where I was going. I'll tell you what, Squire, hard cider may be a very good thing, but when taken to excess it creates a mighty strange sensation, I tell you. I took a horn or two extra of it at the log cabin frolic in the evening, and I'm blamed if it didn't leave me in such a state as that I thought I had discovered perpetual motion. I believed that the Mis sissippi had broke loose and was running like fury down lo the swamp; that the ships and steamboats at the Levee weve navigating the clouds ; that the St. Charles Hotel had performed a somerset and was sitting on its dome, resting itself aftur the fatigue consequent on the exertion ; I thought the burning of the lamps was nothing less than a general conflagration, and that great big black troopers, encased in armour and riding long tailed horses, were issuing from the old calaboose, and cutting off the heads of every one who came in their way." "How did you escape the general slaughter, Mr. Hoxy?" asked the Recorder. " Why bless your honour's innocent eyes," said Hoxy, " my head was knocked off twice, but I placed it on each time by THE AMERICAN EAGLE AND DANIEL Q'CONNELL. 215 the application of the highly concentrated syrup of sarsaparilla and pills it was the genuine article, your honour, got at old 96, and they could'nt therefore kill this child." " Did you take any thing but hard cider on Saturday ?" said the Recorder. w Nothing," said Hoxy, " except a few gin slings in the morning, three or four toddies in the course of the day, and, forget how many, brandies and water in the evening." " O, 1 see how it is," says the Recorder, instead of this general confusion which you fancied you witnessed this legion of black emissaries and lopping off of heads, it was the man with the poker that ministered to your mind's disease. Take him down for thirty days," added the Recorder, " for he is not compus mentis even yet." When the officer went to take Hoxy down he battled as furiously against him as Don Quixote did against the wind mill, swearing that they wanted to make a President of the United States of him but he would return to private life. THE AMERICAN EAGLE AND DANIEL O'CONNELL BRYAN MAGUIRE and Phil Mahony were yesterday charged before the Recorder with fighting and disturbing the peace on Monday night. Their appearance told that they belonged to neither the peace nor temperance societies. "Mahony and Maguire, you have been fighting,-" said the Recorder. " Have you any thing to say to the charge ?" Mahony looked at Maguire, and Maguire scratched his head with his dexter hand and looked at the ground. " I see that neither of you has any defence to make," said the Recorder. " O yis, yer hanour," said Bryan, Phil has ; he'll till ye all about it, for he's got the larnin' : he brags himself of sackin' a schoolmaster, and of bein' as far as 4 The Rule of Three in Fractions.' Spake to him, Phil." And acting on the hint, Phil spoke : " May it plase this hanourable coort; meself and Bryan here was last night takin' two juleps, as happy and as comfortable as if we'd found a leperahaun's goold, or was in possession of a four lafed shamrouge, and cud git what we wanted jist for askin' it. And how cud we be otherwise ? for, as I said afore, there way 216 PICKINGS FROM THE " PICA YUMi." our juleps afore us, wkl the ice shinin' in the tumblers like lumps of diamonds, and the mint clusthered all over .the top o' thim, remindin' a body of the green fields of ould Ireland. < Now I think,' sis Bryan to me " " I think," said the Recorder, " that I evince great patience in listening to all this. Why do you not at once reply to the charge ?" "That's what I'm comin' to," said Phil: "so, as I was sayin', sis Bryan to me, sis he, ' I b'lieve, Phil,' sis he, ' there was a time in Ireland whin it 'ud be thrason to dhrink one of thim julips there,' sis he. ' I suppose ye mane since Father Mathew made thim all timperance min ?' sis I. ' No,' sis he ; ' but in '98.' ' Why in '98 ?' sis I. ' Jist bekase they're green? sis he ; 'ye know any one that showed a prefirence in thim days for the national colour in any way, they wor aither hung or sint to Botany Bay. 'Don't ye know,' sis he, 'what the ould song sis ? " It's a poor disthrissed country As iver yit was seen ; They're hangi'n min and womin For the wearin' of the green,' " 'O,I know all that,' sis I; 'yis, and it 'ud be so still only for O'Connell " O, Dan was the boy That in spite of King or Queen Pulled down the orange And ran up the green.' " And after singin' this verse he tuck up his tumbler and said, 4 Here's his health !' ' I'll not dhrink it,' sis I. ' Thin ye're no Irishman,' sis he. ' As good as you are,' sis I ; ' but I'll dhrink no man's health who sis a word aginst the Amirican Aigle, that floats above and watches over the nist where lib erty hatches her young.' ' O, I knew ye had the Saxon dhrop in ye,' sis he. ' It's a lie,' sis J. ' Take that thin,' sis he. 'And that,' sis I; and to it we wint, and at it we kept till the watchman arristed us. But we talked the thing over in the watchhouse last night, and made it all up. Bryan sis he'd suffer to be cursed be the priest rayther than propose O'Con- neh s health, if he knew that he said a word against the Amirican Aigle; so ii yer hauour lits us off t., is tun"* -e'li naither brake the pace nor one another's head for a month of Sundays." The Recorder took them at their words and ordered their immediate discharge. THE EMU. I x ^ H1TH ILLUSTRATIONS BY MRLEY. Kleoani Illuminated Cover*. PuWished by T.B. PETERSON & BROTHERS. MAJOR JONES'S COURTSHIP. DRAMA IN POKERYILLE. CHARCOAL SKETCHES. DEER STALKERS. MISFORTUNES OF PETER FABER. MAJOR JONES'S SKETCHES OF TRAVEL. YANKEE AMONGST THE MERMAIDS. STREAKS OF SQUATTER LIFE. QUARTER RACE IN KENTUCKY. SIMON SUGGS. WESTERN SCENES, OR LIFE ON THE PRAIRIE YANKEE YARNS AND YANKEE LETTERS. ADVENTURES OF COL.VANDERBOMB. BIG BEAR OF ARKANSAS. ADVENTURES OF PERCIVAL MAYBERRY. THE qUQRNDQN HOUNDS. MY SHOOTING BOX. MAJOR JONES'S CHRONICLES OF PINEVILLE.! STRAY SUBJECTS ARRESTED AND BOUND OVER. ADVENTURES OF FUDGE FUMBLE. ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN FARRAGO. PICKINGS FROM THE PICAYUNE. MAJOR Q'RECAN'S ADVENTURES. PETER PLODDY. FOLLOWING THE DRUM. WIDOW RUGBY'S HUSBAND. SOL. SMITHS THEATRICAL APPRENTICESHIP. SOL SMITH'S THEATRICAL JOURNEY WORK. POLLY PEABLOSSOM'S WEDDING. WARWICK WOODLANDS. LOUISIANA SWAMP DOCTOR. AUNT PATTY'S SCRAP BAG. NEW ORLEANS SKETCH BOOK. < PRICE 75 CENTS EACH. /30794 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY