B 3 21t LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA DAVIS PECK'S SUNSHINE. BEING A COLLECTION OF ARTICLES WRITTEN FOR PECJCS SUN, MILWAUKEE, WIS., GENERALLY CALCULATED TO THROW SUNSHINE INSTEAD OF CLOUDS ON THE FACES OF THOSE WHO READ THEM. O-EOZ^O-E w\ i EDITOR "PECK'S SUN," AND AUTHOR OF " PECK'S FUN. CHICAGO: BELFORD, CLARKE & CO., ST. LOUIS. BELFORD & CLARKE PUBLISHING CO. MDCCCLXXXII. LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA DAVIS COPYRIGHTED. BELFORD, CLARKE & CO. 1882. PRINTED AND BOUND BY DONOHUE & HENNEBERRY, CHICAGO. CONTENTS. About Hell 36 About Railroad Conductors 249 Angels or Eagles 197 Arthur will Keep a Cow 61 Accidents a.id Incidents at Theatres 146 Addicted to Limburg Cheese 96 All About a Sandwich 150 Another Dead Failure 274 Another View of the Case 219 A Bald-Headed Man Most Crazy 142 A Case of Paralysis 128 A Cold, Cheerless Ride 136 A Doctor of Laws 92 A Female Knight of Pythias 19 A Hot Box at a Picnic 252 A Kansas Cyclone 188 A Lively Train Load 78 A Mean Trick 17 A Peck at a Cheese 48 A Sewing Machine Given to the Boss Girl 84 A Temperance Lecture that Hurt 263 A Trying Situation 181 A Washington Surprise Party 258 An .Esthetic Female Club Busted 42 An Accident all Round 199 An Arm that is not Reliable 27 And He Rose up and Spake 279 Bounced from Church for Dancing 29 Boys will be Boys 23 Boys and Circuses 179 Bravery of Mrs. Garfleld . 266 Broke up a Prayer Meeting 254 Buttermilk Bibbers 41 Cannibals and Cork Legs 88 Camp Meeting in the.Dark of the Moon 218 Changed Satchels 102 Church Keiio 211 Couldn't get away from Him 55 Grossman's G oat 12 Dogs and Human Beings 58 Don't Appreciate Kindness 86 Don't Leave your Gun Around 245 Duck or no Dinner 288 Contents. Failure of a Solid Institution 292 Female Doctors will Never Do 9 Fooling with the Bible 45 Good Will and Compassion 154 How a Grocery Man was Maimed 216 How Jeff Davis was Captured 192 How Sharper than a Hound's Tooth 80 Illustrating the Assassination 268 Incidents at the Newhall House Fire 118 Large Mouths are Fashionable 171 Looking for a Mooley Cow 173 Male and Female Mashing 130 Misdeal in a Sleeping Car 204 Music on the Waters 71 No Children Admitted 183 Our Blue-Coated Dog Poisoners 276 Our Christian Neighbors have Gone 161 Palace Cattle Cars 286 Paralysis in a Theatre 207 Police Searching Women 31 Prize Fighting and Mormonism 201 Religion and Fish 90 Sense in Little Bugs 107 Shall there be Hugging in the Parks? v 64 Shooting on Sunday, with the Mouth 255 Some Talk about Monopolies 137 Spurious Tripe 127 Summer Resorting Ill Terrible time on the Cars 99 The Advent Preacher and the Balloon t 212 The Bob-Tailed Badger 67 The Class in Physiology 265 The Cause of Rheumatism 214 The Difference 126 The Difference in Horses 94 The Difference in Clothes 260 The Deadly Paper Bag 122 The Female Burglar 156 The Girl that was Hugged to Death 159 The Giddy Girl's Quarrel 243 The Great Monopolies 273 The Guinea Pig 290 The Gospel Car. 114 The Harmful Hammock 176 The Horse Girl Race 229 The Infidel and his Silver Mine. 271 The Man from Dubuque 240 The Mistake about it 336 The Ministerial Pugilist 69 Contents. 5 The Naughty but Nice Church Choir 104 TheNewCoal Stove 134 The Pious Deacon and the Worldly Cow 231 The Queerest Name 209 The Question of Cats 224 The Sudden Fire Works at Racine 164 The Trouble Mr. Storey has 232 The Telescope Fish-Pole Cane , 20 The Uses of the Paper Bag , A 132 The Virginia Duel 124 They Don't Know what they are Talkling About 187 Those Bold, Bad Drummers . . 194 Two Girls at a Picn ic 152 Tragedy on the Stage 234 Uncovering the top of a Fruit Jar 39 Woman Dozing Democrat 75 Young Fools who Marry 168 SUNBEAMS. A Word to Colored Concert Troops 55 Heresy 133 Hayes on the Grass 134 Brussels Carpet in a Wood 140 Mr. Peck Responds 144 Gas at Janesville 154 Anna Dickinson 160 Decoration Day 294 Scene at Palmyra 295 NOT GUILTY." Gentlemen of the Jury : I stand before you charged with an attempt to "remove" the people of America by the publication of a new book, and I enter a plea of " Not Guilty." While admitting that the case looks strong against me, there are extenuating circumstances, which, if you will weigh them carefully, will go far towards acquitting me of this dreadful charge. The facts are that I am not responsible. I was sane enough up to the day that I decided to publish this book and have been since; but on that particular day I was taken possession of by an unseen power a Chicago publisher who filled my alleged mind with the belief that the country demanded the sacrifice, and that there would be money in it. If the thing is a failure, I want it understood that I was instigated by the Chicago man; but if it is a success, then, of course, it was an inspiration of my own. The book contains nothing but good nature, pleasantly told yarns, jokes on my friends; and, through it all, there is not intended to be a line or a word that can cause pain or sorrow nothing but happiness. Laughter is the best medicine known to the world for the cure of many diseases that mankind is subject to, and it has been prescribed with success by some of our best practitioners. It opens up the pores, and restores the circulation of the blood, and the despondent patient that smiles, is in a fair way vi "Not Guilty." to recovery. While this book is not recommended as an infal lible cure for consumption, if I can throw the patient into the blues by the pictures, I can knock the blues out by vaccinating with the reading matter. To those who are inclined to look upon the bright side of life, this book is most respectfully dedicated by the author. GEO. W. PECK. MILWAUKEE, Wis., > March, 1882. f PECK'S SUNSHINE. FEMALE DOCTORS WILL NEVER DO. A ST. Louis doctor factory recently turned out a dozen female doctors. As long as the female doctors were confined to one or two in the whole country, and these were experimental, the Sun held its peace, and did not complain; but now that the colleges are engaged in producing female doctors as a business, we must protest, and in so doing will give a few reasons why female doctors will not prove a paying branch of industry. In the first place, if they doctor anybody it must be women, and three-fourths of the women had rather have a male doctor. Suppose these colleges turn out female doctors until there are as many of them as there are male doctors, what have they got to practice on? A man, if there was nothing the matter with him, might call in a female doctor; but if he was sick as a horse and when a man is sick he is sick as a horse the last thing he would have around would be a female doctor. And why? Because when a man wants a female fumbling around him he wants to feel well. He don't want to be bilious, or feverish, with his mouth tasting like cheese, and his eyes bloodshot, when a female is looking over him and taking an account of stock, 10 Of course these female doctors are all young and good looking, and if one of them came into a sick room where a man was in bed, and he had chills, and was as cold as a wedge, and she should sit up close to the side of the bed, and take hold of his hand, his pulse would run up to a hundred and fifty and she would prescribe for a fever when he had chilblains. Then if he died she could be arrested for malpractice. O, you can't fool us on female doctors. A man who has been sick and had male doctors, knows just how he would feel to have a female doctor come tripping in and throw her fur lined cloak over a chair, take off her hat and gloves, and throw them on a lounge, and come up to the bed with a pair of marine blue eyes, with a twinkle in the corner, and look him in the wild, changeable eyes, and ask him to run out his tongue. Suppose he knew his tongue was coated so it looked like a yellow Turkish towel, do you suppose he would want to run out five or six inches of the lower end of it, and let that female doctor put her finger on it, to see how it was furred ? ^"ot much ! He would put that tongue up into his cheek, and wouldn't let her see it for twenty-five cents admission. We have all seen doctors put their hands under the bed-clothes and feel a man's feet to see if they were cold. If a female doctor should do that, it would give a man cramps in the legs. A male doctor can put his hand on a man's stomach, and liver, and lungs, and ask him if he feels any pain there; but if a female doctor should do the same thing it would make a man sick, and he would want to get up and kick himself for employ- PECK'S SUNSHINE. 11 ing a female doctor. O, there is no use talking, it would kill a man. Now, suppose 'a man had heart disease, and a female doctor should want to listen to the beating of his heart. She would lay her left ear on his left breast, so her eyes and rosebud mouth would be looking right in his face, and her wavy hair would be scattered all around there, getting tangled in the buttons of his night shirt. Don't you suppose his heart would get in about twenty extra beats to the minute ? You bet ! And she would smile we will bet ten dollars she would smile and show her pearly teeth, and her ripe lips would be working as though she were counting the beats, and he would think she was trying to whisper to him, and Well, what would he be doing all this time? If he was not dead yet, which would be a wonder, his left hand would brush the hair away from her temple, and kind of stay there to keep the hair away, and his right hand would get sort of nervous and move around to the back of her head, and when she had counted the heart beats a few minutes and was rais ing her head, he would draw the head up to him and kiss her once for luck, if he was as bilious as a Jersey swamp angel, and have her charge it in the bill; and then a reaction would set in, and he would "be as weak as a cat, and she would have to fan him and rub his head till he got over being nervous, and then make out her prescription after he got asleep. No; all of a man's symptoms change when a female doctor is practicing on him, and she would kill him dead. The Sun is a woman's rights paper, and believes in allowing women to do anything that they can do 12 PECK'S SUNSHINE. as well as men, and is in favor of paying them as well as men are paid for the same work, taking all things into consideration; but it is opposed to their trifling with human life, by trying to doctor a total stranger. These colleges are doing a great wrong in preparing these female doctors for the war path, and we desire to enter a protest in behalf of twenty million men who could not stand the pressure. GROSSMAN'S GOAT. MR. GROSSMAN, of Marshall street, is a man who was once a boy himself, if his memory serves him, and no boy of his is going to ask him for anything that is in his power to purchase and be refused. But when his boy asked him to buy a goat Mr. Grossman felt hurt. It was not the expense of the goat that he looked at, but he never had felt that confidence in the uprightness of the moral character of a goat that he wanted to feel. A goat he always associated in his mind with a tramp, and he did not feel like bringing among the truly good children of the neighborhood a goat. He told his boy that he was sorry he had lavished his young and tender affections on a goat, and hoped that he would try and shake off the feeling that his life's happiness would be wrecked if he should re fuse to buy him a goat. The boy put his sleeve up over his eyes and began to shed water, and that set tled it. Mr. Grossman's religion is opposed to immersion, and when the infant baptism began his proud spirit was conquered, and he told the boy to lead on and he would buy the goat. They went over into the PECK'S SUNSHINE. 13 Polack settlement and a Countess there, who takes in washing, was bereaved of the goat, while Mr. Grossman felt that he was a dollar out of pocket. Now that he thinks of it, Mr. Grossman is confi dent that the old lady winked as he led the goat away by a piece of clothes line, though at the time he looked upon the affair as an honorable business transaction. If he had been buying a horse he would have asked about the habits of the animal, and would probably have taken the animal on triaL But it never occurred to him that there was any cheat ing in goats. The animal finally pulled Mr. Grossman home, at the end of the clothes line, and was placed in a neighbor's barn at eventide to be ready for the morn ing's play, refreshed. About 6 o'clock in the morn ing, Mr. Grossman was looking out of his window when he saw the neighboring lady come out of the barn door head first, and the goat was just taking its head away from her polonaise in a manner that Mr. Grossman considered, with his views of pro priety, decidedly impolite. Believing there was some misunderstanding, and that the goat was jealous of a calf that was in the barn, and that the matter could be satisfactorily ex plained to the goat, Mr. Grossman put the other leg in his trousers, took a cistern, pole and went to the front. The goat saw him coming, and rushed out into the yard and stood up on its hind feet and gave the grand hailing sign of distress, and as Mr. Cross- man turned to see if any of the neighbors were up, he felt an earthquake strike him a little below where he had his suspenders tied around his body. Mr. Grossman repeated a portion of the beautiful Easter 14 PECK'S SUNSHINE. service and climbed up on an ash barrel, where he stood poking the goat on the ear with the cistern pole, when Mr. Crombie, who lives hard by. and who had come out to split some kindling wood, ap peared on the scene. Mr. Crombie is a man who grasps a situation at once, and though he is a man who deliberates much on any great undertaking, when he saw the lady be hind the coal box, and Mr. Grossman on the ash bar rel, he felt that there was need of a great mind right there, and he took his with him over the fence, in company with a barrel stave and a hatchet. He told Grossman that there was only one way to deal with a goat, and that was to be firm and look him right in the eye. He said Sep. Wintermute, at Whitewater, once had a goat that used to drive the boys all around, but be could do anything with him, by looking him in the eye. He walked toward the goat, with "his eyes sot," and Mr. Grossman says one spell he thought, by the way the goat looked sheepish, that Crombie was a regular lion tamer, but just as he was about to paralyze the animal, Mr. Crombie caught the strings of his drawers, which were dragging on the ground, in the nails of a barrel hoop, and as he stooped down to untangle them the goat kicked him with his head, at a point about two chains and three links in a northwesterly direction from the small of his back. Crombie gave a sigh, said, "I die by the hand of an assassin," and jumped up on a wagon, with the bar rel stave and hatchet, and the hoop tangled in his legs. The goat had three of them treed, and was look ing for other worlds to conquer, when Mr. Nowell, who was out for a walk, saw the living statues, and PECK'S SUNSHINE. 15 came in to hear the news. Mr. Grossman said he didn't know what had got into the goat, unless it was a tin pail or a lawn mower that was in the barn, but he was evidently mad, and he advised Mr. No- well to go for the police. Nowell said a man that had raised cub bears had no right to be afraid of a g@at. He said all you w r anted to do, in subduing the spirit of animals, was to gain their confidence. He said he could, in two minutes, so win the affections of that goat that it would follow him about like a dog, and he went up and stroked the animal's head, scratched its ear, and asked them if they could not see they had taken the wrong course with the goat. He said a goat was a good deal like a human being. You could coax, but you could not drive. ''Come, Billy," said he, as he moved off, snapping his fingers. It is Mr. NowelFs unbiased opinion that Billy did come. Not that he saw Billy come, but he had a vague suspicion, from a feeling of numbness some two feet from the base of the brain, that William had arrived in that immediate vicinity, and while he was recalling his scattered thoughts and feeling for any pieces of spine that might have become' de tached from the original column, Billy came again and caught three of Mr. Nowell's fingers in the pile driver. That was talk enough between gentlemen, and Mr. Nowell got his back against a fence and climbed up on top backwards. When he caught his breath he said that was the worst shock he ever experienced since he fell off the step ladder last summer. He said he had rather break a bear to ride any time. 16 PECK'S SUNSHINE. At this point Mr. Crombie espied a letter carrier on the other side of the street, and called him over. He told the letter carrier if he would step into the yard and drive the goat in the barn they would all unite in a petition to have the salaries of letter car riers raised. There is no class of citizens more ac commodating than our letter carriers, and this one came in and walked up to the goat and pushed the animal with his foot. "This goat seems tame enough," said he, turning around to speak to Mr. Grossman. His words had not more than vaporized in the chill air before the goat had planted two trip hammer blows into the seat of government, and the letter carrier went into the barn, fell over a wheelbarrow, and the letters from his sack were distributed in a box stall. It was a beautiful sight to look upon, and they would have been there till this time had it not been that the CountebS happened to come along gather ing swill, and the party made up a purse of three dollars for her if she would take the goat away. She took a turnip top from her swill pail, offered it to the goat, and the animal followed her off, bleating and showing every evidence of content ment, and the gentlemen got down from the posi tions they had assumed, and they shook hands and each took a bloody oath that he would not tell about it, and they repaired to their several homes and used arnica on the spots where the goat had kicked them. The only trouble that is liable to arise out of this is that the postmaster threatens to commence an ac tion against Grossman for obstructing the mails. PECK'S SUNSHINE. 17 A MEAN THICK. PROBABLY the meanest trick that was ever played on a white man was played in Milwaukee, and the fact that there is no vigilance committee there is the only reason the perpetrators of the trick are alive. A business man had just purchased a new stiff hat, and he went into a saloon with half a dozen of his friends to fit the hat on his head. They all took beer, and passed the hat around so all could see it. One of the meanest men that ever held a county of fice went to the bar tender and had a thin slice of Limburger cheese cut off, and when the party were looking at the frescoed ceiling through beer glasses this wicked person slipped the cheese under the sweat leather of the hat, and the man put it on and walked out. The man who owned the hat is one of your ner vous people, who is always complaining of being sick, and who feels as though some dreadful disease is going to take possession of him and carry him off. He went back to his place of business, took off his hat and laid it on the table, and proceeded to answer some letters. He thought he detected a smell, and, when his partner asked him if he didn't feel sick, he said he believed he did. The man turned pale and said he guessed he would go home. He met a man on the sidewalk who said the air was full of miasma, and in the street car a man who sat next to him moved away to the end of the car, and asked him if he had just come from Chicago. The man with the hat said he had not, when the stranger said they were having a great deal of smallpox there, and he guessed he would get out and walk, and he pulled IB PECK'S SUNSHINE. the bell and jumped off. The cold perspiration broke out on the forehead of the man with the new hat, and he took it off to wipe his forehead, when the whole piece of cheese seemed to roll over and breathe, and the man got the full benefit of it, and came near fainting away. He got home and his wife met him and asked him what was the matter? He said he believed mortifi cation had set in, and she took one whiff as he^took off his hat, and said she should think it had. " Where did you get into it?" said she. "Get into it?" said the man, "I have not got into anything, but some deadly disease has got hold of me, and I shall not live." She told him if any disease that smelled like that had got hold of him and was going to be chronic, she felt as though he would be a burden to himself if he lived very long. She got his clothes off, soaked his feet in mustard water, and he slept. The man slept and dreamed that a smallpox flag was hung in front of his house and that he was rid ing in a butcher wagon to the pest house. The wife sent for a doctor, and when the man of pills arrived she told him all about the case. The doctor picked up the patient's new hat, tried it on and got a sniff. He said the hat was picked before it was ripe. The doctor and the wife held a post mortem examination of the hat, and found the slice of Limberger. " Few and short were the prayers they said." They woke the patient, and, to prepare his mind for the revelation that was about to be made, the doctor asked him if his worldly affairs were in a satisfactory condition. He gasped and said they were. The doctor asked him if he had made his will. He said he had not, but that he PECK'S SUNSHINE, 19 wanted a lawyer sent for at once. The doctor asked him if he felt as though he was prepared to shuffle off. The man said he had always tried to lead a different life, and had tried to be done by the same as he would do it himself, but that he might have made a misdeal some way, and he would like to have a minister sent for to take an account of stock. Then the doctor brought to the bedside the hat, opened up the sweat-leather, and showed the dying man what it was that smelled so, and told him he was as well as any man in the city. The patient pinched himself to see if he was alive, and jumped out of bed and called for his revolver, and the doctor couldn't keep up with him on the way down town. The last we saw of the odoriferous citizen he was trying to bribe the bar-tender to tell him which one of those pelicans it was that put that slice of cheese in his hat-lining. A FEMALE KNIGHT OF PYTHIAS. A WOMAN of Bay City, Michigan, disguised herself as a man and clerked in a store for a year, and then applied for membership in the Knights of Pythias and was initiated. During the work of the third degree her sex was discovered. It seems that in the third degree they have an India rubber rat and a celluloid snake, which run by clockwork inside, and which were very natural indeed. The idea is to let them run at the candidate for initiation to see if he will flinch. When the snake ran at the girl she kept her nerve all right, but when the rat tried to run up her trousers leg she grabbed her imaginary skirts in both hands and jumped onto a refrigerator 20 PECK'S SUNSHINE. that was standing near, (which is used in the work of the fourth degree) and screamed bloody murder. The girl is a member of the order, however, and there is no help for it. This affair may open the eyes of members of secret societies and cause them to investigate. One lodge here, we understand, takes precaution against the admission of women by examining carefully the feet of applicants. If the feet are cold enough to freeze ice cream the can didate is black-balled. THE TELESCOPE FISH -POLE CANE. THERE is one thing we want to set our face against and try and break up, and that is the habit of young and middle aged persons going fishing on Sunday, when going on the Summer excursions to the coun try. The devil, or some other inventor, has origin ated a walking-stick that looks as innocent as a Sunday school teacher, but within it is a roaring lion, in the shape of a fish-pole. We have watched young fellows, and know their tricks. Sunday morning they say to their parents that they have agreed to go over on the West Side and attend early mass with a companion, just to hear the exquisite music, and, by the way, they may not be home to dinner. And they go from that home, with their new cane, looking as pious as though they were passing the collection plate. When they get around the corner they whoop it up for the depot, and shortly they are steaming out into the country. They have a lot of angle worms in an envelope in their vest pockets, and a restaurant colored man, who has been seen the night before, meets them at PECK'S SUNSHINE. 21 the depot and hands them a basket of sandwiches with a bottle sticking out. Arriving at the summer resort, they go to the bank of the lake and take a boat ride, and when well out in the lake they begin to unbosom the cane. Taking a plug out of the end of it, they pull out a dingus and three joints of fish-pole come out, and they tie a line on the end, put an angle worm on the hook, and catch fish. That is the kind of "mass" they are attending. At night the train comes back to town, and the sunburnt young men, with their noses peeled, hand a basket to the waiting colored man, which smells of fish, and they go home and tell their parents they went out to Forest Home Cemetery in the afternoon, and the sun was awful hot. The good mother knows she smells fish on her son's clothes, but she thinks- it is some new kind of perfumery, and she is silent. An honest up-and-up fish-pole is a thing of beauty and a joy forever, if the fishing is good, but one of these deceptive, three carde monte, political fish- poles, that shoves in and appears to be a cane, is in cendiary, and ought to be suppressed. There ought to be a law passed to suppress a fish-pole that passes in polite society for a cane, and in such a moment as ye think not is pulled out to catch fish. There is nothing square about it, and the invention of that blasted stem winding fish-pole is doing more to ruin this country than all the political parties can over come. If there was a law to compel the owners of those walking-sticks to put a sign on their canes, "This is a fish-pole," there would be less canes tak en on these Sunday excursions in summer. ' 22 PECK'S SUNSHINE. Look not upon the walking-stick when it is hol low, and pulls out, for at last it giveth thee away, young fellow. THE SUN is in receipt of an invitation to attend the opening of a new hotel in an Iowa city, but it will be impossible to attend. We remember one Iowa hotel which we visited in 1869, when the Wis consin editors stopped there on the way back from Omaha, the time when a couple of bed bugs took Uncle David Atwood up on the roof and were going to throw him off, and they would have done it, only a party of cockroaches took his part and killed the bed bugs. Sam Ryan will remember how there was a crop of new potatoes growing on the billiard room floor in the dirt, that were all blossomed out ; and Charley Seymour can tell how he had to argue for an hour to convince the colored cook that the peculiar smell of the scrambled eggs was owing to some of them being rotten. There were four waiters to a hundred guests, and it was a sight long to be remembered to see Mrs. Seymour and Mrs. Atwood carry their broiled chicken back to the kitchen and pick the feathers off, while good Uncle McBride, of Sparta, got into an altercation over his fried fish because the fish had not been scaled; where it was said the only thing that was not sour was the vinegar, and where the only thing that was not too small was the bill, and where every room smelled like a morgue, and the towels in the rooms had not taken a bath since 1827. 23 At this hotel the proprietor would take a guest's napkin to wipe his nose, and the barefooted waiter girl would slip up on the rare-done fried egg spilled on the dining-room floor, and wipe the yolk off her