Round the Sanctums.

Otago Witness, Issue 1427, 29 March 1879, Page 23

Round the Sanctums.

AN TJNCRUSHED YANKEE. The Hawkeye man has been travelling down East, and here is one of his experiences. Just before we reached Portsmouth a man entered into conversation with us. Be said, " You are from the West." I murmured something about the vaßt illimitable, etc., and the man said : II Yours is a new country ; a new country ; a n-e-w country." Yes, I told him, it was new, but it was the only one we had, and accordingly we wore it Sundays and week days alike, worked and went to parties in it, and it would soon look a thousand yearß old. " We," the man said, came down from the venerable mists of antiquity. It is a glorious thought." Yes, I said, but it wasn't pleasant. I was in Boston four days, and it east- winded and rained three of them. It was miaty enough , but it spoiled the prospect. "My ancestors," he said, " came over in the Mayflower. But yours—?" And he looked at me with a rising inflection. I tried to slay him with a look of silent Bcorn, but she missed fire. "Yeur ancestors, I take it," said the man, "did not come over in the Mayflower ?" And then I turned upon him. " Sir," I remarked, "this Mayflower, I take it, was a sailing ship ?" " She wa»," he said, vainly endeavouring to stifle his emotion, "she was a sailing ship." "Then," I said, haughtly, "most assuredly my ancestors did not come over in the Mayflower. It has never been the misfortune of my family to be compelled to take paßsage on any ship of the merchant marine. My ancestors came over in a Cunard steamer, firßt cabin, no Bteerage passengers carried, only ten days from Liverpool, and the minute they landed in New York they went straight

ap to Mrs Astor's tavern and took front arooms on the parlor fbor." I thought I had c.ua'aed that man, but may I be blessed if he didn't look as though he pitied me.