Humor.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume XX, Issue 2087, 1 July 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

Humor.

BUI Ny«» Badges BOILS. I an jut haring a highly humorous experience with boil*. To others this announcement will eome with no elenent ol sadacM, perhaps, but to me it brings a thrill of the keenest and most poignant anguish. A smb might go all over a whole country and not find anything more poignant thuu those boils seem to me. There are seven of these little blossoms, and ther hang in a ripe cluster on tbe back of my neck, about two inches below what the phrenologists call lore of home. I had never brought out a boil until last week, though I bavo led a very chequered life, but one morning I awoke to find myself the parent of seven canning little red-headed boils about the sire of a pumpkin-seed. They arc small, but, oh, how restless they arc, and how‘they straggle with each other for supremacy I People who live here say that these boils are a result of the climate. The air here is especially calculated to bring out anything in the line of latent humor. A man who had been running a humorous weekly paper in the far West came here and in two weeks be broke out so that his friends had to do him up in a poultice seven feet long. I am not doing much for these boils, because 1 want to teach them to be self-reliant and depend upon themselves. One of them was a puny little thing at first, and 1 felt sorry for it when my friends told me about it. 1 cannot sec these boils, of course, as they are not In the direct line of vision, being on the back of my neck. 8o 1 get a friendone I enn trust—and I let him come and tell me how they are doing from time to time. This little boil at first did not bid fair to hold out moie than a day or two, bnt yesterday it began to throw aside its lethargy and to realize that life is real. It is fully abreast of the others now, and ha a large and very active crater on it.

For three day* I put rations thing* on these bolls; among others soap, sugar, the white of an egg, flaxseed, bread and milk, bread and molasses, etc., etc., etc. There were other things recommended, but as the boils wire all in a cluster I bad to trrone thing at a time. With seren bolls well distributed I might hare tried sereral remedies at once, but I did the beat I could. In three day* I hare rendered four pound's worth of groceries entirely useless to the consumer. Bolls Tisit the rich and poor alike, the humble and the exalted. They are not a mark of greatness, for boil* frequently come to the obscure and the unknown. They do not come with the seeking, and they are not to be obtained by study or effort. Boils fall to the lot of many whose lire* would otherwise be void of incident. To such they are indeed a great benison, or may be used as such. How many people do we know who bare naught else to show us in the way of progress, but a kind Proridence has bestowed a boil upon them now and then, which they can exhibit as an eridence that they are not remaining absolutely stagnant 1 The felon also is a queer article, the usefulness of which has not been thoronghlymsde clear to my mind. There are ninety-eight different things that are good for a felon, each of which will make it ache first-rate, and that seems to be the principal object both with felons and boils. Some cut the finger open in treating a felon, and scrape the bone with a corncob or a wood rasp. About the only way to cure a felon is to seriously injure the finger and then cure the injury.

Printer Joe.—" Printer Joe,” said the conductor, was a bard one to stand off, and was known among railroad men all over tbe country. I don’t believe that fellow would pay bis fare from one station to tbe next if be'bad a fortune in bis pocket. It’s against his principles.” An interestedilot of listeners bad now gathered around, and a desire to hear more of tbe famous Joe, having been expressed, the condoctor went on as follows :

“ Well, among the thing which I remember of him was the way he beat me when I was running a Baltimore and Ohio train into Cincinnati a few years back. It was an accomodation train—that is, not one of the fastest—and stopping pretty often. Tbe express on that line was fast in those days, and I guess it is still. Well, one day I found Joe aboard. He was riding in the car next to the baggage. I saw him at once, bat didn't appear to recognize him, although I knew him all tbe same. So I said to him,— “ ‘ Ticket.’

He looked at mi in a rather amused way and pretended to pay no attention to me. But I insisted upon the ticket, whereupon he took me aside and said

“ My friend, I observe that you are a are new man on the line and don't know me. I am Director , of the Baltimore and Ohio, and, of course, have free transportation over the road 1’ “ I was vexed and told him I understood his game, and ttyd if he did not get off at the next station he would have reason to repent. He readily promised to get off, and kept bis word, for I saw him walking away from the train. I was glad to be rid of him so easilyjand you may imagine my chargrin when I came upon him again as I went through the train. I said nothing this time, but when we came to the next station I put Mr. Joe off in a way which was much more forcible than polite. It was of no use. At every station I bad to go through the same process, and once I stopped between stations, although we were behind time, and threw him out of the smoking car. We palled out as fast as possible, but be caught on to the last platform, and at the nextatop he stepped off looking as well pleased as if he had been riding on a Pullman. I was so mad when I saw him that I swore be should go no farther, and when wc were ready to start I took him by the collar, tripped him, and held him down till the train had started. I then ran and caught the last car. I was triumphant, and from the rear platform shook my fist at him as he stood disconsolate two hundred yards behind us. “ I saw no more of Joe until we gut to Cincinnati. I was standing by the train as the passengers were getting off when 1 felt myself touched on the arm. Turning around I saw Printer Joe 1 He said coolly

“'Captain, I’ve got a match ; if you will lend me a cigar I'll smoke.’

“ I was outdone, and not only gave him the cigar but said that 1 would give him his dinner if he would tell me how he had managed it. He agreed, and in a neighboring restaurant lie explained that he had caught the express and got in ahead of my train.” Criticism as is Criticism.— Col. '• fat ’ Donan doesn’t like the play of “ Hamlet,” Hear the eloquent adject iveslinger: • I have no patience, much less sympathy, with a wretched weakling who goes around jabbering at dilapitated old ghosts in tin helmets and green gauze veils, under bogus moonlight; everlastingly threatening to dosomething, and never doing it; driving bis sweetheart to lunacy and a catfish death, by bis dime-museum freaks ; making stump speeches to skulls and grave-diggers; going into all sorts of he-hys-terics ; and at last, running a section of barbed wire fence, in the most approved Chicago pig-sticking style, through bis dead girl’s brother, and dying himself, to slow fiddlemusic, amid a general carnage of lunatics and wreck of absurdities."