A MUSTARD-PLASTER NINE FEET LONG.

Western Star, Issue 377, 4 September 1880, Page 2 (Supplement)

A MUSTARD-PLASTER NINE FEET LONG.

Dr. HenryC. Chapman, Coroner's Puysician, of Philadelphia, whose genial nature age has not withered, and whose infinite variety of cheerful speech custom has anything but staled, rushed excitedly into the drug-store at northwest corner of Twelfth and Chestnut Streets, one morning recently, and cried, in peremptory tones : " Give me three feet of mustard-plaster; and give it to me right away I" The apothecary, "with overwhelming brows," looked up from amidst his "green earthen pots, bladders, and musty seeds," and said, in a dazed sort of way: "Sir?" In this simple word was expressed both interrogation and surprise. " I say," replied Dr. Chapman, "I want three yards of mustard-plaster, and I want it just as quick as you can make it. Patient is in immient danger. Delay may mean death.'' " Three feet of mustard-plaster ? Good Heaven, doctor, what are—" «• I said three yards, not three feet: at least, when I said three feet, I meant to say three yards, and I immediately corrected myself. And I think that I mentioned the fact that this was a case in which there was no time to be lost."

The doctor was growing testy. " But three yards of mustard-plaster ; why, less my soul! You wouldn't want that much if your patient was a hippopotamus with the stomach ache ; surely, doctor, you don't really mean to say yards ; you must mean inches." Dr. Chapman assumed an air of severity becoming his professional dignity and municipal office. He seemed on the verge of expressing a forcible opinion forcibly. There was a significant pause. Then his severity faded away, his dignity relaxed, and he chuckled : " The fact of the matter is," he said, " one of the giraffes out at the Zoo has an acute attack of bronchitis. His throat's sore all the way down. That's what the plaster is for. Now, then, let's have it." And then the puzzled apothecary saw daylight, and set about manufacturing the largest mustard-plaster that the world has ever known.

A FEENCHMAN ON BALLEOOM DANCING. Ballroom danoing has been described as "hideous intertwining" by the Viscount de Brieux, the author of a pamphlet which has already reached a fifth edition. He calls the casuists to his aid. He says: "Eead the theology of M. Bouvier; it will tell you that the waltz {chorea G-ermanica) is of itself a great sin. Eead St. Liguori, certainly not too rigorous. This doctor of the Church examines whether pressing the hand of one's partner is always a sin. He solves the question in the negative." To press and to hold are two very different things. Everyone does not put his arm round his partner according to the rules of a good Christian. Assuredly the reader will be curious to know what they are.- See: "When the man is a Christian: ; ahd the woman also, his hand only is laid flat on her waist, resting on the gathers of her skirt. I consider this manner of holding as very immoral; but it is the most decent and rarest, and usually the half of the waist is embraced by the right arm of the polker.'' " I have spoken of a Christian dancer," continues the moralist; "itis a very rare species. Lady dancers are so, nearly all, or believe themselves such. Christians and true men neither waltz nor polk."