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THE NEAT PERSON.

BY JOSH BILLINGS.

NEATNESS, in my opinyun iz one ov the virtews. I hav alwus konsidered it twin sister to chastity. But while I almost worship. neatness in folks, i hav seen them who did understand the bizzness so well az tew acktually make it fearful tew behold. I hav seen neatness that want satisfied in being a common-sized virtew, but had bekum an ungovernable pashun, enslaving its possesser, and making everyboddy un eazy who kum in kontackt with it.

When a person finds it necessary to skour the nail heds in the cellar stairs evry day, and skrub oph the ducks' feet in hot water, it iz then that neatness haz bekum the tyrant of its viktim.

I hav seen individuals who wouldn't let a tired fly light on the wall paper ov their spare room enny quicker than they would let a dog mix up the bread for them, and who would hunt a single cockroach up stairs and down until his leggs were wore oph clear up to his stummuk but what they would hav him. I kan't blame them for being a little lively with the cockroach, for i don't like cockroaches miself-espeshily in mi soup.

Thare iz no persons in the world who work so hard and so eternally az the vicktims ov extatick neatness; but they don't seem tew do mutch after all, for they don't get a thing fairly cleaned to their mind before the other end ov it gits dirty, and they fall tew skrubbing it awl over agin.

If you should shut one ov these people up in a hogshed, they would keep bizzy skouring all the time, and would clean a hole. right thru the side ov the hogshed in less than 3 months.

They will keep a whole house dirty the year round cleaning it, and the only peace the family can hav iz when mother iz either bileing soap or making dip kandles.

They rize before daylight, so az to begin skrubbing early, and go tew bed before dark for fear things will begin tew git dirty. These kind ov excessiv neat folks are not alwus very literary, but they know soft water from hard bi looking at it, and they kan tell what kind ov soap will fetch oph the dirt best. They are sum like a kitchin gardin-very regularly laid out, but not planted yet.

If mi wife waz one ov these kind ov neatnesses, I would love her more than ever, for i do luv the different kinds ov neatness; but i think we would keep house by traveling round awl the time, and not stay but one night in a place, and i don't think she would undertake tew skrub up the whole ov the United States ov Amerika.

RAILWAY VOLAPÜK.

BY R. J. BURDETTE.

To him who, in the love of nature, holds communion with the railway trains, she speaks in various languages. Sometimes she speaks through the conductor, and says, briefly: "Tix!" or, "Fare!" Sometimes the train butcher interprets for her, and then she talks of books that nobody reads; and fruit that nobody eats; and things that nobody buys. Sometimes, again, the brakeman interprets, and then she voices her thoughts in a weird, mysterious patois, that sounds like something you never heard ; and you learn, when it is miles too late, that "Kyordltpnnn! Chair car fp Bdroomfld!" meant, "Carrollton! Change cars for Bradford !" Again, she employs the hackman at the station, and he roars: "'Bus forrup town! Going ritup! Hack? Kavallack? kavahack? kavahack? 'Bus for Thamerica Nouse! Merchant Sotel! This sway for the Planter Souse!" And still again, the passengers hold converse with you, and one man asks you underyou "Whyn't you gone to stop off at Enver?" which stand to mean, "Why, are you not going to stop off at Denver?" And yet another begins his narrative: "Devtell you 'bout the time," etc., which, by interpretation is: "Did I ever tell you," And so, the way of the traveler is Polyglot.

etc.

SIMON SUGGS GETS A "SOFT SNAP" ON HIS DADDY.

BY JOHNSON J. HOOPER.

JOHNSON J. HOOPER, prominent among the early Southern humorists,

was born in North Carolina in 1815. He early removed to Alabama, studied law, became judge, and in 1861 was Secretary of the Provisional Confederate Congress. He died in 1863.

THE shifty Captain Suggs is a miracle of shrewdness. He possesses, in an eminent degree, that tact which enables man to detect the soft spots in his fellow, and to assimilate himself to whatever company he may fall in with. Besides, he has a quick, ready wit, which has extricated him from many an unpleasant predicament, and which makes him, whenever he chooses to be so -and that is always very companionable. In short, nature gave the Captain the precise intellectual outfit most to be desired by a man of his propensities. She sent him into the world a sort of he-Pallas, ready to cope with his kind, from his infancy, in all the arts by which men "get along" in the world; if she made him, in respect to his moral conformation, a beast of prey, she did not refine the cruelty by denying him the fangs and the claws.

But it is high time we were beginning to record some of those specimens of the worthy Captain's ingenuity, which entitle him. to the epithet "Shifty." We shall therefore relate the earliest characteristic anecdote which we have been able to obtain; and we present it to our readers with assurance that it has come to our knowledge in such a way as to leave upon our mind not “a shadow of doubt" of its perfect genuineness. It will serve, if no other purpose, at least to illustrate the precocious development of Captain Suggs's peculiar talent.

Until Simon entered his seventeenth year, he lived with his father, an old hard-shell" Baptist preacher; who, though very pious and remarkably austere, was very avaricious. The old man reared his boys-or endeavored to do so-according to the strictist requisitions of the moral law. But he lived, at the time to which we refer, in middle Georgia, which was then newly settled; and Simon, whose wits, from the time he was a "shirttail boy," were always too sharp for his father's, contrived to

contract all the coarse vices incident to such a region. He stole his mother's roosters to fight them at Bob Smith's grocery, and

his father's plough - horses to enter them in "quarter" matches at the same place. He pitched dollars with Bob Smith himself, and could "beat him into doll rags" whenever it came to a measurement. To crown his accomplishments, Simon was tip-top at the game of "old sledge," which was the fashionable game of that era; and was early initiated in the mysteries of "stocking the papers." The vicious habits of Simon were, of course, a sore trouble to his father, Elder Jedediah. He reasoned, he counselled, he remonstrated, and he lashed-but Simon was an incorrigible, irreclaimable devil. One day the simple-minded old man returned rather unexpectedly to the field where he had left Simon, and Ben, and a negro boy named Bill, at work. Ben was still fol lowing his plough, but Simon and Bill were in a fence corner very earnestly engaged at "seven up." Of course the game was instantly suspended as soon as they spied the old man sixty or seventy yards off, striding towards them.

It was evidently a "gone case" with Simon and Bill; but our hero determined to make

SIMON SUGGS.

the best of it. Putting the cards into one pocket, he coolly picked up the small coins which constituted the stake, and fob

bed them in the other, remarking, "Well, Bill, this game's blocked; we'd as well quit."

"But, Mass Simon," remarked the boy, "half dat money's mine. Ain't you gwine to lemme hab 'em?"

"Oh, never mind the money, Bill; the old man's going to take the bark off both of us-and besides, with the hand I helt when we quit, I should 'a' beat you and won it all, any way."

"Well, but Mass Simon, we nebber finish de game, and de rule-"

"Go to an orful h-1 with your rule," said the impatient

[graphic][merged small]

Simon-" don't you see daddy's right down upon us, with an armful of hickories? I tell you I helt nothin' but trumps, and could 'a' beat the horns off of a billygoat. Don't that satisfy you? Somehow or another you're dd hard to please!" About this time a thought struck Simon, and in a low tonefor by this time the Reverend Jedediah was close at hand-he continued, "But maybe daddy don't know, right down sure, what we've been doin'. Let's try him with a lie-'twon't hurt, no way -let's tell him we've been playin' mumble-peg."

Bill was perforce compelled to submit to this inequitable adjustment of his claim to a share of the stakes; and, of course

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