JOCOSITIES
____
By
JOE CONE
(The column from September 21, 1910, is missing*, but the below verse
was written for that date, so it is being placed here on the presumption that it
was published in the missing column)
Upon
the Vine
Just see them
hanging low and fair,
Of masterly design,
Adorn dame
nature’s arbor there,
The grapes upon the vine.
Long purple
clusters, weighted down
With juices rich and fine;
Fairer than
fashioned stately crown,
The grapes upon the vine.
“Eat all ye may,”
the vineyard calls
“I have them and to spare;
They cover arbor
fence and walls,
Eat freely, have no care.”
Ah! Luscious then
the cluster rare
Of masterful design;
‘Tis good to have
them, and to spare,
The grapes upon the vine.
Transformed the
scene, o the cluster dies;
Crushed to a bleeding mess,
It trickles to the
tub that lies
Beneath the power press.
Long rows of
bottles tinted rare,
The vineyards end, alas!
Drink sparingly,
friend have a care,
The grapes within the glass!
____________
Sept. 21, ‘10
(*His
collection had a second copy of the September 20 column pasted where this date’s
should have been, next to the first. This might have been an error, or perhaps
the paper published the same one twice? He did date them both as “Sept. 20, ’10,
however.)
JOCOSITIES
____
By
JOE CONE
The
Old Cider Pile
It’s hard to go to
school again
Along the country way,
And sit upon a
polished seat
Throughout an autumn day.
The room seems
stuffy, work is slow,
The world outside is bright,
And now is just
the time of year
When fish will start to bite.
But one bright
spot each day appears,
Beside the dusty way;
Bige Miller’s
cider mill stands where
We pass it every day.
And in the field
beside the road,
Heaped up, seems half a mile,
Just like a red
and yellow hill,
Stands Bijah’s cider pile.
O, there are
pippins piled up there,
And Baldwins big and red;
And greenings,
russets, gilly flowers,
Just like a flower bed.
A score of kinds
so big and fair
They make we youngsters smile;
And we just load
our pockets up
From Bijah’s cider pile.
For Bijah’s told
us we could have
Just all we want to eat,
And we are eating
all the time,
Because it’s Bijah’s treat.
And though we hate
to go to school,
It’s really worth the while
When we can linger
to and fro
Round Bijah’s cider pile.
______
Uncle Ezra Says:
“Some
make hay while the sun shines and some make it while the ‘moonshines.’”
______
Those Girls Again
Myrtle
– They say Miss McSwatts is surely going to break into society this fall.
Hazel
– I should think she might; her father was a stone mason once upon a time.
______
The
Lucky Sodaist
The druggist is
the only man
Who has all-the-year-round snap;
No sooner is “Cold
Soda” off,
That “Hot Chocolate” is on tap.
______
Weak Evidence
Anxious
mother – What makes you think Henry had it in mind to propose last night?
Ditto
daughter – We were discussing houses and people living in them and so on, and
Henry said he never yet saw a house large enough for two families.
______
A
Warning
They is a frosty
feelin’
A-creepin’ o’er the hill;
Down in the
sheltered valleys
The nights are growin’ chill.
The nights are
growin’ “mooney,”
They’re almost bright as day;
It’s time to put
the melons
Out of temptation’s way.
______
Not Old Offenders
Beacon
– Here’s an article that says, “old busts are identified.”
Hill
– In which police court?
______
What
the Postman Brings
We love the postman for what he brings
Albeit
’tis joy or pain;
Our hearts give a bound whene’er he rings,
Though
it means for us loss or gain.
We fly to the door when the postman rings,
Expectant,
yet half afraid;
It may be a letter of love he brings,
Or
a reminder of bills unpaid.
Still we wait to see him cross the street,
And
stop with his load at our door;
We hasten downstairs his step to greet,
As
we’ve done so oft before.
He may hand us gold, he may hand myrrh,
A
letter that pleases or stings;
Still we are anxious, our pulses stir
Whenever
the postman rings.
O, soul clad in gray, you never know
As
you ring at each waiting door,
Whether ’tis joy or whether ’tis woe
You
hand from your daily store.
But the world awaits your every call,
It
listens your step and ring;
You do your best for us one and all,
We
love you for what you bring.
______
In Cowland
WE
think we see a way to solve the milk problem. The milk problem is, as you know,
its scarcity and its high price. If there were plenty of milk it would be
cheaper. The farmer will tell you that he is troubled to get plenty of cows. If
he had a lot more cows he would have plenty of milk, and if he had plenty of
milk the cost would be a whole lot less. That is simple, isn’t it?
Way
out in Orange county, New York, a farmer has produced a cow which has lately
given birth to triplets. This bodes good for the cow industry. On this farm
there are three little cows where only one greww before. Now all there is to
the milk problem is for our farmers to get this particular brand of Orange
county cow.
______
Song for September
[From
Judge.]
Phyllis and Helen and Mabel,
Gladys
and Ethyl and Jane,
Edith and Polly and Myrtle and Dolly,
Alicia,
Mathilde, and Elaine.
The Plaza, the Waldorf, the Astor,
Sherry’s
and Martin’s and Del’s,
Throw open your shutter, a thankful prayer
mutter,
Exhibit
the wares your house sells.
Rejoice and be glad all Manhattan!
Send
laughter up Broadway and down!
Welcome them royally, we’ve missed them
loyally –
The
girls who’re returning to town!
____________
Sept. 22, 1910
JOCOSITIES
____
By
JOE CONE
Gungy
Weather Verse
Ol’ turkle set
upon a stump
Along the shores uv
Gungywamp,
Ol’ “Lizzard”
passin’ lazy by,
A look uv sorrer
in his eye.
At times he
stretched his neck afar
Ez searchin’ out
some distunt star;
But he wuz lookin’
jest to see
What like the
weather wuz to be.
The autumn winds
blew fierce an’ chill
An’ whistled round
each lonely hill;
They struck ol’
turkle fair abeam,
An’ woke him frum
his chilly dream.
He shivered in his
spotted shell
An’ drew his head
into its cell.
“This is no place
fur me,” he cried,
An’ tumbled
headlong ‘neath’ the tide.
Ol’ turkle headed
for the mud,
An’ struck the
bottom with a thud.
He’d found the
weather cold an’ bleak
An’ so he promptly
took a sneak.
It wuz no place fur
him, he said,
An’ so he buried
up his head.
An’ he will stay
till spring appears,
All free frum toil
an’ care an’ tears.
Ol’ turkle, how I
envy him
Way down ‘neath “Lizzard’s” mossy brim,
Snug frum the winter,
free from care
Without no diggin’
fur his fare.
Then when the
spring strikes in the bog
He’ll crawl ag’in
upon the log,
An’ rub himself,
an’ say with glee:
“This is the weather,
boys, fur me!”
______
Uncle Ezra Says:
“The
on’y reason in the world why they’s so many suckers ketched is becuz they bite
so of’n.”
______
Variety Note
We
are wondering if the theatrical manager who telegraphed Uncle Joe a $3000 a
week job in vaudeville wished him to do a “Cannon King” act.
______
Cheerful Comment
The
Maine is still going down.
Evidently
the United Shoe Machinery Company has another plant.
That
gold mine out in Cambridge is neither thine nor mine.
Evidently
Mme. Cavalieri cannot strike a high financial note.
The
big Tenderloin round-up in New York doesn’t insure us a lowering in the price
of beef.
There
are 48,000,000 eggs in cold storage in Omaha. The pity of it all is that they
can’t be made to stay there.
With
Claude Grahame-White “all the world’s a stage.” He doesn’t have to go into
vaudeville on the inside.
Dame
fashion says it’s two chemises in the future for the smartly dressed woman. It
would better be six chemises than one hobble skirt!
______
The Last Rhyme
(Contributed.)
Seated one night with my pencil,
I was
writing some silly verse;
Ideas came to be slowly,
And the
rhymes I made were worse.
I know not what I was writing,
But thought
of something absurd,
And when I put it on paper’ For a rhyme I knew of no word.
I looked through my dictionary
For words to
rhyme and make sense,
But succeeded only in finding
A word that
had the wrong tense.
My brow was covered with wrinkles,
I ran my
hand through my hair;
The lines I wrote had no meaning,
My heart was
filled with despair.
Perhaps a Joe Cone or a Newkirk
Could have
found the word had they chose,
But if ever I make the thing public
I know I
shall write it in prose.
Dorchester. H. E. F.
______
Everyday
Philosophy
Also
look before you sidestep.
A
kiss in time saves defeat.
Perhaps
it’s no worse to be down and out than to be up and out.
Every
man who disagrees with you is an insurgent.
Let
him who is without fruit have the first peach.
There
may be two sides to a question and still one of them be full of holes.
Probably
there’s some good in the other fellow if you would only let yourself see it.
There
is something queer about an advertisement nowadays that reads: “Experience not
necessary.”
______
On the Job
With
his pants turned up and his hat turned down,
He
is a picture in Cambridge town;
Anybody here seen “studie?”
Harvard, rah, rah!
______
A Useless
Instrument
(Contributed.)
At
a town meeting in Watertown, Mass., a few years ago, the proposition of
purchasing a chandelier for the town hall came up for discussion by the voters.
An Irishman, who evidently thought a chandelier was a musical instrument, and
who had the interests of the town at heart, arose and said: “What do we want a
chandelier for, anyhow? I’ll bet there isn’t a man in the hall who can play on
it.”
Boston. H.
V. L.
______
Played and Lost
“I
never kissed in all my life,” she declared, backing from him to a safe
distance.
“Then,
my dear young lady,” said he, considerately, “as much as I would like to do so,
I will not change that beautiful situation.”
Then.
calling him a mean old thing, she swept disdainfully out of the room.
____________
Sept. 23, ‘10
JOCOSITIES
____
By
JOE CONE
Lay
of the Ancient Egg
Here
ye the lay of the ancient egg
Within the cold, dank room,
Packed safely away
in box or keg,
Awaiting the buyer’s doom.
“Long years ago I
dropped to earth,
So long I mind them not;
When I was taken
at my birth
By greedy hands and hot.
“Aye, from my
mother was I stole,
Who could not help herself,
And placed within
a darkened hole,
High on a pantry shelf.
Then was I carted
to the store
And traded there for tea;
Surrounded by a
hundred more,
Of more or less degree.
“Then was I crated
for the town,
The town so far away;
And then the train
came thund’ring down,
And I rode night and day.
Aye, night and day
I bowled along
Upon the rails of steel;
The journey it
seemed ages long,
And useless our appeal.
“Sidetracked we
waited night and day,
To leave our prison cell;
One died
heart-broke upon the way,
And were unfit to smell.
Then we were taken
one by one,
And placed within a tomb
Where never shines
the noonday sun,
Where all is chill and gloom.
“Ah! Frozen to the
core are we,
We cannot move or speak;
Each day much loss
of life we see,
Each day we grow more weak.
Old age has crept
has crept upon my brow,
The frost of years is mine;
What is my fate
eons from now
I cannot well opine.
“If some one
breaks me by and by
And finds I am not good,
Assail me not;
helpless am I,
I’ve done the best I could.”
This is the lay of
the ancient egg,
That lies in its cell of snow;
Be patient with
it, O man, I beg!
Because it has had no show.
______
Uncle Ezra Says:
“Markin’
time ain’t a very peasunt nur profitable occupation fur the gruceryman.”
______
Society Note
We
are mighty glad that we never swore we’d let our hair grow till that
Elkins-Abruzzi wedding was pulled off.
______
Cheerful Comment
Robbing
a detective is the unkindest cut of all.
The
people have been looking up to Orville Wright in his native town.
Few
people will have the sand to try out Mr. Graustein’s indigestion cure.
Artist
Christy and his wife haven’t made up yet, but they are nearer together than
they were.
Boston
has received a cargo of 2000 tons of tea, and not a pound of it pink.
The
three men who stole the Cumberland county fair down in Maine have been
captured.
Does
the 1700 students enrolled at Smith College mean that there will be 1700 poorer
cooks in 1913?
Mme.
Cavalieri has long handed out “Beauty Hints,” and now it’s a wonder some
enterprising editor doesn’t try to conduct a department of “Financial Hints.”
______
An Example
“What
is an insurgent, pa?”
“Well,
just watch your mother the next time I want to be out for the evening.”
______
Getting Ahead
Dora
– Was your chaperone in your way much while on your trip?
Cora
– In our way? Mercy no; we always left her far in the rear!
______
“Who’s Looney Now?”
(Contributed.)
In
the much advertised international match,
Where
an heir of the Astors a song-bird to catch
Had
let his dear loved one his fortune detach,
He
gets consolation from his brother’s dispatch –
“Who’s
looney now?
When wifey insists on the new hobble skirt,
Answers hubby’s objections in language quite curt,
But the first time she wears it falls down and gets
hurt,
Of course he is sorry, but couldn’t help blurt:
“Who’s
looney now?”
When he mortgaged his house to get ready cash
To buy a new auto and cut a big dash,
And the mortgage’s foreclosed and the car gone to
smash,
Then his jealous next neighbor comes back with this
flash:
“Who’s
looney now?”
If in our behavior we make any slip,
Or buy the wrong stock on a sure-enough tip,
Until some new saying the public will grip
To this current expression our friends will give lip:
“Who’s
looney now?”
Dorchester, H. E. F.
______
Again the Long
Hatpin
The
chief of police of Los Angeles, following numerous attacks upon women by some
mysterious stranger, has issued a statement urging them to carry long hatpins
as a means of defence. The only fault we find with the chief’s recommendation
is that he didn’t’ say where the weapons should be carried. Of course a dozen
long hatpins protruding through a hat at different angles would be defence
enough for any woman, but the safety of the inoffending public has to be
considered.
We
have done some deep thinking over the matter of location, and a safe method of
wearing the long hatpin, and herewith submit the results of our labor. A little
scabbard worn dangling at the side, after the manner of the official sword,
would not only look very chic indeed, but would be easily reached in time of
need. Then, as many ladies like to carry canes, a hatpin cane could easily be
made. This would give our dear ladies an excuse for carrying the fascinating
walking stick and be useful as well. Los Angeles papers please copy.
____________
Sept. 24, 10
JOCOSITIES
____
By
JOE CONE
Our
Parodic Friends
When we’re hard
put at writing verse,
Of subject cannot
think,
’Tis then we’re
driven on the verge
Of suicide or drink.
We sit and madly
tear our hair,
Our brains seem stiff and numb;
In vain we dig
Parnassus o’er
For verse that will not come.
At last, when hope
is almost fled,
Old friends come to our aid;
Maud Muller bobs
upon the scene,
That good old country maid.
We dash a parody
on Maud,
Which barely lets us through;
And then we thank
our lucky stars
That Maud popped into view.
Then Mary and her
little lamb
Hop gayly on the scene;
Had it not been
for them sometimes
Where would we bards have been?
Scorn not sweet Maud
Muller, boys,
Nor Mary’s lamb that bobs;
They may have lost
us lasting fame,
But they have saved our jobs.
______
Uncle Ezra Says:
“The
kind uv success that backs up to be milked is the kind thet usually kicks over
the pail.”
______
Political Note
Some
people think Roosevelt a danger, but a good many think there is more danger
without him.
______
The Kickers
They
cuss New York,
And throw the brick,
But
gracious me,
How do they stick!
–
Judge.
And
Boston, too,
They swear about;
But
you can’t get
Them to get out.
______
Pavement
Philosophy
Pay
dirt is considered clean.
Man
cannot live by bluff alone.
Many
a silk stocking covers a bunion.
Sometimes
a kick helps more than it hurts.
A
great many people feel sore because they can’t.
The
man who thinks he’s the whole thing usually is.
If
you can’t “come back” at least try to hang on where you are.
A
lazy liver is sometimes the direct result of too active a liver.
Some
people can’t sleep because they don’t go to sleep when they ought to.
Fortune
isn’t apt to knock at the door that is plastered with electric bells and gold
knobs.
Some
people strike while the iron is hot, and then don’t make any display of sparks.
The
man who talks continually of being jilted was more head hit than heart hit.
The
difference in the fairy tales a man tells at home or abroad is all in the fairies.
Don’t
you notice how the man who always wants to bet, and who says he has a roll in
his hand, invariably rolls away?
______
Doesn’t Like Combination
Wife
– You are not getting any better, and I am going to change doctors.
Husband
– Whom are you going to get now?
Wife
– I thought of Dr. Plant.
Husband
– He is on good terms with Dr. Berry who comes here now, isn’t he?
Wife
– Yes; they are best of friends, I hear, but why?
Husband
– Well then, I want you to send for some doctor who’s the enemy of both.
______
Language Logic
(Contributed.)
A
young Swedish woman, who had been unusually apt in learning to speak English,
came to a Yankee friend with the following question:
“All
unmarried women have been married once, haven’t they?
“Certainly
not!” was the reply. “What made you think so?”
“Well,
you say ‘the marriage knot was tied,’ don’t you?”
“Yes,
very often.”
The
Swede smiled blandly.
“Well,
then, if a woman is unmarried, doesn’t that mean that she’s been untied, or
what you call ‘divorced’?”
Mendon.
“J” LOWELL.
______
Very Un-Speedy
Beacon
– I see that the carpenters in Asia Minor only get about 40 cents a day.
Hill
– Well, from the speed they attain I should say that’s about 20 cents too much.
____________
Sept. 25, 10
JOCOSITIES
____
By
JOE CONE
Uncle Ezra Says:
“Clothes
make the man, but ef his wife is too extravagunt they also unmake him.”
______
High-Fly Note
Evidently
the insurance men don’t have much confidence in the birdmen.
______
Not Military
“Pa,
what is meant by showing the white feather?”
“It’s
a millinery term, my boy.”
______
His View of It
“How
do you like my new hat shape? It only cost 30 cents, and now all I need is the
trimming.”
“Well,”
replied the husband, walking around it in a wide circle, “it looks to me like a
frame-up.”
______
Cheerful Comment
Dr.
Cook is some traveler.
Chavez,
the new Napoleon of the Alps.
The
bird-men have migrated, and Boston looks down again.
Lynn
feels that she ought to be a good deal bigger than she is.
And
Tillinghast never so much as showed a red or green light.
The
Sultan of Sulu, with that wad, would better keep his hand on his pocket.
An
earthquake shock has been felt in Arizona, but it couldn’t have been T. R., he
was in New York.
Reno
is said to be the largest city in Nevada, not on account of any mining boom,
but because of the divorce diggings
______
His Money’s Worth
“How
did you enjoy the show?”
“I
laughed all the way through it.”
“Was
it as funny as all that?”
“No;
but the program was chock full of good jokes.”
______
Uneasy
“John,
John!” exclaimed the good wife during the small jours of the night. “I’ve heard
a noise downstairs for the last half-hour.”
“I
know, I know,” said John, sleepily, “it’s that blamed cheese moving round
again.”
______
Leaving Tools
Around
A
naval engineer has been reduced several numbers because he left a monkey wrench
in one of the cylinders of the ship where he was employed. It was not because
the wrench was of much value, and because his Uncle Samuel had to go out and
purchase another, but because the wrench was in the way. It wasn’t needed in
the cylinder It was foreign matter, not necessary to the running of the engine
or to the speed of the boat. It added nothing to the fighting qualities of the
craft, and that is what the government is after principally. In fact, the
wrench in the cylinder was a detriment and a hindrance to the smooth working
qualities of the boat’s machinery. There was no room for it in the cylinder,
and when the great engine was started up something, of course, had to go. The
monkey wrench being a hard nut to crack, it naturally followed that the cylinder
did all the cracking. The cylinder came to grief, and in the common run of
things naval the engineer followed the same course.
We
are sorry for the engineer, but glad the naval board has meted out this just
punishment. It makes us feel more at ease over the safety of our country not to
have monkey wrenches in our cylinders, and, to bring the lesson ashore, it will
help some when we are undergoing repairs at the hands of the dentist or the
surgeon who is using wrenches and scissors and chisels, etc., in the region of
our own cylinders. It is a matter of common knowledge that all sorts of
trinkets, such as lances, needles and shears, have been sewed up in the human
system following a successful operation. Teeth have been found in the stomach long
after a siege of extraction
at the dentist’s.
A
pair of scissors left in a man’s interior is of no more use to him than a
monkey wrench left in a cylinder. The surgeon may not miss the scissors, but
the patient misses the room he had before the scissors usurped it. Space in a
cylinder or in a man’s anatomy is valuable, and the engineer or surgeon who
uses such for cold storage for tools ought to be reduced, not only in numbers,
but to a pulp.
____________
Sept. 26, 10
JOCOSITIES
____
By
JOE CONE
It
Is to Work
We all git tired
o’ workin’
The weary, weary day;
There never seem
no endin’,
It’s plug and plug away.
Till sore uv heart
an’ muscle,
We drop our weary head,
An’ wish that we
could waken
To idleness instead.
We all git tired
o’ workin’,
An’ hanker fur a change;
We’re lookin’ fur
the sunshine
Thet lies beyend the range.
But when we lose our
labor,
An’ hev to loaf, O, then
We walk the
cheerless pavement
The loneliest uv men!
So, let us keep a-workin’,
Let’s keep the harness on;
Tomorrer is
uncertain,
Today will soon be gone.
We may be tired o’
workin’,
An’ wish the day wuz done;
But up the road uv
troubles
Let’s choose the shorter one.
______
Uncle Ezra Says:
“Straws
show which way the current runs out uv the cider bar’l.”
______
Cheerful Comment
The
Doves will try to roost above the Cubs.
And
Mr. Garrett is going to live in a palace.
The
“whirlpool rapids” have been barrelled again.
Someone
got the wrong “tip” on that Knox dicorce affair.
An
exchange says that cash is plenty this fall. Where is it at?
It
is about time for another “wonder story” to come from Winsted, Ct.
T.
R. doesn’t care to fly high – except in the Republican machine.
Everybody
appears glad that aviator Chavez is going to get something besides a spill.
A
Hungarian woman has been seven years without sleep and still feels O. K. What a
fine chance to get a lot of work done!
Real
beer is called real food by a barley expert, and now doubtless more men than
ever will find they haven’t time to sit down for a good square meal.
______
A Hammock
A
hammock seems a fishing net,
A pretty good all-rounder,
The
fish that one expects to get –
A perch and then a flounder.
–
Detroit News.
______
But
in the net we’ve sometimes seen
If such an idea struck her,
Within
the meshes held serene,
A mermaid and a sucker.
______
There Are Others
Our
humorous friend hands us the following, and then makes his escape:
“That
Peruvian aviator who crossed the Alps had some pretty close Chavez.”
______
Marooned
Hank
Stubbs – Ol’ Man Bleers hez got into a way uv talkin’ to himself.
Bige
Miller – Waal, it ain’t strange sence nobuddy else will listen to him.
______
Thoughtful Wives
Beacon
– I often see women in the tobacco stores buying cigarettes.
Hill
– Yes; you see they are very particular as to what brands their husbands smoke.
______
A September Day
(Contributed.)
“Fair and foul, good wife,” he said,
As
he stood by the open door,
And gazed through the mellow haze that lay
O’er
all the vale before.
“Fair and foul have the days passed by
Since
together we faced the world,
To fare by faith through every storm
That
athwart our way was hurled.
“’Twas a day like this, in September’s
wane,
And
the pippins, like apples of gold
Lay under the trees by the orchard gate,
As
we passed to the farmhouse old.
“But naught of years had they touched our
hearts,
For
our world was but youth and joy;
And the hope in your eye spoke to courage
in mine
That
no fears could ever destroy.
* * * * * *
“Come, stand by my side and look across
The
valley; my eyes are dim
From the light of the years, since that
distant day
When
you stood here so neat and trim.
“And tell me whether you too can see
The
sight that now fills my eyes;
The apples of gold all under the trees,
And
the glory still gilding the skies.
“O, the days that were foul, and the days that were fair,
Have
all been alike to me!
And the spring-time smile, and the autumn
glow
In
your dear old face I see.
“So, hand in hand in September’s wane,
And
the wane of life we will go;
And the world with its beauty shall be our
song,
Till
our evening sun is low.”
JOE SETON.
Spencer,
O. (formerly of Mass.)
____________
Sept. 27, ‘10
JOCOSITIES
____
By
JOE CONE
The
Melancholy Days
“The
melancholy days have come,”
The bluest of the year;
There
is an unmistakable
Chill in the atmosphere.
And
way down in the cellar deep,
Which should be winter’s goal,
There
is an awful aching void
And not a pound of coal.
And
at my uncle’s down the street,
Beneath the three-ball sign,
There
is a pair of fur-lined gloves,
And overcoat of mine.
It
was a very easy stunt
To hang them up, no doubt,
But
it is quite another thing
To go and get them out.
The
melancholy days have come,
The time to feel forlorn;
We
sit and wonder where the pay
We earned last summer’s gone.
It
is the full time of the year,
The harvest time and scene,
When
other things are fat, except, alas!
The pocketbook is lean.
______
Uncle Ezra Says:
“The
man who says the world owes him a livin’ never looks very well fed.”
______
Expense Note
An
exchange says that matches are cheaper than gas. This cannot mean the kind that
are made under the parlor gas.
______
Cheerful Comment
China
has decided to keep her heads on.
Where
have we heard that word “frazzle” before?
A
good convention is no drug on the market, boys.
That
storm coming up from the West Indies didn’t dare tackle Boston.
The
Sultan of Sulu doesn’t want a White House; what he wants is a hen house.
Some
people “Wonder” if they are really “United” after all.
There
is a cry now of, “Where do the pennies go?” Have they thought of baby’s bank?
Somerville
policemen rounding up other Somerville policemen is almost a joke.
President
Taft left Beverly just in time not to be over-shadowed by Claude Grahame-White.
The
Ivernia took 6000 barrels of apples, or about 1000 barrels of cider, from our
shores yesterday.
Kid
McCoy came very nearly being knocked out in one round by a fast motor boat
recently.
To
call a man a “liar” is equal to striking the first blow, so says a Richmond,
Va. police justice. Now, it’s a question which you would rather have.
______
A Rare Hero
(Contributed.)
A
hero doesn’t always bleed
In
doing heroism,
There
is a certain kind of deed
Which
we call nepotism,
The
hero is a bloodless sort
Scarce
known among the nations,
His
special feature, to be short,
Is
loving his relations.
He
loves them with excessive love
That
ever keeps expanding,
What
crowns he hopes to win above
Is
past our understanding.
I
said he was the bloodless kind,
That’s
not at all misleading,
His
relatives, I will remind,
Do
all the acts of bleeding.
Cambridge. HARRY R. BLYTHE.
______
A Horrible Hobby
Another
broken leg has been laid up against the hobble skirt. This time it was a man’s
leg, and the skirt was on somebody else. Nevertheless the result is the same, a
bad break following the appearance of a hobble skirt.
It
happened down in West Wareham. (Don’t get uneasy, we are not going to spring
the old, moss-covered joke and say it was no place to wear ’em, etc., because,
you understand, our job is at stake.) A woman was passing through the streets
of West Wareham, wearing a hobble skirt, and naturally she attracted
considerable attention. One Jonathan Willette, being perhaps more interested
than his companions, turned to have another look and yet another. There is
where the mistake was made. Lot was turned into a pillar of salt for rubbering,
but Willette, keeping on with his walking, turned once too many and striking a
stone turned a flip-flop and broke his leg.
If
every man who turns and looks after a woman who has passed should break his leg
there would be few of the stronger sex stalking the earth today. We are not
blaming Jonathan for what he did, but before he looked at the woman going he
should have looked to see what was coming. Lots of people are so intent on
looking backward that they neglect to look forward. Now, on the quiet, we have
an idea that the best way to get rid of the hobble skirt is for us to band
together and promise each other that we won’t look at it; that is we see it
coming we will turn our backs upon it, and in a short time there will be no
such monstrosities as hobble gowns and consequently no broken legs.
______
Ought to Go
Manager
– What leads you to think your play will make an instant success? Western plays
are pretty plentiful just now.
Young
Playwright – Why, man alive, haven’t I named my leading character “Bud,” and
don’t everybody speak of the cowpunchers as the “outfit”?
______
Migrated
The men-birds have
folded their wings,
No longer they
flutter and flaunt ’em;
They’ve all skipped
away
From the harbor
and bay,
And life is most dreary at Squantum.
______
Theatrical Notes
The
“Divine Sarah” says she will never retire. But the audiences may tire and
retire.
____________
Sept. 28, ‘10
JOCOSITIES
____
By
JOE CONE
Get
Him
Sam Langford says,
“I’ll get him yet,”
And this
expression is the pet
Of many men all up
and down
The streets of
every busy town.
They’re going to
“get” this thing and that,
When once they get
it right down pat;
They’ve got their
minds on some one set,
And say they’re
going to get him yet.
Persistence is a
wondrous thing;
It is the only way
to bring
The finest of this
world’s great store
And have it dumped
beside your door.
It may be work, it
may be gold,
It may be name and
fame untold;
You cannot fool
your time away
And get much out
of life today.
If there is
something worth your while
Up yonder on the
fortune pile,
It won’t drop down
into your lap,
Nor walk into your
lazy trap.
Climb up, with
honest, steady gait,
And seize the
chances that await.
If you have got
the “stick” you bet
You’ll reach
success and “get him yet.”
______
Uncle Ezra Says:
“A
dorg is all right in his place, but so many people hev sech funny idees about
location.”
______
Tourist Note
We
don’t believe there is any gold atop Mr. McKinley, reports notwithstanding. If
there had been Dr. Cook would have frozen to it. “Doc” isn’t letting anything
like that go by him.
______
Cheerful Comment
Jewels
are still disappearing.
Automobiles
are still taking people off.
The
smugglers are still doing a fair business.
Artistic
temperaments seem to make bad husbands.
“Jack
Shepard arrested!” Doesn’t that sound like old times?
My,
what a sudden epidemic of weddings, secret and otherwise!
“Lucky”
Baldwin was lucky to have escaped all the aftermath.
Carrying
girls pickaback is a new feature in New Jersey gold.
Two
hundred and seventy-five acres of Bristol, R. I., oysters Rn’t good, anyway.
Providence,
not being able to get publicity in any other way. furnishes a ate September
sunstroke.
Mayor
Fitzgerald doesn’t want to govern Massachusetts, and Mayor Gaynor doesn’t want
to govern New York. Anything the matter with these two states?
______
Questions of the
Day
Dear
Father Jocosity – I am a young writer in doubt. What is the proper length of
the novel? – “PENQUILL.”
You
may go as far as you like.
Dear
Jocosity – What is worse than a bad 5-cent cigar? – “PERFECTO.”
Two
for five, or any cigar with a worse scent.
Bear
Joco’s – There seems to be a good deal of difficulty on the part of some folks
just now over the question, “What is a hen?” Perhaps you can tell us. – HERALD TWINS.
We
think we can. A hen is a two-legged, feathered affair that scratches your
garden into the next door neighbor’s yard, then picks all of your ripe
tomatoes, and in return for her keep simply lays down on her job, thereby
preventing you from laying anything up for a rainy day. That is mostly what a
hen is.
______
Educated Oysters
It
seems that a Japanese scientist, one Dr. Nishikawa, has been trying to educate
the oyster, and is highly pleased with some of the results of his experiments.
We don’t know how many branches of study the doctor wishes the oyster to take
up, but if he is going to try to teach it anything in the line of dodging, or
being better able to take care of itself, we say an injunction ought to be
placed on him immediately.
If
he is trying to reach the oyster to improve his condition, to be fatter and
rounder and more pleasing to the eye, then we say go ahead. If he can teach the
oyster to be more numerous, to stop race suicide in the oyster districts, to
teach him how to cause two oysters to grow where only one grew before, then we
will take our hat off to the Doc and raise up and call him blessed.
Education
is all right if it benefits the world materially, as well as theoretically. We
do not want any oysters coming round with the idea that they are too good to be
eaten, Oysters should work for man, not against him. WE have the educated seal
and the educated pig, and what good are they except to amuse and take a quarter
from our pockets and place it in the pocket of the vaudeville manager? No one
would think of skinning an educated seal or of eating an educated pig, so the
real use of them, the purpose for what they are intended, is lost to the world.
Now
if Dr. what’s-his-name is going to educate the oyster so that all he will want
to do is parade before us in a dress suit, or beat a tom-tom in a bivalve
orchestra, of what material benefit will he (the oyster, or the Doc either, for
that matter,) be to humanity in general? We say none. Alas! we fear it is but
another of those shell games that every now and then rise to the surface.
____________
Sept. 29, 10.
JOCOSITIES
____
By
JOE CONE
Town
and Country
Last summer when
the days were fair,
And country skies were blue,
When maidens
roamed the country ways,
As city maids will do,
She rode for hours
in his boat,
And walked with him on land;
And ‘neath the
silv’ry moon she let
Him hold her slender hand.
Today she met him
here in town,
Upon a busy street;
And in her costly
autumn gown
She looked full passing sweet.
But did she meet
his smile and show
Her little hand so fair?
The only thing she
handed him
Was just an icy stare.
______
Uncle Ezra Says:
“Some
folks pay ez they go, but never git anywheres.”
______
Political Note
The
mighty African hunter may have brought some fine species of large game home
from Saratoga, but it is doubtful if he will be able to stuff them all.
______
The New Alcoholic
Cure
What
we want to know is, will merely eating apples cure the hankering for cider?
______
Cheerful Comment
Poor
old Shiloh gets the “hilo.”
The
Sankey boys were cut off with a song.
The
game has shifted from Newport to Hot Springs.
A
woman forger is, properly speaking, a forgerette.
Poor
Chavez never even saw the color of the $10,000.
Now
somebody will see something political in those spots on the sun.
That
“President Taft cigar” ought to be a long and large ’round smoke.
Harvard
is a fine old sport for being only 275 years young.
Prof.
Theo Gill praises broiled shark. Well, if we’ve got to have one, we’d prefer
him broiled, too.
Forty-five
hundred students out at Cambridge. Does that mean 4499 editors and journalists
to come?
Miss
Elkins sailed for America on the 28th. Just when the juke is coming
hasn’t been given out.
Beware
of the wedding joke. One performed in Brooklyn under that heading last February
“took,” and, though both the jokers want to set it aside, the judge puts it in
the serious class by refusing.
______
Questions of the
Day
Dear
Mr. Jocosity -What has been done up to date about raising the Maine? –
Impatient.
We
have talked about it. But, remember, “Impatient,” it is necessary first to
raise the money.
___
Father
Jocosity – Is it true that “Bob” Chanler is secluding himself in order to paint
a portrait of Cavalieri? – Art Student.
We
doubt if “Bob” would paint Lina’s portrait now for fear he wouldn’t get his
money.
______
“On the Job”
(Contributed.)
When
timid souls are sighing
For days of peace and rest,
He’s
round the circle flying
To comfort the oppressed;
He
shouts at railway stations,
And blazons forth the shame
Of
soulless corporations,
Until his voice is lame!
New
York is in a pickle;
Ohio’s in a fix,
With
Massachusetts fickle,
And Kansas playing tricks.
Heaven
help this poor old nation –
’Twill brak away
in lumps,
If
at some railway station
He suffers from the mumps!
And
so, by heck, we like him
For many a blow he’s dealt
To
caitiffs who would strike him
And us below the belt!
Long
may he do the shouting,
And Heaven preserve his voice! –
While
crookedness he’s flouting,
All honest me rejoice.
MICHAEL FITZGERALD.
East
Brewster.
____________
Sept. 30, 10
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