Democratic Sentinel, Volume 5, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 February 1881 — A Porky Story. [ARTICLE]

A Porky Story.

“On this day seventeen years ago,” remarked a New Yorker the other day, “I shipped 1,000 barrels of pork to Washington. I was an army contractor then, and wherever I heard of a barrel of pork I went for it and bought it at some price. I remember this particular shipment because a serious mistake was made.” “How?” “ Well, I counted the barrels at the depot myself, and there were only 990, when there should have been an even thousand. Men were ready to rail the barrels into the freight cars, and to make my number good I took ten barrels of lard from a stock ready to ship to Baltimore. They mixed in all right, and, of course. I expected to pay for ’em. A whole day went by before I* saw the ov ner. These were stirring times, you remember. He had found himself slfort, and he cribbed ten barrels of beef to make good his number of barrels, and hustled the shipment away.” “And who did the beef man crib from ? ” “Well, his beef was for the soldiers, and he made himself good by buying three barrels of vinegar, two of crackers, and stealing five barrels of apples from a lot in the depot. ” “ And did it go any further ?” “ Yes. The most curious thing of all was that the man I took the lard from sued the man who stole the apples, and got judgment against him for the worth of the lard, and none of the rest of us were out a cent”— Wall Street Daily News.