Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 February 1884 — SOMEBODY’S MOTHER-IN-LAW. [ARTICLE]

SOMEBODY’S MOTHER-IN-LAW.

A Tragedy la the Sltreeta of Faria, aad How tt tflkcM a Humorous- Hnckmaa. A Paris cabman was brought before the correctional tribunal charged with assault and battery. His aooount of the affair, given in all seriousness, is worth reproducing. "You see, this is how it oame about. I had had an-old lady in my carriage, driving her about for some four hours, and said Ito myself, ‘ I’m in for a good tip,’ for she wore jewelry and diamonds and all that. Well, and so at the oorner of rue Aboukir the old lady was getting out when—vlan ! up comes an omnibus, knocks her, down and kills my fare dead as a herring. I tell you, it’ll make you laugh.” J Tho Court—“lt is rather ludicrous, perhaps.” Jarvey—“ Not yet, but it will be by-and-by. Well, and so I jumped down; a crowd gathered and I gathered with it, and says Ito myself, * ihis is all very well, but who’s going to pay me for four hours?’ At that minute a gentleman comes running up (it’ll make you laugh) and looks at the corpse and cries : ‘ Great heavens, it’s my mother-in-law !’ and says I to myself, ‘That makes my four hours all safe,’ and so I told the gentleman that it was I who had been driving the old lady. All right; We put her into tlie carriage and took her homo, and I helped him to carry her up stairs, and then I hung round the room, for says 1 to myself, ‘ The son-in-law’ll settle with me, and as he comes in for the property he won’t be apt to beat me down.’ Well, and so be began to sav, ‘ How on earth am I going to break tins to my wife when she comes ki?’ and then 1 withdrew into the' ante-room, not wishing to intrude the subject of the fare on him at that moment. Just then in comes the servant-girl soreaming, ‘She’s coming !’—(it’ll m&ke you laugh)—and said I to myself, ‘ This is all very well, but if they'd pay me I’d just as soon go.’ Still I thought the time I waited would be charged for. And so then she comes in, his wife does, and when she sees the long faces she screams out, ‘What’s the matter? What’s tho matter? Oh, it’s ma! Where is she?’ Her husband says, ‘ Siie’s on the sofa in the sitting-room!’ and she runs in, and he follows her, and I follow him, and she—it’ll make you laugh !—she flops right down along side of the dead woman, and shrieks, * Why, it isn’t ma at all!’ If you bad pnjy seen her husband’s face—hef 1 didn’t come into the property—and mine—l was out my four hours. Naturally, because, as it wasn’t his mother-in-law, he didn’t owe me anything.” The Court—“ Well, if he didn’t owe you anything, why did you insist that ne should pay you ?” Jarvey—“Well, you see, I wanted him to pay me for the time after he put his falle mother-in-law in nly carriage, and for the time I had been waiting at his house. Thereupon he gets mad'and asks me who had told me to wait? Thereupon I tell him that I had been unwilling to ask him for my fare in his hour of bereavement. Thereupon he abuses me, and offers me thirty sous. Thereupon I ask him what he is giving me—besides, we charge more for a corpse than for a living passenger. Thereupon he says, ‘ What do I want of that body here ? Take it to the police station and I’ll give you forty sous.’ Thereupon I wouldn’t and so—” The Court instructed the prisoner that he should have cited the complainant before th ejuge de pair, and not to have struck him, and sent him to jail for three day*.