Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 May 1886 — The Centipede. [ARTICLE]

The Centipede.

Centipedes can be found without much trouble, particularly if they happen to be in your clothing, but the best place to study the tou'mure of the insect is at a drug store. Most Texas druggists keep a few centipedes and tarantulas preserved in alcohol as a kind of an attraction. Although resembling the desperado in many other respects, when the centipede is in liquor he is.calm and genteel, and it is perfectly safe to make remarks about him. When the desperado is in whisky he is apt to resent familiarities, otherwise there is not much to choose between them, except that the centipede can’t shoot off a six shooter and defy the local authorities. This goes to show that like causes do not always produce the same effect.

T he centipede is not a very active insect, and he is not much of a vocalist, but the quantity of latent energy and the spontaneous flow of eloquence that he can coax out of the most quiet of men is surprising. When he seizes the cuticle of a victim with his jaws, anchors his two hooks iu his flesh, and, humping himself, clinches his numerous sharp-pointed toes, the geology in that part of the county, and also the fourth commandment, is liable to be wrecked by the violence of the behavior of the aforesaid sufferer. It is a fact, however, that very few persons die from the bite of the centipede. It is the centipede that dies. The centipede has a worse enemy than man. It is a bird with a long tail and a top-knot, whose mission seems to be to decrease the number of centipedes. The bird is called by some the chapparal cock, by othsrs the road runner. The Mexicans call him el cctpora or the corporal. Why the Mexicans give this bird a military title I can’t tell. Perhaps it is on account of his top-knot, or, more plausible still, because he can run so fast. The corporal in the Mexican army is almost as hard to overtake as a general, and this road runner is remarkable for his speed. He can give points to an absconding bank cashier. He runs like compound interest on a note of hand.

\Y ell, this would-be reformer regards the centipede as an offensive partisan, and removes him so effectually that the centipede finds himself in a distressing minority. Although the centipede is copiously provided with legs, one road runner can run faster than all the centpedes in the State of Texas. When the road runner, or chapparal cock, overtakes an offensive partisan of a centipede he seizes the obnoxious insect by the head and gives him a shake to straighten out the kinks. By a peculiar motion this reformer passes the centipede through his bill sideways, pretty much as a linen collar is passed through a patent clothes-wringer, and lets him drop on the other side. After that the centipede is destitute of political aspiration. He makes no objection to being swallowed. He is crushed. Then the bird gobbles up the centipede endways, very much after the manner of an Italian lazaroni hiding away a few feet of macaroni. One Sunday morning a colored clergyman was preaching with great fervor in the Austin Blue Light J abemacle on the worldliness of mankind. He said, earnestly; “De trubble wid de most ob you niggahs am dat you hab got yer eyes sot on de dings ob dis yarf. Belubbed breddren and sistern, look at de dings what am above, and de Lord will shower down blessing on yer heads.”

As he muttered these words he rolled up his eyes until the whites, or rather the yellows, alone were visible; but all at once, “a change came o’er the tablet of his thought,” and with the yell of a ten-dollar lawyer pleading a case before a justice of the peace he bounded into the aisle, where, as pale as a piece of aged tripe, his legs vibrating with terror, which also straightened out the kinks of his wool, he pointed upward, and in a tremulous voice, exclaimed: “Jess, jess look at dat ar cussed insec'.”

Sure enough, slowly, crawling over the ceiling just above the sacred desk, was a green centipede of about the size of an ordinary table knife. He was liable to drop down on the congregation at any moment, instead of the promised benedition. This is about the only time I ever heard of anybody looking up to a centipede.— Alex. Sweet.

“What side of the street do you live on, Mrs. Kipple?” asked a counsel, cross-examining a witness. “On either side. If you go one way, it’s on the right side; if you go the other way, it’s on the left. ” To reason with the angry is like whispering to the dgaf.