Rensselaer Republican, Volume 14, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 August 1882 — Snipe On Toast [ARTICLE]

Snipe On Toast

I bad some snipe on toast in Harrisburg. I saw on a bill of fare: ‘•Snipe on toast, 60 cents.” Snipe on toast would be almost too healthy food to feed people who had been floating on a raft three weeks, feeding on hoot legs. S iys I to the waiter: “Giro me some snipe on toast” By and by he came in and put down

some toast, and l kept on reading. J sat there an hour. Then I rang the gong; The waiter, entered, and sayb I: “Where the dcuvqJs my meat?” Save he: “Theyve been on the table an hour.” - Says I: “I didn’t order plain toast; 1 want a snipe on it.” Says he: “There is snipe on it.” Then I drew close up to the table and I saw a black speck on the toast, and I says: “You’ll swear that is a snipe?” Says he: “Yes.” 1 Says I: “You would make a good linen buyer, you would.” Says he: “It’s a snipe on toast, anyhow.” Says I: “How did it get on itF’ Says he: “That snipe's all right; it’s a full-sized one, too.” Says I: ‘T m glad you told me that’s a full sized snipe; for, do you know, young man, when I sat out there reading 1 saw a black speck on tnat toast, but I took it for a fly, and I’m glad to be informed it’s a snipe. Now you can take that snipe away and bring me a turkey on toast; and I want a full-sized turkey, too.” . I ain’t hankering after snipe since that episode. I could have blown that snipe through a putty-blower without hurting the snipe or putty-blower either. Snipe on toast may be game, but it’s a mean game.— Burlington Hawkeve The Ashuelot (N. H.) Warp Company has completed the rebuilding of its factory, which was burned in January, ana the enW re structure, furnished with ft 15,000 worth of machinery, costs about |40,000. It is eighty feet long by forty wide and four stories high, and has 4,000 spindles. Tne product is 20,000 yards of cotton warp per day. A workingman in Glasgow, whose wife is a confirmed and violent drunkard, has hit upon a novel device for pacifying her and protecting himself and his family. In the morning ho passes a chain around her ankles as she lies in bed, and secures the chain with a padlock. Hethen goes forih to his daily work. On returning in tlie evening ho releases his captive and allows her to remain at liberty until morning, when he chains her up again. The neighbors have seen fit to interfere and to have him arrested, but as his wife has acknowledged his persistent kindness to her in the face of her own glaring misconduct, the magistrate has dismissed him after admonishing him. The Gentleman’s Magazine says: “The consumption of wheat in England, which wds formerly estimated at eight bushels per annum per head of the population, has recently been declared to be six and one third bushels—the decrease being dun to a better supply of meat and vegetables than in the last contnry, when the original estimate was made. In the north-central parts of Turkey, where tlie climate is moderate and cereals are largely grown and little meat consumed, it is reckoned that eight bushels of grain are required in a year for the bread, soup, which constitute the chief dietary ot the people. Tlie average price ot wheat is about 365. a quarter; the wages of a workman of ordinary skill is B%d. a day; his house rent is £3 ss. taxes, if a Christian, £1 la Three bluebottle flies, says Linnseus will devour a horse as soon as a lion could do it. The statement no doubt is somewhat of an exaggeration, but it is not so far over the mark as it may be supposed to be. One fly, it has been stated, will produce 20,000 eggs and no sooner are the maggots hatched from them than they set to work with such vigor that in twenty-four hours they will increase in weight some 200 times. In about three weeks every one of them may have become a perfect fly, half of them, perhaps, females, each capable of depositing another 20,000 eggs in any dead rat or “high” leg of mutton that threatens to breed pestilence in the air. It will thus be seen that it was a very dubious work of wisdom on the part of St. Bernard to “excommunicate” all the flies from his part of the world. New York Post: It seems unaccountable that a city like New York which is so ready to avail itself of every improvement, has made almost no use of pneumatic tubes for the quick delivery of letters and larger packages. Tlie first attempt at an underground railroad hero was the short tunnel cut under Broadway for a little distance below Warren street, the charter for which originally specified the transmission of packages as its object The Western Union telegraph delivers some messages in ths lower part of the city through pneumatic tubes, but anything like a general system of pneumatic dispatch is wanting. In London, we believe, such a system has long been in successful operation, and in Paris there is a system of pneumatic telegraphy by which letters are seat all over the city ata very small cost Our elevated railroads seem to offer an excellent opportunity for the erection of pneumatic tubes, as the tubes might run underneath the tracks and so could be put up at a comparatively slight exEmse. It will be strange If capitalts do not soon take advantage of this scheme for beuefitting themselves and the public. One of the Rev. T. L. Shipman’s inexhaustible fund of anecdotes of ministerial life is about a brother preacher who used to invariably pray that “the gospel might be dispensed with throughout the laud.” .