Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 June 1895 — Fun at the Signing. [ARTICLE]

Fun at the Signing.

When John Hancock affixed his, under and other circumstances, preposterous signature to the Declaration of Independence, he laughingly pushed the paper aside, saying: “There, John Bull may read my name without spectacles." Again, when Hancock reminded the members of the necessity of hanging together, Dr. Franklin dryly remarked, “Yes, we must Indeed all hung together, or else most assuredly we shall all hang separately!” And stout Mr. Harrison remarked to little Elbridge Gerry that when the hanging came he would have the advantage of him, for he should be dead while lime Gerry would be dangling around slowly choking. And thua on that hot morning of the Fourth of July, 1776, amid the livery stable’s buzzing flies, which the honorable gentlemen were vainly fighting with waving handkerchiefs, was given to the world the immortal Declaration of Independence.