Rensselaer Union, Volume 2, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 April 1870 — The Ant. [ARTICLE]

The Ant.

BY JOSH BILLINGS. The ant is n inenny footled Insekt. They live about one thousand five hundred aud fifty of them (more or less), in the same hole in the ground, and hold their property in common. They have no holy days, no eight-hour system, nor never strike for enny higher wages. • They are very cheerful little toilers, and have no malice, nor back door to their hearts. There iz no sedentary loafers among them, and yu never see one out ov a job. They git up arly, go tew bed late, work all the time, an'd eat on the run. Yu never see two ants argueing sum phooi’uh question that neither of them didn’t understand; they didn’t kare w hether the moon iz inhabited or not; nor whether a fish weighing two pounds, put into a pail ov water allready phull, will make the pail slop over or weigh more. They ain’t a hunting after the philosopher's stone, nor gifting- crazy over the cause of the sudden cartbo\ t& k es% They don’t care whether J upfter is thirty or thirty-five millions, o f miles up j n t ] le air, nor whether t^ 1(! <> a rth bobs around on its axes or nr* 80 ) on g M jjjn’t bob t h elr *'.arn knb and spill their barley. They simple, little bizzy ants, full ov faith., working hard, living prudently, co emitting no sin, prazeing God by minding their own bizzness, and dieing when their time comes, tew make room for the next crop ov ants They are a reproach tew the lazy, an encouragement tew the industrious, a rebuke tew the vicious, and a study tew the Christian, s—k . If you want tew take a lesson in arkitekture, go and set down bi the side ov their hole in the ground, and wonder how so tnenny kan live so thick. If your pushun.es* needs consolashun, watch the aunts and be strengthened. If man had (added tew hij capacity) the pashunes and grit ov theze atoms ov animated natur, every mountain on the buzzum ov the earth would, before this, have bin leveled,’and every inch of surface would scream with fruitfulness, and countless lots ov human critters would have bin added tew the inhabitants ov the universe, and bin fed on corn and other Bass.

I have sot by the hour and a half down near.un ant-hill, and marveled'; have wondered at their instinkts, and hav thought how big must be the jackass who was satisfied to believe that even an ant, the least ov the bugs, could hav bin created, made tizzy and sot to work by chance. Oh, how ido pity the individual who bcieaves that,all things here are the work ov an acksidentl lie robs himself ov all pieazure on earth and all right in heaven. I bad rather be an ant (even a humbly, bandy legged, profane, swearing ant), than look upon the things ov. this world az I would upon the throw of the dice. Ants are older than Adam. Man (for very wize reasons) warn’t built until all other things were finished and pronounced good. If a man had been made fust, he would hev insisted upon bossing the rest of the job. He probably would hav objekted to having any little, bizzy ants at all, and . various other objekshdtos would hev been •offered, equally greetr I am glad that man wuz the last thing made. If man hadn’t -hav been made at all, you never would hav heard me find enny fault with ity I haven’t much faith in man, not bekause he kant do well, but bekauze Jie wont. Ants hav bye laws, and a constitushun, and they mean sumthing. Their laws aint like our laws, made with a hole in them, so that a man kan steal a boss and ride through them’ on a walk. They don’t hav any whisky ring, that iz virtewous, simply bekause it hooks bi the millyun, and then legalizes its own ackts. • They don’t hav enny legislators that yu kan’buy, nor enny Judges, laying around on the haff shell, redy to be swallered. I rather like the ants, and I think, now I shall sell out mi money and real estate find jine them. 1 had rather jine them than the bulls or bears. I like their morale-better. The bulls and the bears handle more money, it is true, and make a grate deal more noiza in Wall street, one ov. them sticking his horn into a flabby piece of Erie, and tossing it up into the air, and tjje othqr ketching it when it comes down and trampling it under hiz paws, j This may be plum for the bulls and Hit bears, but it iz wuss' than the cholera morbust for poor Erie. Ants never disturb Erie; yu couldn't sell one eny Erie enny more than you could sell one skrip on the codfish banks of Nufoundland. Ants are a honest, hard tugging little people, but whether they marry and live in marriage, iz beyond mi strength; but if they don’t they are no wuss oph than they are out West (near the city of Chicago,) where they marry to-day, and are reddy the next day to fito it out agin on some other line. Wedlock out West" (near the grate grain mart, Chicago,) iz one ov them kind ov thnt almost enny body kan pick.— NeTYork Weekly. Four of the five Chinese printers lately arrived at San Francisco, are under an engagement to proceed to New York, Where lids said they will train a number of their’most Intelligent countrymen in the art. They are first-class compositors, educated in an English institution at Hong Kong. I L _ Fach London Street car is made to hold 52 persons, and the fare is a penny a mile.