Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 February 1875 — Unappreciated Shakespeare. [ARTICLE]

Unappreciated Shakespeare.

A few days ago young Gurley, whose father lives on Croghan street; organized a theatrical company and purchased the dime novel play of “ Hamlet.” The company consisted of three boys and a hostler, and Mr. Gurley’s hired girl was to be the “ Ghost” if the troupe could guarantee her fifty cents per night. Young Gurley suddenly bloomed out as a professional, and when his mother asked him to bring in some wood he replied “ Though I am penniless thou canst not degrade me!” “ You trot out after that wood or I’ll have your father trounce you!” she exclaimed; “ The tyrant who lays his hand upon me shall die!” replied the boy, but he got the wood. He was out on the step when a man came along and asked him where Lafayette street was. “ Doomed for a certain time to roam the earth!” replied Gurley, in a hoarse voice, and holding his right arm out straight. “I say, you—where is Lafayette street?" called the man. “Ah! Could the dead but speak—ah!” continued Gurley. The man drove him into the house, and his mother sent him the grocery after potatoes. “ I go, most noble Duchess,” he said, as he took up the basket; “but my good sword shall some day avenge these insults!” He knew that the grocer favored theatricals, and when he got there he said: “ Art thou provided with a store of that vegetable known as the ’tater, most excellent Duke?” “What in thunder do you want?” growled the grocer as he cleaned the cheese-knife on a piece of paper. “ Thy plebeian mind is dull of comprehension!” answered Gurley. “ Don’t try to get off any of your nonsense on me or I’ll crack your empty pate in a minute!” roared the grocer, and “ Hamlet” had to come down from his high horse and ask for a peck of potatoes. “ What made you so long?” asked his mother as he returned. “Thy grave shall be dug in the cypress glade!” he haughtily anwered. When his father came home at neon Mrs. Gurley told him that she believed the boy was going crazy, and related what had occurred. “ I see what ails him,” mused the father; “this explains why he hangs around Johnson’s barn so much.” At „ the dinner table young Gurley spoke of his father as the “ illustrious Count,” and when his mother asked him if he would have some butter gravy he answered: “ The appetite of a warrior cannot be satisfied with such nonsense.” When the meal was over the father went out to his favorite shade-tree, cut a sprout, and the boy was asked to step out into the woodshed and see if the penstock was frozen up. He found the old man there, and he said: “ Why, most noble Lord, I had supposed thee far away!” “ I’m not so far away but what I’m going to make you skip!” growled the father. “ I’ll teach you to fool around with ten-cent tragedies! Gome up here!” For about five minutes the woodshed was full of dancing feet, flying arms and moving bodies, and then the old man took a rest and inquired: “ There, your Highness, dost want any more?” ■ “Oh! no., dad—not a bit more!” wailed theyoung “manager,” and while the father started for down town he went in and sorrowfully informed the hired girl that he must cancel her engagement till the fall season.— Detroit Free Press.

The Boston Journal says that as the Custom-House Inspector boarded the train from Canada, on the Vermont line, a lew days ago, he found a man closely stowed in the front seat with several bottles of liquor. As he was taking one after another from his large pockets and a large army canteen from ever his shoulder, the man drqw the cork frem the canteen and threw it on the floor, then smashed one bottle on the floor, and tried another, which did not break, when he took it up, Dunbar all the time scuffling with him to prevent the sacrifice, and broke it on the hot stove, and in a jiffy the whole end of the car was qn fire. Dunbar immediately pulled the bell-cord and stopped the train, the passengers getting into another car. A few buckets of water extinguished the flames. The smuggler, in the confusion, left for "Canada on foot, and was making good time when last seen. The mercury at the time was thirty-two degrees below zero. The Boston Journal is almost prepared to say that America was discovered by a Bostonian. It compromises by attacking thfi character of Ben Franklin, who is charged with drinking milk-punches. Sk a » ; American silks are slowly hut,, surely gaining ground, and many ladies use them almost altogether, as they wear well and are much cheaper than imported silks.* „•'