Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 April 1875 — Practical Jokes. [ARTICLE]

Practical Jokes.

For another source of our daily fun we are indebted to Shillaber. H’is- Mrs. Partington, howevef, is but an American edition of Sheridan’s Mrs. Malaprop. we love the old lady the more when we hear her say, like a good housewife, that she gets up every morning at the shrill carrion of the chandiliert But her mischievous nephew, Ike, is purely indigenous. His mischief is the very essence of Young America, without its father. Ike is yet to grow into the full stature. He stands as the juvenile embodiment of a peculiar vein known among us as practical jokes—what the boysi term “sells,” and from which springs their expression, “ Well, he’s sold.” This is almost a monomania with some. Even such players as Sothern have not disdained to play its pranks. It is the result flf that proverbial shrewdness which seeks to slyly lead a green one on, in the most natural way in the world, until the catastrophe is ready, when the pitfall is opened, and the victim drops or rushes in with a curiosity only equaled by the surplus fund of experience which he receives. Barnum’s book has many examples of these “ sells.” Yankee tricks, which in the eye of ethics are but another term for swindling, are illustrations. The raciness of the joke hides the rascality of the job; and we applaud the successful humorist, first because we cannot but admire his shrewd calculations on the simplicity of human nature, and next because we are glaajto see our fellows learning the ways of the world in such an amusing way. In trading, he is the very incarnation of the keenest shrewdness. He will be sure to do business under the most adverse circumstances, and secure a profit also. This propensity is portrayed in the story of Sam Jones; that worthy, we are told, called at the store of a Mr. Brown, with an egg in his hand, and wanted to “ dicker” it for a darning-needle. This done, he asks Mr. Brown if he ing to treat.” “ What, on that trade?” “Certainly; a trade is a trade, bigot little.” “ Well, what will you have?” “A glass of wine,” said Jones. The wine was poured out, and Jones remarked that he preferred his wine with an egg in it. The store-keeper handed to him the identical egg which he had just changed for the darning-needle. On breaking it, Jones discovered that the egg had two yolks. Says he, “ Look here; you must give me another darning-needle!”

The Dutchman was a victim to a practical joke who lost five dollars to the Yankee on a bet that the Yankee could eat the Dutchman. Jonathan began the work of mastication at the extremities, and was soon saluted by the roar and kick of the Dutchman. “Oh, mein Gott! Dunder und Blitzen! stop dat bitin’. Take your fife dollar, It hurts!” Sometimes these jokes pay, sometimes not. The Yankee skipper whose vessel was mistaken by an Englishman for a Russian, and who didn’t run up his bunting until the Englishman was about to broadside him, and who gave as a reason “ that he wanted to see how spry Bull would clear for action,” came near paying dearly for his joke.— Hon. 8. 8. Cox, in Harper's Magazine for May. It is rumored that the difficulty between Mr. Lick and his trustees is like-, ly to be settled upon a plan substantially the same as that suggested in the Chronicle. The report is that in order to avoid the hazards and the scandal of a bitter litigation an arrangement is on foot by virtue of which the trustees and Mr. Lick will join in the execution of a deed to new trustees, which deed will jealously and securely guard the public interests vested under the original trust and at the same time make adequate provision for Mr, Lick’s relatives. — San Francisco Chronicle. —Gome into the garden mud.—Elizabeth Mohitor.