Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 December 1876 — How to Repel a Surprise Party. [ARTICLE]

How to Repel a Surprise Party.

An afflicted correspondent writes to the Tribune to ask how she and her husband san manage to repel the pirates who at this season of the year organize expeditions to prey upon their hapless neighbors, ana call their forays “surprise parties.’’ It is not easy to advise her. Some people have found it effectual to keep a bull-dog of satisfactory ferocity; grease on thejfront steps is good; some stubborn cases have yielded to the application of a powerful electric battery to the bell-wire, and a fomentation of a few pails of water is not without its effect. A small-pox placard will sometimes work a oure where other remedies have been exhibited vainly. A gentleman on West Adams street has invented a heroic method of treatment which was tried last Thursday in the presence of a large surprise party, and proved successful beyond the fondest expectations of the infamous inventor. He unhitched the bell-wire from the pull, which he riveted on the inside of the post; then he got a chisel and screw-driver and removed all file fastenings of the door-post, so that while it looked like a solid dooc-way, with a securely-fastened bell-handle in ft, it was in reality nothing bnt a thin veneer of molding with a bell-pull in it, ready to yield to the touch of an infant’s hand. These arrangements completed, he and his wife turned down the gas ana watched at the blinds till their unsuspecting victim* entered the ambush—the front yard, that is. The forlorn hope was headed by a Jovial old man whose boast it is that he 3 as young in heart as his grandchildren. He weighs abont 265 pounds. This devoted man marshaled his forces and advanced nimbly up the steps. Immemorial custom has prescribed as an absolute rule that when a house is attacked by a surprise party, the pirate at the head of the besiegers shall pull the bell u vehemently as if the residence were that of a doctor and the stormerthe prospective father of a first baby. Accordingly the old gentleman gave the bell a fearful tug, throwing himself back so. as to get the luxury of a full purchase. To his 'surprise he seemed to pull the whole front out of the house, and with a wild whoop of astonishment and terror he (accompanied by the doorpost) threw a back somersault down the steps into the midst of the festal party. He fell on the hireling musician; the hireling musician fell on his fiddle; the door post knocked a couple of guests over the balcony railing into the rose-bushes, and the whole party knocked each other down like a row of bricks or a card house, amid a perfect pandemonium of shrieks, smashing of dishes and bottles, and the like. The surprise party made good their retreat, carrying their wounded with them without molestation by the triumphant garrison.— Chicago I ribune.