"_Cholera fenced in._--You have noticed the flaming handbills setting
forth the virtues of a cholera remedy, that are posted by the hundreds on
the board fence enclosing the ground on Main Street, where Roberts' opera
house is being erected. Well, there was a timid countryman, the other day,
who had so far recovered from the 'cholera scare' as to venture into the
city with a horse and wagon load of vegetables; and thereby hangs a tale.
He drove moderately along the street, when he suddenly spied the word
'Cholera,' in big letters on the new fence, and he staid to see no more.
Laying the lash on to his quadruped, he went past the handbills like a
streak of lightning, went--'nor stood on the order of his going'--up past
the tunnel, planting the vegetables along the entire route,--for the
tail-board had loosened,--hardly taking breath, or allowing his beast to
breathe, till he reached home at W.
"Safely there, he rushed wildly into the midst of his household,
exclaiming,--
"'O, wife, wife, they _have_ got the cholera in Hartford, _and have fenced
it in_.'"
* * * * *
_A Joke that's not a Joke._--A funny limb of the law had an office, a few
years since, on ---- Street, next door to a doctor's shop. One day, an
elderly gentleman, of the fogy school, blundered into the lawyer's office,
and asked,--
"Is the doctor in?"
[Illustration: THE FARMER'S ESCAPE FROM THE CHOLERA.]
"Don't live here," replied the lawyer, scribbling over some legal
documents.
"O, I thought this was the doctor's office."
"Next door, sir;" short, and still writing.
"I beg pardon, but can you tell me if the doctor has many patients?"
"_Not living_," was the brief reply.
The old gentleman repeated the story in the vicinity, and the doctor
threatened the lawyer with a libel. The latter apologized, saying, "it was
only a joke, and that no man could sustain a libel against a lawyer," when
the doctor acknowledged the joke, and satisfaction, saying he would send
up a bottle of wine, in token of reconciliation.
The wine came, and the lawyer invited in a few friends to laugh over the
joke, and _smile_ over the doctor's wine. The seal was broken, the dust
and cobwebs being removed, and the doctor's health drunk right cordially.
The excellence of the doctor's wine was but half discussed, when the
lawyer begged to be excused a moment, caught his hat, and rushed from the
room. Soon one of the guests repeated the request, and followed; then
another, and another, till they had all gone out.
The wine had been nicely "doctored" with _tartar emetic_, the seal
replaced and well dusted over, before being sent to the lawyer. The doctor
was now threatened with prosecution; but after some consideration, the
following brief correspondence passed between the belligerents:--
"Nolle prosequi." Lawyer to doctor.
"Quits." Doctor to lawyer.
* * * * *
_Parboiling an Old Lady._--In Rockland, Me., then called East Thomaston,
several years ago, there resided an old Thomsonian doctor, who had erected
in one room of his dwelling a new steam bath. An old lady from the
"Meadows," concluding to try the virtues of the medicated steam, went
down, was duly arrayed in a loose robe by the doctor's wife, and with much
trepidation and many warnings not to keep her too long, she entered the
bath--a sort of closet, with a door buttoned outside. The steam was kept
up by a large boiler, fixed in the fireplace which the doctor was to
regulate. The old lady took a book into the bath, "to occupy her mind, and
keep her from getting too nervous."
"Now it's going all right," said the doctor, when ding, ding, ding! went
the front door bell. The doctor stepped noiselessly out, and learned that
a woman required his immediate attention at South Thomaston, three miles
away. He forgot all about the old lady fastened into the bath, and leaping
into the carriage in waiting, he was whisked off to South Thomaston.
Meantime the steam increased, and the old lady began to get anxious. The
moisture gathered on her book; the leaves began to wilt. The dampness
increased, and soon the book fell to pieces in her lap. Great drops of
sweat and steam rolled down over her face and body, and she arose, and
tapping very gently at the door, said,--
"Hadn't I better come out now, doctor?"
[Illustration: TOO MUCH VAPOR.]
No reply. She waited a moment longer, and repeated the knock louder.
"Let me come out, doctor. I am just melting in here."
Still the doctor, to her astonishment, did not reply, or open the door.
"For God's sake, doctor, let me out." Listening a few seconds, she
screamed, "O, I believe he's gone, and left me here to parboil! Open,
open!" And she knocked louder and louder at the door, while the now almost
scalding waters literally poured from her body. "O, I shall suffocate
here." And giving a desperate kick, she set her foot through the panelled
door, and, getting down on all fours, she crawled through the opening.
Just then the doctor's wife, hearing the thumping, hastened to the room,
and with many apologies and excuses, rubbed down and dried the old lady,
and begged her not to mention the affair.
But never, to the day of her death, did the old lady again enter a "steam
bath," or cease to tell how "_the doctor went off to attend a 'birth'
leaving her in the bath to parboil_!"
* * * * *
_A Dry Shower Bath._--When shower baths were all the rage, a few years
ago, all sorts of plans were suggested to avoid getting wet. The following
is to the point:--
_Doctor._ Well, deacon, how did your wife manage her new shower bath?
[Illustration: A DRY SHOWER BATH.]
_Deacon._ O, she had real good luck. Madam Mooney told how she managed
with hern. She had made a large oiled silk hood, with a large cape to it,
like a fisherman's in a storm, that came all down over her shoulders.
_Doctor_ (impatiently). She's a fool for her pains. That's not the way.
_Deacon._ So my wife thought.
_Doctor._ And your wife did nothing of the kind, I hope.
_Deacon._ O, no, no. My wife, she used an umbrilly.
[Illustration]