_A Lover of Music._ Our street musicians are growing worse and worse.
There is a piper who infests the street in which I live, and sets my
nerves on edge with his horrible droning. What am I to do with him?
_Answer._ put him in the waste-piper basket.
_Aunt Carraway._ The preparatory schools about which you inquire have
nothing to do with the reformation of wicked parrots. If the language
made use of by your parrot is so dreadful that the cats have left the
house in consequence of it, we are afraid that the bird is past reform.
Try him with rats, and you may yet be renowned as the "female
Whittington of the period."
_Rebecca Hazeldown._ It was very rude of the young man to stare at you
through an aquarium, as you say he did. The little fishes might have
been flirting their tails at the time, however, and it is just possible
that he might have taken you for one of the flirts.
_A Horseman._ After long observation, I am of opinion that the sudden
collapse which so frequently occurs among omnibus and street-car horses,
is to be attributed to the stupid but common practice of giving them
water when they are overheated. Can you assist me in putting a stop to
this?
_Answer._ We do not see why you should apply to PUNCHINELLO in the case.
Have we not a Croton BERGH among us?
_Valetudinarian._ To furnish you with a list of all the patent medicines
advertised is quite out of our power. Suppose you start out early every
morning with your note-book, walk for seven or eight miles along the
Bloomingdale Road, and make your list from the innumerable inscriptions
on the rocks in that vicinity. Do this for a month or two, and you will
not care much about the list when you have got it.
_N.E. by S.W._ We read that DEMOSTHENES used to put pebbles in his
mouth, and spout while thus charged, to cure himself of thickness of
utterance. Suffering from the same defect, I have tried the same remedy,
but without success. Can you advise me in the matter?
_Answer._ The most learned commentators agree that the statement about
DEMOSTHENES' putting pebbles in his mouth was only figurative, and
really meant that, when about to speak in public, he used to put a brick
in his hat. The same thing is done by many of our public speakers of the
period--such as JOHN B. GOUGH, H. GREELEY, ANNA DICKINSON, and others.
Try it moderately, and it may loosen your tongue.
_Epicurus._ Is Worcestershire sauce really the invention of an English
nobleman?
_Answer._ Yes: he was one of the COOKS or one of the BUTLERS, we have
forgotten which; but it is certain that he was degraded from the peerage
for offering some of his sauce to the reigning British monarch of his
time.
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