Jack Doe met Dick Roe, whose wife he loved, And said: 'I will get the best of him.' So pulling a knife from his boot, he shoved It up to the hilt in the breast of him. Then he moved that weapon forth and back, Enlarging the hole he had made with it, Till the smoking liver fell out, and Jack Merrily, merrily played with it. Then he reached within and he seized the slack Of the lesser bowel, and, traveling Hither and thither, looked idly back On that small intestine, raveling. The wretched Richard, with many a grin Laid on with exceeding suavity, Curled up and died, and they ran John in And charged him with sins of gravity. The case was tried and a verdict found: The jury, with great humanity, Acquitted the prisoner on the ground Of extemporary insanity.
MR. FINK'S DEBATING DONKEY.
Of a person known as Peters I will humbly crave your leave An unusual adventure into narrative to weave— Mr. William Perry Peters, of the town of Muscatel, A public educator and an orator as well. Mr. Peters had a weakness which, 'tis painful to relate, Was a strong predisposition to the pleasures of debate. He would foster disputation wheresoever he might be; In polygonal contention none so happy was as he. 'Twas observable, however, that the exercises ran Into monologue by Peters, that rhetorical young man. And the Muscatelian rustics who assisted at the show, By involuntary silence testified their overthrow— Mr. Peters, all unheedful of their silence and their grief, Still effacing every vestige of erroneous belief. O, he was a sore affliction to all heretics so bold As to entertain opinions that he didn't care to hold. One day—'t was in pursuance of a pedagogic plan For the mental elevation of Uncultivated Man— Mr. Peters, to his pupils, in dismissing them, explained That the Friday evening following (unless, indeed, it rained) Would be signalized by holding in the schoolhouse a debate Free to all who their opinions might desire to ventilate On the question, 'Which is better, as a serviceable gift, Speech or hearing, from barbarity the human mind to lift?' The pupils told their fathers, who, forehanded always, met At the barroom to discuss it every evening, dry or wet, They argued it and argued it and spat upon the stove, And the non-committal 'barkeep' on their differences throve. And I state it as a maxim in a loosish kind of way: You'll have the more to back your word the less you have to say. Public interest was lively, but one Ebenezer Fink Of the Rancho del Jackrabbit, only seemed to sit and think. On the memorable evening all the men of Muscatel Came to listen to the logic and the eloquence as well— All but William Perry Peters, whose attendance there, I fear. Was to wreak his ready rhetoric upon the public ear, And prove (whichever side he took) that hearing wouldn't lift The human mind as ably as the other, greater gift. The judges being chosen and the disputants enrolled, The question he proceeded in extenso to unfold: 'Resolved—The sense of hearing lifts the mind up out of reach Of the fogs of error better than the faculty of speech.' This simple proposition he expounded, word by word, Until they best understood it who least perfectly had heard. Even the judges comprehended as he ventured to explain— The impact of a spit-ball admonishing in vain. Beginning at a period before Creation's morn, He had reached the bounds of tolerance and Adam yet unborn. As down the early centuries of pre-historic time He tracked important principles and quoted striking rhyme, And Whisky Bill, prosaic soul! proclaiming him a jay, Had risen and like an earthquake, 'reeled unheededly away,' And a late lamented cat, when opportunity should serve, Was preparing to embark upon her parabolic curve, A noise arose outside—the door was opened with a bang And old Ebenezer Fink was heard ejaculating 'G'lang!' Straight into that assembly gravely marched without a wink An ancient ass—the property it was of Mr. Fink. Its ears depressed and beating time to its infestive tread, Silent through silence moved amain that stately quadruped! It stopped before the orator, and in the lamplight thrown Upon its tail they saw that member weighted with a stone. Then spake old Ebenezer: 'Gents, I heern o' this debate On w'ether v'ice or y'ears is best the mind to elevate. Now 'yer's a bird ken throw some light uponto that tough theme: He has 'em both, I'm free to say, oncommonly extreme. He wa'n't invited for to speak, but he will not refuse (If t'other gentleman ken wait) to exposay his views.'
