Order was temporarily restored, and the Recorder proceeded "Bill Brown." Bill, on hearing his name pronounced, made an effort to move, and his head gave a galvanic motion to either side like that of a Dutch doll. He managed, however, to get on his legs, and looking wildly around him he said "Gentlemen-gem'en, I'll give you-hiccup-I'll give you, gentlemen, the American Eagle !" "Silence! sit down, said the officer, going over to Brown, placing his hands on his shoulders and pushing him into his seat sit down sir." _66 The course being again clear, the Recorder proceeded— "Charley Jones." "M-m-m-Mr. Chairman," said Jones, his 'eye in a fine phrensy rolling,'-"I respond to the call" "Bravo, Jones! bravo, Jones! Jones' song! song!"—shouted the half dozen fuddled prisoners, and before the officers had time to interpose, Jones was singing "'Tis the star-spangled banner, And long may it wave O'er the land of the free, And the home of the brave !" Jones was soon made to shut up, and Jonathan Swiller's name was called by the Recorder. "Wal, Squire," said Jonathan, "I kalk'late I was on an almighty big bender last night, I tell you, and the way we did walk into the highly concentrated hard cider-or as you city folks call it, sham-pag-ne-worn't slow, I tell you; goody gracious, if mother knew I was carrying on so! Jonathan was silenced, and Patrick O'Shaughnessy was called. "Gintlemen, said Patrick, "unaccustomed as I am to public spaykin', it can't be expicted I'll make a great speach intirely, but I'll howld any man twinty dollars that New York will go for Van Buren, body and sowl, Sixth Ward and all." No one seemed to notice Pat's speech, or his bet, and the Recorder called "Duncan McPherson." "Awe weel, mon," said Duncan, "I have tauld Patrick oover and oover again na to be so foond o' makin' his bletherin' speeches and thrawin' away his siller on bets; if he THE SCHOOL MASTER ABROAD. 63 waats a wee bit he'll ken all aboot the elections without bettin', but the mon is daft I believe." The Recorder thought that not only Patrick, but McPherson himself, and all their companions were daft, so he fined them ten dollars each and discharged them. THE SCHOOL MASTER ABROAD. ALEXANDER PERSSE, a man who looked like a long used, badly bound edition of Essays on Intemperance, was found" on the shelf," or rather on the banquette in Philippa street, on Wednesday night. He was "very well, I thank you." Persse teaches the young idea how to shoot; but finding that he could not keep pace, we suppose, with the march of intellect, he lay himself down on the banquette, either to store his mind with new inspiration or to arrange the ideas with which his mind was already stored, and prepare for another start off in the intellectual race. "Who is here?" said the watchman when he came up to Persse, stirring him up with his long pole-" Who's here?” "I am, thou art, he, she or it is," said Persse, launching at once into the sea of his vocation, and taking the tone of his language from the "shop." "You is high," said the watchman. "I deny, sir, that I am high," said Persse-" All our authors, sir, who have written on the language, agree in saying that high is an adjective, because, sir, it expresses a condition or quality; now, sir, I am Alexander Persse, a noun—a noun proper, sir, of the first person, masculine gender, singular number-see here, old fellow, let us drink—and I am—I am, sir, nominative case to the verb drink. Now, sir, confess your error when you say I am high-am a mere adjective. "Come along to the watchhouse," said Charley. "No, sir,” said Presse, "I shall decline it, and in a manner strictly in accordance with the principles of Etymology; thus, sir, come, came, come. Now, sir, the conjugation is equally simple, thus-I come, thou comest, he, she or it cometh or comes. "This here's all nonsense," said Charley, who was getting out of patience with the learned grammarian. "Yes, sir," said Persse, "you are perfectly right; nonsense is a kind of compound word, combining both a negative and an affirmative-this, sir, is one of the idioms peculiar to our language." 66 "I wont hear no more of it," said Charley; and making a lever of his right arm he raised Persse, and put him on his legs in a perpendicular position. "That-that," said Persse," has been done without violating in the slightest degree the recognised rules of grammar; per example-rise, thou risest Charley, without saying another word, placed his arm round that of Persse's as a retainer, and walked him off to the watchhouse. "Your actions, sir," said Persse to Charley," are those of a scholar and if I mistake not, are agreeable to the second rule in Syntax, which says that two or more nouns in the singular number, joined together by one or more copulative conjunctions-your arm and mine as in the 'present case, for instance-must have verbs, nouns and pronouns agreeing with them in the plural number-so that instead of I go, or you go, it is we go. You understand, don't you? I know you do. "Yes, I understands you're a blamed fool," said Charley; and in a minute or two more Persse's name was on the books of the watchhouse. "Persse," said the Recorder to him yesterday morning, "you were found lying on the banquette." "Yes, may it please the court," said Persse, "I was illustrating the neuter verb to lie." "What business do you follow, Mr. Persse?" said the Recorder. "I am a professor, sir, of the polite languages," said Persse. "Your language was any thing but polite in the watchhouse last night," said the Recorder. "I may have been, thou mayest have been, he, she or it, at some period of their lives, may have been in a subjunctive mood, or represented under a certain condition," said Persse. 66 I shall let you go this time," said the Recorder. "Verbum sat sapienti, or as the vulgar translation has it, N. S." said Perssee, and he left the office. A SCOTCH MELODIST. 65 A SCOTCH MELODIST. RECORDER BALDWIN had lots of business on hand yesterday. We shall dispose of them by the lot; but before doing so there are some one or two of them to whom we would pay our devoirs. First there was John Wilson, "fra the land o' cakes." John is an ardent admirer of the poetry of his countryman, Burns; but a more ardent admirer of the ardent. His face is as particoloured as a Scotch plaid, and as inexpressive as a Scotch haggis. When the watchman met him he was apostrophizing, in the words of his national poet, a bottle of Monongahela which he held in his hand, and from which, ever and anon, he took a swig; but whether to the tune of Old Hundred, or "Cauld Kail in Aberdeen," the watchman for the life of him could not tell. Thus he sung: "Thou clears the head o' doited Lear, Thou ever brightens dark despair "Silence," says Charley, with all the dignified gravity of the chairman of a ward meeting-"silence, feller. You seems to be a musical character, eh ?" John Wilson, inspired by the contents of his bottle, though moneyless, was all melody. He continued his song, regardless of the watchman or "The thousand ills that rise where money fails Debts, threats, and duns; bills, baliffs, writs and jails." "You seems to be a great wocalist," said Charley, speaking much louder than before; “you is wery musical." "Musical ?" said Wilson, bringing his legs into two sides of a triangle, placing his arms akimbo, giving a hiccup, and looking at Charley as wonderful as if he were a "warlock," or a "bogle," "musical!" he reiterated, "musical! aye, you're right mon," recollecting himself; "I occasionally play a little on the Scotch fiddle, but I'm a poor hand at it, mon; I'm a poor hand at it noo-ha! ha! ha!" Wilson here made an attempt to laugh at his own wit, but Charley thought the laugh was against himself, and though the old saw says a cat may laugh at a king, he felt that a watchman was not to be laughed at with impunity, and without more ado he took Wilson to the watchhouse. "Wilson," said the Recorder to him yesterday morning, "you were drunk last night." "Weel," said Wilson, "I dinna ken any thing aboot it; 1 might ha' had a wee drop or so in my e'e." "The watchman says," said the Recorder, "that you were making a noise and disturbing the peace too." "O perhaps," says Wilson, "I was liltin a soong or the like, but I was na fou." "Why were you out so late?" said the Recorder. "Why for the vera best o' reasons," said Wilson, "because I hadn't a single baubee to get my lodgings." "Well, I shall let you go this time," said the Recorder. "Weel," said Wilson, "that's unco' kind o' your oonor, considering the rough manner in which the watchman treated me yestreen-Gude mornin' to your oonor," and he sloped. AN IRISH ROW. MICHAEL GATELY and Andrew O'Grady occupied a front seat in the Baldwin Omnibus, or prisoner's box yesterday morning. "Ah! sure a pair never was seen So justly formed to meet by nature;" 'Twas plain they'd on the "batter" been, So battered was their every feature. Gately had a black crescent round his eye like an eclipse on a segment of the sun; his front teeth were out, and the vacuum resembled the Croton aqueduct on a small scale; his cheeks were swelled out like Clayton the æronant's balloon when inflated with gas; his hair appeared in as confused a state as if the Natchez tornado had passed through it; and between blood and wounds his whole countenance might be compared to a badly painted map of the battle of Tippecanoe. O'Grady was so like Gately, the partner of his sprees, his fighting and his fame, that if they were both put into the wheel of the Grand Real Estate Lottery, one might be drawn out in mistake for the other, unless they were separately and distinctively numbered. |