CON O'DONNELL THE CORNED.

CON O'DONNELL, the learned, liquoring, loafing Con O'Donnell was again up before Recorder Baldwin yesterday. Con can solve the most difficult mathematical problem, but he cannot keep sober. He can trace the ancient republics of Greece and Rome through their rise, the meridian of their glory, and their fall; but he very often falls down, unable to trace his way home to his lodgings. He can describe the revolutions of the heavenly bodies; to describe the revolutions of his own body would puzzle a Herschell. The philosophy of Franklin, the eloquence of Patrick Henry, the poetry of Shakspeare, and the romance of Scott are subjects upon which he can dwell with an ardour bordering on enthusiasm-their respective beauties he can point out with the unerring eye of criticism, and yet, strange to say, there are times-times which too often occur -when he actually cannot see 66 a hole through a forty foot ladder."

"Con O'Connell," said the Recorder.

Con, whose eye was in a fine phrensy rolling-his mania a potu stuck out a feet-looked wildly round the court and exclaimed in most tragical accents

"So this is Tyre, and this is the court.

Here must I kill King Pericles; and if I do not, I
Am sure to be hanged at home." "

"You were found drunk again last night, Con," said the Recorder.

Con.-Addressing the policeman in a peremptory manner

"Give me my robe, put on my crown, I have

Immortal longings in me.'

Recorder." What does he say?"

Con.-Slapping his forehead with his open hand-looking up at the ceiling of the court, and throwing his body into a melo-dramatic attitude

"Dissolve, thick cloud, and rain; that I may say

The gods themselves do weep.'

The Recorder, without seeming to mind the strange antics of Con, or his incoherent though classical answers to the questions put to him, said

A REAL GAME COCK OF THE WILDERNESS.

115

"Con, I shall send you down this time for thirty days; there seems to be no other mode of managing you."

Here Con fell back into his seat and in a voice mellowed by the spirit of resignation, said

"I knew, I knew it could not last.

'Twas bright, 'twas heavenly, but 'tis past!"

"Take him out," said the Recorder; and when the policemen went to execute the order, Con in an instant again threw himself into an attitude of self-defence.

"Unhand me, gentlemen; by heaven I swear

I'll make a ghost of him that let's me."

The policemen, nothing daunted at the threats of Con, took him out.

A REAL GAME COCK OF THE WILDERNESS. CONSCIENCE, says Shakspeare, makes cowards of us all, and odd conceits, say we, make fools of us all. A live hoosier, who was returning from one of the fancy balls on Saturday night last, while on his way home to his flat-boat cut up such extraordinary shines and antics, that the watchman thought him in every way entitled to an introduction to our worthy Recorder. Two or three nights previous he had seen Dan Marble in the "Game Cock of the Wilderness," and the thing pleased him so well that he rigged himself out on Saturday evening as much like the game chicken as possible, and went to the ball. While there, he gave occasionally a crow and took occasionally a drink, until at length he found himself somewhat loaded down by the head, although elevated in spirits and perfectly ripe for any thing.

The putting out of the lights at some two o'clock in the morning was the signal for our hero to put out for home. He felt so well, to use his own words, "that he couldn't hold himself still," and so wide awake that at every corner he came to he would flap his arms violently against his sides and crow so much like a chicken, that every rooster in the neighbourhood, thinking it the signal for day-break, joined in the chorus. Chapman himself, in his happiest efforts, never could excel this second Samson Hardhead.

He had just given a specimen of his skill in crowing at the

corner of Poydras and Tchoupitoulas streets, when a watchman came up and told him he must make less noise.

"Noise! Ooh-a-ooh-a-oooh! Do you call that a noise?" said the fellow, giving another sample of his abilities at crowing.

"Noise, yes-you must shut up. Who are you, any

how?"

"I'm the second Game Cock of the Wilderness-look out for my gaffs," at the same time jumping sideways at the watchman, hitting him with his right foot and elbow, and sending him stumbling into the middle of the street.

"You're a hard chicken, at all events," said the Charley, recovering himself and walking up to this new species of customer a second time. "Blow me if I can get the hang of you."

"You will soon-Ooh-a-ooh-a-oooh!" returned the droll customer, hopping up and giving the watchman another "side winder," as the latter called it in court. This was too much, and the Charley accordingly called in the assistance of one of his brethren and soon had the game cock safely under lock and key. He crowed several times on his way to the watchhouse, and once or twice tried to hop up and knock over the Charlies upon the same principle a regular game chicken goes to work at his adversary, but they soon understood his tricks and took measures to keep out of reach. On being pushed into the dark room, he broke out with

"Well, this is a pretty place I dont think. Its as dark as a box of blackin'. Let me out or I'll butt the door down. I wish I had my big lamp here to light up with. Its a perfect prairie on fire. I sot it out, once, the darkest night that ever come over, and all creation riz, thinkin' it was day-light. Let me out. I'm a liberty pole and can't bear confinement." In this way he went on, using, a part of the time, ideas he recollected from the play, and filling up the rest with original specimens of his own.

In the morning, on being brought before the Recorder, he said his old name was Bill Bloom, but that he had taken that of Samson Hardhead, Jr., because it pleased him better.

"Well, Samson," said his honour, "what do you follow?" "Crowing, principally," retorted Hardhead. "I've taken up the business lately."

"You was fighting with a watchman last night," said the Recorder.

A TAILOR'S NEEDLE MAGNIFIED INTO A BOWIE-KNIFE. 117

"Fighting! You dont call that fighting, do you? I was only practiseing on a new principle. If you should see me sure enough' fighting onc't you'd think war had broke out in earnest. Fighting! why, if I'd been really fighting with that chap I'd have jumped clean down his throat and stopped his digestion for a fortnight."

"State the circumstances of the arrest," said his honour to the watchman.

The latter was proceeding, when the hoosier sung out

"Squire, that varmint is telling lies so fast you can't find time to believe him. Look here, 'Squire, do the thing that's right by me, will you, but dont believe that chap."

"Silence," said the Recorder.

"Oh, well, if you're going in on the gagging principle I'm shut up; but there's one thing you must understand that I'm an American citizen, slightly touched with the game cock, and I go in on the broad principle that one country is just as good as another in time of peace, and a d―d sight better. Ŏoha-ooh-a-ooh! day's a breakin'!"

"Silence!" again said the Recorder. "I shall fine you ten dollars for this offence, but if you are caught here again you wont get off so easy."

"Go ahead," said the hoosier, as he walked out of the office. He took one more crow, however, on the steps, and then made for his flat-boat.

A TAILOR'S NEEDLE MAGNIFIED INTO A BOWIEKNIFE!

THERE was nothing of consequence before the police offices on Monday, if we except a case to which the parties were― The State vs. Antonio Rosendeau.

The defendant was a stunted little man-milliner, with a pair of legs like the prongs of a pair of parlour tongs.

"Watchman O'Hara," said the Recorder-" What is your charge against Rosendeau ?"

"Carryin' consaled waypons, yer honour. He dhrew a sharp insthrument on me last night. I don't know whether it was a bowie-knife or a dirk; but it was mighty sharp, intirely. The night was dark as pitch, yer honour-or as a nager's blushes." "O, Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! said the French tailor.

"Silence!" said the Recorder.

"Did you see the weapon?" said the Recorder to O'Hara. "Blood-an'-turf! to be sure I saw it," said O'Hara, "glistenin' like a cat's eye, or the scales of a herrin' in the dark! and, be all that's holy! I felt it, too! Why, only for the way I defended meself with me stick, he'd have run it through me body, jist as yer honour 'ud run a pin through a musquito! Jis look at the little sharp nose of him, yer honour! Doesn't he look like a spalpeen that wouldn't meet a man in a dacint stand-up fight, with his fists or a shillelagh; but one that 'ud be afther takin' a dirty advantage of a dacint boy, by committin' suicide on him in the dark?"

During the delivery of this exordium by O'Hara, the little Frenchman agonised as if he had received religion at a camp meeting, or as if his shoulders and muscles were worked by invisible wires, and gave the witness the benefit of a considerable number of sacres, which he delivered in an under tone. "He did not inflict any severe wounds on you-did he ?” said the Recorder.

"Wound me, and I havin' a stick in me hand!" said O'Hara, with surprise. "That's a disgrace that niver occurred to the only son of Mick O'Hara (the Lord be good to him!) yet!— Wound me!-oh, bathershin !"

"What have you to say to this charge?" said the Recorder to the bandy-legged Frenchman, who seemed to pant for an opportunity to contradict O'Hara.

"Be gar!" said the Frenchman, shaking his head at the Recorder and his hands at O'Hara, "be gar! it be all one grand lie humbug!-Dere, dere be de only weepon me carry!" pulling out from the breast of his coat a formidable tailor's needle, technically called a button-needle! "He be one so big coward, he thought it be one large sabre."

Several witnesses corroborated the French tailor's story: he was discharged, and O'Hara was reprimanded for being guilty of such an ocular error as mistaking a tailor's needle for a bowie-knife!