Part 31 (1/2)

As a variation of the story about the merchant who couldn't keep a certain article because so many people asked for it, we submit the following: A lady entered the rural drugstore which we patronize and said, ”Mr. Blank, I want a bath spray.” ”I'm sorry, Mrs. Jones,” sezze, ”but the bath spray is sold.”

_IN A DEPARTMENT STORE._

_Customer--”I want to look at some tunics.”_

_Irish Floorwalker--”We don't carry musical instruments.”_

That Tennessee congressman who was arrested charged with operating an automobile while pifflicated, would reply that when he voted for prohibition he was representing his const.i.tuents, not his private thirst. Have we not, many times, in the good old days in Vermont, seen representatives rise with difficulty from their seats to cast their vote for prohibition? One can be pretty drunk and still be able to articulate ”Ay.”

A new drug, Dihydroxyphenylethylmethylamine, sounds as if all it needed was a raisin.

The Gluck aria, which Mme. Homer has made famous, was effectively cited by the critic Hanslick to show that in vocal music the subject is determined only by the words. He wrote:

”At a time when thousands (among whom there were men like Jean Jacques Rousseau) were moved to tears by the air from 'Orpheus'--

'J'ai perdu mon Eurydice, Rien n'egale mon malheur,'

Boye, a contemporary of Gluck, observed that precisely the same melody would accord equally well, if not better, with words conveying exactly the reverse, thus--

'J'ai trouve mon Eurydice, Rien n'egale mon bonheur.'

”We, for our part, are not of the opinion that in this case the composer is quite free from blame, inasmuch as music most a.s.suredly possesses accents which more truly express a feeling of profound sorrow.

If however, from among innumerable instances, we selected the one quoted, we have done so because, in the first place, it affects the composer who is credited with the greatest dramatic accuracy; and, secondly, because several generations hailed this very melody as most correctly rendering the supreme grief which the words express.”

Arthur Shattuck sued for appreciation in Fond du Lac the other evening, playing, according to the Reporter, ”a plaintiff melody with great tenderness.” The jury returned a verdict in his favor without leaving their seats.

Reports of famine in China have recalled a remark about its excessive population. If the Chinese people were to file one by one past a given point the procession would never come to an end. Before the last man of those living to-day had gone by another generation would have grown up.

”Say it with handkerchiefs,” advertises a merchant in Goshen, Ind. That is, if the idea you wish to convey is that you have a cold in your head.

THE SOIL OF KANSAS.

[From the Kansas Farmer.]