The Humors of Falconbridge

Australia was inhabited by over 100,000 natives, black cannibals of the ugliest description; but at this day not a hundred of them remain. The natives were exceeding stupid and useless; the first settlers, who, as Capt. Rocksalt observes, were jail-birds and scape-gallows, were not very dainty in dealing with the obnoxious natives; so they determined to get rid of them as fast and easy as possible. For this purpose, they used to gather a horde of them together, and give them poisoned bread and rum, and so kill them off by hundreds. It was a sharp sort of practice, but the ends seemed to justify the means.

Gold, "laying around loose," as it did, was, no doubt, discovered years ago; but not in quantities to lead the ignorant to believe money could be made hunting it. People may be stupid; but it requires a far greener capacity than most of them would confess to – at least, ten years ago – to make them believe gold could be picked up in chunks out in the open fields.

But Australia began to be populated; by convicts first; and then by far better people; though the very worst felons sent out often became decent and respectable men, which is indeed a great "puff," we think, for the healthfulness of the climate. A convict shepherd now and then used to bring into Sydney small lumps of gold and sell them to the watch-makers, and as he refused to say where or how he got them, it was suspicioned that he had secreted guineas or jewelry somewhere, and occasionally melted them for sale.

However, one day the thing broke out, nearly simultaneously, all over Australia. Gold was lying around everywhere. The rocks, ledges, bars, gullies, and river-banks, which were daily familiar to the eyes of thousands, all of a sudden turned up bright and shining gold. Old Dame Nature must have laughed in her sleeve to see the fun and uproar – the scrabble and rush she had caused in her vast household.

"It did beat all!" exclaims the old Captain. "In forty-eight hours Sydney was half-depopulated, Port Phillip nearly desolate, while the interior villages or towns – Bathurst, &c., were run clean out!"

Stores were shut up, the clerks running to the mines, and the proprietors after the clerks. Mechanics dropped work and put out; servants left without winking, leaving people to wait on themselves; doctors left what few patients they had, and bolted for the fields of Ophir; lawyers packed up and cut stick, following their clients and victims to the brighter fields of "causes" and effects. The newspapers became so short-handed that dailies were knocked into weeklies, and the weeklies into cocked hats, or something near it – mere eight-by-ten "handbills."

These "discoveries" wrought as sudden as singular a revolution in men, manners, and things. As we said before, Australia was the very apex of singularities in the way of Dame Nature's fancy-work, long before the gold mania broke out; but now she seemed bent on a general and miscellaneous freak, making the staid, matter-of-fact Englishmen as full of caprice as the land they were living in.

"Only look at it!" exclaims the Captain: "the day comes in the middle of our nights! When we're turning in at home, they are turning out in Australia. Summer begins in the middle of winter; and for snow storms they get rain, thunder and lightning. About the time we are getting used to our woollens and hot fires of the holidays, they are roasting with heat, and going around in linen jackets and wilted dickeys. The land is full of flowers of every hue, gay and beautiful, gorgeous and sublime to look at, but as senseless to the smell and as inodorous as so many dried chips. The swans are numerous, but jet black. The few animals in the country are all provided with pockets in their 'overcoats,' or skin, in which to stow their young ones, or provender. Some of the rivers really appear," says the Captain, "to run up stream! I was completely taken down," says the Captain, "by a bunch of the finest pears you ever saw. Myself and a friend were up the country, and I sees a fine pear tree, breaking down with as elegant-looking fruit as I ever saw.

"'Well, by ginger,' says I, 'them are about as fine pears as I've seen these twenty years!'

"'Yes,' says my friend, who was a resident in the country; 'perhaps you would like to try a few?'

"'That I shall,' says I; so I ups and knocks down a few, and it was a job to get them down, I tell you; and when I had one between my teeth I gave it a nip – see there, two teeth broke off," says the Captain, showing us the fact; "the fine pears were mere wood!

"The country is well supplied with fine birds; but they are dumb as beetles, sir – never heard a bird sing or whistle a note in Australia. The trees make no shade, the leaves hang from the stems edge up, and look just as if they had been whipped into shreds by a gale of wind; and you rarely see a tree with a bit of bark on it.

"But what completely upset me, was the cherries, sir – fine cherries, plenty of them, but the stones were all on the outside! The bees have no stings, the snakes no fangs, and the eagles are all white. The north wind is hot, the south wind cold. Our longest days are in summer; but in Australia, sir, the shortest days come in summer, and the longest in winter; and," says the Captain, "I can't begin to tell you how many curious didoes nature seems to cut, in that country; but, altogether, it's one of the queerest countries I ever did see, by ginger!"

And we have come to the conclusion – it is. If the gold continues to "turn up" in such boulders and "nuggets" as recently reported, Australia is bound to be the richest and most densely populated, as well as queerest country known to man.

A General Disquisition on "Hinges."

Did you ever see a real, true, unadulterated specimen of Down East, enter a store, or other place of every-day business, for the purpose of "looking around," or dicker a little? They are "coons," they are, upon all such occasions. We noted one of these "critters" in the store of a friend of ours, on Blackstone Street, recently. He was a full bloom Yankee– it stuck out all over him. He sauntered into the store, as unconcerned, quietly, and familiarly, as though in no great hurry about anything in particular, and killing time, for his own amusement. Absalom, Abijah, Ananias, Jedediah, or Jeremiah, or whatever else his name may have been, wore a very large fur cap, upon a very small and close-cut head; his features were mightily pinched up; there was a cunning expression about the corner of his eyes, not unlike the embodiment of – "catch a weazel asleep!" while the smallness of his mouth, thinness and blue cast of his chin and lips, bespoke a keen, calculating, pinch a four-pence until it squeaked like a frightened locomotive temperament! His "boughten" sack coat, fitting him all over, similar to a wet shirt on a broom-handle, was pouched out at the pockets with any quantity of numerous articles, in the way of books and boots, pamphlets and perfumery, knick-knacks and gim-cracks, calico, candy, &c. His vest was short, but that deficiency was made up in superfluity of dickey, and a profusion of sorrel whiskers. Having got into the store, he very leisurely walked around, viewing the hardware, separately and minutely, until one of the clerks edged up to him:

"What can we do for you to-day, sir?"

Looking quarteringly at the clerk for about two full minutes, says he —

"I'd dunno, just yet, mister, what yeou kin do."

"Those are nice hinges, real wrought," says the clerk, referring to an article the "customer" had just been gazing at with evident interest.

"Rale wrought?" he asked, after another lapse of two minutes.

"They are, yes, sir," answered the clerk. Then followed another pause; the Yankee with both his hands sunk deep into his trowsers' pockets, and viewing the hinges at a respectful distance, in profound calculation, three minutes full.

"They be, eh?" he at length responded.

"Yes, sir, warranted," replied the clerk. Another long pause. The Yankee approached the hinges, two steps – picks up a bundle of the article, looks knowingly at them two minutes —

"Yeou don't say so?"

"No doubt about that, at all," the clerk replies, rather pertly, as he moves off to wait upon another customer, who bought some eight or ten dollars' worth of cutlery and tools, paid for them, and cleared out, while our Yankee genius was still reconnoitering the hinges.

"I say, mister, where's them made?" inquires the Yankee.

"In England, sir," replied the clerk.

"Not in Neuw England, I'll bet a fo'pence!"

"No, not here – in Europe."

"I knowed they warn't made areound here, by a darn'd sight!"

"We've plenty of American hinges, if you wish them," said the clerk.

"I've seen hinges made in aour place, better'n them."

"Perhaps you have. We have finer hinges," answered the clerk.

"I 'spect you have; I don't call them anything great, no how!"

"Well, here's a better article; better hinges – "

"Well, them's pooty nice," said the Yankee, interrupting the clerk, "but they're small hinges."

"We have all sizes of them, sir, from half an inch to four inches."

"You hev?" inquiringly observed the Yankee, as the clerk again left him and the hinges, to wait on another customer, who bought a keg of nails, &c., and left.

"I see you've got brass hinges, tew!" again continued the Yankee, after musing to himself for twenty minutes, full.

"O, yes, plenty of them," obligingly answered the clerk.

"How's them brass 'uns work?"

"Very well, I guess; used for lighter purposes," said the clerk.

"Put 'em on desks, and cubber-doors, and so on?"

"Yes; they are used in a hundred ways."

"Hinges," says the Yankee, after a pause, "ain't considered, I guess, a very neuw invenshun?"

"I should think not," half smilingly replied the clerk.

"D'yeou ever see wooden hinges, mister?"

"Never," candidly responded the clerk.

"Well, I hev," resolutely echoed the Yankee.

"You have, eh?"

"E' yes, plenty on 'em – eout in Illinoi; seen fellers eout there that never seen an iron hinge or a razor in their lives!"

"I wasn't aware our western friends were so far behind the times as that," said the clerk.

"It's a fact– dreadful, tew, to be eout in a place like that," continued the Yankee. "I kept school eout there, nigh on to a year; couldn't stand it – "

"Ah, indeed!" mechanically echoed the poor clerk.

"No, sir; dreadful place, some parts of Illinoi; folks air almighty green; couldn't tell how old they air, nuff on 'em; when they get mighty old and bald-headed, they stop and die off, of their own accord."

"Illinois must be a healthy place?" observed the clerk.

"Healthy place! I guess not, mister; fever and ague sweetens 'em, I tell you. O, it's dreadful, fever and ague is!"

"That caused you to leave, I suppose?" said the clerk.

"Well, e' yes, partly; the climate, morals, and the water, kind o' went agin me. The big boys had a way o' fightin', cursin', and swearin', pitchin' apple cores and corn at the master, that didn't exactly suit me. Finally, one day, at last, the boys got so confeounded sassy, and I got the fever and agy so bad, that they shook daown the school-house chimney, and I shook my hair nearly all eout by the roots, with the agy– so I packed up and slid!"

The clerk being again called away to wait on a fresh customer, the Yankee was left to his meditations and survey. Having some twenty more minutes to walk around the store, and examine the stock, he brought up opposite the clerk, who was busy tying up gimlets, screws, and stuff, for a carpenter's apprentice. Yankee explodes again.

"Got a big steore of goods layin' areound here, haven't yeou?"

"We have, sir, a fair assortment," said the clerk.

"Them Illinoi folks haven't no idee what a place this Boston is; they haven't. I tried to larn 'em a few things towards civilization, but 'twaren't no sort o' use tryin'!"

"New country yet; the Illinois folks will brighten up after a while, I guess," said the clerk. "Did you wish to examine any other sort of hinges, sir?" he continued.

"Hain't I seen all yeou hev?"

"O, no; here we have another variety of hinges, steel, copper, plated, &c. These are fine for parlor doors, &c.," said the clerk.

"E' yes them air nice, I swow, mister; look like rale silver. I 'spect them cost somethin'?"

"They come rather high," said the clerk, "but we've got them as low as you can buy them in the market."

"I want to know!" quietly echoes the Yankee.

"Yes, sir; what do you wish to use them for?" says the clerk.

"Use 'em?" responded the Yankee.

"Yes; what priced hinges did you require?"

"What priced hinges? – "

"Exactly! Tell me what you require them for, and I can soon come at the sort of hinges you require," said the clerk, making an effort to come to a climax.

"Who said I wanted any hinges?"

"Who said you wanted any? Why, don't you want to buy hinges?"

"Buy hinges? Why, no; I don't want nothin'; I only came in to look areound!"

Having looked around, the imperturbable Yankee stepped out, leaving the poor clerk – quite flabbergasted!

Miseries of Bachelorhood

Dabster says he would not mind living as a bachelor, but when he comes to think that bachelors must die – that they have got to go down to the grave "without any body to cry for them" – it gives him a chill that frost-bites his philosophy. Dabster was seen on Tuesday evening, going convoy to a milliner. Putting this fact to the other, and we think we "smell something," as the fellow said when his shirt took fire.

The Science of "Diddling."

Jeremy Diddlers have existed from time immemorial down, as traces of them are found in all ancient and modern history, from the Bible to Shakspeare, from Shakspeare to the revelations of George Gordon Byron, who strutted his brief hour, acted his part, and – vanished. Diddler is derived from the word diddle, to do– every body who has not yet made his debut to the Elephant. We believe the word has escaped the attention of the ancient lexicographers, and even Worcester, and the still more durable "Webster," have no note of the word, its derivation, or present sense.

A "Jeremy Diddler" is, in fact, one of your first-class vagabonds; a fellow who has been spoiled by indulgent parents, while they were in easy circumstances. Trained up to despise labor, not capacitated by nature or inclination to pass current in a profession, he finds himself at twenty possessed of a genteel address, a respectable wardrobe, a few friends, and – no visible means of support. There are but two ways about it – take to the highway, or become a Diddler – a sponge – and, like woodcock, live on "suction." The early part of a Diddler's life is chiefly spent among the ladies; – they being strongly susceptible of flattering attentions, especially those of "a nice young man," your Diddler lives and flourishes among them like a fighting cock. Diddler's "heyday" being over, he next becomes a politician – an old Hunker; attends caucusses and conventions, dinners and inaugurations. Never aspiring to matrimony among the ladies, he remains an "old bach;" never hoping for office under government, he never gets any; and when, at last, both youth and energies are wasted, Diddler dons a white neckcloth, combs his few straggling hairs behind his ears, and, dressed in a well-brushed but shocking seedy suit of sable, he jines church and turns "old fogie," carries around the plate, does chores for the parson, becomes generally useful to the whole congregation, and finally shuffles off his mortal coil, and ends his eventful and useless life in the most becoming manner.

Cities are the only fields subservient to the successful practice of a respectable Diddler. New York affords them a very fair scope for operation, but of all the American cities, New Orleans is the Diddler's paradise! The mobile state of society, the fluctuations of men and business, the impossibility of knowing any thing or any body there for any considerable period, gives the Diddler ample scope for the exercise of his peculiar abilities to great effect. He dines almost sumptuously at the daily lunches set at the splendid drinking saloons and cafes, he lives for a month at a time on the various upward-bound steamboats. In New Orleans, the departure of a steamer for St. Louis, Cincinnati or Pittsburg, is announced for such an hour "to-day" – positively; Diddler knows it's "all a gag" to get passengers and baggage hurried on, and the steamer keeps going for two to five days before she's gone; so he comes on board, registers one of his commonplace aliases, gets his state-room and board among the crowd of real passengers, up to the hour of the boat's shoving out, then he – slips ashore, and points his boots to another boat. Many's the Diddler who's passed a whole season thus, dead-heading it on the steamers of the Crescent City. Sometimes the Diddler learns bad habits in the South, from being a mere Diddler, which is morally bad enough; he comes in contact with professional gamblers, plunges into the most pernicious and abominable of vices – gambles, cheats, swindles, and finally, as a grand tableau to his utter damnation here and hereafter, opens a store or a bank with a crowbar – or commits murder.

The Re-Union; Thanksgiving Story

"Behold, for peace I had great bitterness, but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back." – Isaiah.

A portly elderly gentleman, with one hand in his breeches pocket, and the fingers of the other drumming a disconsolate rub-a-dub upon the window glass of an elegant mansion near Boston Common, is the personage I wish to call your attention to, friend reader, for the space of a few moments. The facts of my story are commonplace, and thereby the more probable. The names of the dramatis personæ I shall introduce, will be the only part of my subject imaginary. Therefore, the above-described old gentleman, whom we found and left drumming his rub-a-dub upon the window panes, we shall call Mr. Joel Newschool. To elucidate the matter more clearly, I would beg leave to say, that Mr. Joel Newschool, though now a wealthy and retired merchant, with all the "pomp and circumstance" of fortune around him, could – if he chose – well recollect the day when his little feet were shoeless, red and frost-bitten, as he plodded through the wheat and rye stubble of a Massachusetts farmer, for whom he acted in early life the trifling character of a "cow boy."

Yes, Joel could remember this if he chose; but to the vain heart of a proud millionaire, such reflections seldom come to the surface. Like hundreds of other instances in the history of our countrymen, by a prolonged life of enterprise and good luck, Joel Newschool found himself, at the age of four-and-sixty, a very wealthy, if not a happy man. With his growing wealth, grew up around him a large family. Having served an apprenticeship to farming, he allowed but a brief space to elapse between his freedom suit and portion, and his wedding-day. Joel and his young and fresh country spouse, with light hearts and lighter purses, came to Boston, settled, and thus we find them old and wealthy. In the heart and manners of Mrs. Newschool, fortune made but slight alteration; but the accumulation of dollars and exalted privileges that follow wealth, had wrought many changes in the heart and feelings of her husband.

The wear of time, which is supposed to dim the eye, seemed to improve the ocular views of Joel Newschool amazingly, for he had been enabled in his late years to see that a vast difference of caste existed between those that tilled the soil, wielded the sledge hammer, or drove the jack-plane, and those that were merely the idle spectators of such operations. He no longer groped in the darkness of men who believed in such fallacies as that wealth gave man no superiority over honest poverty! In short, Mr. Newschool had kept pace with all the fine notions and ostentatious feelings so peculiar to the mushroom aristocracy of the nineteenth century. He gloried in his pride, and yet felt little or none of that happiness that the bare-footed, merry cow boy enjoyed in the stubble field. But such is man.

With all his comfortable appurtenances wealth could buy and station claim, the retired merchant was not a happy man. Though his expensive carriage and liveried driver were seen to roll him regularly to the majestic church upon the Sabbath: though he was a patient listener to the massive organ's spiritual strains and the surpliced minister's devout incantations: though he defrauded no man, defamed not his neighbor, was seeming virtuous and happy, there was at his heart a pang that turned to lees the essence of his life.

Joel Newschool had seen his two sons and three daughters, men and women around him; they all married and left his roof for their own. One, a favorite child, a daughter, a fine, well-grown girl, upon whom the father's heart had set its fondest seal – she it was that the hand of Providence ordained to humble the proud heart of the sordid millionaire. Cecelia Newschool, actuated by the noblest impulses of nature, had for her husband sought "a man, not a money chest," and this circumstance had made Cecelia a severed member of the Newschool family, who could not, in the refined delicacy of their senses, tolerate such palpable condescension as to acknowledge a tie that bound them to the wife of a poor artizan, whatever might be his talents or integrity as a man.

Francis Fairway had made honorable appeal to the heart of Cecelia, and she repaid his pains with the full gift of a happy wife. She counted not his worldly prospects, but yielded all to his constancy. She wished for nothing but his love, and with that blessed beacon of life before her, she looked but with joy and hope to the bright side of the sunny future.

The home of the artizan was a plain, but a happy one. Loving and beloved, Cecelia scarce felt the loss of her sumptuous home and ties of kindred. But not so the proud father and the patient mother, the haughty sisters and brothers; they felt all; they attempted to conceal all, that bitterness of soul, the canker that gnaws upon the heart when we will strive to stifle the better parts of our natures.

Time passed on; one, two, or three years, are quickly passed and gone. Though this little space of time made little or no change in the families of the proud and indolent relatives, it brought many changes in the eventful life of the young artizan and his wife. Two sweet little babes nestled in the mother's arms, and a new and splendid invention of the poor mechanic was reaping the wonder and admiration of all Europe and America.

This was salt cast upon the affected wounds of the haughty relatives. Now ashamed of their petty, poor, contemptible arrogance, they could not in their hearts find space to welcome or partake of the proud dignity with which honorable industry had crowned the labors of the young mechanic.

It was a cold day in November; the wind was twirling and whistling through the trees on the Common; the dead leaves were dropping seared and yellow to the earth, admonishing the old gentleman whom we left drumming upon the window, that —

"Such was life!"

The old gentleman thumped and thumped the window pane with a dreary sotto voce accompaniment for some minutes, when he was interrupted by an aged, pious-looking matron, who dropped her spectacles across the book in her lap, as she sat in her chair by the fireside, and said —

"Joel."

"Umph?" responded the old gentleman.

"The Lord has spared us to see another Thanksgiving day, should we live to see to-morrow."

"He has," responded Mr. Newschool.

"I've been thinking, Joel, that how ungrateful to God we are, for the blessings, and prosperity, and long life vouchsafed to us, by a good and benevolent Almighty."

"Rebecca," said the faltering voice of the rich man, "I know, I feel all this as sensitive as you can possibly feel it."

"I was thinking, Joel," continued the good woman, "to-morrow we shall, God permitting, be with our children and friends once again, together."