The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862

'Applicants for places as teachers in our Public Schools will be examined in the following branches of study, or others, the study of which would furnish an equal amount of mental discipline: Arithmetic, Algebra, Geometry, Mensuration, Trigonometry, Mechanical Philosophy, Geography, Physiology, Zoology, Natural Philosophy, Meteorology, Botany, Chemistry, Geology, Astronomy, Orthography, Reading, Penmanship, English Grammar, History, Bookkeeping, Political Science, Moral Science, Mental Philosophy, Logic, Rhetoric, Evidence of Christianity, Elements of Criticism.

'Yours, Respectfully,—– –'Sup't of Public Schools.'

'Where, oh, where is she?' Tell us, if you can, what worlds or what far regions hold this paragon of damsels.

'Where bides upon this earthly ballA maid who so embraceth all.'

And where does–,' Superintendent of Public Schools,' find these Perfections, or Maids of Munster?

It must be a wealthy community that, which expects to hire such teachers. And 'to begin with,' they must have 'an attractive personal appearance.' The rogue of a Superintendent!

'Physiology!' Reader, did you ever fairly master even a test book on the subject—say, John Dalton's—and acquire with it the anatomical knowledge essential to a merely superficial comprehension of the subject? Did you ever dissect any, and attend the usual lectures? The Young Lady in question must have done more than this.

'Political Science!'

'Chemistry!' That is rather a heavy draft, too. We have been closely under old Leopold Gmélin in our time, and worked a winter or so hard at the test glasses, and had divers courses of lectures under divers eminent professors, and read Liebig and Stöckhardt and others more or less—just enough to learn that to honestly teach chemistry, even in the most elementary manner, months and years of additional work were requisite.

'Botany!' Botany is rather a large-sized object to acquire—even to become the merest amateur. A year's lectures from Dr. Torrey and some hard work over Gray and De Candolle and the rest, are not enough even for this. It was but yesterday and to us that a gentleman whose special pleasure is botany, who has devoted thousands of dollars and years to the pursuit, ridiculed the suggestion that he was qualified to teach it.

'Zoology, Astronomy, Rhetoric, Meteorology, and—History!'

Don't be alarmed, reader. Very possibly the young lady in question will not be too strictly examined in all these branches– neither will she be required to impart more than the mildest possible of knowledge to her pupils. Very possibly, too, she will teach Chemistry—think of it, ye brethren of the retort!—without experiments!! For just such atrocious and ridiculous humbug have we known to be passed off on children, in 've-ry expensive' 'first-class' ladies' schools in Philadelphia and in New York, for instruction in Chemistry. The young brains were vexed and wearied day after day to acquire by vague description and by rote the details of an almost purely experimental science.

And, 'a mind richly stored with general information!'

It is a pity that magic is out of date. Something might be done for our Superintendent with the ghost of Hypatia!

Will our friends and readers during the approaching book-buying and holiday presenting times be so kind as to occasionally bear in mind the fact that 'Sunshine in Thought,' by Charles Godfrey Leland, has just been published? As the work in question, while publishing in a serial form, was very warmly and extensively praised by the press, and as high literary authority has declared that 'it presents many bold and original views, very clearly set forth,' we venture to hope that our commendation of it to the public will not seem amiss.—Edmund Kirke.

Our lady readers wanting a constant and most commendable companion for the work-basket, would do well to obtain the daintily bound Ladies' Almanac for 1863, issued by George Coolidge, 17 Washington street, Boston, and sold by Henry Dexter, New York. It is an almanac; contains a blank memorandum for every day in the year, recipes, music, and light reading—and is altogether an excellent subject for a small and tasteful gift.

A Letter from a brave and jolly friend of ours, now i' the field, says, that during the Maryland battles,

'We bolted dinner almost at a single mouthful, with shot singing around us. Jim had the knife knocked out of his hand by a bullet.'

The Continental does not wonder that the dinner in question was finished in one course. Under such very warlike circumstances, we hardly see how it could have been disposed of in the usual piece-meal manner.

COMFORTED

Then she arose with solemn eyes,And, moving through the vocal dark,Sat down, with bitter, ceaseless sighs,The river tones to hark—Deep in the forest dark.Sick, sick she was of life and light—She longed for shadow and for death;And, by the river in the night,Thus to her thought gave breath—Her hungry wish for death:'Shall I not die, beloved, and freeMy weary, hopeless, breaking heart?Shall I not dare death, love,' said she,'And seek thee where thou art?Life keeps our souls apart!''So weak, my darling, couldst thou be?'A far voice stirred the pulseless air:'Thus vainly wouldst thou seek for me—My heaven thou couldst not share:Such death were love's despair!'Then through the long, lone night she prayed;At last, 'How weak my dream!' said she.'I'll meet the future unafraid;I will grow worthy thee—I will not flinch,' said she.'I will not leave both souls so lone:Where thou art, cowards cannot be;I will not wrong our love, mine own;At last I shall win thee.'I will be brave,' said she.Then she arose with patient eyes,And, turning, faced the incoming day.'There, love, the path to meet thee lies,'Said she; 'I went astray.But now I know the way.'

The following pleasant bit of gossip is from our 'Down-East correspondent:'

As I sit down to cover a few slips of paper with a thought or two (spreading it thin, is it?) for the readers of'Old Con.,'—

By the way—a delicious phrase that same 'by the way,' that lets a man turn in from the dusty road a brief while and enjoy a 'rare ripe' or a juicy 'south side'—you ask me, in a genial note, Mr. Editor, what I think of 'Old Con' as the 'family nickname.' Capital! The only objection in the world that I have is, that it reminds me of 'Old Conn,' the policeman, who used to loom up around corners with his big, ugly features, to the terror of the small boys, when I was 'of that ilk.' These huge, overgrown, slow hulks almost always 'pick on' the boys; the real hard work of the force is done by your small, wiry fellows, who step around lively, and don't stop to see whether a man is 'bigger nor they.' Old Conn, though, was a pretty good-hearted man after all, despite unpopularity among the juveniles; and so I say, let us christen the youngster 'Old Con,' by all means—old in the affections of a host of friends, if not in years.

But revenons à nous moutons, as the scribblers say, whose mouton we dare say is less often 'material' than we could wish it were.

As I set about penning a rambling thought, then, and—

En passant, did you never notice how a tendency to ramble will sometimes almost completely control a man? A candidate for Congress, for instance, comes round to your town to talk to you 'like a fa-ther'about what? To tell you that he has made all his arrangements to go to Washington? and could go just as well as not if you would like to have him? and that, on the whole, he wants to go awfully? No, indeed; nine cases out of ten the poor fellow forgets himself, and wanders off into the 'glorious Constitution as our fathers framed it,' and the 'eternal principles,' ' sacrifices' that one's constituency require, and a full assortment of such phrase. Just as some of the speakers, at the 'war meetings' this summer, get up a full head of patriotic steam, and in the excitement of the moment 'don't remember' all about mentioning that they are going themselves. Inclined to ramble!

But this wasn't what I meant to observe at the outset. Let us change the subject, as they say at the medical college.

What I was about to remark originally was—and I don't know as it is original, either. The fact is, there is very little now-a-days that is strictly original—except war-correspondence, and of course nobody but old maids reads that. There is a fellow who writes for the 'Daily–,' and signs himself 'Wabash.' Well, what of it? Nothing; only some people think it ought to be spelt, 'War bosh.'

As I was saying: As I sit down to cover a few slips—it seems to me that I have already filled out one slip of the paper; and, by the by, that reminds me of a bright thing that Ben Zoleen,5 a bachelor friend of mine, allowed himself to be the father of, the other day. Ben likes to 'take something,' and about a month ago he took the 'enrolment.' An Irishman, after laying claim to the usual disability—lameness somewhere, and besides 'he was all the man that his wife Joanna had to work for the family'—swore that all the property he had in the world was a big porker, and he had broken out and run away 'the divil knows where,' the day before. 'Well, Mike,' said Ben, with a sympathizing tear, 'yours is not the first fortune that's been lost in this country by a mere slip of the pen' Whist! d'ye hear that?

The thought that first presented itself was the inquiry whether a man—

'Not that man, but another man,' interrupted me just then by coming into the office and communicating the startling, yet not entirely unexpected intelligence that 'they had begun to draft here in P.' 'No,' said I. 'Yes,' said he, going out in a hurry; 'up at the brewery.'

–Whether a man ought to write anything else than a love letter, in the frame of mind that Voltaire said that document should be composed in: 'Beginning without knowing what you are going to say, and ending without knowing a word of what you have said.'

What do you think about it? I think so, decidedly.

Hibbles.

We have heard of many an instance where the expression was not that exactly of the idea that was intended; but in the following 'the idea, the expression,' and everything else, are about as thoroughly mixed up as one could well conceive. We were questioning a young lady as to the standing of a clergyman in the town where she lived. 'Oh,' said she, 'he is too popular to be liked very much.' Identical! A favorite, we are told, 'has no friends;' when a poor fellow gets to be popular in the town of C–, we pity him.

Dick Wolcott, of the Tenth Illinois—which has seen no little service since the war began—hath written unto us a letter, from which we pick out the following. A great gossip is this same Dickon of ours, and a rare good fellow:

'We have in our company a number of Germans—brave and 'bully' soldiers all who know better how to handle the arms than the tongue of the land of their adoption; and their staggers at the language furnish us much amusement. I know that they are sensitive on the subject, and ought not to be laughed at; but as they probably will not see this, or if they do, will have forgotten the circumstance, I offer for the 'gossip' the following fair specimen. On the day we crossed the Mississippi and captured the rebels, who had adopted the skedaddling policy of the Fleet-Footed Villain Floyd, we were drawn up in line of battle three times, and three times ye rebs right-faced and 'moseyed.' The last time it was just at dusk, and we were standing in the edge of an opening, expecting to be opened upon by artillery from the other side, which it was too dark for us to see distinctly. As we were not fired upon, a party was sent forward to reconnoitre, and returned with the intelligence that they had again evacuated. On learning this, one of our fellows, brief in stature, but of prodigious red beard, spluttered through his moustache: 'Der tam successionish! dey left vor un-parts known! Donner-wetter!!'

Here is another of Dick's, which dates from the days 'before Corinth'—for he was one of those to whom it was licet adire Corinthum:

'Let me tell you a 'goak' that General Pope got off on us, and which we take as quite a compliment. Our colonel commanding brigade asked permission to take two days' rations, as we were going out to 'clean out' a rebel force that was in a swamp, keeping our men from repairing the road and building a bridge for the passage of artillery, and he didn't know how long we would have to be gone. 'My God! Colonel,' said General Pope, 'when you take one day's rations, you are gone four. If I let you take two, I wouldn't see you again this side of Memphis.'

We are indebted to a brother of the press for the following jotting down:

Our magazine contemporaries, who appear like Neptune among the Tritons, i. e., with the Sea Sons, are sometimes funnily miscomprehended. Thus, the publishers of the Methodist Quarterly Review say that a brother writes to them complaining that he has not received the February, March, and May numbers of the Review!

About as touching was the complaint of another 'Constant Reader,' who wrote to the editor of similar quadrennial, complaining that, although it was a quarterly review, the agent made him pay a half a dollar for it!

Do you, excellent and all remembering reader, recall an article in our August number entitled, 'Friends of the Future'? One of those 'friends' comes afterward in these quaint lines:

QUISQUIS ILLE EST!

Winning, witty, wicked, and wise,A je ne sais quoi about thee lies,Charming the cold, cheering the sad,Giving gaiety to the glad;Brilliant, brave, bewitchingly bright,Playful, pranksome, proudly polite;Softly sarcastic, shyly severe,Falsely frank, which fascinates fear!Not handsome—no hero 'half divine,'Features not faultless, fair, and fine;With raven locks, O! 'Rufus the Red,'I can't in conscience cover thy head;Nor shall I stoop to falsehood mean,And swear thine eyes are not sea-green:Discard deceit in thy defence,Secure in wit—a man of sense,So gracefully kind in look and tone,I think his thoughts are all my own!Ah! false as fickle—well I knowTo scorn the words that charm me so.Still do I catch the golden bait,Admiring—where I thought to hate!

'Bien-c'est gentil, ca!' as Jullien used to say at the concerts of his own performers. Still do we opine that 'Rufus' has been well hit off, and should be grateful for his place among those to come.

Yet another correspondent. This one discourseth of the little ones:

Glendale, Wis., Sept. 16th, 1862.

Dear Continental: We rejoice, most of the time, in a house pet, a human puppet, a domestic toy, in the shape of 'Donny.' Would you ever believe that that name had been originally Charles, and passed, by the subtle alchemy of nicknames, to its present form?

Donny lately donned for the first time his first suit of jacket and trousers.

No one was in the house save the half-blind nurse who put them on. And poor Donny wished so much to be admired! 'All dressed up and nobody to see.'

An idea struck him. He 'paddled off' for the hennery. I was behind the bushes and noted him. Walking in a great state before a party of hens, he cried aloud:

'Look at me, chickens!'

I should possibly have forgotten this domestic legend, but that it was recalled yesterday by the fact that our Cousin Joe made a good application of it. There is a very well-educated and very able young theological friend of ours, who has this one weakness—when he has read a book, or taken in a new idea of any kind, he can get no rest until he has fully reproduced it in a 'bold-face, full-display, double-lead' sort of manner to somebody else. Show it off he must, and exhibit himself at the same time. His last acquisition was a mass of entomology—he having had by some means access to a copy of 'Harris on Insects Injurious to Vegetation; and this he reproduced liberally, during an entire evening, to half a dozen undeveloped intellects of tender age. How the words came out—how he did give them the Latin!

'What did you think of him?' I inquired of Joe.

'Look at me, chickens!' was the reply. I saw the point—wonder if I shan't see its application frequently ere I have 'wound up my worsted,' and shovelled up the mortal coal of this life.

There are a great many men, dear Continental, who quite unwittingly are ever crying aloud, 'Look at me, chickens.' After all, 'tis only the old fable of the lion cubasinized.

Thine ever,Chickens.

Our Chicago friend, J.M., will accept our thanks for his favor. Chicago is a warm friend to our Magazine.

Editor of Continental:

Dear Sir,—Occasionally a 'good thing' comes up to illustrate this wicked rebellion, which all patriots are striving to put down, in our once happy land. When the news of the taking of New Orleans reached our city, a friend meeting on the street another, who, like our worthy President, is fond of a good story, spake as follows:

'Wonder what Jeff. Davis will think now?'

'It reminds me of a little story,' was the answer.

'Fire away then.'

'When Ethan Allen was a prisoner of war in London, a party of wags, who had made his acquaintance, and who were pleased with his drolleries, and who were in the habit of giving him dinners for the pleasure of his company, discovered in him a marvellous great fondness for pickles. On this platform they procured some East India peppers—which are about as hot as live hickory coals—and placed them in front of his seat at table, in as tempting a position as possible: which done, they sat down to dinner. While the first course was being served, Allen could not restrain his love for the article; and very quietly transferred one of them from the plate to his mouth, giving it a quick pressure of the jaws for the purpose of hastily disposing of it; when, lo and behold! instead of the luscious vegetable he so much enjoyed, he found he had taken into his capacious mouth something about as hot and burning as fire itself. To relieve his agony, he applied his hand to his mouth, at the same time using his napkin to remove the tears and perspiration, and also conceal the contractions of his face, when, hastily casting a glance around the table, he at once discovered the point of the joke in the countenances of those around him. Summoning all his coolness for the instant, he very deliberately deposited the 'pesky' thing in his hand, and then returned it to the plate with all the gravity he could command, remarking at the same time, 'With your permission, gentlemen, I will put that d—d thing back!'

Whether Jeff. Davis and his satellites would not like to perform the same operation with their pet dogma, Secession, I leave for your readers to decide; remarking that, in my own opinion, they would sleep better if they were back again, as in 1860. Prisons and halters are not pleasant to reflect on and anticipate, particularly when they are remarkably well deserved, as they are.

Old Ethan Allen! Would he were alive again! Oh, for one hour of that Dundee! Well, the time will answer its own needs, and this war will not pass by without its man of iron. He cometh! Who is he to be? George McClellan, you have it in you!

Put on steam, and win us the great victory of all time!

Should any man ever collect into a volume all the stories told of the great American showman, we trust that he will not omit the following:

BARNUM'S PIGEON

Barnum sat in his office. It was a warm summer afternoon, but the B was busy, as usual. He had before him a plan for exhibiting the great Guyascutus on improved principles, a letter from a man who owned a wife with three arms (to be had cheap), and another from the fortunate proprietor of the great Singing Pig. An offer or petition from the great 'ex' J– s B– n to lecture cheaply had been considered and rejected.

'He's played out!' was the brief reflection of Barnum. As he said this the door opened, and there entered a manifest German, who bore a covered cage.

'Vat you bedinks of dat! exclaimed the Deutscher, removing the cloth.

It was a beautiful bird; of perfect pigeon shape, but of an exquisite golden yellow lustre, such as no fowl which Mr. Barnum had ever seen—and his ornithological observations had not been limited—ever wore.

'I sells her dretful cheap,' remarked the bearer, 'verflucht cheap. I gifs him to you for 'pout den or sieben thaler.'

'H'm—no—don't want it,' replied Barnum.

'Den I goes down mit mine brice to five thaler and dere I stops.'

'No—got birds enough,' said Barnum. 'They don't pay. Now, if it was the great Japanese earthworm, a yard long—'

'Goot py. I sorry you no pys it. I dinks I colored her foost rate.'

'Ha!—what!—HOW!' cried Barnum, deeply interested; 'artificially colored! Good! I must have that!'

The German smiled a heavy, beery, winky, Limburgy smile, with both eyes shut tightly.

'Yas, I golors de bichin yellows unt creen and plue unt all sorts golors. Only five thalers der piece.'

'Do you think,' said Mr. Barnum, 'that you could prepare a great Patriotic National Lusus Naturæ, recently found perching on Independence Hall, Philadelphia—or hold—that's better—Mount Vernon? Could you color an eagle, with red stars on his breast, and blue and white stripes running down big tail?'

The Dutchman thought he could, if the eagle's bill were tied, and his claws each stuck into a cork.

'Well, try your hand at it. But hold—go up stairs and put the pigeon into the Happy Family.'

The Dutchman stumped away. In about ten minutes Mr. Feathers, the ornithologist of the Museum, came rushing down, in a wild state of fluttering excitement.

'Good God, Mr. Barnum, you're not going to put that bird into the Happy Family!'

'Why not?' inquired Mr. Barnum, serenely.

'Why—it is the greatest curiosity you own. Heavens! a YELLOW pigeon! Sir, it is an anomaly—an undiscovered rarity—a—a—why, sir, it's an incredibility! I say, to my shame, I never heard of it. From Australia, I presume? There are some undiscovered marvels still left in that queer country.'

'No; it's the California golden pigeon.' ('That will take very well,' quoth Barnum to himself.)

So the pigeon went up to the Happy Family, and entered cordially into the innocent amusements of that blessed band. He sat on the cat's head, and on the dog's back, and suffered the mice to nestle under his wings, and never made them afraid. As for the owl, she fairly made love to him.

Time rolled on.

There came to New York ' a great old boy,' in the person of California Grizzly Bear Adams. 'Old Adams' he liked to be called, though he wasn't very aged. He was 'one of 'em.'

'See here, Barnum,' quoth he one day, in his rough voice; 'you've got a bird in your show which I've got to have. It's the Californy golden pigin. It's a sort o' mine anyhow—mine's a show of Californy critters, and nothing else.'

'You can't have that, Adams,' said Mr. Barnum. ' That's the greatest curiosity in the known world. Nothing like it—unique.'

'Sha—a—aw!' was the reply. 'Stuff! Don't run more o' that con-tusive stuff on me. Rare!! here he winked; 'why, I've seen them yallar pigeons, three and four hundred in a flock, up round Los Angeles and Cabeza del Diablo, and them places. The miners find where the gold is, by 'em.'

'Why didn't you bring some on with you?' inquired Barnum.

'Fact was, they were so everlastin' common that it didn't seem to me they were worth bringin'. Why, you can git a dozen of 'em any day in 'Frisco.'

With much feigned reluctance Barnum yielded his pigeon up to the California show, and all went well—for a time.

Perhaps two weeks had elapsed, when Old Adams burst into the office, excited.

'Barnum!' he cried, 'you infarnal old humbug—that California golden pigin is a darned swindle! It's painted!'

'Why, how you talk!' replied Barnum. 'Humbug, indeed! Haven't you seen golden pigeons, three and four hundred in a flock, in California?'

'It's painted and gilded, I tell you!' cried Adams. 'The color is all coming off the edges of the wings, and its tail is 'most rubbed white!'

'The idea!' replied Barnum, mildly, but with a droll, merry light in his eyes. 'You know you can send out to the San Francisco market any day and get a dozen!'