An Irishman and a Jew were discussing the great men who had belonged to each race and, as may be expected, got into a heated argument. Finally the Irishman said:
"Ikey, listen. For ivery great Jew ye can name ye may pull out one of me whiskers, an" for ivery great Irishman I can name I"ll pull one of yours. Is it a go?"
They consented, and Pat reached over, got hold of a whisker, said, "Robert Emmet," and pulled.
"Moses!" said the Jew, and pulled one of Pat"s tenderest.
"Dan O"Connell," said Pat and took another.
"Abraham," said Ikey, helping himself again.
"Patrick Henry," returned Pat with a vicious yank.
"The Twelve Apostles," said the Jew, taking a handful of whiskers.
Pat emitted a roar of pain, grasped the Jew"s beard with both hands, and yelled, "The ancient Order of Hibernians!"
RACE SUICIDE
"Prisoner, why did you a.s.sault this landlord?"
"Your Honor, because I have several children he refused to rent me a flat."
"Well, that is his privilege."
"But, your Honor, he calls his apartment house "The Roosevelt.""
RACES
In answer to the question, "What are the five great races of mankind?" a Chinese student replied, "The 100 yards, the hurdles, the quartermile, the mile, and the three miles."
"Now, Thomas," said the foreman of the construction gang to a green hand who had just been put on the job, "keep your eyes open. When you see a train coming throw down your tools and jump off the track. Run like blazes."
"Sure!" said Thomas, and began to swing his pick. In a few moments the Empire State Express came whirling along. Thomas threw down his pick and started up the track ahead of the train as fast as he could run. The train overtook him and tossed him into a ditch. Badly shaken up he was taken to the hospital, where the foreman visited him.
"You blithering idiot," said the foreman, "didn"t I tell you to get out of the road? Didn"t I tell you to take care and get out of the way? Why didn"t you run up the side of the hill?"
"Up the soide of the hill is it, sor?" said Thomas through the bandages on his face. "Up the soide of the hill? Be the powers, I couldn"t bate it on the level, let alone runnin" uphill!"
RAILROADS
"Talk "bout railroads bein" a blessin"," said Brother d.i.c.key, "des look at de loads an" loads er watermelons deys haulin" out de state, ter dem folks "way up North what never done nuthin" ter deserve sich a dispensation!"
On one of the southern railroads there is a station-building that is commonly known by travelers as the smallest railroad station in America.
It is of this station that the story is told that an old farmer was expecting a chicken-house to arrive there, and he sent one of his hands, a new-comer, to fetch it. Arriving there the man saw the house, loaded it on to his wagon and started for home. On the way he met a man in uniform with the words "Station Agent" on his cap.
"Say, hold on. What have you got on that wagon?" he asked.
"My chicken-house, of course," was the reply.
"Chicken-house be jiggered!" exploded the official. "That"s the station!"
"I read of the terrible vengeance inflicted upon one of their members by a band of robbers in Mississippi last week."
"What did they do? Shoot him?"
"No; they tied him upon the railroad tracks."
"Awful! And he was ground to pieces, I suppose?"
"Nothing like it. The poor fellow starved to death waiting for the next train."--_W. Dayton Wegefarth_.
The reporter who had accompanied the special train to the scene of the wreck, hurried down the embankment and found a man who had one arm in a sling, a bandage over one eye, his front teeth gone, and his nose knocked four points to starboard, sitting on a piece of the locomotive and surveying the horrible ruin all about him.
"Can you give me some particulars of this accident?" asked the reporter, taking out his notebook.
"I haven"t heard of any accident, young man," replied the disfigured party stiffly.
He was one of the directors of the railroad.
The Hon. John Sharp Williams had an engagement to speak in a small southern town. The train he was traveling on was not of the swiftest, and he lost no opportunity of keeping the conductor informed as to his opinions of that particular road.
"Well, if yer don"t like it," the conductor finally blurted out, "why in thunder don"t yer git out an" walk?"
"I would," Mr. Williams blandly replied, "but you see the committee doesn"t expect me until this train gets in."
"We were bounding along," said a recent traveler on a local South African single-line railway, "at the rate of about seven miles an hour, and the whole train was shaking terribly. I expected every moment to see my bones protruding through my skin. Pa.s.sengers were rolling from one end of the car to the other. I held on firmly to the arms of the seat.
Presently we settled down a bit quieter; at least, I could keep my hat on, and my teeth didn"t chatter.
"There was a quiet looking man opposite me. I looked up with a ghastly smile, wishing to appear cheerful, and said: