The Sun.
London, England, 1834-12-19 00:00:00

CRUSADE AGAINST CUCUMBERS.

(From a New York Paper.)
Every summer a crusade is started against cucumbers,
and some errant knight who is as arrant a madman as ever
was Don Quixote or Sir Hudibras, takes up arms against
the poor harmless vegetable. The leaders are sure to be
followed by a great number of squires, who, like Sancho
Panza or Ralph°, are content to be the humble imitators
of their crazy masters.
Among those who have most frequently and persever-
ingly put lance in rest and run a tilt against this cooling
and comfortable product of the vine, is a certain Captain
Megrim, who resides everywhere in general, and nowhere
in particular. He may be seen every summer, in some
place or other, from Maine to Georgia, constantly engaged
in preaching, writing, or fighting, against cucumbers. It is
even asserted that he possesses a sort of übiquity ; that lie
is known to be present in sundry places at one and the same
time, and that, while he is writing an anti-cucumber para-
graph in New York, he is most eloquently holding forth
against the vegetable in Philadelphia, and clambering over
a garden wall to tear up the farmer's vine in some obscure
country town.

However this may be, it is certain that he is indefatig-
able in his endeavours to prevent the propagation and
use of cucumbers ; and if not present in more than one
place at the same time, travels with the most unaccount-
able rapidity from one end of the United States to the
other. Pacolet, by turning the mysterious peg, was never
whisked away on his wooden horse with such wonderful
rapidity.
In preaching and writing he uses a great variety of ar-
guments, adapted to the comprehension or the prejudices
of his readers or hearers. At one time he asserts—" Cu-
cumbers are a slow poison." At another he facetiously
says—" The only proper mode of using cucumbers is to
cut them in thin slices, salt, pepper, and vinegar them well,
and then—give them to the hogs." Again he says, adapt-
ing his language to the ignorant and the vulgar—" Cu-
cumbers is the most hurtfulest and dangerousest things that
ever was eaten—they are as indigestibl as a grinstone, and
as cold as a hisicle !"

At other times the Captain inserts a paragraph in the
newspapers purporting to relate the death or sufferings of
some imprudent or headstrong person, who has died or
come near dying from the use of cucumbers, as thus :
" We are informed, that Mr. Thomas Towzer, who keeps
a grocery near the foot of Maiden Lane was yesterday
seized with a most violent disease, believed to be molera
chorbus, in consequence of imprudently eating a plateful of
cucumbers along with his dinner. Very little hopes are
entertained of the patient's recovery." And again :
" DEATH BY CUCUMBERS !—lt, is our painful duty to an-
nounce the death of Miss Wilhelmina Julietta Pigweed
Snaggs, of this city, who died the day before yesterday of a
cucumber, which she unfortunately ate with her dinner
about six weeks ago—thus incontestibly proving, what we
lately asserted, that cucumbers are a slow poison. The
fate of Miss Snaggs is the more to be lamented, as we un-
derstand she was just on the eve of matrimony with a
wealthy and respectable merchant, who
does a wholesale
business in Pearl-street, and who is said to be inconsolable
for her loss.

" P.S.—Since the above was in types, we are informed
that the bereaved gentleman, being resolved not to survive
the object of his affections, deliberately swallowed a peck of
whole cucumbers, without pepper or salt, and died in the
space of fifteen minutes—the slow poison in this case being
converted into a quick one by the enormity of the dose.
In conclusion, this should be a warning to all persons, and
especially to those who are in love, to beware how they
meddle with cucumbers.,

At another time the Captain inserts a notice like the
following :
" CORONER'S INQUEST.—Picked up this morning, in the
dock, near the bottom of Fulton-street, the body of an un-
known man, dressed in a blue coat, white waistcoat, checked
pantaloons, and striped shirt. He was seen yesterday af-
terdoon going into an eating-house near the market, where
he is believed to have eaten a large plateful of sliced cu-
cumbers, in consequence of which he is supposed to have
fallen into the river and been drowned. Verdict—Died of
cucumbers."