Western Reserve chronicle and weekly transcript of the times. [volume] (Warren, Ohio) 1854-1855, 1855-02-14
NOT 4 DROP MORE ,rHouT Irs
i1 EWEEYEHED. sGGszeI

III OuI fefudCuidI, W INC CIlhtfCo tciiAit /
of an anecdote, or anything Of that sort!
A very common meiaphorical expression
is contained in the words, getting The
hang. is Of untseisstappiicstiOn and
convenience, and became popular from
the day Of its first appearance" in the
New Orleans PieagEne teno years ago,
as the nub Of story of a Western gam
bier on steamboat who refused to refund
certain moneys frandulently obtained. al
though made fast to a piston rod Of ma
chinery and compelled, every second, al
ternately to plunge forward and jump
backward, 10 prevent in the one case his
head being jerked of, and in the other,
his brains being dashed out, by the regu.
lar, powerful stroke. "Let me alone
Pm jest getting the hang of the ma
chinery," he exclaimed, when it was de.
manded, sWon't you pay back nO''s"- : !.
And so in law, politics, religion and NOR.
ais, science and art, the American Peo-
pie have been GETTING TRE HANG, ever
since. l-.-.r 40 -.- -. .-.--
HHot a dropmOre, 'thoat ies siossisnsd," 7"
is household phrase in part Of Georgia
and Alabama. A man declines with it,
to renew a game Of cards at which he
has been unsuccessful; rustic express
es, by the elegant Periphasis, his deter
mination to drop the acquaintance of
some cruel beauty; the little politician
VOWS, in these terms, to abstain, in fu-
ture, from some particular course which
has proved Improbable; and so on,
through thousand phases and cases Of
commonplace life, it answers its purpose
of playful, but decided negation or de-
clension for the party using it. In fact,
it is a rather liberal rendering Of the
Shakspearian q No rsOrscf that, Hal, an
thou Iovsss 4asl,heugh used mostly BY
those who never read Shakespeare. rsii
We believe that our friend, Col. K.
L. HARRISON, formerly Of Georgia, en-
titled to the credit of the story out out
of which grew the expression. He tells
It about thus: .7I'zs 2 2 q
Twenty years ago, it was the custom
in North Western Georgia. as indeed il
was throughout the South West, for dry
goods dealers to keep barrel of "sPer'
rets'' in the back room, and to ''treai''
liberal customers to glass whenever de.
sired FilIens & Dewberry were such
dealers in one of the small towns of the
region indicated and they had for a Gus
toner a clever, rollicking. old fellow
named Joe Denny, who drank whisky II
preferences to water, allsqys, and Whose
wife was .Aesh of his Aesh," in that par
ticular. The old couple would come tt
town, trade quite freely, and quite al
freely imbibe the spirits in the back room
of the dealers VIC have named. sses,
On one OCCASION both the old mai
and old woman continued their Potationi
inordinaiely; and as Fillens observed hi
goods went better the drunker the old wo
man, he pressed her to drink. AT las
she refused, unless "he would sweetel
it with little store sugar" The amia
bic shOp-keeper indulged her, and whel
the old people started home late in tn
evening, the old man could barely noun
! his horse, and the guide wife had actual.
to be lifted and placed on the Pillion be
hind him. Happily she leaned one way
and her husband the other; 50 the grav
itating point was between ihem-and a
she clung to him instinctiyely, they Passe
out OF the village safely. Before reach
ing their home, however, they had
cross small creek, and when their hors
stopped in it TO drink, the old lady haV
ing reached unconsciousness, release
} her hold, and quietly laPsed into tn
stream below. Occupied with his owl
thoughts, the old man did not perceiv
. his loss, but logged slowly homsward.-
. Arriving thers, his children inquiries
anxiously for ''mammy," but the old mai
could only say that she had been ''on tn
eriaer and the crizer hadn't Kicked ~
nary time, 50 he couldn't say whar sh'
MIGHT bep'-and threw himself, stupid
on bed. Girls and boys flew along tn
road the old man had come, yelling man
n,v MAMMEz as they went; but o
!. course no namn,y responded. WheI
thew arrived at the creek, the Oldest gir
shouted, "yonder she is, a-sittin' dow
in the creek rn And there she was com
fortably seated 10 the water, which cam
, up nearly to her mouth. As she swaye'
back and forth, now yielding to the i'm
petuosity Of the stream, and now resisting
it with soms success, the muddy hui'
would wet her lips, and each time il di'
so, she would family exclaim with grin
effort to smile:
"Not a drop more. Mr.. Fillsns, 'thOa
It's sIcsetsped r. tlz ari-a- -f
!