The Placer herald., 1858-03-20
NUMBER 81.
DOMESTIC BLISS.
I am

A "baker's dozen" of curly heads.
Every morning my slumbers greet
The patter, patter, of twenty-six feet
Thirteen little hearts are always in dutter,'
Till thirteen little mouths are filed with bread
and butter. Utauc ts4 s-
Thirteen little tongues are busy all day long.
And thirteen little hands, with doing something
wrong, ri ri
Till fain am to do, .df
With an energo, toy,
As did the old woman that lived in shoe.
And when my poor husband comes home from bis
work,
Tired and hungry, and fierce as Turk,
What do you think is the picture be seess
legion of babies, all in the breeze
Johnny a crying,
And Lucy signing,
And worn-outmamma, with her hair all flying;
Strong and angry William, beating little Nelly;
Charley in the pantry eating ourrant jelly;
Richard strutting round in papa's Sunday coat;
Harry at the glass, with razor at his throat;
Robert gets his fingers crushed, when Susy shuts
the door,
Mitigates their aching with forty-pound roar;'
Baby at the coal-hod hurries to begin,
Throwing in his mite to the universal din.
Alas! my lord and master, being rather weak Of
nerve,
He begins to lose his patience, in the stunning
topsey yturvey,
And then the frightened little ones all fly to me
for shelter; .
And so the drama closes, mid general helter-
skeltcr.
I'll give you my name, lest you think me myth;
Yours, very respectfully, Mrs. John Smith. o
Still it Goes-Perpetual Motion at Last.
That very able and authentic newspaper
the Journol of Commerce Of New York,
gives the following funny and interesting
article:
Some OF our readers will remember
humorous description ola perpetual motion"
machine which was published in o columns
nearly four years since. and went the rounds
of the papers. The machine was invent'd q
by Mr.. James G.. Hendrickson, of F eehold,
Monmouth equity, New Jersey. The power
was very light, being obtained by the use
of arms and balls attached to q cylinder,
and so contrived as to keep the extra weight
always on one side, and give the cylinder
constant inclination to turn round. Mr..
Hendrickson was a very plain countryman,
who had Whitfield away for forty years at this
machine. amid the jeers and SCOTS Of neigh
bors and acquantances, and who was Of
course not a little proud of his success
Ours was the first public notice of his inven
ton, but it soon attracted the attention Of
the curious, and he was invited to exhibit it
at Raritan, N. j. The occasion, if we re-
member right, was a large gathering of peo-
pie during the progress Of an Agricultural
Fair. The incredibly of his own country
men, however, was more than match for
him. He was surrounded by a set of people
who contended that the motion he claimed
was an imposshility, and that he was an i'm
poster. Poor Henderson was no orator, and
his assailants were clamorous and loud spo-
ken, but he pointed silently to his machine,
which was enclosed in glass, and when the
philosophers said that his claim WAS ridcu
lous, and that machine could not 60 "of
ITSELF" he could only reply, "But it does go!''
One should have supposed that the fact
theory, but the Jersey Blues were as stub
born as the noted disputant whose speech
upon an occasion, $50 much the worse for
the facts" is now famous in history, and
they clung to their theory in the face Of the
demonstration.
They went farther, and in spite of perse-
cution as bitter as that which moved the
Jesuits against Calico, arrested Mr.. Hen
erickson for trickery and juggling, under the
act for snppressing vice and immortality,
charging him with moving his machine by a
concealed spring He was accordingly tried
for this offence before Justice Bodle, Of
Keyport. Mechanics engineers, shipwrecks,
and all the experts of Jersey, gave testimony
as to the impossibility Of such an invention
as he claimed, and their belief that hidden
spring. or some piece of ingenious roguery,
was contained in the cylinder At last the
axe was applied, and the machine split in
pieces, when 10! there was no concealed
spring-no roguery-and the machine, de.
spite the philosophers, had "gone off ITSELF"
The men of science gulphed down their dis
appointment, and disappeared from the court
room, and poor Hendrickson and the frag-
ments of his machine were kindly discharged
with the verdict mo cause of action" The
scene, when he returned to his home that
night, with the broken relics Of bis discovery
in his hands, and gazing upon them in sad
disappointment, must have been worthy Of
the canvass of a master painter.
Since that trial we had lost sight of him:
but, two or three days ago he came into the
office with the same patient, thoughtful face,
and holding in his hand the old invention in
new dress. He has made it this time Of
brass ribs, so that there is nothing concealed
and no place for concealment; and in spite o.
the Jersey prosecutors, it so;N go! He has
attached to it simple clock, and his machine
furnishes the motive power. How far this
power can be extended, it is not for US ia
sav; but we must believe our eyes, and we