The River Falls journal. (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1857-1861, 1860-05-23
MIKE WALSH AND THE
EsAT.TAEL CACTUS.


At the foot of the capitol gardens in
Pennsylvania avenuo (on the right hand
side as you are fronting that building IS
an inclosed spacs-national property
containing one or more tenements and
some conservatives and lighthouses
Here for some years past and until his
death, enjoying Uncle Sans patronage,
soiourned Frenchman, learned in bot
any and many other sciences. Some
companions, while passing these premises,
were Wanting his requirements 10 Mike,
who, from spirit of contradiction, called
themin question. He doubted whether
these eminent botanis!s knew tie
difference between oats and wheat, and
believed, b, said, that a Bowery boy
could persuade them that corn was clover.
Finally, Mike undertook, 'botanically,' to
deceive the Frenchman with whatever he
could pick up where they stood, in the
lane skirting his premises. From wreck
offlower pots aad rubish, he selected one
sound pot and a dead rat lying next the
heap. Placing the rat in the flower pot
he covered is up with mold, leaving out
the tail, which he fixed perpendicularly
by tying it carefully to q small green stick
which happened to be convenient among
the garden rubbish. He next called on
the professor, and told him that friend,
Lieut.--(whose ship having touched at
one of the islands of the then terra incog-
nitu Japan, had ex, lite Il some INTEREST,"
had presented him with q very curious
kind of cactus. This he wished the pro-
lessor to examine. No one, Mike said,
had been able to make it out, and he
might have it for ten years and not find
five people who would; so he hardly felt
justified in keeping it out of public col
lection and yet he did not like to part
with keepsake from friend The
professor eagerly repaired to examine the
vegetable curiosity. After a close in
spection he determined what it was, or at
least ehristened it BY a fine Greek name
two words, as Mike said, averaging six
teen letters. The professor exhausted
himself in persuading Mike that the in
tercsts of science required that he should
sacrifice to them the sentiments Of friend
ship, by surrendering this rare production
of the vegetable kingdom to the keeping
of the botanst. The reluctant Mike ev
entuaily consented, on thu willing and
solemn assurance Of the professor that 1t
would 9 tenIe tt the utmost care;-
and so it was. Paced in q dollhouse,
it was c. i)us'y lut carefully bespii kltd
with water at a temperature OF seventy
degrees by the thermometer. ltwas not
iced and described in the National Intel
ligencor. The notice was copied into 9th
err papers. The plant was exhibited with
pride to several eminent individuals: at
length, with the heat and moisture, the
tip of the tail began to excoriate. The
professor was deiighted-it was budding.
1t was examined with great interest by
one of the chief patrons, the great Daniel,
to whom the botanist promised one ofthe
first slips for Marshfield. 1t was too good
joke to keep said Mike, especially in
dollhouse, SO before long they smelt q
rat The wrath and shame of the pro-
fessor were excessive, and SO was the in
dignation Of the great Daniel, not at the
author of the joke, but at the unfortunate
botanist, whom be stigmatized as a id
frog eating Frenchman, through whom
he had been taken in, and who ought to
have known better