The weekly union record., 1864-02-06
Doesticks on Cheek. p"

Mortimer Thompson is generally known, is
now engaged in the pleasant business Of leeinr-
ing on the subject of CHEEK.
Promising that "honesty is the best policy
that IS, if you have any honesty lecturer
hunorously describes the difficulties with which
be has been baset in his attempt TO write q
lecture. which be had determined to do for the
purpose of making bis fortune, going round
about the country delivering it. He didn'
wish to take the Fall of Rome, for if it had
been falling as fellows had been going round
lecturing about it, il must have got clear TO the
bottom bv this time; Deither did be wish TO
make martyrs of bis audience. Then he saw
| in a newspaper what be thought would be q
good subiec.-that Mr.. Napoleon, OF Paris.
France. had been talking great deal too
much about the Latin Race, but, when he
came to look al it, he couldn't find out who the
Latins are. where their race came off, or what
gait they struck
So, then, after all, be thought it would be q
good thing to talk about cheek" aud be
Should be bis own horrible example, and save
the expense Of debased associate to travel
with him. He hoped no young ladies had
| fanced that this was intended to be lecture
on preserving the complexion of the cheek, and
that he would have fifty cent bottles of Eve
ming Dew" or something OF the sort, to sell.
If be had any bottles Of dew, they would be
more likely TO be filled with that kind of dew
mentioned in the ancient history Of Ireland, as
"Mountain Dew" which be had heard was "a
good thing to do"
Cheek" in physical sense, he had nothing
to do with what he meant was mental
quality, or rather several qualities-efrontery,
impudence, assumption, unblushing brass.
| As instances of this ''cheek" he quoted the
young lawyer who, laying his hand as nearly
! upon his heart as be can at short notice, de-
clares. upon his honor as gentleman and
/ lawyer, that be believes bis horse thief client
to be an innocent man of the most spotless
character, when he knows him to have been
guilty of not only this particular quadrupedal
theft, but that he has been guilty of petty
larceny every day of his life since be was ten
years old also, the young doctor who gave q
patient FIVE drops of lager beer in gallon Of
water three times an hour TO cure broken leg
when he didn't know what else 10 do, and was
afraid the opposition doctor would get the case;
and the young editor who, happening by acei
dent to be where missionary collection was
being taken up, dropped his card into the con-
tribution plate, with the explanation that he,
being an editor was on the free list" but
would aid the society by furnishing his paper
at half price to the heather, the heather to
bear the difference in exchange.
The cheek of the servant girl. the contractor,
the citizen soldier, the Brigader General, who
can't swear that he knows the difference be-
tween the pommel of saddle and seven dollars
and half; the kind that Old Abe makes to
amuse himself after dnner-all were felicit-
ousy discussed TO the great amusement Of the
audience.
The subject grew so fast before the lecturer
that he felt be could only talk in a rambling
way about cheek, for he could not hit all the
heads of cheek, even if he lived long enough to
take command of the Army of the Potomac,
though, on second thoughts he was afraid they
had almost got down to his name now, il seemed
as if it was the intention to give every man in
the country chance to try his hand at that
job. He, however, satirlzed well the matrimo
NAL cheek, kept for public observance the
honey-moon-ial cheek, kept for private con-
sumption alone; and lovers cheek with the
articles, deceptions and various developments
of cheek in each. The cheek of old maids he
mercilessly exposed, heartlessly likening the
old maid to a driedup emon-something made
to be squeezed, but which has missed its destiny.
The eagerness of this class of beings, since
patriotism and large bounties had carried off
the young men to such an alarming extent. had
become something dreadful. A man, in New
York, dare hardly say Madam. you have
dropped your handkerchief" for fear of being
sued for a breach OF promise early next morn
ing.
After Othello, that military contraband,
(wonder if Lincoln didn't get the idea of his
dingy soldier boys from him p had spent an
hour in stabbing. snothering and otherwise
numbering, the partner of bis dusky bosom, be
exclaimed, "Wife wife | have no wife ~
No man need say so nova days, for be could
have one at an hours notice by the town clock.
/ Civilians, aping military men, chivalric
Southrons, fancying one Chiv Southron a
match for five 1ankees, and many other equally
good subjects, were each remembered by the
lecturer with much humor. Saudwiched among
/ them were pleasant hits at the Secretary OF the
/ Navy (who, it was expected would hear of the
capture of the Chesapeake in a few weeks, and
send out a few canal boats, mud scows, and d
pile driver in swift pursuit,) and the blockaders
off Wilmington. A fine specimen of cheek was
the protest of the Charlestonians against the
use of Greek fire, when on the same day they
.
to the Ir0nsides, hoping to blow her, with the
hundred and ten men on board into atoms
Another was the proiessed neutrality of Eng
land-huge, titanic cheek-they all the while
sending out Aabamas and soldiers to aid the
rebels. The cheek of the woman who. with an
extensive wardrobe, looks her husband square
/ in the eye and tells him she has nothing to
wear to opera or ball the cheek of the theat-
rical or operatic manager whose last star" is
always the brightest; the cheek of the patent
medicine man, the novelist, the cheap boarding
house keeper, the gambler, aud scores of other
characters were they not all treated fully, ably
and appreclatively by the humorous lecturer !?
who, in conclusion, cited himself as an exem-
| plihcatian of his subject" Cheek"
HANGING IN PENNsYLvAN1A.-In PeDnsyl-
vaDia, the sentence of person condemned to