Des Arc weekly citizen., 1868-02-01
EFFECT OF CHRISTMAS ON A
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LOUISVILLE LOCAL EDITOR.
 Will Hays, of the Democrat, thus describes the way he put in Christmas
 Going along, we were hailed thus: "Merry Christmas to you--lct's take suthin' :" "comc i'll an have yer lick CT; :" sYous cum in und dry dot ecnog, dot ish boollyr" Won't you wet your whistle ?" "Take drink" and other like invitations from various individ- uals salong the line," all of which we accepted, rather than hurt the feelings of any of our friends by declining. No less than fifteen friends did we meet, and no less than fifteen drinks did we hide under our nose, and no two of the same sort, so that by the time we reached Ben Burrett's corner a rebellion broke loose in us, and we had hard work to keep on the outside of enough six months sickness as would supply regiment of John Browns "pet lambs" two months, each "soger7 taking two horns a day. We wasn't drunk, but sicker boy never escaped coroner's inquest, and Wes-' ton wasn't half as tired when he reach ed Chicago as we were. We have slight recollection of the scene that presented itself to our gaze as we em- braced the chilly lamp-post on Ben's corner. We huggcd it low down, and went around it about twenty times be- fore we came to anchor" We got loose from it once, and saw 20 more just like it. They came to us as natur- al as gal would for the same thing one soft embrace. We never before saw as many people drunk at once. The river was drunk; the boats were drunk the houses were realing; the clouds were on lark, every thing was on "bender;' we were sick. The river swelled up ready to "burst;' the Norman stood on her nose; the Falls City jumped up out of the water like minnow the Bermuda got her stern up, upset board yard on the lcvec and threw her wheel over her chim- ncys; the Governor Allen kicked the Frank Pargoud in the side, reached up two or three times and broke loose 1; the last we saw of her there were about twenty Pink varbles taking twenty Governor Aliens over the falls all at once the Belle Lee danced reel for her own amusement, while the Ameri- ca, with forty pilot-houses and four hundred chimneys, was trying to shake Joe Campion out of the wharf-boat's $ wheelhouse the ferry -boats-well we counted fifteen all trying to run over each other and land at once, with 5000 people on board, all drunk. The lamp posts all left us. We heard a clap ot thunder and something fall. It was Jim Sinclair's showcase, full of mo- tions, and--us. Jim's loss ain tinsured against accidents. The last thing we remember was seeing about twenty drays trying to back over us into Jim's wreck about two hundred men pick ing up a youth to fortune and to fame unknown" to put him on those drays. It was done. The rest is easily told. We awokc that night, about midnight feeling like our stomach was a way station on the Nashville railroad and two trains had come together--and were backing out both ways. We astonished our stomach with five pitchers of ice water and survived. If our friends see us for the next twenty days looking like we belonged to the Courier office, they must not
 "View us with critics eye,
 But pass our impcrfections by."