New Orleans Republican., 1871-07-16
OUR BUTCHER.


smile; a heavenly smile; of landscape
smile; and great writers invariably ring in
a smile during every description of the
divine human. But, what thousands OF
those who go to market in the morning
have noticed; what foreign thousands in
other cities must also have remarked-the
butchers smile remains undescribed, 'un-
honored and unsung." Not but there may
be many butchers frowns, or butchers
sneers or grins flor they are but mortal) !,
but the smile is to our notion the happiest
thing in its way.
There is wellknown butcher in one of
the uptown markets, whose bulk entities
him TO rank as president of the Fat Mems
| Club. There is another whose constitu-
| tional soberness and chronic gloom, whose
| lean and hungry look and unsatisied mug,
qualities him, without I" a preliminary e1-
animation for membership of the church
to which belongs Aminidab Sleek.
Numerous specimens of butchers selected
from the mass can, of course, show charac-
teristics similar to the mass Of humanity.
The great fact is, that butchers as class
are smilers.
Their faces seem to say it is impossible
for Inc to hurt or harm living thing-but
they do it. Such is the deception of human
nature. Our butcher, we believe, never had
an enemy in his life, or, if he had, never
made him. He has, of course, customers
ike the dog in the manger, who, unhappy
themselves, will not let any one else be so
who have fashion of shaking down any
thing disposed to put good face on it. We
have met a man of this description very
often at his stall, who comes with a market
basket hanging from his arm like bucket
in well, whose fallen eye is nothing if not
critical" The reason why the breakfasts
we eat are SO slim is on account of seeing
the face of that grim market-goer, who,
strange to say, has never put our butcher
out OF temper yet. We do not want to ad-
vertise our butcher, for he belongs TO that
benighted class who don't believe in it; that
class who never have cards to print or bill
heads to set up; to that class who do
their bookkeeping with piece of chalk,
and cast up accounts with their fingers.
We select him TO show the great virtue of
smiling in earnest, TO make evident that the
smile is the great giver of health and happi-
ness, for no man can be happy who
does not first break out in a smile.
Don't mix it up with grin; the one has
a thousand varieties, the other rs fixed; one
'cheers but not inebriates," the other is
like the oratorical split in the face of the
bronze commOner on Canal street. A little
attention Will show the butcher is the king
of smilers, the monarch of cheerful Wis
ages, the paramOuntain among sunny hills,
If we prefer to go up into the ecstatics. 1t
surely is glorious thing to find that man,
amid the many crosses and errors of life, is
capable of smiling cheerfully notwithstand-
ing all their hurts.
AS for our butcher, the mistakes he makes
do not hurt him one bit. His smile shines
undimmed. He puts us in mind of that
old fellow heard in our childhood but drop
ped in after years.
"Old King Cole was jolly old soul.
jolly old soul was he
There was a considerable degree of fat
ness which fingered in his smile, which
never deserted his face, but like faithful
guard, stood by its colors of red. To those
who couldn't pay, the smile said: 80 come,
now, this is all joke" To those who were
over particular, the smile said: Its really
good how many airs you put on" To the
poor who came to him for soup meat, from
which, like somebody's skeleton in Shake
speare, my flesh is hacked" the smile said;
Take that and welcome. I'm sorry | |
havn't got more For everybody the smile |
was servant, waited ON them, piled down |
choice bits for them, cut and sawed off |
steaks or prepared joints, and to everybody |
the smile said "Put a
good face on it, now, or you and will fall |
out"
On fish days We still go to that butcher
for meat, just to take the sweet medicine of
his smile, avoiding, as far as possible, the
ean butcher who glowers and the sober one
who glums, as well as the customer who
ooks as if all the laughs in the world
poured into common ha ha ! wouldn't
Dudge his lugubrious soul when, as often
happens, we can't take up that note: when
unfriendliness, meanness and
pills are forced upon us, we think
If our butcher and his smile, and the CON-
jortable shape of his face and the kinks of
,are are all rolled out.