Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1873-11-28

uduCO, h1u o. o1HS uIc1i 1O11@l1uOoo e'AI
fluency in the use of foul language
The distinctive trait of this discourse
was it's redundancy in coarse epithets
which were flung out with profusion
without connecting verbs, with much
gesture, and graphic mobility of fea
lures. When, pursuing my inquiries
about the markets, [ was harassed by
this sort of thing, and was even assault
ed by one hag more obstreporous thar
usual, who seized a founder in hel
thorny hand, smote me upon botE
cheeks with it, and compelled me to
beat hasty retreat, while she pursued
me with volleys of fish-guts and grace
less epithets (simply because I suppos
ed, from the fact of her saying thai
her oysters were bearded, that they
must be old, I recalled to mind the
immemorial fidelity of the true poets
to nature, as when, for instance, in thai
fragment still extant of the tImpostor'
of Amphis, the comic poet, we read:
'Tis easier to get access to the general,
And one is met with language far more cour
teous,
And by more civil answer from his lordship,
Than from those cursed fshfags in the market
For when one asks them anything, or offers
To buy aught of them, mute they stand likt
Telaphus,
And Just as stubborn
And neither listen nor appear to heed,
But shake dirty polypus in your face.
81 did long believe the Gorgons an
invention of the poets," says Anti.
phanes, in his "Young Men," ''but
when [ came into the fsh-market
found them a sad reality" And Di
philis, in his "Busy-body," confirms
these traits [ have mentioned as being
characteristic of the tribe of fish-wives
everywhere:
used to think the race of fshmongers
Was only insolent in Attica;
But now | see that like wild beasts they are
Savage by nature, everywhere the same.
But, to be just to the fshmongers
it is not they alone who bristle with
these quarrelsome peculiarities. I have
noticed it among all sorts of outdoor
people who eat oysters. That brain
combustion of PHOSPHORUS which but
barely feeds and keeps alive the lamps
of the pale Aristarchus-the worms
hid in holes, the polysyllabic animals
the students of philosophy and Pytha-
goras, who lay down rules of spare liv.
ing and at banquets nearly eat theil
finger ends off-in the case of the out.
door toilers who live by muscle, seems
to set their brains on fire. I have seen
the rude stokers, oal-heavers, and
stevedores of Liverpool, after eating
but dozen or two of oysters, washed
down with a gallon of porter and q
few three-pennies Of gin, suddenly
turned from men into wild beasts
With horrid oaths they would pound
and kick one another, clenching and
wrestling like infuriated mastiffs, and
trampling and paving the sanded OF
saw-dusted floors of their taverns with
their hob-nailed high-lows like caval-
ry horses at the first notes Of the bugle's
pas de charge. I have seen the quiet
Norman peasant, after but dozen
oysters, with pitcher of cider and a
tasse of brandy or absinthe, shake off
his native lethargy and revile the re.
stored German Empire with indescrib-
able vivacity and emphasis, and in
language too foul to repeat.
The American oyster, which has not
been tanned likeiours by centuries OF
cultivation, is still more violent in it's
effects. In New York, pursuing my
studies about the wharves and the
markets, [ had frequent occasions to
note the violent accession of frenzy
which ensued upon the consumption
of bivalves. Sailors, laborers, mechan-
les, grown men and mere lads, after
indulging their appetites for bivalves
and whiskey, would be almost sure to
quarrel and fight. Then the pistol and
the knife were suddenly called into
requisition, and a murder almost inev-
itably ensued; sometimes of Saturday
nights there would be three or four
most brutal homieides in rapid success
sion. [ blush to say that even the
emigrants from our pacific fatherland,
when they have acquired this unhappy
appetite for bivalves, are no longer to
be relied on for faithful observance
of the laws and the peace of society,
but frequently become infuriated and
frenetic to the last degree. So thor
oughly well understood are the NOR
bific influences of this poisonous arti-
Gle of food in the metropolis of the
United States, that moral insanity has
not only come to be recognized in
courts as valid and sufficient plea in
bar in all cases of homicide and ravish-
H., L IL