Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1875-04-23
The Fat Contributor ON spring.

Cincinnati Saturday Night
1t is useless to attempt to conceal from
our readers the startling fact that spring
is coming The unusual severity Of the
weather, the recent occurrence of two
little children being frozen to death
while searching for spring flowers, and
other tokens of the ethereal mildness of
Western spring, tell the sad story with
out the assistance of spring poems,
which we have carefully suppressed; and
then the newspapers are flooded with the
usual array of items which are regularly
Iesurrected every spring. Hints on
gardening, that are carefully scissored
out by the people who will spend 81 for
every radish they raise, and 81 60 for
every cabbage they don't raise; and, too,
we find those elaborate suggestions about
furnishing houses; how the women can
now apply to the furnishing of their
houses the same infinite ingenuity which
has been spent upon their tasteful toll
cts, and with the same fascinating re-
sults;" and how, by the use of "chintz
coverings this faculty of invention may
make over old furniture, and can render
that which is new Gt for every day use,
and so open all the rooms in the house
to occupancy" Then the writer goes
on to tell the deluded women how to
make elegant lounges out of two pine
boxes four feet long, two feet wide and
fourteen inches high, stuffed with straw
and covered with chintz-perfect abomi-
nations in appearance, costing only four
times as much as good haircloth sofa,
and breaking down the first time incau-
tious company sit thereon. The natu-
ralist, also the bugometer, browsing
through the leahess woods, seeking for
the awaking of insect lie, rush into
print with their usual annoying contempt
for humanity and alteration of potato
bugs, tomato worms and snails. The
other day we picked up one OF our ex-
changes and read this
The locust can be heard sixteenth
Of mile. An ordinary man will out
weigh one hundred aud fifty thousand oil
them. We're mans voice in proportion
to his weight, in the ratio Of the locust 5,
he could be heard over thousand miles.
A flea weighs less than a grain of salt
and leaps yard aud halt when he's
in hurry; we're man OF one hundred
and fifty pounds weight possessed OF
equivalent agility, he could spring from
the capitol to China and 60 around the
world in two jumps "
1t is about the season Of the year for
such items. 1t is time they began float.
ing around insulting every man who
chances to read them, for it is indeed
humiliating in the extreme to be re.
minded OF things in which flea, or bed
bug, or giraffe is mans proud supe.
rior, Comparisons are odious, and never
are they more so than in cases OF this
nature. Are we constantly to have these
sarcastic illusions to and reminders Of
our in6rmities and shortcomings held up
before us2 Is it our fault that locust
can weigh less, scream louder and make
more noise than a man2 Are we to
blame because we do not combine the
lungs of locust with the other organs
and internal improvements OF man, SO
that we might be heard thousand miles
when we have occasion to make a re-
mark In an earnest tone Of voice2 A
nice bedlam it would make Of Cincin-
natl when oil the impatient women in
the city would be trying to get their
somnolent husbands up in time for
breakfast A charming array of discord
this glad earth would present about ten
o'clock Sunday morning, when an infuri
ated man in every household within the
city would be yelping for a clean boiled
rag, or demanding to know who had
been pairing their corns with his razor
And then, as if this insulting compari
son of our voices with the chirp of the
locust, the howl of the giraffe aud shrilI
voice of the gay and festive bedbug were
not sufficient, we must have thrown into
our teeth that flea can jump yarc
and half when he weighs less than 9
grain of salt. Devoutly do we wish that
he weighed ton, that he might swallow
the psragraphist who wrote about him
Man, we are told, ought to be able tC
jump fromp the dome Of the capitol tt
China" We read of a man who trieC
it, but strange to say he didn't succeed
he only jumped 1870 feet
These comparisons might be, and by
enthusiastic naturalists are, extended t
an infinite number. Perhaps they teacl
us humility; if so let US accept the les
son, and not pine away for the voice o
the locust or the muscular development
Of the ubiquitous flea. Probably il ",