Fayette County herald. [volume] (Washington [Washington Court House], Fayette County, O. [Ohio]) 1860-1???, 1878-05-30
How the Deacon Surprised His
Audience.

The phonograph is certainly the most
wonderful invention of this or any other
age, and the purposes to which it may be
devoted are manifold and surprising.
Mrs. Carmeen need no longer sit up un-
| til midnight for late husband-that is,
late coming home. She can now speak her
lecture in the diaphram of the phono-
! graph, attach one end of a cord to the
crak, and the other end to the knob of
her ehamber-door, and retire to her
downy couch with the sweet and COM
forting assurance of having "spoken her
mind" where it will do the most good
Carmeen will come sneaking in at pm,
as usual, and creep stealthily up stairs,
and no sooner does he open his bedroom
door than that awful phonegraph will up
and tell him in his wife's well-knOwn
voice, what she thinks of "such conduct
as this" winding up with the stern COM
mand: "Now, come to bed, you old fool,
and don't sit there blinking like sick
owl! - And all the time this performance
is in progress, Mrs. Carmeen may be re-
yelling in sweet dreams, in which spring
| bonnets and the latest lovely things in
polonaise predominant.
| The phOnograph is also capable ofplay-
| ing some shabby tricks, and if Deacon
| Peppers could have laid his hands on the
inventor, a few nights ago, he would
probably have torn him into two thousand
fragments, more or less.
The Deacon is, or rather was, good
man, and elass-leader in the Brownsville
Church. He visited New York recently
and wandered into an establishment
where several Photographs were on eX-
hibition and for sale. He became inter
ested in the instrument, and when he
spoke into the mouth-piece of one of the
machines and heard his own words
ground out with startling distinctness he
manifested his astonishment in one pro-
lOnged "W-h-e-w!"
Then a happy thought struck him. He
usually made brief address at, class
meeting on Friday evenings, and he sud
denly conceived the idea of speaking his
piece in the phonograph, purchasing the
invention, and surprising the brethren
and sisters at the next meeting. The idea
tent. The Deacon charged the phono-
graph with an appropriate address, and
while he was bargaining with the owner
for the instrument, in another part of the
room, rough, bushy-whiskered individ-
ual, attired in corduroy pantaloons and a
speckled shirt, slipped in unobserved and
howled a lot of stuff into the same ma
chine. The Deacon paid for and carried
off the phonograph, entirely ignorant OF
the frightful sentences injected into it by
the rough person who, as subsequent
events proved, was the intellectual driver
of mule team, and not very choice in
his language.
The next day was Friday, and in the
evening the Deacon marched into the
! church with his phOnograph under his
arm, and his face Illuminated with ra.
diant smile.
''My friends" he continued, 81 have &
little surprise for you. L do not Intend
to address you this evening. 1 have here
brought substitute for me. This little
instrument, holding up the phonograph
, will now address you briefly on your du
ty to the Church and to suffering human
ity."
Then the Deacon, with smile extend
ing from ear to ear, gave the crank
r couple of turns, and all the color fadeC
. from his face as the phonograph thun
i dered forth:
S 'Git up, there, you dashed old cripple
Whoa, Sal! you blind
It was awful.
The hair on the heads OF the brother
:. in the front pews stood straight up; a sis
ter in the back part of the house fainte
dead away, and the sexton yelled Fire
-is-some-terrible mistake y
% gasped the Deacon, after a few minute
of painful silence. 81 must have turne
the crank the wrong way-Or maybe til
: linch-pin is loose, or the safety-valve ha
lost screw or something" And, pei
spring at every pore, the Deacon essaye
another turn, and the machine yelled:
s'Gee, Bill! Where in the dashnatio
, are you going, you son of mule! Pee
di, whoa-a-a! Blast your eyes, can
you"
The awfulness became more awful,
Three more sisters tainted, several {
the brothers clapped their hats on the
heads and their fingers into their ear
and started for the door shouting "P,
lice!'' and the sexton hallooed Murder
= while the Deacon wildly clutched the pho
nograph by the neck and choked it till
was black in the face, and its eyes bulge
out an inch.
But twas no use. The internal arrang
ments of the machine were demoralize
and the cylinder continued to revolv
grinding out the most frightful langua,
ever heard outside of political wa
convention; and when the audience we
tie saluted with, cpl knock your dash
rth brains out, you long-eared-" they d
gu not wait for the remainder of the ga
ani 1rd Dress" but got up as one man-and o
the woman-and made dash for the door
RIO decidedly paHic-striellen manner. Il
Deacon, with his face the color of
}. smallpox flag, threw the phonogra
= over the pulpit, ,sprang after it and kick
yer it down the aisle into the street, wht
ssst sss. the sexton smashed it with an ak lust
the Deacon's address began to issue fr,
its mOuth-piece, and then placed 1t unt
r the hydrant and let stream of water r
on it all night.