Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1880-10-22
F. U-N

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How He. WAS CURED the
meanest trick that was ever played on a
white man was played last week in this
city, and the fact that there is no vigilance
committee here is the only reason the per-
Eetrators of the trick are alive. A bust
ness man had just purchased a new stiff
hat, and he went into saloon with half-a-
dozen friends to fit the hat TO his head.
They all took beer, and passed the hat
around so all could see it. One Of the
meanest men that ever held county of
flee went to the bartender and had thin
slice of limberger cheese cut off, and when
the party was looking at the frescoed CELL
ing through beer glasses, this wicked per
son slipped the cheese under the sweat
leather of the hat, and the man put it on
and walked out. The man who owned
the hat is one of your nervous people, who
is always complaining of being sick, and
who feels as though some dreadful disease
was going to take possession of him and
carry him off. He went back to his place
of business, took off his hat and laid it
On the table and proceeded to answer some
letters. He thought he detected smell !,
and when his partner asked him if he did
not feel sick, he said he believed he did.
A clerk said it was evident that some
body's feet needed washing. The man
turned pale, and said he guessed he would
60 home and take some Althrop's tonic,
as it had always helped him.
He met man on the sidewalk who said
the air was full of miasma, and in the
street car man who sat next to him NOV
ed away to the end Of the car, and asked
him if he had just come from Chicago.
The man with the hat said he had not,
when the stranger said they were having a
good deal Of small pox there, and he pulled
the bell and jumped off. The cold perspi-
ration broke out on the forehead of the
man with the new hat, and he took it off
to wife his forehead when the whole piece
of cheese seemed to roll over and breathe,
and the man got the full benefit of it, and
he came near fainting away. He got
home. and his wife met him and asked
what was the matter: He said he believed
modification had set in, and she took one
Whit, as he took off his hat, and said she
should think it had. ''Where did you get i'll
it ?'' said she. ''Get into it % said the
man, II have not got into anything, but
some deadly disease has got hold of me,
and shall not live" She told him if any
disease that smelled like that had got hold
OF him, and was going to be chronic, she
felt as though he would be burden to
himself if he lived very long. She got his
clothes off, soaked his feet in mustard Wa
ter. and he slept. The hat was lying on
the centre table, and the children would
come in and get smell Of it, and look at
each other with reproachful glances, and
60 out and play. The man slept and
dreamed that smallpox flag was hung in
front of his house, and that he was riding
in butcher wagon to the pest house. The
wife sent for doctor. and when the man
of pills arrived she told him all about the
case. The doctor picked up the PATIENTS
new hat, tried it on, and got sniff. He
said the hat was picked before it was ripe.
Then the doctor and the wife held post
mortem examination of the hat and found
the slice of limberger. Few and short were
the prayers they said. They woke the
patient, and to prepare his mind for the
revelation that was about to be made, the
doctor asked him if his worldly affairs
were in a satisfactory condition. He
gasped, and said they were. The doctor
asked him if he had made his will. He
said he had not, but that he wanted a
lawyer sent for at once. The doctor ask
ed him if he felt as though he was pre-
pared to shuttle off. The man said he had
always tried to lead a different life, aud
had tried to be done by the same as he
would do it himself, but that he might
have made misdeaI some way, and he
would like to have minister sent for to
take an account of stock.
Then the doctor brought to the bedside
the hat, opened up the sweat leather and
showed the dying man what it was that
smelled so, and told him that he was as
we'll as any man in the city. The patient
pinched himself so see if he was alive, and
ju mped out of bed and called for his re-
volver, and the doctor couldn't keep up
with him on the way down town. The last
we saw of the odoriferous citizen he was
trying to bribe the bartender to tell him
which one of those pelicans it was that put
that slice of cheese in his hat lining.-Er
change.
An Atlanta girl who reads the newspapers
was proposed to recently by nice young
man. She reflected a. moment and then
asked for time to prepare her letter of ac-
ceptance. Evidently she proposes to form
ulate her own platform.
A South Hill baby swallowed glass
button with brass eye. Baby now weighs
twenty-eight pounds and doesn't cry once
a week and has the cheek of book-ped-
dler.
A church down in Texas has on its inner
walls the following legend: mo smoking
allowed"