St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1881-09-09
Our New York Letter.
NEW YORK. SeptembeI

and early plum, peach and grape sea-
son, which comedies with the reintro-
ductiOn of the oyster to social inter
course, any of your readers ever felt as
if O'DOnovan Rosa was laying and eX
ploding torpedoes in the region of their
gizzards ? Perhaps less Obscurely, |
might ask if your readers ever knew
what Chtl*ra M*rb*s was like Well,
let me give hint which will be worth
ten years subscription to your paper
to anyone who has been so afflicted,
gathered and garnered bv one who has
suffered many things of many physi-
clans, but got one or two good notions
by the experience. Let the feminine
portion of the community make broad
belts of flannel to be worn well down
figure and let everybody wear them.
So shall comfort supervene to many
distressed. The British soldiers in In
dia are forced to wear these things ha
bitually, and are inspected every morn
ing to see they wear them correctly.
Soldiers cost money there.
1t must be very comfortable for Il
hardwOrking man who believes himself
to be highly prosperous, and conscious
that he deserves prosperity, to wake
up some morning and find out that he
owes 100000. Such was the expert
ence of Mr.. O'IIara, il well-known man
ufacturer of cloaks and suits, whose
partner had squandered the money of
the firm in Wall street, selfishly trying
to make a little pot for himself at the
risk of anybody but himself. The
wretch absconded without Il dollar, it
is said, so that he didn't get much fun
from his base treachery after all. The
creditors sympathiZe with the deludcd
victim, and it is understood will give
him every facility to resume business.
They say he is smart man, but it
seems to me that i'll these times a
smart man would keep himself little
bit better posted about his own bust
ness, even if he did implicitly trust his
partner.
The plumbers feel aggrieved, it
seems, at the interference of physi
clans, notably those of various Boards
of Health, with their vested interests
and chartered immunity to plumb the
deepest reserves of their victims pOck
cts, while they prepare a new job for
the near future, as they tinker up an
old one. They have rOmantically de-
termined to get up course of lectures
ly-a NIL hnpS for fhn hattnY
struction of physicians. and seem to
plume themselves highly on this lead
witted joke. But it's a joke that will
make them laugh on the wrong side of
their rapacious and insolent mouths.
Plumbers are not popular, and with a
few honorable exceptions, they, as Il
rule, thoroughly deserve their unpopu-
larity. The ignorance, greed and
downright eXecrable rascality of too
many plumbers are well worthy of any
mans contempt.
The interchangeable Wingate, Sanitary
Engineer, and brother to the famous
rifleman and lawyer, executor of a sort
of lOfty-tOned trade paper of much
pretentiOusness and general tlatulency,
is organizing the entire population of
Long Island with an association to do
away with the smells of Hunters Point,
Barren Island and other choice lOcali-
ties for breeding of poisonous air. As
membership in the association doesn't
cost a cent and it gives people chance
to get square with certain high-handed
tTansgressOrs whom it has been exceed
ingly difficult to reach, it has filled up
with wonderful speed and pressure is
being brought on the Governor that
will infallibly tend some day to abate
the nuisances complained of.
The dirtiness of official practices has
perhaps been better shown up by a
small transaction lately than even by
the stupendOus star route or HOwgate
frauds. A petty swindler, one Charles
Ray, suffering he says from chronic
impecuniOsity, conceived and carried
out the idea of personating IA cOntiden-
tial treasury officer, and his little game
was to call on custom house and other
officers on a self-impOsed tour of in
spectiOn. He would inform these men
that they had been or were going to be
removed, would listen kindly to their
circumstances, and then promising to
use his influence to secure their reten-
ton in the service would find out that
he had lost his pOcketbOOk, or was
short of cash in some way or other, and
would borrow $50 or so from his Obse-
quious attendants. About twenty ap-
peared against him. Their very readi-
ness to fall into such snare showed
that they knew their shortcomings
were vulnerable enough to justify their
dismissal.
This living by the wits seems to be
a growing business. 1t is sad how the
good old days of apprenticeship and
faithful service seem to have been for
gotten the trades-uniOns are clannish
and between the combinations of know
nOthings on one hand Ga very active
party still, though Ostensibly no such
party is known) and foreign hordes of
Irish, Germans, Italians, or what not
on the other, their seems to be a regu-
lar policy of exclusion abroad, an os-
tracism by petty bodies of everybody
outside them and a poor chance for
the boys, who are growing up untaught,
except by a smattering of more or less
useful knowledge gained in the public
schools, aud swelling the ranks of the
hoOdlums and corner loafers who re-
cruit our prisons. When in this Great
Republic-the Home of the Free. and
all that sort of thing - shall we see
something of that solidarity of peoples
which KOssuth used to talk about
One of the jOlliest and most enjoya-