The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1885-03-20
LlLLiPUTIA.
RsOOlsOtiOns Of Tom Thumbs Daily Life
and Household.
TOrigiual1

[OriginalI
Mother for some years bought her beef
and mutton at Tom Thumbs meat market
It Is hard to think of a traveller who
girdlsd the earth three or four times, and
gallant who kissed over a million of ladies
as butcher. But business to which the
house of Astor is proud to owe its origin.
casts no discredit even on Gen. Thomas
Thumb
Stratton market and Lilliputia, Toms
store and homestead were called, lay in
Marlborough, town about Is miles west
of Plymouth rock As the Mediterranean
sea was once the center of the world, so
marlborough, as its name suggests, was
once the center of the United States. Intel
lectually, if the opinion of the most modest
OF its citizens is to be trusted, its relative
position has never changed. As in all our
old Massachusetts, towns, society in Middle
borough is in a constant whirl of excitement.
One day minister has broken a pitchfork
in the side of his bull. and left the pair of
steel horns sticking there a lesson. The
next, some skeptic has written the Blacklist
of all blacks with a small b. to the denial of
his personality, and to the scandal of the
puritans. The third day, the selectmen
have cut down the two finest trees in town
to make a side street two feet straighter than
before. Within week you hear that some
one has made an offer for the Nemasket
Water-power.
Even the animals OF the town have eccen-
tricities that divide them from the vulgar.
There was Scott, q dog of forecasting mind,
that one winter had the habit of hiding
bones under mothers bolster
There was Maud p, my aunt's horse,
worse radical than Donovan Rosa, that,
when she took my cunts family out riding.
bristled like an angry porcupine but when
she bore her hired man, Patrick, and his
hanc9e had a coat that shone like mirror.
The Bumps, better known by their more
martial name Warren, are natives of Mid
dleborough, and are the most famous family
of dwarfs in the world. One of them, La
vinia, every one knows, married Tom
Thumb and another, Minnie, married Com
modore Mutt
Lilliputia, where they lived, is about two
and half miles from the station near which
Toms market stood. The house lies in the
valley of the Nemasl1et, a short stream,
whose head waters are the largest lakes In
Massachusetts,.
On visiting Toms house, the little ladies
received you cordially. but with state that
became personages to whom royalty was a
thing familiar. The quaintest feature about
the house was the doll furniture, suited to
the graceful pigmes who haunted it,
When Mrs. Mutt died, few years since,
thoeYilIage was crowded with hundreds Of
visitors. She died soon after giving birth
q
cemetery and of such value her body
that watch was kept over it for months.
1t is to the moral credit of her family that
they refused to sell it for its weight in gold.
Tom Thumb used to drive around the town
with a pair of black horses given him by
Lord Nescio He talked freely with anyone
and everyone, and was as bright favorite
of the fair sex as we'll be- Many stories
are told of his genial habits, for Tom had no
more prejudice against imbibingthe rosy than
selling the horny. Once, however, he so far
yielded TO the strong temperance feeling OF
his village as to drown, or nearly drown In
Assawampsett Pond
He was fshed out of the water by the
heroic efforts of some of his townsmen and
restored to life with difficulty. When he
regained his wits he showed no gratitude for
having his life given back to him, but ex-
pressed great solicitude to learn whether OF
not some choice cigars in an inner coat OF
his vest had been ruined by the water.
WILLIAM WASHBURN.
MIDDLEBoROUGH, Mass