The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1885-01-21
The Magic Lantern.

Our town is getting to be full Of lee
turers. Mr.. Travers says that they
spread all over the country, just like
cholera, and that when one lecturer
comes to town, another is liable to
break out at any time.
The last lecturer that we had hap
pened week ago. He was magic
lantern one, and they are not so bad as
other kinds. He had magic-lantern
pictures of Europe and Washington
and other towns, and he showed them
on big white sheet, and talked about
them. l made lot of magic-lantern
pictures VIXEN 1 had my camera, and
some of them were real good. The
lecturer came to our house to spend
the night, and the afternoon before the
lecture he went out to walk, and left
the door of his room open.
Tom was at my house that afternoon,
and as we were going upstairs we saw
tremendous lot of magic-lantern pic
lures lying piled up on the lecturers
table. Most of the pictures were
houses and mountains, but some of
them were people, and then there were
lot of real funny ones, such as man
falling over pig, and big goat knock
ing a boy over. Tom and l had very
nice time looking at them, and we were
very careful to put them back on the
piles just in the same way that the lee
turer had put them. Only once in a
while Tom would forget just where
picture belonged, and we had to put it
in the wrong place. This was what made
all the trouble, and if any one was to
blame for it, Tom was the one.
We didn't tell the lecturer that we
had looked at his pictures, for that
might have troubled him, and we ought
never to give trouble to people that are
older than we are. Tom and / went
to the lecture, and so did almost every
body else in town, and when the lect-
urer began to speak you would have
said that he was one of the incest men
you ever saw, he looked so pleased.
The trouble began when, after having
showed us a lot of pictures, he said,
"The next picture, ladies and gentle
men, is portrait of her Gracious Maj
esty Queen Victoria" Now it hap
pened that the next picture was large
cat with dozen kittens, and somebody
said, {" Haw! haw! is that the queen?"
The lecturer knew he had made mis-
take, but he pretended it was all right,
and said the cat belonged to his little
girl and its name was really Queen Vic
toria.
The next pictures were mostly right,
though what the lecturer said would be
a picture of steamboat on the Rhine
turned out to be man on a bicycle,
and what he called view of the battle
of Waterloo was a boy being knocked
over by goat. Aftera while he asked
all his German friends present-but l
don't believe he knew a single one of
them-to admire beautiful portrait of
that hero and patriot, Prince Bismarck,
and when the portrait appeared on the
sheet it was picture of pig running
away from fat butcher. You should
have heard the lecturer German friends
howl, and / believe they would have
thrown something at him besides heavy
German words if he hadn't begged their
pardon and said it was all mistake,
and he feared that some evil-minded
person had wickedly mixed up his pic
lures.
Well, the Germans stopped saying
things after while, and the lecturer
went on. His pictures got worse and
worse. His lovely view of Venice, as
he called it, was picture of herd of
buffalos, and what he told us would
be picture of wedding in Egypt was
a cat and a dog fighting and an old
woman beating them with club. This
made him nervous, and he kept putting
pictures in the magic lantern upside
down, and making the king of Greece
and the queen of Italy stand on their
heads, and asking the people to excuse
any mistakes, and wishing he could put
his hands on the evil-minded persons
who had meddled with his pictures.
Finally he told the people that he would
now show them picture of two inno-
cent and lovely children. Tom hit me
in the side with his elbow when the