Tombstone epitaph., 1890-01-25
FUNNY JOSH BILLINGS.
Document Written by the Humoris
 Over Twenty Years Ago.

O'SA AHCnby 1edTS Ago.
 That quaint humorist, Josh Billings, penned the following letter in Carleton's book store in this city more than a score of years ago, says the New York World, and forwarded it to his literary friend. MT. Bowen, of Fort Plain:
 ''DEAR CHARLES: If you can git me a few kalls to lektur out your way it will be clever in you Sorry that have no pictorial biography of my face to send you; the fact is that am so cussed humbly that I can't be took. [ have sent to England for one of the Book Billings. Those publishers are worse than resurrection ists-they steal man while living I ought to have had at least $500 from the London publish CTS, but never had a cent. My le1tur on milk has been skinned for lyceum taste. There ain't any thing in it that need make any body faint away, and believe there is some nervous truth in it,
 "As regards the catastrophys in my biog- raphy thus far, can only state that I was born in Massachusetts. between two mountains, in the year 1920. At the age of 15 the first busi- ness@I attacked was the wool bu mess driving sheep. I had never been away as ore. and every body seemed to know more than I did. saved myself, but lost the flock of sheep pretty thoroughly. At 1G I brought up on the west bank of the Mississippi, even in them days quite a stream, The past thirty years have been divided, multiplied and subtracted in and among the various schemes of a vagrant temperament supplanted in a strong. natural constitution, such as husbandry in the wilder ness, where there was more wild bees to hunt than oats to cut; merchandising at the forks of a mud turnpike with a stock of brogan boots, Lowell calico and whisky by the quart running gh-pressure steamboat on the Ohio rivera lively life, where man can see human natur with the bark on, and learn how to swear with great precision, Also speculated in West India stores and potash the two first crops of new country; an auctioneer, and for eight years land hunter on Indian trails and made tough by riding a hog skin saddle and eating acorn-fed pork and corn-dodgers.
 My life has been success thus far, for I am still alive but pecuniarily who ever made money by playing the eccentric wanderer from one rude vocation to another but little better than the common trapper and honey and pen sion hunter? have had much comfort out of all this and would not take the best farm in the State of New York for the sights I have seen. My literary raid has been short, but sweet. have had as much fun out of it as any man who ever lived, and when reflect that it is but little more than five years since Ifirst put comic on paper, I can certainly feel that if have not made much coin, have the quiet satisfaction of knowing that have never writ ten line in malice against the truth or virtue of the world. might have gained more wis dom by sleeping in a cloister but would have missed the larks' wild song in the morning and the sober boot of the midnight owl in the will derness. I was never sick all day in my life; never saw a man in a tight spot but what was willing to loosen the screws; have lived among the high and the low, and never put in my pocll- ct knife or pistol. Excuse this if it looks like egotism. only mean to brag on the joy the world has furnished me- Yours tenderly,
 HENRY W. SHAW, Josh Billings
 Int.,,n,.-. 1922