Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-06-24
TALES OF THE TOWN.


Deacon Elliot and Wicked Reporter
Dan Voorhees, swamped-Rapid Transit
in Excess-A Theological Point and
Other Small Talk of the Day.
AN aged trick saved a newspaper reporter
$40 on Monday.
The reporter in question had been making
the hot weather more unbearable for his
brethren these many days by deluding them
with the thread trick. This trick consists in
the performer procuring a reel of thread,
and with a needle passing the thread
through the seam of his coat above the
pocket where the ball ofthread Is concealed.
Good-natured friends who try to remove the
bit Of thread are yariously affected, as yard
after yard of the thread comes away when it
Is pulled. 1t is an antique Jest, but 1t has
potency yet Well, the young man who had
a reel OF thread in his pocket and tempting
tag showing on his shoulder went down to
the wharf to report the trial Of the Amos
keag engine. He encountered the pervasive
genius of the occasion, Deacon Bob Elliot,
early in the proceeding, and fell to banter
ing that official about the qualities of the
Amoskeag.
II don't believe the old thing can pump
more than LOCO gallons a minute" said the
reporter, with straight face
"Great Scott man, the Amoskeag can beat
lively.
".oh! come off! I'd like to wager it can't"
rejoined the jester
well, I'll bet 800 to $40 it does better than
1,300!" cried the enthusiastic Deacon
"Done!' said his tormenter,
me trlal TOOK place and as everybody
knows the engine pumped 1850 gallons on
the first test, and J, 400 gallons the second.
Mr.. Elliot was in raptures. He clapped the
reporter on the shoulder, exclaiming: "Well,
my boy, you see what the engine can do!''
coat m
and as he tugged out yard or two of thread
his face fell and then with a shout of laugh
ter, he said: "Well, that other bets off-the
drinks are on mel"
Fare but Not Fair.
"THE fascination of rapid transit is too
much for some people," said Pittsburger
yesterday to me. II employed a carpenter
the other day to make some trifing repairs
upon house of mine in Allegheny, and in
his bill just rendered he charges 20 cents for
carfare (he spells it care-fair) although it
isn't half a mile from his shop to the house.
II the electric cars and cable lines keep up
ana the fares keep down, nobody will walk
in year or twolH
A Submerged Sapling.
81 ONCE saw Dan Voorhees, in a very undig-
nif1ed position" said an old Hoosier to me
yesterday. "It must have been somewhere
about thirty odd years ago when the Wabash
and Erie canal had been completed to At
tica. The people of Covington were very
mad because the lock at Attica was kept
closed, making it the terminus for time for
navigation from Lake Erie. Failing in their
endeavor to have the lock opened and the
water let through to COyington the hot
heads of the latter place came up to Attica
In force, and there was something very like
riot on the banks of the canal. Dan Voor-
hees was one of the fireiest of Covington's
champions, and although then but a sapling
Sycamore of the Wabash he knew how to
harrangue mob with telling effect. But
his eloquence was cut short by a burly At
t1can, who seized him around the middle
and threw him into the canal 1t was q
damper on the ardor of the Covington party
and they retired with their drenehed and
sputtering leader, who had swallowed
great deal more muddy water than he had
mind to-"
A Woman Is Not Thing.
'fHeres little tribute to our much-abused
sex" said Pittsburg woman at the break
fast table to her husband, and proceeded to
read from the morning paper this quotation
from the Atchison Globe: can Atchison
man told a secret to three women and three
men. In a week he discovered that each
man had blabbed, but not a woman had told
thing!'
"a woman didn't tell thing?" the misera-
Bile man replied; "of course she didn't-she
told another womanr'
A New Turn to an Old Story.
SOME one told that old story attributed to
Scotch Presbyterian which runs: "That
the devil is bad you can tell by his very
name; for, If you take away the it is evil;
take away the de and it is vile, and take
away the dev it is i'll, so that he is an ill,
vile, evil devil"
That's so," remarked an unorthodox per-
son, "but after you've got through the devil
and look back you will find that he's lived
sor spelt backwards devil is Hved''