Year: 1864

There are innumerable social nuisances


but the most annoying of them all belong
to that peculiar class of people who add
to the garrullity of the parrot the sticking
properties of the barnacle, and are usually
denominated bores. Why they were in
stituted it is impossible to say. Perhaps
they were inflicted upon society, as sores
were inflicted upon Job, to teach patience
and forbearance. They are worse than
boils, however, for those in due time sub
side and close; but who ever heard of a
bore subsiding and closing. If sore, he
is an open sore, for it is out OF the power
of man to shut him up, and as source Of
irritation We would back him against any
inhamatory distemper that ever vexed the
human cuticle.


But why do we use the singular IN this
connexion. The bores are large species
with many terrible varieties. There IS
your political bore. crammed to the muzzle
with predictions about the counry's fu-
ture, based on false statistics and impossi-
bic contingencies and of course always
wrong. 0, what weary bore he is.
Lend him your ear and he will hold it
with the grip of a bull-terrier. Of all the
race he is the most difficult to shake off.
Then there is the financial bore full of
Wall street-an animated epitome Of the
stock market, out of whose mouth flow
the latest quotations, like ribbon from the
jaws of a conjurer at two-penny show.
The scandal mongering variety is still
more detestable: but you may ayenge
yourself on him in aquiet way by repeat
ing his libels to the parties concerned, and
so getting him q kicking for his pains.
Then there are bores who are forever
talking about their distinguished relations
and influential friends; sporting bores
who regale you with tedious accounts of
exploits with rod and gun; dismal bores
who croak continually of tribulation and
woe; maundering bores, between whose
tongues and brains-if brains they have
there seems no conneXion; uxorious bores
whose wives are ever in their mouths;
rhyming bores who always have their
latest production in their pockets and will
read them; musical bores who dose you
with linked sweetness long drawn out,
till you wish all the catgut of the harp
with a thousand strings was converted
into halters for their accommodation
travelled bores, full of guide-book infor-
nation and execrable French; dyspeptic
and bilious boz, es with stomachic and hep
attic theories that make you sick; theolog-
ical bores who insist on your going to
heaven their way; theatrical bores, that
YOU wish were throttled with a sock or
"burked" with buskin; scientific bores
who would have you believe that they
have found the fulcrum for the Archime-
dian lever; moral reform bores with re-
ceipts for the immediate bringing about
the millennium; and bores who follow
you with shadow-like persistency, al
ways craving help of some sort or other,
and whom Heaven will not help because
they never try to help themselves.


There are hundred other subdivisions
of the genus, and tenacity is the badge Of
every tribe. They are the ticks of the
social system, adhesive plasters on the
body polite, enemies Of privacy and
thieves of time. Never parley with them.
Your only chance of escape from their
tolls is to turn on your heel and cut them
dead.