Year: 1878

Mrs. Carmeen need no longer sit up
until midnight for Il late husband-that
is late coming home. She can now
speak her lecture in the diaphragm OF
the phOnograph, attach one end of a
cord to the crank and the other end to
the knob of her chamber door, and re-
tire TO her downy couch, with the sweet
and comforting assurance of having
" spoken her mind where it will do
the most good. Carmeen will come
sneaking in at l a. NJ, as usual, and
creep stealthily up stairs but no sooner
does he open his bedroom door, than
that awful phonograph will up and tell
him in his wife's own voice, what she
thinks of such conduct as this, winding
up with the stern command: . Now
come to bed you old fo oil, and don't sit
there blinking like sick OWL" And
all the time this performance is in pro-
gress, Mrs. Carmeen may be reveling
in sweet dreams, in which spring bon
nets and the latest lovely thing in polo
naises predomi nate.


The phonograph is also capable of
playing pretty shabby tricks, and
if Deacon Peppers could have laid his
hands on the inventor, "A few nights ago,
he would probably have torn him into
two thousand fragments-more or less.


The Deacon is-or rather was-a good
man and a class-leader in the Browns
vile Church. He visited New York re-
Gently and wandered into an establish
ment where several monographs were
on exhibition and for sale. He became
much interested in the instrument: and
when he spoke into the mouth-piece of
one of the machines and heard his own
words ground out with startling dis
tinctness, he manifested his astonish-
ment i'm one prolonged " W-h-e-w ~


Then happy thought struck him.
He usually made brief address at class
meetings on Friday evenings, and he
suddenly conceived the idea of speak
ing his piece in the phonograph pur-
chasing the invention, and surprising
the brethren and sisters at the next
meeting. The idea was carried into ex-
ecution-to some extent. The Deacon
charged the phonograph with an appro-
pirate address, and whilst he was
bargaining with the owner of the in
strument. in another part of the room
a rough, bushy-whiskered individual,
attired in corduroy pantalOons and a
spreckled shirt, slipped in unobserved
and howled lot of stuff into the same
machine. The deacon paid for and
carried of the phonograph, entirely ig-
norant Of the frightful sentences in
jected into it by the rough person
who, as subsequent events proved, was
the intellectual driver of a mule team,
and not very choice in his language.


The next day was Friday, and in the
evening the deacon marched into the
church with his phonograph under his
arm, and his face illumed with a radiant
smile.


sMy friends" he commenced, 81
have little surprise for you. / do not
intend to address you this evening.
have brought substitute to speak for
me. This little instrument have here
(holding up the photography will now
address you briefly on you duty to the
church and suffering humanity"


Then the Deacon with smile sx-
tending from ear TO ear, gave the
crank a couple of turns, and all the
color faded from his face as the phono-
graph Numbered forth:


"Git up there. you dashed old Grip
Pile, Whoa, Sal you blind"


1t was awful.


The hair of the brothers in the front
pews stood straight up, sister in the