Year: 1878

1t Is remarkable the amount of in.
quisitivsness a New Eenglander de-
velops in the course of his life. There
Is nothing awkward or constrained
about it. 1t comes easily, naturally
and gracefully. In no part of New
England is this trait so carefully culti-
vated as In our own dear Connecticut.
Its fruits are shown in the record of
the Patent Office. There are other
fruits, however, net quite so happy,
which never get inside of the Paten.
Office, and it IS just as well they don't
Here is an instance in kind:


A Dsnburry grocery firm have taken
the agency for hammock. One of
the articles they have hung at the front
In the shade of their porch. They
hung 1t there as sample and as an
advertisement, but numerous people
had got into it to see hew it worked.
1t hung so low they could easily sit in
it, and undoubtedly the motion was
agreeable and comforting. But the
grocers didn't fancy this performance.
especially as the hammock sitters were
not hammock buyers. Saturday after
noon they removed the loop of one end
from the hook and fastened it by . bit
of twine instead Shortly after man
came in tor two quarts of molasses 1t
was put up in his pile and a paper
tied over the top. as he had forgotten
to bring q cover. When he passed
out he saw the hammock. His Curl
osity was aroused at once. The
grocers were busy inside. SO he
thought he would investigate on his
own hook.


With that keen intuition peculiar to
q New England man. he saw at q
glance that it was something to get in
to. He knew it was nothing to wear,
and was equally sure it could not be
arranged for cooking He sat down in
it. Then he swung back and lifted
his feet up. Then the twine fastening
gave away. 1t was a dreadful affair
He had the pail of molasses sitting on
his lap. and there was a dog sitting
under the hammock. Neither the dog
nor the molasses expected anything,
any more than the man himself did.
1t was terrible surprise to all of
them. The man and .he dog lost their
presence of mind, and even the pail
lost its head. The molasses went into
his lap, and run down his legs. and
swashed up under his vest, and insin-
uated itself some way in between him.
self and his clothes And when he
went down he hit the dog with his
heel on the back, and the dog was so
wild with terror and amazement that
it set mp a headsplitting yell and fled
down the street, having first taken
the precaution to bite him on the leg
and to tip over tier of wsterpails.
When the pals went down lot of
hoes were carried over with them, and
that started box of garden seeds
mounted on box, and they in turn
brought away pile of peck measures
whose summit was crowned with a
pyramid of canned tomatoes. 1t was a
dreadful shock to the man and fairly
paralyzed him with its magnitude: but
when one article after another came
avalanching atop of him, he thought
the evil one himself had broke loose,
and he just screamed as loud as he
could. The molasses was all over him,
and the garden seeds had adhered to
the molasses, and he looked more like a
huge gingerbread stuck full of cara
ways than anything else. In this
awful condition he waddled home, and
swore every step of the way.


There has never been anything like
il in Danbury since the British burned
the town.