Among the many hobbies which he cantered on incessantly
    Was one he called Protection, and he rode it quite unpleasantly;
    For if any one dissented from his notions injudiciously,
    He went for him immediately, ferociously and viciously,
    Did this absurd equestrian who cantered on incessantly.

    With which remarks the author of this brief, veracious history
    Concludes his observations on the incarnated mystery
    Known as an agriculturist, philosopher, and editor,
    Who thought the world his debtor, and himself, of course, its creditor,
    And who will surely figure on the oddest page in history.

* * * * *

THE FITTEST PLACE FOR A “PRESERVER” OF THE PEACE.  A “Jam” on Broadway.

* * * * *

DR. HELMBOLD TO J.G.  BENNETT, Jr.  “Boo-shoo! fly.”

* * * * *

[Illustration:  A BRIGHT IDEA.

Customer.  “WAITER, BRING ME SOME FROZEN CLAMS.”

Waiter (lately caught).  “YES, SIR; WILL YOU HAVE ’EM ROASTED OR BILED?”]

* * * * *

WORDS AND THEIR USES.

Nothing, except counting your stamps, can be more pleasant and exciting than tracing out the origin of words by the aid of a second-hand dictionary.  It’s the next funniest thing to grubbing after stumps in a ten-acre lot.  Dentists make capital philologists—­:  they are so much accustomed to digging for roots.  It’s rather dull work to shovel around in the Anglo-Saxon stratum, but, as soon as you strike the Sanscrit, then you’re off, and if you don’t find big nuggets, it’s because—­well, it’s because there are none there.  Sometimes you dig down to about the time when NOAH went on his little sailing excursion, and strike what seems to be a first-class sockdolager of root, but what is the use?  Unfortunately the philology business is overdone; it’s chock full of first-class broken down pedagogues and unsuccessful ink-slingers, and, as soon as you offer a curious specimen in the way of roots, they write a book to prove that the root don’t exist, or, if it does, that it should not.

However, there is an advantage in knowing the roots of words, and the use to which they were put in former years.  Everybody, you know, is very anxious to read CHAUCER and SPENSER.  Now, after you have studied this subject about forty-two years, you will be able to read CHAUCER with the aid of an old English dictionary and an Anglo-Saxon grammar.

Many so-called philologists, who have preceded me, have ignorantly derived words from improper sources.  Thus, the compound word, shoofly, has been traced by some to the Irish word shoe, meaning a hoof-covering, and the French word fly, meaning an insect, when it is apparent to even the casual observer that it comes from the Guinea word shoo, meaning get out, and the English word fly, meaning a tripe destroyer.  I propose, therefore, to show you the origin of a few words, in order that you may use them properly, and in order that you may subscribe freely for my book on this subject, which will shortly be placed before an admiring public.