The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 287, December 15, 1827 by Various
page 40 of 50 (80%)
page 40 of 50 (80%)
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barking; but with less interested feelings; and his little patron ran
to take the whip. A few interrogatories on each side, a joke, and its accompanying laugh, occupy brief space; when, suddenly, a general rush proclaims the load is strewed upon the ground! a chaotic mass--"old hats, old wigs, old boots, old shoes, and all the tribe of leather," remnants of all things, the ends and the beginnings, horticultural fragments and broken crockery, the hunter's bone and the beggar's rags, pilfered lace suspected, and the stolen jewel, the lost gold, and the mislaid spoon: and, for a climax, rejoice! gentle reader--for when the designs of the crafty are defeated by inadvertence, or otherwise, with the weird sisters, "we should rejoice! we should rejoice!"--a bill for fifteen pounds, drawn by a lawyer for expenses, and which was taken to the acceptor by the dustman, for which he received a considerate remuneration. Complicated as this mass appears, it is all reduced to the most perfect order, and each portion arranged according to the purposes intended for. Thus, the vegetable matter, so eagerly seized upon by the pigs, contributes to keep up a supply of _dairy-fed_ pork and _Epping sausages:_ the bones are laid aside for the purposes of making hartshorn and phosphorus, dominoes, and apple-scoops, &c. The old boots and shoes, with the tribe of leather, after a slight examination of their utter inefficiency, find their way, through divers passages to the glue-pot. How fractured bottles, and broken glass of every description, is disposed of, is easily _seen through_--to the furnace; and how the old iron is appropriated, is not hard to guess. The old woollen, if perchance any should exist in the shape of a pair of innominables, after exploring the pockets, and a sigh for their insolvency, are unceremoniously cast aside along with the worthless remains of rags of every description, string, paper, &c. &c., to pass through the operation |
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