Punchinello, Volume 1, No. 16, July 16, 1870 by Various
page 36 of 73 (49%)
page 36 of 73 (49%)
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rarely--with two Gills. The question whether the hook hurts them, or
only tickles till they squirm, is one of those knotty problems that physiologists have failed to solve. COWPER, the poet, had a tenderness for the earthworm. So also had IZAAK WALTON, who recommends that he be skewered "tenderly, as if you loved him." From the cradle to the grave, and even after we are deposited in the latter, our bodies are liable to be infested with worms. There is the trichina spiralis, which really exists, although the German pork-butchers denounce the story as a "pig lie;" the ordinary intestinal worm, which disports itself, eel-like, in the Alimentary Canal; and the tape worm, of two varieties, one of which performs its circumlocutory antics in the human stomach, and the other in the government Bureaux at Washington. The worm that feeds on the cold meat of humanity, although the most insignificant of reptiles, has one attribute of Diety. It is no respecter of persons, and would as lief pick a bone in a royal vault as in POTTER'S Field. All flesh is the same to it--unless saturated with carbolic acid. It is said that all living things are propagated--that the process of creation ceased ages ago; yet it is quite certain that the worms known as maggots may be created by a blow. The most detestable of all the vermicular tribe is the Worm of the Still, which is a sort of caterer for the worm which never dieth--a reptile of another sphere, that has never been described in Natural History. The only worm recognized as edible by civilized man is produced in Italy and vulgarly known as wormy-chilly. The subject is susceptible of further expansion, but having run it into the ground, we here break it off. * * * * * DUBIOUS ENGLISH. |
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