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W. & J. B. WHITAKEll,
EDITORS AND PROPRIETORS.
f VOLUME NUMBER 16.
RALEIGH, MAY 14, 1842.
f X!
8NGLE COPY ,3
WE COME. THE HEIL1LD OF A j"OISY WORLD
fiveceitts
f TERMS.
TheRasp is published every Saturday morn
icgfat'One Dollar and Fifty Cents per annum
payable in advance.
t Any person sending us sixNEwsubscri
bers, and the subscription money for one year
shlli receive the seventh number free ol charge
for ihesfcune length of time.
Advertisements conspicuously inserted, at
the very reduced price of Fifty Cents per square
for the first insertion, and Twenty-five Cents
for each continuance.
Conversations in Philosophy, Geography,
Astronomy, Chemistry, Metaphysics,Physics,
&c ;Now, Nimrod, you sit over in that ere
corner, there, and I'll sit in this ere corner,
here. I'!! ask you some scientific questions,
and se- how many on 'em you can answer.'
Vel!rSolomon.try it on. Wait, though, till
I get that pesky gravel stone out of ray boot.
There, fire away.'
'In the first place, Nimrod, what makes the
magic needle always point to the north V
'Most philosophers say it is owing to some
peculiar attraction but am inclined to th-.uk
it's a way it's got '
'How long is it since the corner stone of the
Tower of Babel was laid?'
About as long as a piece of string, if not
longer.'
'At what will mankind in general airive, at
the end of the world, if they continue improv
ing in scientific knowledge as they have since
it's beginning V ;-
'Yellow pine pitch, probably. I meant to
say, a pitch into etsrnity.'
'How often do comets make there appear
ance upon an average?5
; 'Frequently.1
r ' When may we expect another?'
i 'Immediately, if not sooner.'
. 'Why is the sun called he?'
'Because it isn't a woman.'
'If a person gets wet in a rain, is he liable to
take cold ?'
'He can, if- he likes especially if it be a
damp rain.1
i Who was the king of the Cannibal Islands?'
'If we can place any reliance on ancient his
tory, I should say that he was oueof them?
'Why is it that two rivers so often unite and
form one, while one seldom or never separates
and forms two ?'
'It's because cold water meetings 3r"e preva
lent all over the country.'
'If a man travels forty miles a day in lair
weather, how far can he travel when the wea
ther is bad V
'L.'.'s see four firaes five is five times four
consequently it will take hirn an hour to
travel a mile in fitteen minute.'
'What is the difference between carbon and
hydrogen?'
'One kills people, and the other destroys life.'
'What are frogs ?'
' Volumes of mist-eries?
'What effect can medicine have on a tight
pair of boots V
'If the boots are costive, a dose of Dr, Bran
dreth's pills will operate as a moral cathartic
on the anterior superior spmus procis of the il
Iiurn.' -s & , M
'Look here, Nimrod ! you'll do to travel
you'veseen enough of these parts.'
'Father, wasn't Alexander a Ae ro?' 'Yes,
niyboy.' replied Oats. 'Well, then," father,
wasn't Miss Alexander ashe-ro?1 'Girl ! take
that boy to bed ! What depravity.'
At a recent village debate, in Vermont, up
oa the question, 'ought a young man tujollow
a gal arter she gives him the miuten V was
fully argued pro. and con. and then the Pre
sident decided that 'he had'nt oushter.'
THE LAWS OF THE RING.
Start not, fair reader, we do not mean the
ring in which men undertake, for a bribe, to
disfigure each other by the brutal practice of
pugilism. We reter to the laws so generally
recognized in England as controlling the use
of those ornamental rings so much worn by
the fair sex. Heie they are :
'It a gentleman wants a wife, he wears a
ring on the first finger of the left hand ; if en
gaged, on the second, and on the fouith if he
intends to live and die a bachelor.'
'If a lady is disengaged, she wears a hoop
or diamond on the first finger of the left hand;
on the third if she is married, and on the fourth
if she intends never to be married.
The above rules in England are generally
understood and acted upon. A lady in com
pany, with a hcop on the third fi?r-,r of the
left hand, is universally understood : : mar
ried. Why should not such be th here?
Whenever we are in company, unless well
acquainted with all thGse present, we are at a
loss to say which of the young ladies are mar
ried and which single, for we frequent! see
married ladies without hoops, and unmarried
with them. Besides, it displays a feeling in
a young lady, which is liktly to make an un
favorable impression on a sensible young man
in search of a wife. It is natural that he
should think a young lady who betray s an evi
dent desire to assume the air and importance
of married state, would not make the best wife,
but would be likely to take upon her more than
her due share of the reins of government. WTe
know that such are the thoughts of some voung
men, and we have therefore published the a
bove rules for the guidance of such of the lair
sex as will be ruled by them.
THE LAND OF LIBERTY.
As Teddy wr.s trudging along in the road,
Just fresh from his home on the edge of a bog,
May-be squinting to see where the voting house
stood,
He was bit in the leg by a slip of a dog.
So smarting with pain, he stooped down to
the ground,
To get one of the stones that seemed scattered
around;
But the poor fellow found them as tight stuck
together,
As the nails of his brogues were fik'd into the
leather.
And is this a Iree country ,quoth Teddy,aghast,
Where the dogs are let loose and the stones
are tied fast?
By t!ie powers, it's myself that am bold to say,
then,
There's more freedom for dogs here, than free
dom for men.
The man who bit off another man's ear in
Charlestown has been bound to keep the piece
(peace.)
'A loose habit,' sighed the shirt on the handspike.
Dr. Skipp recommends a hop poultice for a
jumping tooth ache.
A gentleman describing the intellectual cha
racter of another, said his mind had the dys
pepsia the ideas went through it Without
digestion.
Wrhy is a man justified in getting drunk at
a hotel? Because the old maxim warns us to
'shun inn-sobriety?
A meeting house in Massachusetts lately
took fire and burned to the ground in conse
quence of too hot preaching. The minister
should be arrested lorthwith.
It was held by his honor Judge Williams, in
the Suffolk Court of Common Please,on Wed
nesday, that it is not a crime in Massachusetts
to be a loafer, and consequently that to call a
man so is not actionable.
We saw, says the New Orleans Crescent
City, an admirer of Fanny Elssler yesterday,
with one of her toe nails nchly ' set' in gold.
He wears it as a breast pin ; it is valued at
ten thousand dollars, being the first toe nail
she ever danced off by reason of a too'rapid
pirouette.
EPIGRAM.
Tom meets his friend, and strait complains
In very sad and doleful strains:
'Ah, Jack, what must I do?
My sweetheart's wed! the seamtress fair,
Eternal grief must be my share!
You smile but it's too true!
'But-nothing made me worse t' see
Who the man is she's changed for me;
A barber on my soul!'
'You fool!' says Jack, what makes you mourn?
Pray, whither should the Needle turn
If not unto the Pole?1
There is one district in Lancashire, Eng
land, so poor that grasshoppers have to travel
ten miles into an adjacent county in order to
get strength to die.
Why does the present year resemble the
year before last? Because the year before last
was 1840. and this is eighteen hundred and
forty too.
An old fashioner meihodist. A Mississippi
Methodist, in one of his camp meeting exhor
tations, told a portion of his hearers, that they
deserved to 'be rammed, crammed, jammed
and double damned into a forty-four pounder,
and shot into h 11 1'
England's Q,ueen is an amiable little
body. Peel went and asked her support for
his tax on income. 'Certainly' said her ma
jesty 'I am willing to pay a tax on my in
come it is no more than fair and I'll make
Albert pay it on his.'
Pleasant To make a morning call upon a
lady, and see her looking over the banister in
her night cap. .'Twas a pretty night cap.
'I am sorry you said that,' as a loafer said
when the judge sentenced him to six months
hard labor. f
It is said l hat '"the temperance men are get
ting so strict that they will not write with blue
ink. Oh!
A religious paper in Boston a few years ago
had for its motto 'la the name of our God we
have set up our banner.' It was discontinued
at the end of a vear, and the last number is
sued, by some fever sight, contained a new ver-1
sion of the motto, as follows: 'In the name of
God we have up set our banner.'
'There's no end to this thing,' as the barber
said when he tried to comb a darkey's wool.
Let the carpenter be plain in his dealings,
aa&sehisel no man of his debts.
Let lawyers leave off studying the law of
4ien, and doctors study those on recoveries a
liitle more. -
Let the shoemaker stick to his trade like wax
and have honesty for his sole motto. fX-
Let merchants be square in their dealings,
and always have the balance cast up correctly.
Let the tailor stick to his cloth and qullveg
etabling. g
Let every man pav his just debts, and the
printer's first, "and we think hard times w'll not
come quite so heavy on us as they. do.
Free Press.
THE STUFFED CAT.
An old chiffonier (or rag picker) died in
Paris in a state of the most abject "poverty. "
His only relation was a niece, who lived as a
servant with a green grocer. Th girl always
assisted her uncle as far as her slender means
would permit. When she learned of his death,
which took place suddenly, she was on the
pobt of marriage with a journeyman baker, to
whom she had long been attached. The nup
tial day was fixed, but Suzette had not yet
bought her wedding clothes. She hastened to
tell her lover that the marriage must be defer
red; she wanted the price of her bridal finery,
to lay her uncle decently in the grave. Her
mistress ridiculed the idea, and exhorted her
to leave the old man to be buried by charity.
Suzette refused. The consequence was a quar
rel, in'v hich the young woman lost at once
her place and her lover, who sided with her
mistress. She hastened to the miserable gar
ret, where her uncle had expired, and by the.,
sacrifice, not only of her wedding attire, but
nearly all the rest of her slender wardrobe, she
had the old man decently interred. Her pious
task fulfilled, she sat alone in her uncle's room
weeping bitterly, wiien the master of her faith
less lover, a young good looking man, entered.
hso, my Suzette, I fiud you have lost youk
place!' cried he, 'I am come to offer you one
for life will you marry me?'
'I sir? you are joking.'
'No, faith, I want a wife, and I'm suie can't
fiud a better'
'But every body will laugh at you icr mar
rying a poor girl like me.'
'Oh! if that is your only objection we shall
soon get over it; come, comealong, my mother
is prepared to receive you.' ,
Suzette hesitated no longer, but she wished
to take with her a memorial of her deceased
uncle: it was a cat he had for many years. y
The old man was so fond of the animal that
he was determined that even death should not
separate them; for he had stuffed and placed
on the tester of his bed.
As Suzette took, down puss, she uttered an
exclamation of surprise at finding her so hea
vy. The lover hastened to open the animal,
when out fell a shower of gold. There were
a thousand Louis concealed in the body of the
cat, and this sum which the old miser had
starved himself to amass became the just re
ward of the worthy girl and her disinterested
lover.
"The affection of women is the most won
derful thing in the-world; tires not fainlsnb
dreads not cools not.'
Id1 A skunk is not an agreeable animal to
stir up with a long pole. . .
'I'm dying for you,' as the girl said when
she colored the bachelor's unmenticnables.
Theie is a man in New Orleans, whojook3
so sour that vinegar is stveet in comparison ;
and a lady so sweet that honey can'l hold a
candle to her.. What capital lemonade they
would make! Stima Press. r
A Sold ARGUMfNT.An old lady hearing
it stated by a school boy, that the world was
round, and revolved daily on its axis; replied
'Well, I don't know any thing about its axes,
but I know it don't turn over, for if it did we.
sheuld be tumbled off; and as to its being
round, any one can see that it is a flat piece of
ground and stands on a rock.'
-
'But upon what des the rock stand ?'
'Why on another one, to be sure.'
'But what supports the last?'
'Why, la ! my child, there's rock? all the
wav down.'
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