Collection: Books and Periodicals > Hutchings' Illustrated California Magazine

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Title: Volume 3 (1858-1859) Collection Type: Books and Periodicals Collection Name: Hutchings' Illustrated California Magazine Published: 1858-1859 # of Pages: 592 Download PDF: User Login Required Download OCR Text: User Login Required

Date Scanned: 2024-08-29 22:23:33 OCR Software Version #: tesseract 5.4.1 First Created: 2025-03-17 03:20:47 Last Updated: 2025-03-17 03:20:47

Original Held At: Searls Historical Library Location: 161 Nevada City Hwy, Nevada City, CA 95959

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188 HUTCHINGS’ CALIFORNIA MAGAZINE more particularly for the amuscment of the editor of that paper, who, whatever may be said or thought to the contrary, has, in our opinion, done much to cheer and inform the agriculturists and horticulturists of California, especially in their early labors here; therefore, we say— imprimatur. Mrs. Marnews, in her “Anecdotes of Actors,” gives an amusing instance of heroic devotion to art: In that scene in the play of the “ Comittee,’”’ where Obediah has to swallow, with feigned reluctance, the contents of a black quart bottle administered to him by Teague, Munden was observed one night to throw an extra amount of comieality and vigor in his resistance, so much so, that Johnstone, (“Irish Johnstone,”) the Teague of the occasion, fired with a natural enthusiasm, forced him to drain the bottle to the last drop. The effect was tremendous. The audience absoTutely screamed with laughter, and Obediah was borne off half-dead, and no wonder. The bottle, which should have contained sherry and water, was by some mistake half-filled with the rankest lamp oil. We willlet Mrs. Mathews tell the rest: *‘ When the sufferer had, in some degree, recovered from the nauseau the accident caused, Mr. Johnstone marveled why Munden should have allowed him, after the first taste, to pour the whole of the disgusting liquid down his throat. “Tt would,’ Johnstone said, ‘have been easy to have rejected it, or opposed a repetition of it, by hinting the mistake to him.’ “Mr. Munden’s reply, by gaps, was as follows: ‘My dear boy, I was about to do so, but there was such a glorious roar at the first face I made, that I hadn’t the heart to spoil the scene by interrupting the effect. though I thought! should die every time you poured the accursed stuff down my throat.’ ”’ Tue following parapraph is going the rounds of the newspapers: The origin of the pugilistic phrase, “lam,” is discovered in the following phrase from Scoit’s Peveril of the Peak, chapter 42—“‘In short, the tumult thickened, and the word began to pass among the more desperate, ‘Lamb them, lads, lamb them!’ a cant phrase of the time, derived from the fate of Dr. Lamb, an astrologer and quack, who was knocked on the head by the rabble in Charles the First’s time.” With all proper respect for Sir Walter’s antiquarian lore, it would appear as if in this case he had not gone far enough back, for in Beaumont and Fletcher’s King and No King, act 5, scene 3, Bucarius says— * Not that I have Beaten you, but beaten one that will be beaten, One whose dull body will require a LAMMING, As surfeits do the diet, spring and fall.’ MUSINGS OF A MINER. I'm sitting on a rough oak-bench, By a camp-fire’s flickering light, Whose varying shadows seem to tell Of fortunes dark and brig&t. While sitting thus I musing fall, My elbow resting on my knee, Methinks I see an early home, Where hearts were blithe and free. Methinks I see an old frame house— Two fir trees standing near— Methinks I hear those pleasant tones, That to me are so dear. Methinks I see a father kind, An angel-mother's brow That I so oft were wont to kiss, Oh! could I kiss it now! Methinks I see my sisters all, The pleasant spots we used to rove, I see them too—nor can’t forget, Not e’en the little maple grove. And oh! the past! ’tis sweet to view. Brings, father, mother near, My sisters and my boyhood scenes, And early friends e’er dear. Those happy days I then o’erlive— Days that are past and gone— T’ve sometimes said, what would I give, Had they but never flown. But my camp-fire is now waning low, The night-bird takes her flight, For cherished friends I breathe a prayer, God bless you all! Good night! RF. M,