CONTENTS
| Page | |
| Life of Stephen H. Branch. | 2 |
| Let the Firemen Stand to their Guns! | 3 |
| Lamentations of a Grahamite. | 7 |
| For American Youth to Read, and for Thieves and Traitors to Ponder. | 12 |
Volume I.—No. 5.]——SATURDAY, MAY 22, 1858.——[Price 2 Cents.
STEPHEN H. BRANCH’S
ALLIGATOR.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, by
STEPHEN H. BRANCH,
In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United
States for the Southern District of New York.
Life of Stephen H Branch.
very silly, as ointment will soon cure it.” Hesaid: “I knew a man who applied ointmentfive years, and his itch got worse every year.”This was a bomb that quickened my pulsation.I then said: “Perhaps you have gotthe salt rheum, and I advise you to consultDr. Plympton immediately.” He said: “I’llgo now, and I want you to go with me.” AsPlympton was the Superintendent of my itch,I did not know what response to make. Butas he might be absent, or if at home, determinedto remain without while Terry went in,I at length said: “Well, I will go with you,”and over we went to the Doctor’s, who, tomy great joy, was not in. I then told Terry thatI must go to my room, and get my lessons, butthat he mast remain until Dr. Plympton returned,and he said he would. Terry rushedinto my room in about an hour, a shade palerthan a ghost, and exclaimed:—“Branch! theDoctor says that I must have caught the itchfrom you, as it is precisely like yours.” If acannon ball had entered the window, it couldnot have thrilled my frame like the disclosuresof Plympton, which I regarded as safewith him as myself. But the old cat was out,and I had to face her sharp claws. So I toldpoor Terry the whole story, and that if hehad not locked the door, and forced me tosleep with him, he would not have caught theitch. He mildly chided me for not disclosingthat I had the itch, as, if I had, he certainlywould have unlocked the door with muchpleasure, and let me out. But he forgave me,and asked me to room with him, so that wecould apply the itch ointment together, beforethe same fire, and talk the matter over,and compare symptoms, and sympathize witheach other, and eat and sleep together withimpunity, and read distinguished itch authors,and go to Dr. Plympton’s together, until wegot cured. I told Terry that if we did all that,we would so thoroughly inocculate each otherwith the itch, that all the doctors of the globecould not wrench it from our blood, and thatwe would transmit the itch to our posterityfor ten thousand years, and then it would notbe entirely out of the system. Terry lookedamazed, and said he felt faint, and called forgin and water, and stared like an
Egyptian Daddy,
Or Tiemann Granny,
Or Peter Mummy,
Or Edward Sonn