Horsing Around

 

Cortland Evening Standard, Monday, April 14, 1896.

 

THE HORSE WAS EXPOSED

AND THE AGENT OF THE S. P. C. A. WANTED TO PROTECT HIM.

   Friends of a local agent for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals are rather laughing up their sleeves at a joke which is alleged to have been perpetrated on him a few days ago by a well known joker here in town. The two were reported to have been walking along Main-st. together one chilly evening recently when the joker said to the agent that he thoroughly approved of the way the society was looking after the care of stock out in the country, but he thought it was too bad that they neglected horses right here in town.

   The agent was wide awake at once and inquired what he meant.

    "Why," replied the joker, "I know of a horse that has stood out here on Main-st. without any blanket on for more than seven hours to-day and he is likely to stand out all night too unless someone takes him in or takes care of him,"

   "Show him to me, quick," said the agent.

   "All right, come along," responded the other.

   The two walked down Main-st. together until they came in front of the store of Peck Brothers where stands the handsome dapple gray wooden horse that is used to show harnesses upon.

   "There he is now," said the joker.

   The response of the agent is not recorded, but his friends are often seen puffing with an air of enjoyment cigars that have a very agreeable fragrance and which would never be accused of being “two-fers.”


Editor's note:
   By clicking on the highlighted word horse above, readers may obtain the horse's comment on this story.

 

AN EAST SIDE FIGHT.

This Time the Women Pulled Each 0ther’s Hair Furiously.

   The police were called to a house in the East Side on Elm-st. Saturday evening about 6 o'clock to quell a riot among the women of the household. In this particular house four families live and it seems that the quarrel started by one of the occupants of the lower part of the house accusing one of her neighbors above of sweeping dirty water out of the door onto the former's washing which hung on a line. A general melee ensued in which hair was freely pulled, faces were scratched and one woman flourished a revolver but did not shoot. None of them were willing to swear out a warrant and so no arrests were made.

 

The Origin of Trousers.

   Mrs. Dr. Evans, wife of the president of Hedding College, III , who has made the subject of dress a careful study for twenty years, declares that women first invented trousers and that men subsequently adopted them.

   This means that the women having first adopted a costume which seemed best adapted to them, the men envious of their better choice appropriated it and then drove them out. This at least, is what Mrs. Evans alleges that she has found after long investigation of the records.

   The fact that among the Chinese and other nations of great antiquity the women still wear trousers and the men skirts gives strength to Mrs. Evan's assertions. If these be true, the reproach of women for imitating male attire falls to the ground. It is the men who, having evicted women from her originally chosen attire, are the real copyists.

   Of a truth, history is coming to the rescue of women, and furnishing a warrant for such as are bent upon recovering their stolen possessions.—Boston Globe.

 

References:

1)    Hedding College:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedding_College

2)    “two-fers”:  http://www.finedictionary.com/Fers.html