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This newspaper page contains 25 articles. Subscribers can read the full text of each article.
Newspaper
Boston Weekly Globe
Location
Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
Date
Jun 30, 1885
Page
6
A detailed reminiscence on defending Richmond during the Civil War. The author describes home guard duties, city life under threat, and the mix of soldiers, officials, and civilians. He recalls Kilpatrick’s raid, the failure to capture Richmond, and the ample provisioning of the city despite wartime strain.
The speaker recalls soldiers riding at the head of a line and likens their勇勇 to the Forty-ninth Virginia. He notes the absence of regular forces near Richmond at times and suggests federal commanders were unaware or unconvinced by spies' reports, though home guards may have fought in rifle pits.
A Chicago Ledger excerpt satirically argues women lack invention in factory settings. It mocks female cognitive limits amid machinery, iron, and shop life, claiming men shoulder most progress while women handle domestic duties and breadwinning. The piece blurs humor with gender critique and calls for broader engagement.
In San Antonio Light a visitor recounts a Mexican feather artist living in a mud floor hut. The Indian crafts birds on cards using wax outlines, feather by feather, with glass eye beads and painted bills to create lifelike, singing‑looking figures.
A witty tale describes young ladies testing suitors with the dog test. A engaged man deftly avoids kissing the dog through a clever syllogism, concluding that kissing the dog would not fulfill either party’s wishes. The dog is knocked out, and another person is believed to be kissed instead.
A shopper notes a dozen clerks waiting at a Twelfth Street tailor shop on a Saturday evening. They paid twenty five cents per pair to press their trousers so they would look new for Sunday. The piece identifies the customers as knee-baggers in trade slang.
In a Missouri town a funeral drew curious Eastern drummers who trailed the procession to the grave. None of the mourners, not even close relatives, shed a tear. A pallbearer explains the mood as the Missouri Pacific shrinkage has drained the county of 8200,000 dollars over two years, leaving no funds to cry over.
The piece notes observations on behavior around social intimacy and parents. It highlights a girl easing her resistance when a father nears and a wife praising her baby as prettiest and resembling its father. The tone reflects humorous social commentary from the era.
A fragment describes a man named Porson returning home in a drunken state and attempting to light tinder with flint and steel beside his bedroom door. He repeatedly fails and mutters a string of expletives about the improvised apparatus and his own condition. The excerpt hints at a humorous clash between intellect and inebriation.
Sun dispatch from Lima notes Lima women rely on the manta a black rectangular shawl with lace or fringe to enhance beauty. Portraits are sold in town and in Havana or Venezuela a Lima photo signals social status. The piece also describes Lima manners voice sounds, rabona wives, bull baiting, Bueno Noche festivals and Inca relics with Ramondi’s Peru antiquities work and mummies eyes as curiosities.
An Episcopal minister who preached in Nevada and Virginia City describes how poker chips funded his missions. He collected 5 to 10 dollars weekly from a powerful saloon keeper who warned off rival clergy, while services were held in saloons and gambling dens. The undertaker assigned him lead on funeral processions.
A Cleveland Leader excerpt recounts a song about a soldier who stayed in battle. The songwriter lived near the White House and pursued his former love, who later married another man. After her husband died, they renewed acquaintance, with a possible future marriage hinted.
Frank Smilie, a drummer, left Cincinnati a year ago with a forwarded letter that arrived after his departure. The letter stalked him across Georgia, Alabama, Florida, and Mississippi, never reaching him. A month ago he read a marriage notice naming the letter’s writer as the bride, then in Macon a customer found the letter dated Apr 9, 1884, after it had traveled thousands of miles in many bags.
The passage examines when repeating given and family names signals pride or mere eccentricity. It cites Fitz Barron Barron, James Ashburner James Ashburner, Eye Eye, Pickup Pickup, George Ellis Elis Ellis, and William Prior Johnson William Prior Johnson as examples. The piece explores how readers may notice both forename and surname repeated in sequence.
A fragment shows a boy named Deacon arguing against rest on a Sunday. The spokesman asserts Sunday is for rest, while the boy retorts that they are not tired and refuse to stop playing marbles.
Sam Jones the Evangelist warns of moral danger citing a modern temptation. The sermon, titled A Warning from the Puinit, accuses a young lady of spiritual risk by engaging with a spider-legged suitor and stresses chastity. The allegorical warning targets decency and pious conduct.
A rare tramp of the Sons of Rest shares candid views on life in the tramp army. He laments harsher conditions, describes fake scams like clock cleaning and dish cement, and denounces organization while praising freedom. He notes widespread distrust, harsh reception from towns, and jokes about survival and happiness.
A San Francisco humorous letter describes a fastidious Holstein bull offended by a city girl's red parasol and embroidered ankles. A foot race to the fence ends with the parasol escaping the bull and the girl unharmed, aided by the narrator.
A nostalgic piece from Shoe and Leather Review recalls the first pair of red top boots that marked boyhood’s leap to independence. The author evokes memory of solace from ridicule, mother’s haircuts, and shared streets with Billy Brown as brothers in a rite of growing up.
A humorous regional teaching tale shows a farmer preparing a possum for supper. The process begins with killing and cleaning the animal, then baking with potatoes in hot grease, and ends with a quiet evening after the family eats and the man sits by the fire reflecting on the day.
A humorous survey of late Victorian romance tropes detailing heroines, heroes, and social patterns. It catalogues trends in marriage, health, and beauty, noting age, facial features, and dress influences, with mock statistics on marriages, biographical quirks, and the role of relatives in romantic schemes.
Buffalo Courier reports a well known local figure in public office planned a grand dinner in New York. Guests never arrived. after an hour or more the host discovered the invitations forgotten in his hotel room, revealing a costly social embarrassment.
Philadelphia Times recalls the 1857 event when M Godard and a companion ascended in a balloon above the Schuylkill. The parachute act began around 6000 feet, with Godard clinging to a bar as the craft descended and then rose again, drawing a crowd of 16,000.
Thousands watched a parachute descent fade to near earth then ground, the man and his umbrella landing safely about a half mile west of the old Bell Tavern on the Darby road. French balloonists Godard and his brother, later returned to France, had aided countrymen in the Franco-Prussian era.
A mosaic of brief poems and squibs from various papers, including satirical lines on bric a brac and trivial verse about love and fashion. It surveys whimsical pieces, fictional letters, and light social observations with period tone.
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