--_Lardner's Handbook._
ENGLISH PLOUGHING.
The following, written from England, is going the round of the papers,
and is as true as the gospel, in my opinion. I have seen better
ploughing here with a pair of oxen than in the old country with five
horses; but Johnny won't learn. 'Lord! only look at five great,
elephant-looking beasts in one plough, with one great lummokin fellow
to hold the handle, and another to carry the whip, and a boy to lead,
whose boots have more iron on them than the horses' hoofs have, all
crawling as if going to a funeral! What sort of a way is that to do
work? It makes me mad to look at 'em. If there is any airthly clumsy
fashion of doin' a thing, that's the way they are always sure to git
here. They're a benighted, obstinate, bull-headed people the English,
that's the fact, and always was.' Well done, Jonathan--quite
true!--_From a private Letter from Boston._
JOHN BUNYAN AND MINCE-PIES.
In No. 417 of this Journal it is chronicled that John Bunyan scrupled
to eat mince-pies, because of the superstitious character popularly
attached to them; but it would appear from an anecdote sent to us by a
correspondent, that if this was true at all of the author of the
_Pilgrim's Progress_, he must have received new light upon the
subject at a later period of life. When he was imprisoned for
preaching--so says the anecdote--in Bedford jail, a superstitious
lady, thinking to entrap him, sent a servant to request his acceptance
of a Christmas pie; whereupon Banyan replied: 'Tell your mistress that
I accept her present thankfully, for I have learned to distinguish
between a mince-pie and superstition.
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