Spirit Of Jefferson

Buying a Queer Customer

During the first part of the present week the unclaimed packages and parcels in the office of the Merchants' Union Express Company in this city were sold at public auction at the rooms of Scott and Smith, on Fifth, near Pine street. The sale was largely attended throughout both days of its continuance, and many and ludicrous were the incidents attending it. To mention one of these only, will serve to answer our purpose.

An elongated box was brought underneath the auctioneer's hammer, very like a shoe box, some four feet in length and about one and a half high. It was labeled "Dr. Kane, showman." and also bore the words "New Orleans." It had evidently circulated freely on railways. When it was brought under the hammer the bidding was lively. It was finally knocked down to a market woman living in the suburbs. She forked over the three dollars to the auctioneer, her son shouldered the box, put it into the market wagon, and away they drove at a speed accelerated by their desire to inspect its contents. Not until the wagon stood still before the doorway of the lady's domicile was it suspected by her that she had possibly bought live stock. The jolting along the way had evidently worked a wonderful change in the contents of the box.

When it was lifted out of the wagon and deposited on the sidewalk there was a violent thumping and knocking within, so violent that the old lady dropped it in terror. Her husband came and with him the balance of the household, and when they had gathered around, the mysterious monster within the box made seemingly a desperate effort to effect an exit. The old man stood aloof, and the children ran away. In less time than it takes to tell it, all the women and children of the vicinity were gathered around. The old woman, on all hands, told them "she had dropped in at the auction and invested three dollars, and how she hoped it was a pig, or a calf, or a cashmere goat." The violent hammering in the box continued, and the staring crowd of women, children, negroes, and idlers constantly multiplied. The old lady, at length, offered an Ethiopian standing by, a diminutive greenback to open the box. Sambo essayed the task with evident trepidation. He was confident "there was spirits in dar." With the edge of an axe, by a violent effort, a side of the box was wrenched off. The box was turned over and there rolled out, floundering and writhing, and casting his tail high in the air, a jolly young alligator. The crowd was dispersed as if a bomb had fallen in their midst. The women shrieked, the children screamed, and Sambo's eyes started from their sockets, and in helpless and speechless terror he beheld the devil bodily for the first time.

The alligator crawled slowly away, pursued at a good distance to the rear by the crowd.

[St. Louis Times.]