The Liberator

The Annuity.—At the time of the coronation of Louis XVI. there resided in the town of Chateau, in France, a very ugly old maid, named Therese, and the very first idea you conceived on looking at Miss Therese was, that she was just on the point of making her exit to a better world. The little hair she had left, was as gray as a badger's; her cheeks were shrivelled up like winter cauliflowers; she coughed so as to make every body else cough: and her head was as much of a perpetual motion, from age and palsy, as that of a Chinese mandarin on a chimney piece, in a current of air. But then she had money, and friends of course. Those friends said to her one day, 'Therese, you have five thousand livres a year, which is not sufficient to make you as comfortable as we could wish; now give us the reversion of that, and we, in return, will secure to you fifteen thousand livres a year for life, which will give you an opportunity of enjoying all those luxuries to which you are entitled by your own merits, and which is our chief anxiety to see you in possession of.' The proposal was accepted. Her friends secretly rejoiced at their bargain, and good seeming reason they had; for one of them was the doctor who had attended her, and he assured the others that, with her debilitated state and the efficacy of his medicine, she could not possibly survive six months. In this he was mistaken, however, for the lady, as if on purpose to disappoint him, set herself down to live with inconceivable impertinence. She witnessed the expedition to America, lamented the death of Louis XVI, censured the morals of the direcotire, was pleased with the first consul, saw the coronation of Napoleon, embraced Louis XVIII on his return, denounced the hundred days, was present at the coronation of Charles X, witnessed the barricades of 1830, and only died a few months since, at the great age of 105, having expressed, for the first time in her life, a great desire to get married, a few days before her demise. The purchasers have paid nearly a million, for an insignificant rent of five thousand livres a year. This justifies the old proverb, which says, that if you depend on the shoes of a dying person, you will go bare-footed.'—Parlor Journal.