Iowa County Democrat

She Couldn't Do It.
Cincinnati Commercial.

The lady mentioned in the dispatches of last Sunday's Commercial as having entered into an agreement with her husband to hold her tongue ten minutes in each quarter-hour for 1,113 consecutive quarter-hours, failed in her task. At 3 o'clock on Tuesday afternoon, as she was completing her 917th quarter-hour, and her backers feeling sure that she would win, a neighbor lady, returning from a shopping expedition, passed along the street in front of the window wearing her new purchase, a beautiful shawl. Now, the lady who was holding her tongue should have tightened her grip at this supreme moment, and concentrated her thoughts on something else than this new article of dress belonging to her neighbor: but it is said that the ruling passion is strong even in death, and that ingrained habits is unconquerable; and these axioms were proven in this instance, for the tongue-holder, unfortunately for herself, leaned over and whispered in the ear of a lady bystander, "What a horrid shawl?" She immediately saw her mistake, but it was too late. The judges at once declared in favor of her husband, the crowd filed slowly out of the building, and the first match on record of tongue-holding against time was over. One lady at least in Wilmington will attend church this summer in last year's bonnet. The husband is investing the $10 he saved in strong plug-tobacco. He says he never before enjoyed such peace and quietude as during the past nine days. And now the other married men of Wilmington are hoping that the tongue-holding fever may become an epidemic, and strike the country with emphasis.