The Ottawa Free Trader

Death's Prime Minister.

Death, the king of terrors, was determined to choose a prime minister, and his pale courtiers, the ghastly train of diseases, were summoned to attend, when each preferred his claim to this illustrious office. Fever urged the number he had destroyed; cold Palsy set forth all his pensioners, by shaking all his limbs; Gout hobbled up, and alleged his great power in racking every joint; and Asthma's inability to speak was a strong though silent argument in favor of his claim. Stone and Cholic plead their violence, Plague his rapid progress in destruction, and Consumption, though slow, insisted that he was sure. In the midst of this contention, the court was disturbed with noise of music, dancing, feasting, and revelry, when immediately entered a lady, with a bold, lascivious air, and flushed jovial countenance. She was attended on one hand by a troop of cooks and bacchanalians, and on the other, by a train of wanton youths and damsels, who danced half naked to the softest musical instruments: name INTEMPERANCE! She waved her hand, and thus addressed the crowd of diseases: "Give way, ye sickly band of pretenders, nor dare to vie with my superior merits in the service of this monarch. Am I not your parent—the author of your being? Do ye not derive your power of shortening human life almost wholly by me? Who, then, so fit as myself for this important office?" The grisly monarch grinned a smile of approbation, placed her at his right hand and she immediately became his principal favorite and prime-minister.—Addison.