Herald Of The Times

Eccentricities of a Madman.—Mr. ___, a lawyer in Vermont, doing a good business, at once became insane, and took it into his head to abandon the practice of law and engage in basket making.

He was at first a very awkward hand at this new employment, but, by dint of perseverance, he soon became very skilful, and could weave a basket as well as he had formerly woven an argument at the bar. He followed this business for about six months, when taking a new notion into his head, he abandoned it for that of chair-bottoming.

The material used in this new occupation was elm bark, which he stripped from the trees in early summer, when it peals most easily. Having come home one day covered from head to foot with mud, he was asked where he had been, that he had got so thoroughly bedaubed?

He answered that he had been into a neighboring swamp after elm bark; of which he exhibited a strip about forty feet long.

"Do you remark this?" said he triumphantly.

"Yes; but how does that account for your being so muddy? It isn't usual to find mud on the top of a tree."

"No; but you may sometimes find it at the bottom, though. I'll tell you how I found it. I cut the bark near the root of the tree, and then stripped it upwards, expecting it would come to an end and break off, and run itself out after a while.

But it hung out like a suit in chancery; and I stripped, and stripped, until it run up forty feet high, and as broad and strong as ever. Thinks I to myself, there's no use in pursuing the thing any farther, and so I'll enter a nolle prosequi.

But not to lose the benefit of what I had already done—that was the point to be decided. I wished at least to save costs—but pshaw! I forget I'm not a lawyer now. Well, as I was saying, I looked at the subject to see how I should secure the bark. It was too strong for me to break off. At any rate, thought I, there's more than one way to skin a cat, as a butcher would say. If I cannot break off the bark, I can climb up by it. No sooner said than done. I seized hold of the strip, and placing my feet against the trunk of the tree, ran up hand over hand. By this method of climbing, you will perceive my back must have been downwards, and nearly in a horizontal position—my feet being braced against the tree, and my head standing out from it, at an angle of ninety degrees. Having arrived to the proper height, I was then in a quandary how to get my knife out of my pocket, and how to get it open when it was out. If I let go with one hand, I was fearful the other would not hold me. However, said I, it's neck or nothing. I'll try the experiment at any rate. So I gripped powerfully with my left hand, while I took out my knife with my right, and opening it with my teeth, whipped off the bark, as clean as the law would dock an entail.

And what do you think was the result?

"Why, you came down flat on your back, of course."

"Right, gentlemen of the jury. A very correct verdict indeed. I came down forty feet, flat in the mud. Never was a client laid flatter on his back than I; and never was one more completely bedaubed with filth and mud.—But, thanks to the yielding nature of the soil! I saved my bones and only brought away the mischief on my coat. I gained my cause too—which is more than I can say of my former undertakings."

The company laughed heartily at the ex-lawyer's account of his exploit; while the latter, hanging his coat up in the sun, said that the mud—like the old lady's grease—would rub off when it was dry.

He continued a while longer, to follow his occupation of chair-bottoming—when, suddenly becoming sane again, he resumed the practice of the law; and has ever since preferred laying his opponents on their backs in a legal way, to being laid on his own in so ludicrous a manner as that above related.

New York Transcript.