PLAIN LANGUAGE FROM TRUTHFUL JAMES. In his sleeves, which were long,

Which we had a small game,

And Ah Sin took a hand :

It was euchre. The same

He did not understand;

But he smiled, as he sat by the table,

He had twenty-four jacks, -
Which was coming it strong,

Yet I state but the facts.

And we found on his nails, which were taper, What is frequent in tapers, that's wax.

Which is why I remark,

And my language is plain,
That for ways that are dark,

And for tricks that are vain,
The heathen Chinee is peculiar,

Which the same I am free to maintain.

BRET HARTE.

THE SOCIETY UPON THE STANISLAUS.

I RESIDE at Table Mountain, and my name is
Truthful James :

I am not up to small deceit or any sinful games;
And I'll tell in simple language what I know

about the row

That broke up our Society upon the Stanislow.

But first I would remark, that 't is not a proper plan

With the smile that was childlike and bland. For any scientific gent to whale his fellow-man;

Yet the cards they were stocked

In a way that I grieve,

And my feelings were shocked

At the state of Nye's sleeve,

Which was stuffed full of aces and bowers,
And the same with intent to deceive.

But the hands that were played
By that heathen Chinee,

And the points that he made,

Were quite frightful to see,

Till at last he put down a right bower,
Which the same Nye had dealt unto me.

Then I looked up at Nye,

And he gazed upon me; And he rose with a sigh,

And said, "Can this be?

We are ruined by Chinese cheap labor,".
And he went for that heathen Chinee.

In the scene that ensued

I did not take a hand,

But the floor it was strewed,

Like the leaves on the strand,

With the cards that Ah Sin had been hiding
In the game "he did not understand."

And, if a member don't agree with his peculiar

whim,

To lay for that same member for to "put a head" on him.

Now, nothing could be finer, or more beautiful

to see,

Than the first six months' proceedings of that

same society;

Till Brown of Calaveras brought a lot of fossil bones

That he found within a tunnel near the tenement of Jones.

Then Brown he read a paper, and he reconstructed there,

From those same bones, an animal that was extremely rare;

And Jones then asked the Chair for a suspension of the rules,

Till he could prove that those same bones was one of his lost mules.

Then Brown he smiled a bitter smile, and said he was at fault;

It seemed he had been trespassing on Jones's family vault;

He was a most sarcastic man, this quiet Mr.
Brown,

And on several occasions he had cleaned out
the town.

Now I hold it is not decent for a scientific gent
To say another is an ass, - at least, to all intent;
Nor should the individual who happens to be

meant

Reply by heaving rocks at him to any great

extent.

order, when

"And how do I like my position?"
"And what do I think of New York?"
"And now, in my higher ambition,
With whom do I waltz, flirt, or talk?"
"And is n't it nice to have riches
And diamonds and silks and all that?"
"And are n't it a change to the ditches
And tunnels of Poverty Flat?"

Well, yes, if you saw us out driving
Each day in the park, four-in-hand;
If you saw poor dear mamma contriving

Then Abner Dean of Angel's raised a point of To look supernaturally grand, -
If you saw papa's picture, as taken
A chunk of old red sandstone took him in the By Brady, and tinted at that,
abdomen;
You'd never suspect he sold bacon
And he smiled a kind of sickly smile, and And flour at Poverty Flat.
curled up on the floor,

And the subsequent proceedings interested him And yet, just this moment, when sitting

no more.

In the glare of the grand chandelier,
In the bustle and glitter befitting

For in less time than I write it, every member The "finest soirée of the year,"

did engage Ina warfare with the remnants of a paleozoic age; And the way they heaved those fossils in their anger was a sin,

Till the skull of an old mammoth caved the head of Thompson in.

And this is all I have to say of these improper

games,

For I live at Table Mountain and my name is
Truthful James,

-

In the mists of a gaze de chambéry
And the hum of the smallest of talk, -
Somehow, Joe, I thought of "The Ferry,"
And the dance that we had on "The Fork";

Of Harrison's barn, with its muster
Of flags festooned over the wall;
Of the candles that shed their soft luster
And tallow on head-dress and shawl;
Of the steps that we took to one fiddle;
Of the dress of my queer vis-à-vis ;

And I've told in simple language what I know And how I once went down the middle

'Tis there she stands from morn till night, No matter how his craft would rock,

Including Scientific, Philosophical, and Professional; Macaronic (a burlesque intermixture of languages); Dialectic; Parodies and Burlesques; Cento Verses (Patchwork); Recipes; Alliteration; Chain Verse; Echo; Pidgin English (the dialect in use between the Chinese and the English and Americans); Curious Vers fication; and Etymological Exercitation, a list indicating the order in which the examples are given.