Trying The New Fire Engine

Our new steam fire engine, the first we ver had, arrived in New Castle the other ay, and of course the eutire population f the village turned out to witness the rial of the machine. Mr. Bob Parker ecured the post of honor as holder of the ervice pipe, and he was mighty proud of ;. The engine was down at the wharf, jetting ready to pump water from the iver, and Parker stood alinost 400 yards ff, at the end of a line of hose, waiting or the stream to come, so that he coulcí quirt it over the Court-house steeple. There was a great deal of delay while he men were fixing the engine, and Pareer incautiously held the inuzzle of the )ipe toward his waistcoat while he disussed the question of a third term for Jrant with the Rev. Dr. Hopkini At ,he most interesting moment of the deate the engine suddenly began to work, nd the next instant a two-inch stream truck Parker in the stomach with terri)le force, and rolled him over in the guter. He feit as if the Gulf Stream had een shot through him from front to ack. Then the pipe gave a few eccen;ric jerks, smashed Dr. Hopkins' hat into )lack silk ohaos, and emptied a hogsh-ead f water into his open mouth. It conclued the exercises by gettíng into such a osition that it could play a million galons a minute up the left trousers' leg of ;he prostrate Mr. Parker. Parker seemed o lose all interest in the capacity of that ngine. He went home for his Sunday lothes, and he has since intimated to his onfidential friends that if Grant should pend the whole of his third term squirtag a stream 50,000 feet high with that iabolieal fire extinguisher, he (Parker) would not go round the corner to witness the spectacle. -