The Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. | Page 9

announcing that Prof. GREEN D. BROWN, of New York city, will favor the citizens of Tyre with a lecture on Tuesday evening next. From what we know of the gentleman, we are satisfied our citizens will not regret attending the lecture. We trust he may not be met with an audience so small as lectures have heretofore drawn out in Tyre. The apathy of our citizens in these matters, we have before stated, is disgraceful. Let there be a good turn-out.
But there was not a good turn-out. The receipts were two dollars and a half. The proprietor of the hall consented to take the receipts for his pay, and I returned to the hotel to muse over my unhappy fortunes.
The landlord took occasion the next morning, as I was passing out of the house, to remind me that my baggage had not arrived.
'No,' said I, 'but, as I soon leave Tyre, I shan't need it.'
The landlord looked at my dirty collar and bosom as if he doubted either my sanity or my decency, and remarked that perhaps I knew his rules compelled him to present the bills of strangers semi-weekly.
'O, yes! that's all right,' said I; 'I'll see you when I come back from the printing-office.'
I noticed that mine host stood watching to see that I entered the printing-office safely.
The editor remarked, after I had told him all the experience narrated here, commencing with the washing-machines,--
'It's a bad case, and I don't admire your experience at all, to speak candidly; but I have a little idea of my own to work out, and you can help me do it, perhaps. In the first place, though, I want to know whether you intend to continue in this line of business,--eh?'
'Not I,' was my fervent reply; 'I'm satisfied to leave lecturing to those who have a reputation, and to earn my bread and butter in a, for me, more legitimate way. But what is it you have in view?'
'Come and see me this evening, when I am at leisure, and I'll tell you what my enterprise is. Meantime, will you sell me your lecture? I can't afford to pay much for it, but I'll agree to settle your hotel bill if you'll part with it. Not that I think it's worth it, but you need to be helped somehow right away.'
I jumped at the chance, and thanked my friend heartily. He asked if I would please go and send the landlord to him, and I retired to perform that errand.
I was punctual to my appointment in the evening, and listened to the project my editorial angel had in view; a plan by which he proposed to inflict a lesson on the negligent Tyrians, and at the same time replenish my purse. He explained to me the part I was to perform in this enterprise, and I found I could enter heartily into the spirit of it. We shook hands in the best of humors, and parted that evening understanding each other perfectly.
III.--HE MAKES A HIT IN TYRE.
The next day, the entire jobbing facilities of the Times office were brought into requisition, and toward evening a mammoth bill was posted around the town, which read as follows:--
MONS. BELITZ'S CELEBRATED AND MAGNIFICENT EXHIBITION, THE GREAT TRAVELING HUMBURG! The most wonderful entertainment, whether CAININE, PRISTINE, OR QUININE, ever brought before the astonished Public's visual organs!!!
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The avant courier of this monster troupe has the honor of announcing to the ladies and gentlemen of Tyre, that Mons. BELITZ, accompanied by his entire retinue of attachés and supes, Female Dancers and Dogs, Operatic Vocalists and Vixens, Royal Musicians and Monsters, Bengal Tigers and Time-servers, Magicians and Madmen, Flying Birds, Swimming Fishes, Walking Cats and Dogs, Crawling Reptiles, and various other extraordinary and impossible arrangements, the like of which never before appeared in Bog county, until the arrival of the present occasion, to wit:--
AT GRECIAN HALL, TYRE,
On Saturday Evening, December 22, 1859.
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---> LOOK AT THE ARRAY OF TALENT! <---
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MONS. BELITZ, the celebrated Magician from Egypt, performer general to
THE GRAND FOO FOO, and professor of the Black Art to all the crowned heads of the Cannibal Islands and Ham Sandwichlands!!
MADEMOISELLE HELIOTROPE, the charming Danseuse from all the city theatres, but most recently from the Imperial _Deutscher Yolks Garten_, Liverpool, Ireland!
SIGNOR STRAWSTEKOWSKI, the celebrated Demagogue and Snake eater, whose unrivaled feat with a living _Gryllus_, whose fangs have never been extracted, fills thousands with awe and delight!
YANKEE SHOCKWIG, the mirth-splitting and side-provoking delineator of down-east horse peculiarities. Must be appreciated to be seen.
HERR BALAMSASS, the distinguished Vocalist from Italy, whose lower notes, as recently discovered by the celebrated examination before the Council of Trent, reach so far below the epigastrium as to be utterly inaudible to the most acute