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Typo: A Monthly Newspaper and Literary Review, Volume 3
[miscellaneous paragraphs]
Away in the bush districts of Canterbury is a place called Cust (one of those ugly names in which colonists delight)—where a clergyman lately delivered a lecture. The country paper, noting the fact, hoped that next time the rev. gentleman delivered the lecture it would be « in a warmer place. » The minister's flock don't like it, and are not quite agreed as to what the Cust reporter meant.
The « interviewer » has added a new terror to life in the United States. Not long ago one of the craft in a leading American city called on all the principal physicians for advice, and described some agonizing and purely imaginary symptoms from which he professed to be suffering. Each medical man diagnosed and prescribed differently, and the results were all published next day in a morning paper, unsparing ridicule being cast upon the professional gentlemen. It did not appear to have occurred either to the editor or the public that an hour's study of a medical work, and the capacity for cool and unblushing falsehood, would be all that was required to deceive the ablest practitioner. Another genius in New York has been examining twenty-eight Wall-street financiers as to their knowledge of the Decalogue. Each victim's reply—certainly not intended for publication—was published in full, in this style:— « H. Victor Newcomb—The Ten Commandments are in Deuteronomy. I used to be able to repeat them. » Before starting on his mission, the reporter looked up a Bible, and found the Commandments in Exodus xx. The following localities were assigned by the Bulls and Bears: Genesis—if not in Exodus; Deuteronomy; the Prayer-book; Revelations; Exodus; twentieth chapter of Exodus; Genesis; Judges. One gentleman, who « knew them by heart, » said (after making a reference), « Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus, Deuteronomy—that's where they are. » —Another « knew the tenth commandment, and did not think it was in general operation in Wall-street. » Mr Noah Content is reported to have replied: « I say the commandments regularly. (What are they?) Um, oh. (Where are they?) Um, ah. » One victim « had to catch a train. » Another said « This is not a Sunday School, » and a third, « I am not here to answer conundrums. » The reporter seems to have been quite unaware that the two gentlemen who referred him to Deuteronomy were as correct as those who said the commandments were in Exodus.