A Chinese Trick Explained — "Melican Man Do Findee Out"

1878

George III, it is reported, was once puzzled when eating apple dumplings to know how the apple got inside the dumpling.

During a recent Chinese banquet at San Francisco an orange was laid at the plate of each guest. The fruit, on being cut open, was found to contain five kinds of delicate jellies. Colored eggs were also served, in the inside of which were found nuts, jellies, meats and confections. When one of the Americans asked the interpreter to explain this legerdemain of cookery, he laughed heartily, shook his head and replied: "Melican man heap smart — why he not findee out?"

The orange "trick" is easy to see through. A hole about of the size a ten-cent piece is made in the skin, through which the pulp is taken out; then one kind of jelly, warmed so that it will run, is poured into the orange; when it has cooled another is poured in, and so on until the orange is filled. When the jellies are different colors, the effect on cutting the orange is very striking.



He Made a Mistake

A Michigan farmer, named Harris, has had so many adventures with burglars that he never dares in go to market, in Detroit, without having a gun behind him in his wagon.

Soon after daylight last Tuesday he saw something on the highway that looked like a horse blanket, and while he was getting out of the wagon to pick it up a man confronted him and cried out: "I was waiting for you to come along." Without delay the cautions farmer seized his gun and fired a charge of bird shot almost in the face of the enemy, who retreated in great disorder, screaming and yelling.

The farmer drove on very complacently, thinking that he would have a good story for the boys at the tavern, but discovered a few yards down the road a broken wagon loaded with poultry. The man whom he had stuffed with bird shot was not a robber, but a small farmer who had lost his horse blanket and gone back to look for it.

The repentant marksman went back and tried to comfort his unfortunate fellow-traveler, and found him sitting on a log and counting the wounds — some thirty or more.

Note: "Last Tuesday was sometime in January 1878 or perhaps 1877 sometime. By the way, how do you like the guy's policy of shoot first and ask questions later? Not so good. He could've pulled the gun and had the guy state his business.