A Humorous Sketch of Pompeii's Troubles with Vesuvius

1886

A Brief Sketch of Pompeii

Pompeii was founded by Pompey II, hence its name. It was built at the foot of Mount Vesuvius to catch the tourist traffic in lemonade, peanuts, palm leaf fans and other articles necessary for those who came to Mount Vesuvius.

One day when this frolicsome mountain was in a state of violent eruption, like a boy taken down with the measles, it became sick at the stomach and threw up such a quantity of ashes that Pompeii with all its pomp was buried quite out of sight. A prohibition candidate in a distillery district could not be more completely snowed under.

Never was there such a tumble in ashes as was observed that day. They were absolutely a drug in the market. Folks wouldn't cart them away as a gift.

And still ashes continued to fall. Everybody was panic stricken. They began to wail and put on sackcloth, but the disparity between the limited amount of sackcloth and the illimitable quantity of ashes was ludicrous in the extreme. People demanded with ashen faces, when is this to end? But it came to an end after a while, and Pompeii too.

You have heard of ashes of roses? Well, nobody ever rose from those ashes.

For nearly eighteen hundred years Pompeii lay asleep, and it would have been an ash-heap to this day had not some scientific explorers come scratching around the base of Mount Vesuvius — for to such base uses do they come at last — and discovered surface indications of the lost city. They continued digging, and it was not long before the Phenix arose from its ashes.

This was the Phenix Hotel, the most popular in Pompeii. The guests were all in their rooms; although many of them had left orders with the porter to be called for the early morning train. Eighteen hundred years waiting to be called! Many hotel porters are that way now.

The head clerk of the Phenix had disappeared, but they found his mammoth diamond pin, by the illumination of which they were enabled to continue their explorations.

They kept on digging and pretty soon they unearthed a theatre with a whole minstrel band seated in a row on the stage. The audience were in their seats, too, entirely petrified — an end man had gotten off a new joke. The stage was thickly covered with chestnuts, all of which were carefully collected and shipped to America, where they were eagerly bought up by the minstrels, who continue to use them, encrusted, as they are, with the ashes of Pompeii.

And still they dug and dug.

A newspaper office was the next thing that came to light. The editor was discovered in the attitude of holding up his right hand before a notary, swearing that his circulation exceeded that of all the other papers combined. "Old Subscriber" was sitting in the editor's chair writing a communication for the wastebasket, too much absorbed in his work to notice the fall in ashes. "Veteran Observer" was at another desk preparing an article on the subject of "Strikes." On the bulletin board in front of the office was an announcement that Susan B. Anthony would speak that evening on the subject of "Woman's Rights."

We hare not space to enumerate all the curious things that were brought to light by the excavations at Pompeii. The spade revealed the ovens where those venerable but athletic pics were baked that now adorn so many of our railroad lunch counters. The genuine have the letter P fly-blown on the crust.

The number of skeletons actually found among the ashes of Pompeii was small when compared with the census of the city, and this was a mystery until posters were found on the dead walls announcing a lecture by "Eli Perkins," when all was explained. It was the day before the fatal tempest of ashes when these posters were discovered, and on reading them thousands of the panic-stricken inhabitants broke for the woods, and in this way their lives were miraculously preserved. — Texas Siftings.