The poor pedler in vain
endeavored to stay a ravage that, once begun, became epidemical. He
struggled and strove with tenacious hand, holding on to sundry of his
choicest bales, and claiming protection from the chair, until warned of
his imprudent zeal in behalf of goods so little deserving of the risk,
by the sharp and sudden application of an unknown hand to his ears which
sent him reeling against the table, and persuaded him into as great a
degree of patience, as, under existing circumstances, he could be well
expected to exhibit. Article after article underwent a like analysis of
its strength and texture, and a warm emulation took place among the
rioters, as to their several capacities in the work of destruction. The
shining bottoms were torn from the tin-wares in order to prove that such
a separation was possible, and it is doing but brief justice to the
pedler to say, that, whatever, in fact, might have been the true
character of his commodities, the very choicest of human fabrics could
never have resisted the various tests of bone and sinew, tooth and nail,
to which they were indiscriminately subjected.
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