Broadside entitled 'The Monkey Barber'

Transcription

THE

Monkey Barber.

AN ACCOUNT OF THE

Wonderful Monkey

OF GLASGOW,

Who turned Barber, to Shave the Irish Farmers who
came over to reap the Harvest, with a description of
the Ludicrous Catastrophe attending his first experi-
ment in that profession.

THIS Monkey being alone in a barber's shop, when in came a
broad-shouldered, well-trimmed, lusty Hibernian, who ,sat
himself down in a chair, and put his oaken cudgel under his thigh,
and said to the Monkey, " Ould gentleman, I want to be shaved."
The Monkey, willing to try his skill in the art of shaving, took the
basin and brush, and performed the operation of lathering with
great dexterity, but did not prove so skilful in using the razor : he
drew blood at the first stroke?the second and third took some pieces
out of his chin and part of his nose, to make it more level, which
so roused the blood of our Hibernian hero, that he jumped on his
feet and cried out, " You bandy-legged, pistol-shinned shamrock !
long-tailed, beatle-browed, pig-faced, long-nosed rascal! da you cut
people's faces off here ?    Arrah ! man, I will dash the guts out of
your skull in one moment!"    The barber's son, hearing a noise in
the shop, came down stairs, and asked what was the matter ?" It is
not matter at all, at all, it is all blood ; your ould rascal of a father is
not fit to scrape a dead horse, or scrape a pig ; do vou see he has cut
my nose and half my face off ?"    " Sir, you must be mistaken, my
father has been dead forty thousand years ? but who has bled you ?"
" Why, the rascal has gone up the chimney with the smoke !" " Then
I suppose it is the monkey that has done this bad trick."    " I
do not care whether he be a monk, priest, friar or a General Monk,
I swear by the oath of Moses, by the rocks of Ballyshannon, by the
mountains of Morne, if ever I catch him, dead or alive, I will dash
the guts out of his skull, if I am hanged up for it next moment!''
" Sir, you seem to be a highblooded gentleman and may be descended
from some noble family." " And sure, and so I am, for I am of the
blood of the great O'Branaghans, and the O'Callaghans, likewise
the family of the Fitzpatricks." "Then, sir, Fitzpatrick is your name."
" My name is Patrick Fitzpatrick, from Down Patrick, born at the
sign of St Patrick, in Patrick's lane, on St Patrick's Day in the morn-
ing, as good a shentleman as ever left the sod."

In the meantime, in came a recruiting serjeant, and said, " How
do you, countryman ? " " Indeed, and in troth, if you did but
know my sad condition, you would pity my case, to see the scoun-
drel of a barber who has cut my nose and my face off" " I see
you are badly treated, but come along with me, and I will give you
a glass of good Irish whisky, and dress your wounds." " Good luck
to you ! I will freely spend a five-penny bit with you, if you can
tell me about my brother, Dennis O'Callaghan that went to the
wars with our dear countryman, the Duke of Wellington, and
knocked the brains out of forty thousand Frenchmen, in one day !
The Duke, hearing of his birth and parentage, gave him a great
post in the army ; made him a general, or an admiral, or a corpo-
ral, or a scoundral, or some great post with a ral in it."

The barber's son got rid of his funny customer, the monkey
came down the chimney, stifled with smoke, and never shaved an-
other Irish Farmer since.

Edinburgh ;... Price One Penny,

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