....  The man who was shot last week at the Gulch will be buried next Thursday.  He is not yet dead, but his physician wishes to visit a mother-in-law at Lard Springs, and is therefore very anxious to get the case off his hands.  The undertaker describes the patient as “the longest cuss in that section.”—­Santa Peggie “Times.”

....  There is some dispute about land titles at Little Bilk Bar.  About half a dozen cases were temporarily decided on Wednesday, but it is supposed the widows will renew the litigation.  The only proper way to prevent these vexatious lawsuits is to hang the Judge of the County Court.—­Cow-County “Outcropper.”

POESY.

Ye Idyll of Ye Hippopopotamus.

    With a Methodist hymn in his musical throat,
    The Sun was emitting his ultimate note;
    His quivering larynx enwrinkled the sea
    Like an Ichthyosaurian blowing his tea;
    When sweetly and pensively rattled and rang
    This plaint which an Hippopopotamus sang: 

    “O, Camomile, Calabash, Cartilage-pie,
    Spread for my spirit a peppermint fry;
    Crown me with doughnuts, and drape me with cheese,
    Settle my soul with a codliver sneeze. 
    Lo, how I stand on my head and repine—­
    Lollipop Lumpkin can never be mine!”

    Down sank the Sun with a kick and a plunge,
    Up from the wave rose the head of a Sponge;
    Ropes in his ringlets, eggs in his eyes,
    Tip-tilted nose in a way to surprise. 
    These the conundrums he flung to the breeze,
    The answers that Echo returned to him these: 

        “Cobblestone, Cobblestone, why do you sigh—­
       Why do you turn on the tears?”

        “My mother is crazy on strawberry jam,
       And my father has petrified ears.”

        “Liverwort, Liverwort, why do you droop—­
       Why do you snuffle and scowl?”

        “My brother has cockle-burs into his eyes,
       And my sister has married an owl.”

        “Simia, Simia, why do you laugh—­
       Why do you cackle and quake?”

        “My son has a pollywog stuck in his throat,
       And my daughter has bitten a snake.”

    Slow sank the head of the Sponge out of sight,
    Soaken with sea-water-then it was night. 
    The Moon had now risen for dinner to dress,
    When sweetly the Pachyderm sang from his nest;
    He sang through a pestle of silvery shape,
    Encrusted with custard-empurpled with crape;
    And this was the burden he bore on his lips,
    And blew to the listening Sturgeon that sips
    From the fountain of opium under the lobes
    Of the mountain whose summit in buffalo robes
    The winter envelops, as Venus adorns
    An elephant’s trunk with a chaplet of thorns: 

        “Chasing mastodons through marshes upon stilts of light ratan,
        Hunting spiders with a shotgun and mosquitoes with an axe,
        Plucking peanuts ready roasted from the branches of the oak,
        Waking echoes in the forest with our hymns of blessed bosh,