" And we can never think without a smile of that gifted genius,
whoever he was, who described a certain public exercise as _"the most
eloquent prayer ever addressed to a Boston audience."_ He surely created
a new and striking idiom.
The boys do, as Young America should, their share. And the sayings of
street urchins endure with singular tenacity. Like their sports, which
follow laws of their own, uninfluenced by meteorological considerations,
tending to the sedentary games of marbles in the cold, chilly spring,
and bursting into base-and foot-ball in the midsummer solstice, strict
tradition hands down from boy to boy the well-worn talk. There are still
"busters," as in our young days, and the ardent youth upon floating
cakes of ice "run bendolas" or "kittly-benders," or simply "benders." In
different latitudes the phrase varies,--one-half of it going to Plymouth
Colony, and the other abiding in Massachusetts Bay. And this tendency to
dismember a word is curiously shown in that savory fish which the
Indian christened "scup-paug." Eastward he swims as "scup," while at the
Manhattan end of the Sound he is fried as "porgie." And apropos of him,
let us note a curious instance of the tenacity of associated ideas.
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