University of Virginia Library

A STARTLING AFFAIR.

A HORSE attached to the cart of a tin-peddler, while on Balmforth Avenue, Friday, became startled, and ran away at a speed that was marvellous in a tin-peddler's horse. The wagon was old and rickety; and the horse did not appear to be in a better condition of repairs: but both of them got through that avenue with awful velocity; the former hooping its spine, and shaking its head, and throwing

its heels uproariously; while the latter reeled from one side the road to the other, and bounded from rut to rut, and threw an invoice of old junk and new tinware at every heave. One old lady was caught around the neck by a pair of satinet pants, and nearly choked to death; and a hoop-skirt, badly damaged, descended over the head of a man who was telling a neighbor what his mother rubbed on sprains, and so frightened him, that he fell over a barrel, and put both his ankles out of joint, and was bit on the shoulder by the dog of the man he was trying to benefit. The horse, having filled the air with boilers, and old vests, and flatirons, and worthless overalls, and brass kettles, and broken-down gaiters, suddenly fetched up by jumping off the bridge, and into the river, dragging the wagon and a moth-eaten undershirt in after it.