Metaphysical Scientists' Fourth of July Oration

Fellow-citizens! We congratulate you upon a larger scale than is general, yea, upon the fifty-eight hundredth independence of several nothings, among whom are quadruped, biped, pig-head, monkey and the rest of mankind. We also enter our bill of complaint against several more nothings, which are gastritis, enteritis, spino-meningitis and drinking grog gratis. How do you like my oration? [Three cheers, and cries of "Go on."] Fellow citizens! I hail with lachrymal laughter this abundant day and your Dollyvarden table, that ought to groan because it can't rap under the metaphysical avoirdupois of so many nothings. I congratulate you on this green oasis in the desert of life, whereby and wherein, after a greener desert, you can enter your metaphysical protest against dining on animal corpses, and cannibalism in general, whereunto metaphysicians are not specially called; therefore and in consequence thereof you can leave these picturesque viands without collapsing into the first stages of decomposition from lack of pulverization.—Young America.