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No. 5

"FUNNY JOE"

His surname need not be mentioned, but he went by the name of "Funny
Joe." He was the son of a clergyman of the Church of England, sharp
witted, and well educated; but his moral character, from some cause or
another, became quite disorganised, and to the grief of his parents he
left his home and took to the sea. His education there stood him in good
stead, and under new surroundings he improved for the time, and
eventually rose to be chief mate of a ship. Had he persevered in this
good course, he would in all probability have succeeded well in the
mercantile service; but events proved otherwise, and on his second
voyage as mate he was, he said, wrongfully charged as being both
insolent and insubordinate to his commander, and on the arrival of the
vessel at the Cape of Good Hope he was discharged. Left with but small
means, and, to him, almost on foreign soil, he bethought himself of some
expedient for making money; so, getting hold of a sailor loafing at the
port, he talked matters over with him, and they decided upon clubbing
their resources, hiring a hall, and circulating posters that on a
certain night at "so much," and "so much" for entrance, a man might be
seen "walking on the ceiling like a fly." On the night advertised the
hall was crowded. "Funny Joe" then went to his companion, who was
collecting the money, and took from him the amount he had received, and
told him he might have all the rest that he could collect. He (Funny
Joe) then decamped, and was never heard of more in Cape Town. He was
next at Rangoon, where he got into the same plight for want of funds;
but his mother wit came to his aid again, and this time he posed before
the public as a naturalist who had discovered off the coast what he
pronounced could be nothing else than a "mermaid," and for the
exhibition of this marine creature, which he had cleverly constructed
from the head and breast of an ape and half the body of a fish, he
obtained a good round sum. We hear of him next at Singapore, where he
also advertised his "mermaid" as being on exhibition at a certain
boarding establishment. There, however, the "mermaid" did not succeed,
and his funds being exhausted he possessed himself of a watch and some
cash, the property of the people of the house with whom he lodged, and
for which he was sent to jail. Here he came under some strict discipline
and good wholesome advice, and it was in the Singa