A PECULIAR TORTURE.

Inangahua Times, Volume II, Issue II, 10 May 1880, Page 2

A PECULIAR TORTURE.

Having a photograph taken is one of the great events in a man's life. The chiet desire is to look the very best ; and on the success of the picture hinges, in many eases the most important epoch in li f e. To work up a proper appearance time enough is used, which, if devoted to catching fleas for tbeir phosphorus would cancel the entire national debt, and estab lish a New York daily paper. Wben ""you have completed your toilet, you go to the gallery and foroe yourself into a nonchalance of expression that is too absurd for anything. Then you take the chair, spread yonr legs gracefully, appropriate a calm and indifferent look, and commence to perspire. An attenuated man with a pale face, long bair, and a soiled no*e, now comes out of a cavern •and ajusts the camera. Then he gets . back of yon, and tells you to bit back as far as you can in tbe ebair, and that it has been a remarkably backward spring After getting you back till your spine interferes with the chair itself, he shoves your head into a pair of ice- tongs, and dashes at the camera again. Here, with a piece of discolored velvet-over his bead, he bombards in this manner : «« Your chin out a litt'e, please."" The chin is protruded. ' That's nicely : now a little more. The chin advances again ; and the pomade commences to melt, and start for freedom. Then he comes back to you, and slaps one of your hands on yonr leg in such a position as to give yon the ap« pearance of trying to lift ii over your bead. The other is turned under itself, and has become so sweaty, that you begin to fear that ifc will stick there per* manently. A new stream of pomade finds its way out, and starts downward. Then he shakes your bead in the tongs till it settles right, and says it looks lit c rain, and puts your chin out again, and punches out your chest, and says he doesn't know what the poor are to do next winter, unless there is a radical change in affairs ; and then takes the top of your head in one hand, and your chin in the other, and gives your Deck a wrench that would earn any otber man a prominent position in a new hospital. Then he runs his hand through your hair, and scratches your scalp, and steps back to the camera and the injured yelvet for another look. By tbis time, new sweat and pomade have started out. Tbe whites of your eyes show unpleasantly • and your whole body feels as if it had been visited by an enormous cramp, and another and much bigger one was momentarily expected. Tben he points at something for yon to iook at ; tells yon to look cheerful and composed ; and snatches away the velvet, and pulls out his watch. When he get 3 tired, and you feel as if there was but very little left in this world to live for, he restores the velvet, says it is an unfavourable day for a picture, but he hopes for the best, and immediately dia ippea^s in his den. Tben yon get up and stretch yourself, slap on your hat, and immediately sneak home, feeling mpan, humbled, and altogether too wretched for description. The first friend wbo see 3 the picture says he can see enough resemblance to mike certain tbat it is you ; but yoa have tried to look too formal to be natural and graceful.