This was something that I wrote to submit to McSweeney’s, but it wasn’t accepted. Now you get to enjoy it right here. It’s a pretty niche thing but hopefully some of you will like it.
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PREXY PUNCTURED
Honest Abe Caught Lying (In State)
Abraham Lincoln was fatally shot last night, during a perf of ‘Our American Cousin’ at Ford’s hardtop in Washington, D.C. Actor-assassin John Wilkes Booth fled the scene after pulling the plug on the prexy.
Tophat was enjoying the milestone one-thousandth bow by thesp Laura Keene in the Tom Taylor-penned laffer. Booth entered the aud undetected and made his way to Lincoln’s private box, where he fired one shot to the head that ankled the politico.
Major Henry Rathbone of Albany grappled with the assass but was knifed for his trouble. Booth leapt to the stage but caught one hoof on a flag, taking a hard fall. Witnesses report he cried “Sic semper tyrannis” before mounting an oater waiting outside. Latin chirp is state motto of Virginia.
Lincoln was taken across the lane to Peterson’s boarder, where for nine hours he kept up a snoozer before finally doornailing. Docs drained Tophat’s thinker-fluids through the night, but the Emancipator shuffled off the coil at 7:22 a.m.
State Sec’y William Seward was attacked at home on same night by Lewis Powell, though the 3rd-in-liner breathed through the event. Stabber Powell failed to finish off the sec’y and sliced through five present before fleeing. Solons say the the plot was part of an umbrella pact to pinkslip the prexyship.
Army topper Ulysses Grant was skedded to join Lincoln for the perf but nixed.
Gov’t has tapped veepee Andrew Johnson to assume prexy powers.
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BEANTOWN DRINKS DEEP
‘Sons’ Liberate 45 Tons
‘Sons of Liberty’ helmer Samuel Adams led a ragtag crew to Griffin’s Wharf late last night, where the Indian-garbed creepers hoofed aboard a trio of British merch-haulers and dumped 90,000 lbs. of East India Co. tea into Boston Harbor.
England has enjoyed socko tax revs on merch in the 13 cols since the Stamp Act of 1765. Beantown trader John Hancock’s evasive maneuvers around Old World rev streams meant boffo biz for the goodsman, but the competish made choppy waters for O.W. merchants. Notably, British tea distrib East India Co. faced a major downturn in all sectors and appealed to London for bailout.
Meanwhile, crix of the Kingery have decried the lack of U.S. reps across the pond. British lawbuilders have imposed their payola scheme on the cols without inviting the R-pronouncers to rest their cheeks in Parliam.
The resulting Tea Act led to the recent seizure of Hancock’s bizfloater by Redcoat coin-counters and led to confabs around the cols mulling takeover bids against the Kingery. Adams and other indie tubthumpers have called for the ouster of East India Co. execs and whipped up a series of powwows rallying plebes to their position.
Said kettle boiled over last night with the wharf walkon. Vessels HMS Dartmouth, HMS Beaver and HMS Eleanour were overboarded of product worth a cume of £10K.
Expat Benjamin Franklin has offered to cover the East India Co.’s nuts.
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PILGRIMS, INK
Plymouth Pact ‘May’ Flower
New World scribe William Bradford reports that 41 settlers have inked a deal for a ‘civill body politick’ in Cape Cod. Previously set up with the London Co., tyro citybuilders declined to re-up with the English land distrib and instead are hanging their own shingle as the Plymouth Co. So-called ‘Mayflower Compact’ calls for ‘just & equall lawes’ and will be helmed by John Carver.
Floaters eyeballed Provincetown before making land at Plymouth. Praisers cite ‘abundance of firewood and fresh water’ as keys in the decision. Buckleshoes’ current slate calls for first settlement to preem in the Virginia Colony by 4Q ’20. Sources claim the Ps will also continue to use the Georgian Calendar.
Jamestown topper John Smith called the Plymouth pondhoppers ‘bloody wankers’ and wished them ‘luck surviving the winter.’