[B6] "The Bore Sensitive," Spirit of the Times, Feb. 8, 1842

FLIB ON BORES.—The Bore Sensitive.—Now, Mr. Editor, the bore sensitive is a very small thing, but just as annoying as it is diminutive. It meddles with every body's business, and has a finger in every body's pie. It is the gad fly of society, the grasshopper of every cabbage leaf, the cricket of every hearth, and the beetle with great buzzing wings that pops into every body's face just as every body don't want it to pop into their face. This bore is the especial pest of the sanctum. Our friend BLATHER-SCRITE, ESQ., is the personification of this class. If you happen to publish an account in the City News how Mrs. Jones, the molasses candy woman up town, had her little boy killed by a wagon running over its dear little body, the Curnel comes to you next day, with a—"Good heavens! My dear D—, but you don't know how much injury your account of the matter is calculated to do to old Mrs. Jones—run over the body—pah! This is totally and entirely untrue. The child was killed by the wheel of a hand cart-a hand cart, mind ye-passing over its right foot—right foot, understand me-between-now mark what I say—the little joint of the fourth toe, and the principal joint of the big toe. Here let me—it's a matter of the utmost importance to Mrs. Jones that this thing should be understood-here let me illustrate it to you." The bore sensitive is very apt to make a judy of itself at every public gathering from a Methodist class meeting up to a "no capital punishment" gathering. He makes ridiculous speeches, and then comes and harangues you for reporting them. The bore sensitive makes blustering harangues and sometimes gets hissed—when he exclaims, "The person who uttered that hiss is no gentleman. I'd like some gentleman to point him out to me." He is answered by a—"Here I am, sir—what do you want with me?" "Why," replies the bore sensitive, "you oughtn't to have done that." The bore sensitive is a—

"Is that boy not gone? Turn him out—the libeller."