sacrificable?
The following "rather curious piece of composition" was written on the blackboard at a teachers institute, and a prize of a Webster's Dictionary offered to any person who could read it and pronounce every word correctly. No one walked away with the prize.

A sacrilegious son of Belial who has suffered from bronchitis, having exhausted his finances, in order to make good the deficit, resolved to ally himself to a comely, lenient and docile young lady of Malay or Caucasian race. He accordingly purchased a calliope and coral necklace of a chameleon hue and securing a suite of rooms at a principal hotel he engaged the head waiter as his coadjutor. He then dispatched a letter of the most unexceptional calligraphy extant, inviting the young lady to a matinee. She revolted at the idea, refused to consider herself sacrificable to his desires and sent a polite note of refusal, on receiving which he procured a carbine and bowie knife, said that he would not now forge fetters hymeneal with the queen and went to an isolated spot, severed his jugular vein and discharged the contents of the carbine into his abdomen. The debris was removed by the coroner.

Is sacrificable a word or a typo in the original? I'll admit that "coadjutor" was not a word in my vocabulary.

Teachers institutes? In Kingsbury County, the first was held beginning October 21, 1884, and continuing for six days. The fees paid to the county superintendent for the teachers examination were used to pay for the institute, so they were held only as often as there were funds available. They were begun simply as a means to constructively utilize the collected fees, and were designed to present advanced training for teachers so that they might become better at their profession. All teachers in the county were required to attend, but non-teachers could attend if they paid to do so. The fees were used to hire instructors and furnish supplies.
- posted by pioneergirl at 10:50 PM