Project Gutenberg's The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1
#1 of this seven part series by Charles Farrar Browne
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Title: The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1
Author: Charles Farrar Browne
Release Date: June, 2002 [Etext #3271]
[Yes, we are over one year ahead of schedule]
[The actual date this file first posted = 03/09/01]
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Project Gutenberg's The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1
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This etext was produced by anonymous Project Gutenberg Volunteers
The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Complete Works of Artemus Ward
(Charles Farrar Browne) Part 1
THE COMPLETE WORKS OF ARTEMUS WARD
(CHARLES FARRAR BROWNE)
WITH:
PRELIMINARY NOTES BY JOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN.
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH BY MELVILLE D. LANDON, "ELI PERKINS"
AN INTRODUCTION BY T.W. ROBERTSON.
A PREFATORY NOTE BY EDWARD P. HINGSTON.
CONTENTS.
PRELIMINARY NOTES BY JOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN.
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH BY MELVILLE D. LANDON.
AN INTRODUCTION BY T.W. ROBERTSON.
A PREFATORY NOTE BY EDWARD P. HINGSTON.
PART I.
ESSAYS, SKETCHES, AND LETTERS.
1.1. One of Mr. Ward's Business Letters.
1.2. On "Forts."
1.3. The Shakers.
1.4. High-handed Outrage at Utica.
1.5. Celebration at Baldinsville.
1.6. Among the Spirits.
1.7. On the Wing.
1.8. The Octoroon.
1.9. Experience as an Editor.
1.10. Oberlin.
1.11. The Showman's Courtship.
1.12. The Crisis.
1.13. Wax Figures vs. Shakespeare.
1.14. Among the Free Lovers.
1.15. A Visit to Brigham Young.
1.16. Scandalous doings at Pittsburg.
1.17. The Census.
1.18. An Honest Living.
1.19. The Press.
1.20. Edwin Forest as Othello.
1.21. The Show Business and Popular Lectures.
1.22. Woman's Rights.
1.23. Would-be Sea Dogs.
1.24. The Prince of Wales.
1.25. Piccolomini.
1.26. Little Patti.
1.27. Ossawatomie Brown.
1.28. Joy in the House of Ward.
1.29. Boston. (A. Ward to his Wife.)
1.30. How Old Abe Received the News of his Nomination.
1.31. Interview with President Lincoln.
1.32. Interview with the Prince Napoleon.
1.33. Agriculture.
1.34. Busts.
1.35. A Hard Case.
1.36. Affairs around the Village Green.
1.37. About Editors.
1.38. Editing.
1.39. Popularity.
1.40. A Little Difficulty in the Way.
1.41. Colored People's Church.
1.42. Spirits.
1.43. Mr. Blowhard.
1.44. Market Morning.
1.45. We See Two Witches.
1.46. From a Homely Man.
1.47. The Elephant.
1.48. How the Napoleon of Sellers was Sold.
1.49. On Autumn.
1.50. Paying for his Provender by Praying.
1.51. Hunting Trouble.
1.52. Dark Doings.
1.53. Reporters.
1.54. He had the Little Voucher In His Pocket.
1.55. The Gentlemanly Conductor.
1.56. Morality and Genius.
1.57. Rough Beginning of the Honeymoon.
1.58. A Colored man of the Name of Jeffries.
1.59. Names.
1.60. He found he Would.
1.61. "Burial in Richmond and Resurrection in Boston."
1.62. A Mayoralty Election.
1.63. Fishing Excursion.
PART II.
WAR.
2.1. The Show is Confiscated.
2.2. Thrilling Scenes in Dixie.
2.3. Fourth of July Oration.
2.4. The War Fever in Baldinsville.
2.5. A War Meeting.
2.6. The Draft in Baldinsville.
2.7. Surrender of Cornwallis.
2.8. Things in New York.
2.9. Touching Letter from a Gory Member.
2.10. In Canada.
2.11. The Noble Red Man.
2.12. Artemus Ward in Richmond.
2.13. Artemus Ward to the Prince of Wales.
PART III.
STORIES AND ROMANCES.
3.1. Moses the Sassy; or, The Disguised Duke.
3.2. Marion: A Romance of the French School.
3.3. William Barker, the Young Patriot.
3.4. A Romance--The Conscript.
3.5. A Romance--Only a Mechanic.
3.6. Roberto the Rover; A Tale of Sea and Shore.
3.7. Red Hand: A Tale of Revenge.
3.8. Pyrotechny: A Romance after the French.
3.9. The Last of the Culkinses.
3.10. A Mormon Romance--Reginald Gloverson.
PART IV.
TO CALIFORNIA AND RETURN.
4.1. On the Steamer.
4.2. The Isthmus.
4.3. Mexico.
4.4. California.
4.5. Washoe.
4.6. Mr. Pepper.
4.7. Horace Greely's Ride to Placerville.
4.8. To Reese River.
4.9. Great Salt Lake City.
4.10. The Mountain Fever.
4.11. "I am Here."
4.12. Brigham Young.
4.13. A Piece is Spoken.
4.14. The Ball.
4.15. Phelp's Almanac.
4.16. Hurrah for the Road.
4.17. Very Much Married.
4.18. The Revelation of Joseph Smith.
PART V.
THE LONDON PUNCH LETTERS.
5.1. Arrival in London.
5.2. Personal Recollections.
5.3. The Green Lion and Oliver Cromwell.
5.4. At the Tomb of Shakespeare.
5.5. Introduction to the Club.
5.6. The Tower of London.
5.7. Science and Natural History.
5.8. A Visit to the British Museum.
PART VI.
ARTEMUS WARD'S PANORAMA.
6.1. Prefatory Note by Melville D. Landon.
6.2. The Egyptian Hall Lecture.
6.3. "The Times" Notice.
6.4. Programme of the Egyptian Hall Lecture.
6.5. Announcement and Programme of the Dodworth Hall Lecture.
PART VII.
MISCELLANEOUS.
7.1. The Cruise of the Polly Ann.
7.2. Artemus Ward's Autobiography.
7.3. The Serenade.
7.4. O'Bourcy's "Arrah-na-Pogue."
7.5. Artemus Ward among the Fenians.
7.6. Artemus Ward in Washington.
7.7. Scenes Outside the Fair Grounds.
7.8. The Wife.
7.9. A Juvenile Composition On the Elephant.
7.10. A Poem by the Same.
7.11. East Side Theatricals.
7.12. Soliloquy of a Low Thief.
7.13. The Negro Question.
7.14. Artemus Ward on Health.
7.15. A Fragment.
7.16. Brigham Young's Wives.
7.17. A. Ward's First Umbrella.
7.18. An Affecting Poem.
7.19. Mormon Bill of Fare.
7.20. "The Babes in the Wood."
7.21. Mr. Ward Attends a Graffick (Soiree.)
7.22. A. Ward Among the Mormons.--Reported by Himself--or Somebody Else.
* * *
PUBLISHERS' PREFACE TO THE NEW (1898) EDITION.
The present edition is of a work which has been for more than
thirty years prominently before the public, and which may justly
be said to have maintained a standard character. It is issued
because of a demand for a BETTER EDITION than has ever been
published.
In order to supply this acknowledged want, the publishers have
enlarged and perfected this edition by adding some matter not
heretofore published in book form.
More than one hundred thousand copies of the work have been
printed. The plates had become so worn as to render it
unreadable, yet the sale kept on. In preparing this new edition,
many of the author's fragmentary pieces, not contained in the old
edition, have been added. The earliest of the author's writings,
published in periodicals in 1862, are included, together with
many additional illustrations, which now, for the first time,
make the work complete.
It is universally conceded that no country in the world has ever
produced a genius like Artemus Ward. Writers of ACKNOWLEDGED
GENIUS are never very numerous. He attained a great and deserved
popularity, which will be lasting.
It has been observed that the wit of one generation is rarely
appreciated by the next, but this is not true of Artemus Ward.
There is a constant demand for his writings, for the reason that
his jokes require no appendix for their elucidation. No one who
speaks the English language can fail to appreciate his wonderful
humor. It will always be funny. There is a fascination about it
which can neither be questioned nor resisted. His particular
niche in the temple of Fame will not be claimed by another. His
intellect was sharp and electric. He saw the humor of anything
at a glance, and his manner of relating these laughter-provoking
absurdities is original and "fetching."
PRELIMINARY NOTES BY JOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN.
Piccadilly, W. Jan. 30, 1865.
There is a story of two "smart" Yankees, one named Hosea and the
other Hezekiah, who met in an oyster shop in Boston. Said Hosea,
"As to opening oysters, why nothing's easier if you only know
how." "And how's how?" asked Hezekiah. "Scotch snuff," replied
Hosea, very gravely--"Scotch snuff. Bring a little of it ever so
near their noses, and they'll sneeze their lids off." "I know a
man who knows a better plan," observed Hezekiah. "He spreads the
bivalves in a circle, seats himself in the centre, reads a
chapter of Artemus Ward to them, and goes on until they get
interested. One by one they gape with astonishment at A. Ward's
whoppers, and as they gape my friend whips 'em out, peppers away,
and swallows 'em."
Excellent as all that Artemus Ward writes really is, and
exuberantly overflowing with humour as are nearly all his
articles, it is too bad to accuse him of telling "whoppers." On
the contrary, the old Horatian question of "Who shall forbid me
to speak truth in laughter?" seems ever present to his mind. His
latest production is the admirable paper "Artemus Ward among the
Fenians" which appears in Part 7.
If Artemus has on any occasion really told "whoppers," it has
been in his announcements of being about to visit England. From
time to time he has stated his intention of visiting this
country, and from time to time has he disappointed his English
friends.
He was coming to England after his trip to California, when,
laden with gold, he could think of no better place to spend it
in.
He was on his way to England when he and his companion, Mr.
Hingston, encountered the Pi-ute Indians, and narrowly escaped
scalping.
He was leaving for England with "Betsy Jane" and the "snaiks"
before the American war was ended.
He had unscrewed the head of each of his "wax figgers," and sent
each on board in a carpet-bag, labelled "For England," just as Mr
Lincoln was assassinated.
He was hastening to England when the news came a few weeks ago
that he had been blown up in an oil well!
He has been on his way to England in every newspaper of the
American Union for the last two years.
Here is the latest announcement:
"Artemus Ward, in a private letter, states that Doctor Kumming,
the famous London seer and profit, having foretold that the end
of the world will happen on his own birthday in January 1867, he,
Artemus, will not visit England until the latter end of 1866,
when the people there will be selling off, and dollars will be
plentiful. Mr. Ward says that he shall leave England in the last
steamer, in time to see the American eagle spread his wings, and
with the stars and stripes in his beek and tallents, sore away to
his knativ empyrehum.--" American Paper.
But even this is likely to be a "whopper," for a more reliable
private letter from Artemus declares his fixed purpose to leave
for England in the steamship City of Boston early in June; and
the probabilities are that he will be stepping on English shores
just about the time that these pages go to press.
Lest anything should happen to him, and England be for ever
deprived of seeing him, the most recent production of his pen,
together with two or three of his best things, are here embalmed
for preservation, on the principle adopted by the affectionate
widow of the bear-trainer of Perpignan. "I have nothing left,"
said the woman; "I am absolutely without a roof to shelter me and
the poor animal." "Animal!" exclaimed the prefect; "you don't
mean to say that you keep the bear that devoured your husband?"
"Alas!" she replied, "it is all that is left to me of the poor
dear man!"
If any other excuse be needed for thus presenting the British
public with A. Ward's "last," in addition to the pertinency of
the article and its real merit, that excuse may be found in the
fact that it is thoroughly new to readers on this side of the
Atlantic.
The general public will undoubtedly receive "Artemus Ward among
the Fenians" with approving laughter. Should it fall into the
hands of a philo-Fenian the effect may be different. To him it
would probably have the wrong action of the Yankee bone-picking
machine.
"I've got a new machine," said a Yankee pedlar, "for picking
bones out of fish. Now, I tell you, it's a leetle bit the
darndest thing you ever did see. All you have to do is to set it
on a table and turn a crank, and the fish flies right down your
throat and the bones right under the grate. Well, there was a
country greenhorn got hold of it the other day, and he turned the
crank the wrong way; and, I tell you, the way the bones flew down
his throat was awful. Why, it stuck that fellow so full of
bones, that he could not get his shirt off for a whole week!"
In addition to the paper on the Fenians, two other articles by
Artemus Ward are reprinted in the present work. One relates to
the city of Washington, and the other to the author's imaginary
town of Baldinsville. Both are highly characteristic of the
writer and of his quaint spellings--a heterography not more odd
than that of the postmaster of Shawnee County, Missouri, who,
returning his account to the General Office, wrote, "I hearby
sertify that the four going A-Counte is as nere Rite as I now how
to make It, if there is any mistake it is not Dun a purpers."
Artemus Ward has created a new model for funny writers; and the
fact is noticeable that, in various parts of this country as well
as in his own, he has numerous puny imitators, who suppose that
by simply adopting his comic spelling they can write quite as
well as he can. Perhaps it would be as well if they remembered
the joke of poor Thomas Hood, who said that he could write as
well as Shakespere if he had the mind to, but the trouble was--he
had not got the mind.
* * *
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH BY MELVILLE D. LANDON.
Charles Farrar Browne, better known to the world as "Artemus
Ward," was born at Waterford, Oxford County, Maine, on the
twenty-sixth of April, 1834, and died of consumption at
Southampton, England, on Wednesday, the sixth of March, 1867.
His father, Levi Browne, was a land surveyor, and Justice of the
Peace. His mother, Caroline E. Brown, is still living, and is a
descendant from Puritan stock.
Mr. Browne's business manager, Mr. Hingston, once asked him about
his Puritanic origin, when he replied: "I think we came from
Jerusalem, for my father's name was Levi and we had a Moses and a
Nathan in the family, but my poor brother's name was Cyrus; so,
perhaps, that makes us Persians."
Charles was partially educated at the Waterford school, when
family circumstances induced his parents to apprentice him to
learn the rudiments of printing in the office of the "Skowhegan
Clarion," published some miles to the north of his native
village. Here he passed through the dreadful ordeal to which a
printer's "devil" is generally subjected. He always kept his
temper; and his eccentric boy jokes are even now told by the
residents of Skowhegan.
In the spring, after his fifteenth birthday, Charles Browne bade
farewell to the "Skowhegan Clarion;" and we next hear of him in
the office of the "Carpet-Bag," edited by B.P. Shillaber ("Mrs.
Partington"). Lean, lank, but strangely appreciative, young
Browne used to "set up" articles from the pens of Charles G.
Halpine ("Miles O'Reilly") and John G. Saxe, the poet. Here he
wrote his first contribution in a disguised hand, slyly put it
into the editorial box, and the next day disguised his pleasure
while setting it up himself. The article was a description of a
Fourth of July celebration in Skowhegan. The spectacle of the
day was a representation of the battle of Yorktown, with G.
Washington and General Horace Cornwallis in character. The
article pleased Mr. Shillaber, and Mr. Browne, afterwards
speaking of it, said: "I went to the theatre that evening, had a
good time of it, and thought I was the greatest man in Boston."
While engaged on the "Carpet-Bag," the subject of our sketch
closely studied the theatre and courted the society of actors and
actresses. It was in this way that he gained that correct and
valuable knowledge of the texts and characters of the drama,
which enabled him in after years to burlesque them so
successfully. The humorous writings of Seba Smith were his
models, and the oddities of "John Phoenix" were his especial
admiration.
Being of a roving temper Charles Browne soon left Boston, and,
after traveling as a journeyman printer over much of New York and
Massachusetts, he turned up in the town of Tiffin, Seneca County,
Ohio, where he became reporter and compositor at four dollars per
week. After making many friends among the good citizens of
Tiffin, by whom he is remembered as a patron of side shows and
traveling circuses, our hero suddenly set out for Toledo, on the
lake, where he immediately made a reputation as a writer of
sarcastic paragraphs in the columns of the Toledo "Commercial."
He waged a vigorous newspaper war with the reporters of the
Toledo "Blade," but while the "Blade" indulged in violent
vituperation, "Artemus" was good-natured and full of humor. His
column soon gained a local fame and everybody read it. His fame
even traveled away to Cleveland, where, in 1858, when Mr. Browne
was twenty-four years of age, Mr. J.W. Gray of the Cleveland
"Plaindealer" secured him as local reporter, at a salary of
twelve-dollars per week. Here his reputation first began to
assume a national character and it was here that they called him
a "fool" when he mentioned the idea of taking the field as a
lecturer. Speaking of this circumstance while traveling down the
Mississippi with the writer, in 1865, Mr. Browne musingly
repeated this colloquy:
WISE MAN:--"Ah! you poor foolish little girl--here is a dollar
for you."
FOOLISH LITTLE GIRL:--"Thank you, sir; but I have a sister at
home as foolish as I am; can't you give me a dollar for her?"
Charles Browne was not successful as a NEWS reporter, lacking
enterprise and energy, but his success lay in writing up in a
burlesque manner well-known public affairs like prize-fights,
races, spiritual meetings, and political gatherings. His
department became wonderfully humorous, and was always a favorite
with readers, whether there was any news in it or not. Sometimes
he would have a whole column of letters from young ladies in
reply to a fancied matrimonial advertisement, and then he would
have a column of answers to general correspondents like this:--
VERITAS:--Many make the same error. Mr. Key, who wrote the "Star
Spangled Banner," is not the author of Hamlet, a tragedy. He
wrote the banner business, and assisted in "The Female Pirate,"
BUT DID NOT WRITE HAMLET. Hamlet was written by a talented but
unscrupulous man named Macbeth, afterwards tried and executed for
"murdering sleep."
YOUNG CLERGYMAN:--Two pints of rum, two quarts of hot water, tea-
cup of sugar, and a lemon; grate in nutmeg, stir thoroughly and
drink while hot.
It was during his engagement on the "Plaindealer" that he wrote,
dating from Indiana, his first communication,--the first
published letter following this sketch, signed "Artemus Ward" a
sobriquet purely incidental, but borne with the "u" changed to an
"a" by an American revolutionary general. It was here that Mr.
Browne first became, IN WORDS, the possessor of a moral show
"consisting of three moral bares, the a kangaroo (a amoozing
little rascal; 'twould make you larf yourself to death to see the
little kuss jump and squeal), wax figures of G. Washington, &c.
&c." Hundreds of newspapers copied this letter, and Charles
Browne awoke one morning to find himself famous.
In the "Plaindealer" office, his companion, George Hoyt, writes:
"His desk was a rickety table which had been whittled and gashed
until it looked as if it had been the victim of lightning. His
chair was a fit companion thereto,--a wabbling, unsteady affair,
sometimes with four and sometimes with three legs. But Browne
saw neither the table, nor the chair, nor any person who might be
near, nothing, in fact, but the funny pictures which were
tumbling out of his brain. When writing, his gaunt form looked
ridiculous enough. One leg hung over the arm of his chair like a
great hook, while he would write away, sometimes laughing to
himself, and then slapping the table in the excess of his mirth."
While in the office of the "Plaindealer," Mr. Browne first
conceived the idea of becoming a lecturer. In attending the
various minstrel shows and circuses which came to the city, he
would frequently hear repeated some story of his own which the
audience would receive with hilarity. His best witticisms came
back to him from the lips of another who made a living by quoting
a stolen jest. Then the thought came to him to enter the lecture
field himself, and become the utterer of his own witticisms--the
mouthpiece of his own jests.
On the 10th of November, 1860, Charles Browne, whose fame,
traveling in his letters from Boston to San Francisco, had now
become national, grasped the hands of his hundreds of New York
admirers. Cleveland had throned him the monarch of mirth, and a
thousand hearts paid him tributes of adulation as he closed his
connection with the Cleveland Press.
Arriving in the Empire City, Mr. Browne soon opened an engagement
with "Vanity Fair," a humorous paper after the manner of London
"Punch," and ere long he succeeded Mr. Charles G. Leland as
editor. Mr. Charles Dawson Shanly says: "After Artemus Ward
became sole editor, a position which he held for a brief period,
many of his best contributions were given to the public; and,
whatever there was of merit in the columns of "Vanity Fair" from
the time he assumed the editorial charge, emanated from his pen."
Mr. Browne himself wrote to a friend: "Comic copy is what they
wanted for "Vanity Fair." I wrote some and it killed it. The
poor paper got to be a conundrum, and so I gave it up."
The idea of entering the field as a lecturer now seized Mr.
Browne stronger than ever. Tired of the pen, he resolved on
trying the platform. His Bohemian friends agreed that his fame
and fortune would be made before intelligent audiences. He
resolved to try it. What should be the subject of my lecture?
How shall I treat the subject? These questions caused Mr. Browne
grave speculations. Among other schemes, he thought of a string
of jests combined with a stream of satire, the whole being
unconnected--a burlesque upon a lecture. The subject,--that was
a hard question. First he thought of calling it "My Seven
Grandmothers," but he finally adopted the name of "Babes in the
Woods," and with this subject Charles Browne was introduced to a
metropolitan audience, on the evening of December 23d, 1861. The
place was Clinton Hall, which stood on the site of the old Astor
Place Opera House, where years ago occurred the Macready riot,
and where now is the Mercantile Library. Previous to this
introduction, Mr. Frank Wood accompanied him to the suburban town
of Norwich, Connecticut, where he first delivered his lecture,
and watched the result. The audience was delighted, and Mr.
Browne received an ovation. Previous to his Clinton Hall
appearance the city was flooded with funny placards reading--
ARTEMUS WARD
WILL
SPEAK A PIECE.
Owing to a great storm, only a small audience braved the
elements, and the Clinton Hall lecture was not a financial
success. It consisted of a wandering batch of comicalities,
touching upon everything except "The Babes." Indeed it was
better described by the lecturer in London, when he said, "One of
the features of my entertainment is, that it contains so many
things that don't have anything to do with it."
In the middle of his lecture, the speaker would hesitate, stop,
and say: "Owing to a slight indisposition we will now have an
intermission of fifteen minutes." The audience looked in utter
dismay at the idea of staring at vacancy for a quarter of an
hour, when, rubbing his hands, the lecturer would continue:
"but, ah--during the intermission I will go on with my lecture!"
Mr. Browne's first volume, entitled "Artemus Ward; His Book," was
published in New York, May 17th, 1862. The volume was everywhere
hailed with enthusiasm, and over forty thousand copies were sold.
Great success also attended the sale of his three other volumes
published in '65, '67, and '69.
Mr. Browne's next lecture was entitled "Sixty Minutes in Africa,"
and was delivered in Musical Fund Hall, Philadelphia. Behind him
hung a large map of Africa, "which region," said Artemus,
"abounds in various natural productions, such as reptiles and
flowers. It produces the red rose, the white rose, and the neg-
roes. In the middle of the continent is what is called a
'howling wilderness,' but, for my part, I have never heard it
howl, nor met with any one who has."
After Mr. Browne had created immense enthusiasm for his lectures
and books in the Eastern States, which filled his pockets with a
handsome exchequer, he started, October 3d, 1863, for California,
a faithful account of which trip is given by himself in this
book. Previous to starting, he received a telegram from Thomas
Maguire, of the San Francisco Opera House, inquiring "what he
would TAKE FOR FORTY NIGHTS IN CALIFORNIA." Mr. Brown
immediately telegraphed back,--
"Brandy and water.
A. Ward."
And, though Maguire was sorely puzzled at the contents of the
dispatch, the Press got hold of it, and it went through
California as a capital joke.
Mr. Browne first lectured in San Francisco on "The Babes in the
Woods," November 13th, 1863, at Pratt's Hall. T. Starr King took
a deep interest in him, occupying the rostrum, and his general
reception in San Francisco was warm.
Returning overland, through Salt Lake to the States, in the fall
of 1864, Mr. Browne lectured again in New York, this time on the
"Mormons," to immense audiences, and in the spring of 1865 he
commenced his tour through the country, everywhere drawing
enthusiastic audiences both North and South.
It was while on this tour that the writer of this sketch again
spent some time with him. We met at Memphis and traveled down
the Mississippi together. At Lake Providence the "Indiana"
rounded up to our landing, and Mr. Browne accompanied the writer
to his plantation, where he spent several days, mingling in
seeming infinite delight with the negroes. For them he showed
great fondness, and they used to stand around him in crowds
listening to his seemingly serious advice. We could not prevail
upon him to hunt or to join in any of the equestrian amusements
with the neighboring planters, but a quiet fascination drew him
to the negroes. Strolling through the "quarters," his grave
words, too deep with humor for darkey comprehension, gained
their entire confidence. One day he called up Uncle Jeff., an
Uncle-Tom-like patriarch, and commenced in his usual vein: "Now,
Uncle Jefferson," he said, "why do you thus pursue the habits of
industry? This course of life is wrong--all wrong--all a base
habit, Uncle Jefferson. Now try to break it off. Look at me,--
look at Mr. Landon, the chivalric young Southern plantist FROM
NEW YORK, he toils not, neither does he spin; he pursues a career
of contented idleness. If you only thought so, Jefferson, you
could live for months WITHOUT PERFORMING ANY KIND OF LABOR, and
at the expiration of that time FEEL FRESH AND VIGOROUS ENOUGH TO
COMMENCE IT AGAIN. Idleness refreshes the physical organization
--IT IS A SWEET BOON! Strike at the roots of the destroying habit
to-day, Jefferson. It tires you out; resolve to be idle; no one
should labor; HE SHOULD HIRE OTHERS TO DO IT FOR HIM;" and then
he would fix his mournful eyes on Jeff. and hand him a dollar,
while the eyes of the wonder-struck darkey would gaze in mute
admiration upon the good and wise originator of the only theory
which the darkey mind could appreciate. As Jeff. went away to
tell the wonderful story to his companions, and backed it with
the dollar as material proof, Artemus would cover his eyes, and
bend forward on his elbows in a chuckling laugh.
"Among the Mormons" was delivered through the States, everywhere
drawing immense crowds. His manner of delivering his discourse
was grotesque and comical beyond description. His quaint and sad
style contributed more than anything else to render his
entertainment exquisitely funny. The programme was exceedingly
droll, and the tickets of admission presented the most ludicrous
of ideas. The writer presents a fac-simile of an admission
ticket which was presented to him in Natchez by Mr. Browne:--
ADMIT THE BEARER
AND ONE WIFE.
YOURS TROOLY,
A. WARD.
In the spring of 1866, Charles Browne first timidly thought of
going to Europe. Turning to Mr. Hingston one day he asked:
"What sort of a man is Albert Smith? Do you think the Mormons
would be as good a subject to the Londoners as Mont Blanc was?"
Then he said: "I should like to go to London and give my lecture
in the same place. Can't it be done?"
Mr. Browne sailed for England soon after, taking with him his
Panorama. The success that awaited him could scarcely have been
anticipated by his most intimate friends. Scholars, wits, poets,
and novelists came to him with extended hands, and his stay in
London was one ovation to the genius of American wit. Charles
Reade, the novelist, was his warm friend and enthusiastic
admirer; and Mr. Andrew Haliday introduced him to the "Literary
Club," where he became a great favorite. Mark Lemon came to him
and asked him to become a contributor to "Punch," which he did.
His "Punch" letters were more remarked in literary circles than
any other current matter. There was hardly a club-meeting or a
dinner at which they were not discussed. "There was something so
grotesque in the idea," said a correspondent, "of this ruthless
Yankee poking among the revered antiquities of Britain, that the
beef-eating British themselves could not restrain their laughter."
The story of his Uncle William who "followed commercial pursuits,
glorious commerce--and sold soap," and his letters on the Tower
and "Chowser," were palpable hits, and it was admitted that
"Punch" had contained nothing better since the days of
"Yellowplush." This opinion was shared by the "Times," the
literary reviews, and the gayest leaders of society. The
publishers of "Punch" posted up his name in large letters over
their shop in Fleet Street, and Artemus delighted to point it out
to his friends. About this time Mr. Browne wrote to his friend
Jack Rider, of Cleveland:
"This is the proudest moment of my life. To have been as well
appreciated here as at home; to have written for the oldest comic
Journal in the English language, received mention with Hood, with
Jerrold and Hook, and to have my picture and my pseudonym as
common in London as in New York, is enough for
"Yours truly,
"A. Ward."
England was thoroughly aroused to the merits of Artemus Ward,
before he commenced his lectures at Egyptian Hall, and when, in
November, he finally appeared, immense crowds were compelled to
turn away. At every lecture his fame increased, and when
sickness brought his brilliant success to an end, a nation
mourned his retirement.
On the evening of Friday, the seventh week of his engagement at
Egyptian Hall, Artemus became seriously ill, an apology was made
to a disappointed audience, and from that time the light of one
of the greatest wits of the centuries commenced fading into
darkness. The Press mourned his retirement, and a funeral pall
fell over London. The laughing, applauding crowds were soon to
see his consumptive form moving towards its narrow resting-place
in the cemetery at Kensal Green.
By medical advice Charles Browne went for a short time to the
Island of Jersey--but the breezes of Jersey were powerless. He
wrote to London to his nearest and dearest friends--the members
of a literary club of which he was a member--to complain that his
"loneliness weighed on him." He was brought back, but could not
sustain the journey farther than Southampton. There the members
of the club traveled from London to see him--two at a time--that
he might be less lonely.
His remains were followed to the grave from the rooms of his
friend Arthur Sketchley, by a large number of friends and
admirers, the literati and press of London paying the last
tribute of respect to their dead brother. The funeral services
were conducted by the Rev. M.D. Conway, formerly of Cincinnati,
and the coffin was temporarily placed in a vault, from which it
was removed by his American friends, and his body now sleeps by
the side of his father, Levi Browne, in the quiet cemetery at
Waterford, Maine. Upon the coffin is the simple inscription:--
"CHARLES F. BROWNE,
AGED 32 YEARS,
Better Known to the World as 'Artemus Ward.'"
His English executors were T.W. Robertson, the playwright, and
his friend and companion, E.P. Hingston. His literary executors
were Horace Greeley and Richard H. Stoddard. In his will, he
bequeathed among other things a large sum of money to his little
valet, a bright little fellow; though subsequent denouments
revealed the fact that he left only a six-thousand-dollar house
in Yonkers. There is still some mystery about his finances,
which may one day be revealed. It is known that he withdrew
10,000 dollars from the Pacific Bank to deposit it with a friend
before going to England; besides this, his London "Punch" letters
paid a handsome profit. Among his personal friends were George
Hoyt, the late Daniel Setchell, Charles W. Coe, and Mr. Mullen,
the artist, all of whom he used to style "my friends all the year
round."
Personally Charles Farrar Browne was one of the kindest and most
affectionate of men, and history does not name a man who was so
universally beloved by all who knew him. It was remarked, and
truly, that the death of no literary character since Washington
Irving caused such general and widespread regret.
In stature he was tall and slender. His nose was prominent,--
outlined like that of Sir Charles Napier, or Mr. Seward; his eyes
brilliant, small, and close together; his mouth large, teeth
white and pearly; fingers long and slender; hair soft, straight,
and blonde; complexion florid; mustache large, and his voice soft
and clear. In bearing, he moved like a natural-born gentleman.
In his lectures he never smiled--not even while he was giving
utterance to the most delicious absurdities; but all the while
the jokes fell from his lips as if he was unconscious of their
meaning. While writing his lectures, he would laugh and chuckle
to himself continually.
There was one peculiarity about Charles Browne--HE NEVER MADE AN
ENEMY. Other wits in other times have been famous, but a
satirical thrust now and then has killed a friend. Diogenes was
the wit of Greece, but when, after holding up an old dried fish
to draw away the eyes of Anaximenes' audience, he exclaimed "See
how an old fish is more interesting than Anaximenes," he said a
funny thing, but he stabbed a friend. When Charles Lamb, in
answer to the doting mother's question as to how he liked babies,
replied, "b-b-boiled, madam, BOILED!" that mother loved him no
more: and when John Randolph said "THANK YOU!" to his
constituent who kindly remarked that he had the pleasure of
PASSING his house, it was wit at the expense of friendship. The
whole English school of wits--with Douglas Jerrold, Hood,
Sheridan, and Sidney Smith, indulged in repartee. They were
PARASITIC wits. And so with the Irish, except that an Irishman
is generally so ridiculously absurd in his replies as to only
excite ridicule. "Artemus Ward" made you laugh and love him too.
The wit of "Artemus Ward" and "Josh Billings" is distinctively
American. Lord Kames, in his "Elements of Criticism," makes no
mention of this species of wit, a lack which the future
rhetorician should look to. We look in vain for it in the
English language of past ages, and in other languages of modern
time. It is the genus American. When Artemus says in that
serious manner, looking admiringly at his atrocious pictures,--"I
love pictures--and I have many of them--beautiful photographs--of
myself;" you smile; and when he continues, "These pictures were
painted by the Old Masters; they painted these pictures and then
they--they expired;" you hardly know what it is that makes you
laugh outright; and when Josh Billings says in his Proverbs,
wiser than Solomon's "You'd better not know so much, than know so
many things that ain't so;"--the same vein is struck, but the
text-books fail to explain scientifically the cause of our mirth.
The wit of Charles Browne is of the most exalted kind. It is
only scholars and those thoroughly acquainted with the SUBTILTY
of our language who fully appreciate it. His wit is generally
about historical personages like Cromwell, Garrick, or
Shakspeare, or a burlesque on different styles of writing, like
his French novel, when hifalutin phrases of tragedy come from the
clodhopper who--"sells soap and thrice--refuses a ducal coronet."
Mr. Browne mingled the eccentric even in his business letters.
Once he wrote to his Publisher, Mr. G.W. Carleton, who had made
some alterations in his MSS.: "The next book I write I'm going
to get YOU to write." Again he wrote in 1863:
"Dear Carl:--You and I will get out a book next spring, which
will knock spots out of all comic books in ancient or modern
history. And the fact that you are going to take hold of it
convinces me that you have one of the most MASSIVE intellects of
this or any other epoch.
"Yours, my pretty gazelle,
"A. Ward."
When Charles F. Browne died, he did not belong to America, for,
as with Irving and Dickens, the English language claimed him.
Greece alone did not suffer when the current of Diogenes' wit
flowed on to death. Spain alone did not mourn when Cervantes,
dying, left Don Quixote, the "knight of la Mancha." When Charles
Lamb ceased to tune the great heart of humanity to joy and
gladness, his funeral was in every English and American household;
and when Charles Browne took up his silent resting-place in the
sombre shades of Kensal Green, JESTING CEASED, and one great
Anglo-American heart,
Like a muffled drum went beating
Funeral marches to his grave.
MELVILLE D. LANDON.
INTRODUCTION BY T.W. ROBERTSON.
Few tasks are more difficult or delicate than to write on the
subject of the works or character of a departed friend. The pen
falters as the familiar face looks out of the paper. The mind is
diverted from the thought of death as the memory recalls some happy
epigram. It seems so strange that the hand that traced the jokes
should be cold, that the tongue that trolled out the good things
should be silent--that the jokes and the good things should remain,
and the man who made them should be gone for ever.
The works of Charles Farrar Browne--who was known to the world as
"Artemus Ward"--have run through so many editions, have met with
such universal popularity, and have been so widely criticised, that
it is needless to mention them here. So many biographies have been
written of the gentleman who wrote in the character of the 'cute
Yankee Showman, that it is unnecessary that I should touch upon his
life, belongings, or adventures. Of "Artemus Ward" I know just as
much as the rest of the world. I prefer, therefore, to speak of
Charles Farrar Browne, as I knew him, and, in doing so, I can
promise those friends who also knew him and esteemed him, that as I
consider no "public" man so public, that some portion of his work,
pleasures, occupations, and habits may not be considered private, I
shall only mention how kind and noble-minded was the man of whom I
write, without dragging forward special and particular acts in proof
of my words, as if the goodness of his mind and character needed the
certificate of facts.
I first saw Charles Browne at a literary club; he had only been a
few hours in London, and he seemed highly pleased and excited at
finding himself in the old city to which his thoughts had so often
wandered. Browne was an intensely sympathetic man. His brain and
feelings were as a "lens," and he received impressions immediately.
No man could see him without liking him at once. His manner was
straightforward and genial, and had in it the dignity of a
gentleman, tempered, as it were, by the fun of the humorist. When
you heard him talk you wanted to make much of him, not because he
was "Artemus Ward," but because he was himself, for no one less
resembled "Artemus Ward" than his author and creator, Charles Farrar
Browne. But a few weeks ago it was remarked to me that authors were
a disappointing race to know, and I agreed with the remark, and I
remember a lady once said to me that the personal appearance of
poets seldom "came up" to their works. To this I replied that,
after all, poets were but men, and that it was as unreasonable to
expect that the late Sir Walter Scott could at all resemble a
Gathering of the Clans as that the late Lord Macaulay should appear
anything like the Committal of the Seven Bishops to the Tower. I
told the lady that she was unfair to eminent men if she hoped that
celebrated engineers would look like tubular bridges, or that Sir
Edwin Landseer would remind her of a "Midsummer Night's Dream." I
mention this because, of all men in the world, my friend Charles
Browne was the least like a showman of any man I ever encountered.
I can remember the odd half disappointed look of some of the
visitors to the Egyptian Hall when "Artemus" stepped upon the
platform. At first they thought that he was a gentleman who
appeared to apologise for the absence of the showman. They had
pictured to themselves a coarse old man, with a damp eye and a
puckered mouth, one eyebrow elevated an inch above the other to
express shrewdness and knowledge of the world--a man clad in
velveteen and braid, with a heavy watch-chain, large rings, and
horny hands, the touter to a waxwork show, with a hoarse voice, and
over familiar manner. The slim gentleman in evening dress, polished
manners, and gentle voice, with a tone of good breeding that hovered
between deference and jocosity; the owner of those thin--those much
too thin--white hands could not be the man who spelt joke with a
"g." Folks who came to laugh, began to fear that they should remain
to be instructed, until the gentlemanly disappointer began to speak,
then they recovered their real "Artemus," Betsy Jane, wax-figgers,
and all. Will patriotic Americans forgive me if I say that Charles
Browne loved England dearly! He had been in London but a few days
when he paid a visit to the Tower. He knew English history better
than most Englishmen; and the Tower of London was to him the history
of England embalmed in stone and mortar. No man had more reverence
in his nature; and at the Tower he saw that what he had read was
real. There were the beef-eaters; there had been Queen Elizabeth
and Sir Walter Raleigh, and Lady Jane Grey, and Shakspere's murdered
princes, and their brave, cruel uncle. There was the block and the
axe, and the armour and the jewels. "St George for Merrie England!"
had been shouted in the Holy Land, and men of the same blood as
himself had been led against the infidel by men of the same brain
and muscle as George Washington. Robin Hood was a reality, and not
a schoolboy's myth like Ali Baba and Valentine and Orson.
There were two sets of feelings in Charles Browne at the Tower. He
could appreciate the sublimity of history, but, as the "Show" part
of the exhibition was described to him, the humorist, the wit, and
the iconoclast from the other side the Atlantic must have smiled at
the "descriptions." The "Tower" was a "show," like his own--Artemus
Ward's. A price was paid for admission, and the "figgers" were
"orated." Real jewellery is very like sham jewellery after all, and
the "Artemus" vein in Charles Browne's mental constitution--the vein
of humour, whose source was a strong contempt of all things false,
mean, shabby, pretentious, and only external--of bunkum and
Barnumisation--must have seen a gigantic speculation realising
shiploads of dollars if the Tower could have been taken over to the
States, and exhibited from town to town--the Stars and Stripes flying
over it--with a four-horse lecture to describe the barbarity of the
ancient British Barons and the cuss of chivalry.
Artemus Ward's Lecture on the Mormons at the Egyptian Hall,
Piccadilly, was a great success. His humour was so entirely fresh,
new, and unconventional, it took his hearers by surprise, and
charmed them. His failing health compelled him to abandon the
lecture after about eight or ten weeks. Indeed, during that brief
period he was once or twice compelled to dismiss his audience. I
have myself seen him sink into a chair and nearly faint after the
exertion of dressing. He exhibited the greatest anxiety to be at
his post at the appointed time, and scrupulously exerted himself to
the utmost to entertain his auditors. It was not because he was
sick that the public was to be disappointed, or that their enjoyment
was to be diminished. During the last few weeks of his
lecture-giving he steadily abstained from accepting any of the
numerous invitations he received. Had he lived through the
following London fashionable season, there is little doubt that the
room at the Egyptian Hall would have been thronged nightly. Our
aristocracy have a fine delicate sense of humour, and the success,
artistic and pecuniary, of "Artemus Ward" would have rivalled that
of the famous "Lord Dundreary." There are many stupid people who
did not understand the "fun" of Artemus Ward's books. In their
vernacular "they didn't see it." There were many stupid people who
did not understand the fun of Artemus Ward's lecture on the Mormons.
They could not see it. Highly respectable people--the pride of
their parish, when they heard of a lecture "upon the Mormons"-
-expected to see a solemn person, full of old saws and new
statistics, who would denounce the sin of polygamy, and bray against
polygamists with four-and-twenty boiling-water Baptist power of
denunciation. These uncomfortable Christians do not like humour.
They dread it as a certain personage is said to dread holy water,
and for the same reason that thieves fear policemen--it finds them
out. When these good idiots heard Artemus offer, if they did not
like the lecture in Piccadilly, to give them free tickets for the
same lecture in California, when he next visited that country, they
turned to each other indignantly, and said "What use are tickets for
California to us? We are not going to California. No! we are too
good, too respectable, to go so far from home. The man is a fool!"
One of these ornaments of the vestry complained to the doorkeepers,
and denounced the lecture as an imposition; "and," said the wealthy
parishioner, "as for the panorama, it's the worst painted thing I
ever saw in all my life!"
But the entertainment, original, humorous, and racy though it was,
was drawing to a close! In the fight between youth and death, death
was to conquer. By medical advice Charles Browne went for a short
time to Jersey--but the breezes of Jersey were powerless. He wrote
to London to his nearest and dearest friends--the members of a
literary club of which he was a member--to complain that his
"loneliness weighed on him." He was brought back, but could not
sustain the journey farther than Southampton. There the members of
the beforementioned club travelled from London to see him--two at a
time--that he might be less lonely--and for the unwearying
solicitude of his friend and agent, Mr. Hingston, and to the kindly
sympathy of the United States Consul at Southampton, Charles
Browne's best and dearest friends had cause to be grateful. I
cannot close these lines without mention of "Artemus Ward's" last
joke. He had read in the newspapers that a wealthy American had
offered to present the Prince of Wales with a splendid yacht,
American built.
"It seems," said the invalid, "a fashion now-a-days for everybody to
present the Prince of Wales with something. I think I shall leave
him--my panorama!"
Charles Browne died beloved and regretted by all who knew him, and
by many who had known him but a few weeks; and when he drew his last
breath, there passed away the Spirit of a true gentleman.
T.W. ROBERTSON
London, August 11, 1868.
PREFATORY NOTE
BY EDWARD P. HINGSTON.
In Cleveland, Ohio, the pleasant city beside the lakes, Artemus Ward
first determined to become a public lecturer. He and I rambled
through Cleveland together after his return from California. He
called on some old friends at the Herald office, then went over to
the Weddel House, and afterwards strolled across to the offices of
the "Plain Dealer", where, in his position as sub-editor, he had
written many of his earlier essays. Artemus inquired for Mr. Gray,
the editor, who chanced to be absent. Looking round at the vacant
desks and inkstained furniture, Artemus was silent for a minute or
two, and then burst into one of those peculiar chuckling fits of
laughter in which he would occasionally indulge; not a loud laugh,
but a shaking of the whole body with an impulse of merriment which
set every muscle in motion. "Here," said he, "here's where they
called me a fool." The remembrance of their so calling him seemed
to afford him intense amusement.
>From the office of the Cleveland Plain Dealer we continued our tour
of the town. Presently we found ourselves in front of Perry's
statue, the monument erected to commemorate the naval engagement on
Lake Erie, wherein the Americans came off victorious. Artemus
looked up to the statue, laid his finger to the side of his nose,
and, in his quaint manner, remarked, "I wonder whether they called
him 'a fool' too, when he went to fight!"
The remark, following close as it did upon his laughing fit in the
newspaper office, caused me to inquire why he had been called "a
fool," and who had called him so.
"It was the opinion of my friends on the paper," he replied. "I
told them that I was going in for lecturing. They laughed at me,
and called me `a fool.' Don't you think they were right?"
Then we sauntered up Euclid Street, under the shade of its avenue of
trees. As we went along, Artemus Ward recounted to me the story of
his becoming a lecturer. Our conversation on that agreeable evening
is fresh in my remembrance. Memory still listens to the voice of my
companion in the stroll, still sees the green trees of Euclid Street
casting their shadows across our path, and still joins in the laugh
with Artemus, who, having just returned from California, where he
had taken sixteen hundred dollars at one lecture, did not think that
to be evidence of his having lost his senses.
The substance of that which Artemus Ward then told me was, that
while writing for the "Cleveland Plain Dealer" he was accustomed, in
the discharge of his duties as a reporter, to attend the
performances of the various minstrel troups and circuses which
visited the neighbourhood. At one of these he would hear some story
of his own, written a month or two previously, given by the
"middle-man" of the minstrels and received with hilarity by the
audience. At another place he would be entertained by listening to
jokes of his own invention, coarsely retailed by the clown of the
ring, and shouted at by the public as capital waggery on the part of
the performer. His own good things from the lips of another "came
back to him with alienated majesty," as Emerson expresses it. Then
the thought would steal over him--Why should that man gain a living
with my witticisms, and I not use them in the same way myself? why
not be the utterer of my own coinage, the quoter of my own jests,
the mouthpiece of my own merry conceits? Certainly, it was not a
very exalted ambition to aim at the glories of a circus clown or the
triumphs of a minstrel with a blackened face. But, in the United
States a somewhat different view is taken of that which is fitting
and seemly for a man to do, compared with the estimate we form in
this country. In a land where the theory of caste is not admitted,
the relative respectability of the various professions is not quite
the same as it is with us. There the profession does not disqualify
if the man himself be right, nor the claim to the title of gentleman
depend upon the avocation followed. I know of one or two clowns in
the ring who are educated physicians, and not thought to be any the
less gentlemen because they propound conundrums and perpetrate jests
instead of prescribing pills and potions.
Artemus Ward was always very self-reliant; when once he believed
himself to be in the right it was almost impossible to persuade him
to the contrary. But, at the same time, he was cautious in the
extreme, and would well consider his position before deciding that
which was right or wrong for him to do. The idea of becoming a
public man having taken possession of his mind, the next point to
decide was in what form he should appear before the public. That of
a humorous lecturer seemed to him to be the best. It was unoccupied
ground. America had produced entertainers who by means of facial
changes or eccentricities of costume had contrived to amuse their
audiences, but there was no one who ventured to joke for an hour
before a house full of people with no aid from scenery or dress.
The experiment was one which Artemus resolved to try. Accordingly,
he set himself to work to collect all his best quips and cranks, to
invent what new drolleries he could, and to remember all the good
things that he had heard or met with. These he noted down and
strung together almost without relevancy or connexion. The
manuscript chanced to fall into the hands of the people at the
office of the newspaper on which he was then employed, and the
question was put to him of what use he was going to make of the
strange jumble of jest which he had thus compiled. His answer was
that he was about to turn lecturer, and that before them were the
materials of his lecture. It was then that his friends laughed at
him, and characterised him as "a fool."
"They had some right to think so," said Artemus to me as we rambled
up Euclid Street. "I half thought that I was one myself. I don't
look like a lecturer--do I?"
He was always fond, poor fellow, of joking on the subject of his
personal appearance. His spare figure and tall stature, his
prominent nose and his light-colored hair, were each made the
subject of a joke at one time or another in the course of his
lecturing career. If he laughed largely at the foibles of others,
he was equally disposed to laugh at any shortcomings he could detect
in himself. If anything at all in his outward form was to him a
source of vanity, it was the delicate formation of his hands.
White, soft, long, slender, and really handsome, they were more like
the hands of a high-born lady than those of a Western editor. He
attended to them with careful pride, and never alluded to them as a
subject for his jokes, until, in his last illness, they had become
unnaturally fair, translucent, and attenuated. Then it was that a
friend calling upon him at his apartments in Piccadilly, endeavoured
to cheer him at a time of great mental depression, and pleasantly
reminded him of a ride they had long ago projected through the
South-Western States of the Union. "We must do that ride yet,
Artemus. Short stages at first, and longer ones as we go on." Poor
Artemus lifted up his pale, slender hands, and letting the light
shine through them, said jocosely, "Do you think these would do to
hold a rein with? Why, the horse would laugh at them."
Having collected a sufficient number of quaint thoughts, whimsical
fancies, bizarre notions, and ludicrous anecdotes, the difficulty
which then, according to his own confession, occurred to Artemus
Ward was, what should be the title of his lecture. The subject was
no difficulty at all, for the simple reason that there was not to be
any. The idea of instructing or informing his audience never once
entered into his plans. His intention was merely to amuse; if
possible, keep the house in continuous laughter for an hour and a
half, or rather an hour and twenty minutes, for that was the precise
time, in his belief, which people could sit to listen and to laugh
without becoming bored; and, if possible, send his audience home
well pleased with the lecturer and with themselves, without their
having any clear idea of that which they had been listening to, and
not one jot the wiser than when they came. No one better understood
than Artemus the wants of a miscellaneous audience who paid their
dollar or half-dollar each to be amused. No one could gauge better
than he the capacity of the crowd to feed on pure fun, and no one
could discriminate more clearly than he the fitness, temper, and
mental appetite of the constituents of his evening assemblies. The
prosiness of an ordinary Mechanics' Institute lecture was to him
simply abhorrent; the learned platitudes of a professed lecturer
were to him, to use one of his own phrases, "worse than poison." To
make people laugh was to be his primary endeavour. If in so making
them laugh he could also cause them to see through a sham, be
ashamed of some silly national prejudice, or suspicious of the value
of some current piece of political bunkum, so much the better. He
believed in laughter as thoroughly wholesome; he had the firmest
conviction that fun is healthy, and sportiveness the truest sign of
sanity. Like Talleyrand, he was of opinion that "Qui vit sans jolie
n'est pas si sage qu'il croit."
Artemus Ward's first lecture was entitled "The Babes in the Wood."
I asked him why he chose that title, because there was nothing
whatever in the lecture relevant to the subject of the child-book
legend. He replied, "It seemed to sound the best. I once thought
of calling the lecture 'My Seven Grandmothers.' Don't you think
that would have been good?" It would at any rate have been just as
pertinent.
Incongruity as an element of fun was always an idea uppermost in the
mind of the Western humorist. I am not aware that the notes of any
of his lectures, except those of his Mormon experience, have been
preserved, and I have some doubts if any one of his lectures, except
the Mormon one, was ever fairly written out. "The Babes in the
Wood," as a lecture, was a pure and unmitigated "sell." It was
merely joke after joke, and drollery succeeding to drollery, without
any connecting thread whatever. It was an exhibition of fireworks,
owing half its brilliancy and more than half its effect to the skill
of the man who grouped the fireworks together and let them off. In
the hands of any other pyrotechnist the squibs would have failed to
light, the rockets would have refused to ascend, and the
"nine-bangers" would have exploded but once or twice only, instead
of nine times. The artist of the display being no more, and the
fireworks themselves having gone out, it is perhaps not to be
regretted that the cases of the squibs and the tubes of the rockets
have not been carefully kept. Most of the good things introduced by
Artemus Ward in his first lecture were afterwards incorporated by
him in subsequent writings, or used over again in his later
entertainment. Many of them had reference to the events of the day,
the circumstances of the American War and the politics of the Great
Rebellion. These, of course, have lost their interest with the
passing away of the times which gave them birth. The points of many
of the jokes have corroded, and the barbed head of many an arrow of
Artemus's wit has rusted into bluntness with the decay of the bow
from which it was propelled.
If I remember rightly, the "Babes in the Wood" were never mentioned
more than twice in the whole lecture. First, when the lecturer told
his audience that the "Babes" were to constitute the subject of his
discourse, and then digressed immediately to matters quite foreign
to the story. Then again at the conclusion of the hour and twenty
minutes of drollery, when he finished up in this way: "I now come to
my subject 'The Babes in the Wood.'" Here he would take out his
watch, look at it with affected surprise, put on an appearance of
being greatly perplexed, and amidst roars of laughter from the
people, very gravely continue, "But I find that I have exceeded my
time, and will therefore merely remark that, so far as I know, they
were very good babes--they were as good as ordinary babes. I really
have not time to go into their history. You will find it all in the
story-books. They died in the woods, listening to the woodpecker
tapping the hollow beech-tree. It was a sad fate for them, and I
pity them. So, I hope, do you. Good night!"
Artemus gave his first lecture at Norwich in Connecticut, and
travelled over a considerable portion of the Eastern States before
he ventured to give a sample of his droll oratory in the Western
cities, wherein he had earned reputation as a journalist. Gradually
his popularity became very great, and in place of letting himself
out at so much per night to literary societies and athenaeums, he
constituted himself his own showman, engaging that indispensable
adjunct to all showmen in the United States, an agent to go ahead,
engage halls, arrange for the sale of tickets, and engineer the
success of the show. Newspapers had carried his name to every
village of the Union, and his writings had been largely quoted in
every journal. It required, therefore, comparatively little
advertising to announce his visit to any place in which he had to
lecture. But it was necessary that he should have a bill or poster
of some kind. The one he adopted was simple, quaint, striking, and
well adapted to the purpose. It was merely one large sheet, with a
black ground, and the letters cut out in the block, so as to print
white. The reading was "Artemus Ward will Speak a Piece." To the
American mind this was intensely funny from its childish absurdity.
It is customary in the States for children to speak or recite "a
piece" at school at the annual examination, and the phrase is used
just in the same sense as in England we say "a Christmas piece."
The professed subject of the lecture being that of a story familiar
to children, harmonised well with the droll placard which announced
its delivery. The place and time were notified on a slip pasted
beneath. To emerge from the dull depths of lyceum committees and
launch out as a showman-lecturer on his own responsibility, was
something both novel and bold for Artemus to do. In the majority of
instances he or his agent met with speculators who were ready to
engage him for so many lectures, and secure to the lecturer a
certain fixed sum. But in his later transactions Artemus would have
nothing to do with them, much preferring to undertake all the risk
himself. The last speculator to whom he sold himself for a tour
was, I believe, Mr. Wilder, of New York City, who realised a large
profit by investing in lecturing stock, and who was always ready to
engage a circus, a wild-beast show, or a lecturing celebrity.
As a rule Artemus Ward succeeded in pleasing every one in his
audience, especially those who understood the character of the man
and the drift of his lecture; but there were not wanting at any of
his lectures a few obtuse-minded, slowly-perceptive, drowsy-headed
dullards, who had not the remotest idea what the entertainer was
talking about, nor why those around him indulged in laughter.
Artemus was quick to detect these little spots upon the sunny face
of his auditory. He would pick them out, address himself at times
to them especially, and enjoy the bewilderment of his Boeotian
patrons. Sometimes a stolid inhabitant of central New York,
evidently of Dutch extraction, would regard him with an open stare
expressive of a desire to enjoy that which was said if the point of
the joke could by any possibility be indicated to him. At other
times a demure Pennsylvania Quaker would benignly survey the poor
lecturer with a look of benevolent pity; and on one occasion, when
my friend was lecturing at Peoria, an elderly lady, accompanied by
her two daughters, left the room in the midst of the lecture,
exclaiming, as she passed me at the door, "It is too bad of people
to laugh at a poor young man who doesn't know what he is saying, and
ought to be sent to a lunatic asylum!"
The newspaper reporters were invariably puzzled in attempting to
give any correct idea of a lecture by Artemus Ward. No report could
fairly convey an idea of the entertainment; and being fully aware of
this, Artemus would instruct his agent to beg of the papers not to
attempt giving any abstract of that which he said. The following is
the way in which the reporter of the Golden Era, at San Francisco,
California, endeavoured to inform the San Franciscan public of the
character of "The Babes in the Wood" lecture. It is, as the reader
will perceive, a burlesque on the way in which Artemus himself dealt
with the topic he had chosen; while it also notes one or two of the
salient features of my friend's style of Lecturing:
"HOW ARTEMUS WARD 'SPOKE A PIECE.'"
"Artemus has arrived. Artemus has spoken. Artemus has triumphed.
Great is Artemus!
"Great also is Platt's Hall. But Artemus is greater; for the hall
proved too small for his audience, and too circumscribed for the
immensity of his jokes. A man who has drank twenty bottles of wine
may be called `full.' A pint bottle with a quart of water in it
would also be accounted full; and so would an hotel be, every bed in
it let three times over on the same night to three different
occupants; but none of these would be so full as Platt's Hall was on
Friday night to hear Artemus Ward `speak a piece.'
"The piece selected was `The Babes in the Wood,' which reminds us
that Mr. Ward is a tall, slender-built, fair-complexioned,
jovial-looking gentleman of about twenty-seven years of age. He has
a pleasant manner, an agreeable style, and a clear, distinct, and
powerful voice.
"'The Babes in the Wood' is a 'comic oration,' with a most
comprehensive grasp of subject. As spoken by its witty author, it
elicited gusto of laughter and whirlwinds of applause. Mr. Ward is
no prosy lyceum lecturer. His style is neither scientific,
didactic, or philosophical. It is simply that of a man who is
brimful of mirth, wit, and satire, and who is compelled to let it
flow forth. Maintaining a very grave countenance himself, he plays
upon the muscles of other people's faces as though they were piano-
strings, and he the prince of pianists.
"The story of 'The Babes in the Wood' is interesting in the extreme.
We would say, en passant, however, that Artemus Ward is a perfect
steam factory of puns and a museum of American humour. Humanity
seems to him to be a vast mine, out of which he digs tons of fun;
and life a huge forest, in which he can cut down 'cords' of
comicality. Language with him is like the brass balls with which
the juggler amuses us at the circus--ever being tossed up, ever
glittering, ever thrown about at pleasure. We intended to report
his lecture in full, but we laughed till we split our lead pencil,
and our shorthand symbols were too infused with merriment to remain
steady on the paper. However, let us proceed to give an idea of
'The Babes in the Wood.' In the first place, it is a comic oration;
that is, it is spoken, is exuberant in fun, felicitous in fancy,
teeming with jokes, and sparkling as bright waters on a sunny day.
The 'Babes in the Wood' is--that is, it isn't a lecture or an
oratorical effort; it is something sui generis; something reserved
for our day and generation, which it would never have done for our
forefathers to have known, or they would have been too mirthful to
have attended to the business of preparing the world for our coming;
and something which will provoke so much laughter in our time, that
the echo of the laughs will reverberate along the halls of futurity,
and seriously affect the nerves of future generations.
"The 'Babes in the Wood,' to describe it, is--Well, those who
listened to it know best. At any rate, they will acknowledge with
us that it was a great success, and that Artemus Ward has a fortune
before him in California.
"And now to tell the story of 'The Babes in the Wood'--But we will
not, for the hall was not half large enough to accommodate those who
came, consequently Mr. Ward will tell it over again at the
Metropolitan Theatre next Tuesday evening. The subject will again
be 'The Babes in the Wood.'"
Having travelled over the Union with "The Babes in the Wood"
lecture, and left his audiences everywhere fully "in the wood" as
regarded the subject announced in the title, Artemus Ward became
desirous of going over the same ground again. There were not
wanting dreary and timid prophets who told him that having "sold"
his audiences once, he would not succeed in gaining large houses a
second time. But the faith of Artemus in the unsuspecting nature of
the public was very large, so with fearless intrepidity he conceived
the happy thought of inventing a new title, but keeping to the same
old lecture, interspersing it here and there with a few fresh jokes,
incidental to new topics of the times. Just at this period General
McClellan was advancing on Richmond, and the celebrated fight at
Bull's Run had become matter of history. The forcible abolition of
slavery had obtained a place among the debates of the day, Hinton
Rowan Helper's book on "The Inevitable Crisis" had been sold at
every bookstall, and the future of the negro had risen into the
position of being the great point of discussion throughout the land.
Artemus required a very slender thread to string his jokes upon, and
what better one could be found than that which he chose? He
advertised the title of his next lecture as "Sixty Minutes in
Africa." I need scarcely say that he had never been in Africa, and
in all probability had never read a book on African travel. He knew
nothing about it, and that was the very reason he should choose
Africa for his subject. I believe that he carried out the joke so
far as to have a map made of the African continent, and that on a
few occasions, but not on all, he had it suspended in the
lecture-room. It was in Philadelphia and at the Musical Fund Hall
in Locust Street that I first heard him deliver what he jocularly
phrased to me as "My African Revelation." The hall was very
thronged, the audience must have exceeded two thousand in number,
and the evening was unusually warm. Artemus came on the rostrum
with a roll of paper in his hands, and used it to play with
throughout the lecture, just as recently at the Egyptian Hall, while
lecturing on the Mormons, he invariably made use of a lady's riding-
whip for the same purpose. He commenced his lecture thus, speaking
very gravely and with long pauses between his sentences, allowing
his audience to laugh if they pleased, but seeming to utterly
disregard their laughter:
"I have invited you to listen to a discourse upon Africa. Africa is
my subject. It is a very large subject. It has the Atlantic Ocean
on its left side, the Indian Ocean on its right, and more water than
you could measure out at its smaller end.
Africa produces blacks--ivory blacks--they get ivory. It also
produces deserts, and that is the reason it is so much deserted by
travellers. Africa is famed for its roses. It has the red rose,
the white rose, and the neg-rose. Apropos of negroes, let me tell
you a little story."
Then he at once diverged from the subject of Africa to retail to his
audience his amusing story of the Conversion of a Negro, which he
subsequently worked up into an article in the Savage Club Papers,
and entitled "Converting the Nigger." Never once again in the
course of the lecture did he refer to Africa, until the time having
arrived for him to conclude, and the people being fairly worn out
with laughter, he finished up by saying, "Africa, ladies and
gentlemen, is my subject. You wish me to tell you something about
Africa. Africa is on the map--it is on all the maps of Africa that
I have ever seen. You may buy a good map for a dollar, and if you
study it well, you will know more about Africa than I do. It is a
comprehensive subject, too vast, I assure you, for me to enter upon
to-night. You would not wish me to, I feel that--I feel it deeply,
and I am very sensitive. If you go home and go to bed it will be
better for you than to go with me to Africa."
The joke about the "neg-rose" has since run the gauntlet of nearly
all the minstrel bands throughout England and America. All the
"bones," every "middle-man," and all "end-men" of the burnt-cork
profession have used Artemus Ward as a mine wherein to dig for the
ore which provokes laughter. He has been the "cause of wit in
others," and the bread-winner for many dozens of black-face
songsters--"singists" as he used to term them. He was just as fond
of visiting their entertainments as they were of appropriating his
jokes; and among his best friends in New York were the brothers
Messrs Neil and Dan Bryant, who have made a fortune by what has been
facetiously termed "the burnt-cork opera."
It was in his "Sixty Minutes in Africa" lecture that Artemus Ward
first introduced his celebrated satire on the negro, which he
subsequently put into print. "The African," said he, "may be our
brother. Several highly respectable gentlemen and some talented
females tell me that he is, and for argument's sake I might be
induced to grant it, though I don't believe it myself. But the
African isn't our sister, and wife, and uncle. He isn't several of
our brothers and first wife's relations. He isn't our grandfather
and great grandfather, and our aunt in the country. Scarcely."
It may easily be imagined how popular this joke became when it is
remembered that it was first perpetrated at a time when the negro
question was so much debated as to have become an absolute nuisance.
Nothing else was talked of; nobody would talk of anything but the
negro. The saying arose that all Americans had "nigger-on
the-brain." The topic had become nauseous, especially to the
Democratic party; and Artemus always had more friends among them
than among the Republicans. If he had any politics at all he was
certainly a Democrat.
War had arisen, the South was closed, and the lecturing arena
considerably lessened. Artemus Ward determined to go to California.
Before starting for that side of the American continent, he wished
to appear in the city of New York. He engaged, through his friend
Mr. De Walden, the large hall then known as Niblo's, in front of the
Niblo's Garden Theatre, and now used, I believe, as the dining-room
of the Metropolitan Hotel. At that period Pepper's Ghost chanced to
be the great novelty of New York City, and Artemus Ward was casting
about for a novel title to his old lecture. Whether he or Mr. De
Walden selected that of "Artemus Ward's Struggle with a Ghost" I do
not know; but I think that it was Mr. De Walden's choice. The title
was seasonable, and the lecture successful. Then came the tour to
California, whither I proceeded in advance to warn the miners on the
Yuba, the travellers on the Rio Sacramento, and the citizens of the
Chrysopolis of the Pacific that "A. Ward" would be there shortly.
In California the lecture was advertised under its old name of "The
Babes in the Wood." Platt's Hall was selected for the scene of
operation, and, so popular was the lecturer, that on the first night
we took at the doors more than sixteen hundred dollars in gold. The
crowd proved too great to take money in the ordinary manner, and
hats were used for people to throw their dollars in. One hat broke
through at the crown. I doubt if we ever knew to a dollar how many
dollars it once contained.
California was duly travelled over, and "The Babes in the Wood"
listened to with laughter in its flourishing cities, its
mining-camps among the mountains, and its "new placers beside
gold-bedded rivers. While journeying through that strangely-
beautiful land, the serious question arose--What was to be done
next? After California--where?
Before leaving New York, it had been a favourite scheme of Artemus
Ward not to return from California to the East by way of Panama, but
to come home across the Plains, and to visit Salt Lake City by the
way. The difficulty that now presented itself was, that winter was
close upon us, and that it was no pleasant thing to cross the Sierra
Nevada and scale the Rocky Mountains with the thermometer far below
freezingpoint. Nor was poor Artemus even at that time a strong man.
My advice was to return to Panama, visit the West India Islands, and
come back to California in the spring, lecture again in San
Francisco, and then go on to the land of the Mormons. Artemus
doubted the feasibility of this plan, and the decision was
ultimately arrived at to try the journey to Salt Lake.
Unfortunately the winter turned out to be one of the severest. When
we arrived at Salt Lake City, my poor friend was seized with typhoid
fever, resulting from the fatigue we had undergone, the intense cold
to which we had been subjected, and the excitement of being on a
journey of 3500 miles across the North American Continent, when the
Pacific Railway had made little progress and the Indians were
reported not to be very friendly.
The story of the trip is told in Artemus Ward's lecture. I have
added to it, at the special request of the publisher, a few
explanatory notes, the purport of which is to render the reader
acquainted with the characteristics of the lecturer's delivery. For
the benefit of those who never had an opportunity of seeing Artemus
Ward nor of hearing him lecture, I may be pardoned for attempting to
describe the man himself.
In stature he was tall, in figure, slender. At any time during our
acquaintance his height must have been disproportionate to his
weight. Like his brother Cyrus, who died a few years before him;
Charles F. Browne, our "Artemus Ward," had the premonitory signs of
a short life strongly evident in his early manhood. There were the
lank form, the long pale fingers, the very white pearly teeth, the
thin, fine, soft hair, the undue brightness of the eyes, the
excitable and even irritable disposition, the capricious appetite,
and the alternately jubilant and despondent tone of mind which too
frequently indicate that "the abhorred fury with the shears" is
waiting too near at hand to "slit the thin-spun life." His hair was
very light-colored, and not naturally curly. He used to joke in his
lecture about what it cost him to keep it curled; he wore a very
large moustache without any beard or whiskers; his nose was
exceedingly prominent, having an outline not unlike that of the late
Sir Charles Napier. His forehead was large, with, to use the
language of the phrenologists, the organs of the perceptive
faculties far more developed than those of the imaginative powers.
He had the manner and bearing of a naturally-born gentleman. Great
was the disappointment of many who, having read his humorous papers
descriptive of his exhibition of snakes and waxwork, and who having
also formed their ideas of him from the absurd pictures which had
been attached to some editions of his works, found on meeting with
him that there was no trace of the showman in his deportment, and
little to call up to their mind the smart Yankee who had married
"Betsy Jane." There was nothing to indicate that he had not lived a
long time in Europe and acquired the polish which men gain by coming
in contact with the society of European capitals. In his
conversation there was no marked peculiarity of accent to identify
him as an American, nor any of the braggadocio which some of his
countrymen unadvisedly assume. His voice was soft, gentle, and
clear. He could make himself audible in the largest lecture-rooms
without effort. His style of lecturing was peculiar; so thoroughly
sui generis, that I know of no one with whom to compare him, nor can
any description very well convey an idea of that which it was like.
However much he caused his audience to laugh, no smile appeared upon
his own face. It was grave, even to solemnity, while he was giving
utterance to the most delicious absurdities. His assumption of
indifference to that which he was saying, his happy manner of
letting his best jokes fall from his lips as if unconscious of their
being jokes at all, his thorough self-possession on the platform,
and keen appreciation of that which suited his audience and that
which did not, rendered him well qualified for the task which he had
undertaken--that of amusing the public with a humorous lecture. He
understood and comprehended to a hair's breadth the grand secret of
how not to bore. He had weighed, measured, and calculated to a
nicety the number of laughs an audience could indulge in on one
evening, without feeling that they were laughing just a little too
much. Above all, he was no common man, and did not cause his
audience to feel that they were laughing at that which they should
feel ashamed of being amused with. He was intellectually up to the
level of nine-tenths of those who listened to him, and in listening,
they felt that it was no fool who wore the cap and bells so
excellently. It was amusing to notice how with different people his
jokes produced a different effect. The Honourable Robert Lowe
attended one evening at the Mormon Lecture, and laughed as
hilariously as any one in the room. The next evening Mr. John
Bright happened to be present. With the exception of one or two
occasional smiles, he listened with grave attention.
In placing the lecture before the public in print, it is impossible,
by having recourse to any system of punctuation, to indicate the
pauses, jerky emphases, and odd inflexions of voice which
characterised the delivery. The reporter of the Standard newspaper,
describing his first lecture in London, aptly said: "Artemus dropped
his jokes faster than the meteors of last night succeeded each other
in the sky. And there was this resemblance between the flashes of
his humour and the flights of the meteors, that in each case one
looked for jokes or meteors, but they always came just in the place
that one least expected to find them. Half the enjoyment of the
evening lay, to some of those present, in listening to the hearty
cachinnation of the people who only found out the jokes some two or
three minutes after they were made, and who then laughed apparently
at some grave statements of fact. Reduced to paper, the showman's
jokes are certainly not brilliant; almost their whole effect lies in
their seemingly impromptu character. They are carefully led up to,
of course; but they are uttered as if they are mere afterthoughts,
of which the speaker is hardly sure." Herein the writer in the
Standard hits the most marked peculiarity of Artemus Ward's style of
lecturing. His affectation of not knowing what he was uttering, his
seeming fits of abstraction, and his grave, melancholy aspect,
constituted the very cream of the entertainment. Occasionally he
would amuse himself in an apparently meditative mood, by twirling
his little riding-whip, or by gazing earnestly, but with affected
admiration, at his panorama. At the Egyptian Hall his health
entirely failed him, and he would occasionally have to use a seat
during the course of the lecture. In the notes which follow I have
tried, I know how inefficiently, to convey here and there an idea of
how Artemus rendered his lecture amusing by gesture or action. I
have also, at the request of the publisher, made a few explanatory
comments on the subject of our Mormon trip. In so doing I hope that
I have not thrust myself too prominently forward, nor been too
officious in my explanations. My aim has been to add to the
interest of the lecture with those who never heard it delivered, and
to revive in the memory of those who did some of its notable
peculiarities. The illustrations are from photographs of the
panorama painted in America for Artemus, as the pictorial portion of
his entertainment.
In the lecture is the fun of the journey. For the hard facts the
reader in quest of information is referred to a book published
previously to the lecturer's appearance at the Egyptian Hall, the
title of which is, "Artemus Ward: His Travels among the Mormons."
Much against the grain as it was for Artemus to be statistical, he
has therein detailed some of the experiences of his Mormon trip,
with due regard to the exactitude and accuracy of statement expected
by information-seeking readers in a book of travels. He was not
precisely the sort of traveller to write a paper for the evening
meetings of the Royal Geographical Society, nor was he sufficiently
interested in philosophical theories to speculate on the
developments of Mormonism as illustrative of the history of
religious belief. We were looking out of the window of the Salt
Lake House one morning, when Brigham Young happened to pass down the
opposite side of Main Street. It was cold weather, and the prophet
was clothed in a thick cloak of some green-colored material. I
remarked to Artemus that Brigham had seemingly compounded Mormonism
from portions of a dozen different creeds; and that in selecting
green for the color of his apparel, he was imitating Mahomet. "Has
it not struck you," I observed, "that Swedenborgianism and
Mahometanism are oddly blended in the Mormon faith?"
"Petticoatism and plunder," was Artemus's reply--and that
comprehended his whole philosophy of Mormonism. As he remarked
elsewhere: "Brigham Young is a man of great natural ability. If you
ask me, How pious is he? I treat it as a conundrum, and give it up."
To lecture in London, and at the Egyptian Hall, had long been a
favourite idea of Artemus Ward. Some humorist has said, that "All
good Americans, when they die--, go to Paris." So do most, whether
good or bad, while they are living.
Still more strongly developed is the transatlantic desire to go to
Rome. In the far west of the Missouri, in the remoter west of
Colorado and away in far north-western Oregon, I have heard many a
tradesman express his intention to make dollars enough to enable him
to visit Rome. In a land where all is so new, where they have had
no past, where an old wall would be a sensation, and a tombstone of
anybody's great grandfather the marvel of the whole region, the
charms of the old world have an irresistible fascination. To visit
the home of the Caesars they have read of in their school-books, and
to look at architecture which they have seen pictorially, but have
nothing like it in existence around them, is very naturally the
strong wish of people who are nationally nomadic, and who have all
more or less a smattering of education. Artemus Ward never
expressed to me any very great wish to travel on the European
continent, but to see London was to accomplish something which he
had dreamed of from his boyhood. There runs from Marysville in
California to Oroville in the same State a short and singular little
railway, which, when we were there, was in a most unfinished
condition. To Oroville we were going. We were too early for the
train at the Marysville station, and sat down on a pile of timber to
chat over future prospects.
"What sort of a man was Albert Smith?" asked Artemus "And do you
think that the Mormons would be as good a subject for the Londoners
as Mont Blanc was?"
I answered his questions. He reflected for a few moments, and then
said:
"Well, old fellow, I'll tell you what I should like to do. I should
like to go to London and give my lecture in the same place. Can it
be done?"
It was done. Not in the same room, but under the same roof and on
the same floor; in that gloomy-looking Hall in Piccadilly, which was
destined to be the ante-chamber to the tomb of both lecturers.
Throughout this brief sketch I have written familiarly of the late
Mr. Charles F. Browne as "Artemus Ward," or simply as "Artemus." I
have done so advisedly, mainly because, during the whole course of
our acquaintance, I do not remember addressing him as "Mr. Browne,"
or by his real Christian name. To me he was always "Artemus"--
Artemus the kind, the gentle, the suave, the generous. One who was
ever a friend in the fullest meaning of the word, and the best of
companions in the amplest acceptance of the phrase. His merry laugh
and pleasant conversation are as audible to me as if they were heard
but yesterday; his words of kindness linger on the ear of memory,
and his tones of genial mirth live in echoes which I shall listen to
for evermore. Two years will soon have passed away since last he
spoke, and
"Silence now, enamour'd of his voice
Looks its mute music in her rugged cell."
E.P. HINGSTON.
LONDON, October 1868.
* * *
ARTEMUS WARD.
PART I.
ESSAYS, SKETCHES, AND LETTERS.
1.1. ONE OF MR. WARD'S BUSINESS LETTERS.
To the Editor of the --
Sir--I'm movin along--slowly along--down tords your place. I
want you should rite me a letter, sayin how is the show bizniss
in your place. My show at present consists of three moral Bares,
a Kangaroo (a amoozin little Raskal--t'would make you larf
yerself to deth to see the little cuss jump up and squeal) wax
figgers of G. Washington Gen. Tayler John Bunyan Capt Kidd and
Dr. Webster in the act of killin Dr. Parkman, besides several
miscellanyus moral wax statoots of celebrated piruts & murderers,
&c., ekalled by few & exceld by none. Now Mr. Editor, scratch
orf a few lines sayin how is the show bizniss down to your place.
I shall hav my hanbills dun at your offiss. Depend upon it. I
want you should git my hanbills up in flamin stile. Also git up
a tremenjus excitemunt in yr. paper 'bowt my onparaleld Show. We
must fetch the public sumhow. We must wurk on their feelins.
Cum the moral on 'em strong. If it's a temperance community tell
'em I sined the pledge fifteen minits arter Ise born, but on the
contery ef your peple take their tods, say Mister Ward is as
Jenial a feller as we ever met, full of conwiviality, & the life
an sole of the Soshul Bored. Take, don't you? If you say anythin
abowt my show say my snaiks is as harmliss as the new-born Babe.
What a interestin study it is to see a zewological animil like a
snaik under perfeck subjecshun! My kangaroo is the most larfable
little cuss I ever saw. All for 15 cents. I am anxyus to skewer
your infloounce. I repeet in regard to them hanbills that I shall
git 'em struck orf up to your printin office. My perlitercal
sentiments agree with yourn exackly. I know thay do, becawz I
never saw a man whoos didn't.
Respectively yures,
A. Ward.
P.S.--You scratch my back & Ile scratch your back.
1.2. ON "FORTS."
Every man has got a Fort. It's sum men's fort to do one thing,
and some other men's fort to do another, while there is numeris
shiftliss critters goin round loose whose fort is not to do
nothin.
Shakspeer rote good plase, but he wouldn't hav succeeded as a
Washington correspondent of a New York daily paper. He lackt the
rekesit fancy and imagginashun.
That's so!
Old George Washington's Fort was not to hev eny public man of the
present day resemble him to eny alarmin extent. Whare bowts can
George's ekal be found? I ask, & boldly anser no whares, or eny
whare else.
Old man Townsin's Fort was to maik Sassyperiller. "Goy to the
world! anuther life saived!" (Cotashun from Townsin's
advertisemunt.)
Cyrus Field's Fort is to lay a sub-machine tellegraf under the
boundin billers of the Oshun, and then hev it Bust.
Spaldin's Fort is to maik Prepared Gloo, which mends everything.
Wonder ef it will mend a sinner's wickid waze? (Impromptoo
goak.)
Zoary's Fort is to be a femaile circus feller.
My Fort is the grate moral show bizniss & ritin choice famerly
literatoor for the noospapers. That's what's the matter with ME.
&c., &c., &c. So I mite go on to a indefnit extent.
Twict I've endeverd to do things which thay wasn't my Fort. The
fust time was when I undertuk to lick a owdashus cuss who cut a
hole in my tent & krawld threw. Sez I, "my jentle Sir go out or
I shall fall onto you putty hevy." Sez he, "Wade in, Old wax
figgers," whareupon I went for him, but he cawt me powerful on
the hed & knockt me threw the tent into a cow pastur. He pursood
the attack & flung me into a mud puddle. As I aroze & rung out
my drencht garmints I koncluded fitin wasn't my Fort. Ile now
rize the kurtin upon Seen 2nd: It is rarely seldum that I seek
consolation in the Flowin Bole. But in a sertin town in Injianny
in the Faul of 18--, my orgin grinder got sick with the fever &
died. I never felt so ashamed in my life, & I thowt I'd hist in
a few swallows of suthin strengthin. Konsequents was I histid in
so much I dident zackly know whare bowts I was. I turnd my livin
wild beests of Pray loose into the streets and spilt all my wax
wurks. I then Bet I cood play hoss. So I hitched myself to a
Kanawl bote, there bein two other hosses hitcht on also, one
behind and anuther ahead of me. The driver hollerd for us to git
up, and we did. But the hosses bein onused to sich a arrangemunt
begun to kick & squeal and rair up. Konsequents was I was kickt
vilently in the stummuck & back, and presuntly I fownd myself in
the Kanawl with the other hosses, kickin & yellin like a tribe of
Cusscaroorus savvijis. I was rescood, & as I was bein carrid to
the tavern on a hemlock Bored I sed in a feeble voise, "Boys,
playin hoss isn't my Fort."
MORUL--Never don't do nothin which isn't your Fort, for ef you do
you'll find yourself splashin round in the Kanawl, figgeratively
speakin.
1.3. THE SHAKERS.
The Shakers is the strangest religious sex I ever met. I'd hearn
tell of 'em and I'd seen 'em, with their broad brim'd hats and
long wastid coats; but I'd never cum into immejit contack with
'em, and I'd sot 'em down as lackin intelleck, as I'd never seen
'em to my Show--leastways, if they cum they was disgised in white
peple's close, so I didn't know 'em.
But in the Spring of 18--, I got swampt in the exterior of New
York State, one dark and stormy night, when the winds Blue
pityusly, and I was forced to tie up with the Shakers.
I was toilin threw the mud, when in the dim vister of the futer I
obsarved the gleams of a taller candle. Tiein a hornet's nest to
my off hoss's tail to kinder encourage him, I soon reached the
place. I knockt at the door, which it was opened unto me by a
tall, slick-faced, solum lookin individooal, who turn'd out to be
a Elder.
"Mr. Shaker," sed I, "you see before you a Babe in the woods, so
to speak, and he axes shelter of you."
"Yay," sed the Shaker, and he led the way into the house, another
Shaker bein sent to put my hosses and waggin under kiver.
A solum female, lookin sumwhat like a last year's beanpole stuck
into a long meal bag, cum in axed me was I athurst and did I
hunger? to which I urbanely anserd "a few." She went orf and I
endeverd to open a conversashun with the old man.
"Elder, I spect?" sed I.
"Yay," he said.
"Helth's good, I reckon?"
"Yay."
"What's the wages of a Elder, when he understans his bizness--or
do you devote your sarvices gratooitus?"
"Yay."
"Stormy night, sir."
"Yay."
"If the storm continners there'll be a mess underfoot, hay?"
"Yay."
"It's onpleasant when there's a mess underfoot?"
"Yay."
"If I may be so bold, kind sir, what's the price of that pecooler
kind of weskit you wear, incloodin trimmins?"
"Yay!"
I pawsd a minit, and then, thinkin I'd be faseshus with him and
see how that would go, I slapt him on the shoulder, bust into a
harty larf, and told him that as a yayer he had no livin ekal.
He jumpt up as if Bilin water had bin squirted into his ears,
groaned, rolled his eyes up tords the sealin and sed: "You're a
man of sin!" He then walkt out of the room.
Jest then the female in the meal bag stuck her hed into the room
and statid that refreshments awaited the weary travler, and I sed
if it was vittles she ment the weary travler was agreeable, and I
follored her into the next room.
I sot down to the table and the female in the meal bag pored out
sum tea. She sed nothin, and for five minutes the only live
thing in that room was a old wooden clock, which tickt in a
subdood and bashful manner in the corner. This dethly stillness
made me oneasy, and I determined to talk to the female or bust.
So sez I, "marrige is agin your rules, I bleeve, marm?"
"Yay."
"The sexes liv strickly apart, I spect?"
"Yay."
"It's kinder singler," sez I, puttin on my most sweetest look and
speakin in a winnin voice, "that so fair a made as thow never got
hitched to some likely feller." [N.B.--She was upards of 40 and
homely as a stump fence, but I thawt I'd tickil her.]
"I don't like men!" she sed, very short.
"Wall, I dunno," sez I, "they're a rayther important part of the
populashun. I don't scacely see how we could git along without
'em."
"Us poor wimin folks would git along a grate deal better if there
was no men!"
"You'll excoos me, marm, but I don't think that air would work.
It wouldn't be regler."
"I'm fraid of men!" she sed.
"That's onnecessary, marm. YOU ain't in no danger. Don't fret
yourself on that pint."
"Here we're shot out from the sinful world. Here all is peas.
Here we air brothers and sisters. We don't marry and consekently
we hav no domestic difficulties. Husbans don't abooze their
wives--wives don't worrit their husbans. There's no children
here to worrit us. Nothin to worrit us here. No wicked
matrimony here. Would thow like to be a Shaker?"
"No," sez I, "it ain't my stile."
I had now histed in as big a load of pervishuns as I could carry
comfortable, and, leanin back in my cheer, commenst pickin my
teeth with a fork. The female went out, leavin me all alone with
the clock. I hadn't sot thar long before the Elder poked his hed
in at the door. "You're a man of sin!" he sed, and groaned and
went away.
Direckly thar cum in two young Shakeresses, as putty and slick
lookin gals as I ever met. It is troo they was drest in meal
bags like the old one I'd met previsly, and their shiny, silky
har was hid from sight by long white caps, sich as I spose female
Josts wear; but their eyes sparkled like diminds, their cheeks
was like roses, and they was charmin enuff to make a man throw
stuns at his granmother if they axed him to. They comenst
clearin away the dishes, castin shy glances at me all the time.
I got excited. I forgot Betsy Jane in my rapter, and sez I, "my
pretty dears, how air you?"
"We air well," they solumly sed.
"Whar's the old man?" sed I, in a soft voice.
"Of whom dost thow speak--Brother Uriah?"
"I mean the gay and festiv cuss who calls me a man of sin.
Shouldn't wonder if his name was Uriah."
"He has retired."
"Wall, my pretty dears," sez I, "let's have sum fun. Let's play
puss in the corner. What say?"
"Air you a Shaker, sir?" they axed.
"Wall my pretty dears, I haven't arrayed my proud form in a long
weskit yit, but if they was all like you perhaps I'd jine 'em.
As it is, I'm a Shaker pro-temporary."
They was full of fun. I seed that at fust, only they was a
leetle skeery. I tawt 'em Puss in the corner and sich like plase,
and we had a nice time, keepin quiet of course so the old man
shouldn't hear. When we broke up, sez I, "my pretty dears, ear I
go you hav no objections, hav you, to a innersent kiss at
partin?"
"Yay," they said, and I YAY'D.
I went up stairs to bed. I spose I'd bin snoozin half an hour
when I was woke up by a noise at the door. I sot up in bed,
leanin on my elbers and rubbin my eyes, and I saw the follerin
picter: The Elder stood in the doorway, with a taller candle in
his hand. He hadn't no wearin appeerel on except his night
close, which flutterd in the breeze like a Seseshun flag. He sed,
"You're a man of sin!" then groaned and went away.
I went to sleep agin, and drempt of runnin orf with the pretty
little Shakeresses mounted on my Californy Bar. I thawt the Bar
insisted on steerin strate for my dooryard in Baldinsville and
that Betsy Jane cum out and giv us a warm recepshun with a
panfull of Bilin water. I was woke up arly by the Elder. He
said refreshments was reddy for me down stairs. Then sayin I was
a man of sin, he went groanin away.
As I was goin threw the entry to the room where the vittles was,
I cum across the Elder and the old female I'd met the night
before, and what d'ye spose they was up to? Huggin and kissin
like young lovers in their gushingist state. Sez I, "my Shaker
friends, I reckon you'd better suspend the rules and git
married."
"You must excoos Brother Uriah," sed the female; "he's subjeck to
fits and hain't got no command over hisself when he's into 'em."
"Sartinly," sez I, "I've bin took that way myself frequent."
"You're a man of sin!" sed the Elder.
Arter breakfust my little Shaker frends cum in agin to clear away
the dishes.
"My pretty dears," sez I, "shall we YAY agin?"
"Nay," they sed, and I NAY'D.
The Shakers axed me to go to their meetin, as they was to hav
sarvices that mornin, so I put on a clean biled rag and went.
The meetin house was as neat as a pin. The floor was white as
chalk and smooth as glass. The Shakers was all on hand, in clean
weskits and meal bags, ranged on the floor like milingtery
companies, the mails on one side of the room and the females on
tother. They commenst clappin their hands and singin and dancin.
They danced kinder slow at fust, but as they got warmed up they
shaved it down very brisk, I tell you. Elder Uriah, in
particler, exhiberted a right smart chance of spryness in his
legs, considerin his time of life, and as he cum a dubble shuffle
near where I sot, I rewarded him with a approvin smile and sed:
"Hunky boy! Go it, my gay and festiv cuss!"
"You're a man of sin!" he sed, continnerin his shuffle.
The Sperret, as they called it, then moved a short fat Shaker to
say a few remarks. He sed they was Shakers and all was ekal.
They was the purest and Seleckest peple on the yearth. Other
peple was sinful as they could be, but Shakers was all right.
Shakers was all goin kerslap to the Promist Land, and nobody want
goin to stand at the gate to bar 'em out, if they did they'd git
run over.
The Shakers then danced and sung agin, and arter they was threw,
one of 'em axed me what I thawt of it.
Sez I, "What duz it siggerfy?"
"What?" sez he.
"Why this jumpin up and singin? This long weskit bizniss, and
this anty-matrimony idee? My frends, you air neat and tidy.
Your lands is flowin with milk and honey. Your brooms is fine,
and your apple sass is honest. When a man buys a keg of apple
sass of you he don't find a grate many shavins under a few layers
of sass--a little Game I'm sorry to say sum of my New Englan
ancesters used to practiss. Your garding seeds is fine, and if I
should sow 'em on the rock of Gibralter probly I should raise a
good mess of garding sass. You air honest in your dealins. You
air quiet and don't distarb nobody. For all this I givs you
credit. But your religion is small pertaters, I must say. You
mope away your lives here in single retchidness, and as you air
all by yourselves nothing ever conflicks with your pecooler
idees, except when Human Nater busts out among you, as I
understan she sumtimes do. [I giv Uriah a sly wink here, which
made the old feller squirm like a speared Eel.] You wear long
weskits and long faces, and lead a gloomy life indeed. No
children's prattle is ever hearn around your harthstuns--you air
in a dreary fog all the time, and you treat the jolly sunshine of
life as tho' it was a thief, drivin it from your doors by them
weskits, and meal bags, and pecooler noshuns of yourn. The gals
among you, sum of which air as slick pieces of caliker as I ever
sot eyes on, air syin to place their heds agin weskits which
kiver honest, manly harts, while you old heds fool yerselves with
the idee that they air fulfillin their mishun here, and air
contented. Here you air all pend up by yerselves, talkin about
the sins of a world you don't know nothin of. Meanwhile said
world continners to resolve round on her own axletree onct in
every 24 hours, subjeck to the Constitution of the United States,
and is a very plesant place of residence. It's a unnatral,
onreasonable and dismal life you're leadin here. So it strikes
me. My Shaker frends, I now bid you a welcome adoo. You hav
treated me exceedin well. Thank you kindly, one and all.
"A base exhibiter of depraved monkeys and onprincipled wax
works!" sed Uriah.
"Hello, Uriah," sez I, "I'd most forgot you. Wall, look out for
them fits of yourn, and don't catch cold and die in the flour of
your youth and beauty."
And I resoomed my jerney.
1.4. HIGH-HANDED OUTRAGE AT UTICA.
In the Faul of 1856, I showed my show in Uticky, a trooly grate
sitty in the State of New York.
The people gave me a cordyal recepshun. The press was loud in
her prases.
1 day as I was givin a descripshun of my Beests and Snaiks in my
usual flowry stile what was my skorn disgust to see a big burly
feller walk up to the cage containin my wax figgers of the Lord's
Last Supper, and cease Judas Iscarrot by the feet and drag him
out on the ground. He then commenced fur to pound him as hard as
he cood.
"What under the son are you abowt?" cried I.
Sez he, "What did you bring this pussylanermus cuss here fur?"
and he hit the wax figger another tremenjis blow on the hed.
Sez I, "You egrejus ass, that air's a wax figger--a
representashun of the false 'Postle."
Sez he, "That's all very well fur you to say, but I tell you, old
man, that Judas Iscarrot can't show hisself in Utiky with
impunerty by a darn site!" with which observashun he kaved in
Judassis hed. The young man belonged to 1 of the first famerlies
in Utiky. I sood him, and the Joory brawt in a verdick of Arson
in the 3d degree.
1.5. CELEBRATION AT BALDINSVILLE IN HONOR OF THE ATLANTIC CABLE.
Baldinsville, Injianny, Sep. the onct, 18&58.--I was summund home
from Cinsinnaty quite suddin by a lettur from the Supervizers of
Baldinsville, sayin as how grate things was on the Tappis in that
air town in refferunse to sellebratin the compleshun of the
Sub-Mershine Tellergraph & axkin me to be Pressunt. Lockin up my
Kangeroo and wax wurks in a sekure stile I took my departer for
Baldinsville--"my own, my nativ lan," which I gut intwo at early
kandle litin on the follerin night & just as the sellerbrashun
and illumernashun ware commensin.
Baldinsville was trooly in a blaze of glory. Near can I forgit
the surblime speckticul which met my gase as I alited from the
Staige with my umbreller and verlis. The Tarvern was lit up with
taller kandles all over & a grate bon fire was burnin in frunt
thareof. A Traspirancy was tied onto the sine post with the
follerin wurds--"Giv us Liberty or Deth." Old Tompkinsis grosery
was illumernated with 5 tin lantuns and the follerin Transpirancy
was in the winder--"The Sub-Mershine Tellergraph & the
Baldinsville and Stonefield Plank Road--the 2 grate eventz of the
19th centerry--may intestines strife never mar their grandjure."
Simpkinsis shoe shop was all ablase with kandles and lantuns. A
American Eagle was painted onto a flag in a winder--also these
wurds, viz.--"The Constitooshun must be Presarved." The Skool
house was lited up in grate stile and the winders was filld with
mottoes amung which I notised the follerin--"Trooth smashed to
erth shall rize agin--YOU CAN'T STOP HER." "The Boy stood on the
Burnin Deck whense awl but him had Fled." "Prokrastinashun is
the theaf of Time." "Be virtoous & you will be Happy."
"Intemperunse has cawsed a heap of trubble--shun the Bole," an
the follerin sentimunt written by the skool master, who graduated
at Hudson Kollige: "Baldinsville sends greetin to Her Magisty
the Queen, & hopes all hard feelins which has heretofore previs
bin felt between the Supervizers of Baldinsville and the British
Parlimunt, if such there has been, may now be forever wiped frum
our Escutchuns. Baldinsville this night rejoises over the
gerlorious event which sementz 2 grate nashuns onto one anuther
by means of a elecktric wire under the roarin billers of the
Nasty Deep. QUOSQUE TANTRUM, A BUTTER, CATERLINY, PATENT
NOSTRUM!" Squire Smith's house was lited up regardlis of
expense. His little sun William Henry stood upon the roof firin
orf crackers. The old 'Squire hisself was dressed up in soljer
clothes and stood on his door-step, pintin his sword sollumly to
a American flag which was suspendid on top of a pole in frunt of
his house. Frequiently he wood take orf his cocked hat & wave it
round in a impressive stile. His oldest darter Mis Isabeller
Smith, who has just cum home from the Perkinsville Female
Instertoot, appeared at the frunt winder in the West room as the
goddis of liberty, & sung "I see them on their windin way."
Booteus 1, sed I to myself, you air a angil & nothin shorter. N.
Boneparte Smith, the 'Squire's oldest sun, drest hisself up as
Venus the God of Wars and red the Decleration of Inderpendunse
from the left chambir winder. The 'Squire's wife didn't jine in
the festiverties. She sed it was the tarnulest nonsense she ever
seed. Sez she to the 'Squire, "Cum into the house and go to bed
you old fool, you. Tomorrer you'll be goin round half-ded with
the rumertism & won't gin us a minit's peace till you get well."
Sez the 'Squire, "Betsy, you little appresiate the importance of
the event which I this night commererate." Sez she, "Commemerate
a cat's tail--cum into the house this instant, you pesky old
critter." "Betsy," sez the 'Squire, wavin his sword, "retire."
This made her just as mad as she could stick. She retired, but
cum out agin putty quick with a panfull of Bilin hot water which
she throwed all over the Squire, & Surs, you wood have split your
sides larfin to see the old man jump up and holler & run into the
house. Except this unpropishus circumstance all went as merry as
a carriage bell, as Lord Byrun sez. Doctor Hutchinsis offiss was
likewise lited up and a Transpirancy, on which was painted the
Queen in the act of drinkin sum of "Hutchinsis invigorater," was
stuck into one of the winders. The Baldinsville Bugle of Liberty
noospaper offiss was also illumernated, & the follerin mottoes
stuck out--"The Press is the Arkermejian leaver which moves the
world." "Vote Early." "Buckle on your Armer." "Now is the time
to Subscribe." "Franklin, Morse & Field." "Terms 1.50 dollars a
year--liberal reducshuns to clubs." In short the villige of
Baldinsville was in a perfect fewroar. I never seed so many
peple thar befour in my born days. Ile not attemp to describe
the seens of that grate night. Wurds wood fale me ef I shood try
to do it. I shall stop here a few periods and enjoy my "Oatem
cum dig the tates," as our skool master observes, in the buzzum
of my famerly, & shall then resume the show biznis, which Ive bin
into twenty-two (22) yeres and six (6) months.
1.6. AMONG THE SPIRITS.
My naburs is mourn harf crazy on the new-fangled ideas about
Sperrets. Sperretooul Sircles is held nitely & 4 or 5 long hared
fellers has settled here and gone into the Sperret biznis
excloosively. A atemt was made to git Mrs. A. Ward to embark
into the Sperret biznis but the atemt faled. 1 of the long hared
fellers told her she was a ethereal creeter & wood make a sweet
mejium, whareupon she attact him with a mop handle & drove him
out of the house. I will hear obsarve that Mrs.Ward is a
invalerble womum--the partner of my goys & the shairer of my
sorrers. In my absunse she watchis my interests & things with a
Eagle Eye & when I return she welcums me in afectionate stile.
Trooly it is with us as it was with Mr. & Mrs. INGOMER in the
Play, to whit,--
2 soles with but a single thawt
2 harts which beet as 1.
My naburs injooced me to attend a Sperretooul Sircle at Squire
Smith's. When I arrove I found the east room chock full includin
all the old maids in the villige & the long hared fellers a4sed.
When I went in I was salootid with "hear cums the benited man"--
"hear cums the hory-heded unbeleever"--"hear cums the skoffer at
trooth," etsettery, etsettery.
Sez I, "my frens, it's troo I'm hear, & now bring on your
Sperrets."
1 of the long hared fellers riz up and sed he would state a few
remarks. He sed man was a critter of intelleck & was movin on to
a Gole. Sum men had bigger intellecks than other men had and
thay wood git to the Gole the soonerest. Sum men was beests &
wood never git into the Gole at all. He sed the Erth was
materiel but man was immaterial, and hens man was different from
the Erth. The Erth, continnered the speaker, resolves round on
its own axeltree onct in 24 hours, but as man haint gut no
axeltree he cant resolve. He sed the ethereal essunce of the
koordinate branchis of super-human natur becum mettymorfussed as
man progrest in harmonial coexistunce & eventooally anty
humanized theirselves & turned into reglar sperretuellers. (This
was versifferusly applauded by the cumpany, and as I make it a
pint to get along as pleasant as possible, I sung out "bully for
you, old boy.")
The cumpany then drew round the table and the Sircle kommenst
to go it. Thay axed me if thare was an body in the Sperret land
which I wood like to convarse with. I sed if Bill Tompkins, who
was onct my partner in the show biznis, was sober, I should like
to convarse with him a few periods.
"Is the Sperret of William Tompkins present?" sed 1 of the long
hared chaps, and there was three knox on the table.
Sez I, "William, how goze it, Old Sweetness?"
"Pretty ruff, old hoss," he replide.
That was a pleasant way we had of addressin each other when he
was in the flesh.
"Air you in the show bizniz, William?" sed I.
He sed he was. He sed he & John Bunyan was travelin with a
side show in connection with Shakspere, Jonson & Co.'s Circus.
He sed old Bun (meanin Mr. Bunyan,) stired up the animils &
ground the organ while he tended door. Occashunally Mr. Bunyan
sung a comic song. The Circus was doin middlin well. Bill
Shakspeer had made a grate hit with old Bob Ridley, and Ben
Jonson was delitin the peple with his trooly grate ax of
hossmanship without saddul or bridal. Thay was rehersin
Dixey's Land & expected it would knock the peple.
Sez I, "William, my luvly friend, can you pay me that 13
dollars you owe me?" He sed no with one of the most tremenjis
knox I ever experiunsed.
The Sircle sed he had gone. "Air you gone, William?" I axed.
"Rayther," he replide, and I knowd it was no use to pursoo the
subjeck furder.
I then called fur my farther.
"How's things, daddy?"
"Middlin, my son, middlin."
"Ain't you proud of your orfurn boy?"
"Scacely."
"Why not, my parient?"
"Becawz you hav gone to writin for the noospapers, my son.
Bimeby you'll lose all your character for trooth and
verrasserty. When I helpt you into the show biznis I told you
to dignerfy that there profeshun. Litteratoor is low."
He also statid that he was doin middlin well in the peanut
biznis & liked it putty well, tho' the climit was rather warm.
When the Sircle stopt thay axed me what I thawt of it.
Sez I, "My frends I've bin into the show biznis now goin on 23
years. Theres a artikil in the Constitooshun of the United
States which sez in effeck that everybody may think just as he
darn pleazes, & them is my sentiments to a hare. You dowtlis
beleeve this Sperret doctrin while I think it is a little mixt.
Just so soon as a man becums a reglar out & out Sperret rapper
he leeves orf workin, lets his hare grow all over his fase &
commensis spungin his livin out of other peple. He eats all
the dickshunaries he can find & goze round chock full of big
words, scarein the wimmin folks & little children & destroyin
the piece of mind of evry famerlee he enters. He don't do
nobody no good & is a cuss to society & a pirit on honest
peple's corn beef barrils. Admittin all you say abowt the
doctrin to be troo, I must say the reglar perfessional Sperrit
rappers--them as makes a biznis on it--air abowt the most
ornery set of cusses I ever enkountered in my life. So sayin I
put on my surtoot and went home.
Respectably Yures,
Artemus Ward.
1.7. ON THE WING.
Gents of the Editorial Corpse.--
Since I last rit you I've met with immense success a showin my
show in varis places, particly at Detroit. I put up at Mr.
Russel's tavern, a very good tavern too, but I am sorry to
inform you that the clerks tried to cum a Gouge Game on me. I
brandished my new sixteen dollar huntin-cased watch round
considerable, & as I was drest in my store clothes & had a lot
of sweet-scented wagon-grease on my hair, I am free to confess
that I thought I lookt putty gay. It never once struck me that
I lookt green. But up steps a clerk & axes me hadn't I better
put my watch in the Safe. "Sir," sez I, "that watch cost
sixteen dollars! Yes, Sir, every dollar of it! You can't cum
it over me, my boy! Not at all, Sir." I know'd what the clerk
wanted. He wanted that watch himself. He wanted to make
believe as tho he lockt it up in the safe, then he would set
the house a fire and pretend as tho the watch was destroyed
with the other property! But he caught a Tomarter when he got
hold of me. From Detroit I go West'ard hoe. On the cars was a
he-lookin female, with a green-cotton umbreller in one hand and
a handful of Reform tracks in the other. She sed every woman
should have a Spear. Them as didn't demand their Spears,
didn't know what was good for them. "What is my Spear?" she
axed, addressing the people in the cars. "Is it to stay at
home & darn stockins & be the ser-LAVE of a domineerin man? Or
is it my Spear to vote & speak & show myself the ekal of a man?
Is there a sister in these keers that has her proper Spear?"
Sayin which the eccentric female whirled her umbreller round
several times, & finally jabbed me in the weskit with it.
"I hav no objecshuns to your goin into the Spear bizness," sez
I, "but you'll please remember I ain't a pickeril. Don't Spear
me agin, if you please." She sot down.
At Ann Arbor, bein seized with a sudden faintness, I called for
a drop of suthin to drink. As I was stirrin the beverage up, a
pale-faced man in gold spectacles laid his hand upon my
shoulder, & sed, "Look not upon the wine when it is red!"
Sez I, "This ain't wine. This is Old Rye."
"'It stingeth like a Adder and biteth like a Sarpent!'" sed the
man.
"I guess not," sed I, "when you put sugar into it. That's the
way I allers take mine."
"Have you sons grown up, sir?" the man axed.
"Wall," I replide, as I put myself outside my beverage, "my son
Artemus junior is goin on 18."
"Ain't you afraid if you set this example be4 him he'll cum to
a bad end?"
"He's cum to a waxed end already. He's learnin the shoe makin
bizness," I replide. "I guess we can both on us git along
without your assistance, Sir," I obsarved, as he was about to
open his mouth agin.
"This is a cold world!" sed the man.
"That's so. But you'll get into a warmer one by and by if you
don't mind your own bizness better." I was a little riled at
the feller, because I never take anythin only when I'm onwell.
I arterwards learned he was a temperance lecturer, and if he
can injuce men to stop settin their inards on fire with the
frightful licker which is retailed round the country, I shall
hartily rejoice. Better give men Prusick Assid to onct, than
to pizen 'em to deth by degrees.
At Albion I met with overwhelmin success. The celebrated
Albion Female Semenary is located here, & there air over 300
young ladies in the Institushun, pretty enough to eat without
seasonin or sass. The young ladies was very kind to me,
volunteerin to pin my handbills onto the backs of their
dresses. It was a surblime site to see over 300 young ladies
goin round with a advertisement of A. Ward's onparaleld show,
conspickusly posted onto their dresses.
They've got a Panick up this way and refooze to take Western
money. It never was worth much, and when western men, who
knows what it is, refooze to take their own money it is about
time other folks stopt handlin it. Banks are bustin every day,
goin up higher nor any balloon of which we hav any record.
These western bankers air a sweet & luvly set of men. I wish I
owned as good a house as some of 'em would break into!
Virtoo is its own reward.
A. Ward.
1.8. THE OCTOROON.
It is with no ordernary feelins of Shagrin & indignashun that I
rite you these here lines. Sum of the hiest and most purest
feelins whitch actoate the humin hart has bin trampt onto. The
Amerycan flag has bin outrajed. Ive bin nussin a Adder in my
Boozum. The fax in the kase is these here:
A few weeks ago I left Baldinsville to go to N.Y. fur to git
out my flamin yeller hanbills fur the Summer kampane, & as I
was peroosin a noospaper on the kars a middel aged man in
speckterkuls kum & sot down beside onto me. He was drest in
black close & was appeerently as fine a man as ever was.
"A fine day, Sir," he did unto me strateway say.
"Middlin," sez I, not wishin to kommit myself, tho he peered to
be as fine a man as there was in the wurld--"It is a middlin
fine day, Square," I obsarved.
Sez he, "How fares the Ship of State in yure regine of
country?"
Sez I, "We don't hav no ships in our State--the kanawl is our
best holt."
He pawsed a minit and then sed, "Air yu aware, Sir, that the
krisis is with us?"
"No," sez I, getting up and lookin under the seet, "whare is
she?"
"It's hear--it's everywhares," he sed.
Sez I, "Why how you tawk!" and I gut up agin & lookt all round.
"I must say, my fren," I continnered, as I resoomed my seet,
"that I kan't see nothin of no krisis myself." I felt sumwhat
alarmed, & arose & in a stentoewrian voice obsarved that if any
lady or gentleman in that there kar had a krisis consealed
abowt their persons they'd better projuce it to onct or suffer
the konsequences. Several individoouls snickered rite out,
while a putty little damsell rite behind me in a pinc gown made
the observashun, "He, he."
"Sit down, my fren," sed the man in black close, "yu
miskomprehend me. I meen that the perlittercal ellermunts are
orecast with black klouds, 4boden a friteful storm."
"Wall," replide I, "in regard to perlittercal ellerfunts I
don't know as how but what they is as good as enny other kind
of ellerfunts. But I maik bold to say thay is all a ornery set
& unpleasant to hav around. They air powerful hevy eaters &
take up a right smart chans of room, & besides thay air as ugly
and revenjeful, as a Cusscaroarus Injun, with 13 inches of corn
whisky in his stummick." The man in black close seemed to be
as fine a man as ever was in the wurld. He smilt & sed praps I
was rite, tho it was ellermunts instid of ellerfunts that he
was alludin to, & axed me what was my prinserpuls?
"I haint gut enny," sed I--"not a prinserpul. Ime in the show
biznis." The man in black close, I will hear obsarve, seemed
to be as fine a man as ever was in the wurld.
"But," sez he, "you hav feelins into you? You cimpathize with
the misfortunit, the loly & the hart-sick, don't you?" He bust
into teers and axed me ef I saw that yung lady in the seet out
yender, pintin to as slick a lookin gal as I ever seed.
Sed I, "2 be shure I see her--is she mutch sick?" The man in
black close was appeerently as fine a man as ever was in the
wurld ennywhares.
"Draw closter to me," sed the man in black close. "Let me git
my mowth fernenst yure ear. Hush--SHESE A OCTOROON!"
"No!" sez I, gittin up in a exsited manner, "yu don't say so!
How long has she bin in that way?"
"Frum her arliest infuncy," sed he.
"Wall, whot upon arth duz she doo it fur?" I inquired.
"She kan't help it," sed the man in black close. "It's the
brand of Kane."
"Wall, she'd better stop drinkin Kane's brandy," I replide.
"I sed the brand of Kane was upon her--not brandy, my fren.
Yure very obtoose."
I was konsiderbul riled at this. Sez I, "My gentle Sir, Ime a
nonresistanter as a ginral thing, & don't want to git up no
rows with nobuddy, but I kin nevertheles kave in enny man's hed
that calls me a obtoos," with whitch remarks I kommenst fur to
pull orf my extry garmints. "Cum on," sez I--"Time! hear's the
Beniki Boy fur ye!" & I darnced round like a poppit. He riz up
in his seet & axed my pardin--sed it was all a mistake--that I
was a good man, etsettery, & sow 4th, & we fixt it all up
pleasant. I must say the man in black close seamed to be as
fine a man as ever lived in the wurld. He sed a Octoroon was
the 8th of a negrow. He likewise statid that the female he was
travlin with was formurly a slave in Mississippy; that she'd
purchist her freedim & now wantid to purchiss the freedim of
her poor old muther, who (the man in black close obsarved) was
between 87 years of age & had to do all the cookin & washin for
25 hired men, whitch it was rapidly breakin down her konstitushun.
He sed he knowed the minit he gazed onto my klassic & beneverlunt
fase that I'd donate librully & axed me to go over & see her,
which I accordingly did. I sot down beside her and sed, "yure
Sarvant, Marm! How do yer git along?"
She bust in 2 teers & sed, "O Sur, I'm so retchid--I'm a poor
unfortunit Octoroon."
"So I larn. Yure rather more Roon than Octo, I take it," sed
I, fur I never seed a puttier gal in the hull endoorin time of
my life. She had on a More Antic Barsk & a Poplin Nubier with
Berage trimmins onto it, while her ise & kurls was enuff to
make a man jump into a mill pond without biddin his relashuns
good-by. I pittid the Octoroon from the inmost recusses of my
hart & hawled out 50 dollars kerslap, & told her to buy her old
muther as soon as posserbul. Sez she "kine sir mutch thanks."
She then lade her hed over onto my showlder & sed I was "old
rats." I was astonished to heer this obsarvation, which I
knowd was never used in refined society & I perlitely but
emfattercly shovd her hed away.
Sez I "Marm, I'm trooly sirprized."
Sez she, "git out. Yure the nicist old man Ive seen yit. Give
us anuther 50!" Had a seleck assortment of the most tremenjious
thunderbolts descended down onto me I couldn't hav bin more
takin aback. I jumpt up, but she ceased my coat tales & in a
wild voise cride, "No, Ile never desart you--let us fli together
to a furrin shoor!"
Sez I, "not mutch we wont," and I made a powerful effort to get
awa from her. "This is plade out," I sed, whereupon she jerkt
me back into the seet. "Leggo my coat, you scandaluss female,"
I roared, when she set up the most unarthly yellin and hollerin
you ever heerd. The passinjers & the gentlemunly konducter
rusht to the spot, & I don't think I ever experiunsed sich a
rumpus in the hull coarse of my natral dase. The man in black
close rusht up to me & sed "How dair yu insult my neece, you
horey heded vagabone. You base exhibbiter of low wax figgers--
yu woolf in sheep's close," & sow 4th.
I was konfoozed. I was a loonytick fur the time bein, and
offered 5 dollars reward to enny gentleman of good morrul
carracter who wood tell me whot my name was & what town I livd
into. The konducter kum to me & sed the insultid parties wood
settle for 50 dollars, which I immejitly hawled out, & agane
implored sumbuddy to state whare I was prinsipully, & if I
shood be thare a grate while my self ef things went on as
they'd bin goin fur sum time back. I then axed if there was
enny more Octoroons present, "becawz," sez I, "ef there is, let
um cum along, fur Ime in the Octoroon bizniss." I then threw
my specterculs out of the winder, smasht my hat wildly down
over my Ise, larfed highsterically & fell under a seet. I lay
there sum time & fell asleep. I dreamt Mrs. Ward & the twins
had bin carried orf by Ryenosserhosses & that Baldinsville had
bin captered by a army of Octoroons. When I awoked the lamps
was a burnin dimly. Sum of the passinjers was a snorein like
pawpusses & the little damsell in the pinc gown was a singin
"Oft in the Silly nite." The onprinsipuld Octoroon & the
miserbul man in black close was gone, & all of a suddent it
flasht ore my brane that I'de bin swindild.
1.9. EXPERIENCE AS AN EDITOR.
In the Ortum of 18-- my frend, the editor of the Baldinsville
Bugle, was obleged to leave perfeshernal dooties & go & dig his
taters, & he axed me to edit for him dooring his absence.
Accordingly I ground up his Shears and commenced. It didn't
take me a grate while to slash out copy enuff from the xchanges
(Perhaps five per cent. of the Western newspapers is original
matter relating to the immediate neighborhood, the rest is
composed of "telegraphs" and clippings from the "exchanges"--a
general term applied to those papers posted in exchange for
others, the accommodation being a mutual benefit.) for one
issoo, and I thawt I'd ride up to the next town on a little
Jaunt, to rest my Branes, which had bin severely rackt by my
mental efforts. (This is sorter Ironical.) So I went over to
the Rale Road offiss and axed the Sooprintendent for a pars.
"YOU a editer?" he axed, evijently on the pint of snickerin.
"Yes Sir," sez I; "don't I look poor enuff?"
"Just about," sed he, "but our Road can't pars you."
"Can't, hay?"
"No Sir--it can't."
"Becauz," sez I, lookin him full in the face with a Eagle eye,
"IT GOES SO DARNED SLOW IT CAN'T PARS ANYBODY!" Methinks I had
him thar. It's the slowest Rale Road in the West. With a
mortified air, he told me to git out of his offiss. I pittid
him and went.
1.10. OBERLIN.
About two years ago I arrove in Oberlin, Ohio. Oberlin is
whare the celebrated college is. In fack, Oberlin IS the
college, everything else in that air vicinity resolvin around
excloosivly for the benefit of that institution. It is a very
good college, too, & a grate many wurthy yung men go there
annooally to git intelleck into 'em. But its my onbiassed
'pinion that they go it rather too strong on Ethiopians at
Oberlin. But that's nun of my bisniss. I'm into the Show
bizness. Yit as a faithful historan I must menshun the fack
that on rainy dase white peple can't find their way threw the
streets without the gas is lit, there bein such a numerosity of
cullerd pussons in the town.
As I was sayin, I arroved at Oberlin, and called on Perfesser
Peck for the purpuss of skewerin Kolonial Hall to exhibit my
wax works and beests of Pray into. Kolonial Hall is in the
college and is used by the stujents to speak peaces and read
essays into.
Sez Perfesser Peck, "Mister Ward, I don't know 'bout this
bizniss. What are your sentiments?"
Sez I, "I hain't got any."
"Good God!" cried the Perfesser, "did I understan you to say
you hav no sentiments!"
"Nary a sentiment!" sez I.
"Mister Ward, don't your blud bile at the thawt that three
million and a half of your culled brethren air a clankin their
chains in the South?"
Sez I, "Not a bile! Let 'em clank!"
He was about to continner his flowry speech when I put a
stopper on him. Sez I, "Perfesser Peck, A. Ward is my name &
Americky is my nashun; I'm allers the same, tho' humble is my
station, and I've bin in the show bizniss goin on 22 years.
The pint is, can I hav your Hall by payin a fair price? You
air full of sentiments. That's your lay, while I'm a exhibiter
of startlin curiosities. What d'ye say?"
"Mister Ward, you air endowed with a hily practical mind, and
while I deeply regret that you air devoid of sentiments I'll
let you hav the hall provided your exhibition is of a moral &
elevatin nater."
Sez I, "Tain't nothin shorter."
So I opened in Kolonial Hall, which was crowded every nite with
stujents, &c. Perfesser Finny gazed for hours at my Kangaroo,
but when that sagashus but onprincipled little cuss set up one
of his onarthly yellins and I proceeded to hosswhip him, the
Perfesser objected. "Suffer not your angry pashums to rise up
at the poor annimil's little excentrissities," said the
Perfesser.
"Do you call such conduck as THOSE a little excentrissity?" I
axed.
"I do," sed he; sayin which he walked up to the cage and sez
he, "let's try moral swashun upon the poor creeter." So he put
his hand upon the Kangeroo's hed and sed, "poor little fellow--
poor little fellow--your master is very crooil, isn't he, my
untootered frend," when the Kangaroo, with a terrific yell,
grabd the Perfesser by the hand and cum very near chawin it
orf. It was amoozin to see the Perfesser jump up and scream
with pane. Sez I, "that's one of the poor little fellow's
excentrissities!"
Sez he, "Mister Ward, that's a dangerous quadruped. He's
totally depraved. I will retire and do my lasserated hand up in
a rag, and meanwhile I request you to meat out summery and
severe punishment to the vishus beest," I hosswhipt the little
cuss for upwards of 15 minutes. Guess I licked sum of his
excentrissity out of him.
Oberlin is a grate plase. The College opens with a prayer and
then the New York Tribune is read. A kolleckshun is then taken
up to buy overkoats with red horn buttons onto them for the
indignant cullured people of Kanady. I have to contribit
librally two the glowrius work, as they kawl it hear. I'm
kompelled by the Fackulty to reserve front seets in my show for
the cullered peple. At the Boardin House the cullered peple
sit at the first table. What they leeve is maid into hash for
the white peple. As I don't like the idee of eatin my vittles
with Ethiopians, I sit at the seckind table, and the
konsequence is I've devowered so much hash that my inards is in
a hily mixt up condishun. Fish bones hav maid their appearance
all over my boddy and pertater peelins air a springin up
through my hair. Howsever I don't mind it. I'm gittin along
well in a pecunery pint of view. The College has konfired upon
me the honery title of T.K., of which I'm suffishuntly prowd.
1.11. THE SHOWMAN'S COURTSHIP.
Thare was many affectin ties which made me hanker arter Betsy
Jane. Her father's farm jined our'n; their cows and our'n
squencht their thurst at the same spring; our old mares both
had stars in their forreds; the measles broke out in both
famerlies at nearly the same period; our parients (Betsy's and
mine) slept reglarly every Sunday in the same meetin house, and
the nabers used to obsarve, "How thick the Wards and Peasleys
air!" It was a surblime site, in the Spring of the year, to
see our sevral mothers (Betsy's and mine) with their gowns
pin'd up so thay couldn't sile 'em, affecshuntly Bilin sope
together & aboozin the nabers.
Altho I hankerd intensly arter the objeck of my affecshuns, I
darsunt tell her of the fires which was rajin in my manly
Buzzum. I'd try to do it but my tung would kerwollup up agin
the roof of my mowth & stick thar, like deth to a deseast
Afrikan or a country postmaster to his offiss, while my hart
whanged agin my ribs like a old fashioned wheat Flale agin a
barn floor.
'Twas a carm still nite in Joon. All nater was husht and nary
a zeffer disturbed the sereen silens. I sot with Betsy Jane on
the fense of her farther's pastur. We'd bin rompin threw the
woods, kullin flours & drivin the woodchuck from his Nativ Lair
(so to speak) with long sticks. Wall, we sot thar on the
fense, a swingin our feet two and fro, blushin as red as the
Baldinsville skool house when it was fust painted, and lookin
very simple, I make no doubt. My left arm was ockepied in
ballunsin myself on the fense, while my rite was woundid
luvinly round her waste.
I cleared my throat and tremblin sed, "Betsy, you're a
Gazelle."
I thought that air was putty fine. I waitid to see what effeck
it would hav upon her. It evidently didn't fetch her, for she
up and sed,
"You're a sheep!"
Sez I, "Betsy, I think very muchly of you."
"I don't b'leeve a word you say--so there now cum!" with which
obsarvashun she hitched away from me.
"I wish thar was winders to my Sole," sed I, "so that you could
see some of my feelins. There's fire enuff in here," sed I,
strikin my buzzum with my fist, "to bile all the corn beef and
turnips in the naberhood. Versoovius and the Critter ain't a
circumstans!"
She bowd her hed down and commenst chawin the strings to her
sun bonnet.
"Ar could you know the sleeplis nites I worry threw with on
your account, how vittles has seized to be attractiv to me &
how my lims has shrunk up, you wouldn't dowt me. Gase on this
wastin form and these 'ere sunken cheeks"--
I should have continnered on in this strane probly for sum
time, but unfortnitly I lost my ballunse and fell over into the
pastur ker smash, tearin my close and seveerly damagin myself
ginerally.
Betsy Jane sprung to my assistance in dubble quick time and
dragged me 4th. Then drawin herself up to her full hite she
sed:
"I won't listen to your noncents no longer. Jes say rite
strate out what you're drivin at. If you mean gettin hitched,
I'M IN!"
I considered that air enuff for all practicul purpusses, and we
proceeded immejitely to the parson's, & was made 1 that very
nite.
(Notiss to the Printer: Put some stars here.)
* * * * * *
I've parst threw many tryin ordeels sins then, but Betsy Jane
has bin troo as steel. By attendin strickly to bizniss I've
amarsed a handsum Pittance. No man on this footstool can rise &
git up & say I ever knowinly injered no man or wimmin folks,
while all agree that my Show is ekalled by few and exceld by
none, embracin as it does a wonderful colleckshun of livin wild
Beests of Pray, snaix in grate profushun, a endliss variety of
life-size wax figgers, & the only traned kangaroo in Ameriky--
the most amoozin little cuss ever introjuced to a discriminatin
public.
1.12. THE CRISIS.
[This Oration was delivered before the commencement of the
war.]
On returnin to my humsted in Baldinsville, Injianny, resuntly,
my feller sitterzens extended a invite for me to norate to 'em
on the Krysis. I excepted & on larst Toosday nite I peared be4
a C of upturned faces in the Red Skool House. I spoke nearly
as follers:
Baldinsvillins: Hearto4, as I hav numerously obsarved, I have
abstrained from having any sentimunts or principles, my
pollertics, like my religion, bein of a exceedin accommodatin
character. But the fack can't be no longer disgised that a
Krysis is onto us, & I feel it's my dooty to accept your invite
for one consecutive nite only. I spose the inflammertory
individooals who assisted in projucing this Krysis know what
good she will do, but I ain't 'shamed to state that I don't
scacely. But the Krysis is hear. She's bin hear for sevral
weeks, & Goodness nose how long she'll stay. But I venter to
assert that she's rippin things. She's knockt trade into a
cockt up hat and chaned Bizness of all kinds tighter nor I ever
chaned any of my livin wild Beests. Alow me to hear dygress &
stait that my Beests at presnt is as harmless as the newborn
Babe. Ladys & gentlemen needn't hav no fears on that pint. To
resoom--Altho I can't exactly see what good this Krysis can do,
I can very quick say what the origernal cawz of her is. The
origernal cawz is Our Afrikan Brother. I was into BARNIM'S
Moozeum down to New York the other day & saw that exsentric
Etheopian, the What Is It. Sez I, "Mister What Is It, you
folks air raisin thunder with this grate country. You're
gettin to be ruther more numeris than interestin. It is a pity
you coodent go orf sumwhares by yourselves, & be a nation of
What Is Its, tho' if you'll excoose me, I shooden't care about
marryin among you. No dowt you're exceedin charmin to hum, but
your stile of luvliness isn't adapted to this cold climit. He
larfed into my face, which rather Riled me, as I had been
perfeckly virtoous and respectable in my observashuns. So sez
I, turnin a leetle red in the face, I spect, "Do you hav the
unblushin impoodents to say you folks haven't raised a big mess
of thunder in this brite land, Mister What Is It?" He larfed
agin, wusser nor be4, whareupon I up and sez, "Go home, Sir, to
Afriky's burnin shores & taik all the other What Is Its along
with you. Don't think we can spair your interestin picters.
You What Is Its air on the pint of smashin up the gratest
Guv'ment ever erected by man, & you actooally hav the owdassity
to larf about it. Go home, you low cuss!"
I was workt up to a high pitch, & I proceeded to a Restorator &
cooled orf with some little fishes biled in ile--I b'leeve thay
call 'em sardeens.
Feller Sitterzuns, the Afrikan may be Our Brother. Sevral hily
respectyble gentlemen, and sum talentid females tell us so, &
fur argyment's sake I mite be injooced to grant it, tho' I
don't beleeve it myself. But the Afrikan isn't our sister &
our wife & our uncle. He isn't sevral of our brothers & all
our fust wife's relashuns. He isn't our grandfather, and our
grate grandfather, and our Aunt in the country. Scacely. &
yit numeris persons would have us think so. It's troo he runs
Congress & sevral other public grosserys, but then he ain't
everybody & everybody else likewise. [Notiss to bizness men of
VANITY FAIR: Extry charg fur this larst remark. It's a goak.
--A.W.]
But we've got the Afrikan, or ruther he's got us, & now what
air we going to do about it? He's a orful noosanse. Praps he
isn't to blame fur it. Praps he was creatid fur sum wise
purpuss, like the measles and New Englan Rum, but it's mity
hard to see it. At any rate he's no good here, & as I statid
to Mister What Is It, it's a pity he cooden't go orf sumwhares
quietly by hisself, whare he cood wear red weskits & speckled
neckties, & gratterfy his ambishun in varis interestin wase,
without havin a eternal fuss kickt up about him.
Praps I'm bearin down too hard upon Cuffy. Cum to think on it,
I am. He woodn't be sich a infernal noosanse if white peple
would let him alone. He mite indeed be interestin. And now I
think of it, why can't the white peple let him alone. What's
the good of continnerly stirrin him up with a ten-foot pole?
He isn't the sweetest kind of Perfoomery when in a natral
stait.
Feller Sitterzens, the Union's in danger. The black devil
Disunion is trooly here, starein us all squarely in the face!
We must drive him back. Shall we make a 2nd Mexico of
ourselves? Shall we sell our birthrite for a mess of potash?
Shall one brother put the knife to the throat of anuther
brother? Shall we mix our whisky with each other's blud?
Shall the star spangled Banner be cut up into dishcloths?
Standin here in this here Skoolhouse, upon my nativ shor so to
speak, I anser--Nary!
Oh you fellers who air raisin this row, & who in the fust place
startid it, I'm 'shamed of you. The Showman blushes for you,
from his boots to the topmost hair upon his wenerable hed.
Feller Sitterzens: I am in the Sheer & Yeller leaf. I shall
peg out 1 of these dase. But while I do stop here I shall stay
in the Union. I know not what the supervizers of Baldinsville
may conclude to do, but for one, I shall stand by the Stars &
Stripes. Under no circumstances whatsomever will I sesesh.
Let every Stait in the Union sesesh & let Palmetter flags flote
thicker nor shirts on Square Baxter's close line, still will I
stick to the good old flag. The country may go to the devil,
but I won't! And next Summer when I start out on my campane
with my Show, wharever I pitch my little tent, you shall see
floatin prowdly from the center pole thereof the Amerikan Flag,
with nary a star wiped out, nary a stripe less, but the same
old flag that has allers flotid thar! & the price of admishun
will be the same it allers was--15 cents, children half price.
Feller Sitterzens, I am dun. Accordinly I squatted.
1.13. WAX FIGURES VS. SHAKESPEARE.
ONTO THE WING--1859.
Mr. Editor.
I take my Pen in hand to inform yu that I'm in good helth and
trust these few lines will find yu injoyin the same blessins.
I wood also state that I'm now on the summir kampane. As the
Poit sez--
ime erflote, ime erflote
On the Swift rollin tied
An the Rovir is free.
Bizness is scacely middlin, but Sirs I manige to pay for my
foode and raiment puncktooally and without no grumblin. The
barked arrers of slandur has bin leviled at the undersined
moren onct sins heze bin into the show bizness, but I make bold
to say no man on this footstule kan troothfully say I ever
ronged him or eny of his folks. I'm travelin with a tent,
which is better nor hirin hauls. My show konsists of a serious
of wax works, snakes, a paneramy kalled a Grand Movin Diarea of
the War in the Crymear, komic songs and the Cangeroo, which
larst little cuss continners to konduct hisself in the most
outrajus stile. I started out with the idear of makin my show
a grate Moral Entertainment, but I'm kompeled to sware so much
at that air infurnal Kangeroo that I'm frade this desine will
be flustratid to some extent. And while speakin of morrality,
remines me that sum folks turn up their nosis at shows like
mine, sayin they is low and not fit to be patrernized by
peplpeple of high degree. Sirs, I manetane that this is
infernul nonsense. I manetane that wax figgers is more
elevatin than awl the plays ever wroten. Take Shakespeer for
instunse. Peple think heze grate things, but I kontend heze
quite the reverse to the kontrary. What sort of sense is thare
to King Leer, who goze round cussin his darters, chawin hay and
throin straw at folks, and larfin like a silly old koot and
makin a ass of hisself ginerally? Thare's Mrs. Mackbeth--sheze
a nise kind of woomon to have round ain't she, a puttin old
Mack, her husband, up to slayin Dunkan with a cheeze knife,
while heze payin a frendly visit to their house. O its hily
morral, I spoze, when she larfs wildly and sez, "gin me the
daggurs--Ile let his bowels out," or wurds to that effeck--I
say, this is awl, strickly, propper I spoze? That Jack
Fawlstarf is likewise a immoral old cuss, take him how ye may,
and Hamlick is as crazy as a loon. Thare's Richurd the Three,
peple think heze grate things, but I look upon him in the lite
of a monkster. He kills everybody he takes a noshun to in kold
blud, and then goze to sleep in his tent. Bimeby he wakes up
and yells for a hoss so he kan go orf and kill some more peple.
If he isent a fit spesserman for the gallers then I shood like
to know whare you find um. Thare's Iargo who is more ornery
nor pizun. See how shameful he treated that hily respecterble
injun gentlemun, Mister Otheller, makin him for to beleeve his
wife was too thick with Casheo. Obsarve how Iargo got Casheo
drunk as a biled owl on corn whiskey in order to karry out his
sneekin desines. See how he wurks Mister Otheller's feelins up
so that he goze and makes poor Desdemony swaller a piller which
cawses her deth. But I must stop. At sum futur time I shall
continner my remarks on the drammer in which I shall show the
varst supeeriority of wax figgers and snakes over theater
plays, in a interlectooal pint of view.
Very Respectively yures,
A WARD, T.K.
1.14. AMONG THE FREE LOVERS. (Some queer people, calling
themselves "Free Lovers," and possessing very original ideas
about life and morality, established themselves at Berlin
Heights, in Ohio, a few years since. Public opinion was
resistlessly against them, however, and the association was
soon disbanded.)
Some years ago I pitched my tent and onfurled my banner to the
breeze, in Berlin Hites, Ohio. I had hearn that Berlin Hites
was ockepied by a extensive seck called Free Lovers, who
beleeved in affinertys and sich, goin back on their domestic
ties without no hesitation whatsomever. They was likewise
spirit rappers and high presher reformers on gineral
principles. If I can improve these 'ere misgided peple by
showin them my onparalleld show at the usual low price of
admitants, methunk, I shell not hav lived in vane. But
bitterly did I cuss the day I ever sot foot in the retchid
place. I sot up my tent in a field near the Love Cure, as they
called it, and bimeby the free lovers begun for to congregate
around the door. A onreer set I have never sawn. The men's
faces was all covered with hare and they lookt half-starved to
deth. They didn't wear no weskuts for the purpose (as they
sed) of allowin the free air of hevun to blow onto their
boozums. Their pockets was filled with tracks and pamplits and
they was bare-footed. They sed the Postles didn't wear boots,
& why should they? That was their stile of argyment. The
wimin was wuss than the men. They wore trowsis, short gownds,
straw hats with green ribbins, and all carried bloo cotton
umbrellers.
Presently a perfeckly orful lookin female presented herself at
the door. Her gownd was skanderlusly short and her trowsis was
shameful to behold.
She eyed me over very sharp, and then startin back she sed, in
a wild voice:
"Ah, can it be?"
"Which?" sed I.
"Yes, 'tis troo, O 'tis troo!"
"15 cents, marm," I anserd.
She bust out a cryin & sed:
"And so I hav found you at larst--at larst, O at larst!"
"Yes," I anserd, "you hav found me at larst, and you would hav
found me at fust, if you had cum sooner."
She grabd me vilently by the coat collar, and brandishin her
umbreller wildly round, exclaimed:
"Air you a man?"
Sez I, "I think I air, but if you doubt it, you can address
Mrs. A. Ward, Baldinsville, Injianny, postage pade, & she will
probly giv you the desired informashun."
"Then thou ist what the cold world calls marrid?"
"Madam, I istest!"
The exsentric female then clutched me franticly by the arm and
hollered:
"You air mine, O you air mine!"
"Scacely," I sed, endeverin to git loose from her. But she
clung to me and sed:
"You air my Affinerty!"
"What upon arth is that?" I shouted.
"Dost thou not know?"
"No, I dostent!"
"Listin man, & I'll tell ye!" sed the strange female; "for
years I hav yearned for thee. I knowd thou wast in the world,
sumwhares, tho I didn't know whare. My hart sed he would cum
and I took courage. He HAS cum--he's here--you air him--you
air my Affinerty! O 'tis too mutch! too mutch!" and she sobbed
agin.
"Yes," I anserd, "I think it is a darn site too mutch!"
"Hast thou not yearned for me?" she yelled, ringin her hands
like a female play acter.
"Not a yearn!" I bellerd at the top of my voice, throwin her
away from me.
The free lovers who was standin round obsarvin the scene
commenst for to holler "shame" "beast," etsettery, etsettery.
I was very mutch riled, and fortifyin myself with a spare tent
stake, I addrest them as follers: "You pussylanermus critters,
go way from me and take this retchid woman with you. I'm a
law-abidin man, and beleeve in good, old-fashioned institutions.
I am marrid & my orfsprings resemble me if I am a showman! I
think your Affinity bizniss is cussed noncents, besides bein
outrajusly wicked. Why don't you behave desunt like other
folks? Go to work and earn a honist livin and not stay round
here in this lazy, shiftless way, pizenin the moral atmosphere
with your pestifrous ideas! You wimin folks go back to your
lawful husbands if you've got any, and take orf them skanderlous
gownds and trowsis, and dress respectful like other wimin. You
men folks, cut orf them pirattercal whiskers, burn up them
infurnel pamplits, put sum weskuts on, go to work choppin wood,
splittin fence rales, or tillin the sile." I pored 4th my
indignashun in this way till I got out of breth, when I stopt.
I shant go to Berlin Hites agin, not if I live to be as old
as Methooseler.
1.15. A VISIT TO BRIGHAM YOUNG.
It is now goin on 2 (too) yeres, as I very well remember, since
I crossed the Planes for Kaliforny, the Brite land of Jold.
While crossin the Planes all so bold I fell in with sum noble
red men of the forest (N.B. This is rote Sarcasticul. Injins
is Pizin, whar ever found,) which thay Sed I was their Brother,
& wanted for to smoke the Calomel of Peace with me. Thay then
stole my jerkt beef, blankits, etsettery, skalpt my orgin
grinder & scooted with a Wild Hoop. Durin the Cheaf's techin
speech he sed he shood meet me in the Happy Huntin Grounds. If
he duz thare will be a fite. But enuff of this ere. "Reven
Noose Muttons," as our skoolmaster, who has got Talent into
him, cussycally obsarve.
I arrove at Salt Lake in doo time. At Camp Scott there was a
lot of U.S. sogers, hosstensibly sent out there to smash the
Mormons but really to eat Salt vittles & play poker & other
beautiful but sumwhat onsartin games. I got acquainted with
sum of the officers. Thay lookt putty scrumpshus in their
Bloo coats with brass buttings onto um & ware very talented
drinkers, but so fur as fitin is consarned I'd willingly put my
wax figgers agin the hull party.
My desire was to exhibit my grate show in Salt Lake City, so I
called on Brigham Yung, the grate mogull amung the mormins and
axed his permishun to pitch my tent and onfurl my banner to the
jentle breezis. He lookt at me in a austeer manner for a few
minits, and sed:
"Do you bleeve in Solomon, Saint Paul, the immaculateness of
the Mormin Church and the Latter-day Revelashuns?"
Sez I, "I'm on it!" I make it a pint to git along plesunt, tho
I didn't know what under the Son the old feller was drivin at.
He sed I mite show.
"You air a marrid man, Mister Yung, I bleeve?" sez I, preparin
to rite him sum free parsis.
"I hev eighty wives, Mister Ward. I sertinly am married."
"How do you like it as far as you hev got?" sed I.
He sed "middlin," and axed me wouldn't I like to see his
famerly, to which I replide that I wouldn't mine minglin with
the fair Seck & Barskin in the winnin smiles of his interestin
wives. He accordingly tuk me to his Scareum. The house is
powerful big & in a exceedin large room was his wives &
children, which larst was squawkin and hollerin enuff to take
the roof rite orf the house. The wimin was of all sizes and
ages. Sum was pretty & sum was Plane--sum was helthy and sum
was on the Wayne--which is verses, tho sich was not my
intentions, as I don't 'prove of puttin verses in Proze
rittins, tho ef occashun requires I can Jerk a Poim ekal to any
of them Atlantic Munthly fellers.
"My wives, Mister Ward," sed Yung.
"Your sarvant, marms," sed I, as I sot down in a cheer which a
red-heded female brawt me.
"Besides these wives you see here, Mister Ward," sed Yung, "I
hav eighty more in varis parts of this consecrated land which
air Sealed to me."
"Which?" sez I, gittin up & starin at him.
"Sealed, Sir! sealed."
"Whare bowts?" sez I.
"I sed, Sir, that they was sealed!" He spoke in a traggerdy
voice.
"Will they probly continner on in that stile to any grate
extent, Sir?" I axed.
"Sir," sed he, turnin as red as a biled beet, "don't you know
that the rules of our Church is that I, the Profit, may hev as
meny wives as I wants?"
"Jes so," I sed. "You are old pie, ain't you?"
"Them as is Sealed to me--that is to say, to be mine when I
wants um--air at present my sperretooul wives," sed Mister
Yung.
"Long may thay wave!" sez I, seein I shood git into a scrape ef
I didn't look out.
In a privit conversashun with Brigham I learnt the follerin
fax: It takes him six weeks to kiss his wives. He don't do it
only onct a yere & sez it is wuss nor cleanin house. He don't
pretend to know his children, thare is so many of um, tho they
all know him. He sez about every child he meats call him Par,
& he takes it for grantid it is so. His wives air very
expensiv. Thay allers want suthin & ef he don't buy it for um
thay set the house in a uproar. He sez he don't have a minit's
peace. His wives fite amung their selves so much that he has
bilt a fitin room for thare speshul benefit, & when too of 'em
get into a row he has em turnd loose into that place, whare the
dispoot is settled accordin to the rules of the London prize
ring. Sum times thay abooz hisself individooally. Thay hev
pulled the most of his hair out at the roots & he wares meny a
horrible scar upon his body, inflicted with mop-handles,
broom-sticks, and sich. Occashunly they git mad & scald him
with bilin hot water. When he got eny waze cranky thay'd shut
him up in a dark closit, previsly whippin him arter the stile
of muthers when thare orfsprings git onruly. Sumptimes when he
went in swimmin thay'd go to the banks of the Lake & steal all
his close, thereby compellin him to sneek home by a sircootius
rowt, drest in the Skanderlus stile of the Greek Slaiv. "I
find that the keers of a marrid life way hevy onto me," sed the
Profit, "& sumtimes I wish I'd remaned singel." I left the
Profit and startid for the tavern whare I put up to. On my way
I was overtuk by a lurge krowd of Mormons, which they
surroundid me & statid that they were goin into the Show free.
"Wall," sez I, "ef I find a individooal who is goin round
lettin folks into his show free, I'll let you know."
"We've had a Revelashun biddin us go into A. Wards's Show
without payin nothin!" thay showtid.
"Yes," hollered a lot of femaile Mormonesses, ceasin me by the
cote tales & swingin me round very rapid, "we're all goin in
free! So sez the Revelashun!"
"What's Old Revelashun got to do with my show?" sez I, gittin
putty rily. "Tell Mister Revelashun," sed I, drawin myself up
to my full hite and lookin round upon the ornery krowd with a
prowd & defiant mean, "tell Mister Revelashun to mind his own
bizness, subject only to the Konstitushun of the United
States!"
"Oh now let us in, that's a sweet man," sed several femails,
puttin thare arms round me in luvin style. "Become 1 of us.
Becum a Preest & hav wives Sealed to you."
"Not a Seal!" sez I, startin back in horror at the idee.
"Oh stay, Sir, stay," sed a tell, gawnt femaile, ore whoos hed
37 summirs must hev parsd, "stay, & I'll be your Jentle
Gazelle."
"Not ef I know it, you won't," sez I. "Awa you skanderlus
femaile, awa! Go & be a Nunnery!" THAT'S WHAT I SED, JES SO.
"& I," sed a fat chunky femaile, who must hev wade more than
too hundred lbs, "I will be your sweet gidin Star!"
Sez I, "Ile bet two dollers and a half you won't!" Whare ear I
may Rome Ile still be troo 2 thee, Oh Betsy Jane! [N.B. Betsy
Jane is my wife's Sir naime.]
"Wiltist thou not tarry here in the promist Land?" sed several
of the miserabil critters.
"Ile see you all essenshally cussed be4 I wiltist!" roared I,
as mad as I cood be at thare infernul noncents. I girdid up my
Lions & fled the Seen. I packt up my duds & Left Salt Lake,
which is a 2nd Soddum & Germorrer, inhabitid by as theavin &
onprincipled a set of retchis as ever drew Breth in eny spot on
the Globe.
1.16. SCANDALOUS DOINGS AT PITTSBURG.
Hear in the Buzzum of my famerly I am enjoyin myself, at peas
with awl mankind and the wimin folks likewise. I go down to
the villige ockashunly and take a little old Rye fur the
stummuck's sake, but I avoyd spiritus lickers as a ginral
thing. No man evir seen me intossikated but onct, and that air
happind in Pittsburg. A parsel of ornery cusses in that luvly
sity bustid inter the hawl durin the nite and aboosed my wax
works shaimful. I didn't obsarve the outrajus transacshuns
ontil the next evening when the peple begun for to kongregate.
Suddinly they kommensed fur to larf and holler in a boysterious
stile. Sez I good peple what's up? Sez thay them's grate wax
wurks, isn't they, old man. I immejitly looked up ter whare
the wax works was, and my blud biles as I think of the site
which then met my Gase. I hope two be dodrabbertid (Dod-rabit
is an American euphemism for a profane expression which is
quite as common in this country as on the other side of the
Atlantic.) if them afoursed raskals hadent gone and put a old
kaved in hat onter George Washington's hed and shuved a short
black klay pipe inter his mouth. His noze thay had painted red
and his trowsis legs thay had shuved inside his butes. My wax
figger of Napoleon Boneypart was likewise mawltreatid. His
sword wus danglin tween his legs, and his cockd hat was drawn
klean down over his ize, and he was plased in a stoopin
posishun lookin zactly as tho he was as drunk as a biled owl.
Ginral Taylor was a standin on his hed and Wingfield Skott's
koat tales ware pind over his hed and his trowsis ware
kompleetly torn orf frum hisself. My wax works representin the
Lord's Last Supper was likewise aboozed. Three of the Postles
ware under the table and two of um had on old tarpawlin hats
and raggid pee jackits and ware smokin pipes. Judus Iskarriot
had on a cocked hat and was appeerently drinkin, as a Bottle of
whisky sot befour him. This ere specktercal was too much fur
me. I klosed the show and then drowndid my sorrers in the
flowin Bole.
1.17. THE CENSUS.
The Sences taker in our town bein taken sick, he deppertised me
to go out for him one day, and as he was too ill to giv me
informashun how to perceed, I was consekently compelled to go
it blind. Sittin down by the road side, I drawd up the
follerin list of questions, which I proposed to ax the peple I
visited:
Wat's your age?
Whar was you born?
Air you marrid, and if so how do you like it?
How many children hav you, and do they resemble you or your
naber?
Did you ever hav the measels, and if so how many?
Hav you a twin brother several years older than yourself?
How many parents hav you?
Do you read Watt's Hims regler?
Do you use boughten tobacker?
(I.e., that which has been bought. A very common word in the
interior of New England and New York. It is applied to
articles purchased from the shops, to distinguish them from
articles of home manufacture. Many farmers make their own
sugar from the maple-tree, and their coffee from barley or rye.
West India sugar or coffee is then called "boughten sugar," &c.
"This is a home-made carpet; that a 'boughten' one," i.e., one
bought at a shop. In the North of England, baker's bread is
called "bought bread."
Wat's your fitin wate?
Air you trubeld with biles?
How does your meresham culler?
State whether you air blind, deaf, idiotic, or got the
heaves?
Do you know any Opry singers, and if so how much do they owe
you?
What's the average of virtoo on the Ery Canawl?
If 4 barrils of Emptins pored onto a barn floor will kiver
it, how many plase can Dion Bourcicault write in a year?
[Emptyings, pronounced "emptins," the lees of beer, cider, &c.;
yeast or anything by which bread is leavened:-
"'Twill take more emptins, by a long chalk, than this new
party's got,
To give such heavy cakes as these a start, I tell ye what."
"The Biglow Papers."]
Is Beans a regler article of diet in your family?
How many chickins hav you, on foot and in the shell?
Air you aware that Injianny whisky is used in New York
shootin galrys instid of pistols, and that it shoots furthest?
Was you ever at Niagry Falls?
Was you ever in the Penitentiary?
State how much pork, impendin crysis, Dutch cheeze, popler
suvrinty, standard poetry, children's strainers, slave code,
catnip, red flannel, ancient history, pickled tomaters, old
junk, perfoomery, coal ile, liberty, hoop skirt, &c., you hav
on hand?
But it didn't work. I got into a row at the fust house I stopt
to, with some old maids. Disbelieven the ansers they giv in
regard to their ages, I endevered to open their mouths and look
at their teeth, same as they do with hosses, but they floo into
a vilent rage and tackled me with brooms and sich. Takin the
sences requires experiunse, like any other bizniss.
1.18. AN HONEST LIVING.
I was on my way from the mines to San Francisco, with a light
puss and a hevy hart. You'd scacely hav recognized my fair
form, so kiverd was I with dust. Bimeby I met Old Poodles, the
all-firdist gambler in the country. He was afoot and in his
shirt-sleeves, and was in a wuss larther nor any race hoss I
ever saw. ("All-fired," enormous, excessive, a low Americanism,
not improbably a puritanical corruption of "hell-fired,"
designed to have the virtue of an oath without offending polite
ears.)
"Whither goist thow, sweet nimp?" sez I, in a play-actin tone.
"To the mines, Sir," he unto me did say, "to the mines, TO EARN
AN HONEST LIVIN."
Thinks I that air aint very cool, I guess, and druv on.
1.19. THE PRESS.
I want the editers to cum to my Show free as the flours of May,
but I don't want um to ride a free hoss to deth. Thare is
times when Patience seizes to be virtoous. I had "in my mind's
eye, Hurrashio" (cotashun from Hamlick) sum editers in a sertin
town which shall be nameless, who air Both sneakin and ornery.
They cum in krowds to my Show and then axt me ten sents a line
for Puffs. I objectid to payin, but they sed ef I didn't down
with the dust thay'd wipe my Show from the face of the earth!
Thay sed the Press was the Arkymedian Leaver which moved the
wurld. I put up to their extorshuns until thay'd bled me so I
was a meer shadder, and left in disgust.
It was in a surtin town in Virginny, the Muther of Presidents &
things, that I was shaimfully aboozed by a editor in human
form. He set my Show up steep & kalled me the urbane &
gentlemunly manajer, but when I, fur the purpuss of showin fair
play all around, went to anuther offiss to git my hanbills
printed, what duz this pussillanermus editer do but change his
toon & abooze me like a Injun. He sed my wax wurks was a
humbug & called me a horey-heded itinerent vagabone. I thort
at fust Ide pollish him orf ar-lar the Beneshy Boy, but on
reflectin that he cood pollish me much wuss in his paper, I giv
it up. & I wood here take occashun to advise peple when thay
run agin, as thay sumtimes will, these miserable papers, to not
pay no attenshun to um. Abuv all, don't assault a editer of
this kind. It only gives him a notorosity, which is jest what
he wants, & don't do you no more good than it wood to jump into
enny other mud puddle. Editers are generally fine men, but
there must be black sheep in every flock.
1.20. EDWIN FOREST AS OTHELLO.
Durin a recent visit to New York the undersined went to see
Edwin Forrest. As I'm into the moral show bizness myself, I
ginrally go to Barnum's moral Museum, where only moral peple
air admitted, pertickly on Wednesday arternoons. But this time
I thot I'd go & see Ed. Ed has bin actin out on the stage for
many years. There is varis 'pinions about his actin,
Englishmen ginrally bleevin that he is far superior to Mister
Macready; but on one pint all agree, & that is that Ed draws
like a six ox team. Ed was actin at Niblo's Garding, which
looks considerable more like a parster, than a garding, but let
that pars. I sot down in the pit, took out my spectacles &
commenced peroosin the evenin's bill. The awjince was all-fired
large & the boxes was full of the elitty of New York. Several
opery glasses was leveld at me by Gothum's farest darters, but
I didn't let on as tho I noticed it, tho mebby I did take out
my sixteen-dollar silver watch & brandish it round more than was
necessary. But the best of us has our weaknesses & if a man has
gewelry let him show it. As I was peroosin the bill a grave
young man who sot near me axed me if I'd ever seen Forrest dance
the Essence of Old Virginny? "He's immense in that," sed the
young man. "He also does a fair champion jig," the young man
continnerd, "but his Big Thing is the Essence of Old Virginny."
Sez I, "Fair youth, do you know what I'd do with you if you was
my sun?"
"No," sez he.
"Wall," sez I, "I'd appint your funeral tomorrow arternoon, &
the KORPS SHOULD BE READY! You're too smart to live on this
yearth." He didn't try any more of his capers on me. But
another pussylanermus individooul, in a red vest & patent
lether boots, told me his name was Bill Astor & axed me to lend
him 50 cents till early in the mornin. I told him I'd probly
send it round to him before he retired to his virtoous couch,
but if I didn't he might look for it next fall, as soon as I
cut my corn. The Orchestry was now fiddling with all their
might, & as the peple didn't understan anything about it they
applaudid versifrussly. Presently, Old Ed cum out. The play
was Otheller or More of Veniss. Otheller was writ by Wm.
Shakspeer. The scene is laid in Veniss. Otheller was a likely
man & was a ginral in the Veniss army. He eloped with Desdemony,
a darter of the Hon. Mister Brabantio, who represented one of
the back districks in the Veneshun legislater. Old Brabantio
was as mad as thunder at this & tore round considerable, but
finally cooled down, tellin Otheller, howsever, that Desdemony
had come it over her Par, & that he had better look out or
she'd come it over him likewise. Mr. & Mrs. Otheller git along
very comfortable like for a spell. She is sweet-tempered and
luvin--a nice, sensible female, never goin in for he-female
conventions, green cotton umbrellers, and pickled beats.
Otheller is a good provider and thinks all the world of his
wife. She has a lazy time of it, the hired girl doin all the
cookin and washin. Desdemony, in fact, don't have to git the
water to wash her own hands with. But a low cuss named Iago,
who I bleeve wants to git Otheller out of his snug government
birth, now goes to work & upsets the Otheller family in the
most outrajus stile. Iago falls in with a brainless youth
named Roderigo & wins all his money at poker. (Iago allers
played foul.) He thus got money enuff to carry out his
onprincipled skeem. Mike Cassio, a Irishman, is selected as a
tool by Iago. Mike was a clever feller & orficer in Otheller's
army. He liked his tods too well, howsever, & they floored
him, as they have many other promisin young men. Iago injuces
Mike to drink with him, Iago slyly throwin his whiskey over his
shoulder. Mike gits as drunk as a biled owl & allows that he
can lick a yard full of the Veneshun fancy before breakfast,
without sweatin a hair. He meets Roderigo & proceeds for to
smash him. A feller named Montano undertakes to slap Cassio,
when that infatooated person runs his sword into him. That
miserble man, Iago, pretents to be very sorry to see Mike
conduck hisself in this way & undertakes to smooth the thing
over to Otheller, who rushes in with a drawn sword & wants to
know what's up. Iago cunningly tells his story, & Otheller
tells Mike that he thinks a good deal of him, but he can't
train no more in his regiment. Desdemony sympathizes with poor
Mike & interceeds for him with Otheller. Iago makes him bleeve
she does this because she thinks more of Mike than she does of
hisself. Otheller swallers Iago's lyin tail & goes to makin a
noosence of hisself ginrally. He worries poor Desdemony
terrible by his vile insinuations, & finally smothers her to
deth with a piller. Mrs. Iago cums in just as Otheller has
finished the fowl deed & givs him fits right & left, showin him
that he has bin orfully gulled by her miserble cuss of a
husband. Iago cums in, & his wife commences rakin him down
also, when he stabs her. Otheller jaws him a spell & then cuts
a small hole in his stummick with his sword. Iago pints to
Desdemony's deth bed & goes orf with a sardonic smile onto his
countenance. Otheller tells the peple that he has dun the
state sum service & they know it; axes them to do as fair a
thing as they can for him under the circumstances, & kills
hisself with a fish-knife, which is the most sensible thing he
can do. This is a breef skedule of the synopsis of the play.
Edwin Forrest is a grate acter. I thot I saw Otheller before
me all the time he was actin, & when the curtin fell, I found
my spectacles was still mistened with salt-water, which had run
from my eyes while poor Desdemony was dyin. Betsy Jane--Betsy
Jane! let us pray that our domestic bliss may never be busted
up by a Iago!
Edwin Forrest makes money actin out on the stage. He gits
five-hundred dollars a nite & his board & washin. I wish I had
such a Forrest in my Garding!
1.21. THE SHOW BUSINESS AND POPULAR LECTURES.
I feel that the Show Bizniss, which Ive stroven to ornyment, is
bein usurpt by Poplar Lecturs, as thay air kalled, tho in my
pinion thay air poplar humbugs. Individoouls, who git hard up,
embark in the lecturin biznis. They cram theirselves with
hi-sounding frazis, frizzle up their hare, git trustid for a soot
of black close & cum out to lectur at 50 dollers a pop. Thay
aint over stockt with branes, but thay hav brass enuff to make
suffishunt kittles to bile all the sope that will be required
by the ensooin sixteen ginerashuns. Peple flock to heer um in
krowds. The men go becawz its poplar & the wimin folks go to
see what other wimin folks have on. When its over the lecturer
goze & ragales hisself with oysters and sich, while the peple
say, "What a charmin lectur that air was," etsettery,
etsettery, when 9 out of 10 of um don't have no moore idee of
what the lecturer sed than my kangeroo has of the sevunth speer
of hevun. Thare's moore infurmashun to be gut out of a well
conductid noospaper--price 3 sents--than thare is out of ten
poplar lectures at 25 or 50 dollers a pop, as the kase may be.
These same peple, bare in mind, stick up their nosis at moral
wax figgers & sagashus beests. Thay say these things is low.
Gents, it greeves my hart in my old age, when I'm in "the Sheer
& yeller leef" (to cote frum my Irish frend Mister McBeth) to
see that the Show biznis is pritty much plade out; howsomever I
shall chance it agane in the Spring.
1.22. WOMAN'S RIGHTS.
I pitcht my tent in a small town in Injianny one day last
seeson, & while I was standin at the dore takin money, a
deppytashun of ladies came up & sed they wos members of the
Bunkumville Female Moral Reformin & Wimin's Rite's Associashun,
and thay axed me if they cood go in without payin.
"Not exactly," sez I, "but you can pay without goin in."
"Dew you know who we air?" sed one of the wimin--a tall and
feroshus lookin critter, with a blew kotton umbreller under her
arm--"do you know who we air, Sir?"
"My impreshun is," sed I, "from a kersery view, that you air
females."
"We air, Sur," sed the feroshus woman--"we belong to a Society
whitch beleeves wimin has rites--whitch beleeves in razin her
to her proper speer--whitch beleeves she is indowed with as
much intelleck as man is--whitch beleeves she is trampled on
and aboozed--& who will resist henso4th & forever the
incroachments of proud & domineering men."
Durin her discourse, the exsentric female grabed me by the
coat-kollor & was swinging her umbreller wildly over my hed.
"I hope, marm," sez I, starting back, "that your intensions is
honorable! I'm a lone man hear in a strange place. Besides,
I've a wife to hum."
"Yes," cried the female, "& she's a slave! Doth she never
dream of freedom--doth she never think of throwin off the yoke
of tyrrinny & thinkin & votin for herself?--Doth she never
think of these here things?"
"Not bein a natral born fool," sed I, by this time a little
riled, "I kin safely say that she dothunt."
"Oh whot--whot!" screamed the female, swingin her umbreller in
the air.--"O, what is the price that woman pays for her
expeeriunce!"
"I don't know," sez I; "the price of my show is 15 cents pur
individooal."
"& can't our Soisety go in free?" asked the female.
"Not if I know it," sed I.
"Crooil, crooil man!" she cried, & bust into teers.
"Won't you let my darter in?" sed anuther of the exsentric
wimin, taken me afeckshunitely by the hand. "O, please let my
darter in,--shee's a sweet gushin child of natur."
"Let her gush!" roared I, as mad as I cood stick at their
tarnal nonsense; "let her gush!" Where upon they all sprung
back with the simultanious observashun that I was a Beest.
"My female friends," sed I, "be4 you leeve, I've a few remarks
to remark; wa them well. The female woman is one of the
greatest institooshuns of which this land can boste. Its
onpossible to get along without her. Had there bin no female
wimin in the world, I should scarcely be here with my
unparalleld show on this very occashun. She is good in
sickness--good in wellness--good all the time. O woman,
woman!" I cried, my feelins worked up to a hi poetick pitch,
"you air a angle when you behave yourself; but when you take
off your proper appairel & (mettyforically speaken)--get into
pantyloons--when you desert your firesides, & with your heds
full of wimin's rites noshuns go round like roarin lions,
seekin whom you may devour someboddy--in short, when you
undertake to play the man, you play the devil and air an
emfatic noosance. My female friends," I continnered, as they
were indignantly departin, "wa well what A. Ward has sed!"
1.23. WOULD-BE SEA DOGS.
Sum of the captings on the Upper Ohio River put on a heep of
airs. To hear 'em git orf saler lingo you'd spose they'd bin
on the briny Deep for a lifetime, when the fact is they haint
tasted salt water since they was infants, when they had to take
it for WORMS. Still they air good natered fellers, and when
they drink they take a dose big enuff for a grown person.
1.24. THE PRINCE OF WALES.
To my friends of the Editorial Corpse:
I rite these lines on British sile. I've bin follerin Mrs.
Victory's hopeful sun Albert Edward threw Kanady with my
onparaleled Show, and tho I haint made much in a pecoonary pint
of vew, I've lernt sumthin new, over hear on British Sile,
whare they bleeve in Saint George and the Dragoon. Previs to
cumin over hear I tawt my organist how to grind Rule Brittany
and other airs which is poplar on British Sile. I likewise
fixt a wax figger up to represent Sir Edmun Hed the Govner
Ginral. The statoot I fixt up is the most versytile wax
statoot I ever saw. I've showd it as Wm. Penn, Napoleon
Bonypart, Juke of Wellington, the Beneker Boy, Mrs. Cunningham
& varis other notid persons, and also for a sertin pirut named
Hix. I've bin so long amung wax statoots that I can fix 'em up
to soot the tastes of folks, & with sum paints I hav I kin giv
their facis a beneverlent or fiendish look as the kase
requires. I giv Sir Edmun Hed a beneverlent look, & when sum
folks who thawt they was smart sed it didn't look like Sir
Edmun Hed anymore than it did anybody else, I sed, "That's the
pint. That's the beauty of the Statoot. It looks like Sir
Edmun Hed or any other man. You may kall it what you pleese.
Ef it don't look like anybody that ever lived, then it's
sertinly a remarkable Statoot & well worth seein. _I_ kall it
Sir Edmun Hed. YOU may kall it what you pleese!" [I had 'em
thare.]
At larst I've had a interview with the Prince, tho it putty
nigh cost me my vallerble life. I cawt a glimpse of him as he
sot on the Pizarro of the hotel in Sarnia, & elbowd myself
threw a crowd of wimin, children, sojers & Injins that was
hangin round the tavern. I was drawin near to the Prince when
a red-faced man in Millingtery close grabd holt of me and axed
me whare I was goin all so bold?
"To see Albert Edard the Prince of Wales," sez I; "who are
you?"
He sed he was Kurnel of the Seventy Fust Regiment, Her
Magisty's troops. I told him I hoped the Seventy Onesters was
in good helth, and was passin by when he ceased hold of me
agin, and sed in a tone of indigent cirprise:
"What? Impossible! It kannot be! Blarst my hize, sir, did I
understan you to say that you was actooally goin into the
presents of his Royal Iniss?"
"That's what's the matter with me," I replide.
"But blarst my hize, sir, its onprecedented. It's orful, sir.
Nothin' like it hain't happened sins the Gun Powder Plot of Guy
Forks. Owdashus man, who air you?"
"Sir," sez I, drawin myself up & puttin on a defiant air, "I'm
a Amerycan sitterzen. My name is Ward. I'm a husband & the
father of twins, which I'm happy to state thay look like me.
By perfeshun I'm a exhibiter of wax works & sich."
"Good God!" yelled the Kurnal, "the idee of a exhibiter of wax
figgers goin into the presents of Royalty! The British Lion
may well roar with raje at the thawt!"
Sez I, "Speakin of the British Lion, Kurnal, I'd like to make a
bargin with you fur that beast fur a few weeks to add to my
Show." I didn't meen nothin by this. I was only gettin orf a
goak, but you roter hev seen the Old Kurnal jump up & howl. He
actooally fomed at the mowth.
"This can't be real," he showtid. "No, no. It's a horrid
dream. Sir, you air not a human bein--you hav no existents--
yure a Myth!"
"Wall," sez I, "old hoss, yule find me a ruther onkomfortable
Myth ef you punch my inards in that way agin." I began to git
a little riled, fur when he called me a Myth he puncht me putty
hard. The Kurnal now commenst showtin fur the Seventy Onesters.
I at fust thawt I'd stay & becum a Marter to British Outraje,
as sich a course mite git my name up & be a good advertisement
fur my Show, but it occurred to me that ef enny of the Seventy
Onesters shood happen to insert a barronet into my stummick it
mite be onplesunt, & I was on the pint of runnin orf when the
Prince hisself kum up & axed me what the matter was. Sez I,
"Albert Edard, is that you?" & he smilt & sed it was. Sez I,
"Albert Edard, hears my keerd. I cum to pay my respecks to
the futer King of Ingland. The Kurnal of the Seventy Onesters
hear is ruther smawl pertaters, but of course you ain't to blame
fur that. He puts on as many airs as tho he was the Bully Boy
with the glass eye."
"Never mind," sez Albert Edard, "I'm glad to see you, Mister
Ward, at all events," & he tuk my hand so plesunt like & larfed
so sweet that I fell in love with him to onct. He handid me a
segar & we sot down on the Pizarro & commenst smokin rite
cheerful. "Wall," sez I, "Albert Edard, how's the old folks?"
"Her Majesty & the Prince are well," he sed.
"Duz the old man take his Lager beer reglar?" I inquired.
The Prince larfed & intermatid that the old man didn't let many
kegs of that bevridge spile in the sellar in the coarse of a
year. We sot & tawked there sum time abowt matters & things, &
bimeby I axed him how he liked bein Prince as fur as he'd got.
"To speak plain, Mister Ward," he sed, "I don't much like it.
I'm sick of all this bowin & scrapin & crawlin & hurrain over a
boy like me. I would rather go through the country quietly &
enjoy myself in my own way, with the other boys, & not be made
a Show of to be garped at by everybody. When the PEPLE cheer me
I feel pleesed, fur I know they meen it; but if these one-horse
offishuls cood know how I see threw all their moves & understan
exackly what they air after, & knowd how I larft at 'em in
private, thayd stop kissin my hands & fawnin over me as thay now
do. But you know, Mr. Ward, I can't help bein a Prince, & I
must do all I kin to fit myself fur the persishun I must sumtime
ockepy."
"That's troo," sez I; "sickness and the docters will carry the
Queen orf one of these dase, sure's yer born."
The time hevin arove fur me to take my departer I rose up &
sed: "Albert Edard, I must go, but previs to doin so I will
obsarve that you soot me. Yure a good feller, Albert Edard, &
tho I'm agin Princes as a gineral thing, I must say I like the
cut of your Gib. When you git to be King try and be as good a
man as yure muther has bin! Be just & be Jenerus, espeshully
to showmen, who hav allers bin aboozed sins the dase of Noah,
who was the fust man to go into the Menagery bizniss, & ef the
daily papers of his time air to be beleeved Noah's colleckshun
of livin wild beests beet ennything ever seen sins, tho I make
bold to dowt ef his snaiks was ahead of mine. Albert Edard,
adoo!" I tuk his hand which he shook warmly, & givin him a
perpetooal free pars to my show, & also parses to take hum for
the Queen & old Albert, I put on my hat and walkt away.
"Mrs. Ward," I solilerquized, as I walkt along, "Mrs. Ward, ef
you could see your husband now, just as he prowdly emerjis from
the presunts of the futur King of Ingland, you'd be sorry you
called him a Beest jest becaws he cum home tired 1 nite and
wantid to go to bed without takin orf his boots. You'd be
sorry for tryin to deprive yure husband of the priceliss Boon
of liberty, Betsy Jane!"
Jest then I met a long perseshun of men with gownds onto 'em.
The leader was on horseback, & ridin up to me he sed, "Air you
Orange?"
Sez I, "Which?"
"Air you a Orangeman?" he repeated, sternly.
"I used to peddle lemins," sed I, "but I never delt in oranges.
They are apt to spile on yure hands. What particler Loonatic
Asylum hev you & yure frends escaped frum, ef I may be so
bold?" Just then a suddent thawt struck me & I sed, "Oh yure
the fellers who air worryin the Prince so & givin the Juke of
Noocastle cold sweats at nite, by yure infernal catawalins, air
you? Wall, take the advice of a Amerykin sitterzen, take orf
them gownds & don't try to get up a religious fite, which is 40
times wuss nor a prize fite, over Albert Edard, who wants to
receive you all on a ekal footin, not keerin a tinker's cuss
what meetin house you sleep in Sundays. Go home & mind yure
bisness & not make noosenses of yourselves." With which
observashuns I left 'em.
I shall leeve British sile 4thwith.
1.25. PICCOLOMINI.
Gents,--I arroved in Cleveland on Saturday P.M. from
Baldinsville jest in time to fix myself up and put on a clean
biled rag to attend Miss Picklehomony's grate musical sorry at
the Melodeon. The krowds which pored into the hall augured
well for the show bizniss, & with cheerful sperrets I jined the
enthoosiastic throng. I asked Mr. Strakhosh at the door if he
parst the perfession, and he sed not much he didn't, whereupon
I bawt a preserved seat in the pit, & obsarving to Mr.
Strakhosh that he needn't put on so many French airs becawz he
run with a big show, and that he'd better let his weskut out a
few inches or perhaps he'd bust hisself some fine day, I went
in and squatted down. It was a sad thawt to think that in all
that vast aujience Scacely a Sole had the honor of my
acquaintance. "& this ere," sed I Bitturly, "is Fame! What
sigerfy my wax figgers and livin wild beasts (which have no
ekels) to these peple? What do thay care becawz a site of my
Kangeroo is worth dubble the price of admission, and that my
Snaiks is as harmlis as the new born babe--all of which is
strictly troo?" I should have gone on ralein at Fortin and
things sum more, but jest then Signer Maccarony cum out and
sung a hairey from some opry or other. He had on his store
close & looked putty slick, I must say. Nobody didn't
understand nothin abowt what he sed, and so they applawdid him
versiferusly. Then Signer Brignoly cum out and sung another
hairey. He appeared to be in a Pensiv Mood & sung a Luv song I
suppose, tho he may have been cussin the aujince all into a
heep for aut I knewd. Then cum Mr. Maccarony agin and Miss
Picklehomony herself. Thay sang a Doit together.
Now you know, gents, that I don't admire opry music. But I
like Miss Picklehomony's stile. I like her gate. She suits
me. There has bin grater singers and there has bin more
bootiful wimin, but no more fassinatin young female ever longed
for a new gown, or side to place her hed agin a vest pattern
than Maria Picklehomony. Fassinatin peple is her best holt.
She was born to make hash of men's buzzums & other wimin mad
becawz thay ain't Picklehomonies. Her face sparkles with
amuzin cussedness & about 200 (two hundred) little bit of funny
devils air continually dancing champion jigs in her eyes, sed
eyes bein brite enuff to lite a pipe by. How I shood like to
have little Maria out on my farm in Baldinsville, Injianny, whare
she cood run in the tall grass, wrastle with the boys, cut up
strong at parin bees, make up faces behind the minister's back,
tie auction bills to the skoolmaster's coat-tales, set all the
fellers crazy after her, & holler & kick up, & go it just as
much as she wanted to! But I diegress. Every time she cum
canterin out I grew more and more delighted with her. When she
bowed her hed I bowed mine. When she powtid her lips I powtid
mine. When she larfed I larfed. When she jerked her hed back
and took a larfin survey of the aujience, sendin a broadside of
sassy smiles in among em, I tried to unjint myself & kollapse.
When, in tellin how she drempt she lived in Marble Halls, she
sed it tickled her more than all the rest to dream she loved
her feller still the same, I made a effort to swaller myself;
but when, in the next song, she look strate at me & called me
her Dear, I wildly told the man next to me he mite hav my close,
as I shood never want 'em again no more in this world. [The
"Plain Dealer" (The Cleveland "Plain Dealer," a well-known
Ohio newspaper, to which Mr. Artemus Ward wishes us to
understand he contributed.) containin this communicashun is
not to be sent to my famerly in Baldinsville under no
circumstances whatsomever.]
In conclushun, Maria, I want you to do well. I know you air a
nice gal at hart & you must get a good husband. He must be a man
of branes and gumpshun & a good provider--a man who will luv you
strong and long--a man who will luv you jest as much in your old
age, when your voice is cracked like an old tea kittle & you can't
get 1 of your notes discounted at 50 per sent a month, as he will
now, when you are young & charmin & full of music, sunshine & fun.
Don't marry a snob, Maria. You ain't a Angel, Maria, & I am glad
of it. When I see angels in pettycoats I'm always sorry they
hain't got wings so they kin quietly fly off whare thay will be
appreshiated. You air a woman, & a mity good one too. As for
Maccarony, Brignoly, Mullenholler, and them other fellers, they can
take care of theirselves. Old Mac. kin make a comfortable livin
choppin cord wood if his voice ever givs out, and Amodio looks as
tho he mite succeed in conductin sum quiet toll gate, whare the
vittles would be plenty & the labor lite.
I am preparin for the Summer Campane. I shall stay in Cleveland a
few days and probly you will hear from me again ear I leave to once
more becum a tosser on life's tempestuous billers, meanin the Show
Bizniss.--Very Respectively Yours,
Artemus Ward.
1.26. LITTLE PATTI.
The moosic which Ime most use to is the inspirin stranes of the
hand orgin. I hire a artistic Italyun to grind fur me, payin him
his vittles & close, & I spose it was them stranes which fust put a
moosical taste into me. Like all furriners, he had seen better
dase, havin formerly been a Kount. But he aint of much akount now,
except to turn the orgin and drink Beer, of which bevrige he can
hold a churnful, EASY.
Miss Patty is small for her size, but as the man sed abowt his
wife, O Lord! She is well bilt & her complexion is what might be
called a Broonetty. Her ize is a dark bay, the lashes bein long &
silky. When she smiles the awjince feels like axing her to doo it
sum moor, & to continner doin it 2 a indefnit extent. Her waste is
one of the most bootiful wastisis ever seen. When Mister
Strackhorse led her out I thawt sum pretty skool gal, who had jest
graduatid frum pantalets & wire hoops, was a cumin out to read her
fust composishun in public. She cum so bashful like, with her hed
bowd down, & made sich a effort to arrange her lips so thayd look
pretty, that I wanted to swaller her. She reminded me of Susan
Skinner, who'd never kiss the boys at parin bees till the candles
was blow'd out. Miss Patty sung suthin or ruther in a furrin tung.
I don't know what the sentimunts was. Fur awt I know she may hav
bin denouncin my wax figgers & sagashus wild beests of Pray, & I
don't much keer ef she did. When she opened her mowth a army of
martingales, bobolinks, kanarys, swallers, mockin birds, etsettery,
bust 4th& flew all over the Haul.
Go it, little 1, sez I to myself, in a hily exsited frame of mind,
& ef that kount or royal duke which you'll be pretty apt to marry 1
of these dase don't do the fair thing by ye, yu kin always hav a
home on A. Ward's farm, near Baldinsville, Injianny. When she sung
Cumin threw the Rye, and spoke of that Swayne she deerly luvd
herself individooully, I didn't wish I was that air Swayne. No I
gess not. Oh certainly not. [This is Ironical. I don't meen
this. It's a way I hav of goakin.] Now that Maria Picklehominy
has got married & left the perfeshun, Adeliny Patty is the
championess of the opery ring. She karries the Belt. Thar's no
draw fite about it. Other primy donnys may as well throw up the
spunge first as last. My eyes don't deceive my earsite in this
matter.
But Miss Patty orter sing in the Inglish tung. As she kin do so as
well as she kin in Italyun, why under the Son don't she do it?
What cents is thare in singin wurds nobody don't understan when
wurds we do understan is jest as handy? Why peple will
versifferusly applawd furrin langwidge is a mistery. It reminds me
of a man I onct knew. He sed he knockt the bottum out of his pork
Barril, & the pork fell out, but the Brine dident moove a inch. It
stade in the Barril. He sed this was a Mistery, but it wasn't
misterior than is this thing I'm speekin of.
As fur Brignoly, Ferri and Junky, they air dowtless grate, but I
think sich able boddied men wood look better tillin the sile than
dressin theirselves up in black close & white kid gluvs & shoutin
in a furrin tung. Mister Junky is a noble lookin old man, & orter
lead armies on to Battel instid of shoutin in a furrin tung.
Adoo. In the langwidge of Lewis Napoleon when receivin kumpany at
his pallis on the Bullyvards, "I saloot yu."
1.27. OSSAWATOMIE BROWN.
I don't pertend to be a cricket & consekently the reader will not
regard this 'ere peace as a Cricketcism. I cimply desine givin the
pints & Plot of a play I saw actid out at the theatre t'other nite,
called Ossywattermy Brown or the Hero of Harper's Ferry.
Ossywattermy had varis failins, one of which was a idee that he
cood conker Virginny with a few duzzen loonatics which he had pickt
up sumwhares, mercy only nose wher. He didn't cum it, as the sekel
showed. This play was jerkt by a admirer of Old Ossywattermy.
First akt opens at North Elby, Old Brown's humsted. Thare's a
weddin at the house. Amely, Old Brown's darter, marrys sumbody,
and thay all whirl in the Messy darnce. Then Ossywattermy and his
3 sons leave fur Kansis. Old Mrs. Ossywattermy tells 'em thay air
goin on a long jurny & Blesses 'em to slow fiddlin. Thay go to
Kansis. What upon arth thay go to Kansis fur when thay was so nice
& comfortable down there to North Elby, is more'n I know. The suns
air next seen in Kansis at a tarvern. Mister Blane, a sinister
lookin man with his Belt full of knives & hoss pistils, axes one of
the Browns to take a drink. Brown refuzis, which is the fust
instance on record whar a Brown deklined sich a invite. Mister
Blane, who is a dark bearded feroshus lookin person, then axis him
whether he's fur or fernenst Slavery. Yung Brown sez he's agin it,
whareupon, Mister Blane, who is the most sinisterest lookin man I
ever saw, sez Har, har, har! (that bein his stile of larfin wildly)
& ups and sticks a knife into yung Brown. Anuther Brown rushes up
& sez, "you has killed me Ber-ruther!" Moosic by the Band & Seen
changes. The stuck yung Brown enters supported by his two
brothers. Bimeby he falls down, sez he sees his Mother, & dies.
Moosic by the Band. I lookt but couldn't see any mother. Next Seen
reveels Old Brown's cabin. He's readin a book. He sez freedum must
extend its Area & rubs his hands like he was pleesed abowt it. His
suns come in. One of 'em goes out & cums in ded, havin bin shot
while out by a Border Ruffin. The ded yung Brown sez he sees his
mother and tumbles down. The Border Ruffins then surround the
cabin & set it a fire. The Browns giv theirselves up for gone
coons, when the hired gal diskivers a trap door to the cabin & thay
go down threw it & cum up threw the bulkhed. Their merraklis
'scape reminds me of the 'scape of De Jones, the Coarsehair of the
Gulf--a tail with a yaller kiver, that I onct red. For sixteen
years he was confined in a loathsum dunjin, not tastin food durin
all that time. When a lucky thawt struck him! He opend the winder
and got out. To resoom--Old Brown rushes down to the footlites,
gits down on his nees & swares he'll hav revenge. The battle of
Ossawatermy takes place. Old Brown kills Mister Blane, the
sinister individooal aforesed. Mister Blane makes a able &
elerquent speech, sez he don't see his mother MUCH, and dies like
the son of a gentleman, rapt up in the Star Spangled banner.
Moosic by the Band. Four or five other Border ruffins air killed,
but thay don't say nothin abowt seein their mothers. From Kansis
to Harper's Ferry. Picter of a Arsenal is represented. Sojers cum
& fire at it. Old Brown cums out & permits hisself to be shot. He
is tride by two soops in milingtery close and sentenced to be hung
on the gallus. Tabloo--Old Brown on a platform, pintin upards, the
staige lited up with red fire. Goddis of Liberty also on platform,
pintin upards. A dutchman in the orkestry warbles on a base drum.
Curtin falls. Moosic by the Band.
1.28. JOY IN THE HOUSE OF WARD.
Dear Sirs:
I take my pen in hand to inform you that I am in a state of great
bliss, and trust these lines will find you injoyin the same
blessins. I'm reguvinated. I've found the immortal waters of
yooth, so to speak, and am as limber and frisky as a two-year-old
steer, and in the futur them boys which sez to me "go up, old Bawld
hed," will do so at the peril of their hazard, individooally. I'm
very happy. My house is full of joy, and I have to git up nights
and larf! Sumtimes I ax myself "is it not a dream?" & suthin
withinto me sez "it air;" but when I look at them sweet little
critters and hear 'em squawk, I know it is a reality--2 realitys, I
may say--and I feel gay.
I returnd from the Summer Campane with my unparaleld show of wax
works and livin wild Beests of Pray in the early part of this
munth. The peple of Baldinsville met me cordully and I immejitly
commenst restin myself with my famerly. The other nite while I was
down to the tavurn tostin my shins agin the bar room fire & amuzin
the krowd with sum of my adventurs, who shood cum in bare heded &
terrible excited but Bill Stokes, who sez, sez he, "Old Ward,
there's grate doins up to your house."
Sez I "William, how so?"
Sez he, "Bust my gizzud but it's grate doins," & then he larfed as
if he'd kill hisself.
Sez I, risin and puttin on a austeer look, "William, I woodunt be a
fool if I had common cents."
But he kept on larfin till he was black in the face, when he fell
over on to the bunk where the hostler sleeps, and in a still small
voice sed, "Twins!" I ashure you gents that the grass didn't grow
under my feet on my way home, & I was follered by a enthoosiastic
throng of my feller sitterzens, who hurrard for Old Ward at the top
of their voises. I found the house chock full of peple. Thare was
Mis Square Baxter and her three grown-up darters, lawyer Perkinses
wife, Taberthy Ripley, young Eben Parsuns, Deakun Simmuns folks,
the Skoolmaster, Doctor Jordin, etsetterry, etsetterry. Mis Ward
was in the west room, which jines the kitchen. Mis Square Baxter
was mixin suthin in a dipper before the kitchin fire, & a small
army of female wimin were rushin wildly round the house with
bottles of camfire, peaces of flannil, &c. I never seed such a
hubbub in my natral born dase. I cood not stay in the west room
only a minit, so strung up was my feelins, so I rusht out and
ceased my dubbel barrild gun.
"What upon airth ales the man?" sez Taberthy Ripley. "Sakes alive,
what air you doin?" & she grabd me by the coat tales. "What's the
matter with you?" she continnerd.
"Twins, marm," sez I, "twins!"
"I know it," sez she, coverin her pretty face with her apun.
"Wall," sez I, "that's what's the matter with me!"
"Wall, put down that air gun, you pesky old fool," sed she.
"No, marm," sez I, "this is a Nashunal day. The glory of this here
day isn't confined to Baldinsville by a darn site. On yonder
woodshed," sed I, drawin myself up to my full hite and speakin in a
show-actin voice, "will I fire a Nashunal saloot!" sayin whitch I
tared myself from her grasp and rusht to the top of the shed whare
I blazed away until Square Baxter's hired man and my son Artemus
Juneyer cum and took me down by mane force.
On returnin to the Kitchin I found quite a lot of peple seated be4
the fire, a talkin the event over. They made room for me & I sot
down. "Quite a eppisode," sed Docter Jordin, litin his pipe with a
red-hot coal.
"Yes," sed I, "2 eppisodes, waying abowt 18 pounds jintly."
"A perfeck coop de tat," sed the skoolmaster.
"E pluribus unum, in proprietor persony," sed I, thinking I'd let
him know I understood furrin langwidges as well as he did, if I
wasn't a skoolmaster.
"It is indeed a momentious event," sed young Eben Parsuns, who has
been 2 quarters to the Akademy.
"I never heard twins called by that name afore," sed I, "But I
spose it's all rite."
"We shall soon have Wards enuff," sed the editer of the
Baldinsville "Bugle of Liberty," who was lookin over a bundle of
exchange papers in the corner, "to apply to the legislater for a
City Charter!"
"Good for you, old man!" sed I; "giv that air a conspickius place
in the next "Bugle."
"How redicklus," sed pretty Susan Fletcher, coverin her face with
her knittin work & larfin like all possest.
"Wall, for my part," sed Jane Maria Peasly, who is the crossest old
made in the world, "I think you all act like a pack of fools."
Sez I, "Miss Peasly, air you a parent?"
Sez she, "No, I ain't."
Sez I, "Miss Peasly, you never will be."
She left.
We sot there talkin & larfin until "the switchin hour of nite, when
grave yards yawn & Josts troop 4th," as old Bill Shakespire aptlee
obsarves in his dramy of John Sheppard, esq, or the Moral House
Breaker, when we broke up & disbursed.
Muther & children is a doin well & as Resolushuns is the order of
the day I will feel obleeged if you'll insurt the follerin--
Whereas, two Eppisodes has happined up to the undersined's house,
which is Twins; & Whereas I like this stile, sade twins bein of the
male perswashun & both boys; there4 Be it--
RESOLVED, That to them nabers who did the fare thing by sade
Eppisodes my hart felt thanks is doo.
RESOLVED, That I do most hartily thank Engine Ko. No. 17, who,
under the impreshun from the fuss at my house on that auspishus
nite that thare was a konflagration goin on, kum galyiantly to the
spot, but kindly refraned from squirtin.
RESOLVED, That frum the Bottum of my Sole do I thank the
Baldinsville brass band fur givin up the idea of Sarahnadin me,
both on that great nite & sinse.
RESOLVED, That my thanks is doo several members of the Baldinsville
meetin house who for 3 whole dase hain't kalled me a sinful skoffer
or intreeted me to mend my wicked wase and jine sade meetin house
to onct.
RESOLVED, That my Boozum teams with meny kind emoshuns towards the
follerin individoouls, to whit namelee--Mis. Square Baxter, who
Jenerusly refoozed to take a sent for a bottle of camfire; lawyer
Perkinses wife who rit sum versis on the Eppisodes; the Editer of
the Baldinsville "Bugle of Liberty," who nobly assisted me in
wollupin my Kangeroo, which sagashus little cuss seriusly disturbed
the Eppisodes by his outrajus screetchins & kickins up; Mis. Hirum
Doolittle, who kindly furnisht sum cold vittles at a tryin time,
when it wasunt konvenient to cook vittles at my hous; & the
Peasleys, Parsunses & Watsunses fur there meny ax of kindness.
Trooly yures,
Artemus Ward.
1.29. BOSTON. (A. WARD TO HIS WIFE.)
Dear Betsy: I write you this from Boston, "the Modern Atkins," as
it is denomyunated, altho' I skurcely know what those air. I'll
giv you a kursoory view of this city. I'll klassify the paragrafs
under seprit headins, arter the stile of those Emblems of Trooth
and Poority, the Washinton correspongdents!
COPP'S HILL.
The winder of my room commands a exileratin view of Copps' Hill,
where Cotton Mather, the father of the Reformers and sich, lies
berrid. There is men even now who worship Cotton, and there is
wimin who wear him next their harts. But I do not weep for him.
He's bin ded too lengthy. I ain't going to be absurd, like old Mr.
Skillins, in our naberhood, who is ninety-six years of age, and
gets drunk every 'lection day, and weeps Bitturly because he haint
got no Parents. He's a nice Orphan, HE is.
BUNKER HILL.
Bunker Hill is over yonder in Charleston. In 1776 a thrillin dramy
was acted out over there, in which the "Warren Combination" played
star parts.
MR. FANUEL.
Old Mr. Fanuel is ded, but his Hall is still into full blarst.
This is the Cradle in which the Goddess of Liberty was rocked, my
Dear. The Goddess hasn't bin very well durin' the past few years,
and the num'ris quack doctors she called in didn't help her any;
but the old gal's physicians now are men who understand their
bizness, Major-generally speakin', and I think the day is near when
she'll be able to take her three meals a day, and sleep nights as
comf'bly as in the old time.
THE COMMON.
It is here, as ushil; and the low cuss who called it a Wacant Lot,
and wanted to know why they didn't ornament it with sum Bildins',
is a onhappy Outcast in Naponsit.
THE LEGISLATUR.
The State House is filled with Statesmen, but sum of 'em wear queer
hats. They buy 'em, I take it, of hatters who carry on hat stores
down-stairs in Dock Square, and whose hats is either ten years
ahead of the prevailin' stile, or ten years behind it--jest as a
intellectooal person sees fit to think about it. I had the
pleasure of talkin' with sevril members of the legislatur. I told
'em the Eye of 1000 ages was onto we American peple of to-day.
They seemed deeply impressed by the remark, and wantid to know if I
had seen the Grate Orgin?
HARVARD COLLEGE.
This celebrated institootion of learnin is pleasantly situated in
the Bar-room of Parker's in School street, and has poopils from all
over the country.
I had a letter yes'd'y, by the way, from our mootual son, Artemus,
Jr., who is at Bowdoin College in Maine. He writes that he's a
Bowdoin Arab. & is it cum to this? Is this Boy as I nurtered with
a Parent's care into his childhood's hour--is he goin' to be a
Grate American humorist? Alars! I fear it is too troo. Why
didn't I bind him out to the Patent Travellin Vegetable Pill Man,
as was struck with his appearance at our last County Fair, & wanted
him to go with him and be a Pillist? Ar, these Boys--they little
know how the old folks worrit about 'em. But my father he never
had no occasion to worrit about me. You know, Betsy, that when I
fust commenced my career as a moral exhibitor with a six-legged cat
and a Bass drum, I was only a simple peasant child--skurce 15
Summers had flow'd over my yoothful hed. But I had sum mind of my
own. My father understood this. "Go," he sed--"go, my son, and hog
the public!" (he ment, "knock em," but the old man was allus a
little given to slang). He put his withered han' tremblinly onto
my hed, and went sadly into the house. I thought I saw tears
tricklin down his venerable chin, but it might hav been tobacker
jooce. He chaw'd.
LITERATOOR.
The "Atlantic Monthly," Betsy, is a reg'lar visitor to our westun
home. I like it because it has got sense. It don't print stories
with piruts and honist young men into 'em, makin' the piruts
splendid fellers and the honist young men dis'gree'ble idiots--so
that our darters very nat'rally prefer the piruts to the honist
young idiots; but it gives us good square American literatoor. The
chaps that write for the "Atlantic," Betsy, understand their
bizness. They can sling ink, they can. I went in and saw 'em. I
told 'em that theirs was a high and holy mission. They seemed
quite gratified, and asked me if I had seen the Grate Orgin.
WHERE THE FUST BLUD WAS SPILT.
I went over to Lexington yes'd'y. My Boozum hove with sollum
emotions. "& this," I sed to a man who was drivin' a yoke of oxen,
"this is where our revolutionary forefathers asserted their
independence and spilt their Blud. Classic ground!"
"Wall," the man sed, "it's good for white beans and potatoes, but
was regards raisin' wheat, t'ain't worth a damn. But hav' you seen
the Grate Orgin?"
THE POOTY GIRL IN SPECTACLES.
I returned in the Hoss Cars, part way. A pooty girl in spectacles
sot near me, and was tellin' a young man how much he reminded her
of a man she used to know in Walthan. Pooty soon the young man got
out, and, smilin' in a seductive manner, I said to the girl in
spectacles, "Don't _I_ remind you of somebody you used to know?"
"Yes," she sed, "you do remind me of one man, but he was sent to
the penitentiary for stealin' a Bar'l of mackril--he died there, so
I conclood you ain't HIM." I didn't pursoo the conversation. I
only heard her silvery voice once more durin' the remainder of the
jerney. Turnin' to a respectable lookin' female of advanced
summers, she asked her if she had seen the Grate Orgin.
We old chaps, my dear, air apt to forget that it is sum time since
we was infants, and et lite food. Nothin' of further int'rist took
place on the cars excep' a colored gentleman, a total stranger to
me, asked if I'd lend him my diamond Brestpin to wear to a funeral
in South Boston. I told him I wouldn't--not a PURPUSS.
WILD GAME
Altho' fur from the prahayries, there is abundans of wild game in
Boston, such as quails, snipes, plover, ans Props. (The game of
"props," played with cowrie shells is, I believe, peculiar to the
city of Boston.)
COMMON SKOOLS.
A excellent skool sistim is in vogy here. John Slurk, my old
pardner, has a little son who has only bin to skool two months, and
yet he exhibertid his father's performin' Bear in the show all last
summer. I hope they pay partic'lar 'tention to Spelin in these
Skools, because if a man can't Spel wel he's of no 'kount.
SUMMIN' UP.
I ment to have allooded to the Grate Orgin in this letter, but I
haven't seen it. Mr. Reveer, whose tavern I stop at, informed me
that it can be distinctly heard through a smoked glass in his nativ
town in New Hampshire, any clear day. But settin' the Grate Orgin
aside (and indeed, I don't think I heard it mentioned all the time
I was there), Boston is one of the grandest, sure-footedest, clear
headedest, comfortablest cities on the globe. Onlike ev'ry other
large city I was ever in, the most of the hackmen don't seem to
hav' bin speshully intended by natur for the Burglery perfession,
and it's about the only large city I know of where you don't enjoy
a brilliant opportunity of bein swindled in sum way, from the Risin
of the sun to the goin down thereof. There4 I say, loud and
continnered applaus' for Boston!
DOMESTIC MATTERS.
Kiss the children for me. What you tell me 'bout the Twins greeves
me sorely. When I sent 'em that Toy Enjine I had not
contempyulated that they would so fur forgit what wos doo the
dignity of our house as to squirt dishwater on the Incum Tax
Collector. It is a disloyal act, and shows a prematoor leanin'
tords cussedness that alarms me. I send to Amelia Ann, our oldest
dawter, sum new music, viz. "I am Lonely sints My Mother-in-law
Died"; "Dear Mother, What tho' the Hand that Spanked me in my
Childhood's Hour is withered now?" &c. These song writers, by the
way, air doin' the Mother Bizness rather too muchly.
Your Own Troo husban',
Artemus Ward.
1.30. HOW OLD ABE RECEIVED THE NEWS OF HIS NOMINATION.
There are several reports afloat as to how "Honest Old Abe"
received the news of his nomination, none of which are correct. We
give the correct report.
The Official Committee arrived in Springfield at dewy eve, and went
to Honest Old Abe's house. Honest Old Abe was not in. Mrs. Honest
Old Abe said Honest Old Abe was out in the woods splitting rails.
So the Official Committee went out into the woods, where sure
enough they found Honest Old Abe splitting rails with his two boys.
It was a grand, a magnificent spectacle. There stood Honest Old
Abe in his shirt-sleeves, a pair of leather home-made suspenders
holding up a pair of home-made pantaloons, the seat of which was
neatly patched with substantial cloth of a different color. "Mr
Lincoln, Sir, you've been nominated, Sir, for the highest office,
Sir--." "Oh, don't bother me," said Honest Old Abe; "I took a
STENT this mornin' to split three million rails afore night, and I
don't want to be pestered with no stuff about no Conventions till I
get my stent done. I've only got two hundred thousand rails to
split before sundown. I kin do it if you'll let me alone." And
the great man went right on splitting rails, paying no attention to
the Committee whatever. The Committee were lost in admiration for
a few moments, when they recovered, and asked one of Honest Old
Abe's boys whose boy he was? "I'm my parent's boy," shouted the
urchin, which burst of wit so convulsed the Committee that they
came very near "gin'in eout" completely. In a few moments Honest
Ole Abe finished his task, and received the news with perfect
self-possession. He then asked them up to the house, where he
received them cordially. He said he split three million rails every
day, although he was in very poor health. Mr. Lincoln is a jovial
man, and has a keen sense of the ludicrous. During the evening he
asked Mr. Evarts, of New York, "why Chicago was like a hen crossing
the street?" Mr. Evarts gave it up. "Because," said Mr. Lincoln,
"Old Grimes is dead, that good old man!" This exceedingly humorous
thing created the most uproarious laughter.
1.31. INTERVIEW WITH PRESIDENT LINCOLN.
I hav no politics. Not a one. I'm not in the bisiness. If I was
I spose I should holler versiffrusly in the streets at nite and go
home to Betsy Jane smellen of coal ile and gin, in the mornin. I
should go to the Poles arly. I should stay there all day. I should
see to it that my nabers was thar. I should git carriges to take
the kripples, the infirm and the indignant thar. I should be on
guard agin frauds and sich. I should be on the look out for the
infamus lise of the enemy, got up jest be4 elecshun for perlitical
effeck. When all was over and my candydate was elected, I should
move heving & erth--so to speak--until I got orfice, which if I
didn't git a orfice I should turn round and abooze the
Administration with all my mite and maine. But I'm not in the
bizniss. I'm in a far more respectful bizniss nor what pollertics
is. I wouldn't giv two cents to be a Congresser. The wuss insult
I ever received was when sertin citizens of Baldinsville axed me to
run fur the Legislater. Sez I, "My frends, dostest think I'd stoop
to that there?" They turned as white as a sheet. I spoke in my
most orfullest tones & they knowed I wasn't to be trifled with.
They slunked out of site to onct.
There4, havin no politics, I made bold to visit Old Abe at his
humstid in Springfield. I found the old feller in his parler,
surrounded by a perfeck swarm of orfice seekers. Knowin he had
been capting of a flat boat on the roarin Mississippy I thought I'd
address him in sailor lingo, so sez I, "Old Abe, ahoy! Let out yer
main-suls, reef hum the forecastle & throw yer jib-poop over-board!
Shiver my timbers, my harty!" [N.B. This is ginuine mariner
langwidge. I know, becawz I've seen sailor plays acted out by them
New York theatre fellers.] Old Abe lookt up quite cross & sez,
"Send in yer petition by & by. I can't possibly look at it now.
Indeed, I can't. It's onpossible, sir!"
"Mr. Linkin, who do you spect I air?" sed I.
"A orfice-seeker, to be sure," sed he.
"Wall, sir," sed I, "you's never more mistaken in your life. You
hain't gut a orfiss I'd take under no circumstances. I'm A. Ward.
Wax figgers is my perfeshun. I'm the father of Twins, and they
look like me--BOTH OF THEM. I cum to pay a friendly visit to the
President eleck of the United States. If so be you wants to see
me, say so,--if not, say so & I'm orf like a jug handle."
"Mr. Ward, sit down. I am glad to see you, Sir."
"Repose in Abraham's Buzzum!" sed one of the orfice seekers, his
idee bein to git orf a goak at my expense.
"Wall," sez I, "ef all you fellers repose in that there Buzzum
thar'll be mity poor nussin for sum of you!" whereupon Old Abe
buttoned his weskit clear up and blusht like a maidin of sweet
16. Jest at this pint of the conversation another swarm of
orfice-seekers arrove & cum pilin into the parler. Sum wanted
post orfices, sum wanted collectorships, sum wantid furrin
missions, and all wanted sumthin. I thought Old Abe would go
crazy. He hadn't more than had time to shake hands with 'em,
before another tremenjis crowd cum porein onto his premises. His
house and dooryard was now perfeckly overflowed with orfice seekers,
all clameruss for a immejit interview with with Old Abe. One man
from Ohio, who had about seven inches of corn whisky into him,
mistook me for Old Abe and addrest me as "The Pra-hayrie Flower of
the West!" Thinks I YOU want a offiss putty bad. Another man with
a gold-heded cane and a red nose told Old Abe he was "a seckind
Washington & the Pride of the Boundliss West."
Sez I, "Square, you wouldn't take a small post-offiss if you could
git it, would you?"
Sez he, "A patrit is abuv them things, sir!"
"There's a putty big crop of patrits this season, ain't there,
Squire?" sez I, when ANOTHER crowd of offiss seekers pored in. The
house, dooryard, barng & woodshed was now all full, and when
ANOTHER crowd cum I told 'em not to go away for want of room as the
hog-pen was still empty. One patrit from a small town in Michygan
went up on top the house, got into the chimney and slid into the
parler where Old Abe was endeverin to keep the hungry pack of
orfice-seekers from chawin him up alive without benefit of clergy.
The minit he reached the fireplace he jumpt up, brusht the soot out
of his eyes, and yelled: "Don't make eny pintment at the
Spunkville postoffiss till you've read my papers. All the
respectful men in our town is signers to that there dockyment!"
"Good God!" cried Old Abe, "they cum upon me from the skize--down
the chimneys, and from the bowels of the yerth!" He hadn't more'n
got them words out of his delikit mouth before two fat
offiss-seekers from Winconsin, in endeverin to crawl atween his
legs for the purpuss of applyin for the tollgateship at Milwawky,
upsot the President eleck, & he would hev gone sprawlin into the
fireplace if I hadn't caught him in these arms. But I hadn't more'n
stood him up strate before another man cum crashing down the chimney,
his head strikin me viliently again the inards and prostratin my
voluptoous form onto the floor. "Mr. Linkin," shoutid the
infatooated being, "my papers is signed by every clergyman in our
town, and likewise the skoolmaster!"
Sez I, "You egrejis ass," gittin up & brushin the dust from my
eyes, "I'll sign your papers with this bunch of bones, if you don't
be a little more keerful how you make my bread basket a depot in
the futur. How do you like that air perfumery?" sez I, shuving my
fist under his nose. "Them's the kind of papers I'll give you!
Them's the papers YOU want!"
"But I workt hard for the ticket; I toiled night and day! The
patrit should be rewarded!"
"Virtoo," sed I, holdin' the infatooated man by the coat-collar,
"virtoo, sir, is its own reward. Look at me!" He did look at me,
and qualed be4 my gase. "The fact is," I continued, lookin' round
on the hungry crowd, "there is scacely a offiss for every ile lamp
carrid round durin' this campane. I wish thare was. I wish thare
was furrin missions to be filled on varis lonely Islands where
eppydemics rage incessantly, and if I was in Old Abe's place I'd
send every mother's son of you to them. What air you here for?" I
continnered, warmin up considerable, "can't you giv Abe a minit's
peace? Don't you see he's worrid most to death? Go home, you
miserable men, go home & till the sile! Go to peddlin tinware--go
to choppin wood--go to bilin' sope--stuff sassengers--black boots--
git a clerkship on sum respectable manure cart--go round as
original Swiss Bell Ringers--becum 'origenal and only' Campbell
Minstrels--go to lecturin at 50 dollars a nite--imbark in the
peanut bizniss--WRITE FOR THE 'LEDGER'--saw off your legs and go
round givin concerts, with tuchin appeals to a charitable public,
printed on your handbills--anything for a honest living, but don't
come round here drivin Old Abe crazy by your outrajis cuttings up!
Go home. Stand not upon the order of your goin,' but go to onct!
Ef in five minits from this time," sez I, pullin' out my new
sixteen dollar huntin cased watch and brandishin' it before their
eyes, "Ef in five minits from this time a single sole of you
remains on these here premises, I'll go out to my cage near by, and
let my Boy Constructor loose! & ef he gits amung you, you'll think
old Solferino has cum again and no mistake!" You ought to hev seen
them scamper, Mr. Fair. They run ort as tho Satun hisself was
arter them with a red hot ten pronged pitchfork. In five minits
the premises was clear.
"How kin I ever repay you, Mr. Ward, for your kindness?" sed Old
Abe, advancin and shakin me warmly by the hand. "How kin I ever
repay you, sir?"
"By givin the whole country a good, sound administration. By
poerin' ile upon the troubled waturs, North and South. By
pursooin' a patriotic, firm, and just course, and then if any State
wants to secede, let 'em Sesesh!"
"How 'bout my Cabinit, Mister Ward?" sed Abe.
"Fill it up with Showmen, sir! Showmen, is devoid of politics.
They hain't got any principles. They know how to cater for the
public. They know what the public wants, North & South. Showmen,
sir, is honest men. Ef you doubt their literary ability, look at
their posters, and see small bills! Ef you want a Cabinit as is a
Cabinit fill it up with showmen, but don't call on me. The moral
wax figger perfeshun musn't be permitted to go down while there's a
drop of blood in these vains! A. Linkin, I wish you well! Ef
Powers or Walcutt wus to pick out a model for a beautiful man, I
scarcely think they'd sculp you; but ef you do the fair thing by
your country you'll make as putty a angel as any of us! A. Linkin,
use the talents which Nature has put into you judishusly and
firmly, and all will be well! A. Linkin, adoo!"
He shook me cordyully by the hand--we exchanged picters, so we
could gaze upon each other's liniments, when far away from one
another--he at the hellum of the ship of State, and I at the hellum
of the show bizniss--admittance only 15 cents.
1.32. INTERVIEW WITH THE PRINCE NAPOLEON.
Notwithstandin I hain't writ much for the papers of late, nobody
needn't flatter theirselves that the undersined is ded. On the
contry, "I still live," which words was spoken by Danyil Webster,
who was a able man. Even the old-line whigs of Boston will admit
THAT. Webster is ded now, howsever, and his mantle has probly
fallen into the hands of sum dealer in 2nd hand close, who can't
sell it. Leastways nobody pears to be goin round wearin it to any
perticler extent, now days. The rigiment of whom I was kurnel,
finerly concluded they was better adapted as Home Gards, which
accounts for your not hearin of me, ear this, where the bauls is
the thickest and where the cannon doth roar. But as a American
citizen I shall never cease to admire the masterly advance our
troops made on Washinton from Bull Run, a short time ago. It was
well dun. I spoke to my wife 'bout it at the time. My wife sed it
was well dun.
It havin there4 bin detarmined to pertect Baldinsville at all
hazzuds, and as there was no apprehensions of any immejit danger, I
thought I would go orf onto a pleasure tower. Accordinly I put on
a clean Biled Shirt and started for Washinton. I went there to see
the Prints Napoleon, and not to see the place, which I will here
take occasion to obsarve is about as uninterestin a locality as
there is this side of J. Davis's future home, if he ever does die,
and where I reckon they'll make it so warm for him that he will si
for his summer close. It is easy enough to see why a man goes to
the poor house or the penitentiary. It's becawz he can't help it.
But why he should woluntarily go and live in Washinton, is intirely
beyond my comprehension, and I can't say no fairer nor that.
I put up to a leadin hotel. I saw the landlord and sed, "How d'ye
do, Square?"
"Fifty cents, sir," was his reply.
"Sir?"
"Half-a-dollar. We charge twenty-five cents for LOOKIN at the
landlord and fifty cents for speakin to him. If you want supper, a
boy will show you to the dinin-room for twenty-five cents. Your
room bein in the tenth story, it will cost you a dollar to be shown
up there."
"How much do you ax for a man breathin in this equinomikal tarvun?"
sed I.
"Ten cents a Breth," was his reply.
Washinton hotels is very reasonable in their charges. [N.B.--This
is Sarkassum.]
I sent up my keerd to the Prints, and was immejitly ushered before
him. He received me kindly, and axed me to sit down.
"I hav cum to pay my respecks to you, Mister Napoleon, hopin I see
you hale and harty."
"I am quite well," he sed. "Air you well, sir?"
"Sound as a cuss!" I answerd.
He seemed to be pleased with my ways, and we entered into
conversation to onct.
"How's Lewis?" I axed, and he sed the Emperor was well. Eugeny was
likewise well, he sed. Then I axed him was Lewis a good provider?
did he cum home arly nites? did he perfoom her bedroom at a
onseasonable hour with gin and tanzy? Did he go to "the Lodge" on
nites when there wasn't any Lodge? did he often hav to go down town
to meet a friend? did he hav a extensiv acquaintance among poor
young widders whose husbands was in Californy? to all of which
questions the Prints perlitely replide, givin me to understand that
the Emperor was behavin well.
"I ax these question, my royal duke and most noble hiness and
imperials, becaws I'm anxious to know how he stands as a man. I
know he's smart. He is cunnin, he is long-heded, he is deep--he is
grate. But onless he is GOOD he'll come down with a crash one of
these days and the Bonyparts will be Bustid up agin. Bet yer
life!"
"Air you a preacher, sir?" he inquired slitely sarkasticul.
"No, sir. But I bleeve in morality. I likewise bleeve in Meetin
Houses. Show me a place where there isn't any Meetin Houses and
where preachers is never seen, and I'll show you a place where old
hats air stuffed into broken winders, where the children air dirty
and ragged, where gates have no hinges, where the wimin are
slipshod, and where maps of the devil's "wild land" air painted
upon men's shirt bosums with tobacco-jooce! That's what I'll show
you. Let us consider what the preachers do for us before we aboose
'em."
He sed he didn't mean to aboose the clergy. Not at all, and he was
happy to see that I was interested in the Bonypart family.
"It's a grate family," sed I. "But they scooped the old man in."
"How, Sir?"
"Napoleon the Grand. The Britishers scooped him at Waterloo. He
wanted to do too much, and he did it! They scooped him in at
Waterloo, and he subsekently died at St. Heleny! There's where the
gratest military man this world ever projuced pegged out. It was
rather hard to consine such a man as him to St. Heleny, to spend
his larst days in catchin mackeril, and walkin up and down the
dreary beach in a military cloak drawn titely round him, (see
picter-books), but so it was. 'Hed of the Army!' Them was his
larst words. So he had bin. He was grate! Don't I wish we had a
pair of his old boots to command sum of our Brigades!"
This pleased Jerome, and he took me warmly by the hand.
"Alexander the Grate was punkins," I continnered, "but Napoleon was
punkinser! Alic wept becaws there was no more worlds to scoop, and
then took to drinkin. He drowndid his sorrers in the flowin bole,
and the flowin bole was too much for him. It ginerally is. He
undertook to give a snake exhibition in his boots, but it killed
him. That was a bad joke on Alic!"
"Since you air so solicitous about France and the Emperor, may I
ask you how your own country is getting along?" sed Jerome, in a
pleasant voice.
"It's mixed," I sed. But I think we shall cum out all right."
"Columbus, when he diskivered this magnificent continent, could hav
had no idee of the grandeur it would one day assoom," sed the
Prints.
"It cost Columbus twenty thousand dollars to fit out his explorin
expedition," sed I. "If he had bin a sensible man he'd hav put the
money in a hoss railroad or a gas company, and left this
magnificent continent to intelligent savages, who when they got
hold of a good thing knew enuff to keep it, and who wouldn't hav
seceded, nor rebelled, nor knockt Liberty in the hed with a
slungshot. Columbus wasn't much of a feller, after all. It would
hav bin money in my pocket if he'd staid at home. Chris. ment
well, but he put his foot in it when he saled for America."
We talked sum more about matters and things, and at larst I riz to
go. "I will now say good-bye to you, noble sir, and good luck to
you. Likewise the same to Clotildy. Also to the gorgeous persons
which compose your soot. If the Emperor's boy don't like livin at
the Tooleries, when he gits older, and would like to imbark in the
show bizness, let him come with me and I'll make a man of him. You
find us sumwhat mixed, as I before obsarved, but come again next
year and you'll find us clearer nor ever. The American Eagle has
lived too sumptuously of late--his stummic becum foul, and he's
takin a slite emetic. That's all. We're getting ready to strike a
big blow and a sure one. When we do strike, the fur will fly and
secession will be in the hands of the undertaker, sheeted for so
deep a grave that nothin short of Gabriel's trombone will ever
awaken it! Mind what I say. You've heard the showman!"
Then advisin him to keep away from the Peter Funk sections of the
East, and the proprietors of corner-lots in the West, I bid him
farewell, and went away.
There was a levee at Senator What's-his-name's, and I thought I'd
jine in the festivities for a spell. Who should I see but she that
was Sarah Watkins, now the wife of our Congresser, trippin in the
dance, dressed up to kill in her store close. Sarah's father use
to keep a little grosery store in our town and she used to clerk it
for him in busy times. I was rushin up to shake hands with her
when she turned on her heel, and tossin her hed in a contemptooious
manner, walked away from me very rapid. "Hallo, Sal," I hollered,
"can't you measure me a quart of them best melasses? I may want a
codfish, also!" I guess this reminded her of the little red store,
and "the days of her happy childhood."
But I fell in love with a nice little gal after that, who was much
sweeter then Sally's father's melasses, and I axed her if we
shouldn't glide in the messy dance. She sed we should, and we
Glode.
I intended to make this letter very seris, but a few goaks may have
accidentally crept in. Never mind. Besides, I think it improves a
komick paper to publish a goak once in a while.
Yours Muchly,
Ward, (Artemus.)
1.33. AGRICULTURE.
The Barclay County Agricultural Society having seriously invited
the author of this volume to address them on the occasion of their
next annual Fair, he wrote the President of that Society as
follows:
New York. June 12, 1865,
Dear Sir:--
I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the
5th inst., in which you invite me to deliver an address before your
excellent agricultural society.
I feel flattered, and think I will come.
Perhaps, meanwhile, a brief history of my experience as an
agriculturist will be acceptable; and as that history no doubt
contains suggestions of value to the entire agricultural community,
I have concluded to write to you through the Press.
I have been an honest old farmer for some four years.
My farm is in the interior of Maine. Unfortunately my lands are
eleven miles from the railroad. Eleven miles is quite a distance
to haul immense quantities of wheat, corn, rye, and oats; but as I
hav'n't any to haul, I do not, after all, suffer much on that
account.
My farm is more especially a grass farm.
My neighbors told me so at first, and as an evidence that they were
sincere in that opinion, they turned their cows on to it the moment
I went off "lecturing."
These cows are now quite fat. I take pride in these cows, in fact,
and am glad I own a grass farm.
Two years ago I tried sheep-raising.
I bought fifty lambs, and turned them loose on my broad and
beautiful acres.
It was pleasant on bright mornings to stroll leisurely out on to
the farm in my dressing-gown, with a cigar in my mouth, and watch
those innocent little lambs as they danced gayly o'er the hillside.
Watching their saucy capers reminded me of caper sauce, and it
occurred to me I should have some very fine eating when they grew
up to be "muttons."
My gentle shepherd, Mr. Eli Perkins, said, "We must have some
shepherd dogs."
I had no very precise idea as to what shepherd dogs were, but I
assumed a rather profound look, and said:
"We must, Eli. I spoke to you about this some time ago!"
I wrote to my old friend, Mr. Dexter H. Follett, of Boston, for two
shepherd dogs. Mr. F. is not an honest old farmer himself, but I
thought he knew about shepherd dogs. He kindly forsook far more
important business to accommodate, and the dogs came forthwith.
They were splendid creatures--snuff-colored, hazel-eyed,
long-tailed, and shapely-jawed.
We led them proudly to the fields.
"Turn them in, Eli," I said.
Eli turned them in.
They went in at once, and killed twenty of my best lambs in about
four minutes and a half.
My friend had made a trifling mistake in the breed of these dogs.
These dogs were not partial to sheep.
Eli Perkins was astonished, and observed:
"Waal! DID you ever?"
I certainly never had.
There were pools of blood on the greensward, and fragments of wool
and raw lamb chops lay round in confused heaps.
The dogs would have been sent to Boston that night, had they not
suddenly died that afternoon of a throat-distemper. It wasn't a
swelling of the throat. It wasn't diptheria. It was a violent
opening of the throat, extending from ear to ear.
Thus closed their life-stories. Thus ended their interesting
tails.
I failed as a raiser of lambs. As a sheepist, I was not a success.
Last summer Mr. Perkins, said, "I think we'd better cut some grass
this season, sir."
We cut some grass.
To me the new-mown hay is very sweet and nice. The brilliant
George Arnold sings about it, in beautiful verse, down in Jersey
every summer; so does the brilliant Aldrich, at Portsmouth, N.H.
And yet I doubt if either of these men knows the price of a ton of
hay to-day. But new-mown hay is a really fine thing. It is good
for man and beast.
We hired four honest farmers to assist us, and I led them gayly to
the meadows.
I was going to mow, myself.
I saw the sturdy peasants go round once ere I dipped my flashing
scythe into the tall green grass.
"Are you ready?" said E. Perkins.
"I am here!"
"Then follow us."
I followed them.
Followed them rather too closely, evidently, for a white-haired old
man, who immediately followed Mr. Perkins, called upon us to halt.
Then in a low firm voice he said to his son, who was just ahead of
me, "John, change places with me. I hain't got long to live,
anyhow. Yonder berryin' ground will soon have these old bones, and
it's no matter whether I'm carried there with one leg off and
ter'ble gashes in the other or not! But you, John--YOU are young."
The old man changed places with his son. A smile of calm
resignation lit up his wrinkled face, as he sed, "Now, sir, I am
ready!"
"What mean you, old man!" I sed.
"I mean that if you continner to bran'ish that blade as you have
been bran'ishin' it, you'll slash h-- out of some of us before
we're a hour older!"
There was some reason mingled with this white-haired old peasant's
profanity. It was true that I had twice escaped mowing off his
son's legs, and his father was perhaps naturally alarmed.
I went and sat down under a tree. "I never know'd a literary man
in my life," I overheard the old man say, "that know'd anything."
Mr. Perkins was not as valuable to me this season as I had fancied
he might be. Every afternoon he disappeared from the field
regularly, and remained about some two hours. He sed it was
headache. He inherited it from his mother. His mother was often
taken in that way, and suffered a great deal.
At the end of the two hours Mr. Perkins would reappear with his
head neatly done up in a large wet rag, and say he "felt better."
One afternoon it so happened that I soon followed the invalid to
the house, and as I neared the porch I heard a female voice
energetically observe, "You stop!" It was the voice of the hired
girl, and she added, "I'll holler for Mr. Brown!"
"Oh no, Nancy," I heard the invalid E. Perkins soothingly say, "Mr.
Brown knows I love you. Mr. Brown approves of it!"
This was pleasant for Mr. Brown!
I peered cautiously through the kitchen-blinds, and, however
unnatural it may appear, the lips of Eli Perkins and my hired girl
were very near together. She sed, "You shan't do so," and he
DO-SOED. She also said she would get right up and go away, and as
an evidence that she was thoroughly in earnest about it, she
remained where she was.
They are married now, and Mr. Perkins is troubled no more with the
headache.
This year we are planting corn. Mr. Perkins writes me that "on
accounts of no skare krows bein put up krows cum and digged fust
crop up but soon got nother in. Old Bisbee who was frade youd cut
his sons leggs off Ses you bet go an stan up in feeld yrself with
dressin gownd on & gesses krows will keep way. This made Boys in
store larf. no More terday from
"Yours
respecful
"Eli Perkins,"
"his letter."
My friend Mr. D.T.T. Moore, of the "Rural New Yorker," thinks if I
"keep on" I will get in the Poor House in about two years.
If you think the honest old farmers of Barclay County want me, I
will come.
Truly Yours,
Charles F. Browne.
1.34. BUSTS.
There are in this city several Italian gentlemen engaged in the bust
business. They have their peculiarities and eccentricities. They
are swarthy-faced, wear slouched caps and drab pea-jackets, and
smoke bad cigars. They make busts of Webster, Clay, Bonaparte,
Douglas, and other great men, living and dead. The Italian buster
comes upon you solemnly and cautiously. "Buy Napoleon?" he will
say, and you may probably answer "not a buy." "How much giv-ee?" he
asks, and perhaps you will ask him how much he wants. "Nine
dollar," he will answer always. We are sure of it. We have
observed this peculiarity in the busters frequently. No matter how
large or small the bust may be, the first price is invariably "nine
dollar." If you decline paying this price, as you undoubtedly will
if you are right in your head, he again asks, "how much giv-ee?" By
way of a joke you say "a dollar," when the buster retreats
indignantly to the door, saying in a low, wild voice, "O dam!" With
his hand upon the door-latch, he turns and once more asks, "how much
giv-ee?" You repeat the previous offer, when he mutters, "O ha!"
then coming pleasantly towards you, he speaks thus: "Say! how much
giv-ee?" Again you say a dollar, and he cries, "take 'um--take
'um!"--thus falling eight dollars on his original price.
Very eccentric is the Italian buster, and sometimes he calls his
busts by wrong names. We bought Webster (he called him Web-STAR) of
him the other day, and were astonished when he called upon us the
next day with another bust of Webster, exactly like the one we had
purchased of him, and asked us if we didn't want to buy "Cole, the
wife-pizener!" We endeavored to rebuke the depraved buster, but our
utterance was choked, and we could only gaze upon him in speechless
astonishment and indignation.
1.35. A HARD CASE.
We have heard of some very hard cases since we have enlivened this
world with our brilliant presence. We once saw an able-bodied man
chase a party of little school-children and rob them of their
dinners. The man who stole the coppers from his deceased
grandmother's eyes lived in our neighborhood, and we have read about
the man who went to church for the sole purpose of stealing the
testaments and hymn-books. But the hardest case we ever heard of
lived in Arkansas. He was only fourteen years old. One night he
deliberately murdered his father and mother in cold blood, with a
meat-axe. He was tried and found guilty. The Judge drew on his
black cap, and in a voice choked with emotion asked the young
prisoner if he had anything to say before the sentence of the Court
was passed on him. The court-room was densely crowded and there was
not a dry eye in the vast assembly. The youth of the prisoner, his
beauty and innocent looks, the mild, lamblike manner in which he had
conducted himself during the trial--all, all had thoroughly enlisted
the sympathy of the spectators, the ladies in particular. And even
the Jury, who had found it to be their stern duty to declare him
guilty of the appalling crime--even the Jury now wept aloud at this
awful moment.
"Have you anything to say?" repeated the deeply moved Judge.
"Why, no," replied the prisoner, "I think I haven't, though I hope
yer Honor will show some consideration FOR THE FEELINGS OF A POOR
ORPHAN!"
The Judge sentenced the perfect young wretch without delay.
1.36. AFFAIRS AROUND THE VILLAGE GREEN.
It isn't every one who has a village green to write about. I have
one, although I have not seen much of it for some years past. I am
back again, now. In the language of the duke who went around with a
motto about him, "I am here!" and I fancy I am about as happy a
peasant of the vale as ever garnished a melodrama, although I have
not as yet danced on my village green, as the melodramatic peasant
usually does on his. It was the case when Rosina Meadows left home.
The time rolls by serenely now--so serenely that I don't care what
time it is, which is fortunate, because my watch is at present in
the hands of those "men of New York who are called rioters." We met
by chance, the usual way--certainly not by appointment--and I
brought the interview to a close with all possible despatch.
Assuring them that I wasn't Mr. Greeley, particularly, and that he
had never boarded in the private family where I enjoy the comforts
of a home, I tendered them my watch, and begged they would
distribute it judiciously among the laboring classes, as I had seen
the rioters styled in certain public prints.
Why should I loiter feverishly in Broadway, stabbing the hissing hot
air with the splendid gold-headed cane that was presented to me by
the citizens of Waukegan, Illinois, as a slight testimonial of their
esteem? Why broil in my rooms? You said to me, Mrs. Gloverson,
when I took possession of these rooms, that no matter how warm it
might be, a breeze had a way of blowing into them, and that they
were, withal, quite countryfied; but I am bound to say, Mrs.
Gloverson, that there was nothing about them that ever reminded me,
in the remotest degree, of daisies or new-mown hay. Thus, with
sarcasm, do I smash the deceptive Gloverson.
Why stay in New York when I had a village green? I gave it up, the
same as I would an intricate conundrum--and, in short, I am here.
Do I miss the glare and crash of the imperial thoroughfare? The
milkman, the fiery, untamed omnibus horses, the soda fountains,
Central Park, and those things? Yes I do; and I can go on missing
'em for quite a spell, and enjoy it.
The village from which I write to you is small. It does not contain
over forty houses, all told; but they are milk-white, with the
greenest of blinds, and for the most part are shaded with beautiful
elms and willows. To the right of us is a mountain--to the left a
lake. The village nestles between. Of course it does, I never read
a novel in my life in which the villages didn't nestle. Villages
invariably nestle. It is a kind of way they have.
We are away from the cars. The iron-horse, as my little sister
aptly remarks in her composition On Nature, is never heard to shriek
in our midst; and on the whole I am glad of it.
The villagers are kindly people. They are rather incoherent on the
subject of the war, but not more so, perhaps, then are people
elsewhere. One citizen, who used to sustain a good character,
subscribed for the Weekly New York Herald a few months since, and
went to studying the military maps in that well-known journal for
the fireside. I need not inform you that his intellect now totters,
and he has mortgaged his farm. In a literary point of view we are
rather bloodthirsty. A pamphlet edition of the life of a cheerful
being, who slaughtered his wife and child, and then finished
himself, is having an extensive sale just now.
We know little of Honore de Balzac, and perhaps care less for Victor
Hugo. M. Claes's grand search for the Absolute doesn't thrill us in
the least; and Jean Valjean, gloomily picking his way through the
sewers of Paris, with the spooney young man of the name of Marius
upon his back, awakens no interest in our breasts. I say Jean
Valjean picked his way gloomily, and I repeat it. No man, under
these circumstances, could have skipped gayly. But this literary
business, as the gentleman who married his colored chambermaid aptly
observed, "is simply a matter of taste."
The store--I must not forget the store. It is an object of great
interest to me. I usually encounter there, on sunny afternoons, an
old Revolutionary soldier. You may possibly have read about
"Another Revolutionary Soldier gone," but this is one who hasn't
gone, and, moreover, one who doesn't manifest the slightest
intention of going. He distinctly remembers Washington, of course;
they all do; but what I wish to call special attention to, is the
fact that this Revolutionary soldier is one hundred years old, that
his eyes are so good that he can read fine print without spectacles-
-he never used them, by the way--and his mind is perfectly clear.
He is a little shaky in one of his legs, but otherwise he is as
active as most men of forty-five, and his general health is
excellent. He uses no tobacco, but for the last twenty years he has
drunk one glass of liquor every day--no more, no less. He says he
must have his tod. I had begun to have lurking suspicions about
this Revolutionary soldier business, but here is an original Jacobs.
But because a man can drink a glass of liquor a day, and live to be
a hundred years old, my young readers must not infer that by
drinking two glasses of liquor a day a man can live to be two
hundred. "Which, I meanter say, it doesn't foller," as Joseph
Gargery might observe.
This store, in which may constantly be found calico and nails, and
fish, and tobacco in kegs, and snuff in bladders, is a venerable
establishment. As long ago as 1814 it was an institution. The
county troops, on their way to the defence of Portland, then menaced
by British ships-of-war, were drawn up in front of this very store,
and treated at the town's expense. Citizens will tell you how the
clergyman refused to pray for the troops, because he considered the
war an unholy one; and how a somewhat eccentric person, of dissolute
habits, volunteered his services, stating that he once had an uncle
who was a deacon, and he thought he could make a tolerable prayer,
although it was rather out of his line; and how he prayed so long
and absurdly that the Colonel ordered him under arrest, but that
even while soldiers stood over him with gleaming bayonets, the
reckless being sang a preposterous song about his grandmother's
spotted calf, with its Ri-fol-lol-tiddery-i-do; after which he
howled dismally.
And speaking of the store, reminds me of a little story. The author
of "several successful comedies" has been among us, and the store
was anxious to know who the stranger was. And therefore the store
asked him.
"What do you follow, sir?" respectfully inquired the tradesman.
"I occasionally write for the stage, sir."
"Oh!" returned the tradesman, in a confused manner.
"He means," said an honest villager, with a desire to help the
puzzled tradesman out, "he means that he writes the handbills for
the stage drivers!"
I believe that story is new, although perhaps it is not of an
uproariously mirthful character; but one hears stories at the store
that are old enough, goodness knows--stories which, no doubt,
diverted Methuselah in the sunny days of his giddy and thoughtless
boyhood.
There is an exciting scene at the store occasionally. Yesterday an
athletic peasant, in a state of beer, smashed in a counter and
emptied two tubs of butter on the floor. His father--a white-haired
old man, who was a little boy when the Revolutionary war closed, but
who doesn't remember Washington MUCH, came round in the evening and
settled for the damages. "My son," he said, "has considerable
originality." I will mention that this same son once told me that
he could lick me with one arm tied behind him, and I was so
thoroughly satisfied he could, that I told him he needn't mind going
for a rope.
Sometimes I go a-visiting to a farmhouse, on which occasions the
parlor is opened. The windows have been close-shut ever since the
last visitor was there, and there is a dingy smell that I struggle
as calmly as possible with, until I am led to the banquet of
steaming hot biscuit and custard pie. If they would only let me sit
in the dear old-fashioned kitchen, or on the door-stone--if they
knew how dismally the new black furniture looked--but, never mind, I
am not a reformer. No, I should rather think not.
Gloomy enough, this living on a farm, you perhaps say, in which case
you are wrong. I can't exactly say that I pant to be an
agriculturist, but I do know that in the main it is an independent,
calmly happy sort of life. I can see how the prosperous farmer can
go joyously a-field with the rise of the sun, and how his heart may
swell with pride over bounteous harvests and sleek oxen. And it
must be rather jolly for him on winter evenings to sit before the
bright kitchen fire and watch his rosy boys and girls as they study
out the charades in the weekly paper, and gradually find out why my
first is something that grows in a garden, and my second is a fish.
On the green hillside over yonder there is a quivering of snowy
drapery, and bright hair is flashing in the morning sunlight. It
is recess, and the Seminary girls are running in the tall grass.
A goodly seminary to look at outside, certainly, although I am
pained to learn, as I do on unprejudiced authority, that Mrs.
Higgins, the Principal, is a tyrant, who seeks to crush the girls
and trample upon them; but my sorrow is somewhat assuaged by
learning that Skimmerhorn, the pianist, is perfectly splendid.
Looking at these girls reminds me that I, too, was once young--and
where are the friends of my youth? I have found one of 'em,
certainly. I saw him ride in the circus the other day on a bareback
horse, and even now his name stares at me from yonder board-fence,
in green, and blue, and red, and yellow letters. Dashington, the
youth with whom I used to read the able orations of Cicero, and who,
as a declaimer on exhibition days, used to wipe the rest of us boys
pretty handsomely out--well, Dashington is identified with the
halibut and cod interest--drives a fish cart, in fact, from a
certain town on the coast, back into the interior. Hurbertson, the
utterly stupid boy--the lunkhead, who never had his lesson--he's
about the ablest lawyer a sister State can boast. Mills is a
newspaper man, and is just now editing a Major-General down South.
Singlinson, the sweet-voiced boy, whose face was always washed and
who was real good, and who was never rude--HE is in the penitentiary
for putting his uncle's autograph to a financial document. Hawkins,
the clergyman's son, is an actor, and Williamson, the good little
boy who divided his bread and butter with the beggarman, is a
failing merchant, and makes money by it. Tom Slink, who used to
smoke short-sixes and get acquainted with the little circus boys, is
popularly supposed to be the proprietor of a cheap gaming
establishment in Boston, where the beautiful but uncertain prop is
nightly tossed. Be sure, the Army is represented by many of the
friends of my youth, the most of whom have given a good account of
themselves. But Chalmerson hasn't done much. No, Chalmerson is
rather of a failure. He plays on the guitar and sings love songs.
Not that he is a bad man. A kinder-hearted creature never lived,
and they say he hasn't yet got over crying for his little curly
haired sister who died ever so long ago. But he knows nothing about
business, politics, the world, and those things. He is dull at
trade--indeed, it is a common remark that "everybody cheats
Chalmerson." He came to the party the other evening, and brought
his guitar. They wouldn't have him for a tenor in the opera,
certainly, for he is shaky in his upper notes; but if his simple
melodies didn't gush straight from the heart, why were my trained
eyes wet? And although some of the girls giggled, and some of the
men seemed to pity him I could not help fancying that poor
Chalmerson was nearer heaven than any of us all!
1.37. ABOUT EDITORS.
We hear a great deal, and something too much, about the poverty of
editors. It is common for editors to parade their poverty and joke
about it in their papers. We see these witticisms almost every day
of our lives. Sometimes the editor does the "vater vorks business,"
as Mr. Samuel Weller called weeping, and makes pathetic appeals to
his subscribers. Sometimes he is in earnest when he makes these
appeals, but why "on airth" does he stick to a business that will
not support him decently? We read of patriotic and lofty-minded
individuals who sacrifice health, time, money, and perhaps life, for
the good of humanity, the Union, and that sort of thing, but we
don't SEE them very often. We must say that we could count up all
the lofty patriots in this line that we have ever seen, during our
brief but chequered and romantic career, in less than half a day. A
man who clings to a wretchedly paying business, when he can make
himself and others near and dear to him fatter and happier by doing
something else, is about as near an ass as possible, and not hanker
after green grass and corn in the ear. The truth is, editors as a
class are very well fed, groomed and harnessed. They have some
pains that other folk do not have, and they also have some
privileges which the community in general can't possess. While we
would not advise the young reader to "go for an editor," we assure
him he can do much worse. He mustn't spoil a flourishing blacksmith
or popular victualler in making an indifferent editor of himself,
however. He must be endowed with some fancy and imagination to
enchain the public eye. It was Smith, we believe, or some other man
with an odd name, who thought Shakespeare lacked the requisite fancy
and imagination for a successful editor.
To those persons who can't live by printing papers we would say, in
the language of the profligate boarder when dunned for his bill,
being told at the same time by the keeper of the house that he
couldn't board people for nothing, "Then sell out to somebody who
can!" In other words, fly from a business which don't remunerate.
But as we intimated before, there is much gammon in the popular
editorial cry of poverty.
Just now we see a touching paragraph floating through the papers to
the effect that editors don't live out half their years; that, poor
souls! they wear themselves out for the benefit of a cold and
unappreciating world. We don't believe it. Gentle reader, don't
swallow it. It is a footlight trick to work on your feelings. For
ourselves, let us say, that unless we slip up considerably on our
calculations, it will be a long time before our fellow-citizens will
have the melancholy pleasure of erecting to our memory a towering
monument of Parian marble on the Public Square.
1.38. EDITING.
Before you go for an Editor, young man, pause and take a big think!
Do not rush into the editorial harness rashly. Look around and see
if there is not an omnibus to drive--some soil somewhere to be
tilled--a clerkship on some meat cart to be filled--anything that is
reputable and healthy, rather than going for an Editor, which is
hard business at best.
We are not a horse, and consequently have never been called upon to
furnish the motive power for a threshing-machine; but we fancy that
the life of the Editor who is forced to write, write, write, whether
he feels right or not, is much like that of the steed in question.
If the yeas and neighs could be obtained, we believe the intelligent
horse would decide that the threshing-machine is preferable to the
sanctum editorial.
The Editor's work is never done. He is drained incessantly, and no
wonder that he dries up prematurely. Other people can attend
banquets, weddings, &c.; visit halls of dazzling light, get
inebriated, break windows, lick a man occasionally, and enjoy
themselves in a variety of ways; but the Editor cannot. He must
stick tenaciously to his quill. The press, like a sick baby,
mustn't be left alone for a minute. If the press is left to run
itself even for a day, some absurd person indignantly orders the
carrier-boy to stop bringing "that infernal paper. There's nothing
in it. I won't have it in the house!"
The elegant Mantalini, reduced to mangle-turning, described his life
as "a dem'd horrid grind." The life of the Editor is all of that.
But there is a good time coming, we feel confident, for the Editor.
A time when he will be appreciated. When he will have a front seat.
When he will have pie every day, and wear store clothes continually.
When the harsh cry of "stop my paper" will no more grate upon his
ears. Courage, Messieurs the Editors! Still, sanguine as we are of
the coming of this jolly time, we advise the aspirant for editorial
honors to pause ere he takes up the quill as a means of obtaining
his bread and butter. Do not, at least, do so until you have been
jilted several dozen times by a like number of girls; until you have
been knocked down-stairs several times and soused in a horse-pond;
until all the "gushing" feelings within you have been thoroughly
subdued; until, in short, your hide is of rhinoceros thickness.
Then, O aspirants for the bubble reputation at the press's mouth,
throw yourselves among the inkpots, dust, and cobwebs of the
printing office, if you will.
* * * Good my lord, will you see the Editors well bestowed? Do
you hear, let them be well used, for they are the abstract and brief
chroniclers of the time. After your death you had better have a bad
epitaph than their ill report while you live.
Hamlet, slightly altered.
1.39. POPULARITY.
What a queer thing is popularity; Bill Pug Nose of the "Plug-Uglies"
(The name given to an infamous gang of ruffians which once had its
head-quarters in Baltimore.) acquires a world-wide reputation by
smashing up the "champion of light weights," sets up a Saloon upon
it, and realizes the first month; while our Missionary, who
collected two hundred blankets last August, and at that time saved a
like number of little negroes in the West Indies from freezing, has
received nothing but the yellow fever. The Hon. Oracular M.
Matterson becomes able to withstand any quantity of late nights and
bad brandy, is elected to Congress, and lobbies through contracts by
which he realizes some 50,000 dollars; while private individuals
lose 100,000 dollars by the Atlantic Cable. Contracts are popular--
the cable isn't. Fiddlers, Prima Donnas, Horse Operas, learned
pigs, and five-legged calves travel through the country, reaping
"golden opinions," while editors, inventors, professors, and
humanitarians generally, are starving in garrets. Revivals of
religion, fashions, summer resorts, and pleasure trips, are
exceedingly popular, while trade, commerce, chloride of lime, and
all the concomitants necessary to render the inner life of denizens
of cities tolerable, are decidedly non est. Even water, which was
so popular and populous a few weeks agone, comes to us in such
stinted sprinklings that it has become popular to supply it only
from hydrants in sufficient quantities to raise one hundred
disgusting smells in a distance of two blocks. Monsieur Revierre,
with nothing but a small name and a large quantity of hair, makes
himself exceedingly popular with hotel-keepers and a numerous
progeny of female Flaunts and Blounts, while Felix Smooth and Mr.
Chink, who persistently set forth their personal and more
substantial marital charms through the columns of "New York Herald,"
have only received one interview each--one from a man in female
attire, and the other from the keeper of an unmentionable house.
Popularity is a queer thing, very. If you don't believe us, try it!
1.40. A LITTLE DIFFICULTY IN THE WAY.
An enterprising traveling agent for a well-known Cleveland Tombstone
Manufactory lately made a business visit to a small town in an
adjoining county. Hearing, in the village, that a man in a remote
part of the township had lost his wife, he thought he would go and
see him, and offer him consolation and a gravestone, on his usual
reasonable terms. He started. The road was a frightful one, but
the agent persevered, and finally arrived at the bereaved man's
house. Bereaved man's hired girl told the agent that the bereaved
man was splitting fence rails "over in pastur, about two milds."
The indefatigable agent hitched his horse and started for the
"pastur." After falling into all manner of mudholes, scratching
himself with briers, and tumbling over decayed logs, the agent at
length found the bereaved man. In a subdued voice he asked the man
if he had lost his wife. The man said he had. The agent was very
sorry to hear of it, and sympathized with the man deeply in his
great affliction; but death, he said, was an insatiate archer, and
shot down all, both of high and low degree. Informed the man that
"what was his loss was her gain," and would be glad to sell him a
gravestone to mark the spot where the beloved one slept--marble or
common stone, as he chose, at prices defying competition. The
bereaved man said there was "a little difficulty in the way."
"Haven't you lost your wife?" inquired the agent.
"Why, yes, I have," said the man, "but no gravestun ain't necessary:
you see the cussed critter ain't dead. SHE'S SCOOTED WITH ANOTHER
MAN!"
The agent retired.
1.41. COLORED PEOPLE'S CHURCH.
There is a plain little meeting-house on Barnwell Street (One of the
streets of the city of Cleveland.) in which the colored people--or a
goodly portion of them--worship on Sundays. The seats are
cushionless, and have perpendicular backs. The pulpit is plain
white--trimmed with red, it is true, but still a very unostentatious
affair for colored people, who are supposed to have a decided
weakness for gay hues. Should you escort a lady to this church, and
seat yourself beside her, you will infallibly be touched on the
shoulder, and politely requested to move to the "gentlemen's side."
Gentlemen and ladies are not allowed to sit together in this church.
They are parted remorselessly. It is hard--we may say it is
terrible--to be torn asunder in this way, but you have to submit,
and of course you had better do so gracefully and pleasantly.
Meeting opens with an old-fashioned hymn, which is very well sung
indeed by the congregation. Then the minister reads a hymn, which
is sung by the choir on the front seats near the pulpit. Then the
minister prays. He hopes no one has been attracted there by idle
curiosity--to see or be seen--and you naturally conclude that he is
gently hitting you. Another hymn follows the prayer, and then we
have the discourse, which certainly has the merit of peculiarity and
boldness. The minister's name is Jones. He don't mince matters at
all. He talks about the "flames of hell" with a confident
fierceness that must be quite refreshing to sinners.
"There's no half-way about this," says he, "no by-paths.
"There are in Cleveland lots of men who go to church regularly, who
behave well in meeting, and who pay their bills.
"They ain't Christians though.
"They're gentlemen sinners.
"And whar d'ye spose they'll fetch up?
"I'll tell ye--they'll fetch him up in h--ll, and they'll come up
standing too--there's where they'll fetch up.
"Who's my backer?
"Have I got a backer?
"Whar's my backer?
"This is my backer (striking the Bible before him)--the Bible will
back me to any amount!"
To still further convince his hearers that he was in earnest, he
exclaimed, "That's me--that's Jones!"
He alluded to Eve in terms of bitter censure. It was natural that
Adam should have been mad at her. "I shouldn't want a woman that
wouldn't mind me, myself," said the speaker.
He directed his attention to dancing, declaring it to be a great
sin. Whar there's dancing there's fiddling--whar there's fiddling
there's unrighteousness, and unrighteousness is wickedness, and
wickedness is sin! That's me--that's Jones."
Bosom the speaker invariably called "buzzim," and devil "debil,"
with a fearfully strong accent on the "il."
1.42. SPIRITS.
Mr. Davenport (One of the afterwards notorious Davenport Brothers.),
who has been for some time closely identified with the modern
spiritual movement, is in the city with his daughter, who is quite
celebrated as a medium. They are accompanied by Mr. Eighme and his
daughter, and are holding circles in Hoffman's Block every afternoon
and evening. We were present at the circle last evening. Miss
Davenport seated herself at a table on which was a tin trumpet, a
tambourine, and a guitar. The audience were seated around the room.
The lights were blown out, and the spirit of an eccentric
individual, well known to the Davenports, and whom they call George,
addressed the audience through the trumpet. He called several of
those present by name in a boisterous voice, and dealt several
stunning knocks on the table. George has been in the spirit-world
some two hundred years. He is a rather rough spirit, and probably
run with the machine and "killed for Kyser" when in the flesh.
(Kyser is an extensive New York butcher, and "to kill" [or
slaughter] for him has passed into a saying with the roughs, or
"bhoys," of New York. To "run with a [fire] machine.") He ordered
the seats in the room to be wheeled round so the audience would face
the table. He said the people on the front seat must be tied with a
rope. The order was misunderstood, the rope being merely drawn
before those on the front seat. He reprimanded Mr. Davenport for
not understanding the instructions. What he meant was that the rope
should be passed around each person on the front seat and then
tightly drawn, a man at each end of the seat to hold on to it. This
was done, and George expressed himself satisfied. There was no one
near the table save the medium. All the rest were behind the rope,
and those on the front seat were particularly charged not to let any
one pass by them. George said he felt first-rate, and commenced
kissing the ladies present. The smack could be distinctly heard,
and some of the ladies said the sensation was very natural. For the
first time in our eventful life we sighed to be a spirit. We envied
George. We did not understand whether the kissing was done through
a trumpet. After kissing considerably, and indulging in some
playful remarks with a man whose Christian name was Napoleon
Bonaparte, and whom George called "Boney," he tied the hands and
feet of the medium. He played the guitar and jingled the
tambourine, and then dashed them violently on the floor. The
candles were lit, and Miss Davenport was securely tied. She could
not move her hands. Her feet were bound, and the rope (which was a
long one) was fastened to the chair. No person in the room had been
near her or had anything to do with tying her. Every person who was
in the room will take his or her oath of that. She could hardly
have tied herself. We never saw such intricate and thorough tying
in our life. The believers present were convinced that George did
it. The unbelievers didn't exactly know what to think about it.
The candles were extinguished again, and pretty soon Miss Davenport
told George to "don't." She spoke in an affrighted tone. The
candles were lit, and she was discovered sitting on the table--hands
and feet tied as before, and herself tied to the chair withal. The
lights were again blown out, there were sounds as if some one was
lifting her from the table; the candles were relit, and she was seen
sitting in the chair on the floor again. No one had been near her
from the audience. Again the lights were extinguished, and
presently the medium said her feet were wet. It appeared that the
mischievous spirit of one Biddie, an Irish Miss who died when twelve
years old, had kicked over the water-pail. Miss Eighme took a seat
at the table, and the same mischievous Biddie scissored off a liberal
lock of her hair. There was the hair, and it had indisputably just
been taken from Miss Eighme's head, and her hands and feet, like
those of Miss D., were securely tied. Other things of a staggering
character to the sceptic were done during the evening.
1.43. MR. BLOWHARD.
The reader has probably met Mr. Blowhard. He is usually round. You
find him in all public places. He is particularly "numerous" at
shows. Knows all the actors intimately. Went to school with some
of 'em. Knows how much they get a month to a cent, and how much
liquor they can hold to a teaspoonful. He knows Ned Forrest like a
book. Has taken sundry drinks with Ned. Ned likes him much. Is
well acquainted with a certain actress. Could have married her just
as easy as not if he had wanted to. Didn't like her "style," and so
concluded not to marry her. Knows Dan Rice well. Knows all of his
men and horses. Is on terms of affectionate intimacy with Dan's
rhinoceros, and is tolerably well acquainted with the performing
elephant. We encountered Mr. Blowhard at the circus yesterday. He
was entertaining those near him with a full account of the whole
institution, men, boys, horses, "muils" and all. He said the
rhinoceros was perfectly harmless, as his teeth had all been taken
out in infancy. Besides, the rhinoceros was under the influence of
opium while he was in the ring, which entirely prevented his
injuring anybody. No danger whatever. In due course of time the
amiable beast was led into the ring. When the cord was taken from
his nose, he turned suddenly and manifested a slight desire to run
violently in among some boys who were seated near the musicians.
The keeper, with the assistance of one of the Bedouin Arabs, soon
induced him to change his mind, and got him in the middle of the
ring. The pleasant quadruped had no sooner arrived here than he
hastily started, with a melodious bellow, towards the seats on one
of which sat Mr. Blowhard. Each particular hair on Mr. Blowhard's
head stood up "like squills upon the speckled porkupine" (Shakspeare
or Artemus Ward, we forget which), and he fell, with a small shriek,
down through the seats to the ground. He remained there until the
agitated rhinoceros became calm, when he crawled slowly back to his
seat.
"Keep mum," he said, with a very wise shake of the head "I only
wanted to have some fun with them folks above us. I swar, I'll bet
the whisky they thought I was scared!" Great character that
Blowhard.
1.44. MARKET MORNING.
"Hurrah! this is market day,
Up, lads, and gaily away!"--Old Comedy.
On market mornings there is a roar and a crash all about the corner
of Kinsman and Pittsburg Streets. The market building--so called,
we presume, because it don't in the least resemble a market
building--is crowded with beef and butchers, and almost countless
meat and vegetable wagons, of all sorts, are confusedly huddled
together all around outside. These wagons mostly come from a few
miles out of town, and are always on the spot at daybreak. A little
after sunrise the crash and jam commences, and continues with little
cessation until ten o'clock in the forenoon. There is a babel of
tongues, an excessively cosmopolitan gathering of people, a roar of
wheels, and a lively smell of beef and vegetables. The soap man,
the headache curative man, the razor man, and a variety of other
tolerable humbugs, are in full blast. We meet married men with
baskets in their hands. Those who have been fortunate in their
selections look happy, while some who have been unlucky wear a
dejected air, for they are probably destined to get pieces of their
wives' minds on their arrival home. It is true, that all married
men have their own way, but the trouble is they don't all have their
own way of having it! We meet a newly-married man. He has recently
set up housekeeping. He is out to buy steak for breakfast. There
are only himself and wife and female domestic in the family. He
shows us his basket, which contains steak enough for at least ten
able-bodied men. We tell him so, but he says we don't know anything
about war, and passes on. Here comes a lady of high degree, who has
no end of servants to send to the market, but she likes to come
herself, and it won't prevent her shining and sparkling in her
elegant drawing-room this afternoon. And she is accumulating muscle
and freshness of face by these walks to market.
And here IS a charming picture. Standing beside a vegetable cart is
a maiden beautiful and sweeter far than any daisy in the fields.
Eyes of purest blue, lips of cherry red, teeth like pearls, silken,
golden hair, and form of exquisite mould. We wonder if she is a
fairy, but instantly conclude that she is not, for in measuring out
a peck of onions she spills some of them; a small boy laughs at the
mishap, and she indignantly shies the measure at his head. Fairies,
you know, don't throw peck measures at small boys' heads. The spell
was broken. The golden chain which for a moment bound us fell to
pieces. We meet an eccentric individual in corduroy pantaloons and
pepper-and-salt coat, who wants to know if we didn't sail out of
Nantucket in 1852 in the whaling brig "Jasper Green." We are
compelled to confess that the only nautical experience we ever had
was to once temporarily command a canal boat on the dark-rolling
Wabash, while the captain went ashore to cave in the head of a
miscreant who had winked lasciviously at the sylph who superintended
the culinary department on board that gallant craft. The eccentric
individual smiles in a ghastly manner, says perhaps we won't lend
him a dollar till tomorrow; to which we courteously reply that we
CERTAINLY won't, and he glides away.
We return to our hotel, reinvigorated with the early, healthful
jaunt, and bestow an imaginary purse of gold upon our African
Brother, who brings us a hot and excellent breakfast.
1.45. WE SEE TWO WITCHES.
Two female fortune-tellers recently came hither, and spread "small
bills" throughout the city. Being slightly anxious, in common with
a wide circle of relatives and friends, to know where we were going
to, and what was to become of us, we visited both of these eminently
respectable witches yesterday and had our fortune told "twict."
Physicians sometimes disagree, lawyers invariably do, editors
occasionally fall out, and we are pained to say that even witches
unfold different tales to one individual. In describing our
interviews with these singularly gifted female women, who are
actually and positively here in this city, we must speak
considerably of "we"--not because we flatter ourselves that we are
more interesting than people in general, but because in the present
case it is really necessary. In the language of Hamlet's Pa, "List,
O list!"
We went to see "Madame B." first. She has rooms at the Burnett
House. The following is a copy of her bill:--
MADAME B.,
THE CELEBRATED SPANISH ASTROLOGIST, CLAIRVOYANT
AND FEMALE DOCTRESS,
Would respectfully announce to the citizens that she has just
arrived in this city, and designs remaining for a few days only.
The Madame can be consulted on all matters pertaining to life--
either past, present, or future--tracing the line of life from
Infancy to Old Age, particularizing each event, in regard to
Business, Love, Marriage, Courtship, Losses, Law Matters, and
Sickness of Relatives and Friends at a distance.
The Madame will also show her visitors a life-like representation
of their Future Husbands and Wives.
LUCKY NUMBERS IN LOTTERIES
Can also be selected by her, and hundreds who have consulted her
have drawn capital prizes. The Madame will furnish medicine for
all diseases, for grown persons (male or female) and children.
Persons wishing to consult her concerning this mysterious art and
human destiny, particularly with reference to their own individual
bearing in relation to a supposed Providence, can be accommodated by
ROOM NO. 23, BURNETT HOUSE,
Corner of Prospect and Ontario streets, Cleveland.
The Madame has traveled extensively for the last few years, both in
the United States and the West Indies, and the success which has
attended her in all places has won for her the reputation of being
the most wonderful Astrologist of the present age.
The Madame has a superior faculty for this business, having been
born with a Caul on her Face, by virtue of which she can more
accurately read the past, present, and future; also enabling her to
cure many diseases without using drugs or medicines. The madame
advertises nothing but what she can do. Call on her if you would
consult the greatest Foreteller of events now living.
Hours of Consultation, from 8 A.M. to 9 o'clock P.M.
We urbanely informed the lady with the "Caul on her Face" that we
had called to have our fortune told, and she said, "Hand out your
money." This preliminary being settled, Madame B. (who is a tall,
sharp-eyed, dark-featured and angular woman, dressed in painfully
positive colors, and heavily loaded with gold chain and mammoth
jewelry of various kinds) and Jupiter indicated powerful that we
were a slim constitution, which came down on to us from our father's
side. Wherein our constitution was not slim, so it came down on to
us from our mother's side.
"Is this so?"
And we said it was.
"Yes," continued the witch, "I know'd 'twas. You can't deceive
Jupiter, me, nor any other planick. You may swim same as Leander
did, but you can't deceive the planicks. Give me your hand! Times
ain't so easy as they has been. So--so--but 'tis temp'ry. 'Twon't
last long. Times will be easy soon. You may be tramped on to onct
or twict, but you'll rekiver. You have talenk, me child. You kin
make a Congresser if sich you likes to be. [We said we would be
excused, if it was all the same to her.] You kin be a lawyer. [We
thanked her, but said we would rather retain our present good moral
character.] You kin be a soldier. You have courage enough to go to
the Hostrian wars and kill the French. [We informed her that we had
already murdered some "English."] You won't have much money till
you're thirty-three years of old. Then you will have large sums--
forty thousand dollars, perhaps. Look out for it! [We promised we
would.] You have traveled some, and you will travel more, which
will make your travels more extensiver than they has been. You will
go to Californy by way of Pike's Pick. [Same route taken by Horace
Greeley.] If nothin happens onto you, you won't meet with no
accidents and will get through pleasant, which you otherwise will
not do under all circumstances however, which doth happen to all,
both great and small, likewise to the rich as also the poor.
Hearken to me! There has been deaths in your family, and there will
be more! But Reserve your constitution and you will live to be
seventy years of old. Me child, HER hair will be black--black as
the Raving's wing. Likewise black will also be her eyes, and she'll
be as different from which you air as night and day. Look out for
the darkish man! He's yer rival! Beware of the darkish man! [We
promised that we'd introduce a funeral into the "darkish man's"
family the moment we encountered him.] Me child, there's more
sunshine than clouds for ye, and send all your friends up here.
"A word before you goes. Expose not yourself. Your eyes is saller,
which is on accounts of bile on your systim. Some don't have bile
on to their systims which their eyes is not saller. This bile
ascends down on to you from many generations which is in their
graves, and peace to their ashes."
MADAME CROMPTON.
We then proceeded directly to Madame Crompton, the other fortune-
teller.
Below is her bill:--
MADAME R. CROMPTON,
The World-Renowned Fortune-Teller and
Astrologist.
Madame Crompton begs leave to inform the citizens of Cleveland
and vicinity that she has taken rooms at the
FARMERS' ST CLAIR HOUSE,
Corner of St Clair and Water Streets,
Where she may be consulted on all matters pertaining to
Past and Future Events.
Also giving Information of Absent friends, whether
Living or Dead.
P.S.--Persons having lost or having property stolen of any kind,
will do well to give her a call, as she will describe the person or
persons with such accuracy as will astonish the most devout critic.
Terms Reasonable.
She has rooms at the Farmers' Hotel, as stated in the bill above.
She was driving an extensive business, and we were forced to wait
half an hour or so for a chance to see her. Madame Crompton is of
the English persuasion, and has evidently searched many long years
in vain for her H. She is small in stature, but considerably
inclined to corpulency, and her red round face is continually
wreathed in smiles, reminding one of a new tin pan basking in the
noonday sun. She took a greasy pack of common playing cards, and
requested us to "cut them in three," which we did. She spread them
out before her on the table, and said:--
"Sir to you which I speaks. You 'av been terrible crossed in love,
and your 'art 'as been much panged. But you'll get over it and
marry a light complected gale with rayther reddish 'air. Before
some time you'll have a legercy fall down on to you, mostly in
solick Jold. There may be a lawsuit about it, and you may be
sup-prisoned as a witnesses, but you'll git it--mostly in solick
Jold, which you will keep in chists, and you must look out for them.
[We said we would keep a skinned optic on "them chists."] You 'as a
enemy, and he's a lightish man. He wants to defraud you out of your
'onesty. He is tellink lies about you now in the 'opes of crushin
yourself. [A weak invention of "the opposition."] You never did
nothin bad. Your 'art is right. You 'ave a great taste for hosses
and like to stay with 'em. Mister to you I sez: Gard aginst the
lightish man and all will be well."
The supernatural being then took an oval-shaped chunk of glass
(which she called a stone) and requested us to "hang on to it." She
looked into it and said:
"If you're not keerful when you git your money, you'll lose it, but
which otherwise you will not, and fifty cents is as cheap as I kin
afford to tell anybody's fortune, and no great shakes made then."
1.46. FROM A HOMELY MAN.
Dear Plain Dealer,--I am a plain man, and there is a melancholy
fitness in my unbosoming my sufferings to the "Plain" Dealer. Plain
as you may be in your dealings, however, I am convinced you never
before had to DEAL with a correspondent so hopelessly plain as I.
Yet plain don't half express my looks. Indeed I doubt very much
whether any word in the English language could be found to convey an
adequate idea on my absolute and utter homeliness. The dates in the
old family Bible show that I am in the decline of life, but I cannot
recall a period in my existence when I felt really young. My very
infancy, those brief months when babes prattle joyously and know
nothing of care, was darkened by a shadowy presentiment of what I
was to endure through life, and my youth was rendered dismal by
continued repetitions of a fact painfully evident "on the face of
it," that the boy was growing homelier and homelier every day.
Memory, that with other people recalls so much that is sweet and
pleasant to think of in connection with their youth, with me brings
up nothing but mortification, bitter tears, I had almost said
curses, on my solitary and homely lot. I have wished--a thousand
times wished--that Memory had never consented to take a seat "in
this distracted globe."
You have heard of a man so homely that he couldn't sleep nights, his
face ached so. Mr. Editor, I am that melancholy individual.
Whoever perpetrated the joke--for joke it was no doubt intended to
be--knew not how much truth he was uttering, or how bitterly the
idle squib would rankle in the heart of one suffering man. Many and
many a night have I in my childhood laid awake thinking of my
homeliness, and as the moonlight has streamed in at the window and
fell upon the handsome and placid features of my little brother
slumbering at my side, Heaven forgive me for the wicked thought, but
I have felt an almost unconquerable impulse to forever disfigure and
mar that sweet upturned innocent face that smiled and looked so
beautiful in sleep, for it was ever reminding me of the curse I was
doomed to carry about me. Many and many a night have I got up in my
nightdress, and lighting my little lamp, sat for hours gazing at my
terrible ugliness of face reflected in the mirror, drawn to it by a
cruel fascination which it was impossible for me to resist.
I need not tell you that I am a single man, and yet I have had what
men call affairs of the heart. I have known what it is to worship
the heart's embodiment of female loveliness, and purity, and truth,
but it was generally at a distance entirely safe to the object of my
adoration. Being of a susceptible nature, I was continually falling
in love, but never, save with one single exception, did I venture to
declare my flame. I saw my heart's palpitator walking in a grove.
Moved by my consuming love, I rushed towards her, and throwing
myself at her feet began to pour forth the long-pent-up emotions of
my heart. She gave one look and then
"Shrieked till all the rocks replied;"
at least you'd thought they replied if you had seen me leave that
grove with a speed greatly accelerated by a shower of rocks from the
hands of an enraged brother, who was at hand. That prepossessing
young lady is now slowly recovering her reason in an institution for
the insane.
Of my further troubles I may perhaps inform you at some future time.
Homely Man.
1.47. THE ELEPHANT.
Some two years since, on the strength of what we regarded as
reliable information, we announced the death of the elephant
Hannibal, at Canton, and accompanied the announcement with a short
sketch of that remarkable animal. We happened to be familiar with
several interesting incidents in the private life of Hannibal, and
our sketch was copied by almost every paper in America and by
several European journals. A few months ago a "traveled" friend
showed us the sketch in a Parisian journal, and possibly it is
"going the rounds" of the Chinese papers by this time. A few days
after we had printed his obituary Hannibal came to town with Van
Amburgh's Menagerie, and the same type which killed the monster
restored him to life again.
About once a year Hannibal
"Gets on a spree,
And goes bobbin around."
to make a short quotation from a once popular ballad. These sprees,
in fact, "is what's the matter with him."
The other day, in Williamsburg, Long Island, he broke loose in the
canvas, emptied most of the cages, and tore through the town like a
mammoth pestilence. An extensive crowd of athletic men, by jabbing
him with spears and pitchforks, and coiling big ropes around his
legs, succeeded in capturing him. The animals he had set free were
caught and restored to their cages without much difficulty.
We doubt if we shall ever forget our first view of Hannibal--which
was also our first view of any elephant--of THE elephant, in short.
It was at the close of a sultry day in June, 18--. The sun had
spent its fury and was going to rest among the clouds of gold and
crimson. A solitary horseman might have been seen slowly ascending
a long hill in a New England town. That solitary horseman was us,
and we were mounted on the old white mare. Two bags were strapped
to the foaming steed. That was before we became wealthy, and of
course we are not ashamed to say that we had been to mill, and
consequently THEM bags contained flour and middlins. Presently a
large object appeared at the top of the hill. We had heard of the
devil, and had been pretty often told that he would have a clear
deed and title to us before long, but had never heard him painted
like the object which met our gaze at the top of that hill on the
close of sultry day in June. Concluding (for we were a mere youth)
that it was an eccentric whale, who had come ashore near North
Yarmouth, and was making a tour through the interior on wheels, we
hastily turned our steed and made for the mill at a rapid rate.
Once we threw over ballast, after the manner of balloonists, and as
the object gained on us we cried aloud for our parents. Fortunately
we reached the mill in safety, and the object passed at a furious
rate, with a portion of a woodshed on its back. It was Hannibal,
who had run away from a neighboring town, taking a shed with him.
. . . . .
DRANK STANDIN.--Col. -- is a big "railroad man." He attended a
railroad supper once. Champagne flowed freely, and the Colonel got
more than his share. Speeches were made after the removal of the
cloth. Somebody arose and eulogized the Colonel in the steepest
possible manner--called him great, good, patriotic, enterprising,
&c., &c. The speaker was here interrupted by the illustrious
Colonel himself, who arising with considerable difficulty, and
beaming benevolently around the table, gravely said, "Let's (hic)
drink that sedimunt standin!" It was done.
1.48. HOW THE NAPOLEON OF SELLERS WAS SOLD.
We have read a great many stories of which Winchell, the great wit
and mimic, was the hero, showing always how neatly and entirely he
sold somebody. Any one who is familiar with Winchell's wonderful
powers of mimicry cannot doubt that these stories are all
substantially true. But there is one instance which we will relate,
or perish in the attempt, where the jolly Winchell was himself sold.
The other evening, while he was conversing with several gentlemen at
one of the hotels, a dilapidated individual reeled into the room and
halted in front of the stove, where he made wild and unsuccessful
efforts to maintain a firm position. He evidently had spent the
evening in marching torchlight processions of forty-rod whisky down
his throat, and at this particular time was decidedly and
disreputably drunk. With a sly wink to the crowd, as much as to
say, "We'll have some fun with this individual," Winchell assumed a
solemn face, and in a ghostly voice said to one of the company:
"The poor fellow we were speaking of is dead!"
"No?" said the individual addressed.
"Yes," said Winchell; "you know both of his eyes were gouged out,
his nose was chawed off, and both of his arms were torn out at the
roots. Of course, he could'nt recover."
This was all said for the benefit of the drunken man, who was
standing, or trying to stand, within a few feet of Winchell; but he
took no sort of notice of it, and was apparently ignorant of the
celebrated delineator's presence. Again Winchell endeavored to
attract his attention, but utterly failed as before. In a few
moments the drunken man staggered out of the room.
"I can generally have a little fun with a drunken man," said
Winchell, "but it is no go in this case."
"I suppose you know what ails the man who just went out?" said the
"gentlemanly host."
"I perceive he is alarmingly inebriated," said Winchell; "does
anything else ail him?"
"Yes," said the host, "HE'S DEAF AND DUMB!"
This was true. There was a "larf," and Winchell, with the remark
that he was sorry to see a disposition in that assemblage "to
deceive an orphan," called for a light and went gravely to bed.
1.49. ON AUTUMN.
Poets are wont to apostrophize the leafy month of June, and there is
no denying that if Spring is "some," June is Summer. But there is a
gorgeous magnificence about the habiliments of Nature, and a teeming
fruitfulness upon her lap during the autumnal months, and we must
confess we have always felt genially inclined towards this season.
It is true, when we concentrate our field of vision to the minute
garniture of earth, we no longer observe the beautiful petals, nor
inhale the fragrance of a gay parterre of the "floral epistles" and
"angel-like collections" which Longfellow (we believe) so
graphically describes, and which Shortfellows so fantastically carry
about in their buttonholes; but we have all their tints reproduced
upon a higher and broader canvas in the kaleidoscopic colors with
which the sky and the forest daily enchant us, and the beautiful and
luscious fruits which Autumn spreads out before us, and
"Crowns the rich promise of the opening Spring."
In another point of view Autumn is suggestive of pleasant
reflections. The wearying, wasting heat of Summer, and the deadly
blasts with which her breath has for some years been freighted, are
past, and the bracing north winds begin to bring balm and healing on
their wings. The hurly-burly of travel, and most sorts of publicity
(except newspapers), are fast playing out, and we can once more hope
to see our friends and relations in the happy sociality of home and
fireside enjoyments. Yielding, as we do, the full force to which
Autumn is seriously entitled, or rather to the serious reflections
and admonitions which the decay of Nature and the dying year always
inspire, and admitting the poet's decade--
"Leaves have their time to fall,
And stars to set,--but all,
Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death!"
There is a brighter Autumn beyond, and brighter opening years to
those who choose them rather than dead leaves and bitter fruits.
Thus we can conclude tranquilly with Bryant, as we began gaily with
another--
"So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan, which moves
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon; but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams."
1.50. PAYING FOR HIS PROVENDER BY PRAYING.
We have no intention of making fun of serious matters in telling the
following story; we merely relate a fact.
There is a rule at Oberlin College that no student shall board at
any house where prayers are not regularly made each day. A certain
man fitted up a boarding-house and filled it with boarders, but
forgot, until the eleventh hour, the prayer proviso. Not being a
praying man himself, he looked around for one who was. At length he
found one--a meek young man from Trumbull County--who agreed to pay
for his board in praying. For a while all went smoothly, but the
boarding-master furnished his table so poorly that the boarders
began to grumble and to leave, and the other morning the praying
boarder actually "struck!" Something like the following dialogue
occurred at the table:--
LANDLORD.--Will you pray, Mr. Mild?
MILD.--No, sir, I will not.
LANDLORD.--Why not, Mr. Mild?
MILD.--It don't pay, sir. I can't pray on such victuals as these.
And unless you bind yourself in writing to set a better table than
you have for the last three weeks, NARY ANOTHER PRAYER YOU GET OUT
OF ME!
And that's the way the matter stood at latest advices.
1.51. HUNTING TROUBLE.
Hunting trouble is too fashionable in this world. Contentment and
jollity are not cultivated as they should be. There are too many
prematurely-wrinkled long and melancholy faces among us. There is
too much swearing, sweating and slashing, fuming, foaming and
fretting around and about us all.
"A mad world, my masters."
People rush outdoors bareheaded and barefooted, as it were, and dash
blindly into all sorts of dark alleys in quest of all sorts of
Trouble, when, "Goodness knows," if they will only sit calmly and
pleasantly by their firesides, Trouble will knock soon enough at
their doors.
Hunting Trouble is bad business. If we ever are induced to descend
from our present proud position to become a member of the
Legislature, or ever accumulate sufficient muscle, impudence, and
taste for bad liquor to go to Congress, we shall introduce "a
william" for the suppression of Trouble-hunting. We know Miss
Slinkins, who incessantly frets because Miss Slurkins is better
harnessed than she is, won't like it; and we presume the Simpkinses,
who worry so much because the Perkinses live in a freestone-fronted
house whilst theirs is only plain brick, won't like it also. It is
doubtful, too, whether our long-haired friends the Reformers (who
think the machinery of the world is all out of joint, while we think
it only needs a little greasing to run in first-rate style), will
approve the measure. It is probable, indeed, that very many
societies, of a reformatory (and inflammatory) character, would
frown upon the measure. But the measure would be a good one
nevertheless.
Never hunt Trouble. However dead a shot one may be, the gun he
carries on such expeditions is sure to kick or go off half-cocked.
Trouble will come soon enough, and when he does come, receive him as
pleasantly as possible. Like the tax-collector, he is a disagreeable
chap to have in one's house, but the more amiably you greet him the
sooner he will go away.
1.52. DARK DOINGS.
Four promising young men of this city attended a ball in the rural
districts not long since. At a late hour they retired, leaving word
with the clerk of the hotel to call them early in the morning, as
they wanted to take the first train home. The clerk was an old
friend of the "fellers," and he thought he would have a slight joke
at their expense. So he burnt some cork, and, with a sponge,
blacked the faces of his city friends after they had got soundly
asleep. In the morning he called them about ten minutes before the
train came along. Feller No. 1 awoke and laughed boisterously at
the sight which met his gaze. But he saw through it--the clerk had
played his good joke on his three comrades, and of course he would
keep mum. But it was a devilish good joke. Feller No. 2 awoke, saw
the three black men in the room, comprehended the joke, and laughed
vociferously. But he would keep mum. Fellers No. 3 and 4 awoke,
and experienced the same pleasant feeling; and there was the
beautiful spectacle of four nice young men laughing heartily one at
another, each one supposing the "urban clerk" had spared him in his
cork-daubing operations. They had only time to dress before the
train arrived. They all got aboard, each thinking what a glorious
joke it was to have his three companions go back to town with black
faces. The idea was so rich that they all commenced laughing
violently as soon as they got aboard the cars. The other passengers
took to laughing also, and fun raged fast and furious, until the
benevolent baggage-man, seeing how matters stood, brought a small
pocket-glass and handed it around to the young men. They suddenly
stopped laughing, rushed wildly for the baggage-car, washed their
faces, and amused and instructed each other during the remainder of
the trip with some eloquent flashes of silence.
1.53. REPORTERS.
The following paragraph is going the rounds:--"How many a great man
is now basking in the sunshine of fame generously bestowed upon him
by the prolific genius of some reporter! How many stupid orations
have been made brilliant, how many wandering, pointless, objectless,
speeches put in form and rendered at least readable, by the unknown
reporter! How many a disheartened speaker, who was conscious the
night before of a failure, before a thin, cold, spiritless audience,
awakes delighted to learn that he has addressed an overwhelming
assemblage of his enthusiastic, appreciating fellow-citizens, to
find his speech sparkling with 'cheers,' breaking out into 'immense
applause,' and concluding amidst 'the wildest excitement!'"
There is considerable truth in the above, we are sorry to state.
Reporters are too apt to smooth over and give a fair face to the
stupidity and bombast of political and other public humbugs. For
this they are not only seldom thanked, but frequently are kicked.
Of course this sort of thing is wrong. A Reporter should be
independent enough to meet the approaches of gentlemen of the
Nincompoop persuasion with a flat rebuff. He should never gloss
over a political humbug, whether he belongs to "our side" or not.
He is not thanked for doing it, and, furthermore, he loses the
respect and confidence of his readers. There are many amiable
gentlemen ornamenting the various walks of life, who are under the
impression that for a dozen bad cigars or a few drinks of worse
whisky they can purchase the "opinion" of almost any Reporter. It
has been our pleasure on several occasions to disabuse those
gentlemen of this impression.
Should another occasion of this kind ever offer, we feel that we
should be "adequate" to treat it in a similar manner. A Reporter,
we modestly submit, is as good as anybody, and ought to feel that he
is, everywhere and at all times. For one, let us quietly and
without any show of vanity remark, that we are not only just as good
as anybody else, but a great deal better than many we know of. We
love God and hate Indians: pay our debts; support the Constitution
of the United States; go in for Progress, Sunshine, Calico, and
other luxuries; are perfectly satisfied and happy, and wouldn't swop
"sits" with the President, Louis Napoleon, the Emperor of China,
Sultan of Turkey, Brigham Young, or Nicholas Longworth. Success to
us!
1.54. HE HAD THE LITTLE VOUCHER IN HIS POCKET.
L-- lived in this city several years ago. He dealt in horses,
carriages, &c. Hearing of a good chance to sell buggies up West, he
embarked with a lot for that "great" country. At Toledo he took a
Michigan Southern train. Somebody had by way of a joke, warned him
against the conductor of that particular train, telling him that
said conductor had an eccentric way of taking up tickets at the
beginning of the journey, and of denying that he had done so and
demanding fare at the end thereof. This the confiding L--
swallowed. He determined not to be swindled in this way, and so
when the conductor came around and asked him for his ticket he
declined giving up. The conductor insisted. L-- still refused.
"I've got the little voucher in my pocket," he said, with a knowing
look, slily slapping the pocket which contained the ticket.
The conductor glanced at L--'s stalwart frame. He had heard L--
spoken of as a fighting man. He preferred not to grapple with him.
The train was a light one, and it so happened that L-- was the only
man in this, the hind car. So the conductor had the train stopped,
and quietly unhitched this car.
"Good day, Mr. L," he yelled; "just keep that little voucher in your
pocket, and be d--d to you!"
L-- jumped up and saw the other cars moving rapidly away. He was
left solitary and alone, in a dismal piece of woods known as the
Black Swamp. He remained there in the car until night, when the
down-train came along and took him to Toledo. He had to pay fare,
his up through-ticket not being good on that train. His buggies had
gone unattended to Chicago. He was very angry. He finally got
through, but he will never hear the last of that "little voucher."
1.55. THE GENTLEMANLY CONDUCTOR.
Few have any idea of the trials and tribulations of the railway
conductor--"the gentlemanly conductor," as one-horse newspapers
delight in styling him. Unless you are gifted with the patience of
the lamented Job, who, tradition informs us, had "biles" all over
his body, and didn't swear once, never go for a Conductor, me boy!
The other evening we enlivened a railroad car with our brilliant
presence. Starting time was not quite up, and the passengers were
amusing themselves by laughing, swearing, singing, and talking,
according to their particular fancy. The Conductor came in, and the
following were a few of the questions put to him:--One old fellow,
who was wrapped up in a horse-blanket, and who apparently had about
two pounds of pigtail in his mouth, wanted to know, "What pint of
compass the keers was travelin in?" An old lady, surrounded by
band-boxes and enveloped in flannels, wanted to know what time
the eight o'clock train left Rock Island for "Dubu-kue?" A
carroty-haired young man wanted to know if "free omyibuses" ran
from the cars to the taverns in Toledo? A tall, razor-faced
individual, evidently from the interior of Connecticut, desired to
know if "conductin" paid as well eout West as it did deoun in his
country; and a portly, close-shaven man with round keen eyes, and
in whose face you could read the interest-table, asked the price of
corner lots in Omaha. These and many other equally absurd questions
the conductor answered calmly and in a resigned manner. And we
shuddered as we thought how he would have to answer a similar string
of questions in each of the three cars ahead.
1.56. MORALITY AND GENIUS.
We see it gravely stated in a popular Metropolitan journal that
"true genius goes hand in hand, necessarily, with morality." The
statement is not a startlingly novel one. It has been made,
probably, about sixty thousand times before. But it is untrue and
foolish. We wish genius and morality were affectionate companions,
but it is a fact that they are often bitter enemies. They don't
necessarily coalesce any more than oil and water do! Innumerable
instances may be readily produced in support of this proposition.
Nobody doubts that Sheridan had genius, yet he was a sad dog. Mr.
Byron, the author of Childe Harold "and other poems," was a man of
genius, we think, yet Mr. Byron was a fearfully fast man. Edgar A.
Poe wrote magnificent poetry and majestic prose, but he was, in
private life, hardly the man for small and select tea parties.
We fancy Sir Richard Steele was a man of genius, but he got
disreputably drunk, and didn't pay his debts. Swift had genius--an
immense lot of it--yet Swift was a cold-blooded, pitiless, bad man.
The catalogue might be spun out to any length, but it were useless
to do it. We don't mean to intimate that men of genius must
necessarily be sots and spendthrifts--we merely speak of the fact
that very many of them have been both, and in some instances much
worse than both. Still we can't well see (though some think they
can) how the pleasure and instruction people derive from reading the
productions of these great lights is diminished because their morals
were "lavishly loose." They might have written better had their
private lives been purer, but of this nobody can determine for the
pretty good reason that nobody knows.
So with actors. We have seen people stay away from the theater
because Mrs. Grundy said the star of the evening invariably retired
to his couch in a state of extreme inebriety. If the star is
afflicted with a weakness of this kind, we may regret it. We may
pity or censure the star. But we must still acknowledge the star's
genius, and applaud it. Hence we conclude that the chronic weakness
of actors no more affects the question of the propriety of
patronizing theatrical representations, than the profligacy of
journeymen shoemakers affects the question of the propriety of
wearing boots. All of which is respectfully submitted.
1.57. ROUGH BEGINNING OF THE HONEYMOON.
On last Friday morning an athletic young farmer in the town of
Waynesburg took a fair girl, "all bathed in blushes," from her
parents, and started for the first town across the Pennsylvania line
to be married, where the ceremony could be performed without a
license. The happy pair were accompanied by a sister of the girl, a
tall, gaunt, and sharp-featured female of some thirty-seven summers.
The pair crossed the line, were married, and returned to Wellsville
to pass the night. People at the hotel where the wedding party
stopped observed that they conducted themselves in a rather singular
manner. The husband would take his sister-in-law, the tall female
aforesaid, into one corner of the parlor and talk earnestly to her
gesticulating wildly the while. Then the tall female would "put her
foot down" and talk to him in an angry and excited manner. Then the
husband would take his fair young bride into a corner, but he could
no sooner commence talking to her than the gaunt sister would rush
in between them and angrily join in the conversation. The people at
the hotel ascertained what all this meant about 9 o'clock that
evening. There was an uproar in the room which had been assigned to
the newly married couple. Female shrieks and masculine "swears"
startled the people at the hotel, and they rushed to the spot. The
gaunt female was pressing and kicking against the door of the room,
and the newly-married man, mostly undressed, was barring her out
with all his might. Occasionally she would kick the door far enough
open to disclose the stalwart husband, in his Gentleman Greek Slave
apparel. It appeared that the tall female insisted upon occupying
the same room with the newly-wedded pair; that her sister was
favorably disposed to the arrangement, and that the husband had
agreed to it before the wedding took place, and was now indignantly
repudiating the contract. "Won't you go away now, Susan, peaceful?"
said the newly-married man, softening his voice.
"No," said she, "I won't--so there!"
"Don't you budge an inch!" cried the married sister within the room.
"Now--now, Maria," said the young man to his wife, in a piteous
tone, "don't go for to cuttin' up in this way; now don't!"
"I'll cut up's much I wanter!" she sharply replied.
"Well," roared the desperate man, throwing the door wide open and
stalking out among the crowd, "well, jest you two wimin put on your
duds and go right straight home and bring back the old man and
woman, and your grandfather, who is nigh on to a hundred; bring 'em
all here, AND I'LL MARRY THE WHOLE D--D CABOODLE OF 'EM AND WE'LL
ALL SLEEP TOGETHER!"
The difficulty was finally adjusted by the tall female taking a room
alone. Wellsville is enjoying itself over the "sensation."
1.58. A COLORED MAN OF THE NAME OF JEFFRIES.
One beautiful day last August, Mr. Elmer of East Cleveland, sent his
hired colored man, of the name of Jeffries, to town with a two-horse
wagon to get a load of lime. Mr. Elmer gave Jeffries 5 dollars with
which to pay for the lime. The horses were excellent ones, by the
way, nicely matched, and more than commonly fast. The colored man
of the name of Jeffries came to town and drove to the Johnson Street
Station where he encountered a frail young woman of the name of
Jenkins, who had just been released from jail, where she had been
confined for naughtical conduct (drugging and robbing a sailor).
"Will you fly with me, adorable Jenkins?" he unto her did say, "or
words to that effect," and unto him in reply she did up and say:
"My African brother, I will. Spirit," she continued, alluding to a
stone jug under the seat in the wagon, "I follow!" Then into the
two-horse wagon this fair maiden got and knavely telling the
"perlice," to embark by the first packet for an unromantic land
where the climate is intensely tropical, and where even Laplanders,
who like fire, get more of a good thing than they want--doing and
saying thus the woman of the name of Jenkins mounted the seat with
the colored man of the sweet name of Jeffries; and so these two
sweet, gushing children of nature rode gaily away. Away towards the
setting sun. Away towards Indiana--bright land of cheap whisky and
corn doin's!
1.59. NAMES.
Any name which is suggestive of a joke, however poor the joke may
be, is often a nuisance. We were once "confined" in a printing-
office with a man named Snow. Everybody who came in was bound to
have a joke about Snow. If it was Summer the mad wags would say we
ought to be cold, for we had Snow there all the time--which was a
fact, though we sometimes wished Snow was where he would speedily
melt. Not that we didn't like Snow. Far from it. His name was
what disgusted us. It was also once our misfortune to daily mingle
with a man named Berry, we can't tell how many million times we
heard him called Elderberry, Raspberry, Blueberry, Huckleberry,
Gooseberry, &c. The thing nearly made him deranged. He joined the
filibusters and has made energetic efforts to get shot but had not
succeeded at last accounts, although we hear he has been "slewd"
numerously. There is a good deal in a name, our usually correct
friend W. Shakespeare to the contrary notwithstanding.
Our own name is, unfortunately, one on which jokes, such as they
are, can be made, we cannot present a tabular statement of the times
we have done things brown (in the opinion of partial friends) or
have been asked if we were related to the eccentric old slave and
horse "liberator," whose recent Virginia Reel has attracted so much
of the public attention. Could we do so the array of figures would
be appalling. And sometimes we think we will accept the first good
offer of marriage that is made to us, for the purpose of changing
our unhappy name, setting other interesting considerations entirely
aside.
1.60. HE FOUND HE WOULD.
Several years ago Bill McCracken lived in Peru, Indiana. (We were
in Peru several years ago, and it was a nice place we DON'T think.)
Mr. McCracken was a screamer, and had whipped all the recognized
fighting men on the Wabash. One day somebody told him that Jack
Long, blacksmith of Logansport, said he would give him (McCracken) a
protracted fit of sickness if he would just come down there and
smell of his bones. The McCracken at once laid in a stock of
provisions, consisting of whisky in glass and chickens in the shell,
and started for Logansport. In a few days, he was brought home in a
bunged-up condition, on a cot-bed. One eye was gouged out, a
portion of his nose was chawed off, his left arm was in a sling, his
head was done up in an old rag, and he was pretty badly off himself.
He was set down in the village bar-room, and turning to the crowd
he, in a feeble voice, said, hot tears bedewing his face the while,
"Boys, you know Jack Long said if I'd come down to Loginsput he'd
whale h--ll out of me; and boys, you know I didn't believe it, but
I've been down thar and I FOUND HE WOULD."
He recovered after a lapse of years and led a better life. As he
said himself, he returned from Logansport a changed man.
1.61. "BURIAL IN RICHMOND AND RESURRECTION IN BOSTON."
A drama with this title, written by a colored citizen (an artist by
profession), the characters being performed by colored citizens, was
played at the Melodeon last evening. There were several white
persons present, though most of the audience were colored. The
great variety of colors made a gay, and indeed we may say gorgeous
spectacle.
A hasty sketch of this great moral production may not be
uninteresting. Act 1st, scene 1st, discloses a log-cabin, with
fifteen minutes' intermission between each log. "William, a
spirited slave," and "John, the obedient slave," are in the cabin.
William, the spirited slave, says he will be free, "Why," says
William, "am I here thus? Was this frame made to be in bondage?
Shall THESE voices be hushed? Never, never, never!" "Oh, don't say
it thus," says John, the obedient slave, "for thus it should not be.
An' I tole ye what it was, now, jes take keer of them pistiles or
they'll work yer ruins. Mind what I say, Wilyim. As for me I shall
stay here with my dear Julia!" (Immense applause). "And so it has
come to this, ha?" said William, the spirited slave, standing
himself up and brandishing his arms in a terrific manner. "And so
it has come to this, ha? And this is a free land, so it has come to
this--to this--TO THIS." William appeared to be somewhat confused
at this point, but a wealthy newsboy in the audience helped him out
by crying, "or any other man." John and William then embraced,
bitter tears moistening their manly breasts. "Farwel, Wilyim," said
John, the obedient slave, "and bless you, bless you, me child." The
spirited slave walks off and the obedient slave falls into a swoon.
Tableau: The Goddess of Liberty appears in a mackinaw blanket and
pours incense on the obedient slave. A member of the orchestra gets
up and softly warbles on a bass drum. Angels are heard singing in
the distance. Curtain falls, the audience being soaking wet with
tears.
Act 2, scene first, discloses the house of Mr. Lyons, a slaveholder
in Virginia. Mr. Lyons, as we learn by the play, is "a member of
the Whig Congress." He learns that William, his spirited slave, has
escaped. This makes him very angry, and he says he will break every
bone in William's body. He goes out and searches for William, but
cannot find him, and comes back. He takes a heavy drink, is
stricken with remorse, and declares his intention to become a nun.
John, the obedient slave, comes in and asks permission to marry
Julia. Mr. Lyons says, certainly, by all means, and preparations
are made for the wedding.
The wedding takes place. The scene that follows is rather
incomprehensible. A young mariner has a clandestine interview with
the obedient slave, and receives 10 dollars to make a large box. An
elderly mariner, not that mariner, but another mariner--rushes madly
in and fires a horse-pistol into the air. He wheels and is about
going off, when a black Octoroon rushes madly in and fires another
horse-pistol at the retreating mariner, who falls. He says he is
going to make a die of it. Says he should have acted differently if
he had only done otherwise, which was right, or else it wouldn't be
so. He forgets his part and don't say anything more, but he wraps
himself up in the American flag and expires like a son of a
gentleman. More warblings on the bass drum. The rest of the
orchestra endeavor to accompany the drum, but are so deeply affected
that they can't. There is a death-like stillness in the house. All
was so still that had a cannon been fired off it could have been
distinctly seen.
The next scene discloses a large square box. Several colored
persons are seen standing round the square box. The mariner who was
killed in the last scene commences knocking off the cover of the
box. He pulls the cover off, and up jumps the obedient slave and
his wife! The obedient slave and his dear Julia fall out of the
box. Great applause. They rush to the footlights and kneel. Quick
music by the orchestra, in which the bass drum don't warble so much
as she did. "I'm free! I'M FREE! I'M FREE!!" shrieks the obedient
slave, "O I'm free!" The stage is suddenly lighted up in a gorgeous
manner. The obedient slave and his dear Julia continue kneeling.
The dead mariner blesses them. The Goddess of Liberty appears
again--this time in a beaver overcoat--and pours some more incense
on the obedient slave. An allegorical picture of Virtue appears in
a red vest and military boots, on the left proscenium, John Brown
the barber appears as Lady Macbeth, and says there is a blue tinge
into his nails, and consequently he is an Octoroon. Another actor
wants to define his position on the Euclid Street improvement, but
is hissed down. Curtain descends amidst the admiring shouts of the
audience, red fire, music, and the violent assertion of the obedient
slave that he is free.
The play will not be repeated this evening, as was announced. The
notice will be given of its next performance. It is the greatest
effort of the kind that we ever witnessed.
1.62. A MAYORALTY ELECTION.
Messrs. Senter and Coffinberry, two esteemed citizens, are the
candidates. Here's a faint attempt at a specimen scene. An
innocent German is discovered about half a mile from the polls of
this or that ward. A dozen ticket-peddlers scent him ("even as the
war-horse snuffs the battle," etc.), see him, and make a grand rush
for him. They surround him, each shoves a bunch of tickets under
his nose, and all commence bellowing in his ears. Here's the ticket
yer want--Coffinberry. Here's Senterberry and Coffinter. What the
h--l yer tryin' to fool the man for? Don't yer spose he knows who
he wants ter vote for, say! 'Ere's the ticket--Sen--Coff--don't
crowd--get off my toes, you d--d fool! Workin' men's tickets is the
ticket you want! To h--l wid yez workin' men's ticket, 'ere's the
ticket yez want! No, by Cot, vote for Shorge B. Senter--he says
he'll py all the peer for dems as votes for him as much more dan dey
can trinks, by tam! Senter be d--d! Go for Coffinberry!
Coffinberry was killed eight times in the Mexican war, and is in
favor of justice and Pop'lar Sovrinty! Oh gos! Senter was at the
battle of Tippe-ca-noo, scalped twelve Injuns and wrote a treatise
in Horse-shoeing! Don't go for Coffinberry. He's down on all the
Dutch, and swears he'll have all their heads chopped off and run
into sausages if he's lected. Do you know what George B. Senter
says about the Germans? He says by -- they're in the habit of
stealing LIVE American infants and hashing 'em up into head cheese.
By --! That's a lie! T'aint--I heard that say so with my own
mouth. Let the man alone--stop yer pullin--I'll bust yer ear for
yer yet. My Cot, my Cot, what tam dimes dese 'lections is. Well
yez crowd a poor Jarman till death, yer d--d spalpanes, yez? Sen--
Coff--Senterberry and Coffinter--Working Men's--Repub--Dem-whoop-h-
l-whooray-bully-y-e-o-u-c-h!!
The strongest side got the unfortunate German's vote and he went
sore and bleeding home and satisfied, no doubt, that this is a great
country, and that the American Eagle will continue to be a deeply
interesting bird while his wings are in the hands of patriots like
the above. Scenes like the above (only our description is very
imperfect) were played over and over again, at every ward in the
city, yesterday. Let us be thankful that the country is safe--but
we should like to see some of the ward politicians gauged to-day,
for we are confident the operation would exhibit an astonishing
depth of whiskey.
Hurrah for the Bar--Stangled Spanner!
1.63. FISHING EXCURSION.
The Leviathan, Capt. Wm. Sholl, left the foot of Superior Street at
6 o'clock yesterday morning for a fishing excursion down the lake.
There were about twenty persons in the party, and we think we never
saw a more lovely lot of men. The noble craft swept majestically
out of the Cuyahoga into the lake, and as she sped past a retired
coal-dealer's office the Usher borrowed our pocket-handkerchief
(which in the excess of his emotion he forgot to return to us) to
wipe away four large tears which trickled from his light bay eyes.
On dashed the Leviathan at the rate of about forty-five knots an
hour. The fishing-ground reached, the clarion voice of Sholl was
heard to ejaculate, "Reef home the jib-boom, shorten the main-brace,
splice the forecastle, and throw the hurricane-deck overboard!
Lively, my lads!" "Aye, aye, Sir!" said Marsh the chaplain of the
expedition, in tones of thunder, and the gallant party sprang to
execute the Captain's orders, the agile form of first-officer
Hilliard being especially conspicuous in reefing the jib-boom.
Lines were cast and the sport commenced. It seemed as if all the
fish in the lake knew of our coming, and had collected in that
particular spot for the express purpose of being caught! What teeth
they had--sufficiently good, certainly, to bite a cartridge or
anything else. The Usher caught the first fish--a small but
beautiful bass, whose weight was about three inches and a half. The
Usher was elated at this streak of luck, but his hand did not
tremble and he continued to hand in fish until at noon he had caught
thirteen firkins full and he announced that he should fish no more.
Cruelty was no part of his nature and he did not think it right to
slaughter fish in this way. Cross, Barney, and the rest, were
immensely successful, and hauled in tremendous quantities of bass,
perch, Mackinaw trout, and Connecticut shad. Bone didn't catch a
fish, and we shall never forget the sorrowful manner in which the
poor fellow gazed upon our huge pile of beautiful bass which
occupied all of the quarter deck and a large portion of the
forcastle. Having fished enough the party went ashore, where they
found Ab. McIlrath (who was fanning himself with a barn door), the
grand Commandant (who in a sonorous voice requested the parties, as
they alighted from the small boats, to "Keep their heads out of
water"), the General (who was discussing with the Doctor the
propriety of annexing East Cleveland to the United States), and
several distinguished gentlemen from town, who had come down with
life-preservers and ginger pop. After disposing of a sumptuous
lunch, the party amused and instructed each other by conversation,
and about 3 o'clock the shrill whistle of the Leviathan was sounded
by Mike the urbane and accomplished engineer, and the party were
soon homeward bound. It was a good time.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1
