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Title: Famous funny fellows
        Brief biographical sketches of American humorists

Author: William Montgomery Clemens

Release date: July 21, 2024 [eBook #74088]

Language: English

Original publication: Cleveland: William W. Williams

Credits: Alan, Susan E. and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAMOUS FUNNY FELLOWS ***





                                FAMOUS

                             FUNNY FELLOWS


                          BRIEF BIOGRAPHICAL

                    SKETCHES OF AMERICAN HUMORISTS


                                  BY
                            WILL M. CLEMENS


                            CLEVELAND, OHIO
                          WILLIAM W. WILLIAMS
                                 1882




               COPYRIGHT, 1882.
                          BY WILL M. CLEMENS.
                                    _All rights reserved._




CONTENTS.


                                                    PAGE

  1. Frontispiece

  2. Introduction                                      7

  3. Samuel Langhorne Clemens (“Mark Twain”)          11

  4. Charles Farrar Browne (“Artemus Ward”)           24

  5. Charles Heber Clark (“Max Adeler”)               34

  6. Charles B. Lewis (“M. Quad”)                     41

  7. Henry W. Shaw (“Josh Billings”)                  49

  8. Jay Charlton Goldsmith (“The P. I. Man”)         58

  9. William Tappan Thompson (“Major Jones”)          63

  10. Melville D. Landon (“Eli Perkins”)              69

  11. Charles Follen Adams (“Yawcob Strauss”)         74

  12. Seba Smith (“Major Jack Downing”)               79

  13. Will W. Clark (“Gillhooley”)                    84

  14. Irwin Russell                                   89

  15. John H. Williams (“B. Dadd”)                    94

  16. James M. Bailey (“Danbury News Man”)           100

  17. Charles H. Smith (“Bill Arp”)                  104

  18. A. Miner Griswold (“Fat Contributor”)          113

  19. Bill Nye                                       117

  20. Joseph C. Neal (“Charcoal Sketcher”)           123

  21. George H. Derby (“John Phœnix”)                130

  22. George W. Peck                                 134

  23. Alexander Edwin Sweet                          138

  24. Samuel W. Small (“Old Si”)                     143

  25. Charles Hoyt                                   146

  26. Henry Clay Lukens (“Erratic Enrique”)          150

  27. William A. Wilkins (“Hiram Green, Esq.”)       154

  28. Charles H. Harris (“Carl Pretzel”)             161

  29. Joel Chandler Harris (“Uncle Remus”)           165

  30. David Ross Locke (“Petroleum V. Nasby”)        170

  31. Robert Jones Burdette (“The Hawkeye Man”)      175

  32. Joe C. Aby (“Hoffenstein”)                     183

  33. Edward E. Edwards                              189

  34. Eugene Field                                   193

  35. Stanley Huntley (“Spoopendyke”)                200

  36. Some Other Funny Fellows                       207




_FAMOUS FUNNY FELLOWS._




INTRODUCTION.


The rollicking newspaper humor of the day is of modern origin. It is
even yet young in years. Humorists and newspaper wits were once--say a
score of years ago--considered a rarity in America. At that time humor
of the day meant the productions of a very few--Mark Twain, Joe Neal,
Artemus Ward, Major Jones, and one or two others. To-day it means a
certain _jeu d’esprit_ that can readily be discovered in almost every
first-class newspaper extant. In fact, every American journal of any
prominence possesses its salaried paragrapher, who is required to
produce, at stipulated intervals, a certain quantity of original humor,
whether or no the said paragrapher be in a humorous mood.

A paragrapher is a writer of paragraphs, and paragraphs, in an American
newspaper, are commonly understood to be short, concise, spicy and
readable gems of wit and humor. In undertaking to present, in printed
form, brief biographical sketches relative to the life, character,
and works of representative American humorists, I entered into the
work with the idea of entertaining and pleasing the American public at
large, and not with the intent of delighting the individual humorist.

The volume that I offer to the reading public is the work of two years,
or at least a portion of that time. When I first began on the work I
wrote to Mark Twain, asking for a brief introduction, thinking that
such an acquisition to the book, coming from such a source, would be
highly valuable. At the time of receiving my letter the genial humorist
was busily engaged putting the finishing touches to his Tramp Abroad,
and he, as a result, cruelly--I will not say wantonly--cut me off with
a shilling. However, I give Twain’s reply to my communication, for,
notwithstanding its briefness, the epistle contains at least one small
grain of that peculiar wit for which the funny man of Hartford is
noted. Here it is:

 “HARTFORD, CONN., NOV. 18, 1879.

 “WILL M. CLEMENS:

 “My Dear Friend--Your letter received. Lord bless your heart! I would
 like ever so much to comply with your request, but I am thrashing away
 at my new book, and am afraid that I should not find time to write my
 own epitaph in case I was suddenly called for.

 ‘Wishing you and your book well, believe me,

 Yours truly,

 SAMUEL L. CLEMENS.”

There being such a vast field from which to select the titles to these
sketches, I have, perhaps, unintentionally omitted or neglected a
certain few of the great and growing circle of funny men. I have also
omitted, intentionally, such humorists as Irving, Bret Harte, and
others of a like stamp, who do not, in any sense, belong to the class
of newspaper humorists.

W. M. C.

CLEVELAND, OHIO, 1882




SAMUEL LANGHORNE CLEMENS.


Routledge, in his Men of the Time, says that Samuel Langhorne Clemens,
better known by the _nom de plume_ of Mark Twain, was born in Florida,
Monroe county, Missouri, November 30, 1835. During the last ten years
newspaper reports have made Mark Twain the native of a dozen different
localities. According to these reports Mark has been born in Adair
county, Kentucky; in Fentress county, Tennessee; in Hannibal, Missouri;
and in various other places. However, it is proper for me to state
that Mark was born in but one place, and all at one time. Routledge is
evidently correct as to both time and place.

The parents of Mark Twain were married in Kentucky and lived for
some years in that State. His mother states that he was always an
incorrigible boy, filled with roving imaginations from his very
earliest age, and could never be persuaded or forced to attend to his
books and study, as other boys did. He lost his father at the age of
twelve, and soon after left school for good. When about fifteen years
of age, Mark came into the house one day and asked his mother for five
dollars. On being questioned as to what he wanted with it, he said he
wanted it to start out traveling with. He failed to obtain the five
dollars, but he assured his mother that he would go all the same,
and he really went, nor did the old lady ever set eyes on him again
until he had become a man. Starting out on his travels he learned the
printing business, and supported himself by working at the case.

Clemens was but seventeen when he resolved to become a steamboat pilot
on the Mississippi river. He learned the river in due time from St.
Louis to New Orleans, a distance of 1,375 miles, and followed the
occupation of pilot until he was twenty-four years old. In 1861 an
elder brother was appointed Lieutenant-governor of Nevada Territory.
He offered Mark the position of private secretary, and the young man
deserted the river and went West. After a few months he abandoned the
life of a private secretary, and started out to seek a fortune in the
mines. In this he was unsuccessful, although at one time, for the space
of a few minutes, Mark owned the famous Comstock lode, and was worth
millions. He found all this out after he sold the claim.

After this, Clemens became a reporter and correspondent, writing to
the Territorial Enterprise and other papers, and occasionally doing
work at the case. He wrote at times over the _nom de plume_ of Mark
Twain, a title he adopted from his experiences as a pilot. It was
during these years, between 1862 and 1866, that Mark perpetrated
many broad and practical jokes, using his journalistic position as a
channel. These publications gave him considerable notoriety in the
West, and especially on the Pacific coast. For several years he was
local editor of the Virginia City Enterprise, but in 1864 he removed
to San Francisco, where he was offered a good position on a paper
there. In 1865 he went to the Sandwich Islands, to write up the
sugar plantations. His letters were very readable and were published
mostly in the Sacramento Union. All this time Mark was struggling
with legitimate literary work, and published occasional sketches
in literary weeklies, which were widely copied. On his return from
Hawaii he lectured for a short time in California and Nevada. Some of
his sketches having attracted attention in the East, Mark sailed for
New York in the early part of 1867, and published a small volume of
sketches, entitled The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras, and Other
Sketches. The book sold well in the United States, and was afterwards
republished in England. Nearly all the sketches that appeared in the
book had previously been published in the San Francisco papers.

In 1868, Mr. Clemens formed one of a party who sailed in the steamship
Quaker City, for an extended excursion to Palestine and the Holy Land.
He went in the capacity of a newspaper correspondent as well as for
pleasure, and wrote interesting letters while abroad to the California
papers. Returning to America he gathered his letters together and
re-wrote them in book form, which he called Innocents Abroad, or the
New Pilgrim’s Progress. The work was very funny, yet notwithstanding
the rollicking satire, and laugh-provoking character of the book, the
author met with the greatest difficulty in getting it published. He
sent his manuscript to the leading publishers of New York, Boston,
and Philadelphia, and they all refused it. Mark’s literary vanity was
sorely wounded, and he was about determined to throw his book into the
fire when a literary friend, Albert D. Richardson, now deceased, to
whom he handed the manuscript, pronounced it very clever and offered
to take it with him to Hartford, Connecticut, where was located the
American Publishing Company, a firm that had issued several books for
Richardson. After much talk and discussion among the directors of
the publishing company, the book was finally issued. Its success was
extraordinary, and since its publication over 200,000 copies of the
book have been sold. The publishing company cleared $75,000 by the
venture.

In 1869 Twain tried journalism for a time in Buffalo, where he held an
editorial position on a daily paper. While there he fell in love with a
young lady, a sister of “Dan”--made famous in Innocents Abroad--but her
father, a gentleman of wealth and position, looked unfavorably upon his
daughter’s alliance with a Bohemian literary character.

“I like you,” he said to Mark, “but what do I know of your antecedents?
Who is there to answer for you, anyhow?”

After reflecting a few moments, Mark thought some of his old California
friends would speak a good word for him. The prospective father-in-law
wrote letters of inquiry to several residents of San Francisco, to whom
Clemens referred him, and with one exception, the letters denounced him
bitterly, especially deriding his capacity for becoming a good husband.
Mark sat besides his fiancee when the letters were read aloud by the
old gentleman. There was a dreadful silence for a moment, and then Mark
stammered: “Well, that’s pretty rough on a fellow, anyhow?”

His betrothed came to the rescue however, and overturned the mass of
testimony against him by saying, “I’ll risk you, anyhow.”

The terrible father-in-law lived in Elmira, New York, and there Mark
was married. He had told his friends in the newspaper office at
Buffalo, to select him a suite of rooms in a first-class boarding house
in the city, and to have a carriage at the depot to meet the bride and
groom. Mark knew they would do it, and gave himself no more anxiety
about it. When he reached Buffalo, he found a handsome carriage, a
beautiful span of horses and a driver in livery. They drove him up
to a handsome house on an aristocratic street, and as the door was
opened, there were the parents of the bride to welcome them home. The
old folks had arrived on the quiet by a special train. After Mark had
gone through the house and examined its elegant finishings, he was
notified officially that he had been driven by his own coachman, in his
own carriage, to his own house. They say tears came to his wonderfully
dark and piercing eyes, and that all he could say was “Well, this is a
first-class swindle.”

Not long after his marriage, Mark settled down in Hartford, and
invested capital in insurance companies there. His second book,
Roughing It, appeared in 1871, and had almost as large a sale as its
predecessor. He visited England a few months later, and arranged for
the publication of his works there in four volumes. On his return he
issued his third book, in partnership with Charles Dudley Warner, which
was styled The Gilded Age. This was followed by the Adventures of Tom
Sawyer, a book for boys, in 1876. These books all commanded an immense
sale, and several editions have been exhausted. The American Publishing
Company of Hartford represented these works in this country, Chatto &
Windus published them in England, and Mark’s continental publisher was
Tauchnitz of Leipzig.

April 11, 1878, Mark Twain sailed for Europe on the steamship Holsatia.
He was accompanied by his family, and after drifting about for some
months on foreign shores, settled down to spend the summer in Germany.
In 1879 he returned to his home in Hartford, and after several months
of work produced another book, A Tramp Abroad. This work had a ready
and a very large sale, and has become quite popular. In 1881 he issued
another book through a Boston house, The Prince and Pauper. This also
has had a large sale in this and other countries.

Among his other accomplishments Clemens is a politician, and has done
good service on the stump for the Republican party. For all this he is
the proud possessor of the title of Honorable.

Many of the most ludicrous scenes in the works of Mark Twain are taken
from life. The steamboat scene in the adventures of Colonel Sellers,
was witnessed by him when a young man. His adventure with a dead man
was in his father’s office in Missouri. His description of the horror
creeping over him, as he saw a ghastly hand lying in the moonlight; how
he tried to shut his eyes and tried to count, and opened them in time
to see the dead man lying on the floor stiff and stark, with a ghastly
wound in his side, and lastly how he beat a terrified retreat through
the window, carrying the sash with him, is vividly remembered by every
reader of The Gilded Age. The whole thing transpired just as Mark
recorded it--the man was killed in a street fight almost in front of
Mr. Clemens’ door, was taken in there while a _post mortem_ examination
was held, and there left until the next morning. During the night Mark
came in, and the scene he described was really enacted.

The Clemens mansion in Hartford is a model of architectural beauty, and
is elegantly finished in the interior. In the library, over the large
fire-place, is a brass plate with the inscription in old English text:
“The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it.” Mark does not
use the library for his study, but does nearly all his writing in the
billiard room at the top of the house. It is a long room, with sloping
sides, is light and airy, and very quiet. In this room Mark writes at
a plain table, with his reference books lying scattered about him. He
makes it an invariable rule to do a certain amount of literary work
every day, and his working hours are made continuous by his not taking
a mid-day meal. He destroys much manuscript, and it is said he rewrote
five hundred pages of one of his popular books. Mark is an industrious
worker, and continues his labors the year round. In summer he retreats
to his villa on the Hudson, or to a little cottage in the mountains
near Elmira, New York. There he finds the most quiet solitude, and
there he works undisturbed. Mark is fond of his home life, and of
his three beautiful children. He has achieved a notable success as a
lecturer, both in this country and in England.

The humor of Mark Twain is never forced. It bubbles up of its own
accord, and is always fresh. In his recent books he shows less of
genuine wit than in his earlier works perhaps, but yet his writings
are always readable. He sent me, not long since, a printed slip of
his biography, taken from Men of the Time, and on the margins of this
appeared the following _bon mot_:
.
 “MY DEAR CLEMENS:

 “I haven’t any humorous biography--the facts don’t admit of it. I had
 this sketch from Men of the Time printed on slips to enable me to
 study my history at my leisure.            S. L. CLEMENS.”


There is a popular feeling abroad in the land to the effect that Mark
Twain is a very funny man, and that he is seldom sober. This is a grave
mistake. Mr. Clemens is by nature a very serious, thoughtful man. True
he seldom writes that which is not humorous, but occasionally he pens a
very careful, serious communication, like the following for instance,
which he addressed to a young friend of mine:

 “HARTFORD, January 16, 1881.

 “MY DEAR BOY:--How can I advise another man wisely, out of such a
 capital as a life filled with mistakes? Advise him how to avoid the
 like? No--for opportunities to make the same mistakes do not happen to
 any two men. Your own experiences may possibly teach you, but another
 man’s can’t. I do not know anything for a person to do but just peg
 along, doing the things that offer, and regretting them the next day.
 It is my way, and everybody’s.

 “Truly yours,

 S. L. CLEMENS.”

A writer in the San Francisco Chronicle wrote, not many years since, as
follows: “There have been moments in the lives of various kind hearted
and respectable citizens of California and Nevada, when, if Mark Twain
were up before them as members of a vigilance committee for any mild
crime, such as mule stealing or arson, it is to be feared his shrift
would have been short. What a dramatic picture the idea conjures up,
to be sure! Mark, before those honest men, infuriated by his practical
jokes, trying to show them what an innocent creature he was when it
came to mules, or how the only policy of fire insurance he held had
lapsed, and how void of guile he was in any direction, and all with
that inimitable drawl, that perplexed countenance, and the peculiar
scraping back of the left foot, like a boy speaking his first piece at
school. It is but fair to say that the fun Mark mixed up for citizens
in those days, was not altogether appreciated in the midst of it, for
some one, touched too sharply, _surge bat amari aliquid_, and Mark
had another denouncer joined to the wounded throng.... He is keenly
sensitive to sympathy or criticism, and relates, as one of the most
harrowing experiences of his life, a six hours’ ride across England,
his fellow traveler an Englishman, who, shortly after they started,
drew forth the first volume of the English edition of Innocents Abroad
from his pocket, and calmly perused it from beginning to end without
a smile. Then he drew forth the second volume and read it as solemnly
as the first. Mark says he thought he should die, yet John Bull was
probably enjoying it after his own undemonstrative style.”

In another instance the same writer says of Mark Twain: “This literary
wag has performed some services which entitle him to the gratitude
of his generation. He has run the traditional Sunday-school book boy
through his literary mangle and turned him out washed and ironed
into a proper state of flatness and collapse. That whining, canting,
early-dying anæmic creature was the nauseating model held up to
the full-blooded mischievous lads of by-gone years as worthy their
imitation. He poured his religious hypocrisy over every honest pleasure
a boy had. He whined his lachrymose warnings on every playground. He
vexed their lives. So, when Mark grew old enough he went gunning for
him, and lo, wherever his soul may be, the skin of the strumous young
pietist is now neatly tacked up to view on the Sunday-school door of
to-day as a warning, and the lads of to-day see no particular charm in
a priggish, hydropathical existence.”

Samuel Langhorne Clemens is in the high tide of his success. He is
yet a young man, as far as the literary life goes. Outside of his book
making, he has given the fun-loving public some admirable things in the
way of wit and humor through the pages of the leading magazines. The
originality of his writings in the past is retained in his work of the
present, and he gives promise of many original things in the future.
He has a liking for the monotonous labor of literary work, his health
is as yet unimpaired, he has been fortunate in love and in financial
affairs, is consequently happy, and will yet give to the world of
letters many quaint, bright, and original ideas. Artemus Ward and Mark
Twain are without a doubt the two leading humorists of the present
century. While we have the Artemus that was, we possess the Mark that
is. He leads the van of humorists who eke out an existence in the
present. He is the prince of funny men. Long live the prince.




CHARLES FARRAR BROWNE.


Probably no writer in America--or out of it, for that matter--ever
attained such universal notoriety, in such a brief space of time, as
did that king of American humorists, Artemus Ward. His career was short
but successful, and his fame will live as long as does the English
language. Charles Farrar Browne was born in the hamlet of Waterford,
Maine, on the 26th day of April, 1834, and died at Southampton,
England, March 6, 1867. After graduating from the free village school
at Waterford he sought and obtained employment in a printing office.
As a printer’s apprentice he traveled throughout the New England
States, stopping for a brief period at one place and then another.
Finally Charles settled down in Boston, where he obtained employment
as compositor in the office of a weekly paper. He soon after began to
compose comic stories and essays for different periodicals, which met
with medium success.

Browne remained there but a short time, however, being of a roving
disposition, and a few months later he gave up his idea of settling
in Boston and left for the West, with but one suit of clothes (those
were on his back) and with a few cents in his pocket. He obtained
work as local reporter on papers in Cincinnati and Toledo, Ohio, and
finally brought up at Cleveland in 1857, in which city he obtained a
situation as reporter on the morning Plain Dealer. His old associates
in Cleveland tell me that Browne at this time was considered one of
the characters of the town. His dress was always shabby and scant;
his habits irregular, and his general appearance that of a country
“greenhorn.” He delighted in wearing on his head a large crowned slouch
hat, and his pantaloons were as a rule nearly a foot too short for
him. Being tall, slim, and bony, his appearance in those days as he
slouched along the streets of Cleveland in search of items could not
have been very prepossessing, to say the least. “He was then,” says a
well known humorist, “a mild-mannered, sunny-tempered young fellow of
twenty-three, who delighted in witty anecdotes, and told droll stories
in an inimitable way.”

Despite his looks, Browne was a brilliant and ready writer. He became
involved in numerous journalistic quarrels, and his cutting remarks and
timely rebukes to his contemporaries soon made known the fact that he
could not be mastered.

A. Miner Griswold, the Cincinnati humorist, tells the following story
of Browne at that time: “The first night of our acquaintance he took
me to a school exhibition on Cleveland heights, and his whispered
comments upon the performance amused me greatly. They gave a portion
of the play of Rolla: ‘How now, Gomez, what bringest thou?’ Gomez: ‘On
yonder mountain we surprised an old Peruvian.’ Said Brown in a whisper,
‘They knew him by his bark, a small bundle of which you perceive he
carries on his shoulder.’ There have been many Peruvian bark jokes
since, but that was then fresh to me--too fresh, perhaps. But one finds
plenty of funny people at twenty-two, and I little dreamed that my
entertainer, the green young man by the name of Browne, was destined
to make the whole world laugh, and weep, too, when it heard of his
death. It did occur to me as we drove back in the buggy that my new
friend was the least bit eccentric. After riding along in silence for
a time he suddenly declared that he liked me, and asked me if I had
any objections to one embrace. Then he attempted to throw his arms
around me, but owing to the darkness, I suppose, he embraced a new plug
hat that I wore, and when he let go it was crushed into a shapeless
mass. He apologized profusely when he discovered what he had done,
appeared to give way to a momentary burst of tears, and then said that
Shakespeare wouldn’t have succeeded as a local editor, because he
hadn’t the necessary fancy and imagination.

“Barring an unreasonable desire to drive off the canal bridge into the
water, which I prevailed upon him to relinquish with some difficulty,
we reached the city without further incident. His humorous account
of the school exhibition in the next day’s paper confirmed me in the
impression that the young man by the name of Browne possessed a rare
streak of original humor.”

The following autumn Browne published his first “Artemus Ward”
letter that was extensively copied, an account of the Atlantic cable
celebration in Baldwinsville; followed soon after by the Free Lovers
of Berlin Heights, and later his letters from “Artemus Ward, showman,”
appeared, which attracted general attention.

In the early part of 1860, Browne surrendered his position as city
editor of the Plain Dealer, and left Cleveland for New York. In the
metropolis he was engaged as a contributor to Vanity Fair, a comic
weekly paper that had but recently been established. Vanity Fair was
a success for a time, but it was not lasting. Some months after his
arrival in New York, Browne was offered the position as editor of
the publication, and after some hesitancy, he accepted. The paper
suspended soon after, and the young humorist was thrown upon his own
resources once again. Several positions were offered him on various New
York journals, but he concluded to give up journalism for a time and
turn his attention to lecturing.

His first lecture, which was of a humorous nature, was delivered in New
York city, December 23, 1861, and was well received. As a lecturer he
was at once acknowledged as a success, and immediately delivered his
mirth provoking orations in various parts of the country. In 1862 he
published his first book, entitled Artemus Ward, His Book. In 1863 he
paid a visit to the Pacific coast, making an overland trip, visiting
Salt Lake city, and addressing large audiences wherever he stopped.

Returning to New York city in 1864, he opened his illustrated lectures
on California and Utah with immense success. About this time his other
books, Artemus Ward Among the Mormons, and Ward Among the Fenians,
appeared. In 1866 he was prevailed upon by his friends to visit
England, where he became a regular contributor to Punch, and gave his
lecture on the Mormons, in the British metropolis. But while he was
convulsing all London with laughter he was fast falling a victim to
consumption, and becoming worse he went to Guernsey in 1867 for the
benefit of his health. He became no better, and when he was just about
preparing to return to America, he died at Southampton, March 6, 1867.
By his will, after providing for his mother, leaving legacies to his
friends, and his library of valuable books to a school-boy friend in
his native village, he left the bulk of his property in trust to Horace
Greeley for the purpose of founding an asylum for printers.

Mark Twain, in a private letter to a friend in Tennessee, says of
Artemus Ward:

“He was one of the kindest and gentlest of men, and the hold he took on
the English people surpasses imagination. Artemus Ward once said to me
gravely, almost sadly:

“‘Clemens, I have done too much fooling, too much trifling; I am going
to write something that will live.”

“‘Well, what for instance?

“In the same grave way, he said:

“‘A lie.’

“It was an admirable surprise. I was just ready to cry; he was becoming
pathetic.”

There have been hundreds of stories of Artemus Ward going the rounds
of the American press during the past twenty years. A few of them are
founded on facts, some of them are good, but many, I am sorry to say,
are base fabrications. This is not the case, however, with the little
reminder that certain residents of Pottstown, Pennsylvania, are wont to
tell. Ward was advertised to deliver his famous lecture on the Mormons,
in the town hall, at Pottstown, during the winter of one of the earlier
years of the war. Much curiosity was excited by the announcement of
his coming, and there was every reason to expect that the hall would
be crowded on the evening of the lecture. A fierce snow storm raged
all day, however, and the night was wild and stormy. When the lecturer
was driven to the hall, he found waiting for him only five men, who
had defied the storm. Advancing to the stage, and beckoning with
the finger, as to a single individual, Artemus said, in an ordinary
conversational tone:

“Come up closer.”

Not knowing precisely what to do, the audience of five compromised with
their embarrassment by doing nothing. Artemus changed his tone to that
used by one who wished to coax, and said:

“Please come up closer, and be sociable. I want to speak to you about a
little matter I have thought of.”

The audience, thus being persuaded, came up a little closer, and the
humorist said:

“I move that we don’t have any lecture here this evening, and I propose
instead that we adjourn to the restaurant beneath and have a good time.”

Ward then put the motion, voted on it himself, declared it carried,
and, to give no opportunity for an appeal from the chair, at once led
the way to the restaurant. There he introduced himself to his intended
auditors, and spent several hours in their company, richly compensating
them for disappointment in the matter of the lecture, by the wit and
humor of the stories that he told. That was how Artemus Ward lectured
in Pottstown.

Glancing hurriedly through Ward’s volume of sketches, I find none more
amusing than his description of


THE CENSUS.

 The sences taker in our town being taken sick, he deppertised me to go
 out for him one day, and as he was too ill to give me information how
 to perceed, I was consekently compelled to go it blind. Sittin’ down
 by the roadside I draw’d up the follerin’ list of questions, which I
 proposed to ax the people I visited:

 Wat’s your age?

 Whar’ was you born?

 Air you married, and if so, how do you like it?

 How many children hav’ you, and do they sufficiently resemble you
 so as to proclood the possibility of their belongin’ to any of your
 nabers?

 Did you ever have the measles, and if so, how many?

 Hav’ you a twin brother several years older than yourself?

 How many parents have you?

 Do you read Watt’s Hymns reg’lar?

 Do you use bought’n tabacker?

 Wat’s your fitin’ weight?

 Air you troubled 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 in the Ery canawl?

 If four barrels of emtin’s pored onto a barn floor will kiver it, how
 many plase can Dion Boucicault write in a year?

 Is beans a reg’lar article of diet in your family?

 How many chickens hav’ you, on foot and in the shell?

 Air you aware that Injiany whisky is used in New York shootin’ galrys
 insted 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 cheese, poplar survinity,
 standard poetry, children’s strainers, slave code, catnip, red
 flannel, ancient history, pickled tomatoes, old junk, perfoomery, coal
 ile, liberty, hoopskirts, etc., have you got on hand?

 But it didn’t work. I got into a row at the first house I stopt at,
 with some old maids. Disbelievin’ the answers they give in regard
 to their ages I endeavored to open their mouths and look at their
 teeth, same as they do with horses, but they floo into a violent
 rage and tackled me with brooms and sich. Takin’ the sences requires
 experience, like as any other bizness.

Browne had few if any enemies, and hosts of friends. Everyone with whom
he became acquainted became his friend. He was as genial as he was
humorous, and his former companions who are yet alive look back upon
the time when Artemus Ward, the king of American humorists, took their
proffered hand and shook it warmly in his original and friendly way.




CHARLES HEBER CLARK.


On the eastern shore of Maryland is situated a town known to the
post-office authorities as Berlin. It was in Berlin in the warm month
of July, 1841, that Charles Heber Clark, “Max Adeler,” first saw the
light of day.

His father was a clergyman in the Episcopal church, but this appeared
to have little effect on Charles, who, like all bad boys, grew up
to make fun of everybody and everything. He was sent to Georgetown,
District of Columbia, early in life, being shipped by express and
labeled “handle with care.” He attended school for a brief period,
learning but little, and jumped into the mercantile world by moving his
linen to Philadelphia.

The mercantile business appeared to agree with his constitution until
1865, when he bethought himself that he had been sent into this wicked
world for the express purpose of becoming a journalist. He subsequently
began his editorial career on the Philadelphia Enquirer during that
same year. Clark made rapid advancement in journalism, and in 1867
became one of the editors of the Evening Bulletin, of which paper he is
at present one of the proprietors.

It was soon after Clark entered upon his editorial duties at the
Bulletin office that the droll humor of his pen began to attract
general attention. His most amusing articles were written in the
intervals of his private life, and the more serious daily newspaper
work to which he devoted himself. He is not, and never was, a
paragrapher, but has thrown out to the world his droll and grotesque
humor in the form of narratives. His fun is of the most rollicking
kind, and ranks him along with Mark Twain and Artemus Ward. Three
volumes of humor have appeared from his pen.

His best known books are Out of the Hurly Burly, and Elbow Room. These
works appeared several years ago simultaneously in this country and in
England. The sales were large, and over five thousand copies of Elbow
Room were sold in London within a month after its publication. Both
books have been issued in Canada, where the piratical publishers sold
them by the thousand.

His latest work, issued quite early in 1882, entitled The Fortunate
Island and Other Stories, is meeting with a wide sale. It is destined
to become very popular. Mr. Clark is fond of his home and family. His
residence is located in a remote but beautiful suburb of Philadelphia,
where he hopes to live to a ripe old age. Mr. Clark is an excellent
musician, and for a number of years he acted in the capacity of
organist for one of the Quaker City churches.

Besides his book-making Mr. Clark still retains a firm hold on
journalism. He takes a leading interest in his paper, the Bulletin, and
writes the dramatic criticisms and a portion of the editorials. He also
edits the humorous department of Our Continent, a well-known literary
weekly, published in Philadelphia.

As a writer and composer of obituary verse Max Adeler has probably no
equal, unless it be another, older, and more prominent Philadelphia
journalist--Childs, of the Ledger. The following rare exotics are
selected from Out of the Hurly Burly:

  “Four doctors tackled Johnny Smith--
    They blistered and they bled him;
  With squills and anti-bilious pills
    And ipecac they fed him.

  “They stirred him up with calomel
    And tried to move his liver;
  But all in vain--his little soul
    Was wafted o’er the river.”

Of another little youngster, just departed, Max warbles:

  “Little Alexander’s dead;
    Jam him in a coffin;
  Don’t have as good a chance
    For a funeral often.

  “Rush his body right around
    To the cemetery,
  Drop him in the sepulchre
  With his uncle Jerry.”

In another instance, Adeler gets off the following horrible concoction:

  “O! bury Bartholomew out in the woods,
    In a beautiful hole in the ground,
  Where the bumble-bees buzz and the woodpeckers sing,
    And the straddle-bugs tumble around;
  So that in winter, when the snow and the slush
    Have covered his last little bed,
  His brother Artemas can go out with Jane
    And visit the place with his sled.”

Then, I am pleased to give another choice selection from Clark’s
wonderful storehouse:

  “The death angel smote Alexander McGlue,
    And gave him protracted repose;
  He wore a checked shirt and number nine shoe,
    And he had a pink wart on his nose.

  “No doubt he is happier dwelling in space
    Over there on the evergreen shore.
  His friends are informed that his funeral takes place
    Precisely at quarter past four.”

The same volume contains an admirable bit of drollery in the following
take-off on art criticism:


ART NEWS.

 We have received from the eminent sculptor, Mr. Felix Mullins, of
 Wilmington, a comic _bas_ _relief_, designed for an ornamental
 fireboard. It represents an Irishman in his night-shirt running away
 with the little god Cupid, while the Irishman’s sweetheart demurely
 hangs her head in the corner. Every true work of art tells its own
 story; and we understand, as soon as we glance at this, that our Irish
 friend has been coquetted with by the fair one, and is pretending to
 transfer his love to other quarters. There is a lurking smile on the
 Irishman’s lips, which expresses his mischievous intentions perfectly.
 We think it would have been better to have clothed him in something
 else than a night-shirt, and to have smoothed down his hair. We have
 placed this _chef d’œuvre_ upon a shelf in our office, where it will
 undoubtedly be admired by our friends when they call. We are glad to
 encourage such progress in Delaware art.

Adeler has given the public an admirable satire in his


IMPROVED CONGRESSIONAL RECORD.

 If Congress resolve to act upon the suggestion of Senator Miller
 that the Congressional Record be issued as a weekly and sent to
 every family in the country, some modification ought to be made in
 the contents of the Record. The paper is much too heavy and dismal
 in its present condition to be welcomed in the ordinary American
 household. Perhaps it might have a puzzle department, and if so one of
 the first puzzles could take the shape of an inquiry how it happens
 that so many Congressmen get rich on a salary of five thousand a
 year. The department of answers to correspondents could be enriched
 with references to letters from office seekers, and the department
 of Household Economy could contain explanations of how the members
 frank their shirts home through the post-office so as to get them
 in the family wash. As for the general contents, describing the
 business proceedings in the Senate and the House, we recommend that
 these should be put in the form of verse. We should treat them, say,
 something in this fashion:

        Mr. Hill
        Introduced a bill
  To give John Smith a pension;
        Mr. Bayard
        Talked himself tired,
  But said nothing worthy of mention.

 This would be succinct, musical, and a degree impressive. The youngest
 reader could grasp the meaning of it, and it could be easily committed
 to memory. Or a scene in the House might be depicted in such terms as
 these:

  A very able speech was made by Cox, of Minnesota,
  Respecting the necessity of protecting the black voter,
  ’Twas indignantly responded to by Smith, of Alabama,
  Whose abominable talk was silenced by the Speaker’s hammer.
  Then Atkinson, of Kansas, rose to make an explanation,
  But was pulled down by a colleague in a state of indignation.
  And Mr. Alexander, in a speech about insurance,
  Taxed the patience of his hearers pretty nearly past endurance,
  After which Judge Whittaker denounced the reciprocity
  Treaty with Hawaii as a scandalous monstrosity.

       *       *       *       *       *

 Of course versification of the Congressional Record would require the
 services of a poet laureate of rather unusual powers. If Congress
 shall accept seriously the suggestions which we make with an earnest
 desire to promote the public interest, we shall venture to recommend
 the selection of the Sweet Singer of Michigan as the first occupant of
 the laureate’s office.”




CHARLES B. LEWIS.


The Detroit Weekly Free Press is a famous American newspaper. For a
decade it has amused and instructed a hundred thousand families in
the United States and Canada, yet prior to 1870 the paper was almost
unknown outside the limits of the City of the Straits. The humorous
column of the Free Press and the witty descriptive articles printed
over the signature of “M. Quad,” explains the secret of the success of
this popular Detroit newspaper.

Charles B. Lewis, who is the proprietor of that typographical _nom
de plume_ “M. Quad,” began writing for the Free Press as far back as
1870, and since that time the success of the paper has been almost
phenomenal. The Detroit Free Press has not only attained an immense
circulation in this country, but has carried its success across the
Atlantic, where in the great English metropolis a weekly edition of the
Detroit Free Press is issued for the amusement and gratification of all
English-reading Europe.

The life of M. Quad has been a most romantic one, and if properly told
would fill a volume. He is now over fifty years of age, and is a native
of East Liverpool, Ohio. At the early age of fourteen, Lewis became
“printers’ devil” in the office of the Lansing (Michigan) Journal. At
the breaking out of the war he enlisted in a Michigan regiment and
served both in cavalry and infantry, winning many laurels on the field
of battle. After the war he went West and tried Indian fighting for a
time. Winning a lieutenantcy he retired and entered journalism. In 1868
he came near being killed by being blown up on the steamer Magnolia, on
the Ohio river. When he came down he was dragged out on the shore by
an old woman, who laid him out unconscious, among the dead and wounded
on the beach. He was taken for a dead negro and was carted away to the
morgue for burial.

He revived after a time, his wounds were dressed and he recovered in
a few days. Afterwards he wrote a humorous account of the explosion,
which was in a vein so irresistibly funny that it started him on the
road to fame. In 1870 he finally settled down as a humorous writer on
the Detroit Free Press, with which journal he has been connected ever
since.

Lewis published Goaks and Tears in 1875, which he prefaced by a
“a brief biography of M. Quad, the Free Press man, written by his
mother-in-law.” In this production he says of himself:

 BIOGRAPHY OF M. QUAD.

 There was nothing remarkable about his babyhood except his red hair
 and the great quantity of soothing syrup necessary to keep him toned
 down.

 He was born of humble parents. His father had never been on a jury,
 delivered a Fourth of July oration, or been sued for slander, and his
 mother had never rescued anybody from drowning, or delivered a lecture
 on woman’s rights.

 He never had any brothers or sisters. He might have had in due time,
 but his midnight howls wore his mother out when he was two years old,
 and she went to join the angels and left him to howl it out.

 His father was accidentally shot while courting a second wife, and the
 boy kicked the clothes off the bed to find himself an orphan.

 He was the sole heir to all the property, and the property consisted
 of a wheelbarrow, a toothbrush, and one or two other things. The boy’s
 uncle swooped down on the estate, stole everything but the debt it
 was owing, and the orphan was given a grand bounce into the cold and
 heartless world.

 But little is known of his boyhood. He probably had patches before
 and behind, like other orphans; wept over the grave of his mother in
 his sad moments, and crawled under the circus canvas in his hours of
 sunshine. Nothing in his demeanor attracted the attention of John
 Jacob Astor or Commodore Vanderbilt, and consequently he had more
 cuffs than fat clerkships.

 At the age of fifteen he was invited to go up in a balloon.

 He didn’t go.

 When he was seventeen he decided to become a pirate, and all the
 captains of the Erie canal discouraged him.

 At eighteen he was in the legislature--sat there and heard a speech
 and then left with the other spectators.

 At twenty he was foreman of a fire company, but was impeached because
 he couldn’t “holler” as loudly as “No. 7.”

 He had just reached his majority when he led a rich and beautiful girl
 to the altar--and handed her over to the bridegroom. He commenced
 in that year to be a “head-writer” on newspapers. Was almost daily
 informed that his proper sphere was acting governor of a state, or in
 commanding armies, but he stuck to journalistic work.

 He was funny from the start, but it took eighteen years to make
 people believe it. He has had many wives, and is the father of scores
 of happy children. He has had the cholera and small-pox, written
 articles varying from astronomy to the best manner of curing hams,
 been wrecked, shot, assassinated, and banished, and is to-day hale,
 hearty, and bald-headed.

 All reports about a steamboat blowing him up are canards. He blew the
 boat up.

 For further particulars see circulars.

For ten years after M. Quad joined forces with the Detroit Free Press
he wrote steadily for that journal, and rarely allowed an issue of the
paper to be made without a humorous article from his pen. Since 1880,
however, little or no humor has appeared, Mr. Lewis changing suddenly
from a gay, rollicking style to descriptive sketches, thoughtful and
pathetic. In 1881 he made a lengthy visit to the South and tramped
over the old battlefields of the Rebellion. In the columns of the Free
Press he described, in a series of weekly letters, the battles and the
battlefields of the engagements with which he had been connected during
the war. These letters were written under the title of Sixteen Years
After, and signed by M. Quad. They have been copied extensively by the
American and foreign press.

One of the raciest things that has ever appeared from the pen of
Charles B. Lewis, is the following:

 NEW YEAR’S ADDRESS.

 Once more the whirligig of time has yanked an old year out, and a new
 one in.

 Glad on’t.

 If there is anything lonesome and monotonous, it is last year. The old
 year had a few charms, but the new one promises to give them half a
 mile the start, and then go under the string first.

 And yet one feels a trifle sad to part with the old year, when he
 comes to think it over. As memory’s bob-tail car pulls us down
 the long lane of the past, one looks out of the window at the
 well-remembered objects of former days, and his heart saddens.

 Where’s the fat girl who rested her head on your bosom when the
 old year was new? Gone--yes, gone--slid out to take charge of the
 snake-cage in a traveling museum of natural wonders, and your wounded
 heart sorrowfully but vainly calls,--

 “Come back, fat girl--come back?”

 Where’s the alligator boots which sat around the festive board last
 new year’s day? Where’s the silk umbrella you left on the doorstep
 this morning?

 Where’s the ton of coal and the jar of country butter you laid
 in about that time? Where’s the plumber who agreed to “come right
 up,” and thaw that water-pipe out? The sad wind sighing through the
 treeless leaves, solemnly puckers its mouth, and sadly answers,--

 “Gone up!”

 One by one they have fallen beside the curbstone of life’s dreary
 highway, have been swept over and almost forgotten, while you and
 I have been spared to put up the stoves another time, and to have
 the landlord raise the rent on us--drat him! It makes one feel sad,
 especially the rent business.

 Farewell, old year! If you go west to grow up with the country, or go
 south to run a steamboat, we hope you’ll be honest, seek respectable
 company, and make your daily life a striking example for, and a
 terrible warning to, the man who goes around playing the string game
 on unsuspecting people.

 Welcome, new year! Howdy? If convenient, give us some new clothes, a
 few thousand in cash, and a race-horse, and prove by your actions that
 you mean to do the right thing by a fellow. Give us some strawberry
 weather this month, wollop the pesky Indians into behaving themselves,
 and make it uncomfortable for grasshoppers and potato-bugs. Be around
 with some decent weather when a fellow wants to go fishing, and let
 ’er rain to kill when the women go out to exhibit their new bonnets.
 Do the fair thing by all of us, including New Jersey, and we won’t
 stand by and see you abused.




HENRY W. SHAW.


“Josh Billings,” the far-famed writer of Yankee proverbs, is over
sixty years of age, yet hale and rather hearty. He was born in western
Massachusetts, and after having a hard time of it in life, working
at various times, in various places, in various states, at various
occupations, he finally settled down to the peace and quiet of an
author, with an occasional lecturing tour. This has been the life
history of Henry W. Shaw, whose eccentric mode of spelling has made him
famous. His eccentricities are not assumed and artificial, but a part
of the man, and in his daily conversations he uses the same apt and
peculiar similies that are characteristic of his pen productions.

In 1872, when asked by a friend to give some facts relative to his
life, Josh wrote the following biography, which is very characteristic
of the man:

 “I was born in Berkshire county, Massachusetts, during the nineteenth
 century, of highly respectable parents, and owe what little success I
 have obtained to the wisdom of my father and the piety of my mother.
 At the fragrant age of fifteen I set my face westward and followed it
 until I stood on the banks of the wide Missouri, without any plans
 for life, and but little better in feelings than a cheerful vagrant.
 For twenty-five years the various wanderings of a border life made me
 acquainted with scenes and experiences better calculated to cut the
 character sharp, than to refine it, and if I escaped without scars, it
 was simply because the susceptibility of my nature looked upon most
 things in this life as simply a joke.

 “In common with most all Americans who have to push early, to
 test their own wings, I engaged in all the usual enterprises of a
 frontiersman, having been at times a land hunter, farmer, drover,
 steamboat captain, auctioneer, politician, and even pioneer, for I
 partially organized an enterprise, as early as 1835, to cross the
 Rocky mountains. This last named enterprise was a profound failure,
 but its inception and preliminary arrangements afforded me one of
 the choicest relics of my early adventures, and that in _three
 letters_, now in my possession, written to me personally by Henry
 Clay, John Quincy Adams, and Martin Van Buren, recommending me and
 the undertaking to the kind care and patronage of all people and all
 nations.

 “If I may be said to ever have commenced a literary career it
 certainly was much later in life than most men commit the folly, for I
 had passed forty-five years before I ever wrote a line for the publick
 eye. What little reputation I may have made, has been accomplished
 within the last nine years, and I consider that I owe all this little
 to the kindness of the world at large, who, while they have discovered
 but little wit, or even humor, in what I have written, have done me
 the credit to acknowledge that my productions have been free from
 malice. I pin all my faith, hope, and charity upon this one impulse of
 my nature, and that is, if I could have my way, there would be a smile
 continually on the face of every human being on God’s footstool, and
 this smile should ever and anon widen into a broad grin.

 “I have not the inclination to go into an extended account of the
 trials and failures that I have met with since I first put on the cap
 and bells, but I can assure you that I would not contend with them
 again for what little glory and stamps they have won for me. I have
 written two books, but my pet is Josh Billings’ Farmer’s Almanac,
 which has been issued for the last three years, the annual sale of
 which has exceeded one hundred thousand copies. This little waif will
 soon make its appearance for 1873, and I hope to make it a welcome
 guest for many years to come.

 “My lectures, if they can be called lectures, are three in number,
 rejoicing under the very familiar titles of Milk, What I Know About
 Hotels, and the Pensive Cockroach. In this last discourse, a large
 invoice of reptiles, beasts, and fishes are handled, without mercy,
 commencing with the dreamy cockroach and touching lightly at times
 the cunning of the fox, the strange uncertainty of the flea, and the
 wondrous hypocracy of the cat.

 “Please excuse, my dear sirs, in this hasty sketch what may appear
 not to be true, for he who writes about himself is in great danger of
 telling too much, or too little. My only apology for this monograph
 is, that it has been written at your request.

 “Yours calmly,

 JOSH BILLINGS.”

Mr. Shaw began writing for the literary weeklies, and even now writes
a half column or so of his quaint paragraphs for the New York Weekly.
His almanac and other books have been published through the house of
George W. Carleton, New York, and have had a wonderful sale. It is
said that Josh has made at least $100,000 by his writings. It has
been stated that his uncouth manner of spelling was adopted, in the
first instance, quite as much through fear of his ability to spell
correctly, as through the wish to be odd. He avoided criticism by
intentional and habitual misspelling. He is by nature a philosopher,
and the experiences of his whole life are classified in his mind, as
illustrations of this or that quality of human nature.

Soon after he became famous in the walks of literature, Shaw entered
the lecture field. He became at once very popular, and drew large and
cultured audiences in the East and West. His last lecturing tour of any
length proved very profitable to him. He lectured on The Probabilities
of Life, which was divided, as he says, into twenty-four chapters. The
hand-bills announcing this lecture read as follows:

“Josh Billings will deliver his new, and as he calls it, serio-comic
lecture, on ‘The Probabilities of Life’ (perhaps rain, perhaps not).
Divided into twenty-four cantos, as follows: A Genial Overture of
Remarks; the Long Branch Letter; Human Happiness as an Alternative;
the Live Man, a Busy Disciple; a Second Wife, a Good Risk to Take; the
Poodle with Azure Eyes; the Handsome Man, a Failure; Short Sentences,
Sharp at Both Ends; the Fastidious Person, Fuss and Feathers; Patience,
Slow Poison; What I Know about Hotels, a Sad History; the Flea,
a Brisk Package; the Domestic Man, a Necessary Evil; Answers to
Correspondents; Jonah and his Whale; Marriage, a Draw Game; Mary Ann, a
Modest Maiden; the Mother-in-law, one of the Luxuries; Proverbs, Truth
on the Half Shell; the Mouse, a Household Hord; the Life Insurance
Agent; the Caterpillar, a Slow Bug; the First Baby, too Sweet for
Anything; Sayings of a promiscuous nature. And much other things.”

Shaw’s advertising dodges have all been of a funny and striking
character. The following lines appeared on a postal card that was sent
broadcast during the winter of 1877:

 ‘Josh Billings and the Young Man. Young man, don’t kry for spilt milk,
 but pik up yure pail and milking stool, and go for the next cow. Yures
 affekshionately, Josh Billings. For sale or To Let. Price Neat, But
 Not Gaudy. Contemplating a trip to California during the winter of
 1877, I will read my old and venerable lecture, ‘MILK,’ before any
 association who may desire to hear it. The ‘Milk’ in this lecture is
 condensed, and will keep sweet in any climate.

 “Your cheerful friend,

 JOSH BILLINGS.”

Josh is getting old, and each succeeding year his literary productions
are fewer and shorter. Out of the fortune he has made by his pen, only
$50,000 is retained in his possession. He is an odd-looking genius,
tall, stoop-shouldered, with a large head, massive face, deep-set
eyes, and grizzly beard. His hair, which was formerly brown, is now an
iron gray, and his stiff, drooping moustache is fast changing to the
same color. He parts his hair in the middle, combs it smoothly behind
his ears, allowing it to fall loosely on his neck like the locks of a
school-girl.

A newspaper writer, in speaking of Josh not long since, said: “As he
grows older, he seems to become more and more supremely regardless of
persons, surroundings, or opinions. As he greets one with the machine
like ‘How do ye do,’ or an inanimate ‘Good day,’ the impression is
conveyed that he has arrived at the state of life and prosperity where
he deems fate powerless to work any alteration for the worse. Billings
is essentially a man to himself, taciturn and unobtrusive everywhere.
He is now a willing but unattractive lecturer. He and his wife pass a
quiet, relegated, but doubtless contented life, in an unpretentious
dwelling in Sixty-third street, New York city, the garret of which is
made to answer the combined purpose of literary sanctum and storehouse.”

Shaw has written many witty things besides his quaint “Proverbs,”
which made him famous. The following is an example:

THE HEIGHT OF SUBLIMITY.

AN ADVERTISEMENT BY JOSH BILLINGS.

 I kan sell for eighteen hundred and thirty-nine dollars, a pallas,
 a sweet and pensive retirement, located on the virgin banks of the
 Hudson, kontaining 85 acres. The land is luxuriously divided by
 the hand of natur and art, into pastor and tillage, into plain and
 deklivity, into stern abruptness and the dallianse ov moss-tufted
 medder; streams of sparkling gladness (thick with trout) danse
 through this wilderness of buty, tow the low musik of the kricket and
 grasshopper. The evergreen sighs az the evening zephir flits through
 its shadowy buzzum, and the aspen trembles like the love-smitten
 hart of a damsell. Fruits of the tropicks, in golden buty, melt on
 the bows, and the bees go heavy and sweet from the fields to their
 garnering hives. The stables are worthy of the steeds of Nimrod or
 the studs of Akilles, and its henery was bilt expressly for the birds
 of paradice; while somber in the distance, like the cave of a hermit,
 glimpses are caught ov the dog-house. Here poets have come and warbled
 their laze, here sculpters have cut, here painters hav robbed the
 scene of dreamy landskapes, and here the philosopher diskovered the
 stun which made him the alkimist ov natur. As the young moon hangs
 like a curting ov silver from the blue breast of the ski, an angel
 may be seen each night dansing with golden tip-toes on the grass. (N.
 B.--The angel goes with the place.)

To show what Josh’s Proverbs are like, I annex a few as a finale to
this sketch:

 PROVERBS.

 Thare haz been menny a hero born, lived and died unknown, just for the
 want ov an opportunity.

 Thare ain’t nothing that will sho the virtues and vices of a man in so
 vivid a light as profuse prosperity.

 It is a good deal ov a bore to have others luv us more than we luv
 them.

 Mi dear boy, allwuss keep sumthing in reserve. The man who can jump
 six inches further than he ever haz jumpt, iz a hard customer to beat.

 Thare ain’t nothing on arth that will take the starch so klean out ov
 us, as to git kaught bi the phellow we are trying to ketch.




JAY CHARLTON GOLDSMITH.


Thirty-eight or forty years ago, Jay Charlton Goldsmith, of the New
York Herald, was ushered into the world with little if any ceremony.
He was born in a small village in eastern New York, not far from the
great metropolis. Like other dutiful sons, Jay pleased his parents by
attending school until he was thirteen years of age. He then entered
a lawyer’s office and mingled with his legal learning the study of
phonography. About this time he began acting as correspondent for the
Herald from the rural district wherein he lived. At the age of sixteen
he was one of the editors of the Register, a small evening paper
published at Patterson, New Jersey.

The health of the young man, however, forbade his steady working in a
newspaper office, and a year later he was compelled to relinquish his
position. He immediately began preparations for a journey abroad, his
intention being to travel two years on the continent. He changed his
mind at the last moment and went to California, and from there to the
Sandwich Islands. During these travels he penned very creditable and
quite readable letters to the Herald. He also wrote occasionally for
other journals. On his return, after an absence of a year, he accepted
an editorial position in the office of the Republican, at Savannah,
Georgia. His health again failing him, he was driven from the South by
the climate.

In 1867 he returned to New York city, where he became a reporter and
occasional editorial writer for the Tribune. When Oakey Hall became
mayor of New York, Goldsmith, who was a warm personal friend, became
his private secretary. He retained this office for four years. Early
in 1873 he succeeded Mr. E. G. Squier as editor of Frank Leslie’s
Illustrated Newspaper. While editing this journal he wrote many
critical, terse articles, which attracted general attention. His health
again failing, he made a second visit to the Pacific coast two years
later. About this time Goldsmith commenced writing to the Danbury News,
a series of letters signed by “Jay Charlton,” which became a feature of
that famous publication.

Five or six years later, finding himself greatly improved in health, he
again accepted a situation on the New York Herald, and has retained it
ever since. One of his duties was to write the Personal Intelligence
column. He determined to make it spicy, and wrote short items that
could be read between bites at the breakfast table. The name of the “P.
I. Man,” by which Goldsmith is so widely known, was probably derived
from this fact.

He is said to be the editor of the Weekly Herald, and adds much to
the character and worth of that popular edition of Bennett’s famous
newspaper. Goldsmith is an odd looking, but not unhandsome genius. He
wears his black hair long and it hangs down upon his neck and forehead
in profusion. He possesses a poetic face, which is adorned with heavy
side-whiskers.

Jay Charlton’s Hints to Farmers is one of his best efforts. It shows
what horrible puns he is capable of:

 HINTS TO FARMERS.

 Early Rose potatoes should be planted early. It is not called Early
 because it grows on rose bushes, but because it gets up at five
 o’clock in the morning. Do not make the mistake of peeling these
 potatoes before planting. The potato is to be eaten whole. Mashed
 potatoes should be sown broadcast.

 The string bean is the best bean for growing on strings. One string
 will do for ten beans. Some of the high strung beans need poles. These
 may be pulled up and taken on fishing excursions, and be returned
 with the line attached. The best strings for these beans are B strings.

 The Champion of England peas were named after Tom Sayers, the great
 prize fighter. These peas do not need any pods on them. We have
 planted them for many years without pods on them. One great advantage
 of the Champion of England peas is that they spar for themselves. Tom
 Sayers got away with two quarts of them once, but he trusted too much
 to his own ability. You cannot handle the Champion of England without
 gloves. In selecting ground for them it is best to have the sun in
 their eyes. They can stand a good deal of rough weather, but have been
 known to yield to a knock-down blow. Peas should never be eaten with a
 knife, because they roll off. It is best to pour them into a funnel.

 Oats should not be planted wild. Still we have known oats sown wild
 to produce a larger crop than the tame oats. Many of them are sown by
 moonlight and some by gas-light, but it is sometimes worse for the man
 who raises them than for the oats themselves. The best place to sow
 oats is in doors by a nice fire, and with a little sprinkling of cold
 water. Whiskey is a destroyer of the crop, and although very good for
 harrowing in, induces a growth of weeds. In Scotland the oats are fed
 to men, and in England to horses; so that a famous Scotchman said
 that nowhere could such horses be found in the world as in England,
 and nowhere such men as in Scotland. This is the reason why, on the
 borders, inns are sometimes called oatells. Oats are very heating, and
 many a Scotchman who eats them is compelled to come up to the scratch.
 Thus arises also that famous expression “hot Scotch,” which refers to
 a Highlander who has had too many oats. They warm him up.

 Do not fail to raise sheep. The proportion should be three dogs
 to one sheep. They will make it lively for the sheep. When you go
 wool-gathering take your dinner with you, for you may get lost.
 Lambs are best cooked a lamb mode. Chinamen eat rice with mutton.
 Hence their knives and forks are called chop sticks. Thus a Chinaman
 will say, “Lamby hard to bleat.” Lambs are best when they begin to
 gamble--you bet--on the green. It is funny, but Lamb’s finest work was
 on pigs. Yet, _vice versa_, we have seen pigs getting in their best
 work on lamb and peas.




WILLIAM TAPPAN THOMPSON.


The subject of this sketch, although one of the oldest of American
humorists, is comparatively unknown at the present time. William Tappan
Thompson was born in the village of Ravenna, Portage county, Ohio, on
the 31st day of August, 1812. He came from a good family, his father
being a native of Virginia, and his mother the daughter of an Irish
exile. At the age of twelve years young Thompson was an orphan, and was
thrown upon his own resources in the city of Philadelphia. He entered
the office of the Philadelphia Chronicle, where he remained for two
years working as a printer’s apprentice.

At the age of eighteen he left his newly found occupation and went to
Florida with Acting-Governor Wescott as his private secretary. About
the same time he began the study of law. In 1835, he was at work again
as a printer, in the office of the Sentinel at Augusta, Georgia. Later
on in the same year he became a volunteer with the Richmond Blues and
served for nearly two years in the Seminole war.

Late in the autumn of 1836 Mr. Thompson issued the first number of
the Augusta Mirror, but it proved a dismal failure. It was during the
Mirror trouble that the young editor became the duly wedded husband of
a daughter of Joseph Carrie, a well-to-do merchant of Barnwell, South
Carolina, and Augusta, Georgia. After the death of the Mirror, Mr.
Thompson took editorial charge of the Madison Miscellany, and it was
his writings for this journal that in after years made him famous as a
humorist.

During his idle moments Mr. Thompson began a series of letters from
“Major Joseph Jones of Pineville.” These were begun in 1842, and became
very popular--so much so, in fact, that before a year had elapsed after
their first appearance, they were collected in a volume and published
under the title of Major Jones’ Courtship. In the preface of the book
the author dedicated the work to his old commander in the Seminole war,
General Duncan L. Clinch.

Edition after edition of the book was issued, and it was known in every
city and town on this side of the Atlantic. Later, it was reprinted in
London, where it had an enormous run for several years. A recent writer
in a New Haven paper says of Major Jones’ Courtship: “Its style is
rollicking without grossness; piquant, yet devoid of all exaggeration.
Re-reading these letters to-day, the freshness and vigor, which so
charmed my youthful fancy for the grotesque in home life, are reflected
from every page.”

The preface of the book was written April 10, 1843, and among other
things contains the following:

 “It’s a great deal easier to write a heap of nonsense than it is to
 put a good face on it after its rit--and I don’t know when I’ve had a
 job that puzzled me so much how to begin it. I’ve looked over a whole
 heap of books to see how other writers done, but they all seemed to
 be about the same thing. They all feel a monstrous desire to benefit
 the public one way or other; some is anxious to tell all they know
 about certain matters, just for the good of the public, some has been
 swaded by friends to give the book to the public, and others have
 been induced to publish their ritens just for the benefit of future
 generations,--but not one of ’em ever had an idea to make a cent for
 themselves! Now, none of these excuses don’t zactly meet my case. I
 don’t spose the public--cept it is them as is courtin--will be much
 benefited by readin my letters--I’m sure Mr. Thompson wouldn’t went
 to all the expense just to please his friends, and for my part I’m
 perfectly willin to let posterity write their own books. So I don’t
 see any other way than to jest come rite out with the naked truth--and
 that is, that _my book was made just a purpose to sell and make
 money_. Ther ain’t a single lie in the book, and I’m termined ther
 sha’n’t be none in the preface.

 “I hain’t got no very grate opinion of myself, but I’ve always tried
 to live honest, and what little character I is got I want to keep.
 When Mr. Thompson just writ me word, he was gwine to put my letters
 in a book, I felt sort o’ skeered, for fear them bominable criticks
 might take hold of it, and tare it all to flinders--as they always
 nabs a’most every thing that’s got a kiver on; but, when I come to
 think, there were two ways of gettin into the field--under and over
 the fence. Well, the criticks is like a pretty considerable high fence
 round the public taste, and books get into the world of letters jest
 as a boy does in a pertater patch--some over, and some under. Now and
 then one gets hung, and the way it gets peppered is distressin--but
 them that gets in under the fence is jest as safe as them that gits in
 over. Seein as I is perfectly satisfied with the under route, I don’t
 think the criticks will tackle my book--if they does, all I can say
 is, I give ’em joy with their small potaters.”

After the success of Major Jones’ Courtship, Mr. Thompson issued other
works from time to time. Major Jones’ Sketches of Travel appeared a
few years later, and was followed by The Chronicles of Pineville.
Mr. Thompson also wrote a farce entitled, The Live Indian, and a
dramatization of The Vicar of Wakefield. Messrs. Carey & Hart, of
Philadelphia, bought the copyright of Major Jones’ Courtship in 1848,
for the paltry sum of $250. In 1856 Mr. Thompson prepared for the
press, Hotchkiss’ Codification of the Statute Laws of Georgia, and in
1858 became connected with the Western Continent, a weekly illustrated
paper published in Baltimore.

Two years later he sold his interest in the Western Continent, and
went to Savannah, where, in company with John M. Cooper, he issued the
Savannah Morning News, which is now valuable newspaper property. During
the Rebellion Mr. Thompson was appointed aid to Governor Brown, which
position he held until the fall of Savannah. In 1877 he was a member of
the Georgia Constitutional convention, which is the full extent of his
political career. For the past thirty years he has been the editor of
the Morning News, and has been one of the leading citizens of Savannah.
His work at present is the superintendency and the occasional writing
of editorials for his newspaper. It is many years since he gave to the
world a specimen of his old-time humor.

Since writing the above, I have been pained to learn of the sudden
death of Mr. Thompson, at his home in Savannah, on the 24th day of
March, 1882. His death revives the subject of his works, and his
several books are to be republished in Philadelphia at an early date.




MELVILLE D. LANDON.


Eli Perkins is a name well known to Americans. In fact he is so well
known that sundry newspaper writers, who should feel heartily ashamed
of themselves for so doing, have classed Eli Perkins with Gath, Private
Dalzell, George Francis Train, and other equally noted characters. The
same sundry newspaper writers have stated at various times that Eli
Perkins was the greatest liar in all America. This is a base falsehood,
and an attack upon the name of a honorable gentleman. A liar, indeed!
If the humorists of America are to be thus defiled simply because they
exaggerate good stories, solely for the purpose of displaying their
wit, why the occupation of humorist is valueless.

Melville D. Landon, better known as Eli Perkins, is not only a
humorist, but is author, lecturer, and journalist as well. He was born
in Eaton, Madison county, New York, in the year 1840. His freshman year
was passed at Madison university, and in 1861 he graduated from Union
college under Dr. Nott, and two years later he received the honorary
degree of Master of Arts. He entered journalism soon after this, and
after several years of hard work he went to Europe and Asia, returning
in 1868.

Eli Perkins was by nature a humorist, yet he devoted himself at first
entirely to serious writings. In 1871 he issued his first book from the
press of George W. Carleton, New York. It was a large volume of over
six hundred pages, and was a detailed history of the Franco-Prussian
war. It was a book solemn as the grave, yet full of thrilling
description. It commanded a large and ready sale.

An old friend tells the following interesting anecdote of Mr. Landon at
this time: “In 1872, at the age of thirty-three, a great change came
over Mr. Landon. It was then for the first time that he unchecked his
pen, and allowed fun and humor to creep unobstructed into his writings.
The occasion was a series of letters written from Saratoga, since
republished in Saratoga in 1901. These letters were written for the
New York Commercial Advertiser, at the instance of Hugh J. Hastings, a
veteran, fun-loving journalist. The Commercial was then almost a dead
newspaper. It was never seen on the news-stands, and was only taken
in a few old families, who still stuck to the paper because of its
antiquity, it having been established in 1794.

“Perkins appeared one day at the leading news-stand in Saratoga, and
marching up with great pride, informed the newsman that he was going to
write for the Commercial.

“‘For the Co-- what?” asked the man.

“‘For the Co-mercial--the Commercial Advertiser.”

“‘Never heard of it, sir,” replied the newsman.

“‘Well, I am going to write for it, and I want you to order it.”

“‘No use, can’t sell it sir, and----’

“‘But I’ll buy it--buy all you have left,” expostulated Eli.

“‘All right,’ said the newsman, ‘then I’ll order five copies.’

“Every day after that these letters were published in the Commercial
under the signature of Eli Perkins. They set Saratoga on fire. The
demand for them was immense. On the street cars in New York, and on the
balconies in Saratoga, people were reading the letters and asking ‘Who
is Eli Perkins?’ In four weeks after the humorist commenced writing six
hundred copies of the Commercial were sold in Saratoga alone.

“In a word, the articles made Eli Perkins famous. They were widely read
and copied, and many of them were reproduced in France and Spain.
Perkins and Mark Twain were the only humorists at that time since the
death of Artemus Ward, and it was no wonder that there was a demand for
their writings.”

A few years later the Saratoga letters were gathered together,
illustrated by Arthur Lumley, and republished in a large volume by
Sheldon & Co., of New York. Still later Mr. Landon issued another
book--a volume of humorous sketches--entitled Eli Perkins at Large.
This production had, and yet has, an immense sale. In 1872, he entered
the lecture field, and for eight or ten years he has convulsed hundreds
of audiences in every part of the country, North, East, South, and
West. He has also kept up his literary work, and has been corresponding
regularly for the Chicago Tribune. His letters to this well known
journal have been widely copied and are noted for their sparkling wit
and rollicking humor.

Eli produced something intensely funny when he wrote

 ELI PERKINS ON AMERICAN BULLS.

 Punctuation makes a great many bulls in this country. The other day I
 picked up a newspaper in Wisconsin full of curious things. I enclose a
 few specimens:

 “The procession at Judge Orton’s funeral was very fine and nearly two
 miles in length as was the beautiful prayer of the Rev. Dr. Swing from
 Chicago.”

Another:

 “A cow was struck by lightning on Saturday belonging to Dr. Hammond
 who had a beautiful spotted calf only four days old.”

A distressing accident is thus chronicled:

 “A sad accident happened to the family of John Elderkin on Main
 street, yesterday. One of his children was run over by a market wagon
 three years old with sore eyes and pantalets on that never spoke
 afterwards.”

The next morning after lecturing at Jonesville, I saw this paragraph:

 “George Peck, an intemperate editor from Milwaukee fell over the
 gallery last night while Eli Perkins was lecturing in a beastly state
 of intoxication.

 “The coroner’s jury brought in a verdict that Mr. Peck came to his
 death by remaining too long in a cramped position while listening to
 Mr. Perkins’ lecture which produced apoplexy on the minds of the jury.”




CHARLES FOLLEN ADAMS.


Some years ago, a poem in broken German verse, overflowing with the
richest of humor, appeared in a Boston paper. It was entitled Leedle
Yawcob Strauss, and commanded general attention immediately upon its
publication. It was copied widely and was sent on its way across the
ocean, delighting hundreds on the other side of the Atlantic. The poem
ran thus:

  “I haf von funny leedle poy,
    Vot gomes schust to my knee;
  Der queerest schap, der createst roke
    As efer you did see;
  He runs, and schumps, und schmashes dings
    In all barts off der house--
  But vot off dot? He vas mine son,
    Mine leedle Yawcob Strauss.

  “He gets der measles und der mumbs,
    Und eferyding dot’s out;
  He sbills mine glass of lager pier,
    Poots schnuff into mine kraut;
  He fills mine pipe mit Limburg cheese--
    Dot vas der roughest chouse;
  I’d take dot vrom no oder poy
    But leedle Yawcob Strauss.

  “He dakes der milk ban for a dhrum,
    Und cuts mine cane in dwo,
  To make der shtick to beat it mit--
    Mine cracious, dot vas drue!
  I dinks mine head vas schplit about
    He kicks up such a touse?
  But nefer mind, der poys vas few
    Like dot young Yawcob Strauss.

  “He asks me questions sooch as dese:
    Who baints mine nose so red?
  Who vas it cuts dot schmoodt blace oudt
    Vrom the hair ubpon mine hed?
  Und vhere der plaze goes vrom der lamp
    Vene’er der glim I douse?
  How gan I all dese dings eggsplain
    To dot schmall Yawcob Strauss?

  “I somedimes dink I schall go vild
    Mit sooch a grazy poy,
  Und vish vonce more I gould haf rest
    Und beaceful dimes enshoy;
  But ven he vas ashleep in ped,
    So quiet as a mouse,
  I prays der Lord, ‘Dake anydings,
    But leaf dot Yawcob Strauss.’”

When in later years another poem, “Dot Leedle Loweeza,” a companion
piece to “Leedle Yawcob Strauss,” appeared, the fame of the author,
Charles Follen Adams, rose still higher. “Dot Leedle Loweeza” was
equally as good as its predecessor, and concluded as follows:

  “Vhen winter vas come, midst its coldt, shtormy veddher,
    Katrina und I musd sit in der house
  Und dalk of der bast, by der fireside togedder,
    Or blay mit dat taughter of our Yawcob Strauss.
  Oldt age, mit its wrinkles, pegins to remind us
    Ve gannot shtay long mit our children to dwell;
  Budt soon ve shall meet, mit der poys left behind us,
    Und dot shweet Loweeza, dot lofe us so well.”

There are many other poems that have been written by Mr. Adams in a
manner similar to his first two efforts, which have attracted general
attention. Charles Follen Adams does not follow the occupation of a
journalist or literary man, but is a well known merchant of Boston. He
is a genuine Yankee, and his parents come of good old Puritan stock.
From his mother’s side, he is a direct descendant from Hannah Dustan,
famous in the history of the Deerfield massacre. He is a man of middle
age and of small stature. A friend thus describes him: “He is a dapper
little gentleman, neat and natty in his _personnel_, just as though he
had stepped from a band box, a shrewd, sharp, yet kindly face, a keen,
but bright and laughing eye, which tells of a fine sense of humor, a
close shaven face, with the exception of a ‘bald browed mustache,’
which gives a manly tone to the well shaped mouth and rounded chin,
of medium and slender physique, he steps off with a nervy, springy
walk, and a sunny smile or a genial word for his many friends and
acquaintances as he passes them on the way.”

Mr. Adams lives happily with his family at No. 36 Rutland square,
where he spends his leisure moments in writing for the press. He
contributes regularly a column of bright, witty paragraphs in the
Cambridge Tribune, and occasionally writes for the Detroit Free Press,
and other publications. Once in a great while he drops into poetry for
the magazines.

A collection of his poems was published in book form by a Boston house,
a year or two ago, under the title of “Leedle Yawcob Strauss and Other
Poems.” The volume had an immense sale and is still very popular. Mr.
Adams is engaged in the mercantile business on Hanover street, and will
probably remain so connected with the business world for many years.

Mr. Adams does not confine his writings wholly to the German dialect.
In a recent number of The Century he contributes some verses which he
is pleased to call Prevalent Poetry.

  “A wandering tribe called the Sioux
  Wear moccasins, having no shioux.
      They are made of buckskin
      With the fleshy side in,
  Embroidered with beads of bright hyioux.

  “When out on the war path, the Sioux
  March single file--never by tioux--
      And by blazing the trees
      Can return at their ease
  And their way through the forest ne’er lioux.”

After two more verses in a similar strain, Mr. Adams concludes as
follows:

  “Now doesn’t this spelling look cyiouxrious?
  ’Tis enough to make anyone fyiouxrious!
      So a word to the wise!
      Pray our language revise
  With orthography not so injiouxrious.”




SEBA SMITH.


Before the close of the last century a famous humorist was born in the
town of Buckfield, in the State of Maine. Seba Smith was his name, yet
during his entire life few persons knew him by that title. Speaking of
him as “Majer Jack Downing,” however, instantly recalls him to mind,
and he at once becomes well known.

Seba Smith was born on the 19th day of September, 1792. As early as
1818 he graduated from Bowdoin College, and, a year or two later,
settled in Portland, where, in 1820, he became the editor of the
Eastern Argus. In 1830 he transferred his labors to the Portland
Courier, with which journal he was connected until 1837. It was during
this time that Mr. Smith wrote a series of letters for his paper. They
were of a political nature, and took well with the public. They became
so popular that in 1833 they were collected in a volume and published
in Boston, under the caption of Life and Letters of Majer Jack Downing.
The letters were humorous in the extreme, and being written on
prominent political subjects, they became widely popular.

In 1841, Smith issued, also through a Boston house, a poem of
considerable length, entitled Powhattan. The next year the friends of
Majer Jack Downing found him in New York city, where he became actively
engaged in literary work. His writings continued to be popular, and his
books were written in rapid succession. Away Down East, or Portraitures
of Yankee Life, appeared in 1843, and in 1846, a book entitled Dewdrops
of the Nineteenth Century was issued. This was followed by a work, New
Elements of Geometry, and other books of a serious nature.

In 1859, towards the close of the year, Mr. Smith issued another volume
of political humor, which he called My 30 Years Out of the Senate.
This book had a wide reputation, and attained an immense sale. The
“late unpleasantness” found Mr. Smith hard at work, although now an
old man. In 1864, he issued a book entitled Majer Jack Downing of the
Downingville Militia. An English edition of the work now lies before
me. It was printed in Paternoster Row, London, and contains just thirty
chapters. On the title page is the following:

 “The constitution is a dimmycratic machine, and its got to run as a
 dimmycratic machine, or it _won’t run at all_!”

MAJER JACK DOWNING TO LINCOLN.

One of the richest things in the book is “A. Linkin’s Proclamashin
Concerning Majer Jack Downing’s Book.” This excellent “take-off” on a
President’s proclamation is dated Washington, July 15, 1864, and is as
follows:

 “Whereas, my friend, Majer Jack Downing, of the Downingville millisha,
 has issued a Book of Letters, containing his views on public affairs,
 the war, etc., etc.

 “Now, therefore, I do hereby issue this, my Proclamashin, enjoyning
 upon every loyal, as well as disloyal, citizen, includin’ loyal
 Leegers, Abolitionists, Republikans, War Dimmycrats, Copperheads,
 Clay Banks, Charcoals, &c., to buy this book and to read the same,
 under penalty of the confiscation of all their property, includin’
 niggers of every descripshin. Furthermore, all officers under me,
 whether civil, military, or otherwise, are hereby ordered, under
 penalty of court marshal, to purchase the said book and read it.
 This order applies to all Postmasters and their Clerks (who are
 also ordered to assist in the sale of the book), to all Custom
 House officials, Provo-Marshalls, to all Tax Collectors, Assessors,
 Recruteing Officers, Runners, Brokers, Bounty Jumpers, and espeshully
 to all Government Swindlers, Contractors, Defaulters, &c., to all
 Furrin Ambassadors, Ministers, Penitentiaries, male and female, &c.
 &c. Further more, Generals Grant, Sherman and all other Generals,
 including Ginneral Banks, will see to it that the Majer’s letters are
 widely circulated in the armies, as the menny good stories of mine,
 as well as of the Majer’s, in the book, will keep the sojers in good
 sperits.

 “Further more, if eny disloyal editer shall presume to say enything
 against this book, or advise eny person not to sell or circulate the
 same, or aid or abet them in so doing, he shall at once be arrested
 and his paper stopped.

 “Further, if any person, in order to avoid the penalties mentioned
 above, shall borrow said book, he shall, if it be proved, be fined
 $1000 in gold. If there be no proof, he shall be sent to Fort
 Lafayette.

 “Finally every person perchasing a copy of the Majer’s Letter shall be
 exempt from the draft. All others are at once to be seized and sent to
 the front.

 “Done, in this, my city of Washington, in the fourth year of my reign.

 A. LINKIN.”

The thirty letters following are all dated Washington and give a
humorous account of matters political at the National capital at that
time.

Miss Elizabeth Oakes, a well known writer, was married to Mr. Smith
when she was sixteen years of age. She was born in Cumberland, Maine,
in 1831, and was a noted novelist for upwards of twenty years. She has
published in all something like fifteen different works. She issued, in
1851, a volume, Woman and Her Needs, which became quite popular.

Mr. Smith retired to private life at the close of the war, and died on
the 29th of July, 1868, at his homestead in Patchogue, Rhode Island.
His wife survived him and was living in North Carolina several years
ago. She gave up writing ten years since.




WILL W. CLARK.


Natives of western Pennsylvania are familiar with two very
characteristic names, “Frisbee” and “Gilhooley.” A short, stout, rather
good looking young man of twenty-eight or more is the father of both
cognomens, and every grown up resident in smoky Pittsburgh will tell
you who he is. Will W. Clark, the paragrapher of the Pittsburgh Leader,
does not enjoy a national reputation, although he deserves it. His
character sketches signed “Frisbee” and “Gilhooley” are choice tidbits
of humor, while his “All Sorts” column in the Evening Leader is rarely
dry or out of humor.

Clark was born in Pittsburgh, and will probably die there. He is
married and is the happy parent of three children. Although but six
years in the journalistic harness, Will is already an old hand at
the business and is an accomplished reporter. He is a hard-working
journalist, who looks ahead for bread and butter rather than for fame.

His humor is peculiar, and I can give no better example of it than a
life of himself, written by himself, for himself. It is as follows:

 “MY DEAR CLEMENS:

 “My biography is not a particularly interesting chapter, and is in
 fact the romance of a poor young man. Still I think I am a humorist.
 Away down in the innermost recesses of my system I feel I am a
 humorist, but by some unfortunate combination of circumstances the
 public has never tumbled to the fact, with the proper precision and
 accuracy; the public wouldn’t tumble if a marble front would fall on
 it. That is probably the reason I am on the ragged edge of genteel
 poverty at the present time instead of rolling in luxury.

 “I was born in the classic precincts of Hardscrabble, of poor and
 presumably honest parents. I took a fancy to literature from my
 mother, who was a Scotch-Irish woman, a great reader, and knew Burns
 by heart.

 “The old man was an Englishman with a bald head and side whiskers, and
 had a faculty of accumulating money, a faculty, I regret to say, which
 is not hereditary in our family. He used to remark, with some of that
 fine humor which I possess to such an intense degree, that he came
 from Derbyshire, ‘where they were strong in the arm and weak in the
 head.’

 “The most striking evidence of weakness on his part was his presenting
 me with a watch, in consideration of which I was not to enter the
 army.

 On this occasion I became apprised, for the first time, that I was
 a humorist, as I had no notion of going to the front. I think it is
 much better to be a miserable poltroon during a war than a one-legged
 organ-grinder after it.

 “It is singular that as a boy I was a good deal like other boys. At
 school I was the teacher’s pet. She liked me because I was pretty,
 and she noticed that budding genius which has developed so grandly
 since, but of which the public has failed to take proper cognizance.
 When I had reached decimals in arithmetic and could declaim ‘Rolla’s
 Address to the Peruvians,’ the old man considered that my education
 was complete, and put me to work.

 “He was a rough carpenter, and I became a rough carpenter. I think I
 was the roughest carpenter in the United States. I built a shed once
 that was constructed in a manner so diametrically opposite to all the
 rules of carpentry, that it caved in three days after its completion
 and killed two coal heavers. On another occasion my employer noticed
 that I put a lock on upside down and hung a door the wrong way. He
 kindly but firmly suggested that I should quit. After revolving the
 question in my own mind I did quit; I thought the employer would be
 angry if I didn’t.

 “When my father died he left me some money and I was pretty well
 fixed, but in a moment of abberation of mind I yielded to the advice
 of some of my friends and joined a building and loan association. That
 settled it; in a short time the association gobbled my property and
 was loaning my money to some one else. If I had a hundred sons I would
 advise them all to be solicitors for or presidents of building and
 loan associations. There’s money in it.

 “After that I made the most gigantic mistake of my life. I got a job
 on a newspaper as a reporter, and, after stoving my legs up running
 a route, I bloomed out as a humorist writer. As I said before, the
 people don’t know I’m a humorist, but that is due to their lack of
 appreciation, and is no fault of mine. I have written some of the most
 exquisitely all-but funny things I ever saw, and I am now engaged
 on a series of important jokes for an almanac. I have a wife, three
 children, and an occasional dose of dyspepsia.

 “I do not intend to retire from business for some time. The newspaper
 business is easy, and especially easy is the task of running the funny
 end of it. A fellow has merely to be funny when he feels sad, and to
 grind out humorous items every day in the year. Then the salary of
 newspaper men is so enormous that college graduates would rather take
 a situation on a newspaper than get a job driving a street car. I am
 still grinding out mental pabulum for the public, and still waiting
 for some appreciative newspaper publisher to offer me a situation at
 $5,000 per annum.

 W. W. CLARK.”




IRWIN RUSSELL.


The night before Christmas, 1879, witnessed the death of one of the
brightest young humorists the United States has ever called her own.
Of bright intellect and finished education, Irwin Russell was rapidly
winning a name in American literature, when taken ill, as the result of
overwork; he lingered a few days, and died Christmas Eve.

Little is known of the early days of Irwin Russell. He was born in Fort
Gibson, and at an early age was left an orphan, relying on his own
exertions for a livelihood. He studied law and began the practice of it
in his native city, but, becoming enamored with the life of a Bohemian,
he started for New Orleans in search of fame and fortune. He obtained
employment at local writing in various newspaper offices, and finally
found regular employment in the editorial rooms of the New Orleans
Times. Then he left the South and turned up in New York city, where
he struggled with fate for a time. His existence was a battle with
necessity from the first. It seemed that he was born unlucky. Although
his prospects were always fine, he never lived to establish himself
permanently anywhere. Few men ever received so many buffets from the
hand of fate.

Alone and friendless in New York, young and ambitious, yet weak and
moneyless, success and he were strangers. The health of the poor boy
failed him, and he would have died had he remained in New York. He
shipped on board of a steamer bound for the gulf, and worked his way
home--not home, for he had none, but to New Orleans, where he had, at
least, a few friends among the journalists of that city. He returned
to work upon the Times, and published some of the daintiest bits of
dialect humor ever given to the public.

By a strange coincidence his last published lines were written upon
the subject of his own grave. They appeared in the New Orleans Times,
December 14th, just ten days before the author gave up the struggle
with fate and died.


THE CEMETERY.

  “I stand within this solemn place,
    And think of days gone by--
  I think of many an old-time face,
    Here’s where those faces lie,

  “I think of when, what time God please,
    The hour shall came to me,
  That covered with the clay, like these,
    My face shall masked be.

  “No marble monument shall rise
    Above that grave of mine--
  No loving friends will wipe their eyes
    When life I shall resign.

  “But when I leave my life--have left
    My every present care--
  I’ll find a home of care bereft;
    My friends are living there.

The New Orleans Times, in speaking of Irwin Russell, after his death,
said of him: “He was employed occasionally on this paper, and while so,
wrote many a pretty little poem, and many a little catch which reveal
an inner life, which hard lines hid from the view of the world. His
fund of humor showed itself best in dialect writing, and some things he
has written have already found permanent resting places in the compiled
editions of American humorous verse.”

For several years Irwin Russell was an interesting and valued
contributor to Scribner’s Monthly, and some of his poems have appeared
since his death, in The Century. The productions were mostly of the
negro dialect order, and occasionally they consisted of Irish sketches
in verse. About the last thing published was an Irish dialect poem,
entitled Larry’s on the Force, which appeared in The Century. The poem
tells in the fourth verse of Larry’s appearance as a policeman:

  “He shtips that proud and shtately-loike, you’d think he owned the
                                                                town,
  And houlds his shtick convenient to be tappin’ some wan down--
  Aich blissed day, I watch to see him comin’ up the sthrate,
  For by the greatest bit of luck, our house is on his bate.”

Russell’s crowning effort was a piece of dialect verse entitled The
First Banjo. It appeared in Scribner’s, and is worthy of reprint here:


THE FIRST BANJO.

  Go ’way fiddle!--folks is tired o’ hearin’ you a-squawkin’.
  Keep silence fur yo’ betters--don’t you heah de banjo talkin’?
  About de ’possum’s tail she’s gwine to lecter--ladies, listen!--
  About de ha’r what isn’t dar, an’ why de ha’r is missin’.

  “Dar’s gwine to be an oberflow,” said Noah, lookin’ solemn--
  For Noah tuk the Herald, an’ he read de ribber column--
  An’ so he sot his hands to work a-cl’arin’ timber-patches,
  An’ ’lowed he’s gwine to build a boat to beat de steamah “Natchez.”

  Ol’ Noah kep’ a-nailin’, an’ a-chippin’, an’ a-sawin’;
  An’ all de wicked neighboirs kep’ a-laughin’ an’ a-pshawin’;
  But Noah didn’t min’ ’em--knowin’ what wuz gwine to happen;
  An’ forty days and forty nights de rain it kept a-drappin’.

  Now, Noah had done cotched a lot ob ebery sort o’ beas’es--
  Ob all de shows a-trabbelin’ it beat ’em all to pieces!
  He had a Morgan colt, an’ sebral head o’ Jarsey cattle--
  An’ drew ’em ’board de ark as soon’s he heared de thunder rattle.

  Den sech anoder fall ob rain!--it come so awful hebby
  De ribber riz immegitly, an’ bursted troo de lebbee;
  De people all wuz drownded out--’cept Noah an’ de critters,
  An’ men he’d hired to work de boat--an’ one to mix de bitters.

  De ark she kep’ a-sailin’, an’ a-sailin’, an’ a-sailin’;
  De lion got his dander up, an’ like to bruk de palin’--
  De sarpints hissed--de painters yelled--tell--what wid all de fussin’,
  You c’u’d’n’t hardly heah de mate a-bossin’ roun’ an’ cussin’.

  Now, Ham, de only niggar what wuz runnin’ on de packet,
  Got lonesome in de barber-shop, and c’u’dn’t stan’ de racket;
  An’ so, for to amuse he-self, he steamed some wood an’ bent it,
  An’ soon he had a banjo made--de fust dat wuz invented.

  He wet de ledder, stretched it on; made bridge, an’ screws, an’ apron;
  An’ fitted in a proper neck--’twas bery long and tap’rin’;
  He tuk some tin and twisted him a thimble for to ring it;
  An’ den de mighty question riz: how wuz he gwine to string it?

  De ’possum had as fine a tail as dis dat I’s a singin’;
  De ha’r’s so long, an’ thick, an’ strong--jes’ fit for banjo
                                                             stringin’--
  Dat niggar shaved ’em off as short as washday dinner graces;
  An’ sorted ob ’em by de size, from little E’s to basses.

  He strung her, tuned her, struck a jig--’twas Nebber Min’ de Wedder--
  She soun’ like forty-lebben bands a-playin’ all togedder;
  Some went to pattin’, some to dancin’; Noah called de figgers--
  An’ Ham he sot an’ knocked de tune, de happiest ob niggars!

  Now, sence dat time--it’s mighty strange--dere’s not de slightest
                                                                showin’.
  Ob any ha’r upon de cunnin’ ’possum’s tail a-growin’;
  An’ curi’s too--dat nigger’s ways; his people nebber los’ ’em--
  For, whar you finds de niggar, dar’s de banjo an’ de possum!




JOHN H. WILLIAMS.


Mr. J. H. Williams, better known as “the Norristown Herald man,” is one
of the few successful latter-day humorists. He was born in Montgomery
county, Pennsylvania, and after a few years of common school education,
he located in Norristown, a lively town of the Keystone State, serving
an apprenticeship as a printer’s devil. In 1860 he began writing for
the New York Mercury over the signature of “B. Dadd.” About this time
he also produced a series of letters signed “A. Ward, Jr.,” which,
by the way, were excellent imitations, and were widely copied, some
papers dropping the Jr. and crediting them to Artemus Ward himself. For
several years Williams resided in Wilmington, Delaware, but in 1871 he
returned to Norristown and became attached to the Herald. Williams is
considered one of the most rollicking writers on the American press.
He is still a young man and has been married for several years. He
forbade my writing a biography for him and begged of me to allow him
to compose his own “obituary,” as he is pleased to call it. Here is
what he wrote:

“MY DEAR MR. CLEMENS:

 “A man’s biography auto always be written by himself. A disinterested
 party is liable to omit some of the facts. A personal history should
 above all things be truthful--devoid of fulsomeness, and embrace all
 the important events of its subject’s life, good or bad. Too many
 biographers lie like a patent medicine advertisement. This is to be
 regretted.

 “My memory is too treacherous to write my own life anyhow. I have been
 informed that I was present on the occasion of my birth, but I haven’t
 the slightest recollection of it--as some one has previously remarked.

 “I am older--am uglier--than I was two score years ago.

 “_Then_, young ladies would chuck me under the chin and gushingly
 exclaim: “B’ess its purty ’ittle heart.”

 “_Now_--they don’t.

 “And I am rather glad of it, for the aforesaid young ladies must
 be nearly sixty years old now, and some of them wear glasses and
 decayed teeth. If I had time, dear reader, I could tell you how, in
 1492, under the _nom de plume_ of Christopher Columbus, I discovered
 America. This is a fact not generally known. Sometimes it seems like
 a wild, weird dream. You may have read something about the discovery.
 It was considered important at the time; but more than one person, no
 doubt, upon looking around and seeing the distressing amount of misery
 in America, and observing how bogus mining companies, policy shops,
 rowing matches, political corruption and other frauds flourish like a
 green baize, will regret that I ever discovered it.

 “I have one wife.

 “I could, if my other duties permitted, describe how, in 1773, I
 surrounded thirty-two wild Indians, and after a hand-to-hand conflict
 lasting seven hours, I killed twenty-four of the redskins, wounded
 sixteen, and took eleven prisoners. The remainder fled. Aside from
 being pierced by twenty-one arrows, I escaped without a scratch.

 “And yet I was never made the hero of a dime novel! Probably because I
 didn’t wear long hair and a soft hat as big around as a cart wheel.

 “I am not addicted to bicycle riding--and therefore still retain the
 respect of my neighbors.

 “If it was not my hour to go out and see a man, it would afford me
 great pleasure to allude to the day that I landed at Plymouth Rock,
 with a lot of pilgrims, without any “rocks” in my pocket. I shall
 never do it again.

 “I never wrote a comic opera.

 “This assertion, if made public, would be received with an air--or
 rather a tornado of incredulity. It would be accepted as a wild,
 reckless piece of exaggeration. And yet it is a positive fact.

 “I shall not refer to the time I fell at Bunker Hill--caused by
 stepping on a banana skin,--nor mention the fact that I once struck
 a gentleman called Billy Patterson. I forgot the date of the latter
 event; but I desire to say in extenuation that Mr. Patterson struck
 me first. And yet he had the facial prominence to sue me for assault
 and battery. However, the grand jury ignored the bill, and saddled the
 cost upon the plaintiff.

 “I have never--never, understand, without any ‘hardly’ qualification
 about it--lectured.

 “My wife has, to an audience of one.

 “I don’t suppose it would interest the general public to know that,
 about sixty years ago, while at breakfast, I was blown up with
 dynamite, by a party of enraged subscribers of our paper. Their
 provocation was great, but I think they were a little too impetuous,
 as it were. In an unguarded moment, I printed the alleged pun, ‘What
 did the corn-brake?’ and thousands of our subscribers nearly lost
 their reason trying to discover the joke, which they naturally thought
 must lurk therein. About fifty of them arose in their might,--and
 dynamite,--and elevated things. I lost two arms and two legs. But this
 was not the worst. A religious weekly chromo was irreparably ruined.
 Perhaps I should explain that the arms and legs belonged to a chair
 and a table, respectively.

 “This little incident effectually cured me of punning in print. I have
 not made a joke since.

 “I invented the ‘fifteen puzzle,’ but I would rather not have this
 piece of imprudence made known until I get my life heavily insured.

 “Since 1850 I have killed my grandmother, burned an orphan asylum,
 embezzled fifty thousand dollars, and committed arson. These facts
 came out soon after I was nominated for a political office. They
 came out in an opposition paper. They always do; and the only way to
 prevent their appearance is to buy the paper--or its editor.

 “I have never been in jail or in Congress--though there may be worse
 people in both pla--. But, as I remarked at the outset, I am compelled
 to forego the pleasure of sending you a biographical sketch. I suppose
 my esteemed friend, Eli Perkins, would write one for me for a mere
 pittance, but I would rather journey through life without a biography
 to my back, than to have one that does not breathe the spirit of
 truth, in every line--truth that is neither warped nor bent--sweet,
 pure, undefiled truth that will wash.

 “Yours, etc.,

 J. H. WILLIAMS.”




JAMES M. BAILEY.


Albany, New York, claims Mr. James M. Bailey, of the Danbury News,
as her offspring. The boyhood days of the Danbury News man were
characterized by nothing unusual or exciting. At an early age he left
school and sought a situation in a grocery store. As a grocer, James
proved an utter failure, and without hesitation left his newly found
occupation, and soon after took to the law, building air castles of a
great and glorious future.

Not satisfied, however, with the fullness of his money coffers, Bailey
deserted the law to seek a more profitable business. He gave up all
professional desires and turned mechanic, serving two long years
as a carpenter. But in 1862 the war of the Rebellion again changed
his occupation, and Bailey, with all the patriotism of an American
youth, enlisted as a private in the Seventh regiment of Connecticut
volunteers. For three years he fought with a desperation only equalled
by his desperate attempts at producing puns, in after years.

In the early part of 1866 Bailey, in company with T. Donovan, purchased
the Danbury (Connecticut) Times. In 1870 the firm purchased the only
opposition paper in the town, and named the result of the combination
the Danbury News. In 1873 Bailey made a trip to California, and in
April of the next year went to Europe, where he remained until 1875.
During these travels he wrote constantly for his paper, and by so doing
acquired the title of “the Danbury News Man.”

In 1873 Bailey issued, through the Boston house of Lee & Shepard,
his first volume of humorous sketches, under the caption of Life
in Danbury. The book had a tremendous sale for several years, and
fully fifty thousand copies were sold. In the fall of the same year
he produced an almanac, the first and last work of the kind he ever
published.

As a lecturer Bailey has never been a great success. Perhaps if he
had entered the lecture field in 1874, at which time he was far more
popular than at any time during his life, he would have realized a
small fortune from his lectures. But as a speaker he never made the
name he has acquired through his writings. In 1877, They all Do It was
issued and so well was the volume received that the Danbury News Man’s
name again became a household word. Another work which appeared in
1879, also became quite popular. It was entitled Mr. Phillips’ Goneness.

Bailey’s first humorous paragraph appeared in the News in 1872, and,
by January of the next year, his productions were being published in
almost every paper in the country. About this time a special edition
of the News was issued for general circulation throughout the country.
It took exceedingly well for several years, but was discontinued about
two years ago. Bailey has acquired his fame and fortune through his own
endeavors and struggles in the world. He is a self-made man in every
respect. He is quite prepossessing in his personal appearance, his
manner is dignified and pleasing, his demeanor modest and unassuming,
and his countenance honest and frank. In his face there is nothing to
note his humor, save the merry, bright, and unmistakable twinkle of the
eye.

Some time ago an entertainment was given in New York, in honor of
Robert J. Burdette, of the Burlington Hawkeye. To W. A. Croffut, who
gave the entertainment, the Danbury News Man wrote the following letter
of request:

 “MY DEAR CROFFUT:--Your invitation received, and I thank you heartily
 for it, while I regret that I am unable to accept it. Age and the
 cares of life (I have two of the puzzles) are giving me away, and
 prevent me from taking a journey to your city. Besides we are getting
 ready to move, and my wife feels that much of the symmetry of the
 performance would be lost, if I were not here to permeate it with
 my presence. One of our carpets is so worn that it could hardly be
 trusted in the hands of a stranger, and it will be necessary for me
 to shake it in person. This I cannot very well avoid, or I would.
 Confidentially, my desire to be here is to prevent the removal to the
 new house of about two tons of old rubbish that no one but a woman
 would think of carting around. You are married and will understand me.
 Give my regards to the guest of the evening, and tell him that I hope
 to have the pleasure some time of taking him by the hand.

 “Yours sincerely,

 J. M. BAILEY.”




CHARLES H. SMITH.


Charles H. Smith (Bill Arp) is one of the oldest of living humorists.
Under the _nom de plume_ of Bill Arp he has given the world some
very rich things in the way of humor, and the columns of the Atlanta
(Georgia) Constitution, have, during the past few years, teemed with
his witty, sparkling letters. Bill Arp is known all over the South,
and in many of the Gulf States his reputation is equal to that of Mark
Twain.

Mr. Smith lives in a retired manner at his country-seat near
Cartersville, Georgia. From this rural retreat, he writes me of his
life as follows:

 “Speaking as though I was another fellow, let me say that--Major
 Charles H. Smith was born in Lawrenceville, Georgia, June 15,
 1826--that is to say, the ‘major’ part was not born then, though
 I suppose he was born all at once, but the title, the prefix, the
 dignity I mean, wasn’t born to him until June, 1861, when he was
 knighted by Jeff Davis, and assigned to the staff of Colonel Barton,
 with aspirations more sanguine than sanguinary. The Major used to be
 a ‘peace colonel,’ but was reduced to a war major, for you must know
 that these peace colonels abounded in the land. There was no harm
 in them, and the title signified only a patriotic devotion to the
 political fortunes of the governor--that is, the commander in chief.

 “You must know, if you do not, that Georgia boasted of an army and
 navy in the good old times. The navy was altogether imaginary,
 picturesque, esthetic, and did not muster nor parade; but the army was
 a fact, and was mobilized twice a year, not in corpses, or cores, or
 whatever you call them, but in brigades and regiments, in each county,
 and as the commander in chief could not be in every county at the same
 time to review his ‘meelish,’ he had to attend by proxy, therefore
 he appointed a proxy in every county, with the rank of colonel. This
 honor when conferred was intended as a kind of mucilage that cemented
 the donee to the donor, and the donee was expected to cry ‘encore’ if
 the donor wanted to be re-elected to the gubernatorial chair. Parties
 were pretty equally balanced in Georgia, and every time we had a new
 governor we had a new set of colonels, say an hundred or more, on
 the average, every two or four years. This is how we boasted of so
 many peace colonels, for when a man once got the title he kept it,
 no matter if he didn’t keep the office. All this is to explain how
 Major Smith came to be a colonel under Governor Howell Cobb, and was
 afterwards reduced to his present rank. He says he really prefers
 the minor title to the major, for it is based on a war footing, and
 besides, the ladies have a way of saying ‘major’ with a softer and
 sweeter inflection than they used to say colonel.

 “The Major was born and bred as usual, but his singular parentage is
 to be made a note of. His father was a Massachusetts man, and his
 mother a native of Charleston. This combination was happy enough in
 itself, but developed in the ‘boy’ a disposition to fits of passion,
 on which occasions he used to bite himself and bump his head against
 the door, but his good mother always said he couldn’t help it, for it
 was South Carolina fighting Massachusetts.

 “The Major’s father was a merchant, and as the boy grew up he trained
 him to trade and traffic behind the counter. Later in life he sent
 him to a manual labor institute, where the boys were expected to
 pay for their board by working in the field three hours every day.
 Presumptuous expectation! It generally took the boys about three hours
 to find their tools and get ready for work. Link pins were stolen, and
 by the time the wagon reached the field the wheel came off. When the
 overseer was watching one squad another slipped off to the creek to
 go in bathing, and so in due time the school collapsed. The ‘boy’ was
 next initiated into the mysteries of riding the mail to a neighboring
 village. This was not considered a very elegant or aristocratic
 occupation. The steed was a kind of equine dromedary, and jogged along
 at his leisure without regard to whip or spur. The monotony of this
 employment became very monotonous to the boy, and gave him abundant
 leisure for mental exercise.

 “There is nothing romantic or thrilling about riding an old-fashioned
 mail--nothing like the long express across the plains that Mark
 Twain has so bewitchingly described in Roughing It; no fleet-footed
 mustang, no ’ostler standing with another ready at the station, no
 running against time, no passing returning post-boys with a smile and
 a salute, no nothing but an occasional old woman coming to the fence
 with a pair of socks she wanted to send to town to exchange for indigo
 or copperas, and as she looked over her spectacles inquired ‘Are you
 the mail boy?’ The youth sometimes looked smilingly at her as he
 replied: ‘Why--yes--mam, you didn’t think I was a female boy, did you?’

 “In due time the boy graduated at this business, and his father sent
 him to college. He had as good a time there as is usual. He made many
 pleasant acquaintances, some lasting friendships, and a love or two,
 and at the close of his career married a daughter of Judge Hutchins.
 He next studied law with the judge, and after his admission to the
 bar, removed to Rome, Georgia, and founded a partnership with Judge
 Underwood, a gentleman noted for his ability, both as a judge and
 a statesman. This partnership was pleasant and profitable. It was
 obliged to be profitable as a matter of necessity, for it continued
 until there were a score of children in the two families, and paternal
 ancestors knew but little of economy, or its prudence of laying up
 money for a rainy day.

 “Prior to the war Major Smith had frequently indulged his inclinations
 for humorous and critical observations on men and measures, but it
 was not until the spring of 1861 that his peculiar genius found a
 field rich enough to harvest in. The famous proclamation of President
 Lincoln, ordering the people of the rebellious South to ‘cease their
 turbulent demonstrations and to disband their military companies, and
 disperse and retire to their homes, within thirty days, under penalty
 of being arrested and tried for treason,’ seemed very ludicrous and
 absurd to the hot bloods of the South, who really felt like they
 could whip all the world and the rest of mankind, and so the Major
 burlesqued it in his way as though he was an unlettered countryman who
 wanted to disperse but couldn’t. He said he ‘had done his darndest to
 disperse, but the boys were so hot that when you throwed water on ’em
 they sizzed, and that was the way they was making up their companies.’
 If a boy ‘sizzed’ they took him, and if he didn’t, they didn’t, and he
 respectfully asked ‘Mr. Linkhorn’ for a little more time.

 “The Major read his manuscript to two or three friends in his office,
 and at the conclusion noticed that the original Bill Arp stood at the
 door a listener.

 “Bill’s merry eyes seemed to enjoy it, and he came forward with a
 query, ‘Colonel,’ said he, ‘are you gwine to print that?’

 “‘I think I will, Bill,’ said he.

 “‘What name are you gwine to put to it?’ said Bill.

 “‘I don’t know, Bill,’ said he.

 “‘Well, put mine, by golly; for them’s my sentiments,’ said Bill, and
 so Bill Arp’s name was put to please him, and it was thus that the
 _nom de plume_ was acquired. This same Bill Arp kept a ferry near
 Rome, and was so fond of hearing lawyers talk that he would slip off
 from his ferry during court week and stay all day in the court house,
 or he would frequent their office just to get into good company. He
 was wholly unlettered, could neither read nor write, but had a good
 mother wit of his own, and was never considered an interloper by any
 sociable crowd. He was wont to say that every poor man ought to be
 tackled on to a rich one; that he belonged to Colonel Johnston, and
 didn’t want a better master. He was asked one day who he was going to
 vote for, and says he: ‘I don’t know, till I see Colonel Johnston, and
 he won’t know, till he see Judge Underwood, and the Judge won’t know
 till he hears from Alexander Stephens, but who in the dickens tells
 Alec Stephens, I’ll be dogged if I know.’

 “Bill Arp joined the army with the Major, in the same command, on June
 8, 1861. Bill lost two sons in the conflict, but got through safe
 himself, and lived until 1878. Peace to his ashes.

 “In 1866 Major Smith was unanimously chosen to represent his district
 as State Senator, and was made chairman of the financial committee.
 This is the only official dignity he has borne, and this was wholly
 unsought. In 1877 he retired from his profession to the more peaceful
 and congenial pursuit of tilling the soil, and seems extremely
 happy in his communion with nature and the quiet seclusion of his
 family from the follies and cares of society life. He has ten living
 children, and has a lot of grandchildren coming on, whose greatest
 delight is to go to grandpa’s and play in the branch and catch
 minnows, ride the colts, and hunt hens’ nests, and fish all the day
 long. The Major says a grandparent has no business living in town,
 on a half-acre lot, for it is no pleasure to the grandchildren to
 visit him and grandma in a pent up Utica or a Rome either. They want
 latitude and longitude, so let grandparents move into the country,
 where the little chaps can come and go, and spread out and ‘holler,’
 and be happy. Solomon says that children’s children are the glory of a
 man, and there is nothing better to work for than glory.”

 In a recent letter to the author of this volume Major Smith tells a
 funny story in his own peculiar style. He says:

 “Speaking of children, reminds me of Dr. Johnston, and so I must tell
 you that I spent a few days last winter with General Loring, who was
 born and bred a soldier. He was in the cavalry service in the far West
 with Fremont and Carson all his youth, next in the confederate army
 as a major-general, and next as chief of the Khedive’s army in Egypt.
 He returned laden with glory and honors, and fine clothes. He had his
 servant man to dress in the Khedive’s jeweled suit for my inspection.
 He showed me his portfolio of splendid engravings, and photographs of
 all the notable things in the old world. Every few pages we would
 come to the photo of a beautiful woman, and he would carelessly
 remark: ‘Only a lady friend of mine.’ The General is a bachelor of
 some sixty years, and I so much admired his conversation, I ventured
 to say that he ought to write a book of his travels and exploits,
 and reminded him what Dr. Johnston said to Boswell: ‘Every man owes
 something to posterity, a debt that he can and ought to pay. He should
 do one or more of three things. Plant a tree, the shade of which, or
 the fruit of which would pleasure him, or write a book, the sentiments
 of which would benefit him, or--get a child that would be an honor to
 the human race.’

 “‘Now, General,’ said I, ‘Have you ever written a book?’

 “‘No,’ said he.

 “‘Have you ever planted a tree?’

 “‘Never,’ said he.

 “‘Have you ever begotten a child?’

 “‘None to speak of,’ said he.”




A. MINER GRISWOLD.


Alphonso Miner Griswold was born near Utica, Oneida county, New York,
January 26, 1834. His youth was spent in the usual way, and in 1856
he graduated at Hamilton college, with more or less honor. It was not
until November, 1857, that “Gris” entered the journalistic world by
accepting a position as reporter on the Buffalo Daily Times, then owned
and edited by the late Henry W. Faxen. When the Times was merged into
the Republic, Griswold transferred his talents to the latter sheet.

In May, 1858, Griswold began writing under the _nom de plume_ of “The
Fat Contributor.” His humor was racy and original, and he was classed
among the leading fun makers of the day. He went to Detroit in the
autumn of 1858, and accepted a position on the Advertiser. A year later
he removed his talents to Cleveland, where he labored in the office
of the Plain Dealer, published by Hon. W. W. Armstrong. He succeeded
Artemus Ward as assistant editor, and during the early part of the war
he wrote many patriotic and ringing editorials. After a brief season on
the Cleveland Leader, “Gris” removed to Cincinnati, and in 1863 became
a member of the staff of the Evening Times, which position he continued
to hold for nearly ten years.

In the latter part of 1872, in company with others, he began the
publication of the Cincinnati Saturday Night, a journal which now
enjoys a prosperous existence. He became the sole proprietor of the
paper in 1874, and was for some years assisted in his labors by his
wife, a lady of numerous scholarly attainments.

Griswold resides in a quiet, out-of-the-way street, just off the
busy thoroughfares of the Queen City of the West, and lives in a
retired, happy manner. During later years he has occasionally made a
lecture tour, delivering his famous lecture, Injun Meal, and others to
delighted audiences.

Artemus Ward and Griswold were the best of friends, and the “Fat
Contributor” tells many anecdotes of his experience in the world
alongside of Browne. Speaking of Artemus Ward, in a humorous way,
Griswold once said in a humorous article:

 “When, in 1863, Ward conceived the idea of making a lecture tour
 through California--a great undertaking in those days--he offered
 me, to accompany him as agent, a salary that would cause the
 insignificant pay of a Cleveland local to blush with shame. Not
 knowing that lecturers, and especially humorists, have a way of
 engaging every man as agent who professes a desire to travel, I made
 all preparations to go, resigned my situation, and anxiously awaited
 my summons.

 As I waited, various articles were sold to pay expenses. I ate my
 stove I remember, and I think I drank up my bureau. At length, when
 nearly everything had gone, I believe that Ward had gone, too, taking
 another agent. I was naturally incensed, and resolved that there would
 be a severe settlement when next we met. I rehearsed the anticipated
 scene frequently, and resolved how I would go to work and annihilate
 him.

 “Our meeting was in New York in July, 1864. I had heard of his return
 from California, and prepared to empty the vials of wrath upon
 his head. We accidentally ran against each other on Broadway. My
 slumbering indignation flamed up at once. I thought of the cooking
 stove I had devoured, and the various articles of household furniture
 I drank up, and was about to go for him when Ward suddenly rushed
 forward, and, grasping me warmly by the hand, exclaimed:

 “‘Why, Gris., old boy, how are you? _When did you get back from
 California?_’

 “As I looked at him, speechless with amazement, he continued: ‘They
 told me you came home around the “horn,” but I never knew you to go
 around a horn yet--join me!’

 “Now Ward had a very persuasive way of locking his arm in with
 another’s, and in a momentary fit of weakness, I went along.

 “‘Ward!’ said I sternly, ‘I owe you a licking on account of the
 California agency business, but will put it off until we drink.’

 “‘Put it off as long as you want to,’ replied Ward, in a tone of
 generous accommodation, as though I was speaking about returning him a
 loan. ‘If you owe me a licking, pay me when you get ready. I am in no
 hurry. Don’t care if you never pay it.’

 “Numerous were the unavailing efforts that I made to bring Ward
 to a settlement. When I would commence: ‘Now, Artemus, how about
 that California business?’ he would interrupt--‘Oh, never mind
 that whipping. No hurry at all. Send it to me through the mail--or
 telegraph it. Let’s drink.’

 “I have got even with Browne, however, in a measure--I have _engaged_
 a number of agents myself.”




BILL NYE.


Away out in the wilds of Wyoming Territory, in the fast growing city of
Laramie, dwells one of the most noted funny men of to-day. Bill Nye is
a modest looking name, and at first sight looks like a _nom de plume_;
yet Bill Nye is the “only and original” of that name. He is a young
man, and has been in the journalistic profession only three or four
years. He began work on the Laramie City Boomerang, and is at present
the managing editor of that publication. The Boomerang is a newspaper
of metropolitan proportions, and issues both daily and weekly editions.

Bill Nye has, during the past two years, written a larger quantity
and a better quality of first-class, genuine humor, than any other
funny man in America. He is widely quoted, and has issued one book
entitled, Bill Nye and his Mule Boomerang. This volume was issued in
Chicago in 1881, and had a tremendous sale. Like others of his class,
Nye is modest, and prefers to relate to the awaiting world his own
misfortunes, in his own peculiar style. He writes as follows:

 “MY DEAR CLEMENS: I herein make a few brief statements, which you are
 at liberty to enlarge upon in such a way as to give my life that odor
 of holy calm and unblemished smirchlessness which will sound well in
 history.

 “I was born on the 25th day of August, A. D., 1850, somewhere in the
 State of Maine. I do not remember where. It was either along the
 Atlantic seaboard, or on the Kennebec river, and the exact spot has
 escaped my memory. As soon as I could walk I left Maine and came west,
 where I have been for about thirty years.

 “Looking over my whole eventful career, I see nothing to regret,
 except the fact that I was born in Maine. Probably the State of Maine
 regrets it as much as I do.”

 “My early childhood was spent in acquiring knowledge relative to the
 habits and movements of the bumble-bee and the water-melon.

 “There is nothing in particular, perhaps, to distinguish my youth from
 that of other eminent men. I did not study the Greek grammar by the
 light of a pine knot when I was a child. I did not think about it.
 Had I supposed that I would ever rise to the proud pinnacle of fame,
 I might have filled my system full of deceased languages, but as it
 was, I thought I was in luck to acquire sufficient education to last
 me from one meal to another.

 “I did not do any smart things as a child. It remained for later
 years to bring out the latent genius and digestive strength which I
 now possess. I did not graduate first in my class. I did not rise to
 distinction in two weeks. I did not dazzle the civilized world with
 my sterling ability. I just plugged along from day to day, and when I
 had an afternoon to myself it did not occur to me that I might read
 Horace, or Cicero, or the dictionary. I fooled away those priceless
 moments carrying water to the elephant, so that I could acquire
 information at the circus.

 “My journalistic career has been short, but full of interest. Though
 only covering a space of three or four years, it has been rich in
 amusement and gory personal encounter.

 “The West is well known as the home of fearless and deadly journalism.
 It brings out all there is in a man and throws him upon his own
 resources. It also throws him down stairs if he is not constantly on
 his guard.

 “I am an attorney by profession and a newspaper man by force of
 circumstances. I am married and have been for five years. I do not
 regret this step.

 “I am six feet high, of commanding appearance, and would be selected
 in any audience as a man who would not rob an overland train while
 there was anyone looking.

 “I am in robust health, with the exception of a corn, which I
 inherited from the old stock of Nyes, who first invaded the free lunch
 counters of Skouhegan, Maine.

 “To any one who is curious to investigate my career while in the West,
 I would say that I cheerfully refer them to any vigilance committee of
 this section.

 “If I can throw any more light on this delicate topic, or should the
 public care for a fuller diagnosis, I am always at your service.

 BILL NYE.

 “LARAMIE CITY, Wyoming, January 27, 1882.”

There is no doubt that during later years Bill Nye has been more
extensively copied than any other humorist of the day. Among the
hundreds of good things he has produced, I select a few of the most
touching and pathetic:


 THE ENGLISH JOKE.

 The average English joke has its peculiarities. A sort of mellow
 distance, a kind of chastened reluctance, a coy and timid, yet
 trusting, though evanescent intangibility which softly lingers in
 the troubled air, and lulls the tired senses to dreamy rest, like the
 subdued murmur of a hoarse jackass about nine miles up the gulch. He
 must be a hardened wretch indeed, who has not felt his bosom heave and
 the scalding tears steal down his furrowed cheek after he has read
 an English joke. There can be no hope for the man who has not been
 touched by the gentle, pleading, yet all potent, sadness embodied in
 the humorous paragraph of the true Englishman. One may fritter away
 his existence in chasing follies of our day and generation, and have
 naught to look back upon but a choice assortment of robust regrets,
 but if he will stop in his mad career to read an English pun, his
 attention will be called to the solemn thought that life is, after
 all, but a tearful journey to the tomb. Death and disaster on every
 hand may fail to turn the minds of a thoughtless world to serious
 matters, but when the London funny man grapples with a particularly
 skittish and evasive joke, with its weeping willow attachment, and
 hurls it at a giddy and reckless humanity, a prolonged wail of anguish
 goes up from broken hearts and a sombre pall hangs in the gladsome sky
 like a pair of soldier pants with only one suspender.


 MR. NYE EMBARRASSED.

 There was an entertainment at Laramie a few evenings ago, at which
 the guests appeared in such costumes as their taste suggested. The
 following will give some idea of the occasion:

 Mr. Nye wore a Prince Albert coat with tails caught back with red
 jeans, and home made sunflowers. He also wore a pair of velvet knee
 breeches, which, during the evening, in an unguarded moment, split up
 the side about nine feet. This, together with the fact that one of
 his long black stockings got caught on the top of a window cornice,
 tearing a small hole in it, letting out the saw-dust and baled hay
 with which he was made up, seemed to cast a gloom over the countenance
 of this particular guest. With one large voluptuous calf, and the
 other considerably attenuated, Mr. Nye seemed more or less embarrassed.




JOSEPH C. NEAL.


A series of humorous descriptive articles, known as Charcoal Sketches,
appeared in 1837 in a Philadelphia newspaper. They became famous, and
for years their author was noted as a leading American humorist. Joseph
C. Neal, the author of the Charcoal Sketches, was born on the third
day of February, 1807, in the town of Greenland, New Hampshire. His
father had for many years been the principal of a popular academy in
Philadelphia, but his health failing him, he was compelled to retire to
a country residence at Greenland, where, along with his other duties,
he officiated as pastor in the Congregational church of the village.

When the subject of this sketch was two years old his father died,
and the family soon after removed to Philadelphia, and thence to
Pottsville, in the same State. Mr. Neal resided here until 1831, when
he settled in Philadelphia, and assumed the duties of editor of the
Pennsylvanian, a journal which became very popular, and conspicuous for
its influence on the political character of the State. It was in the
office of this journal that the elder James Gordon Bennett passed a
portion of his early years in journalism.

For nearly ten years Mr. Neal devoted his talents to the Pennsylvanian,
but at length his health failed him, and in 1841 he went abroad,
traveling in Europe and Africa for nearly two years. In 1844 he retired
from the editorial chair of the Pennsylvanian, and established in the
autumn of the same year a weekly literary miscellany, under the title
of Neal’s Saturday Gazette. Neal’s reputation as a writer secured for
the Gazette an immediate and continued success.

Joseph C. Neal’s humorous sketches of that character for which he
afterwards became distinguished, first appeared in the Pennsylvanian
under the title of “City Worthies.” These sketches were reprinted
and praised in hundreds of American newspapers. In 1837 he published
Charcoal Sketches, or Scenes in a Metropolis. In these sketches he
drew from life a class of characters peculiar to the lower classes and
disreputable haunts in large cities. The appearance of the sketches
in book form was hailed with delight, and several large editions were
readily disposed of. The work was also republished in London under the
auspices of Charles Dickens, who took a great interest in the American
humorist and his works.

In 1844 Mr. Neal issued his second book, Peter Ploddy and Other
Oddities, and soon after, another and newer series of Charcoal
Sketches. Both of these books commanded a large and ready sale. Neal
continued to edit the Saturday Gazette until July 3, 1848, when he
died very suddenly at his home in Philadelphia, of a complication of
diseases. His widow published a second and revised edition of his works
some years after his death.

Soon after his death, R. W. Griswold, in his Prose Writers of America,
said of Mr. Neal: “He writes as if he had little or no sympathy
with his creations, and as if he were a calm spectator of acts and
actors, whimsical or comical,--an observer rather by accident than
from desire.... His style is compact and pointed, abounding in droll
combinations and peculiar phrases, which have the ease and naturalness
of transcripts of real conversations. He had too much good nature to be
caustic, and too much refinement to be coarse. In some of his sketches
he exhibits not only a happy faculty for the burlesque, and singular
skill in depicting character, but a generality and heartiness of
appreciation which carry the reader’s feelings along with his fancy.”

The following selection from Peter Ploddy will tend to show Mr. Neal’s
peculiar style of writing:

 “‘Common people, Billy--low, common people, can’t make it out when
 nature raised a gentleman in the family--a gentleman all complete,
 only the money’s been forgot. If a man won’t work all the time--day in
 and day out--if he smokes by the fire, or whistles out of the winder,
 the very gals bump agin him, and say, “Git out of the way, loaf!”

 “‘But, Billy, my son, never mind, and keep not a lettin’ on,”
 continued Nollikens, and a beam of hope irradiated his otherwise
 Saturnine countenance; “the world’s a railroad, and the cars is
 comin’--all we’ll have to do is to jump in, chalked free. There
 will be a time--something must happen. Rich widders are about yet,
 though they are snapped up so fast. Rich widders, Billy, are “special
 providences,” as my old boss used to say when I broke my nose in the
 entry, sent here like rafts to pick up deservin’ chaps when they can’t
 swim no longer. When you’ve bin down twy’st, Billy, and are jist off
 agin, then comes the widder afloatin’ along. Why, splatter docks is
 nothin’ to it, and a widder is the best of all life-preservers, when a
 man is most a case, like you and me.’

 “‘Wall, I’m not perticklar, not I, nor never was. I’ll take a widder,
 for my part, if she’s got the mint drops, and never ask no questions.
 I’m not proud--never was harrystocratic--I drinks with anybody, and
 smokes all the cigars they give me. What’s the use of bein’ stuck up,
 stiffy? It’s my principle that other folks are nearly as good as me,
 if they’re not constables nor aldermen. I can’t stand them sort.’

 “‘No, Billy,’ said Nollikens, with an encouraging smile, ‘no, Billy,
 such indiwidooals as them don’t know human natur’--but, as I was agoin
 to say, if there happens to be a short crop of widders, why can’t
 somebody leave us a fortin?--that will do as well if not better. Now
 look here--what’s easier than this? I’m standin’ on the wharf--the
 rich man tries to go aboard of the steamboat--the niggers push him off
 the plank--in I jumps, ca-splash! The old gentleman isn’t drowned; but
 he might have been drowned but for me, and if he had a bin, where’s
 the use of his money then? So he gives me as much as I want now, and
 a great deal more when he defuncts riggler, accordin’ to law and the
 practice of civilized nations. You see--that’s the way the thing
 works. I’m at the wharf every day--can’t afford to lose a chance, and
 I begin to wish the old chap would hurry about comin’ along. What can
 keep him?’

 “‘If it ’ud come to the same thing in the end,’ remarked Billy
 Bunkers, ‘I’d rather the niggers would push the old man’s little boy
 into the water, if it’s all the same to him. Them fat old fellers are
 so heavy when they’re skeered, and hang on so--why I might get drowned
 before I had time to go to the bank with the check! But what’s the use
 of waitin’? Couldn’t we shove ’em in some warm afternoon ourselves?
 Who’d know in the crowd?’

 “‘I’ve thought of that, Bunkers, when a man was before me who looked
 the right sort,--but, Billy, there might be mistakes--perhaps, when
 you got him out, he couldn’t pay. What then?’

 “‘Why, keep puttin new ones to soak every day, till you fish up the
 right one.’

 “‘It won’t do,--my friend--they’d smoke the joke--all the riffraff in
 town would be pushin’ old gentlemen into the river, and the elderly
 folks would have to give up travelin’ by the steamboat. We must wait
 till the real thing happens. The right person will be sure to come
 along.’

 “‘I hope so; and so it happens quick, I don’t much care whether the
 old man, his little boy, or the rich widder gets the ducking. I’m not
 proud.’

 “‘Then you’ll see me come the nonsense over the old folks--who’s
 loafer now?--and my dog will bite their cat--who’s ginger pop, and jam
 spruce beer, at this present writin’, I’d like to know?’

 “Thus, wrapped in present dreams and future anticipations--a king
 that is to be--lives Nicholas Nollikens--the grand exemplar of the
 corner loungers. Nicholas and his tribe exist but for to-morrow, and
 rely firmly on that poetic justice, which should reward those who wait
 patiently until the wheel of fortune turns up a prize.”




GEORGE H. DERBY.


“Before ‘John Phoenix’ there was scarcely any American humorist--not of
the distinctly literary sort--with whom one could smile and keep one’s
self respect,” says William Dean Howells, the novelist, in a recent
magazine article. This may indeed be true, but there were others in the
time of George H. Derby, better known by his _nom de plume_ of John
Phoenix, who were of the same school of humorists, yet they were far
inferior as wits. Derby, had he lived, would have become perhaps one of
the leading humorists of the country. As it was, he was known to the
public as a humorous writer for only a few years before his death.

George H. Derby was born of poor but well educated parents in Norfolk
county, Massachusetts, in 1823. Little is known of his boyhood or early
life. He entered the West Point military academy while yet a youth,
and graduated from that institution in 1846. The same year he became
engaged in the war with Mexico and continued in the field during the
larger part of the year following. He was present at the battle of
Vera Cruz and Cerro Gordo, and was made brevet first lieutenant at the
former place. He received a severe wound during the latter engagement.
He remained with the regular army at the close of the war, and was
sent upon various surveys and expeditions from 1847 to 1852. During
the two years following the last named date, Derby was engaged on the
improvement of San Diego, California, harbor, and the next year he was
on the staff of the commanding general and had charge of the military
roads, department of the Pacific. In 1856 he was on the coast survey,
and in the two years following was light-house engineer.

While sojourning on the Pacific coast Derby first began writing for the
San Francisco papers and magazines. His contributions consisted mainly
of humorous sketches written under the signature of John Phoenix. These
sketches attracted general attention among the Pacific States, and in
1855 were published in book form under the title of Phoenixiana, or
Sketches and Burlesques. The book was well received, and ten or twelve
editions were exhausted. Four years later a second volume was issued
under the title of Squibob Papers. This volume also met with a large
and ready sale. Early in 1861 Derby took up his residence in New York,
and produced a number of humorous sketches which were never published
in book form. He died suddenly on the 15th of May, 1861, at the age of
thirty-eight. Although young in years and not having reached the acme
of his fame, his work still lives and is recognized as one of the most
prominent species of American humor.

Derby’s humor is something like that of Artemus Ward, yet it is
peculiarly original and is vastly different from the writings of the
so-called funny men of the present day. Among the many good things from
Derby’s pen are the following:


 LATE.

 Passing by one of our doggeries about 3 A. M. the other morning, from
 which proceeded “a sound of revelry by night,” a hapless stranger
 on his homeward way paused to obtain a slight refreshment, and to
 the host he said: “It appears to me your visitors are rather late
 to-night.” “Oh, no,” replied the worthy landlord, “the boys of San
 Diego generally run for forty-eight hours, stranger; _it’s a little
 late for night before last_, but for to-night! why, it’s just in the
 shank of the evening.” Volumes could not have said more.


 FOR SALE.

 A valuable law library, lately the property of a distinguished legal
 gentleman of San Francisco, who has given up practice and removed to
 the Farralone Islands. It consists of one volume of “Hoyle’s Games,”
 complete and may be seen at this office.


 WANTED.

 Back numbers of the Democratic Review, speeches and writings of
 Jefferson, Coffroth, Calhoun, Bigler, Van Buren and others. Copies of
 the San Joaquin Republican, files of the Times and Transcript (a few
 at a time), and a diagram representing the construction of the old
 United States bank, for the use of a young man desirous of turning
 Democrat. Apply at this office (by firing a gun, or punching on the
 ceiling, he being deeply engaged in study in the garret), to

 J. PHOENIX.


 AN EPITAPH.

 This is all, but I writ at the time a epitaff which I think is short,
 and would do to go over his grave:

  Here lies the body of James Hambrick
    Who was accidentally shot
  On the banks of the Peacus river
    By a young man.

 He was accidentally shot with one of the large sized Colt’s revolvers
 with no stopper for the cock to rest on it was one of the old fashion
 kind brass mounted and of such is the kingdom of Heaven.




GEORGE W. PECK.


A common-sized-mustache-and-goatee young man is George W. Peck, of
Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He is rather a handsome chap, and just after he
has left the barber’s chair he looks for all the world like a military
officer. However, he looks like a common citizen when Saturday night
comes around, and he has not been shaved for several days. Peck has
attained quite a reputation as a humorist, through the columns of his
paper, Peck’s Sun. Though only established, as a weekly journal with a
humorous foundation, something over two years, the Sun has already a
circulation of twenty thousand copies, and is rapidly increasing.

George W. Peck is a ready writer, and takes more to the narrative style
than paragraphing. His paper is well liked among his fellow humorists,
and is widely quoted. Peck is still a comparatively young man, and is
“fair, fat, and _thirty_.” He is one of the few newspaper men who are
bashful by nature, as the following letter plainly shows:

 “I do not believe the time has arrived when the American people are
 consumed with a desire to know where I was born, how old I am, or any
 of the particulars of an uneventful life. If I should ever become
 of so much importance, which is hardly liable to be the case, while
 you and I live, I will resurrect the necessary data from the orphan
 asylum, the reform farm, the State prison, and other places of that
 kind, too numerous to mention. At the present time I think it is a
 charity to spare the people. Whatever you do, please do not call me
 funny. If you do, it is very evident that you do not know me.

 “Yours truly,

 GEORGE W. PECK.”

Here is one of Mr. Peck’s recent paragraphs:

 “Those who take the Sun take it for the fun there is in it, and we
 feel a confounded sight funnier if we are making something than if we
 are losing. We are too old to work for glory, and too lazy to work for
 fun.”

In a recent article in the Sun, Mr. Peck discourses as follows on the


 PECULIARITIES OF THEATRICAL SUPES.

 About the most laughable thing around a theatre is the “supes.”
 However funny a play may be, the actions of the supes are funnier
 than the comedians. Men may act as supes for twenty years, and they
 can never come on the stage without appearing awkward and falling all
 over themselves. The actors tell them where to stand, and they get
 into another place. They act as if they expected to be stabbed and
 they cannot appear natural to save them. Take a far western scene,
 where they want a lot of miners in a bar-room to take a drink. One
 would think fellows who are in bar-rooms a dozen times a day would
 know how to act, but they don’t. They all go up to the bar in a crowd,
 and fall around, and then take tin cups of alleged whiskey and stare
 at vacancy until told to sit down, and then they all try to sit down
 on the same chair. When they are wanted for a scene in the Roman
 forum, they get on the red night-gowns and walk around toeing in, and
 walking knock-kneed, making the sickest lot of Roman citizens that
 ever robbed a hen roost. It is a singular coincidence that a supe
 always has a black patch on the seat of a pair of gray pants. Where
 in the world they all get gray pants, and why they don’t have gray
 patches on them, is more than anybody can find out. Let a couple of
 supes come on the stage to remove a table, and they will have those
 patches dead sure, and they will arrange to stand with the patches
 to the audience. They probably reason that their faces are liable
 to betray emotion, or that they may blush, but that the patches
 can maintain a stern and dignified demeanor under the most trying
 circumstances of guying and cat-calls on the part of the gallery
 boys. Female supes are even worse than men in stubbing their toes on
 the carpet, or backing against the wings. They are hired to come on
 to fill up a scene at half a dollar a night, and they usually wear
 octagon shaped tights, with more bran than legs, and it is painful to
 see them stand around. But they get confidence in themselves quicker
 than men, and they want to star after appearing one or two times. The
 supe business has lots of fun in it.




ALEXANDER EDWIN SWEET.


Texas is known to be the largest State in the Union, yet in all the
vast territory there resides but one genuine humorist. Alexander Edwin
Sweet is the proud possessor of that title. During the last few years
the Texas Siftings has been universally quoted and ranked “A 1” among
the funny papers of this country. It is needless to state in this
connection that Alexander E. Sweet is one of the editors of Siftings.

Mr. Sweet is a Canadian by birth, an American by adoption, and a
paragrapher and funny man by instinct. He was born in St. Johns, New
Brunswick, March 28, 1841. His father was James R. Sweet, a well-known
and prosperous merchant of that city. As early as 1849 young Sweet
removed with his parents to San Antonio, Texas. His education was
obtained at College Hill, Poughkeepsie, New York, in 1857 and 1858. The
next year he went to Europe and entered the Polytechnic institute at
Carlsruhe, Baden, Germany. Here he studied for several years, and in
1861 he fell in love with a handsome German girl, and led Miss Marie
Zittel to the altar.

Returning to America and to Texas in 1862, he served two years in the
war as a private in company A, Thirty-third regiment of Texas cavalry,
Confederate army, principally on the Rio Grande, and in the Indian
nation. At the close of the war he studied law in the office of Thomas
I. Devine. From the law Mr. Sweet drifted into journalism, and in 1869
became editor of the San Antonio Express. In 1871, he was appointed
city attorney of San Antonio by Governor Davis. Mr. Sweet had as yet
written nothing of note, but with the Herald his work became widely
known. Some years ago the Herald sprang into sudden fame on account of
the funny articles that appeared in it, descriptive of the ludicrous
side of life in Texas. The articles were copied far and wide, and then
they suddenly ceased.

Mr. Sweet transferred his labors to the Galveston News and consequently
that journal sprang into popularity all over the country. He possesses
that peculiar journalistic trait of carrying an entire newspaper at the
end of his pen. His column of Siftings in the News were widely copied,
and a New York journal in commenting upon them had this to say of the
author: “Mr. Sweet’s sketches, paragraphs and _bon mots_ are second to
no living writer in freshness, originality, sparkling wit, and refined
humor. Mr. Sweet is far more than a humorous writer, as his brilliant
editorials in the News from time to time will show.”

A year or two ago, Mr. Sweet sought a partner in the person of Mr. J.
Amroy Knox, and began the publication of Texas Siftings. Mr. Knox is
also well known as an author, having written for several prominent
newspapers and magazines. In conjunction with Mr. Knox, Alexander E.
Sweet wrote an interesting volume, which was but recently issued from
the press. It is entitled Through Texas, or from the Gulf to the Rio
Grande on the back of a Mexican Mustang. The book is a narrative,
descriptive and humorous, and has commanded a ready sale.

Since the establishment of Texas Siftings that journal has risen
rapidly into public favor, and is sold and read in every State in
the union. Mr. Sweet does the larger portion of the humorous writing
for the paper. The Graphic of New York published a portrait of the
rollicking humorist in 1877, but time and a heavy beard have changed
him so that the picture does not now resemble him. He has a pleasant
home, and surrounded by his wife and five bright children, his life is
a most happy one.

Many clever articles have appeared in Texas Siftings, but none more
clever than the following:


 DOMESTIC LIFE IN TEXAS.

 “It wasn’t that!” exclaimed Mr. Sanders, indignantly. “You see, I
 didn’t say a word at all.”

 “How’d she find out, then?” asked one of the party.

 “Why, I went home, and she asked if it was me. I told her it was. Took
 the chances on that, you know. Then she asked me if I’d been drinking.
 I told her no. And there I stopped. Never said another word.”

 “But you say she caught on somewhere. How was it?”

 “Just a blunder I made. When I told her I hadn’t drank anything she
 was satisfied, but when I come to go to bed, I put on my overcoat
 instead of my night-shirt. That excited suspicion.”


 DISGUSTING GREED.

 Fitznoodle is an Austin nimrod who goes out every Sunday and brings in
 a jack-rabbit or so. Fitznoodle is an enormous eater, and nobody else
 gets much of a taste of the rabbit.

 “I wonder why nobody gets any of the shot except me,” said Fitznoodle,
 taking a shot out of his mouth.

 Because nobody else gets any of the rabbit, I suppose,” responded Mrs.
 Fitznoodle, with telling sarcasm.




SAMUEL W. SMALL.


The humorous writings in the Atlanta (Georgia) Constitution have
made that paper famous. It has been quoted, perhaps, as much as any
other daily newspaper in this country. Among those bright journalists
employed upon its editorial staff, none have added more to the
popularity of the Constitution than Samuel W. Small, better known to
his admirers as “Old Si.”

Small was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1851, and spent his youth
in that city and vicinity. In 1861 he removed to Georgia with his
parents. Here he divided his time in going to school and loafing around
the depots and railroad tracks. In 1865 he lived in New Orleans, and
four years later he graduated from the high school in that city. After
his graduation, Samuel was sent by his parents to Henry college, in
Virginia, and he graduated from that institution in 1871. He then
returned to Nashville, began the study of law, and was admitted to the
bar by the supreme court of Tennessee in 1872.

Mr. Small failed to adopt the law as his profession and turned his
entire attention to journalism. He first became a reporter on the
Nashville Republican Banner, but soon after removed to Greenville,
Tennessee where he edited a weekly paper, and acted as private
secretary to ex-President Johnson for nearly two years. The year 1874
found him in Houston, Texas, still in the newspaper business. After
laboring on nearly all the journals of Houston, he returned to Georgia
in May, 1875. It was in this month that he became connected with the
Atlanta Constitution, in whose columns his humorous writings first came
under public notice.

The humor of Old Si, his _nom de plume_, began by his writing short and
spicy paragraphs as coming from an aged negro. These grew into larger
paragraphs, and gradually into lengthy articles, which were widely
copied. Mr. Small is an expert stenographer and reports the official
proceedings of the circuit court of Atlanta. He was connected with the
Constitution, and was one of that journal’s most valued writers, up to
March, 1882, when he became sole editor and proprietor of a prosperous
weekly paper in Florida.

In his Florida venture, the Jacksonville Union, Old Si appears as
brilliant as ever, as the annexed selection will show:


 FLORIDA POLITICIANS AND ALLIGATORS.

 “I kinder likes dis sort ob climack!” said Old Si, as he come into the
 office last evening.

 “In what way?”

 “Well, I likes to be ’round whar yer kin hang up yer obercoat soon ez
 yer buys it an’ set ’round in yur shurt-sleebes jest ez well on New
 Year ez yer kin on de Foth o’ July!”

 “That is pleasant.”

 “Yes, sah, an’ dat’s what meks me say what I do. Dar’s plenty ob helth
 down heah if you jess knows how to fin’ it. De only place whar you
 kant fin’ it is in er allygator’s mouf!”

 “Then your advice is that people should come to Florida, but beware of
 the alligator?”

 “Dat’s hit! I ain’t got no use for ’er allygator hits to much like er
 pollytishun--got mo’ mouf dan vittals an’ mo’ hide dan honisty!”

 And with this epigram the old man bowed himself out of the sanctum.




CHARLES HOYT.


Frederick Hudson, in his History of Journalism in America, credits the
Boston Post with having originated the column of funny paragraphs which
are now seen in nearly all the leading newspapers of the United States.
The All Sorts column of the Post was started when that paper first
appeared, over half a century ago. It was in this department that Mrs.
Partington and her son Ike were first introduced to the humor-loving
public, and scores of writers have sent forth their wit, during the
fifty years past, through this same medium.

George F. Babbit began writing the All Sorts for the Post seven or
eight years ago, but relinquished the position a few years later.
Babbitt was a graduate of Harvard college, and his witticisms in the
Post were of a very brilliant character. The present “funny man” of the
Post is Charles Hoyt, better known to his Boston friends as Charley
Hoyt.

A well-known Boston journalist in a recent article says of him: “He
is a well-proportioned man, lithe, active, and nervy in physique,
a broad forehead, an open face on which candor is written in every
feature, bright, restless eyes, firm mouth and chin, a clear, ruddy
complexion, and a voice not loud or strident but clear as a bell in
its enunciation. His column of All Sorts in the Post is a fine example
of conscientious paragraphing, where neither time nor diverse labor
interfere to distract or hurry the writer. It is enjoyed by thousands
every day, who laugh at his quaint conceits and genuine wit.”

Hoyt is a native of Vermont, and comes of good, old Puritan stock. In
early youth he held a public office, being page in the State Senate. In
this school his intellect was sharpened, and his naturally retentive
memory gathered together and carried away much which has been useful
in later years. His knowledge of, and acquaintance with, public men,
is wide and varied. In his personal address he is both pleasing and
attractive. These are both admirable points in his favor, considering
that he is a bachelor, and young at that.

Hoyt’s Ragbag stories are very entertaining:


 RAGBAG’S PRACTICAL JOKE.

 The other night, after Mr. Ragbag had gone to bed, the idea of a very
 funny joke occurred to him. It seemed so funny that he went into a
 paroxysm of laughter, and twisted and squirmed so that he pulled the
 bed clothes all out at the foot and had to get out to tuck them in
 again, and got awful cold, and made as much noise as to awaken his
 wife in the next room, and she, on hearing the cause of the commotion,
 told Ragbag he was a fool and advised him to go to bed. He did so, but
 lay awake half the night thinking of the joke, and the next morning
 Ragbag hastily swallowed his breakfast, and hastened out on the street
 to play his joke. The first man he met was Gallagher. Gallagher’s
 business compels him to carry about one hundred keys, and Ragbag knew
 this. Gallagher was just the man Ragbag wanted to see. Rushing up to
 Gallagher he said:

 “Ah, Gallagher, have you lost a key?”

 “Don’t know,” replied the victim. “Let me see it.”

 “First see if you have lost one,” said Ragbag.

 So Gallagher took off his gloves and went to work. He searched pocket
 after pocket, and examined each and every bunch of keys carefully. It
 was sharp weather, and his fingers got cold and numb, but he kept at
 it. One hundred keys were a good many to keep track of, and Gallagher
 had to think of every lock about his establishment, and then look
 for that particular key, and it was a tedious job. And it wasn’t
 satisfactory, either, for Gallagher couldn’t quite make up his mind
 that one key was not missing. He demanded a sight of the key found.
 Then Ragbag’s self-control gave way. With a howl of laughter he cried:

 “Why, I haven’t found any. I only asked if you had lost one as a
 matter of curiosity.”

 It didn’t take three seconds for Gallagher to decide what to do. The
 snow for forty feet around was clawed and kicked into a cloud that
 filled the air. Folks looked out of the windows and howled to see the
 fun. And when Ragbag re-entered the house with his clothes torn, ear
 chawed, and eyes blacked, and explained that he had been playing his
 joke, his wife was more than ever convinced that he was an old donkey,
 and told him so. Somehow, at times, humor is fearfully discouraging in
 this country.




HENRY CLAY LUKENS.


The New York Daily News, like all other first-class journals, possesses
its paragrapher. In the person of Henry Clay Lukens, the News has for
many years had a valuable contributor, and one of the best humorous
writers in America. Under the name of Erratic Enrique, he has written
early and late, noon, morning, and night, and, in fact, about all the
time.

Lukens is of Dutch ancestry. He was born in Germantown, near
Philadelphia, on the 18th day of August, 1838. His first newspaper
enterprise was a monthly publication issued in his native city, during
the winter of 1857. For this paper, George Alfred Townsend wrote some
of his first articles. Lukens worked at his journalistic profession for
many years in different States in the Union.

In 1874 he went to South America, where he remained as a traveling
correspondent for nearly two years. While there he wrote interesting
letters to the Danbury News and the St. John (New Brunswick) Torch,
under the quaint pseudonym of Erratic Enrique. He also wrote for
various other American journals under the same name.

It was not until March, 1877, that Henry Clay Lukens settled down to
steady work on a daily newspaper. He then associated himself with
the sprightly little News, with which paper he has ever since been
connected. He originated a column of humor called Pith and Point, which
has brought both the paper and himself into prominence. It is said he
has not missed a week’s labor since his first day’s connection with the
News. He is one of the few hard-worked city journalists.

Early in 1881, he began a series of articles, entitled Sanctum
Sketches, in Hubbard’s Advertiser, of New Haven, Connecticut. In this
series of articles he produced the biographies of six or eight well
known paragraphers. He is also a regular contributor to several weekly
and monthly periodicals.

Lukens is quite inclined to poetry, and at times jingles some very
clever and witty rhymes. The following is from his pen:


 ESPRIT MALIN.

  What hideous yell assails my ear?
    Whose shuffling feet distract my nerves?
    Insatiate demon, nothing serves
  To clinch thy clutch! All day I hear,
                            “More copy!”

  My brain’s a-whirl, my senses swim--
    What cares the screeching imp for that?
    He’s got two words, so tonguey pat,
  He slits the air with vocal vim,
                              “More copy!”

  A sapient smirk illumes his phiz--
    He feels his power, and grinning grips,
    The ink-wet pages, scissored slips,
  And cabled specials; that’s his “biz”--
                              “More copy!”

  Intense disgust has hobbled hate,
    Else would I slay this vampire scorned.
    Though neither cloven-toed nor horned,
  His devilish yawpings ne’er abate--
                              “More copy!”


 ERRATICS.

 It is not so very painful to lose a fortune as it is to hear what your
 neighbors will say about it afterwards.

 When the prodigal son comes home they no longer kill the fatted calf
 for him. They just turn the animal into a vaccine farm and give him
 the profits.

 A new serial yarn by Besant and Rice is entitled, All Sorts and
 Conditions of Men. The plot is probably worked out in the caucus room
 of a delegates convention.

 “Man Reading,” a picture by Meissonier, has been sold for $10,000. It
 was cheap as dirt. The man reading was an editor with a contribution
 written on both sides of the paper, and spontaneously interlined
 besides.

 Our agricultural contemporary, the Herald, has a learned and highly
 interesting article on “Our Codfish Culture.” We trust it may be
 followed by another, equally able, on “Our Goat Fisheries.” Both are
 subjects of intense and universal concern.




WILLIAM A. WILKINS.


A country newspaper rarely makes its mark in the journalistic world,
and especially a paper printed in such an obscure village as is
Whitehall, New York. The Whitehall Times, however, is one of the few
exceptions, and, although a country newspaper, has been quoted in every
paper of any note in the land.

William Albert Wilkins, the editor and proprietor of the Times, and the
one man who has made that journal famous, was born on the 26th day of
March, 1840, in the village of Cherry Valley, Otsego county, New York.
At the age of ten he removed with his parents to Cohoes, in the same
State, where he attended a common district school for several years. He
entered business as office boy in the village post-office. From this
position he was elevated to a travelling salesman, doing business for
a firm in Albany. A year later, however, he settled down to real life
as a retail clothing merchant at Whitehall. In this pursuit Wilkins was
quite successful, and for eleven years he continued in the business.

Wilkins says that the first important discovery of his life was when he
embarked in the printing business. “Then,” says he, “it was easier to
convince nine-tenths of the human family that the inhabitants of the
infernal regions employ their time skating on real ice ponds, than it
is to convince them that they cannot conduct a live newspaper. While a
merchant in the town of Whitehall, Mr. Wilkins began writing--along in
the fall of 1869--several humorous communications for the Weekly Times,
the very paper which he afterwards owned. His articles were signed
“Hiram Green, esquire, Lait justiss of the Peece.” His sketches were
bright and original, and after doing all he could to supply the crusty
Whitehallites with humor, he began a series of letters in the Troy
Budget, which he continued for several years.

In 1870 what appeared as his guiding star shone over his horizon. A
new comic weekly paper had just been introduced to the residents of
New York. It was known as Punchinello, and its publisher made William
Albert Wilkins, of Whitehall, a handsome offer to assume the editorial
chair. Wilkins was not long in making a decision whether to accept
the offer or no. In an evil moment he bade good-bye to the clothing
business and hied himself to New York. His salary and the paper ended
their existence in five months’ time, and the Whitehall merchant was
cast adrift in the great metropolis. He remained in New York and was
employed with a leading wholesale clothing house until April, 1873.
During his sojourn in the city he wrote regularly for the Tribune, Sun,
and Mail, as well as doing occasional work for the Brooklyn Eagle,
Albany Argus, and several of the many weekly journals published in
Gotham.

In the early May days of 1874 Wilkins returned to Whitehall, and his
first love, the Times, became his property. Since that time he has been
its editor and proprietor, and has made for it a name that takes first
rank among the newspapers of America made famous by their humorous
paragraphs.

Mr. Wilkins has a wife, two children, and a charming home. Of his
family he says: “None of my relatives have ever been hung, but once a
brother-in-law came near going to Congress. My war record is good--as
during the rebellion I did not have a hand in the public treasury, but
a second cousin of my wife sent a substitute, who by jumping bounties
like a true patriot, covered the family with glory enough to reach me.”

As a politician, Mr. Wilkins succeeded through the aid of his paper
and his friends, in holding one office, three times being collector of
canal tolls at the port of Whitehall, during the years 1874, 1875,
and 1878. He is a very small man, being something like five feet four
inches in height. He possesses a pleasant cheery face, and adorns
the lower portion of it with a moustache of a heavy and a beard of a
light growth. His literary work has of late years been devoted almost
exclusively to the Times. Recently he has essayed domestic sketches,
stories of the home circle, and romantic tales of travel and adventure.

A New York humorist says admiringly of Wilkins: “He is a trump card
in the fraternity he adorns. Never a stone has he laid in the path
of an earnest fellow laborer. Meet him when you will and where you
will, there is the same cordial impressment, the same hand-grip that
goes straight to your marrow of susceptibility. It has been my lot
to meet him when conviviality held full sway, and again when family
affliction had tightly drawn the chords of sympathy; but the same
gentle spirit was the thrall. The world is better for such lives;
better for the kindly sentiments that emanate from minds charged less
with self-opinion than liberal thoughts of and for mankind; better for
the outflow of their broad religion, and safer because it is a religion
of impulse, a creed born of sentiment and fostered by philanthrophy.”

Wilkins’ admirable essay on Father Adam is undoubtedly the best thing
he has written. It was originally published in the Whitehall Times in
1879, and is as follows:


 ADAM’S FALL.

 Adam was the first man--if he had been a shoe-maker he would have been
 the last man.

 He was placed in the Garden of Eden and was himself the guardian of
 Eden. He consequently had no partner to order him up mornings, and he,
 therefore, played it alone.

 All the clothes he had for a long time was the close of day, while a
 mantle of night was his bed-clothes.

 He had dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and he
 also had hoe-minion over the earth.

 He was finally furnished with a woman of A-rib-ia, who was sent to
 Eden for Adam’s Express Company. She was bone of his beauin’, and if
 she had been called Nancy, she would have been his bone-nancy.

 She was a pretty good cook, for she soon cooked up trouble for Adam,
 and got him into hot water.

 When Adam went down to his office mornings, Eve always went to her
 household duties; but she was a fortunate woman in one respect; she
 had no washing to do on Monday, so Adam was never afflicted by being
 obliged to eat mush and milk from the clock-shelf.

 Eve never called him back and told him to send home some soap and
 starch at once, nor did it cost Adam five shillings a week for clothes
 pins, for the beautiful smile that Mr. and Mrs. Adam always wore could
 be licked clean with the tip ends of their tongues.

 But they were not a happy couple, for the Fourth of July was unknown
 to Eden.

 They never listened to the bang of the cannon, the gun, or the
 fire-cracker, but Eve used to bang her hair quite often.

             { wore tight boots.
             {     { corns.
             { had { shirts with buttons off.
             {     { holes in his stockings.
             {     { holes in his pockets.
  Adam never { wore patched pantaloons.
             { spilt ice cream on his lavender pants.
             { pawned his ulster.
             { pulled down his vest.
             { burst his suspender buttons.
             { paid $2 per day for washing.
             { owed his tailor.

             {      { corsets.
             {      { striped stockings.
             { wore { rats.
             {      { mice.
             {      { frizzes.
   Eve never { was bothered to find a dressmaker.
             { found fault with her milliner.
             { gossiped with her next door neighbor.
             { went to church and made fun of a rival’s new bonnet.
             { had beaux from church.

 When we say never, no one need say hardly ever. But Mr. and Mrs.
 Adam fell just the same. As we draw a veil over their fall, let us
 ask every head of a family, if he doesn’t feel like howling when he
 remembers that Adam didn’t know what a good thing he had

                           { dressmakers’ }
                           { milliners’   }
                           { shoemakers’  }
  When he did not have any { hosiery      } bills to pay.
                           { jewelry      }
                           { false hair   }
                           { ribbon       }
                           { taffy        }

 But he could have laid in his hammock from sunrise to sunset, and read
 the daily papers without feeling that he must go down town and work
 like thunder, so his wife and daughters could all have new bonnets to
 wear to church on next Sabbath day.

 Adam was a queer duck and the fathers of to-day owe him a sockdologer.




CHARLES H. HARRIS.


“Carl Pretzel” is a name generally known throughout the West and
Northwest. It is the literary sobriquet of Mr. Charles H. Harris, of
Chicago, Illinois. He was born in the city of Rochester, New York, on
the 20th day of May, 1841. His father was a well-known politician of
the Empire State, and Charles, having a living example of the New York
State politician constantly before him, resolved at an early age not
to enter politics--at least not in New York State. After receiving
a common-school education, and passing his early youth at home, Mr.
Harris went to New York city in 1862. He was accompanied by other
youngsters of his native town.

Harris shipped as a landsman in the navy, and soon after was
transferred to the navy yard at Washington, where, in a few months
after his arrival, he received the appointment of captain’s clerk. He
was promoted to the position of pay-master’s clerk, and did service on
the Potomac river during his one year term of enlistment. After the
war he came home, and after remaining a very short time in Rochester,
he set out to seek his fortune.

The oil fever having broken out at this time, Harris was one of the
first to become afflicted. He started for Pennsylvania, and became
interested in oil wells and oil territory. To use his own words, “he
made a barrel of money, and left it there, it being too cumbersome
to carry home.” In speaking of himself, Harris says: “In 1866 I was
notified that an appointment awaited me in Wyoming Territory, that
of Secretary of the Territory. I started at once to grasp the prize.
Arriving in Chicago, I learned that my next friend, who had been
nominated for Governor of the Territory, did not have friends enough in
the Senate to ratify his nomination, consequently his failure to secure
the Governorship settled me.”

Harris was left in Chicago like a stranded ship. He embarked into
journalism soon after his arrival, and began inflicting the public
with “Pretzelisms,” by “Carl Pretzel.” These consisted of short and
witty paragraphs in broken German dialect. They took well, and Harris
has made a national reputation through them. He says: “I began the
‘Pretzelisms’ to get even with the world, and I will not let up on
them.”

For a number of years Mr. Harris has issued his annual almanac, which
has commanded a large and ready sale. A few years ago he issued his
first book, “My Book of Expressions,” which has had a wide circulation.
It contained only articles in the Dutch dialect. The Almanac for 1882,
written by Mr. Harris, is overflowing with his peculiar humor, and
another large volume, “My Book of Parodies,” will soon appear.

“Carl Pretzel,” outside of his book work, is a thorough and
hard-working journalist. He is at present engaged in editing and
publishing a weekly newspaper at 119 Clark street, Chicago. “The
National Weekly is eight years old,” says Harris in a private letter,
“and is a healthy, growing enterprise.”

Here is one of Carl’s best small efforts:

 “One nite time I comed me home on mine house, und dook mine leedle
 daughter, Gretchen, Jr., on mine kneeses. I told her some shtory
 riddles, und vas make her some lafe. Pooty gwick she vas creeb on my
 bosom, und vas so shleepy, I dook her on her leedle ped, und say of
 her:

 “‘Gretchy, would you gone on vour ped mitout saiding your prayers?’

 “She opened dem beautiful leedle blue eyses, und radder dreamily
 exclaimed:

  ‘Now I vas lay me down to shleep,
  ‘I pray der----’

 dhen adding in one shweet leedle vhisper, ‘He knows der rest,’ she
 sunk down on her leedle ped, in His watchful care, who gifs His
 belofed shleeb.”




JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS.


“Uncle Remus” is a well-known character throughout the South, and his
fame has even found its way northward. “Uncle Remus” is the literary
nickname adopted by Mr. Joel Chandler Harris, a well-known journalist
of the South. He was born in Eatonton, Georgia, on the 8th of December,
1846. At a very early age he was taken out of school, and placed at
work as “printer’s devil” in the office of a country newspaper.

Charles Pilsbury, in a recent article, says of Harris: “He must have
had access to many books, and those of the best sort, and he mastered
them thoroughly. One can readily imagine him pursuing his studies in
some shady nook in the summer time, and in the winter evenings by the
blaze of pine knots or the modest tallow dip. It was in these days
and evenings, we may be sure, that he obtained the insight into negro
character, which has enabled him to portray in ‘Uncle Remus,’ the _ante
bellum_ negro.”

In 1866 Mr. Harris became connected with a publishing house at New
Orleans, and he had plenty of spare time to devote to literature. He
has written a good deal for southern periodicals, during the last five
years; essays, sketches and lyrics have appeared from his pen that
would have done honor to older heads. In January, 1867, he published
in the New Orleans Times, a poem entitled The Sea Wind, which has been
greatly admired.

He returned to Eatonton, Georgia, in May, 1867, where he wrote many
articles in both prose and verse. In 1868 Mr. Harris was in Forsythe,
Georgia, still bent on following literature as a profession. In June of
the same year he was working at the case, and thought some of going to
New York, to seek his fortune and a name. About this time he received
the promise of an editorial position on a paper about to be established
at Savannah, Georgia; and on the 12th of July he writes to a friend
that he “thinks he was cut out for a paragraphing journalist.”

His newspaper promise failed to realize anything for him, however, and
in October he was still at the case in a country newspaper office,
longing for journalistic life in a great city. Two years later we find
his hopes realized, and Mr. Harris became the associate editor of the
Savannah Morning News. He worked hard, and soon placed his name high
in rank among Georgia journalists.

After six years of work on the Morning News, Harris purchased an
interest in the Atlanta Constitution, and immediately joined its
editorial staff. It was in the columns of the Constitution that Uncle
Remus and his quaint humor first appeared. From this time forward his
success has been rapid, and he has placed his name in the front rank
among American humorists. Last year Mr. Harris published his first
book, Uncle Remus; His Songs and Sayings. The work took wonderfully
well with the public and has had an immense sale.

Of the later works of Uncle Remus, the following are very popular:


PLANTATION PROVERBS.

 Drive out de dreamin’ dog.

 Mighty few horses fits a barley hatch.

 Noddin’ nigger gives the ash-cake a chill.

 Don’t fall out wid de fat what cook de ’possum.

 Fightin’ nigger ain’t far from de callaboose.

 Ole cloze better go ’round de picket fence.

 You kin sell mo’ patter rallers dan boozer-bears.

 Short stirrups en a do’-back horse.

 Mighty good sheep w’ats wuff mo’ dan his wool.

 Sunday pra’rs ain’t gwineter las’ all de week.

 Lazy folks got too many ter-morrers ahead of um.

 Don’t hol’ yo’ head too high, less you gwineter eat out’n de hoss-rack.

 Hotter de wedder, de fresher de nigger. Dis w’at save de salt.

 One eye on de overseer en t’er on de mule don’t make de furrer
 straight.

 De shote w’at stays out in der dark er de moon, done gone from home
 fer good.

 Some marsters gotter be tuck on trus’. How de wurm git in de
 scaly-bark? Who raised de row twixt de bee-martin en de buzzard?


A PLANTATION BALLAD.

I.

  De boss, he squall ter de rompin’ boys:
    _Don’t bodder dat jug in de spring!_
  De jug, he guzzle out _good, good, good_!
    Nigger, he holler en sing:
  _Oh, gimme de gal, de big greasy gal
    W’at wrap up ’er ha’r wid a string!_

II.

  Little bird flutter w’en de big speckle hawk
    Sail up en light in de pine;
  W’en de overseer come en look thro de fence
    Nigger don’t cut no shine,
  But he roll up he eye, en he break loose en sing:
    _En I wish dat big gal ’us mine!_

III.

  Oh, de speckle hawk light in de top ob de pine,
    En dar he set en swing;
  De overseer lean his chin on de fence,
    En lissen at de cotton-choppers sing:
  _Don’t nobody bodder dat sway-back gal
    W’at wrap up ’er ha’r wid a string!_

IV.

  _Oh, de strappin’ black gal, de big greasy gal!
    She kyar herse’f mighty fine!
  How de boys gwineter foller along in de row,
    A-waitin’ for ter ketch her sign?
  De boss mighty close, yet I study en I wish--
    En I wish dat big gal uz mine!_

[The italics seem to mark what may be called the refrain choruses.
The variable nature of these gives unexpected coloring--not to say
humor--to the songs in which they occur. Any typographical arrangement
of these choruses must be, in the very nature of things, awkward and
ineffective.]




DAVID ROSS LOCKE.


“David Ross Locke, an American satirist,” says the American
Encyclopedia, yet Locke is a newspaper humorist of the modern school.
True, he does not subject himself to the painful necessity of forcing
humorous paragraphs into the world, neither is he given to punning. Yet
throughout his writing is easily distinguished a dry, uncertain, yet
entertaining humor.

David Ross Locke was born in Broome county, New York, in or near the
village of Vestal, on the 20th day of September, 1833. After a common
school education, lasting but a year or two, young Locke, in 1844, or
when he was but eleven years of age, became apprenticed to a printer
in Cortland, a few miles distant from Vestal. Learning his trade, he
sought out, Bohemian-like, to seek his fortune. He drifted around
the country, North and South, varying the occupation with which he
earned his daily bread. At different times he acted in the capacity
of compositor, reporter and general writer for various newspapers and
magazines.

It was in 1852 that young Locke settled down for the first time,
at Plymouth, Ohio, where he became connected with the Advertiser,
a weekly village newspaper, with a few hundreds circulation. Locke
afterwards removed his talents to the Herald, at Mansfield, Ohio; then
he drifted into the offices of the Journal at Bucyrus, Bellefontaine
Republican, and the Jeffersonian, a prosperous weekly published at
Findlay. It was during his connection with the last named paper that
Locke wrote for the Journal, an article signed by the “Rev. Petroleum
Vesuvius Nasby.” The letter purported to have come from an ignorant and
penniless bourbon Democrat, who resided in Kentucky. This character was
apparently devoted entirely to free whisky, perpetual slavery, and a
position as post-master. The letter was dated “Confederit Cross Roads,”
and soon after its appearance created considerable comment.

Not long after the appearance of the first Nasby letter, Locke changed
his location once more, and turned up in the office of the Blade, at
Toledo. Here he came to stay. He has stayed there ever since; has grown
up with the Blade, and now owns and controls the paper. The “Nasby”
letters have made both the Blade and Locke famous all over the country.
In a private letter to the writer, Nasby says: “I have kept up the
letters ever since 1860, for which I ask forgiveness.” At the close
of the war Locke, like others of his class, entered the lecture field
for a short time, and lectured in nearly all the Northern States. His
first volume of letters appeared in 1865, in Cincinnati, under the
title of Divers Views, Etc. In 1867 appeared another volume of Nasby
letters, published in Boston, under the title of Swingin’ Round the
Cirkle.” In 1868, appeared a third volume, Ekkoes From Kentucky, and,
in 1874, a Boston house published his Morals of Abou ben Adhem. This
was followed by A Paper City, published by Lee & Shepard, Boston, and
Hannah Jane, a poem. This last-named work has had a large sale, and is
quite popular. Of this work a leading critic said: “It is certainly
one of the best things the Rev. P. V. Nasby ever produced. It has the
extraordinary attraction of being in popular and excellent verse. It
is real life, and true nature. It touches a chord that will vibrate
everywhere; a subject near the heart of many, and in the experience of
all. It touches it with honesty, frankness, and self-condemnation, that
stings with conviction while it thrills with admiration.” One is fully
convinced of these facts after a careful perusal of Hannah Jane. The
following is a fragment from the poem:

  “I was but little better. True, I’d longer been at school;
  My tongue and pen were run, perhaps, a trifle more by rule;
  But that was all: the neighbors round, who knew us thro’ and thro’,
  Spoke but the truth in calling her the better of the two.

  “She blundered in her writing, and she blundered when she spoke,
  And ev’ry rule of syntax that old Murray made she broke;
  But she was fresh and beautiful, and I----well, I was young;
  Her form and face far, far outweighed the blunders of her tongue.”

In 1881 Mr. Locke, with his eldest son, sailed for Europe, where they
travelled for nearly a year. On his return he began a series of papers
in the Toledo Blade, entitled “Nasby in Exile.” These letters were
afterwards, in 1882, published in book form by the Locke Publishing
Co., of Toledo, under the same title. The work is principally
descriptive of travel in Ireland, England and on the Continent. Locke
is the author of two plays, “Inflation” and “Widow Bedott.” The last
named has proved very successful, financially and otherwise.

“Nasby” was married to a very estimable lady, upwards of twenty-six
years ago, and is the proud father of three children. He lives in a
quiet, but elegant manner in the city of Toledo, and is considerably
engrossed with the business interests of the city. Under his able
management the weekly Toledo Blade has become one of the leading family
papers of the country, and circulates in every State and Territory of
the Union. Locke writes solely for his paper, even his most successful
books being made up of material taken from the columns of the Toledo
newspaper.




ROBERT JONES BURDETTE.


The famous funny man of the Burlington, Iowa, Hawkeye, was born at
Greensboro, Pennsylvania, on the 30th of July, 1844. At the early
age of seven months he went West with his parents, to grow up with
the country. They settled in Peoria, Illinois, where at the age of
eighteen Robert enlisted as a private, in 1862, in the Forty-seventh
Illinois Infantry. He served through the war as a private, was present
at the siege of Vicksburg, and was a member of the famous Red River
expedition. He showed himself to be a brave and fearless man on various
occasions, especially at the battle of Corinth.

Robert J. Burdette, at the close of the war found life’s struggle
rather severe. He was the oldest son of a family of nine, and aided
them as best he could. In after years he made the remark: “As the
oldest son I saw it was my duty to help pull the others through.” His
facilities for acquiring an academic education were limited, and his
ambition to enter college has never been gratified. While on a visit
to New York he penned several letters from that city to the Peoria
Transcript, and the publication of these letters betrayed his natural
inclination for the journalistic life. Upon his return to Peoria he
secured a position as proofreader on the Transcript. In the meantime he
wrote numerous sketches for the different New York magazines, but few
of which were published or even accepted.

Burdette says of his life from this time forward: “After a while I
started a paper of my own--the Peoria Review. I ran it two years. It
was a comforting sort of a paper. It brought to me a few cares but no
uncertainty. I knew every Monday morning that on the next Saturday
night I would not have money enough to pay the hands. During my career
as editor of that wretched sheet it never disappointed me in that
particular--not once. Finally the sheriff took me into partnership,
and there was a glorious increase of activity. He was an enterprising
man, very. He realized more in an hour than I had done in two years.
Presently the partnership dissolved, and I looked around for something
to do. I thought I would try and get on the Burlington Hawkeye. It was
a sober, staid old paper, financially solid. I was young and active.
Thought I, ‘I think I can do that paper good. If I can get on the staff
I am sure it will do me good. Well, I was thinking of going over there
when one day its manager, Mr. Wheeler, came to see me, and offered me
the position of city editor and reporter. Well, if I live ten thousand
years it will not be long enough time for me to be sufficiently
thankful that I accepted the offer, and, besides that, I am very proud
of the fact that they sent for me. It gave me an independence of
personal satisfaction that I have never recovered from. I don’t try to
be funny in my writings. I have an idea, occasionally, and when I get
it loose people laugh. Then I review the remark and shake it out to
find the fun. My perception of a joke is not hung on a hair trigger.”

In 1870, Mr. Burdette became affianced to Miss Carrie Garrett, of
Peoria, Illinois. She was a frail and delicate young lady, and on
visiting her one afternoon, Robert was met at the door by her friends,
who announced that she was lying at the point of death. The situation
was a grave one, but in fifteen minutes’ time he had procured a
marriage license from the county clerk’s office, and Miss Garrett
became Mrs. Robert J. Burdette at a time when her responses could only
be made by a slight motion of the eyes and a faint pressure of the
hand. But little hope was entertained for her life, but she passed
the ordeal, and after some length of time rallied sufficiently to go
with her husband on a short bridal tour to their quiet home in a
neighboring street, in Peoria. Mrs. Burdette has been an invalid all
her life, and the genial humorist has been a patient attendant and
companion for her in her dreary hours of life. The major portion of the
rollicking humor that Burdette produces, is written at the bed side of
his invalid wife.

It was soon after his marriage, when he was doing editorial work on the
Peoria Transcript, that Burdette began his humorous writing. He tells
of it in his own words as follows: “When I was on the Transcript, I
would try to think of something pleasant to tell the folks when I went
home at night--something that would make a tea-table lively. And when
nothing of a funny nature occurred, I would make up something, such as
one of the burlesques concerning the Middle Rib Family. They seemed to
be enjoyed around the tea-table, and finally Mrs. Burdette urged me to
write them up. I told her that they would sound as flat as dish-water
in print--that it was nothing but tea-table chatter, and that she
must not be so highly impressed by my nonsense. But she persisted,
and so I would occasionally write in a light vein for the Transcript.
The sketches seemed to take, and then I plunged into deep water.”
Afterwards Burdette said of his humor: “You see, I don’t know how I do
say things people think funny, and sometimes I am in a state of mind
bordering on insanity to know why people think they are so. I certainly
had no school except the wide world, from which to learn the lesson
of fun; and, now I come to think of it, perhaps the page was the most
instructive that could have been placed before me.”

From 1874 to the date of his joining the editorial corps of the
Burlington Hawkeye, Mr. Burdette rose rapidly as a humorist, and after
his writings and the Hawkeye both had become famous, he entered the
lecture field. His first lecture was decided upon and written by the
promptings of his wife. This little episode Robert tells as follows:
“One day when she was lying helpless, she said she believed that I
could write a lecture and deliver it successfully, and so she sat me
down to write that lecture; and from time to time I rebelled with tears
and groans and prayers. I told her that I was too little, that I had
no voice, that I couldn’t write a funny lecture, anyhow. She kept me
at it, and in due time we had a lecture on our hands:--‘The Rise and
Fall of the Mustache.’ That was all right enough; now how to get the
audience. I thought I would try it first at Keokuk. If I delivered it
first in Burlington, even though it were tame, tamer, tamest, I thought
they might pat me on the back. But Keokuk hated Burlington. I thought
that if it was flat the Keokuk folks would tell me so. Mrs. Burdette
said that, as she was responsible for that lecture, she was going to
hear it first delivered. So I carried her aboard the cars. We went down
to Keokuk, and they pronounced it good.”

The whole of the United States have since agreed with Keokuk. Burdette
has lectured in about every State in the Union to delighted audiences.
Taking his age into consideration, Mr. Burdette is very youthful in
appearance. He is short in stature, easy in manner, and affable in
conversation. He has a low, broad forehead, a black mustache, rounded
chin, and dark, yet bright, penetrating eyes. When writing at any
considerable length, he scarcely ever has a definite plan for his
effusion, and lets it take its own free way from the point of his pen.
He has written much in verse and prose, but his humorous descriptions
and pen pictures of those he meets in every-day life, are the most
readable of his productions. It is natural for him to be funny, and in
speaking of the most common-place things he expresses himself in the
most humorous way.

Burdette has published two books: The Rise and Fall of the Mustache,
and Hawkeye Glances, both volumes commanding a large sale. He has
written much for the literary weeklies, and his pen is never idle.
Among his attempts and successes in poetry nothing equals his touching
tribute to


WILHELMJ.

  Oh, king of the fiddle, Wilhelmj,
  If truly you love me, just tellmj;
        Just answer my sigh
        By the glance of your eye,
  Be honest, and don’t try to sellmj.

  With rapture your music did thrillmj;
  With pleasure supreme did it fillmj,
        And if I could believe
        That you meant to deceive--
  Wilhelmj, I think it would killmj.

Among the thousand and one “good things” that Burdette has given us,
none contains more of his genuine, characteristic humor than his

 NIGHT THOUGHTS.

 Don’t judge a man by his clothes. Can you tell what the circus is
 going to be like by looking at the Italian sunset pictures on the
 fence? Do you value the turkey for its plumage? And isn’t the skin of
 the mink the most, and, indeed, the only valuable part of him? There
 be men, fair to look upon, who wander up and down this country, and
 sit in the coolest places on the hotel piazzas, who are arrayed in
 fine linen and cardinal socks, and who have to hold their hand over
 their scarf-pin when they want to see the moonlight, who, unassisted
 and unprompted, do not possess the discretion to come in when it
 rains, and don’t know enough to punch a hole in the snow with an
 umbrella--new, soft snow at that, without any crust on it. Now and
 then, son, before you are as old as Methuselah, you will meet a man
 who wears a hat that is worth twice as much as the head it covers. On
 the other hand, don’t fall into the error of believing that all the
 goodness, and honesty, and intelligence in the world goes about in
 shreds and patches. We have seen the tramp dressed in worse rags than
 you could rake out of the family rag-bag, and more dirt and hair on
 him than would suffice to protect a horse, who would step up to the
 front door and demand three kinds of cake, half an apple pie, and then
 steal every moveable thing in the yard, kill the dog, choke up the
 pump with sand, tramp on the pansy bed and girdle the cherry trees,
 because he couldn’t carry them away. Good clothes or bad are never an
 infallible index to a man that is in them.




JOE C. ABY.


The subject of this sketch is a resident of New Orleans. His entire
life, almost, has been spent there. His name,--that of Aby,--is an
uncommon one and a short one, and with the short, very short, surname
of Joe prefixed, makes the whole an extraordinary short name. Joe C.
Aby has written much in the way of humor, under the rather curious name
of “Hoffenstein.” The larger portion of his productions have appeared
in the way of sketches, in the columns of that well known Southern
newspaper, the New Orleans Times-Democrat.

Joe C. Aby was born on the 23d day of July, 1858, and is consequently
one of the youngest of our American humorists. According to his own
story, he was in boyhood “a tame sort of individual. I was not vicious,
nor was I given to saying smart things, for the reason that my father,
whose kindly hand is now still in death, had a habit of hovering around
the rear portion of my anatomy with a strap, in order to impress upon
my tender mind the fact that it was not becoming in a small boy to get
‘too big for his old clothes.’ His theory was, that the seat of a boy’s
pants was the proper medium through which to reach the mind, and the
demonstrations of his theory were invariably successful.

“My school life was not at all remarkable, or different from that of
the average urchin. It consisted of thrashings, which I received from
the pedagogue for not knowing my lessons. He was a man who clung to
the motto: ‘Hit for the basement, let the rod fall where it may;’
but even while he was doing so, I felt that there was a destiny that
would model my end, despite his efforts to hammer it out of shape. At
the age of fourteen years I entered a collegiate institute, but at
sixteen, my career there was abruptly terminated by the right boot of
the principal, who foolishly believed that a student deserved immediate
expulsion, who was bold enough to attempt to punch the head of a German
professor. After my hasty exit from college, I migrated to Texas for
the benefit of my health.

“For seven or eight years I lived among the cattle ranches in the
southwestern portion of the Lone Star State. While in Texas I drifted
around promiscuously from one kind of business to another, until a
position was offered me, as a reporter, on the local staff of the
Houston Daily Post--a journalistic venture which has since proved a
success, and is now a leading paper in Texas. I made my appearance
as a journalist with the first issue of the paper. During my sojourn
on the staff of the paper, I dabbled somewhat in humorous writing,
which attracted some attention. Finally, I received an offer from the
New Orleans Times to join its staff of writers. This offer I accepted
at once, and returned to my native city. I remained with the Times
until its consolidation with the New Orleans Democrat was effected,
when I was offered a position on the local staff of the hyphenated
journal--The Times-Democrat. This offer I also accepted, and have since
served that paper.”

Under the _nom de plume_ of “Hoffenstein,” Mr. Aby has written much
that is not only funny, but ridiculously so. His Hoffenstein sketches
in the Times-Democrat have won for him a national reputation, and his
writings are reproduced in papers in various parts of the country. He
is a young man, unmarried, handsome and dignified. A volume of the
Hoffenstein sketches has been issued by a New York publishing house,
and has been flattered by a ready sale.

One of the most popular of these sketches is the following

 THERMOMETER PANTS.

 Hoffenstein was busily engaged scolding Hermann for not polishing
 a lot of brass jewelry there was in a show case, when a thin,
 stoop-shouldered countryman entered the store and inquired:

 “Have you got any good jean pants here?”

 “Certainly, my frent,” replied Hoffenstein, “ve makes a specialty
 uf goods in dot line, und ve defy competition. If ve sells anyding
 und you don’t lik it, you gets your money back or someding else in
 exshange, you know. Vas you a farmer?”

 “Yes, sir, I live up on Red River.”

 “Vell, den, you need a bair uf bants like dese,” said Hoffenstein,
 pulling out a sky-blue pair from a pile of clothing on the counter.
 “Dey vas de genervine doeskin, und will last de whole year oud.”

 The countryman took the pants to the light, examined the texture of
 the cloth, and then shaking his head knowingly said:

 “There’s too much cotton in them; they will shrink.”

 “Of course my frent dey will shrink, but vait und I tells you
 someding. If a man vat owns a pank or keeps a store comes here, I
 don’t sell him dem kind uf pants. Vy? Because dey vas made exbressly
 for de farming pisiness. Dey vas de dermometer pants, und a plessing
 to every farmer vat vears a bair uf dem. Do you know, my frent, dose
 bants vill dell you exactly vat de vedder will be. Ven it vas going to
 be vet and cold, dose bants vill begin to shrink up, und ven it vas
 going to be dry und varm, dey comes right down, you know. Dree years
 ago, I sell a bair of dem to a man vat vas named Vilking, und eber
 since den he makes good crops, ven de oder beoble don’t make noding,
 because he always knows py his dermometer pants vat de vedder vill
 be. After avile de beoble in de neighborhood finds oud de segret uf
 Vilkin’s success, and at the beginning of the planting season, you
 know, dey comes for dirty miles around, and if dey see Vilkin’s bants
 crawling up his leg dey holds off und vaits for a change, but if his
 bants vas down dey goes right back home, und puts in de crop. Dink of
 it, my frent; mit de thermometer bants, you can tell exactly ven to
 put in cabbage seed, und plant corn twice as better as mit an almanac,
 besides ven de vedder gets so cold und vet dot de bants goes up under
 your arms, you sew buttons on the front and vear him as a vest.”

 When Hoffenstein finished his yarn concerning the pants, the
 countryman smiled, and, turning abruptly on his heel, left the store.

 “Did you see de vay dot man acted, Hermann?” said Hoffenstein, angrily.

 “Yes, sir,” replied his clerk.

 “Vell, it shust shows dot de more you dry to help beoble along, de
 more, py tam, you don’t got any tanks for it.”




EDWARD E. EDWARDS.


The subject of this sketch is known but little, although his humor
has acquired fame widespread and universal. Edward E. Edwards is the
paragrapher and “funny man” of the Boston Transcript. This journal has
become famous for its bright and racy column of “Facts and Fancies,”
and for the hundreds of sparkling humorous sketches that have appeared
in its columns during a great number of years.

Edward E. Edwards, the life of the journal, is a New Englander. Born
and reared in the vicinity of the great metropolis of culture, Edwards
has become one of the institutions of Boston. While yet a youth he
entered into the employ of the Transcript, in the capacity of assistant
in the mailing-room in the basement. He worked steadily; and gradually,
as he became a man, ascended in the business he had chosen, step by
step, until he now holds a remunerative position in the editorial rooms
on the fifth floor of the Transcript building.

Edwards is the fortunate possessor of a vein of humor of very peculiar
composition, and he occupies in the world of wit a field entirely his
own. The column of bright paragraphs published under the caption of
Facts and Fancies has long been one of the leading features of the
Boston Transcript, and is widely quoted. Edwards has made his most
happy hits, however, in his descriptive sketches, lectures to the
young, etc., that have appeared in his paper. These have been more
widely copied, perhaps, than any one class of humorous sketches that
have appeared in this country during the last decade. Their author is a
small man, of good appearance, weighing one hundred and sixty pounds,
and is about six and thirty years of age.

As a fair specimen of the humor that springs from the pen of Edwards, I
annex the following discourse to little children on

 THE EDITOR.

 The editor is a member of that race of animals called mankind. He is
 invariably a kind man.

 He is perfectly harmless. You may go into his den without fear. But he
 has his peculiarities. The sight of a poet makes him wild. He is then
 very dangerous, and is apt to do bodily harm to all within his reach.
 He is also wrought up when a man comes in with a little trifle he has
 just dashed off.

 There is one thing that must be said in the editor’s dispraise. His
 mind is so biased by long thinking in a certain direction, that he
 dislikes very much to look upon both sides of a question. Therefore,
 if you value your safety, never approach him with manuscript written
 on both sides of your paper. Let me say right here, children, that
 a good deal of sheer nonsense has been written about the editor. He
 uses his shears only when composing an entirely original article. He
 usually writes with his pen, but his most cutting articles are the
 product of his shears.

 The editor would make a good public speaker but for his propensity for
 clipping words. The editor’s hardest task is to dispose of his time.
 It is a monotonous life, indeed, were it not for the kindness of the
 few hundred people who call upon him every day, to enliven his dull
 life with stories of their grievances, of their new enterprises and
 with antediluvian anecdotes.

 When you grow up to be men and women, children, remember this, and
 spend all the time you can in the sanctum of the editor. He loves
 company so much, you know, and sometimes he has to sit silent alone
 for a whole half minute. Is it not too bad? The business of the editor
 is to entertain itinerant lecturers, book canvassers, exchange fiends,
 and other philanthropists. He gives his whole day to these. He writes
 his editorials at night after he has gone to bed.

 The editor is never so happy as when he is writing complimentary
 notices. For ten cents worth of presents he will gladly give ten
 dollars worth of advertising--all on account of the pleasure it gives
 him to write, you know, children. He loves to write neat little
 speeches and bright, witty poems for people without brains, who wish
 to speak in public. It is so easy to do this that he is sometimes
 quite miserable when an hour or two passes without an opportunity to
 do something of the kind.

 The editor dines at all the hotels free, he travels free, theaters
 open wide their doors to him, the tailor clothes him gratis, his
 butcher and grocer furnish him with food without money and without
 price. In short, his every want is provided for. He spends his
 princely salary in building churches and school-houses in foreign
 lands.

 By all means, children, be editors. Of course, it would be better if
 you could be hod-carriers or dray horses, but, as that is impossible,
 by all means be editors.




EUGENE FIELD.


One of the most clever of Western humorists is Eugene Field. He is a
native of Missouri, having been born in St. Louis, September 2, 1850.
His mother died when he was but six years of age, and he was sent, with
a younger brother, to Amherst, Massachusetts, and placed under the care
of his cousin, Miss French. He was fitted for college by the Rev. James
Tufts, of Monson, and entered Williams college in 1868. Upon the death
of his father, in 1869, he returned to the West, and has since then
made his home on the western side of the Mississippi. He left the State
University of Missouri at the close of his junior year, and went to
Europe, where he remained for seven months.

In 1873 Mr. Field became a reporter on the St. Louis Evening Journal,
of which paper Stanley Huntley (now of the Brooklyn Eagle) was then
city editor. He changed his location soon after to St. Joseph, where
for eighteen months he was associate editor of the St. Joseph Gazette.
He then moved to Kansas City, where, for a period of twenty months, he
acted as managing editor of the Daily Times. He was with the St. Louis
Times-Journal during its best days, and was twice elected poet of the
Missouri Press Association. He is, at the present writing, managing
editor of the Denver Tribune. He has been married eight years and is
the father of four living children.

It was in 1878 that Mr. Field first began writing verse, and, for a
young poet, his productions were highly complimented. His first effort
was a little poem of ten stanzas, which was printed in a St. Louis
paper. It was entitled:


THE CHRISTMAS TREASURES.

  I count my treasures o’er with care--
      A little toy that baby knew--
      A little lock of faded hue--
  A little lock of golden hair.

  Long years ago this Christmas time,
      My little one--my all to me--
      Sat, robed in white, upon my knee,
  And heard the Merry Christmas chime.

  “Tell me, my little golden-head,
      If Santa Claus should come to-night,
      What shall he bring my baby bright--
  What treasure for my boy?” I said.

  And then he named the little toy,
      While in his round and truthful eyes
      There came a look of glad surprise
  That spoke his trustful, childish joy.

  And as he lisped his evening pray’r,
      He asked the boon with baby grace,
      And toddling to the chimney place,
  He hung his little stocking there.

  That night, as length’ning shadows crept,
      I saw the white-winged angels come
      With music to our humble home
  And kiss my darling as he slept.

  They must have heard his baby pray’r,
      For in the morn, with glowing face,
      He toddled to the chimney place
  And found the little treasure there.

  They came again one Christmas tide--
      That angel host, so fair and white--
      And, singing all the Christmas night,
  They lured my darling from my side.

  A little sock, a little toy--
      A little lock of golden hair--
      The Christmas music on the air--
  A watching for my baby boy.

  But if again that angel train
      And golden-head come back for me,
      To bear me to eternity,
  My watching will not be in vain.

Other efforts in a similar vein followed, of which the following is a
fair sample:


THE PRAYER.

  Long years have passed since that sweet time
      When first I breathed upon the air
      My simple little baby prayer--
  A prayer with earnestness sublime;
  Since first my mother clasped my hands,
      And bade me, ere I went to sleep,
      Pray God my little soul to keep,
  Or take to dwell in heav’nly land.

  And now, tho’ years on years have fled,
      And tho’ the mother’s passed away,
      And tho’ my head be bowed and gray,
  The little prayer that then I said
  Comes floating back on angel wing,
      As if, upon the other shore,
      A little child had lisped it o’er
  For God’s own messengers to bring.

His work in a lighter vein is fairly represented by the following:


THE SAME DEAR HAND.

  The bells ring out a happy sound,
    The earth is mantled o’er with white,
    It is the merry Christmas night,
  And love and mirth and joy abound.
  And here sit you and here sit I;
    I should be happiest in the land,
    For, oh, I hold the same dear hand
  I’ve held for many a year gone by!

  It is not withered up with care;
    It is as fresh and fair to see,
    As sweet to hold and dear to me,
  As when with chimes upon the air
  On Christmas nights of years ago
    I held the same dear little thing
    And felt its soft caresses bring
  The flushes to my throbbing brow.

  Ah, we were born to never part!
    This little hand I hold to-night,
    And I, so with a strange delight,
  I press it to my beating heart,
  And in the midnight’s solemn hush
    I bless the little hand I hold.
    In broken whispers be it told,
  It is the old-time bobtail flush.

Then again in the following:


THE WARRIOR.

  Under the window is a man
    Playing an organ all the day--
  Grinding as only a cripple can,
    In a moody, vague, uncertain way.

  His coat is blue and upon his face
    Is a look of high-born, restless pride--
  There is somewhat about him of martial grace
    And an empty sleeve hangs at his side.

  “Tell me, warrior, bold and true,
    In what carnage, night or day,
  Came the merciless shot to you,
    Bearing your good right arm away?”

  Fire dies out in the patriot’s eye,
    Changed my warrior’s tone and mien--
  Choked by emotion, he makes reply--
    “Kansas--harvest--threshing machine.”

In October, 1881, Mr. Field commenced the publication of the Denver
Tribune Primer, which he abandoned as soon as it began to be generally
imitated. Samples of his primer style are appended:

 MENTAL ARITHMETIC.

 How many Birds are there in Seven soft-boiled Eggs?

 If you have Five Cucumbers and eat Three, what will you have Left?
 Two? No, you are Wrong. You will have More than that. You will have
 Colic enough to Double you up in a Bow Knot for Six Hours. You may go
 to the Foot of the Class.

 A Man had Six Sons and Four Daughters. If he had had Six Daughters and
 Four Sons, how many more Sons than Daughters would He have had?

 If a Horse weighing 1600 pounds can Haul four tons of Pig Iron, how
 many Seasons will a Front Gate painted Blue carry a young Woman on One
 Side and a young Man on the Other?


 THE WASP.

 See the wasp. He has pretty yellow stripes around his Body, and a
 Darning Needle in his Tail. If You Will Pat the Wasp upon the Tail, we
 will Give You a Nice Picture Book.


 THE EDITOR’S HOME.

 Here is a Castle. It is the Home of an Editor. It has Stained Glass
 windows and Mahogany stairways. In front of the Castle is a Park. Is
 it not Sweet? The lady in the Park is the editor’s wife. She wears a
 Costly robe of Velvet trimmed with Gold Lace, and there are Pearls
 and Rubies in her Hair. The editor sits on the front Stoop smoking an
 Havana Cigar. His little Children are Playing with diamond Marbles on
 the Tesselated Floor. The editor can afford to Live in Style. He gets
 Seventy-Five Dollars a month Wages.


 THE SWEET HOME.

 Mamma is Larruping Papa with the Mop Handle. The children are Fighting
 over a Piece of Pie in the Kitchen. Over the Piano there is a
 Beautiful Motto in a gilt Frame. The Beautiful Motto says there is no
 Place like Home.


 THE CATERPILLAR.

 The Caterpillar is Crawling along the Fence. He has Pretty Fur all
 over his Back, and he Walks by Wrinkling up his Skin. He is Full of
 Nice yellow Custard. Perhaps you had better take him Into the house,
 where it is Warm, and Mash him on the Wall Paper with Sister Lulu’s
 Album. Then the Wall Paper will Look as if a Red Headed Girl had been
 leaning Against it.


 THE DIAMOND PIN.

 Here is a Diamond Pin. The Editor won it at a Church Fair. There were
 Ten Chances at Ten Cents a Chance. The Editor Mortgaged his Paper and
 Took one Chance. The Pin is Worth seven hundred Dollars. Editors like
 Diamonds. Sometimes they Wear them in their Shirts, but Generally in
 their Mind.

Eugene Field has written a number of stories, all of a sombre nature.
He has at various times been solicited to contribute to Eastern
publications, but has steadily declined to do so.




STANLEY HUNTLEY.


“Mr. and Mrs. Spoopendyke” are well-known characters. The exceedingly
funny descriptions of the home life of Spoopendyke and his better-half,
that first appeared in the columns of the Daily Eagle, of Brooklyn, New
York, in 1881, have been reproduced in thousands of newspapers in this
country, and in Europe. They are written in a style highly original,
and occupy a field entirely their own.

Mr. Stanley Huntley, the author of these lively sketches, is a resident
of Brooklyn, and has for years occupied a prominent position in the
editorial rooms of the Daily Eagle. He is a born journalist, and has
been engaged on many newspapers in both the East and West. For many
years he was city editor of the St. Louis Evening Journal, and has also
held positions on other St. Louis papers. It was not until 1881, early
in the year, that Mr. Huntley’s humorous writings began to attract the
attention of the public. They were so original, so brilliantly witty,
and such oddities in themselves, that the Brooklyn Eagle became famous
through their publication. Spoopendyke at once sprang into popular
favor, and the name was known in every city and village in the country.

During this season of popularity, Mr. Huntley gathered together his
best sketches, and brought them out in book form through the New
York publishing house of W. B. Smith & Company. The book sold with
a rapidity that was simply wonderful, and under the simple title of
Spoopendyke, over 300,000 copies of the work were manufactured and
disposed of within three months after its first appearance. Several
revised and enlarged editions have since been published.

Mr. Huntley is of middle age, of lively temperament, pleasing manners,
and is kind and sympathetic. He has been married for a number of
years to a handsome and highly cultured lady, and lives with happy
surroundings in a retired street in Brooklyn. Early in 1882, he was
compelled, by serious illness, to cease his labors for a number of
months.

It is extremely difficult to determine which is his best production.
The Spoopendyke sketches are all good. Here is a fair specimen of them:

 SPOOPENDYKE’S ILLNESS.

 “How long have I been in this measly old barracks?” asked Mr.
 Spoopendyke, turning painfully in his bed, and gazing in a vague,
 half-dazed way toward a long line of antidotes on the mantel.

 “About two weeks, dear,” said Mrs. Spoopendyke, coming toward him with
 a bowl of gruel, and smiling pleasantly. “The doctor says you are not
 likely to have another attack if you keep very quiet, and follow his
 instructions.”

 “Oh, he does, does he?” said Mr. Spoopendyke, making a vain effort
 to sit up, and falling back with a groan. “He says I won’t have
 another attack? Now, what do you suppose the dod-gasted, bald-pated
 pill-roller knows about my case, anyway? Perhaps you think he could
 make an Egyptian mummy dance a Highland fling, and put life into a
 cigar sign. All he needs is three bulletins a day and unlimited chin
 to become one of the leading physicians of the country. I suppose if I
 take all that stuff up there I shall be born again, and see the next
 centennial. What does that bone-sawing, blistering old ape know about
 the future, anyway. How can he tell whether I will have another attack
 or not? Perhaps he will tell you the name of your next husband, and
 the color of his hair, for fifty cents. Perhaps he is a dod-gasted
 Spiritualist. What’s that?”

 “Gruel,” said Mrs. Spoopendyke.

 “Gruel, always gruel,” said Mr. Spoopendyke, turning his face to
 the wall. “Do you imagine I’m a Sheltering Arms and St. John’s Guild
 excursion thrown into one? Why don’t you tie a bib around my neck, get
 me a rubber to chew on, and put a rattle in my hand?”

 “But the doctor says you must not eat solid food at pres”--

 Oh, I’m not to eat solid food,” said Mr. Spoopendyke, kicking
 viciously at the foot-board. “A diet of cannon-balls and scrap-iron
 won’t agree with me. It won’t do for me to attempt digesting steel
 rails and bridge girders. He thinks they won’t agree with me, does
 he? The measly old rattle-brained powder-mixer. Here, give me that
 stuff,” and Mr. Spoopendyke knocked the bowl out of his wife’s hands,
 spilling the contents over the bed-clothes. “There, now I suppose you
 are satisfied,” he said, squirming over toward the wall, and digging
 his face in the pillow, while Mrs. Spoopendyke gathered up the pieces,
 and said it was so fortunate that the bowl was only earthenware.

The following excellent satire on the current juvenile literature of
the day, was originally published in the columns of the Brooklyn Eagle:

 INVESTIGATING LIGHT LITERATURE.

 The other day a stout woman, armed with an umbrella and leading a
 small urchin, called at the office of a New York boys’ story paper.

 “Is this the place where they fight Indians?” she inquired of the
 gentleman in charge. “Is this the locality where the brave boy charges
 up the canyon and speeds a bullet to the heart of the dusky red-skin?”
 and she jerked the urchin around by the ear and brought her umbrella
 down on the desk.

 “We publish stories for boys,” replied the young man evasively.

 “I want to know if these are the premises on which the daring lad
 springs upon the fiery mustang and, darting through the circle of
 thunderstruck savages, cuts the captive’s cords and bears him away
 before the wondering Indians have recovered from their astonishment!
 That’s the information I’m after. I want to know if that sort of thing
 is perpetrated here!” and she swung the umbrella around her head and
 launched a crack at the young man’s head.

 “I don’t remember those specific acts,” protested the young man.

 “I want to know if this is the precinct where the adventurous boy
 jumps on the back of a buffalo and with unerring aim, picks off one by
 one, the bloodthirsty pursuers, who bite the dust at every crack of
 his faithful rifle! I’m looking for the place where that sort of thing
 happens!” and this time she brought the unlucky young man a tremendous
 whack across the back.

 “I think--?’ commenced the dodging victim.

 “I’m in search of the shop in which the boy road agent holds the
 quivering stage driver powerless with his glittering eye, while
 he robs the male passengers with an adroitness born of long and
 tried experience, and kisses the hands of the lady passengers with
 a gallantry of bearing that bespeaks noble birth and a chivalrous
 nature!” screamed the woman, driving the young man into the corner.
 “I’m looking for the apartment in which that business is transacted!”
 and down came the umbrella with trip-hammer force on the young man’s
 head.

 “Upon my soul, ma’am--!” gasped the wretched youth.

 “I want to be introduced to the jars in which you keep the boy scouts
 of the Sierras! Show me the bins full of the boy detectives of the
 prairie! Point out to me the barrels full of boy pirates of the
 Spanish main!” and with each demand she dropped the umbrella on the
 young man’s skull, until he skipped over the desk and sought safety in
 a neighboring canyon.

 “I’ll teach ’em!” she panted, grasping the urchin by the ear and
 leading him off. “I’ll teach ’em to make it good or dance. Want to go
 fight Indians any more? Want to stand proudly upon the pinnacle of
 the mountain and scatter the plain beneath with the bleeding bodies
 of uncounted slain? Want to say ‘hist’ in a tone that brooks no
 contradiction? Propose to spring upon the taffrail and with a ringing
 word of command send a broadside into the richly laden galley, and
 then mercifully spare the beautiful maiden in the cabin, that she may
 become your bride? Eh! Going to do it any more?”

 With each question she hammered the yelping urchin until his bones
 were sore and he protested his permanent abandonment of all the
 glories enumerated.

 “Then come along,” said she, taking him by the collar. “Let me catch
 you around with any more ramrods and carving knives, and you’ll
 think the leaping, curling, resistless prairie fire had swept with a
 ferocious roar of triumph across the trembling plains and lodged in
 your pantaloons to stay!”




SOME OTHER FUNNY FELLOWS.


There are hundreds of humorists in America who are comparatively
unknown--humorists who are intensely funny, but who do not know it;
persons who write one or two good things and then cease to write;
journalists of the staid, old school, who once in a decade or so say
something really witty. During the last ten years I have endeavored to
accumulate a portion of the many stray bits of fun that have appeared
in the American newspapers from time to time.

As an example I quote the following from an unknown humorist: “The
editor of a mining camp newspaper went to Denver to hear Emma Abbott
sing, and in a review of the opera said: ‘As a singer she can just
wallop the hose off anything that ever wagged a jaw on the boards. From
her clear, bird-like upper-notes, she would canter away down on the
base racket and then cushion back to a sort of spiritual treble, which
made every man in the audience imagine every hair on his head was the
golden string of a celestial harp, over which angelic fingers were
sweeping in the inspiring old tune, Sallie Put the Kettle on. Here she
would rest awhile, trilling like an enchanted bird, and hop in among
the upper notes again with a get-up-and-git vivacity that jingled the
glass pendants on the chandeliers, and elicited a whoop of pleasure
from every galoot in the mob. In the last act she made a neat play,
and worked in that famous kiss of hers on Castle. He had her in his
arms with her head lying on his shoulder, and her eyes shooting red-hot
streaks of galvanized love right into his. All at once her lips began
to twitch coaxingly and get into position, and when he tumbled to her
racket, he drawed her up easy like, shut his eyes, and then her ripe,
luscious lips glewed themselves to his and a thrill of pleasure nabbed
hold of him, and shook him till the audience could almost hear his
toenails grind against his boots. Then she shut her eyes and pushed
harder and dash--O, Moley Hoses!--the smack that followed started the
stitching in every masculine heart in the house.”

A Montana editor writes as follows of a hated rival:--“The blear-eyed
picture of melancholy and imbecility who has ravaged his exchanges
to fill up The Insect during the past year, and the cheerful
looking corpse who has acted lately as his man Friday, and who is
a tenderfoot, equally soft at both ends, will doubtless paralyze
everybody to-day with his thunderbolts of choice sarcasm and polite
invective. The intelligibility of their phillippics, however, will
depend largely on whether they could borrow that dictionary or not,
their vocabulary being painfully abridged if left to their own
resources.”

The editor of the Solid Muldoon, a weekly journal published at Ouray,
Colorado, thus vaunted his own paper: “It is the most powerful antidote
for meanness and kindred diseases, ever offered to a suffering
community. Elder Ripley, who hasn’t told the truth in thirty-two years,
feels better, and he has only been on our list two months. Captain
Stanley, who hasn’t tasted water for thirteen years, can now look at a
brooklet without serious results. Ed Snydom, who has been troubled with
his spine ever since the Ute outbreak, put out a large washing Monday.
Jim Vance, who came to this country with an Arkansas record, now moves
in the first society. O, it is a perfect balsam; two-fifty per annum.
One annum contains fifty-two doses.”

An editor in Texas gives the following figures from a statistical
memorandum of his life:

  Been asked to drink                                       11,362 times
  Drank                                                     11,362 times
  Requested to retract                                         416 times
  Didn’t retract                                               416 times
  Been invited to parties and receptions by parties
  fishing for puffs                                          3,333 times
  Took the hint                                                 33 times
  Didn’t take the hint                                       3,300 times
  Threatened to be whipped                                     170 times
  Been whipped                                                   0 times
  Whipped the other fellow                                       4 times
  Didn’t come to time                                          166 times
  Been promised whiskey, gin etc., if we would go after them 5,610 times
  Been after them                                            5,610 times
  Been asked what’s the news                               300,000 times
  Told                                                          23 times
  Didn’t know                                              200,000 times
  Lied about it                                             99,977 times
  Been to church                                                 2 times
  Changed politics                                              32 times
  Expect to change still                                        50 times
  Gave to charity                                                  $5.00
  Gave for terrier dog                                            $25.00
  Cash on hand                                                     $1.00

The following cheerful valedictory of an editor was printed in the
Asheville, North Carolina, Journal: “In this issue of the paper I offer
my house and lot for sale. My object is to quit the country--possibly
for the country’s good. For the past nine years I have endeavored to
make a livelihood here at the newspaper business, and at this writing
I am a good breathing representation of the Genius of Famine, or
an allegory of Ireland during the potato rot. The day star of my
prosperity has gone down behind a dark cloud of unpaid and uncancelled
obligations. As a dernier resort, I propose to cast my lot among the
Mongolians of the Pacific coast, and with this view my leisure moments
are devoted to deciphering the hieroglyphics on a Chinese tea-chest,
while I patiently await the advent of a purchaser.”

The following criticism of the acting of Mary Anderson was written by
a Milwaukee, Wisconsin, journalist: “Mary is about six feet in height
when in repose, but when her frame is charged with emotion, and she
gets mad, or excited, she seems to rise right up out of the stage and
telescope until she is eighteen or nineteen feet high, and others look
like dwarfs. At times she puts on a sweet, lovely look, and you would
have to be held by two persons to keep you from mounting the stage,
and telling her that you loved her like a steam engine; and then she
would put on a dying look, and a wild, scared, desperate expression, so
you want to rush out after a doctor. She has lungs like a blacksmith’s
bellows; when she contracts them, she looks so thin that her back bone
can be traced with the naked eye; but when she inflates them, her dress
fits her like paper on the wall.”

Thomas Snell Weaver, the funny man of the New Haven, Connecticut,
Register, is one of the coming humorists of the day. He is widely
quoted. The following is from his writings:

“There was an extra air of refinement about the front parlor. The
storks on a shingle and the Egyptian figures on panels had all been
removed to the back parlor to make room for the super-æstheticism of
the aureolan glory of the sunflower and the drooping grace of the lily
embroidered on bannerets and hung in fitting corners of the grand old
room. In this room they sat, and quietly enjoyed each other’s presence,
bound together by ties yet undiscovered.

“‘Angela’ said he, ‘I think it is four years this very night since we
gazed into the firelight together.’

“‘So long, Mr. Thistlewaite?’ said she tremulously, and in expectant
mood.

“‘Now, I should think that after so long a time--it occurs to me to
say--or rather to ask--why wouldn’t it be well--to call me “George”
hereafter?’

“‘Oh, is that all?’ she said. The harpstrings of her expectancy had
just been struck with a chord, but alas! the matrimonial overture was
not then to be played. The whole orchestra was out of tune for her for
the next six weeks.

Mr. H. T. White, a member of the editorial staff of the Chicago
Tribune, is also designed to make his mark in the world as a humorist.
His style is peculiar, as the following selection will no doubt show:

“‘Do not go, darling’--and as she spoke the words--spoke them in low,
tender tones, that thrilled him from mail-truck to keelsom--Gwendolen
Mahaffey laid her soft, white cheek on Plutarch Riordan’s shoulder, and
gave him a look with her lustrous, dove-like eyes that would make your
head swim.

“‘I cannot stay,’ he replied, kissing the peachy red lips as he spoke,
and feeling wistfully in his overcoat pocket for a plug of tobacco, ‘I
must go now right away.’

“But the girl placed her arms around his neck--arms whose soft, rounded
curves and pink-tinted skin would have made an anchorite throw up his
job, and pleaded with him to stay a little longer.

“‘I cannot,’ he again said, looking at her tenderly.

“‘Cannot?’ repeated the girl, a shade of anger tinging the tone in
which the words were uttered. ‘And pray, sir, what is it that so
imperatively calls you hence?’

“‘Bending over her with a careless grace that artfully concealed the
slight bagginess at the knees of his pants, Plutarch said, in low,
bitter tones that were terrible in their intensity:

“‘I have broken my suspenders!’”

H. C. Dodge, as a writer of humorous and witty verse, has few equals in
America. His style is somewhat like that of the late lamented Tom Hood.
One of Mr. Dodge’s productions is entitled


CONTRARY MAN.

  Some men do write when they do wrong
    And some do live who dye;
  And some are short when they are long
    And stand when they do lie.

  A man is surly when he’s late,
    And round when he is square;
  He may die early and dilate,
    And may be foul when fair.

  He may be fast when he is slow,
    And loose when he is tight,
  And high when he is very low,
    And heavy when he’s light.

  He may be wet when he is dry,
    He may be great when small;
  May purchase when he won’t go by;
    Have naught when he has awl.

  He may be sick when he is swell,
    And hot when he is cold;
  He’s skilled so he on earth may dwell,
    And when he’s young he’s old.




  Transcriber's Notes:

  Italics are shown thus: _sloping_.

  Variations in spelling and hyphenation are retained.

  Perceived typographical errors have been changed.





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