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diff --git a/78694-h/78694-h.htm b/78694-h/78694-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3cfd865 --- /dev/null +++ b/78694-h/78694-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2397 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> + <meta name="format-detection" content="telephone=no,date=no,address=no,email=no,url=no"> + <title> + The humor of “Bill” Nye | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .5em; + text-align: justify; + text-indent: 1.5em; + margin-bottom: .5em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: 33.5%; + margin-right: 33.5%; + clear: both; +} + +hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} +@media print { hr.chap {display: none; visibility: hidden;} } + +hr.r5 {width: 5%; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 47.5%; margin-right: 47.5%;} + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} +table.autotable { border-collapse: collapse; } +table.autotable td, +table.autotable th { padding: 0.25em; } + +.tdl {text-align: left;} + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: normal; + font-variant: normal; + text-indent: 0; +} /* page numbers */ + +blockquote { + margin-top: 0; + margin-bottom: 0; + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +figcaption {font-weight: bold;} +figcaption p {margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: .2em; text-align: inherit;} + +/* Images */ + +img { + max-width: 100%; + height: auto; +} + +.author { + text-align: right; + margin-right: 5% + } + +.x-ebookmaker body {margin: 0;} +.x-ebookmaker-drop {color: inherit;} + +.ph3, .ph4 { text-align: center; text-indent: 0em; font-weight: bold; } +.ph3 { font-size: large; margin: .83em auto; } +.ph4 { font-size: medium; margin: 1.12em auto; } + +.tnote {border: dashed 1px; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; +padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em; padding-left: .5em; +padding-right: .5em;} + + </style> +</head> + +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78694 ***</div> + + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="ph3">LITTLE BLUE BOOK NO. 771</p> +<p class="ph4">Edited by E. Haldeman-Julius</p> + +<h1>The Humor of +“Bill” Nye</h1> + +<p class="ph3">Edited, with an Introduction, by<br> +John W. Gunn</p> +<br> + +<p class="ph3">HALDEMAN-JULIUS COMPANY<br> +GIRARD, KANSAS</p> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="ph4">Copyright, 1924 +Haldeman-Julius Company</p> + + +<p class="ph4">PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA</p> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_HUMOR_OF_BILL_NYE"> + THE HUMOR OF “BILL” NYE + </h2> +</div> + + +<hr class="r5"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="INTRODUCTION"> + INTRODUCTION + </h2> + + + +<p>The first book I remember (excepting several +Dickens novels, flotsam of an abandoned attic +library) is a cheap, ill-favored, coarsely printed +volume of “Bill” Nye’s sketches, elegantly entitled +<i>Baled Hay</i>. I discovered it in a corner +of the village postoffice, where there were a +couple of shelves of nondescript books—cheap +in every sense: in price, binding and contents—which +served as the sole local excuse for a +bookstore. This copy of “Bill” Nye is the link +between my boyish and my mature reading. +Nye is the one author whom I enjoy to this +day in precisely the same spirit and to the same +degree that I enjoyed him as a boy. This fact +indicates his limitation and his peculiar appeal. +He is limited to a crude, obvious, undeveloped +humor; and his appeal is to the undiscriminating +childlike mirth in a man. He is juvenile +in essence, in subject, in manner. I might say +that “Bill” Nye was funny to me in the same +way that almost any trifling break in the +monotony of the schoolroom was funny—a suddenly +overturned chair, a spilled bottle of ink, +or an egregious blunder in recitation.</p> + +<p>Perhaps this is not an adequate explanation. +It is not every schoolboy that responds to the +boisterous fun of “Bill” Nye. They prefer, as +in later life, something with plenty of action—<i>Peck’s +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</span>Bad Boy</i>, for example or the misadventures +of Mr. Bowser (wasn’t this the name?). +Yet I say it is to the boy in man, to the uncouth +comic spirit that lurks in every age of +man, that “Bill” Nye appeals. One enjoys him +in the mood of a boy released from school, or, +better still, in the spirit of spring-time truancy. +What a book like <i>Treasure Island</i> is to the +sense of adventure, what fairy tales are to the +sense of wonder, “Bill” Nye is to the sense of +humor. The enjoyment of “Bill” Nye is not +found in the intellectual glow of satire, in the +keen smile of wit, in the subtle thrill of epigram +or paradox, but in the loud laughter of +the commonest of comic things. For this reason +I find in him a speedy and unfailing escape +from melancholy thoughts. No matter how +jaded one’s spirits, how deeply plunged in +gloom, Nye’s grimacing, cavorting absurdities +will surely produce the usual number of laughs. +There is not demanded any delicate receptive +mood, any particular conjunction of happy +spirits. He is as gratuitously and independently +ludicrous and laughable as a circus clown.</p> + +<p>One could not call “Bill” Nye subtle—heavens! +no—but his humor is often artificial, +in that it depends not absolutely upon incidents +that in themselves are humorous, but +upon an odd, perverse, irrational use of words. +He tells somewhere of a would-be author, who +fondly anticipated, when his work should be +finished, a crowd of publishers “trampling the +daisies” in the front yard. After wearily writing +“Finis,” he looked out of the window and +was “surprised by the abrupt and pronounced +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</span>manner in which they were not there.” This +is absurd enough, in all conscience; and because +it is absurd—unexpectedly and unreasonably +absurd—I, for one, find it laughable. And +who can resist a chuckle at this sort of expression: +“the low rumble of the throbbing Boston +brain dimly heard in the distance”? Writing +of taxidermy, on which he gravely pretends +to be an authority, he refers to “upholstered +beasts.” Again, we have this phrase: +“the still, white features of a soup-bone that +has outlived its usefulness.” And this: “the +death-rattle of a bathtub.” He declares that he +is willing to “sit up all night to doubt” the +theory of eternal damnation. Writing of the +stern and hidebound Puritans who settled on +the “stern and rockbound” coast of New England, +he defines religious freedom as “the art +of giving intolerance a little more room.” I +am grateful for every blow, however light, at +Puritanism and intolerance. Whether it be +Voltaire or “Bill” Nye (a sufficiently grotesque +comparison!) there is relish in the ironic or +humorous view of the atrabilious Cotton Mathers +of this world. I quote another of Nye’s +amusing references to the Puritans: “Among +the Puritans there were several who had enlarged +consciences, and who desired to take in +extra work for others who had no consciences +and were busy in the fields.” The dreary +economic background that perhaps had much +to do with the narrowness of outlook that distinguished +the Puritans is succinctly described +by Nye: “The people were kept busy digging +clams to sustain life in order to raise Indian +corn enough to give them sufficient strength +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</span>to pull clams enough the following winter to +get them through till the next corn crop should +give them strength to dig for clams again.” +There is shrewdness, too, in this observation on +the Civil War: “Most great wars are arranged +by people who stay at home and sell groceries +to the widow and orphan and old maids at one +hundred per cent advance.”</p> + +<p>The best of “Bill” Nye, to my notion, are his +humorous historical sketches—pseudo-historical, +indeed, but frequently affording glimpses of the +truth that are not to be found in the sober accepted +chronicles. The quality of this phase of +his humor is, I think, simply explained. It +consists of an irreverence that is, at bottom, +touched with skepticism. Hero-worship, if it +is a more or less universal instinct of human +nature, is a rather stiff and uncomfortable and +trying exercise. It is, too, an overestimated +and overworked instinct, that has been too persistently +and prodigiously appealed to in popular +history. These “steel engravings,” plaster +saints and wooden models of heroism are (certainly +at times) an unlovable and tiresome +company.</p> + +<p>One finds a wholesome, hearty reaction from +this hero-worship in “Bill” Nye’s jolly brand +of history. He goes guffawing down the Hall +of Fame, swatting blithely the sedate statues +of the brave and good and mighty and learned. +Here he is, indeed, a very schoolboy, throwing +his history-book aside, and shooting paper wads +at the immobile, insensibly decorous figures of +Columbus and Washington and Ben Franklin +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</span>and the rest. In spite of oneself, one laughs +even at one’s favorite hero, and, with seeming +inconsequence, regards this hero thereafter in +a more human and favorable light. There is +relief, there is relaxation—a healthful unbending +of the faculties—in these droll, preposterous, +utterly irrelevant comments. We see Columbus +suffering from a period of geographical depression—nothing +to discover—and being recommended +to Queen Isabella as a capable man in +his trade, who “is willing to let his work show +for itself”; Washington as a man equally efficient +in prayer and profanity, swearing with +a vigor that would “break up the ice in the +Delaware a week earlier than usual”; Ben +Franklin as foreman, “cussing” the rival paper +and yelling for more copy; Daniel Webster as +“a good off-hand speaker,” who “wore the largest +hat of any man then in Congress”; Noah +Webster, he of the immortal dictionary, as the +man who “had the best command of language +of any American author prior to our day.”</p> + +<p>Opinions may well differ regarding the +humor of this sort of thing—certainly it is not +profound nor subtle nor artistic humor, being +more or less trifling horseplay indeed—but +there is laughter in it nevertheless and it is an +escape from that seriousness which often weighs +too heavily on the spirit. It is good to laugh, +whatever the occasion; and one who has a +robust and expansive sense of humor will not +fail to laugh occasionally with “Bill” Nye.</p> + +<p>One can say, although it goes without saying, +that Nye is not of the company of the world’s +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</span>great humorists. One would not mention him +in the same breath with Sterne, or Rabelais, or +Moliere, or Dick Steele, or Oscar Wilde, or our +own Mark Twain. The humor of Nye is the +humor of what Nye himself called “the new +and crass civilization” of his day. It is not the +humor of the highest culture. It is a humor +that is barely commentary—a mere pointing +out of absurdities—rather than deliberately or +delicately creative. “Bill” Nye is superficial; +he is sophomoric; he is often somnolent; but +he is funny, and indeed this word defines him +exactly. He is funny rather than truly humorous +in the finer sense of the word. In the latter +part of the nineteenth century, “Bill” Nye +grew up with the Western American frontier +country, and in the midst of these raw beginnings +of a new and strange and boisterously +immature society, full of the most violent contrasts, +he exercised his peculiar and contemporaneous +humor. A very little of “Bill” Nye +will suffice for the general reader. His kind of +humor has its natural limits and, writing as a +journalist, much of what he wrote is labored +and dull. This little book contains some of +the best and most characteristic of his sketches; +and if it cannot quite be said that this is all +of him that is worth-while or enjoyable, at least +it represents the extent to which he may be +read agreeably and profitably by one who desires +no more than a bowing acquaintance with +him; it is, truth to tell, an accurate measure of +the man’s importance.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="WORDS_ABOUT_WASHINGTON"> + WORDS ABOUT WASHINGTON + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>The name of George Washington has always +had about it a glamor that made him appear +more in the light of a god than a tall man +with large feet and a mouth made to fit an +old-fashioned, full-dress pumpkin pie. I use +the word glamor, not so much because I know +what glamor means, but because I have never +used it before, and I am getting a little tired +of the short, easy words I have been using so +long.</p> + +<p>George Washington’s face has beamed out +upon us for many years now, on postage +stamps and currency, in marble, and plaster, +and bronze, in photographs of original portraits, +paintings, and stereoscopic views. We +have seen him on horseback and on foot, on +the warpath and on skates, cussing his troops +for their shiftlessness, and then in the solitude +of the forest, with his snorting war-horse +tied to a tree, engaged in prayer.</p> + +<p>We have seen all these pictures of George, +till we are led to believe that he did not +breathe our air or eat American groceries. But +George Washington was not perfect. I say +this after a long and careful study of his life, +and I do not say it to detract the very smallest +iota from the proud history of the Father of +his Country. I say it simply that the boys of +America who want to become George Washingtons +will not feel so timid about trying it.</p> + +<p>When I say that George Washington, who +now lies so calmly in the lime-kiln at Mount +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</span>Vernon, could reprimand and reproach his +subordinates at times, in a way to make the +ground crack open and break up the ice in the +Delaware a week earlier than usual, I do not +mention it in order to show the boys of our +day that profanity will make them resemble +George Washington. That was one of his weak +points, and no doubt he was ashamed of it, +as he ought to have been. Some poets think +that if they get drunk, and stay drunk, they +will resemble Edgar A. Poe and George D. +Prentice. There are lawyers who play poker +year after year, and get regularly skinned, +because they have heard that some of the able +lawyers of the past century used to come home +at night with poker chips in their pockets.</p> + +<p>Whisky will not make a poet, nor poker a +great pleader. And yet I have seen poets who +relied solely on the potency of their breath, +and lawyers who knew more of the habits of +a bob-tail flush than they ever did of the +statutes in such case made and provided.</p> + +<p>George Washington was always ready. If +you wanted a man to be first in war, you +could call on George. If you desired an adult +who would be first baseman in time of peace, +Mr. Washington could be telephoned at any +hour of the day or night. If you needed a +man to be first in the hearts of his countrymen, +George’s postoffice address was at once +secured.</p> + +<p>Though he was a great man, he was once +a poor boy. How often we hear that in America! +It is a place where it is a positive disadvantage +to be born wealthy. And yet, sometimes +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</span>I wish they had experimented a little +that way on me. I do not ask now to be born +rich, of course, because it is too late; but it +seems to me that, with my natural good sense +and keen insight into human nature, I could +have struggled along under the burdens and +cares of wealth with great success. I do not +care to die wealthy, but if I could have been +born wealthy, it seems to me that I would have +been tickled almost to death.</p> + +<p>I love to believe that true greatness is not +accidental. To think and to say that greatness +is a lottery is pernicious. Man may be wrong +sometimes in his judgment of others, both individually +and in the aggregate, but he who +gets ready to be a great man will surely find +the opportunity.</p> + +<p>Many who read the above paragraph will +wonder who I got to write it for me, but they +will never find out.</p> + +<p>In conclusion, let me say that George Washington +was successful for three reasons. One +was that he never shook the confidence of his +friends. Another was that he had a strong +will without being a mule. Some people cannot +distinguish between being firm and being +a big blue jackass.</p> + +<p>Another reason why Washington is loved and +honored today is that he died before we had +a chance to get tired of him. This is greatly +superior to the method adopted by many modern +statesmen, who wait till their constituency +weary of them and then reluctantly and tardily +die.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="B_FRANKLIN_DECEASED"> + B. FRANKLIN, DECEASED + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>Benjamin Franklin, formerly of Boston, came +very near being an only child. If seventeen +children had not come to bless the home of +Benjamin’s parents, they would have been +childless. Think of getting up in the morning +and picking out your shoes and stockings from +among seventeen pairs of them. Imagine yourself +a child, gentle reader, in a family where +you would be called upon, every morning, to +select your own cud of spruce gum from a +collection of seventeen similar cuds stuck on +a window sill. And yet B. Franklin never +murmured or repined. He desired to go to +sea, and to avoid this he was apprenticed to +his brother James, who was a printer. It is +said that Franklin at once took hold of the +great Archimedean lever, and jerked it early +and late in the interests of freedom. It is +claimed that Franklin at this time invented +the deadly weapon known as the printer’s +towel. He found that a common crash towel +could be saturated with glue, molasses, antimony, +concentrated lye, and roller composition, +and that after a few years of time and +perspiration it would harden so that the “Constant +Reader” or “Veritas” could be stabbed +with it and die soon.</p> + +<p>Many believe that Franklin’s other scientific +experiments were productive of more lasting +benefits to mankind than this, but I do not +agree with them.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</span></p> + +<p>This paper was called the <i>New England +Courant</i>. It was edited jointly by James and +Benjamin Franklin, and was started to supply +a long-felt want. Benjamin edited a part of +the time and James a part of the time. The +idea of having two editors was not for the +purpose of giving volume to the editorial page, +but it was necessary for one to run the paper +while the other was in jail. In those days you +couldn’t sass the king, and then, when the king +came in the office the next day and stopped +his paper, and took out his ad., you couldn’t +put it off on “our informant” and go right +along with the paper. You had to go to jail, +while your subscribers wondered why their +paper did not come, and the paste soured in +the tin dippers in the sanctum, and the circus +passed by on the other side.</p> + +<p>How many of us today, fellow journalists, +would be willing to stay in jail while the lawn +festival and the kangaroo came and went? +Who, of all our company, would go to a prison +cell for the cause of freedom while a double-column +ad. of sixteen aggregated circuses, and +eleven congresses of ferocious beasts, fierce +and fragrant from their native lair, went by +us?</p> + +<p>At the age of 17, Ben got disgusted with his +brother, and went to Philadelphia and New +York, where he got a chance to “sub” for a +few weeks, and then got a regular “sit.” +Franklin was a good printer, and finally got +to be a foreman. He made an excellent foreman, +sitting by the hour in the composing +room and spitting on the stone while he +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</span>cussed the make-up and press work of the other +papers. Then he would go into the editorial +rooms and scare the editors to death with a +wild shriek for more copy. He knew just +how to conduct himself as a foreman, so that +strangers would think he owned the paper.</p> + +<p>In 1730, at the age of 24, Franklin married +and established the <i>Pennsylvania Gazette</i>. He +was then regarded as a great man, and most +everyone took his paper. Franklin grew to be +a great journalist, and spelled hard words with +great fluency. He never tried to be a humorist +in any of his newspaper work, and everybody +respected him.</p> + +<p>Along about 1746 he began to study the construction +and habits of lightning, and inserted +a local in his paper, in which he said that he +would be obliged to any of his readers who +might notice any new or odd specimens of +lightning, if they would send them into the +<i>Gazette</i> office by express for examination. +Every time there was a thunder storm, Franklin +would tell the foreman to edit the paper, +and, armed with a string and an old fruit +jar, he would go out on the hills and get +enough lightning for a mess.</p> + +<p>In 1753 Franklin was made postmaster-general +of the colonies. He made a good postmaster-general, +and people say there were less +mistakes in distributing their mail than there +have ever been since. If a man mailed a letter +in those days, old Ben Franklin saw that it +went where it was addressed.</p> + +<p>Franklin frequently went over to England in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</span>those days, partly on business, and partly to +shock the king. He used to delight in going to +the castle with his breeches tucked in his boots, +figuratively speaking, and attract a good deal +of attention. It looked odd to the English, of +course, to see him come into the royal presence, +and, leaving his wet umbrella up against the +throne, ask the king: “How’s trade?” Franklin +never put on any frills, but he was not +afraid of a crowned head. He used to say, frequently, +that to him a king was no more than a +seven spot.</p> + +<p>He did his best to prevent the Revolutionary +war, but he couldn’t do it. Patrick Henry had +said that the war was inevitable, and given it +permission to come, and it came. He also went +to Paris and got acquainted with a few crowned +heads there. They thought a good deal of him +in Paris, and offered him a corner lot if he +would build there and start a paper. They +also promised him the county printing, but he +said no, he would have to go back to America, +or his wife might get uneasy about him.</p> + +<p>Franklin wrote <i>Poor Richard’s Almanac</i> in +1732-57, and it was republished in England. +Benjamin Franklin had but one son, and his +name was William. William was an illegitimate son, +and though he lived to be quite an +old man, he never got over it entirely, but continued +to be but an illegitimate son all his life. +Everybody urged him to do differently, but he +steadily refused to do so.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_DISCOVERY_OF_AMERICA"> + THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>It was a beautiful evening at the close of a +warm, luscious day in old Spain. It was such +an evening as one would select for trysting purposes. +The honeysuckle gave out the sweet +announcement of its arrival on the summer +breeze, and the bulbul sang in the dark vistas +of the olive trees—sang of his love and his +hope, and of the victory he anticipated in the +morrow’s bulbul fight, and the plaudits of the +royal couple who would be there. The pink +west paled away to the touch of twilight, and +the soft zenith was sown with stars coming +like celestial fire-flies on the breast of a mighty +meadow.</p> + +<p>Across the dusk, with bowed head, came a +woman. Her air was one of proud humility. +It was the air of royalty in the presence of an +over-ruling power. It was Isabella. She was +on her way to confession. She carried a large, +beautifully bound volume containing a memorandum +of her sins for the day. Ever and anon +she would refer to it, but the twilight had come +on so fast that she could not read it.</p> + +<p>Reaching the confessional, she kneeled, and, +by the aid of her notes, she told off to the good +Father and receptacle of the queen’s trifling +sins, Fernando de Talavera, how wicked she +had been. When it was over and the queen had +risen to go, Fernando came forth, and with a +solemn obeisance said:</p> + +<p>“May it please your Majesty, I have today +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</span>received a letter from my good friend the prior +of the Franciscan convent of St. Mary’s of +Rabida in Andalusia. With your Majesty’s permission, +I will read it to you.”</p> + +<p>“Proceed,” exclaimed Isabella, gravely, taking +a piece of crochet work from her apron and +seating herself comfortably near the dim light.</p> + +<p>“It is dated the sixth month and tenth day +of the month, and reads as follows:</p> + +<p>“‘Dear Brother: This letter will be conveyed +into your hands by the bearer hereof. His +name is Christopher Columbus, a native of +Genoa, who has been living on me for two +years. But he is a good man, devout and +honest. He is willing to work, but I have nothing +to do in his line. Times, as you know, are +dull, and in his own profession nothing seems +to be doing. He is by profession a discoverer. +He has been successful in the work where he +has had opportunities, and there has been no +complaint so far on the part of those who have +employed him. Everything he has ever discovered +has remained that way, and he is willing +to let his work show for itself. Should you +be able to bring this to the notice of her +Majesty, who is tender of heart, I would be +most glad; and should her most gracious +Majesty have any discovering to be done, or +should she contemplate a change or desire to +substitute another in the place of the present +discoverer, she will do well to consider the +qualifications of my friend. Very sincerely and +fraternally thine, etc., etc.’”</p> + +<p>The queen inquired still further regarding +Columbus, and, taking the letter, asked Talavera +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</span>to send him to the royal sitting room at +ten o’clock the following day.</p> + +<p>When Columbus arose the next morning he +found a note from the royal confessor, and, +without waiting for breakfast, for he had almost +overcome the habit of eating, he reversed his +cuffs, and, taking a fresh handkerchief from his +valise and putting it in his pocket so that the +corner would coyly stick out a little, he was +soon on his way to the palace. He carried also +a small globe wrapped up in a newspaper.</p> + +<p>The interview was encouraging until the matter +of money necessary for the trip was touched +upon. His Majesty was called in, and spoke +sadly of the public deficit. He said that there +were one hundred dollars still due on his +salary, and the palace had not been painted +for eight years. He had taken orders on the +store till he was tired of it. “Our meat bill,” +said he, taking off his crown and mashing a +hornet on the wall, “is sixty days overdue. +We owe the hired girl for three weeks; and +how are we going to get funds enough to do +any discovering, when you remember that we +have got to pay for an extra session this fall +for the purpose of making money plenty?”</p> + +<p>But Isabella came and sat by him in her +winning way, and with the moistened corner of +her handkerchief removed a spot of maple syrup +from the ermine trimming of his reigning +gown. She patted his hand, and, with her +gentle voice, cheered him and told him that if +he would economize and go without cigars or +wine, in less than two hundred years he would +have saved enough to fit Columbus out.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</span></p> + +<p>A few weeks later he had saved one hundred +and fifty dollars in this way. The queen +then went at twilight and pawned a large +breast-pin, and, although her chest was very +sensitive to cold, she went without it all the +following winter, in order that Columbus might +discover America before immigration set in +here.</p> + +<p>Too much cannot be said of the heroism of +Queen Isabella and the courage of her convictions. +A man would have said, under such circumstances, +that there would be no sense in +discovering a place that was not popular. Why +discover a place when it is so far out of the +way? Why discover a country with no improvements? +Why discover a country that is +so far from the railroad? Why discover, at +great expense, an entirely new country?</p> + +<p>But Isabella did not stop to listen to these +croaks. In the language of the Honorable Jeremiah +M. Rusk, “She seen her duty and she done +it.” That was Isabella’s style.</p> + +<p>Columbus now began to select steamer chairs +and rugs. He had already secured the Nina, +Pinta and Santa Maria, and on the 3rd of +August, 1492, he sailed from Palos.</p> + +<p>Isabella brought him a large bunch of beautiful +flowers as he was about to sail, and Ferdinand +gave him a nice yachting cap and a spicy +French novel to read on the road.</p> + +<p>He was given a commission as viceroy or +governor of all the lands he might discover, +with hunting and shooting privileges on same.</p> + +<p>He stopped several weeks at the Canary +Islands, where he and his one hundred and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</span>twenty men rested and got fresh water. He +then set out sailing due west over an unknown +sea to blaze the way for liberty.</p> + +<p>Soon, however, his men began to murmur. +They began also to pick on Columbus and +occupy his steamer chair when he wanted to +use it himself. They got to making chalk +marks on the deck and compelling him to pay +a shilling before he could cross them. Some +claimed that they were lost and that they had +been sailing around for over a week in a circle, +one man stating that he recognized a spot in +the sea that they had passed eight times already.</p> + +<p>Finally they mutinied, and started to throw +the great navigator overboard, but he told +them that if they would wait until the next +morning he would tell them a highly amusing +story that he heard just before he left Palos.</p> + +<p>Thus his life was saved, for early in the +morning the cry of “Land ho!” was heard, and +America was discovered.</p> + +<p>A saloon was at once started, and the first +step thus taken towards the foundation of a +republic. From that one little timid saloon, +with its family entrance, has sprung the magnificent +and majestic machine which, lubricated +with spoils and driven by wind, gives to +every American today the right to live under a +Government selected for him by men who make +that their business.</p> + +<p>Columbus discovered America several times +after the 12th of October, 1492, and finally, +while prowling about looking for more islands, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</span>discovered South America near the mouth of +the Orinoco.</p> + +<p>He was succeeded as governor by Francisco +de Bobadilla, who sent him back finally in +chains. Thus we see that the great are not +always happy. There is no doubt that millions +of people every year avoid many discomforts +by remaining in obscurity.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_PURITANS"> + THE PURITANS + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>In the fall of 1620 the Pilgrims landed at +Plymouth during a disagreeable storm, and, +noting the excellent opportunity for future +misery, began to erect a number of rude cabins. +This party consisted of one hundred and two +people of a resolute character who wished to +worship God in a more extemporaneous manner +than had been the custom in the Church of +England.</p> + +<p>They found that the Indians of Cape Cod +were not ritualistic, and that they were willing +to dispose of inside lots at Plymouth on reasonable +terms, retaining, however, the right to +use the lands for massacre purposes from time +to time.</p> + +<p>The Pilgrims were honest, and gave the Indians +something for their land in almost every +instance, but they put a price upon it which +has made the Indian ever since a comparatively +poor man.</p> + +<p>Half of this devoted band died before spring, +and yet the idea of returning to England did +not occur to them. “No,” they exclaimed, “we +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</span>will not go back to London until we can go +first-class, if we have to stay here two hundred +years.”</p> + +<p>During the winter they discovered why the +lands had been sold to them so low. The Indians +of one tribe had died there of a pestilence +the year before, and so when the Pilgrims +began to talk trade they did not haggle over +prices.</p> + +<p>In the early spring, however, they were surprised +to hear the word “Welcome” proceeding +from the door-mat of Samoset, an Indian whose +chief was named Massasoit. A treaty was then +made for fifty years, Massasoit taking “the +same.”</p> + +<p>Canonicus once sent to Governor Bradford +a bundle of arrows tied up in a rattlesnake’s +skin. The Governor put them away in the +pantry with his other curios, and sent +Canonicus a few bright new bullets and a little +dose of powder. That closed the correspondence. +In those days there were no newspapers, +and most of the fighting was done +without guarantee or side bets.</p> + +<p>Money matters, however, were rather panicky +at the time, and the people were kept +busy digging clams to sustain life in order to +raise Indian corn enough to give them sufficient +strength to pull clams enough the following +winter to get them through till the next +corn crop should give them strength to dig for +clams again. Thus a trip to London and the +Isle of Wight looked farther and farther away.</p> + +<p>After four years they numbered only one +hundred and eighty-four, counting immigration +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</span>and all. The colony only needed, however, +more people and Eastern capital.</p> + +<p>It would be well to pause here and remember +the annoyances connected with life as a forefather. +Possibly the reader has considered +the matter already. Imagine how nervous one +may be waiting in the hall and watching with +a keen glance for the approach of the physician +who is to announce that one is a forefather. +The amateur forefather of 1620 must have felt +proud yet anxious about the clam yield also, +as each new mouth opened on the prospect.</p> + +<p>Speaking of clams, it is said by some of the +forefathers that the Cape Cod menu did not +go beyond codfish croquettes until the beginning +of the eighteenth century, when pie was +added by act of legislature.</p> + +<p>Clams are not so restless if eaten without +the brisket, which is said to lie hard on the +stomach.</p> + +<p>Salem and Charlestown were started by +Governor Endicott, and Boston was founded in +1630. To these various towns the Puritans +flocked, and even now one may be seen in +ghostly garments on Thanksgiving Eve flitting +here and there turning off the gas in the parlor +while the family are at tea, in order to cut +down expenses.</p> + +<p>Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay Colonies +were united in 1692.</p> + +<p>Roger Williams, a bright young divine, was +the first to interfere with the belief that magistrates +had the right to punish Sabbath +breakers, blasphemers, etc. He also was the +first to utter the idea that a man’s own conscience +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</span>must be his own guide and not that of +another.</p> + +<p>Among the Puritans there were several who +had enlarged consciences, and who desired to +take in extra work for others who had no consciences +and were busy in the fields. They +were always ready to give sixteen ounces to +the pound, and were honest, but they got very +little rest on Sunday, because they had to +watch the Sabbath breaker all the time.</p> + +<p>It is said that the Puritans knocked what +fun there was out of the Indian. Did any one +ever see an Indian smile since the landing of +the Pilgrims?</p> + +<p>Roger Williams was too liberal to be kindly +received by the clergy, and so he was driven out +of the settlement. Finding that the Indians +were less rigid and kept open on Sundays, he +took refuge among them (1636), and before +spring had gained eighteen pounds and converted +Canonicus, one of the hardest cases in +New England and the first man to sit up until +after ten o’clock at night. Canonicus gave +Roger the tract of land on which Providence +now stands.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Anne Hutchinson gave the Pilgrims +trouble also. Having claimed some special +revelations and attempted to make a few remarks +regarding them, she was banished.</p> + +<p>Banishment, which meant a homeless life in +a wild land, with no one but the Indians to +associate with, in those days, was especially +annoying to a good Christian woman, and yet +it had its good points. It offered a little religious +freedom, which could not be had among +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</span>those who wanted it so much that they braved +the billow and the wild beast, the savage, the +drouth, the flood, and the potato bug, to obtain +it before anybody else got a chance at it. +Freedom is a good thing.</p> + +<p>Twenty years later the Quakers shocked +every one by thinking a few religious thoughts +on their own hooks. The colonists executed +four of them, and before that tortured them at +a great rate.</p> + +<p>During dull times and on rainy days it was +a question among the Puritans whether they +would banish an old lady, bore holes with a +red-hot iron through a Quaker’s tongue, or pitch +horseshoes.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="NERO"> + NERO + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>Nero, who was a Roman emperor from 54 +to 68 A. D., was said to have been one of the +most disagreeable monarchs to meet that Rome +ever had. He was a nephew of Caligula, the +Emperor, on his mother’s side, and a son of +Dominitius Ahenobarbust, of St. Lawrence +county. The above was really Nero’s name, but +in the year 50 A. D. his mother married +Claudius and her son adopted the name of Nero +Claudius Cæsar Drusus Germanicus. This name +he was in the habit of wearing during the cold +weather, buttoned up in front. During the hot +weather, Nero was all the name he wore. In +53, Nero married Octavia, daughter of Claudius, +and went right to housekeeping. Nero and +Octavia did not get along first-rate. Nero soon +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</span>wearied of his young wife and finally transferred +her to the New Jerusalem.</p> + +<p>In 54, Nero’s mother, by concealing the rightful +heir to the throne for several weeks and +doctoring the returns, succeeded in getting the +steady job of Emperor for Nero at a good +salary.</p> + +<p>His reign was quite stormy and several long, +bloody wars were carried on during that period. +He was a good vicarious fighter and could successfully +hold a man’s coat all day, while the +man went to the front to get killed. He loved +to go out riding over the battlefields, as soon +as it was safe, in his gorgeously bedizened band +chariot and he didn’t care if the wheels rolled +in gore up to the hub, providing it was some +other man’s gore. It gave him great pleasure +to drive about over the field of carnage and +gloat over the dead. Nero was not a great success +as an Emperor, but as a gloater he has no +rival in history.</p> + +<p>Nero’s reign was characterized, also, by the +great conflagration and Roman fireworks of +July, 64, by which two-thirds of the city of +Rome was destroyed. The Emperor was +charged with starting this fire in order to get +the insurance on a stock of dry goods on Main +street.</p> + +<p>Instead of taking off his crown, hanging it +up in the hall, and helping to put out the fire, +as other Emperors have done time and again, +Nero took his violin upstairs and played, “I’ll +Meet You When the Sun Goes Down.” This +occasioned a great deal of adverse criticism on +the part of those who opposed the administration. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</span>Several persons openly criticized Nero’s +policy and then died.</p> + +<p>A man in those days would put on his overcoat +in the morning and tell his wife not to +keep dinner waiting. “I am going down town +to criticize the Emperor a few moments,” he +would say. “If I do not get home in time for +dinner, meet me on the ‘evergreen shore.’”</p> + +<p>Nero, after the death of Octavia, married +Poppea Sabina. She died afterwards at her +husband’s earnest solicitation. Nero did not +care so much about being a bridegroom, but +the excitement of being a widower always +gratified and pleased him.</p> + +<p>He was a very zealous monarch and kept +Rome pretty well stirred up during his reign. +If a man failed to show up anywhere on time, +his friends would look sadly at each other and +say, “Alas, he has criticized Nero.”</p> + +<p>A man could wrestle with the yellow fever, +or the small-pox, or the Asiatic cholera and +stand a chance of recovery, but when he spoke +sarcastically of Nero, it was good-bye John.</p> + +<p>When Nero decided that a man was an offensive +partisan, that man would generally put +up the following notice on his office door:</p> + +<p>“Gone to see the Emperor in relation to +charge of offensive partisanship. Meet me at +the cemetery at 2 o’clock.”</p> + +<p>Finally, Nero overdid this thing and ran it +into the ground. He did not want to be disliked +and so those who disliked him were +killed. This made people timid and muzzled +the press a good deal.</p> + +<p>The Roman papers in those days were all on +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</span>one side. They did not dare to be fearless and +outspoken, for fear that Nero would take out +his ad. So they would confine themselves to +the statement that: “The genial and urbane +Afranius Burrhus painted his new and recherche +picket fence last week,” or “Our enterprising +fellow townsman, Cæsar Kersikes, +will remove the tail of his favorite bulldog +next week, if the weather should be auspicious,” +or “Miss Agrippina Bangoline, eldest daughter +of Romulus Bangoline, the great Roman rinkist, +will teach the school at Eupatorium, Trifoliatum +Holler, this summer. She is a highly +accomplished young lady, and a good speller.”</p> + +<p>Nero got more and more fatal as he grew +older, and finally the Romans began to wonder +whether he would not wipe out the Empire +before he died. His back yard was full all the +time of people who had dropped in to be killed, +so that they could have it off their minds.</p> + +<p>Finally, Nero himself yielded to the great +strain that had been placed upon him and, in +the midst of an insurrection in Gaul, Spain and +Rome itself, he fled and killed himself.</p> + +<p>The Romans were very grateful for Nero’s +great crowning act in the killing line, but they +were dissatisfied because he delayed it so long, +and therefore they refused to erect a tall +monument over his remains. While they admired +the royal suicide and regarded it as a +success, they censured Nero’s negligence and +poor judgment in suiciding at the wrong end +of his reign.</p> + +<p>I have often wondered what Nero would have +done if he had been Emperor of the United +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</span>States for a few weeks and felt as sensitive +to newspaper criticism as he seems to have +been. Wouldn’t it be a picnic to see Nero +cross the Jersey ferry to kill off a few journalists +who had adversely criticized his course? +The great violin virtuoso and lightweight +Roman tyrant would probably go home by return +mail, wrapped in tinfoil, accompanied by +a note of regret from each journalist in New +York, closing with the remark that “in the +midst of life we are in death, therefore now +is the time to subscribe.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="A_SINGULAR_HAMLET"> + A SINGULAR “HAMLET” + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>The closing debut of that great Shakesperean +humorist and emotional ass, Mr. James Owen +O’Connor, at the Star Theater, will never be +forgotten. During his extraordinary histrionic +career he gave his individual and amazing +renditions of Hamlet, Phidias, Shylock, Othello, +and Richelieu. I think I liked his Hamlet best, +and yet it was a pleasure to see him in any +thing wherein he killed himself.</p> + +<p>Encouraged by the success of beautiful but +self-made actresses and hoping to win a place +for himself and his portrait in the great soap +and cigarette galaxy, Mr. O’Connor placed +himself in the hands of some misguided elocutionist, +and then sought to educate the people +of New York and elocute them out of their +thralldom up into the glorious light of the +O’Connor school of acting.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</span></p> + +<p>The first week he was in the hands of critics, +and they spoke quite serenely of his methods. +Later, it was deemed best to place his merits +in the hands of a man who would be on an +equal footing with him. What O’Connor wanted +was one of his peers, who would therefore +judge him fairly. I was selected because I +know nothing whatever about acting and would +thus be on an equality with Mr. O’Connor.</p> + +<p>After seeing his Hamlet I was of the opinion +that he did wisely in choosing New York for +debutting purposes, for had he chosen Denver, +Colorado, at the end of the third act kind +hands would have removed him from the stage +by means of benzine and a rag.</p> + +<p>I understand that Mr. O’Connor charged +Messrs. Henry E. Abbey and Henry Irving with +using their influence among the masses in +order to prejudice said masses against Mr. +O’Connor, thus making it unpleasant for him +to act, and inciting in the audience a feeling of +gentle but evident hostility, which Mr. O’Connor +deprecated very much whenever he could +get a chance to do so. I looked into this +matter a little and I do not think it was true. +Until almost the end of Mr. O’Connor’s career, +Messrs. Abbey and Irving were not aware of +his great metropolitan success, and it is generally +believed among the friends of the two +latter gentlemen that they did not feel it so +keenly as Mr. O’Connor was led to suppose.</p> + +<p>But James Owen O’Connor did one thing +which I take the liberty of publicly alluding to. +He took that saddest and most melancholy bit +of bloody history, trimmed with assassinations +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</span>down the back and looped up with remorse, +insanity, duplicity and unrequited love, and he +filled it with silvery laughter and cauliflower +and mirth, and various other groceries which +the audience threw in from time to time, thus +making it more of a spectacular piece than +under the conservative management of such +old-school men as Booth, who seem to think +that Hamlet should be soaked full of sadness.</p> + +<p>I went to see Hamlet, thinking that I would +be welcome, for my sympathies were with +James when I heard that Mr. Irving was picking +on him and seeking to injure him. I went +to the box office and explained who I was, +and stated that I had been detailed to come +and see Mr. O’Connor act; also that in what I +might say afterwards my instructions were to +give it to Abbey and Irving if I found that they +had tampered with the audience in any way.</p> + +<p>The man in the box office did not recognize +me, but said that Mr. Fox would extend to me +the usual courtesies. I asked where Mr. Fox +could be found, and he said inside. I then +started to go inside, but ran against a total +stranger, who was “on the door,” as we say. +He was feeding red and yellow tickets into a +large tin oven, and looking far, far away. I +conversed with him in low, passionate tones, +and asked him where Mr. Fox could be found. +He did not know, but thought he was still in +Europe. I went back and told the box office +that Mr. Fox was in Europe. He said no, I +would find him inside. “Well, but how shall I +get inside?” I asked eagerly, for I could already, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</span>I fancied, hear the orchestra beginning +to twang its lyre.</p> + +<p>“Walk in,” said he, taking in $2 and giving +back 50 cents in change to a man with a dead +cat in his overcoat pocket.</p> + +<p>I went back, and springing lightly over the +iron railing while the gatekeeper was thinking +over his glorious past, I went all around over +the theater looking for Mr. Fox. I found him +haggling over the price of some vegetables +which he was selling at the stage door and +which had been contributed by admirers and +old subscribers to Mr. O’Connor at a previous +performance.</p> + +<p>When Mr. Fox got through with that I presented +to him my card, which is as good a +piece of job work in colors as was ever done +west of the Missouri river, and to which I +frequently point with pride. Mr. Fox said he +was sorry, but that Mr. O’Connor had instructed +him to extend no courtesies whatever +to the press. The press, he claimed, had said +something derogatory to Mr. O’Connor as a +tragedian, and while he personally would be +tickled to death to give me two divans and a +folding-bed near the large fiddle, he must do +as Mr. O’Connor had bid—or bade him, I +forget which; and so, restraining his tears +with great difficulty, he sent me back to the +entrance and although I was already admitted +in a general way, I went to the box office and +purchased a seat. I believe now that Mr. Fox +thought he had virtually excluded me from the +house when he told me I should have to pay +in order to get in.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</span></p> + +<p>I bought a seat in the parquet and went in. +The audience was not large and there were +not more than a dozen ladies present.</p> + +<p>Pretty soon the orchestra began to ooze in +through a little opening under the stage. Then +the overture was given. It was called +“Egmont.” The curtain now arose on a scene +in Denmark. I had asked an usher to take a +note to Mr. O’Connor requesting an audience, +but the boy had returned with the statement +that Mr. O’Connor was busy rehearsing his +soliloquy and removing a shirred egg from his +outer clothing.</p> + +<p>He also said he could not promise an +audience to any one. It was all he could do +to get one for himself.</p> + +<p>So the play went on. Elsinore, where the +first act takes place, is in front of a large +stone water tank, where two gentlemen armed +with long-handled hay knives are on guard.</p> + +<p>All at once a ghost who walks with an overstrung +Chickering action and stiff, jerky, +Waterbury movement, comes in, wearing a +dark mosquito net over his head—so that +harsh critics can not truly say there are any +flies on him, I presume. When the ghost enters +most every one enjoys it. Nobody seems to +be frightened at all. I knew it was not a ghost +as quick as I looked at it. One man in the +gallery hit the ghost on the head with a +soda cracker, which made him jump and feel +of his ear; so I knew then that it was only a +man made up to look like a presence.</p> + +<p>One of the guards, whose name, I think, was +Smith, had a droop to his legs and an instability +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</span>about the knees which were highly enjoyable. +He walked like a frozen-toed hen, and +stood first on one foot and then on the other, +with almost human intelligence. His support +was about as poor as O’Connor’s.</p> + +<p>After awhile the ghost vanished with what +is called a stately tread, but I would regard it +more as a territorial tread. Horatio did quite +well, and the audience frequently listened to +him. Still, he was about the only one who did +not receive crackers or cheese as a slight +testimonial of regard from admirers in the +audience. Finally, Mr. James Owen O’Connor +entered. It was fully five minutes before he +could be heard, and even then he could not. +His mouth moved now and then, and a gesture +would suddenly burst forth, but I did not hear +what he said. At least I could not hear distinctly +what he said. After awhile, as people +got tired and went away, I could hear better.</p> + +<p>Mr. O’Connor introduced into his Hamlet a +set of gestures evidently intended for another +play. People who are going to act out on the +stage can not be too careful in getting a good +assortment of gestures that will fit the play +itself. James had provided himself with gestures +that might do for Little Eva, or “Ten +Nights in a Bar-room,” but they did not fit +Hamlet. There is where he makes a mistake. +Hamlet is a man whose victuals don’t agree +with him. He feels depressed and talks about +sticking a bodkin into himself, but Mr. O’Connor +gives him a light, elastic step, and an air +of persiflage, bonhomie, and frisk, which do +not match the character.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</span></p> + +<p>Mr. O’Connor sought in his conception and +interpretation of Hamlet to give it a free and +jaunty Kokomo flavor—a nameless twang of +tansy and dried apples, which Shakespeare himself +failed to sock into his great drama.</p> + +<p>There is really a good lesson to be learned +from the pitiful and pathetic tale of James +Owen O’Connor. Injudicious friends, doubtless, +overestimated his value, and unduly praised his +Smart Aleckutionary powers. Loving himself +unwisely but too extensively, he was led away +into the great, untried purgatory of public +scrutiny, and the general indictment followed.</p> + +<p>The truth stands out brighter and stronger +than ever that there is no cut across lots to +fame or success. He who seeks to jump from +mediocrity to a glittering triumph over the +heads of the patient student, and the earnest, +industrious candidate who is willing to bide +his time, gets what James Owen O’Connor received—the +just condemnation of those who are +abundantly able to judge.</p> + +<p>In seeking to combine the melancholy beauty +of Hamlet’s deep and earnest pathos with the +gentle humor of “A Hole in the Ground,” Mr. +O’Connor evidently corked himself, as we say +at the Browning Club, and it was but justice +after all. Before we curse the condemnation +of the people and the press, let us carefully +and prayerfully look ourselves over, and see +if we have not overestimated ourselves.</p> + +<p>There are many men alive today who do +not dare say anything without first thinking +how it will read in their memoirs—men whom +we can not, therefore, thoroughly enjoy until +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</span>they are dead, and yet whose graves will be +kept green only so long as the appropriation +lasts.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_DUBIOUS_FUTURE"> + THE DUBIOUS FUTURE + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>Without wishing to alarm the American +people, or create a panic, I desire briefly and +seriously to discuss the great question, +“Whither are we drifting, and what is to be +the condition of the coming man?” We can +not shut our eyes to the fact that mankind is +passing through a great era of change; even +womankind is not built as she was a few brief +years ago. And is it not time, fellow citizens, +that we pause to consider what is to be the +future of the American?</p> + +<p>Food itself has been the subject of change +both in the matter of material and preparation. +This must affect the consumer in such +a way as to some day bring about great differences. +Take, for instance, the oyster, one +of our comparatively modern food and game +fishes, and watch the effects of science upon +him. At one time the oyster browsed around +and ate what he could find in Neptune’s backyard, +and we had to eat him as we found him. +Now we take a herd of oysters off the trail, +all run down, and feed them artificially till +they swell up to a fancy size and bring a +fancy price. Where will this all lead at last, +I ask as a careful scientist? Instead of eating apples, +as Adam did, we work the fruit +up into apple-jack and pie, while even the +simple oyster is perverted, and instead of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</span>being allowed to fatten up in the fall on +acorns and ancient mariners, spurious flesh is +put on his bones by the artificial osmose and +dialysis of our advanced civilization. How +can you make an oyster stout or train him +down by making him jerk a health lift so many +hours every day, or cultivate his body at the +expense of his mind, without ultimately not +only impairing the future usefulness of the +oyster himself, but at the same time affecting +the future of the human race who feed upon +him?</p> + +<p>I only use the oyster as an illustration, and +I do not wish to cause alarm, but I say that +if we stimulate the oyster artificially and swell +him up by scientific means, we not only do so +at the expense of his better nature and keep +him away from his family, but we are making +our mark on the future race of men. Oyster-fattening +is now, of course, in its infancy. +Only a few years ago an effort was made at +St. Louis to fatten cove oysters while in the +can, but the system was not well understood, +and those who had it in charge only succeeded +in making the can itself more plump. But now +oysters are kept on ground feed and given +nothing to do for a few weeks, and even the +older and overworked sway-backed and rickety +oysters of the dim and murky past are made +to fill out, and many of them have to put a +gore in the waistband of their shells. I only +speak of the oyster incidentally, as one of the +objects toward which science has turned its +attention, and I assert with the utmost confidence +that the time will come, unless science +should get a setback, when the present hunting-case +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</span>oyster will give place to the open-face +oyster, grafted on the octopus and big enough +to feed a hotel. Further than that, the oyster +of the future will carry in a hip-pocket a +flask of vinegar, half a dozen lemons and two +little Japanese bottles, one of which will contain +salt and the other pepper, and there will +be some way provided by which you can tell +which is which. But are we improving the +oyster now? That is a question we may well +ask ourselves. Is this a healthy fat which +we are putting on him, or is it bloat? And +what will be the result in the home life of the +oyster? We take him from all domestic influences +whatever in order to make a swell of +him by our modern methods, but do we improve +his condition morally, and what is to +be the great final result on man?</p> + +<p>The reader will see by the questions I ask +that I am a true scientist. Give me an overcoat +pocket full of lower-case interrogation +points and a medical report to run to, and I +can speak on the matter of science and advancement +till Reason totters on her throne.</p> + +<p>But food and oysters do not alone affect +the great, pregnant future. Our race is being +tampered with not only by means of adulterations, +political combinations and climatic +changes, but even our methods of relaxation +are productive of peculiar physical conditions, +malformations and some more things of the +same kind.</p> + +<p>Cigarette smoking produces a flabby and +endogenous condition of the optic nerve, and +constant listening at a telephone, always with +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</span>the same ear, decreases the power of the other +ear till it finally just stands around drawing +its salary, but actually refusing to hear anything. +Carrying an eight-pound cane makes a +man lopsided, and the muscular and nervous +strain that is necessary to retain a single +eyeglass in place and keep it out of the soup, +year after year, draws the mental stimulus +that should go to the thinker itself, until at +last the mind wanders away and forgets to +come back, or becomes atrophied, and the +great mental strain incident to the work of +pounding sand or coming in when it rains is +more than it is equal to.</p> + +<p>Playing billiards, accompanied by the vicious +habit of pounding on the floor with the butt +end of the cue ever and anon, produces at last +optical illusions, phantasmagoria and visions +of pink spiders with navy-blue abdomens. +Baseball is not alone highly injurious to the +umpire, but it also induces crooked fingers, +bone spavin and hives among habitual players. +Jumping the rope induces heart disease. +Poker is unduly sedentary in its nature. Bicycling +is highly injurious, especially to skittish +horses. Boating induces malaria. Lawn tennis +can not be played in the house. Archery is +apt to be injurious to those who stand around +and watch the game, and pugilism is a relaxation +that jars heavily on some natures.</p> + +<p>Football produces what may be called the +endogenous or ingrowing toenail, stringhalt +and mania. Copenhagen induces a melancholy, +and the game of bean bag is unduly exciting. +Horse racing is too brief and transitory as an +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</span>outdoor game, requiring weeks and months +for preparation and lasting only long enough +for a quick person to ejaculate “Scat!” The +pitcher’s arm is a new disease, the outgrowth +of baseball; the lawn tennis elbow is another +result of a popular open air amusement, and +it begins to look as though the coming American +would hear with one overgrown telephonic +ear, while the other will be rudimentary only. +He will have an abnormal baseball arm with a +lawn tennis elbow, a powerful football kicking +leg with the superior toe driven back into the +palm of his foot. He will have a highly trained +biceps muscle over his eye to retain his glass, +and that eye will be trained to shoot a curved +glance over a high hat and witness anything +on the stage.</p> + +<p>Other features will grow abnormal, or shrink +from the lack of use, as a result of our customs. +For instance, the man whose business is +to get along a crowded street with the utmost +speed will have, finally, a hard, sharp horn +growing on each elbow, and a pair of spurs +growing out of each ankle. These will enable +him to climb over a crowd and get there early. +Constant exposure to these weapons on the +part of the pedestrian will harden the walls +of the thorax and abdomen until the coming +man will be an impervious man. The citizen +who avails himself of all modern methods of +conveyance will ride from his door on the +horse car to the elevated station, where an +elevator will elevate him to the train and a +revolving platform will swing him on board, +or possibly the street car will be lifted from +the surface track to the elevated track, and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</span>the passenger will retain his seat all the time. +Then a man will simply hang out a red card, +like an express card, at his door, and a combination +car will call for him, take him to the +nearest elevated station, elevate him, car and +all, to the track, take him where he wants to +go, and call for him at any hour of the night +to bring him home. He will do his exercising +at home, chiefly taking artificial sea baths, +jerking a rowing machine or playing on a +health lift till his eyes hang out on his cheeks, +and he need not do any walking whatever. In +that way the coming man will be over-developed +above the legs, and his lower limbs will +look like the desolate stems of a frozen geranium. +Eccentricities of limb will be handed +over like baldness from father to son among +the dwellers in the cities, where every advantage +in the way of rapid transit is to be had, +until a metropolitan will be instantly picked +out by his able digestion and rudimentary +legs, just as we now detect the gentleman from +the interior by his wild endeavors to overtake +an elevated train.</p> + +<p>In fact, Mr. Edison has now perfected, or +announced that he is on the road to the perfection +of, a machine which I may be pardoned +for calling a storage think-tank. This +will enable a man to sit at home, and, with +an electric motor and a perfected phonograph, +he can think into a tin dipper or funnel, +which will, by the aid of electricity and a +new style of foil, record and preserve his +ideas on a sheet of soft metal, so that when +anyone says to him, “A penny for your +thoughts,” he can go to his valise and give +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</span>him a piece of his mind. Thus the man who +has such wild and beautiful thoughts in the +night and can never hold on to them long +enough to turn on the gas and get his writing +materials, can set this thing by the head of +his bed, and, when the poetic thought comes +to him in the stilly night, he can think into +a hopper, and the genius of Franklin and +Edison together will enable him to fire it back +at his friends in the morning while they eat +their pancakes and glucose syrup from Vermont, +or he can mail the sheet of tinfoil to +absent friends, who may put it into their +phonographs and utilize it. In this way the +world may harness the gray matter of its best +men, and it will be no uncommon thing to see +a dozen brainy men tied up in a row in the +back office of an intellectual syndicate, dropping +pregnant thoughts into little electric coffee +mills for a couple of hours a day, after +which they can put on their coats, draw their +pay, and go home.</p> + +<p>All this will reduce the quantity of exercise, +both mental and physical. Two men with good +brains could do the thinking for 60,000,000 +of people and feel perfectly fresh and rested +the next day. Take four men, we will say, +two to do the day thinking and two more to +go on deck at night, and see how much time +the rest of the world would have to go fishing. +See how politics would become simplified. +Conventions, primaries, bargains and +sales, campaign bitterness and vituperation—all +might be wiped out. A pair of political +thinkers could furnish 100,000,000 of people +with logical conclusions enough to last them +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</span>through the campaign and put an unbiased +opinion into a man’s house each day, for less +than he now pays for gas. Just before election +you could go into your private office, +throw in a large dose of campaign whisky, +light a campaign cigar, fasten your button-hole +to the wall by an elastic band, so that +there would be a gentle pull on it, and turn +the electricity on your mechanical thought +supply. It would save time and money, and the +result would be the same as it is now. This +would only be the beginning, of course, and +after a while every qualified voter who did +not feel like exerting himself so much, need +only give his name and proxy to the salaried +thinker employed by the National Think Retort +and Supply Works. We talk a great deal +about the union of church and state, but that +is not so dangerous, after all, as the mixture +of politics and independent thought. Will the +coming voter be an automatic, legless, hairless +mollusk with an abnormal ear constantly glued +to the tube of a big tank full of symmetrical +ideas furnished by a national bureau of brains +in the employ of the party in power?</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="A_THRILLING_EXPERIENCE"> + A THRILLING EXPERIENCE + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>I had a very thrilling experience the other +evening. I had just filled an engagement in a +strange city and retired to my cozy room at +the hotel.</p> + +<p>The thunders of applause had died away, +and the opera house had been locked up to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</span>await the arrival of an Uncle Tom’s Cabin +company. The last loiterer had returned to +his home and the lights in the palace of the +pork packer were extinguished.</p> + +<p>No sound was heard, save the low, tremulous +swash of the sleet outside, or the death-rattle +in the throat of the bathtub. Then all +was still as the bosom of a fried chicken +when the spirit has departed.</p> + +<p>The swallow-tail coat hung limp and weary +in the wardrobe, and the gross receipts of the +evening were under my pillow. I needed sleep, +for I was worn out with travel and anxiety, +but the fear of being robbed kept me from +repose. I know how desperate a man becomes +when he yearns for another’s gold. I know +how cupidity drives a wicked man to mangle +his victim, that he may win precarious prosperity, +and how he will often take a short +cut to wealth by means of murder when, if he +would enter politics, he might accomplish his +purpose as surely and much more safely.</p> + +<p>Anon, however, tired nature succumbed. I +know I had succumbed, for the bell boy afterward +testified that he heard me do so.</p> + +<p>The gentle warmth of the steam-heated room, +and the comforting assurance of duty well +done and the approval of friends, at last lulled +me into a gentle repose.</p> + +<p>Anyone who might have looked upon me, as +I lay there in that innocent slumber, with the +winsome mouth slightly ajar and the playful +limbs cast wildly about, while a merry smile +now and then flitted across the regular features, +would have said that no heart could be +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</span>so hard as to harbor ill for one so guileless +and so simple.</p> + +<p>I do not know what it was that caused me +to wake. Some slight sound or other, no +doubt, broke my slumber and I opened my eyes +wildly. The room was in semi-darkness.</p> + +<p>Hark!</p> + +<p>A slight movement in the corner, and the +low, regular breathing of a human being! I +was now wide awake. Possibly I could have +opened my eyes wider, but not without spilling +them out of their sockets.</p> + +<p>Regularly came that soft, low breathing. +Each time it seemed like a sigh of relief, but +it did not relieve me. Evidently it was not +done for that purpose. It sounded like a sigh +of blessed relief, such as a woman might +heave after she has returned from church and +transferred herself from the embrace of her +new Russia iron, black silk dress into a friendly +wrapper.</p> + +<p>Regularly, like the rise and fall of a wave +on the summer sea, it rose and fell, while +my pale lambrequin of hair rose and fell fitfully +with it.</p> + +<p>I know that people who read this will laugh +at it, but there was nothing to laugh at. At +first I feared that the sigh might be that +of a woman who had entered the room through +a transom in order to see me, as I lay wrapt +in slumber, and then carry the picture away +to gladden her whole life.</p> + +<p>But no. That was hardly possible. It was +cupidity that had driven some cruel villain to +enter my apartments and to crouch in the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</span>gloom till the proper moment should come in +which to spring upon me, throttle me, crowd +a hotel pillow into each lung, and, while I +did the Desdemona act, rob me of my hard-earned +wealth.</p> + +<p>Regularly still rose the soft breathing, as +though the robber might be trying to suppress +it. I reached gently under my pillow, +and securing the money I put it in the pocket +of my <i>robe de nuit</i>. Then, with great care, I +pulled out a copy of Smith & Wesson’s great +work on “How to Ventilate the Human Form.” +I said to myself that I would sell my life as +dearly as possible, so that whoever bought it +would always regret the trade.</p> + +<p>Then I opened the volume at the first chapter +and addressed a thirty-eight calibre remark +in the direction of the breath in the corner.</p> + +<p>When the echoes had died away a sigh of +relief welled up from the dark corner. Also +another sigh of relief later on.</p> + +<p>I then decided to light the gas and fight it +out. You have no doubt seen a man scratch a +match on the leg of his pantaloons. Perhaps +you have also seen an absent-minded man undertake +to do so, forgetting that his pantaloons +were hanging in a chair at the other +end of the room.</p> + +<p>However, I lit the gas with my left hand +and kept my revolver pointed toward the dark +corner where the breath was still rising and +falling.</p> + +<p>People who had heard my lecture came +rushing in, hoping to find that I had suicided, +but they found that, instead of humoring the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</span>public in that way, I had shot the valve off +the steam radiator.</p> + +<p>It is humiliating to write the foregoing myself, +but I would rather do so than have the +affair garbled by careless hands.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="A_RESIGN"> + A RESIGN + </h2> +</div> + + +<p class="author"> + Postoffice Divan, Laramie City, W. T.,<br> + Oct. 1, 1883.</p> + <p> + To the President of the United States: +</p> + +<p>Sir.—I beg leave at this time to officially +tender my resignation as postmaster at this +place, and in due form to deliver the great +seal and the key to the front door of the +office. The safe combination is set on the +numbers 36, 66 and 99, though I do not remember +at this moment which comes first, or how +many times you revolve the knob, or which +direction you should turn it first in order +to make it operate.</p> + +<p>There is some mining stock in my private +drawer in the safe, which I have not yet removed. +This stock you may have, if you desire +it. It is a luxury, but you may have it. +I have decided to keep a horse instead of this +mining stock. The horse may not be so pretty, +but it will cost less to keep him.</p> + +<p>You will find the postal cards that have +not been used under the distributing table, +and the coal down in the cellar. If the stove +draws too hard, close the damper in the pipe +and shut the general delivery window.</p> + +<p>Looking over my stormy and eventful administration +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</span>as postmaster here, I find abundant +cause for thanksgiving. At the time I +entered upon the duties of my office the department +was not yet on a paying basis. It +was not even self-sustaining. Since that time, +with the active cooperation of the chief executive +and the heads of the department, I have +been able to make our postal system a paying +one, and on top of that I am now able to +reduce the tariff on average-sized letters from +three cents to two. I might add that this is +rather too too, but I will not say anything +that might seem undignified in an official +resignation which is to become a matter of +history.</p> + +<p>Through all the vicissitudes of a tempestuous +term of office I have safely passed. I am +able to turn over the office today in a highly +improved condition and to present a purified +and renovated institution to my successor.</p> + +<p>Acting under the advice of Gen. Hatton, a +year ago, I removed the feather bed with which +my predecessor, Deacon Hayford, had bolstered +up his administration by stuffing the window, +and substituted glass. Finding nothing in the +book of instructions to postmasters which made +the feather bed a part of my official duties, I +filed it away in an obscure place and burned +it in effigy, also in the gloaming. This act +maddened my predecessor to such a degree +that he then and there became a candidate for +justice of the peace on the Democratic ticket. +The Democratic party was able, however, with +what aid it secured from the Republicans, to +plow the old man under to a great degree.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</span></p> + +<p>It was not long after I had taken my official +oath before an era of unexampled prosperity +opened for the American people. The price +of beef rose to a remarkable altitude, and other +vegetables commanded a good figure and a +ready market. We then began to make active +preparations for the introduction of the strawberry +roan two-cent stamps and the black-and-tan +postal note. One reform has crowded upon +the heels of another, until the country is today +upon the foam-crested wave of permanent prosperity.</p> + +<p>Mr. President, I cannot close this letter without +thanking yourself and the heads of departments +at Washington for your active, +cheery and prompt cooperation in these matters. +You can do as you see fit, of course, +about incorporating this idea into your Thanksgiving +proclamation, but rest assured it would +not be ill-timed or inopportune. It is not alone +a credit to myself. It reflects credit upon the +administration also.</p> + +<p>I need not say that I herewith transmit my +resignation with great sorrow and genuine regret. +We have toiled on together month after +month, asking for no reward except the innate +consciousness of rectitude and the salary as +fixed by law. Now we are to separate. Here +the roads seem to fork, as it were, and you and +I, and the cabinet, must leave each other at +this point.</p> + +<p>You will find the key under the door-mat, and +you had better turn the cat out at night when +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</span>you close the office. If she does not go readily, +you can make it clearer to her mind by +throwing the cancelling stamp at her.</p> + +<p>If Deacon Hayford does not pay up his box +rent, you might as well put his mail in the general +delivery, and when Bob Head gets drunk +and insists on a letter from one of his wives +every day in the week, you can salute him +through the box delivery with an old Queen +Anne tomahawk, which you will find near the +Etruscan water pail. This will not in any manner +surprise either of these parties.</p> + +<p>Tears are unavailing. I once more become +a private citizen, clothed only with the right +to read such postal cards as may be addressed +to me personally, and to curse the inefficiency +of the postoffice department. I believe the +voting class to be divided into two parties, viz.: +Those who are in the postal service, and those +who are mad because they cannot receive a +registered letter every fifteen minutes of each +day, including Sunday.</p> + +<p>Mr. President, as an official of this government +I now retire. My term of office would +not expire until 1886. I must, therefore, beg +pardon for my eccentricity in resigning. It +will be best, perhaps, to keep the heart-breaking +news from the ears of European powers +until the dangers of a financial panic are fully +past. Then hurl it broadcast with a sickening +thud.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</span></p> + + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="A_GUEST_AT_THE_LUDLOW"> + A GUEST AT THE LUDLOW + </h2> +</div> + + +<p>We are stopping quietly here, taking our +meals in our rooms mostly, and going out very +little indeed. When I say we, I use the term +editorially.</p> + +<p>We notice first of all the great contrast between +this and other hotels, and in several +instances this one is superior. In the first +place, there is a sense of absolute security +when one goes to sleep here that can not be +felt at a popular hotel, where burglars secrete +themselves in the wardrobe during the day and +steal one’s pantaloons and contents at night. +This is one of the compensations of life in +prison.</p> + +<p>Here the burglars go to bed at the hour that +the rest of us do. We all retire at the same +time, and a murderer can not sit up any later +at night than the smaller or unknown criminal +can.</p> + +<p>You can get to Ludlow Street Jail by taking +the Second Avenue elevated train to Grand +Street and then going east two blocks, or you +can fire a shotgun into a Sabbath school.</p> + +<p>You can pay five cents to the Elevated Railroad +and get here, or you can put some other +man’s nickel in your own slot and come here +with an attendant.</p> + +<p>William Marcy Tweed was the contractor of +Ludlow Street Jail and here also he died. He +was the son of a poor chairmaker and was +born April 3, 1823. From the chair business +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</span>in 1853 to congress was the first false step. +Exhilarated by the delirium of official life, and +the false joys of franking his linen home every +week, and having cake and preserves franked +back to him at Washington, he resolved to still +further taste the delights of office, and in 1857 +we find him as a school commissioner.</p> + +<p>In 1860 he became Grand Sachem of the +Tammany Society, an association at that time +more purely political than politically pure. As +president of the board of supervisors, head of +the department of public works, state senator, +and Grand Sachem of Tammany, Tweed had a +large and seductive influence over the city and +state. The story of how he earned a scanty +livelihood by stealing a million at a pop, and +thus, with the most rigid economy, scraped together +$20,000,000 in a few years by patient +industry and smoking plug tobacco, has been +frequently told.</p> + +<p>Tweed was once placed here in Ludlow +Street Jail in default of $3,000,000 bail. How +few there are of us who could slap up that +amount of bail if rudely gobbled on the street +by the hand of the law. While riding out with +the sheriff, in 1875, Tweed asked to see his wife, +and said he would be back in a minute.</p> + +<p>He came back by way of Spain, in the fall +of ’76, looking much improved. But the malaria +and dissipation of Blackwell’s Island afterwards +impaired his health, and having done +time there, and having been arrested afterwards +and placed in Ludlow Street Jail, he +died here April 12, 1878, leaving behind him a +large, vain world, and an equally vain judgment +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</span>for $6,537,117.38, to which he said he +would give his attention as soon as he could +get a paving contract in the sweet ultimately.</p> + +<p>From the exterior Ludlow Street Jail looks +somewhat like a conservatory of music, but as +soon as one enters he readily discovers his +mistake. The structure has 100 feet frontage, +and a court, which is sometimes called the +court of last resort. The guest can climb out +of this court by ascending a polished brick wall +about 100 feet high and then letting himself +down in a similar way on the Ludlow street +side.</p> + +<p>That one thing is doing a great deal towards +keeping quiet a number of people here who +would otherwise, I think, go away.</p> + +<p>James D. Fish and Ferdinand Ward both remained +here prior to their escape to Sing Sing. +Red Leary also made his escape from this point +but did not succeed in reaching the penitentiary. +Forty thousand prisoners have been confined +in Ludlow Street Jail, mostly for civil +offenses. A man in New York runs a very +short career if he tries to be offensively civil.</p> + +<p>As you enter Ludlow Street Jail the door is +carefully closed after you and locked by means +of an iron lock about the size of a pictorial +family Bible. You then remain on the inside +for quite a spell. You do not hear the prattle +of soiled children any more. All the glad +sunlight, and stench-condensing pavements, and +dark-haired inhabitants of Rivington street, +are seen no longer, and the heavy iron storm +door shuts out the wail of the combat from +the alley nearby. Ludlow Street Jail may +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</span>be surrounded by a very miserable and dirty +quarter of the city, but when you get inside +all is changed.</p> + +<p>You register first. There is a good pen there +that you can write with, and the clerk does +not chew tolu and read a sporting paper while +you wait for a room. He is there to attend +to business, and he attends to it. He does not +seem to care whether you have any baggage or +not. You can stay here for days, even if you +don’t have any baggage. All you need is a +kind word and a mittimus from the court.</p> + +<p>One enters this sanitarium either as a boarder +or a felon. If you decide to come in as a +boarder, you pay the warden $15 a week for the +privileges of sitting at his table and eating +the luxuries of the market. You also get a +better room than at many hotels, and you have +a good strong door, with a padlock on it, which +enables you to prevent the sudden and unlooked-for +entrance of the chambermaid. It +is a good-sized room, with a wonderful amount +of seclusion, a plain bed, table, chairs, carpet +and so forth. After a few weeks at the seaside, +at $19 per day, I think the room in which +I am writing is not unreasonable at $2.</p> + +<p>Still, of course, we miss the sea breeze.</p> + +<p>You can pay $50 to $100 per week here if +you wish, and get your money’s worth, too. +For the latter sum one may live in the bridal +chamber, so to speak, and eat the very best +food all the time.</p> + +<p>Heavy iron bars keep the mosquitoes out, +and at night the house is lighted by incandescent +lights of one-candle power each. Neat +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</span>snuffers, consisting of the thumb and forefinger +polished on the hair, are to be found +in each occupied room.</p> + +<p>Bread is served to the Freshmen and Juniors +in rectangular wads. It is such bread as convicts’ +tears have moistened many thousand +years. In that way it gets quite moist.</p> + +<p>The most painful feature about life in Ludlow +Street Jail is the confinement. One can +not avoid a feeling of being constantly hampered +and hemmed in.</p> + +<p>One more disagreeable thing is the great +social distinction here. The poor man who +sleeps in a stone niche near the roof, and who +is constantly elbowed and hustled out of his +bed by earnest and restless vermin with a +tendency toward insomnia, is harassed by +meeting in the courtyard and corridors the paying +boarders who wear good clothes, live well, +have their cigars, brandy and Kentucky Sec +all the time.</p> + +<p>The McAllister crowd here is just as exclusive +as it is on the outside.</p> + +<p>But, great Scott! what a comfort it is to a +man like me, who has been nearly killed by a +cyclone, to feel the firm, secure walls and solid +time lock when he goes to bed at night! Even +if I can not belong to the 400, I am almost +happy.</p> + +<p>We retire at 7:30 o’clock at night and arise +at 6:30 in the morning, so as to get an early +start. A man who has five or ten years to +stay in a place like this naturally likes to get +at it as soon as possible each day, and so he +gets up at 6:30.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</span></p> + +<p>We dress by the gaudy light of the candle, +and while we do so, we remember far away at +home our wife and the little boy asleep in her +arms. They do not get up at 6:30. It is at this +hour we remember the fragrant drawer in the +dresser at home where our clean shirts, and +collars and cuffs, and socks and handkerchiefs, +are put every week by our wife. We also recall +as we go about our stone den, with its odor +of former corned beef, and the ghost of some +bloody-handed predecessor’s snore still moaning +in the walls, the picture of green grass by our +own doorway, and the apples that were just +ripening when the bench warrant came.</p> + +<p>The time from 6:30 to breakfast is occupied +by the average, or non-paying inmate, in doing +the chamber work and tidying up his state-room. +I do not know how others feel about it, +but I dislike chamber work most heartily, especially +when I am in jail. Nothing has done +more to keep me out of jail, I guess, than the +fact that while there I have to make up my +bed and dust the piano.</p> + +<p>Breakfast is generally table d’hote and consists +of bread. A tincup of coffee takes the +taste of the bread out of your mouth, and then +if you have some Limburger cheese in your +pocket you can with that remove the taste of +the coffee.</p> + +<p>Dinner is served at 12 o’clock and consists +of more bread with soup. This soup has everything +in it except nourishment. The bead on +this soup is noticeable for quite a distance. It +is disagreeable. Several days ago I heard that +the Mayor was in the soup, but I didn’t realize +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</span>it before. I thought it was a newspaper yarn. +There is everything in this soup, from shop-worn +rice up to neat’s-foot oil. Once I thought +I detected cuisine in it.</p> + +<p>The dinner menu is changed on Fridays, Sundays +and Thursdays, on which days you get +the soup first and the bread afterwards. In +this way the bread is saved.</p> + +<p>Three days in a week each man gets at dinner +a potato containing a thousand-legged +worm. At 6 o’clock comes supper with toast +and responses. Bread is served at supper time, +together with a cup of tea. To those who dislike +bread and never eat soup, or do not drink +tea or coffee, life at Ludlow Street Jail is indeed +irksome.</p> + +<p>I asked for kumiss and a pony of Benedictine, +as my stone boudoir made me feel rocky, +but it has not yet been sent up.</p> + +<p>Somehow, while here, I can not forget poor +old man Dorrit, the Master of the Marshalsea, +and how the Debtors’ Prison preyed upon his +mind till he didn’t enjoy anything except to +stand off and admire himself. Ludlow Street +Jail is a good deal like it in many ways, and I +can see how in time the canker of unrest +and the memories of those who did us wrong +but who are basking in the bright and bracing +air, while we, to meet their obligations, sacrifice +our money, our health and at last our +minds, would kill hope and ambition.</p> + +<p>Before closing this brief and incomplete +account as a guest at Ludlow Street Jail I +ought, in justice to my family, to say, perhaps, +that I came down this morning to see a friend +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</span>of mine who is here because he refuses to pay +alimony to his recreant and morbidly sociable +wife. He says he is quite content to stay here, +so long as his wife is on the outside. He is +writing a small ready-reference book on his +side of the great problem, “Is Marriage a +Failure?”</p> + +<p>With this I shake him by the hand and in a +moment the big iron storm door clangs behind +me, the big lock clicks in its hoarse, black +throat and I welcome even the air of Ludlow +street so long as the blue sky is above it.</p> + + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> +<div class="tnote"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="Transcribers_note"> + Transcriber’s note + </h2> + + + +<p>Minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice. Hyphenation +was standardized.</p> + +<p>Spelling was retained as in the original except for the following +change:</p> + + +<table class="autotable"> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"> +Page <a href="#Page_30">30</a>: “townsman, Caesar Kersikes” +</td> +<td class="tdl"> +“townsman, Cæsar Kersikes” +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"> +Page <a href="#Page_32">32</a>: “After seing his Hamlet” +</td> +<td class="tdl"> +“After seeing his Hamlet” +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"> +Page <a href="#Page_58">58</a>: “chamberwork most heartily” +</td> +<td class="tdl"> +“chamber work most heartily” +</td> +</tr> +</table> + +</div> +</div> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78694 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/78694-h/images/cover.jpg b/78694-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..1f3b1f5 --- /dev/null +++ b/78694-h/images/cover.jpg |
