Imnrrmtg 0f iubuque SEMINARY LIBRARY ACC. NO. 24995 CLASS. 808.5 BOOK L236 OLIYEB WENDELL HOLMES. ARTEMUS WARD. BRET HABTE. THE FAT CONTBIBtTTOK. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. BILL MYE. MBS. PARTINGTON. PETROLEUM V. NASBY. PBOCTOB KNOTT. KOBERT J. BDBDETTE. JOSH BILLINGS. JCLI PERKINS. DANBCBY NEWS MAN. GEOHGE W. PICK. M. QUAD. MARE TWAIN. WISE, WITTY, ELOQUENT KINGS OF THE PLATFORM AND PULPIT BY MELVILLE D. LANDON Biographies, Reminiscences and Lectures of WARD SAM COX BILL ARP PECK |OSHBn.L,NGS g^'MSB!**" glg T A C R lB E LE ELI PERKINS and the Master Lectures of T DEWITT TALMAGE DWIGHT L. MOODY SAM JONES CHAUNCEY M DEPEW ROBERT G. INGERSOLL JOHN B ;- GOUGH 5SI N ?S!c PHILLIPS iuctlN H E S F P iETg E N KA B C U E TL G E R R EELEY i?AX O'RELL JOSEPH PARKER ROBT. COLLYER AND PERSONAL REMINISCENCES AND ANECDOTES OF NOTED AMERICANS UllustrateD THE WERNER CO. CHICAGO. 1893. DUBUQUE SEAMNARYTO^ARY COPYRIGHTED. BKLFOBD-CLABKE Co 1890. All Rights Reserved. L3 ANNOUNCEMENT. Many of the great lectures in "Kings of the Platform and Pulpit" are published from the manuscripts of the distinguished authors. The illustrations which appear, with the literary accompani- ment of pen pictures, serve to make the personality of these noted characters distinct and life-like. " Kings of the Platform and Pulpit " contains the most com- prehensive resume of the humor, wisdom, philosophy and religion of the century. The book also abounds in anecdotes, epigrams, lectures and reminiscences both personal and political of a vast number of famous Americans. The following list of noms de plume of noted men of letters, many of whom have contributed to these pages, will be of interest \t *^ the reader. DISTINGUISHED LECTURERS, HUMORISTS AND WRITERS. *' Josh Billings "Henry W. Shaw. " Old Si "Samuel W. Small. *' Andrew Jack Downing " Seba R. Smith. " Orpheus C. Kerr "Robert H. Newell. *' Artemus Ward "Charles Farrar Browne. " Peleg Wales " Wm. A. Croffut. *' Bill Arp "Charles H. Smith. " Peter Plymley "Sidney Smith. ** Gath "George Alfred Townsend. " Miles O'Reilly "Charles G. Halpin. t_ " Fat Contributor "A. Miner Griswold. " Peter Parley " H. C. Goodrich. p " Hawkeye Man "Robert J. Burdette. " Ned Buntline "Col. Judson. " Howadjii "George William Curtis. " Brick Pomeroy " M. M. Pomeroy. Mk *' Ik Marvel "Donald Grant Mitchell. " Josiah Allen's Wife "Marietta Holley. *' James Yellowplush " Wm. H. Thackeray. " Doesticks "Mortimer M. Thompson. "John Paul "-Charles H. Webb. " Mrs. Partington " Benj. P. Shillaber. " John Phoenix " Capt. George H. Derby. " Spoopendyke "Stanley Huntley. " Mark Twain "Samuel L. Clemens. " Uncle Remus "Joel Chandler Harris. "Max Adler "Charles H. Clark. " Hosea Bigelow "James Russell Lowell. " Eli Perkins "Melville D. Landon. " Fanny Fern "Sara Payson Willis. "Petroleum V. Nasby" David Locke. "Grand Father Lickshingle" Robert W. ^ " Bill Nye "Edgar W. Nye. Criswell. *v "Danbury News Man" Jas. M. Bailey. "M. Quad "Charles B. Lewis. KINGS OF THE PLATFORM AND PULPIT. CONTENTS. "ARTEMUS WAED "Charles Farrar Browne. PAGE Biography and Reminiscences, 19 Panoramic Lecture, ........ 33 Programme used at Egyptian Hall, London, ... 67 Programme used at Dodworth Hall, New York, . . 71 "JOSH BILLINGS "Henry W. Shaw. Biography and Eeminiscences, . , . . . . 76 Lecture : Wit, Philosophy and Wisdom, . . . . 80 Synopsis of the Lecture by "Josh," ..... 79 Advice to Lecture Committees, .... 91 Twelve Square Remarks, ....... 94 "Josh Billings' Aulminax," 95 " PETROLEUM V. NASBY" D. R.Locke. Biography and Reminiscences, , . , * . . . . 98 Lecture on The Woman Question, ' . . . . 100 Nasby's Best Story, ...'.- . . . . . 120 HENRY WARD BEECHER. Biography and Reminiscences, ...... 124 Twain's Humorous Sketch of Beecher's Farm, . . . 137 Gems of Thought from Beecher's Lectures, ... 139 THE "HAWKEYS MAN "Robert J. Burdette. Biography and Reminiscences, ...... 147 Lecture: Rise and Fall of the Mustache, . . . . 149 Romance of the Carpet, a poem, . . . . . 181 Burdette's Masterpiece, 183 il CONTENTS. "ELI PERKINS" Melville D. Landon. PAGE Biography and Reminiscences, ...... 188 Lecture: The Philosophy of Wit and Humor, . . . 194 Eli Perkins' Stories of Children, 232 Eli Perkins' Lecture Ticket, .... 236 THE " DANBURY NEWS MAN " J. M. Bailey. Biography and Reminiscences, ...... 239 On Putting Up a Stove, . . ... : . .261 JOHN B. GOUGH. Biography and Reminiscences, ...... 263 Gough's Great Lecture, ....... 266 GEORGE W. PECK. Biography and Reminiscences, . . . . ... 275 George W. Peck's Great Agricultural Lecture, . . . 277 CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. Biography and Reminiscences, ...... 285 Lecture: England, Ireland and Scotland, .... 291 "BILL NYE "Edgar W. Nye. Biography and Reminiscences, 306 Nye's Best Speeches and Lectures, 312 The Nye-Riley Lecture, . . . . . . 314 The Story of Little George Oswald, * . ... . . . 318 Mr. Riley's Poem, "Jim," . . - 319 Riley's " Me and Mary," 321 Nye's Cyclone Stories, . . . . . . . 324 Riley's "Good-bye er Howdy-do," . . . . . 325 Nye Makes Rome Howl, . . . . ^. .. . 326 Bill Nye's Autobiography, . . . . . . . 329 ROBERT G. INGERSOLL. Biography and Reminiscences, . . . . . 332 Lecture: Liberty Love Patriotism, . .- . . 338 IngersolPs Vision, . . . . > . . . . 340 Ingersoll on Children, . . ... . . 342 Ingersoll on Woman, . ,' . . '. ._ . . 344 "MARK TWAIN" Samuel L. Clemens. Biography and Reminiscences, . . . . . 348 Lectures and Dinner Speeches, . . . . . . 351 Mark Twain's Masterpiece, . . ' . . . 350 CONTENTS. lii WIGHT L. MOODY, The Great Revivalist. PAGE Biography and Reminiscences, . .,,.. . * . 360 Moody's Theology. Anecdotes, etc. . . * . -, 362 T. DEWITT TALMAGE, The Great Preacher. Biography and Reminiscences, .... . . 378 Talmage's Lectures, . . . . . . . . 381 Great Temperance Lecture, . '.. . .' . 387 Gems of Thought, . . ,. . , . .- . 393 ROBERT COLLYER, The Blacksmith Preacher. Biography and Reminiscences, . 399 Lecture to Young Men: Two Emigrants, ..... 403 A Psalm of Thanksgiving, ...... ^. 410 SAM JONES, Preacher, Reformer, Wit. Biography and Reminiscences, . . . . 411 Great Sermon, , . ..... . . . . 415 "MRS. PARTINGTON " Benjamin P. Shillaber. Biography and Reminiscences, . . . ... . 425 The Partington Lecture, . . . . . . . 426 "THE FAT CONTRIBUTOR" A. Miner Griswold. Biography and Reminiscences, 431 Philosophical Lecture on Injun Meal, .... 433 "BILL ARP" Major Charles H. Smith. Biography and Reminiscences, . . . . . 437 Bill Arp's Lecture, .- - . . . . . . 440 Bill Arp to Artemus Ward, .'._.. . . .460 WENDELL PHILLIPS. Reminiscences, . . .- . . , : . 464 Beecher's Estimate of Wendell Phillips, . . - . . 465 ARCHDEACON FARRAR. Archdeacon Farrar on Seneca, . . . ; . ; . 468 PROFESSOR DAVID SWING. Biography, . . . . . . ; ' ; . . 479 Professor Swing on a Classical Training, .... 479 C. H. SPURGEON, The Eloquent, the Earnest, the Beloved. Biography and Reminiscences, 491 Mr. Spurgeon's Teaching, . . 492 iV CONTENTS. KEV. JOSEPH PARKER, The Great English Preacher. PAGE Reminiscences, . . . . . . . . . 497 A HUNDRED ANECDOTES OF A HUNDRED MEN. Stories of Postmaster-General John "Wanamaker, . . . 500 Lowell's Great Poem, , '. . . 502 Thurlow Weed on Ingersoll, ....... 504 Donn Piatt's Funny Speech, . . .... . . 507 Joseph Cook, ' . . 509 Dr. Pentecost on God's Approval, 510 Edmund Clarence Stedman: "Kearny at Seven Pines," . . 511 Anecdotes : Travers, Stewart, Clews and Jerome, . . . 512 K. Q. Philander Doesticks, . . ... . . 515 Eugene Field's Lecture, . . . . ;. . .518 George W. Cable's Readings, . . ... . . 522 Max O'RelPs Lecture on the Scotchman, 525 Bret Harte: Why Bret Harte Murdered a Man, . . , . . 527 Anecdotes of Gould, Fisk and Drew, .... r \- . 529 John J. Crittenden's Eloquence, . . . . . 535 Roscoe Conkling and Charles O'Connor, ..... 536 William M. Evarts and Chauncey M. Depew, .... 536 Jefferson on Franklin, 537 Lincoln's Illustration, .". . . . . . . 537 Edward Everett on Judge Story, . . . . . ' . 538 General Sherman on "Pap" Thomas, 538 Garfield's Wit, 539 McCosh's Impression, . . . ... . . 539 Webster on Self -Evidence, . . . . . . . 540 David B. Hill on Grover Cleveland, . ... . . . 540 President Harrison on General Scott, ; . 540 Fitz-Hugh Lee and General Kilpatrick, ..... 541 Seward Joked by Douglas, f ..'.... 541 Voorhees, Tanner and Secretary Noble, . . '. - . . 542 " M. Quad "Charles B. Lewis, . . . . . . 543 Thad Stevens and Aleck Stephens, . ..*.-. . 545 Zach Chandler on Democracy, ....... 546 Elaine's Kil-Ma-roo Story, . . . ^ . . . . . 546 Dr. Hammond, Dr. Bliss and General Sheridan, . . . 547 Chief Justice Fuller, ... . . .* . . . .548 Judge Olds, . . . . .* . . . .548 Gen. Sickles on Howard's Drummer, ...... 548 CONTENTS. V PAOK Greeley taken for a Clergyman, . . . . . . . 549 Sherman and President Taylor, . . V . . . . 550 Senator Evarts and Governor Hill, . . ... . 550 Sherman and Joseph Jefferson, . . . . . . 551 Kobert Toombs and John B. Floyd, ...... 551 Joe Brown, Toombs and Alex. Stephens, . . . ... 552 Foraker on Daniel Voorhees, . . . ... , 553 Blaine, Conkling, Hamlin, . . . . . . , 553 Longfellow's Funny Poem, 554 Swing, Collyer, Jones and Fitz-Hugh Lee, .... 555 Moseby, Ellsworth, Kilpatrick and Fitz-Hugh Lee, .. .' " , 556 Thaddeus Stevens, ',' 556 General Logan's Plain Talk, . ..- . .">' . . . 556 Longstreet on Fast Marching, * 557 General Ewell on the Irishman 557 Henry Watterson on Sumner and Greeley, .... 558 Wade Hampton, Sumner and Ben Wade, . . * ... 559 Sitting Bull and General Miles, . . . . . 560 How Bishop Potter was Introduced to Mayor Grant, . . 560 Phillip D. Armour, 561 Susan B. Anthony, . . . . '. . . . . 561 The Sharp Retort, k . . . . . 561 Belmont and Buffalo Bill, . . . . , . . . 562 Bayard Taylor's Joke, . . . . . . . 562 Cox, Butler, Greeley, . . . , . . . 562 Clara Morris's Joke on Mary Anderson, . . , . . 566 Lincoln and Stanton, . . . ... . . 566 Jeff Davis Sees Humor, . . '. . . . \ . 567 President Arthur Hears an Eloquent Reply, . . . . 567 Henry Watterson on Oscar Wilde, . ... . . 568 General Sheridan on General Scott, , .... . ; \ . . . 568 General Bragg on General Price, , . : . . "- . ' . 569 General Lee and Jefferson Davis, . . . . 569 Lincoln's Colored Visitor, . . . . . . ' >' 569 Sherman in Earnest, . *' . . ... . . . 57ft ILLUSTRATIONS. PORTRAITS. PAQB Adams, John, President U. S. . : . . . . .176 Adams, John Quincy, President U. S. . . . . .176 Anderson, Mary, . . . . . . . . .464 Armour, Phillip D 528 Arthur, Chester A., President U. S 176 Bailey, James Montgomery "Danbury News Man" . . 238 Banks, N. P 464 Bayard, T. H. . . . . . ...'.. 464 Beecher, Henry Ward, . 123-368 Beecher, Henry Ward, ^Etat 50, . . ."'.. . 133 Belmout, August, ......... 528 Bennett, James G . . 464 Blame, James G. ......... 288 Browne, Charles Farrar " Artemus Ward/' It Browne, Charles Farrar "Artemus Ward/' while lecturing, . 35 Browne, Mrs. Caroline E . 20 Bryant, W. C. V . . . . . . . , " . '.'/ 464 Buchanan, James, President U. S. . . . . . . 176 Butler, Benjamin F . 288 Burdette, Robert J - . .- . . 146 Clemens, Samuel L. "Mark Twain," '; 'i ^ '.' . 347 Cleveland, G rover, President U. S. . ; . . ." 176 Clewes, Henry, . . . . . ... r . 528 Collyer, Dr. Robert, . j' .' . . . . -. . 368 Conkling, Roscoe, . ... . . . . . 464 Cooper, Peter, . . ; . ^ .. . . . ' . 464 Curtis. G. W. . . . . . . ... . 464 Cuyler, Theo. L. * . v . ". .' , . 368 Dana Charles A. . . . .; . . . . . 464 Davis, Jefferson, ......... 288 Vll ILLUSTRATIONS. Depew, Chauncey M. . Drew, Daniel, Edison, Thomas E Evarts, William M Eield, Cyrus W. .... Fillmore, Millard, President U. S. Garfield, James A., President U. S. . Gough, John B. .... Gould, Jay, Grant, Ulysses S., President U. S. Greeley, Horace, .... Hampton, Wade, .... Hancock, Winfield S. ... Harrison, William H., President TJ. S. Harrison, Benjamin, President U. S. Hawley, Joseph R. Hayes, Rutherford B., President U. S. Hill, David B. .... Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Ingersoll, Robert G. . ... Jackson, Andrew, President U. S. Jefferson, Thomas, President U. S. Johnson, Andrew, President U. S.. Landon, Melville D. "Eli Perkins," Lee, General Robt. E. ... Lincoln, Abraham, President TJ. S. . Locke, D. R. " Petroleum V. Nasby," Logan, General John A. ... Longfellow, Henry W. ... Lowell, James Russell, Madison, James, President TJ. S. Monroe, James, President TJ. S. Moody, D wight L. Morris, Clara, . Nye, Edgar W. . . . , . Peck, George W. . . . Phillips, Wendell, .... Pierce, Franklin, President TJ. S. Polk, James K., President U. S. Porter, Admiral, . . ' . ., Potter, Bishop H. C. . * - ; 528 464 288 464 176 176 . 265 528 183-288 464 288 288 176 176 464 176 464 Frontispiece . 331 176 176 176 . 187 288 176 97 288 464 Frontispiece r<6 176 368 464 . 305 . 274 464 176 . 176 . 464 308 ILLUSTRATIONS. viil PAGE Randall, Samuel, . . . . ,, . . .-. + -. 464 Reid, Whitelaw, ; ... ..' . . ,, . 464 Sankey, Ira D. . 368 Shaw, Henry W. " Josh Billings/' . . . . . . 75 Sherman, Gen. W. T. . . 288 Stedman, Edmund C., . . . . . . . 528 Sheridan, Gen. Phil 288 Sherman, John, ......... 464 Shillaber, Benjamin P. "Mrs. Partington," . . Frontispiece Smith, Charles H. " Bill Arp," 436 Spurgeon, C. H. 368 Stowe, Mrs. Harriet Beecher, 464 Talmage, T. DeWitt, 368 Taylor, Zachary, President U. S. . . . .".... . 176 Travers, W. R 528 Tyler, John, President U. S . .... 176 Vanderbilt, C. 528 Van Buren, Martin, President U. S 176 Villard, H. . . 528 Voorhees, Daniel W. 434 "Washington, George, President U. S. . . " . . . I^Q Watterson, Henry, 464 Whitney, W. C . . . -464 FAC SIMILES OF HANDWRITING. " Artemus Ward "Charles F. Browne, 25 "Josh Billings" Henry W. Shaw, .../.. 77 "Petroleum V. Nasby" D. R. Locke, 99 The " Hawkeye Man " Robert J. Burdette, . , . '. 146 The "Danbury News Man " J. M. Bailey, ... . . 24^ George W. Peck, .277 "Bill Nye" Edgar W. Nye, ... . . \ v .' 308 "Mark Twain " Samuel L. Clemens, 348 ILLUSTRATIONS OF ARTEMUS WARD'S PANORAMIC LECTURE. Steamer Ariel, . . . . . . . '. ... 39 Great Thoroughfare of the Imperial City of the Pacific Coast, . 40 Virginia City, Nevada, . ," . . -. . 41 Plains between Virginia City and Salt Lake, . , . . 42 Bird's-eye View of Salt Lake City, 43 i x ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE West Side of Main Street, Salt Lake City, . ... . 45 The Overland Mail Coach, 46 The Mormon Theatre, ........ 47 East Side of Main Street, Salt Lake City, ..... 48 Brigham Young's Harem, 49 H. C. Kimball's Harem, 51 Mormon Temple, ......... 53 Foundations of the Temple, ....... 54 The Temple as it is to be, 55 Great Salt Lake, ......... 56 The Endowment House, .' Y . . 57 Echo Canon, ,58 A More Cheerful View of The Desert, ..... 59 Our Encounter with the Indians, . . . . . . 60 The Rocky Mountains, ........ 62 The Plains of Nebraska, . . . / . . . . . 63 The Prairie on Fire, 64 Brigham Young at Home, %' G5 The Curtain Falls for the Last Time, . . . . . 66 MISCELLANEOUS ILLUSTRATIONS. Niggers Don't Kuow Enough to Vote, 99 Interior of Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, N. Y. . . .128 Interior of Mr. Beecher's Study, . . . . . .140 Would You Take Anything, Bridget ? ... . . 205 Ben Butler Caricatured by Nast, ..... . 228 Can I Trust You to Do an Errand for Me ? . . . . 241 Putting up a Stove Pipe, . .... . . . 261 Ycnng Men, Ahoy! . . 269 Won't the Parson Be Surprised ? ' . ' 277 He's a Blooded Dog, . . . . . . . . 286 Do Not Speak of It, . ... . . 311 See What I Have Brought You, 319 Why, Grandma, You Can't, . . . . . . 343 Say, Tom, Let me Whitewash a Little? . . ; . .357 Hold the Fort! .'.".. . . . -, . .376 I Never Did Like Codfish, . . . * - . . . 381 How Do You Know, Uncle Jack ? . . . . . . 400 She Made Home Happy, .422 What Is the Matter with You, My Friend ? . . . " ' . . 431 Flowers and Words of Encouragement, . . . . . 438 Mr. Spurgeon, Would You Allow Me to Speak to You ? . . 493 He Cried and Fell to the Ground, . . . . . . 533 What Do You Mean, Sir ? . . . . . . . 543 "ARTEMUS WARD/ BIOGRAPHY AND REMINISCENCES. Charles Farrar Browne, better known to the world as "Artemus Ward," was 6orn at Waterford, Oxford county, Maine, on the 26th of April, 1834, and died of consumption at Southampton, England, on Wednesday, the 6th of March, 1867. Artemus Ward's grandfather (Thaddeus) raised five sons in Waterford Daniel, Malbory, Jabez, Levi and Thaddeus. His father was Levi Browne, who died in 1847, after being justice of the peace for many years. His mother, Caroline E. Browne, died in 1878. She was a woman of strong character, and came from good Puritanic stock. I once asked Artemus about his Puritanic origin, when he replied: " I think we came from Jerusalem, for my father's name was Levi, and we had a Moses and a Nathan in the family; but my poor brother's name was Cyrus ; so, perhaps, that makes us Persians." The humorist was full of happy wit even when a boy. His mother, from whom the writer received several letters, told me that Artemus was out very late one night at a spelling bee, and came home in a driving snow-storm. "We had all retired," said Mrs. Browne, "and Artemus went around the house and threw snow-balls at his brother Cyrus' win- dow, shouting for him to come down quickly. Cyrus appeared in haste, and stood shivering in his night-clothes. " '"Why don't you come in, Charles? The door is open.' " ' Oh,' replied Artemus, ' I could have gotten in all right, Cyrus ; but I called you down because I wanted to ask you if you really thought it was wrong to keep slaves.' " Charles received his education at the Waterford school, until family circumstances induced his parents to apprentice him to learn the rudiments of printing in the office of the Skowhegan Clarion, published some miles to the north of his native village. Here he passed through the dreadful ordeal to which a printer's "devil" is 2 19 20 KINGS OF THE PLATFORM AND PULPIT. generally subjected. He always kept his temper ; and his amusing jokes are even now related by the residents of Skowhegan. In the spring after his fifteenth birthday, Charles Browne bade farewell to the Skowhegan Clarion; and we next hear of him in the office of the Carpet-Bag, edited by B. P. Shillaber (" Mrs. Parting- ton"). In these early years young Browne used to "set up" articles from the pens of Charles G. Halpine (" Miles O'Keilly") and John G. Saxe, the poet. Here he wrote his first contribution in a dis- guised hand, slyly put it into the editorial box, and the next day enjoyed the pleasure of setting it up himself. The article was a description of a Fourth-of-July celebration in Skowhegan. The spectacle of the day was a representation of the Battle of York- town, with George Washington and Gen. Cornwallis in character. The article pleased Mr. Shillaber, and Mr. Browne, afterward speaking of it, said : " I went to the theater that evening, had a. good time of it, and thought I was the greatest man in Boston." "While engaged on the Carpet- Bag, the subject of our sketch closely studied the theater and courted the society of actors and actresses. It was in this way that he gained that correct and valuable knowledge of the texts and characters of the drama which enabled him in after years to burlesque them so successfully. The humorous writings of Seba Smith were his models, and the oddities of "John Phoenix " were his especial admiration. AETEMUS WARD. 21 Being fond of roving, Charles Browne soon left Boston, and, after traveling as a journeyman printer over much of New York and Massachusetts, he turned up in the town of Tiffin, Seneca county, Ohio, where he became reporter and compositor, at four dollars per week. After making many friends among the good citizens of Tiffin, by whom he is remembered as a patron of side-shows and traveling circuses, our hero suddenly set out for Toledo, Ohio, where he immediately made a reputation as a writer of sarcastic paragraphs in the columns of the Toledo Commercial. He waged a vigorous newspaper war with the reporters of the Toledo JSlade, but, while the Blade indulge'd in violent vituperation, "Artemus " was good-natured and full of humor. His column soon gained a local fame, and every body read it. His fame even traveled as far as Cleveland, where, in 1858, when Mr. Browne was twenty- four years of age, Mr. J. W. Gray, of the Cleveland Plaindealer, secured him as local reporter, at a salary of twelve dollars per week. Here his reputation first began to assume a national character, and it was here that they called him a "fool" when he mentioned the idea of taking the field as a lecturer. Speaking of this circumstance, while traveling down the Mississippi with the writer, in 1865, Mr. Browne musingly repeated this colloquy: WISE MAN " Ah! you poor, foolish little girl here is a dollar for you." FOOLISH LITTLE GIRL " Thank you, sir; but I have a sister at home as foolish as I am; can't you give me a dollar for her? " Charles Browne was not successful as a news reporter, lacking enterprise and energy, but his success lay in writing up, in a bur- lesque manner, well-known public affairs like prize-fights, races, spiritual meetings, and political gatherings. His department became wonderfully humorous, and was always a favorite with readers whether there was any news in it or not. Sometimes he would have a whole column of letters from young ladies in reply to a fancied matrimonial advertisement, and then he would have a column of answers to general correspondents like this : VERITAS Many make the same error. Mr. Key, who wrote the " Star Spangled Banner," is not the author of Hamlet, a tragedy. He wrote the banner business, and assisted in " The Female Pirate," but did not write Hamlet. Hamlet was written by a talented but unscrupulous man named Macbeth, afterwards tried and executed for " murdering sleep." YOTTNG CLERGYMAN Two pints of rum, two quarts of hot water, tea-cup of sugar, and a lemon; grate in nutmeg, stir thoroughly and drink while hot. 22 KINGS OF THE PLATFORM AND PULPIT. It was during his engagement on the Plaindealer that he wrote, dating from Indiana, his first communication the first published letter following this sketch, signed " Artemus Ward,' r a sobriquet purely incidental, but borne with the "u" changed to an "a" by an American revolutionary general. It was here that Mr. Browne first became, in words, the possessor of a moral show, " consisting of three moral bares, a kangaroo (a amoozing little rascal ; 'twould make you larf yourself to death to see the little kuss jump and squeal), wax figures of G. "Washington, &c., &c." Hundreds of newspapers copied this letter, and Charles Browne awoke one morning to find himself famous. In the Plaindealer office, his companion, George Hoyt, writes: " His desk was a rickety table which had been whittled and gashed until it looked as if it had been the victim of lightning. His chair was a fit companion thereto a wabbling, unsteady affair, some- times with four and sometimes with three legs. But Browne saw neither the table, nor the chair, nor any person who might be near nothing, in fact, but the funny pictures which were tumbling out of his brain. When writing, his gaunt form looked ridiculous enough. One leg hung over the arm of his chair like a great hook, while he would write away, sometimes laughing to himself, and then slapping the table in the excess of his mirth." "While in the office of the Plaindealer, Mr. Browne first con- ceived the idea of becoming a lecturer. In attending the various minstrel shows and circuses which came to the city, he would fre- quently hear repeated some story of his own which the audience would receive with hilarity. His best witticisms came back to him from the lips of another, who made a living by quoting a stolen jest. Then the thought came to him to enter the lecture field him- self, and become the utterer of his own witticisms, the mouthpiece of his own jests. On the 10th of November, 1860, Charles Browne, whose fame, traveling in his letters from Boston to San Francisco, had now become national, grasped the hands of his hundreds of New York admirers. Cleveland had throned him the monarch of mirth, and a thousand hearts paid him tributes of adulation as he closed his connection with the Cleveland press. Arriving in the Empire City, Mr. Browne soon opened an engage- ment with Vanity Fair, a humorous paper after the manner of ARTEMUS WARD. 23 London Punch, and ere long he succeeded Mr. Charles G. Leland as editor. Mr. Charles Dawson Shanly says: " After Artemus Ward became sole editor, a position which he held for a brief period, many of his best contributions were given to the public ; and, whatever there was of merit in the columns of Vanity Fair from the time he assumed the editorial charge, emanated from his pen." Mr. Browne himself wrote to a friend : " Comic copy is what they wanted for Vanity Fair. I wrote some and it killed it. The poor paper got to be a conundrum, and so I gave it up." The idea of entering the field as a lecturer now seized Mr. Browne stronger than ever. Tired of the pen, he resolved on trying the platform. His Bohemian friends agreed that his fame and fortune would be made before intelligent audiences. He resolved to try it. What should be the subject of my lecture? How shall I treat the subject ? These questions caused Mr. Browne grave speculations. Among other schemes, he thought of a string of jests combined with a stream of satire, the whole being unconnected a burlesque upon a lecture. The subject that was a hard question. First he thought of calling it " My Seven Grandmothers," but he finally adopted the name of " Babes in the Woods," and with this subject, Charles Browne was introduced to a metropolitan audience, on the evening of December 23, 1861. The place was Clinton Hall, which stood on the site of the old Astor Place Opera House, where, years ago, occurred the Macready riot, and where now is the Mercantile Library. Previous to this introduction, Mr. Frank Wood accom- panied him to the suburban town of Norwich, Connecticut, where he first delivered his lecture and watched the result. The audience was delighted, and Mr. Browne received an ovation. Previous to his Clinton Hall appearance, the city was flooded with funny placards reading : ARTEMTJS WARD WILL SPEAK A PIECE. Owing to a great storm, only a small audience braved the ele- ments, and the Clinton Hall lecture was not a financial success. It consisted of a wandering batch of comicalities, touching upon every thing except " The Babes." Indeed it was better described by 24 KINGS OF THE PLATFOEM AND PULPIT. the lecturer in London, when he said, "One of the features of my entertainment is, that it contains so many things that don't have any thing to do with it." In the middle of his lecture, the speaker would hesitate, stop, and say: " Owing to a slight indisposition, we will now have an inter- mission of fifteen minutes." The audience looked in utter dismay at the idea of staring at vacancy fora quarter of an hour, when, rub- bing his hands, the lecturer would continue : " But, ah during the intermission I will go on with my lecture ! " Mr. Browne's first volume, entitled " Artemus "Ward ; His Book," was published in New York, May 17, 1862. The volume was every- where hailed with enthusiasm, and over forty thousand copies were sold. Great success also attended the sale of his three other volumes published in '65, '67 and '69. Mr. Browne's next lecture was entitled " Sixty Minutes in Africa," and was delivered in Musical Fund Hall, Philadelphia. Behind him hung a large map of Africa, " which region," said Artemus, "abounds in various natural productions, such as reptiles and flowers. It produces the red rose, the white rose and the neg-roes. In the middle of the continent is what is called a ' howling wilderness,' but, for my part, I have never heard it howl, nor met with any one who has." After Mr. Browne had created immense enthusiasm for his lect- ures and books in the Eastern States, which filled his pockets with plenty of money, he started, October 3, 1863, for California. Previous to starting, he received a telegram from Thomas Maguire, of the San Francisco Opera House, inquiring " what he would take for forty nights in California." Mr. Browne immediately tele- graphed back : Brandy and water, A. WARD. and, though Maguire was sorely puzzled at the contents of the dis- patch, the press got hold of it, and it went through California as a capital joke. Mr. Browne first lectured in San Francisco on "The Babes in the "Wood," November 13, 3863, at Pratt's Hall. T. Starr King took a deep interest in him, occupying the rostrum, and his general reception in San Francisco was warm. Mr. Browne returned overland from San Francisco, stopping at Salt Lake City. He took a deep interest in Brigham Young and the ARTEMUS WARD. 25 i Mormons. The Prophet attended his lecture. When the writer lectured in the Mormon theater twenty years afterward, Brigham Young was present. The next day my wife and I were entertained at the Lion House, the home of the Prophet, when he and Hiram Clausen gave me many reminiscences of the humorist's visit. Mr. Browne wrote many sketches for the newspaper about the Mormons and the rude scenes he encountered on the overland stage, which afterward appeared in his Mormon lecture. Delving through a trunk full of Artemus Ward's papers and MSS. to-day, I found this sketch. I give it in his own handwriting. An}^ journalist will see, by his correct punctuation, that he was a man of culture. This lith- ographed sketch shows his character. It proves that he was once a type-setter. It is the best index to the culture and technical knowl- edge of the humorist that could be given : THE MISSOURI AN IN UTAH. /l***-*^* 26 KINGS OF THE PLATFORM AND PULPIT. f _ 9 *^ ARTEMUS WARD. 27 Returning overland, through Salt Lake to the States, in the fall of 1864, Mr. Browne lectured again in New York, this time on the " Mormons," to immense audiences, and in the spring of 1865 he commenced his tour through the country, everywhere drawing enthusiastic audiences both North and South. It was while on this tour that the writer of this sketch again spent some time with him. We met at Memphis and traveled down the Mississippi together. At Lake Providence the "Indiana" rounded up to our landing, and Mr. Browne accompanied the writer to his plantation, where he spent several days, mingling in seeming infinite delight with the negroes. For them he showed great fond- ness, and they used to stand around him in crowds, listening to his seemingly serious advice. We could not prevail upon him to hunt or to join in any of the equestrian amusements with the neighbor- ing planters, but a quiet fascination drew him to the negroes. Strolling through the "quarters," his grave words, too deep with humor for darky comprehension, gained their entire confidence. One day he called up Uncle Jeff., an Uncle-Tom-like patriarch, and commenced in his usual vein: "Now, Uncle Jefferson," he said, " why do you thus pursue the habits of industry ? This course of life is wrong all wrong all a base habit, Uncle Jefferson. Now try and break it off. Look at me, look at Mr. Landon, the chiv- alric young Southern plantist from New York, he toils not, neither does he spin ; he pursues a career of contented idleness. If you only thought so, Jefferson, you could live for months without per- forming any kind of labor, and at the expiration of that time feel fresh and vigorous enough to commence it again. Idleness refreshes the physical organization it is a sweet boon ! Strike at the roots of the destroying habit to-day, Jefferson. It tires you out ; resolve to be idle ; no one should labor ; he should hire others to do it for him ;" and then he would fix his mournful eyes on Jeff, and hand him a dollar, while the eyes of the wonder-struck darky would gaze in mute admiration upon the good and wise originator of the only theory which the darky mind could appreciate. As Jeff, went away to tell the wonderful story to his companions, and backed it with the dollar as material proof, Artemus would cover his eyes, and bend forward on his elbows in a chuckling laugh. "Among the Mormons " was delivered through the States, every- where drawing: immense crowds. His manner of delivering his dis- 28 KINGS OF THE PLATFORM AND PULPIT. course was grotesque and comical beyond description. His quaint and sad style contributed more than any thing else to render his entertainment exquisitely funny. The programme was exceedingly droll, and the tickets of admission presented the most ludicrous of ideas. The writer presents a fac-simile of an admission ticket which was presented to him in Natchez by Mr. Browne : ADMIT THE JDEARER AND ONE WIFE. VV A. VVARD. In the spring of 1866, Charles Browne first timidly thought of going to Europe. Turning to Mr. Kingston one day, he asked : " What sort of a man is Albert Smith ? Do you think the Mormons would be as good a subject to the Londoners as Mont Blanc was?" Then he said : " I should like to go to London and give my lecture in the same place. Can't it be done?" Mr. Browne sailed for England soon after, taking with him his Panorama. The success that awaited him could scarcely have been anticipated by his most intimate friends. Scholars, wits, poets and novelists came to him with extended hands, and his stay in Lon- don was one ovation to the genius of American wit. Charles Keade, the novelist, was his warm friend and enthusiastic admirer; and Mr. Andrew Haliday introduced him to the " Literary Club," where he became a great favorite. Maifc Lemon came to him and asked him to become a contributor to Punch, which he did. His Punch letters were more remarked in literary circles than any other cur- rent matter. There was hardly a club-meeting or a dinner at which they were not discussed. "There was something so grotesque in the idea," said a correspondent, " of this ruthless Yankee poking among the revered antiquities of Britain, that the beef-eating British themselves could not restrain their laughter." The story of his ARTEMUS WARD. 29 Uncle "William who "followed commercial pursuits, glorious com- merce and sold soap ! " and his letters on the Tower and "Chowser," were palpable hits, and it was admitted that P^mch had contained nothing better since the days of " Yellowplush." This opinion was shared by the Times, the literary reviews, and the gayest leaders of society. The publishers of Punch posted up his name in large letters over their shop in Fleet street, and Artemus delighted to point it out to his friends. About this time Mr. Browne wrote to his friend, Jack Rider, of Cleveland : This is the proudest moment of my life. To have been as well appreciated here as at home, to have written for the oldest comic journal in the English language, received mention with Hood, witli Jerrold and Hook, and to have my picture and my pseudonym as common in London as New York, is enough for Yours truly, A. WARD. England was now thoroughly aroused to the merits of Artemus Ward, and he set out to deliver his first lecture in Egyptian Hall. His subject was " The Mormons." It was the great lecture of his life, and was made up from all of his lectures. It has in it snatches from " Babes in the Wood" and " Sixty Minutes in Africa." This lecture appears in this book precisely as delivered, and prepared by myself, after hearing him deliver it many times. His first London lecture occurred Tuesday evening, November 13, 1886. Within a week immense crowds were turned away every night, and at every lecture his fame increased, until sickness brought his brilliant suc- cess to an end, and a nation mourned his retirement. On the evening of Friday, the seventh week of his engagement at Egyptian Hall, Artemus became seriously ill, an apology was made to a disappointed audience, and from that time the light of one of the greatest wits of the centuries commenced fading into dark- ness. The press mourned his retirement, and a funeral pall fell over London. The laughing, applauding crowds were soon to see Iris consumptive form moving toward its narrow resting place in the cemetery at Kensal Green. By medical advice, Charles Browne went for a short time to the Island of Jersey but the breezes of Jersey were powerless. He wrote to London to his nearest and dearest friends the members of a literary club of which he was a member to complain that his " loneliness weighed on him." He was brought back, but could not sustain the journey farther than Southampton. There the members 30 KINGS OF TEE PLATFORM AND PULPIT. of the club traveled from London to see him two at a time that he might be less lonely. His remains were followed to the grave from the rooms of his friend, Arthur Sketchley, by a large number of friends and admir- ers, the literati and press of London paying the last tribute of 'respect to their dead brother. The funeral services were conducted by the Rev. M. D. Conway, formerly of Cincinnati, and the coffin was temporarily placed in a vault, from which it was removed by his American friends, and his body now sleeps by the side of his father, Levi Browne, in the quiet cemetery at Waterford, Maine. Upon, the coffin is the simple inscription : "CHARLES F. BROWNE, AGED S3 YEARS, BETTER KNOWN TO THE WORLD AS 'ARTEMUS WARD; His English executors were T. "W. Robertson, the playwright, and his friend and companion, E. P. Kingston. His literary executors were Horace Greeley and Richard H. Stoddard. The humorist left a will which is now in the vault of the Oxford County Probate Court at Paris Hill, Maine. The writer paid a special trip to Paris Hill to see this will. It is inscribed on two sheets of heavy parchment about two feet square in the most elaborate style of the scrivener's art. The will was made in England, and was sent over in a tin box, about the shape of a cigar box, on which is stamped the British coat-of-arms and the letters, " V. R." The will begins thus : " This is the will of me, Charles Farrar Browne Ward, known as 'Artemus Ward.' " The testator directs that his body shall be buried in Waterford Tipper Tillage, but in a codicil changes the place of his entombment to Waterford Lower Village. He bequeaths his library to the best scholar in the schools at Waterford Tipper Tillage, and his manuscripts to R. H. Stoddard and Charles Dawson Stanley. After making several bequests to his mother and relatives, he gives the balance of his property to found " an asylum for worn-out printers." Horace Greeley to be the sole trustee, and his receipt to be the only security to be demanded of him. ARTEMUS WARD. 31 An Oxford county man, referring to the will, said: " Either Artemus intended that his will should be a post-mortem joke or he was robbed ; for upon his death a very small property was found hardly enough to pay the minor bequests, let alone founding a printers' hospital." R. II. Stoddard and Charles Dawson Stanley never asked for the humorist's manuscripts. George W. Carleton, his publisher, had them, and finally turned them over to the writer, who has them now in his possession. T. W. Robertson, the playwright, and his friend and companion, E. P. Hingston, were his English executors. It seems sad, that, after such careful provisions on the part of the humorist, on the writer of this memoir should devolve the loving work of transmitting many of the humorists' best creations to posterity. Besides other bequests, Artemus gave a large sum of money to his little valet, a bright little fellow ; though subsequent denouments revealed the fact that he left only a six-thousand-dollar house in Yonkers. There is still some mystery about his finances, which may one day be revealed. It is known that he withdrew $10,000 from the Pacific Bank to deposit it with a friend before going to England ; besides this, his London Punch letters paid a handsome profit. Among his personal friends were George Hoyt, the late Daniel Setchell, Charles W. Coe, and Mr. Mullen, the artist, all of whom he used to style " my friends all the year round." Personally, Charles Farrar Browne was one of the kindest and most affectionate of men, and history does not name a man who was so universally beloved by all who knew him. It was remarked, and truly, that the death of no literary character since "Washington Irving caused such general and widespread regret. In stature he was tall and slender. His nose was prominent outlined like that of Sir Charles Napier, or Mr. Seward ; his eyes brilliant, small, and close together; his mouth large, teeth white and pearly; fingers long and slender; hair soft, straight and blonde ; complexion florid ; mustache large, and his voice soft and clear. In bearing, he moved like a natural born gentleman. In his lectures he never smiled not even while he was giving utterance to the most delicious absurdities ; but all the while the jokes fell from his lips as if he were unconscious of their meaning. "While writing his lectures, he would laugh and chuckle to himself continually. 32 KINGS OF THE PLATFORM AND PULPIT. There was one peculiarity about Charles Browne he never made an enemy. Other wits in other times have been famous, but a satirical thrust now and then has killed a friend. Diogenes was the wit of Greece, but when, after holding up an old dried fish to draw away the eyes of Anaximenes' audience, he exclaimed " See how an old fish is more interesting than Anaximenes," he said a funny thing, but he stabbed a friend. "When Charles Lamb, in answer to the doting mother's question as to how he liked babies, replied, " b-b-boiled, madam, boiled !" that mother loved him no more ; and when John Randolph said " thank you ! " to his constituent who kindly remarked that he had the pleasure of " passing " his house, it was wit at the expense of friendship. The whole English school of wits with Douglas Jerrold, Hood, Sheridan, and Sidney Smith, indulged in repartee. They were parasitic wits. And so with the Irish, except that an Irishman is generally so ridiculously absurd in his replies as to excite only ridicule. " Artemus Ward " made you laugh and love him too. The wit of " Artemus Ward " and " Josh Billings " is distinc- tively American. Lord Kames, in his " Elements of Criticism," makes no mention of this species of wit, a lack which the future rhetorician should look to. We look in vain for it in the English language of past ages, and in other languages of modern time. It is the genus American. When Artemus says, in that serious man- ner, looking admiringly at his atrocious pictures, " I love pictures and I have many of them beautiful photographs of myself," you smile, and when he continues, " These pictures were painted by the old masters : they painted these pictures and then they they expired," you hardly know what it is that makes you laugh out- right, and when Josh Billings says in his Proverbs, wiser than Sol- omon's, " You'd better not know so much, than know so many things that ain't so," the same vein is struck, but the text-books fail to explain scientifically the cause of our mirth. The wit of Charles Browne is of the most exalted kind. It is only scholars and those thoroughly acquainted with the subtlety of our language who fully appreciate it. His wit is generally about historical personages like Cromwell, Garrick or Shakespeare, or a burlesque on different styles of writing, like his French novel, when " hifalutin " phrases of tragedy come from the clodhopper who " sells soap and thrice refuses a ducal coronet." ARTEMUS WARD. 33 Mr. Browne mingled the eccentric even in his business letters. Once he wrote to his publisher, Mr. G. W. Carleton, who had made some alterations in his MSS.: " The next book I write I'm going to get you to write." Again he wrote in 1863 : DEAR CARL: You and I will get out a book next spring, which will knock spots- out of all comic books in ancient or modern history. And the fact that you are going to take hold of it convinces me that you have one of the most massive intellects of this or any other epoch. Yours, my pretty gazelle, A. WARD. When Charles F. Browne died he did not belong to America, for, as with Irving and Dickens, the English language claimed him. Greece alone did not suffer when the current of Diogenes' wit flowed on to death. Spain alone did not mourn when Cervantes, dying, left Don Quixote the " knight of la Mancha." When Charles Lamb ceased to tune the great heart of humanity to joy and gladness, his funeral was in every English and American household, and when Charles Browne took up his silent resting place in the somber shades of Kensal Green, jesting ceased, and one great Anglo-Amer- ican heart, Like a muffled drum went beating Funeral marches to his grave. AETEMUS WAED'S PANOEAMA. (ILLUSTRATED AS DELIVERED AT EGYPTIAN HALL, LOXDOX.) PREFATORY NOTE. BY MELVILLE D. LAXDOX ("ELI FERKIXS " ). The fame of Artemus Ward culminated in his last lectures at Egyptian Hail, Piccadilly, the final one breaking off abruptly on the evening of the 23d of January, 1867. That night the great humorist bade farewell to the public, and retired from the stage to die ! His Mormon lectures were immensely successful in England. His fame became the talk of journalists, savants and statesmen. Every one seemed to be affected differently, but every one felt and acknowledged his power! "The Honora- ble Robert Lowe," says Mr. E. P. Kingston, Artemus Ward's bosom friend, "attended the Mormon lecture one evening, and laughed as hilariously as any one in the room. The next evening Mr. John Bright happened to be present. With the exception of one or two occasional smiles, he listened with grave attention." The London Standard, in describing his first lecture in London, aptly said, "Artemus dropped his jokes faster than the meteors of last night succeeded each other in the sky. And there was this resemblance between the flashes of his humor and the flights of the meteors, that in each case one looked for jokes or meteors, but 34 KINGS OF THE PLATFORM AND PULPIT. they always came just in the place that one least expected to find them. Half the enjoyment of the evening lay, to some of those present, in listening to the hearty cachiimation of the people, who only found out the jokes some two or three minutes after they were made, and who laughed apparently at some grave statements of fact. Reduced to paper, the showman's jokes are certainly not brilliant; almost their \vhole effect lies in their seeming impromptu character. They are carefully led up to, of course; but they are uttered as if they are mere afterthoughts of which the speaker is hardly sure." His humor was so entirely fresh and unconventional, that it took his hearers by surprise, and charmed them. His failing health compelled him to abandon the lect- ure after about eight or ten weeks. Indeed, during that brief period, he was once or twice compelled to dismiss his audience. Frequently he sank into a chair and nearly fainted from the exertion of dressing. He exhibited the greatest anxiety to be at his post at the appointed time, and scrupulously exerted himself to the utmost to entertain his auditors. It was not because he was sick that the public was to be disappointed, or that their enjoyment was to be diminished. During the last few weeks of his lecture-giving, he steadily abstained from accepting any of the numerous invitations he received. Had he lived through the following London fashionable season, there is little doubt that the room at Egyptian Hall would have been thronged nightly. The English aristocracy have a fine, delicate sense of humor, and the success, artistic and pecuniary, of "Artemus Ward," would have rivaled that of the famous "Lord Dundreary." There were many stupid people who did not understand the "fun" of Artemus Ward's books. There were many stupid people who did not understand the fun of Artemus Ward's lecture on the Mormons. Highly respectable people the pride of their parish when they heard of a lecture "upon the Mormons," expected to see a solemn person, full of old saws and new statistics, who would denounce the sin of polygamy and rave without limit against Mormons. These uncomfortable Chris- tians do not like humor. They dread it as a certain personage is said to dread holy water, and for the same reason that thieves fear policemen it finds them out. When these good idiots heard Artemus offer, if they did not like the lecture in Piccadilly, to give them free tickets for the same lecture in California, when he next visited that country, they turned to each other indignantly, and said, "What use are tickets for California to us? We are not going to California. No! we are too good, too respectable to go so far from home. The man is a fool ! " One of these vestrymen complained to the doorkeeper, and denounced the lecturer as an imposter "and," said the wealthy parishioner, "as for the panorama, it is the worse painted thing I ever saw." During the lecture, Artemus was always as solemn as the grave. Sometimes he would seem to forget his audience, and stand for several seconds gazing intently at his panorama. Then he would start up and remark apologetically, ' ' I am very fond , of looking at my pictures." His dress was always the same evening toilet. His manners were polished and his voice gentle and hesitating. Many who had read of the man who spelled joke with a " g" looked for a smart old man with a shrewd cock eye, dressed in vulgar velvet and gold, and they were hardly prepared to see the accomplished gentleman with slim physique and delicate white hands. The letters of Artemus Ward in Punch, from the tomb of Shakespeare and the London Tower, had made him famous in England, and in his audience were the nobility of the realm. His first lecture in London was delivered at Egyptian Hall, ARTEMUS WARD. 35 Tuesday, November 13, 1866. The room used was that which had been occupied by Mr. Arthur Sketchley, adjoining the one in which Mr. Arthur Smith formerly made his appearences. Punctually at eight o'clock he would step, hesitatingly, before the audience, and, rubbing his hands bashfully, commence the lecture. LIFE SKETCH OF WARD WHILE LECTURING. THE LECTURE. You are entirely welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to my little picture- shop. I couldn't give you a very clear idea of the Mormons - x and Utah and the plains and the Eocky Mountains without opening a pic- ture-shop and therefore I open one. I don't expect to do great things here but I have thought that if I could make money enough to buy me a passage to New Zealand I should feel that I had not lived in vain. 3 36 KINGS OF THE PLATFORM AND PULPIT. I don't want to live in vain. I'd rather live in Mar- gate or here. But I wish when the Egyptians built this hall they had given it a little more ventilation. If you should be dissatisfied with any thing here to-night I will admit you all free in New Zealand if you will come to me there for the- orders. Any respectable cannibal will tell you where I 1 i ve. This shows that I have a forgiving spirit. I really don't care for money. I only travel round to see the world and to exhibit my clothes. These clothes I have on were a great success in America. How often do large fortunes ruin young men! I should like to- be ruined, but I can get 011 very well as I am. I am not an artist. I don't paint myself though perhaps if I were a middle-aged single lady I should yet I have a passion for pictures. I have had a great many pictures photographs taken of myself. Some of them are very pretty rather sweet to look at for a, short time and as I said before, I like them. I've always loved pictures. I could draw on wood at a very tender age. When a mere child I once drew a small cart-load of raw turnips over a wooden bridge. The people of the village noticed me. I drew their attention. They said I had a future before me. Up to that- time I had an idea it was behind me. Time passed on. It always does, by the way. You may possi- bly have noticed that Time passes on. It is a kind of way Time has. I became a man. I haven't distinguished myself at all as an artist but I have always been more or less mixed up with art. I have an uncle who takes photographs and I have a servant who takes any thing he can get his hands on. When I was in Rome Rome in New York State I mean a distinguished sculpist wanted to sculp me. But I said "No." I saw through the designing man. My model once in his hands he would have flooded the market with my busts and I couldn't stand it to see- every body going round with a bust of me. Every body would want one of course and wherever I should go I should meet the educated classes, with my bust, taking it home to their families. This would be more than my modesty could stand and I should have to return to America where my creditors are. I like art. I admire dramatic art although I failed as an actor. It was in my schoolboy days that I failed as an actor. The play was "the Ruins of Pompeii." 1 played the ruins. It was not ARTEMUS WARD. 37 a very successful performance but it was better than the ' ' Burning Mountain." lie was not good. He was a bad Vesuvius. The remembrance often makes me ask " Where are the boys of my youth ?" I assure you this is not a conundrum. Some are amongst you here some in America some are in jail. Hence arises a most touching question "Where are the girls of my youth ? " Some are married some would like to be. Oh my Maria ! Alas ! she married another. They frequently do. I hope she is happy because I am.* Some people are not happy. I have noticed that. A gentleman friend of mine came to me one day with tears in his eyes. I said, " Why these weeps?" He said he had a mortgage on his farm and wanted to borrow 200. I lent him the money and he went away. Some time after he returned with more tears. He said he must leave me forever. I ventured to remind him of the 200 he borrowed. He was much cut up. I thought I would not be hard upon him so told him I would throw off one hundred pounds. He brightened shook my hand and said " Old friend I won't allow you to outdo me in liber- ality I'll throw off the other hundred." As a manager I was always rather more successful than as an actor. Some years ago I engaged a celebrated Living American Skeleton for a tour through Australia. He was the thinnest man I ever saw. He was a splendid skeleton. He didn't weigh any thing scarcely and I said to myself the people of Australia will flock to see this tremendous curiosity. It is a long voyage as you know from New York to Mel- bourne and to my utter surprise the skeleton had no sooner got out to sea than he commenced eating in the most horrible manner. He had never been on the ocean before and he said it agreed with him 1 thought so ! 1 never saw a man eat so much in my life. Beef mutton pork he swallowed them all like a shark and between meals he was often discovered behind barrels eating hard-boiled eggs. The result was that, when we reached Melbourne, this infamous skeleton weighed 64 pounds more than I did! I thought I was ruined but I wasn't. I took him on to Califor- nia another very long sea voyage and when I got him to San Francisco lexhibited him as a fat man. * " Because I am ! " (Spoken with a sigh.) It was a joke which always told. Artemus never failed to use it in his " Babes in the Wood " lecture, and the " Sixty Minutes in Africa," as well as in the Mormon story. 38 KINGS OF THE PLATFORM AND PULPIT. This story hasn't any thing to do with my entertainment, I know but one of the principal features of my entertainment is that it contains so many things that don't have any thing to do with it. My orchestra is small but I am sure it is very good so far as it goes. I give my pianist ten pounds a night and his washing. I like music. I can't sing. As a singest I am not a success. I am saddest when I sing. So are those who hear me. They are sadder even than I am. The other night some silver-voiced young men came under my window and sang " Come where my love lies dreaming." 1 didn't go. I didn't think it would be correct. I found music very soothing when I lay ill with fever in Utah and I was Very ill I was fearfully wasted. My face was hewn down to nothing and my nose was so sharp I didn't dare to stick it into other people's business for fear it would stay there and I should never get it again. And on those dismal days a Mormon lady she was married tho' not so much so as her husband he had fif- teen other wives she used to sing a ballad commencing " Sweet bird do not fly away!" and I told her I wouldn't. She played the accordion divinely accordingly I praised her. I met a man in Oregon who hadn't any teeth not a tooth iu hie; head yet that man could play on the bass drum better than any man I ever met. He kept a hotel. They have queer hotels in Oregon. I remember one where they gave me a bag of oats for a pillow 1 had night mares of course. In the morning the landlord said How do you feel old hoss hay? 1 told him I felt my oats. Permit me now to quietly state that altho' I am here with my cap and bells, I am also here with some serious descriptions of the Mormons their manners their customs and while the pictures I shall present to your notice are by no means works of art they are painted from pho- tographs actually taken on the spot and I am sure I need not inform any person present who was ever in the Territory of Utah that they are as faithful as they could possibly be. I went to Great Salt Lake City by way of California, to California on the steamer " Ariel." ARTEMUS WARD. 39 Oblige me by calmly gazing on the steamer ' ; Ariel " and when you go to California be sure and go on some other steamer because the ' ' Ariel " isn't a very good one. When I reached the "Ariel " at pier No. 4 New York I found the passengers in a state of great confusion about their things which STEAMER ARIEL. were being thrown around by the ship's porters in a manner at once damaging and idiotic. So great was the excitement my fragile form was smashed this way and jammed that way till finally I was shoved into a state-room which was occupied by two middle-aged females who said, " Base man leave us 0, leave us!" I left t h em h -I left them! We reached Acapulco on the coast of Mexico in due time. Nothing of special interest occurred at Acapulco only some of the Mexican ladies are very beautiful. They all have brilliant black hair hair 40 KINGS OF THE PLATFORM AND PULPIT. *' black as starless night "- ily Herald." It don't curl. if I may quote from the "Fam- - A Mexican lady's hair never curls it is straight as an Indian's. Some people's hair won't curl under any circumstances. My hair won't curl under two shillings.* The Chinese form a large element in the population of San Francisco and I went to the Chinese Theatre. THE GREAT THOROUGHFARE OP THE IMPERIAL CITY OP THE PACIFIC COAST. A Chinese play often lasts two months. Commencing at the hero's birth, it is cheerfully conducted from week to week till he is either killed or married. *" Under Two Shillings." Artemus always wore his hair straight until after his severe illness in Salt Lake City. So much of it dropped off during his recovery that he became dis- satisfied with the long meager appearance his countenance presented when he surveyed it in the looking-glass. After his lecture at the Salt Lake City Theatre he did not lecture again until we had crossed the Rocky Mountains and arrived at Denver City, the capital of Colo- rado. On the afternoon he was to lecture there, I met him coming out of an ironmonger's store with a small parcel in his hand. "I want you, old fellow," he said; "I have been all round the city for them, and I've got them at last." "Got what?" I asked. "A pair of curling-tongs. 1 am going to have my hair curled to lecture in to-night. I mean to cross the plains in curls. Come home with me and try to curl it for me. I don't want to go to any idiot of a barber to be laughed at." I played the part of friseur. Subsequently he became his own " curlist," as he phrased it. From that day forth Artemus was a curly-haired man. AHTEMU8 WARD. 41 The night I was there a Chinese comic vocalist sang a Chinese comic song. It took him six weeks to finish it but as my time was limited I went away at the expiration of 215 verses. There were 11,000 verses to this song the chorus being "Tural lural dural, ri fol day " which was repeated twice at the end of each verse making as you will at once see the appalling number of 22,000 "tural lural dural, ri fol days " and the man still lives. Virginia City in the bright new State of Nevada. A wonderful little city right in the heart of the famous Washoe silver regions the mines of which annually produce over twenty-five millions of solid silver. This silver is melted into solid bricks of about the size of ordinary house-bricks and carted off to San Fran- cisco with mules. The roads often swarm with these silver wagons. One hundred and seventy-five miles to the east of this place are the Eeese River silver mines which are supposed to be the richest in the world. The great American Desert in winter-time the desert which is so frightfully gloomy always. No trees no houses no people 42 KINGS OF THE PLATFORM AND PULPIT. save the miserable beings who live in wretched huts and have charge of the horses and mules of the Overland Mail Company. Plains Between Virginia City and Salt Lake. This picture is a great work of art. It is an oil painting d one in petroleum. It is by the old masters. It was the last thing they did before dying. They did this and then they expired. PLAINS BETWEEN VIRGINIA CITY AND SALT LAKF.. The most celebrated artists of London are so delighted with this picture that they come to the hall every day to gaze at it. I wish you were nearer to it so you could see it better. I wish I could take it to your residences and let you see it by daylight. Some of the greatest artists in London come here every morn ing before daylight with lanterns to look at it. They say they never saw any thing like it before and they hope they never shall again. When I first showed this picture in K^ew York, the audiences were so enthusiastic in their admiration of this picture that the y called for the artist and when he appeared they threw brick- bats at him. the strange city in the city of the people ARTEMUS WARD. 43 A bird's-eye view of Great Salt Lake City the desert about which so much has been heard - who call themselves Saints. I know there is much interest taken in these remarkable people ladies and gentlemen and I have thought it better to make the purely descriptive part of my entertainment entirely serious. 1 will not then for the next ten minutes confine myself to my sub- ject. BIRD 8 KYB VIEW OF SALT LAKE CITY. Some seventeen years ago a small band of Mormons headed by Brigham Young commenced in the present thrifty metropolis of Utah. The population of the Territory of Utah is over 100^,000 chiefly Mormons and they are increasing at the rate of from five to ten thousand annually. The converts to Mormonism now are almost exclu- sively confined to English and Germans. Wales and Cornwall have con- tributed largely to the population of Utah during the last few years. The population of Great Salt Lake City is 20,000. The streets are eight 44 KINGS OF THE PLATFORM AND PULPIT. rods wide and are neither nagged nor paved. A stream of pure mount- ain spring water courses through each street and is conducted into the gardens of the Mormons. The houses are mostly of adobe, or sun-dried brick, and present a neat and comfortable appearance. They are usually a story and a half high. Now and then you see a fine modern house in Salt Lake City, but no house that is dirty, shabby and dilapidated ; because there are no absolutely poor people in Utah. Every Mormon has a nice garden, and every Mormon has a tidy dooryard. Neatness is a great characteristic of the Mormons. The Mormons profess to believe that they are the chosen people of Ood they call themselves Latter-day Saints and they call us people of the outer world Gentiles. They say that Mr. Brigham Young - is a prophet the legitimate successor of Joseph Smith who founded ' the Mormon religion. They also say they are authorized by special revelation from heaven to marry as many wives as they can comfort- ably support. This wife-system they call plurality. The world calls it polygamy. That at its best it is an accursed thing, I need not of course inform you but you will bear in mind that I am here as a rather cheerful reporter of what I saw in Utah and I fancy it isn't at all neces- sary for me to grow virtuously indignant over something we all know is hideously wrong. You will be surprised to hear I was amazed to see that among the Mormon women there are some few persons of education of positive cultivation. As a class, the Mormons are not an educated people, but they are by no means the community of ignoramuses so many writers have told us they were. The valley in which they live is splendidly favored. They raise immense crops. They have mills of all kinds. They have coal, lead and silver mines. All they eat, all they drink, all they wear they can pro- duce themselves, and still have a great abundance to sell to the gold regions of Idaho on the one hand and the silver regions of Nevada on the other. , The president of this remarkable community the head of the Mormon church is Brigham Young. He is called President Young and Brother Brigham. He is about 54 years old, altho' he doesn't look to be over 45. He has sandy hair and whiskers, is of medium height, and is a little inclined to corpulency. He was born in the State of Vermont. His power is more absolute than that of any liv- ing sovereign. Yet he uses it with such consummate discretion that his people are almost madly devoted to him, and that they would cheerfully die for him if they thought the sacrifice were demanded, I can not doubt. ARTEMUS WARD. 45 He is a man of enormous wealth. One-te'nth of every thing sold in the Territory of Utah goes to the church and Mr. Brigham Young is the church. It is supposed that he speculates with these funds at all events, he is one of the wealthiest men now living eral millions, without doubt. He is a bold bad man worth sev- but that he is also a man of extraordinary administrative ability, no one can doubt who has watched his astounding career for the past ten years. It is only fair for me to add that he treated me with marked kindness during my sojourn in Utah. The West Side of Main Street Salt Lake City including a view of the Salt Lake Hotel. It is a temperance hotel.* I prefer temperance hotels altho' they sell worse liquor than other kind of * "Temperance Hotel." At the date of our visit, there was only one place In Salt Lake City where strong drink was allowed to be sold. Brigham Young himself owned the prop- erty, and vended the liquor by wholesale, not permitting any of it to be drunk on the prem- ises. It was a coarse, inferior kind of whisky, known in Salt Lake as " Valley Tan." Through- out the city there was no drinking -bar nor billiard room, so far as I am aware. But a drink on the sly could always be had at one of the hard-goods stores, in the back office behind the pile of metal saucepans, or at one of the dry-goods stores, in the little parlor in the rear of the bales of calico. At the present time I believe that there are two or three open bars in Salt Lake, Brigham Young having recognized the right of the " Saints " to " liquor up " occasion- ally. But whatever other failings they may have, intemperance can not be laid to their charge. Among the Mormons there are no paupers, no gamblers and no drunkards 46 KINGS OF THE PLATFORM AND PULPIT. li o t els. But the Salt Lake Hotel sells none nor is there a bar in all Salt Lake City but I found when I was thirsty and I gen- erally am that I could get some very good brandy of one of the elders on the sly and I never on any account allow my business to inter- fere Avith my drinking. There is the Overland Mail Coach that is, the den on wheels in which we have been crammed for the past ten days and ten nights. Those of you who have been in Newgate* and stayed there any length of time as visitors can realize how I felt. The American Overland Mail Route commences at Sacramento, Cali- fornia, and ends at Atchison, Kansas. The distance is two thousand two hundred miles but you go part of the way by rail. The Pacific Railway is now completed from Sacramento, California, to Fulsom, * " Been in Newgate." The manner in which Artemus uttered this joke was peculiarly characteristic of his style of lecturing. The commencement of the sentence was spoken as if unpremeditated; then, when he got as far as the word " Newgate," he paused, as if wishing to call back that which he had said. The applause was unfailingly uproarious. ARTEMUS WARD. 47 California, which only leaves two thousand two hundred and eleven miles to go by coach. This breaks the monoton y it came very near breaking my back. y w v w\ A > yy h Mormon Theatre. This edifice is the exclusive property of Brig- ham Young. It Avill comfortably hold 3,000 persons and I beg you will believe me when I inform you that its interior is quite as brilliant as that of any theater in London. The actors are all Mormon amateurs, who charge nothing for their services. -^-*< - 1. Introductory. 2. The Steamer Ariel, en route. 3. San Francisco. 4. The Washoe Silver Region. 5. The Plains. 6. The City of Saints, 7. A Mormon Hotel. 8. Brigham Young's Theatre. 9. The Council-House. 10. The Home of Brigham Young. 11. Heber C. Kimball's Seraglio. 12. The Mormon House of Worship. 13. Foundations of the New Temple. 14. Architect's View of the Temple when finished. 15. The Great Dead Sea of the Desert. 16. The House of Mystery. 17. The Canon. 18. Mid-Air Sepulture. 19. A Nice Family Party at Brigham Young's. It requires a large number of Artists to produce this Entertainment. The casual observer can form no idea of the quantity of unfettered genius that is soaring, like a healthy Eagle, round this Hall in connection with this Entertainment. In fact, the following gifted persons compose the ffidal Bureau. Secretary of the Exterior ............. Mr. E. P. Kingston. Secretary of the Treasury ..... Herr Max Field, (Pupil of Signer Thomaso Jacksoni.) Mechanical Director and Professor of Carpentry ..... Signor G. Wilsoni. Crankist .. ' .................... Mons. Aleck. Assistant Crankist .................. Boy (orphan). Artists ................. Messrs. Hilliard & Maeder. Reserved Chairisfs ............. Messrs. Persee & Jerome. Moppist ................. Signorina O'Flaherty. Broomist ................ Mile. Topsia de St. Moke. Hired Man ....................... John. Fighting Editor ................ Chevalier McArone. Dutchman ........... By a Polish Refugee, named McFinnigin. Doortendist ................ Mons. Jacques Ridera. Gas Man . . . . , .............. Artemus Ward. This Entertainment will open with music. The Soldiers' Chorus from " Faust." Jt^~ First time in this city.. 72 KINGS OF TEE PLATFORM AND PULPIT. Next comes a jocund and discursive preamble, calculated to show what a good education the Lecturer has. * View the first is a sea-view. Ariel navigation. Normal school of whales in the distance. Isthmus of Panama. Interesting interview with Old Panama himself, who makes all the hats. Old Pan is a likely sort of man. * San Francisco. City with a vigilant government. Miners allowed to vote. Old inhabitants so rich that they have legs with golden calves to them. Town in the Silver region. Good quarters to be found there. Playful popula- tion, fond of high-low-jack and homicide. Silver lying around loose. Thefts of it termed silver-guilt. The plains in Winter. A wild Moor, like Othello. Mountains in the distance forty thousand miles above the level of the highest sea (Musiani's chest C included.) If you don't believe this you can go there and measure them for yourself. Mormondom, sometimes called the City of the Plain, but wrongly ; the women are quite pretty. View of Old Poly Gamy's house, etc. The Salt Lake Hotel. Stage just come in from its overland route and retreat from the Indians. Temperance house. No bar nearer than Salt Lake sand-bars. Miners in shirts like Artemus Ward his Programme they are read and will wash. Mormon Theatre, where Artemus Ward lectured. Mormons like theatricals, and had rather go to the Play-house than to the Work-house, any time. Private boxes reserved for the ears of Brother Brigham's wives. INTERMISSION OF FIVE MINUTES. ARTEMUS WARD. 73 Territorial State House. Seat of the Legislature. About as fair a collection as that at Albany and "we can't say no fairer than that." Residence of Brigham Young and his wives. Two hundred souls with but a single thought. Two hundred hearts that beat as one. Seraglio of Heber C. Kimball. Home of the Queens of Heber. No relatives of the Queen of Sheba. They are a nice gang of darlings. Mormon Tabernacle, where the men espouse Mormonism and the women espouse Brother Brigham and his Elders as spiritual Physicians, convicted of bad doct'rin. Foundations of the Temple. Beginning of a healthy little job. Temple to enclose all out-doors, and be paved with gold at a premium. The Temple when finished. Mormon idea of a meeting-house. N. B. It will be bigger, probably, than Dodworth Hall. One of the figures in the foreground is intended for Heber C. Kimball. You can see, by the expression of his back, that he is thinking what a great man Joseph Smith was. The Great Salt Lake. Water actually thick with salt too saline to sail in. Mariners rocked on the bosom of this deep with rock salt. The water isn't very good to drink. House where Mormons are initiated. Very secret and mysterious ceremonies. Anybody can easily find out all about them though, by going out there and becoming a, Mormon. Echo Canon. A rough bluff sort of affair. Great Echo. "When Artemus Ward "went through, he heard the echoes of some things the Indians said there about four years and a half ago. 74 KINGS OF THE PLATFORM AND PULPIT. The Plains again, with some noble savages, both in the live and dead state. The dead one on the high shelf was killed in a Fratricidal Struggle. They are always having Fratricidal Struggles out in that line of country. It would be a good place for an enterprising Coroner to locate. Brigham Young surrounded by his wives. These ladies are simply too numerous to mention. ose of the Audience who do not feel offended with Artemus "Ward are cordially invited to call upon him, often, at his fine new house in Brooklyn. His house is on the right hand side as you cross the Ferry, and may be easily distin- guished from the other houses by its having a Cupola and a Mortgage on it. * * k^f Soldiers on the battle-field will be admitted to this Entertainment gratis. The Indians on the Overland Route live on Route an Herbs. They are an intemperate people. They drink with impunity, or any body who invites them. * * Jt^ Artemus Ward delivered Lectures before ALL THE CROWNED HEADS OF EUROPE ever thought of delivering lectures. TICKETS 50 CTS. RESERVED CHAIRS fl. Doors open at 7.30 P. M. Entertainment to commence at 8. Honesty taz a short ~kxeesl t and branes haz no peSigyee at alL J. B. Struggling vfifri Pus Creji SerTo-Comlc Lectura THE PROBABILITIES OF LIFE] Perhaps rain Perhaps not. "JOSH BILLINGS." BIOGRAPHY AND REMINISCENCES. Henry W. Shaw, the well-known wit and satirist, better known as "Josh Bil- lings," was born at Lanesborough, Mass., in 1818, of a family of politicians, his father and grandfather having both been in Congress. He went early in life to the West, where for twenty-five years he was a farmer and auctioneer. He did not begin to write for publication till he was forty-five years old. He has been one of the most popular of popular lecturers. Mr. Shaw died at Monterey, Cal., October 14, 1885. He is the author of several books which have been collected into one large volume by Mr. Dillingham, successor to Geo. W. Carleton, and which is still having an immense sale. Mr. Shaw left an accomplished wife and a beautiful daughter to mourn his loss. He died wealthy, but his greatest legacy to his family was his liter- ary reputation. His fame spread through England as well as America. The last time I saw Josh Billings was on a Madison avenue street car in New York City. I think of him as I saw him then, sitting in the corner of the car, with his spectacles on his nose, and in a brown study. His mind was always on his work, and his work was to think out dry epigrams so full of truth and human nature that they set the whole world laughing. That morning, when the old man espied me, he was so busy with his thoughts that he did not even say good morning. He simply raised one hand, looked over his glasses and said, quickly, as if he had made a great discovery : "I've got it, Eli!" "Got what?" " Got a good one lem me read it," and then he read from a crumpled envelope this epigram that he had* just jotted down: " When a man tries to make himself look beautiful, he steals he steals a woman 1 s patent right how's that ?" " Splendid," I said. " How long have you been at work on it ?" " Three hours," he said, " to get it just right." Mr. Shaw always worked long and patiently over these little paragraphs, but every one contains a sermon. When he got five or 76 JOSH BILLINGS. 77 six written, he stuck them into his hat and went down and read them. to G. "W. Carleton, his publisher and friend, who was an excellent judge of wit, and he and Josh would laugh over them. One day I told Josh that I would love him forever and go and put flowers on his grave if he would give me some of his paragraphs in his own handwriting. He did it, and when he died I hung a wreath of immortelles on his tombstone at Poughkeepsie. These are the sparks from his splendid brain just as he gave them to me: Twiirr* hi s 78 KINGS OF THE PLATFORM AND PULPIT. z, 2- Lfms m are So, The next day after Josh gave me the above epigrams, he came and dined with me, and together we smoked and laughed and fixed the following interview : " Mr. Billings, where were you educated ? " " Pordunk, Pennsylvania." " How old are you ?" " I Avas born 150 years old and have been growing young ever since." " Are you married ? " " Once." " How many children have you ? " " Doublets." " "What other vices have you ? " "None." " Have you any virtues ? " "Several." " What are they ? " " I left them up at Poughkeepsie." " Do you gamble ? " " "When I feel good." " "What is your profession ? " " Agriculture and alminaxing." "How do you account for your deficient knowledge in spelling?" " Bad spells during infancy, and poor memory." " "What things are you the most liable to forget?" " Sermons and debts." " "What professions do you like best ? " " Auctioneeiing, base-ball and theology." " Do you smoke ? " " Thank you, I'll take a Partaga first." JOSH BILLINGS. 79 " -What is your worst habit ? " " The coat I got last in Poughkeepsie." " What are your favorite books ? " " My alminack and Commodore Yanderbilt's pocketbook." " "What is your favorite piece of sculpture?" " The mile stone nearest home." " What is your favorite animal? " " The mule." "Why?" " Because he never blunders with his heels." "What was the best thing said by our old friend Artemus Ward?" " All the pretty girls in Utah marry Young" " Do you believe in the final salvation of all men ? " " I do let me pick the men ! " In the evening Josh and I reviewed the interview, and pro- nounced it faithfully rendered. He wished to add only that Mr. Carleton, who published his alminack, had the most immense intel- lect of this or any other age. WIT. PHILOSOPHY AND WISDOM. This is Josh Billings' last Lecture Programme : SYNOPSIS or THB LECTURE BY JOSH. 1 Remarks on Lecturing General Overture. 3 The Best Thing on Milk. 3 The Summer Resort. 4 Josh on Marriage. 5 Josh on the Mule. 6 The Handsome Man, a Failure. 7 The Dude a Failure. 8 What I know about Hotels. 9 The Bumble-bee. 10 The Hornet. 11 The Quire Singer. 12 Josh on Flirting. 13 Courtin'. 80 KINGS OF THE PLATFORM AND PULPIT. Josh Billings' lecture was unique. It was an hour of short para- graphs, every one worth its weight in gold. The great philosopher always wore long hair (to cover a wart on the back of his neck), and always sat down when he lectured. He delivered his quaint philosophy with his bright eyes looking over his glasses. His lecture was too deep to be popular. It was really the college professor or reflecting judge who fully appreciated him. Think of such paragraphs as these tumbling out once in a minute: Ladies and Gentlemen: I hope you are all well. [Looking over his glasses.] Thare is lots ov folks who eat well and drink well, and yet are sick all the time. Theze are the folks who alwuz " enjoy poor health." Then I kno lots ov people whoze only reckomendashun iz, that they are helthy so iz an onion. [Laughter.] The subject of my lecture is Milk plain M-i-l-k. The best thing I've ever seen on milk is cream. [Laughter.] That's right [joining]. "People of good sense" are thoze whoze opinyuns agree with ours. [Laughter]. People who agree with you never bore you. The shortest way to a woman's harte iz to praze her baby and her bonnet, and to a man's harte to praze hiz watch, hiz horse and hiz lectur. Eliar Perkins sez a man iz a bore when he talks so much about his- self that you kant talk about yourself. [Laughter.] Still I shall go on talking. Comik lekturing iz an unkommon pesky thing to do. Jt iz more unsarting than the rat ketching bizzness az a means ov grace, or az a means ov livelyhood. Most enny boddy thinks they kan do it, and this iz jist what makes it so bothersum tew do. When it izdid jist enuff, it iz a terifick success, but when it iz over- did, it iz like a burnt slapjax, very impertinent. Thare aint but phew good judges ov humor, and they all differ about it. If a lekturer trys tew be phunny, he iz like a boss trying to trot back- wards, pretty apt tew trod on himself. [Laughter.] Humor must fall out ov a man's mouth, like musik out ov a bobalink, or like a yung bird out ov its nest, when it iz feathered enuff to fly. Whenever a man haz made up hiz mind that he iz a wit, then he iz mistaken without remedy, but whenever the publick haz made up their mind that he haz got the disease, then he haz got it sure. Individuals never git this thing right, the publik never git it wrong. JOSH BILLINGS. 81 Humor iz wit with a rooster's tail feathers stuck in its cap, and wit iz wisdom in tight harness. If a man is a genuine humorist, he iz superior to the bulk ov hiz audience, and will often hev tew take hiz pay for hiz services in think- ing so. Altho fun iz designed for the millyun, and ethiks for the few, it iz az. true az molasses, that most all aujiences hav their bell wethers, people who show the others the crack whare the joke cums laffing in. (Where are they to-night?) [Laughter.] I hav known popular aujences deprived ov all plezzure during the recital ov a comik lektur, just bekauze the right man, or the right woman, want thare tew point out the mellow places. The man who iz anxious tew git before an aujience, with what he- calls a comik lektur, ought tew be put immediately in the stocks, so- that he kant do it, for he iz a dangerous person tew git loose, and will do sum damage. It iz a very pleazant bizzness tew make people laff, but thare iz much odds whether they laff at you, or laff at what yu say. "When a man laffs at yu, he duz it because it makes him feel superior to you, but when yu pleaze him with what yu have uttered, he admits thatyu are superior tew him. [Applause.] The only reazon whi a monkey alwus kreates a sensashun whareever he goes, is simply bekauze he is a monkey. Everyboddy feels az tho they had a right tew criticize a comik lectur, and most ov them do it jist az a mule criticizes things, by shutting up both eyes and letting drive with hiz two behind leggs. [Laughter.] One ov the meanest things in the comik lektring employment that a man haz to do, iz tew try and make that large class ov hiz aujience laff whom the Lord never intended should laff. Thare iz sum who laff az eazy and az natral az the birds do, but most ov mankind laff like a hand organ if yu expect tew git a lively tune out ov it yu hav got tew grind for it. In delivering a comik lektur it iz a good general rule to stop sudden,, sometime before yu git through. This brings me to Long branch. Long branch iz a work ov natur, and iz a good job. It iz a summer spot for men, wimmm and children, espeshily the latter. Children are az plenty here, and az sweet az flowers, in an out door gardin. I put up at the Oshun Hotel the last time i was thare, and I put up more than I ought to. Mi wife puts up a good deal with me at the same hotel, it iz an old-fashioned way we have ov doing things. She allways goes with. 82 KiyGS OF THE PLATFORM AND PULPIT. me, to fashionable resorts, whare young widows are enny ways plenty, to put me on mi guard, for i am one ov the easyest creatures on reckord to be impozed upon, espeshily bi yung widders. She is an ornament to her sex, mi wife iz. I would like to see a young widder, or even an old one, git the start ov me, when mi wife iz around. [Laughter.] If I just step out sudden, to get a weak lemonade, to cool mi akeing brow, mi wife goes to the end ov the verandy with me, and waits for me, and if i go down onto the beach to astronomize just a little, all alone, bi moon- lite, she stands on the bluff, like a beakon lite, to warn me ov the breakers. The biggest thing they hav got at Long branch, for the present, iz the pool ov water, in front ovthe hotels. This pool iz sed bi good judges to be 3,000 miles in length, and in sum places 5 miles thick. Into this pool, every day at ten o'klock, the folks all retire, males, females, and widders, promiskuss. The scenery here iz grand, especially the pool, and the air iz az bracing az a milk puntch. Drinks are reasonable here* espeshily out ov the pool, and the last touch ov civilizashun haz reached here also, sum enterprising mishionary haz just opened a klub house, whare all kind ov gambling iz taught. Long branch iz a healthy place. Men and women here, if they ain't too lazy, liv snmtimes till they are eighty, and destroy the time a good deal as follows: The fust thirty years they spend in throwing stuns at a mark, the seckond thirty they spend in examining the mark tew see whare the stuns hit, and the remainder is divided in cussing the stun-throvving bizziness, and nussing the rumatizz. A man never gits to be a fust klass phool until he haz reached seventy years, and falls in luv with a bar maid of 19, and marrys her, and then, ***** Here he took out his Waterbury watch, and remarked, as he wound it up, " You kant do two things to wonst." [Great laughter.] I luv a Rooster for two things. One iz the crow that iz in him, and the other iz, the spurs that are on him, to bak up the crow with. There was a little disturbance in the gallery now, and Uncle Josh looked over his glasses and remarked: " Yung man, please set down, and keep still, yu will hav plenty ov chances yet to make a phool ov yureself before yu die." [Laughter.] The man or mule who can't do any hurt in this world kan't do any good. [Laughter.] This brings me to the Mule the pashunt mule. The mule is pashunt because he is ashamed of hisself. [Laughter.] The mule is haf boss and haf jackass, and then kums tu a full stop, natur diskovering her mistake . Tha weigh more accordin tu their heft than enny other creeter, JOSH BILLINGS. 83 except a crowbar. Tha kant heer enny quicker nor further than the hoss, yet their ears are big enuff fur snowshoes. You kan trust them with enny one whose life aint worth more than the mule's. The only way tu keep them into a paster is tu turn them- into a medder jineing and let them jump out. [Laughter.] Tha are reddy for use jest as soon as tha will do tu abuse. Tha aint got enny friends, and will live on huckleberry bush, with an akasional chance at Kanada thissels. Tha are a modern invention. Tha sell fur more money than enny other domestic animal. You kant tell their age by looking into their mouth enny more than you could a Mexican cannon. Tha never hare no disease that a good club won't heal. If tha ever die tha mus.t come right to life agin, fur I never herd nobody say " ded mule." I never owned one, nor never mean to, unless there is a United States law passed requir- ing it. I have seen educated mules in a sircuss. Tha could kick and bite tremenjis. . . . Enny man who is willing to drive a mule ought to be exempt by law from running for the legislatur. Tha are the strongest creeters on arth, and heaviest according tu their size. I herd of one who fell oph from the tow-path of the Eri canawl, and sunk as soon as he touched bottom, but he kept on towing the boat tu the next stashun, breathing through his ears, which was out of the water about two feet six inches. I didn't see this did, but Bill Harding told me of it, and I never knew Bill Harding tu lie unless he could make something out of it. There is but one other animal that kan do more kicking than a mule, and that is a Quire Singer. [Laughter.] A quire singer gig- gles during the sermon and kicks the rest of the week. My advice to quire singers is as follows: Put your hair In cirl papers every Friday nite soze to have it in good shape Sun- day morning. If your daddy is rich you can buy some store hair. If he is very rich buy some more and build it up high onto your head; then get a high-priced bunnit that runs up very high at the high part of it, and get the milliner to plant some high-grown artificials onto the highest part of it. This will help you sing high, as soprano is the highest part. When the tune is giv out, don't pay attention to it, and then giggle. Giggle a good eel. Whisper to the girl next you that Em Jones, which sets on the 2nd seet from the front on the left-hand side, has her bunnit with the same color exact she had last year, and then put your book to your face and giggle. Object to every tune unless there is a solow into it for the soprano. Coff and hem a good eel before you begin to sing. When you sing a solow shake the artificials off your bunr.it, and when you come to a high tone brace yourself back a little, twist your head to one side and open your mouth the widest on that side, shet the eyes on the same side jest a triphle, and then put in for dear life. 6 84 KINGS OF THE PLATFORM AND PULPIT. When the preacher gets under lied way with his preachin, write a note on the blank leaf into the fourth part of your note book. That's what the blank leaf was made for. Git sumbody to pass the note to sumbody else, and you watch them while they read it, and then giggle. [Laughter.] If anybody talks or laffs in the congregashun, and the preacher takes notis of it, that's a good chants for you to giggle, and you ought to giggle a great eel. The preacher darsent say any thing to you bekaus you are in the quire, and he can't run the meetin' house at both ends without the quire. If you had a bow before you went into the quire, give him the mitten you ought to have somebody better now. Don't forget to giggle. The quire singer suggests the bumble-bee. The bumble-bee iz more artistic than the mule and as busy as a quire singer. The bumble-bee iz a kind ov big fly who goes muttering and swearing around the lots during the summer looking after little boys to sting them, and stealing hunny out ov the dandylions and thissells. Like the mule, he iz mad all the time about sumthing, and don't seem to kare a kuss what people think ov him. A skool boy will studdy harder enny time to find a bumble-bee's nest than he will to get hiz lesson in arithmetik, and when he haz found it, and got the hunny out ov it, and got badly stung into the bargin, he finds thare aint mutch margin in it. Next to poor molassis, bumble- bee hunny iz the poorest kind ov sweetmeats in market. Bumble-bees have allwuss been in fashion, and probably allwuss will be, but whare the fun or proffit lays in them, i never could cypher out. The proffit don't seem to be in the hunny, nor in the bumble-bee neither. They bild their nest in the ground, or enny whare else they take a noshun too, and ain't afrade to fite a whole distrikt skool, if they meddle with them. I don't blame the bumble-bee, nor enny other fellow, for defending hiz sugar: it iz the fust, and last law of natur, and i hope the law won't never run out. The smartest thing about the bumble-bee iz their stinger. [Laughter.] Speaking of smart things brings me to the hornet: The hornet is an inflamibel buzzer, sudden in hiz impreshuns and hasty in his conclusion, or end. Hiz natral disposishen iz a warm cross between red pepper in the pod and fusil oil, and hiz moral bias iz, " git out ov mi way." They have a long, black boddy, divided in the middle by a waist spot, but their phisikal importance lays at the terminus of their subburb, in the shape ov a javelin. This javelin iz alwuz loaded, and stands reddy to unload at a minuit's warning, and enters a man az still az thought, az spry az liteuing, and az full ov melankolly az the toothake. Hornets never argy a case ; they settle awl ov their differences ov opinyon by letting their javelin fly, and are az certain to hit az a mule iz. JOSH BILLINGS. 85 This testy kritter lives in congregations numbering about 100 souls, but whether they are mail or female, or conservative, or matched in bonds ov wedlock, or whether they are Mormons, and a good many ov them kling together and keep one husband to save expense, I don't kno nor don't kare. I never have examined their habits much, I never konsidered it healthy. Hornets build their nests wherever they take a noshun to, and seldom are disturbed, for what would it profit a man tew kill 99 hornets and hav the 100th one hit him with hiz javelin ? [Laughter.] They bild their nests ov paper, without enny windows to them or back doors. They have but one place ov admission, and the nest iz the shape ov an overgrown pineapple, and is cut up into just as many bed- rooms as there iz hornets. It iz very simple to make a hornets' nest if yu kan [Laughter] but i will wager enny man 300 dollars he kant bild one that he could sell to a hornet for half price. Hornets are as bizzy as their second couzins, the bee, but what they are about the Lord only knows; they don't lay up enny honey, nor enny money; they seem to be bizzy only jist for the sake ov working all the time; they are alwus in as mutch ov a hurry as tho they waz going for a dokter. I suppose this uneasy world would grind around on its axle-tree onst in 24 hours, even ef thare want enny hornets, but hornets must be good for sumthing, but I kant think now what it iz. Thare haint been a bug made yet in vain, nor one that want a good job; there is ever lots of human men loafing around blacksmith shops, and cider mills, all over the country, that don't seem to be necessary for anything but to beg plug tobacco and swear, and steal water melons, but yu let the cholera break out once, and then yu will see the wisdom of having jist sich men laying around; they help count. [Laughter.] Next tew the cockroach, who stands tew the head, the hornet haz got the most waste stummuk, in reference tew the rest of hiz boddy, than any of the insek populashun, and here iz another mystery; what on 'arth duz a hornet want so much reserved corps for? I hav jist thought tew carry his javelin in; thus yu see, the more we diskover about things the more we are apt to know. It iz always a good purchase tew pay out our last surviving dollar for wisdum, and wisdum iz like the misterious hen's egg; it ain't laid in yure hand, but iz laid away under the barn, and yu have got to sarch for it. 86 SINGS OF THE PLATFORM AND PULPIT. The hornet iz an unsoshall kuss, he iz more haughty than he is proud, he is a thorough-bred bug, but his breeding and refinement has made him like sum other folks I know ov, dissatisfied with himself and every boddy ( Ise, too much good breeding ackts this way sometimes. Hornets are long-lived I kant state jist how long their lives are, but'I know from instinkt and observashen that enny krittur, be he bug or be he devil, who iz mad all the time, and stings every good chance he kan git, generally outlives all his nabers. The only good way tew git at the exact fiteing weight of the hornet is tew tutch him, let him hit you once with his javelin, and you will be willing to testify in court that somebody run a one-tined pitchfork into yer; and as for grit, i will state for the informaslmn of thoze who haven't had a chance tew lay in their vermin wisdum az freely az I hav, that one single hornet, who feels well, will brake up a large camp-meeting. [Laughter.] What the hornets do for amuzement is another question i kant answer, but sum ov the best read and heavyest thinkers among the naturalists say they have target excursions, and heave their javelins at a mark ; but I don't imbide this assershun raw, for i never knu enny body so bitter at heart as the hornets are, to waste a blow. Thare iz one thing that a hornet duz that i will give him credit for on my books he alwuz attends tew his own bizziness, and won't allow any boddy else tew attend tew it, and what he duz iz alwuz a good job; you never see them altering enny thing; if they make enny mistakes, it is after dark, and aint seen. If the hornets made half az menny blunders az the men do, even with their javelins, every boddy would laff at them. Hornets are clear in another way, they hav found out, by tricing it, that all they can git in this world, and brag on, is their vittles and clothes, and yu never see one standing on the corner ov a street, with a twenty-six inch face on, bekause sum bank had run oph and took their money with him. In ending oph this essa, I will cum tew a stop by concluding, that if hornets was a little more pensive, and not so darned peremptory with their javelins, they might be guilty of less wisdum, but more charity. This brings me to Flirts. Flirts are like hornets, only men like to be stung by them. Some old bachelors git after a flirt, and don't travel as fast as she doz, and then concludes awl the female group are hard to ketch, and good for nothing when they are ketched. JOSH BILLINGS. 87 A flirt is a rough thing to overhaul unless the right dog gets after her, and then they make the very best of wives. When a flirt really is in love, she is as powerless as a mown daisy. [Laughter.] Her impudence then changes into modesty, her cunning into fears, her spurs into a halter, and her pruning-hook into a cradle. The best way to ketch a flirt is tew travel the other way from which they are going, or sit down on the ground and whistle some lively tune till the flirt comes round. [Laughter.] Old bachelors make the flirts and then the flirts get more than even, by making the old bachelors. A majority of flirts get married finally, for they hev a great quantity of the most dainty tidbits of woman's nature, and alwus have shrewdness to back up their sweetness. Flirts don't deal in po'try and water grewel; they have got to hev brains, or else somebody would trade them out of their capital at the first sweep. Disappointed luv must uv course be oil on one side ; this ain't any more excuse fur being an old bachelor than it iz fur a man to quit all kinds of manual labor, jist out uv spite, and jine a poor-house bekase he kant lift a tun at one pop. An old bachelor will brag about his freedom to you, his relief from anxiety, hiz indipendence. This iz a dead beat, past resurrection, for everybody knows there ain't a more anxious dupe than he iz. All his dreams are charcoal sketches of boarding-school misses ; he dresses, greases hiz hair, paints his grizzly mustache, cultivates bunyons and corns, to please his captains, the wimmen, and only gets laffed at fur hiz pains. I tried being an old bachelor till I wuz about twenty years old, and came very near dicing a dozen times. I had more sharp pain in one year than I hev had since, put it all in a heap. I was in a lively fever all the time. I have preached to you about flirts (phemale), and now I will tell you about Dandies. The first dandy was made by Dame Nature, out of the refuse matter left from making Adam and Eve. He was concocted with a bouquet in one hand and a looking-glass in the other. His heart was dissected in the thirteenth century, and found to be a pincushion full of butterflies and sawdust. He never falls in love, for to love requires both brains and a soul, and the dandy has neither. He is along-lived bird; he has no courage, never marries, has no virtues, and is never guilty of first-class vices. 88 KINGS OF THE PLATFORM AND PULPIT. "What about Marriage? They say love iz blind, but a good many fellows see more in their sweethearts than I can. Marriage is a fair transaction on the face ov it. But thare iz quite too often put-up jobs in it. It is an old institushun older than the Pyramids, and az phull ov hyrogliphics that nobody can parse. History holds its tongue who the pair waz who fust put on the silken harness, and promised to work kind in it, thru thick and thin, up hill and down, and on the level, rain or shine, survive of perish, sink or swim, drown or note. But whoever they waz, they must hev made a good thing out of it, or so menny ov their posterity would not hev harnessed up since and drove out. Thare iz a grate moral grip to marriage; it iz the mortar that holds the sooshul bricks together. But thare ain't but darn few pholks who put their money in matri- mony who could set down and give a good written opinyun whi on airth they come to did it. This iz a grate proof that it iz one ov them natral kind ov acksidents that must happen, jist az birdz fly out ov the nest, when they hev feath- erz enuff, without being able tew tell why. Sum marry for buty, and never diskover their mistake: this is lucky. Sum marry for money, and don't see it. Sum marry for pedigree, and feel big for six months; and then very sensibly cum tew the conclusion that pedigree ain't no better than skim- milk. Sum marry bekawze they hev been highsted sum whare else; this iz a cross match, a bay and a sorrel: pride may make it endurable. Sum marry for luv, without a cent in their pockets, nor a friend in the world, nor a drop ov pedigree. This looks desperate, but it iz the strength of the game. If marrying for luv aint a success, then matrimony is a ded beet. Sum marry because they think wimmeu will be scarce next year, and live tew wonder how the crop holdz out. Sum marry tew get rid ov themselves, and discover that the game waz one that two could play at, and neither win. Sum marry the second time tew get even, and find it a gambling game the more they put down the less they take up. Sum marry, tew be happy, and, not finding it, wonder where all the happiness goes to when it dies. JOSH BILLINGS. 89 Sum marry, they can't tell why, and live they can't tell how. Almost every boddy gets married, and it is a good joke. Sum marry in haste, and then sit down and think it carefully over. Sum think it over careful fust, and then set down and marry. Both ways are right, if they hit the mark. Sum marry rakes tew convert them. This iz a little risky, and takes a smart missionary to do it. Sum marry coquetts. This iz like buying a poor farm heavily mort- gaged, and working the balance of your days to clear oph the mort- gages. Married life haz its chances, and this iz just what gives it its flavor. Every boddy luvs tew phool with the chances, bekawze every boddy expekts tew win. But I am authorized tew state that every boddy don't win. But, after all, married life iz full az certain az the dry goods biz- ness. Kno man kan tell jist what calico haz made up its mind tew do next. Calico don't kno even herself. Dry goods ov all kinds izthe child ov circumstansis. Sum never marry, but this iz jist ez risky; the diseaze iz the same, with another name to. The man who stands on the banks shivering, and dassent, iz more apt tew ketch cold than him who pitches hiz head fust into the river. Thare iz but few who never marry bekawze they won't they all hanker, and most ov them starve with bread before them (spread on both sides), jist for the lack ov grit. Marry young! iz mi motto. I hev tried it, and I know what I am talking about. If enny boddy asks you whi you got married (if it needs be), tell him "yu don't recolhkt." Marriage iz a safe way to gamble if yu win, yu win a pile, and if yu loze, yu don't loze enny thing, only the privilege of living dismally alone and soaking your own feet. I repeat it, in italics, marry young! Thare iz but one good excuse for a marriage late in life, and that is a second marriage. When you are married, don't swap with your mother-in-law, unless yu kin afford to give her the big end of the trade. Say " how are you " to every boddy. Kultivate modesty, but mind and keep a good stock of impudence on hand. Be charitable three-cent pieces were made on purpose. It costs more to borry than it does to buy. Ef a man flatters 90 KINGS OF THE PLATFORM AND PULPIT. yu, yu can kalkerlate he is a roge, or yu are a fule. Be more anxus about the pedigree yur going to leave than yu are about the wun some- body's going to leave you. Sin is like weeds seif-sone and sure to cum. Two lovers, like two armies, generally get along quietly until they are engaged. I will now give young men my advice about getting married. Find a girl that iz 19 years old last May, about the right hight, with a blue eye, and dark-brown hair and white teeth. Let the girl be good to look at, not too phond of musik, a firm dis- beleaver in ghosts, and one ov six children in the same family. Look well tew the karakter ov her father ; see that he is not the member ov enny klub, don't bet on elekshuns, and gits shaved at least 3 times a week. Find out all about her mother, see if she haz got a heap ov good com- mon sense, studdy well her likes and dislikes, eat sum ov her hum-made bread and apple dumplins, notiss whether she abuzes all ov her nabors, and don't fail tew observe whether her dresses are last year's ones fixt over. If you are satisfied that the mother would make the right kind ov a mother-in-law, yu kan safely konklude that the dauter would make the right kind of a wife. [Applause.] What about courtin'? Courting is a luxury, it is sallad, it is ise water, it is a beveridge, it is the pla spell ov the soul. The man who has never courted haz lived in vain; he haz bin a blind man amung landskapes and waterskapes ; he has bin a deff man in the land ov hand orgins, and by the side ov murmuring canals. [Laughter.] Courting iz like 2 little springs ov soft water that steal out from under a rock at thefut ov a mountain and run down the hill side by side sing- ing and dansing and spatering each uther, eddying and frothing and kas- kading, now hiding under bank, now full ov sun and now full of shadder, till bime by tha jine and then tha go slow. [Laughter.] I am in favor ov long courting ; it gives the parties a chance to find out each uther's tramp kards; it iz good exercise, and is jist asmnersent as 2 merino lambs. Courting iz like strawberries and cream, wants tew be did slow, then yu git the flavor. Az a ginral thing i wouldn't brag on uther gals mutch when i waz courting, it mite look az tho yu knu tew mutch. If yn will court 3 years in this wa, awl the time on the square, if yu don't sa it iz a leettle the slikest time in yure life, yu kan git measured for a hat at my expense, and pa for it. JOSH BILLINGS. 91 Don't court for munny, nor buty, nor relashuns, theze things are jist about az onsartin as the kerosene ile refining bissness, libel tew git out ov repair and bust at enny minnit. Court a gal for fun, for the luv yu bear her, for the vartue and biss- ness thare is in her; court her for a wife and for a mother; court her as yu wud court a farm for the strength ov the sile and the parfeckshun ov the title; court her as tho' she want a fule, and yu a nuther ; court her in the kitchen, in the parlor, over the wash tub, and at the planner; court this wa, yung man, and if yu don't git a good wife and she don't git a good hustband, the fait won't be in the courting. Yung man, yu kan rely upon Josh Billings, and if yu kant make these rules wurk, jist send for him, and he will sho yu how the thing is did, and it shant kost you a cent. I will now give the following Advice to Lecture Committees outside of this town: 1. Don't hire enny man tew lectur for yu (never mind how moral he iz) unless yu kan make munny on him. 2. Selekt 10 ov yure best lookin and most talking members tew meet the lekturer at the depot. 3. Don't fail tew tell the lekturer at least 14 times on yure way from the depot tew the hotel that yu hav got the smartest town in kreashun, and sevral men in it that are wuth over a millyun. 4. When yu reach the hotel introduce the lekturer immejiately to at least 25 ov yure fust-klass citizens, if you hav tew send out for them. 5. When the lekturer's room iz reddy go with him in masse to hiz room and remind him 4 or 5 more times that yu had over 3 thousand people in yure city at the last censuss, and are a talking about having an opera house. 6. Don't leave the lekturer alone in his room over 15 minits at once; he might take a drink out ov his flask on the sli if yu did. 7. When yu introduce the lekturer tew the aujience don't fail tew make a speech ten or twelve feet long, occupying a haff an hour, and if yu kan ring in sumthing about the growth ov yure butiful sitty, so mutch the better. [Laughter.] 8. Always seat 9 or 10 ov the kommitty on the stage, and then if it iz a kommik lektur, and the kommitty don't laff a good deal, the aujience will konklude that the lektur iz a failure; and if they do laff a good deal, the aujience will konklude they are stool-pigeons. [Laughter.] 92 KINGS OF THE PLATFORM AND PULPIT. 9. Jist az soon az the lectur is thru bring 75 or 80 ov the richest ov jure populashun up onto the stage and let them squeeze the hand and exchange talk with the lekturer. 10. Go with the lekturer from the hall tew hiz room in a bunch, and remind him once or twice more on the way that jure sitty iz a growing very rapidly, and ask him if he don't think so. 11. If the lekturer should inquire how the comik lekturers had suc- ceeded who had preceded him, don't forget tew tell him that they were all failures. This will enable him tew guess what they will say about him just az soon az he gits out ov town. [Laughter. ] 12. If the lekturer's fee should be a hundred dollars or more, don't Aesitate tew pay him next morning, about 5 minnits before the train leaves, in old, lop-eared one-dollar bills, with a liberal sandwitching ov tobbakko-stained shinplasters. 13. I forgot tew say that the fust thing yu should tell a lekturer, after yu had sufficiently informed him ov the immense growth ov yure citty, iz that yure people are not edukated up tew lekturs yet, but are grate on nigger-minstrels. 14. Never fail tew ask the lekturer whare he finds the most appreshiated aujiences, and he won't fail tew tell yu (if he iz an honest man) that thare ain't no state in the Union that begins tew kompare with yures. 15. Let 15 or 20 ov yure kommitty go with the lekturer, next morn- ing, tew the kars, and az each one shakes hands with him with a kind ov deth grip, don't forget tew state that yure citty iz growing very mutch in people. 16. If the night iz wet, and the inkum ov the house won't pay expenses, don't hesitate tew make it pay by taking a chunk out ov the lekturer's fee. The lekturers all like this, but they are too modest, as a klass, tew say so. 17. I know ov several other good rules tew follow, but the abuv will do .tew begin with. Your Schoolmaster will tell you the rest. Thare iz one man in this world to whom i alwus take oph mi hat, and remain uncovered untill he gits safely by, and that iz the distrikt skool- master. When I meet him, I look upon him az a martyr just returning from the stake, or on hiz way thare tew be cooked. He leads a more lonesum and single life than an old bachelor, and a more anxious one than an old maid. He iz remembered jist about az long and affektionately az a gide board iz by a traveling pack pedlar. JOSH BILLINGS. 93 If he undertakes tew make his skollars luv him, the chances are he neglekt their larning; and if he don't lick them now and then pretty often, they will soon lick him. [Laughter.] The distrikt skoolmaster hain't got a friend on the flat side ov earth. The boys snow-ball him during recess; the girls put water in hiz hair die; and the skool committee make him work for haff the money a bar- tender gits, and board him around the naberhood, whare they giv him rhy coffee, sweetened with mollassis, tew drink, and kodfish bawls 3 times a day for vittles. [Laughter.] And, with all this abuse, I never heard ov a distrikt skoolmaster swareing enny thing louder than Condem it. Don't talk tew me about the pashunce ov anshunt Job. Job had pretty plenty ov biles all over him, no doubt, but they were all ov one breed. Every yung one in a distrikt skool iz a bile ov a diffrent breed, and each one needs a diffrent kind ov poultiss tew git a good head on them. A distrikt skoolmaster, who duz a square job and takes hiz codfish bawls reverently, iz a better man to-day tew hav lieing around loose than Solomon would be arrayed in all ov hiz glory. Soloman waz better at writing proverbs and manageing a large family, than he would be tew navigate a distrikt skool hous. Enny man who haz kept a distrikt skool for ten years, and boarded around the naberhood, ought tew be made a mager gineral, and hav a penshun for the rest ov his natral days, and a hoss and waggin tew do hiz going around in. But, az a genral consequence, a distrikt skoolmaster hain't got any more warm friends than an old blind fox houn haz. He iz jist about az welkum az a tax gatherer iz. He iz respekted a good deal az a man iz whom we owe a debt ov 50 dollars to and don't mean tew pay. He goes through life on a back road, az poor az a wood sled, and finally iz missed but what ever bekums ov hiz remains, i kant tell. Fortunately he iz not often a sensitive man; if he waz, he couldn't enny more keep a distrikt skool than he could file a kross kut saw. [Laughter.] Whi iz it that theze men and wimmen, who pashuntly and with crazed brain teach our remorseless brats the tejus meaning ov the alphabet, who take the fust welding heat on their destinys, who lay the stepping stones and enkurrage them tew mount upwards, who hav dun more hard and mean work than enny klass on the futstool, who have prayed over the reprobate, strengthened the timid, restrained the outrageous, and flat- tered the imbecile, who hav lived on kodfish and vile coffee, and hain't 94 KINGS OF THE PLATFORM AND PULPIT. been heard to aware whi iz it that they are treated like a vagrant fid- dler, danced to for a night, paid oph in the morning, and eagerly for- gotten. I had rather burn a coal pit, or keep the flys out ov a butcher's shop in the month ov August, than meddle with the distrikt skool bizzness. [Applause.] I propose now to close by making Twelve Square Remarks, to-wit: 1. A broken reputashun iz like a broken vase; it may be mended, but allways shows where the krak was. 2. If you kant trust a man for the full amount, let him skip. This trying to git an average on honesty haz allways bin a failure. 3. Thare iz no treachery in silence; silence is a hard argument to beat. 4. Don't mistake habits for karacter. The menov the most karacter hav the fewest habits. 5. Thare iz cheats in all things; even pizen is adulterated. 6. The man who iz thoroughly polite iz 2-thirds ov a Christian, enny how. 7. Kindness iz an instinkt, politeness only an art. 8. Thare iz a great deal ov learning in this world, which iz nothing more than trying to prove what we don't understand. 9. Mi dear boy, thare are but few who kan kommence at the middle ov the ladder and reach the top; and probably you and I don't belong to that number. 10. One ov the biggest mistakes made yet iz made by the man who thinks he iz temperate, just becauze he puts more water in his whiskey than his nabor does. 11. The best medicine I know ov for the rumatism iz to thank the Lord that it aint the gout. [Laughter.] 12. Remember the poor. It costs nothing. [Laughter.] JOSII BILLINGS. JOSH BILLINGS' AULMINAX. Mr. Shaw had a wonderful success with his burlesque almanac. He sold hundreds of thousands of copies, and it was always repro- duced in England. He generally dedicated the almanac to some business house for $500 in cash, and got his money for it. Below are Uncle Josh's weather predictions for March: March begins on Saturday, and hangs out for 31 days. Saturday, 1st. Sum wind; look out for squalls, and pack peddlers; munny iz tight, so are briks. Ben Jonson had his boots tapped 1574; eggs a dollar a piece, hens on a strike; mercury 45 degrees above zero; snow, mixed with wind. Sunday, 2nd. Horace Greeley preaches in Grace church; text, " the gentleman in black;" wind northwest, with simptoms of dust; hen strike continues; the ring- leaders are finally arrested and sent to pot; eggs eazier. Monday, 3rd. Big wind; omnibus, with 17 passengers inside, blown over in Broadway; sow lettuce, and sow on buttons; about these days look out for wind; Augustus Ceazer sighns the tempranse pledge 1286; strong simptoms ov spring; blue birds and organ grinders make their appearance; sun sets in wind. Tuesday, 4th. Augustus Ceazer breaks the pledge 1286; " put not you trust in kings and princes; " much wind with rain; a whole lot ov naughty children destroyed in Mercer street by wind; several gusts ov wind; buckwheat slapjacks invented 1745; Andy Johnson commits suicide; grate failure in Wall street; the Bulls fail tew inflate Erie; windy. Wenesday, 5th. A good day tew set a hen; mutch wind; " he that spareth the child, hateth the rod; " wind raises awnings, and hoop skirts; William Seward resigns in favor ov Fernando Would; Thad Stevens jines the Mormons. Tliursday, 6th. Wind generally, accompanied with wind from the east; the Black Crook still rages; more wind; whisky hots still in favor ov the seller; sow peas and punkin pies, for arly sass; babes in the woods born 1600; wind threatens. Friday, 7th. Fred Douglass nominated for president by the demokrats; black clouds in the west; wind brewing; grate scare in Nassau street; a man runs over a horce; Docktors Pug and Bug in immediate attendance; horce not expekted tew live. Rain and snow and wind and mud, about equally mixt. Saturday, 8th. Horce more easier this morning; mint julips offered, but no takers. About tliose days expect wind; wind from the northwest; a good day for wind mills. Half-past 5 o'clock, P. M., the following notis appears on all the bulle- tin boards: " Doctor Pug thinks the horce, with the most skillful treatment at the hands ov the attendant physicians, may possibly be rendered suitable for a clam wagon, and Doctor Bug corroborates Pug, provided, the oleaginous dipthong that, connects the parodial glysses with the nervaqular episode is not displaced; if so, the most consumit skill ov the profeshion will be requisite to restore a secondary unity." Later "The horce has been turned out tew grass." Sunday, 9th. This is the Sabbath, a day that our fathers thought a good deal ov. Mutch wind (in some ov the churches); streets lively, bissiness good; prize fight on the palisades; police reach the ground after the fight is aul over, and arrest the ropes and the ring. Wind sutherly; a lager-beer spring discovered just out ov the limits ov the city; millions are flocking out to see it. 96 KINGS OF THE PLATFORM AND PULPIT. Monday, JOth. A gale, mile stuns are torn up bi the rates; fight for 70u dollars and the belt, at Red Bank, Nu Jersey, between two well known roosters; oysters fust eaten on the half shell 1342, by Don Bivalvo, an Irish Duke; sun sets In the west. Tuesday, llth. Roosters still fighting; indications ov wind; counterfeit Tens in circulashun on the Faro Bank; look out for them; milk only 15 cents a quart; thank the Lord, "the good time" has finally come; Don Quixot fights hts first wind mill, 1510, at short range, and got whipped the second round; time, 14 minnits. 9:30 P. M. Torch-lite procession at Red Bank, in honor ov the winning rooster. Wednesday, 12t7i. Sum wind, with wet showers; showers smell strong ov dandy- lions and grass; gold, 132 17-16; exchange on Brooklin and Williamsburgh, one cent (by the ferry boats). Thursday, 13th. Bad day for the aulminak bissiness; no nuze; no wind; no cards; no nothing. Friday, 14th. Wendal Phillips tares up the- constitushun ov the United States; "alas! poor Yorick;" rain from abuv; strawberries, watermillions and peaches git- ting skase; rain continners, accompanied with thunder and slight rnoister; mercury abuv zero. Saturday, 25th. Grate fraud diskovered in the custom house 3 dollars missing; fifty subordinates suspended; a wet rain sets in; robbins cum, and immediately begin tew enquire for sum cherrys. Sunday, 16th. Henry W. Beecher preaches in Brooklyn by partickular request; dandylions in market, only 15 cents a head. Monday, 17th. Plant sum beans; plant them deep; if yu don't they will be sure tew cum up. Robinson Cruso born 1515, all alone, on a destitute iland. Warm rain, uiixt with wind; woodchucks cum out ov their holes and begin tew chuck a little. Tuesday, 18th. Look out for rain and yu will be apt tew see it; wind sow by sow west; ice discovered in our Rushion purchiss; miners rushing that way; geese are seen marching in single phile, a sure indicashun ovthe cholera; musketose invented by George Tucker, Esq., 1491; patent applied for, but refused, on the ground that they might bight sumboddy. Wenesday, 19th. A mare's nest discovered in Ontary county; a warm and slightly liquid rain; thousands ov people hav visited the nest; windy; the old mare is dredful cross and kickful; hens average an egg a day, beside several cackels. Thursday, 20th. Appearance ov rain; plant corn for early whiskey; frogs hold their fust concert Ole Bullfrog musical direcktor matinee every afternoon; snakes are caught wriggling (an old trick ov theirs); a warm and muggy night; yu can hear the bullheads bark; United States buys the iland ov Great Britain. "PETROLEUM V. NASBY.' BIOGRAPHY AND REMINISCENCES. David Ross Locke was bora in Vestal, Broome county, N. Y., in 1833, and died in Xew York City in 1888. He is sometimes called a humorist, but he always pre- ferred to be called a satirist. He was the Cervantes of America. His mission was to exaggerate error, and make it odious. Mr. Xasby's political influence was so great that National Committees waited upon him for advice, and Presidential candidates were glad to listen to his words of counsel. The satirist published several books, all of which had an immense sale. He aied leaving an estate in Toledo worth more than a million of dollars, besides his great newspaper, TJie Toledo Bludc, now edited by his son. He left an accomplished wife and a family of gifted children, who well do honor to the man whom President Lin- coln envied. One day, speaking of satire, the gifted man said to me : "I can kill more error by exaggerating vice than by abusing it. In all my writings I have not said one unkind word about any people or party. I have- simply exaggerated errors in politics, love and religion, until the people saw these errors, and rose up against them. The humorist would describe ' Deeken Pogram ' and ' Joe Bigler,' of the ' Confedrit X Roads,' just as they are. That would have caused laughter; but I exaggerated these characters, as Cervantes exaggerated Don Quixote, and made them ridiculous." Charles Sumner, in his introduction to Nasby's great book, said : " President Lincoln read every letter from Nasby's pen." Mr. Xasby's satires have always been directed against such evils as slavery, intemperance and partisan suffrage. He has always maintained the true democracy, that one man is as good as another if he is as clean and as well educated. " One day," said Nasby, " a poor ignorant white man came to the polls in Kentucky to vote. " ' I wish you would oblige me by voting this ticket,' said a light- colored mulatto, who was standing near the polls. 98 NIGGERS DON'T KNOW ENOUGH TO VOTE. See page 99. PETROLEUM V. NASBY. 99 " * What kind of ticket is it ? ' asked the poor white man. " ' Why,' said the mulatto ' you can see for yourself.' " * But I can't read.' " ' What ! can't you read the ballot you have there in your hand, which you are about to vote ? ' exclaimed the colored man. " ' No,' said he ' I can't read at all.' " ' Well,' said the colored man, ' this ballot means that you are in favor of the fifteenth amendment giving equal franchise to both white and colored citizens.' " ' It means to let the nigger vote, does it ? ' Yes sir.' " ' Then I don't want it. Niggers don't know enough to vote! ' " Of late years Mr. Nasby did all of his writing on a type-writer which he took with him on the cars. While the train was going forty miles an hour he would write those cross-road letters which have made him famous. One day I wrote to him for his autograph, for Sam Cox, who wanted it to sell at a fair. Mr. Cox screamed with laughter when the autograph came written by a type-writer ! Our engraver reproduces it infac simile. TEbe ZEolefco LANOOTJ: ENCLOSED FIRD UT AOTDG1WPR, I WAS MINDED TO WHITE IT WITH MY MACHINE. IQUE THOUSANDS OF YEARS HEHCE IT WILL HAVE A VALUE. WI EH INS YOU SUCCESS, I AM TRULY, D. R. LOCKE, Mr. Locke meant this as a joke, for in a day or two came his real autograph, the one attached to his picture, and this note : Dear EH: My father's nom deplume I hardly think has any particular significance The word " Nasby" was coined probably from a remembrance of the battle of Naseby. About the time the Nasby letters were commenced in the Toledo Blade, the petroleum excitement was raging in Pennsylvania, and Vesuvius was used for euphony. Father never gave any other explanation of this pseudonym than the above. ROBINSON LOCKE. The best monument that Mr. Locke's sons can rear to their dis- tinguished father is to foster the great newspaper which he estab- lished, and they are doing it. 100 KINGS OF TEE PLATFORM AND PULPIT. "When asked about Lincoln's love for Nasby, the senator said : " I once called on the President late in the evening of March 17, 1865. We had a long talk in his private office, at the White House, which lasted till midnight. As I rose to go he said : " ' Come to me when I open shop in the morning ; I will have the order written, and you shall see it.' " ' When do you open shop ? ' I asked. " 'At nine o'clock,' he replied. " At the hour named I was in the same room that I had so recently left. Yery soon the President entered, stepping quickly with the promised order in his hands, which he at once read to me. It was to disapprove and annul the judgment and sentence of a court martial in a case that had excited much feeling. While I was making an abstract of the order for communication by telegraph to the anxious parties, he broke into quotation from Nasby. Finding me less at home than himself with his favorite humorist, he said pleasantly. " 'I must initiate you,' and then repeated with enthusiasm the message he had sent to Mr. Nasby : * For the genius to write these things I would gladly give up my office.' " A few weeksafter this, April 14th," said Mr. Sumner, ''the bul- let from the pistol of J. Wilkes Booth took the great President's life." NASBY'S LECTURE ON THE WOMAN QUESTION. Ladies and Gentlemen: I adore woman. I recognize the importance of the sex, and lay at its feet my humble tribute. But for woman, where would we have been? Who in our infancy washed our faces, fed us soothing syrup and taught us " How doth the little busy bee?" Woman ! To whom did we give red apples in our boyhood? For whom did we part our hair behind, and wear No. 7 boots when No. 10's would have been more comfortable? [Laughter.] And with whom did we sit up nights, in the hair-oil period of our existence? And, finally, whom did we marry? But for woman what would the novelists have done? What would have become of Sylvanus Cobb, Jr. , if he had had no women to make heroines of ? And without Sylvanus Cobb, Bonner could not have made T7ie Ledger a success; Everett would be remembered not as the PETROLEUM V. NASBY. 101 man who wrote for TJie Ledger, but merely as an orator and statesman; Beecher never would have written " Norwood," and Dexter might to-day have been chafing under the collar in a dray! But for woman George Washington would not have been the father of his country; the Sunday- school teachers would have been short the affecting story of the little hatchet and the cherry tree, and half the babies in the country would have been named after some one else. Possibly they might have all been Smiths. But for woman Andrew Johnson never would have been, and future generations would have lost the most awful example of depravity the world has ever seen. I adore woman, but I want her to keep her place. I don't want woman to be the coming man. [Laughter.] In considering this woman question, I occupy the conservative stand- point. I find that, from the most gray-headed times, one-half of the human race have lived and moved by the grace and favor of the other half. From the beginning woman has occupied a dependent position, and has been only what man has made her. The Turks, logical fellows, denied her a soul, and made of her an object of barter and sale; the Amer- ican Indians made of her a beast of burden. In America, since we extended the area of civilization by butchering the Indians, we have copied both. [Laughter.] In the higher walks of life she is a toy to be played with, and is bought and sold; in the lower strata she bears the burdens and does the drudgery of servants, without the ameliorating conditions that make other servitude tolerable and possible to be borne. But I am sure that her present condition is her proper condition, for it always has been so. Adam subjugated Eve at the beginning, and, following precedent, Cain subjugated his wife. Mrs. Cain, not being an original thinker, imitated her mother-in-law, who probably lived with them, and made it warm for her, [Laughter] as is the custom of mothers-in-law, and the precedent being established, it has been so ever since. I reject with scorn the idea advanced by a schoolmistress, that Eve was an inferior woman, and therefore submitted; and that Eve's being an inferior woman was no reason for classing all her daughters with her. "Had I been Eve/' she remarked, "I would have made a different precedent ! " and I rather think she would. The first record we have of man and woman is in the first chapter of Genesis. " So God created man in his own image. And he made man of the dust of the earth." In the second chapter we have a record of the making of woman by taking a rib from man. Man, it will be observed, was created first, showing conclusively that he was intended to take pre- cedence of woman. This woman, to whom I referred a moment since, 102 SINGS OF THE PLATFORM AND PULPIT. denied the correctness of the conclusion. Man was made first, woman afterward isn't it reasonable to suppose that the last creation was the best? "If there is any thing in being first," she continued, "man must acknowledge the supremacy of the goose, for the fowl is first mentioned." [Laughter.] And she argued further: "Man was made of the dust of the earth, the lowest form of matter; woman was made of man, the high- est and most perfect form. It is clear that woman must be the better, for she was made of better, material!" [Laughter.] But, of course, I look upon this as mere sophistry. I attempted to trace the relative condition of the sexes from the cre- ation down to the fall of man, but the Bible is silent upon the subject, and the files of the newspapers of the period were doubtless all destroyed in the flood. I have not been able to find that any have been preserved in the public libraries of the country. But it is to be presumed that they lived upon precisely the terms that they do now. I shall assume that Eve was merely the domestic servant of Adam that she rose in the morning, careful not to disturb his slumbers that she cooked his break- fast, called him affectionately when it was quite ready, waited upon him at table, arranged his shaving implements ready to his hand, saw him properly dressed after which she washed the dishes, and amused her- self darning his torn fig leaves till the time arrived to prepare dinner, and so on till nightfall, after which time she improved her mind, and, before Master Cain was born, slept. She did not even keep a kitchen girl; at least I find no record of any thing of the kind. Probably at that time the emigration from Ireland was setting in other directions, and help was hard to get. That she was a good wife, and a contented one, I do not doubt. I find no record in the Scriptures of her throwing tea-pots, or chairs, or brooms, or any thing of the sort at Adam's head, nor is it put down that at any time she intimated a desire for a divorce, which proves conclusively that the Garden of Eden was not located in the State of Indiana. But I judge that Adam was a good, kind husband. He did not go to his club at night, for, as near as I can learn, he had no club. His son Cain had one, however, [Laughter] as his other son, Abel, dis- covered. I am certain that he did not insist on smoking cigars in the back par- lor, making the curtains smell. I do not know that these things are so; but as mankind does to-day what mankind did centuries ago, it is reason- able to assume, when we don't know any thing about it, that what is done to-day was done centuries ago. The bulk of mankind have learned noth- ing since Adam's time. Eve's duties were not as trying as those piled upon her daughters. As compared with the fashionable women of to-day, PETROLEUM V. NASBT. 103 her lot was less perplexing. Society was not so exacting in her time. She had no calls to make, or parties to give and attend. Her toilet was much simpler, and did not require the entire resources of her intellect. If her situation is compared with that of the wives of poorer men, it will be found to be better. They had no meat to dress, flour to knead, or bread to bake. The trees bore fruit, which were to be had for the pick- ing; and as they were strict vegetarians, it sufficed. I have wished that her taste in fruit had been more easily satisfied, for her unfortunate crav- ing after one particular variety brought me into trouble. But I have for- given her. I shall never reproach her for this. She is dead, alas! and let her one fault lie undisturbed in the grave with her. It is well that Eve died when she did. It would have broken her heart had she lived to see how the most of her family turned out. [Laughter.] I insist, however, that what labor of a domestic nature was done, she did. She picked the fruit, pared it and stewed it, like a dutiful wife. She was no strong-minded female, and never got out of her legitimate sphere. I have searched the book of Genesis faithfully, and I defy any one to find it recorded therein that Eve ever made a public speech, or expressed any desire to preach, practice law or medicine, or sit in the legislature of her native State. What a crushing, withering, scathing, blasting rebuke to the Dickinsons, Stantons, Blackwells and Anthonys of this degenerate day. I find in the Bible many arguments against the equality of woman with man in point of intellectual power. The serpent tempted Eve, not Adam. Why did he select Eve ? Ah, why, indeed ! Whatever else may be said of Satan, no one will, I think, question his ability! I do not stand here as his champion or even apologist ; in fact, I am willing to admit that in many instances his behavior has been ungentlemanly, but no one will deny that he is a most consummate judge of character, and that he has never failed to select for his work the most fitting instru- ments. When America was to be betrayed the first time, Satan selected Arnold; and when the second betrayal of the Republic was determined upon, he knew where Jefferson Davis, Floyd and Buchanan lived. When there is a fearful piece of jobbery to get through Congress or the New York legislature, he never fails to select precisely the right persons for the villainy. Possibly he is not entitled to credit for discrimination in these last-mentioned bodies, for he could not very well go wrong. He could find instruments in either, with both hands tied and blindfolded. But this is a digression. Why did Satan select Eve ? Because he knew that Eve, the woman, was weaker than Adam the man, and therefore best for his purpose. This reckless female insisted that Satan approached 104 KI^GS OF THE PLATFORM AND PULPIT. Eve first, because he knew that woman was not afraid of the devil; [Laughter] but I reject this explanation as irrelevant. At this point, however, we must stop. Should we go on, we would find that Eve, the weak woman, tempted Adam, the strong man, with distinguished success, which would leave us in this predicament: Satan, stronger than Eve, tempted her to indulge in fruit. Eve's weakness was demonstrated by her falling a victim to temptation. Eve tempted Adam; Adam yielded to Eve; therefore, if Eve was weak in yielding to Satan, how much weaker was Adam in yielding to Eve ? If Satan had been considerate of the feelings of the conservatives, his best friends, by the way, in all ages, he would have tempted Adam first and caused Adam to tempt Eve. This would have afforded us the edifying spectacle of the strong man leading the weak woman, which would be in accordance with our idea of the eternal fitness of things. But now that I look at it again, this wouldn't do ; for it is necessary to our argument that the woman should be tempted first, to prove that she was the weaker of the two. I shall dismiss Adam and Eve with the remark, that, notwith- standing the respect one ought always to feel for his ancestors, those whose blood is the same as that running in his veins, I can not but say that Adam's conduct in this transaction was weak. If Adam's spirit is listening to me to-night, I can't help it. I presume he will feel badly to hear me say it, but truth is truth. Instead of say- ing boldly, " I ate ! " he attempted to clear his skirts by skulking behind those of his wife. tf The woman thou gavest me tempted me and I did eat," he said, which was paltry. Had Adam been stronger minded, he would have refused the tempting bite, and then only woman would have been amenable to the death penalty that followed. This would have killed the legal profession in Chicago, for what man who was to live forever would get a divorce from his wife who could live but eighty or ninety years at best ? As a conservative, I must s'ay that woman is the inferior of man. This fact is recognized in all civilized countries and in most heathen nations. The Hindoos, it is true, in one of their practices, acknowledge a superiority of woman. In Hindostan, when a man dies, his widow is immediately burned, that she may follow him an acknowledgment that woman is as necessary to him in the next world as in this. [Laugh- ter. ] As men are never burned when their wives die, it may be taken as admitting that women are abundantly able to get along alone. [Laiighter.] Or, perchance, it may be because men in that country, as in this, can get new wives easier than women can get new husbands. The PETROLEUM V. A T ASBY. 105 exit from this world by fire was probably chosen, that the wife might in some measure be fitted for the climate in which she might expect to find her husband. The inferiority of the sex is easy of demonstration. It has been said that the mother forms the character of the man so long, that the propo- sition has become axiomatic. If this be true, we can crush those who prate of the equality of women, by holding up to the gaze of the world the inferior men she has formed. Look at the Congress of the United States. Look at Garret Davis. By their works ye shall know them. It won't do to cite me to the mothers of the good and great men whose names adorn American history. The number is too small. There's George Washington, Wendell Phillips, Abraham Lincoln, and one other whose name all the tortures of the Inquisition could not make me reveal. Modesty forbids me. [Laughter.] Those who clamor for the extension of the sphere of woman, point to the names of women illustrious in history, sacred and profane. I find, to my discomfiture, that some of the sex really excelled the sterner. There was Mrs. Jezebel Ahab, for instance. Ahab wanted the vineyard of Naboth, which Naboth refused to sell, owing to a prejudice he had against disposing of real estate which he had inherited. Ahab, who was not an ornament to his sex, went home sick and took to his bed like a girl, and turned away his face, and would eat no bread. Mrs. Ahab was made of sterner stuff. "Arise," said Mrs. A.; "be merry. I will give thee the vineyard of Kaboth the Jezreelite." And she did it. She trapped him as neatly as David did Uriah. She suborned two sons of Belial (by the way Belial has had a large family, and the stock has not run out yet) to bear false witness against him, saying that he had blasphemed God and the king, and they took him out and stoned him. Ahab got the vineyard. It is true this lady came to a miserable end, but she acomplished what she desired. Miss Pocahontas has been held up as a sample of female strength of mind. I don't deny that she displayed some decision of character, but it was fearfully unwomanly. When her father raised his club over the head of the astonished Smith, instead of rushing in so recklessly, she should have said, "Please pa, don't." Her recklessness was immense. Suppose Pocahontas had been unable to stay the blow, where would our Miss have been then? she never would have married Rolfe; what would the first families of Virginia have done for somebody to descend from? When we remember that all the people of that proud State claim this woman as their mother, we shudder, or ought to, when we contemplate the possible consequences of her rashness. 106 KINGS OF THE PLATFORM AND PULPIT. Delilah, whose other name is not recorded, overcame Samson, the first and most successful conundrum maker of his age, and Jael, it will be remembered, silenced Sisera forever. Joan of Arc conquered the English after the French leaders failed, and Elizabeth of England was the greatest of English rulers. I acknowledge all this, but then these women had opportunities beyond those of women in general. They had -as many opportunities as the men of their respective periods had, and consequently, if they were mentally as great as men no, that isn't what I mean to say if the men of the period were no greater, mentally, than they no if the circumstances which surrounded them gave them oppor- tunities, which being mentally as great as men I have this thing mixed lip somehow, and it don't result as it ought to but this is true; Delilah, Elizabeth, Joan of Arc all and singular, unsexed themselves, and did things unbecoming ladies of refinement and cultivation. Joan's place was spinning flax in her father's hut, and not at the head of armies. Had she followed the natural mode of feminine life, she would not have been burned at the stake, and the English would not have been interrupted in their work of reducing France to the condition of an English province. Had I lived in France, I should have said, " Down with her! Let us perish under a man rather than be saved by a woman! " Joan should have been ashamed of herself I blush for her. Had Elizabeth been content to entrust her kingdom to the hands of her cabinet, she Avould have left it in the happy condition of the United States at the close of Buchanan's administration, but she would have been true to our idea of the womanly life. There is, in the feminine character, a decisive promptness which we must admire. Eve ate the apple without a moment's hesitation, and the characteristic is more beautifully illustrated in the touching and well reported account of the courtship and marriage of Rebekah with Isaac. Abraham's servant was sent, it will be remembered, by such of you as have read the Bible, and I presume there are those here who have [Laughter], to negotiate for a wife for young Isaac among his kindred, as he had as intense a 'prejudice against the Canaanites as have the democracy of the present day. This servant, whom we will call Smith, as his name, unfortunately, has not been preserved, and Laban, the brother of Rebekah, had almost arranged the matter. The servant desired to return with the young lady at once, but the mother and brother desired her to remain some days, contrary to modern practice, in that the parents now desire the young lady to get settled in her own house and off their hands as soon as possible. The servant insisted, PETROLEUM V. NASBY. 107 whereupon the mother remarked, "We will call the damsel and inquire at her mouth." They called Eebekah and asked, "Wilt thou go with this man?" It is related of a damsel in Pike county, Missouri, who was being wedded to the man whose choice she was, when the minister officiating asked the usual question, " Wilt thou have this man to be thy wedded husband?" that, dropping her long eyelashes, she promptly answered, " You bet !" Even so with Eebekah. She neither fainted, simpered nor blushed. She did not say that she hadn't a thing fit to put on that her clothes weren't home from the dressmaker's. No! Using the Hebrew equivalent for " you bet!" for Eebekah was a smart girl, and young as she was, had learned to speak Hebrew when the question was put to her, " Wilt thou go with this man?" she answered, "I will, " and she went. I don't know that this proves any thing, unless it be that women of that day took as great risks for husbands as they do now. Miss Ee- bekah had scarcely been introduced to her future husband. It might be interesting to trace the history of this woman, but I have hardly the time. I will say, however, that she was a mistress of duplicity. To get the blessing of her husband for her pet son Jacob, she put false hair upon him to deceive the old gentleman, and did it. From that day to this, women in every place but this, have deceived men, young as well as old, with false hair. The feminine habit of thought is not such as to entitle them to privi- leges beyond those they now enjoy. No woman was ever a drayman; no woman ever carried a hod; no woman ever drove horses on the canals of the country; and what is more to the point, no woman ever shoveled a single wheel-barrow of earth on the public works. I triumphantly ask, Did any woman assist in preparing the road bed of the Pacific Eailway? did any woman drive a spike in that magnificent structure? No woman is employed in the forging department of any shop in which is made the locomotives that climb the Sierra Nevada, whose head-lights beam on the valleys of the Pacific coast the suns of our commercial system. Just as I had this arranged in my mind, this disturbing female, of whom I have spoken once or twice, asked me whether carrying hods, driving horses on canals, or shoveling dirt on railways, had been, in the past, considered the best training for intelligent participation in political privileges? She remarked, that, judging from the character of most of the legislation of which she had knowledge, these had been the schools in which legislators had been trained, but she hardly believed that I would acknowledge it. " Make these the qualifications/' said she, "and where would you be, my friend, who have neither driven a spike, driven a horse, or shoveled dirt? It would cut out all of my class (she was a 108 KINGS OF TEE PLATFORM AND PULPIT. teacher) indeed I know of but two women in America who would be admitted. The two women I refer to fought a prize fight in Connecti- cut recently, observing all the rules of the English ring, and they dis- played as much gameness as was ever shown by that muscular lawmaker, the Hon. John Morrissey. These women ought to vote, and if, in the good time coming, women distribute honors as men have done, they may go to Congress." I answered, that these classes had always voted, and therefore it was right that they should always vote. "Certainly they have," returned she, "and, as I have heard them addressed a score of times as the embodied virtue, honesty and intelli- gence of the country, I have come to the conclusion that there must be something in the labor they do which fits them peculiarly for the duties of law-making." My friend is learned. She has a tolerable knowledge of Greek, is an excellent Latin scholar, and, as she has read the Constitution of the United States, she excels in political lore the great majority of our repre- sentatives in Congress. But, nevertheless, I protest against her voting for several reasons. 1. She can not sing bass ! Her voice, as Dr. Busline!! justly observes in his blessed book, is pitched higher than the male voice, which indi- cates feminine weakness of mind. 2. Her form is graceful rather than strong. 3. She delights in millinery goods. 4. She can't grow whiskers. In all of these points nature has made a distinction between the sexes which can not be overlooked. To all of these she pleaded guilty. She confessed that she had not the strength necessary to the splitting of rails; she confessed that she could neither grow a beard nor sing bass. She wished she could grow a beard, as she knew so many men whose only title to intellect was their whiskers. But she said she took courage when she observed that the same disparity was noticeable in men. Within the range of her acquaintance she knew men who had struggled with mustaches with a perseverance worthy of a better cause, and whose existence had been blighted by the consciousness that they could not. Life was to them, in consequence, a failure. Others she knew who had no more strength than a girl, and others whose voices were pitched in a childish treble. If beards, heavy voices and physical strength were the qualifications for the ballot, she would at once betake herself to razors, hair iuvigor^tors, and gymnasiums. She went on thus: "In many respects," she said, "the sexes are alike. Both are encumbered with stomachs and heads, and both have bodies to clothe. PETROLEUM V. NASBY. 10. So far as physical existence is concerned they are very like. Both are affected by laws made and enacted, and both are popularly supposed to have minds capable of weighing the effect of laws. How, thrust into the world as I am, with a stomach to fill and limbs to clothe, with both hands tied, am I to live, to say nothing of fulfilling any other end? " ""Woman," I replied, "is man's angel." " Stuff and nonsense," was her impolite reply. " I am no angel. I am a woman. Angels, according to our idea of angels, have no use for clothing. Either their wings are enough to cover their bodies, or they are so constituted as not to be affected by heat or cold. Neither do they require food. I can not imagine a feminine angel with hoop skirts, Grecian bend, gaiters and bonnet; or a masculine angel in tight panta- loons, with a cane and silk hat. Angels do not cook dinners, but women do. Why do you say angels to us? It creates angel tastes, without the possibility of their ever satisfying those tastes. The bird was made to soar in the upper air, and was, therefore, provided with hollow bones, wings, etc. Imagine an elephant or a rhinoceros possessed with a long- ing to soar into the infinite ethereal. Could an elephant, with his physical structure, be possessed with such a longing, the elephant would be miserable, because he could not. He would be as miserable as Jay Gould is, with an ungobbled railroad; as Bonner would be if Dexter were the property of another man; and as James G. Blaine is with the presi- dency before him. It would be well enough to make angels of us, if you could keep us in a semi-angelic state; but the few thus kept only make the misery of those not so fortunate the more intense. No; treat us rather as human beings, with all the appetites, wants and necessities of human beings, for we are forced to provide for those wants, necessities and appetites." I acknowledge the correctness of her position. They must live; not that they are of very much account in and of themselves, but that the nobler sex may be perpetuated to adorn and bless the earth. Without woman it would take less than a century to wind up man, and then what would the world do? This difficulty is obviated by marriage. All that we have to do is to marry each man to one woman, and demand of each man that he care for and cherish one woman, and the difficulty is got along with. And got along with, too, leaving things as we desire them, namely, with the woman dependent upon the man. We proceed upon the proposition that there are just as many men as there are women in the world; that all men will do their duty in this particular, and at the right time; that every Jack will get precisely the right Jill, and that every Jill will be not only willing, but anxious, to take the Jack the Lord sends her, asking no questions. 110 KINGS OF THE PLATFORM AND PULPIT. If there be one woman more than there are men, it's bad for that woman. I don't know what she can do, unless she makes shirts for the odd man, at twelve and a half cents each, and lives gorgeously on the proceeds of her toil. If one man concludes that he won't marry at all, it's bad for another woman, unless some man's wife dies and he marries again. That might equalize it, but for two reasons: It compels the woman to wait for a husband until she possibly concludes it isn't worth while ; and furthermore, husbands die as fast as wives, which brings a new element into the field widows ; and pray what chance has an inexperienced man against a widow determined upon a second husband? I admit, that if there were as many men as women, and if they should all marry, and the matter be all properly fixed up at the start, that our present system is still bad for some of them. She, whose husband gets to inventing flying machines, or running for office, or any of those fool- ish or discreditable employments, would be in a bad situation. Or, when the husband neglects his duty, and refuses to care for his wife at all; or, to state a case which no one ever witnessed, suppose one not only refuses to care for his wife, but refuses to care for himself ! Or, suppose he con- tracts the injudicious habit of returning to his home at night in a state of inebriation, and of breaking chairs and crockery and his wife's head and other trifles in such a case I must admit that her position would be, to say the least, unpleasant, particularly as she couldn't help herself. She can't very well take care of herself; for to make woman purely a domestic creature, to ornament our homes, we have never per- mitted them to think for themselves, act for themselves, or do for them- selves. We insist upon her being a tender ivy clinging to the rugged oak; if the oak she clings to happens to be bass-wood, and rotten at that, it's not our fault. In these cases it's her duty to keep on clinging, and to finally go down with it in pious resignation. The fault is in the system, and as those who made the system are dead, and as six thousand brief summers have passed over their tombs, it would be sacrilege in us to dis- turb it. Customs, like cheese, grow mitey as they grow old. Let every woman marry, and marry as soon as possible. Then she is provided for. Then the ivy has her oak. Then if her husband is a good man, a kind man, an honest man, a sober man, a truthful man, a liberal man, an industrious man, a managing man, and if he has a good business and drives it, and meets with no misfortunes, and never yields to temptations, why, then the maid promoted to be his wife will be toler- ably certain to, at least, have all that she can eat, and all that she can wear, as long as he continues so. PETROLEUM V. NASB7. Ill This disturbing woman, of whom I have spoken once or twice, remarked that she did not care for those who were married happily, but she wanted something done for those Avho were not married at all, and those who were married unfortunately. She liked the ivy and the oak-tree idea, but she wanted the ivy woman to have a stiffening of intelligence and opportunity, that she might stand alone in case the oak was not com- petent to sustain it. She demanded, in short, employment at any thing she was capable of doing, and pay precisely the same that men receive for the same labor, provided she does it as well. This is a clear flying in the face of Providence. It is utterably im- possible that any woman can do any work as well as men. Nature decreed it otherwise. Nature did not give them the strength. Ask the clerks at Washington, whose muscular frames, whose hardened sinews, are em- ployed at from twelve hundred to three thousand dollars per annum, in the arduous and exhausting labor of writing in books, and counting money, and cutting out extracts from newspapers, and endorsing papers and filing them, what they think of that? Ask the brawny young men whose manly forms are wasted away in the wearing occupation of meas- uring tape and exhibiting silks, what they think of it? Are women, frail as they are, to fill positions in the government offices? I ask her sternly: "Are you willing to go to war? Did you shoulder a musket in the late unpleasantness?" This did not settle her. She merely asked me if I carried a musket in the late war. Certainly I did not. I had too much presence of mind to volunteer. Nor did the majority of those holding official position. Like Job's charger, they snuffed the battle afar off some hundreds of miles and slew the haughty Southron on the stump, or by substitute. But there is this difference: we could have gone, while women could not. And it is better that it is so. In the event of another bloody war, one so desperate as to require all the patriotism of the country to show itself, I do not want my wife to go to the tented field, even though she have the requisite physical strength. No, indeed! I want her to stay at home with me ! [Laughter. ] In the matter of wages, I do not see how it is to be helped. The woman who teaches a school, receives, if she has thoroughly mastered the requirements of the position, say six hundred dollars per year, while a man occupying the same position, filling it with equal ability, receives twice that amount, and possibly three times. But what is this to me?' As a man of business, my duty to myself is to get my children educated at the least possible expense. As there are but very few things women are permitted to do, and as for every vacant place there are a hundred 112 KINGS OF THE PLATFORM AND PULPIT. women eager for it, as a matter of course, their pay is brought down to a Tery fine point. As I said some minutes ago, if the men born into the world would marry at twenty-one, each a maiden of eighteen, and take care of her properly, and never get drunk or sick, or any thing of that inconvenient sort, and both would be taken at precisely the same time with consumption, yellow fever, cholera, or any one of those cheerful ailments, and employ the same physician, that they might go out of the world at the same moment, and become angels with wings and long white robes, it would be well enough. The men would then take care of the women, except those who marry milliners, in which case the women take care of the men, which amounts to the same thing, as the one depend- ent upon somebody else is taken care of. But it don't so happen. Men do not marry as they ought at twenty-one; they put it off to twenty-five, thirty or forty, and many of them are wicked enough not to marry at all, and of those who do marry there will always be a certain per cent, who will be dissipated or worthless. "What then? I can't deny that there will be women left out in the cold. There are those who don't marry, and those who can not. Possibly the number thus situated would be lessened if we permitted women to rush in and seize men, and marry them, nolens volens, but the superior animal will not brook that famil- iarity. He must do the wooing he must ask the woman in his lordly way. Compelled to wait to be asked, and forced to marry that they may have the wherewithal to eat and be clothed, very many of them take fearful chances. They dare not, as a rule, refuse to marry. Man must, as the superior being, have the choice of occupations, and it is a singular fact that, superior as he is by virtue of his strength, he rushes invariably to the occupations that least require strength, and which women might fill to advantage. They monopolize all the occupations the married man has his family to take care of the single man has his back hair to sup- port; what is to become of these unfortunate single women maids and widows? Live they must. They have all the necessities of life to supply, and nothing to supply them with. "What shall they do? "Why, work of course. But they say, "We are willing to work, but we must have wages." Granted. But how shall we get at the wages? What shall be the standard? I must get my work done as cheaply as possible. Now, if three women a widow, we will say, with five children to support; a girl who has to work or do worse, and a wife with an invalid husband to feed, clothe and find medicine for if these three come to my door, clamoring for 'the love of God for something to do, what shall I, as a prudent man, do in the matter? There are immutable laws governing all these things the law of supply and demand. Christ, whose mission PETROLEUM V. NASBT. 113 was with the poor, made other laws, but Christ is not allowed to have any thing to do with business. Selfishness is older than Christ, and we conservatives stick close to the oldest. What do I do? Why, as a man of business, I naturally ascertain which of the three is burdened with the most crushing responsibilities and necessities. I ascertain to a mouthful the amount of food necessary to keep each, and then the one who will do my work for the price nearest starvation rates gets it to do. If the poor girl prefers the pittance I offer her to a life of shame, she gets it. If the wife is willing to work her fingers nearer the bone than the others, rather than abandon her husband, she gets it, and, speculat- ing on the love the mother bears her children, I see how much of her life the widow will give to save theirs, and decide accordingly. I know very well that these poor creatures can not saw wood, wield the hammer, or roll barrels on the docks. I know that custom bars them out of many employments, and that the more manly vocations of handling ribbons, manipulating telegraphic instruments, etc., are monopolized by men. Confined as they are to a few vocations, and there being so many hun- dreds of thousands of men who will not each provide for one, there are necessarily ten applicants for every vacancy, and there being more virtue in the sex than the world has ever given them credit for, of course they accept, not what their labor is worth to me and the world, but what I and the world choose to give for it. It is bad, I grant, but it is the fault of the system. It is a misfortune, we think, that there are so many women, and we weep over it. I am willing to shed any amount of tears over this mistake of nature. But women are themselves to blame for a great part of the distress they experience. There is work for more of them, if they would only do it. The kitchens of the country are not half supplied with intelligent labor, and therein is a refuge for all women in distress. I assert that nothing but foolish pride keeps the daughters of insol- vent wealth out of kitchens, where they may have happy underground homes and three dollars per week, by merely doing six hours per day more labor than hod-carriers average. This is what they would do were it not for pride, which is sinful. They should strip the jewels off their fingers, the laces off their shoul- ders; they should make a holocaust of their music and drawings, and, accepting the inevitable, sink with dignity to the washing of dishes, the scrubbing of floors, and the wash-tub. This their brothers do, and why haven't they their strength of mind? Young men delicately nurtured and reared in the lap of luxury, never refuse the sacrifice when their papas fail in business. They always throw to the winds their cigars; 8 114 KOTOS OF THE PLATFORM AND PULPIT. they abjure canes and gloves, and mount drays, and shoulder saw-bucks any thing for an honest living. I never saw one of these degenerate into a sponge upon society rather than labor with his hands! Did you? I never saw one of this class get to be a faro dealer, a billiard marker, a borrower of small sums of money, a lunch-fiend, a confidence-man, or any thing of the sort. Not they! Giving the go-by to every thing in the shape of luxuries, they invariably descend to the lowest grades of manual labor rather than degenerate into vicious and immoral courses. Failing the kitchen, women may canvass for books, though that occu- pation, like a few others equally profitable, and which also brings them into continual contact with the lords of creation, has a drawback in the fact that some men leer into the face of every woman who strives to do business for herself, as though she were a moral leper; and failing all these, she may at least take to the needle. At this last occupation she is certain of meeting no competition, save from her own sex. In all my experience, and it has been extensive, I never yet saw a man making pantaloons at twelve and one-half cents per pair. But they will not all submit. Refusing to acknowledge the position in life nature fixed for them, they rebel, and unpleasantnesses take place. An incident which fell under my observation recently, illustrates this beautifully. A young lady, named Jane Evans, I believe, had sustained the loss of both her parents. The elder Evanses had been convinced by typhoid fever that this was a cold world, and, piloted by two doctors, had sailed out in search of a better one. Jane had a brother, a manly lad of twenty, who, rather than disgrace the ancient lineage of the Evanses by manual labor, took up the profession of bar-tender. Jane was less proud, and as her brother did nothing for her, she purchased some needles, and renting a room in the uppermost part of a building in a secluded part of the city of New York, commenced a playful effort to live by making shirts at eighteen cents each, for a gentleman named Isaacs. She was situated, I need not say, pleasantly for one of her class. Her room was not large, it is true, but as she had no cooking-stove or bedstead, what did she want of a large room? She had a window which didn't open, but as there was no glass in it, she had no occasion to open it. This building com- manded a beautiful view of the back parts of other buildings similar in .appearance, and the sash kept out a portion of the smell. Had that sash not been in that window- frame, I do not suppose that she could have staid on account of the smell; at least I heard her say that she got just as much of it as she could endure. And in this delightful retreat she sat and sat, and sewed and sewed. Sometimes in her zeal she would sew till late in the night, and she always was at her work very early in the PETROLEUM V. NASBF. 115 morning. She paid rent promptly, for the genial old gentleman of whom she leased her room had a sportive habit of kicking girls into the street who did not pay promptly, and she managed every now and then, did this economical girl, to purchase a Loaf of bread, which she ate. One Saturday night she took her bundle of work to the delightful Mr. Isaacs. Jane had labored sixteen hours per day on them, and she had determined, as Sunday was close at hand, to have for her breakfast, in addition to her bread, a small piece of mutton. Mutton! Luxuri- ous living destroyed ancient Rome! But Mr. Isaacs found fault with the making of these shirts. "They were not properly sewed," he said, and he could not, in consequence, pay her the eighteen cents each for making, which was the regular price. Jane then injudiciously cried about it. Now, Mr. Isaacs was, and is, possessed of a tender heart. He has a great regard for his feelings, and, as he could not bear to see a woman cry, he forthwith kicked her out of his store into the snow. What did this wicked girl do? Did she go back and ask pardon of the good, kind, tender-hearted Mr. Isaacs? Not she! On the contrary, she clenched her hands, and, passing by a baker's shop, stole a loaf of bread, and, brazen thing that she was, in pure bravado, she ate it in front of the shop. She said she was hungry, when it was subsequently proven that she had eaten within forty hours. Justice was swift upon the heels of the desperate wretch it always is, by the way, close behind the friendless. She was arrested by a policeman, who was opportunely there, as there was a riot in progress in the next street at the time, which was providential, for had there been no riot in the next street, the policeman would have been in that street, and Jane Evans might have got away with her plunder. She was conveyed to the city prison; was herded in a cell in which were other women who had progressed farther than she had; was afterward arraigned for petty larceny and sent to prison for sixty days. Now, see how surely evildoers come to had ends. The wretched Jane this fearfully depraved Jane unable after such a manifestation of depravity to hold up her head, fell into bad ways. Remorse for the stealing of that loaf of bread so preyed upon her that she wandered about the streets of the city five days, ask- ing for work, and finally threw herself off a wharf. Oh, how her "brother, the bartender, was shocked at this act! Had she continued working cheerily for Mr. Isaacs, accepting the situation like a Chris- tian, taking life as she found it, would she have thrown herself off a dock? Never! So you see women who do not want to steal bread, and be arrested, and go off wharves, must take Mr. Isaacs' pay as he offers it, and must work cheerily sixteen hours a day, whether they get any 116 KINGS OF THE PLATFORM AND PULPIT. thing to eat or not. Had this wretched girl gone back contentedly to her room, and starved to death cheerfully, she would not have stolen bread, she would not have lacerated the feelings of her brother, the bar- tender, and would have saved the city of New York the expense and trouble of fishing her out of the dock. Such women always make trouble. The women who fancy they are oppressed, demand, first, the ballot, that they may have power to better themselves; and, second, the change of custom and education, that they may have free access to whatever employment they have the strength and capacity to fill, and to which their inclination leads them. Most emphatically I object to the giving of them the ballot. It would overturn the whole social fabric. The social fabric has been overturned a great many times, it is true so many times, indeed, that it seems rather to like it; but I doubt whether it would be strong enough to endure this. I have too great, too high, too exalted an opinion of woman. I insist that she shall not dabble in the dirty pool of politics; that she shall keep herself sacred to her family, whether she has one or not; and under no consideration shall she go beyond the domestic circle of which she is the center and ornament. There are those who have an insane yearning to do something beyond the drudgery necessary to sup- ply the commonest wants of life, and others who have all of these, who would like to round up their lives with something beyond dress and the unsatisfactory trifles of fashionable life. There may be women turning night into day over the needle, for bread that keeps them just this side of potters field, who are unreasonable enough to repine at the system that compels them to this; and they may, possibly, in secret wish that they had the power in their hands that would make men court their influence, as the hod-carrier's is courted, for the vote he casts. The seamstress toiling for a pittance that would starve a dog, no doubt prays for the power that would compel lawmakers to be as careful of her inter- ests as they are of the interests of the well-paid male laborers in the dock-yards, who, finding ten hours a day too much for them, were per- mitted by act of Congress to draw ten hours' pay for eight hours' work. The starved colorer of lithographs, the pale, emaciated tailoress, bal- ancing death and virtue; drawing stitches with the picture of the luxu- rious brothel held up by the devil before her, where there is light, and warmth, and food, and clothing, and where death is, at least, farther off ; no doubt this girl wishes at times that she could have that potent bit of paper between her fingers that would compel blatant demagogues to talk of the rights of workingwornen as well as of workingmen. PETROLEUM V. NASBT. 117 But woman would lose her self-respect if she mixed with politicians. Most men do; and how could woman hope to escape. Think you that any pure woman could be a member of the New York, New Jersey or Pennsylvania legislatures, and remain pure? For the sake of the gen- erations to come, I desire that one sex, at least, shall remain uncon- taminated. Imagine your wife or your sister accepting a bribe from a lobby member! Imagine your wife or your sister working a corrupt measure through the legislature, and becoming gloriously elevated upon champagne in exultation over the result! No! I insist that these things shall be confined to man, and man alone. The mixing of women in politics, as all the writers on the subject have justly remarked, would lower the character of the woman without elevating that of the man. Imagine, oh my hearers, a woman aspiring for office, as men do! Imagine her button-holing voters, as men do! Imagine her lying glibly and without scruple, as men do! Imagine her drinking with the lower classes, as men do! of succeeding by the grossest fraud, as men do! of stealing public money when elected, as men do! and finally of sinking into the lowest habits, the vilest practices, as Dr. Bushnell, in several places in his blessed book on the subject, asserts that men do! You see, to make the argument good that women would immediately fall to a very deep depth of degradation the moment they yote, we must show that the act of voting compels men to this evil; at least that is what Dr. Bushnell proves, if he proves any thing. We must show that the holding of an office by man is proof positive that he has committed crime enough to entitle him to a cell in a penitentiary, and that he who votes is in a fair way thereto. Before reading the doctor's book, I was weak enough to suppose that there were in the United States some hundreds of thousands of very excellent men, whose long service in church and state was sufficient guarantee of their excel- lence; whose characters were above suspicion, and who had lived, and would die, honest, reputable citizens. But as all male citizens above the age of twenty-one vote, and as voting necessarily produces these results, why, then we are all drunkards, tricksters, thieves and plunderers. This disturbing woman, to whom I read Dr. Bushnell's book, remarked that if voting tended to so demoralize men, and as they had always voted, it would be well enough for all the women to vote just once, that they might all go to perdition together. I am compelled to the opinion that the doctor is mistaken. I know of quite a number of men who go to the polls unmolested, who vote their principles quietly, and go home the better for having exercised the right. I believe that, before and since Johnson's administration, there have been honest men in office. 118 KINGS OF THE PLATFORM AND PULPIT. But no woman could do these things in this way. It would unsex her, just as it does when a woman labors for herself alone. Again, I object to giving the ballot to woman, because we want peace. We don't want divided opinion in our families. As it is, we must have a most delightful unanimity. An individual can not possibly quarrel with himself. As it is now arranged, man and wife are one, and the man is the one. [Laughter.] In all matters outside the house the wife has no voice, and consequently there can be no differences. Oh, what a blessed thing it would be if the same rule could obtain among- men ! Had the radicals had no votes or voices, there would have been no war, for the democracy, having it all their own way, there would have been nothing to quarrel about. It was opposition that forced Jefferson Davis to appeal to arms. True, the following of this idea would dwarf the Republicans into pygmies, and exalt the democracy into giants. My misguided friend, Wendell Phillips, would shrink into a commonplace man, possibly he would lose all manhood, had he been compelled to agree with Franklin Pierce or hold his tongue. It would be bad for Wendell, but there would have been a calm as profound as stag- nation itself. Our present system may be bad for women, but we, the men, have our own way and peace. Our wives and daughters are, I know, driven, from sheer lack of something greater, to take refuge in disjointed gabble of bonnets, cloaks and dresses, and things of that nature, their souls are dwarfed as well as their bodies, their minds are diluted but we have peace. Once more. It would unbalance society. Starting upon the assump- tion that women have no minds of their own, and would always be con- trolled by men, we can show wherein the privilege would work incal- culable mischief. Imagine Brigham Young marching to the polls at the head of a procession of wives one hundred and seventy-three in num- ber, all of them with such ballots in their hands as he selects for them! Put Brigham and his family in a close congressional district, and he would swamp it. Then, again, if they should think for themselves, and vote as they pleased, they would overthrow Brigham. In either case the effect would be terrible. What shall we do with the woman question ? It is upon us, and must be met. I have tried for an hour to be a conservative, but it won't do. Like poor calico, it won't wash. There are in the United States some millions of women who desire something better than the lives they and their mothers have been living. There are millions of women who have minds and souls, and who yearn for something to develop their minds and souls. There are millions of women who desire PETROLEUM V. NASBT. 119 to have something to think about, to assume responsibilities, that they may strengthen their moral natures, as the gymnast lifts weights to strengthen his physical nature. There are hundreds of thousands of women who have suffered, in silence, worse evils by far than the slaves of the South, who, like the slaves of the South, have no power to redress their wrongs, no voice so potent that the public must hear. In the parlor, inanity and frivolity; in the cottage, hopeless serv- itude, unceasing toil; a dark life, with a darker ending. This is the condition of women in the world to-day. Thousands starving physically for want of something to do, with a world calling for labor ; thousands starving mentally, with an unexplored world before them. One-half of humanity is a burden on the other half. I know, Oh, ye daughters of luxury, that you do not desire a change ! There is no need of it for you. Your silks could not be more costly, your jewels could not flash more brightly, nor your surroundings be more luxurious. Your life is pleasant enough. But I would com- pel you to think, and thinking, act. I would put upon your shoulders .responsibilities that would make rational beings of you. I would make you useful to humanity and to yourselves. I would give the daughters of the poor, as I have helped to give the sons of the poor, the power in their hands to right their own wrongs. [Applause.] There is nothing unreasonable in this demand. The change is not so great as those the world has endured time and again without damage. To give the ballot to the women of America to-day, would not be so fearful a thing as it was ten years ago to give it to the negro, or as it was a hundred years ago to give it to the people. [Applause.] I would give it, and take the chances. [Applause.] The theory of Eepublicanism is, that the governing power must rest in the hands of the governed. There is no danger in truth. If the woman is governed, she has a right to a voice in the making of laws. To withhold it is to dwarf her, and to dwarf woman is to dwarf the race. I would give the ballot to woman for her own sake, for I would enlarge the borders of her mind. I would give it to her for the sake of humanity. I would make her of more use to humanity by making her more fit to mold humanity. I would strengthen her, and through her the race. The ballot of itself would be of direct use to but few, but indirectly its effects would reach through all eternity. It would com- pel a different life. It would compel woman to an interest in life, would fit her to struggle successfully against its mischances, and prepare her for a keener, higher, brighter appreciation of its blessings. Humanity is now one-sided. There is strength on the one side and weakness on the 120 KINGS OF TEE PLATFORM AND PULPIT. other. I would have both sides strong. I would have the two sides equal in strength, equally symmetrical; differing only as nature made them, not as man and custom have distorted them. In this do we out- rage custom? Why, we have been overturning customs six thousand years, and there are yet enough hideous enormities encumbering the earth to take six thousand years more to kill. In the beginning, when force was the law, there were kings. The world tired of kings. There were false religions. Jesus of Nazareth overturned them. Luther wrecked a venerable system when he struck the church of Eorne with his iron hand; your fathers and mine stabbed a hoary iniquity when they overturned kingcraft on this continent, and Lovejoy, Garrison and Phillips struck an institution which ages had sanctioned when they assaulted slavery. The old is not always the best. I would have your daughters fitted to grapple with life alone, for no matter how you may leave them, you know not what fate may have in store for them. I would make them none the less women, but stronger women, better women. Let us take this one step for the sake of human- ity. Let us do this much toward making humanity what the Creator intended it to be like Himself. [Applause.] NASBY'S BEST STORY. One of Nasby's best satires was his description how the colored peo- ple were kept out of the white school of the Confedrit Cross Eoads. Says the Satirist: Our teacher was a young lady from New Hampshire. She had abolition blood in her yankee veins. When the niggers came to her school, what do you think she did? Send them away? No, she received 'em, gave 'em seats and put 'em into classes think on that with white children! I tell you there wuz trouble incur town. I, as a leading Democrat, wuz sent for to wunst, and gladly I come. I wuz never so gratified in my life. Had smallpox broken out in that skool, there woodent hev bin half the eggscitement in the township. It wuz the subjick uv yooniversal talk everywhere, and the Democrisy wuz a biliii like a pot. I met the trustees uv the town, and demanded ef they intended tamely to submit to this outrage? I askt em whether they intended to hev their children set side by side with the decendants uv Ham, who wuz comdemned to a posishen uv inferiority forever? Kin you, I asked, so degrade yourselves, and so blast the self-respeck uv yoor children? PETROLEUM V. NASBT. 121 And bilin up with indignashen, they answered "never!" and yoonanimously requested me to accompany 'em to the skoolhouse, that they mite peremptory expel these disgustin beins who hed obtrooded themselves among those uv a sooperior race. On the way to the skoolhouse, wich wuz perhaps a mile distant, 1 askt the Board ef they knowed those girls by site. No, they replied, they hed never seed 'em. "I hevbin told," sed I, "that they are nearly white." "They are," sed one uv 'em, "quite white." "It matters not," sed I, feelin that there wuz a good opportoonity for improvin the occashen, "it matters not. There is suthin in the nigger at wich theinstink uv the white man absolootly rebels, and from wich it instinktively recoils. -So much experience hev I had with 'em, that put me in a dark room with one uv 'em, no matter how little nigger there is in 'em, and that unerrin instink wood betray 'em to me, wich, by the way, goes to prove that the dislike we hev to 'em is not the result uvprejudis, but is a part uv our very nacher, and one uv its highest and holiest attriboots." Thus communin, we entered the skoolhouse. The skoolmarm wuz there, ez brite arid ez crisp ez a Janooary mornin; the skolers wuz ranged on the sects a studyin ez rapidly ez possible. "Miss," sed I, "we are informed that three nigger wenches, daugh- ters of one LETT, a nigger, is in this skool, a minglin with our daughters ez a ekal. Is it so?" " The Misses LETT are in this skool," sed she, ruther mischeeviously, " and I am happy to state that they are among my best pupils." "Miss," sed I sternly, "pint 'em out to us!" " Wherefore?" sed she. " That we may bundle 'em out!" sed I. "Bless me!" sed she, " I reely coodent do that. Why expel "em?" "Becoz,"sed I, "no nigger shel contaminate the white children uv this deestrick. No sech disgrace shel be put on to 'em." " Well," sed this aggravatin skoolmarm, wich wuz from Noo Ham- shire, "yoo put 'em out." " But show me wich they are." " Can't you detect 'em, sir? Don't their color betray 'em? Ef they are so neer white that you can't select 'em at a glance, it strikes me that it can't hurt very much to let 'em stay." I wuz sorely puzzled. There wuzn't a girl in the room who looked at all niggery. But my reputashun wuz at stake. Noticin three girls settin together who wuz somewhat dark complectid, and whose black Tiair waved, I went for 'em and shoved out, the cussid skoolmarm almost bustin with lafter. 122 KINGS OF THE PLATFORM AND PULPIT. Here the tragedy okkerred. At the door I met a man who rode four miles in his zeal to assist us. He hed alluz hed an itchin to pitch into a nigger, and ez he cood do it now safely, he proposed not to lose the chance. I wuz a puttin on 'em out, and hed jist dragged 'em to the door, when I met him enterin it. " Wat is this?" sed he, with a surprised look. " We're puttin out these cussid wenches, who is contaminatin yoor children and mine/' sed I. " Ketch hold uv that pekoolyerly disgustin one yonder," sed I. " Wenches ! You d d skoundrel, them girls are my girls." And without waitin for an explanashen, the infooriated monster sailed into me, the skoolmarm layin over on oneuv the benches explodin in peels uv lafter. The three girls, indignant at bein mistook for nig- ger wenches, assisted their parent, and between 'em, in about four minutes I wuz insensible. One uv the trustees, pityin my woes, took me to the neerest railroad stashen, and somehow, how I know not, I got home, where I am at present recooperatin. I hev only to say that when I go on sich a trip again, I shel require as condishen precedent that the Afrikins to be put out shel hev enuff Afrikin into 'em to prevent sich mistakes. But, good Lord, wat hev'ent I suffered in this cause ? PETROLEUM V. NASBY, P. M. (wich is Postmaster.) 123 HENRY WARD BEECHER PREACHER, ORATOR, PATRIOT AXD WIT. BIOGEAPHY AND REMINISCENCES. This book abounds in sunshine from living men, but the great Beecher, dead, still lives in the American heart. His sunshine is in every household. He was the purest type of the robust, free American. Henry Ward Beecher was born in Litchfield, Conn., in 1813, and died in Brook- lyn in 1887. He was educated in New England, studied theology in Ohio, and at the age of twenty-four commenced preaching in Lawrenceburg, Ind. He preached in the West for ten years. It was in the wild West that he got his boundless experi- ence in human nature and freedom in the expression of his thoughts. He inherited muscle and an impulsive nature from his Litchfield ancestor. He was too great to be a polished scholar. His intellect was too fertile for established creeds. Creeds and dogmas stand still; Beecher was always growing. His fertility of intellect was amazing. " For full fifty years," says Edward Pierpont, " he talked to the public, and no man ever said so much and repeated so little. His humor was immense, as any one could see by looking into his great, broad, laughing face. His heart was warm with love and his personal magnetism wonderful. He did not reflect; he felt, and put his feelings into burning words. His imagination was large and his hope as boundless as his love. Talmage and Moody are great, but they stood still, walled in with creeds and dogmas, while Beecher, like Swing, traveled on and on, and the the- ology of Calvin and Wesley and Jonathan Edwards grew mean and small. He taught, the church to think. He put his arms around the slave. He stood with Gar- rison and Wendell Phillips, yes, led them on till victory was won. A constitution with slavery in was naught to him. His conscience told him slavery was wrong, and he fought it whole-hearted to the end. He loved our young republic loved free speech, and, when division came, he stood for unity and law." Oliver Wendell Holmes says: "Beecher was a mighty power in the land, and his work was a living work, and its results can never be known until the books of heaven are balanced." Mr. Beecher never cared to be called a humorist, but his wit and humor were as keen as his logic. He never strayed away from his train of thought to gather in a witty idea to illustrate his sermons. Neither did he avoid wit. "When a witty idea stood before him, he 124 HENRY WARD BEECHER. 125 grasped it and bent it to illustrate his thought. His conception of wit was as quick as lightning. It came like a flash (often in a parenthesis), and it often instantly changed the tears of his hearers to laughter. When Dr. Collyer asked the great preacher why the newspapers were always referring to the Plymouth brethren, but never spoke of the Plymouth sisters, he could not help saying : " Why, of course, the brethren embrace the sisters ! " Mr. William M. Evarts was once talking with General Grant about the great Brooklyn divine, when suddenly the distinguished lawyer musingly asked : " Why is it, General, that a little fault in a clergyman attracts more notice than a great fault in an ordinary man ? " " Perhaps," said the General, thoughtfully, " it is for the same reason that a slight shadow passing over the pure snow is more readily seen than a river of dirt on the black earth." In all of his humor, Mr. Beecher never harmed a human soul. His mirth was innocent, and his wit was for a grand purpose. I was talking with Mr. Beecher one day about humor. He was always ready to talk to any man who had a good idea or a good story, but he wanted the story to be as pure as a parable. He wanted it to prove or illustrate some idea. "Humor," said Beecher, "is everywhere. Humor is truth. Even John Bunyan was a humorist. It was humor when Bunyan made Christian meet one ' Atheist ' trudging along with his back to the Celestial City. " ' Where are you going ? ' asked the Atheist, laughing at Christian. " 'To the Celestial City,' replied Christian, his face all aglow with the heavenly light. " ' You fool ! ' said Atheist, laughing, as he trudged on into the darkness. ' I've been hunting for that place for twenty years and have seen nothing of it yet. Plainly it does not exist.' " Heaven was behind him," said Beecher, seriously. There was one kind of men, however, that Beecher disliked to talk to cranks, and they were always calling on him. "What did he do with them ? " you ask. Well, he always turned them over to Mrs. Beecher with the remark, " Mother, you take care of this interesting man." 126 KINO 3 OF THE PLATFORM AND PULPIT. Beecher liked to talk of his early poverty. He always treated poverty in a humorous vein. " Once," he said, "I was the poorest man in Lawrenceburg, Ind., where I supplied my first church, away back in 1836. I was so poor that I couldn't buy firewood to keep us warm, without going without books. I remember one Sunday morning there came a big flood in the Ohio. I was preaching at the time, and I looked out of the window and saw the flood-wood go sailing by my house. It seemed wrong for me to see so much good wood going by and I not able to catch it." " What did you do ? " I asked. " Why, I rushed that sermon through, hurried home, and that afternoon, with the aid of Deacon Anderson, I got out enough driftwood to keep Mrs. Beecher in firewood for three months, and all the while," he said, looking up and smiling at his wife, " Mother stood in the doorway and cheered us on." Then, looking quizzically at Mrs. Beecher, he said, " Didn't you, Mother ? " " No, Henry, you never did any such thing," said Mrs. Beecher, who never could see through any of the great preacher's jokes. " In 1838," said Mr. Beecher, "I was so poor that I rode clear to Fort Wayne from Indianapolis on horseback, and delivered a sermon dedicating the Fort Wayne Presbyterian church, and only got $25 for it. Then I went to New York to attend the Congrega- tional convention. While in New York I went to Dr. Prime, of the Observer, and offered to write weekly letters from the West at a dollar a piece." " Did Prime take you up ? " I asked. " Yes, and paid me $5 in advance." " And you actually wrote letters for a dollar a column ? " " No," said Mr. Beecher, laughing, " the next day Prime thought it over, repented of his haste and profligacy, and wrote me that he did not think my letters ^ould be worth it." " But oh," he groaned, turning to Mrs. Beecher, " it was a bitter disappointment to us wasn't it, Mother ? " One day, speaking of puns, Mr. Beecher said Mrs. Beecher received one on his name that was very complete. Then Mrs. Beecher went and got an old scrap book and read : Said a great Congregational preacher To a hen: "You're a beautiful creature; " The hen, just for that, laid three eggs in his hat, And thus did the Henry Ward Beecher. EENRT WARD BEECHES. 12? "From Lawrenceburg," said Mr. Beecher, in a serious conversa- tion one day, " \ve went to Indianapolis. I was quite proud of the change, but it was hard work this missionary work in the new West. I remember the first revival I had in my Indianapolis church. I had been laboring at Terre Haute in a revival the first that I ever worked in and I came home full of fire and zeal, pray- ing all the way. There was a prayer that began in Terre Haute and ended in Indianapolis, eighty miles apart. I recollect that, when I got home and preached, I gave an account of what I had seen in Terre Haute. The next night I began a series of protracted meetings. The room was not more than two-thirds full, and the people were apparently dead to spiritual things. On the second night, I called for persons who would like to talk with me to remain. I made a strong appeal, but only one person a poor Ger- man servant girl stopped. All the children of my friends, the young people that I knew very well, got up and went out ; all went out except this one servant-girl, who answered to my sermon call. I remember that there shot through me a spasm of rebellion. I had a sort of feeling, ' For what was all this precious ointment spilled ? Such a sermon as I had preached, such an appeal as I had made, with no result but this!' " In a second, however, almost quicker than a flash," continued Mr. Beecher, "there opened to me a profound. sense of the value of any child of the Lord Jesus Christ. This was Christ's child, and I was so impressed with the thought that any thing of his was unspeakably precious beyond any conception which I could form, that tears came into my eyes and ran down my cheeks, and I had the feeling to the very marrow that I would be willing to work all my days among God's people if I could do any good to the lowest and the least creature. My pride was all gone, my vanity was all gone, and I was caught up into a blessed sense of the love of God to men, and of my relation to Christ ; and I thought it to be an unspeakable privilege to unloose the shoe-latchets from the poorest of Christ's disciples. And out of that spirit came the natural con- sequences." " During that revival," continued Mr. Beecher, " I remember how I was called to see a sick girl who was perhaps seventeen or eighteen years of age. A gentleman informed me that she had been sick for twelve months, and that she had become quite discon- solate. 128 HENRY WARD BEECUER. 129 "'Go and see her,' said another, 'for if any body ought to be comforted, she ought to be. She has the sweetest disposition, and she is the most patient creature imaginable ; and you ought to hear her talk. One can hardly tell whether she talks or prays. It is heaven to go into her room.' " ' I wanted a little more of the spirit of heaven, so I went to see her. " 'I hear of what you are doing in your revival,' she said, ' and of what my companions are doing, and I long to go out and labor for Christ ; and it seems very strange to me that God keeps me here on this sick-bed.' " ' My dear child,' I said, ' don't you know that you are preach- ing Christ to .this whole household, and to every one that knows you? Your gentleness and patience and Christian example are known and read by them all. You are laboring for Christ more effectually than you could anywhere else.' Her face brightened, she looked up without a word anu gave thanks to God." On one occasion, I asked Mr. J. B. Pond, who traveled with the great divine for 100,000 miles, while he lectured 1,200 times and took in $250,000, what kind of a companion Beecher was. " Ho was," said Mr. Pond, " an all-round, jovial, companionable and good-natured man. He had no eccentricities. Wherever he went, he was like an electric light, reflecting brightness and com- manding 1 respect. I have been with him when the mob hooted at his heels and spat upon him ; when crowds jeered and hurled all sorts of epithets at him, and when it looked as if he were going to be stoned and trampled to death. He never betrayed fear, never grew angry, but, turning to me, he would say : " ' I do not blame them, for they know not what they do.' " When we arrived in a town, as a rule, a crowd was at the depot to see Mr. Beecher. At Clinton, Iowa, the greatest insults were offered to him. The train arrived late, and we managed to get to the hotel without being overrun by the usual mob at the depot. After a hasty supper, we concluded to walk to the hall where the lecture was to be delivered. Great throngs lined the streets, eager to see Mr. Beecher. We walked side by side through a wall of human beings, a large crowd following at our heels, hooting and jeering. I happened to turn, and saw three or four men spitting upon Mr. Beecher s back. He never said a word, but manfully \ 130 KINGS OF THE PLATFORM AND PULPIT. walked along. When we arrived at the hall, we found the members of the committee who were to introduce the lecturer and sit upon the platform grouped around laughing and guying each other about appearing in public with Mr. Beecher. Even the chairman was dis- posed to be reticent and surly toward us. "Women in the audience tittered, and it looked as if an outbreak of rudeness could not be avoided. Every body seemed ready to cast the first stone. "Before that audience, inimical and prepared to hiss, Mr. Beecher won one of the greatest triumphs of his life. I shall never forget the scene. He pulled off his overcoat, and, without even a look of anger, threw it aside. Throwing back his long, snow-white locks, revealing a high forehead and a frank, determined face, he walked upon the platform. The chairman coldly said: " Mr. Beecher, ladies and gentlemen." The orator stepped to the front of the platform and began his speech in a clear, ringing voice that instantly hushed the suppressed murmur and jeers. From that time until he closed the great audience was with him. Such flights of oratory, bursts of eloquence and keen, irresistible humor I never heard from his lips before. Tears, laughter and round after round of applause greeted him, and when he ceased the audience remained, as if it could not depart. The peroration that the great orator delivered brought the people to their feet. He walked behind the scene and picked up his overcoat. The audience would not go, but lingered to catch a glimpse of him. Throwing down his overcoat, he stepped into the auditorium. Women and men shook him by the hand ; some wanted to touch his garments, if nothing else, and for an hour he talked to them socially, and they reluctantly parted from him. " We went to our hotel," continued Major Pond, "and had a lunch of crackers and cheese, which he was in the habit of taking in the evening after a lecture. He remarked : " ' Well, Pond, I never had greater reason to talk than to-night. I feel that what I said will do some good and convince my hearers of errors they labored under.' u One day, after an experience with a mob, he happened to pick up a Chicago paper and glance over it. Holding it in his hand, pointing to headlines of slang and vituperation, he said : " 'No wonder the people are so rough and vulgar when daily fed upon such sensational nastiness.' HENRY WARD BEECHER. 131 " At that time the Chicago papers were not refined, I must con- fess. Now the "Windy City has a Browning Club, and the citizens have discussions about Sappho, all of which indicates progress. "Going from Davenport, Iowa, to Muscatine, on the cars, a little incident occurred that showed Mr. Beecher's politeness and genial disposition. Two ladies, refined and well dressed, sat behind him in the cars. He was leaning back, reading a novel and oblivious to his surroundings. I sat opposite to him and could see the ladies. They discovered on his overcoat a few gray hairs and began to qui- etly pick them off to keep as souvenirs. He felt and knew evidently what was going on, for he said : "'Conductor, are there are any flies in this car?' Then turning, he saw what the ladies w r ere doing. They begged his pardon and said they saw a gray hair or two on his overcoat, which they brushed away. With a twinkle in his eyes he replied that his wife was never so careful about taking away his hair. Mr. Beecher had a deep sympathy for every one in trouble, and poor people in trouble were always coming to him. " Personal sympathy," said the great preacher one day, " is what we all want. I remember the first time any one ever sympathized with me." " When was it ? " I asked. " Well, one evening, when on the farm up in Litchfield, my father said to me (I was a little boy then) : ' Henry, take these letters and go down to the postoffice with them.' " I was a brave boy, and yet I had imagination. And thou- sands of people are not so cowardly as you think. Persons with quick imaginations and quick sensibility people the heavens and the earth, so that there are a thousand things in them that harder men do not think of and understand. I saw behind every thicket some shadowy form; and I heard trees say strange and weird things; and in the dark concave above I could hear flitting spirits. All the heaven was populous to me, and the earth was full of I know not what strange sights. These things wrought my system to a won- derful tension. When I went pit-a-pat along the road in the dark, I was brave enough ; and if it had been anything that I could have seen ; if it had been any thing that I could have fought, it would have given me great relief , but it was not. It was only a vague, outlying fear. I knew not what it was. When father said to me, 132 KINGS OF THE PLATFORM AND PULPIT. 'Go,' I went, for I was obedient. I took my old felt hat and stepped out of the door ; and Charles Smith (a great, thick-lipped black man who worked on the farm, and who was always doing- kind things) said to me : ' Look here, I will go with you.' Oh, sweeter music never came out of any instrument than that. The heaven was just as full, and the earth was just as full, as before ; but now I had somebody to go with me. It was not that I thought he was going to fight for me. I did not think there was going to be any need of fighting, but I had somebody to lean on ; somebody to care for me ; somebody to help and succor me. Let any thing be done by direction, let any thing be done by thought or rule, and how different it is from its being done by personal inspiration ! " "Speaking of the mystery of conversion," one day said Mr. Beecher, " I can best illustrate conversion by a story. When I was .-about four years old, my father married, and I had a second mother. .It was a great event, this second mother coming to us children. I :remember Charles and Harriet and I all slept in the same room. We were expecting that father would come home with our 'new mother ' that night. Just as we had all got into our trundle-beds up-stairs, and were about falling asleep, we heard a racket down- stairs, and every mother's son and daughter of us began to halloo, * Mother! mother! MOTHER!' And presently we heard a rustling on the stairs, and in the twilight we saw a dim shadow pass into the room, and somebody leaned over the bed and kissed me, and kissed Charles and said : ' Be good children, and I will see you to-morrow.' " I remember very well how happy I was. I felt that I had a mother. I felt her kiss and I heard her voice. I could not distinguish her features, but I knew that she was my mother. That word mother had begun to contain a great deal in my estimation. " It seems to me it is very much in that way that God comes to human souls as a shadow, so to speak ; without any great definite- ness, and yet with an attitude and a love-producing action; without any clear, distinct, importable sensations, but producing some great joy, conferring some great pleasures, as though some great blessing had come to us. "Was not my mother's presence real to us when, in the twilight of the evening, she for a moment hovered over us and kissed us ' How do you do ? ' and ' Good-by ? ' And is it not a real- ity when the greater Mother and Father does the same to the souls of men in their twilight? " HEN it Y WAKD BEECIIEK. 133 ir.4 KINGS OF THE PLATFORM AND PULPIT. " But is conversion in religion absolutely necessary ? " I asked. " Yes, some time in life it becomes necessary. It is the balm of Gilead. It will heal a broken heart. It will fill a void in life that nothing else will fill. I knew a man who had no companion but Iris little child. The child filled his whole heart. lie and his wife lived apart, and by-and-by she died, but she left the dear little babe. The babe was his sun and heaven and God everything to him. She was his morning star, for he waked to think of her before any other one, and to frolic with her, and chat and prattle with her. And his last thought, as he left the house, was of her. And now and then she gleamed into his thoughts all day long in his business. And when the evening came she was his bright evening star. And when he went home at night, and she greeted him at the door, he caught her in his arms and inwardly thanked God. She sickened; and he said to God: 'Kill me, but spare the child.' And God took the child. And he said : ' I have nothing left.' He lay before God as the flax lies before the flail, and said : ' Strike ! strike! I am dead. lam cut up from the roots. Strike!' He would have died if he could, but he could not. Kobod}' can die that wants to. It is folks who want to live that die, apparently. And finding that he could not die, by-and-by he got up and crept into life again, and said : * What do I care whether I make or lose i' He had no longer any motive for laying up property. And so he said : 'If there is anything in religion. I am going to try to get it. I shall die if I do not have something.' Then religion came to him. It filled the great void and vacuum of his soul. Religion can take the place of wife, mother and the dear baby, too. Nothing else will do it." " But is it not enough to be a moral man ? '' I asked. "No, Christianity goes beyond morality. A Christian is always a moral man, but a moral man is not always a Christian. The Christian and the moralist are alike in manv things, but by-and-bv v / * the Christian will be admitted to a sphere which the moralist can not enter. " A barren and a fruitful vine are growing side by side in the garden, and the barren vine says to the fruitful one : ' Is not my root as good as yours '. ' " ' Yes,' replies the vine, 'as good as mine." HENRf WARD BEECHER. 135 " ' And are not ray bower-leaves as broad and spreading, and is not my stem as large and my bark as shaggy ?' "'Yes,' says the vine. " ' And are not my leaves as green, and am I not taller than you?' " ' Yes,' meekly replies the vine, 'but I have blossoms.' " ' Oh ! blossoms are of no use.' " ' But I bear fruit.' " ' What ! those clusters ? Those are only a trouble to a vine.' "But what thinks the vintner? He passes by the barren vine; but the other, filling the air with its odor in spring, and drooping with purple clusters in autumn, is his pride and joy; and he lingers near it and prunes it, that it may become }*et more luxuriant and fruitful. So the moralist and the Christian may grow together for a while ; but by-and-by, when the moralist's life is barren, the Christian's will come to flower and fruitage in the Garden of the Lord. ' Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit.' " " What do you actually know about God and a hereafter, after all these years of preaching and study?" I asked. Mr. Beecher thought a moment, looked puzzled, and finally said : u I know no more than the wise Dr. Alexander did. I have been a teacher of theology all my life, like the Doctor, and I only know that I am a sinner and that Jesus Christ is my Savior." Every foreigner who came to America alwaj'S wanted to meet Beecher. Canon Farrar once wrote : " I went over to Brooklyn to hear Beecher. It would have been impossible for any one to hear him without being struck with his wonderful power." Mr. Andrew Carnegie took Matthew Arnold over to Plymouth Church. " After the service," said Mr. Carnegie, " Mr. Beecher came direct to us, and as I introduced him, he extended both arms, grasped the hands of the apostle of sweetness and light, and said, i I am very glad to see you, Mr. Arnold. I have read, I think, every word you have ever written, and much of it more than once, and always with profit.' Mr. Arnold returned Mr. Beecher's warmth as who could ever fail to respond to it? and said, 'I fear, then, you found some words about yourself which should not have been written ! ' " 'Not at all, not at all ! ' was the prompt response, and another hearty shake of both hands, for he still grasped those of his critic. * Those were the most profitable of all.' ' 136 KINGS OF THE PLATFORM AND PULPIT. "Upon another occasion/' said Mr. Carnegie, " I had gone with a well-known English divine, the Rev. Joseph Parker, to Plym- outh Church, and in the party was Miss Ingersoll, whom I intro- duced to Mr. Beecher, saying : l This is viie daughter of Colonel Ingersoll ; she has just heard her first sermon, and been in a church for the first time.' " As with Mr. Arnold, Beech er's arms were outstretched at once ; and grasping hers, he said, as he peered into her fair face, '"Well, you are the most beautiful heathen I ever saw. How is your father ? He and I have spoken from the same platform for a good cause, and wasn't it lucky for me I \vas on the same side with him ! Remember me to him.' " Dr. Parker said of Beecher, afterward : " Take him in theology, botany, agriculture, medicine, physiology and modern philosophy, and it might be thought, from the range of his reading and the accuracy of his information, that he had made a specialty of each." There were two great epochs in Beecher's life his fight against viuman slavery from 1850 to 1860, and his fight for the Republic in England in 1861. In the anti-slavery times, Mr. Beecher flung himself, with all the ardor of his soul, and with all his splendid elo- quence, into the task of rousing the moral sentiment of the Chris- tian people of the North against slavery. Says Washington Glad- den : " He was clear, positive and uncompromising. I remember the day when from Beecher' s lips flashed these words : ; I would die myself, cheerfully and easily, before a man should be taken out of my hands when I had the power to give him liberty and the hound was after him for his blood. I would stand as an altar of expia- tion between slavery and liberty, knowing that through my exam- ple a million men would live. A heroic deed in which one yields, up his life for others is his Calvary. It was the hanging of Christ on that hill-top that made it the highest mountain on the globe. Let a man do a right thing with such earnestness that he counts his life of little value, and his example becomes omnipotent. There- fore it is said that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church. There is no such seed planted in this world as good blood ! ' ' Mr. Beecher took immense delight in his Peekskill farm, though it was an expensive luxury. He had a thousand flowers and a thousand shrubs, and he knew every one of them. They were his pets. Sometimes he would get up at four o'clock in the morning, HENRT WARD. BEECHER. 137 and when Mrs. Beecher asked him where he was going, he would say : "I'm going to talk with my flowers, Mother." If any -one asked him about the revenue of his farm, he would say : " O, I get that in health and jo} T and in texts for my books and sermons! " "If you want to know how much I make off of my farm/' he said, "go to Mark Twain : he knows, and he's put it on paper." The great preacher never tired reading Mark Twain's descrip- tion of his Peekskill farm, and he would laughingly show his friends an old newspaper with Twain's article marked with blue pencil. This is the article : Mr. Beccher's farm at Poughkeepsie consists of thirty-six acres, and is carried on. on strictly scientific principles. He never puts in any part of a crop without con- sulting his book. He plows and reaps and digs and sows according to the best authorities and the authorities cost more than the other farming implements do. As soon as the library is complete, the farm will begin to be a profitable investment. But book-farming has its drawbacks. Upon one occasion, when it seemed morally certain that the hay ought to be cut, the hay book could not be found, and before it was found it Avas too late, and the hay was all spoiled. Mr. Beecher raises some of the finest crops of wheat in the country, but the unfavorable difference between the cost of producing it and its market value after it is produced has interfered consider- ably with its success as a commercial enterprise. His special weakness is hogs, how- ever. He considers hogs the best game a farm produces. He buys the original pig for a dollar and a half, and feeds him forty dollars' worth of corn, and then sells him for about nine dollars. This is the only crop he ever makes any money on. He loses on the corn, but he makes seven dollars and a half on the hog. He does not mind this, because he never expects to make any thing on corn any way. And any way it turns out, he has the excitement of raising the hog any how, whether he gets the worth of him or not. His strawberries would be a comfortable success if the robins would eat turnips, but they won't, and hence the difficulty. One of Mr. Beecher's most harassing difficulties in his farming operations comes of -the close resemblance of different sorts of seeds and plants to each other. Two years ago his far-sightedness warned him that there was going to be a great scarcity of watermelons, and therefore he put in a crop of seven acres of that fruit. But when they came up they turned out to be pumpkins, and a dead loss was the conse- quence. Sometimes a portion of his crop goes into the ground the most promising sweet potatoes, and comes up the most execrable carrots. When he bought his farm he found one egg in every hen's nest on the place. He said that that was just the reason that to many farmers failed they scattered their forces too much concentra- tion was the idea. So he gathered those eggs together, and put them all under one experienced hen. That hen roosted over the contract night and day for many weeks, under Mr. Beecher's personal supervision, but she could not "phase" them eggs. Why ? Because they were those shameful porcelain things which are used by mod- ern farmers as "nest eggs." 138 KINGS OF THE PLATFORM AND PULPIT. Mr. Beecber's farm is not a triumph. It would be easier if he worked it on shares with some one; but lie can not find any body who is willing to stand half the expense, and not many that are able. Still, persistence in any cause is bound to suc- ceed. He was a very inferior farmer when he first began, but a prolonged and unflinching assault upon his agricultural difficulties has had its effect at last, and he is now fast rising from affluence to poverty. Mr. Beecher was very fend of his brother, Thomas K. Beecher, of Elmira. "The people don understand Tom," he said. "Why, one of his Elmira deacons actually left the church because Tom wrote that ' Brother Watkins Ah.' They didn't know that it was all innocent fun. This is tne article; read it, but you want to put on the Methodist prayer-meeting tone, you know," and Mr. Beecher handed me this copy of his brother's funn} r travesty (to be read through the nose) : My beloved brethren, before I take my text I must tell you about parting from my old congregation. On the morning of the last Sabbath, I went into the meeting- house to preach my farewell discourse. Just in front of me sot the old fathers and mothers in Israel; the tears coursed down their furrowed cheeks, their tottering forms and quivering lips breathed out a sad farewell, Brother Watkins ah! Just back of them sot the middle-aged men, brethren; health and vigor beamed from every countenance and stood in every eye, and as I looked down upon them they seemed to say, farewell, Brother Watkins ah! On the next seat back of them sot the boys and girls that I had baptized and gathered into the Sabbath school; many times had they been rude and boisterous, but now their merry laugh was hushed, and in the silence I could hear there, too, farewell, Brother Watkins ah! Around on the back seats and in the isles stood and sot the colored brethren, and as I looked down upon them I could see there in their dreamy eyes, farewell, Brother Watkins ah! When I had finished my discourse and shaken hands with the brethren, I went out to take a last look at the old church; the broken steps, the flopping blinds and the moss-covered roof breathed a sad farewell, Brother Watkins ah! Then I mounted my old gray mare, with all my earthly possessions in my saddle-bags, and as I rode down the streets the servant-girls stood in the doors, and waved with their brooms a farewell, Brother Watkins ah! And as I passed out of the village the low wind blew softly through the trees, farewell, Brother Watkins ah! And I came down to the brook-ah, and the old mare stopped to drink-ah; the water rippled over the pebbles, farewell, Brother "Watkins ah! And even the little fishes seemed to say, as they gathered around, farewell, Brother Watkins ah! And I was slowly passing up the hill, meditating upon the sad vicissitudes and mutations of life, when sud- denly out bounded a "big hog from a fence corner, and it scared my old mare-ah, and I came to the ground with my saddle-bags by my side-ah, and as I lay there in the dust of the road, the old mare ran up the hill-ah, and as she turned the top she waved her tail back at me, seemingly to say-ah, farewell, Brother Watkins ah! Mr. Beecher had but one life-long enemv, and that was the / * gifted Charles A. Dana, who pursued him, even beyond his grave. HENRY WARD BEECHER. 139 Still the great divine always had a kind word for Mr. Dana. He admired his talents. One day, speaking of Dana, he said : 4> Dana said a smart thing to-day." " What was it ? " I asked. " When they were discussing at the editorial convention what was proper to put in a newspaper, Dana said : ' Well, gentlemen, I don't know what you think, but I'm willing to permit a report of any thing in my paper that the Lord permits to happen.' But in my case," said Beecher, laughing, " Dana goes away beyond Provi- dence." BEECHER'S LECTURE THOUGHTS. MISFORTUNE. The steel that has suffered most is the best steel. It has been in the furnace again and again; it has been on the anvil ; it has been tight in the jaws of the vice; it has felt the teeth of the rasp ; it has been ground by emery; it has been heated and hammered and filed until it does not know itself, and it comes out a splendid knife. And if men only knew it, what are called their " misfortunes" are God's best blessings, for they are the moulding influences which give them shape- liness and edge, and durability and power. REFORMATION. When I was a boy, and I would go over to Aunt Bull's, who had several ugly dogs about her premises, I used to go bare- footed, and make as little noise as possible, and climb over fences, and go a round-about way, so as, if possible, to get into the house before the dogs knew that I was coming. If I had acted as many reformers do, I should have gone with my pockets full of stones, and fired handful after handful at the dogs, and in the universal barking and hullabaloo should have said : e ' See what a condition of things this is ! What a reforma- tion is needed here ! " AGNOSTICISM AND FAITH. Whatever men may scientifically agree to believe in, there is in men of noble nature something which science can neither illumine nor darken. When Tyndall was walking among the clouds during a sunset upon the Alps, hiscompanion said to him, " Can you behold such a sublime scene as this and not feel that there is a God ?"