Mark Twain ..............................................................................................................................................1

THE CURIOUS REPUBLIC OF GONDOUR ........................................................................................1

A MEMORY ............................................................................................................................................4

INTRODUCTORY TO "MEMORANDA" .............................................................................................6

ABOUT SMELLS...................................................................................................................................8

A COUPLE OF SAD EXPERIENCES...................................................................................................9

DAN MURPHY .......................................................................................................................................9

THE "TOURNAMENT" IN A. D. 1870...............................................................................................10

CURIOUS RELIC FOR SALE ..............................................................................................................11

A REMINISCENCE OF THE BACK SETTLEMENTS......................................................................14

A ROYAL COMPLIMENT..................................................................................................................15

THE APPROACHING EPIDEMIC......................................................................................................16

THE TONEIMPARTING COMMITTEE ...........................................................................................17

OUR PRECIOUS LUNATIC................................................................................................................18

THE EUROPEAN WARS [From the Buffalo Express, July 25, 1870.] ...........................................21

THE WILD MAN INTERVIEWED.....................................................................................................23

LAST WORDS OF GREAT MEN [From the Buffalo Express, September 11, 1889.] ..................25

Most of the sketches in this volume were taken from a series the author wrote for The Galaxy from May,

As soon as I had learned to speak the language a little, I became greatly interested in the people and the

I found that the nation had at first tried universal suffrage pure and simple, but had thrown that form aside

because the result was not satisfactory. It had seemed to deliver all power into the hands of the ignorant and

nontaxpaying classes; and of a necessity the responsible offices were filled from these classes also.

A remedy was sought. The people believed they had found it; not in the destruction of universal suffrage, but

in the enlargement of it. It was an odd idea, and ingenious. You must understand, the constitution gave every

man a vote; therefore that vote was a vested right, and could not be taken away. But the constitution did not

say that certain individuals might not be given two votes, or ten! So an amendatory clause was inserted in a

quiet way; a clause which authorised the enlargement of the suffrage in certain cases to be specified by

statute. To offer to "limit" the suffrage might have made instant trouble; the offer to "enlarge" it had a

pleasant aspect. But of course the newspapers soon began to suspect; and then out they came! It was found,

however, that for onceand for the first time in the history of the republic property, character, and

intellect were able to wield a political influence; for once, money, virtue, and intelligence took a vital and a

united interest in a political question; for once these powers went to the "primaries" in strong force; for once

the best men in the nation were put forward as candidates for that parliament whose business it should be to

enlarge the suffrage. The weightiest half of the press quickly joined forces with the new movement, and left

the other half to rail about the proposed "destruction of the liberties" of the bottom layer of society, the

The victory was complete. The new law was framed and passed. Under it every citizen, howsoever poor or

ignorant, possessed one vote, so universal suffrage still reigned; but if a man possessed a good

commonschool education and no money, he had two votes; a highschool education gave him four; if he

had property like wise, to the value of three thousand 'sacos,' he wielded one more vote; for every fifty

thousand 'sacos' a man added to his property, he was entitled to another vote; a university education entitled a

man to nine votes, even though he owned no property. Therefore, learning being more prevalent and more

easily acquired than riches, educated men became a wholesome check upon wealthy men, since they could

outvote them. Learning goes usually with uprightness, broad views, and humanity; so the learned voters,

possessing the balance of power, became the vigilant and efficient protectors of the great lower rank of

And now a curious thing developed itselfa sort of emulation, whose object was voting power! Whereas

formerly a man was honored only according to the amount of money he possessed, his grandeur was

measured now by the number of votes he wielded. A man with only one vote was conspicuously respectful to

his neighbor who possessed three. And if he was a man above the commonplace, he was as conspicuously

energetic in his determination to acquire three for himself. This spirit of emulation invaded all ranks. Votes

based upon capital were commonly called "mortal" votes, because they could be lost; those based upon

learning were called "immortal," because they were permanent, and because of their customarily

imperishable character they were naturally more valued than the other sort. I say "customarily" for the reason

that these votes were not absolutely imperishable, since insanity could suspend them.

Under this system, gambling and speculation almost ceased in the republic. A man honoured as the possessor

of great voting power could not afford to risk the loss of it upon a doubtful chance.

It was curious to observe the manners and customs which the enlargement plan produced. Walking the street

with a friend one day he delivered a careless bow to a passerby, and then remarked that that person

possessed only one vote and would probably never earn another; he was more respectful to the next

acquaintance he met; he explained that this salute was a fourvote bow. I tried to "average" the importance of

the people he accosted after that, by thenature of his bows, but my success was only partial, because of the

somewhat greater homage paid to the immortals than to the mortals. My friend explained. He said there was

no law to regulate this thing, except that most powerful of all laws, custom. Custom had created these varying

bows, and in time they had become easy and natural. At this moment he delivered himself of a very profound

salute, and then said, "Now there's a man who began life as a shoemaker's apprentice, and without education;

now he swings twentytwo mortal votes and two immortal ones; he expects to pass a highschool

examination this year and climb a couple of votes higher among the immortals; mighty valuable citizen."

By and by my friend met a venerable personage, and not only made him a most elaborate bow, but also took

off his hat. I took off mine, too, with a mysterious awe. I was beginning to be infected.

"That is our most illustrious astronomer. He hasn't any money, but is fearfully learned. Nine immortals is his

political weight! He would swing a hundred and fifty votes if our system were perfect."

"Is there any altitude of mere moneyed: grandeur that you take off your hat to?"

"No. Nine immortal votes is the only power we uncover for that is, in civil life. Very great officials receive

It was common to hear people admiringly mention men who had begun life on the lower levels and in time

achieved great votingpower. It was also common to hear youths planning a future of ever so many votes for

themselves. I heard shrewd mammas speak of certain young men as good "catches" because they possessed

suchandsuch a number of votes. I knew of more than one case where an heiress was married to a youngster

who had but one vote; the argument being that he was gifted with such excellent parts that in time he would

acquire a good voting strength, and perhaps in the long run be able to outvote his wife, if he had luck.

Competitive examinations were the rule and in all official grades. I remarked that the questions asked the

candidates were wild, intricate, and often required a sort of knowledge not needed in the office sought.

"No matter; if candidates can answer these it is tolerably fair evidence that they can answer nearly any other

There were some things in Gondour which one could not shut his eyes to. One was, that ignorance and

incompetence had no place in the government. Brains and property managed the state. A candidate for office

must have marked ability, education, and high character, or he stood no sort of chance of election. If a

hodcarrier possessed these, he could succeed; but the mere fact that he was a hodcarrier could not elect

It was now a very great honour to be in the parliament or in office; under the old system such distinction had

only brought suspicion upon a man and made him a helpless mark for newspaper contempt and scurrility.

Officials did not need to steal now, their salaries being vast in comparison with the pittances paid in the days

when parliaments were created by hodcarriers, who viewed official salaries from a hodcarrying point of

view and compelled that view to be respected by their obsequious servants. Justice was wisely and rigidly

administered; for a judge, after once reaching his place through the specified line of promotions, was a

permanency during good behaviour. He was not obliged to modify his judgments according to the effect they

The country was mainly governed by a ministry which went out with the administration that created it. This

was also the case with the chiefs of the great departments. Minor officials ascended to their several positions

through wellearned promotions, and not by a jump from gin mills or the needy families and friends of

The head of the governments the Grand Caliph, was elected for a term of twenty years. I questioned the

wisdom of this. I was answered that he could do no harm, since the ministry and the parliament governed the

land, and he was liable to impeachment for misconduct. This great office had twice been ably filled by

women, women as aptly fitted for it as some of the sceptred queens of history. Members of the cabinet, under

I found that the pardoning power was lodged in a court of pardons, consisting of several great judges. Under

the old regime, this important power was vested in a single official, and he usually took care to have a general

I inquired about public schools. There were plenty of them, and of free colleges too. I inquired about

"When a man's child is able to make himself powerful and honoured according to the amount of education he

acquires, don't you suppose that that parent will apply the compulsion himself? Our free schools and free

There was a loving pride of country about this person's way of speaking which annoyed me. I had long been

unused to the sound of it in my own. The Gondour national airs were forever dinning in my ears; therefore I

was glad to leave that country and come back to my dear native land, where one never hears that sort of

When I say that I never knew my austere father to be enamoured of but one poem in all the long half century

that he lived, persons who knew him will easily believe me; when I say that I have never composed but one

poem in all the long third of a century that I have lived, persons who know me will be sincerely grateful; and

finally, when I say that the poem which I composed was not the one which my father was enamoured of,

persons who may have known us both will not need to have this truth shot into them with a mountain

howitzer before they can receive it. My father and I were always on the most distant terms when I was a

boya sort of armed neutrality so to speak. At irregular intervals this neutrality was broken, and suffering

ensued; but I will be candid enough to say that the breaking and the suffering were always divided up with,

strict impartiality between uswhich is to say, my father did the breaking, and I did the suffering. As a

general thing I was a backward, cautious, unadventurous boy; but I once jumped off a twostory table;

another time I gave an elephant a "plug" of tobacco and retired without waiting for an answer; and still

another time I pretended to be talking in my sleep, and got off a portion of a very wretched original

conundrum in the hearing of my father. Let us not pry into the result; it was of no consequence to any one but

But the poem I have referred to as attracting my father's attention and achieving his favour was "Hiawatha."

Some man who courted a sudden and awful death presented him an early copy, and I never lost faith in my

own senses until I saw him sit down and go to reading it in cold bloodsaw him open the book, and heard

him read these following lines, with the same inflectionless judicial frigidity with which he always read his

Presently my father took out of his breast pocket an imposing "Warranty Deed," and fixed his eyes upon it

and dropped into meditation. I knew what it was. A Texan lady and gentleman had given my halfbrother,

Orrin Johnson, a handsome property in a town in the North, in gratitude to him for having saved their lives by

"If I had such a son as this poet, here were a subject worthier than the traditions of these Indians."

"Yesin this very deed," said my father, throwing it on the table. "There is more poetry, more romance,

more sublimity, more splendid imagery hidden away in that homely document than could be found in all the

"Indeed, sir? Could Icould I get it out, sir? Could I compose the poem, sir, do you think?"

"Go and try. But mind, curb folly. No poetry at the expense of truth. Keep strictly to the facts."

"Hiawatha" kept droning in my headand so did my father's remarks about the sublimity and romance

hidden in my subject, and also his injunction to beware of wasteful and exuberant fancy. I noticed, just here,

that I had heedlessly brought the deed away with me; now at this moment came to me one of those rare

moods of daring recklessness, such as I referred to a while ago. Without another thought, and in plain

defiance of the fact that I knew my father meant me to write the romantic story of my half brother's

adventure and subsequent good fortune, I ventured to heed merely the letter of his remarks and ignore their

spirit. I took the stupid "Warranty Deed" itself and chopped it up into Hiawathian blank verse without

altering or leaving out three words, and without transposing six. It required loads of courage to go downstairs

and face my father with my performance. I started three or four times before I finally got my pluck to where

it would stick. But at last I said I would go down and read it to him if he threw me over the church for it. I

stood up to begin, and he told me to come closer. I edged up a little, but still left as much neutral ground

between us as I thought he would stand. Then I began. It would be useless for me to try to tell what

conflicting emotions expressed themselves upon his face, nor how they grew more and more intense, as I

proceeded; nor how a fell darkness descended upon his countenance, and he began to gag and swallow, and

his hands began to work and twitch, as I reeled off line after line, with the strength ebbing out of me, and my

I kind of dodged, and the bootjack broke the lookingglass. I could have waited to see what became of the

In taking upon myself the burden of editing a department in THE GALAXY magazine, I have been actuated

by a conviction that I was needed, almost imperatively, in this particular field of literature. I have long felt

that while the magazine literature of the day had much to recommend it, it yet lacked stability, solidity,

weight. It seemed plain to me that too much space was given to poetry and romance, and not enough to

statistics and agriculture. This defect it shall be my earnest endeavour to remedy. If I succeed, the simple

consciousness that I have done a good deed will be a sufficient reward.** [**Together with salary.]

In this department of mine the public may always rely upon finding exhaustive statistical tables concerning

the finances of the country, the ratio of births and deaths; the percentage of increase of population, etc.,

etc.in a word, everything in the realm of statistics that can make existence bright and beautiful.

Also, in my department will always be found elaborate condensations of the Patent Office Reports, wherein a

faithful endeavour will at all times be made to strip the nutritious facts bare of that effulgence of imagination

and sublimity of diction which too often mar the excellence of those great works.** [** N. B.No other

In my department will always be found ample excerpts from those able dissertations upon Political Economy

which I have for a long time been contributing to a great metropolitan journal, and which, for reasons utterly

incomprehensible to me, another party has chosen to usurp the credit of composing.

And, finally, I call attention with pride to the fact that in my department of the magazine the farmer will

always find full market reports, and also complete instructions about farming, even from the grafting of the

seed to the harrowing of the matured crop. I shall throw a pathos into the subject of Agriculture that will

Such is my programme; and I am persuaded that by adhering to it with fidelity I shall succeed in materially

changing the character of this magazine. Therefore I am emboldened to ask the assistance and encouragement

In the other departments of the magazine will be found poetry, tales, and other frothy trifles, and to these the

reader can turn for relaxation from time to time, and thus guard against overstraining the powers of his mind.

P. S.1. I have not sold out of the "Buffalo Express," and shall not; neither shall I stop writing for it. This

2. These MEMORANDA are not a "humorous" department. I would not conduct an exclusively and

professedly humorous department for any one. I would always prefer to have the privilege of printing a

serious and sensible remark, in case one occurred to me, without the reader's feeling obliged to consider

himself outraged. We cannot keep the same mood day after day. I am liable, some day, to want to print my

opinion on jurisprudence, or Homeric poetry, or international law, and I shall do it. It will be of small

consequence to me whether the reader survive or not. I shall never go straining after jokes when in a

cheerless mood, so long as the unhackneyed subject of international law is open to me. I will leave all that

straining to people who edit professedly and inexorably "humorous" departments and publications.

3. I have chosen the general title of MEMORANDA for this department because it is plain and simple, and

makes no fraudulent promises. I can print under it statistics, hotel arrivals, or anything that comes handy,

4. Puns cannot be allowed a place in this department. Inoffensive ignorance, benignant stupidity, and

unostentatious imbecility will always be welcomed and cheerfully accorded a corner, and even the feeblest

humour will be admitted, when we can do no better; but no circumstances, however dismal, will ever be

considered a sufficient excuse for the admission of that lastand saddest evidence of intellectual poverty,

In a recent issue of the "Independent," the Rev. T. De Witt Talmage, of Brooklyn, has the following utterance

We have reason to believe that there will be labouring men in heaven; and also a number of negroes, and

Esquimaux, and Terra del Fuegans, and Arabs, and a few Indians, and possibly even some Spaniards and

Portuguese. All things are possible with God. We shall have all these sorts of people in heaven; but, alas! in

getting them we shall lose the society of Dr. Talmage. Which is to say, we shall lose the company of one who

could give more real "tone" to celestial society than any other contribution Brooklyn could furnish. And what

would eternal happiness be without the Doctor? Blissful, unquestionablywe know that well enough but

would it be 'distingue,' would it be 'recherche' without him? St. Matthew without stockings or sandals; St.

Jerome bare headed, and with a coarse brown blanket robe dragging the ground; St. Sebastian with scarcely

any raiment at allthese we should see, and should enjoy seeing them; but would we not miss a spiketailed

coat and kids, and turn away regretfully, and say to parties from the Orient: "These are well enough, but you

ought to see Talmage of Brooklyn." I fear me that in the better world we shall not even have Dr. Talmage's

For if he were sitting under the glory of the Throne, and the keeper of the keys admitted a Benjamin Franklin

or other labouring man, that "friend," with his fine natural powers infinitely augmented by emancipation from

hampering flesh, would detect him with a single sniff, and immediately take his hat and ask to be excused.

To all outward seeming, the Rev. T. De Witt Talmage is of the same material as that used in the construction

of his early predecessors in the ministry; and yet one feels that there must be a difference somewhere between

him and the Saviour's first disciples. It may be because here, in the nineteenth century, Dr. T. has had

advantages which Paul and Peter and the others could not and did not have. There was a lack of polish about

them, and a looseness of etiquette, and a want of exclusiveness, which one cannot help noticing. They healed

the very beggars, and held intercourse with people of a villainous odour every day. If the subject of these

remarks had been chosen among the original Twelve Apostles, he would not have associated with the rest,

because he could not have stood the fishy smell of some of his comrades who came from around the Sea of

Galilee. He would have resigned his commission with some such remark as he makes in the extract quoted

above: "Master, if thou art going to kill the church thus with bad smells, I will have nothing to do with this

work of evangelization." He is a disciple, and makes that remark to the Master; the only difference is, that he

Is there a choir in Mr. T.'s church? And does it ever occur that they have no better manners than to sing that

Now, can it be possible that in a handful of centuries the Christian character has fallen away from an

imposing heroism that scorned even the stake, the cross, and the axe, to a poor little effeminacy that withers

and wilts under an unsavoury smell? We are not prepared to believe so, the reverend Doctor and his friend to

When I published a squib recently in which I said I was going to edit an Agricultural Department in this

magazine, I certainly did not desire to deceive anybody. I had not the remotest desire to play upon any one's

confidence with a practical joke, for he is a pitiful creature indeed who will degrade the dignity of his

humanity to the contriving of the witless inventions that go by that name. I purposely wrote the thing as

absurdly and as extravagantly as it could be written, in order to be sure and not mislead hurried or heedless

readers: for I spoke of launching a triumphal barge upon a desert, and planting a tree of prosperity in a

minea tree whose fragrance should slake the thirst of the naked, and whose branches should spread abroad

till they washed the chorea of, etc., etc. I thought that manifest lunacy like that would protect the reader. But

to make assurance absolute, and show that I did not and could not seriously mean to attempt an Agricultural

Department, I stated distinctly in my postscript that I did not know anything about Agriculture. But alas! right

there is where I made my worst mistakefor that remark seems to have recommended my proposed

Agriculture more than anything else. It lets a little light in on me, and I fancy I perceive that the farmers feel a

little bored, sometimes, by the oracular profundity of agricultural editors who "know it all." In fact, one of my

correspondents suggests this (for that unhappy squib has deluged me with letters about potatoes, and

cabbages, and hominy, and vermicelli, and maccaroni, and all the other fruits, cereals, and vegetables that

ever grew on earth; and if I get done answering questions about the best way of raising these things before I

go raving crazy, I shall be thankful, and shall never write obscurely for fun any more).

Shall I tell the real reason why I have unintentionally succeeded in fooling so many people? It is because

some of them only read a little of the squib I wrote and jumped to the conclusion that it was serious, and the

rest did not read it at all, but heard of my agricultural venture at secondhand. Those cases I could not guard

against, of course. To write a burlesque so wild that its pretended facts will not be accepted in perfect good

faith by somebody, is, very nearly an impossible thing to do. It is because, in some instances, the reader is a

person who never tries to deceive anybody himself, and therefore is not expecting any one to wantonly

practise a deception upon him; and in this case the only person dishonoured is the man who wrote the

burlesque. In other instances the "nub" or moral of the burlesqueif its object be to enforce a truthescapes

notice in the superior glare of something in the body of the burlesque itself. And very often this "moral" is

tagged on at the bottom, and the reader, not knowing that it is the key of the whole thing and the only

important paragraph in the article, tranquilly turns up his nose at it and leaves it unread. One can deliver a

satire with telling force through the insidious medium of a travesty, if he is careful not to overwhelm the

satire with the extraneous interest of the travesty, and so bury it from the reader's sight and leave him a joked

and defrauded victim, when the honest intent was to add to either his knowledge or his wisdom. I have had a

deal of experience in burlesques and their unfortunate aptness to deceive the public, and this is why I tried

hard to make that agricultural one so broad and so perfectly palpable that even a oneeyed potato could see

it; and yet, as I speak the solemn truth, it fooled one of the ablest agricultural editors in America!

One of the saddest things that ever came under my notice (said the banker's clerk) was there in Corning,

during the war. Dan Murphy enlisted as a private, and fought very bravely. The boys all liked him, and when

a wound by and by weakened him down till carrying a musket was too heavy work for him, they clubbed

together and fixed him up as a sutler. He made money then, and sent it always to his wife to bank for him.

She was a washer and ironer, and knew enough by hard experience to keep money when she got it. She didn't

waste a penny. On the contrary, she began to get miserly as her bank account grew. She grieved to part with a

cent, poor creature, for twice in her hardworking life she had known what it was to be hungry, cold,

friendless, sick, and without a dollar in the world, and she had a haunting dread of suffering so again. Well, at

last Dan died; and the boys, in testimony of their esteem and respect for him, telegraphed to Mrs. Murphy to

know if she would like to have him embalmed and sent home, when you know the usual custom was to dump

a poor devil like him into a shallow hole, and then inform his friends what had become of him. Mrs. Murphy

jumped to the conclusion that it would only cost two or three dollars to embalm her dead husband, and so she

telegraphed "Yes." It was at the "wake" that the bill for embalming arrived and was presented to the widow.

She uttered a wild, sad wail, that pierced every heart, and said: "Sivintyfoive dollars for stoofhn' Dan, blister

their sowls! Did thim divils suppose I was goin' to stairt a Museim, that I'd be dalin' in such expinsive

Lately there appeared an item to this effect, and the same went the customary universal round of the press:

It is hard to tell which is the most startling, the idea of that highest achievement of human genius and

intelligence, the telegraph, prating away about the practical concerns of the world's daily life in the heart and

home of ancient indolence, ignorance, and savagery, or the idea of that happiest expression of the brag,

vanity, and mockheroics of our ancestors, the "tournament," coming out of its grave to flaunt its tinsel

trumpery and perform its "chivalrous" absurdities in the high noon of the nineteenth century, and under the

A "tournament" in Lynchburg is a thing easily within the comprehension of the average mind; but no

commonly gifted person can conceive of such a spectacle in Brooklyn without straining his powers. Brooklyn

is part and parcel of the city of New York, and there is hardly romance enough in the entire metropolis to

resupply a Virginia "knight" with "chivalry," in case he happened to run out of it. Let the reader calmly and

dispassionately picture to himself "lists" in Brooklyn; heralds, pursuivants, pages, garter kingatarmsin

Brooklyn; the marshalling of the fantastic hosts of "chivalry" in slashed doublets, velvet trunks, ruffles, and

plumesin Brooklyn; mounted on omnibus and liverystable patriarchs, promoted, and referred to in cold

blood as "steeds," "destriers," and "chargers," and divested of their friendly, humble names these meek old

"Jims" and "Bobs" and "Charleys," and renamed "Mohammed," "Bucephalus," and "Saladin"in Brooklyn;

mounted thus, and armed with swords and shields and wooden lances, and cased in paste board hauberks,

morions, greaves, and gauntlets, and addressed as "Sir" Smith, and "Sir" Jones, and bearing such titled

grandeurs as "The Disinherited Knight," the "Knight of Shenandoah," the "Knight of the Blue Ridge," the

"Knight of Maryland," and the "Knight of the Secret Sorrow"in Brooklyn; and at the toot of the horn

charging fiercely upon a helpless ring hung on a post, and prodding at it in trepidly with their wooden sticks,

and by and by skewering it and cavorting back to the judges' stand covered with glory this in Brooklyn; and

each noble success like this duly and promptly announced by an applauding toot from the herald's horn, and

"the band playing three bars of an old circus tune"all in Brooklyn, in broad daylight. And let the reader

remember, and also add to his picture, as follows, to wit: when the show was all over, the party who had shed

the most blood and overturned and hacked to pieces the most knights, or at least had prodded the most

muffinrings, was accorded the ancient privilege of naming and crowning the Queen of Love and

Beautywhich naming had in reality been done for, him by the "cutanddried" process, and long in

advance, by a committee of ladies, but the crowning he did in person, though suffering from loss of blood,

and then was taken to the county hospital on a shutter to have his wounds dressedthese curious things all

occurring in Brooklyn, and no longer ago than one or two yesterdays. It seems impossible, and yet it is true.

This was doubtless the first appearance of the "tournament" up here among the rollingmills and factories,

and will probably be the last. It will be well to let it retire permanently to the rural districts of Virginia,

where, it is said, the fine mailed and plumed, noblenatured, maiden rescuing, wrongredressing,

adventureseeking knight of romance is accepted and believed in by the peasantry with pleasing simplicity,

while they reject with scorn the plain, unpolished verdict whereby history exposes him as a braggart, a

All romance aside, what shape would our admiration of the heroes of Ashby de la Zouch be likely to take, in

this practical age, if those worthies were to rise up and come here and perform again the chivalrous deeds of

that famous passage of arms? Nothing but a New York jury and the insanity plea could save them from

hanging, from the amiable Bois Guilbert and the pleasant FrontdeBoeuf clear down to the nameless

ruffians that entered the riot with unpictured shields and did their first murder and acquired their first claim to

respect that day. The doings of the socalled "chivalry" of the Middle Ages were absurd enough, even when

they were brutally and bloodily in earnest, and when their surroundings of castles and donjons, savage

landscapes and halfsavage peoples, were in keeping; but those doings gravely reproduced with tinsel

decorations and mock pageantry, by bucolic gentlemen with broomstick lances, and with muffinrings to

represent the foe, and all in the midst of the refinement and dignity of a carefullydeveloped modern

Now, for next exhibition, let us have a fine representation of one of those chivalrous wholesale butcheries and

burnings of Jewish women and children, which the crusading heroes of romance used to indulge in in their

European homes, just before starting to the Holy Land, to seize and take to their protection the Sepulchre and

As per advertisement in the "Herald." A curious old relic indeed, as I had a good personal right to know. In a

single instant of time, a long drawn panorama of sights and scenes in the Holy Land flashed through my

memorytown and grove, desert, camp, and caravan clattering after each other and disappearing, leaping me

with a little of the surprised and dizzy feeling which I have experienced at sundry times when a long express

train has overtaken me at some quiet curve and gone whizzing, car by car, around the corner and out of sight.

In that prolific instant I saw again all the country from the Sea of Galilee and Nazareth clear to Jerusalem,

and thence over the hills of Judea and through the Vale of Sharon to Joppa, down by the ocean. Leaving out

unimportant stretches of country and details of incident, I saw and experienced the following described

matters and things. Immediately three years fell away from my age, and a vanished time was restored to me

September, 1867. It was a flaming Oriental daythis one that had come up out of the past and brought along

its actors, its stageproperties, and scenic effectsand our party had just ridden through the squalid hive of

human vermin which still holds the ancient Biblical name of Endor; I was bringing up the rear on my grave

fourdollar steed, who was about beginning to compose himself for his usual noon nap. My! only fifteen

minutes before how the black, mangy, ninetenths naked, tentenths filthy, ignorant, bigoted, besotted,

hungry, lazy, malignant, screeching, crowding, struggling, wailing, begging, cursing, hateful spawn of the

original Witch had swarmed out of the caves in the rocks and the holes and crevices in the earth, and blocked

our horses' way, besieged us, threw themselves in the animals' path, clung to their manes, saddlefurniture,

and tails, asking, beseeching, demanding "bucksheesh! bucksheesh! BUCKSHEESH!" We had rained small

copper Turkish coins among them, as fugitives fling coats and hats to pursuing wolves, and then had spurred

our way through as they stopped to scramble for the largess. I was fervently thankful when we had gotten

well up on the desolate hillside and outstripped them and left them jawing and gesticulating in the rear. What

a tempest had seemingly gone roaring and crashing by me and left its dull thunders pulsing in my ears!

I was in the rear, as I was saying. Our packmules and Arabs were far ahead, and Dan, Jack, Moult, Davis,

Denny, Church, and Birch (these names will do as well as any to represent the boys) were following close

after them. As my horse nodded to rest, I heard a sort of panting behind me, and turned and saw that a tawny

youth from the village had overtaken me a true remnant and representative of his ancestress the Witcha

galvanised scurvy, wrought into the human shape and garnished with ophthalmia and leprous scarsan airy

creature with an invisible shirt front that reached below the pit of his stomach, and no other clothing to

speak of except a tobaccopouch, an ammunitionpocket, and a venerable gun, which was long enough to

club any game with that came within shooting distance, but far from efficient as an article of dress.

I thought to myself, "Now this disease with a human heart in it is going to shoot me." I smiled in derision at

the idea of a Bedouin daring to touch off his greatgrandfather's rusty gun and getting his head blown off for

his pains. But then it occurred to me, in simple schoolboy language, "Suppose he should take deliberate aim

and 'haul off' and fetch me with the buttend of it?" There was wisdom in that view of it, and I stopped to

parley. I found he was only a friendly villain who wanted a trifle of bucksheesh, and after begging what he

could get in that way, was perfectly willing to trade off everything he had for more. I believe he would have

parted with his last shirt for bucksheesh if he had had one. He was smoking the "humbliest" pipe I ever

sawa dingy, funnel shaped, redclay thing, streaked and grimed with oil and tears of tobacco, and with

all the different kinds of dirt there are, and thirty per cent. of them peculiar and indigenous to Endor and

perdition. And rank? I never smelt anything like it. It withered a cactus that stood lifting its prickly hands

aloft beside the trail. It even woke up my horse. I said I would take that. It cost me a franc, a Russian kopek, a

brass button, and a slate pencil; and my spendthrift lavishness so won upon the son of the desert that he

passed over his pouch of most unspeakably villainous tobacco to me as a free gift. What a pipe it was, to be

sure! It had a rude brasswire cover to it, and a little coarse iron chain suspended from the bowl, with an iron

splinter attached to loosen up the tobacco and pick your teeth with. The stem looked like the half of a slender

I felt that this pipe had belonged to the original Witch of Endor as soon as I saw it; and as soon as I smelt it, I

knew it. Moreover, I asked the Arab cub in good English if it was not so, and he answered in good Arabic

that it was. I woke up my horse and went my way, smoking. And presently I said to myself reflectively, "If

there is anything that could make a man deliberately assault a dying cripple, I reckon may be an unexpected

whiff from this pipe would do it." I smoked along till I found I was beginning to lie, and project murder, and

steal my own things out of one pocket and hide them in another; and then I put up my treasure, took off my

spurs and put them under my horse's tail, and shortly came tearing through our caravan like a hurricane.

From that time forward, going to Jerusalem, the Dead Sea, and the Jordan, Bethany, Bethlehem, and

everywhere, I loafed contentedly in the rear and enjoyed my infamous pipe and revelled in imaginary villany.

But at the end of two weeks we turned our faces toward the sea and journeyed over the Judean hills, and

through rocky defiles, and among the scenes that Samson knew in his youth, and by and by we touched level

ground just at night, and trotted off cheerily over the plain of Sharon. It was perfectly jolly for three hours,

and we whites crowded along together, close after the chief Arab muleteer (all the packanimals and the

other Arabs were miles in the rear), and we laughed, and chatted, and argued hotly about Samson, and

whether suicide was a sin or not, since Paul speaks of Samson distinctly as being saved and in heaven. But by

and by the night air, and the duskiness, and the weariness of eight hours in the saddle, began to tell, and

conversation flagged and finally died out utterly. The squeaksqueaking of the saddles grew very distinct;

occasionally somebody sighed, or started to hum a tune and gave it up; now and then a horse sneezed. These

things only emphasised the solemnity and the stillness. Everybody got so listless that for once I and my

dreamer found ourselves in the lead. It was a glad, new sensation, and I longed to keep the place forevermore.

Every little stir in the dingy cavalcade behind made me nervous. Davis and I were riding side by side, right

after the Arab. About 11 o'clock it had become really chilly, and the dozing boys roused up and began to

inquire how far it was to Ramlah yet, and to demand that the Arab hurry along faster. I gave it up then, and

my heart sank within me, because of course they would come up to scold the Arab. I knew I had to take the

rear again. In my sorrow I unconsciously took to my pipe, my only comfort. As I touched the match to it the

whole company came lumbering up and crowding my horse's rump and flanks. A whiff of smoke drifted back

Right away there was a gap behind us. Whiff after whiff sailed airily back, and each one widened the breach.

Within fifteen seconds the barking, and gasping, and sneezing, and coughing of the boys, and their angry

abuse of the Arab guide, had dwindled to a murmur, and Davis and I were alone with the leader. Davis did

not know what the matter was, and don't to this day. Occasionally he caught a faint film of the smoke and fell

to scolding at the Arab and wondering how long he had been decaying in that way. Our boys kept on

dropping back further and further, till at last they were only in hearing, not in sight. And every time they

started gingerly forward to reconnoitre or shoot the Arab, as they proposed to doI let them get within good

fair range of my relic (she would carry seventy yards with wonderful precision), and then wafted a whiff

among them that sent them gasping and strangling to the rear again. I kept my gun well charged and ready,

and twice within the hour I decoyed the boys right up to my horse's tail, and then with one malarious blast

emptied the saddles, almost. I never heard an Arab abused so in my life. He really owed his preservation to

me, because for one entire hour I stood between him and certain death. The boys would have killed him if

By and by, when the company were far in the rear, I put away my pipe I was getting fearfully dry and crisp

about the gills and rather blown with good diligent workand spurred my animated trance up alongside the

Arab and stopped him and asked for water. He unslung his little gourd shaped earthenware jug, and I put it

under my moustache and took a long, glorious, satisfying draught. I was going to scour the mouth of the jug a

little, but I saw that I had brought the whole train together once more by my delay, and that they were all

anxious to drink tooand would have been long ago if the Arab had not pretended that he was out of water.

So I hastened to pass the vessel to Davis. He took a mouthful, and never said a word, but climbed off his

horse and lay down calmly in the road. I felt sorry for Davis. It was too late now, though, and Dan was

drinking. Dan got down too, and hunted for a soft place. I thought I heard Dan say, "That Arab's friends

ought to keep him in alcohol or else take him out and bury him somewhere." All the boys took a drink and

climbed down. It is not well to go into further particulars. Let us draw the curtain upon this act.

Well, now, to think that after three changing years I should hear from that curious old relic again, and see

Dan advertising it for sale for the benefit of a benevolent object. Dan is not treating that present right. I gave

that pipe to him for a keepsake. However, he probably finds that it keeps away custom and interferes with

business. It is the most convincing inanimate object in all this part of the world, perhaps. Dan and I were

roommates in all that long "Quaker City" voyage, and whenever I desired to have a little season of privacy I

used to fire up on that pipe and persuade Dan to go out; and he seldom waited to change his clothes, either. In

about a quarter, or from that to threequarters of a minute, be would be propping up the smokestack on the

Now that corpse [said the undertaker, patting the folded hands of the deceased approvingly was a brickevery

way you took him he was a brick. He was so real accommodating, and so modestlike and simple in his last

moments. Friends wanted metallic burial casenothing else would do. I couldn't get it. There warn't going to

be time anybody could see that. Corpse said never mind, shake him up some kind of a box he could stretch

out in comfortable, he warn't particular 'bout the general style of it. Said he went more on room than style,

any way, in the last final container. Friends wanted a silver doorplate on the coffin, signifying who he was

and wher, he was from. Now you know a fellow couldn't roust out such a gaily thing as that in a little country

town like this. What did corpse say? Corpse said, whitewash his old canoe and dob his address and general

destination onto it with a blacking brush and a stencil plate, long with a verse from some likely hymn or

other, and pint him for the tomb, and mark him C. O. D., and just let him skip along. He warn't distressed any

more than you beon the contrary just as carm and collected as a hearsehorse; said he judged that wher' he

was going to, a body would find it considerable better to attract attention by a picturesque moral character

than a natty burial case with a swell doorplate on it. Splendid man, he was. I'd druther do for a corpse like

that 'n any I've tackled in seven year. There's some satisfaction in buryin' a man like that. You feel that what

you're doing is appreciated. Lord bless you, so's he got planted before he sp'iled, he was perfectly satisfied;

said his relations meant well, perfectly well, but all them preparations was bound to delay the thing more or

less, and he didn't wish to be kept layin' round. You never see such a clear head as what he hadand so carm

and so cool. Just a hunk of brains that is what he was. Perfectly awful. It was a ripping distance from one end

of that man's head to t'other. Often and over again he's had brain fever araging in one place, and the rest of

the pile didn't know anything about itdidn't affect it any more than an Injun insurrection in Arizona affects

the Atlantic States. Well, the relations they wanted a big funeral, but corpse said he was down on

flummerydidn't want any processionfill the hearse full of mourners, and get out a stern line and tow him

behind. He was the most down on style of any remains I ever struck. A beautiful, simpleminded

creatureit was what he was, you can depend on that. He was just set on having things the way he wanted

them, and he took a solid comfort in laying his little plans. He had me measure him and take a whole raft of

directions; then he had a minister stand up behind a long box with a tablecloth over it and read his funeral

sermon, saying 'Angcore, angcore!' at the good places, and making him scratch out every bit of brag about

him, and all the hifalutin; and then he made them trot out the choir so's he could help them pick out the tunes

for the occasion, and he got them to sing 'Pop Goes the Weasel,' because he'd always liked that tune when he

was downhearted, and solemn music made him sad; and when they sung that with tears in their eyes (because

they all loved him), and his relations grieving around, he just laid there as happy as a bug, and trying to beat

time and showing all over how much he enjoyed it; and presently he got worked up and excited; and tried to

join in, for mind you he was pretty proud of his abilities in the singing line; but the first time he opened his

mouth and was just going to spread himself, his breath took a walk. I never see a man snuffed out so sudden.

Ah, it was a great lossit was a powerful loss to this poor little onehorse town. Well, well, well, I hain't got

time to be palavering along heregot to nail on the lid and mosey along with' him; and if you'll just give me

a lift we'll skeet him into the hearse and meander along. Relations bound to have it sodon't pay no attention

to dying injunctions, minute a corpse's gone; but if I had my way, if I didn't respect his last wishes and tow

him behind the hearse, I'll be cuss'd. I consider that whatever a corpse wants done for his comfort is a little

enough matter, and a man hain't got no right to deceive him or take advantage of himand whatever a

corpse trusts me to do I'm agoing to do, you know, even if it's to stuff him and paint him yaller and keep

He cracked his whip and went lumbering away with his ancient ruin of a hearse, and I continued my walk

with a valuable lesson learnedthat a healthy and wholesome cheerfulness is not necessarily impossible to

any occupation. The lesson is likely to be lasting, for it will take many months to obliterate the memory of the

It would be but an ostentation of modesty to permit such a pointed reference to myself to pass unnoticed. This

is the second time that 'The Tribune' (no doubt sincerely looking to the best interests of Spain and the world

at large) has done me the great and unusual honour to propose me as a fit person to fill the Spanish throne.

Why 'The Tribune' should single me out in this way from the midst of a dozen Americans of higher political

prominence, is a problem which I cannot solve. Beyond a somewhat intimate knowledge of Spanish history

and a profound veneration for its great names and illustrious deeds, I feel that I possess no merit that should

peculiarly recommend me to this royal distinction. I cannot deny that Spanish history has always been

mother's milk to me. I am proud of every Spanish achievement, from Hernando Cortes's victory at

Thermopylae down to Vasco Nunez de Balboa's discovery of the Atlantic ocean; and of every splendid

Spanish name, from Don Quixote and the Duke of Wellington down to Don Caesar de Bazan. However, these

little graces of erudition are of small consequence, being more showy than serviceable.

In case the Spanish sceptre is pressed upon meand the indications unquestionably are that it will beI

shall feel it necessary to have certain things set down and distinctly understood beforehand. For instance: My

salary must be paid quarterly in advance. In these unsettled times it will not do to trust. If Isabella had

adopted this plan, she would be roosting on her ancestral throne today, for the simple reason that her

subjects never could have raised three months of a royal salary in advance, and of course they could not have

discharged her until they had squared up with her. My salary must be paid in gold; when greenbacks are fresh

in a country, they are too fluctuating. My salary has got to be put at the ruling market rate; I am not going to

cut under on the trade, and they are not going to trail me a long way from home and then practise on my

ignorance and play me for a royal North Adams Chinaman, by any means. As I understand it, imported kings

generally get five millions a year and houserent free. Young George of Greece gets that. As the revenues

only yield two millions, he has to take the national note for considerable; but even with things in that sort of

shape he is better fixed than he was in Denmark, where he had to eternally stand up because he had no throne

to sit on, and had to give bail for his board, because a royal apprentice gets no salary there while he is

learning his trade. England is the place for that. Fifty thousand dollars a year Great Britain pays on each royal

child that is born, and this is increased from year to year as the child becomes more and more indispensable

to his country. Look at Prince Arthur. At first he only got the usual birthbounty; but now that he has got so

I should have to stipulate that the Spanish people wash more and endeavour to get along with less quarantine.

Do you know, Spain keeps her ports fast locked against foreign traffic threefourths of each year, because

one day she is scared about the cholera, and the next about the plague, and next the measles, next the hooping

cough, the hives, and the rash? but she does not mind leonine leprosy and elephantiasis any more than a great

and enlightened civilisation minds freckles. Soap would soon remove her anxious distress about foreign

distempers. The reason arable land is so scarce in Spain is because the people squander so much of it on their

I should feel obliged to stipulate that Marshal Serrano be reduced to the rank of constable, or even

roundsman. He is no longer fit to be City Marshal. A man who refused to be king because he was too old and

feeble, is ill qualified to help sick people to the stationhouse when they are armed and their form of delirium

I should also require that a force be sent to chase the late Queen Isabella out of France. Her presence there

can work no advantage to Spain, and she ought to be made to move at once; though, poor thing, she has been

I am at this moment authoritatively informed that "The Tribune" did not mean me, after all. Very well, I do

One calamity to which the death of Mr. Dickens dooms this country has not awakened the concern to which

its gravity entitles it. We refer to the fact that the nation is to be lectured to death and read to death all next

winter, by Tom, Dick, and Harry, with poor lamented Dickens for a pretext. All the vagabonds who can spell

will afflict the people with "readings" from Pickwick and Copperfield, and all the insignificants who have

been ennobled by the notice of the great novelist or transfigured by his smile will make a marketable

commodity of it now, and turn the sacred reminiscence to the practical use of procuring bread and butter. The

lecture rostrums will fairly swarm with these fortunates. Already the signs of it are perceptible. Behold how

the unclean creatures are wending toward the dead lion and gathering to the feast:

"Reminiscences of Dickens." A lecture. By John Smith, who heard him read eight times.

"Remembrances of Charles Dickens." A lecture. By John Jones, who saw him once in a street car and twice

"Recollections of Mr. Dickens." A lecture. By John Brown, who gained a wide fame by writing deliriously

appreciative critiques and rhapsodies upon the great author's public readings; and who shook hands with the

"Readings from Dickens." By John White, who has the great delineator's style and manner perfectly, having

attended all his readings in this country and made these things a study, always practising each reading before

retiring, and while it was hot from the great delineator's lips. Upon this occasion Mr. W. will exhibit the

remains of a cigar which he saw Mr. Dickens smoke. This Relic is kept in a solid silver box made purposely

"Sights and Sounds of the Great Novelist." A popular lecture. By John Gray, who ,waited on his table all the

time he was at the Grand Hotel, New York, and still has in his possession and will exhibit to the audience a

fragment of the Last Piece of Bread which the lamented author tasted in this country.

"Heart Treasures of Precious Moments with Literature's Departed Monarch." A lecture. By Miss Serena

Amelia Tryphenia McSpadden, who still wears, and will always wear, a glove upon the hand made sacred by

"Familiar Talks with the Great Author." A narrative lecture. By John Thomas, for two weeks his valet in

And so forth, and so on. This isn't half the list. The man who has a "Toothpick once used by Charles

Dickens" will have to have a hearing; and the man who "once rode in an omnibus with Charles Dickens;" and

the lady to whom Charles Dickens "granted the hospitalities of his umbrella during a storm;" and the person

who "possesses a hole which once belonged in a handkerchief owned by Charles Dickens." Be patient and

longsuffering, good people, for even this does not fill up the measure of what you must endure next winter.

There is no creature in all this land who has had any personal relations with the late Mr. Dickens, however

slight or trivial, but will shoulder his way to the rostrum and inflict his testimony upon his helpless

I get old and ponderously respectable, only one thing will be able to make me truly happy, and that will be to

be put on the Venerable Tone Imparting committee of the city of New York, and have nothing to do but sit

on the platform, solemn and imposing, along with Peter Cooper, Horace Greeley, etc., etc., and shed

momentary fame at second hand on obscure lecturers, draw public attention to lectures which would

otherwise clack eloquently to sounding emptiness, and subdue audiences into respectful hearing of all sorts of

unpopular and outlandish dogmas and isms. That is what I desire for the cheer and gratification of my gray

hairs. Let me but sit up there with those fine relics of the Old Red Sandstone Period and give Tone to an

intellectual entertainment twice a week, and be so reported, and my happiness will be complete. Those men

have been my envy for long, long time. And no memories of my life are so pleasant as my reminiscence of

their long and honorable career in the Tone imparting service. I can recollect that first time I ever saw them

on the platforms just as well as I can remember the events of yesterday. Horace Greeley sat on the right, Peter

Cooper on the left, and Thomas Jefferson, Red Jacket, Benjamin Franklin, and John Hancock sat between

them. This was on the 22d of December, 1799, on the occasion of the state' funeral of George Washington in

New York. It was a great day, thata great day, and a very, very sad one. I remember that Broadway was

one mass of black crape from Castle Garden nearly up to where the City Hall now stands. The next time I

saw these gentlemen officiate was at a ball given for the purpose of procuring money and medicines for the

sick and wounded soldiers and sailors. Horace Greeley occupied one side of the platform on which the

musicians were exalted, and Peter Cooper the other. There were other Toneimparters attendant upon the two

chiefs, but I have forgotten their names now. Horace Greeley, grayhaired and beaming, was in sailor

costumewhite duck pants, blue shirt, open at the breast, large neckerchief, loose as an oxbow, and tied

with a jaunty sailor knot, broad turnover collar with star in the corner, shiny black little tarpaulin hat roosting

daintily far back on head, and flying two gallant long ribbons. Slippers on ample feet, round spectacles on

benignant nose, and pitchfork in hand, completed Mr. Greeley, and made him, in my boyish admiration,

every inch a sailor, and worthy to be the honored greatgrandfather of the Neptune he was so ingeniously

representing. I shall never forget him. Mr. Cooper was dressed as a general of militia, and was dismally and

oppressively warlike. I neglected to remark, in the proper place, that the soldiers and sailors in whose aid the

ball was given had just been sent in from Bostonthis was during the war of 1812. At the grand national

reception of Lafayette, in 1824, Horace Greeley sat on the right and Peter Cooper to the left. The other

Toneimparters of the day are sleeping the sleep of the just now. I was in the audience when Horace Greeley

Peter Cooper, and other chief citizens imparted tone to the great meetings in favor of French liberty, in 1848.

Then I never saw them any more until here lately; but now that I am living tolerably near the city, I run down

every time I see it announced that "Horace Greeley, Peter Cooper, and several other distinguished citizens

will occupy seats on the platform;" and next morning, when I read in the first paragraph of the phonographic

report that "Horace Greeley, Peter Cooper, and several other distinguished citizens occupied seats on the

platform," I say to myself, "Thank God, I was present." Thus I have been enabled to see these substantial old

friends of mine sit on the platform and give tone to lectures on anatomy, and lectures on agriculture, and

lectures on stirpiculture, and lectures on astronomy, on chemistry, on miscegenation, on "Is Man Descended

from the Kangaroo?" on, veterinary matters, on all kinds of religion, and several kinds of politics; and have

seen them give tone and grandeur to the Fourlegged Girl, the Siamese Twins, the Great Egyptian Sword

Swallower, and the Old Original Jacobs. Whenever somebody is to lecture on a subject not of general

interest, I know that my venerated Remains of the Old Red Sandstone Period will be on the platform;

whenever a lecturer is to appear whom nobody has heard of before, nor will be likely to seek to see, I know

that the real benevolence of my old friends will be taken advantage of, and that they will be on the platform

(and in the bills) as an advertisement; and whenever any new and obnoxious deviltry in philosophy, morals,

or politics is to be sprung upon the people, I know perfectly well that these intrepid old heroes will be on the

platform too, in the interest of full and free discussion, and to crush down all narrower and less generous

souls with the solid dead weight of their awful respectability. And let us all remember that while these

inveterate and imperishable presiders (if you please) appear on the platform every night in the year as

regularly as the volunteered piano from Steinway's or Chickering's, and have bolstered up and given tone to a

deal of questionable merit and obscure emptiness in their time, they have also diversified this inconsequential

service by occasional powerful uplifting and upholding of great progressive ideas which smaller men feared

The RichardsonMcFarland jury had been out one hour and fifty minutes. A breathless silence brooded over

court and auditorya silence and a stillness so absolute, notwithstanding the vast multitude of human beings

packed together there, that when some one far away among the throng under the northeast balcony cleared his

throat with a smothered little cough it startled everybody uncomfortably, so distinctly did it grate upon the

pulseless air. At that imposing moment the bang of a door was heard, then the shuffle of approaching feet,

and then a sort of surging and swaying disorder among the heads at the entrance from the juryroom told

them that the Twelve were coming. Presently all was silent again, and the foreman of the jury rose and said:

"Your Honor and Gentleman: We, the jury charged with the duty of determining whether the prisoner at the

bar, Daniel McFarland, has been guilty of murder, in taking by surprise an unarmed man and shooting him to

death, or whether the prisoner is afflicted with a sad but irresponsible insanity which at times can be cheered

1. His great grandfather's stepfather was tainted with insanity, and frequently killed people who were

2. For nine years the prisoner at the bar did not adequately support his family. Strong circumstantial evidence

3. For nine years he made of his home, as a general thing, a poorhouse; sometimes (but very rarely) a

cheery, happy habitation; frequently the den of a beery, drivelling, stupefied animal; but never, as far as

4. He once took his young unmarried sisterinlaw to the museum; while there his hereditary insanity came

upon him to such a degree that he hiccupped and staggered; and afterward, on the way home, even made love

to the young girl he was protecting. These are the acts of a person not in his right mind.

5. For a good while his sufferings were so great that he had to submit to the inconvenience of having his wife

give public readings for the family support; and at times, when he handed these shameful earnings to the

barkeeper, his haughty soul was so torn with anguish that he could hardly stand without leaning against

something. At such times he has been known to shed tears into his sustenance till it diluted to utter

inefficiency. Inattention of this nature is not the act of a Democrat unafflicted in mind.

6. He never spared expense in making his wife comfortable during her occasional confinements. Her father is

able to testify to this. There was always an element of unsoundness about the prisoner's generosities that is

7. Two years ago the prisoner came fearlessly up behind Richardson in the dark, and shot him in the leg. The

prisoner's brave and protracted defiance of an adversity that for years had left him little to depend upon for

support but a wife who sometimes earned scarcely anything for weeks at a time, is evidence that he would

have appeared in front of Richardson and shot him in the stomach if he had not been insane at the time of the

8. Fourteen months ago the prisoner told Archibald Smith that he was going to kill Richardson. This is

9. Twelve months ago he told Marshall P. Jones that he was going to kill Richardson. Insanity.

10. Nine months ago he was lurking about Richardson's home in New Jersey, and said he was going to kill

11. Seven months ago he showed a pistol to Seth Brown and said that that was for Richardson. He said

Brown testified that at that time it seemed plain that something was the matter with McFarland, for he

crossed the street diagonally nine times in fifty yards, apparently without any settled reason for doing so, and

finally fell in the gutter and went to sleep. He remarked at the time that McFarland acted strangebelieved

he was insane. Upon hearing Brown's evidence, John W. Galen, M.D., affirmed at once that McFarland was

12. Five months ago, McFarland showed his customary pistol, in his customary way, to his bedfellow,

Charles A. Dana, and told him he was going to kill Richardson the first time an opportunity offered. Evidence

13. Five months and two weeks ago McFarland asked John Morgan the time of day, and turned and walked

rapidly away without waiting for an answer. Almost indubitable evidence of insanity. And

14. It is remarkable that exactly one week after this circumstance, the prisoner, Daniel McFarland, confronted

Albert D. Richardson suddenly and without warning, and shot him dead. This is manifest insanity.

Everything we know of the prisoner goes to show that if he had been sane at the time, he would have shot his

15. There is an absolutely overwhelming mass of testimony to show that an hour before the shooting,

McFarland was ANXIOUS AND UNEASY, and that five minutes after it he was EXCITED. Thus the

accumulating conjectures and evidences of insanity culminate in this sublime and unimpeachable proof of it.

Your Honor and GentlemenWe the jury pronounce the said Daniel McFarland INNOCENT OF

The scene that ensued almost defies description. Hats, handkerchiefs and bonnets were frantically waved

above the massed heads in the courtroom, and three tremendous cheers and a tiger told where the sympathies

of the court and people were. Then a hundred pursed lips were advanced to kiss the liberated prisoner, and

many a hand thrust out to give him a congratulatory shakebut presto! with a maniac's own quickness and a

maniac's own fury the lunatic assassin of Richardson fell upon his friends with teeth and nails, boots and

office furniture, and the amazing rapidity with which he broke heads and limbs, and rent and sundered

bodies, till nearly a hundred citizens were reduced to mere quivering heaps of fleshy odds and ends and

crimson rags, was like nothing in this world but the exultant frenzy of a plunging, tearing, roaring devil of a

steam machine when it snatches a human being and spins him and whirls him till he shreds away to

The destruction was awful. It is said that within the space of eight minutes McFarland killed and crippled

some six score persons and tore down a large portion of the City Hall building, carrying away and casting

into Broadway six or seven marble columns fiftyfour feet long and weighing nearly two tons each. But he

But the really curious part of this whole matter is yet to be told. And that is, that McFarland's most intimate

friends believe that the very next time that it ever occurred to him that the insanity plea was not a mere politic

pretense, was when the verdict came in. They think that the startling thought burst upon him then, that if

twelve good and true men, able to comprehend all the baseness of perjury, proclaimed under oath that he was

a lunatic, there was no gainsaying such evidence and that he UNQUESTIONABLY WAS INSANE!

Possibly that was really the way of it. It is dreadful to think that maybe the most awful calamity that can

befall a man, namely, loss of reason, was precipitated upon this poor prisoner's head by a jury that could have

May 11I do not expect anybody to believe so astounding a thing, and yet it is the solemn truth that instead

of instantly sending the dangerous lunatic to the insane asylum (which I naturally supposed they would do,

and so I prematurely said they had) the court has actually SET HIM AT LIBERTY. Comment is unnecessary.

There is tremendous excitement here over news from the front that two companies of French soldiers are

No battle has been fought yet. However, all thoughtful men feel that the land may be drenched with blood

There is an awful excitement here over the rumour that two companies of Prussian troops have concentrated

There is news to the effect that Russia espouses the cause of Prussia and will bring 4,000,000 men to the

No battle has been fought yet. But Field Marshal McMahon telegraphs thus to the Emperor:

"If the Frinch army survoives until Christmas there'll be throuble. Forninst this fact it would be sagacious if

the divil wint the rounds of his establishment to prepare for the occasion, and tuk the precaution to warrum up

There is an enormous state of excitement here over news from the front to the effect that yesterday France

and Prussia were simultaneously invaded by the two bodies of troops which lately assembled on the border.

Both armies conducted their invasions secretly and are now hunting around for each other on opposite sides

Firing was heard yesterday in the direction of Blucherberg, and for a while the excitement was intense.

However the people reflected that the country in that direction is uninhabitable, and impassable by anything

The Emperor sends his troops to the field with immense enthusiasm. He will lead them in person, when they

No battle has been fought thus far, but a million impetuous soldiers are gritting their teeth at each other across

the border, and the most serious fears entertained that if they do not die of old age first, there will be

The prodigious patriotic excitement goes on. In Prussia, per Prussian telegrams, though contradicted from

The Prussian invasion of France was a magnificent success. The military failed to find the French, but made

good their return to Prussia without the loss of a single man. The French invasion of Prussia is also

demonstrated to have been a brilliant and successful achievement. The army failed to find the Prussians, but

made good their return to the Vaterland without bloodshed, after having invaded as much as they wanted to.

There is glorious news from Russia to the effect that she will side with both sides.

I rushed over too soon. I shall return home on Tuesday's steamer and wait until the war begins. M. T.

There has been so much talk about the mysterious "wild man" out there in the West for some time, that I

finally felt it was my duty to go out and interview him. There was something peculiarly and touchingly

romantic about the creature and his strange actions, according to the newspaper reports. He was represented

as being hairy, longarmed, and of great strength and stature; ugly and cumbrous; avoiding men, but

appearing suddenly and unexpectedly to women and children; going armed with a club, but never molesting

any creature, except sheep, or other prey; fond of eating and drinking, and not particular about the quality,

quantity, or character of the beverages and edibles; living in the woods like a wild beast, but never angry;

Such was "Old Shep" as the papers painted him. I felt that the story of his life must be a sad onea story of

suffering, disappointment, and exilea story of man's inhumanity to man in some shape or otherand I

"Since you say you are a member of the press," said the wild man, "I am willing to tell you all you wish to

know. Bye and bye you will comprehend why it is that I wish to unbosom myself to a newspaper man when I

have so studiously avoided conversation with other people. I will now unfold my strange story. I was born

I moved out of range of his club, and went on taking notes, but keeping a wary eye on him all the while. He

"When I glance back over the dreary waste of ages, I see many a glimmering and mark that is familiar to my

memory. And oh, the leagues I have travelled! the things I have seen! the events I have helped to emphasise!

I was at the assassination of Caesar. I marched upon Mecca with Mahomet. I was in the Crusades, and stood

with Godfrey when he planted the banner of the cross on the battlements of Jerusalem. I"

"Silence. I was in the Pinta's shrouds with Columbus when America burst upon his vision. I saw Charles I

beheaded. I was in London when the Gunpowder Plot was discovered. I was present at the trial of Warren

Hastings. I was on American soil when the battle of Lexington was fought when the declaration was

promulgatedwhen Cornwallis surrendered When Washington died. I entered Paris with Napoleon after

Elba. I was present when you mounted your guns and manned your fleets for the war of 1812when the

South fired upon Sumterwhen Richmond fellwhen the President's life was taken. In all the ages I have

helped to celebrate the triumphs of genius, the achievements of arms, the havoc of storm, fire, pestilence,

"Your career has been a stirring one. Might I ask how you came to locate in these dull Kansas woods, when

you have been so accustomed to excitement during what I might term so protracted a period, not to put too

"Listen. Once I was the honoured servitor of the noble and illustrious" (here he heaved a sigh, and passed his

hairy hand across his eyes) "but in these degenerate days I am become the slave of quack doctors and

newspapers. I am driven from pillar to post and hurried up and down, sometimes with stencilplate and

pastebrush to defile the fences with cabalistic legends, and sometimes in grotesque and extravagant

character at the behest of some driving journal. I attended to that Ocean Bank robbery some weeks ago, when

I was hardly rested from finishing up the powwow about the completion of the Pacific Railroad;

immediately I was spirited off to do an atrocious, murder for the benefit of the New York papers; next to

attend the wedding of a patriarchal millionaire; next to raise a hurrah about the great boat race; and then, just

when I had begun to hope that my old bones would have a rest, I am bundled off to this howling wilderness

to strip, and jibber, and be ugly and hairy, and pull down fences and waylay sheep, and waltz around with a

club, and play 'Wild Man' generallyand all to gratify the whim of a bedlam of crazy newspaper scribblers?

From one end of the continent to the other, I am described as a gorilla, with a sort of human seeming about

"I have been served infamously, often, in modern and semimodern times. I have been compelled by base

men to create fraudulent history, and to perpetrate all sorts of humbugs. I wrote those crazy Junius letters, I

moped in a French dungeon for fifteen years, and wore a ridiculous Iron Mask; I poked around your Northern

forests, among your vagabond Indians, a solemn French idiot, personating the ghost of a dead Dauphin, that

the gaping world might wonder if we had 'a Bourbon among us'; I have played seaserpent off Nahant, and

WoollyHorse and Whatisit for the museums; I have interviewed politicians for the Sun, worked up all

manner of miracles for the Herald, ciphered up election returns for the World, and thundered Political

Economy through the Tribune. I have done all the extravagant things that the wildest invention could

contrive, and done them well, and this is my rewardplaying Wild Man in Kansas without a shirt!"

"Mysterious being, a light dawns vaguely upon meit grows apacewhat what is your name."

"Oh pitiless fate, my destiny hounds me once more. I am called. I go. Alas, is there no rest for me?"

In a moment the Wild Man's features seemed to soften and refine, and his form to assume a more human

grace and symmetry. His club changed to a spade, and he shouldered it and started away sighing profoundly

Such was the response that floated back upon the wind as the sad spirit shook its ringlets to the breeze,

What a sad thing it is to see a man close a grand career with a plagiarism in his mouth. Napoleon's last words

were: "Tete d'armee." (Head of the army.) Neither of those remarks amounts to anything as "last words," and

A distinguished man should be as particular about his last words as he is about his last breath. He should

write them out on a slip of paper and take the judgment of his friends on them. He should never leave such a

thing to the last hour of his life, and trust to an intellectual spirit at the last moment to enable him to say

something smart with his latest gasp and launch into eternity with grandeur. Noa man is apt to be too much

fagged and exhausted, both in body and mind, at such a time, to be reliable; and maybe the very thing he

wants to say, he cannot think of to save him; and besides there are his weeping friends bothering around; and

worse than all as likely as not he may have to deliver his last gasp before he is expecting to. A man cannot

always expect to think of a natty thing to say under such circumstances, and so it is pure egotistic ostentation

to put it off. There is hardly a case on record where a man came to his last moment unprepared and said a

good thing hardly a case where a man trusted to that last moment and did not make a solemn botch of it and

Now there was Daniel Webster. Nobody could tell him anything. He was not afraid. He could do something

neat when the time came. And how did it turn out? Why, his will had to be fixed over; and then all the

relations came; and first one thing and then another interfered, till at last he only had a chance to say, "I still

Of course he didn't still live, because he diedand so he might as well have kept his last words to himself as

to have gone and made such a failure of it as that. A week before that fifteen minutes of calm reflection

would have enabled that man to contrive some last words that would have been a credit to himself and a

And there was John Quincy Adams. Relying on his splendid abilities and his coolness in emergencies, he

trusted to a happy hit at the last moment to carry him through, and what was the result? Death smote him in

the House of Representatives, and he observed, casually, "This is the last of earth." The last of earth! Why

"the last of earth" when there was so much more left? If he had said it was the last rose of summer or the last

run of shad, it would have had as much point in it. What he meant to say was, "Adam was the first and

Adams is the last of earth," but he put it off a trifle too long, and so he had to go with that unmeaning

And there we have Napoleon's "Tete d'armee." That don't mean anything. Taken by itself, "Head of the

army," is no more important than "Head of the police." And yet that was a man who could have said a good

thing if he had barred out the doctor and studied over it a while. Marshal Neil, with half a century at his

disposal, could not dash off anything better in his last moments than a poor plagiarism of another man's

words, which were not worth plagiarizing in the first place. "The French army." Perfectly

irrelevantperfectly flat utterly pointless. But if he had closed one eye significantly, and said, "The

subscriber has made it lively for the French army," and then thrown a little of the comic into his last gasp, it

would have been a thing to remember with satisfaction all the rest of his life. I do wish our great men would

quit saying these flat things just at the moment they die. Let us have their next tothelast words for a

while, and see if we cannot patch up from them something that will be more satisfactory.

But when we come to call to mind the last words of parties who took the trouble to make the proper

preparation for the occasion, we immediately notice a happy difference in the result.

There was Chesterfield. Lord Chesterfield had laboured all his life to build up the most shining reputation for

affability and elegance of speech and manners the world has ever seen. And could you suppose he failed to

appreciate the efficiency of characteristic "last words," in the matter of seizing the successfully driven nail of

such a reputation and clinching on the other side for ever? Not he. He prepared himself. He kept his eye on

the clock and his finger on his pulse. He awaited his chance. And at last, when he knew his time was come,

he pretended to think a new visitor had entered, and so, with the rattle in his throat emphasised for dramatic

effect, he said to the servant, "Shin around, John, and get the gentleman a chair." And so he died, amid

Next we have Benjamin Franklin. Franklin, the author of Poor Richard's quaint sayings; Franklin the

immortal axiombuilder, who used to sit up at nights reducing the rankest old threadbare platitudes to crisp

and snappy maxims that had a nice, varnished, original look in their regimentals; who said, "Virtue is its own

reward;" who said, "Procrastination is the thief of time;" who said, "Time and tide wait for no man" and

"Necessity is the mother of invention;" good old Franklin, the Josh Billings of the eighteenth

centurythough, sooth to say, the latter transcends him in proverbial originality as much as he falls short of

him in correctness of orthography. What sort of tactics did Franklin pursue? He pondered over his last words

for as much as two weeks, and then when the time came, he said, "None but the brave deserve the fair," and

died happy. He could not have said a sweeter thing if he had lived till he was an idiot.

Byron made a poor business of it, and could not think of anything to say, at the last moment but,

"AugustasisterLady Byrontell Harriet Beecher Stowe"etc., etc.,but Shakespeare was ready and

said, "England expects every man to do his duty!" and went off with splendid eclat.

And there are other instances of sagacious preparation for a felicitous closing remark. For instance:

Sir Walter Raleigh said, "Executioner, can I take your whetstone a moment, please?" though what for is not

Queen Elizabeth said, "Oh, I would give my kingdom for one moment more I have forgotten my last

And Red Jacket, the noblest Indian brave that ever wielded a tomahawk in defence of a friendless and

"Wawkawampanoosucwinnebayowallazvsagamoresa skatchewan." There was not a dry eye in the wigwam.

Let not this lesson be lost upon our public men. Let them take a healthy moment for preparation, and contrive

"I am content to follow my unclestill, I do not wish to improve upon his last word. Put me down for 'Tete

And Mr. Bergh, "Only take part of me at a time, if the load will be fatiguing to the hearse horses."

And Andrew Johnson, "I have been an alderman, Member of Congress, Governor, Senator, Presadieu, you

P. S.I am obliged to leave out the illustrations. The artist finds it impossible to make a picture of people's

19. LAST WORDS OF GREAT MEN --[From the Buffalo Express, September 11, 1889.], page = 28