Part 2

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“‘Well, what for instance?

“In the same grave way, he said:

“‘A lie.’

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

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

“Come up closer.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE CENSUS.

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

Wat’s your age?

Whar’ was you born?

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

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

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

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

How many parents have you?

Do you read Watt’s Hymns reg’lar?

Do you use bought’n tabacker?

Wat’s your fitin’ weight?

Air you troubled with biles?

How does your meresham culler?

State whether you air blind, deaf, idiotic, or got the heaves?

Do you know any Opry singers, and if so how much do they owe you?

What’s the average of virtoo in the Ery canawl?

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

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

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

Air you aware that Injiany whisky is used in New York shootin’ galrys insted of pistols, and that it shoots furthest?

Was you ever at Niagry Falls?

Was you ever in the penitentiary?

State how much pork, impendin’ crysis, Dutch cheese, poplar survinity, standard poetry, children’s strainers, slave code, catnip, red flannel, ancient history, pickled tomatoes, old junk, perfoomery, coal ile, liberty, hoopskirts, etc., have you got on hand?

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

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

CHARLES HEBER CLARK.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Of another little youngster, just departed, Max warbles:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ART NEWS.

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

Adeler has given the public an admirable satire in his

IMPROVED CONGRESSIONAL RECORD.

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

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

CHARLES B. LEWIS.

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

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

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

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

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

BIOGRAPHY OF M. QUAD.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He didn’t go.

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

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

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

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

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

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

For further particulars see circulars.

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

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

NEW YEAR’S ADDRESS.

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

Glad on’t.

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

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