Part 6

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

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

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

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

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

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

“‘No,’ said he.

“‘Have you ever planted a tree?’

“‘Never,’ said he.

“‘Have you ever begotten a child?’

“‘None to speak of,’ said he.”

A. MINER GRISWOLD.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BILL NYE.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BILL NYE.

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

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

THE ENGLISH JOKE.

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

MR. NYE EMBARRASSED.

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

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

JOSEPH C. NEAL.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

GEORGE H. DERBY.

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