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 typographicalnom 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 eighteenyears 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.
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 eighteenyears 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.Where’s the fat girl who rested her head on your bosom when the old year was new? Gone—yes, gone—slid out to take charge of the snake-cage in a traveling museum of natural wonders, and your wounded heart sorrowfully but vainly calls,—“Come back, fat girl—come back?”Where’s the alligator boots which sat around the festive board last new year’s day? Where’s the silk umbrella you left on the doorstep this morning?Where’s the ton of coal and the jar of countrybutter you laid in about that time? Where’s the plumber who agreed to “come right up,” and thaw that water-pipe out? The sad wind sighing through the treeless leaves, solemnly puckers its mouth, and sadly answers,—“Gone up!”One by one they have fallen beside the curbstone of life’s dreary highway, have been swept over and almost forgotten, while you and I have been spared to put up the stoves another time, and to have the landlord raise the rent on us—drat him! It makes one feel sad, especially the rent business.Farewell, old year! If you go west to grow up with the country, or go south to run a steamboat, we hope you’ll be honest, seek respectable company, and make your daily life a striking example for, and a terrible warning to, the man who goes around playing the string game on unsuspecting people.Welcome, new year! Howdy? If convenient, give us some new clothes, a few thousand in cash, and a race-horse, and prove by your actions that you mean to do the right thing by a fellow. Give us some strawberry weather this month, wollop the pesky Indians into behaving themselves, and make it uncomfortable for grasshoppers and potato-bugs. Be around with some decent weather whena fellow wants to go fishing, and let ’er rain to kill when the women go out to exhibit their new bonnets. Do the fair thing by all of us, including New Jersey, and we won’t stand by and see you abused.
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.
Where’s the fat girl who rested her head on your bosom when the old year was new? Gone—yes, gone—slid out to take charge of the snake-cage in a traveling museum of natural wonders, and your wounded heart sorrowfully but vainly calls,—
“Come back, fat girl—come back?”
Where’s the alligator boots which sat around the festive board last new year’s day? Where’s the silk umbrella you left on the doorstep this morning?
Where’s the ton of coal and the jar of countrybutter you laid in about that time? Where’s the plumber who agreed to “come right up,” and thaw that water-pipe out? The sad wind sighing through the treeless leaves, solemnly puckers its mouth, and sadly answers,—
“Gone up!”
One by one they have fallen beside the curbstone of life’s dreary highway, have been swept over and almost forgotten, while you and I have been spared to put up the stoves another time, and to have the landlord raise the rent on us—drat him! It makes one feel sad, especially the rent business.
Farewell, old year! If you go west to grow up with the country, or go south to run a steamboat, we hope you’ll be honest, seek respectable company, and make your daily life a striking example for, and a terrible warning to, the man who goes around playing the string game on unsuspecting people.
Welcome, new year! Howdy? If convenient, give us some new clothes, a few thousand in cash, and a race-horse, and prove by your actions that you mean to do the right thing by a fellow. Give us some strawberry weather this month, wollop the pesky Indians into behaving themselves, and make it uncomfortable for grasshoppers and potato-bugs. Be around with some decent weather whena fellow wants to go fishing, and let ’er rain to kill when the women go out to exhibit their new bonnets. Do the fair thing by all of us, including New Jersey, and we won’t stand by and see you abused.