SOME OTHER FUNNY FELLOWS.
There are hundreds of humorists in America who are comparatively unknown—humorists who are intensely funny, but who do not know it; persons who write one or two good things and then cease to write; journalists of the staid, old school, who once in a decade or so say something really witty. During the last ten years I have endeavored to accumulate a portion of the many stray bits of fun that have appeared in the American newspapers from time to time.
As an example I quote the following from an unknown humorist: “The editor of a mining camp newspaper went to Denver to hear Emma Abbott sing, and in a review of the opera said: ‘As a singer she can just wallop the hose off anything that ever wagged a jaw on the boards. From her clear, bird-like upper-notes, she would canter away down on the base racket and then cushion back to a sort of spiritual treble, which made every man in the audience imagine every hair on his head was the golden string of a celestial harp,over which angelic fingers were sweeping in the inspiring old tune, Sallie Put the Kettle on. Here she would rest awhile, trilling like an enchanted bird, and hop in among the upper notes again with a get-up-and-git vivacity that jingled the glass pendants on the chandeliers, and elicited a whoop of pleasure from every galoot in the mob. In the last act she made a neat play, and worked in that famous kiss of hers on Castle. He had her in his arms with her head lying on his shoulder, and her eyes shooting red-hot streaks of galvanized love right into his. All at once her lips began to twitch coaxingly and get into position, and when he tumbled to her racket, he drawed her up easy like, shut his eyes, and then her ripe, luscious lips glewed themselves to his and a thrill of pleasure nabbed hold of him, and shook him till the audience could almost hear his toenails grind against his boots. Then she shut her eyes and pushed harder and dash—O, Moley Hoses!—the smack that followed started the stitching in every masculine heart in the house.”
A Montana editor writes as follows of a hated rival:—“The blear-eyed picture of melancholy and imbecility who has ravaged his exchanges to fill up The Insect during the past year, and the cheerful looking corpse who has acted lately ashis man Friday, and who is a tenderfoot, equally soft at both ends, will doubtless paralyze everybody to-day with his thunderbolts of choice sarcasm and polite invective. The intelligibility of their phillippics, however, will depend largely on whether they could borrow that dictionary or not, their vocabulary being painfully abridged if left to their own resources.”
The editor of the Solid Muldoon, a weekly journal published at Ouray, Colorado, thus vaunted his own paper: “It is the most powerful antidote for meanness and kindred diseases, ever offered to a suffering community. Elder Ripley, who hasn’t told the truth in thirty-two years, feels better, and he has only been on our list two months. Captain Stanley, who hasn’t tasted water for thirteen years, can now look at a brooklet without serious results. Ed Snydom, who has been troubled with his spine ever since the Ute outbreak, put out a large washing Monday. Jim Vance, who came to this country with an Arkansas record, now moves in the first society. O, it is a perfect balsam; two-fifty per annum. One annum contains fifty-two doses.”
An editor in Texas gives the following figures from a statistical memorandum of his life:
The following cheerful valedictory of an editor was printed in the Asheville, North Carolina, Journal: “In this issue of the paper I offer my house and lot for sale. My object is to quit the country—possibly for the country’s good. For the past nine years I have endeavored to make a livelihood here at the newspaper business, and at this writing I am a good breathing representation of the Genius of Famine, or an allegory of Irelandduring the potato rot. The day star of my prosperity has gone down behind a dark cloud of unpaid and uncancelled obligations. As a dernier resort, I propose to cast my lot among the Mongolians of the Pacific coast, and with this view my leisure moments are devoted to deciphering the hieroglyphics on a Chinese tea-chest, while I patiently await the advent of a purchaser.”
The following criticism of the acting of Mary Anderson was written by a Milwaukee, Wisconsin, journalist: “Mary is about six feet in height when in repose, but when her frame is charged with emotion, and she gets mad, or excited, she seems to rise right up out of the stage and telescope until she is eighteen or nineteen feet high, and others look like dwarfs. At times she puts on a sweet, lovely look, and you would have to be held by two persons to keep you from mounting the stage, and telling her that you loved her like a steam engine; and then she would put on a dying look, and a wild, scared, desperate expression, so you want to rush out after a doctor. She has lungs like a blacksmith’s bellows; when she contracts them, she looks so thin that her back bone can be traced with the naked eye; but when she inflates them, her dress fits her like paper on the wall.”
Thomas Snell Weaver, the funny man of the New Haven, Connecticut, Register, is one of the coming humorists of the day. He is widely quoted. The following is from his writings:
“There was an extra air of refinement about the front parlor. The storks on a shingle and the Egyptian figures on panels had all been removed to the back parlor to make room for the super-æstheticism of the aureolan glory of the sunflower and the drooping grace of the lily embroidered on bannerets and hung in fitting corners of the grand old room. In this room they sat, and quietly enjoyed each other’s presence, bound together by ties yet undiscovered.
“‘Angela’ said he, ‘I think it is four years this very night since we gazed into the firelight together.’
“‘So long, Mr. Thistlewaite?’ said she tremulously, and in expectant mood.
“‘Now, I should think that after so long a time—it occurs to me to say—or rather to ask—why wouldn’t it be well—to call me “George” hereafter?’
“‘Oh, is that all?’ she said. The harpstrings of her expectancy had just been struck with a chord, but alas! the matrimonial overture was not then to be played. The whole orchestra was out of tune for her for the next six weeks.
Mr. H. T. White, a member of the editorial staff of the Chicago Tribune, is also designed to make his mark in the world as a humorist. His style is peculiar, as the following selection will no doubt show:
“‘Do not go, darling’—and as she spoke the words—spoke them in low, tender tones, that thrilled him from mail-truck to keelsom—Gwendolen Mahaffey laid her soft, white cheek on Plutarch Riordan’s shoulder, and gave him a look with her lustrous, dove-like eyes that would make your head swim.
“‘I cannot stay,’ he replied, kissing the peachy red lips as he spoke, and feeling wistfully in his overcoat pocket for a plug of tobacco, ‘I must go now right away.’
“But the girl placed her arms around his neck—arms whose soft, rounded curves and pink-tinted skin would have made an anchorite throw up his job, and pleaded with him to stay a little longer.
“‘I cannot,’ he again said, looking at her tenderly.
“‘Cannot?’ repeated the girl, a shade of anger tinging the tone in which the words were uttered. ‘And pray, sir, what is it that so imperatively calls you hence?’
“‘Bending over her with a careless grace that artfully concealed the slight bagginess at the kneesof his pants, Plutarch said, in low, bitter tones that were terrible in their intensity:
“‘I have broken my suspenders!’”
H. C. Dodge, as a writer of humorous and witty verse, has few equals in America. His style is somewhat like that of the late lamented Tom Hood. One of Mr. Dodge’s productions is entitled
CONTRARY MAN.
Some men do write when they do wrongAnd some do live who dye;And some are short when they are longAnd stand when they do lie.A man is surly when he’s late,And round when he is square;He may die early and dilate,And may be foul when fair.He may be fast when he is slow,And loose when he is tight,And high when he is very low,And heavy when he’s light.He may be wet when he is dry,He may be great when small;May purchase when he won’t go by;Have naught when he has awl.He may be sick when he is swell,And hot when he is cold;He’s skilled so he on earth may dwell,And when he’s young he’s old.
Some men do write when they do wrongAnd some do live who dye;And some are short when they are longAnd stand when they do lie.A man is surly when he’s late,And round when he is square;He may die early and dilate,And may be foul when fair.He may be fast when he is slow,And loose when he is tight,And high when he is very low,And heavy when he’s light.He may be wet when he is dry,He may be great when small;May purchase when he won’t go by;Have naught when he has awl.He may be sick when he is swell,And hot when he is cold;He’s skilled so he on earth may dwell,And when he’s young he’s old.
Some men do write when they do wrongAnd some do live who dye;And some are short when they are longAnd stand when they do lie.
Some men do write when they do wrong
And some do live who dye;
And some are short when they are long
And stand when they do lie.
A man is surly when he’s late,And round when he is square;He may die early and dilate,And may be foul when fair.
A man is surly when he’s late,
And round when he is square;
He may die early and dilate,
And may be foul when fair.
He may be fast when he is slow,And loose when he is tight,And high when he is very low,And heavy when he’s light.
He may be fast when he is slow,
And loose when he is tight,
And high when he is very low,
And heavy when he’s light.
He may be wet when he is dry,He may be great when small;May purchase when he won’t go by;Have naught when he has awl.
He may be wet when he is dry,
He may be great when small;
May purchase when he won’t go by;
Have naught when he has awl.
He may be sick when he is swell,And hot when he is cold;He’s skilled so he on earth may dwell,And when he’s young he’s old.
He may be sick when he is swell,
And hot when he is cold;
He’s skilled so he on earth may dwell,
And when he’s young he’s old.
Transcriber’s Notes:Variations in spelling and hyphenation are retained.Perceived typographical errors have been changed.
Transcriber’s Notes:
Variations in spelling and hyphenation are retained.
Perceived typographical errors have been changed.