Judge — September 10, 1887 — page 10: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Siage: SKAGGS had just read the following little gem : “A man who was asking his route 4 Of a chap in a navy bine soute, ‘When the answer was short ’ Made a xaucy retort ‘And got banged on the end of his snout=,"* and was listening for the roar of applause, when the president arose and said : “We abolished the bouncer and lime hole in mercy, but we shall restore the editorial club if any o2e brings any more of this rot into the club. ‘The Janitor will cut a sapling of birch and saw it off the requisite length, and govern himself accordingly. Are there any candidates in waiting?" “One, Most Worthy," kald the janitor, as he handed up a card. The cand which the president took in his hand looked as though it bad been lost oa Broadway and run over by a whole omnibus line and then found and wiped on a door mat. It read, J. Mowroomeny Hons, Staff Heralil, Tribune, World. Ha," sald the president, ‘here we have a regular literary man. Let the whole club stand up when he enters. Bring him tn.” ‘The Janitor led in the candidate and then supported him by ove arm ashe looked around on the club and smiled. The Janitor tried to let goof him and leave him in the centre of the room, but an uncertain tremulousness at the knees of the stranger made him cling to the janitor with one arm in a manner which argued long acquaintance with lamp posta and telegraph poles. He was of that central rotundity of form which conveys an idea of stoutness, until we study the legs, and then we instantly think of those amphibious houses reared on river bottoms on piles to allow free play to tides, or on gaziog upward we discover above the enormous stomach a cadaverous face, like the druggists skull and cros-bones on a very portly bottle This grotesque form was clothed below in a pair of hand-me-down trousers, 80 short-waisted that they failed to connect with the vest, but left a bulging expanse of yellow linen, poorly controlled by a dingy pair of suspenders. Over all was a Prince Albert coat, literally, for {c was the make of the perfod of the Queen's Con sort. The central expansion of the form had gently opened the seams like an over-ripe and bursting melon. The bead of the can- didate was bald, and the face adorned with a grey moustache. He gracefully waved his left hand and sald : “Gentlemen of the Aine Penrit Club, you see before you the last living Bobemian of the Kew Yor peves._['am the only represra- tative of the: ter of in fournalian, and Tam proud of it. I have stuck tothe traditions of the past and will go down with my colors flying on my nose. “I ain of that Period whew respectability nue! lack, of Hus, ania man's expacity was gauze be Ei 'aomactt more ‘than by hie brain. “Tan mage pictured by the youth- ful mind as sitting in a garret, writing at a table decorated with a pile of billetedoux. bottle of wine, a pack of canis and a fy. specked bottle of ink. Lam of the time when a bill for advertising was taken out of the saloon in beer and and a dinner was paid for with a puff In the items column. I am the last of that delightful coterie which Sriginated bad puns or. light-walsted ‘and thea drew a blue pencil mark around. them aid. had’ thetn copied. from Providence to Ban" Francisco, "Thos ‘were florious tines cindren. apd the blue pencil wan m magica’ wabd which evoked fir fortune and beer. Ihave lived to see that azure mark scorned—excuse these tears—and & foke made to stand on its merits or drop into oblivion, Oh, the funny men of ten years > who hare dropped into the bunuhole oblivion, and you could pot And tem to-day they’ should fall belre to the Towuly estate. “Actually, gentlemen. there are newspaper en today who do not drink a drop, and first-class artists who live with their own wives, It it terrible, But there are no tore good all-round writers." Mea wow bave a high-priced Coluina of work on a special theme, and get a big price which they fool away oo, land OF Pank'stock, lustead of Investing it In beer or something to do them good, and the oktime ‘The janitor led in the candidate is is dead as a stickful of Last ‘ioter’s Christmas advertising. ‘The im of iy band ts all sunburned ding it out to borrow a quarter of collar on Park row. You will please underscore the fact that I was an all-round writer froin away back. Was it a political leader you wanted ¢ The imbeciles now controlling the administration bave committed them- elves to a tine of policy subversive of good government and wulckial tn its . Pledges given to a confiding people have not only not been redeemed, but an insulting pre Already the mutterings of a general revolt may be beard. Accolumn and a half to, the dow and no hell-taps left in the el Was It humor ? “Gentlemen, where ls the silent, retro- spective inule? ‘here now the in- sédious bumble bee + And the obscure but efficient picnic pie? Gone,gentlemen. with the front gate and the sad-faced mothern- law. Humor is dead {9 our midst. veo € green apple evokes no bowl trom the small boy, and the Texas Broncho He gracefully waved bis left hand *Teould roll right oeistecof Gag. Starting tn on § his style of goods b eigh a chariot of song. on Spring, this style o was worth eight dollars fo five fouriine staazas | ai Vee > * 3 * Hall gentle Spring. thou modest maid, ‘Thy footsteps in the forest glade Awake the ms “neath thy feet And clothe the vale in odors sweet. “jo figs on that. gentlemen. Real old Thompsonlan treatment. with hot drops and no bleeding. Summer poetry was good for fifteen dollars for ter: stanzas, as— “The daffodils came with the spring, ‘The peontes came after, when bobolinis began to sing ‘And fill the woous with laughter. “Then came the primrose by the wall, And stately dainask roses, Now, as their leaves begin to fall, ‘The aster late uncloses. “Do you get onto that style? No goller rod, gentlemen. ‘That was @ Boston innovation and tndigenous tc New England. Tcould jerk six Summer poems before dinner and only wet the towel on my head twice. Autumn had a big run for a few years, but Wisconsin and Minnesota poets took it up and Tuined the business. Here was a gilt thing in ter stapzas for four dollars : “ Like amber wine of vintage rare ‘Some portly monk fs sipping, And grey sot a drop to share, ‘Sull waits with goblet ti Hi So we come forth to hear thy call, Though yellow leaves begin to fall. “*When Flora flies the upland glade,’ was a nice line of mine, but I worked often that Flora got bounced. Winter poetry! Why, gentlemen, I am the man wi vented the poem about the gis} who, practiced drt ing all summer so that in Young man could have both arms to hold her in the cutter with. I could give you poetry on any subject—do not rise, 1 forbear. The business is ruined, an occasional dog fight to work up, or pick up an occasional item of a man mashed ‘a ferry boat or under an elevated road, but the man or the item is generally too flat to more than a dollar or two, The is all gone out of a five. ‘The lea] flames,” or ‘the lurid glow,’ or the ‘wrathful element’ is always cut out, and you only y for the real property burned up, the same as if you had been insured. Ah, the ol mur. ders, with an introductory column worth a sawbuck, and telling the ancestry of the victim, and what relation he was to the founders of the city, and then fourteen spaces and sixteen wood-cuts, showing the door where the murderer entered, and the het-rack where he set down his valise, and a spot of blood on the wall, and the window out of which be threw an obsolete chew of tobacco. All gone, gentlemen, and I am rtranded on the inhospitable shore of a ihe, haurd-we ing and sober with a small income and a large appetite, and this one good suit of clothes. 1 am gone there will be the same sad fe th society which prompted the writing ‘The Last of the Mohicans," or the last of the Roman Tribunes,* for lam last of the ans. As the sunset leaves a red glare in the west, so we may tinge for a time the horizon of American rnalism. But the night ix pear at hand. We were turesque and we were romantic, but civilization was fatal to us. cere the ; £3 writen 1 base fallen, t¢ Teak to bo 5 te pal, OF 8 water pitcher, or any vemel capable of containing a which might te sent out under the appellation of a grower: for talking dry werk." “ T propose,” said Bostick, the treasury for $2.50 to de- Hobbs at a hostelry during him a rising vote of thanks.” It was carried unanimous. him to the door, and as he legs and the open white beautiful symbol of the rup- literary work of today and ‘ods of a rollicking past ‘The president wiped away around the room as the Said Skaggs: "Memory covering everything in the moss, and we mourn and ing that it always hides death and dseay, ‘good old times,” when it gets moss-grown.” “ Your remarks are pertinent, but have a nutty flavor,” said the president. “* We stand adjourned one week.” ‘THE OLD PROFESSOR. “that an order be drawn on fray the expenses of Mr. the night, also that we give ly. and the janitor escorted passed out jauntity, his long seam fn his coat made a ture between the practical the romantic, dreamy meth- & tear. and a sigh went members took their seats, Uke nature has a faculty for past with a beautiful green cherish the moss, forget- Every year of the past to some one is ‘the “A Growler." A WIDE DIFFERENCE. “ What an awful smell of cabbage,” said a fastidious tenant to the janitor. “I thought you assured me there were no Irisb families in the house.” cout, ktither there are, ma'am,” was the reply. "That's only the landlord smoking a five- comicbooks.com