Judge — March 2, 1889 — page 14: what you’re looking at

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

HEARD one of the sophomores call a studious youth from Haver- straw a crank as I approached the lecture-room. Probably because he is filling his system with information and distending his cranium with wisdom while others are engaged in a more secular manner. I want it distinctly understood that I will have no slang used around this institution and no rude tions indulged in, I will climb. the Corinthian column and pulverize the proboscis of any gazelle who tries either. You want to listen to the baccalaureate of the old man when he shouts or take a long vacation. Chaste English is what we teach, and hyperbolical figures and such guff will not go down with the faculty. We will put down all rudeness if we have to knock out every galoot in the under-graduate class, ‘The subject of our lecture is CRANKS. The crank is the medium through which motion is imparted to all machinery, and the crank in society is the medium through which all original ideas are forced through the thick skulls of mankind in general. ‘The crank rises above the teeming millions because he is different from them, and that difference, which consists in the possession of a small but refully selected stock of brains, makes him conspicuous, ‘The crank does not attract attention by acting as hostler and stable-man to a pair of Siberian bloodhounds or a St. Bernard dog which was bred in Hester street and whose ancestors smelt salt-water only when fish-brine was put on them to kill fleas. The crank docs not wear a buttonhole bouquet because every ass on his street does, The crank goes four blocks out of his way to return a borrowed umbrella, He does not try to talk English and dress Cockney when his features reveal the fact that for fourteen generations his nose has been used in New England to split pumpkins on, and his cheek-bones shine like red morocco pads on a coach harness. He does not change his suits as many times in a day as the trump docs in a euchre deck, just to be in fashion, The crank does not borrow five dollars of every man who smokes a cigar with him, and he will pay a debt more readily than a compliment. ‘The crank is prompt, sharp and savory, and so is salt, but both are pretty necessary in the world and in well-regulated food. Young men, you may have heard of Columbus, not in Ohio, but in Genoa, Italy. He was a crank, He told the whole world, “Go west. young man, go west,” and it went west, and the Gould system of railroads and the new aqueduct, not to speak of the Rochester knockings and the more persistent and effectyal knockings of John L. Sullivan, have grown out of that advice. When Columbus refused to buy his wife a pug dog, and continued to wear tight pants after the fashion changed, the populace of Genoa called Drevel & Co., Drexet, Morcan & Co WALL STREET, CORNER OP BROAD, New Yor«. Dre Has & Co, him 2 crank; but he got there all the same, and had a cannon named after him, the Columbiad, which sounded and kicked, both like thunder. was a crank. He asserted in one of his advertisements of a clock he had patented, “The world moves, great reduction in clocl and they snatched him up and told him to recant. “ Recant,” said he, “L really can’t,” and went on and perfected his inventions, which resulted in the Waterbury watch, Washington was a crank, In 1775 you could find million people in England who said ae was a crank, ‘They told him in '76 that it was all right for the colonies to submit, and remarked of the stamp act, “It English, don’t chew know,” and Wash carefully placed his thumb on his nose and worked his fingers like a fan as he remarked, * That's what's the matter.” And the English wished to get his remains to hold a post mortem on, but Washington put himself in the hands of hi they elected him father of his country, which position he will probably hold a good while if Lowell will keep still about it. (This is ironical, but the iron entered my soul when Lowell said Cleveland was the greatest American who ever lived.) Grant was a crank from ‘way back. the rebellion in his own way with much slaughter and mighty little pro- ity and less strategy. He would knock the albumenoid stuffing out of the confederacy and then everybody would cry out, “ Why, that is not according to Hardee —that is not the way everybody else has done :" and then he would slab off another great hunk of the late lamented and gouge out the bowels of the expiring rebellion and wink like a sagacious weather- ‘ock in a cyclone and remark that he didn’t care a solitary, imperturbable clam how much people called him a er: I would rather to-day, boys, have General Grant's reputation as a crank than to have the monolith in Central park for a tombstone. You hear me ! Ob, what a crank Lincoln was! How his clothes wouldn't fit him, and he had bunions on his big feet, and his trousers bagged at the knee, and m what homely mouth he had ; and stories—well, boy if I catch any of you telling Lincoln's stories 1 will pull you bald-headed. Well. | say no more, ‘There never was a great man yet who did not begin business asa crank. I would rather be a speckled bean in a two- bushel bag of nice white ones than to lose my identity as one of the -two millions, I want to find the young man you called a crank. He can take my fine boots and gold watch when he goes to a party, and can go fishing with me in June. Twant to be on the right side of that youth, He will be able to give me a post-office if he lives twenty years, All of you who have brains enough may go now and digest this cart-load of truth. Unlock the door, janitor. friends and He persisted in putting down Cor. ofsth &Chestaut Sts.,| 31 Boulevard Haussmann, PHILADELPHIA. PARIS. DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN BANKERS. Deposits received subject to Draft bought and sold on commission on Deposits Credits Foreign Exchange. Cable Transfers Securities Interest allowed Commercial Circular Letters for Vravelers available in all parts of the world ATTORNEYS AND AGENTS OF Messrs. J. S. 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