Life — March 22, 1883 — page 3: what you’re looking at

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

MARCH 22, 1883. 1155 Broapway, } Ew York. Published every Thursday, $5 a year in advance, postage free. Single copies, 10 cents. {4 Subscribers who do not receive their copies will please nolify the office at once. : LORD BLIZZARD. H, yes; he wasa teal Lord,” said Smith to me, “not H like the bogus i one, who fled pre- cipitately from his host's house in Benton, to avoid detection, but the genuine article. Thebogus one was vastly amusing, for a man’s wits must be pretty well burnished, when he lives by them, but this Lord was grandly awful and as dull as could be. We knew f that he was real, for no adventurer could have been such a bore. He brought letters to Racket, who put him down at the club, and gave him a little dinner. ' The Englishman was beautifully dressed— it was some : years ago—so that everything he had-on was a surprise to us ;—from his piqué shirt, his diagonal evening clothes, to his single stud and pointed shoes. The cold gleam of his single eye-glass depressed us all so that we could not talk until the friendly champagne , set our tongues a-wagging. “What are your impressions of America”? asked Racket, as we settled back in our chairs after dinner. “The cab fares in New York are perfectly out- rageous,” replied the real Lord. “ The beggars had the impudence to charge me five of your dollars, somewhat over a sovereign, for taking me from the steamship to my hotel, and they broke my hat-box and top-hat by throwing my portmanteau upon them, The hat-box was Simples’, 15 Charing Cross, W. C., the only man to get a hat-box from; my hat was from the only hatter in London, Trass, 17 Maddox Lane, Piccadilly, and you can fancy what a wreck the two were, when I tell you that my portmanteau was of Fortnum’s solid leather.” “Fancy !" cried Racket, who was so English that he * kept his cash account in pounds, shillings and pence. All the guests made notes upon their dinner-chat of the addresses given by the Englishman, for the great Anglican tidal-wave had just begun to comb over the Metropolis, and all of us appreciated that it was vul- gar to be “ American.”” And to our surprise, the En- glishman, who had been silent all through the dinner, proved to be a perfect directory of London tradesmen. It was odd, that in the opinion of the noble lord, there seemed to be only one competent shop-keeper in all London, in any line of business. No gentleman could possibly wear a shoe which did not come from Lobb, or a coat which was not built by Puddle. “None of these beggars will do any decent. work for a stranger,” incidently remarked the Englishman, “but if any of you men chance to send for anything, if you mention my name you will be well-served.” Blizzard stayed several months in New York, and the amount of orders, which at times were sent from New York to London, was surprising. I sent for all my clothes, shoes, and shirts, mentioning Lord Bliz- zard as my sponser. The shoes I could not wear, the shirts were made for another and smaller man, while each of the garments from the tailor was made for a different individual. Still, after the clothes were cut over by a servants’ tailor, on a side street, I look- ed very English. I heard from friends in various cities that Lord Blizzard had honored their towns with his presence, and as a result, the club men of the coun- try were shortly all supplied with wearing apparel from the same London house. There was such a method in his lordship’s re- commendations that we investigated the subject, and to our surprise we discovered that he was in the same position in life as the broken down old men, who walk the streets, enclosed in chiropodists’ advertisements. He had led the life and lost his all in the turf—and was working out his debts to his tradesmen, by serving as a peripatetic advertisement of their wares in Ameri- ca. We talkfabout Yankee shrewdness in advertising, old man—why, Barnum himself never thought of sending a representative British peer as a circular. ‘THE new negro newspaper “organ,” published in this city, is not, as some ignorant people may have been led to suppose, printed in black letter, but in the ordinary every-day type. comicbooks