Life — May 24, 1883 — page 7: what you’re looking at

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

> LIFE - HE IS AN ENGLISHMAN. To the Editor of Lire. IR,—I beg to call the attention of your readers to the fact that Charles Mitchell, the pugilist, is an Englishman, and that, as such, he has characteristics. As an enthusiastic student of race and national differ- ences, I have remarked with profound interest the evi- dences which distinctly stamp him as a Briton. I saw him on Monday night in Madison Square Garden in active association with John L. Sullivan, Puritan, of Boston. Certain large traits which were stupendously observable in Hengist and Horsa were apparent in Mr. Mitchell at that meeting; but I was especially remind- ed then and afterwards of an encounter which I once witnessed in the State of Arkansas, between a cyclone and an English cock sparrow. The sparrow, so far as I could see, was definitely worsted by his antagonist. He seemed to me to be an insignificant objective inci- dent of the boisterous turmoil which was raised on the part of the cyclone. Nevertheless, the cyclone having passed, the sparrow sat on the rail of a fence, and, trimming his few remaining feathers with a proud air, conveyed in his whole manner unmistakably the idea that the cyclone had been exceedingly lucky to get off in the easy and comparatively uninterrupted way in which it did get off. Similarly, Mitchell, as soon as the breath had revisited his body and his senses had returned to him sufficiently to enable him to distinguish which end of himself was which, remarked that it was an inestimably fortunate happening for Sullivan that Captain Williams stopped the encounter just when he did stop it, inasmuch as he (Mitchell) was on the very point, at that moment, of reducing his cyclonic antag- onist to a grotesque and hopeless. wreck. This is so “bull-dog,” is it not ?—this showing by the sparrow at such a juncture of his fangs, this yearn- ing for Sullivan as soon as possible after so stupen- dous and flattening a climax? Suppose, after the lightning had struck the Commu- nipaw oil-tank the other night, the remains of the oil- tank had cried out : “ Ha, ha! how does the lightning like that, I wonder!” Of course you would put the oil tank down as English. Or suppose that the mon- ster meteor which was recently reported to have fallen in Texas really had fallen ; that the reported man be- neath it had been driven through the earth and come out in China, and that as he came out he had said to such Chinamen as happened to be in his proximity that he and a 90,000 ton meteor had come in contact, and that the meteor palpably had got the worst of it. Him also you would judge as being possessed of Eng- lish traits. There is something in the modern English nature which enables it to triumph over fact by word of mouth. I bow to this curious ability. I beg to draw your attention to an interesting instance of evolution. I remain, respectfully, N. KLINKERFUSS, Professor of Theology in Trinity College, Hartford. THE WEAKER SEX. I AM AWFULLY GLAD YOU ARE.COME WITH US GIRLS, JoOHNNY—WE’D HAVE BEEN SCARED TO DEATH IN THIS LONELY PLACE. “ Wuat’s the matter with you this morning, old fel ?” inquired the foreman of the second-deputy-assistant-editor-in-chief. ‘‘You look all broke up.” “Didn't get any sleep last night; I was walking up the ave’ner with the Dude compositor, and-I thought up a boss answer to a conundrum. Isat up all night, but for the life of me couldn’t find the conundrum to fit!” “Give it away !” “* Why, one is air medicine, and the other is Mayor Ed—” The second-deputy-assistant-editor-in-chief has climbed the golden stair. SUNLIGHT One toy— A “Sling.” One boy, To fling At man A Stone; As ran, Heard groan ! One eye, Hurt bad, Kid “fly” So glad ! K. B. SHADOW. One “cop,” With club; A boy In “jug!” At Court, Judge says : “Bad sport— to days !”” One jail, A lad, So pale— So Sap! Epwin Fercuson. comicbooks.com