Chapter V: Introduction (4)

Small was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1851, and spent his youth in that city and vicinity. In 1861 he removed to Georgia with his parents. Here he divided his time in going to school and loafing around the depots and railroad tracks. In 1865 he lived in New Orleans, and four years later he graduated from the high school in that city. After his graduation, Samuel was sent by his parents to Henry college, in Virginia, and he graduated from that institution in 1871. He then returned to Nashville, began the study of law, and was admitted to the bar by the supreme court of Tennessee in 1872.

Mr. Small failed to adopt the law as his profession and turned his entire attention to journalism. He first became a reporter on the Nashville Republican Banner, but soon after removed to Greenville, Tennessee where he edited a weekly paper, and acted as private secretary to ex-President Johnson for nearly two years. The year 1874 found him in Houston, Texas, still in the newspaper business. After laboring on nearly all the journals of Houston, he returned to Georgia in May, 1875. It was in this month that he became connected with the Atlanta Constitution, in whose columns his humorous writings first came under public notice.

The humor of Old Si, his _nom de plume_, began by his writing short and spicy paragraphs as coming from an aged negro. These grew into larger paragraphs, and gradually into lengthy articles, which were widely copied. Mr. Small is an expert stenographer and reports the official proceedings of the circuit court of Atlanta. He was connected with the Constitution, and was one of that journal’s most valued writers, up to March, 1882, when he became sole editor and proprietor of a prosperous weekly paper in Florida.

In his Florida venture, the Jacksonville Union, Old Si appears as brilliant as ever, as the annexed selection will show:

FLORIDA POLITICIANS AND ALLIGATORS.

“I kinder likes dis sort ob climack!” said Old Si, as he come into the office last evening.

“In what way?”

“Well, I likes to be ’round whar yer kin hang up yer obercoat soon ez yer buys it an’ set ’round in yur shurt-sleebes jest ez well on New Year ez yer kin on de Foth o’ July!”

“That is pleasant.”

“Yes, sah, an’ dat’s what meks me say what I do. Dar’s plenty ob helth down heah if you jess knows how to fin’ it. De only place whar you kant fin’ it is in er allygator’s mouf!”

“Then your advice is that people should come to Florida, but beware of the alligator?”

“Dat’s hit! I ain’t got no use for ’er allygator hits to much like er pollytishun--got mo’ mouf dan vittals an’ mo’ hide dan honisty!”

And with this epigram the old man bowed himself out of the sanctum.

CHARLES HOYT.

Frederick Hudson, in his History of Journalism in America, credits the Boston Post with having originated the column of funny paragraphs which are now seen in nearly all the leading newspapers of the United States. The All Sorts column of the Post was started when that paper first appeared, over half a century ago. It was in this department that Mrs. Partington and her son Ike were first introduced to the humor-loving public, and scores of writers have sent forth their wit, during the fifty years past, through this same medium.

George F. Babbit began writing the All Sorts for the Post seven or eight years ago, but relinquished the position a few years later. Babbitt was a graduate of Harvard college, and his witticisms in the Post were of a very brilliant character. The present “funny man” of the Post is Charles Hoyt, better known to his Boston friends as Charley Hoyt.

A well-known Boston journalist in a recent article says of him: “He is a well-proportioned man, lithe, active, and nervy in physique, a broad forehead, an open face on which candor is written in every feature, bright, restless eyes, firm mouth and chin, a clear, ruddy complexion, and a voice not loud or strident but clear as a bell in its enunciation. His column of All Sorts in the Post is a fine example of conscientious paragraphing, where neither time nor diverse labor interfere to distract or hurry the writer. It is enjoyed by thousands every day, who laugh at his quaint conceits and genuine wit.”

Hoyt is a native of Vermont, and comes of good, old Puritan stock. In early youth he held a public office, being page in the State Senate. In this school his intellect was sharpened, and his naturally retentive memory gathered together and carried away much which has been useful in later years. His knowledge of, and acquaintance with, public men, is wide and varied. In his personal address he is both pleasing and attractive. These are both admirable points in his favor, considering that he is a bachelor, and young at that.

Hoyt’s Ragbag stories are very entertaining:

RAGBAG’S PRACTICAL JOKE.

The other night, after Mr. Ragbag had gone to bed, the idea of a very funny joke occurred to him. It seemed so funny that he went into a paroxysm of laughter, and twisted and squirmed so that he pulled the bed clothes all out at the foot and had to get out to tuck them in again, and got awful cold, and made as much noise as to awaken his wife in the next room, and she, on hearing the cause of the commotion, told Ragbag he was a fool and advised him to go to bed. He did so, but lay awake half the night thinking of the joke, and the next morning Ragbag hastily swallowed his breakfast, and hastened out on the street to play his joke. The first man he met was Gallagher. Gallagher’s business compels him to carry about one hundred keys, and Ragbag knew this. Gallagher was just the man Ragbag wanted to see. Rushing up to Gallagher he said:

“Ah, Gallagher, have you lost a key?”

“Don’t know,” replied the victim. “Let me see it.”

“First see if you have lost one,” said Ragbag.

So Gallagher took off his gloves and went to work. He searched pocket after pocket, and examined each and every bunch of keys carefully. It was sharp weather, and his fingers got cold and numb, but he kept at it. One hundred keys were a good many to keep track of, and Gallagher had to think of every lock about his establishment, and then look for that particular key, and it was a tedious job. And it wasn’t satisfactory, either, for Gallagher couldn’t quite make up his mind that one key was not missing. He demanded a sight of the key found. Then Ragbag’s self-control gave way. With a howl of laughter he cried:

“Why, I haven’t found any. I only asked if you had lost one as a matter of curiosity.”

It didn’t take three seconds for Gallagher to decide what to do. The snow for forty feet around was clawed and kicked into a cloud that filled the air. Folks looked out of the windows and howled to see the fun. And when Ragbag re-entered the house with his clothes torn, ear chawed, and eyes blacked, and explained that he had been playing his joke, his wife was more than ever convinced that he was an old donkey, and told him so. Somehow, at times, humor is fearfully discouraging in this country.

HENRY CLAY LUKENS.

The New York Daily News, like all other first-class journals, possesses its paragrapher. In the person of Henry Clay Lukens, the News has for many years had a valuable contributor, and one of the best humorous writers in America. Under the name of Erratic Enrique, he has written early and late, noon, morning, and night, and, in fact, about all the time.

Lukens is of Dutch ancestry. He was born in Germantown, near Philadelphia, on the 18th day of August, 1838. His first newspaper enterprise was a monthly publication issued in his native city, during the winter of 1857. For this paper, George Alfred Townsend wrote some of his first articles. Lukens worked at his journalistic profession for many years in different States in the Union.

In 1874 he went to South America, where he remained as a traveling correspondent for nearly two years. While there he wrote interesting letters to the Danbury News and the St. John (New Brunswick) Torch, under the quaint pseudonym of Erratic Enrique. He also wrote for various other American journals under the same name.

It was not until March, 1877, that Henry Clay Lukens settled down to steady work on a daily newspaper. He then associated himself with the sprightly little News, with which paper he has ever since been connected. He originated a column of humor called Pith and Point, which has brought both the paper and himself into prominence. It is said he has not missed a week’s labor since his first day’s connection with the News. He is one of the few hard-worked city journalists.

Early in 1881, he began a series of articles, entitled Sanctum Sketches, in Hubbard’s Advertiser, of New Haven, Connecticut. In this series of articles he produced the biographies of six or eight well known paragraphers. He is also a regular contributor to several weekly and monthly periodicals.

Lukens is quite inclined to poetry, and at times jingles some very clever and witty rhymes. The following is from his pen:

ESPRIT MALIN.

What hideous yell assails my ear?
Whose shuffling feet distract my nerves?
Insatiate demon, nothing serves
To clinch thy clutch! All day I hear,
“More copy!”

My brain’s a-whirl, my senses swim--
What cares the screeching imp for that?
He’s got two words, so tonguey pat,
He slits the air with vocal vim,
“More copy!”

A sapient smirk illumes his phiz--
He feels his power, and grinning grips,
The ink-wet pages, scissored slips,
And cabled specials; that’s his “biz”--
“More copy!”

Intense disgust has hobbled hate,
Else would I slay this vampire scorned.
Though neither cloven-toed nor horned,
His devilish yawpings ne’er abate--
“More copy!”

ERRATICS.

It is not so very painful to lose a fortune as it is to hear what your neighbors will say about it afterwards.

When the prodigal son comes home they no longer kill the fatted calf for him. They just turn the animal into a vaccine farm and give him the profits.

A new serial yarn by Besant and Rice is entitled, All Sorts and Conditions of Men. The plot is probably worked out in the caucus room of a delegates convention.

“Man Reading,” a picture by Meissonier, has been sold for $10,000. It was cheap as dirt. The man reading was an editor with a contribution written on both sides of the paper, and spontaneously interlined besides.

Our agricultural contemporary, the Herald, has a learned and highly interesting article on “Our Codfish Culture.” We trust it may be followed by another, equally able, on “Our Goat Fisheries.” Both are subjects of intense and universal concern.

WILLIAM A. WILKINS.

A country newspaper rarely makes its mark in the journalistic world, and especially a paper printed in such an obscure village as is Whitehall, New York. The Whitehall Times, however, is one of the few exceptions, and, although a country newspaper, has been quoted in every paper of any note in the land.

William Albert Wilkins, the editor and proprietor of the Times, and the one man who has made that journal famous, was born on the 26th day of March, 1840, in the village of Cherry Valley, Otsego county, New York. At the age of ten he removed with his parents to Cohoes, in the same State, where he attended a common district school for several years. He entered business as office boy in the village post-office. From this position he was elevated to a travelling salesman, doing business for a firm in Albany. A year later, however, he settled down to real life as a retail clothing merchant at Whitehall. In this pursuit Wilkins was quite successful, and for eleven years he continued in the business.

Wilkins says that the first important discovery of his life was when he embarked in the printing business. “Then,” says he, “it was easier to convince nine-tenths of the human family that the inhabitants of the infernal regions employ their time skating on real ice ponds, than it is to convince them that they cannot conduct a live newspaper. While a merchant in the town of Whitehall, Mr. Wilkins began writing--along in the fall of 1869--several humorous communications for the Weekly Times, the very paper which he afterwards owned. His articles were signed “Hiram Green, esquire, Lait justiss of the Peece.” His sketches were bright and original, and after doing all he could to supply the crusty Whitehallites with humor, he began a series of letters in the Troy Budget, which he continued for several years.

In 1870 what appeared as his guiding star shone over his horizon. A new comic weekly paper had just been introduced to the residents of New York. It was known as Punchinello, and its publisher made William Albert Wilkins, of Whitehall, a handsome offer to assume the editorial chair. Wilkins was not long in making a decision whether to accept the offer or no. In an evil moment he bade good-bye to the clothing business and hied himself to New York. His salary and the paper ended their existence in five months’ time, and the Whitehall merchant was cast adrift in the great metropolis. He remained in New York and was employed with a leading wholesale clothing house until April, 1873. During his sojourn in the city he wrote regularly for the Tribune, Sun, and Mail, as well as doing occasional work for the Brooklyn Eagle, Albany Argus, and several of the many weekly journals published in Gotham.

In the early May days of 1874 Wilkins returned to Whitehall, and his first love, the Times, became his property. Since that time he has been its editor and proprietor, and has made for it a name that takes first rank among the newspapers of America made famous by their humorous paragraphs.

Mr. Wilkins has a wife, two children, and a charming home. Of his family he says: “None of my relatives have ever been hung, but once a brother-in-law came near going to Congress. My war record is good--as during the rebellion I did not have a hand in the public treasury, but a second cousin of my wife sent a substitute, who by jumping bounties like a true patriot, covered the family with glory enough to reach me.”

As a politician, Mr. Wilkins succeeded through the aid of his paper and his friends, in holding one office, three times being collector of canal tolls at the port of Whitehall, during the years 1874, 1875, and 1878. He is a very small man, being something like five feet four inches in height. He possesses a pleasant cheery face, and adorns the lower portion of it with a moustache of a heavy and a beard of a light growth. His literary work has of late years been devoted almost exclusively to the Times. Recently he has essayed domestic sketches, stories of the home circle, and romantic tales of travel and adventure.

A New York humorist says admiringly of Wilkins: “He is a trump card in the fraternity he adorns. Never a stone has he laid in the path of an earnest fellow laborer. Meet him when you will and where you will, there is the same cordial impressment, the same hand-grip that goes straight to your marrow of susceptibility. It has been my lot to meet him when conviviality held full sway, and again when family affliction had tightly drawn the chords of sympathy; but the same gentle spirit was the thrall. The world is better for such lives; better for the kindly sentiments that emanate from minds charged less with self-opinion than liberal thoughts of and for mankind; better for the outflow of their broad religion, and safer because it is a religion of impulse, a creed born of sentiment and fostered by philanthrophy.”

Wilkins’ admirable essay on Father Adam is undoubtedly the best thing he has written. It was originally published in the Whitehall Times in 1879, and is as follows:

ADAM’S FALL.

Adam was the first man--if he had been a shoe-maker he would have been the last man.

He was placed in the Garden of Eden and was himself the guardian of Eden. He consequently had no partner to order him up mornings, and he, therefore, played it alone.

All the clothes he had for a long time was the close of day, while a mantle of night was his bed-clothes.

He had dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and he also had hoe-minion over the earth.

He was finally furnished with a woman of A-rib-ia, who was sent to Eden for Adam’s Express Company. She was bone of his beauin’, and if she had been called Nancy, she would have been his bone-nancy.

She was a pretty good cook, for she soon cooked up trouble for Adam, and got him into hot water.

When Adam went down to his office mornings, Eve always went to her household duties; but she was a fortunate woman in one respect; she had no washing to do on Monday, so Adam was never afflicted by being obliged to eat mush and milk from the clock-shelf.

Eve never called him back and told him to send home some soap and starch at once, nor did it cost Adam five shillings a week for clothes pins, for the beautiful smile that Mr. and Mrs. Adam always wore could be licked clean with the tip ends of their tongues.

But they were not a happy couple, for the Fourth of July was unknown to Eden.

They never listened to the bang of the cannon, the gun, or the fire-cracker, but Eve used to bang her hair quite often.

{ wore tight boots.
{ { corns.
{ had { shirts with buttons off.
{ { holes in his stockings.
{ { holes in his pockets.
Adam never { wore patched pantaloons.
{ spilt ice cream on his lavender pants.
{ pawned his ulster.
{ pulled down his vest.
{ burst his suspender buttons.
{ paid $2 per day for washing.
{ owed his tailor.

{ { corsets.
{ { striped stockings.
{ wore { rats.
{ { mice.
{ { frizzes.
Eve never { was bothered to find a dressmaker.
{ found fault with her milliner.
{ gossiped with her next door neighbor.
{ went to church and made fun of a rival’s new bonnet.
{ had beaux from church.

When we say never, no one need say hardly ever. But Mr. and Mrs. Adam fell just the same. As we draw a veil over their fall, let us ask every head of a family, if he doesn’t feel like howling when he remembers that Adam didn’t know what a good thing he had

{ dressmakers’ }
{ milliners’ }
{ shoemakers’ }
When he did not have any { hosiery } bills to pay.
{ jewelry }
{ false hair }
{ ribbon }
{ taffy }

But he could have laid in his hammock from sunrise to sunset, and read the daily papers without feeling that he must go down town and work like thunder, so his wife and daughters could all have new bonnets to wear to church on next Sabbath day.

Adam was a queer duck and the fathers of to-day owe him a sockdologer.

CHARLES H. HARRIS.

“Carl Pretzel” is a name generally known throughout the West and Northwest. It is the literary sobriquet of Mr. Charles H. Harris, of Chicago, Illinois. He was born in the city of Rochester, New York, on the 20th day of May, 1841. His father was a well-known politician of the Empire State, and Charles, having a living example of the New York State politician constantly before him, resolved at an early age not to enter politics--at least not in New York State. After receiving a common-school education, and passing his early youth at home, Mr. Harris went to New York city in 1862. He was accompanied by other youngsters of his native town.

Harris shipped as a landsman in the navy, and soon after was transferred to the navy yard at Washington, where, in a few months after his arrival, he received the appointment of captain’s clerk. He was promoted to the position of pay-master’s clerk, and did service on the Potomac river during his one year term of enlistment. After the war he came home, and after remaining a very short time in Rochester, he set out to seek his fortune.

The oil fever having broken out at this time, Harris was one of the first to become afflicted. He started for Pennsylvania, and became interested in oil wells and oil territory. To use his own words, “he made a barrel of money, and left it there, it being too cumbersome to carry home.” In speaking of himself, Harris says: “In 1866 I was notified that an appointment awaited me in Wyoming Territory, that of Secretary of the Territory. I started at once to grasp the prize. Arriving in Chicago, I learned that my next friend, who had been nominated for Governor of the Territory, did not have friends enough in the Senate to ratify his nomination, consequently his failure to secure the Governorship settled me.”

Harris was left in Chicago like a stranded ship. He embarked into journalism soon after his arrival, and began inflicting the public with “Pretzelisms,” by “Carl Pretzel.” These consisted of short and witty paragraphs in broken German dialect. They took well, and Harris has made a national reputation through them. He says: “I began the ‘Pretzelisms’ to get even with the world, and I will not let up on them.”

For a number of years Mr. Harris has issued his annual almanac, which has commanded a large and ready sale. A few years ago he issued his first book, “My Book of Expressions,” which has had a wide circulation. It contained only articles in the Dutch dialect. The Almanac for 1882, written by Mr. Harris, is overflowing with his peculiar humor, and another large volume, “My Book of Parodies,” will soon appear.

“Carl Pretzel,” outside of his book work, is a thorough and hard-working journalist. He is at present engaged in editing and publishing a weekly newspaper at 119 Clark street, Chicago. “The National Weekly is eight years old,” says Harris in a private letter, “and is a healthy, growing enterprise.”

Here is one of Carl’s best small efforts:

“One nite time I comed me home on mine house, und dook mine leedle daughter, Gretchen, Jr., on mine kneeses. I told her some shtory riddles, und vas make her some lafe. Pooty gwick she vas creeb on my bosom, und vas so shleepy, I dook her on her leedle ped, und say of her:

“‘Gretchy, would you gone on vour ped mitout saiding your prayers?’

“She opened dem beautiful leedle blue eyses, und radder dreamily exclaimed:

‘Now I vas lay me down to shleep,
‘I pray der----’

dhen adding in one shweet leedle vhisper, ‘He knows der rest,’ she sunk down on her leedle ped, in His watchful care, who gifs His belofed shleeb.”

JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS.

“Uncle Remus” is a well-known character throughout the South, and his fame has even found its way northward. “Uncle Remus” is the literary nickname adopted by Mr. Joel Chandler Harris, a well-known journalist of the South. He was born in Eatonton, Georgia, on the 8th of December, 1846. At a very early age he was taken out of school, and placed at work as “printer’s devil” in the office of a country newspaper.

Charles Pilsbury, in a recent article, says of Harris: “He must have had access to many books, and those of the best sort, and he mastered them thoroughly. One can readily imagine him pursuing his studies in some shady nook in the summer time, and in the winter evenings by the blaze of pine knots or the modest tallow dip. It was in these days and evenings, we may be sure, that he obtained the insight into negro character, which has enabled him to portray in ‘Uncle Remus,’ the _ante bellum_ negro.”

In 1866 Mr. Harris became connected with a publishing house at New Orleans, and he had plenty of spare time to devote to literature. He has written a good deal for southern periodicals, during the last five years; essays, sketches and lyrics have appeared from his pen that would have done honor to older heads. In January, 1867, he published in the New Orleans Times, a poem entitled The Sea Wind, which has been greatly admired.

He returned to Eatonton, Georgia, in May, 1867, where he wrote many articles in both prose and verse. In 1868 Mr. Harris was in Forsythe, Georgia, still bent on following literature as a profession. In June of the same year he was working at the case, and thought some of going to New York, to seek his fortune and a name. About this time he received the promise of an editorial position on a paper about to be established at Savannah, Georgia; and on the 12th of July he writes to a friend that he “thinks he was cut out for a paragraphing journalist.”

His newspaper promise failed to realize anything for him, however, and in October he was still at the case in a country newspaper office, longing for journalistic life in a great city. Two years later we find his hopes realized, and Mr. Harris became the associate editor of the Savannah Morning News. He worked hard, and soon placed his name high in rank among Georgia journalists.

After six years of work on the Morning News, Harris purchased an interest in the Atlanta Constitution, and immediately joined its editorial staff. It was in the columns of the Constitution that Uncle Remus and his quaint humor first appeared. From this time forward his success has been rapid, and he has placed his name in the front rank among American humorists. Last year Mr. Harris published his first book, Uncle Remus; His Songs and Sayings. The work took wonderfully well with the public and has had an immense sale.

Of the later works of Uncle Remus, the following are very popular:

PLANTATION PROVERBS.

Drive out de dreamin’ dog.

Mighty few horses fits a barley hatch.

Noddin’ nigger gives the ash-cake a chill.

Don’t fall out wid de fat what cook de ’possum.

Fightin’ nigger ain’t far from de callaboose.

Ole cloze better go ’round de picket fence.

You kin sell mo’ patter rallers dan boozer-bears.

Short stirrups en a do’-back horse.

Mighty good sheep w’ats wuff mo’ dan his wool.

Sunday pra’rs ain’t gwineter las’ all de week.

Lazy folks got too many ter-morrers ahead of um.

Don’t hol’ yo’ head too high, less you gwineter eat out’n de hoss-rack.

Hotter de wedder, de fresher de nigger. Dis w’at save de salt.

One eye on de overseer en t’er on de mule don’t make de furrer straight.

De shote w’at stays out in der dark er de moon, done gone from home fer good.

Some marsters gotter be tuck on trus’. How de wurm git in de scaly-bark? Who raised de row twixt de bee-martin en de buzzard?

A PLANTATION BALLAD.