Chapter X

Mark Twain, the Great Humorist—A Delightful
Speaker—A Chicago Cub Reporter’s Experience—The
Celebrated Cronin Case—W.
T. Stead and Hinky Dink—When
the Former Wrote
“If Christ Came to
Chicago.”

Mark Twain was, in the minds of a multitude, the greatest humorist that America has ever produced. Some of his works are classics, and he gave that human touch to his characters that endeared them to the hearts of his readers. Although his gifted pen is laid away forever, his writings still live as Dickens’s have lived, his characters are undying. What is more human than his Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, his Col. Mulberry Sellars, in the “Gilded Age,” his “Prince and Pauper,” and what works will outlast his Tales of Western Life, and the “Innocents Abroad”?

While I could not say that I was at all intimate with Mark, I have met him a number of times, and have heard him speak brilliantly, and also, while suffering great bodily pain, pathetically endeavoring to be his own bright sunshiny self at banquets, when another person similarly stricken in health would have been abed at home or in the hospital.

I knew Mark better than many others did, however, through my good friend, Ralph W. Ashcroft, now of Montreal, who for many years was his business manager; his wife, Mrs. Ashcroft, (formerly Miss Lyon) was Mark’s capable secretary. They have a thousand and one recollections of Mark, and could give the world a more realistic insight of the dead author than has ever yet been presented.

Few men who ever spoke in public could sway an audience more readily than could Mark Twain. It was a delight to him to play upon the emotions of his hearers, and to transport them in the twinkling of an eye from the verge of tears to the realm of laughter. But I recall two occasions on which his art failed him.

He had been visiting a friend who lived in a small town in New York state, and while there was asked by the superintendent of a local charitable institute if he would be kind enough to come there and talk to the inmates. He said he would be delighted to do so. The next evening, when Mark stepped on the platform of the auditorium, he viewed an audience of both sexes and all ages, and portraying various degrees of intelligence. This was somewhat perplexing, and, for a moment, he was at a loss to decide what kind of talk to give them. However, he launched forth in a general way, and, after a few moments, as he tells it, “I fired a mild one at them.” But there was no response—not even the faintest suggestion of a laugh. All sat with their eyes glued on him, wrapt in wonderment, admiration and respect. This was a poser to Mark, but he continued to talk, and, in a minute or two, he “selected a stronger one and hurled it into their midst.” The result was the same—a morgue-like silence emanating from a group of animate corpses.

Mark’s friend was on the platform with him, and Mark looked appealingly at him. He detected a twinkle of amusement in his friend’s face, but got no encouraging look from him. Mark paused, mentally surveyed his last joke and its manner of delivery, and found both flawless. He was bewildered, but, nevertheless, decided to make a final attempt. He felt that his reputation as a humorist was at stake.

So he continued talking, and finally launched an anecdote that had never failed in his experience to turn an audience inside out with laughter and shrieks of applause. But not a glimmer of amusement was perceptible in his audience—not the remotest suggestion of a laugh or a smile. He was furious—mad right clear through at his failure—and he commenced to “take it out of” his audience in sarcastic vein, ending his talk by complimenting them on their acute appreciation of humor and wit. When he reached his friend’s home, he asked him if he could explain their stupor.

“Why, didn’t you know?” said his friend: “They’re all deaf mutes!”

Mark and the “High-brows.”

On the other occasion, Mark had quite a different audience—the faculty and the graduating classes of Columbia University in New York. On the platform with him were several eminent men of international reputation. Knowing the company he would be in, Mark decided that this occasion would be a suitable one at which to show an intellectual audience that he was something more than a humorist—to show them that he was a philosopher and a man of parts in a literary way. He selected for this purpose the beautiful poem which he had written in memory of his daughter Susy, and which had not then been published. He decided to read this to the gathering, at the close of his talk. Mark’s turn came, and he delighted his audience with one of the most delicately witty speeches he had ever made. They thought he had finished, but he kept on his feet, and they continued applauding. He raised his hand beseeching silence, and then said: “I would like, now, ladies and gentlemen, to read you some serious verse that I composed recently. It is an appreciation of my—”

The applause was renewed with fourfold force, the laughter fairly shook the building. Mark looked visibly pained; he appeared to be (as he was) deeply distressed. This served only to accentuate and prolong the demonstration. Finally they quieted down, and very solemnly Mark said: “But, ladies and gentlemen, what I wish to read to you is sacred in my eyes. It refers to—”

But it was no use—the shrieks of laughter drowned his words. After exhausting themselves, the audience waited for more, waited for “the joke.” But Mark merely said, in as grieved a tone as he truly felt: “I see, my friends, that you are in no mood this evening to treat me seriously, so I will not burden you further.” And he sat down, amid a deafening demonstration. Such wit, they thought, was delicious. He could have cried with chagrin. Few, if any, in that audience yet know of their unwitting _faux pas_.

So it was with Harry Lauder, two years ago, when speaking in a Congregational Church in Montreal. He charmed his audience with a few quaint sayings, and then referred to the Great War, and to the loss he had sustained through the death of his son. It was very pathetic, but a number of people sitting in front of him shook with laughter. They thought he was still funny, to Sir Harry’s utter disgust and to the disgust of others, who like myself felt the man’s sorrow and tearfully sympathized with him in his loss.

Mark was a very shrewd investor. Whenever he made a few thousand dollars on a book or lecture tour, he would put the money into some sound enterprise. It is not generally known that he was the man who developed what is now the linotype, the first type-setting machine.

The Human Cash Register.

He was very much interested in the cash register, and, when he died, was one of the owners of a machine which was almost human. It would register a purchase of say $2.65, gobble up a $5 bill, and automatically hand the customer his change, viz: a two dollar bill, a twenty-five cent piece, and a dime. The change would always come out in the highest possible denominations. Mark figured on having a phonograph attached to the cash register, which would say: “Here’s your change, madam. Thank you very much.”

The late H. H. Rogers, of Standard Oil Co. fame, often gave him valuable advice regarding investments. On one occasion Mark decided to have a little fun at Rogers’ expense. He went to his office one day and told him he was going to invest some money in a brickyard that could make bricks cheaper, and better and faster than any other brickyard on earth, and he wanted Rogers to invest $50,000 too. Mark told Rogers all about the wonderful method of making these marvelous bricks, and took up about an hour of Rogers’ valuable time, finally saying: “Now, Henry, I want your cheque for $50,000, and I want it NOW.”

“But,” said Mr. Rogers. “There’s one important thing about the matter that you haven’t told me.”

“What is that?” asked Mark.

“Why,” said Mr. Rogers, “where is this brickyard of yours located?”

“Oh,” exclaimed Mark disgustedly, “if you want to know that, the deal’s off!”

As a matter of fact, the brickyard was a myth. It didn’t exist. All that Mark was after was to get Rogers to write out the cheque, so that he could have the laugh on him.

My Old Friend, the Chicago Cub Reporter.

Amongst my good old friends is Joe Dillabough, for years on the Chicago press. Joe is Canadian born, but drifted to Chicago in the early ’80’s and was the first cub reporter of the _Times_. What he doesn’t know of the seamy side of life in that great city is not worth knowing. When Joe was taken ill some years ago, we sent him out to the Canadian Rockies to recuperate, and incidentally to tell the world of the magnificence of the scenery around and about them, and how it enthralled the prominent people from the east. Joe’s first dispatch was about the unfortunate disappearance of a bishop and several priests from some outlandish country, the name of which I have forgotten, in a chasm at Banff, and of their timely rescue by Manager Mathews, of the C.P.R. hotel. It appeared in the Montreal evening papers and on going to Toronto that night I sat beside a stranger while the berths were being made up when he casually remarked that: “This is a queer story in to-night’s paper—this rescue of the bishop and priests from a chasm at Banff.” I asked in what particular way was it queer, and he said he came from that far-away land and they never had a bishop there. And I said, “Oh, Joe.”

Then the next dispatch was about the drowning of a large number of Indians in Lake Louise, while crossing the ice on their way to a potlach. It was widely published. I wrote Joe that there were no Indians in that locality, and if there were, they would not cross the lake but follow the trail around Lake Louise, but if they did cross the ice, they couldn’t possibly drown for the ice was a couple of feet thick. Joe naively replied that there were some of the most elegant liars in the Rocky Mountains he had ever known. My experience is that these talented descendants of Ananias are not altogether confined to that scenic region.

Nearly a generation ago the art of alliteration was worked to death in sensational headings. The _Times_ was easily first in this particular, and one fine morning shocked and startled the community by its blasphemous caption “Jerked to Jesus,” which appeared following the hanging of a murderer who was himself the medium for the suggestion. The copyreader was Clinton A. Snowden, then one of the bright young men on the _Times’_ staff. Snowden went to Tacoma about 1892. It was he who hit upon the plan of sending George Francis Train, the great national crank, around the world on a 60-day tour, “Tacoma to Tacoma,” to beat the record of Phineas Fogg, the Jules Verne character in “Around the World in Eighty Days.” By the same token Train was the original of Fogg in the Verne story. It will be recalled that Nellie Bly, a Canadian newspaper woman working in New York, set out to out-do Train’s record and beat it by a day or so. Nellie was a Brockville girl or from one of the towns near there. Train, by the way, was a financial genius in his younger days and the real father-promoter of the Union Pacific Railway. He introduced “trams” in London and Australia.

Several Gory Sequences.

The celebrated Cronin case was one of Joe’s assignments, and it was one of the most cold-blooded murders in the country’s annals. I am only referring to it, because one of the scenes was laid in Winnipeg. Dr. Cronin was an earnest and honest patriotic Nationalist, and belonged to the notorious Camp 20. Suspecting that the immense sums of money contributed to the “Cause” were being stolen by the “Triangle,” which controlled the Camp and diverted the funds to the Triangle’s personal benefit, he openly denounced Alexander Sullivan, its chief, and, strenuously as they tried to silence him, he still continued to openly charge them with theft. They could only quiet him by getting him out of the way, and he was lured to the Carlson cottage one night and foully murdered. Pat McGarry, Frank T. Scanlan and other friends visited the newspaper offices and told of their suspicions. They were right. John M. Collins, a Camp 20 member, then a traffic cop at Lake and Clark Streets, identified Martin Burke at Winnipeg. John later became chief of police at Chicago. He died of pneumonia a couple of years ago. George Hubbard, chief in 1889, who sent Collins to the ’Peg, recently died in Florida. Alex. S. Ross, assistant chief in ’89, who brought Burke back to Chicago, died some years ago. He was a brother of Duncan C., the great athlete, and Wm. J. Ross, now of Fort William, and former superintendent of bridges, C.P.R., under John M. Egan. Detective John Broderick, who worked up the case in Winnipeg, died a few years ago, and George A. H. Baker, assistant states-attorney for Cook County, committed suicide in Chicago by strangling himself with a trunk strap.

When Alex. Sullivan, head of the Triangle, died at St. Joseph’s Hospital, Chicago, Joe covered the story for the _Tribune_. He was the son of a British Army Officer, once stationed at Fort Amherstburg, Ont., and was born there. The Cronin murder has been followed by many tragedies on both sides, or factions. It was John Fleming, an ex-policeman, who tipped to Joe the scoop that John Sampson (“Major”) had been offered $100 by Dan Coughlin (Big Dan), a Chicago city detective, to slug Cronin and that tip led to Dan’s connection with the case and to Joe’s story of his hiring of the white horse from Pat Dinan, the liveryman, which was used when Cronin was lured to his death in the Carlson cottage. Dan became a fugitive from justice following the bribing of jurors in an Illinois Central Railway civil court action, and he died in Honduras. He was led into the bribery case by Pat O’Keefe, special agent for the Illinois Central Railway, and formerly in the same capacity for the C.P.R. under Supt. J. M. Egan, in Winnipeg. O’Keefe and Aleck Ross, years before going to Chicago, had been partners as whiskey detectives in and around Rat Portage, Ont. They had quarrelled up there over a pair of rubber boots and remained enemies for years in Chicago until they were brought together in Mel Wood’s saloon on Clark Street, where they shook hands and made up, renewing an old and fast friendship.

Martin Burke was captured by Chief of Police McRae through information give by Alex. Calder and his son Arthur, who had sold him a ticket through to Ireland. Burke’s assumed name was John Cooper. He was sentenced to life imprisonment and nearly every one connected with the case came to a tragic end.

Stead and Hinky Dink.

It was through another Joe—Joe Page, that great Canadian baseball promoter—that I met the notorious “Hinky Dink,” who has been an alderman of Chicago for years and years and has remained one notwithstanding the strenuous efforts of the reform element to defeat him. His real name is Michael McKenna, and his first ward colleague in the council 20 odd years was “Bath House Jawn”—John J. Coughlin. The Dink really is a square little man and became a great pal of W. T. Stead, when he was here getting material for his book, “If Christ Came to Chicago.” On that visit Stead lived among the hobo fellows and, with them, actually was a “white wing,” pushing a broom in the streets that he might get color for his story. Hinky’s special claim for popularity is that he never goes back on “the boys;” no matter at what hour of the night or early morn he arises to go bail for any poor unfortunate in the police toils, and it is said that never has he been deceived by those he has helped out of a hole. His saloon is now closed, the landlord having raised his rent to an exorbitant sum.