21
TALK OF THE DAY.
Brandied for life-the old toper's nose.-[Cleveland Sun. An act to amend-sewing on buttons.-[Washington Critic. Bad weather prophets-made on the sale of umbrellas-[Texas Siftings. A burglar generally makes his home run after he reaches the plate.-[Lowell Citizen. A poor tailor makes a poor coat, and a poor writer makes a poor quota also. -[Whitehall Times. It seems to be an historical fact that Kilkenny cats played at cross purr-passes.-[Charlestown Enterprise. Anarchist Most declares that "liberty is a lie." We don't see why he need be afraid of it, then.-[Boston Post. Thompson-"Suppose a man should call you a liar, what should you do!" Jones (hesitatingly)-"What sized man!" The married man as well as the pugilist is now often knocked out by spring wraps.-[Philadelphia North American. Cholera is disappearing in Chili, and arrangements are being made for the regular spring insurrection.-[Chicago Mail. It is strange that the potters do not go into the base ball business. They can make such good pitchers.-[Pittsburgh Chronicle. A dog is property when it has been stolen;but it is not property when the tar assessor comes round.-[New Orleans Picayune. A married man remarks that the principal difference between a man's hat and a woman's bonnet is about $12.-[Minneapolis Journal. Popularity is a thing that is very seldom found by those who search for it persistently, and comes oftener from accident than design. Washington newspaper men are generally pretty good company at a public dinner. You know they all tell capital stories.-[Somerville Journal. Some very serious burglaries have taken place at Sing Sing. This is getting pretty rear home for burglars.-[Nyack City and Country. A New York paper says there is considerable bustle in the dry goods market, but then there always is when the ladies go shopping.-[Pittsburgh Chronicle. Four well-known Boston ladies in town won $100 apiece on the first game with the Nationalists. They are win-some creatures.-[Washington Post. Now is the time when the man who keeps hens begins to be viewed with intense anxiety by his neighbors who have gardens.-[Burlington Free Press.
A million girls rolled into one would not have a tithe of the vanity of the man whose youth is past and whose old age has not begun.-[Philadelphia News. Men will spend a dollar at the bar while declaiming against the outrage of charging twenty-five cents admission to a temperance lecture.-[Texas Siftings. Pugilist-"I heard you wanted some one to post bills." Showman-"I do. Have you had experience?" P.-"No, but I'm a first-class paster."-[Boston Budget. "He that giveth to the poor Iendeth to the Lord." Omaha is being paid back with twenty per cent. Compound interest in the sale of the Poor Farm.-[Omaha World. An exchange mentions angels and politics in the same breath. It has a mingled odor that reminds one of an amulgamation of violets and garlic.-[Memphis Avalanche. Alma Tadema, the artist, has a staircase in his new London residence made of brass. Being modest himself, he felt the need of a brazeu stare. -New Haven News. Jennie June says the evening party died out because gentlemen wouldn't attend. In other words, the girls had nobody to take them-[Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. "Waiter, waiter, here's a collar-button in the soup." "Yes, sir, put there a purpose, sir." "What for?", "For the man who collared the soup, sir."-Cleveland Sun. John Fries, of Philadelphia, was arrested for snatching the eye-glasses from the nose of a young lady. The motive for his crime is easily seen through.-[Norristown Herald. The binding of tools in the British Museum have a special significance. Historical works are in red, theological in blue, poetical in yellow, and natural history in green. Law sticks to calf. Buffalo Bill visited the British House of Commons, and every time he reached for his handkercheif the M. Ps. dodged so that they nearly fell out of their seats.-[Burlington Free Press. Painters and carpenters are very fortunate persons, for no matter how incompetent they may be as workmen, they neverthless, go to the top of the ladder as often as they desire.-[Boston Budget. Miss B-"Why is it, Mr. A.,that wheneveer you refer to a Boston friend you invariably use the word fellow!" New Yorker-"Oh, because he belongs around the Hub, of course." -[Boston Budget.
An observing New York reporter says "Gen. Sheridan supported himself with an umbrella." He didn't. He couldn't. If he tried, it would be bad for the umbrella -[Washington Post.
Bernhardt played to lean audiences in Cincinnati, and the Omaha Herald thinks it was a case of "fairexchange." But however lean the divine Sarah may be, her pocketbook is plethoric. -[Albany Argus.
Word comes from Florida that there is no longer profit in shipping strawberries. The producers must have been compelled to turn the box over and put the fruit in the other end. -[Cambridge Chronicle.
Popinjay -- "Good morning, Dumpsey. You are looking quite chipper this morning." Dumpsey -- "Yes, I am more chipper than usual. I raked in quite a lot of 'em last night." -[Burlington Free Press.
When a man complained about a hotel with no means of getting out in case of fire, Popkins said that he didn't care for means to get out of a hotel. What he needed was means for staying there. -[Texas Siftings.
"Since the Sunday liquor laws have been enforced, I am reminded strongly of a certain English poet," observed the Snake Editor. "Which 1" asked the Horse Editor. "Dryden." -[Pittsburgh Chronicle.
Henry Villard, the unfortunate Northern Pacific manager who lost his all in that enterprise, is living in a miserable $20,000-a-year mansion in New York at present. This life is full of ups and downs. -[Chicago Mail
Emperor William is reported to have said that "it is the one button left unbuttoned which is the ruin of an army." Too true, and it is the one button left unsewed that is the ruin of a honeymoon. -[Omaha World
A Cleveland medium claims to have had a three-column interview with a spirit. How a spirit could let the trumpets and accordeons alone long enough to talk three columns is the greatest mystery of all. -[Omaha World.
"A Blue Blooded Beat" was the recent heading in a newspaper. It did not refer to a new agricultural product, but to a baron who had pulled up roots and absconded with a good deal of pay dirt that didn't belong to him. -[Boston Commerical Gazette
A schooner with a cargo of ice sank in the [Schuylkill?] on Monday night. Those who expect that this accident will enable the Department of Public Works to furnish citizens with ice water the coming summer will probably be doomed to a sad disappointment. -[Philadelphis Call.
A dancing professor says: "No gentleman should presume to place his arm around a lady's waist without gloves." That may be etiquette, but strict morality requires that no gentleman with or without gloves should place his arm around a lady's waist without music. -[Omaha World.
"And now, dear, is there anything that would make you feel better?" "Yes, there is." "What darling!" "That pearl set at Stiffknees." "But, my precious, you can't wear them while you are sick abed." "No, but I will know that nobody who isn't sick abed can." -[Town Topics.
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BUFFALO BILL will get back some of the [shekels?] the traveled Englishmen have carried over from America.
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KANSAS CITY is getting very jealous of Omaha and Nebraska, since Buffalo Bill was welcomed by the royal family, and hints are given that the Prince of Wales will visit the chief of "the Great West Show." in his Nebraska home, next year. Kansas City has nothing to [bank?] against such distinction. If the Prince comes he will likely buy a corner lot in Omaha, and then K. C.'s anguish would be complete and overwhelming.
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BUFFALO BILL is as great a success in London as the [Buffalo?] Bill is in Philadelphia.
25
THE AMERICAN ABROAD.
Buffalo Bill has captured England. He has taken to that country a number of Indians, whom he claims are chiefs at home. and a number of cowboys, genuine or assumed, and has opened the "Greatest Show on Earth." The Queen has been to see the show. Gladstone has been to see it. Many people belonging to the aristocracy have been to see it. It has captivated the Englishman. He studies the life and manners of the Americans at the Hon. Bill Cody's exhibition. It is worth seeing. The best features of it have been exhibited in San Francisco. The show drew tolerably well. But it did not create much of a sensation. The cowboys are [not?] far off. A great many people on this side of the country have seen them. They have seen, also, the Indian in his wild state. There are hundreds of people here, if not thousands, who know the Apache. They have seen him, have come in remote or near contact with him. They know that he is a low-lived, skulking coward, without one redeeming feature in his constitution. They do not care much for Buffalo Bill's show because they have had a touch of the more realistic one. The man who has lost his scalp-lock, or who carries the wound of an arrow or a bullet made by an Apache, does not care for any artificial representation of this feature of savage life.
Buffalo Bill is supposed to represent the most conspicuous feature of American life abroad. At least this is inferred from the remarks of distinguished and aaristocratic patrons of his show. The Queen was immensely tickled. Gladstone was pleased. Here was the ideal of life in the United States as entertained by the genuine Briton. It is a savage country. A majority of the people have tawny skins. Scalps are taken by way of diversion and so Buffalo Bill enlightens the English people on American life and manners. The Queen is enlightened. Gladstone is enlightened. The Hon. Cody rakes in the sheckles while he gives his illustrations of American life. There are the Indians, who can give the war whoop in all its thrilling and savage wildness. The Indians creep up on settler's cabin. They climb up on the roof. They capture the women, who are engaged in domestic duties. They flee with their captives: just then the brave cowboys appear on the scene. They follow up the Indians, lasso them, shoot them, recover the captives and so on. Then there is much hard riding on broncos. Wild oxen are lassoed, thrown down, tied up and liberated again in a few moments. In short Buffalo Bill has taken England. All this goes to confirm the English idea that America is a half-savage country, that it has a savage, riotuos and harbarous people. The Indian is the only genuine American, the man who has the flavor of the soil about him. This wild life is so free from social laws and conventialism that the Briton enjoys it immensely. Buffalo Bill has struck a bonanza. He is making a fortune out his show.
The aristocratic Englishman accepts the representation. When a Lord comes over to this country, ten to one if he does not go to the opera in a travel-worn tweed suit. More than one instance of that kind could be cited as occuring in this very city. The "Americans are a barbarous people, you know." A soiled tweed suit is good enough for the opera or for a social party. The aristocratic title will make amends for any lack of a more becoming costume. A Lord with soiled tweeds is a very great man in the estimatation of a great many in this country. If he is utterly bankrupt, broken down or a dissipated [none?], he may consent to marry a millionaire's daughter. His aristocratic connections will regard it as a mesalliance, and he may regard it much in the same way. But the dot of a quarter of a million, more or less, will afford him spending money for a time. When it is all gone he may not care a copper for his American wife. It is the old story. American girls represent so much money. They are expected to give it up for a title and the privilege of living in a civilized country. Who would want to spend his days in a country where the wildness and the rawness, the savage piquancy, shocks all the more delicate sensibilities of high-bred and aristocratic tastes? This phase of American life and manners is very captivating. It has the merit of freedom, originality. The bronco man and the bronco horse are features of untamed nature. Frontier life has always been attractive even to people of some degree of refinement. The partition between civilization and barbarism is a very thin one. The educated or civilized Indian will lapse into the barbarism of his tribe if he goes back to the wilderness.
There is another phase of American life not always best represented abroad. It is found in the homes of people who never saw an Indian, who know little or nothing about cow-boys, but who know a great deal about literature, popular education and the refined ways of society. Buffalo Bill represents one extreme, Lowell, Motley and others represented in some sense the other extreme But midway is the great middle class who do not care a copper for Buffalo Bill's show nor for a live lord. But they care much for books, schools, intelligent society, the planting and growth of institutions, the education of youth, and churches which have no need of the support or patronage of the State. And this civilization they have carried to all border lands. The Indian in his savage state will disappear; the cow-boy will also disappear. But the civilization and refinements, the travesty of which pleases so many people of aristocraic associations, these will abide.