University of Virginia Library

3. III.
THINGS IN NEW YORK.

The stoodent and connyseer must have noticed and
admired in varis parts of the United States of America,
large yeller hanbills, which not only air gems
of art in theirselves, but they troothfully sit forth
the attractions of my show—a show, let me here
obsarve, that contains many livin' wild animils,
every one of which has got a Beautiful Moral.

Them hanbils is sculpt in New York.

& I annoolly repair here to git some more on
'um;

&, bein' here, I tho't I'd issoo a Address to the
public on matters and things.

Since last I meyandered these streets, I have bin
all over the Pacific Slopes and Utah. I cum back
now, with my virtoo unimpared, but I've got to git
some new clothes.

Many changes has taken place, even durin' my
short absence, & sum on um is Sollum to contempulate.

The house in Varick street, where I used to
Board, is bein' torn down. That house, which was
rendered memoriable by my livin' into it, is “parsin'
away! parsin' away!” But some of the timbers
will be made into canes, which will be sold to my
admirers at the low price of one dollar each. Thus
is changes goin' on continerly. In the New World
it is war—in the Old World Empires is totterin' &
Dysentaries is crumblin'. These canes is cheap at a
dollar.

Sammy Booth, Duane street, sculps my hanbills,
& he's a artist. He studid in Rome—State of New
York.

I'm here to read the proof-sheets of my hanbils as
fast as they're sculpt. You have to watch these ere
printers pretty close, for they're jest as apt to spel
a wurd rong as anyhow.

But I have time to look round sum & how do I
find things? I return to the Atlantic States after a
absence of ten months, & what State do I find the
country in? Why I don't know what State I find
it in. Suffice it to say, that I do not find it in the
State of New Jersey.

I find sum things that is cheerin', partic'ly the resolve
on the part of the wimin of America to stop
wearin' furrin goods.

I never meddle with my wife's things. She may
wear muslin from Greenland's icy mountins, and
bombazeen from Injy's coral strands, if she wants
to; but I'm glad to state that that superior woman
has peeled off all her furrin clothes and jumpt into
fabrics of domestic manufactur.

But, says sum folks, if you stop importin' things
you stop the revenoo. That's all right. We can
stand it if the Revenoo can. On the same principle
young men should continer to get drunk on French
brandy and to smoke their livers as dry as a corncob
with Cuby cigars because 4-sooth if they don't,
it will hurt the Revenoo! This talk 'bout the Revenoo
is of the bosh, boshy. One thing is tol'bly
certin—if we don't send gold out of the country we
shall have the consolation of knowing that it is in
the country. So I say great credit is doo the wimin
for this patriotic move—and to tell the trooth, the
wimin genrally know what they're 'bout. Of all
the blessins they're the soothinist. If there'd never

bin any wimin, where would my children be to-day?

But I hope this move will lead to other moves
that air just as much needed, one of which is a
genral and therrer curtainment of expenses all round.
The fact is we air gettin' ter'bly extravagant, &
onless we paws in our mad career in less than two
years the Goddess of Liberty will be seen dodgin'
into a Pawn Broker's shop with the other gown
done up in a bundle, even if she don't have to Spout
the gold stars in her head-band. Let us all take
hold jintly, and live and dress centsibly, like our
forefathers, who know'd moren we do, if they warnt
quite so honest! (Suttle goaketh.)

There air other cheerin' signs. We don't, for
instuns, lack great Gen'rals, and we certinly don't
lack brave sojers—but there's one thing I wish we
did lack, and that is our present Congress.

I venture to say that if you sarch that earth all
over with a ten-hoss power mikriscope, you won't
be able to find such another pack of poppycock
gabblers as the present Congress of the United
States of America.

Gentlemen of the Senit & of the House, you've
sot there and draw'd your pay and made summer-complaint
speeches long enuff. The country at large,
incloodin' the undersined, is disgusted with you.
Why don't you show us a statesman—sumbody who
can make a speech that will hit the pop'lar hart
right under the Great Public weskit? Why don't
you show us a statesman who can rise up to the
Emergency, and cave in the Emergency's head?

Congress, you won't do. Go home, you mizzerable
devils—go home!

At a special Congressional 'lection in my district
the other day I delib'ritly voted for Henry Clay.
I admit that Henry is dead, but inasmuch as we
don't seem to have a live statesman in our National
Congress, let us by all means have a first-class
corpse.

Them who think that a cane made from the timbers
of the house I once boarded in is essenshal to
their happiness, should not delay about sendin' the
money right on for one.

And now, with a genuine hurrar for the wimin
who air goin' to abandin furrin goods, and another

for the patriotic everywheres, I'll leave public matters
and indulge in a little pleasant family-gossip.

My reported captur by the North American savijis
of Utah, led my wide circle of friends and
creditors to think that I had bid adoo to earthly
things and was a angel playin' on a golden harp.
Hents my rival home was onexpected.

It was 11, P. M., when I reached my homestid and
knockt a healthy knock on the door thereof.

A nightcap thrusted itself out of the front chamber
winder. (It was my Betsy's nightcap.) And a
voice said:

“Who is it?”

“It is a Man!” I answered, in a gruff vois.

“I don't b'lieve it!” she sed.

“Then come down and search me,” I replied.

Then resumin' my nat'ral voice, I said, “It is your
own A. W., Betsy! Sweet lady, wake! Ever of
thou!”

“Oh,” she said, “it's you, is it? I thought I
smelt something.”

But the old girl was glad to see me.

In the mornin' I found that my family were enter-tainin'

a artist from Philadelphy, who was there paintin'
some startlin' water-falls and mountins, and I
morin suspected he had a hankerin' for my oldest
dauter.

“Mr. Skimmerhorn, father,” sed my dauter.

“Glad to see you, Sir!” I replied in a hospittle
vois. “Glad to see you.”

“He is an artist, father,” sed my child.

“A whichist?”

“An artist. A painter.”

“And glazier,” I askt. “Air you a painter and
glazier, sir?”

My dauter and wife was mad, but I couldn't help
it, I felt in a comikil mood.

“It is a wonder to me, Sir,” said the artist, “considerin'
what a wide-spread reputation you have,
that some of our Eastern managers don't secure
you.”

“It's a wonder to me,” said I to my wife, “that
somebody don't secure him with a chain.”

After breakfast I went over to town to see my
old friends. The editor of the Bugle greeted me
cordyully, and showed me the follerin' article he'd

just written about the paper on the other side of
the street:

“We have recently put up in our office an entirely
new sink, of unique construction—with two holes
through which the soiled water may pass to the new
bucket underneath. What will the hell-hounds of
The Advertiser say to this? We shall continue to
make improvements as fast as our rapidly-increasing
business may warrant. Wonder whether a
certain editor's wife thinks she can palm off a brass
watch-chain on this community for a gold one?”

“That,” says the Editor, “hits him whar he lives.
That will close him up as bad as it did when I wrote
an article ridicooling his sister, who's got a cock-eye.”

A few days after my return I was shown a young
man, who says he'll be Dam if he goes to the war.
He was settin' on a barrel, & was indeed a Loathsum
objeck.

Last Sunday I heard Parson Batkins preach, and
the good old man preached well, too, tho' his
prayer was ruther lengthy. The Editor of the
Bugle, who was with me, said that prayer would
make fifteen squares, solid nonparil.

I don't think of nothin' more to write about. So,
“B'leeve me if all those endearing young charms,”
&c., &c.