The Complete Works of Brann the Iconoclast, Volume 10 | ||
SALMAGUNDI.
MY attention has been several times called by the citizens of Nevada, Ia., to a series of articles appearing in a little boiler-plate paper published at that place by an old plug named Payne and his idiot son. The articles purport to
Now for Chirst's sake don't judge Iowa people by this peripatetic Ananias. Where he was born I don't know; neither do I care a d—n; but I suspect that he was begotten in some back yard during the dark of the moon,
...
The suspicion is growing that Dr. Gutieras, the government expert, has a pint of yellow fever baccilli in his cerebrum. He carries the plague with him, just as a man suffering with mania a potu carries his cargo of monkeys. Had he been called to see Simon's wife's mother, he would have declared that she had a case of Yellow Jack and spread a panic through all Judea. Should he find a man suffering with katzenjammer he would pronounce him a "suspect." As Barney Gibbs says, all the yellow fever patients Gutieras discovered during his tour of South Texas were up "hunting either a drink or a job" ere this peripatetic expert was well out of town. I'll gamble four dollars that there is not in the United States to-day a genuine case of Yellow Jack. There's every indication that the cases at Mobile, New Orleans and Biloxi are identical with the disease discovered by Gutieras at Galveston —nothing under heaven but the dengue. Who the devil ever heard of the mortality in a yellow fever epidemic averaging only about 6 per cent.? Why la grippe will beat
A few American newspapers and magazines of the genus
mugwump, enemies of Cuban liberty and apologists for
the Weylerian butcheries and brutalities, are now busily
engaged in belittling those who enabled Señorita Cisneros
to escape from her captors, are heaping their feculence
upon Mesdames Jefferson Davis, Jno. A. Logan and the
other "old women" who had the temerity to appeal to
the Spanish Queen Regent in behalf of the young heroine
—are even repeating the stale lies of Weyler's understrappers
reflecting upon her chastity. What brave American
journalists! How proud of such sons Columbia should be!
It is quite possible the New York Journal undertook the
young lady's rescue for advertising purposes only; but
just the same, she is on American soil, and she can
well afford to ignore the petty malice of emasculated
mugwump editors, knowing as she must, that the chivalry of
this country is with her to the last man. I do not believe
the statement of the Spanish official whom Señorita
Cisneros accused of insulting her, and who retorted that
she had thrown herself at his head. A gentleman could
not make such an assertion even though it were true, for
a woman's illicit favors set upon the lips of the recipient
the seal of eternal silence. The defamer of Señorita
Cisneros is but another Don Matthias de Silvæ of Le Sage.
...
The coon seems to be forging rapidly to the front in
some portions of this country. On October 2, Mrs. W. E.
D. Stokes, a wealthy white woman and owner of one of
the largest stock farms in Kentucky, gave a ball and
banquet near Lexington to 300 colored people and filled
'em full of beer. Whether Mrs. Stokes danced with the
bucks the dispatches do not state.
...
My attention has been several times called to one W. D.
McKinstry of Watertown, N. Y., by people of that place.
They plead with me that he is really spoiling for a
"roast." McKinstry is publishing a little paper which
somewhat resembles an over-ripe dish-rag, or an unlaundered
sheet from the bed of a colored baby; but I have no
idea why he is so unpopular. It may be because he
possesses the physique of a bull elephant and the brains of a
doodle-bug. It may be that the appearance of such an
animal outside a dime museum, or a pig sty, angers the
people. I can see nothing in his editorials at which to
take offense. Reading them were like drinking the froth
out of a pop-bottle or filling one's belly with the east wind.
McKinstry is trying to settle the "negro problem" for
the South; but that has so long been a favorite occupation
of Smart Alec editors who never saw a cotton patch
that no one minds it any more. Waco has the coon and
Watertown has McKinstry, hence it is in order for the
two towns to mingle their tears instead of animadverting
each upon the other's misfortune. If I might advise the
mighty McKinstry I would suggest that he change his
occupation. As an editor he is a dismal failure, but he
would be a dazzling success as ballast for a canal boat.
...
A correspondent notes that the New York World devotes two illustrated pages to the Vanderbilt-Marlborough
...
Jno. H. Holmes, editor of the Boston Herald, writing on the "New Journalism." says: "Huge circulation is extremely profitable. It produced revenue from the sale of the paper, and a still greater revenue from the volume of advertising." In other words, the average "great daily" is simply a mercenary advertising graft. It may "produce revenue," but seldom profit from circulation, for the price to agents is frequently below the cost of white paper and expressage. The subscription price is usually placed below the profit line, and extra inducements offered in the way of "premiums." Somehow, a circulation, bona fide or fake, must be worked up as an excuse for elongating the business man's leg. And he is a "dead easy mark." The yap who purchases checks of strangers and bets on monte is no more gullible than the average victim of the advertising grafter. A sucker is said to be born every minute; and strange to say, most of them are produced in the cities. The business man who makes an advertising contract without investigating the circulation claims of the publisher, would invest in confederate bonds or buy gold bricks. If he suffered the loss it would not much matter—would be simply another case of the fool and his money soon parted; but it is shifted to the consumer. The
...
A Galveston traveling man writes me as follows:
This is a fairly correct list of my crimes thus far; but being still a young man, I may reasonably hope to add
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The ICONOCLAST'S recent comments on Dean Hart of Denver, provoked the following poetic outburst on the part of a singer of that city:
The Dean?
With his highly elevated nose,
The Dean.
And his old imported hat
And his time worn black cravat,
Any one could tell that
He's the Dean.
Is the Dean,
"It's nothing like old Hingland,"
Says the Dean.
In language somewhat torrid,
With a countenance quite florid,
He says our schools are "orrid,"
Does the Dean.
The Dean
Doesn't leave us and for England hie away;
No doubt he can explain it,
In England he's not "in it,"
But in this "blooming" country
He's a Dean.
...
All the sycophantic little sassiety sheets are now engaged in the delectable task of belittling Miss Edna Whitney, selected by Chillicothe, Mo., as maid of honor to the Kween of the Kansas City Karnival, but objected to by the snob management on the ground that she was a working girl. The sheets aforesaid have discovered that since that event brought her into public notice Miss Whitney has accepted $500 from a cigarette firm for the use of her photo, and are now industriously arguing that a young woman who will permit her portrait to be so employed is not a proper person to be brought for a moment into contract with the eminently respectable sassietyest. Rats! ditto rodents. The Karnival was not a "social function," but a commercial scheme gotten up by the merchants of Kansas City to draw trade to that enterprising town. It was a blowout for everybody; the world was invited—the gates thrown open to the Canary in his Canaryism as well as to Sir Alymer in his Alymerism. Lady Vere de Vere and the chambermaid in the dollar-a-day hotel were alike invited to make themselves at home, enjoy the show and spend their siller. Unfortunately, the management of the affair was committed to an incorrigible snob, and he decided that a young lady who earned her own living was not a fit theatrical associate for the patrician daughters of successful soap-boilers and pork-packers, thereby offering an unforgettable and unforgivable affront to all the legions of labor. I do not approve of Miss Whitney's sale of her photo to a cigarette firm; but I do say that the act is infinitely more excusable than the practice among high-fly society women of paying for the publication of decollete portraits and sickening "write-ups" of themselves. Miss Whitney is poor and, I am told, supports a widowed mother. To a girl so situated $500 is a great sum. She could scarce be expected to have the fine
...
MR. BRANN: You state in a recent issue of the ICONOCLAST
that McKinley's popular plurality "represents the
votes of niggers and the scavangers of Europe's back
alleys." I denounce that statement as a falsehood. The
votes of native-born Americans elected Mr. McKinley.
AMERICUS.
Waco, Texas, September 10.
My correspondent is indeed "A Merry Kuss" else he could find no pleasure in calling a man a liar in an anonymous letter. To call that creature a cur who flings an insult which he fears to father, were a damning libel on every decent dog in Christendom. My correspondent is
...
I am obliged to my friends for divers and surdry scraps
of information regarding the cur-ristian trustee of Baylor
who led the last assault upon me in the name of a long-suffering Savior. It would make interesting reading for
Waco Baptists no doubt, but I can put these columns to
better use than rehashing ancient history. Those who are
anxious to learn what kind of an animal this member of
Baylor's board of managers actually is, are referred to
the Galveston News of July 26th, 1883. Any one can
secure access to the files of that paper for the asking.
I cannot afford to "damn to everlasting fame" every
backwoods hypocrite who raises a howl. The ICONOCLAST
leaves such cattle to the bill collectors.
...
I would like to have a flash-light photo of W. S. Densickr of Lebanon, Ind. Ter., not for publication, but to add to my private gallery of hypocritical rogues. Densickr wants to build a temple of pure gold twelve miles square and 60,000 high for some backwoods congregation, but of what denomination he has evidently not yet discovered. He insists, however, that the Redeemer demands such a temple, and that the general public should be forthcoming with the necessary cash. He is working what he calls a "church chain"—all for Christ. He writes you a letter asking you to contribute 5 cents to the cause and thereby obtain the blessing of God. He requests also that you send an exact copy of his letter to three of your friends whom you deem most likely to invest their small change in heavenly grace. The "chain" of letters runs from 1 to 100, and a Cleburne gentleman who was "touched" figures it out that the 25th No. means more
The Complete Works of Brann the Iconoclast, Volume 10 | ||