poetic youth his learned counsel-did | ears. But does not the youth remember not quote Shakespeare again. He never that Grotius was only seventeen when he told his-woe-but let concealment, was in full practice, and that he was like the worm i' the bud, prey on his Attorney General at twenty-two; and damask cheek.' He looked like Patience what is Grotius to this greater light? Not on a monument smiling at grief- or beef, the burning of my smoke-house to the I should rather say. But, gentlemen, conflagration of Moscow! probably I am wrong; it may be that this tender-hearted, sensitive butcher, was lean before, and like Falstaff, throws the blame of his fat on sorrow and sighing, which has puffed him up like a bladder.' (Here Higginbotham left in disgust.) "There, gentlemen, he goes, 'larding the lean earth as he walks along.' Well has Doctor Johnson said, 'who kills fat oxen should himself be fat.' Poor Hig! stuffed like one of his own blood-puddings, with a dropsical grief which nothing short of ten thousand dollars of Swink's money can cure. Well, as grief puffs him up, I don't wonder that nothing but depleting another man can cure him. 66 And now, gentlemen, I come to the blood and thunder part of this young gentleman's harangue: empty and vapid; words and nothing else. If any part of this rigmarole was windier than any other part, this was it. He turned himself into a small cascade, making a great deal of noise to make a great deal of froth; tumbling; roaring; foaming; the shallower it ran, all the noisier it seemed. He fretted and knitted his brows; he beat the air and he vociferated, always emphazing the meaningless words most loudly; he puffed, swelled out and blowed off, until he seemed like a new bellows, all brass and wind. How he mouthed it-as those villainous stage players, ranting out fustian in a barn theatre, [mimicking] -'Who steals my purse, steals trash.' (I don't deny it.) 'Tis something,' (query?) nothing, (exactly.) Tis mine; 'twas his, and has been slave to thousands-but he who filches from me my good name, robs me of that which not enricheth him,' (not in the least,) but makes me poor indeed;' (just so, but whether any poorer than before he parted with the encumbrance, is another matter.) "But the young gentleman refers to his youth. He ought not to reproach us of maturer age in that indirect way: no one would have suspected it of him or him of it, if he had not told it: indeed, from hearing him speak, we were prepared to give him credit for almost any length of "And yet, young Grotius tells us in the next breath, that he never knew such a slander in the course of his practice? Wonderful, indeed! seeing that his practice has all been done within the last six hours. Why, to hear him talk, you would suppose that he was an old Continental lawyer, grown gray in the service. H-i-s p-r-a-c-t-i-c-e! Why he is just in his legal swaddling clothes! His PRACTICE!! But I don't wonder he can't see the absurdity of such talk. How long does it take one of the canine tribe, after birth, to open his eyes! "He talked, too, of outside influence; of the public expectations, and all that sort of demagogism. I observed no evidence of any great popular demonstrations in his favor, unless it be a tailor I saw stamping his feet; but whether that was because he had sat cross-legged so long he wanted exercise, or was rejoicing because he had got orders for a new suit, or prospect of payment for an old one, the gentleman can possibly tell better than I can. (Here Hicks left.) However, if this case is to be decided by the populace here, the gentleman will allow me the benefit of writ of error to the regimental muster, to be held, next Friday, at Reinhert's Distillery. "But, I suppose he meant to frighten, you into a verdict, by intimating that the mob, frenzied by his eloquence, would tear you to pieces if you gave a verdict for defendant; like the equally eloquent barrister out West, who, concluding a case, said, 'Gentlemen, my client are as innocent of stealing that cotting as the sun at noonday, and if you give it agin him, his brother, Sam Ketchins, next muster, will maul every mother's son of you.' I hope the sheriff will see to his duty and keep the crowd from you, gentlemen, if you should give us a verdict! "But, gentlemen, I am tired of winnowing chaff; I have not had the reward paid by Gratiano for sifting his discourse: the two grains of wheat to the bushel. It is all froth-all wind-all bubble." Kasm left me here for a time, and turned upon my client. Poor Higginbotham caught it thick and heavy. He wooled him, then skinned him, and then took to skinning off the under cuticle. Hig never skinned a beef so thoroughly. He put together all the facts about the witnesses' hearing the hogs squealing at night; the different marks of the hogs; the losses in the neighborhood; perverted the testimony and supplied omissions, until you would suppose, on hearing him, that it had been fully proved that poor Hig had stolen all the meat he had ever sold in the market. He asseverated that this suit was a malicious conspiracy between the Methodists and Masons, to crush his client. But all this I leave out as not bearing on the main subject-myself. He came back to me with a renewed appetite. He said he would conclude by paying his valedictory respects to his juvenile friend-as this was the last time he ever expected to have the pleasure of meeting him. "That poetic young gentleman had said, that by your verdict against his client, you would blight for ever his reputation and that of his family-that you would bend down the spirit of his manly son, and dim the radiance of his blooming daughter's beauty.' Very pretty, upon my word! But, gentlemen, not so fine-not so poetical by half, as a precious morceau of poetry which adorns the columns of the village newspapers, bearing the initials J. C. R. As this admirable production has excited a great deal of applause in the nurseries and boarding schools, I must beg to read it; not for the instruction of the gentleman, he has already seen it; but for the entertainment of the jury. It is addressed to R*** B***, a young lady of this place. Here it goes." Judge my horror, when, looking up, I saw him take an old newspaper from his pocket, and, pulling down his spectacles, begin to read off in a stage-actor style, some verses I had written for Rose Bell's Album. Rose had been worrying me for some time, to write her something. To get rid of her importunities, I had scribbled off a few lines and copied them in the precious volume. Rose, the little fool, took them for something very clever (she never had more than a thimbleful of brains in her doll-baby head)-and was so tickied with them, that she got brother VOL. III-W. H. Bill, then about fourteen, to copy them off, as well as he could, and take them to the printing office. Bill threw them under the door; the printer, as big a fool as either, not only published them, but, in his infernal kindness, puffed them in some critical commendation of his own, referring to "the gifted author," as "one of the most promising of the younger members of our bar." The fun, by this time, grew fast and furious. The country people, who have about as much sympathy for a young town lawyer, badgered by an older one, as for a young cub beset by curs; and who have about as much idea or respect for poetry, as for witchcraft, joined in the mirth with great glee. They crowded around old Kasm, and stamped and roared as at a circus. The Judge and Sheriff in vain tried to keep order. Indeed, his honor smiled out loud once or twice; and to recover his retreat, pretended to cough, and fined the Sheriff five dollars for not keeping silence in the court. Even the old Clerk, whose immemorial pen behind his right ear had worn the hair from that side of his head, and who had not smiled in court for twenty years, and boasted that Patrick Henry couldn't disturb him in making up a judgment entry, actually turned his chair from the desk and pu down his pen : afterwards he put his hand to his head three times in search of it; forgetting, in his attention to old Kasm, what he had done with it. Old Kasm went on reading and commenting by turns. I forget what the ineffable trash was. I wouldn't recollect it if I could. My equanimity will only stand a phrase or two that still lingers in my memory, fixed there by old Kasm's ridicule. I had said something about my "bosom's anguish "-about the passion that was consuming me; and, to illustrate it, or to make the line jingle, put in sometime about "Egypt's Queen taking the Asp to her bosom "-which, for the sake of rhyme or metre, I called "the venomous worm "-how the confounded thing was brought in, I neither know nor want to know. When old Kasm came to that, he said he fully appreciated what the young bard said he believed it. He spoke of venomous worms. Now, if he (Kasm) might presume to give the young gentleman advice, he would recommend Swain's Patent Vermifuge. He had no 23 doubt that it would effectually cure him of his malady, his love, and last, but not least, of his rhymes-which would be the happiest passage in his eventful history. I couldn't stand it any longer. I had borne it to the last point of human endurance. When it came only to skinning, I was there; but when he showered down aquafortis on the raw, and then seemed disposed to rub it in, Í fled. Abii, erubi, evasi. The last thing I heard was old Kasm calling me back, amidst the shouts of the audience-but no more. The next information I received of the case, was in a letter that came to me at Natchez, my new residence, from Hicks, about a month afterwards, telling me that the jury (on which I should have stated old Kasm had got two infidels and four antimasons) had given in a verdict for defendant: that before the court adjourned, Frank Glendye had got sober, and moved for a new trial, on the ground that the verdict was against evidence, and that the plaintiff had not had justice, by reason of the incompetency of his counsel, and the abandonment of the cause; and that he got a new trial (as well he should have done.) I learned through Hicks, some twelve months later, that the case had been tried; that Frank Glendye had made one of his greatest and most eloquent speeches; that Glendye had joined the Temperance Society, and was now one of the soberest and most attentive men to business at the bar, and was at the head of it in practice; that Higginbotham had recovered a verdict of $2,000, and had put Swink in for $500 costs, besides. ism as far as it could well go. They concluded by resolving that the bar would wear crape on the left arm for thirty days. I don't know what the rest did, I didn't. Though not mentioned in his will, he had left me something to remember him by. Bright be the bloom and sweet the fragrance of the thistles on his grave! Reader! I eschewed genius from that day. I took to accounts; did up every species of paper that came into my office with a tape string; had pigeon holes for all the bits of paper about me; walked down the street as if I were just going to bank and it wanted only five minutes to three o'clock; got a green bag and stuffed it full of old newspapers, carefully folded and labelled; read law, to fit imaginary cases, with great industry; dunned one of the wealthiest men in the city for fifty cents; sold out a widow for a twenty dollar debt, and bought in her things myself, publicly (and gave them back to her secretly, afterwards); associated only with skin-flints, brokers and married men, and discussed investments and stocks; soon got into business; looked wise and shook my head when I was consulted, and passed for a "powerful good judge of law; confirmed the opinion by reading, in court, all the books and papers I could lay my hands on, and clearing out the court-house by hum-drum details, common-place and statistics, whenever I made a speech at the bar-and thus, by this course of things, am able to write from my sugar plantation, this memorable history of the fall of genius and the rise of solemn humbug! J. G. BALDWIN. Hicks' letter gave me, too, the melancholy intelligence of old Kasm's death. IN FAVOR OF THE HOG.-In County He had died in an apoplectic fit, in the C, Ala., there lived one John Smith, court-house, while abusing an old preach- who was ignorant of the laws relating to er who had testified against him in a crim." meum et tuum." Now, the said John con. case. He enclosed the proceedings of a bar meeting, in which "the melancholy dispensation which called our beloved brother hence while in the active discharge of his duties," was much deplored; but, with a pious resignation, which was greatly to be admired; "they submitted to the will," etc., and with a confidence old Kasm himself, if alive, might have envied, "trusted he had gone to a better and brighter world," etc., etc., which carried the doctrine of Universal Smith, being impelled by the vociferations of an empty stomach, went, under cover of night, and felonously carried away from his neighbor's pen, a shoat, valued at one dollar and fifty cents, with the intention of appropriating the same to his own use. But Johnny was detected, and in due course of time was carried before Judge P. for trial. The witnesses were introduced, and the fact of the theft was proven beyond a doubt. The jury retired, to make up their verdict, to an adjacent grove of trees, and were not out long before they returned, with a verdict of guilty of hog-stealing in the first degree." "All right," said the Colonel, smiling and wiping the lather from his face. Call in Peter." did you mean, sir, by absenting yourself from the Erie Office, the other day, when both Mr. Gould and I were away, and had left the whole mass of business on your shoulders?" In a moment little Peter entered with The judge told them that the verdict a shy look and seemingly half frightened. was proper except that they had omitted "Well, Peter," said the Colonel, as he to assess the value of the property stolen, held the envelope with the money in one and that there was no degree to hog-hand and the towel in the other, "what stealing, and to retire again and bring in their verdict in " proper form." Again they retired, with pen, ink and paper, but rather nonplussed with regard to "form." They pondered long and deeply over what he meant by form. At last old W. Jim Turner, who had been a justice of the peace in Georgia, with a bright countenance, and a sly wink, as much as to say, "Look at me, boys-I understand a thing or two," wrote the verdict, and returned to the court-house. Old Jim handed the verdict to the clerk, with anxious pomposity, and sat down. Judge of the laughter when the clerk read the following: We, the jeurey, pusilanimously find the defendant gilty in the sum of 1 dollar and a in favor of the hog."-HOOPER. J. G. BALDWIN. THE FUNNY SIDE OF FISK. [MELVILLE D. LANDON was born in Eaton, N. Y., in 1840, graduated from Union College in 1861, became a Then he frowned fearfully, while Peter trembled from head to foot. But, my boy," continued Fisk, "I will not blame you; there may be extenuating circumstances. Evil associates may have tempted you away. Here, Peter, take this (handing him the $34), and henceforth let your life be one of rectitude-quiet rectitude, Peter. Behold me, Peter, and remember that evil communications are not always the best policy, but that honesty is worth two in the bush." As Peter went back to his place beside the outside door everybody laughed, and Fisk sat down again to have the other side of his face shaved. Pretty quick in came a little dried-up old gentleman, with keen gray eyes surmounted by an overpowering Panama hat. The Erie Railway office was then the old gentleman's almost daily rendezjournalist, travelled in Europe and Asia, and in 1871 | vous. Here he would sit for hours at a published a history of the Franco-Prussian war. Mr. time, and peer out from under his broadLandon first became noted as a humorist by his letters brim at the wonderful movements of Colfrom Saratoga to the N. Y. Commercial Advertiser, sign-onel Fisk. Cautious, because he could ed "Eli Perkins." This was in 1872: shortly after he entered the lecture field, and contributed to the amuse ment of audiences all over the country. His peculiar humor is illustrated in his various books, "Saratoga in 1901" (1872) “ Eli Perkins at Large" (1875) and "W and Humor of the Age (1884.) YES, Colonel Fisk was a funny man, and a man always full of humor could not have been a very bad man at heart. move but slowly, this venerable gentleman, who made Wall Street tremble, hitched up to the gold indicator, all the time keeping one eye on the quotations and the other on the Colonel. As a feeler, he ventured to ask: "How is Lake Shore this morning, Colonel?" "Peter," said Fisk, with awful gravity, "communicate with the Great American Speculator and show him how they are dealing on the street!" Once I had occasion to spend an hour with the Colonel in his palatial Erie of fice, and a record of that hour I then wrote out. Fisk was being shaved as I The old man chuckled, Gould hid a entered, and his face was half-covered smile while smoothing his jetty whiskers, with foaming lather. Just then some and little Peter took hold of the running one came in and told him that the gen-wire with Daniel Drew. It was the betlemen in the office had made up a purse ginning and the ending-youth and exof $34 to be presented to little Peter, perience-simplicity and shrewdnessFisk's favorite little office boy. Peter and Daniel ! Little Peter was about ten years old, and small at that. Frequently large men would come into the Erie office and "bore" the Colonel. Then he would say: "Here, Peter, take this man into custody, and hold him under arrest until we send for him!" "You seem very busy to-day?" I remarked, handing the Colonel a cigar. "Yes, Eli," said Fisk, smiling. "I'm trying to find out from all these papers where Gould gets money enough to pay his income tax. He never has any money-fact, sir! He even wanted to borrow of me to pay his income tax last summer, and I lent him four hundred dollars, and that's gone, too! This income business will be the ruination of Gould." Here the venerable Daniel Drew concealed a laugh, and Gould turned clear around, so that Fisk could only see the back of his head, while his eyes twinkled in enjoyment of the Colonel's fun. "What will be the end of putting down the railroad fares, Colonel?" I asked, referring to the jealous opposition in fares then existing between the Erie and New York Central. "End! why we haven't begun yet. We intend to carry passengers through to Chicago, before we get through, two for a cent and feed them on the way; and when old Van does the same the public will go on his road just to spite him!" "Yes; who, Colonel?" "Well, Scott and Garrett remind me of the old Texas ranchman, whose neighbors had caught a noted cattle-thief. After catching him, they tied him to a tree, hands and feet, and each one gave him a terrible cowhiding. When tired of walloping him, they left the poor thief tied to the tree, head and foot. He remained tied up there a good while in great agony, till by and by he saw with delight a strange man coming along. "Who are you?" said the kindly-looking stranger. I'm Bill Smith, and I've been whipped almost to death,' said the man in a pitiful tone. "Ah, Bill Smith, how could they whip you-a poor lone man?' asked the sympathizing stranger. "Why, don't you see? I'm tied.' "What, did they tie you up?' 666 'Yes, tied me tight. Don't you see the strings now?' "Poor man! How could they be so cruel?' sighed the stranger. "But I'm tied now,' groaned the man. 'What! tied now-tied so you can't move this very moment, Bill?' asked the stranger, eagerly examining the ropes. "Yes, tied tight, hands and feet, and I can't move a muscle,' said the thief, pitifully. "Well, William, as you are tied tight, I don't mind if I give you a few licks myself for that horse you stole from me,' said the stranger, cutting a tremendous whip from a bunch of thorn bushes. "Then," said Fisk, "he flogged him awhile, just as all these small railroad fellows would like to flog Vanderbilt if he was well tied." "Of course, the Erie is the best road," continued Fisk, in his Munchausen way. 'It runs faster and smoother. When Judge Porter went up with me in the Directors' car, last winter, we passed 200 canal boats, about a mile' apart, on the Delaware and Hudson canal. The train "But, alas, they never get Vanderbilt went so fast that the Judge came back and reported that he saw one gigantic canal boat ten miles long! Fact, sir! We went so fast the Judge couldn't see the gaps! 66 Are the other railroads going to help you in this fight?" I asked. 66 Why, yes, they say they will; but they are all afraid to do anything till we get Vanderbilt tied fast. Do you want me to tell you who these other half-scared railroad fellows, Garrett and Tom Scott, remind me of?" asked the Colonel, leaning himself forward, with his elbows on his knees. tied." FISK AND MONTALAND. When Montaland got on from Paris, last year, Fisk had just said farewell to "Josie," and so he took extra pains to make a good impression on his beautiful primma donna. On the first sunshiny afternoon after Montaland had seen the Wonderful Opera House, Fisk took her out to the Park behind his magnificent six-in-hand. Passing up Fifth avenue, Montaland's eyes rested on A. T. Stewart's marble house. |