It is, no doubt, wrong to attack sacred matters for the purpose of gaining notoriety; but I believe I am right, when I a.s.sert that the Chinese G.o.d must go. We should not be Puritanical, but we might safely draw the line at the bow-legged and sedentary G.o.ddess of leprosy.
If Confucius bowed the suppliant knee to that goggle-eyed jim-jam Josh, I am grieved to know it. If such was the case, the friends of Confucius should keep the matter from me. I cannot believe that the great philosopher wallowed in the dust at the feet of such a polka-dot carricature of a gorilla"s horrid dream.
I bought a Chinese G.o.d once, for four bits. He was not successful in the profession which he aimed to follow. Whatever he may have been in China, he was not a very successful G.o.d in the English language. I put him upon the mantel, and the clock stopped, the servant girl sent in her resignation, and a large dog jumped through the parlor-window. All this happened within two hours from the time I erected the lop-eared, knocked-kneed and club-footed Oolong in my household.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE DOG EXITS.]
Perhaps this may have been largely due to my ignorance of his habits. Possibly if I had been more familiar with his eccentricities, it would have been all right; but as it was, there was no book of instructions given with him, and I couldn"t seem to make him work.
During the week following, the prospect shaft of the New Jerusalem mine struck a subterranean gulf-stream and water-logged the stock, a tall yellow dog, under the weight of a great woe, picked out my cistern to suicide in, and I skated down the cellar-stairs on my shoulder-blades and the phrenological location known as Love of Home, in such a terrible manner as to jar the foundations of the earth, and kick a large hole out of the bosom of the night.
I then met with a change of heart, and overthrew the warty heathen G.o.d, and knocked him galley west. My hens at once began to watch the produce market, and, noticing the high price of eggs, commenced to orate with great zeal instead of standing around with their hands in their pockets. I saw the new moon over my right shoulder, and all nature seemed gay once more.
The above are a few of my reasons for believing that the Chinese G.o.d is either greatly over-estimated, or else shippers and producers are flooding the market with fraudulent G.o.ds.
A Great Spiritualist.
I have an uncle who is a physician, and a very busy one at that. He is a very active man, and allows himself very little relaxation indeed. How many times he has said to me, "Well, I can"t stand here and fool away my time with you. I"ve got a typhoid fever patient down in the lower end of town who will get well if I don"t get over there this forenoon."
He never allows himself any relaxation to speak of, except to demonstrate the truth of spiritualism. He does love to monkey with the supernatural, and he delights in getting hold of some skeptical friend and convincing him of the presence of spirits beyond a doubt. I"ve known him to ignore two cases of croup and one case of twins to attend a seance and help convince a doubting Thomas on the spirit question.
I believe that he and I, together with a little time in which to prepare, could convince the most skeptical. He says that with a friend to a.s.sist him, who is en rapport, and who has a little practice, he can reach the stoniest heart. He is a very susceptible medium indeed, and created a great furore in his own town. He said it was a great comfort to him to converse with his former patients, and he felt kind of attached to them, so that he hated to be separated from them, even in death.
Spiritualism had quite a run in his neighborhood at one time, as I have said. Even his own family yielded to the convincing proof and the astounding phenomena. If his wife hadn"t found some of his spiritual tracks down cellar, she would have remained firm, no doubt, but the doctor forgot and left his step-ladder down there, and that showed where the hole in the floor opened into his mysterious cabinet.
He said if he had been a little more careful, no doubt he could have convinced anybody of the presence of spirits or anything else. He said he didn"t intend to give up as long as there was anything left in the cellar.
He had such unwavering confidence in the phenomena that all he asked of anybody was faith and a buckskin string about two feet long.
He and his brother, a reformed member of Congress, read the inmost thoughts of a skeptical friend all one evening by the aid of supernatural powers and a tin tube. The reformed member of Congress acted as medium, and the doctor, who was unfortunately and ostensibly called away into the country early in the evening, remained at the window outside, where he could read the queries written by the victim on a slip of paper. Then he would run around the house and murmur the same through a tin tube at another window by the medium"s ear.
It was astounding. The skeptical man would write some deep question on a slip of paper, and after the medium had felt of his brow, and groaned a few hollow groans, and rolled his eyes up, he would answer it without having been within twenty feet of the question or the questioner. The victim said he would never doubt again.
What a comfort it was to know that immortality was an established fact. If he could have heard a man talking in a low tone of voice through an old tin dipper handle, at the south window on the ground floor, and occasionally swearing at a mosquito on the back of his neck, he would have hesitated.
An old-timer over there said that Woodworth would be a mighty good physician if he would let spiritualism alone. He claimed that no man could be a great physician and surgeon and still be a fanatic on spiritualism.
General Sheridan"s Horse.
I have always taken a great interest in war incidents, and more so, perhaps, because I wasn"t old enough to put down the rebellion myself. I have been very eager to get hold of and h.o.a.rd up in my memory all its gallant deeds of both sides, and to know the history of those who figured prominently in that great conflict has been one of my ambitions.
I have also watched with interest the steady advancement of Phil Sheridan, the black-eyed warrior with the florid face and the Winchester record. I have also taken some pains to investigate the later history of the old Winchester war horse.
"Old Rienzi died in our stable a few years after the war," said a Chicago livery man to me, a short time ago. "General Sheridan left him with us and instructed us to take good care of him, which we did, but he got old at last, and his teeth failed upon him, and that busted his digestion, and he kind of died of old age, I reckon."
"How did General Sheridan take it?"
"Oh, well, Phil Sheridan is no school girl. He didn"t turn away when old Rienzi died and weep the manger full of scalding regret. If you know Sheridan, you know that he don"t rip the blue dome of heaven wide open with unavailing wails. He just told us to take care of its remains, patted the old cuss on the head a little and walked off. Phil Sheridan don"t go around weeping softly into a pink bordered wipe when a horse dies. He likes a good horse, but Rienzi was no Jay-Eye-See for swiftness, and he wasn"t the purtiest horse you ever see, by no means."
"Did you read lately how General Sheridan don"t ride on horseback since his old war horse died, and seems to have lost all interest in horses?"
"No, I never did. He no doubt would rather ride in a cable car or a carriage than to jar himself up on a horse. That"s all likely enough, but, as I say, he"s a matter of fact little fighter from Fighttown. He never stopped to snoot and paw up the ground and sob himself into bronchitis over old Rienzi. He went right on about his business, and, like old King What"s-His-name he hollered for another hoss, and the War Department never slipped a cog."
Later on I read that the old war horse was called Winchester and that he was still alive in a blue gra.s.s pasture in Kentucky. The report said that old Winchester wasn"t very coltish, and that he was evidently failing. I gathered the idea that he was wearing store teeth, and that his memory was a little deficient, but that he might live yet for years. After that I met a New York livery stable prince, at whose palace General Sheridan"s well-known Winchester war horse died of botts in "71. He told me all about it and how General Sheridan came on from Chicago at the time, and held the horse"s head in his lap while the fleet limbs that flew from Winchester down and saved the day, stiffened in the great, mysterious repose of death. He said Sheridan wept like a child, and as he told the touching tale to me I wept also. I say I wept. I wept about a quart, I would say. He said also that the horse"s name wasn"t Winchester nor Rienzi; it was Jim.
I was sorry to know it. Jim is no name for a war horse who won a victory and a marble bust and a poem. You can"t respect a horse much if his name was Jim.
After that I found out that General Sheridan"s celebrated Winchester horse was raised in Kentucky, also in Pennsylvania and Michigan; that he went out as a volunteer private; that he was in the regular service prior to the war, and that he was drafted, and that he died on the field of battle, in a sorrel pasture, in "73, in great pain on Governor"s Island; that he was buried with Masonic honors by the Good Templars and the Grand Army of the Republic; that he was resurrected by a medical college and dissected; that he was cremated in New Orleans and taxidermed for the Military Museum at New York. Every little while I run up against a new fact relative to this noted beast. He has died in nine different States, and been buried in thirteen different styles, while his soul goes marching on. Evidently we live in an age of information. You can get more information nowadays, such as it is, than you know what to do with.
A Circular.
To my friends, regardless of party.-Many friends having solicited me to apply for a foreign mission under the present administration, I have finally consented to do so, and last week filed my application for such missions as might still remain vacant.
To insure my appointment, much will remain for you to do. I now call upon my friends to aid me by their united effort. I especially solicit the aid of my friends who have repeatedly heretofore promised it to me while drunk.
[Ill.u.s.tration: PLENTY OF CORRESPONDENCE.]
You will see at a glance that I can only make the application. You must support it by your pet.i.tions and letters. It would be of little use for one man to write five thousand letters to the president, but if five thousand people each write him a letter in which casual reference is made to my social worth and 7-1/3 octave brain, it will make him pay attention.
My idea would be for each of my friends to set aside one day in each week to write to the president, opening it in a chatty way by asking him if he does not think we are having rather a backward spring, and what he is doing for his cut worms now, and how his folks are, etc., etc. Then gradually lead up to the statement that you think I would be an ornament to the administration if I should go abroad and linger on a foreign strand at $2,000 per linger and stationery.
This will keep the president properly stirred up, and cause him to earn his salary. The effect will be to secure the appointment at last, as you will see if you persevere.
I need not add that I will do what is right by my friends upon receiving my commission.
Do not neglect this suggestion because it comes to you in the form of a circular, but remember it and act upon it. Remember that, although the president is stubborn as Sam Hill, he will at last yield to fatigue, and when tired nature can hold out no longer, the last letter will drop from his nerveless hand and he will surrender.
[Ill.u.s.tration: NURSING THE FIERY STEED.]
Some of you will urge that I have been an offensive partisan, but when you come to think it over I have not been so all-fired partisan. There have been days and days when it did not show itself very much. However, that is not the point. I want your hearty indors.e.m.e.nt and I want it to be entirely voluntary, and if you do not give it, and give it freely and voluntarily, you hadn"t better ask me for any more favors.
All the newspapers most heartily indorse me. The Rocky Mountain Whoop very truthfully says:
"Mr. Nye called at our office yesterday and subscribed for our paper. We are proud to add him to our list of paid-up subscribers, and should he renew his subscription next year, paying in advance, we will cheerfully refer to it among other startling news."
I have a sc.r.a.p-book full of such indors.e.m.e.nts as this, and now, if my friends will peel their coats and write as they should, I can make this administration open its eyes.
Several papers in Iowa have alluded to my being in town, and referred to the fact that I had paid my bills while there. But press indors.e.m.e.nts alone are not sufficient. What is needed is the written testimony of friends and neighbors. No matter how poor or humble or worthless you may be, write to Mr. Cleveland and tell him how much confidence you have in me, and if you can call to mind any little acts of kindness, or any times when I have got up in the night to give you a dollar, or nurse a colicky horse for you, throw that in. Throw it in anyhow. It will do no harm, and may do much good.
I can solemnly promise all my friends that if they will secure my appointment to a foreign country for four years, I will not return during that time. What more can I offer? I will stay longer if I am reappointed. I would do anything for my friends.
Do not throw this circular carelessly aside. Read it carefully over and act upon it. Some of you are poor spellers, and will try to get out of it in that way. Others are in the penitentiary and cannot spare the time. But to one and all I say, write, and write regularly, to the president. Do not wait for a reply from him, because he is pretty busy now; but he will be tickled to death to hear from you, and anything you say about me will give him great pleasure.
N.B.-Please be careful not to inclose this circular in your letter to the president.
The Photograph Habit.
No doubt the photograph habit, when once formed, is one of the most baneful, and productive of the most intense suffering in after years, of any with which we are familiar. Some times it seems to me that my whole life has been one long, abject apology for photographs that I have shed abroad throughout a distracted country.