ARTEML'S WARD, PATRIOT.
TO most readers of the present generation Artemus Ward is little more than a name, and even those of their elders who read and enjoyed his work in their youth are apt to regard hint solely as an irresponsible humorist, whose aim
was simply to make one laugh as often as possible. No doubt in much of what he wrote, and especially in his famous lectures, this view finds support and justification. He was, beyond ques-
tion, a great mirth-maker. On that point some of the wisest and ablest of the Victorians were agreed—Richard Hutton and " Bob " Lowe, to mention only two. To say, as the Encyclo-
paedia Britannica does, that " his wit largely depends on the drollery of quaint spelling " is to overlook the solid qualities by which it was so frequently reinforced. For at the back of all these superficial aids there was a great fund of shrewdness, sanity, and " horse-sense." He had a wholesome contempt for all pretence, imposture, and self-seeking. Shakers and Spiritualists, Teetotal Fanatics and Free Lovers, Mormons and Irish-American Fenians, and importunate office-seekers, all came under his lash. He was no politician—" I'vote for Mr. Union— that's the only candidate I've got "—but he claimed with good reason to have a well-balanced mind. He " wouldn't giv two cents to be a Congresses. The wus insult I ever received was when sertin citizens of Baldinsville axed me to run fur the Legislates. Sez I, ' My frends, dostest think I'd stoop to that there ? ' I spoke in my most orfullest tones, & they knowd I
wasn't to be trifled with. They !dunked out of site to onct." He had the lowest opinion of salaried talkers, as may be gathered from these extremely topical comments on Congress in the middle of the war :- " We don't 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 sareh the 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 states- man—sumbody who can make a speech that will hit the poplar 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 1 At a special Congressional lection in my district the other dey 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."
He had no use for frothy journalists, for, after ironically com- plimenting Mr. Slinkers, of the Bugle-Horn of Liberty, for his skill in wordy war, he goes on :- " He is a man of great pluck likewise. He has a fierce nostrils and 1 bl'eve upon my soul, that if it wasn't absolootly necessary for him to remain here and announce in his paper, from week to week, that ` our Gov'ment is about to take vig'rous measures to put down the rebellion '—I b'lieve, upon my soul, this illustris man would enlist as a Brigadier Gin'ral, and git his Bounty."
. Charles Farrar Browne—to call him for once by his real name--
was about five-and-twenty when the Civil War broke out, but his delicate health prevented him from taking an active part in the conflict, though he is said to have contributed £1,000 out of the proceeds of his lectures to the Union funds. He was marked down in youth by " the Captain-General of Death," as John Bunyan called consumption, and died in his early thirties
in England. So in his assumed character of the showman he disavows all claim to be considered a fighting man. " My father," he says, " was a sutler in the Revolootion War, and once had a intervoo with Gin'ral La Fayette "—in which he asked the General to lend him five dollars. " When this wicked rebellion first broke out I was among the first to stay at home, chiefly because of my utter ignorance of fire-arms. I should be valuable to the army as a Brigadier-General only so far as the moral influence of my name went." The showman was supposed to be a man of sixty, and therefore not of military age, but his creator used the character to satirize those who were prepared to make vicarious sacrifices while taking the greatest care of their own skins. " I have already given two cousins to the war, & I stand ruddy to sacrifice my wife's brother rather'n not see the rebelyin krusht. And if wuss comes to wuss, I'll shed ev'ry drop of blud my able-bodid relations has got to prosekoot the war." And this oblique vein of sarcasm is shown in the opening of the famous paper, " The Draft in Baldinsville," which is peculiarly appropriate reading to-day in this country :- " If I'm drafted I shall resign. Deeply grateful for the onexpected honor thus conferred upon me, I shall feel compeld to resign the position in favor of sum more worthy person. -Modesty is what ails me. That's what's kept me, under. I meanter-say, I shall have to resign if I'm drafted ; everywheres I've bin inrold. I must now, furrinstuns, be inrold in upards of 200 different towns. If Pd kept on travelin I should hay eventooally becum a Brigade, in which case I could have held a mectin and elected myself a Bngadeer- ginral quite onanimiss. I hadn't no idea there was so many of me before."
Artemus Ward had no sympathy with those who claimed the liberty not to fight in defence of their country. He would have liked every able-bodied man to volunteer, but he had no objection to the draft. " It caused sum squirmin," he says in another paper, " but it was fairly conducted, I think, for it hit all classes." And he had a fine contempt for all who claimed exemption for fancy reasons. " One young man who was drawd claimed to be exemp because he was the only son of a widow'd mother who supported him." Baldinsville—the imaginary home of the showman—began badly :— " My townsmen was sort o' demoralized. There was a evident desino to ewade the Draft, as I obsarved with sorrer, and patritism was below Par—and Mar too. [A jew desprit.] I hadn't no sooner sot down on the piazzy of the tavoun than I saw sixteen solitary hossmen, ridin four abreast, wendin their way up the street. What's them ? Is it calvary ? That,' said the landlord, ' is the stage. Sixteen able-bodied citizens has lately bo't the stage line between here and Scootsburg. That's them. They're stage-drivers. Stage- drivers is exempt !' I saw that each stage-driver carried a letter in his left hand. `The mail is hevy to-day,' said the landlord. `Gin'rally they don't have more'n half-a-dozen letters 'tween 'em. To-day they've got one apiece ! Bile my lights and liver!'—' And the passengers ?'—' There ain't any, skacely, now-days,' said the landlord, and what few there is, very much prefier to walk, the roads is so rough.'—' And how ist with you ' I inquired of the editor of the Bugle-Horn of Liberty, who sot near me.—' I can't go,' he sad. shakin his head in a wise way. `Ordinarily I should delight to wade in gore, but my bleedin country bids me stay at home. It is imperatively necessary that I remain here for the purpuss of announcin, from week to week, that our Gov'ment is about to take vigorous measures to put down the rebellion !' I strolled into the village oyster-saloon, where I found Dr. Schwazey, a leadin citizen, in a state of mind which showed that he'd bin histin in more'n his share of pizen. Hello, old Beeswax,' he bellered - how's your randmatns ? When you goin to feed your stuffed animils What's the matter with the eminent physician ? ' I pleasantly inquired.—` This,' he said, this is what's the matter—I'm a habitooal drunkard! I'm exempt.' . . . This is a speciment of how things was goin in my place of residence. A few was true blue. The schoolmaster was among 'em. He greeted me warmly. He said I was welkim to those shores. He said I had a massiv mind. It was gratifyin, he said, to see that great intelleck stalkin in their midst onct more. I have before had occasion to notice this schoolmaster. Ho is evidently a young man of far more than ord'nary talents. The schoolmaster proposed we should git up a mass meetin. The meetin was largely attended. We held it in the open air, round a roarin bonfire. The schoolmaster was the first orator. He's pretty good on the speak He also writes well, his composition bein seldom marred by ingrammaticisms. He said this inactivity surprised him. ' What do you expect will come of this kind of doins? Nihil fit. ' Hoeray for Nihil!' I interrupted. 'Fellow-citizens, let's give three cheers for Nihil, the man who fit.' The schoolmaster turned a little red, but repeated= Nikil fit' `Exactly,' I said. 'Nihil fit. He wasn't a strategy feller.' 'Our venerable friend.' said thO schoolmaster, smiths pleasantly, ' isn't posted in Virgil.' No, I don't know him. But if he's a able-bodied man, he must stand his little draft.' " But the showman's speech is the real thing. Never was them a better justification of Horace's plea for saying grave things with a smile :— " I said the crisis had not only cum itself, but it had brought all its relations. It has cum, I said, with a evident intention of makin us a good long visit. It's goin to take off its things and stop with us. My wife says so too. This is a good war. For those who like this war, it's just such a kind of war as they like. Ill bet ye. My wife says so too."
The showman gets a little mixed up with his metaphors about " the noble banner," but after an- interruption from the editor of the Bugle-Horn of Liberty he pulls himself together, and with occasional lapses into levity mounts steadily to a climax of passionate patriotism :— " ' There's money enough. No trouble about money. They've got a lot of first-class bank-note engravers at Washington who turn out two or three cords of money a day—good money too. Goes well. These bank-note engravers make good wages. I expect they lay up property. They are full of Union sentiment. There is considerable Union sentiment in Virginny, more specially among the honest farmers of the Shenandoah valley. My wife says so too. Then it isn't money we want. But we do want men, and we must have them. We must carry a whirlwind of fire among the foe. . . . This war hain't been too well managed. We all know that. What then We are all in the same boat—if the boat goes down, we go down with her. Hence we must all fight. It ain't no use to talk now about who caused the war. That's played out. The war is upon us—upon us all—and we must all fight. We can't " reason " the matter with the foe—only with steel and lead. When, in the broad glare of the noonday sun, a speckled jackass boldly and maliciously kicks over a peanut-stand, do we "reason" with him I guess not. And why "mason" with those other Southern people who are tryin to kick over the Republic ? Betsy, my wife, says so too. I have great confidence in A. Linkin. The old fellow's heart is in the right place and his head is clear. There's bin sum queer doins by sum of his deputies—civil and military—but let it pass. We must save the Union. And don't let us wait to be drafted. The Republic is our mother. For God's sake, don't let us slop to draw lots to see which of us shall go to the rescue of our wounded and bleeding mother. Drive the assassins from her throat—drive them into the sea ! And then, if it is worth while, stop and argue about who caused all this in the first place. You've heard the showman. You've heard my wife too. Me and Betsy is 1.' The meetin broke up with enthu- siasm. We shan't draft in Baldinsville if we can help it."
We should have liked to quote from the imaginary interviews with Lincoln and "Jeff" Davis, but enough has been said, we hope, to prove the genuineness of Artemus Ward's patriotism. As he said himself of Washington, he never " slopped over" ; but there was a vein of chivalrous sentiment in him too. He says fine things of the part played by women in the war, and his great wish in his lase illness was for strength to return to his home that he might die with the face of his mother bending over him in the cottage where he was born.
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