Lincoln's yarns and stories : $b A complete collection of the funny and witty anecdotes that made Lincoln famous as America's greatest story tellerMcClure, Alexander K. (Alexander Kelly)
History
Lincoln's yarns and stories : $b A complete collection of the funny and witty anecdotes that made Lincoln famous as America's greatest story teller
McClure, Alexander K. (Alexander Kelly)
Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865 -- Anecdotes
“‘Now, gentlemen, I will tell you, what it is; I have thousands of
applications like this every day, but we cannot satisfy all for this
reason, that these positions are like office seekers--there are too many
pigs for the teats.’
“The ladies who were listening to the conversation placed their
handkerchiefs to their faces and turned away. But the joke of ‘Old Abe’
put us all in a good humor. We then left the presence of the greatest
and most just man who ever lived to fill the Presidential chair.’”
GREELEY CARRIES LINCOLN TO THE LUNATIC ASYLUM.
No sooner was Abraham Lincoln made the candidate for the Presidency of
the Republican Party, in 1860, than the opposition began to lampoon and
caricature him. In the cartoon here reproduced, which is given the title
of:
“The Republican Party Going to the Right House,” Lincoln is represented
as entering the Lunatic Asylum, riding on a rail, carried by
Horace Greeley, the great Abolitionist; Lincoln, followed by his
“fellow-cranks,” is assuring the latter that the millennium is “going to
begin,” and that all requests will be granted.
Lincoln’s followers are depicted as those men and women composing the
“free love” element; those who want religion abolished; negroes, who
want it understood that the white man has no rights his black brother is
bound to respect; women suffragists, who demand that men be made subject
to female authority; tramps, who insist upon free lodging-houses;
criminals, who demand the right to steal from all they meet; and toughs,
who want the police forces abolished, so that “the b’hoys” can “run
wid de masheen,” and have “a muss” whenever they feel like it, without
interference by the authorities.
THE LAST TIME HE SAW DOUGLAS.
Speaking of his last meeting with Judge Douglas, Mr. Lincoln said:
“One day Douglas came rushing in and said he had just got a telegraph
dispatch from some friends in Illinois urging him to come out and help
set things right in Egypt, and that he would go, or stay in Washington,
just where I thought he could do the most good.
“I told him to do as he chose, but that probably he could do best in
Illinois. Upon that he shook hands with me, and hurried away to catch
the next train. I never saw him again.”
HURT HIS LEGS LESS.
Lincoln was one of the attorneys in a case of considerable importance,
court being held in a very small and dilapidated schoolhouse out in the
country; Lincoln was compelled to stoop very much in order to enter
the door, and the seats were so low that he doubled up his legs like a
jackknife.
Lincoln was obliged to sit upon a school bench, and just in front of him
was another, making the distance between him and the seat in front of
him very narrow and uncomfortable.
His position was almost unbearable, and in order to carry out his
preference which he secured as often as possible, and that was “to sit
as near to the jury as convenient,” he took advantage of his discomfort
and finally said to the Judge on the “bench”:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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