Dooley, Mr. (Fictitious character) -- Fiction; Irish Americans -- Fiction
"'Exthry Red Speshul Midnight Edition. Mumps! Mumps! Mumps! Th'
heir iv th' Hinnissy's sthricken with th' turr'ble scoorge. Panic
on th' stock exchange. Bereaved father starts f'r th' plague spot
to see his afflicted son. Phottygrafts iv Young Hinnissy at wan,
two, three, eight an' tin. Phottygrafts iv th' house where his
father was born, his mother, his aunt, his uncle, Profissor
Plantagenet, Groton School, th' gov'nor iv Connecticut, Chansy
Depoo, statue iv Liberty, Thomas Jefferson, Niagara Falls be
moonlight. Diagram iv jaw an' head showin' th' prob'ble coorse
iv the Mumpococeus. Intherviews with J. Pierpont Morgan, Terry
McGovern, Mary MeLain, Jawn Mitchell, Lyman J. Gage, th' Prince
iv Wales, Sinitor Bivridge, th' Earl iv Roslyn, an' Chief Divry
on Mumps. We offer a prize iv thirty million dollars in advertisin'
space f'r a cure f'r th' mumps that will save th' nation's pride.
Later, it's croup.'
"An' so it goes. We march through life an' behind us marches th'
phottygrafter an' th' rayporther. There are no such things as
private citizens. No matther how private a man may be, no matther
how secretly he steals, some day his pitcher will be in th' pa-aper
along with Mark Hanna, Stamboul 2:01 1/2, Fitzsimmons' fightin'
face, an' Douglas, Douglas, Tin dollar shoe. He can't get away
fr'm it. An' I'll say this f'r him, he don't want to. He wants
to see what bad th' neighbors are doin' an' he wants thim to see
what good he's doin'. He gets fifty per cint iv his wish; niver
more. A man keeps his front window shade up so th' pa-apers can
come along an' make a pitcher iv him settin' in his iligant furnished
parlor readin' th' life iv Dwight L. Moody to his fam'ly. An'
th' lad with th' phottygraft happens along at th' moment whin he
is batin' his wife. If we wasn't so anxious to see our names among
those prisint at th' ball, we wudden't get into th' pa-apers so
often as among those that ought to be prisint in th' dock. A man
takes his phottygraft to th' iditor an' says he: 'Me attintion has
been called to th' fact that ye'd like to print this mug iv a
prom'nent philanthropist;' an' th' iditor don't use it till he's
robbed a bank. Ivrybody is inthrested in what ivrybody else is
doin' that's wrong. That's what makes th' newspapers. An' as
this is a dimmycratic counthry where ivrybody was bor-rn akel
to ivrybody else, aven if they soon outgrow it, an' where wan man's
as good as another an' as bad, all iv us has a good chanst to have
his name get in at laste wanst a year.
"Some goes in at Mrs. Rasther's dinner an' some as victims iv a
throlley car, but ivrybody lands at last. They'll get ye afther
awhile, Hinnissy. They'll print ye'er pitcher. But on'y wanst.
A newspaper is to intertain, not to teach a moral lesson."
"D'ye think people likes th' newspapers iv th' prisint time?" asked
Mr. Hennessy.
"D'ye think they're printed f'r fun?" said Mr. Dooley.
Adventure
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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