The Complete Works of Artemus Ward (HTML edition)Ward, Artemus
General
The Complete Works of Artemus Ward (HTML edition)
Ward, Artemus
American wit and humor
The theatre at Virginia will attract the attention of the stranger,
because it is an unusually elegant affair of the kind, and would be so
regarded anywhere. It was built, of course, by Mr. Thomas Maguire,
the Napoleonic manager of the Pacific, and who has built over twenty
theatres in his time and will perhaps build as many more, unless
somebody stops him--which, by the way, will not be a remarkably easy
thing to do.
As soon as a mining camp begins to assume the proportions of a city, at
about the time the whiskey-vender draws his cork or the gambler spreads
his green cloth, Maguire opens a theatre, and with a hastily-organized
"Vigilance Committee" of actors, commences to execute Shakespeare.
_______________
VI.
MR. PEPPER.
My arrival at Virginia City was signalized by the following incident:
I had no sooner achieved my room in the garret of the International
Hotel than I was called upon by an intoxicated man who said he was an
Editor. Knowing how rare it was for an Editor to be under the blighting
influence of either spiritous or malt liquors, I received this statement
doubtfully. But I said:
"What name?"
"Wait!" he said, and went out.
I heard him pacing unsteadily up and down the hall outside. In ten
minutes he returned, and said:
"Pepper!"
Pepper was indeed his name. He had been out to see if he could remember
it; and he was so flushed with his success that he repeated it joyously
several times, and then, with a short laugh he went away.
I had often heard of a man being "so drunk that he didn't know what town
he lived in," but here was a man so hideously inebriated that he didn't
know what his name was.
I saw him no more, but I heard from him. For he published a notice of
my lecture, in which he said I had a dissipated air!
_______________
VII.
HORACE GREELEY'S RIDE TO PLACERVILLE.
When Mr. Greeley was in California ovations awaited him at every town.
He had written powerful leaders in the "Tribune" in favor of the Pacific
railroad, which had greatly endeared him to the citizens of the Golden
State. And therefore they made much of him when he went to see them.
At one town the enthusiastic populace tore his celebrated white coat to
pieces, and carried the pieces home to remember him by.
The citizens of Placerville prepared to fete the great journalist,
and an extra coach, with extra relays of horses, was chartered to
the California Stage Company to carry him from Folsom to
Placerville--distance, forty miles. The extra was in some way delayed,
and did not leave Folsom until late in the afternoon. Mr. Greeley was
to be feted at 7 o'clock that evening by the citizens of Placerville,
and it was altogether necessary that he should be there by that hour.
So the Stage Company said to Henry Monk, the driver of the extra:
"Henry, this great man must be there by 7 to-night." And Henry
answered, "The great man shall be there."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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