The Complete Works of Artemus Ward (HTML edition)Ward, Artemus
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The Complete Works of Artemus Ward (HTML edition)
Ward, Artemus
American wit and humor
"No," I said, "you must excuse me. Others may drop one if they
feel like it; but as for me, I decline. The early managers of this
institootion were a bad lot, and their crimes were trooly orful; but I
can't sob for those who died four or five hundred years ago. If they
was my own relations I couldn't. It's absurd to shed sobs over things
which occurd during the rain of Henry the Three. Let us be cheerful,"
I continnerd "Look at the festiv Warders, in their red flannil jackets.
They are cheerful, and why should it not be thusly with us?"
A Warder now took us in charge, and showed us the Trater's Gate, the
armers, and things. The Trater's Gate is wide enuff to admit about
twenty trater's abrest, I should jedge; but beyond this, I couldn't see
that it was superior to gates in gen'ral.
Traters, I will here remark, are a onfortnit class of peple. If
they wasn't, they wouldn't be traters. They conspire to bust up a
country--they fail, and they're traters. They bust her, and they become
statesmen and heroes.
Take the case of Gloster, afterwards Old Dick the Three, who may be seen
at the Tower, on horseback, in a heavy tin overcoat--take Mr. Gloster's
case. Mr. G. was a conspirater of the basist dye, and if he'd failed,
he would have been hung on a sour apple tree. But Mr. G. succeeded, and
became great. He was slewd by Col. Richmond, but he lives in histry,
and his equestrian figger may be seen daily for a sixpence, in
conjunction with other em'nent persons, and no extra charge for the
Warder's able and bootiful lectur.
There's one king in the room who is mounted onto a foamin steed, his
right hand graspin a barber's pole. I didn't learn his name.
The room where the daggers and pistils and other weppins is kept is
interestin. Among this collection of choice cutlery I notist the bow
and arrer which those hot-heded old chaps used to conduct battles with.
It is quite like the bow and arrer used at this day by certin tribes of
American Injuns, and they shoot 'em off with such a excellent precision
that I almost sigh'd to be a Injun, when I was in the Rocky Mountain
regin. They are a pleasant lot them Injuns. Mr. Cooper and Dr. Catlin
have told us of the red man's wonerful eloquence, and I found it so.
Our party was stopt on the plains of Utah by a band of Shoshones, whose
chief said: "Brothers! the pale-face is welcome. Brothers! the sun
is sinkin in the West, and Wa-na-bucky-she will soon cease speakin.
Brothers! the poor red man belongs to a race which is fast becomin
extink." He then whooped in a shrill manner, stole all our blankets and
whisky, and fled to the primeval forest to conceal his emotions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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