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
I will remark here, while on the subjeck of Injuns, that they are in the
main a very shaky set, with even less sense than the Fenians, and when
I hear philanthropists bewailin the fack that every year "carries the
noble red man nearer the settin sun," I simply have to say I'm glad of
it, tho' it is rough on the settin sun. They call you by the sweet
name of Brother one minit, and the next they scalp you with their
Thomashawks. But I wander. Let us return to the Tower.
At one end of the room where the weppins is kept, is a wax figger
of Queen Elizabeth, mounted on a fiery stuffed hoss, whose glass eye
flashes with pride, and whose red morocker nostril dilates hawtily, as
if conscious of the royal burden he bears. I have associated Elizabeth
with the Spanish Armady. She's mixed up with it at the Surry Theatre,
where "Troo to the Core" is bein acted, and in which a full bally core
is introjooced on board the Spanish Admiral's ship, givin the audiens
the idee that he intends openin a moosic-hall in Plymouth the moment
he conkers that town. But a very interesting drammer is "Troo to the
Core," notwithstandin the eccentric conduck of the Spanish Admiral; and
very nice it is in Queen Elizabeth to make Martin Truegold a baronet.
The Warder shows us some instrooments of tortur, such as thumbscrews,
throat-collars, etc., statin that these was conkerd from the Spanish
Armady, and addin what a crooil peple the Spaniards was in them
days--which elissited from a bright eyed little girl of about twelve
summers the remark that she tho't it was rich to talk about the crooilty
of the Spaniards usin thumbscrews, when we was in a Tower where so many
poor pepl's heads had been cut off. This made the Warder stammer and
turn red.
I was so blessed with the little girl's brightness that I could have
kissed the dear child, and I would if she'd been six years older.
I think my companions intended makin a day of it, for they all had
sandwiches, sassiges, etc. The sad-lookin man, who had wanted us to
drop a tear afore we started to go round, fling'd such quantities of
sassige into his mouth, that I expected to see him choke hisself to
death. He said to me, in the Beauchamp Tower, where the poor prisoners
writ their onhappy names on the cold walls, "This is a sad sight."
"It is, indeed," I anserd. "You're black in the face. You shouldn't
eat sassige in public without some rehearsals beforehand. You manage it
orkwardly."
"No," he said, "I mean this sad room."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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