The Complete Works of Artemus Ward — Part 5: The London Punch Letters — John Shaqi
The Complete Works of Artemus Ward — Part 5: The London Punch LettersWard, Artemus
General
The Complete Works of Artemus Ward — Part 5: The London Punch Letters
Ward, Artemus
American wit and humor
"I mean it is sad to think that so many peple have been killed
within these gloomy walls. My frens, let us drop a tear!"
"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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