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 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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