Now for the last few months I have been writing and I have become
ambitious and want to do “Bigger and Better things.” I realize that
my writings up to now have only appealed to the Morons. (That’s not
Mormon misspelled. It’s _Morons_, just as it’s spelled.) So I have been
a close Student and admirer of some of our great editorial writers and
I have tried to study their style and, beginning with this article, I
am changing my entire method of Literature and I hereby bid Adieu to
my Half-Wit Audience. (As a writer’s Writings never appeal to a higher
grade of intelligence than the Writer himself.) So, from now on, I am
going to give these learned and heavy thinkers a run for their Laurels.
I am out to make the front Page. My Column will be called The World
Tomorrow, not only commenting on the news of Today but predicting what
the morrow will bring forth.
A Race Horse, In Memorandum, beats the great Zev, the International
Favorite and My Own thrown in for good measure. That news will
perhaps interest 40 million Human Beings, and 2,000 Bookmakers,
while the news of the unearthing of a Prehistoric Skull at Santa
Barbara, California, linking us up with the Neanderthal Age will
only be appreciated by a small Majority of us thinking People. Some
anthropologists, however, consider the extinct Neanderthal Man as a
separate Species (Homo Neanderthalenis) intermediate between the Java
Man (or Pithecanthropus). According to Linneaus, Humanity comprises
four races: the Whites, having a light colored skin, belonging to the
Caucasian race; the Blacks, the completest possible negation of White;
the Republicans, form of genus Homo ape in his earliest Prehistoric
State; and, last of the four Races the Democrat. The Democrat doubtless
originated in the eastern Hemisphere. The main structural characters
distinguishing him are his gait, the modification of the feet for
walking instead of prehension, and the great Toe being non-opposable,
and, most of all, the enormous development of the brain, and smooth
rounded Skull.
But what cares the man of today for the Neanderthal Age! He is of the
Speculative Age. If he can get 10 Dollars down on the Nose of a winner
at about 15 to one, he don’t care if we descend from Goat or Ape.
As Demosthenes, the Great William Jennings Bryan of his time, so aptly
put it when he casually met Confucius, the originator of Mah-Jong
on Epsom Downs: “Good Afternoon, countryman, art thee risking a few
Shekels on thy favorite Crow Bait in this Race?” And Confucius pulled
the following Nifty which has been handed down through the Ages, and
made him the Philosopher or Shanghai:
“No, Demosthenes, Betting is a form of unintelligence. So long as we
have betting, we will know we have the ignorant with us.”
That little remark of Confucius was well said, and the fact that we had
40 million interested in the Race, and only a handful interested in the
Neanderthal Man, proves we have a long way to go yet until Civilization
is thoroughly reached.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account