第101章

THE LONDON PUNCH LETTERS.P.S.--June 16th.--Artemus Ward really arrived in London yesterday.

He has come to England at last, though, like "La Belle Helene at the Adelphi Theatre, he "has been some time in preparation."JOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN, Piccadilly, W.Jan.30, 1865.

5.1.ARRIVAL IN LONDON.

MR.PUNCH: My dear Sir,--You prob'ly didn't meet my uncle Wilyim when he was on these shores.I jedge so from the fack that his pursoots wasn't litrary.Commerce, which it has been trooly observed by a statesman, or somebody, is the foundation stone onto which a nation's greatness rests, glorious Commerce was Uncle Wilyim's fort.He sold soap.It smelt pretty, and redily commanded two pents a cake.I'm the only litrary man in our fam'ly.It is troo, I once had a dear cuzzun who wrote 22 verses onto "A Child who nearly Died of the Measles, O!" but as he injoodiciously introjudiced a chorious at the end of each stansy, the parrents didn't like it at all.The father in particler wept afresh, assaulted my cuzzun, and said he never felt so ridicklus in his intire life.The onhappy result was that my cuzzun abandined poetry forever, and went back to shoemakin, a shattered man.

My Uncle Wilyim disposed of his soap, and returned to his nativ land with a very exolted opinyon of the British public."It is a edycated community," said he; "they're a intellectooal peple.In one small village alone I sold 50 cakes of soap, incloodin barronial halls, where they offered me a ducal coronet, but Isaid no--give it to the poor." This was the way Uncle Wilyim went on.He told us, however, some stories that was rather too much to be easily swallerd.In fack, my Uncle Wilyim was not a emblem of trooth.He retired some years ago on a hansum comptency derived from the insurance-money he received on a rather shaky skooner he owned, and which turned up while lyin at a wharf one night, the cargo havin fortnitly been removed the day afore the disastriss calamty occurd.Uncle Wilyim said it was one of the most sing'ler things he ever heard of; and, after collectin the insurance money, he bust into a flood of tears, and retired to his farm in Pennsylvany.He was my uncle by marriage only.I do not say that he wasn't a honest man.I simply say that if you have a uncle, and bitter experunce tells you it is more profitable in a pecoonery pint of view to put pewter spoons instid of silver ones onto the table when that uncle dines with you in a frenly way--I simply say, there is sumthun wrong in our social sistim, which calls loudly for reform.

I 'rived on these shores at Liverpool, and proceeded at once to London.I stopt at the Washington Hotel in Liverpool, because it was named after a countryman of mine who didn't get his living by makin' mistakes, and whose mem'ry is dear to civilized peple all over the world, because he was gentle and good as well as trooly great.We read in Histry of any number of great individooals, but how few of 'em, alars! should we want to take home to supper with us! Among others, I would call your attention to Alexander the Great, who conkerd the world, and wept because he couldn't do it sum more, and then took to gin-and-seltzer, gettin' tight every day afore dinner with the most disgustin' reg'larity, causin' his parunts to regret they hadn't 'prenticed him in his early youth to a biskit-baker, or some other occupation of a peaceful and quiet character.I say, therefore, to the great men now livin; (you could put 'em all into Hyde Park, by the way, and still leave room for a large and respectable concourse of rioters)--be good.I say to that gifted but bald-heded Prooshun, Bismarck, be good and gentle in your hour of triump._I_ always am.I admit that our lines is different, Bismarck's and mine;but the same glo'rus principle is involved, I am a exhibiter of startlin' curiositys, wax works, snaix, etsetry ("either of whom," as a American statesman whose name I ain't at liberty to mention for perlitical resins, as he expecks to be a candidate for a prom'nent offiss, and hence doesn't wish to excite the rage and jelisy of other showmen--"either of whom is wuth dubble the price of admission"); I say I am an exhibiter of startlin curiositys, and I also have my hours of triump, but I try to be good in 'em.If you say, "Ah, yes, but also your hours of grief and misfortin;" I answer, it is troo, and you prob'ly refer to the circumstans of my hirin' a young man of dissypated habits to fix hisself up as A real Cannibal from New Zeelan, and when I was simply tellin the audience that he was the most feroshos Cannibal of his tribe, and that, alone and unassisted, he had et sev'ril of our fellow countrymen, and that he had at one time even contemplated eatin his Uncle Thomas on his mother's side, as well as other near and dear relatives,--when I was makin' these simple statements the mis'ble young man said I was a lyer, and knockt me off the platform.Not quite satisfied with this, he cum and trod hevly on me, and as he was a very muscular person and wore remarkable thick boots, I knew at once that a canary bird wasn't walkin' over me.

I admit that my ambition overlept herself in this instuns, and I've been very careful ever since to deal square with the public.

If I was the public I should insist on squareness, tho' Ishouldn't do as a portion of my audience did on the occasion jest mentioned, which they was employed in sum naberin' coal mines.

"As you hain't got no more Cannybals to show us, old man," said one of 'em, who seemed to be a kind of leader among 'em--a tall dis'greeble skoundril--"as you seem to be out of Cannybals, we'll sorter look round here and fix things.Them wax figgers of yours want washin'.There's Napoleon Bonyparte and Julius Caesar--they must have a bath," with which coarse and brutal remark he imitated the shrill war-hoop of the western savige, and, assisted by his infamus coal-heavin companyins, he threw all my wax-work into the river, and let my wild bears loose to pray on a peaceful and inoffensive agricultooral community.