Mark Twain, the Great Humorist—A Delightful
Speaker—A Chicago Cub Reporter’s Experience—The
Celebrated Cronin Case—W.
T. Stead and Hinky Dink—When
the Former Wrote
“If Christ Came to
Chicago.”
Mark Twain was, in the minds of a multitude, the greatest humorist that
America has ever produced. Some of his works are classics, and he gave
that human touch to his characters that endeared them to the hearts of
his readers. Although his gifted pen is laid away forever, his writings
still live as Dickens’s have lived, his characters are undying. What is
more human than his Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, his Col. Mulberry
Sellars, in the “Gilded Age,” his “Prince and Pauper,” and what works
will outlast his Tales of Western Life, and the “Innocents Abroad”?
While I could not say that I was at all intimate with Mark, I have met
him a number of times, and have heard him speak brilliantly, and also,
while suffering great bodily pain, pathetically endeavoring to be his
own bright sunshiny self at banquets, when another person similarly
stricken in health would have been abed at home or in the hospital.
I knew Mark better than many others did, however, through my good
friend, Ralph W. Ashcroft, now of Montreal, who for many years was his
business manager; his wife, Mrs. Ashcroft, (formerly Miss Lyon) was
Mark’s capable secretary. They have a thousand and one recollections of
Mark, and could give the world a more realistic insight of the dead
author than has ever yet been presented.
Few men who ever spoke in public could sway an audience more readily
than could Mark Twain. It was a delight to him to play upon the emotions
of his hearers, and to transport them in the twinkling of an eye from
the verge of tears to the realm of laughter. But I recall two occasions
on which his art failed him.
He had been visiting a friend who lived in a small town in New York
state, and while there was asked by the superintendent of a local
charitable institute if he would be kind enough to come there and talk
to the inmates. He said he would be delighted to do so. The next
evening, when Mark stepped on the platform of the auditorium, he viewed
an audience of both sexes and all ages, and portraying various degrees
of intelligence. This was somewhat perplexing, and, for a moment, he was
at a loss to decide what kind of talk to give them. However, he launched
forth in a general way, and, after a few moments, as he tells it, “I
fired a mild one at them.” But there was no response—not even the
faintest suggestion of a laugh. All sat with their eyes glued on him,
wrapt in wonderment, admiration and respect. This was a poser to Mark,
but he continued to talk, and, in a minute or two, he “selected a
stronger one and hurled it into their midst.” The result was the same—a
morgue-like silence emanating from a group of animate corpses.
Mark’s friend was on the platform with him, and Mark looked appealingly
at him. He detected a twinkle of amusement in his friend’s face, but got
no encouraging look from him. Mark paused, mentally surveyed his last
joke and its manner of delivery, and found both flawless. He was
bewildered, but, nevertheless, decided to make a final attempt. He felt
that his reputation as a humorist was at stake.
So he continued talking, and finally launched an anecdote that had never
failed in his experience to turn an audience inside out with laughter
and shrieks of applause. But not a glimmer of amusement was perceptible
in his audience—not the remotest suggestion of a laugh or a smile. He
was furious—mad right clear through at his failure—and he commenced to
“take it out of” his audience in sarcastic vein, ending his talk by
complimenting them on their acute appreciation of humor and wit. When he
reached his friend’s home, he asked him if he could explain their
stupor.
“Why, didn’t you know?” said his friend: “They’re all deaf mutes!”
Mark and the “High-brows.”
On the other occasion, Mark had quite a different audience—the faculty
and the graduating classes of Columbia University in New York. On the
platform with him were several eminent men of international reputation.
Knowing the company he would be in, Mark decided that this occasion
would be a suitable one at which to show an intellectual audience that
he was something more than a humorist—to show them that he was a
philosopher and a man of parts in a literary way. He selected for this
purpose the beautiful poem which he had written in memory of his
daughter Susy, and which had not then been published. He decided to read
this to the gathering, at the close of his talk. Mark’s turn came, and
he delighted his audience with one of the most delicately witty speeches
he had ever made. They thought he had finished, but he kept on his feet,
and they continued applauding. He raised his hand beseeching silence,
and then said: “I would like, now, ladies and gentlemen, to read you
some serious verse that I composed recently. It is an appreciation of
my—”
The applause was renewed with fourfold force, the laughter fairly shook
the building. Mark looked visibly pained; he appeared to be (as he was)
deeply distressed. This served only to accentuate and prolong the
demonstration. Finally they quieted down, and very solemnly Mark said:
“But, ladies and gentlemen, what I wish to read to you is sacred in my
eyes. It refers to—”
But it was no use—the shrieks of laughter drowned his words. After
exhausting themselves, the audience waited for more, waited for “the
joke.” But Mark merely said, in as grieved a tone as he truly felt: “I
see, my friends, that you are in no mood this evening to treat me
seriously, so I will not burden you further.” And he sat down, amid a
deafening demonstration. Such wit, they thought, was delicious. He could
have cried with chagrin. Few, if any, in that audience yet know of their
unwitting _faux pas_.
So it was with Harry Lauder, two years ago, when speaking in a
Congregational Church in Montreal. He charmed his audience with a few
quaint sayings, and then referred to the Great War, and to the loss he
had sustained through the death of his son. It was very pathetic, but a
number of people sitting in front of him shook with laughter. They
thought he was still funny, to Sir Harry’s utter disgust and to the
disgust of others, who like myself felt the man’s sorrow and tearfully
sympathized with him in his loss.
Mark was a very shrewd investor. Whenever he made a few thousand dollars
on a book or lecture tour, he would put the money into some sound
enterprise. It is not generally known that he was the man who developed
what is now the linotype, the first type-setting machine.
The Human Cash Register.
He was very much interested in the cash register, and, when he died, was
one of the owners of a machine which was almost human. It would register
a purchase of say $2.65, gobble up a $5 bill, and automatically hand the
customer his change, viz: a two dollar bill, a twenty-five cent piece,
and a dime. The change would always come out in the highest possible
denominations. Mark figured on having a phonograph attached to the cash
register, which would say: “Here’s your change, madam. Thank you very
much.”
The late H. H. Rogers, of Standard Oil Co. fame, often gave him valuable
advice regarding investments. On one occasion Mark decided to have a
little fun at Rogers’ expense. He went to his office one day and told
him he was going to invest some money in a brickyard that could make
bricks cheaper, and better and faster than any other brickyard on earth,
and he wanted Rogers to invest $50,000 too. Mark told Rogers all about
the wonderful method of making these marvelous bricks, and took up about
an hour of Rogers’ valuable time, finally saying: “Now, Henry, I want
your cheque for $50,000, and I want it NOW.”
“But,” said Mr. Rogers. “There’s one important thing about the matter
that you haven’t told me.”
“What is that?” asked Mark.
“Why,” said Mr. Rogers, “where is this brickyard of yours located?”
“Oh,” exclaimed Mark disgustedly, “if you want to know that, the deal’s
off!”
As a matter of fact, the brickyard was a myth. It didn’t exist. All that
Mark was after was to get Rogers to write out the cheque, so that he
could have the laugh on him.
My Old Friend, the Chicago Cub Reporter.
Amongst my good old friends is Joe Dillabough, for years on the Chicago
press. Joe is Canadian born, but drifted to Chicago in the early ’80’s
and was the first cub reporter of the _Times_. What he doesn’t know of
the seamy side of life in that great city is not worth knowing. When Joe
was taken ill some years ago, we sent him out to the Canadian Rockies to
recuperate, and incidentally to tell the world of the magnificence of
the scenery around and about them, and how it enthralled the prominent
people from the east. Joe’s first dispatch was about the unfortunate
disappearance of a bishop and several priests from some outlandish
country, the name of which I have forgotten, in a chasm at Banff, and of
their timely rescue by Manager Mathews, of the C.P.R. hotel. It appeared
in the Montreal evening papers and on going to Toronto that night I sat
beside a stranger while the berths were being made up when he casually
remarked that: “This is a queer story in to-night’s paper—this rescue
of the bishop and priests from a chasm at Banff.” I asked in what
particular way was it queer, and he said he came from that far-away land
and they never had a bishop there. And I said, “Oh, Joe.”
Then the next dispatch was about the drowning of a large number of
Indians in Lake Louise, while crossing the ice on their way to a
potlach. It was widely published. I wrote Joe that there were no Indians
in that locality, and if there were, they would not cross the lake but
follow the trail around Lake Louise, but if they did cross the ice, they
couldn’t possibly drown for the ice was a couple of feet thick. Joe
naively replied that there were some of the most elegant liars in the
Rocky Mountains he had ever known. My experience is that these talented
descendants of Ananias are not altogether confined to that scenic
region.
Nearly a generation ago the art of alliteration was worked to death in
sensational headings. The _Times_ was easily first in this particular,
and one fine morning shocked and startled the community by its
blasphemous caption “Jerked to Jesus,” which appeared following the
hanging of a murderer who was himself the medium for the suggestion. The
copyreader was Clinton A. Snowden, then one of the bright young men on
the _Times’_ staff. Snowden went to Tacoma about 1892. It was he who hit
upon the plan of sending George Francis Train, the great national crank,
around the world on a 60-day tour, “Tacoma to Tacoma,” to beat the
record of Phineas Fogg, the Jules Verne character in “Around the World
in Eighty Days.” By the same token Train was the original of Fogg in the
Verne story. It will be recalled that Nellie Bly, a Canadian newspaper
woman working in New York, set out to out-do Train’s record and beat it
by a day or so. Nellie was a Brockville girl or from one of the towns
near there. Train, by the way, was a financial genius in his younger
days and the real father-promoter of the Union Pacific Railway. He
introduced “trams” in London and Australia.
Several Gory Sequences.
The celebrated Cronin case was one of Joe’s assignments, and it was one
of the most cold-blooded murders in the country’s annals. I am only
referring to it, because one of the scenes was laid in Winnipeg. Dr.
Cronin was an earnest and honest patriotic Nationalist, and belonged to
the notorious Camp 20. Suspecting that the immense sums of money
contributed to the “Cause” were being stolen by the “Triangle,” which
controlled the Camp and diverted the funds to the Triangle’s personal
benefit, he openly denounced Alexander Sullivan, its chief, and,
strenuously as they tried to silence him, he still continued to openly
charge them with theft. They could only quiet him by getting him out of
the way, and he was lured to the Carlson cottage one night and foully
murdered. Pat McGarry, Frank T. Scanlan and other friends visited the
newspaper offices and told of their suspicions. They were right. John M.
Collins, a Camp 20 member, then a traffic cop at Lake and Clark Streets,
identified Martin Burke at Winnipeg. John later became chief of police
at Chicago. He died of pneumonia a couple of years ago. George Hubbard,
chief in 1889, who sent Collins to the ’Peg, recently died in Florida.
Alex. S. Ross, assistant chief in ’89, who brought Burke back to
Chicago, died some years ago. He was a brother of Duncan C., the great
athlete, and Wm. J. Ross, now of Fort William, and former superintendent
of bridges, C.P.R., under John M. Egan. Detective John Broderick, who
worked up the case in Winnipeg, died a few years ago, and George A. H.
Baker, assistant states-attorney for Cook County, committed suicide in
Chicago by strangling himself with a trunk strap.
When Alex. Sullivan, head of the Triangle, died at St. Joseph’s
Hospital, Chicago, Joe covered the story for the _Tribune_. He was the
son of a British Army Officer, once stationed at Fort Amherstburg, Ont.,
and was born there. The Cronin murder has been followed by many
tragedies on both sides, or factions. It was John Fleming, an
ex-policeman, who tipped to Joe the scoop that John Sampson (“Major”)
had been offered $100 by Dan Coughlin (Big Dan), a Chicago city
detective, to slug Cronin and that tip led to Dan’s connection with the
case and to Joe’s story of his hiring of the white horse from Pat Dinan,
the liveryman, which was used when Cronin was lured to his death in the
Carlson cottage. Dan became a fugitive from justice following the
bribing of jurors in an Illinois Central Railway civil court action, and
he died in Honduras. He was led into the bribery case by Pat O’Keefe,
special agent for the Illinois Central Railway, and formerly in the same
capacity for the C.P.R. under Supt. J. M. Egan, in Winnipeg. O’Keefe and
Aleck Ross, years before going to Chicago, had been partners as whiskey
detectives in and around Rat Portage, Ont. They had quarrelled up there
over a pair of rubber boots and remained enemies for years in Chicago
until they were brought together in Mel Wood’s saloon on Clark Street,
where they shook hands and made up, renewing an old and fast friendship.
Martin Burke was captured by Chief of Police McRae through information
give by Alex. Calder and his son Arthur, who had sold him a ticket
through to Ireland. Burke’s assumed name was John Cooper. He was
sentenced to life imprisonment and nearly every one connected with the
case came to a tragic end.
Stead and Hinky Dink.
It was through another Joe—Joe Page, that great Canadian baseball
promoter—that I met the notorious “Hinky Dink,” who has been an
alderman of Chicago for years and years and has remained one
notwithstanding the strenuous efforts of the reform element to defeat
him. His real name is Michael McKenna, and his first ward colleague in
the council 20 odd years was “Bath House Jawn”—John J. Coughlin. The
Dink really is a square little man and became a great pal of W. T.
Stead, when he was here getting material for his book, “If Christ Came
to Chicago.” On that visit Stead lived among the hobo fellows and, with
them, actually was a “white wing,” pushing a broom in the streets that
he might get color for his story. Hinky’s special claim for popularity
is that he never goes back on “the boys;” no matter at what hour of the
night or early morn he arises to go bail for any poor unfortunate in the
police toils, and it is said that never has he been deceived by those he
has helped out of a hole. His saloon is now closed, the landlord having
raised his rent to an exorbitant sum.