A series of humorous descriptive articles, known as Charcoal Sketches,
appeared in 1837 in a Philadelphia newspaper. They became famous, and
for years their author was noted as a leading American humorist. Joseph
C. Neal, the author of the Charcoal Sketches, was born on the third
day of February, 1807, in the town of Greenland, New Hampshire. His
father had for many years been the principal of a popular academy in
Philadelphia, but his health failing him, he was compelled to retire to
a country residence at Greenland, where, along with his other duties,
he officiated as pastor in the Congregational church of the village.
When the subject of this sketch was two years old his father died,
and the family soon after removed to Philadelphia, and thence to
Pottsville, in the same State. Mr. Neal resided here until 1831, when
he settled in Philadelphia, and assumed the duties of editor of the
Pennsylvanian, a journal which became very popular, and conspicuous for
its influence on the political character of the State. It was in the
office of this journal that the elder James Gordon Bennett passed a
portion of his early years in journalism.
For nearly ten years Mr. Neal devoted his talents to the Pennsylvanian,
but at length his health failed him, and in 1841 he went abroad,
traveling in Europe and Africa for nearly two years. In 1844 he retired
from the editorial chair of the Pennsylvanian, and established in the
autumn of the same year a weekly literary miscellany, under the title
of Neal’s Saturday Gazette. Neal’s reputation as a writer secured for
the Gazette an immediate and continued success.
Joseph C. Neal’s humorous sketches of that character for which he
afterwards became distinguished, first appeared in the Pennsylvanian
under the title of “City Worthies.” These sketches were reprinted
and praised in hundreds of American newspapers. In 1837 he published
Charcoal Sketches, or Scenes in a Metropolis. In these sketches he
drew from life a class of characters peculiar to the lower classes and
disreputable haunts in large cities. The appearance of the sketches
in book form was hailed with delight, and several large editions were
readily disposed of. The work was also republished in London under the
auspices of Charles Dickens, who took a great interest in the American
humorist and his works.
In 1844 Mr. Neal issued his second book, Peter Ploddy and Other
Oddities, and soon after, another and newer series of Charcoal
Sketches. Both of these books commanded a large and ready sale. Neal
continued to edit the Saturday Gazette until July 3, 1848, when he
died very suddenly at his home in Philadelphia, of a complication of
diseases. His widow published a second and revised edition of his works
some years after his death.
Soon after his death, R. W. Griswold, in his Prose Writers of America,
said of Mr. Neal: “He writes as if he had little or no sympathy
with his creations, and as if he were a calm spectator of acts and
actors, whimsical or comical,--an observer rather by accident than
from desire.... His style is compact and pointed, abounding in droll
combinations and peculiar phrases, which have the ease and naturalness
of transcripts of real conversations. He had too much good nature to be
caustic, and too much refinement to be coarse. In some of his sketches
he exhibits not only a happy faculty for the burlesque, and singular
skill in depicting character, but a generality and heartiness of
appreciation which carry the reader’s feelings along with his fancy.”
The following selection from Peter Ploddy will tend to show Mr. Neal’s
peculiar style of writing:
“‘Common people, Billy--low, common people, can’t make it out when
nature raised a gentleman in the family--a gentleman all complete,
only the money’s been forgot. If a man won’t work all the time--day in
and day out--if he smokes by the fire, or whistles out of the winder,
the very gals bump agin him, and say, “Git out of the way, loaf!”
“‘But, Billy, my son, never mind, and keep not a lettin’ on,”
continued Nollikens, and a beam of hope irradiated his otherwise
Saturnine countenance; “the world’s a railroad, and the cars is
comin’--all we’ll have to do is to jump in, chalked free. There
will be a time--something must happen. Rich widders are about yet,
though they are snapped up so fast. Rich widders, Billy, are “special
providences,” as my old boss used to say when I broke my nose in the
entry, sent here like rafts to pick up deservin’ chaps when they can’t
swim no longer. When you’ve bin down twy’st, Billy, and are jist off
agin, then comes the widder afloatin’ along. Why, splatter docks is
nothin’ to it, and a widder is the best of all life-preservers, when a
man is most a case, like you and me.’
“‘Wall, I’m not perticklar, not I, nor never was. I’ll take a widder,
for my part, if she’s got the mint drops, and never ask no questions.
I’m not proud--never was harrystocratic--I drinks with anybody, and
smokes all the cigars they give me. What’s the use of bein’ stuck up,
stiffy? It’s my principle that other folks are nearly as good as me,
if they’re not constables nor aldermen. I can’t stand them sort.’
“‘No, Billy,’ said Nollikens, with an encouraging smile, ‘no, Billy,
such indiwidooals as them don’t know human natur’--but, as I was agoin
to say, if there happens to be a short crop of widders, why can’t
somebody leave us a fortin?--that will do as well if not better. Now
look here--what’s easier than this? I’m standin’ on the wharf--the
rich man tries to go aboard of the steamboat--the niggers push him off
the plank--in I jumps, ca-splash! The old gentleman isn’t drowned; but
he might have been drowned but for me, and if he had a bin, where’s
the use of his money then? So he gives me as much as I want now, and
a great deal more when he defuncts riggler, accordin’ to law and the
practice of civilized nations. You see--that’s the way the thing
works. I’m at the wharf every day--can’t afford to lose a chance, and
I begin to wish the old chap would hurry about comin’ along. What can
keep him?’
“‘If it ’ud come to the same thing in the end,’ remarked Billy
Bunkers, ‘I’d rather the niggers would push the old man’s little boy
into the water, if it’s all the same to him. Them fat old fellers are
so heavy when they’re skeered, and hang on so--why I might get drowned
before I had time to go to the bank with the check! But what’s the use
of waitin’? Couldn’t we shove ’em in some warm afternoon ourselves?
Who’d know in the crowd?’
“‘I’ve thought of that, Bunkers, when a man was before me who looked
the right sort,--but, Billy, there might be mistakes--perhaps, when
you got him out, he couldn’t pay. What then?’
“‘Why, keep puttin new ones to soak every day, till you fish up the
right one.’
“‘It won’t do,--my friend--they’d smoke the joke--all the riffraff in
town would be pushin’ old gentlemen into the river, and the elderly
folks would have to give up travelin’ by the steamboat. We must wait
till the real thing happens. The right person will be sure to come
along.’
“‘I hope so; and so it happens quick, I don’t much care whether the
old man, his little boy, or the rich widder gets the ducking. I’m not
proud.’
“‘Then you’ll see me come the nonsense over the old folks--who’s
loafer now?--and my dog will bite their cat--who’s ginger pop, and jam
spruce beer, at this present writin’, I’d like to know?’
“Thus, wrapped in present dreams and future anticipations--a king
that is to be--lives Nicholas Nollikens--the grand exemplar of the
corner loungers. Nicholas and his tribe exist but for to-morrow, and
rely firmly on that poetic justice, which should reward those who wait
patiently until the wheel of fortune turns up a prize.”