.... It is with a feeling of professional regret that we record the
death of Mr. Jacob Pigwidgeon. Deceased was one of our earliest
pioneers, who came to this State long before he was needed. His age is
a matter of mere conjecture; probably he was less advanced in years
than Methuselah would have been had he practised a reasonable
temperance in eating and drinking. Mr. Pigwidgeon was a gentleman of
sincere but modest piety, profoundly respected by all who fancied
themselves like him. Probably no man of his day exercised so peculiar
an influence upon society. Ever, foremost in every good work out of
which there was anything to be made, an unstinted dispenser of every
species of charity that paid a commission to the disburser, Mr.
Pigwidgeon was a model of generosity; but so modestly did he lavish his
favours that his left hand seldom knew what pocket his right hand was
relieving. During the troubles of ’56 he was closely identified with
the Vigilance Committee, being entrusted by that body with the
important mission of going into Nevada and remaining there. In 1863 he
was elected an honorary member of the Society for the Prevention of
Humanity to the Chinese, and there is little doubt but he might have
been anything, so active was the esteem with which he inspired those
for whom it was desired that he should vote.
Originally born in Massachusetts, but for twenty-one years a native of
California and partially bald, possessing a cosmopolitan nature that
loved an English shilling as well, in proportion to its value, as a
Mexican dollar, the subject of our memoir was one whom it was an honour
to know, and whose close friendship was a luxury that only the affluent
could afford. It shall even be the writer’s proudest boast that he
enjoyed it at less than half the usual rates.
The circumstances attending his taking off were most mournful. He had
been for some time very much depressed in spirits of one kind and
another, and on last Wednesday morning was observed to be foaming at
the mouth. No attention was paid to this; his family believing it to be
a symptom of hydrophobia, with which he had been afflicted from the
cradle. Suddenly a dark-eyed stranger entered the house, took the
patient’s neck between his thumb and forefinger, threw the body across
his shoulder, winked respectfully to the bereaved widow, and withdrew
by way of the kitchen cellar. Farewell, pure soul! we shall meet again.
.... We are reluctantly compelled to relate the untimely death of Mrs.
Margaret Ann Picklefinch, which occurred about one o’clock yesterday
morning. The circumstances attending the melancholy event were these:—
Just before the hour named, her husband, the well-known temperance
lecturer, and less generally known temperance lecturee, came home from
an adjourned meeting of the Cold-Water Legion, and retired very drunk.
His estimable lady got up and pulled off his boots, as usual. He got
into bed and she lay down beside him. She uttered a mild preliminary
oath of endearment and suddenly ceased speaking. It must have been
about this time she died. About daylight he invited her to get up and
make a fire. Detecting no movement in her body he enforced family
discipline. The peculiar hard sound of his wife striking the floor
first aroused his suspicions of the bereavement he had sustained, and
upon rising later in the day he found his first fears realized; the
lady had waived her claim to his further protection.
We extend to Mr. P. our sincere sympathy in the greatest calamity that
can befall an unmarriageable man. The inconsolable survivor called at
our office last evening, conversed feelingly some moments about the
virtues of the dear departed, and left with the air of a dog that has
had his tail abbreviated and is forced to begin life anew. Truly the
decrees of Providence appear sometimes absurd.
.... Mr. Bildad Gorcas, whose death has cast a wet blanket of gloom
over our community, was a man comparatively unknown, but his life
furnishes an instructive lesson to fast livers. Mr. Gorcas never in his
life tasted ardent spirits, ate spiced meats, or sat up later than nine
o’clock in the evening. He rose, summer and winter, at two A. M., and
passed an hour and three quarters immersed in ice water. For the last
twenty years he has walked fifteen miles daily before breakfast, and
then gone without breakfast. During his waking hours he was never a
moment idle; when not hard at work he was trying to think. Up to the
time of his death, which occurred last Sunday, he had never spoken to a
doctor, never had occasion to curse a dentist, had a luxurious growth
of variegated hair, and there was not a wrinkle upon any part of his
body. If he had not been cut off by falling across a circular saw at
the early age of thirty-two, there is no telling how long he might have
weathered it through.
A life like his is so bright and shining an example that we are almost
sorry he died.
.... During the week just rolled into eternity, our city has been
plunged into the deepest grief. He who doeth all things well, though to
our weak human understanding His acts may sometimes seen to savour of
injustice, has seen fit to remove from amongst us one whose genius and
blameless life had endeared him to friend and foe alike.
In saying that Mr. Jowler was a dog of preeminent abilities and
exceptional virtues, we but faintly echo the verdict of a bereaved
Universe. Endowed with a gigantic intellect and a warm heart, modest in
his demeanour genial in his intercourse with friends and acquaintances,
and forbearing towards strangers (with whom he ever maintained the most
cordial relations, unmarred by the gross familiarity—too common among
dogs of inferior breeds), inoffensive in his daily walk and
conversation, the deceased was universally respected and his loss will
be even more generally deplored.
It would be a work of supererogation to give a _résumé_ of the public
career of one so well known—one whose name has become a household word.
In private life his character was equally estimable. He had ever a wag
of encouragement for the young, the ill-favoured, the belaboured, and
the mangy. Though his gentle spirit has passed away, he has left with
us the record of his virtues as a shining example for all puppies; and
the writer is pleased to admit that so far as in him lay he has himself
endeavoured to profit by it.