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 I
said 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' I
shouldn'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.
Leavin Liverpool (I'm goin' back there, tho--I want to see the
Docks, which I heard spoken of at least once while I was there) I
cum to London in a 1st class car, passin' the time very agreeable
in discussin, with a countryman of mine, the celebrated
Schleswig-Holstein question. We took that int'resting question
up and carefully traced it from the time it commenced being so,
down to the present day, when my countryman, at the close of a
four hours' annymated debate, said he didn't know anything about
it himself, and he wanted to know if I did. I told him that I
did not. He's at Ramsgate now, and I am to write him when I feel
like givin him two days in which to discuss the question of negro
slavery in America. But now I do not feel like it.
London at last, and I'm stoppin at the Greenlion tavern. I like
the lan'lord very much indeed. He had fallen into a few triflin
errers in regard to America--he was under the impression, for
instance, that we et hay over there, and had horns growin out of
the back part of our heads--but his chops and beer is ekal to any
I ever pertook. You must cum and see me and bring the boys. I'm
told that Garrick used to cum here, but I'm growin skeptycal
about Garrick's favorit taverns. I've had over 500 public-houses
pinted out to me where Garrick went. I was indooced one night,
by a seleck comp'ny of Britons, to visit sum 25 public-houses,
and they confidentially told me that Garrick used to go to each
one of 'em. Also, Dr. Johnson. This won't do, you know.
May be I've rambled a bit in this communycation. I'll try and be
more collected in my next, and meanwhile, b'lieve me,
Trooly Yours,
Artemus Ward.