Remarks Part 29

Spartacus was a man of wonderful carriage and great physical strength. It had always been his theory that a man might as well die of old age as to feed himself to a Roman menagerie. He maintained that he would rather die in a general free fight, where he had a chance, than to be hauled around over the arena by one leg behind a Numidian lion.

So he took his little band and fought his way to Vesuvius. There they had a pleasant time camping out nights and robbing the Roman's daytimes. The excitement of sleeping in a crater, added a wonderful charm to their lives. While others slept cold in Capua, Spartacus cuddled up to the crater and kept comfortable.

For a long time the little party had it all their own way. They sniffed the air of freedom and lived on Roman spring chicken on the half sh.e.l.l, and it beat the arena business all hollow.

At last, however, an army of 3,000 men was sent against them, and Spartacus awoke one morning to find himself blocked up in his crater. For a time the outlook was not cheering. Spartacus thought of telegraphing the war department for reinforcements, but finally decided not to do so.

Finally, with ladders made of wild vines, the little garrison slipped out through what had seemed an impa.s.sable fissure in the crater, got in the rear of the army and demolished it completely. That's the kind of man that Spartacus was. Fighting was his forte.

Spartacus was also a good public speaker. One of his addresses to the gladiators has been handed down to posterity through the medium of the Fifth Reader, a work that should be in every household. In his speech he states that he was not always thus. But since he is thus, he believes that he has not yet been successfully outthussed by any body.

He speaks of his early life in the citron groves of Syrsilla, and how quiet and reserved he had been, never daring to say "gosh" within a mile of the house; but finally how the Romans landed on his coast and killed off his family. Then he desired to be a fighter. He had killed more lions than any other man in Italy. He kept a big crew of Romans busy, winter and summer, catching fresh lions for him to stick. He had killed a large number of men also. At one matinee for ladies and children he had killed a prominent man from the north, and had done it so fluently that he was encored three times. The stage manager then came forward and asked that the audience would please refrain from another encore as he had run out of men, but if the ladies and children would kindly attend on the following Sat.u.r.day he hoped to be prepared with a good programme. In fact, he had just heard from his agent who wrote him that they had purchased two big lions and also had a robust gladiator up a tree. He hoped that he could get into town in a day or two with both attractions.

Spartacus finally stood at the head of an army of 100,000 men, all starting out from the little band of 70 that cut loose from Capua with borrowed cleavers and axhandles. This war lasted but two years, during which time Spartacus made Rome howl. Spartacus had too much sense to attack Rome. But at last his army was betrayed and disorganized. With nothing but death or capture for him, he rode out between the two contending armies, shot his war horse in order to save expenses, and on foot rushed into the thickest of the fight. This was positively his last appearance. He killed a large number of people, but at last he yielded to the great pressure that was brought to bear upon him and died.

Probably no man not actually engaged in the practice of medicine ever killed so many people as Spartacus. He did not kill them because he disliked them personally, but because he thought it advisable to do so. Had he lived till the present time he would have done well as a lecturer. "Ten Years in the Arena, with Ill.u.s.trations," would draw first-rate at this time among a certain cla.s.s of people. The large number of people still living in this country, who will lay aside their work and go twenty miles to attend a funeral, no matter whose funeral it is, would, no doubt, enjoy a bull fight or the cairn and refining joy that hovered over the arena. Those who have paid $175,000 to see Colonel John L. Sullivan disfigure a friend, would, no doubt, have made it $350,000 if the victim could have been killed and dragged around over the ring by the leg.

Two thousand years have not refined us so much that we need be puffed up with false pride about it.

Concerning Book Publis.h.i.+ng.

"Amateur" writes me that he is about to publish a book, and asks me if I will be kind enough to suggest some good, reliable publisher for him.

This would suggest that "Amateur" wishes to confer his book on some deserving publisher with a view to building him up and pouring a golden stream of wealth into his coffers. "Amateur" already, in his mind's eye, sees the eager millions of readers knocking each other down and trampling upon one another in the mad rush for his book. In my mind, I see his eye, lighted up with hope, and, though he lives in New Jersey, I fancy I can hear his quickened breath as his bosom heaves.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WISHES TO CONFER HIS BOOK ON SOME DESERVING PUBLISHER.]

Evidently he has never published a book. There is a good deal of fun ahead of him that he does not wot of. I used to think that when I got the last page of my book ready for press, the front yard would be full of publishers tramping down the velvet lawn and the meek-eyed pansies in their crazy efforts to get hold of the ma.n.u.script, but when I had written the last word of my first volume of soul-throb, and had opened the cas.e.m.e.nt to look out on the howling, hungry mob of publishers, with checkbooks in one hand and a pillow-case full of scads in the other, I was a little puzzled to notice the abrupt and p.r.o.nounced manner in which they were not there.

All of us have to struggle before we can catch the eye of the speaker. Milton didn't get one-fiftieth as much for "Paradise Lost" as I got for my first book, and yet you will find people to-day who claim that if Milton had lived he could have knocked the socks off of me with one hand tied behind him. Recollect, however, that I am not here to open a discussion on this matter. Everyone is ent.i.tled to his own opinion in relation to authors. People cannot agree on the relative merits of literature. Now, for instance, last summer I met a man over in South Park, Col., who could repeat page after page of Shakespeare, and yet, when I asked him if he was familiar with the poems of the "Sweet Singer of Michigan," he turned upon me a look of stolid vacancy, and admitted that he had never heard of her in his life.

A Calm.

The old Greeley Colony in Colorado, a genuine oasis in the desert, with its huge irrigating ca.n.a.ls of mountain water running through the mighty wheat fields, glistening each autumn at the base of the range, affords a good deal that is curious, not only to the mind of the gentleman from the States, but even to the man who lives at Cheyenne, W.T., only a few hours' journey to the north.

You could hardly pick out two cities so near each other and yet so unlike as Cheyenne and Greeley. The latter is quiet, and even accused of being dull, and yet everybody is steadily getting rich. It is a town of readers, thinkers and mental independents. It is composed of the elements of New England shrewdness and Western push, yet Greeley as compared with Cheyenne would be called a typical New England town in the midst of the active, fluctuating, booming West.

Cheyenne is not so tame. With few natural advantages the reputation of Cheyenne is that, in commercial parlance, she is "A 1" for promptness in paying her debts and absence of failures. There is more wealth there in proportion to the number of inhabitants than elsewhere in the civilized world, no doubt. The people take special pleasure in surprising Eastern people who visit them by a reception very often that they will long remember for cordiality, hospitality, and even magnificence.

Still I didn't start out to write up either Cheyenne or Greeley. I intended to mention casually Dr. Law, of the latter place, who acted as my physician for a few months and coaxed me back from the great hereafter. I had been under the hands of a physician just before, who was also coroner, and who, I found afterward, was trying to treat me professionally as long as the lamp held out to burn, intending afterward to sit upon me officially. He had treated me professionally until he was about ready to summon his favorite coroner's jury. Then I got irritated and left the county of his jurisdiction.

Learning that Dr. Law was relying solely on the practice of medicine for a livelihood, I summoned him, and after explaining the great danger that stood in the way of harmonizing the practice of medicine and the official work of the inquest business, I asked him if he had any business connection with any undertaking establishment or hic jacet business, and learning from him that he had none, I engaged him to solder up my vertebrae and reorganize my spinal duplex.

Sometimes it isn't entirely the medicine you swallow that paralyzes pain so much as it is the quiet magnetism of a good story and the snap of a pleasant eye. I had one physician who tried to look joyous when he came into the room, but he generally asked me to run my tongue out till he could see where it was tied on, then he would feel my pulse with his cold finger and time it with a $6 watch, and after that he would write a new prescription for horse medicine and heave a sigh, look at me as he might if it had been the last time he ever expected to see me on earth, and then he would sigh and go away. When he came back he generally looked shocked and grieved to find me alive. This was the pro tem physician and ex-officio coroner. I always felt as though I ought to apologize to him for clinging to life so, when no doubt he had the jury in the hall waiting to "view" me.

Dr. Law used to tell me of the early history of the Greeley Colony, and how the original cranks of the community used to be in session most of the time, and how they sometimes neglected to do their planting to do legislating, and how they overdid the council work and neglected to "bug" their potatoes. I remember, also, of his description of how the crew, working on the original big irrigating ca.n.a.l, struck when it was about half done, and swore that from the Poudre the ditch was going to run up hill, and would, therefore, be a failure. The engineer didn't know at first what was best to do with the belligerent laborers, but finally he took the leader away from the rest of the crew and said, "Now, I tell you this in confidence, because of course I know perfectly well that the stockholders may kick on it if they hear it, but I'm building the blamed thing as level as I can and putting one end of it in the Poudre and one end in the Platte. Now, if I'm building it up hill the water'll run down from the Platte into the Poudre, and if not it'll run from the Poudre into the Platte. Sabe?"

The ditch was built, and now a deep, still river runs from the Poudre to the Platte, according to advertis.e.m.e.nt.

Greeley is also noted for its watchmakers. I sent my watch to the first one I heard of, and he said it needed cleaning. He cleaned it. I paid him $2 and took it home, when it ran two hours and then suspended. Then I took it to another watchmaker who said that the first man had used machine oil on its works, and had heated the wheels so as to gum the oil on the cogs. He would have to eradicate the cooked oil from the watch, and it would cost me $3. I paid it, and joyfully took the watch home. The next day I found that it had gained time enough to pay for itself. By noon, it had fatigued itself so that it was losing terribly, and by the day following had folded its still hands across its pale face in the sleep that knows no waking. I took it to the third and last jeweler in the town. Everyone said he was a good workman, but a trifle slow. In the afternoon I went in to see how he was getting along with it. He was sitting at his bench with a dice cup in his eye, apparently looking into the digestive economy of the watch.

I looked at him some time, not wis.h.i.+ng to disturb him and interfere with his diagnosis. He did not move or say anything. Several people came in to trade and get the correct time, but he paid no attention to them.

I got tired and changed from one foot to the other several times. Then I asked him how he got along, or something of that kind, but he never opened his head. He was the most preoccupied watch savant I ever saw. No outside influence could break up his chain of thought when he got after a diseased watch.

I finally got around on the outside of the shop and looked in the window, where I could get a good view of his face.

He was asleep.

The Story of a Struggler.

My name is Kaulbach. William J. Kaulbach is my name, and I am spending the summer in Canada. I may remain here during the winter, also. My parents are very poor. They had never been wealthy, and at the time of my birth they were even less wealthy than they had been before. As soon as I was born the poverty of my parents attracted my attention. I decided at once to relieve their distress. I intended to aid them from my own pocket, but found upon examination that I had no funds in my pocket; also, no pocket; also, no place to put a pocket if I had brought one with me. So my parents continued to be poor, and to put by a little poverty for a rainy day. I was sole heir to the poverty they had acquired in all these years.

Nature did not do much for me in the way of beauty, either. I was quite plain when born and may still be identified by that peculiarity. Plainess with me is not only a characteristic, but it is a pa.s.sion. My whole being is wrapped up in it. My hair is a sort of neutral brindle, such as grows upon the top of a retired hair trunk, and my freckles are olive green, fading into a delicate, crushed-bran color. They are very large, and actually pain me at times.

My teacher tried to encourage me by telling me of other poor boys who had grown up to be president of the United States, and he tried to get me to consent to having my name used as a candidate; but I refrained from doing so. I knew that, although I was deserving of the place, I could not endure the bitterness of a campaign, and that the ill.u.s.trated papers would enlarge upon my personal appearance and bring out my freckles till you could hang your hat on them.

So I grew up to be a stage robber.

When I have my mask on my freckles do not show. I lectured on phrenology at first to get means to prosecute my studies as a stage robber, and when I had perfected myself as a burglar I went abroad to study the methods of the Italian banditti. I was two years under the teaching of the old masters, and acquired great fluency as a robber while there. I studied from nature all the time, and some of my best work was taken from life. I had an opportunity to observe all the methods of the most celebrated garroting maestro and stilletto virtuoso. He was an enthusiast and thoroughly devoted to his art. He had a large price on his head, also. Aside from that he went bareheaded winter and summer.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAKING HIS DEBUT.]

Finally I returned to my own native land, poor, but fired with a mighty ambition. I went west and proceeded at once to debut. I went west to hold up the country. I was very successful, indeed, and have had my hands in the pockets of our most eminent men.

We were isolated from society a good deal, but we met the better cla.s.s of people now and then in the course of our business. I did not like so much night work, and sometimes we had to eat raw pork because we did not wish to build a fire that would attract mosquitoes and sheriffs. So we were liable more or less to trichina and insomnia, but still we were free from sewer gas and poll tax. We did not get our mail with much regularity, but we got a lick at some mighty fine scenery.

But all this is only incidental. What I desired to say was this: Fame and distinction come high, and when we have them in our grasp at last we find that they bring their resultant sorrows. I worked long and hard for fame, and sat up nights and rode through alkali dust for thousands of miles, that I might be known as the leading robber of the age in which I lived, only to find at last that my great fame was the source of my chief annoyance. It made me so widely known that I felt, as Christine Nilsson says, "as though I lived in a gla.s.s case." Everyone wanted to see me. Everyone wanted my autograph. Everyone wanted my skeleton to hang up in the library.

I could have traveled with a show and drawn a large salary, but I hated to wear a boiler iron overcoat all through the hot weather, after having lived so wild and free. But all this attention worried me so that I could not sleep, and many a night I would arise from the lava bed on which I had reclined, and putting on my dressing-gown and slippers, I would wander about under the stars and wish that I could be an unknown boy again in my far away home. But I could not. I often wished that I could die a natural death, but that was out of the question.

Finally, it got so that I did not dare to take a chew of tobacco, unless I did so under an a.s.sumed name. I hardly dared to let go of my six-shooter long enough to wipe my nose, for fear that someone might get the drop on me.

That is the reason why I came to Canada. Here among so many criminals, I do not attract attention, but I use a nom de plume all the time, even here, and all these hot nights, while others take off their clothing, I lie and swelter in my heavy winter nom de plume.

The Old Subscriber.

At this season of the year, we are forcibly struck with the earnest and honest effort that is being made by the publisher of the American newspaper. It is a healthy sign and a hopeful one for the future of our country. It occurs to me that with the great advancement of the newspaper, and the family paper, and the magazine, we do not expect leaders and statesmen to think for us so much as we did fifty years ago. We do not allow the newspaper to mold us so much as we did. We enjoy reading the opinion of a bright, brave, and cogent editor because we know that he sits where he can acquire his facts in a few hours from all quarters of the globe, and speak truly to his great audience in relation to those facts, but we have ceased to allow even that man to think for us.

What then is to be the final outcome of all this? Is it not that the average American is going to use, and is using, his thinker more than he ever did before? Will not that thinker then, like the muscle of the blacksmith's arm, or the mule's hind foot, grow to a wondrous size as a result? Most a.s.suredly.

The day certainly is not far distant, when the American can not only out-fight, out-row, out-bat, out-run, out-lie, and out-sail all other nationalities; but he will also be able to out-think them. We already point with pride to some of the wonderful thoughts that our leading thinkists, with their thinkers, have thunk. There are native born Americans now living, who have thought of things that would make the head of the amateur thinker ache for a week.

All this is largely due to the free use of the newspaper as a home educator. The newspaper is growing more and more ubiquitous, if I may be allowed the expression. Many poor people, who, a few years ago, could not afford the newspaper, now have it scolloped and put it on their pantry shelves every year.

But I did not start out to enlarge upon the newspaper. I would like to say a word or two more, however, on that general subject. Very often we hear some wise man with the responsibility of the universe on his shoulders, the man who thinks he is the censor of the human race now, and that he will be foreman of the grand jury on the Judgment Day-we hear this kind of man say every little while:

"We've got too many papers. We are loaded down with reading matter. Can't read all my paper every day. Lots of days I throw my paper aside before I get it all read through, and never have a chance to finish it. All that is dead loss."