The Pasha papers
page: 0 (Cover) [View Page 0 (Cover) ] THE PASHA PAPERS. page: 0 (TitlePage) [View Page 0 (TitlePage) ] THE PASHA- PAPERS. EPISTLES OF MOHAMMED PASHA, Sei a., REAR ADMRAL OF THE TURKISH NAVY, WRITTEN FROM NEW YORK TO HS FRIEND ABEL BEN HASSEN. Translated into n2Alo-tntmtriait from the original manuscripts. TO WHCH ARE ADDED SUNDRY OTHER LETTERS, CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY, "AUDATORY AND OBJURGATORY, FROM GRATIFIED OR INJURED INDIVIDUALS IN VARIOUS PARTS OF THE PLANET. NEW YORK: CHARLES SORIBNER, 124 GRAND STREET. "ONDON: SAMPSON LOW, SON & 0O. MDC C CLIX. page: 0[View Page 0] ENTERBD according bt Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by CHARLES SCRIBNER, In the Clerk's OMice of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern Dietrict of New York. W. H. TINSON, Stereotyper. i ------ My business in the State Made me a looker-on here." MEASURE FOR MEASURE. "I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba, and cry, 'Tis all barren." SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY. "A chiel's amang you takin' notes." CAPTAIN GROSES PEREEGRINATIONS. --- A turbaned Turk . traduced the State." OTHELLO. page: 0-7[View Page 0-7] [FROM THE TRANSLATOR.] DEAR PURCHASER: PERHAPS you have heard of the State of Glenwood. Perhaps you have not. Geographically, the State of Glenwood may be described by saying-that it is situated on the eastern bank of the Hudson River, and that Yonkers lies about one mile, and New York (a place of considerable importance) about eighteen miles, below it. But spiritually, its domain is broader. It is an ideal State, an imaginary Republic, a Realm founded on the hopes of men. It stretches its territory from Pbrtland to San Francisco, from St. Paul to Galveston, wherever there are some who love the ideal, cherish abstract notions of Right, and yearn towards -a nobler social and political life for our country. page: viii-ix[View Page viii-ix] viii THE PASHA PAPERS, When these thoughtful people grow weary of the selfishness of business, the heartlessness of fashion, or the hypocrisy of party strife, they retire into this happy, hopeful State of Glen- wood, and wish that the United States could be just such a land. For, in the Republic for which they hope, fair as the dreams of Plato, or the Pantisocracy of Coleridge, there are no invisible police, no sea-sick pavements, no brown stone statues of Washington, no bad grammar, no Common Council, no pugilistic Congress, no primary meetings, no venal press, no federal patronage, no Mrs. Grundy, no Dr. Heliotrope, no need, greed, vain-glory, or self- ishness. But on the contrary, there are men of large heart and keen, loving vision, and sweet, sincere women (called foolish and visionary by some), who conspire to vitalize society, to advance Justice, to promote veracity, to foster cheerful conscientiousness, to cement friend- ships, to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, make the State continually a little better, nobler, "more blessed, less accursed." Toge- ther they laugh, toil, hope, aspire; and they are eminently successful-for the State of Glen- wood is, after all, only an ideal State, and THE IDEAL. ix success, in imagination, is the. easiest thing in the world. : A Society of genial persons, under the mystic title of P. B., have within the last two years taken possession of the geographical centre of Glenwood, as above defined; elected a goodly number of imaginary officers, executive and legislative, (the Judiciary is not elective, laus Deo!) organized an imaginary army; equipped an imaginary navy; promulgated a wise code of imaginary laws; built a fabulous number of imaginary churches; waged a successful imagin- ary war against Dobb's Ferry; inflicted condign imaginary vengeance on the Government of Tubby Hook, in return for certain imaginary insults to the sloop that sails bi-weekly from the Port of Yonkers under the' guardian bunting of Glenwood:-while during the in- tervals of rest from such labors they have made several millions of puns, and kept up a series of semi-monthly meetings for literary purposes. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Rear Admiral of the Turkish Navy, when entreated to give to the American Public the letters which were " never intended for the public eyel, , . * * , . , . , J page: x-xi[View Page x-xi] X THE PASHA PAPERS. which were of no special interest to the literati of Constantinople, and but for the " importuni- ties of friends " would have been still locked up in the writing-desk of Abel, son of Hassan- should have bethought himself to send the manuscripts for translation to your obedient servant, the subscriber; knowing as the Pasha did, that however insignificant the subscriber may be as an -individual, he is in his official capacity entitled to large respect and unbounded confidence, being Chief Justice, Secretary of State, and Ex-Worshipful Grand Punster, of Glenwood. The letters, as fast as they were received from their author, were accordingly translated .and submitted to the Society of P. B. for criticism. By the order and with the sanction of this gifted Body, a number of the epistles were published in that excellent journal the Evenizg Post; and with the same high approval, they are now given entire, in more permanent form, to that portion of the Enlightened Public who read new books. A large number of letters have, from time to time, been received by the Translator from persons whose attention has been attracted by THE PROCEEDS. Xi the Pasha's observations-and some of these are appended by way of commentary. It is proper to remark that the profits of this work will be devoted to an object of which a constitutional modesty forbids the mention, but which is to the Translator quite as interesting as the purchase of Mount Vernon. THE TRANSLATOR. GLENWOOD, April, 1859. I . . .. - . page: xii-xiii[View Page xii-xiii] 4' *^ei A PREFACE BY THE REAR ADMRAL. [COPY.] Inestimnable and Ineffably. Learned Translator: THMiE epistle, requesting that I, thy wretched slave and prostrate captive, would write a something to be prefixed to thy transla- tion of my totally vile and utterly worthless epistles, has been duly received and contents noted. After profound deliberation, considering that a preface is as essential to a book as a portico to a palace, and there being in thy free and enlight- ened country as many diversities of taste con- cerning prefaces, as there are concerning por- ticos, or public morals, I have concluded to xii page: xiv-xv[View Page xiv-xv] xiY CHACUN A SON GOUT. allow the readers of your priceless Translation to fill up, for themselves, the following lines, as the fancy of each may dictate: Thy willing bondsman, and docile dromedary, MOHAMMED. STAMBOUL, March 4th, 1859. EXPLANATORY NOTE. IN attempting to translate, into practical, methodical English, the following letters of Mohammed Pasha, writ- ten to a doting friend, and suffused with an Oriental glow of feeling, not unlike the mellow radiance of the rising sun, I feel that I have undertaken a difficult task. The Rear Admiral was reared in the land where the cypress and myrtle are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime; where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle; now melt into sorrow, now madden to crime. The Translator was born and bred in the State of New York, where the Erie Canal is considered a fine effort of the imagination, steam and electricity the greatest of forces, and the purchase of ready-made clothing a desir- able method of saving time and money; and where the love of the turtle melts into sorrow, only when there is a total absence of that delicious reptile. Hence, there is not entire sympathy between the Trans- lator and his Translatee. Again, the chirography of the Rear Admiral is what may be termed, in the language of Mrs. Malaprop, decid- edly ineligible."-Sq much so, that when I first gazed upon his manuscripts I acquired no clearer ideas than those which are communicated to my mind by the mysterious inscriptions on the tea-chests in South street. But indus- xv page: xvi-xvii[View Page xvi-xvii] Xvi EXPLANATORY NOTE. try supplies the lack of sympathy and unravels the snarls of chirography. In accordance with a time-honored cus- tomn, the Translator will therefore say, that he has prepared himself for his task by the most thorough study; and to give a faint idea of the manner in which his investigations have been conducted, he appends a list of a few of the authorities which he has carefully consulted. "ST OF AUTHORITIES. Specimens of the Garbling of Letters by the Majority of- the Trustees of the Dudley Observatory. Albany, 1858. Rollo in Rome : By Jacob Abbot. Boston, 1858. Rules and Orders of the Court of Chancery of the State of New York, with Precedents and Writs, Orders and Bills of Costs. Albany, 1844. Analyse des Pandectes de Pothier, en Francais, servant aussi de Table Analytique et Alphabetique des Matieres, egalement applicable au Digeste: Par M. Moreau de Montalin, Avocat.- A Paris, 1824. An American Dictionary of the English Language, containing, etc., etc.; to which is Prefixed an Introductory Dissertation on the Origin, History, and Connection, of the Languages of Western Asia and Europe. By Noah Webster, LL D., Member of the American, etc., etc. Springfield, 1855. The Congregational Hymn-Book. Boston, 1858. The Democratic Age. Statesmanship, Science, Art, Litera- ture, and Progress (!) Edited by C. Edwards Lester. Vol i., No. 1, October, 1858. Catalogus Senatus Academici et eorum, qui munera et officia gesserunt, quique alicujus Gradus Laurea donati sunt, in Col- legio Bowdoinensi, Brunsvici, in Republica Mainensi. Bruns- wick, 1858. The New American Cyclopaedia; a Popular Dictionary of General Knowledge. Edited by George Ripley and Charles A. Dana. Vol. i. A---- Araguay. New York, 1858. i .. s t EXPLA NLTORY NOTE. Xvii Doctor and Student; or, Dialogues between a Doctor of Divinity and a Student in the Laws of England. By William Muchase, Gent. London, 1518. Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of, Enagland. Philadelphia, 1846. Comic Blackstone. By Gilbert Abbott a Becket. London, 1850. Documents of the Board of Councilmen. New York, 1854. Cool as a Cucumber. A Farce. New York, 1857. The Past, Present, and Future of the City of Cairo in North America. Portland, 1858. Spurgeon's Gems; consisting of Brilliant Passages from the Published and Unpublished Sermons of Rev. C. H. Spurgeon. New York, 1858. Die lonier vor der ionischeu Wanderung, von Ernst Curtius. Berlin, 1855. La Turquie, et ses differents Peuples. Par Henri Mathieu. Paris, 1868. I might extend this list indefinitely, but consideration for the reader urges me to forbear from any further display of erudition. If, however, any person is desirous of perus- ing the titles of the remainder of my authorities, they may be found in the new catalogue of the Astor Library. An impertinent acquaintance lately asked me whether I had learned the Turkish Language before undertaking this work of translation. I refused to answer his question, and, as he had no earthly way of compelling me to reply, the question remains unanswered to this day. It does not i require a reply. It is leading and irrelevant. There is no evidence that the Pasha wrote his epistles in Turkish. But suppose he did, and suppose the Translator does not understand a word of that tongue-what then-? Did I not write a scathing review of Mr. Buckles' History of Civilization without ever having read a word of that L-.1 ..- ; ' page: xviii-xix (Table of Contents) [View Page xviii-xix (Table of Contents) ] aXV1n EXPLANATORY NOTE. f remarkable volume? Have I not often criticised a new play without seeing it performed? And shall I hesitate to translate these letters merely because I do not happen to understand the language in which they were written? I The insinuation of that impertinent acquaintance is "too trifling to be confuted, and deserves only to be mnentioned, that it may be despised." * THE TRANSLATOR. ) * William Pitt, Sr., per S. Johnson, att'y. r . .... . . t CONTENTS. rI r THE FIRST EPISTLE. PAGO The Rear Admiral arrives in Town--The First Day's Pro- ceedings... ........ ........................... 25 THE SECOND EPISTLE. The Rear Admiral Visits the Opera-His Impressions of American Women there-Six Ways of Getting Posi- tion in New York--Biography of a Merchant Prince.. 38 FROM T. 0., A PHLOSOPHCAL HSTORIAN . .............. 43 FROM G. S........ ........ ..................... 48 THE THRD EPISTLE. The Rear Admiral considers Young Women-A Brief Ser- mon with a Briefer Commentary.. ................. . 5 ,xix , 2 f$ page: xx (Table of Contents) -xxi (Table of Contents) [View Page xx (Table of Contents) -xxi (Table of Contents) ] XX CONTENTS. PAGE FROM MR. T. SPOON. ............. .................... 65 FROM C. E., AN AMABLE AND CONFIDENTIAL YOUNG GENTLE- MAN ........... ................................. 67 THE FOURTH EPISTLE. The Rear Admiral expresses his Opinion in regard to the Press-The Weekly Press-The Daily ditto ...... .. 73 FROM A DYSPEPTIC BUT THOUGHTFUL FRIEND ............. q79 THE FIFTH EPISTLE. The Rear Admiral discourses about Valuable Inventions and Discoveries-How to Get Rich at the Public Ex- pense ...................................... . 83 FROM MR. PEWTER MUG................................. 91 THE SIXTH EPISTLE. The Rear Admiral visits Wall Street-He receives Some Instruction in the Art of Making Money ............ 93 NOTE BY THE TRANSLATOR ................. .......... 101 THE SEVENTH EPISTLE. The Rear Admiral is introduced to Mrs. Grundy-His Opinion of Mrs. Grundy .......................... 106 FROM MR. B. HLL ............................... "M w .. . . . . \" r o CONTENTS, xxi THE EIGHTH EPISTLE. PAGE The Pasha visits the Custom-House, and Discourses about the Administration ............... .........,... 119 THE NINTH EPISTLE. The Rear Admiral visits the Courts-His Opinion of Elected Judges-About Juries ................... 127' THE TENTH EPISTLE. The Rear Admiral goes to Church...................... 139 FROM W. W. H ........ . ..................... 149 THE ELEVENTH EPISTLE. The Rear Admiral accepts an Invitation to Mrs. Coupon's Grand Ball...........................; ... 153 FROM MRS. COUPON ...... ........................... 163 FROM TOMPKINS EFFENDI....... .................... 166 THE TWELFTH EPISTLE. The Rear Admiral contemplates the Town of Boston-- About Boston Poetry ............................. 1.8 FROM A FRIEND IN BOSTON. ....................... 187 FROM T. SPOON, AGAIN ................................ 194 page: xxii (Table of Contents) -xxiii (Table of Contents) [View Page xxii (Table of Contents) -xxiii (Table of Contents) ] x1 Xxii CONTENTS. THE THRTEENTH EPISTLE. PAGE The Rear Admiral embraces the Doctrine of Manifest Des- tiny-He illustrates the Subject................. 202 FROM J. VOLEUR, Esq......... ....................... 213 FROM MANY READERS ........... .. ................... 22 REPLY TO FOREGOING. . .. ......*******. *221 THE FOURTEENTH EPISTLE. The Rear Admiral notices Mount Vernon ................ 229 FROM THE SOLICITOR GENERAL OF GLENWOOD............. 223 FROM MR. . . M........... ........... 239 THE FIFTEENTH EPISTLE. The Rear Admiral looks out on Broadway............... 242 FROM A GRUMBLER................................. 252 THE SIXTEENTH EPISTLE. Which is not from the Rear Admiral, but, parenthetically, from Tompkins Effendi, who writes to the Translator, on the subject of Conversational Depravity .......... 258 If REPLY ............ ............................. 271 CONTENTS. xiii THE SEVENTEENTH EPISTLE. PAGE The Rear Admiral has been to Washington-His Theory of our Government.-..... ....... .......... 279 FROM THE SOLICITOR GENERAL OF GLENWOOD .......... 289 THE EIGHTEENTH EPISTLE. The Rear Admiral considers the Code of Honor, and other Things........... ........................... 29 THE NINETEENTH EPISTLE. The Rear Admiral weighs Anchor, and writes a few Valedic- tory Remarks ...........................3........ 08 . page: xxiv-25[View Page xxiv-25] I I THE PASHA PAPERS, THE FIRST EPISTLE. The Rear Admiral arrives in Town-The first Day's Proceed- ingo. To the well-Beloved, magnanimous, and eminent Abel -Ben Has. san, Keeper of the Green Seal, Superintendent of the Sacks of the Bosphorus, Antelope of my Affections and Dear to my Heart. IN THE NAME OF THE PROPHET--GREETING: In accordance with my promise, O morn- ing star of my life, I write to you somewhat con- cerning my recent journey to the United States of America,- a country called by the ingenious and truly modest inhabitants thereof, the land of the free and the home of the brave. I write with a quill plucked from the original American eagle, and sold to me by a well-spoken merchant in Chatham street, New York, of the name of Diddler. Our mighty Prophet well says, in the Chapter 25 page: 26-27[View Page 26-27] 26' THE PASHA PAPERS. of Apes, "The travelled monkey is wiser than the monkey that stays at home." I find myself greatly enlarged in wisdom and knowledge by my trip to the western continent; and thus feel- ing, I long to communicate to you, O friend, a portion of the treasures of my experience. I know we are told in our Alcoran (Chapter of Chickens), that it is preposterous to attempt th instruct the mother of one's father in the art of extracting by atmospheric pressure the contents of eggs, and I can believe that such a task would be an ungrateful one; but I also know that you , are of a docile as well as spirited disposition, and will thankfully receive as well as skillfully use such hints from American life as I may commu- nicate. It was a fine afternoon in February 1858, (I compute time after the manner of the infi- dels), when the steamer having on board your friend, arrived in the bay of New York. The sun was just setting in the west, in much the same style that he sets in our beloved Turkey. The view was fine. On the right lay the island where the Governor of the United States * is said to reside ; in front we saw the city of New York, with much shipping and many minarets; while on the left was stretched the coast of New Jersey -a semi-barbarous country, nominally under the jurisdiction of the United States of America, * Not a very bad blunder for a European tourist.-TRANS. OF NEW JERSEY. 27 but in reality. governed by a band of chiefs called, in their corporate capacity, "'The Camden and Amboy Railroad Company." On inquiry I have learned that New Jersey is principally used as a cricket-ground by the neighboring States, and that its principal productions are cider, shrimps and pearls. These commodities are brought in large quantities to the markets of this metropolis, and there bartered for mosquito netting, anti-bilious pills, and such other articles as may be, to the inhabitants of New Jersey, prime necessities of life. On arriving at the wharf and leaving the steamer, I was surrounded by a number of well- disposed American citizens, who offered, in the kindest manner, to take me to any portion of the city in their own carriages. Declining their generous offers, I threw myself into the arms of the Committee, a trio of great men who had been appointed by the Divan of the city to welcome me to its municipal hospitalities, and I was speedily conducted by these noble civic fathers to the largest caravansary in the town, the St. Nicholas Hotel. I was shown to my rooms, which were of the most gorgeous description. My principal apartment, as I have been in- formed, is a bridal chamber, and indeed seems admirably adapted for that use, being very ele- gant in adornment, and an object of great public curiosity. For you must know, O friend of my page: 28-29[View Page 28-29] 28 THE PASHA PAPERS. earlier days, that the Americans are a progres- sive people, and have advanced much beyond us in their ideas on the subject of nuptial rites; so that, far from veiling them in coy mystery, .they delight to make them a matter of innocent pub- licity. After kindly inviting me to go down-stairs and " take a horn "-a phrase which my drago- man interpreted to mean the imbibing of athletic fluids forbidden by the Prophet, which invitation I was constrained to decline, the obliging Com- mittee left me to my slumbers. On the following day, at about the sixth hour, (called " noon" in the American dialect), I was escorted by my indefatigable friends, the Com- mittee, to the City Hall, where the rulers or Divan of the city are accustomed to meet. Most delightful, friend of my bosom, is variety to the human soul. And as in the parched desert the traveller, astride a much-jolting camel, is pleased to see a green oasis, so in a fertile island like Manhattan,per contra, it is goodly to behold a little desert, like the Park, in which stands the temple of law and justice, to Tlwhich I was con- ducted. In front of the building is erected a statue of the Father of this Country, of the most touching, I might say, Imposing character. I deduced from its appearance that the great man, like Belisarius, was in his later years smitten by blindness, and reduced to poverty. He is repre- . ^ CONCERNING RULERS. 29 sented by the artist as holding out his hat and imploring charity from passers-by. The fact that he was thus reduced in his old age is a fresh and convincing proof of the ingrat- itude of republics, while his present high posi- tion in the esteem of his countrymng is a striking specimen of the revenges of histoy. And while I linger in memory around the precincts of the City Hall, I cannot refrain from expressing my admiration of the sagacity exhi- bited by the people of this great city, in the J- choice of their rulers. In the tyrannical and degraded countries of Europe, the governing classes are unhappily selected from aimong those whom birth and education, combined with the refining influence of social amenities, have ren- dered haughty, polite, and euphuistip. But in New York the electors have wisely considered that the business of government is a very low and unprofitable one, and they therefore select their municipal rulers from among the menial classes, and compel them to serve their constituency without pay. In this manner, persons who are practically acquainted with vice and degradation of all sorts, are placed in the position of suppress- e; ors of vice and degradation, and as it seems to me are well qualified for the task-(for what says the Book in the Chapter of Swindles?"There is no trap for a robber like a thief.") And thus, moreover, a large number of emigrant-runners, y i page: 30-31[View Page 30-31] 30 THE PASHA PAPERS. baggage-smashers, ticket-speculators, policy deal- ers, and rum-sellers, are removed from their disreputable occupations and placed in the Board of Councilmen, where, as in a model-discipline prison or house of refuge, they may ref rm their habits and become ornaments to society. I mention these facts simply as proofs of the eminent sagacity of the people among whom I have been sojourning. At the City Hall I was entertained by some of the most distinguished men in America, as I was informed. Each of these great personages made a speech, which I presume to have been redolent with eloquence, like to that of Haroun al Rashid; and I therefore regretted much that I did not understand the American language. In the translation made by my interpreter, I am constrained to say, that the sentiments of these eminent orators seemed somewhat common- place. The addresses having been finished, I was graciously invited by one of the Committee of Reception to partake of an extemporaneous col- lation at his own expense, an invitation which I accepted with much pleasure. Judge of my gratification when I found that he had provided ham sandwiches for the feast. Thus, my friend, was I enabled to partake of the delicious flesh of swine, which the strictness of our religious scruples at home had hitherto prevented me * SPIRITS AND TAMMANY. 31 from tasting. Spirituous beverages were also provided, of which I imbibed a small quantity. They were, in taste, not unlike the turpentine of commerce; but I am informed that their effects are highly beneficial, since they so harden and pave -the throat, that the most lengthened displays of eloquence, for which the Americans are somewhat famous, do not injure the voice. Having heard much of Tammany Hall and of its beneficent and powerful influence upon the politics of the metropolis, I requested to be con- ducted thither; in which desire I was speedily gratified. With great truth does the sage Ali remark, in his letter to the Blessed Fatima: ' A kitten which has been scorched by the fire is often better in soul than in semblance." This observation applies with force to the place where th4 sachems of Tammany are wont to assemble. For, instead of a stately and wholesome edifice, in which, as in some temple of learning or areo- pagus, wise men might sit to instruct the people in philosophy and wisdom, I found a sufficiently dirty building, in which the principal business of the occupants seemed to be to sell stimulating drinks of the most powerful sort. Judge of my surprise when I was told that the establishment, so far from being an abode of rowdyism, bribery, and rascality of every kind, as some malignants have slanderously asserted, page: 32-33[View Page 32-33] 32 THE PASHA PAPERS. was in reality, intended for purely charitable purposes. I will copy for your edification a portion of the law, passed April 9, 1805, by which the society was incorporated: "Whereas, William Mooney and others, inhabitants of the city of New York, have presented a petition to the legislature, setting forth that they, since the year 1789, have associated themselves under the name and description of the Society of Tammany, or Columbian Order, for the purpose of affording relief to the indigent and distressed members of the said asso- ciation, their widows, orphans, and others who may be found proper objects of their charity, and therefore solicit that the legislature will be pleased to incorporate the said Society for the purposes aforesaid, under such limitations and restrictions, as to the legislature shall seem meet. "Therefore, be it enacted, by the people of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, that such persons as now are, or shall from time to time become, members of the said Society, shall be and are hereby ordained and constituted, and declared to be a body corporate and politic, in deed, fact, and name, by the name 4 The Society of Tammany, or Colum- bian Order, in the City of New York;' and that by that name they and their successors shall have succession, and shall be persons in law capable of suing and being sued, pleading and being impleaded, answering, and being answered unto, defend- ing and being defended in all courts and places whatsoever; and that they and their successors may have a common seal, and change and alter the same at their pleasure; and that they and their successors by the same name, shall be persons capable in law to purchase, take, receive, hold, and enjoy, to them and their successors, any real estate in fee simple, or for term of life or lives, or otherwise, and any goods, chattels, and personal estate, for the purpose of enabling them the better to carry into effect the benevolent purpose of affording relief to the indigent and distressed, provided the clear yearly value of such real and personal estate shall not exceed the sum of $5,000." . . CONCERNING B'HOYS. 33 I do not find that the members of the Colum- bian Society have ever wrought any large number of deeds of charity; though from the well-known combativeness of certain of the mem- bers, it is quite likely that some of them have been worthy objects of eleemosynary hospital treatment, and may have left more than a nor- mal number of widows and orphans. But virtue is in the habit of remunerating herself, and dressed in the saintly robes of charity, these devoted sachems have acquired great influence in the town. They have built this hall, wherein the great and good men of the city (called in the American dialect b'hoys) delight to meet and discharge their duties as citizens by selecting the candidates for whom it is proper that the Dear People should vote. So accustomed are the b'hoys to meeting at Tammany Hall, that admit- tance to its charitable precincts has become a test of political virtue and integrity, and thus the sachems or directors control, in a great mea- sure, the destinies of New York, not by virtue of authority, but by the mere force of their own sweetness and benevolence of character. In- deed, so potent is their influence, that it is consi- dered the duty of every upright man to vote for the Devil Incarnate, in case the sachems should so direct; but every one knows that they are too pious ever to propose as a candidate so disreput- able a person-to say nothing of the fact that - I 22* i page: 34-35[View Page 34-35] 34 THE PASHA PAPERS. the Devil Incarnate is understood to have no desire for office in New York. In my next epistle, O Abel Ben Hassan, I shall present to you some' account of the opera, an amusement to which I was conducted during the evening of this eventful day. Till then, farewell I MOHAMMED. i THE SECOND EPISTLE. The Rear-Admiral Visits the Opera--His Impressions of Ameri- can Women there--Six Ways of Getting Position in New York-Biography of a Merchant Prince. To the Superlatively Excellent Abel Ben Hassan, Nightingale of my Darker Hours. AFTER leaving the City Hall, which I visited in the manner described in my last letter, I returned to my lodgings and smoked my chi- boque till evening, meditating much on the greatness and glory of the Western Hemisphere. At seven o'clock or thereabouts, my indefatiga- ble friends, the Committee, again appeared, and kindly consented to escort me to the opera, an amusement or spectacle to be attended at the Academy of Music. Arrived at this temple of melody we were shown into a private box, which was admirably adapted for the purpose of seeing the audience, and being seen by them. This mutual inspection, I am told, is the principal object to be attained by visiting the Academy. I cannot repress my admiration at the inge- page: 36-37[View Page 36-37] 36 TITE PASHA PAPERS. nious nature of the opera-to me a musical nov- elty. It appears to be a representation of human life and passion in a strictly original way; though by means of established formulas, which, when familiar, readily explain to the hearer the other- wise mysterious plans of the dramatist. A tenor is always an unfortunate lover, and, like all lovers, immensely self-conceited. A soprano is a pale and theoretically beautiful maiden, with a stern parent, a proclivity to bal- conies, moonshine and tears, and a resolute deter- mination to have white flowers strewn over her early tomb. A baritone is a villian of cut-throat visage and massive muscles, who persecutes the unhappy couple aforesaid. A basso profundo is either a villian of more consummate rascality; or a servant of low but humorous cunning, or a soldier of deep lungs and strict morality, just as the composer may deem expedient. A contralto is either a peasant girl who knows nothing, a ,gipsy who knows everything, or a ' page of tempting appearance, whose business it is to do as little as possible for the benefit of society, and as much as possible in the way of mischief. The chorus is a collection of very ugly but quite harmless persons of both sexes, who are alternately dejected and delighted, as the princi- f . THE OPERA. 37 pal characters are sad or merry, and who mani- fest their emotions by a small number of chords, and a large number of- 1iscords. They also inci- dentally explain such portions of the plot and action of the opera as: would otherwise be entirely incomprehensible.. In the meantime the orchestra play the part of commentators with -uncommon skill. Is the soprano weary of the world? The flutes and hauthoys sob and sigh. Is the tenor gradually arriving at the conclusion that this world is a Sahara with but one oasis-or that he has not loved the world nor the world him? The violins and cornets wail and pout with melodious woe. Does the contralto take pleasure in informing her stalwart persecutor that he has just burned his own brother? The violoncellos and trom- bones unite to express the astonishment of the bereaved party. Is the muscular villain prepar- ing to make all good angels weep The ophi-' cleides, and double and contra-basses, give notice of his diabolical designs by groans and hisses, and curses deep and loud. Is confusion, moral and social, prevalent upon the scene? The entire force of the instrumentation is employed to give the hearer a lively idea of the wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds, and chaos comes again. Thus, O Abel Ben Hassan, you see with what natural and pleasing pictures of human existence page: 38-39[View Page 38-39] 38 THE PASHA PAPERS. the Americans are accustomed to regale them- selves at the corner of Fourteenth street and Irving Place. The opera which!"4't-ipleasure to see is called "(The liuewt ld ail the principal inci- dent is the massacre: of e sect' of Christians by another. One of the Conmttee was good enough to explain to me the plo, and to give me an interesting sketch 6f the origin and progress of the religion of his country. From his remarks I gathered that it is founded on a surprisingly sim- ple, yet, to me, novel principle, namely " perse- cution." The central spring is the doctrine that "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church;" and the more, therefore, you persecute sincere believers or sincere unbelievers, the more they will increase, and thus the more will sin- cerity, honesty and conscientiousness flourish. Thus the orthodox church people of the first cen- tury persecuted and finally killed the Founder of Christianity. In consequence of their exertions, his followers increased-in an astonishing manner, so much so that they were soon powerful enough to persecute one another, to the great additional increase and edification of the persecuted. 'The Latin church persecuted the Greek church, and the Greek church persecuted the Latin church, and each waxed more powerful in consequence. The Arians persecuted the Trinitarians, and the Trinitarians returned the compliment. Later still HOT STAKES AND COLD CHOPS. 39 the Catholics burned John Huss, and then Prot- estant Calvin retorted by roasting Dr. Servetus. A little later the I: 1; in Spain, and the friends of Catherine-d e M cis in France, con- tinued the good work; iter yet, the Epis- copal Church of England dragooned to death the Covenanters of Scotland& The Puritan Fathers were persecuted from England to Holland, and from Holland to America, and then replied by persecuting the Quakers and Baptists from Bos- ton to Roxbury, and from Roxbury to Rhode Island. At this day,* even, I am told thatin the Park street Church, in Boston, a number of worthy men are wont to pray that a divine of different views may either be made to adopt their own sentiments, or else be removed to the other world; or in other words, that ALLAH will play the part of persecutor, which the unfortunate laws that prevail at present in the commonwealth of Massachusetts prevent them from assuming. When I consider, my dear Abel Ben Hassan, that among the early traditional doctrines-of the Christian church, love to GodanPd man, freedom of thought, the brotherhood and equality of humanity, and the Golden Rule, are somewhat prominent, I must confess that this little sketch of my acquaintance struck me as a very curious thing among the many remarkable matters in this wonderful country. * March, 1858. page: 40-41[View Page 40-41] 40 THE PAWIA PAPERS. Conspicuous among the spectators who gazed at each other at the opera, were many of those delicious moon-faced ues, the ladies. I of course observed th:eiclosey, and I am bound to say that they were-good-looking, and quite generous in the display of their charms. Their style of dress is ,by no means so protecting as that of the femalesinm the dominions of the Sul- tan; and, indeed, I should judge from the cut of their garments that the climate in America is, as a general rule, warmer than in the Oriental countries. I am given to understand that the people of New York have greatly improved upon our method of disposing of these lovely beings in the matrimonial market. For instead of being struck down by their fathers at public auction, like the beautiful females of Caucasus, they are disposed of by their mammas, at private sale, to the " object in trowsers" who has the best posi- tion. This word "position" is somewhat diffi- cult of definition, but I am told that a man may get a position in New York in several ways, of which the following are a few: 1. He may speculate successfully in real estate. 2. He may wax fat in a pecuniary way by vending patent medicines. 3. He may have a rich father. 4. He may have a rich mother. \. I * A MERCHANT PRINCE. 41 5. He may have a wealthy and consumptive maiden aunt. 6. He may be whtermned " a merchant prince', " ' ' I have been furiihed: -tha brief sketch of one of these prinri:6, which I will copy for the benefit of my friends in -onstantinople. "He was born at Auddletown, Connecticut, in the year 1802. By the time he was ten years old (and very old, indeed, he was at that time of life), he had made one hundred and .sixty-five bargains, barters, and dickers, in shoe-strings, peg-tops and jack-knives, and had amassed the sum of five dollars and fifty-three cents. At the age of eleven, he entered the store of Grab & Ketchum, in his native town, and continued therein as a clerk until he had reached the age of fifteen years, and accumulated the sum of two hundred and five dollars and thirty-two cents. Investing this amount in potatoes and dried pumkin, he set sail in a Stonington sloop for New York, and with his entire possessions landed at Fulton Market in the year 1817. Since that time he has passed through the several profes- sions of vegetable purveyor, fish vendor, general merchant, bank president and solid man, and is now considered a magnateland a millionaire. He was never indicted for stealing, nor accused of infidelity. He was never troubled with an ultra idea, never had an unselfish aspiration, never . . I . . ... . . .... . . page: 42-43[View Page 42-43] 42 THE PIASIIA 'PAPERS. went out of his way to do a charitable act, never bothered himself with romance, sentiment or art, never spoke two M ctive sentences in a grammatical man eve looked at the stars over his head or 01 o wersunder his feet. He is now fifty-six a:e of-:*: ald, bilious, and self a large b Vhouseeneered with brown stone, and furnimti t with satin wood and bro. catelle, and hung the walls with paintings, evi- dently by very old, and indeed quite decrepit masters, and set up a carriage. He has achieved a fine social position, and is now considered a most desirable match for any virgin in New WYork." You must admit, my friend, that the foregoing is a description of a most desirable husband, one who would not be fond or foolish, but quite sen- sible; who would snore rather than sigh, and will leave a handsome fortune whenever it shall please death to remove him from his present sphere of duty and usefulness. I have some observations concerning the life of young women in New York, which I must reserve for another epistle. Till then, thine faithfully. MOHAMMED. [FRox T. 0., A PaLoS0PBcAII HSTORIAN.3 iONW, ENGLAND, 12 January, 1859. Translator of Mohammed Pasha's Letters. SIR: Dimly through the outward envi- ronment of Ottoman education shines the light of the Highest firom the soul of the Turk Moham- med. For in his epistle concerning the opera, amid much gossip of flirts and fribbles, and endless squalling of singers, masculine, feminine, and neuter, I find flashes of keenest vision piercing through Semblance into the midst of the everlasting Verities. Not a learned man is the Pasha (or Bashaw), nor deeply read in the history of the church, as compiled (O Heavens!) by Dryasdust, Smelfungus and others; yet, in the little that he writes of the strange persecutions of the ages, touches at least of Infinite Wonder and Pity, better than all knowledge of the statis- tical sort, are seen. Truly tragical, yet not altogether without somewhat of savage Ludicrousness, are the stories that we read in History (vaguely so-called) of the page: 44-45[View Page 44-45] " TTHE PASHA PAPERS. manner in which our fellow featherless bipeds have tried, by exercisi jute power, to fetter the religious thoug featherless bipeds; as if the relation soul of the man and the Divi of all relations most individlly wcSc': Sometime- i g t alpr of the twelfth century, met n quite famous in the dusty recor tid times, the Collec- tive Wisdom and :ssembled Piety of the Gallic Church, presided over by a legate sent by the Pope, Bishop of Rome, Holy Father of all the world, and Vicar of Him who was a babe in Bethlehem. Thither came also Peter Beranger, better known as Abelard, philosopher, poet, lover, scholar, summoned before this Congregated Sagacity, to answer the charge of having denied the doctrine of the Trinity. Abelard swiftly refuted the charge by proving that he had advo- cated this doctrine in his own writings. Then the majority of featherless bipeds lifted up their voices, and condemned him, because he, being nothing but a man (created, O bipeds, in God's image!), had dared to reason at all about the ineffable mystery; and ordered that he should burn his books and retract his errors. What says the historian e "While Abelard looked sadly on his burning roll, the silence of the judges was suddenly broken, and one of the most hostile said in an under tone that he had heard that God the Father . X y ABELARD. 45 alone was omnipotent. Amazed, the legate rejoined: 'I cannot believe it. Every child knows that the universal faith of the Church declares that ther8,4i ree omnipotent beings.' On this a scholastic teacher, e, laughed, and repeated, in a loud whisper, the .wodi'se anasian Creed: 'And yet there are not three -mniigotentj b ,b:t only one.' Re- proached for this Ui*tely iahnd rern!f ark, he boldly paraphrased the w f Danil inrtie - Apciryphal story: 'Thus, foolish sons of Israel, fitiut amnation or knowledge of the truth, ye have conz one .r own brethren. Return again to the place odf 3jUitlni4 eon demn the judge whose own mouth has condemned :"ii"t':Then the archbishop, rising, justified as well as he coul in other language, the legate's idea, and endeavored to show that, as the Father, Son and Spirit were all omnipotent, whoever departed from this position ought not to be listened to. But if the brother ad- mitted this, he might explain his faith in their presence, so that it could be finally pronounced what portion was true, and what portion false. At this apparent change of affairs, Abelard took courage and hope. He thought of Paul before the Areopagus and the Jewish council. If he could only speak, all might be saved. His enemies saw his plan-promptly parried it-cried out that all he needed to do was to repeat the Athanasian Creed, and to forestall his plea that he -did not know it by heart, thrust a copy of it before his eyes. His head sank, he sighed, and in broken accents read what he could." And some four centuries after, we find another Collected Wisdom and assembled Piety, of a possibly different name, yet entirely similar spirit, meeting at Geneva, to try the case of Michael Servetus, of whom the Pasha speaks, a Spanish Doctor, man of Science, investigator of Nature, discoverer, as some say, of the circulation of the blood. This Iberian Harvey was, of page: 46-47[View Page 46-47] " THE PASHA PAPERS. course, condemned by his fellow featherless bipeds; and this is his nce, which we read, not without some the eyelids: "&Sentenlce of DI )( etus, by the $yn- dics er, 15 5 3. "We, Syndi *ses in this city, having seen the process at the instance of our Lieutenant, against f ervetus, of Villanueva, in the kingdom of Arragon, , whereby, and also by the volun- tary confessions made in our presence, and repeated several times, and by the books produced before us, it plainly appears to us that thou, Servetus, hast long ago put forth a false here- tical doctrine; and that, slighting all remonstrances and reproofs, thou hast, with a malicious and wicked obstinacy, continued to spread and publish it, so far as to print books against God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, in short, against the true foundation of the Christian religion, endeavoring to cause a dis- turbance in the church of God, whereby many souls might have been destroyed and -undone (a thing horrid and dreadful, scan- dalous and infecting), and that thou hast not been ashamed nor afraid of rising up against the Divine Majesty and the Holy Trinity, doing thy utmost endeavors to infect the world with thy heresies, for these causes and others moving us thereunto, desiring to clear the church of God from such an infection, and to cut off such a rotten member, having consulted our citizens, and invoked the name of God to give a right judgment, sitting in the place of our ancestors, having God and his Holy Scrip- tures before our eyes, saying: In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, by this our definite sen- tence, which we give in writing, we condemn thee, Michael Servetus, to be bound and carried to the place called Champel, and there to be fastened to a post, and burnt alive with thy books, both written with thy own hand and printed, till thy body be reduced to ashes; and thou shalt end thy days, to give * ANOTHER JUDGMENT. 47 an example to others who would do the like. We command you, our Lieutenant, to caue our present sentence to be put in execution." And presently ,leasant way, pronounced th: jhilosophic Abelard and c e of the great family of I ear an ;--and Death in unceremo i the Assem- bled Piety, Collective a Congregated Sagacity, Legates, Popes ops, Teachers, Syndics, and all, and bore them away to a some- what higher Judgment-seat than was ever erected on this home of featherless bipeds. Whether they have lain howling while Abelard and Ser- vetus have sailed past as ministering angels, is a question which I, as mortal, do not wish to dis- cuss, much less in any form to decide. Only knowing, that their decrees have long since passed into the limbo of the everlasting No,- I live on, Yours ever. T O. I page: 48-49[View Page 48-49] CHCaGO, March 4, 1859. Translator of Moha W ishs Letters. -MY DEAR W --:I floated to this enter- prising city day before yesterday. When I say floated, I write advisedly. The mud of a west- ern prairie in the month of March is ,deep enough to float the Great Eastern. In Hibernian parlance, the roads of Illinois have an excellent bottom, when you get to it. The trouble is to get to it. Hie labor, hoc opus est. Indeed it is seriously proposed in the financial circles of Chicago, to run a line of steamers from this point to La Salle, over the prairies; and if the stern- wheel boats that are said to run easily on a-heavy dew, are used-I do not see why the enterprise should not be as remunerative as the Collins Line. Happening to reftd lately the second letter of Mohammed Pasha, in which he refers to his visit to the opera, I was reminded of my experiences in searching for amusement here. I visited last evening, that gorgeous temple of 48 - , .J. 1 TRAGEDY AND '"TEVTONS. 49 the German Melpomene, the-,' Chicago Stadt Theater." On arrivin at the ;to'-office of the establishment, I ur be t for a modest more celebrated tra' ; a " "I should prefeH rsould lis- ten attentively to the for him- self" "But I haven't time. I may not remain but a few moments, and I should dislike to leave with- , out seeing the bright particular stars." "Well, sir; we consider Frau Kinkle the best actress in the known world, in her especial line." "And what is her especial line?" "Tragedy, sir-high tragedy; and among the gentlemen of the troupe, Herr Hofer is most eminent." So with this I took my seat in the front of the parquette, between two Teutons, one of whom was very large and the other very small. I had hardly begun to warm my cushion when the curtain rose, and the lovely Frau Kinkle stood before us. She was very tall, and may have been rather pretty about the time the late United States Bank was chartered. Her complexion was 4 still striking, being made up of a fine stratum of pure white chalk overlaid about the cheeks with a couple of circular patches of lovely rougea 3 L- L *.- I page: 50-51[View Page 50-51] 50 THE PASHA PAPERS. The theatre was quite small, the seats so arranged that the entire audience seemed about to fall headlong into the orestE alls, and the ceiling of the stage -w refo 'very low. Frau Kinkle's int ell eadiearly touched that ceiling, ai etril body was almost as high as her left, and con- siderably t a stral oaks upon her right. Frau Kinkleq ie Bertha of the tragedy- a tragedy that might have been written about the year 1805, in the palmy times of Kotze- bue. As the curtain rose upon the first act, she was soliloquizing about fate, foreknowledge and free will; and, as maidens ever do, she said a good deal to herself about her prospects for a husband. It was evident that the society of her father, the great Count Bobolinski, did not entirely satisfy her feminine nature. Enter Herr Hofer, dressed in the legitimate costume of a very illegitimate but particularly fascinating bandit. Black velvet cap, white plume, star-spangled jacket, and, in continua- tion, very red leggins. Herr Hofer is the Max Outandthrustki of the play. He gazes a moment at Bertha, falls in love with her at first sight, and courts her " from the word Go." The maiden returns his affection in a surprisingly rapid manner, and they fall into each other's A SNGLE COMBAT. 51 arms, each rapturelosly kissing the back of the other's neck. Voila i Enter the Count Bobolin- ski, with baronial prid fdd rage depicted in every feature. T:ie:dra rapier and thrusts at Max, in quarte, ully parries the thrust, and returnt inji u N neat single combat ensues, totte r 4 f which the orchestra contributt: i g the time. Max disarms the Co i nds his rapier flying into the top of one e ancestral oaks, where it would probably have lodged if the oak had not been merely painted on a flat. COUNT. "Villain, peasant, slave!" MAX. "I am nor slave, nor peasant. I am nobly born, though I haven't the faintest idea who my father is. Poor, I am indeed, but brave I hope. My trusty sword I use with skill; as you may possibly have observed. COUNT. "Come to my arms, brave youth!" Tableau. And thereupon Count Bobolinski, perceiving that Max does not get a vulgar living by agri- cultural pursuits, but on the contrary supports himself genteelly by cutting throats, joins the hands of the young lovers, and prays the blessing of Heaven on their youthful love. And down goes the curtain on the first act, and the orchestra strike up a chorus from Martha. I turned to the large weak-eyed German on * t , 8 s t ( page: 52-53[View Page 52-53] 52 THE PASHA PAPERS. my right to ask some questions about the play, but he was too deeply lost in philosophic thought to reply. I therefore ;questioned the lively in- tense little fellow at -ieft, pato the plot of the tragedy. "Oh, yes, A s^^s. the playh Saw it in New York aI':"ISlast :ebruary. It was very touching; i4I ,',tiL the time." So I made ut d to be profitably sad- dened by the sorbCV of Max and Bertha, and meantime the curtain rose. In an English play, the first act would have been the last, and the future happiness of the lovers would have been left to the imagination; but the Germans, mark you, are more profound. They Know that young people may be engaged and fall into each other's arms, and yet not be perfectly happy for the remainder of their lives. Second Act. ' Scene a rocky glen, at least three feet wide, and ever so deep with perspec- tive paint. Romantic robbers lying about in picturesque positions, strumming guitars, eating sandwiches, and drinking colored water out of tall glasses. As rough a party of ragamuffins as you could wish to see on the stage, or not to see in real life. Otto, who seems to be Vice-Presi- dent of the bandits, makes a powerful speech. "Max, our brave captain whom as a child we stole, has stolen himself away. Where he has gone we know not. During his absence little r EXCITING. 53 has been done in the way of plunder. The burglarious exchequer is frightfully low. We must attack forthwith the lofty castle of the Count Bobolinski, seizeds spoons and other valuables, and after s: g our desires, distri- bute the surplus, anH -gn the virtuous poor." Grand clsdf in which the orchestra joins. "':; :: S: Third Act. Best pre astle of the Count. Great excitemen A faithful retainer has brought news of the intended attack. A large army of supernumeraries in gorgeous attire, which is anything but uniform, who receive no salary from either the Count or the Manager, but fight and play for the glory of the thing, and play very badly, are rushing about wildly and running against each other. Enter the Count in a fine frenzy. The blood of the Bobolinskis is up. COUNT. ' The ancestoral honor of my lordly house shall never be distained by ruffian vio- lence. Bring me my boots, bring me my trusty sword, with which in Hungary's wars I slew a thousand Turks!" The sword is brought, a very long sword, a very heavy sword-a sword gifted with great powers of rattling in its scabbard-with which the Count rushes up and down the scene, to the great terror of the little girls in the balcony and the infinite delight of the boys in the upper page: 54-55[View Page 54-55] 1 54 THE PASHA PAPERS. tier. The descendant of all the Bobolinskis then stalks away. A terrible scene follows between Max and Bertha. Her sire ig in danger. Max knows Otto, the Vice-Presidet, too well, and privately believes that the ni:t will stand no chance at all. Amid the conflict of emotions in his manly bosom the curtaain descends. - Fourth Act. Teific scuffle just off the stage. It is deemed prope; that the fighting should take place behind the scenes, not only because the stage is too small for a respectable battle, but because a fine scope is thus afforded for the imaginations of the audience. Presently the orchestra strikes up a dead-march, and as many as a dozen soldiers enter, six of whom bear the Count upon a litter. A large patch of vermilion on the left breast of the great man, indicates that he has been severely wounded. He makes a brief address, abounding in fine similes and phi- losophic reflections, and then communicates to the audience the startling fact that while he was fighting with Otto, and had well-nigh van- quished that athletic scoundrel, Max, the treach- erous villain Max, "to whom I gave mee child," had stepped from behind a tree and shot him (the Count). Enter Otto who cries in a stentor- ian voice. "Count Bobolinski, Max is thy son, who, when a babe, was stolen from thee i" !!,t A PHANTOM. 55 This is too much for Bobolinski; he utters a brief but striking string of imprecations and dies, and Bertha and the curtain fall together. Fifth Act. A churchyard with the family tomb of the Bobolinskis, in just about as good repair, apparently, as the vault at Mount Vernon; and near it stands a-,very German bier, in which are placed two pillowS rapped in a white sheet. Max rises from ith'erostrate posi- tion in the back-ground, advances to the foot- lights and soliloquizes. Accursed Fate, that rules this stricken planet, has led him blindfold to destruction. He did not mean to kill the Count, his father, or father-in-law, as the case may be, but meant to slay the ruffian Otto. 'Twas a clear case of accidental homicide. "Alas, alas! the power of Destiny drove me like a helm- less ship before a northern blast: drove me to slay my sire, and almost marry my sister. But who comes here?--it must be,-Bertha! meine Bertha!, Max strikes an attitude. The maiden advances. Max explains his mistake, says he did not willfully slay the Count, and begs his sister-aha-to take him to her arms. She beck- ons him to come--he flies to her dear embrace. Good gracious, why does his face grow pale as ashes, his limbs relax, his eye wander strangely? The figure speaks in hollow tones: "I am not your Bertha. I am the Avengingg Spirit of the Bobolinskis. Your Bertha is dead, page: 56-57[View Page 56-57] 5, 6 THE PASHA PAPERS. killed by the grief you caused her. Her body lies in yonder bier!" Max looks at the two pillows wrapped in the white sheet, and falls dead. The Avenging Spirit of the Boaolinskis sails away to slow music, as the green curtain falls. I looked at my young friend on the left, to see if he were dilved in tears; but, strange to say his eyes were y as the little finger of Pharaoh's mother's mother's mummy, and he was hum- ming a lively air from Der Freyschutz. How repetition of scenic woe hardens the heart G S. s. y J THE THRD BliEPISTLE. The Rear Admiral considers Young-Woimei-A Brief Sermon with a Briefer Coiameatmry. To the Delicious Abel Ben Hassan, Morning Star of my Life's Firmament, BXEORE I visited this Hemisphere, I supposed, from hearsay, that the young women of America were particularly intellectual, and painfully industrious; that they laid the most ridiculous claims to rights of thought and action, almost coequal with those of the sterner sex, and that they believed in the immortality of their souls. I am delighted to report to you, my dear Abel, that these opinions of mine were unfounded. The young women of America are dear, sweet, lovely charmers, exactly like their sisters in the land of Turkey. They secretly believe the main features of the creed of the Alcoran, and would do honor to any Itareem in our beloved home. Indeed it is probable that if we could only con- trive to make that peculiar institution the fashion in Paris, it would soon be popularized in New York. The young women of America-if I may judge i ^3* 6 I D page: 58-59[View Page 58-59] 58 THE PASHA PAPERS. from the examples I have studied in this city- are not portentously intellectual or painfully industrious. Quite the reverse, I am thankful to say. They have been taught better. It has been laid down as a fixed principle in ethics and practice, in this country, that woman has Nothing to Do, unless she'mary happen by the strictest necessity to be ,ven to do something. The public of the city of -Ntew York, at least, have been carefully instructed in this belief. The able editors of the Evening Ananias and the -Morning Whirligig have taught the pupils of the daily press that Woman's Rights are a hum- bug, and that the chief end of female life is to be ornamental in the parlor and prolific in the nursery. The Rev. Dr. Heliotrope, whose influ- ence is very extensive in the town, has hurled some very sharp texts at all who venture to claim for her a loftier career than she pursued among the half-civilized Hebrews of ancient times. The faithful and exemplary mothers who inhabit the regions adjacent to Madison Square have, as your correspondent is given to know, promulgated the following as the two great commands whereon hang all the social law, and a considerable portion of whatever profits may be found therein, viz.: "Thou shalt love a good establishment with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great command- A CURIOITS FACT. , 9 ment, and the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor just as much as is consistent with thine entire indolence and thy profitable selfishness."' The dear young creatures themselves frown with great indignation on such of their sisters as venture to tear aside the veils which disguise the little or great iniquities which trouble the city, and which may be traced to their origin in female idleness. And very properly do editors, and preachers, and mothers, thus teach, and preach and prac- tise. Why, O Abel Ben Hassan, should a woman -do anything, when it is well known that physi- cal, mental or moral exertion will not materially increase her chances of being well married? For to be well married is undoubtedly here, as in Turkey, the final object of female life. Is it not written in the greatest of Books (Chapter of Girls)-"A husband is to a woman as wheels to a chariot?" In this connection I may say that I have been somewhat observant of the customs of a family of young ladies, who live in good style in a well- built street in the upper part of the city, and I select them to be described to you as representa- tive women. They have good clothes, good looks, good manners, and Nothing to Do. They have learned sundry accomplishments, not page: 60-61[View Page 60-61] 60 THE PASHA PAPERS. exactly because accomplishments are goodly as a development of their finer tastes, but because they are attractive to that portion of the mascu- line community who may be termed, for want of a better phrase-the Universal Augustus. They have learned some French, not exactly because that language is sparkling and delightful, but because the Universal Augustus thinks it plea- sant to utter commonplaces in that tongue. They have studied music, not because it is the expression of all that is harmonious in the outer and inner worlds, but because the Universal Augustus is accustomed to declare himself greatly moved by the concord of sweet sounds. When they were at school they were taught something of science, but this not being espe- cially relished by the Universal Augustus, has lapsed into forgetfulness. They are all in society now-four of them-as pretty as the gazelles of Afghanistan; and they are preparing traps, gins and pitfalls for the Universal Augustus. For this laudable purpose, they have Nothing to Do, except to look well. At a somewhat uncertain hour of the morning, they array themselves in pretty morning dresses. Presently they deck themselves in more gorgeous array, and go pro- menading in Broadway and the Avenue. For dinner they add more ornament to their pretty little bodies. In the evening their prettiness reaches its culmination. Soon as the evening t . A THE SEEDY YOUTH. 61 shades prevail, the Universal Augustus calls in and walks blindfold among the traps, gins and pitfalls. There is, of course, Nothing to Do except to entertain him, and as he is an amiable young man, he is easily charmed. Some little songs are sung, some little scandal retailed, some very little jokes cracked, and he goes home to dream of the pretty ways of the Universal Fanny; and as human nature is much the same here as it is in Oriental climes, I presume that some day all this will end in matrimony. I remember that one evening, at the mansion of this Universal Fanny, a certain young man, whose name was not Augustus, and who had a somewhat solemn and seedy appearance, ad- dressed the young ladies in nearly the following language-I will write out his remarks as I recol- lect them, in order to give you a specimen of the style in which some abstract young men are in the habit of talking in New York society, just as if society would pay some attention to their tedious moralizing. He said: O0 Universal Fanny (for I address you collectively), with prophetic eye, I see that you will be married some day to the Universal Augustus. If he should chance to be rich, you will, doubtless, continue to do nothing with the greatest assiduity; if he should happen to be struggling with a stout heart to con- quer fortune, and make your home happy so far as money can, will you be a help meet (that is a help-both-ends-meet), cheering him on in the good work, busy as a bee in the little house? or will you be ornamental for a time, and then, as your beauty page: 62-63[View Page 62-63] \ 62 THE PASHA PAPERS. ! ' fades, a mere clog upon his valorous exertions? Do men marry wives only as they would buy pictures and statuary? or do they choose them for companions, friends, co-workers in the field of daily endeavor and honest ambition? Anything I might say, in regard to the miseries caused by lazy spendthrift wives, would (alas!) be very commonplace-perhaps ungallant and unworthy of what is somewhat curiously called 'polite litera- ture.' But I see my friend, the Universal Augustus, slowly sailing around in the whirlpool of your fascinations. He tells me, good fellow, of your'pretty ways, your kind disposition- and I know he is building in the clouds of the future a neat little castle, wherein he, with you, will live as simply and hap- pily as Cock Robin. I pray he may have a good time; but why, in the name of Dugald Stewart on the Law of Habit, should you suddenly change your fashion of Having Nothing to Do, and become a dear, little thrifty creature? I tremble to think of the discord that may rack that castellated bird's-nest cloud-built in the future; how he will get pale and feverish; how you will grow to be a mere thorn in his side, and how he will groan when he comes to smoke a quiet cigar in my bachelor lodg- ings. "Furthermore, the Universal Augustus may be a man of fine taste. He may have an ardent admiration for fine thoughts, noble utterances, whether in art, or poetry, or science. He may be pleased to converse of something more enduring than the nice nothings that you talk about. Now, when the heyday of his honeymoon shall have passed away like a luxurious dream, will he find you a companion for his lonely hours? You may be, for you had originally a good enough brain; but I fear you have had Nothing to Do with the culture of such faculties as Providence has endowed you withal. "And, O sweet ladies, my Universal Fanny, I remember a Z proverb which was quoted in my hearing once, by our friend yonder, the Pasha: ' Death is a black camel that kneels at every man's gate.' So, if I were disposed to preach, I might remind you of a time when your delicate bodies will be dressed in sim- ple grave-clothes, a sort of garment whose fashion does not MORE QUESTIONS. 63 change every month, and your little vanities, and hopes, and rivalries being suddenly nipped, as by frost, your minds, immor- tal minds, will go to live that wonderful future life which is evidently but a sequel to your present existence, and dependent for its character and coloring upon the culture of those minds here in the flesh. I could ask you a quite important, nay, alto- gether solemn question. If your minds, rusted with idleness, dwarfed with inaction, shrunken like unused muscles, have Nothing to Do in this world, what can they have to do in the immortal life? It is not altogether certain that in that life there will be any morning or evening dresses, any milliners, polkas, operas, flirtations, or Drs. Heliotrope; but we may be sure that you will find there free scope for your affections and your perceptions; that beauty more thrilling than mortal eye ever saw, and truth more clear than was ever presented to mor- tal intellect, and goodness more perfect than ever warmed mortal heart, will be there, ready to be recognized by the trained eye and purified spirit, But unless you discipline your vision here by earnest thought, unless your hearts are touched and quickened by genuine sympathies here, what will you have to do with the immortalities of science and art, of truth and goodness? Nothing to Do?" * * * * A When the solemn and seedy young man had given utterance to these incoherent remarks, the young ladies looked blank, and the Universal Augustus looked bored, and I therefore felt it my duty to relieve them, by stating my renewed conviction of the truth enunciated by the Prophet, that woman has no future state. Whereupon the company became reassured, and the didactic young man subsided. I flatter * - t -- page: 64-65[View Page 64-65] ^64 THE PASHA PAPERS. myself that my proposition was a poser to the youth. I have some observations in regard to the press of New York, which I must reserve for another letter. Till then, faithfully and devotedly thine, MOHAMMED. [FROM MBY. T. SrPOOI.] YONKEiS, October 31, 1858. Translator of Mohammed Pasha's Letters. SIR: I read the Rear Admiral's letter concerning Young Women, last evening, after returning from a little social gathering in this delightful town.* While I cannot but admit the merit of some of his remarks, I must insist that , he has not done entire justice to his therme. I remember that when I finished the epistl, I threw open the shutters of the westerly window of my room, and looked out upon the lovely landscape. The midnight moon was hanging over the Palisades, and letting down long threads of light, as if to weave a silver web to reach from earth to heaven. A single sloop was brood- ing with white wings over the broad, dark river. The stars were watching the earth with jealousy. There was silence everywhere and peace. And as I looked upon the sweetly solemn scene after reading the somewhat chilly satire of your Turk- ish friend, how could I help idealizing a Woman * A champagne supper?--TRANS. 65 4f page: 66-67[View Page 66-67] " THE PASHA PAPERS. after my own heart, with a fair face and honest eyes; with dainty fingers filled to the tips with delicate industry, a mind always ready to see and know and appreciate, a soul beaming with kindness, a heart pulsating with passion, yet awful with purity-a woman who would go hand-in-hand with one, through joy and sorrow, triumph and defeat, even as the blue-eyed matron of Germany went to battle with her lord, cheering the faint-hearted, nursing the wounded, crowning the conqueror. Such a vision rose before me, so distinctly beautiful, that I put out my arms to clasp it; but, finding nothing, con- cluded to stretch my arms further, as if with weariness, and went to my bachelor bed. Tell the crusty Pasha that there is, at least, one young woman in America who has Some- thing to Do-with my happiness. Yours feelingly, T. SPooN. [FROM C. E. N AMABLE AND CONFIDENTIAL YOUNG GENTLEMAN.] BALTIMORE, 1 January, 1859. Translator of Mohammed Pasha's Letters. SIR: I should judge from the remarks of the Rear Admiral concerning Young Women, that he never met my cousin Fanny, in his pere- grinations about New York. It cannot be that he has seen her: for, if he had, he never would have expressed such sentiments, but on the contrary would have taken her as his Repre- sentative Female, and exhausted his powers of rhetoric in laudations of the fair sex in America. I may state, by the way, that she sent me the Pasha's third epistle, with the remark that since its appearance she had resolved to changed her name to Betsey. She does not choose to be classed with the Universal Fanny. Shall I tell you something about her? Won't pretend to describe her, for she is indescribable, but will just give you a few hints. In the first place she is a lady, by birth and 67 page: 68-69[View Page 68-69] 68 THE PASHA PAPERS. education-a great thing in this country where demagogues try to ignore the laws of Nature, as exhibited in the hereditary transmission of the virtues. For three geneMtions at least-no need to go further back than that-her ancestors have been Christian gentlemen and ladies, and now that the family tree has been thus growing in a vigorous healthy way for some hundred years, she has bloomed upon it, like the fair flower of a century plant. She is beautiful, as a matter of course. Her eyes-upon my word I can't tell you their color exactly-are large and tender. Her features are not precisely classic, and yet I do not at present know how they could be improved. Her form is graceful; and, though not very tall, she always impresses you with the idea that she is a grand and queenly person. You would never think of calling her-"Little Miss "-so and so. But whatever physical beauty she has is only the opalescent mother-of-pearl that indicates the presence of the precious gem lying cradled within. You will at once appreciate her character when I tell you that she is thoroughly sym- pathetic. She is a finely strung, well attuned harp,-so delicately yet firmly organized, that the winds of life wandering by, whether as tempest or zephyr, make only melody every moment. v . . . v SYMPATHY. 69 This entire and perfect sympathy is the secret of her power. She sympathizes with poets, and therefore reads poetry:iunderstandingly. She sympathizes with hum inty in-the past, and thus knows something of History as the Life of Man in ages gone-with humanity in the present, and is therefore alive to every important event of the day. She sympathizes with the powers of mechanism, and could give you-an excellent lec- ture on a great marine engine or a hydraulic press, if she had ever seen one. She sympathizes with melody of every form, so that she not only sings and plays charmingly herself, but loves to- hear others do the same. For the same reason she dances with peculiar grace, her every nerve of motion being governed by the rhythm of the music. You should see her dance She sym- pathizes with beauty of every kind-admires natural scenery, fine horses, handsome men and women, good pictures and statuary, with a genu- ine artistic feeling. This trait of her character is her charm in social life. It makes her always comme I facut, not through tiresome drilling in rules of eti- quette, but by insight. She can see the point of a joke, and laugh with the joker;-yet no one ever saw her sneer at an earnest word, or meet an utterance of unaffected sentiment, however awkwardly expressed, with a cold jest. Indeed she is never more lovely than when she is listen- page: 70-71[View Page 70-71] 70 THE PASHA PAPERS. ing with beaming eyes, and an almost solemn expression, to the eloquent language of some true-hearted friend: nof o omnaO, language in general society, Ioan a 'eyo0&i'zIn the highest and best sense of the phrie, 'she makes herself "all things to all men." She meets them with a frank cordiality, reads them at a glance, and tries so far as she can to please their tastes, if they have any worthy tastes, and to excite their ambitions, if they have any noble -ambitions. The consequence is that if they are gentlemen at heart, they feel an entire freedom, and appear to *ite greatest advantage, in her presence. She is very careful to acknowledge with grateful courtesy their little attentions. I remember at a party last winter to have seen young Quill pick up and return to her a camelia she had let fall, and she thanked him in such a sweet sincere way, that Quill, who was a diffident, absent- minded young fellow, actually took the courage and trouble to be thoughtfully polite to every lady he met for a month afterwards. Her smiles of thankfulness are the missionaries of the draw- ing-room--do more to make the Universal Augustus truly agreeable, than all the Lectures on Good Breeding ever written. When we went together to visit the studio of a young sculptor in your city, who was fighting such a battle with fortune as only young sculp- tors do, I prepared her for her reception by tell- THE ARTIST. 71' ing her that we were going to see a poor artist and she must not exct anything but the most poverty-stri ap: ance in his rooms; and so during the He s er manner said just this -"- I recognizeo genius and honor it. Don't trouble yourself about your thread-bare coat and rickety furniture-you are a prince in exile from a high estate to which you will be restaged some day. We all honor you, just as much as \ if you were clad in purple, and sitting on a throne. Hope on, brave prince, and God be with you ever!" There never was a toiler m[e cheered than our friend the sculptor by aat ;- tle call, and doubtless the memory of hefkinly grace has inspired him with some ideas which may yet breathe in marble. Could such a woman fail to be a very saint in deeds of charity? Certainly not. Here her sympathetic nature has its widest scope; She is zealous in doing good, yet discerning. She visits the abodes of abject want in your great city, like a sunbeam lighting up the gloom of misfortune. Trusting to the power of love, she goes about among the degraded, with no more i fear than if she were a ministering disembodied spirit-yet with the magnetic winsomeness of a real living woman. The most abandoned out- casts seem to hear the beating of her dear noble heart and listen with respect. But I have not time to write any more, nor I -* i page: 72-73[View Page 72-73] R. . . t -- . ..... 72 THE PASHA PAPE% you to read, I reckon. Send my anonymous compliments to your nd tell him he should have known' nyy' . O * Hyde A ant' I THE FOWURTH EPISTLE. , The Rear Admiral expresses his Opinion in regard t:)ePress -The Weekly Press--The Daily dittol, i : To the Precious and Truly Inestimable Abel 4fft BHtd, Emerald of my Heart's Casket. . DURING my sojourn in New York, I have served with curiosity the avidity with w;Mce natives of this country devour the newspa' f the day. It has even been suggested b yohie who are hypercritical, that they read more than they think, and that if they were obliged to sit upon a cushion and smoke all day, communing with their own thoughts, after the Ottoman fashion, they would probably either fall sound asleep, or else wax frantic with nervous restless- ness. Seeing the Americans so devoted, there- fore, to the perusal of papers, my attention has naturally been called to the press of the New World. Great, O my friend, is my admiration of the same! The weekly newspapers (the term weekly- implying hebdomadal, not feeble), profess, for 4 78 page: 74-75[View Page 74-75] 74 THE PASHA? 0. the most part, to be of great literary merit, and are chiefly read by brrvant-girls and boys of tender years. - M e in great part filled with fictitious narativ s, the design of which is to furnish clear tantruthful views of those grades of human life into which barbers, servat-girls and boys of tender years are not permitted, practically, to enter. The untutored, yet aspiging reader is thus furnished with much correct and valuable information at a low cost. IT or she is supplied with ideal existence, in lI e: antities, at four cents a parcel: being Flow the gay and fascinating Prince Alphonso, fatiheautiful peaked beard and preternatural Call, rescued from the ruffian grasp of the cruel Baron Nockumstiff the lovely and accom- plished Leonora, whose flowing curls swept the ground as she was borne away on her lover's shoulder, and whose eyes were blacker than the popular idea of night, by several shades. How the bloodthirsty Baron pursued the lovers only to be himself cloven to the saddle by the trusty sword of Alphonso, who soon after r purchased an eligible site upon the Rhine, built an elegant castle, furnished it in the height of the fashion of that period (the reign of Charlemagne), and settled down for life with the lovely being whom he carried away on his sturdy shoulder. How the gallant sailor boy Eugenio, rising ROMAtNTIC. T5 from his hammock, where in slumbers of mid- night he was to lie, and climbing to the top of ti-to'-gal-lo'-mas', descried the object of his earlier affections, wringing her hands in agony on the deck of a low, rakish, three-masted schooner, some four miles in the distance; how he leaped down from his giddy ' height, fired three shots from the stern chaser, and thus cut away the three masts of the schooner, and rendered her a helpless wreck, then boarded her, pierced the wicked captain to the heart, and carried the, young woman into the Bay of AIlgiers, where the happy couple were united in the bonds of matrimony, by the American Consul resident at that port. How the bloated aristocrat, Gabriel Jute-(firm of Jute and Junk,'South street), defrauded his beautiful ward, Seraphina, out of all her property by a false and fraudulent interpretation of her father's will, in which interesting piece of roguery he was aided and abetted by a firm of Wall street attorneys; how Seraphina, being reduced to poverty, was compelled to accept the humble position of check-taker at a restaurant in the Bowery; how the hero of the tale, a prominent member of Inundation Hose Company, No. 76, fell deeply in love with the beautiful maiden, brought suit in, the Marine Court against the bloated aristocrat for the recovery of her pro- perty, tried the cause himself, won it amid the page: 76-77[View Page 76-77] 76 THE PASHA PAPERS. tears of the Judge, the sobs of, the Jury, and the 'not a dry eye in the hou the spectators; and how, finally, he turned&th loated aristocrat out of his costly mansionain the Fifth Avenue, took up his abode there with the lovely Seraphina (now his wedded wife), joined the Union Clnb, and represented the Eighteenth ward at the great meeting of outraged taxpayers. When I tell you, my friend, that the titles of some of these interesting narratives are as follows: "The Black Avenger of the Spanish Main;" "Don *ioderick the Renegade, or the Spectre of Valladolid ;" "Blood for Blood, or the Chip Boy of the Dry Dock ;" sThe Brooklyn Beauty, or the Orime-stained Mantilla," you will perceive at once how instructive, entertaining and enlighten- ing they must be. But I am especially charmed, companion of my earlier years, with the daily political news- papers of the New World. The press of Amer- ica is free, as I have been told several times since my arrival here, and strange to say, it never abuses its freedom. Its editors are all perfect gentlemen and perfect scholars. They number some two thousand in all, so you may calculate how much candor -nd courtesy they must bring to the joint discharge of their duties. Their intercourse with each other, as expressed in their columns, is marked by a tenderness and delicacy of feeling that are touching to observe. Their I .Vrr . vrvVMV.% *I r - - r EDITORIAL. " llogic is more ponderous than the mace of Ali, their wit more43batle than the scimitars of Damascus. Do-:- you -wish an example? The following brief editorial from the I leading jour- nal of America,' will convince you of the truth of my statement: "Thurlow Weed, Seward's white nigger, says that -Mr. Bennett dined the other day with Mr. Buchanan, at the White House. This may be so, but it is certain that Thurlow will never be clean enough to dine in respectable company." O Abel Ben Hassan, is not that sweet, refresh- ing, nice, fragrant, delightful? But sublime as are the reasoning powers of the American edi- tors, and effulgent as are their humor and sar- casm, their moral rectitude and delicate sense of propriety are still more notable. And as con- versational straws are proverbially wont to show in what direction the wind of public opinion blows, I may cite the following comparisons as common in conversation in New York: "As truthful as the Evening Ananias," "as unwaver- ing as the TeMporizer," "as charitable as the Meat Axe,' as noble as the Morning Hfumbug," "as instructive as the Sewer." In fact so re- markable are these conductors of public opinion for their integrity of purpose and horror of all sorts of baseness, that their abundant professions and promises are esteemed equal, if not superior, to other men's practices and performances, and page: 78-79[View Page 78-79] 78 THE PASHA PAPERS. the idea of an editor sacrificing truth to party, justice to expediency, honor,; profit, liberty to loaves, fairness to fishes, or pty to plunder, is scouted as irrational. On the contrary, the pub- lic believe what the newspapers often assert, that the editor is a Gentle Shepherd, whose care of his fleecy followers is all watchfulness and disin- terestedness, who would not pull the wool over the eyes of even a lambkin, and who would sub- mit to the tortures of the rack rather than barter his conscience for filthy lucre. How widely different this from the conduct of the able editors of Constantinople, who have been known to tell their readers that two and two make five, that all the angles of a triangle are equal to four right angles, or even to puff a party, or a pill, or a new cantatrice, for mere pay! Faithfully thine, 1SMOHNAMMED. X - [FROM A DYSPEPTIC BUT THOUGHTFUL FRIEND.] NEW YORK, January, 1859. Translator of Mohammed Pasha's Letters. DEAR SIR: It seems to me that the career of a successful journalist in the city of New York furnishes an interesting subject of reflec- tion to the contemplative mind. Consider, for example, the history of that eminent man, the Editor and Proprietor of the Morning Whirligig. He was evidently designed by nature for the profession which he now graces--and for' no other. He could not enter the church, for he had no moral affections of any kind; he could not shine at the bar, for he had no powers either of logical analysis or sympa- thetic oratory; he could not be a physician or surgeon, for he had neither good manners nor a taste for scientific pursuits; he could not choose -the profession of arms, for he was a coward. Such education, therefore, as he had, was perti- - nently applied tos Dpret pursuit. The philosopy f/ s and success is founded on a fw leading axiomatic propositions, like the following: page: 80-81[View Page 80-81] 80 THE PASHA PAPERS. Many men are timid. Many men are stupid. Many men are envious. Many men have a prurient curiosity. i Many women share these characteristics. A daily newspaper should cater for these pleasing traits. With such maxims as these, the Editor and Proprietor of the Mforning Whirligig com- menced the publication of his journal. He assailed the timid men with bitter person- alities, and threats of more violent attacks; and the timid men subscribed for his paper, sent him their advertisements, or more directly purchased his silence. If any of the people thus attacked, exemplified their want of timidity by thrashing him in the public streets, he immediately issued an extra edition of the Whirligig, containing full particulars of the affair;--the extra edition was eagerly bought up, and the circulation of the Whirligig largely increased. He pleased the stupid men by writing every- thing down to their intellectual plane. He did not attempt to elevate or instruct them-that would not pay. He trusted to the fact that, through natural deficiency or neglectful laziness, "the average of general intelligence is lowr, and he carefully adapted the Whirligig to this average. The stupid men subscribed largely to the Whirligig. 1.4 THE WHRLIGIG. 81 He fairly delighted the envious men. He knew that there were tens of thousands of such, who were sickening at the sight of the happiness of the good, the fame of the wise, or the wealth of the fortunate; and therefore he became him- self afflicted in spirit, and made the Whirligig the representative and organ of whatever in society is mean, attempting to drag down to its own level whatever is lofty. The Whirltgig denounced religion as hypocrisy, learning as pedantry, associated charity as quackery, and all attempts at reform or advocacy of abstract right and justice as foolish and fanatical. The Editor of the Whirligig was particularly bitter against the small minority who were enabled to build fine houses, but refused to invite him to dine therein; and he accordingly proclaimed to that large majority who were unable to build fine houses,-that the possession of a brown stone front, a picture gallery, or a handsome private library, was presumptive evidence that the owner was a tyrant, a fool, or a knave. And so such portion of this majority as were basely envious, and those especially who' wore uncleanly linen, believed him, and bought the Whirligig. For the benefit of such men and women-not a few-whose curiosity was of the prurient sort, he filled the Whirligig with details of all that was scandalous and filthy in the record of cur- rent events. It did not matter much whether i 4* page: 82-83[View Page 82-83] 82 THE PASHA PAPERS. these details were real or imaginary-enough that they were full, and early, and disgusting. And so all the people who were gratified by microscopic views of social disease, subscribed for the Whirligig, and devoured its contents, shamelessly, or in secret. And thus, by appealing to the fears and meanness of men and women-by persistently striving to pull down to the range of his own baseness everything noble and generous and grand-by sneering at all that is hopeful and progressive-by feeding every vitiated taste-by prophesying a thousand possibilities and parad- ing the fact that one of this number came to pass, well knowing that the heedless public would forget the other nine hundred and ninety- nine-by selling his ill-gotten influence for poli- tical purposes to the highest bidder-by a hardihood and perseverance worthy of some- thing good, the Editor and Proprietor of the Whirligig has built up a great circulation. Could any man desire to do more? B. a. C THE FIFTH EPISTLE. The Rear Admiral Discourses About Valuable Inventions and Discoveries-How to Get Rich at the Public Expense. To the Delicious Abel Ben FTassan, Moon of my Memory. THE people among whom I am now sojourn- ing are noted for theb ingenuity. They are constantly 'devising the most curious inven- tions, among which I may briefly notice the following: A process of making illuminating gas from water, a discovery of the most valuable charac- ter, but for two trifling objections, viz.: First, the gas would not burn; and, second, it could not, by the method proposed, be produced. A fire-proof safe, which not only delights in being exposed to the fiercest flames, but possesses the curious moral power of proving the inventors of all other safes to be most unmitigated rogues, liars, blackguards and swindlers on the face of -the earth. An extract of sarsaparilla, of such surprising efficacy that it not only cures all forms of cutan- 88 page: 84-85[View Page 84-85] 84 TEPhs PASHA PAPERS. eous disease in the human race, but is exported in large quantities to the islands of Iceland and Sicily to prevent the eruptions of Ilecla and Vesuvius. A reaping machine, which not only cuts down the standing grain with wonderful rapidity, but has, by way of compensation, produced a golden harvest of litigation for the sickles of the law. Many other valuable machines, such as the revolving waffle-iron, the inflexible clothes-pin, the anti-asthnmatic sweeper, the hen-persuader and the wooden clock, are well known to the inhabitants of Turkey, through the medium of commerce: but certafi other inventions, of which you may not have heard, are worth a passing notice. If the inventor of the first of the processes which I shall mention were about to ask for a patent, he would probably couch his application in the following terms: "I claim as original, novel, and patentable, the application of a new motive power to the mental and moral machinery of Governors, Legislators, Mayors, Aldermen and Councilmen, and generally to all personages who have the dispensing of public plunder. This motive power (which, if applied to a mem- ber of the democratic party, might be termed a loco-motive), I call a loan, and the use of it loan- This great process has, however, not been I 'LOANING. 85 patented, the original inventor having undoubt- edly been a person of too much liberality and public spirit to think of tying up such a valuable idea. It is therefore used, in the city of New York especially, without let or hindrance, by all well-disposed persons who wish to assist in the good work of regulating and governing society. The gross wickedness of open bribery is thus ingeniously avoided. Does an enterprising citi- zen desire to run a line of cars, propelled by horses, through an avenue of New York,-he becomes a bank of discount for the Mayor, Alderman and Councilmen. He rejoices to lend them money on their promises to pay. He gratifies his finer feelings by loaning liberally. He encourages the circulation of the metallic basis of value..,. His enterprising conduct is rewarded by a virtuous municipal administra- tion, and in spite of the railing of some envious persons the railway goes through. Does an honest and capable citizen desire to serve the public in the capacity of Street Commissioner, he applies the benign influence of a loan to the perceptive faculties of the Mayor, who has the power of appointment. The scales fall firom the eyes of the hitherto purblind Mayor. He im- mediately perceives in the person of the loaner an embodiment of all the powers and virtues which are requisite to the performance of the duties of the office in question. He gives to the page: 86-87[View Page 86-87] 86 THE PASHA PAPERS. applicant certain promissory notes. The appli- cant discounts the same. A His idle money is thrown into the market. The shrunken veins of commerce are filled with a new and quickening stream. The loaner procures the office, and thus society is governed and benefited, without any of the disgusting bribery so common in Constan- tinople. The next discovery which I wish to describe to you is one of great merit, which might be profitably employed in the executive depart- ments of our own government. It is a method of making money in the most rapid yet simple manner, merely by changing at will these curious little Arabic symbols, called in the American language, figures. For example, a gentleman who desires to grow wealthy, so that he may dispense charity and build temples to ALLAH, takes a contract from the corporation of New York to pave one of its streets for the sum of three dollars per superficial square yard. The work is done, and the surveyor who has been deputed to superintend it, returns to the depart- ment his calculations as follows: "I certify that the work of paving Six Hundred and Forty- second street has been performed by Simon Stubbs, in accord- ance with the provisions of his contract, and that he is entitled to be paid therefor. "Number of superficial square yards of pavement laid 12,670." This done, the ingenious and capable Stubbs I - . H * INGENUITY. 87 casually meets the official head of the depart- ment beneath an umbrageous elm in the City Hall Park. Hlaving discussed the Kansas ques- tion and the probable cause of the curvature of the comet's tail, they approach the subject of the paving of 642d street, thus: STUBBS.-"I fear, O sublime and immaculate sir, that I shall lose money upon that contract. My credit will sicken, my children will starve, my donations to the Society for Civilizing Squamn Beach will be suspended." i OFFICIAL.-"I see no need of those things, my gentle Stubbs." STUBBS.-"Oh, tell me, mighty man, what remedy there is?" OFFICIAL.-- ' Why simply this. Let us change, the figures in the Surveyor's certificate and divide the increase. With one-half the profits you may cover Squam Beach with tracts, and with the other half I will support half a dozen colporteurs in Water street." !In accordance with this plan the official head of the department takes a pen in hand, and skillfully draws one short perpendicular and one short horizontal line over the first figure in the certificate, and it reads as follows: "Number of superficial square yards of pavement laid, 42,670,X -being an increase of 30,000 yards or $90,000. In this way, my dear Ben Hassan, these virtuous page: 88-89[View Page 88-89] sS THE PASHA PAPERS. gentry wax rich in the most expeditious and honest manner. It surely is not stealing, to draw lines with a quill dipped in ink! The third process to which I invite your thoughtful attention has received, as yet, no technical name. I will call it the Art of Bid- ding. It is also quite profitable, being managed in this wise: The Common Council having directed Sixteenth Avenue to be regulated and graded, the official who has charge of this sort of business advertises for proposals to do the job. Four estimates are presented to him, as follows: Mr. Buff offers to excavate the earth for 30 cents a yard; Mr. Duff for 50 cents; Mr. Muff for 80 cents; and Mr. Puff for 130 cents. The the enterprising Stubbs, hereinbefore mentioned, having first talked with the official under a wide- spreading tree in the Park, goes to Mr. Puff and says: "My dear Puff, your bid of 130 cents is too high; it will be rejected as a matter of course; but if you will assign it to me, I will have you appointed to the lucrative and honorable office of policeman," to which arrangement Mr. Puff assents. Mr. Stubbs then goes to Mr. Muff, and says: "Oh, delightful Muff, your bid of 80 cents is by far too high to stand any chance of success. Sell it to me and I will procure your election to the Board of Councilmen next year ;' to which Mr. Muff agrees. Mr. Duff and Mr. Buff having put in their bids at Mr.- Stubbs' di' ' IAND YET. 89 -request, and without the slightest intention or ability to perform the contract at such prices, disappear from the contest, and the work is awarded to Mr. Puff at one hundred and thirty cents a yard, the contract assigned to the trium- phant Stubbs, who proceeds to excavate earth and fill his pockets with rocks. Thus, my fascinating Abel, you see by what skillful and expeditious methods the Americans amass their splendid fortunes. The industrious Stubbs is a glorious example of the value of the inventions I have described. He is fast attaining such a "position," moral and social, as I have mentioned in one of my previous epistles. He lives in a marble house, and keeps a shining car- riage, drawn by a pair of shining horses, which are driven by a dazzling coachman. He grows grey-haired, and presents a decorous appearance, as he sits, with his family beside him, in the Church of the Sacred Checker-board. By and by his decease will be chronicled, with the most unfeigned regret, by all the morning journals, and his body will be laid to rest with imposing procession and solemn ritual in the quiet and beautiful cemetery of Greenwood, where, I am told, the better class of people in New York desire to be buried. And there, where the foli- age trembles in vernal freshness, stirred by the sea-breezes that never had a thought of unclean- ness or corruption, and innocent birds woo and page: 90-91[View Page 90-91] 90 THE PASHA PAPERS. warble, and the free penetrative sunshine glori- fies tree and hill-side with its purity of radiance,- a monument will be erected, sacred to the memory of the departed Stubbs, the affectionate father, the upright citizen, the unflinching patriot; reminding the passer-by once more of the truth that the hoary head is a crown of glory more precious than the pearls of Persia, and that an honest man is the noblest of Allall's works. Thine, faithfully, AM1OHAMMED. [FEQM ME. PEWTER MUG*. NEW YORK, February 22, 1859. Translator of Mohammed Pasha's Letters. SIR: I am a city contractor. I consider myself a good citizen, and, what is better yet, a sterling Democrat. It is, therefore, superfluous for me to say that I have read with deep disgust the Fifth Epistle of your malignant and turbaned Turk; in which he feebly attempts to be sarcas- tic upon the members of my profession; and basely insinuates that I and my brethren occa- sionally conspire with the officials of New York to cheat the tax-payers. Well, sir--what of it? I admit the facts set forth in the letter referred to, but I flatly dehi the covert conclusion attempted to be drawn from those facts-namely, that there is anything mean, or contemptible, or wrong in the use of the valuable inventions described. You and your Ottoman upstart may suppose that there are abstract ideas of what is mean or contemptible, or wrong. There you are mis- taken. Our ideas of Right and Wrong are " page: 92-93[View Page 92-93] 92 THE PASHA PAPERS. founded upon human law. Human law is de- rived from the Powers that Be. The Powers that Be are ordained of God; and are the stand- ard of Justice, and the fountain of Honor. The doctrine of a Higher Law than this, is a wretched, revolutionary, infidel fantasy, a pestilent New England heresy. Its rapid diffusion of late, makes me tremble for the safety of the Church and State. Now, sir, when I see the Powers that Be, the venerable President of the United States, the great and wise Secretary of the Navy, the vir- tuous Members of Congress, and other divinely ordained personages, engaged in ingenious ope- rations in Live Oak Timber, Anthracite Coal, and Marine Engines, for the benefit of their party or pockets, operations precisely similar in character to those described by the deluded Pasha, can I suppose that there may, by possibil- ity, be anything mean or contemptible, or wrong in such operations? My judicious conscience, enlightened by -a careful political education, cries out with clear, emphatic response-No! Mr. Translator, the Rear Admiral of the Turkish Navy is a dolt. Yours calmly but defiantly, P. MUa. THE SIXTH EPISTLE. The Rear Admiral Visits Wall Street-He Receives Some Instruction in the Art of Making Money. To the Amiable Abel Ben Hassan, Delight of my Diaphragm. You will be interested to know that I have visited Wall street, during my residence in this city. ]qow, you, my dear Abel, having never travelled in the New World, are in some things slightly verdant. A lovely pea green, like that of the pippins of Persia, tints your gen- tle soul. You doubtless imagine that the great financial centre of America is a place for awe and wonder and reverence. You think of it as a vast tribunal, wherein financial greybeards sit in judgment on the financial destinies of one half the world; or a huge temple with vaulted dome and sounding aisles, in which the devoted wor- shippers of Mammon kneel in worship, snuffing the clouds of incense that rise from golden altars, and becoming thus inspired to make their ever- lasting fortunes. But you are mistaken. Wall street is not a court-house nor a temple. It was 98 page: 94-95[View Page 94-95] v 94 THE PASHA PAPERS. not instituted for the promotion of justice or the worship of any particular deity, the religious services of New York being all held up town. It is a narrow and quite crooked lane, with a church at one end and a clipper ship at the other. The sidewalks are occupied, for the most part by venerable men and women whose busi- ness it is to sell puppies, apples and roasted chestnuts. (These vendors are most numerous about the Custom-house, where they are permit- ted to carry on their trade in consideration of their steady support of the Administration.) The buildings on either side the street are inhab- ited by a great variety of persons-auctioneers and average adjusters; barbers who shave faces and usurers who shave bills; bankers who deal in credit and watchmakers who deal in time; lawyers who have little piety, and restaurateurs who have little pies.* These buildings are so very tall that one finds it a painful and neck- twisting operation to look up at the little strip of blue sky that overhangs the pavement; and I am not surprised, therefore, that the majority of the denizens of the street seem to have arrived * The reader has probably observed with pain the disposition of the Pasha, who has not the fear of Dr. Johnson before his eyes, to play on words in describing the physical characteristics of Wall street. The translator would say that, however squalid these paranomasial attempts may seem when translated, they are both novel and humorous in the original. t, BREAKERS AND BROKERS. 95 at the conclusion that for general purposes of business it its better to forget that Heaven, with the all-beholding sun and solemn stars, over-arches the money market. I have observed with some envy the brokers in stocks. They have more good clothes and elegant leisure than any persons I have ever met who are not brokers in stocks, not excepting even the gentlemen who were so fortunate at rouge-et- noir in delightful Baden during the summer we spent there. They are always in high spirits, with their pockets full of money and good cigars. They have made one great discovery- that the philosopher's stone is a curb-stone, and is laid down at the corner of William street and Exchange e. Standing on this, they obey with alacrity th injunction of our Prophet which says, "H old put thy cloak wide when the heavens rain gold,' and so theygrow wealthy in the most delightft manner. Having formed an intimate acquaintance with one of these gentlemen, I ventured to ask him some questions concerning his business. He answered me with much condescension and frankness. "My dear Pasha, you err egregiously in your ideas of the importance of exertion in getting a livelihood. Why should a man work for money when he may pick it up in the shadow of the Exchange Do you suggest that a person is page: 96-97[View Page 96-97] 96 THE PASIA PAPERS. obliged to stoop a little in order to pick up things from a pavement? I should like to know, in reply, for what the spinal column isjointed, unless that it may be bent? I leave labor and study to the stupid. I can become rich at the Board; why should I trouble my head to become anything else While other people are grub- bing in mercantile or professional life, I am fill- ing my pockets with bank notes by day, and my ears with the notes of the opera by night. Did I ever tell you of my little dodge in the shares of the Vera Cruz and Symmes Hole Slack Water Navigation Company? It was held at 75, with a prospect of a dividend. But my cousin, the Treasurer, told me that the concern would go to pot in just two months. So I com- menced to operate. In popular parlance, I "went in," sold fifteen hundred shares to Taurus and Puff at 74, seller 60 days. When the sixty days had passed the stock was worth just a round cypher, and Taurus and Puff paid me the difference of 74 per cent. on fifteen hundred shares. It hurt them badly; but, n'importe, here I go up, up, up, there they go down, down, down-see, saw, seeing, seen, as my Lindley Murray says. My dear Pasha, let us visit the immortal Downing." Seeing clearly that my friend had discovered the long-hidden secret of making money rapidly and without effort, I could not help desiring to , ^ . ! - WTIMBUCTOO 0INES. 97 avail myself of his kindly offices. "What is the use of a friend," said Haroun Al Raschid the Wise, "unless you can use him? So I made bold to propose to him a venture on my own part. To my ineffable delight, he acceded to my proposition with alacrity. He would act as my agent with pleasure." He would cheerfully play the part of conduit, to convey to my hum- ble pocket the golden stream of affluence. I therefore deposited with him ten thousand pias- tres, to form what he was pleased to term " a margin." Then he bought for me Timbuctoo Long Nines, to the amount of two hundred thousand piastres, par value. They were pur- chased at 54, with a credit to the buyer of 30 days. During this time I was assured that Tim- buctoo Nines would rise to the seventh heaven of financial value. Timbuctoo, said The Street, is a kingdom of vast resources. Under the mildly beneficent sway of its present sovereign, Kuphy the Tenth, its treasury is becoming alarm- ingly adipose. The Chancellor of the Exchequer is puzzled with the surplus. The ship canal to the Mountains of the Moon, passing through the fertile and populous plains of Sahara, is paying dividends to the government of enormous size. The Custom-house duties on furs, school-books, and cannel coal, alone yield a revenue more than sufficient to pay the ordinary expenses of the Court. The new railroad from the capital to 5 L , . v - r i . 1 page: 98-99[View Page 98-99] 98 THE PASHA PAPERS. Lake Ngami will open up about two millions of square miles of valuable land to cultivation, speculation, and taxation. Timbuctoo bour- geons with material and moral progress. Tim- buctoo Nines will soon touch 170. At the expiration of a month, I desired my broker to sell my Timbuctoo 'Nines at an enor- mous profit, and send me the amount realized. He mildly informed me that the kingdom of Timbuctoo was in a state of anarchy, his majesty Kuphy X. having been been poisoned by one of 1 his multitudinous wives, and that, in consequence, Timbuctoo Nines had declined to 3- cents on the dollar. Did I wish to sell? I did wish to sell, and sold. I have made a brief memorandum of my profits and sewed it in my turban for future reference, and since that time have occasionally reflected in a philosophic way on matters and things in Wall street. I went one day last week at the invitation of my friends, the Committee, to Hoboken, in the territory of New Jersey, to see some stalwart youths play base ball, on the fields called Ely- sian. I watched with much interest the excited manner in which they threw and knocked the ball from side to side, the animation of their faces, the glow of their cheeks, the entire play- fulness with which they surrendered themselves to the invigorating sport, quite unmindful of all that was transpiring around them. The world THE GAME OF BALL. 99 turned on its axis, the Hudson swept to the sea, the tides of toil and commerce ebbed and flowed; men were born, married, died; there were fires, good deeds, robberies, and charity in the great city so near--and still the game went on, to the infinite amusement of the youths, who never, for a moment, remembered anything except the ball that flew to and fro over their heads. And so in Wall street, O joy of my liver, I see these gay and ingenious brokers playing with the stock of the Meteoric Air Line Railway Company. They are not sharpers, nor even mad speculators. They are only children standing in the market-place. They are having a good time, and driving away dull care and the duties and responsibilities of life which bore other people so horribly. Merrily goes the pleasant game- vigorously they knock the elastic certificates to and fro, up and down, in graceful para- bolic curve. How their eyes sparkle with fun, how their faces shine with the glow of healthful exercise, how cheerily their laughter tinkles in the air, while all around their Wall street play-ground roars and groans the actual life of the city, its struggles, triumphs, defeats, hopes, despairs! The merchant toilfully weaves the web of commercial intercourse, clothing the earth with robes of princely splendor; the lawyer assiduously applies the solid sense of the past to the complications of the present; the page: 100-101[View Page 100-101] 100 THE PASHA PAPERS. editors and publishers scatter abroad their wing- ed words; the artist spreads his dreams on can- vas, or moulds them in marble; the student stores the fine honey of learning; the man of science pours the forces of nature into the chan- nels of use; the poet sings of truth, and beauty, and heroism, and the better years to come; good men unite to save the State, and bad men con- spire to ruin it-but what care the players for all that? They are having an excellent time with their game. Thine financially, MOHAMMED. [oTEr B TH TASLO. [NOTE BY THE TRA SLATOR.] The Translator of these letters was, one even- ing last winter, visited by a literary acquaintance of the name of Theophilus Spoon. Spoon is a private in the great "shoe-black seraph army" of poor-devil authors. He entertains a suffi- ciently large opinion of his own powers, an opinion as yet not entirely concurred in by the Enlightened Public. On the evening in ques- tion, he appeared with a shade of sadness, not unmingled with defiant contempt, clouding his countenance. It was evident, that either a great idea was germinating in his brain, or a new sor- row pecking at his heart. Having lighted a cigar and blown a great bubble of smoke about his head, he pulled out a manuscript from his pocket, and spoke: "There, sir, is a poem, a poem full of truth and fancy, ful/of teachings; and written, sir, I might say copied, from the manuscript of my own experience. What is poetry, sir, but a tran- script from the secret life of the poet, and have I not secretly speculated in stocks? I took that poem to the Editor of Twaddle's .oonthly, and he refused to publish it, because it was too per- 101 I- . . . .j' page: 102-103[View Page 102-103] 102 THE PASHA PAPERS. sonal, as if a Railroad Company could be a sub- ject for personalities. I took it to the Editor of Waddle's ]Monthly, and he rejected it, because, as he said, I had plagiarized the metre. Meher- cule --has our dear Longfellow obtained letters patent from Apollo, granting him the exclusive right to make, use and vend verses of this sort a Sir, the editors of our Magazines are quadru- peds with elongated ears, and the world is cold. Why did they not tell me the true reason of the rejection of my poem, namely, that it is much cheaper to copy poetry from Blackwood and Household Words than to buy it from me? Do you wish to hear it? of course you do-then listen. "ERIE.' 4 BY T. SPOON. "Should you ask me whence these verses, Whence these verses headed 'Erie,' With their clink of money changers, And their snort of locomotives, Tenders, cars and locomotives, Great machines called locomotives; Whence this legend of the railway; I should answer, I should tell you (If I thought it were your business), That I wrote them one fine morning, Beauteous, balmy summer morning, Balmy, Juny, savory morning, After having eaten breakfast, Podger's plain, substantial breakfast, And appeased my mental hunger With perusal of the Tribune, IN THE STOCKS. 103 Cautious, peaceful, gentle Tribune, Kind and charitable Tribune, -- In the Tribune's money column, Column full of curious features, Full of stocks, and therefore filled up Now and then with fearful choler; Full of bulls and bears and lame ducks, Bulls like that of old Phalaris, Made of brass, and fire, and fury; Bears, so called because they're Bruin, Always brewin' deadliest mischief, And, besides, are very bare-faced; Ducks, lame ducks, green ducks-poor creatures, Limping, flapping, saying quack, quack! - O the Tribune's money column! Column full of curious features, Full of Delaware and Hudson, Reading, Ward and Iron, Central; Full of solids-Pennsylvania- Full of fancies-gay Galena-- Full of Terre Haute and Alton, Full of La Crosse and Milwaukie, Great La Crosse, the great magician, Gitche Manito of railways, Who delights in legislators, Who embraces legislators (As Delilah wrapped up Samson), Coils his many bonds around them, Ties them, hand and foot and conscience, In the pillory deftly puts them, For a great and just derision, For the laughter of the nations, More especially the British, Honest British, moral British! "In the Tribune's money column, I perceived this brief quotation, " page: 104-105[View Page 104-105] 104 THE PASHA PAPERS. 'Erie, eighteen and three-quarters!' Then I thought of times more olden, When more valuable was Erie, Seventy-five, and eighty, ninety- When the road was newly opened, When the adventurous directors Sailed to sea on bulbous bladders, To a sea of golden glory, When they borrowed lots of money, And paid dividends-the shrewd ones- How they speculated-shrewd ones- How they published mighty statements, Till the old men and the orphans, Till the sad or jolly widows, Took their little hoards of money, Hard-earned, cherished hoards of money, Paid it to the shrewd directors For their stock, the shares of Erie. Then I saw the shrewd directors How they issued bonds by thousands, How they tossed about their coupons, How they set their kites a-flying, Kites that made a fine appearance, With their strings of flattering stories, And their tales of future profit! Then I saw a change financial, Flurry, skurry, fear financial, Saw the stock of all these widows, Orphans, bachelors, and widows, Fall and wilt like moistened chokers On a sultry day in August. Then the orphans and the widows, Orphans, bachelors, and widows, Waxed enraged and fumed and scolded, And inquired in tones of anger, From the author of these verses: Prithee, what's the use of Erie, i THE YANKEE DERBY. 105 Rotten, squalid, stupid Erie, Gay and fascinating Erie, Floating debts and bonds of Erie, Prithee what's the use of Erie? --Answered them the learned author, In his usual placid manner, Thoughtful, grave, and pleasant manner, 'In old England,' said the author, 'In the merry land of England, They have many pleasing races, Quite exciting equine races, But the greatest is the Derby, Hard contested race of Derby- There assemble all the nation, All the pride and flower of England, All the noble titled gamblers, All the low-born dirty gamblers, All the patrons of good horse flesh, All the poisoners of horses- And they bet as each one pleases, In a free and easy manner, And forgot are all distinctions, Shades of birth and rank and station, And no one is thought inferior For, in sooth, they all are betters!' "'Now I take it,' said the author, Of these few financial verses, 'That this railroad called the Erie, Is in fact the Yankee Derby, And is fortunately furnished For the Yankees all to bet on.'" Having read these lines, Mr. Spoon departed, leaving the manuscript behind him. The Trans- lator submits it as a commentary upon the ac- count of the Pasha's experience in Wall street. i 5* L page: 106-107[View Page 106-107] THE SEVENTH EPISTLE. The Rear Admiral is introduced to Mrs. Grundy--His opinion of Mrs. Grundy. To the Astute Abel Ben Hassan, Marrow of my Bones. I HAVE heard much during my recent sojourn in New York, of a certain mysteriously-powerful personage, called Mrs. Grundy; and as you, my white camel, residing in Stamboul, are probably in utter ignorance concerning this distinguished female, I have thought it advisable to enlighten you in regard to her character and attributes. On the banks of the Bosphorus, we have, unfor- tunately, no Mrs. Grundy; but I doubt not that, if it should hereafter seem cxpedient, we can eventually cultivate one of our own. For my own knowledge of this lovely lady, I am indebted more to the kindness of a casual acquaintance than to my own experience. The person to whom I allude is a young man of the name of Tompkins, who " exists," as he says, at the St. Nicholas Hotel, occupying apartments near my own. He is a quiet, philosophic bache- 106 . NEW YORK OBSERVER. 107 lor, rather more fanciful in his tastes than indus- trious in his habits, having a fondness for dia- mond shirt studs, spotless gloves, attar of roses, meerschaum pipes, and the writings of Mr. R. W. Emerson. He does not pretend to have any business or profession, but employs his time in an Athenian way, with watching the progress of events and the changes of manners around him. He sometimes calls himself the New York Observer, in which title I presume, some latent joke is lurking, since, whenever he mentions this appellation, he pulls down the corners of his mouth in a peculiarly solemn and innocent way. Mrs. Grundy, as I am told, is largely influen- tial in church, state and social life. She has a feminine name, but, like the noun substantive rogue, she is of common gender, assuming either sex with equal ease and grace. She has acquired her control over the American people by her skillful use of a simple weapon-the tongue. For a complete description pf this astonishing implement of attack, I refer you to the third chapter of the Epistle of St. James, contained in the English Bible, of which I believe you have a copy in your library. She wields this weapon with wonderful agility and power. For instance, when Timotheus, the enthusias- tic young divine, all aglow with the earnestness of conviction, deems it his duty to hurl the curses of Allah at some particular sin or some promi- page: 108-109[View Page 108-109] 108 THE PASHA PAPERS. nent sinner--when he inconsiderately calls down the lightnings of heaven to blast some pre- cious and profitable iniquity in which his peo- ple directly or indirectly share- irs. Grundy equally deems it her duty to remonstrate with the rashy earnest Timotheus. She says to him: "Oh, Ti-motheus, I beg you, in the name of peace and quietness, not to talk to me ini such an unpleasant way. Can you not thresh vigorously at the straw which your predecessors have threshed any time these eighteen centuries, with- out knocking your flail against the heads of your own pew-owners and employers a Your exposi- tion of the truth should be entirely analytic, like a lecture on anatomy; and who in the wide world ever heard of ah anatomist dissecting his own audience to illustrate his subject? Are there not miserable historical sinners enough to flagellate? Can you not horrify us with the inebriation of Noah, without denouncing the dis- tillers in your own flock? Can you not paint the wicked extravagance and frivolity of Lot's wife, without attacking my daughter in such a trucu- lent manner? And there are the murderous Cain, and the ungrateful Absalom, and the err- ing David, and the wife-led Solomon, and the Scribes and Pharisees--O sinful, unjust, avari- cious, oppressive, selfish, hypocritical, tyrannical Scribes and Pharisees!-and the Devil and his angels, with-the whole of Paradise Lost, to draw }. 11 TIMOTHEUS. 109 on for illustrations; and last of all, the exceeding sinfulness of sin. Can you not belabor these, and let me buy and sell, and get gain, and corner lots, and children, and comfortable naps? And the idea of your daring--O you naughty Timo- theus--to preach politics, or attack lawgivers, when you know that the Powers that Be were ordained of God for the purpose of governing rightly or wrongly, just as they may choose; that Paul was prophetically pledged to support any measure that the American Congress may pass and the American President approve; and that your own Saviour paid tribute to Tiberius Csesar, and of course approved of all the public measures, as well as the irreproachable private life, of that virtuous monarch! Fie! for shame, Timotheus!" But the hard-headed Timotheus, in reply, sug- gests something about the sword of the spirit, glittering and graven with mystic characters, that keenly cuts asunder selfishness from con- science, interest from duty; he evokes the thunders which roar in such an inconvenient and disagreeable manner around greed, lust, avarice, hypocrisy and deliberate iniquity of every sort. And Mrs. Grundy, half frightened and wholly angry, votes him out of his pulpit, and engages the services of the Rev. Octavian Ambergris- sweetest of men-who sprinkles perfume over his hearers, as the Consuls used to shower the page: 110-111[View Page 110-111] "O THE PASHA PAPERS. populace of Rome in the Amphitheatre. How delightfully somniferous are the Sabean odors that he sheds abroad, like the breezes from the spicy shores of Araby the Blest. And in the domain of politics Mrs. G. is watchfully potent. When that impracticable and terrible abstract young man, L. J. Brutus Smith, began to utter his unwise Philippics against the baseness, fraud and injustice which seemed to him to be dominant in the federal government of the United States, and to threaten the dearest principles of personal freedom, the old lady, who was at that time in business in South street, assailed Brutus through the press and from the rostrum. She thought he was attacking the Capitol, and like her prototypes, she began to cackle an anserine alarm: "O, Brutus, you wretched young dreamer, you icono- clast, you enthusiast, how dare you shake the pillars in the Temple of Liberty? You are a smart young chap, and I like to have you make sport for me, but don't play Samson: and pull down the edifice about my ears. How dare you stir up sectional strife, and threaten the ruin of these States, when you know perfectly well that the Union is a beautiful balance between duty and expediency, expressly constructed to weigh out the profits of my trade, and that if you carry out your ablsurd schemes for the advancement of individual right, as you [ .. J f BRUTUS SMTH. " call it, my notes will go to protest in thirty days." And when the abstract Brutus denied that he had any desire to dissolve the Union, and coolly asserted that the Union was instituted for the fostering of good, instead of the perpetuation of evil; that the constitution was framed, as its writers declare, for the promotion of justice, and not as a cunningly devised bargain with evil; that wrong, inflicted on personal liberty, though it date its dynasty from the death of Abel, can never have the authority of precedent; that it is far better that the nation, being an aggregate of individuals, should be frugal, and honest, and religious, rather than rich, dishonest and cruel, with much else of the same sort, Mrs. G. ceased to cackle and commenced to hiss. " Brutus! O Smith! yiou are a traitor, an infidel, an atheist, a poet; you must not teach my sons, dance at my balls, marry my daughters, lecture in my lyceums, sit in my legislative halls-out with you, you bold, bad man!"And a large number of other old ladies believed these charges, and approved of this sentence; and so the enthusiastic Brutus Smith had to comfort himself as best he might. Do you think, my lovely Ben Hassan, that it was difficult for him to comfort himself under the circumstances? But Mrs. Grundy is particularly interested in the matrimonial affairs, of young people. In this page: 112-113[View Page 112-113] "2 THE PASHA PAPERS. sphere she generally assumes the feminine sex, and plays her part with feminine skill and per- sistence. ,You must know, my dear Abel, that in the western continent a man takes but one wife (of his own) at a time; and that the selec- tion of this one is, evidently, a matter of more moment than in our beloved Turkey. A young fellow, therefore, is not considered capable of making for himself so important a choice; for if he should blunder, the consequences to society would be terrific. Hence, when the amiable and ingenuous Lorenzo arrives at years of discretion, society calls a Tea-table Convention, and appoints Mrs. Grundy a committee of one, with ,full power, to arrange his affairs. She accepts the trust with alacrity. She takes her place in the best pew in the church, and from her com- manding position she observes that the eyes of Lorenzo occasionally wander towards the slip occupied by the lovely and accomplished Jes- sica. She notes the fact that Lorenzo joins Jessica at the church door, and talks in his usual devoted style about the sermon and the weather. Mrs. Grundy smiles complacently, and makes her first report to the Tea-table Convention, briefly thus: "Your committee respectfully begs leave to report as follows: "Lorenzo is very attentive to Jessica "-- Which report is adopted nem. con. . TEA AND TAL. 113 Mrs. G. then goes to the Philharmonic, and observes the fact that Lorenzo, quite oblivious of Beethoven op., 690, converses with Jessica in a delicious undertone. She thereupon makes her second report to the T. T. Convention: '"Your committee would respectfully report as follows: "Lorenzo is over head and ears in love with Jessica." Adopted unanimously. The venerable lady next meets Lorenzo near Union Square, and walks with him as far as Twenty-third street. She informs him, to his great surprise, that he is engaged to the fair Jessica. She congratulates him. He mildly dis- claims the honor, and relates the trite story of the Barmecide, who made a large fortune by minding his own busines. But the rumor rathers flatters him. He says to himself, "Lorenzo, my boy, it may be that you have fascinated the fair Jessica. She is a charming young lady, and you, my dear fellow, are a sadly attractive dog."' Then Mrs. Grundy meets Jessica at the grand ball of the Ipecacs, and tells her that she (Jes- sica) entertains feelings of the most tender char- acter towards Lorenzo. Jessica is considerably annoyed at this, and mentally accuses Lorenzo of great impertinence in spreading such a rumor. Her woman's pride (which our prophet wisely calls the DeviD is roused. Next time she meets OR .. . . . .... . , . J- page: 114-115[View Page 114-115] "4 THE PASHA PAPERS. him she is conscious and embarrassed, and the foolish Lorenzo attributes her behavior to a pas- sion for him that she is vainly endeavoring to conceal. He begins to believe the tales of Mrs. Grundy. He builds a huge palace in the clouds, in which he is to be Sultan, and Jessica sole Sultana. Like a great, vain, fond fellow that he is, he dreams and dreams until his visions seem veritable realities. Then he goes, with calm face and fluttering heart, to the mansion of Jessica's sire, and offers himself to the daughter of the house, who refuses him in the kindest and most delightful manner possible. He retires and solaces himself with billiards, fast horses and the opera, and awives at the conclusion that Mrs. Grundy is a silly .old liar. Meantime, that interesting female makes her third report to the T. T. Convention. "Your committee would report as follows. and would ask to be discharged: "Lorenzo has been rejected by Jessica. He is in a desperate state of mind, and I regret to say is falling into habits of the most melancholy dis- sipation. Your committee is pained to observe that his clients (or patients or customers) are deserting him. Your committee would suggest the propriety of discouraging his visits to the daughters of the convention." Report adopted, and committee discharged with a vote of thanks. . TWO QUERIES. H15 Oh, amiable and in-other-respects-sufficiently- wise Lorenzo, why did you study the gossip of Mrs. Grundy, rather than your own heart and the laws of Jessica's womanly nature? And O Jessica, my ox-cyed Houri, why did you allow yourself to be piqued by the inter- ference of Grundy, and so nip the budding regard you had for Lorenzo, which might have grown into something large, leafy and fruit- ful? You may deduce from what I have written my dear Ben Hassan, that Mrs. Grundy is a mean, contemptible, unmanly, unwomanly scan- dal-monger, scoundrel, swindler and fool; that she emasculates the politics of the Americans, cramps their religion, saps their social life, estranges friends, deceives lovers invades priva- cies, crushes hopes, blights prospects, wounds sensibilities; that her tongue is poisonous as the serpents of the Nile, and that she is only worthy of banishment to that unmentionable locality where, as the book significantly says, "there are no fa8s.'s But you must not judge thus hastily of the venerable lady. She is a power-an institution -in this land of the free. " When the Monkey reigns," says the Wise Man, " dance before him," and therefore if you ever visit New York, my precious nightingale, you must bow before Mrs. Grundy-cultivate her favor-bask in her smiles. S . . . .fc page: 116-117[View Page 116-117] "6 THE PASHA PAPERS. She is a new avatar-an incarnation of the great Deity, Public Opinion,-her lungs emit the vox populi. Worship Mrs. Grundy. Ever thine, MOHA MMD it [FROM MR. B. ILL.] BOSTON, 10th January, 1858. Translator of Mohammed Pasha's Letters. SIR: It was with feelings of some sorrow that I perused the account given in the Seventh Epistle of the unfortunate fate of Mr. Lucius Junius Brutus Smith. -Poor fellow! And yet, sir, notwithstanding the sad fate of that hair-brained young gentleman, I think that some of us in this little city still rest assured that the truth that all men are created free and equal, that they are endowed by their Creator (not by Congress) with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi- ness, is eternal as the Anglo-Saxon soul--nay, as a truth, of the very essence of Heaven. Legisla- tors, sir, may enact laws in defiance of this prin- ciple; Office-holders may drink confusion to its consequences in all sorts of beverages; able Editors may denounce it as incendiary and unpre- cedented; Distinguished Orators (most distin- guished, yet perhaps least useful, of men), may "7 page: 118-119[View Page 118-119] "8 THE PASHA PAPERS. contemn it as a glittering generality ;--and all with just as much effect as if the Legislators should enact that six and four make eleven; or the Office-holders should drink confusion to the fact that the square described on the hypothe- nuse of a right-angled triangle is equivalent to the sum of the squares described on the other two sides; or the able Editors should denounce the incoming flow of a spring tide as an alto- gether unprecedented and incendiary proceeding; or the Distinguished Orators should declare that the invulnerable sunshine,' calorific, lumin- iferous, life-giving, is, after all, nothing but a glittering generality. Please present my kind regards to Mr. Smith. Yours, triumphantly, B. HL. , . . # . . . . . .i THE EIGHTH EPISTLE. The Pasha Visits the Custom-House, and Discourses about the Administration. To the Blessed Abel Ben Hassan, Cornucopia of My Delights. DURING my visit to Wall street, referred to in my last epistle but one, my attention was attracted by the Custom-house, a massive struc- ture of dubious architecture. With your limited knowledge of the world, my friend, you may suppose that a Custom-house is an establishment designed for the collection of such duties as may be levied on imported merchandise. Allow me, in the gentlest manner, to hint, that in this theory you are entirely mistaken. The Custom- house in New York is an establishment for the enforcement of the duties of politicians. It is the Normal School in which the rulers of the people are taught. It is a hot-bed, in which are sprouted, trained, and ripened, the Powers that Be in the United States of America. The collec- tion of the revenue being a part of the business of the Federal Government, the employees of the "9 F . . ^ *, J page: 120-121[View Page 120-121] 120 THE PASHA PAPERS. Custom-house become living, component parts of the great national system, which guides the energies and helps to fulfill the mission of this glorious country. Perhaps, my venerable dromedary, you would like to be informed what this "' mission " is? I am informed by the philosophic young man mentioned in my last letter, who furnished me with some ideas of Mrs. Grundy, that the true object of the representative republican govern- ment of the United States of America is to fatten the political parties who alternately gain posses- sion of the "rudder of government" and the "spigot of taxation." For this cause the fathers fought at Breedhis Hill-for this they general- ized in a glittering manner in the Declaration of Independence-for this they met in solemn con- clave, and wove the bands of the constitution which unite in one free and happy, and prospe- rous, and magnificent, etc., etc. doud cheers)- for this do the able editors of the .Morning Judas and Evening Sajpphira wax eloquent; for this distinguished speakers from abroad declaim; for this are tar-barrels burned with odoriferous smoke; for this does the entire country- exult, quadrennially, with three times three, and rejoice that, providentially, it is not like Austria and Congo. The American people, I am further informed, held these truths to be self-evident: " .. . . . . f .. . A, t. THE ORRERY. 121 That Justice, Mercy, and Truth are capital i attributes in individual life, but quite out of place in the business of government. That all men have a right to vote, except in the Sixth ward of the city of New York, where that blessed privilege is monopolized by police- men and their particular friends. That the chief object in voting is to elect a s President of the United States, all other officials bTeing inferior in power of patronage to him. That the leaders of the people, who have fought at the polls- and bled at the pockets, deserve to be rewarded. From these four great radical truths, springs a doctrine which I may call the tree of American liberty, whose branches stretch from the Navy Yard at Portsmouth to the Assay Office in San Francisco, and which is the morus multicazuis for all political silk-worms: the doctrine that "to the victors belong the spoils." Or, to speak more strictly, this doctrine is the central sun of the political planetarium, shining with golden light and comfortable heat, around which all postal ! planets, great and small, all Custom-house aste- roids, brilliant or otherwise, with all federal satellites of every name and nature, revolve, ; with the harmony of sphere-music, and with a regularity of motion unequalled since Allah hung the world on hinges. It is clearly of importance that the individuals v 6 page: 122-123[View Page 122-123] 122 THE PASHA PAPERS. who go to make up this delightful federal orrery should have peculiar qualifications. For an ordinary Custom-house official in New York, the following, as I am told, are requisite: 1. An entire ignorance of any of the more showy branches of learning; it being most democratic to be a man of few words, and to utter these words with a liberal disregard of the rules of grammar. 2. Very short hair, affording the slightest pos- sible grasp for an antagonist in case of a passage of arms-from the shoulder of the antagonist to the head of the appointee. 3. A moustache, dyed jet black, without regard to the natural color of the hair, or the nature of the complexion. 4. Large development of the biceps and pec- toral muscles, and hardness of the " fins" (to be estimated by the number of policemen knocked down, or emigrants successfully throttled) with a general symmetry of every organ except the nose, which, if its cartilaginous portion be bitten off, is valuable as a proof of courage and expe- rience. 5. Physical ability to drink confusion to the opposition at all times, in all places, and in every sort of beverage, from the oily Otard of a senator to the blue ruin of a Councilman. 6. A total absence of anything like conscience, it being plain that a tender moral sense is a an .,Ati , do t -r PLANETS. 123 troublesome superfluity, as much out of place in the bosom of an official as a pig in the grotto of a houri. 7. A liberal soul, to be exhibited in con- tributing a large portion of his salary to the support of the party, and indemnifying himself for his generosity by fingering the public purse. Furnished with these physical, mental and moral qualifications, the employee takes his orbit in the system, and revolves, as planet or satellite, in the most delightful manner. He need do nothing but obey the law of gravitation and reflect such light as may be evolved from the large luminary at Washington. 'It is no business of planets or satellites to be creative- they are merely reflective. Do you imagine, my benighted Ben Hassan, that a man, even in political life, should try to preserve some indi- viduality, self-respect, impartial judgment, rigor- ous integrity? You must come to America and be stripped of such absurd conceits. Now and then, to be sure, even here, some pestilent vapor- ing comet of a man shoots madly from his sphere, perplexing parties, and threatening to derange the entire harmony of this ingenious federal orrery; but, as a conservative Turk, I am ,glad to say that such examples of orbital eccen- tricity are very rare. To prove this I take plea- sure in copying for your perusal some letto"- which have recently came into my possession, page: 124-125[View Page 124-125] 124 THE PASHA PAPERS. and which exhibit, in a truly pleasing manner, the celestial concord prevailing in the national system of the United States. They were ad- dressed to the Chief Magistrate, and I think their filial fealty exceedingly touching. I. ' SUBLIME SiR: The boys who run with '156,' of which com- pany I am a member, are proposing next Monday to ballot for a foreman. The candidates for the post are Tall Sykesey, One- Eyed Bill and the Baxter-street Buffer. As I have no desire to lose the valuable berth I now occupy under the Collector of the Port of New York, and at the same time desire to exercise the unspeakable privilege of the elective franchise on the occasion referred to, I must respectfully beg your Excellency to conm- municate, at your Excellency's earliest convenience, any predi- lections your Excellency may entertain for any of the candidates above named. An early answer, either by letter or telegraphic rumor to the New York press, will greatly oblige, "Your Excellency's obedient servant, "JOHN STOKES." II. "MMACULATE SIR: I blush to say that I am about to choose a wife. I have two lovely females in view. The eyes of one are black-the eyes of the other are beautifully grey. As I should not like to jeopardize my situation of gauger in the New York Custom-house, by running counter to Your Excellency's ideas of womanly beauty, I beg leave to solicit from Your Excellency an expression of Your Excellency's views on this interesting subject. "My indixidual approval of black, as a color, might involve the party here in some trouble about the great African ques- tion; while my choice of grey eyes might subject us to some X r i;g -Jo GOOD CHLDREN. 125 complication with the late hero of Nicaragua. I therefore await, with natural, and I hope excusable, impatience, Your Excellency's decision. "With great respect and profound admiration, "T"T. JEFFERSON SMTH." "I. "MIGHTY SIR: The choir of the Methodist Church in Broad- way, of which choir I am a member, are about to elect a leader. As my position in the Post-office renders my action on this momentous occasion of the greatest importance to myself, the party, and the world, I take the liberty to consult Your Excel- lency in the matter. The candidates are Mr. Jones and Mr. Thompson. Mr. Jones has a good voice, but he is in favor of internal improvements, and his grandfather was a member of the Hartford Convention. Mr. Thompson's organ is not first- rate, but he is very ambitious as a vocalist, and was in favor of Lecompton. I beg leave to throw upon the Executive the responsibility of a choice between these gentlemen. Your Excellency's obedient servant, "PETER Foo." IV. "MAGNIFICENT SIR:' My wife and I propose to have a roast goose for dinner next Sunday. 'She insists that it should be stuffed with sage and onions-I prefer that it should be stuffed with onions alone. As I am one of the few but unterrified Democrats in my ward, I am desirous that this difference in regard to an important internal domestic institution should be settled in strict accordance with the views of the administration, and I therefore beg an early expression of your Excellency's views upon this new ' goose question.' t.^ "I remain, sir, with profound respect, .-J ( "A. JACKSON DUSENBURY." ' @ page: 126-127[View Page 126-127] 126 THE PASHA PAPERS. You may thus perceive, O son of Hassan, what singular fidelity characterizes the officials of the United States of America, and with what eminent consistency they work together to carry out the object of their government, which, as expressed in the preamble of their constitution, I find to be, " to form a more perfect union, estab- lish justice,- provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to themselves and their pos- terity." Do you venture to suggest that princi- ple is better than party, purity more profitable in the end than plunder, and a clear national conscience of more worth than all the material prosperity ever fostered by all distinguished men from the time of Potiphar to the present; that the schemes of politicians to gain power and to keep it have been the efficient cause of the cor- ruption and the ruin of all Republics at all periods of history, and that the Great Republic of the Western world cannot escape the same fate if her people allow themselves to be ruled by selfish partisans? Do you suggest such absurd ideas as these? Then you must travel, my friend, and expand your intellect. Lovingly, MOHAMMED. -S THE NINTH EPISTLE. The Rear-Admiral Visits the Courts-His Opinion of Elected Judges-About Juries. To the Amiable but Inexperienced Abel Ben Hassan, Atmosphere of my Lungs. I SHOULD hardly dare, O friend of my child- hood, to write you any account of the adminis- tration of justice in New York, unless I had enjoyed the acquaintance of a member of the Bar, and had learned from him some particulars of the practice of his profession. A traveller who should depend entirely on his own observa- tion and study, could hardly fail to gain and give incorrect notions of such a subject. When, therefore, I began to visit the City Hall, to observe the manner in which the Perfection of Human Reason is dealt out in the Courts, I took care to go in the company of a young attorney, who had kindly offered to illumine my path- way with the light of his experience. His name (though the great Saadi wisely says, "what's the significance of a name-an Antelope 127 M *iV. " AS page: 128-129[View Page 128-129] 128 THE PASHA PAPERS. would be quite as agile if she were called a Hip- popotamus ") is Mansfield Blackstone Jones-a good long name, which looks well on a sign, though he tells me, with some quaintness, that the infatuated public have not as yet rushed in large numbers to commit their characters and fortunes to his professional keeping, merely because a gilded sign thus inscribed was hung out in a conspicuous manner in the most crowded portion of Nassau street. In truth, Jones has not yet attained a large stature of fame or for- tune. Theoretically he is a wise counsellor, an astute practitioner, an eloquent advocate; but practically he employs most of his time in writing letters to lady correspondents, com- posing verses for the magazines, and blowing smoke out of the windows of his fourth-story office. "When I first opened the office hereinbefore mentioned;" says Jones, "I thought it would be necessary to employ a squad of policemen to keep order in the crowd of clients who would besiege the door; but I now imagine that no such violent coercive measures will ever be indispensable. In fact, my practice is quite small, and my prospects equally limited. My landlady pays her rent punctually, so that I am not called upon to resist any summary proceed- ings for its collection. Her husband is so mild a man, with such a wholesome terror of the partner "AW AND LEISURE. 129 of his bosom, that he will never be unfaithful to his wedding vows. "My tailor has promised me his business, but hitherto he has made no suits of a legal charac- ter, and his bill is therefore much larger than mine can ever be. My female friends have had no occasions for actions of breach of promise to marry, their lovers having been altogether too ready to fulfill their engagements. A note which- was given me to collect some months since, Was paid by the maker on presentation, in the most heartless manner; and a libel suit that I came near commencing against the editor and proprietor of the Bluster, was disposed of by a wholesale retraction and apology on the part of that fearless journalist; and thus, you see, two pieces of prospective litigious cake were reduced to hopeless dough. None of my Benedick friends are in the habit of pelting their wives with baked potatoes, so as to lay the foundation of an action for separate maintenance; and my bachelor acquaintances avoid, in the most ab- surdly ungenerous manner, the commission of any indictable offence. In short, I am fast mak- ing up my mind to marry a rich wife, or a large business connection. I think that in view of my good manners and liberal education, I am enti- tled to do so." In the company of this young person I visited some of the courts. The first room we entered i 6* i page: 130-131[View Page 130-131] 130 THE PASHA PAPERS. was devoted to criminal business (by which phrase I would not have you understand the ordinary chicanery of the profession, but the conviction and punishment of culprits who have insulted the majesty of the State). On entering this apartment, we were told by a blue-coated official to " find seats." Inasmuch as there were already some two hundred more people than chairs in the shrine of justice, we concluded to disregard this command, and content ourselves with being a Standing Committee of Inspection; my companion at the same time asking the officer whether he had ever heard of the Croton Aqueduct, or Beau Brummell's remark about the value of clean linen, and whether his laundress was well off for soap. My attention was naturally attracted toward the dais on which the judge was seated. I will confess that his appearance was not venerable nor commanding, and had I not known that the Americans are a wise people, I should never have supposed him to be fitted, either by nature or acquirements, for the duties of his position. I noticed, however, that he displayed great vigor in the mastication of tobacco, and invariably prefaced the solemn sentence of a criminal to prison by a copious discharge of the resulting juice. On inquiring into the method of his appoint- ment, I was informed that he was elected by the r n R THE JUDGE. 131 enlightened voters of the city. His history is a fine illustration of the manner in which true greatness and goodness are rewarded in a free community. He began life as a druggist's clerk. Finding in this business no scope for his aspiring genius, he renounced it for the post of third mate in a Liverpool packet, but sea-sickness having made him sick of the sea, he returned to New York, and. immediately opened a law office in Centre street, near that airy edifice, the Egyptian Tombs. His scrupulous honesty and varied learn- ing soon surrounded him with a cloud of clients, and by his exertions he was enabled to retain in the bosom of society several hundred burglars, thieves and assassins, who might otherwise have been banished to the desolate shades of Sing Sing and the Island, while a large number of ruffians, whose straw bail, procured by him, was forfeited, were enabled to depart to other cities where they might pursue without interruption their ingeni6us vocations. Although he prac- tised his profession from motives of the most disinterested benevolence, yet he received from his clients such fees as they could afford, old clothes, household furniture, teaspoons, family Bibles, stolen watches, diamonds and plate, bowie-knives and revolvers, which he disposed of at auction; and if the probabilities were that any culprits would be sentenced to the State Prison, he would take their money and other IVA i ^ page: 132-133[View Page 132-133] 132 THE PASHA PPERS. valuables "to keep for them," and when the prisoners were discharged, after the lapse of two or three years, he would forget that he had ever met them; discharged convicts being, of course, persons whose acquaintance it is not desirable to perpetuate. In this way he acquired some wealth, and with it considerable influence. By spending all his leisure time in the grog-shops of the Sixth ward, for the purpose, I suppose, of warning the habitues of those establishments against the evils of intemperance, he secured the confidence of the voters whom he happened to meet there, and was soon known as a leading man in local politics. His merit was next recog- nized in Tammany Hall, where true merit is sure to be recognized, and he soon became distin- guished in the peaceful and ennobling discus- sions which were held in that famous edifice. By freely distributing his honest gains to the more needy members of that charitable society, the Columbian Order, he secured his nomination to the high office which he now holds, and was elected as a matter of course, since the voters of New York well know that any candidate who is nominated by the Sachems must be an embodi- ment of all the virtues. Since his accession to the Bench, justice has been busy with her golden scales (the scales being in her hands, and not over her eyes, as some libellers assert). Many boys and women have been immured by Ji Vi: A COMPARISON. 133 him in the penitentiary for improvement and encouragement, and a large number of gamblers, rowdies and scoundrels of every type, have been admonished and set free, to reform themselves, and to work in the ranks of the party for the general good of society. I am pained to say that detraction and calumny have assailed the good name-of this eminent dignitary, but I rejoice in believing that he will survive their attacks. He has that sublime 'self-assurance which springs from a clear conscience and a native talent. You, my inexperienced friend, sweet son of Hassan, knowing as little about the glorious system of elective judiciary as a Bactrian camel knows of Roman punch, may deem it essential to the purity and dignity of the Bench, that a man should be appointed thereto by a lofty im- partial power, and for a protracted tenure; that he should be fitted by elaborate education for the solemn and delicate duties of his trust; that no breath of suspicion should for an instant dim the lustre of his integrity; that no political schemer should for a moment dare to assail him with intrigue or tempt him by impure motive; but you must remember that Constantinople and New York are not geographically nor morally one and the same place. Great and good judges are reared here like great and- good cabbages. They are fertilized by filth. They grow up crisp, i =. page: 134-135[View Page 134-135] 134 THE PASHA PAPERS. pure, fresh, from the rich compost of elective cor- ruption. Before I had a chance to investigate further the mysteries of the criminal law, the atmosphere of the room became so oppressive that I retired to an adjacent apartment, where, as I was told by my companion, civil causes are tried. This tribunal is called the Circuit, he said, because justice here reaches the suitor in a circuit-ous manner, after a serpentine ramble of several years. You will at once perceive the immense advantages of such delay. If a man has a claim of ten thousand piastres, it will be doubled by the accretion of interest and costs before the suit is tried. If the debtor then appeals, the Court of General Term will, in the exercise of their better judgment, correct the blunders of their brother below, by ordering a new trial. After this new trial is had, another appeal to the Gen- eral Term adds another year to the life of the controversy. Next comes an appeal to the Court of Appeals, the calendar of which is so inge- niously arranged that two years elapse before the great questions of law arising upon the evidence can be argued before that eminent body. The Court of Appeals, thinking it apparent to every legal mind that the Supreme Court was egre- giously mistaken, send the cause back for a second new trial. This new trial follows, and is suc- ceeded by two more appeals; but at last, glory i . j H2( THE OIOUITR. 135 be to the science of the law! a judgment for plaintiff is obtained, amounting in all to the sum of twenty-five thousand piastres. In the mean- time the defendent has become insolvent, and' it becomes necessary to prosecute the sureties who have given security upon his various appeals; and thus another suit is commenced, another foot- ball of litigation kicked to and fro -between New York and Albany; and when, finally, judg- ment is obtained against these sureties, it is dis- covered that one has gone out as consul to the Fejee Islands, and the other has made an assign- ment to his uncle for the benefit of his creditors, preferring the claims of his brother-in-law. But as the members of the Bar are busily employed all this time, and enabled to'line their pockets and develop their intellects, I do not see why such delay is not a good thing. As I entered the Circuit, the judge who pre- sided was engaged in fiercely striking his desk with a mallet. I thought at first that he might be selling his services at public auction, under the hammer, but was assured by Jones that I was in error. "This is to preserve order," said "we estimate the sterling character of a justice by the number of pounds on his desk." A measure 9f quiet having been restored by the vigorous muscles of his honor, the counsel for the plaintiff rose to sum up his case to the jury. He assured the twelve men before him that they page: 136-137[View Page 136-137] 136 THE PASHA PAPERS. were the most intelligent, enlightened, conscien- tious, scrupulous, irreproachable, clear-headed, upright Christian men he had ever met with in the course of an immensely long professional experience; that trial by jury was the bulwark of American liberty, the life of American patri- otism, the safeguard of America in the past, the life. of America for the future. He was over- whelmed with joy at the idea of committing the interests of his client to their protection. Ile gloried in the opportunity they had to vindi- cate the honor, dry the tears, close the wounds, assuage the grief of that accomplished citizen and honest man, the plaintiff. He did not wish to assail the reputation of the defendant, but the- sternest duty compelled the inference that he was an unblushing perjurer and a treacherous villain, and he was at a loss to conceive how he could have sneaked into the temple of Themis, or, having sneaked therein, could succeed in hold- ing up his head. He then reviewed the evidence for two hours and a half, and wound up with a glowing eulogy on the character of Washington, and the danger of interference by the United States with the affairs of Nicaragua. The action, dear Abel, was for damages for breach of warranty on a sale of a horse. The learned Court then charged the Jury for the space of one hundred and twenty minutes. He reviewed the Common Law of England, the DE JURE. 137 Pandects of Justinian, the Code Napoleon, and the Revised Statutes of New York. He pre- sented the evidence in a somewhat different aspect from those exhibited by the counsel for the respective parties, namely, by winding it up in a large ball, unwinding it, and lastly winding it up again and tossing it at the heads of the twelve Intelligences, as who should say- "unravel that if you can, my- gentle ostriches." The Intelligences left the room with counten- ances that denoted extreme lucidity, and---- disagreed. I was then astonished and pained to hear the counsel for the plaintiff say, in a stage whisper, that they were a set of asses. How could he have changed his opinion so soon? Oh, friend of my sternum and clavicles, do you suppose the able advocate really thought trial by jury to be , L such a Bulwark, Fortress, Safeguard, Palladium I Hope, Treasure, as he described? Is it possible that twelve men, selected at random, without mental discipline, without judicial experience, of diverse tastes and habits of thought, oi no tastes and habits of thought at all, required to agree A+ unanimously upon the weight of evidence of which they have no memoranda, and which has perhaps been misrepresented to them in three different ways-can form a good tribunal for the enforcement of right, the disentanglement of complication? Is not the presumption strong page: 138-139[View Page 138-139] 138 THE PASHA PAPERS. that they will fall into a childish subserviency to whim, or prejudice, or forensic brilliancy, or mere weariness . All of which is none of my business nor yours 3ither. Devotedly thine, MOHnAMMED. qA THE TENTH EPISTLE. The Rear Admiral goes to Church, E To the Delectable Abel Ben Hcassan, Blue Bird of my Aviary. WHEmN I first approached the city of New York, my eyes were delighted by the sight of numerous sacred spires pointed gracefully and silently to the sky from among the lower and more worldly buildings around them. Many of these are sur- mounted by weathercocks. Some are tipped by the shining symbol of the Cross, whose power and beauty I am too much a cosmopolitan to deny. Most of them are provided with bells, which every seventh day sweetly call the people together to listen to the words of wisdom and exhortations to a better life. I was gratified to think how good must be the population among whom I was to spend some months. ere, said I to the Rear Admiral of the Turk- ish navy, dwell a collection of men and women who profess and practise what, as a philosopher, I must admit to be a perfect form of faith-the page: 140-141[View Page 140-141] "O THE PASHA PAPERS. gospel of entire unselfishness, profound humility, utter self-abnegation, pure love to one's neighbor, springing from and nurtured by love to the Founder of Christianity. In these churches they meet upon a Sabbath-day in a. docile spirit, to be better instructed in this faith, to be spiritually refreshed and strengthened, so that they may go forth triumphantly to fight and conquer the Great Adversary during the ensuing week. They are thus so enlightened in their consciences, invig- orated in their wills, purified in their passions, by these devotional exercises, that a truly virtuous life becomes normal and easy for them. Mr. Coupon spends his secular hours, especially those passed in Wall, Broad, and Nassau streets, in preferring integrity to knavery, truth to decep- tion, justice to self-interest, godliness to gain, and, generally, in doing exactly to his neighbor as he would that that lovely personage should do to him. Mrs. Coupon occupies her week days with discouraging scandal, dispensing quiet charity, practising thoughtful economy for the sake of doing good, stifling vanity, forgiving her female enemies, and, by precept and example, stimulat- ing her daughters to a sincere, sober, dutiful life. What a delightful political, mercantile, and social condition must bloom up from such cul- ture as this? On a sunny morning of the first day of the second week of my sojourn here, I requested my IRIDESCENCE. 141 young fellow-lodger at the St. Nicholas, Tompkins Effendi, to conduct me to one of these numerous sanctuaries. He proposed that we should attend the church of the Shining Kaleidoscope, and so we went thither. On our entering the sacred edifice, the sexton received us quite coolly, as if to say "What business have you in this establish- ment" but when my companion opened his coat and displayed a diamond breastpin of inor- fi t dinate size, the face of the official suddenly- blos- somed with smiles, and he conducted us to an excellent pew in the central aisle. My attention was first attracted by the unique decorations of the walls and ceiling. The prin- cipal colors used in the work of adornment were light blue, bright yellow, and deep red, each endeavoring to display itself to the best advan- tage. Their effect, when combined with all the other tints of the rainbow, shed through the stained glass windows, was somewhat remark- 5 able; .and I observed that a portly lady just Ad behind me had, as a result of the play of light, Hi a green forehead, blue nose, yellow lips, purple H: chin, orange hair, and a patch of deep violet X over the left eye. Indeed, I had observed no such startling style of ornamentation anywhere else, except in the brilliant restaurant of Mr. Taylor, in Broadway. Wonderful, O myLibyan lion, is the power of association-for such-was the influence of this paint upon my imagination, page: 142-143[View Page 142-143] "2 THE PASHA PAPERS. that I came near asking the usher, who was promenading the aisle, to bring me a lamb stuffed with pistachio nuts, and a vase of iced sherbet. The services commenced presently, by read- ings on the part of a person who occupied a box in the rear of the building, and responses from a portion of the congregation. The reader pitched his voice so that it seemed to issue from his toes, and you may judge, therefore, that his intona- tions were hardly natural (since he did not stand on his head), but as it was his office to deal with the supernatural, it may be presumed that such sepulchral utterances were appropriate to the occasion. Next came a song of praise by four persons in the organ-loft. How beautifully they warbled! I was carried straight back to the opera with its pride and pomp of scenic illusions, intoxicating sounds, brilliant eyes, brilliant jewels, dazzling toilettes, immaculate kids. The soprano led off with a splendid staccato passage, in which the high notes danced and capered like lambs on a hill-side. Then she ceased, and the tenor took up the strain, and prolonged it with clear trum- pet'tones; then he stopped, and the contralto sang a few sweet notes; and, lastly, the basso added his voice to those of the other three, and the whole party commenced a terrific scuffle for supremacy in the final fugue. The contest was A DISTINCTION. 143 exciting, and the result doubtful for a few moments, but at last the soprano was victorious, ending with a tremendous trill, which entirely silenced her antagonists. I lifted my hands to applaud, but was checked by my friend, who infornied me that, however delighted I might be with the performance, I must not express my 't ^gratification in the same way that I would at the Academy of Music. Though this distinc- !Ii tion seemed to be rather nicely drawn, I, of course, yielded to the suggestions of his expe- rience. The Ten Commandments were read by the individual in the rear of the building, and many of the audience expressed a desire that they might be enabled to keep each law. Sublime precepts are those ten, my son of i assan, stern in diction, pregnant with significance, divine throughout-the statutes of the universe-valid and obligatory alike in Persia, Pekin, Patagonia, Paris; compelling the conscience of the world, solemnizing the hearts of all men everywhere, commanding, as they do, monotheism, reverence, filial obedience, and a just regard for the persons, property, virtue, and good name of others. And so I thought that if the thousand people in the church of the Shining Kaleidoscope, who ex- [t Upressed in such a proper manner their desire to keep those laws, together with the thousands more who, on the same day, expressed the same L , IN page: 144-145[View Page 144-145] "4 THE PASHA PAPERS. desire, should simultaneously succeed, the world in general, and Manhattan Island in particular, would grow suddenly better. Must I confess that, after such- a sublime reli- gious generalization as the two tables of Moses, the sermon which followed from the Rev. Dr. Heliotrope did not seem by aly means immense? As far as I could understand the discourse, its object seemed to be to prove that within the walls of the church of the Shining Kaleidoscope, there is safety, peace, comfort, hope, happiness here, and plenty of future reward for such hap- piness hereafter; that the earth, sun, moon, and stars, comets and nebulae, and every other thing, together with all mental and moral phenomena and laws, were created and are administered with reference to certain articles of belief which no- body but the Rev. Dr. Heliotrope can explain; that the surcharged batteries of Allal's love and mercy electrify but one wire, thrill but one helix, energize but one magnet, and that the Rev. Dr. Heliotrope has sole charge of the telegraph office; that to visit the widow and the fatherless, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world will avail no man or woman except under the supervision of the Rev. Dr. Heliotrope; that outside the walls of the church of the Shining Kaleidoscope there is nothing but wretched- ness, want, nakedness, despair, madness, infidel- ity, chaos, Old Night, and-schism. When I QUERIES. 145 heard this, I felt very sorry for all the well- meaning people in all the other sanctuaries I have spoken of. Poor deluded individuals! why do they not rush forthwith and hide themselves in the fold of the Rev. Dr. Heliotrope, buy pews in his establishment, contribute to his salary, sleep through his discourses, and so save them- selves from trouble here and destruction here- after? Does any one dare to assertlthat this sermon savored of spiritual pride, of intolerable and intolerant arrogance? that it would be far better that the Rev. Dr. Heliotrope and his congrega- tion of admirers should demonstrate, by some sort of practical piety, the possibility of a church in this wicked world, rather than prate noisily about the supreme claims of the church to which they happen to be affiliated? Let any one so assert at his own risk. When we left the church of the Shining Kaleidoscope and strolled hotel-ward, I ventured to ask my young companion his opinion of the doctrine enunciated by the Rev. Dr. Heliotrope. He did not reply distinctly, but I caught a faint sound issuing from his lips resembling the following: "Hrmbug,"---- and after a few moments of silence he spoke as follows: "My beloved Pasha, I know a minister of the I7 page: 146-147[View Page 146-147] "6 THE PASHA PAPERS. Gospel in this town who does not in the least resemble the Rev. Dr. Heliotrope. He did not embrace his profession for the sake of gain and fame and authority, but that he might be the instrument in the Divine Hand of raising some souls from the death of self-seeking, to the life of noble, disinterested endeavor. For this object he does not preach dogmatic and polemic the- ology, but a living faith, applicable to every exigency of the hour. He does not attack his- toric sin, but the sins that desecrate the present time. He prefers his own form of ecclesiastical government, but does not quarrel with the pre- ferences of others-for religion is not with him a matter of form at all, but a vital principle, which enters the heart, scourging out therefrom the money-changers of evil, and making it a fit tem- ple for the indwelling of the Divine Presence, with the orderly accompaniment of consecration, worship, sacrifice. He has an idea that this world was not made, and is not governed, en- tirely, by the Devil; and he therefore appeals, at all times, to the noblest* motives, in confident expectation that the heart of his hearer will respond. Yet there is nothing softly saponaceous in his entreaties, and, if need be, he can play the part of Boanerges in denouncing hypocrisy, lust, oppression, and all uncharitableness. He is not a pale recluse, but a cheerful healthy student of human nature and affairs, having no fear of the M- MODERN PAUL. 14T world, technically so called, but only of the evil that is in the world; and, like his Master, he can sit at meat with publicans and sinners, always with dignity, if by so doing he can do them good.' He is something more than a preacher, being a joyful guest at a wedding, a sympathiz- ing friend in a sick chamber, a gracious host in his own house. He is honored by the elders, and especially beloved by the young people of his flock. The young men and maidens are especially encouraged by his precepts and example to active charity. He has organized them into an association for the purpose of help- ing and teaching the heathen of their own city- quite as profitable employment, possibly, as polking at charity balls and working embroid- ered slippers for their pastor. And though, like the Apostle Paul, he scouts the bondage of any sort of formalism, and rejoices in the perfect freedom of Christian manhood, and though all churches of the Shining Kaleidoscope regard him as a miserable schismatic, yet I have some hope for him. And even if he should not be saved according to the Kaleidoscope plan of sal- vation, but utterly lost according to the Kaleido- scope plan of perdition-what then?" I could not answer this last question of my friend, but only fell to thinking how strange it was that, while in this great city of New York there is so much evil and woe and want-while a Z - e page: 148-149[View Page 148-149] "8 THE PASHA PAPERS. crime is stalking boldly in so many streets, and poverty is crouching grimly at so many thres- holds-while vanity and sensuality are claiming so many victims, and the frost of fashionable selfishness is freezing so many hearts-that the Rev. Dr. Heliotrope can find no better employ- ment for his intellect than proving that he has a monopoly of the means of saving a ruined world. O, Abel Ben Hassan, is there not in this some food for mental digestion? Thine, reverently, MOlHAMMED. F y , r , ,s [FRao W, W. W H.] NEW YORK, January 12, 1859. Translator of Mohammed Pasha's Letters. SIR: In the New York Herald for January 11, in the year of Our Lord 1859, I found the following paragraph: "An unknown-woman was found frozen to death, near the corner of Second Avenue and Fiftieth street, yesterday (Mon- day) morning. The following description of her person was given by the police: Deceased was about nineteen years of age, medium height, slightly built, regular and pretty features, light hair, neatly braided, and large grey eyes. An inquest will be held to-day." And thereupon I sat down and wrote the fol- lowing lines, which I hereby dedicate to the Rev. Dr. Heliotrope; and respectfully ask him to explain to me, if he can, why young girls, with features pretty or otherwise, should perish like house-flies within gunshot of Stuyvesant Square. "9 page: 150-151[View Page 150-151] 150 THE PASHA PAPERS. FROZEN to death, so young and fair.- Regular features and large grey eyes, Flaxen hair, Braided with care, * Slender body, as cold as ice; Who knows her name, Her story, her fame; Had she a good or an evil fame; And who in Charity's name's to blame, That a girl so young yields up her breath, Frozen to death? Second Avenue-Fiftieth-street? These are streets of a Christian city, Trodden each day by Christian feet Of men who have store of money and meat, And women whose souls are pure and sweet, Filled with truth and ruth and pity: There is a church, with slender spire ' Pointing gracefully up to the sky, Pointing to something better and higher Than anything open to mortal eye: All Sabbath time The sweet bells' chime Rings from the steeple, Calling the people To come to prayer and praise beneath: On Monday morn, A young forlorn And hapless girl yields up her breath, Frozen to death. There is a mansion costly and tall, Builded for pride and plenty and pleasure- Hark to the music that bursts from the hall, And watch the shadows that dance on the wall, As the dancers dance through their merry measure. WHO'S TO BLAME . 151 The purple curtains are waved aside- Peep through the window, and see the throng Of the young who amble and leap and glide, And the old who watch them with looks of pride; There are junketing, jollity, jest, and song,- Careless, thoughtless, happy throng; Careless of right, yet thinking no wrong, As the gilded hours flash along: Why should they grieve On Monday eve, Though on Monday morn, Ah! fate forlorn! A fair young girl gave up her breath, Frozen to death? A lovely lady is driving this way, With velvet and satin and furs bedight; Fine and warm is her rich array, With its ample folds and colors gay, Proof 'gainst the cold of the coldest day; And her eyes are brimming with liquid light For she looks on her lover who sits by her side, In the carriage that grandly rolls along: What wonder her face is glorified With flushes of hope and joy and pride, Since she is lovely and he is strong-; And thus at noon they pass the spot, Yet heed it not,- Where at early morn A poor forlorn And hapless girl gave up her breath, Frozen to death. O men! who have store of money and meat, And women whose souls are pure and sweet: O worshipping thousands! who meekly meet, And prayer and praise and text repeat: page: 152-153[View Page 152-153] 152 THE PASHA PAPERS. O young! who amble and leap and glide, And old who watch the young with pride: O lovely lady! driving along In your carriage grand and clothing gay- O lusty lover! so tall and strong, Tell me, I pray you, if tell you may, In Charity's name, Are you to blame, That in a street of a Christian city, With none save God to see or pity, A fair young girl yields up her breath, Frozen to death? My beloved Translator, I remain Your most valued Friend, W. W. H. - iF THE ELEVENTH EPISTLE. The Rear Admiral Accepts an Invitation to Mrs. Coupon's Grand Ball. To the Fragrant Abel Ben Hassan, Perfume of my Olfactories. MAN is by nature a social being. IWoman is also proverbially and curiously gregarious in her habits. There can be no true civilization without genuine social refinement. There can be no perfect development of the individual without the attrition of society. In society we become polished, as rough diamonds are made resplendent by friction. In society we recognize our neighbor, and learn to love that personage. In society we meet persons as good or bet- ter than ourselves, and thus are emptied of arrogance, and filled with humility. In society- But why, my scarlet pomegranate, should I i L L ^ , page: 154-155[View Page 154-155] 154 THE PASHA PAPERS. say more words of wisdom to you, who are by no means foolish, though perhaps as yet slightly unsophisticated? The above are only a few of the i'eflections that /Bsed through my mind when I received last Wreek a card assuring me that Mrs. Coupon would be at home on Thursday evening-(where else should she be, in the name of the Prophet?) In order that I might fully understand the meaning of this document, I immediately consulted Mr. Tompkins, my young fellow-lodger at the St. Nicholas. "What does this signify, O youthful but expe- rienced friend?"' "It means many things, my delightful Pasha; among others, that you alre invited to a party at the elegant, sumptuous, etc., etc., mansion of Mrs. Coupon, together with some of her other friends." "That will be truly charming," said I, " both for the lady and her guests. They will meet and renew the joys of former days. Many of them are, doubtless, friends of her childhood, with whom she played in her early years. Others were companions of her blooming youth, around whom the tendrils of her purest feelings twined. The rest have acquired the respect and the confi- dence of her later life. She invites them because she loves them dearly. She has said to the partner of her bosom: ' Beloved Bulbul, let us call together our precious ones.' There will be, A WILD IDEA. 155 perhaps, twenty-five in all, who will meet in frank, informal manner for sweet converse, honest congratulation, /nstlest sympathy, hearty good eleer, true cone ' The placid Tompk' qoed his regalia from his mouth, and replied: "My turbaned Turk, did you ever happen to hear of a precious stone called the emerald, and do you recollect its color? Yes, it is deeply, beautifully green. I beg you will not consider me as insinuating that a similar hue ornaments your lovely character, yet believe me the assem- bly to which you are requested to come at the mansion of Coupon will not precisely correspond with the ideal you have depicted. Its numbers will be larger, and its immediate objects some- what different. But you should see for yourself, and, -as I have a card, I shall be proud to go with you.' r So, on Thursday evening, I was ready at 8 P M. precisely; but, being informed that it would be highly absurd to go before ten, we arrived at the mansion of Coupon at the latter hour. We were immediately showed to a dressing-room, where we i found a large party of gentlemen, young and old, I engaged in the laborious occupation of putting i on gloves of a light and pleasant hue. Some of these persons had obtained good seats, fragrant - cigars, and tumblers of exhilaratinoa punch, and seemed to be too well satisfied with their position *; , . . . page: 156-157[View Page 156-157] 156 THE PASHA PAPERS. and employment, to think of going down to revel in the society of their dear friend, Mrs. Coupon. The rest, however, mot ll' to the drawing room, and we folloisl"tkh m: :-d were duly presented to ou. Must I confess, 11 : pippm of my heart's orchard, that the gfd] was not in the men- tal and physical chndie Thad anticipated; that she was not rejoicing : sweet converse, honest congratulations, gentle sympathy, hearty good cheer, true conviviality? That she did not appear to have collected around her some I two score of the dear friends who beautified and enlarged her life, with whom she might veritably recreate her past happiness; that, on the con- trary, she was well-nigh drowned in a crowd that rolled and surged, and flashed and roared around her, until her matronly face actually wore the expression of a swimmer fiercely buf-' fetting the waves-a sort of melancholy despe- ration beclouding it? Poor Mrs. C.! she seemed to be in trouble. What could have been the F matter with her? Having bowed respectfully to this worthy female, we passed on to survey the company assembled. In order to furnish you with the most reliable information, I obtained from my observing and learned friend a little tabular statement of the. guests, who were arranged in relative proportions about as follows; , A, t - *: M3-Y TABLES. 157 \ 5 Baclhelor Politicians. 6 Artists. 1 Hungarian count-. ,i: 3:,-- v 1 French ditt0, -:::1;: 1 General. : i 2 Colonels" . 4 Captains. :' 8 Lieutenants. ,:: 4 Literati, old and seedy. 5 do young/o. 1 Exile, very meloly, 2 Judges. +i 20 Lawyers, merchants and doctors. bi 25 Men-about-town. 80 Dancing men. 40 Anxious mothers. 80 Young ladies who dance. 20 do. (?) do. who do not dance. 2 Persons called by Tompkins ("Dragons." 50 People "I don't exactly know, I have such a horrid ---- memory for names." 35Y If you wish to know the composition of a party that shall be twice as large as this, you may multiply each of the above figures by two. The habits of these individuals seemed to be as various as their titles and dress. The bachelor politicians flirted with the better looking mar- ried ladies; the artists stood in picturesque posi- tions and said nothing; the Hungarian count looked savage, the French count gay; the general looked magnificent; the colonels less magnificent; the lieutenants not at all magnifi- .. page: 158-159[View Page 158-159] 158 TEM PASHA PAPERS. cent; the nine literati evidently felt called upon to say something very entertaining, but refrained, lest each should appirnate and publish the brilliant speeches rs; tie two judges looked down on rthe twenty professional and business men who looked up; the men-about- town stared pleasantly at passers-by, as if to say: What the deuce br't yo-here, you miser- able workers for a li'n-g ,he dancing men danced excellently well, and all the ladies were, of course, charming, agreeable, refined, intelli- gent, lo vely and brilliant, as tHeaven's last, best gift to man always can' be, as every reporter for the morning newspapers well knows. But, O companion of my earlier years, as a pensive student of the human race, I was espe- cially impressed with the dancing men. It is a good thing for a young gentleman to be able to dance gracefully, to trip his fantastic toes without any danger of tripping, to career in astounding style through a crowded saloon; it is peculiarly delicious, probably, for him to do all this with his arms full of palpitating female loveliness, a soft hand clinging to his shoulder, a flushed fair cheek close to his own, a quick balmy breath stirring his right whisker; but when the young gentleman can do nothing else, then he becomes wonderful to look upon. Reflect, O Abel Hassan, upon the young gentle- man in question, born a purple baby into this l .... . j MARIONNETTES. 159 puzzling world some quarter of a century ago; nursed with infinite trouble through infancy and childhood, trained with :birchen rod through all his boyish days me prayers offered up for his guidance; some ambitions possibly kindled in his own soul; a long line of ancestors, perhaps, watching him ; all history admonishing him; the mysteries ,of learning and science, the eloquent languagdi46f beauty, the solemnities of religion, calling him to knowledge, vision, rever- ence; society and his country demanding his contribution of duty; and behold his exertions in the matter of life have culminated in the gym- nastics of the German and the Esmeralda! 0 well dressed young gentlemen, with your well-cut peg-tops, well-fitting swallow-tail, immaculate kids, spotless linen, tonsorially triumphant curls, slender moustache and pink eyes, you, as dancing man, have a place in the planet, and we cannot say that you do not fill it well! At any rate, you have not lived entirely in vain, if you have afforded to my friend, Abel Ben Hassan, some food for thought, When supper was announced, the entire com- pany streamed into the room where the table was spread, and attacked the viands with an energy that is peculiar to the national character. Among those who ate most heartily were the artists, the literati, and the old-young ladies, particularly the two dragons. These latter, . page: 160-161[View Page 160-161] 160 THE PASHA PAPERS. though quite slender and bony, according to the conventional notion of dragons, displayed im- mense powers of distension. The men-about- town did not eat any . They take their food, as I am informed, entirely in a liquid form, ' so that their bill of fare for a day may be arranged as follows: Breakfast ..... a I. ,- .......Cocktail. Lunch .................. .. . . . . Iq do. Dinner ... ... .... ..............Brandy and water. Supper ... .. ........... ........ do. The dancing men were so kind as to wait devotedly on the good-looking young ladies, and- gained great credit for their exertions in so doing. One in particular, whom I observed, was very valorous. He fought his way from the corner of the room to the table, demolishing a lace skirt, two bracelets, and a watch-chain, per- taining to the opposing crowd, and took posses- sion of a plate, a fork, a pair of oysters, a slice of pate, a spoonful of salad, a variety of miscellan- eous relishes, and a glass of champagne. With these he fought his way back, with such daring and success, that he spilled the champagne on the carpet, dropped the oysters in his own sleeve, deposited the pdte and salad in the waistcoat of the general, and at last succeeded in present- ing the object of his admiration and efforts with a fork, an olive, a piece of plate, and the neck of a goblet. POOR TOMPKINS. 161 Soon after supper I met the usually placid Tompkins with a look of horror depicted on his I: face. On my inquring the cause of this extra- "-- ordinary expression, Lid he had, in a moment of temporary insanity, ommenced a conver- sation upon literary topics with a fine-looking ,', young woman. She professed to be enthusiastic in her study of the best authors, and the de- lighted Tompkins,: thinking that he had dis-g covered a congenial talker, began to dilate largely. Happening to speak of Scott's novels, and naturally enough of Rob Roy, the following colloquy ensued: ToMPrINs.-"Rob Roy is a very clever work -the style is exquisite." YouTrG' Wola.--" Very." ToMPims.---"Di Vernon is a noble character." YOUNG WomAr.-(thoughtfully,) "Very-how well he must have looked in a kilt!" "My dear Pasha," said Tompkins, " do you think it was strictly moral for that young ! -' woman to speak in that wayS She might have :?-;- been good and pretty and accomplished without having read Scott's Novels, but she certainly ![]H cannot be honest if not having read them she pretends to me that she has. And then consider the absurdity, not to say indelicacy, of arraying the beautiful daughter of Vernon in a kilt. Let ,us leave this gay and festive scene, and halls of dazzling light. My fascinating Rear Admiral, A , I' page: 162-163[View Page 162-163] 162 THE PASHA PAPERS. what is your theory now of the origin of this social assembly? Did Mrs. Coupon climb the knee of her lord and whisper lovingly in his ear, "Let us call together our neighbors and friends and rejoice with them in our mutual sym- puthies,' or did she take a telescopic view of him across the breakfast table, saying, ' Mr. 0., we must give a party, and invite seven hundred people? I would be obliged to you if you would order the wine."' So we retired, and the last thing I observed, as I left the mansion, was the bewildered and doleful countenance of our worthy hostess, seem- ing to say in the language of the blessed Alcoran, "Anguish is the dower of woman." Thine ever, MOHAMMED. r-I l [FROM MRS. COUPON.] MADISoN SQUXE9, -'ebruary, 1859. Translator of Mohammed Pasha's Letters. SIR: I regret that your Turkish friend should have abused my hospitality by giving to the Public a false idea of my grand ball of the-----th instant. I will aot retort upon him by saying that he is a gander; but will simply claim -that he is mistaken in his notions concern- ing social life. He seems to suppose that the object of a "party? is to collect about one one's intimate friends, and have a good time. This is perfectly absurd. People give parties--I gave my party --in the discharge of social duties-and not for the pleasure of the thing at all. Does any one suppose there is any pleasure in slaving for days and days to get things ready for a party? Is there any pleasure in surrendering one's best bed-chambers for ladies to prink in, and gentle- men to smoke and guzzle in . Is it delightful to 163 page: 164-165[View Page 164-165] 164 THE PASEA PAPERS. pay for a splendid supper, and then have half of it spilled on the carpet? Is it luxurious to wait two hours for the people to come, and wait two hours still more anxiously, for them to go? Was there anything positively charming in putting young Twaddler to bed, when he was unable, from a superfluity of champagne, to leave my house? Was the row down-stairs between my own servants and the confectioner's a nice thing to have in the bosom of one's family? I think not. I gave my grand ball in a spirit of sacrifice. When I stood near the door of my front parlor and received the army of guests, I felt the heroism of the old Greek-what's his name?- at the pass of-what do you call it? When I talked and talked to people whom I did not know, and for whom I did not care a fig, I imagined myself a missionary preaching to the iKickapoo Indians. When I heard my dear female friends criticising my furniture and dress, and wondering whether my horrid daughter would catch Tenpersent, I realized the martyr- dom of St. Somebody when the arrows pierced his body. When next morning I adminis- tered soda-water to young Twaddler, I felt- the sweet satisfaction of a Florence Nightin- gale in the hospitals of-you know where I mean. I think, sir, that I deserve the sympathy, THATS SO. 165 rather than the sarcasms of the Qttoman. If we, of the first people of New York, did not deny ourselves and give grand balls, what would become of Society? JANE COUPON. page: 166-167[View Page 166-167] f [FROM TOMPKINS EFFENDI.] DEAR TRANSLATOR: SINCE yoU have seen fit to make public my little conversation with a well-dressed young lady at the grand ball of our friend Mrs. Coupon, I see no reason why I should not inflict upon you such other sentiments on the subject of juvenile femininity as I may happen to entertain. Will you read patiently? When I went to see our eminent tragedian, Leatherlungs, play Hamlet, I was particularly impressed with the grandeur of his acting in his first scene with the fair Ophelia. He clutched that simple girl by the hand, and held her hard; then. staring at her with eyes that resembled an astonished hippogriff's, he inquired of her in a tone of gurgling pathos-to be heard only on the stage-"Are you honest?'"The effect of this was startling. I was not surprised that Ophelia was terror-stricken at the fierceness of Leather- lungs' countenance when he propounded this purely personal question, especially as the sweet 160 t HOW Is IT a 167 creature well knew that her Father and the King, combining and confederating to bam- j; boozle her lover, were watching the interview from behind the wings. I was somewhat terri- fled myself; and fearing that the culmination of the tragedy would quite unnerve me, I left the theatre and strolled up Broadway, admiring the muscular strength of Leatherlungs,-the genius of Shakspeare, and the depth of meaning concealed -in the question of Hamlet to Ophelia-"Are you Honest?" And as that evening I sat in my window, in the fifth story of this extensive hotel (we some- times playfully call that story our Fifth avenue), and looked at the stars shining down change- lessly and truthfully on warehouse and street, on the just and the unjust, with light so pure and eternal, the same question kept ringing in my tears, and I wished to go forth and ask it of every fair Ophelia I know. I am agile enough in the Redowa and Lan- ciers to be admitted into all our good society, and I wish to whisper to my fair friends who are reigning beauties in the Republican Court of Gotham, the same startling query: "Young ladies! are you honest ." You need not toss so scornfully your pretty " little head sunning over with curls," Miss Clementina. You need not rustle your expanded moir6 antique so indig- nantly, Miss Arabella; we experienced bache- page: 168-169[View Page 168-169] 168 THE PASHA PAPERS. lors are not to be put down by the wave of a fan; the impertinent question/ must be asked, and I presume my friend the Translator will give it some circulation. People are honest, I suppose, in two ways: honest to themselves, honest to others. I make bold to speak directly to Miss Coupon, daughter of our worthy hostess. Everybody knows Miss Coupon--that is everybody who goes out of town in the summer. She was gifted by Providence with a fine constitution, a good brain, a handsome presence, a rich father. She was kept for some years at one of our best schools, where accomplishments, solid learning, and sterling moral principles, are instilled by the quarter. That is an excellent library she has, presented by her affectionate mother, who pro- cured it to be selected by the Rev. Dr. Helio- trope-its books are numerous and well bound. She may have anything else she may wish, from an embroidered handkerchief to a caparisoned saddle horse. She has only to long for an object and she has it--if money can procure it. She might have some of the moon's silver, if her solemn father could find in market any exchange on that luminary. 'Every appliance for physical and mental development is at her hand. And with all these ten talents, Miss Coupon, are you honest, to your dear self even? I will own that I was shocked when I met you at the Ball lately ! PHYSIOLOGICAL. 169 given at the Academy of Music for the benefit of Babies. How you seemed to be changed from the rosy school-girl whose books I used to carry of a fine morning! I wish I dared to hiss quite fiercely in your delicate little shell of an ear: Are you Honest . Were you made for such a life as you are leading now? Is it not genteel to regard the laws of health? Should a woman live altogether on champagne and mdringues? Is quiet slumber good for a young girl, or is it better to go as you go, about daybreak, to a nervous, vision-haunted somnolence? - Was that lovely body given to you to be ruined by your vanity, ignorance, and wanton neglect? To be sure these are rude questions-I beg pardon of Miss Prunes and Miss Prism, and the Univeral Grundy, for suggesting that you have any physi- cal functions at all-but when I look at your sallow cheek, and sunken eyes, and note your quick breath, and think how Heaven created you for health, and beauty and vigorous wo- manhood, and how you have squandered these treasures, I wax indignant, and exceed the bounds which prudery has set up around e decorum. ; And how is it with your inner life, Miss Coupon? You had a quick wit, fine taste, kind heart, when you were fourteen years old. I , used to admire you then, and dream sometimes of what you might become by generous nurture. 8 page: 170-171[View Page 170-171] Il 170 THE PASHA PAPERS. Alas'! are you honest to that understanding and heart of yours.. Have you fed them with pure food, strong meat and drink, or have you starved them with skimmed milk? What vapid trash you read, when you read at all! what pitiable trash you are talking to young Twaddler now! Of course we do not expect anything very brilliant from you at a Ball, especially at one so select as this, but Twaddler will testify that you talked in the same style when he called to see you alone the other evening. Do you say that Twaddler is l to blame for this? You know that that excuse is a poor one. You are twenty times wiser than he, and might teach him something if you chose. I could not wish you to be a book-worm or a blue; but when you read, cannot you commune dutifully with poets and sages of all time, whose words are quickening; and when you talk, stand- ing as you do between the irrevocable Past and mysterious Future, " with the silence of the stars above you and the silence of the grave beneath your feet,"--can you not now and then take heart of grace, and say what is earnest and memorable, that the light within you may shine forth from the sepulchre in which Frivolity has so long immured it, to the joy of your old friends, and the great instruction or else utter confusion and blinding of young Twaddler? You think I am slow, and tell me to go among owls with my wisdom. I reply that you are not honest enough i . TEE OLD STORY. 171 to pay to Miss Coupon the respect you owe her. You prefer to be one of the Board of Directors of the Universal Exposition of the Vanity of Women in New York. You may be permitted to be President of this great institution, some day, and you will realizejust as much profit as the stockholders of the Crystal Palace did. My fair young friends (without whose smiles this world, etc., etc.), are you honest to others? I cross to Brooklyn now and then in a ferry-boat; I sometimes walk our streets after midnight; I register letters in the Post-office occasionally; I have even been so confiding as to sleep over the boiler of a Mississippi steamboat-may I trust you.? When I was younger, by some years, I used to go every Sunday evening to see my young friend Clara Stock. Miss Clara has fine deep blue eyes, a brilliant complexion, and as pretty a figure as you could wish to see. I called on Sunday even- ing, because I was intimate with old Stock (firm of Preferred Stock, Brother & Co.), and we liked the New England fashion of seeing one's friends after we had been refreshed by a day of rest. 1 will confess that I was well pleased with the manner in which Clara used to receive me when I dropped in. Those deep blue eyes would sparkle with delight when I appeared at the door, and as she laid her slender hand in mine, i her cheeks would glow with the most ddelighted . I page: 172-173[View Page 172-173] 172 THE PASHA PAPERS. suffusion in the world. Then, while old Stock nodded and grew unobservant over the Observer, we would stray off into a corner where there was not much light, and talk and talk, till the ridicu- lous little clock on the mantel yelped out the hour for retiring 3 and meantime you would have thought I was Clara's soul's idol, if you had observed the interest with which she listened to my words, and the sympathetic responses she made. Like all young fellows, I was vain and foolish, and proceeded to build a noble air-palace, in which Clara was to be queen, and your hum- ble servant prince-consort, and wherein we were to live in peace all the rest of our lives. This pleasant custom of quiet Sunday evening talks was kept up for some months, and you may fancy what I was on the point of doing, when happen- ing in one Thursday evening, Miss Clara told me she had invited a few friends to call sociably, -would I wait Of course I would. So they came, the friends, six couples of them, male and female, like so many pairs entering the Ark. Imagine my horror, when Miss Clara's fine blue eyes sparkled with the same delight at meeting these six young men, as when I came myself. Her cheeks were actually suffused with six suc- cessive blushes of genuine delight, though I had previously learned from her own lips that she con- sidered four of the six young gentlemen to be fools. Then she led the six respectively (one at a time r - WHO TOLD 173 of course) to a cosy corner, and talked with each as enthusiastically and tenderly as she had ever talked to me, now and then assuming such a con- fidential look of vexation if a third person came within ear-shot. To one of the four fools, partic- ularly, she seemed to my jealous eyes to be fairly pouring forth her soul. I did not offer myself to Miss Clara as you may well suppose, but poor Biggs did, and was most contemptuous- ly rejected, as everybody knows. And why did everybody know this? Did Biggs advertize his defeat in the morning papers, or proclaim it from the housetops and in the market-places; or did you, Clara, impart to your babbling acquaintance, with full particulars and numerous well executed illustrations, his great secret con- fided to your keeping in such a manly, simple way? Are you a female Brigham Young trying to win twenty husbands? Can you devise no $ shades of cordiality? Or rather, does not your vanity, and desire for popularity and power, tempt you to greet us foolish men with a warmth that goes no higher than your bracelets, and smiles that are deceitful, and blushes as false as ;. Yyour mother's teeth, and eye-kindlings that are fi mere bog-candles. The Pasha has already reported my conversa- tion with a young lady who laid claims to literary culture. Was my experience on that occasion melancholy, or not? I think it was page: 174-175[View Page 174-175] 174 THE PASHA PAPERS. very saddening, Not that there is any harm in not having read Rob Roy, or in being ignorant of the sex of Di Vernon; but think of the horri- ble dishonesty of trying to obtain a small literary reputation under false pretences. My dear young lady, whoever you are (I did not catch your name when I was introduced), consider how much better than any literary culture, or even high literary fame, is a truthful heart. Continue to dress well, for dress is becoming to you; be stupid if stupid you were created; but keep your conscience clear, and try, with such optics and .might as you have, to discern and do the truth. My fair reader (and, let me tell you privately, I think you are one of the sweetest girls in America), when you plighted your troth to Frederick, did you really love that nice young man, or did you and Mamma consider him a pretty fair match, and did Papa indorse him, and present him, like a bill at sixty days, for your acceptance? When you met Wilhelmina last evening, and kissed her so prettily on each cheek, did you do so because you love Wilhelm- ina, or simply to impress Frederick with the notion that you are very affectionate and for- giving in your disposition-Wilhelmina having, as he well knows, spoken evil of you, and you having heard of it? And as to the amiable Frederick himself, I sincerely trust there is VERY IMPERTINENT. 175 no truth in the story that you keep him off and on, as a last resort in case you fail in your de- signs upon the affluent Croesus. Do you admire the sort of club-men who are adepts at poker and faro (bets of course limited by the rules to five dollars), more than the slow coaches who roll on soberly and faithfully in the chosen path of duty When your Uncle Peter came from the country to visit this great brick-veneered- with-brown-stone Babel, why did you hide him down-stairs when Frederick called? As if Peter were not a leviathan, intellectually and morally, as well as physically, when compared with Frederick. Perhaps, considerate young woman, you did not wish to dwarf Frederick by such comparison. Are you really fond of the divine harmonies of music, that you gape so persistently at the opera on every subscription night, and chatter and flirt so regularly at the Philhar- monic? I have heard of your charities, too; the Pasha has written about these-how you caper nimbly to the pleasing of Noll, and eat largely of chicken salad for the benefit of the babies; but have you thought of going yourself to the Tene- ment house, among the, very poor, where hunger stalks about with hollow eyes, and hope is fairly frozen'? What is charity but widest love, and how can you profess to love these your poor neighbors, when you will only polk for their benefit, and will not go about among them doing t s* page: 176-177[View Page 176-177] 176 THE PASHA PAPERS. good, cheering the struggling souls, nursing the sick, making yourself an Angel in the House of poverty and mourning? Ahl! Julia, Caroline, Portia, if I had gone to Mrs. Ipecacuanha's ball in a suit of ancient armor, and helmet with vizor down, she would have been astonished and indignant that I should thus have disguised myself, her ball not being a masquerade; yet I saw one of you there, as com- pletely unlike your true self as if you had assumed the character of the White Lady of Avenel. That was not the face that Nature gave you; your smile was as unreal as any ever painted on a mask, you were disguised so that Mrs. Ipecacuanha knew you only by name. And so you go everywhere, the merriest masker in all this winter's carnival. Alas, for the bloom of innocent health, the hope of innocent eyes, the faith of a pure heart! Merrily squeaks the fiddle, gaily goes the flirtation, grandly rolls the carriage, cheerily pops the Vin des Dames; the Carnival is short, and then comes the Lenten Fast; youth is short, and then comes old age and decay and death-what though the gold be pinchbeck, and the diamonds paste, is not the pageant gorgeous? And so you whirl and whirl, till you are dizzy,-so dizzy that-you are ready to fall! What a noble creature is a truly honest woman; honest to herself and therefore self- TRUE NOBILITY. 17 ennobling, self-developing; honest to others, and therefore unaffected; loving good and hating in- justice; filled with gentleness and long-suffering; ever doing her duty cheerfully, whether in the rush of gaiety, or the quiet mirth of the social circle, or the profounder happiness of home. How we sinful hard-hearted young fellows would bend in reverence before such a one, if she stood suddenly revealed to us;. even as good Catholics bow when the Host is uplifted amid swinging censers and mysterious melody from hidden choirs. I will tell you, my dear Transla- tor (and perhaps you would do better not to print this part of my letter), that I have now before me an ambrotype-and in its soft lines, the quiet yet searching eyes, the broad smooth forehead, the firm yet gentle mouth, I think I see such a character; and I tell you I would rather look at this poor reflection of a woman's face, than at the best of Church's southern sun- sets, or Kensetts rock-bound brooks. And furthermore, it is not unlikely that Tomp- kin's Effendi, as the Turk used to call me, will shortly grow tired of his. frescoed solitude at the St. Nicholas, and invite you to stand up with him at the happiest wedding you ever saw. Faithfully, 7A LT. Gi 8* i . [ page: 178-179[View Page 178-179] f- THE TWELFTH EPISTLE. The Rear Admiral Contemplates the Town of Boston-About Boston Poetry. To the Gifted Abel Ben Hassan, Melody of my Existence. I HAVE not visited Boston during my recent sojourn in this land of liberty and light, and am therefore entirely qualified to write you an epis- tle with that city as my subject. If I had ever set foot in Boston, I might labor under those bur- dens of prejudice which too often rest on the mind of the traveller who visits a strange town, and views its customs and institutions with a stranger's gaze; but remaining as I do in New York, I can survey the Athens of America with an impartial eye. In this regard I have the same advantages as those possessed by my fascinating young friend and fellow-lodger at the St. Nicholas, Tompkins Effendi, who makes considerable money by writing, in his hotel, epistles from foreign parts, which are published in the leading journals of 178 MODERN ATHENS. 179 the day, under such titles as "Our London Let- ter," '.Our Abyssinian Correspondence," "Three Days Later from Patagonia," "Interesting Intelligence from Kamtschatka," "Important Advices from Lake Ngami." In these lucubra- tions of Tompkins, there is nothing of the haste, prejudice, ill-feeling and partisanship, which so frequently disfigure the letters of correspondents who are resident in the localities whence they write. He views the manners, events, gossip or revolutions of London, Abyssinia, Patagonia, Kamtschatka, and Lake Ngami, with as much candor as that exhibited by my Lord Macaulay in his historical treatment of the Tories. He is calm, conservative, honest, inexorable, and, therefore, instructive; and I am glad to say that his efforts have added largely to the circulation and influence of the leading journals hereinbe- fore mentioned. Boston, my delicious Abel, is the centre of the intellectual universe, around which the lesser luminaries of Thought revolve, and shine with reflected light. Boston is the brain of the Western Hemisphere, so largely and rapidly developed that occidental hydrocephalus is to be dreaded. The great river of Thought, streaming down from Confucius, Moses, Buddha, Socrates, Kepler and Bacon, has been dammed up in Bos- ton, has spread out into a pool in Boston Com- mon, and the Mien of Boston paddle in it in the I 'f page: 180-181[View Page 180-181] 180 THE PASIA PAPERS. summer, and skate on it during the winter. The Men of Boston have renounced the world and the flesh. They have given up such base pur- suits as commerce, manufactures, and money- getting of every sort. They never drive shrewd bargains or fast horses, but employ all their time and energy in the business of self-development, like the frog in the fable, with such success, that all outside oxen are thrown completely in the shade and dwindle into inferiority. The import trade of Boston is confined principally to green tea; the exports of Boston consist chiefly of lectures, written by the Men of Boston, and delivered at different points in the country by travelling agents, bred in Boston, intellectual bagmen, who make a very handsome thing of it. I have heard of one of these distributors of knowledge who realized a fine income by read- ing throughout the land an essay on the Physical Characteristics of the Tub of Diogenes, a subject which of course afforded an opportunity for a humorous attack on hoops, and a masterly refu- tation of the Platonic theory of Eons. The Women of Boston are even more intel- lectual than the Men of Boston. They never eat (in public) and heartily despise the waste of time involved in dressing in good taste. Their conversation is profoundly learned, and, to those who can understand it, very entertaining, When talking with the MAen of Boston, they employ -.- - --; 1 COSCERNING POETS. 181 Latin as a vehicle of narration, Greek to define the nicer shades of philosophic analysis, and Sanscrit as a channel for the flow of their emotions. When conversing with Men not of Boston, they make use of the Boston dia- lect of the English language, to convey their theories upon such pleasing, topics as the Digamma of Homer or the authorship of Junius. But when I remember, light of my optics, that you were once Professor of the Theory and Practice of Rhyming in the University of Bag- dad, I imagine that you will be more interested in a notice of the poetry of Boston, than of any other literary feature of that remarkable town. Looking up at this subject from my distant stand-point, I venture to divide the poetry of Boston into three classes: 1. Lyrical. 2. Hexametrically narrative and moral. 3. Transcendental. The lyric poet addresses the young, whose hearts are tender, whose heads are by no means adamantine, whose tympana are quick to detect and appreciate the melody of alliteration and rhyme, and who consider love of the opposite :- ssex, when served up with a garnish of moon- beams, lilies, rivulets and rosebuds, as the nicest thing in life. He writes a song, well knowing that when the words are wedded to music, the page: 182-183[View Page 182-183] 182 THE PASHA PAPERS. little defects in the character of either will be swallowed up in the bliss of the nuptials, so that the combination will have a honeymoon of popu- larity with the young-gentleman-and-lady pub- lic. He builds his verses, commencing with the cornice thus: . . . . time *... . closes. * . . . . chime * . . . . roses: o. . .. . tide? * . . . . quiver, * * * . ,. glide * . . . . river! * . . . . ray *. * * . . brighten; . . . . play * * * * * lighten . .. . time * . . . . closes, .. *S . . chime .... *.. roses! You can readily perceive how this cornice of rhyme can be underpinned with a structure of some sort, more or less imposing, and how the architect can come to be considered a great genius. Indeed, I should say that this style of composition is not confined to Boston, for I have heard of several bards in New York, who have achieved a fine reputation in the same way. I , AJ YANKEE HOMER. 183 The Hexametrically Narrative Moral Poet of Boston bestrides a Pegasus that always goes at a canter, a gait agreeable to invalid horsemen. His lines are pleasant, melodious, soothing, generally descriptive of common life, full of in- genious comparisons, metaphorical conceits and Scriptural allusions, which everybody can under- stand and admire, even if read 'twixt sleep and wake. And to all his verses he appends a fine moral sentiment, and when people read this they feel "good," simply because they have repeated and assented to the moralities of the poet, thus deriving as much satisfaction as if they had gone out and done a noble deed, without any of the trouble that generally attends the doing of noble deeds. The following lines from an unpublished poem, entitled "Mehitabel of Androscoggin," will give you some idea of the Hexametrically Narrative Moral: "Dark is the gully, and jagged the tall-palisades that surround it, Tall palisades of rock, of preternatural vastness, Seeming tLe picket fence of some huge pre-adamite garden Built by some gardener giant to keep out the Icthyosaurus: Crowning the crest of each wall hang the healthy ever-green cedars, Stretching their arms across the gorge, and framing a lattice Through which the sun lets down his long slant luminous ladders, Quite like the one seen of old by the slumbering husband of Rachel, That is, exceedingly like, if you only happen to think so. Brawls through the gully a small but impetuous torrent, page: 184-185[View Page 184-185] 184 THE PASHA PAPERS. Small but pretty and brisk, with a plainly audible murnmur- Just like a pretty. young housewife, a lovely and busy young housewife Sparkling and laughing and scolding all day in the kitchen and parlor:. Down below is a dam, which, of course, makes a wide spreading mill-pond, Furnishing power to turn 'the wooden wheel of a sawmill. Lowly and wide, and brown and rough, is the venerable sawmill- All day long the saw flashes up and down in the sunlight- Flashes as bright and sharp as the famous falchion of Judith, With which 'tis said, that she cut off the head of the huge Holofernes. Josh who tended the mill, (a prying and log-rolling person)- Josh sat eating his luncheon, his simple digestible luncheon, Pork and molasses, and cheese, and apple-butter and dough- nuts. Why does the basket fall, his mouth open widely with horror- Open portentously wide, with horror instead of with hunger? Sees he a maiden, faithless yet fair, Mehitabel Perkins, Sitting against a young man, the stalwart long-haired Jeremiah! There they sit by the brook on a large flat stone in the gully. She, the maiden fair, is blushing and smiling and crying- Jerry the stalwart youth has got his right arm right around her, Both parties seeming to fancy their novel and pleasant position. Joshua rose in his wrath, emitting a large imprecation; Swearing to go and fracture the skull of his rival, the long- haired, But thinking twice, sat down, and said to himself in a whisper, "Jerry is bigger than I be, and therefore I guess I'll forgive him." i MST. 185 Sweet and strong is love, the love of a man for a woman; Thrilling the body and soul, like wine, with a magical fervor; Better and greater and nobler the spirit of self-abnegation, Smiting the rocky heart, so that forth flow the streams of for- giveness; Streams of mercy unfailing, of noble, heroic forgiveness." The transcendental poet of Boston is a much greater poet than those I have mentioned. He lives in Boston, because the muddy vesture of decay compels him by sheer force of gravitation to abide somewhere on this planet, and he thinks Boston the most congenial place to abide in; but if he had his own way he would buy a country seat on the tail of Donati's comet. tIis poetry is called transcendental, because it transcends the comprehension of everybody except the men and .women of Boston. To them it is suggestive, -to all the rest of the world quite unintelligible. It is of course written for posterity, in the expec- tation that posterity will be able to see much further into a millstone than the present genera- tion who live outside of Boston. The following specimen verses, will, perhaps, afford you food for thought: "VISHNU. "If Galileo thought he saw A prancing parsnip bite the sky, In sweet defiance of the law, It all was clearly ' in his eye.' I' page: 186-187[View Page 186-187] 186 THE PASHA PAPERS. "If peaches palpitate and sob, Beneath the kisses of the sun; If placid tangents strive to rob, An urchin of his hot cross-bun; "If Delphic dolphins analyze The powers of poetic speech, If hydro-chloric acid flies Its kites beyond a mortal's reach; "Oh, then, let ices from Bombay Dispense abroad their fiery leaven, And ripe revolvers, blushing, say, We rather fancy Vishnu's heaven!" Very powerful, my graceful leopard, is the charm of mystery. If those lines could be understood, the public would say, "Pshaw! we can write just as good poetry as that if we choose to try." But since they are incomprehen- sible, the public say, "Vishnu is sublime-vague, perhaps-but sublime; we do not understand its meaning, but a meaning it must have. It is our fault if wedio not comprehend the vastness of the bard's conceptions. Are they vague? So are the nebulae; yet, when the nebulae are exam- ined by the great eye of a telescope, they are resolved into stellar swarms, wonderful in bril- liancy, majestic in movement. Great is Vishnu --great is the transcendental poet of Boston, nebulous, yet great." Faithfully thine, MOHAMMED. : -[FROM A FRIEND IN BOSTON.] REVERE HOUSE, 4farch 1, 1859. MY DEAR TRANSLATOR: - I AM surprised and pained that your Ottoman friend, who seems in some respect an acute person, should have been betrayed into the publication of ill-natured sarcasm at the expense of my native city. He. has evidently associated with the people of New York until he has absorbed the idea that your great, overgrown, vulgar, trading town is the only place of any note in the Western Hemisphere. I am rot going to deny the greatness of Gotham. It has more trade, more wealth, more houses, more dirt, more misery, more political corruption, than any other city in the country. It is a place of very great importance-particu- larly, self-importance. At the same time, you metropolitan folks must not forget that our town is not to be despised. The Men of Boston may not make so 187 page: 188-189[View Page 188-189] 188 THE PASHA PAPERS. much money as the men of New York; but how is it with their mental coinage, and, more momentous still, the impressions of their moral mint? Do the men of New York always think clearly, and act conscientiously, in the bustle of their business? For my own part, I thank Heaven that we, here, are not tempted by such gilded baits of commerce as are hung out in your big city. o We might yield. We might be less free, in such case. Though if we yielded to the temptation, we should forget the example of our Fathers. You recollect how in the year of grace, 1774, the Men of Boston gave up their trade, and let their ships rot at the wharves, and spent their substance in feeding the poor who could get no work to do-and why? Simply because the Men of Boston were determined to conserve and enjoy the political freedom given them by their God, and more fully specified in their charter-and so foolish, stubborn England enacted the Port Bill, hung an accursed embargo like a great bell-glass over the young, hopeful city, and slowly suffo- cated its mercantile life. Did you ever happen to read the Correspond- ence between a Committee of the Town of Boston and certain contributors of Donations for the relief of Sufferers by the Boston Port Bill, con- tained in one of the volumes published by the Massachusetts Historical Society? I remember THE FATHERS. 189 that in one of the letters, in reply to inquiries from Kingston, the Committee, Samuel Adams, Chairman, say: "The circumstances of this Town are truly deplorable; our harbor filled with armed ships; all foreign trade suspended; a vast number of poor thrown out of employment, who swarm daily to the Committee for labor or support; our Town filled with troops; the Neck, the only avenue into the Town, fortified by cannon planted on the walls; a regiment and two redoubts about forty rods without the fortifica- tions; the soldiery insolent; all the cannon that is private property, that they can come at, seized; the cannon at the North Battery spiked up; our powder taken possession of; and every hostile appearance. "What. the event of these things will be is known only to the Supreme Ruler of the Uni- verse, in Whom we desire at all times to put our trust. In full confidence that our cause is just, and that we have an unalienable right to all the privileges specified in our charter, we are de- termined to make no concessions. "We have just to- observe that we employ our poor in mending the streets, making bricks, spinning wool, flax and cotton, and are erecting looms to weave the same into baizes and shirt cloth, which we hope to sell and so protect our page: 190-191[View Page 190-191] 190 THE PASHA PAPERS. stock. The Committee have an arduous task, and they can assure the public that no one per- son, but such as are in indigent circumstances, ever received a penny benefit from the dona- tions; and it is requested that no ill-natured report may be credited until facts can be ascer- tained. "Please to present to our friends in Kingston, that have so liberally contributed to our relief, the most sincere and hearty thanks of this Com- mittee in behalf of the town. We wish the best of Heaven's blessings may attend you, and that this kindness may be rewarded into your bosoms a thousand fold." Now, sir, if that epistle does not breathe a noble spirit, then I do not understand the signifi- cance of language. And be it generally known, by all whom it may concern, that the same spirit of devotion to the cause of right and jus- tice is brooding in the hearts of the Men of Bos- ton at the present hour. They will not bate one jot or tittle of their free thought and free speech, for all the commerce that has flourished since the day on which the Argo cleared for Colchis. Why should they? In the great balance-sheet of life, which we must all make up in some more or less intelligible form, of what account will all our profits of trade be, if placed parallel with a debit of cowardice, subserviency and hypocrisy? [ , . K . A TEA PARTY. 191 No, my friend, the Men of Boston will think and say and do what seems to them to be right in the sight of the Most High, though in conse- quence thay should never see another cargo of any kind! Can you say as much for the Men of New York? Our " import trade " is " confined principally to green tea,"-is it? Well, we do use a good deal of tea; it is a pleasant, wholesome beverage; and it has some interesting historical associations connected with it. You may remember how we used the tea that our oppressors tried to pour down our throats, and used it up,-and used its owners up, too. As for the women of Boston, whom the Turk maligns--are you not ashamed that you should ever have translated his slanders?-you Who have known some of these lovely ladies yourself? Come now, make a clean breast of it, and 'say frankly that they are too dear to be mentioned lightly.* What is your ideal of a Boston woman? Is it not a grand little lady-large dark grey eyes, that look right into the depths of your nature with a soft yet searching light ;-mobile features with more beauty of expression than of form ;- a low, sweet voice, clear and distinct in a conflict of wit, yet never more thrilling than when its utterances nestle down close to your ear in a confidential purr ;--a mind with all its acquire- *.There is no objection to admitting that.-TRaaNS. ! , , . . . . . . i page: 192-193[View Page 192-193] 192 THE PASHA PAPES. ments so assimilated that they circulate as real life-blood in conversation ;-a quaint, pervading humor that would touch the hardest heart;-a soul full of healthy sentiment? -- Pshaw!--Let this young woman step softly yet grandly into one of Mrs. Coupon's receptions, and, my word for it, the Translator of Mohammed Pasha's Letters would desert the Universal Fanny of New York in about two minutes, for a tete-a-tete with her under the camelias in the conservatory. Say I not sooth? X Ah, my friend, if you were asked to submit some of your countrywomen to the critical judg- ment of a cosmopolitan Paris, I am sure you would select your specimens from the Town of Boston f Now with respect to our poetry: --- The Pasha is all wrong about the Senti- mental Poet. We have no such person here. If he is to be found anywhere--a consuml-nation devoutly to be dreaded-'tis in New Yorkl you must look for him. -- As for our Hexametrical Bard, I will admit that, like a good preacher, he sometimes gives us a little sermon after having read to us a hymn-forgetting that a poem, like a flower, or a cataract, or a statue, teaches its lesson without words of moralizing-and yet will you be kind * None of your business.-TRANS. t Not while the State of Glenwood existed--TRANS. * . . . .. I DOUBTFUL. 193 enough to name me a better, purer poet among all living men? -- The Transcendental poet can take care of himself, for he is a sage as well as a singer. Whatever may be thought of his verse, I fancy no thoughtful man will say that his prose is not very precious both in form and substance. My dear, yet quite misguided Translator, I remain ever- Yours faithfully, K. G, B. page: 194-195[View Page 194-195] [FROM T. SPOON, AGAIN.] YONKERS, April 1, 1859. Translator of Mohammed Pasha's Letters: SIR: Concerning Poetry in general, without regard to that of Boston in particular, I think the method of manufacturing the article is not so well understood as it should be. Poetry, sir, is a thing of measure and of melody. Let any one arrange a certain number of metrical feet in a certain sounding way, and he has the body of a poem. And having built this body, who, in Apollo's name, has not feeling enough to breathe therein a soul of some sort I apprehend the recipe for the manufacture of verse is a simple one-involving not half the details contained in the directions for making a cup-custard. I have prepared the following, which I desire to submit to your consideration. 1. Select your metre. This may be almost anything you choose, except hexameter. You 194 MENSURATION. 195 would do well to let Messrs. Longfellow and Kingsley monopolize that shuffling canter. 2. Determine whether you will write rhymes or blank verse. Choose rhyme if possible; for it takes a very great poet to make blank verse readable-just as it takes a very great man to say very ordinary things in conversation and make them appear original and entertaining. 3. You may now choose your subject. This may be serious or comic. Serious verse will endear you with young ladies; comic verse will cause you to be considered a genius by young men, and possibly get you an engagement to write exclusively for the Weekly Humbug. 4. If you essay the serious, by all means be romantic. We all have in some corner of our hearts, be they juicy or withered, a bit of senti- ment-just as we have a bit of superstition. We have all laughed at ghost stories by day--at the same time dreading to pass through a grave- yard by night; and so, though we may sneer at young romance, in the garish glare of business or pleasure, we may be affected even to foolish- ness by the radiance of a harvest moon. There- fore do not be afraid to write on tender themes. You will always find a large audience. But give me some specimens-you say. Cer- tainly, sir. For metre we will select the heroic, having just as many syllables in each line as vou have page: 196-197[View Page 196-197] 196 THE PASHA PAPERS. fingers and thumbs-a great convenience in counting. We will let the lines rhyme in triplets, a style pleasing to an ear that has become weary with couplets. Our subject-Let us, see. Rub up your natural philosophy-do you know how a rain- bow is produced? Well, aptly this to the most interesting of situations and you have the poem- -thus : IRIS. They sit beneath the branches, side by side- While the slant moonbeams through the foliage slide, Cleaving the deepening dusk of even-tide. A lovelier light leaps in her tender eyes- Kindled by maiden shame and sweet surprise; She hears him speak-but not a word replies. 'Tis the old story--mighty manly-love Swaying a soul that nothing else could move, Flooding a heart with power from above. And by and by their hands and lips have met, And glad pulsations thrill their senses-yet Her fringed eyelids with great tears are wet! Ah-sun of hope and brimming cloud of fear- - A ray of joy shoots through a crystal tear, And lo!--the rainbow hues of hope appear. * Poem? Shade of Shakspeare!--TRANS. A HORSE LAUGH. 197 Or suppose we choose another theme. I remember a certain grey horse my father once owned, named Charley, who attained a great old age, without losing the spirits of his youth. In this respect he was very like' the distinguished philosopher Plato; but happening one day to break one of his legs in a playful gambol, he could not commit suicide in disgust, as the philo- sopher did-and so one of the laborers shot him. We will proceed to write an EPITAPH. ( Here lies a faithful steed, A staunch, uncompromising Silver Grey- Who ran his race of life with sprightly speed, Yet never ran--away. Wild oats he never sowed, Yet masticated tame ones with much zest; Cheerful he bore each light allotted load, As cheerfully took rest. i Bright were his eyes, yet soft- And, in the main, his tail was white and flowing; And, though he never sketched a single draught, He showed great taste for drawing. Lithe were his limbs and clean, Fitted alike for buggy and for dray; e And like Napoleon the Great-I ween- He had a martial'neigh. Oft have I watched him grace His favorite stall, well littered) warm and fair; With such contentment shining from his face, And such a stable air;- L - - , X . page: 198-199[View Page 198-199] 198 THE PASHA PAPERS. With here and there a speck Of roan diversifying his broad back, And, martyr-like, a halter round his neck, Which bound him to the rack. Mors omnibus-at length, The heyday of his life was damped by death; So, summoning all his late remaining strength, He drew-his final breath. Or suppose we venture on something that appeals to the higher feelings of our humanity -a story, if you please, that shall contain a l grain of advice. To wit: A LITTLE RIME FOR CHRISTMAS TIME. Long time ago, in Northern France- So monkish legends say-- Upon a certain morning, just Before the Christmas Day, To a monk of good Saint Francis came, Upon this winter's morn, A widow, weeping, desolate- A mother, wild and lorn. The day before, a cruel band Of robbers stole her boy- (For those were lawless times)-they stole Her pride, her hope, her joy. These cruel robbers surely sware They would her darling slay, Except the wretched mother would A fitting ransom pay. '. I .z CHARITY. 199 And being very poor and weak, To the good monk she came, To beg that he would pay the price In his Great Master's pname. "Good Father, I beseech thee, by The hope thou hast of good, I' the precious name of Him who died Upon the Holy Rood- "Of Him who drained the cup of woe, That we might taste of joy, oGood Father, I beseech thee, save My hapless captive boy." "Poor woman," sadly said the monk, "Thy sorrows I deplore, And it grieves my heart to bid thee go Unaided from our door. "But like the Great Apostles twain, Saint Peter and Saint John, Before the Gate called Beautiful, Gold and silver have we none. "The Monks of good St. Francis learn With meekness to endure, The sorrows that their Saviour knew, The sorrows of the poor. "Thou see'st our chapel low and mean, And dark as funeral pall, Thou see'st the wooden crucifix Upon the naked wall. "No tessellated pavement rings Beneath our humble tread; No springing arch nor frescoed roof Hangs grandly overhead. page: 200-201[View Page 200-201] 200 THE PASHA PAPERS. "No painted window tells the tale Of saint and martyr dead; No gifts are laid before our door- We beg our daily bread." "Good Father, there are candlesticks Of silver on the shrine: Oh, give these-I may ransom, then, That captive child of mine." The gentle monk was sore perplexed, And well his heart might falter, To think of selling to the world The gifts from off the altar. The good monk bowed his head in prayer, To ask if this might be- And then into the mother's hand The precious gifts gave he. The boy was bought, the mother's cheer No words of mine may tell; And lo-upon the Christmas eve, A blessed miracle! The Brothers of St. Francis met To celebrate the night When shepherds heard the song of peace, Beneath the new star's light. And when they oped the chapel door, And thought to find but gloom, Behold a wondrous glory filled That low and narrow room. A lambent light, as pure and white As erst at Pentecost Descended on the chosen Twelve, Crowned with the Holy Ghost I '?-, . . THE REWARD. 201 Two GOLDEN candlesticks they saw, Fair as the floor of heaven, Upon the simple altar, each With burning tapers seven. And softly, as from upper air, A mystic voice was heard, Saying, "Whoso giveth to the poor,- He lendeth to the Lord." But I will not multiply examples. If you desire any more specimens, please address me as above, inclosing four stamps. With respect, Yours, etc., T. SPOON. i 9* ,i * - -.. page: 202-203[View Page 202-203] t - THE THRTEENTH EPISTLE. The Rear Admiral embraces the Doctrine of Manifest Destiny- He illustrates the Subject. To the Philosophic Abel Ben JIassan. THE longer I reside in the United States of America, the more profoundly I am impressed with the moral rectitude of their people. The sense of right surrounds them like an atmosphere. They inhale equity with every breath they draw. They perspire conscientiousness at every pore. Duty governs all their public conduct. When- ever a plan of national policy is presented for their consideration, they do not ask-It is expe- dient?-Can we grow rich by saying Yes?-Will we be impoverished by saying No? They simply consider this question-Is it Right? In their action upon the subject of territorial extension this singular fidelity to the laws of rectitude is most apparent. Does the graceful and accomplished Mephistopheles take the Peo- ple of the United States up to the top of an exceedingly high mountain and show them the 202 THE LANDSCAPE. 203 kingdoms that lie adjacent to their own, and advise them to acquire those kingdoms? The people of the United States reply; "We cannot consent to do this unless it is right. We are not a pack of thieves, we are virtuous, enlightened, educated; we are disciples of the Prince of Peace; we love our neighbors, and keep the tenth commandment. If it is morally right for us to acquire the kingdoms you refer to, we will acquire them, otherwise not; though, pending the discussion of this interesting topic, you need not get exactly behind us, gentle Mephistopheles, but stand where you are." , So, while the deferential Mephistopheles stands quietly by, now and then bewailing the religious destitution of the kingdoms he has pointed out, the people of the United States dis- cuss the matter of their acquisition, and at last decide that it is right to lay hold of all the con- tiguous territory belonging to their neighbors. The train of logic by which they reach this result is complex yet coherent. Allow me to unfold it to you, my gentle Abel, and I doubt not that you will be convinced as I have been. The moral code of a state is determined by its geography.* Until you have mapped out its coasts, its rivers and its inland seas, calculated its latitude and longitude, kept a record of its * Vide Majority Report Glenwood Legislature, Sol. Gen., p. 213. . , J page: 204-205[View Page 204-205] 204 THE PA6HA PAPERS. thermometers, and comprehended its material interests, you cannot determine the notions of right and wrong that should govern its people, and what sort of moralities -they should exem- plify. If its position is insular, or if it has an extended sea coast, its obvious duty is to be a warlike state; while if it lies remote from tide waters, it should addict itself to the peaceful pursuits of breeding calves and lambkins, piping on oaten reeds, eating curds and whey, and fos- tering all sorts of rural innocence and pastoral peace. I know that Cicero has written some fine periods to the effect that what is legal sauce for the geese of Athens applies equally to the ganders of Rome, but Cicero was a heathen philosopher, and never knew anything about democracy and the Gospel. There are different moralities for different climes. The Great Mogul may- have a hundred wives; the Emperor of France may legally have but one. It is proper for a widow in India to burn for a dead hus- band; it is proper for a widow in England to renounce the memory of the late lamented, and burn for a living man; what may be cruelty and oppression in Vermont, may be brotherly kind- ness in Virginia. Let us cite an example. New York, my son of Hassan, is a seaport. It cannot and should not have tho same ideas of national morality as those that prevailed in Arcadia. The manifest destiny of New York is NEW EVANGEL. 205 to grow rich by commerce. Whatever retards this manifest destiny is wrong; whatever promotes it is right. Squaln Beach is a dependency of that decayed yet despotic foreign power, New Jersey. I have carefully studied the geography, history and political economy of Squam, and have arrived at the conclusion that New York should take immediate steps to acquire Squam. It is neces- sary that she should acquire Squam. It is right that she should acquire Squam. 1. New York is a body politic, and, as such, has no soul. She must, therefore, like other beings without souls (hyenas, monkeys and the like), be guided entirely by instinct. Beings without souls cannot go wrong if they follow the lead of their instincts. New York instinctively covets Squam. 2. In its present condition, Squam is a reproach to the progressive spirit of the age. It has capa- bilities of climate, scenery and soil, that fit it for a brilliant career, but in its relation of dependence to the effete power which controls it, it is like the tail of a senescent tadpole--it must come off. The people of New York understand the designs of Providence pretty thoroughly, and, according to their interpretation of those designs, Squam must eventually be separated from New Jersey. 3. If Squam be separated from New Jersey, it will be an independent but by no means . page: 206-207[View Page 206-207] 206 THE PASHA PAPERS. powerful body politic. It will be an object of the jealousy of the greater nations. The greater nations will covet Squam. Suppose the Emperor of China, with whom New York may yet have relations of a hostile character, should take pos- session of Squam, anchor his junks in the beauti- ful harbor of Squam, where they might lie in wait to plunder the shipping of Gotham. What then would become of the trade in ginseng and chessmen? -Who could number the ruined deal- ers in bamboo and fire-crackers? What would become of Mrs. Grundy-there being no more tea? 4. There is one highly lucrative branch pof industry which flourishes largely at Squam. I refer to the robbing of wrecks. This important business employs its inhabitants during the greater part of the year, except perhaps in the month of August, when they are engaged in harvesting beach plums. The most valuable cargoes that come to the shores of Squam are brought there by the force of circumstances, in obedience to that profound aphorism which de- clares it is an ill wind which blows nobody any good. They are stranded in obedience to the great principle of Manifest Destiny. Though some persons affect a horror for the wrecking business of Squam, I can see nothing in it but an illustration of that beautiful principle of compen- sations, by which the losses of the less fortunate classes are a source of gain to the more lucky- i .. .. ..: ..J -CERTAINLY. 207 the same principle by which the internecine bar- barities of Africa, when combined with the shrewdness of the civilized world, are made the means of cultivating the soil, enriching the agri- culturist, cotton broker and spinner, and at the same time educating and ennobling the African masses, and effecting the additional result of carrying out the great designs of Providence before referred to. Now it is greatly to be regretted that this lucrative and desirable branch of industry should have attracted to the shores of Squam, from other parts of New Jersey, a vulgar, illiterate and reckless set of desperadoes, who have mon- opolized what, by the clearest principles of geographical right, belongs to the more numer- ous and powerful citizens of New York. What enlightened New Yorker will not cry Shame! when he hears of the brutal license and violence of the pirates of Barnegat and Squam, and will not glow with a patriotic desire to snatch from their polluted hands those treasures which the bountiful sea pours with every easterly storm into the ungrateful bosom of Squam? For once the paths of duty and expediency are coincident. The united voices of conscience and self-love cry out to New York: "Acquire Squam! Acquire her territory, and the means of wealth, and fill her with industrious, enter- prising and virtuous Anglo-Saxons from Mac- M cam page: 208-209[View Page 208-209] 208 THE PASHA PAPERS. kerelville and the Sixth Ward!" Is it suggested that the sovereign state of New 'Jersey is as haughty as she is old and decrepit-that she is proud of Squam-that her sons will shed their blood until the mud of her highways shall be redder than ever, before she will give up Squam --that she refuses to consider the question of a purchase by New York, and defies any threats of violence, and that all the rest of the world, except New York, thinks she is quite right? What then?- What does New York care for the opinion of the rest of the world? New York must acquire Squam, and steps for that purpose must be taken immediately. The voice of Mani- fest Destiny, clear as clarion, calls to prompt and efficient action. Let a resolution to the follow- ing effect be passed by a virtuous Common Council: Whereas, Squam geographically possesses a commanding influence over the large and constantly increasing trade, foreign and coastwise, of the city of New York and the entire Hudson valley; Whereas, That province, by its present dependent condition, must continue a source of injury and annoyance, endangering the friendly relations between New Jersey and New York, by the aggressions of the local authorities upon the com- merce 'and citizens of Manhattan Island, for which tardy re- dress can only be had by circuitous demands on New Jersey; and Whereas, In the opinion of the Common Council, and in accordance with the views of the Mayor, as the last means of JUDICIOUS EXPENDITURE. 209 settling the existing and removing, future difficulties,' it is expedient that negotiations for the purchase of Squam should be renewed; Therefore, resolved, That thirty millions of dollars be placed in the Mayor's hands for expenditure, either from the supera- bundant cash in the 'treasury, or to be borrowed on five per cent. bonds of one thousand dollars each, payable in ten or twenty years. Of course I am not so verdant as to suppose that New Jersey will part with the territory in question for the paltry sum of $30,000,000; but I know that such a sum of money may be judi- ciously expended at Trenton, when the legislature of New Jersey is in session. What oceans of oysters, what seas of champagne, might be made thereby to flow down the throats of the hungry members! How many hotel and livery stable bills and debts of honor might be paid for jolly legislators! How many sets of jewelry might be presented to their wives and daughters; how many lobby members might be kept at fine salaries; how many pockets political, both in Gotham and Jersey, might be replenished; and how easily might a treaty for the sale of Squam be floated through on the great tide of bribery, drunkenness, and greed! But if this expenditure should prove fruitless, then New York must declare war against New Jersey. A casus belli already exists. A citizen of New York, by name Nobby Bill, -. , . . page: 210-211[View Page 210-211] 210 THE PASHA PAPERS. alias Cheeks, having insulted a woman at the Elysian fields one Sunday last summer, was attacked by the brother and lover of the young woman, and severely castigated. Another citi- zen of New York, Augustus Fitz Coupon, hap- pening to get drunk and noisy, in a quite aristo- cratic way, at Long Branch, in the year 1852, was turned out of the hotel by its barbarous proprietor, and compelled by the force of a brutal public opinion to leave the country and return to his home in Madison Square. Shall the majesty of New York be thus defied? No! Let an indemnity of extravagant amount be demanded, and on its refusal, let war be declared. Let the mysterious floating battery at Hoboken be seized, and its countless guns be turned on that defenceless town. Let the oyster boats of Shrewsbury be captured, and the trade in soft shell crabs be annoyed; let the hat factories of Newark be burned down; and last, but not least, let the track of the Camden and Amboy Railroad be torn up, to the impoverishing of the New Jersey treasury and the abolition of the occupa- tion of New Jersey surgeons; then the people of New York will conquer a peace, and peace- fully acquire Squam. My lovely friend, if you have followed the line of my argument thus far, you will be prepared to pass from the special to the general, and apply NEMESIS. 2" my reasoning to the policy of the United States towards those possessions of European powers which happen to lie adjacent to this great and enlightened republic, and you will at once embrace the doctrine of Manifest Destiny, as I have done. Your instincts, warped by some of the bigoted moral teachings of your childhood, may revolt from such a conclusion, as I will con- fess mine did at first, but the)logic by which it is reached is as irresistible as that employed by the able Lucifer in his coversations with Eve. It is mighty and will prevail. And yet, my precious nightingale, I remember a proverb spoken by the Prophet, which has in its seven words a world of terrible significance : The avenging deities are shod with wool. Suppose the people of the United States should happen to be wrong in these notions of right; suppose the ingenious logic they apply to the question of territorial aggrandizement should prove to be nothing but a cloak of fallacious shreds and patches, basted together by politicians to cover the otherwise naked lust of party power; and sup- pose that, while they are swaggering and con- : quering, and plundering, and waxing rich and arrogant, the avenging fates, swift following in fleecy sandals with noiseless step, should sud- denly lay their hands on the shoulders of the People of the United States, and arrest them in ALLA' S name! Would the People of the In t .. , page: 212-213[View Page 212-213] 212 THE PASHA PAPERS. United States, in such an event, be entirely satisfied with knowing that the Rear Admiral of the Turkish Navy admitted their right to steal? Thine, in resignation to the power of destiny. MOHAMMED. [NOTE.-How strange the prophetic power of a great mind! The Rear Admiral, in the preamble and resolution prepared by him, seems actually to have anticipated, by nearly a twelve- month, the recent proposition of our eminent patriot, Mr. Slidell.] [FROM J. VOLEUR, Esq.] "THE TOMBS," Centre street, March 15, 1869. Translator of Mohammed Pasha's Letters. SIR: I HAVE been committed to this decidedly damp and disagreeable edifice to await my trial for burglary, under the statute in such case made and provided-a statute which was enacted, I believe, in an age of superstition, and in obedience to an unenlightened, nay, depraved, public sentiment. I will admit that I committed the burglary. I intend to plead guilty when my indictment shall be read, and I shall probably be sent to pass some time at the pleasant village of Sing Sing; but I 'shall ever protest against those absurd laws which have declared that larceny, burglary, and highway robbery are felonious. I have received some education, inherited some property, and have taken to my present course of life only from the deepest convictions of its propriety and honorableness. I have some hopes that I shall yet succeed in convincing the 218 page: 214-215[View Page 214-215] 214 THE PASHA PAPERS. i world that my so-called crimes are not only perfectly innocent, but highly laudable; and I may say that these hopes were last night consi- derably increased. As Galileo said of the planet on which we live, so I say of my doctrine-it moves still. By the permission of my turnkey, whom I paid in a liberal and gentlemanly style, I attended last evening the great meeting held at Tammany Hall, to consider the question of the '"Acquisition " of Cuba. After the Star-Span- gled Banner had been performed by a band in the Park, a cannon fired, and a tar-barrel 'burned, the vast assembly that had collected, to the number of nearly six hundred, charged in Light Brigade style up the stairs that lead to the famous Hall, and after a little row, inseparable from a public gathering in a free country, dis- posed themselves to listen to the eloquence that had been promised by the advertisements. It is, perhaps, superfluous for me to say that I recognized among the intelligent audience many friends who, from principle or necessity, have adopted the same profession as myself, and that their sympathetic greetings nerved me for further effort and endurance. I was happy to see that when the meeting was called to order, an Ex-Mayor of New York was selected to preside. It was a cheering evidence of the progress of ideas, to find a man who was THE GREAT MAN. 215 once intrusted with the execution of the absurd laws which guard the ridiculous rights of pro- perty in our city, thus publicly renouncing his former adherence to those laws. I was almost overjoyed when I saw the massive form of our Postmaster rise, as he offered the preamble and resolutions for the consideration of the meeting; resolutions which, while conceding something to the prejudices of those who consider larceny a crime, yet in reality asserted 'that it was, in the case of Cuba, a virtue. I doubt not that before I have served out my term at Sing Sing, the Democratic masses of New York will be ready to justify me, if I should break at night into the Post Office, and carry off every dollar in the establishment. Nor was I less pleased when that classic orator, Senator Brown of Mississippi-glorious Missis- sippi-land of enlightened repudiation, liberal Disunionism, and progressive bowie knives-rose to address the enthusiastic audience. I will not trust my, perhaps, too partial memory to repeat his sentiments, but will copy them from the report of the newspapers. Thus; "Cuba must and shall be ours. The decree has gone forth, and there exists nowhere on earth power to revoke it. The only remaining puestion for us to consider is this: By what means shall we make the acquisition? Three page: 216-217[View Page 216-217] 216 TRE PASHA PAPERS. modes have been proposed: first, by purchase, that I regard as the most honorable ;* second, by conquest, and that I regard as the most cer- tain (applause); third, by the agency of the v mysterious operation of that power known in political nomenclature by the name of Filibus- terism, and that I regard as most probablet daughter); but whether by one or the other, or by all of these agencies combined, I say, again, that Cuba must and shall be ours, and the power does not exist on earth to prevent it t If Spain is disposed to sell the island, I, for one, stand prepared to pay for it; s and if she be not dis- posed to sell, then my next proposition is to propose an investigation for the settlement of present and past difficulties. For the purpose of having indemnity for the past, and security , for the future, I would seize Cuba (applause), seize it as an indemnity for the past, and then negotiate for future security. If' we can't nerve the government up to that point, if the prover- bial timidity of old age which presses heavily onu- Mr. Buchanan and General Cass, t can't be "Merely a prudent, temporary concession to foolish preju- dices.-J. V. t Delicious Brown!-J. V. $ And you and I, sweet Brown, do not care for any Power except those on earth!--J. V. s Generous Brown. J. V. Amen to that.-TRANSLATOR. A NEW CUBA. 217 brought to that point-if they will not direct the extending spirit of American freedom, I ,would repeal t/he laws,* and cry Speed to the Filibus- ters, and, Let slip the dogs of war!" And I cannot express my rapture when I saw a man who muttered some dissent to these propositions of the eloquent Brown, soundly beaten over the head and kicked down-stairs. This is a great and free country-and shall Brown be restrained in his liberty of speech? We rather think not. I pass hastily over the letters read, from the Hon. Daniel S. Dickinson, the Hon. John A. Dix (once a deluded negrophilist) and the Hon. Amasa J. Parker--and the delightful oration of the Hon. Isaiah Rynders, to communicate at once the plan I have formed to be executed as soon as my term of office--I mean imprisonment -excuse the natural mistake-expires. I know a private Cuba and a private Spain, in this city. Mrs. Bullion, widow of the late lamented Presi- dent of the Pork Packer's Bank, is that Spain. Her family silver is that Cuba. I shall go to Mrs. B. with the noble sentiments of Senator Brown upon my lips. I shall go about 1.60 A M., with a neat revolver in one hand and a dark lantern in the other. I shall stand by the bedside of Mrs. Bullion and with the muzzle of "That's the point, blessed Brown-curse all laws, say I.--J. V. 10 L t - page: 218-219[View Page 218-219] *f - . 1 218 THE PASHA PAPERS. my revolver cooling the tip of her venerable nose, I shall make a brief speech, which will probably be listened to with rapt attention, though perhaps not interrupted by frequent applause. "Mrs. Bullion, your silver must and shall be mine. The decree has gone forth and no Power that I see at present can revoke it, your private watchman being asleep in a neighboring oyster cellar. The only question for us to consider is this-by what means shall I make the acquisi- tion. Three modes have been proposed (by me), first, by purchase, which I consider the most honorable (ironical cheers from myself in a low tone); second, by conquest, and that I re- gard as the most certain (stifled groans from Mrs. B.); third, by the agency of that power known in my profession as murder, and that I regard as most probable, unless you keep more quiet than you have so far, (attempt on the part of Mrs. B. to yell; promptly checked by a check pocket handkerchief). If you are disposed to sell your family silver, I am ready, for one, to pay for it, I will give .you fifty dollars for the lot and my dark lantern to boot. You will not accept these terms? You think the silver worth more than that? You treasure it as a family heirloom, do you? Then my next proposition is, to suggest an investigation for the settlement of past and present difficulties. Those past and present diffi- t .- , . . . v . "OGIC. 219 culties consist mainly of the fact that you have the silver and I wish to have it. For the pur- pose of procuring indemnity for the past and security for the future, I will now seize your sil- ver, seize it as an indemnity for the past, and then negotiate for future security. By future security I mean your diamonds, watch, and porte- monnaie. If the proverbial timidity of old age, which presses heavily upon you, can't be brought up to the point of quietly' surrendering these trifles, I shall repeal the statute in regard to felonious homicide, to meet the exigercies of this particular occasion, and let slip the dogs of war-or, in more direct terms, pull the trig- ger of this revolver." It is more than probable that Mrs. Bullion would yield to my persuasive eloquence, and allow me to acquire " the swag." The negotia- tions would not be prolonged, and the whole affair would be emphatically done Brown. Yours expectantly, JACK YOLEUt. r . c page: 220-221[View Page 220-221] [FRom MANY READERS.] STATEN ISLAND, February, 20, 1869. Translator of Mohammed Pasha's Letters. SIR: We cannot entirely agree with the logic of the Turk in his letter in regard to the Acquisition of Squam; butfwe do think that, if there be such a thing as justifiable stealing, it is to be found in the case of Sandy Hook. We want it for a Quarantine. New Jersey does not want it, and cannot use it, for anything at all. We offer to take Sandy Hook and employ it for a purpose no less beneficial to New Jersey than to New York. We propose to prevent pestilence from coming to Jersey City as well as to the Metropolis;-but the State of Red Mud, like a dog in the manger, shows her teeth, and stands on her unalienable right to be contemptibly mean. We are indignant,- ]MANY READERS. [REPLY TO FOREGOwG.] ,Many Readers, Staten Island. DEAR M3ANY: I have no time to consider the subject of your note in: regard to Sandy Hook as its importance deserves; but must content myself with expressing my admiration of the noble, chivalric, splendid, magnificent, and truly remarkable conduct of the People of Staten Island, in destroying the Quarantine Buildings last summer. Your letter suggests this topic. I find in all history no such example of courage and devotion. The object of this tre- mendous arson, as I understand it, was to increase the value of real estate on the Island. There could certainly be no higher object for any deed of daring. What courage can compare with that of the men who defied the majesty of law, the dictates of decency and the opinion of all Christian civili- zation, in the nineteenth century, under the solemn starlight of a summer night-in order to enhance the desirableness of their building sites? 221 page: 222-223[View Page 222-223] 222 THE PASHA PAPERS. What devotion can equal that of the incendiaries who dragged a sick woman from her chamber at night, in order to fire her husband's house? What deeds of ancient knighthood will not shrink into littleness, when placed side by side with the magnanimity of the People of Rich- mond County, in carrying out the fever patients and laying them down in the dewy grass, before they burned the hospitals? Proper? Justifiable? By all means.. Is not arson preferable to a depreciation in the value of villas? What right has a woman to be sick? What right has her husband to be Health Officer of the Port? Who has ever conceded to'fever- stricken patients the privilege of lying in bed under a roof? Who so worthy of our respect as the rioters of Staten Island? With sentiments of profound regard, I remain, dear Many, .. Your Obedient Servant, THE TRANSLATOR. . [FROM THE SOLICITOR GENERAL OF GLENWOOD.] GLENWOOD, March, 1859. Translator of Mohammed Pasha's Letters. SIR: I rejoice in agreeing with the Pasha in his observations upon the subject of territorial acquisition. I feel proud and patriotic as I coincide with his sentiments. America is the exponent of the doctrine of Manifest Destiny. The world had from time to time yielded an unintelligent and almost uncon- scious testimony to the universality of this doc- trine; but it was not until Aaron Burr stamped upon it the impress of his genius that it became the current, coin of our country. That great political martyr sealed his philosophy with the blood which his persecutors would have shed, could they have convicted him of high treason. The rope that was to have hung Aaron Burr tolled the funeral bell of European and- Anti- Republican dominion over the soil of America. The Pasha has rightly hinted at the idea that 2238 \ . . . ... page: 224-225[View Page 224-225] 224 THE PASHA PAPERS. a desire for territorial increase is the prevailing inclination, and consequently the proper instinct, of our country. Even our enemies, in blindly charging this fact upon us, establish incontro- vertibly that our instincts, and therefore, mind you, our duty and destiny, are in that direction. This instinct is in the mingled Saxon, Roman and Norman blood that sluices our veins. It brought the Puritans to America; planted the colonies; drove back the Indians; dismembered France and Spain to enlarge our borders; marched to the Halls of the Montezumas; advanced with stately steppings along the peaks of the Rocky Mountains as far northward to- wards the parallel of 54 40' as circumstances would permit. Shall we deprive the bald-headed emblem of our country of her instincts, and reduce her to an ignominious and foolish fowlS I humbly think not. It is said by gentlemen who would be willing to sell their country to a tin-peddler, that a for- eign country-Spain for example-lhas her instinct of self-preservation, as necessary and compelling as our instinct of acquisition. Let that be conceded, for the sake of the argument merely, and our position is still untouched. Grant that she ought to secure the end to which her instinct is addressed, still let her secure it without limiting the healthy action of our in- l A RIGHT TO RUN. 225 stincts. If she feels called upon to exercise this instinct of self-preservation she is at liberty to do so-by running away and leaving Cuba to us. The royal families, against whom nations have risen,4iave had the same instinct of self-preserva- tion-and correlative right to run away. No revolutionist has ever refused to recognize this principle. James Second and Louis Philippe asserted its omnipotence, and their pretensions were recognized. They ran away. Charles First and Louis Sixteenth lost their heads for doubting it. If kings have lost their crowns, including the heads that were under them, by the clashing of the irreconcilable instincts, ought Spain to complain if she is called upon to make Do greater sacrifice than that of relinquishing Cuba at the behest of such an imposing contingency? But, clear as is our right to the possession of Cuba upon the principles stated by the Pasha, I do not think we need to employ so strong an argu- ment against so weak a state as Spain; for we are not a philosophical assembly like that of M. Robespierre, composed of men who do not hesitate to carry ideas to their necessary conse- quences-even to the extent of cutting off the heads that are to be convinced by them;-we are a nation not yet absolutely delivered from the bondage of certain moral prejudices, the disgust- ing remains of the idea that the responsibilities 10o* L. . ....I page: 226-227[View Page 226-227] 226 THE PASHA PAPERS. of individuals are transferred to the states of which they are component members. However, our nation is gradually ascending to the philosophic height from which the emanci- pated few survey this vast subject; though it has yet to take many steps before the summit will be reached. Half way up the hill, James Monroe--the great pioneer of his day--built a lodge, from which a fine view of the possessions of Spain and England is visible; and in this cool and elevated edifice James Buchanan is at present solacing his venerable infirmities. Over its entrance is emblazoned the immortal Monroe Doctrine, that no European state shall steal or buy sovereignty on the Western Hemisphere. The Monroe Doctrine is a diluted statement of the doctrine of Manifest Destiny, laid down by the Pasha and approved by the subscriber. The latter is the necessary consequence of the former, although the former is but a mutilated fragment of the truth. As the Monroe Doctrine is universally con- ceded to be true, we may employ it in elucidat- ing the topic under consideration; but of course under protest--for if, in any respect, it runs out into absurdity, it is to the precise extent that it varies from the full statement of the doctrine of Manifest Destiny. The foundation of this great Monroe Doctrine x MONROE DOCTRINE. 227 is the admitted fact that all foreign states, among which Spain is, of course, included, have selfish and sinister designs in acquiring territory on these continents. It holds that the interests of America, and of civilization in general, will be so grievously affected by such acquisitions, that the abstract right of those States to conquer or buy on these continents is cancelled. It is not, however, the mere act of conquering or buying that is to work the- anticipated harm, but the act of holding after acquisition. Thus, the principle under consideration is really lev- elled at the holding, -and not at the act of acqui- sition. Now, it is perfectly clear that if the interests of humanity forbid the acquisition of a given right, in virtue of the evils that may result from holding it, they necessarily cancel the right of holding. One holding under a fraudulent purchase, has no title; and so territorial acquisi- tions in fraud of the rights of humanity, confer J no title on the holder. Here arises the only difficulty with the Mon- roe Doctrine, namely: assuming that the title of foreign states to territories 'acquired in this Hemisphere to be fraudulent and void as to human rights, by what authority do we take it upon ourselves to say that through the act of fraud, the title has become vested in us? At this point, my dear Translator, steps in the noble doctrine of Manifest Destiny, to help out . .... - page: 228-229[View Page 228-229] 228 THE PASHA PAPERS. the feebleness of the Monroe Doctrine. It is this fact-that it is our instinct (as a nation we have no reason nor conscience), and therefore our des- tiny, to assert, in the name of humanity, its rights that have been trodden under foot-which assures to us a brilliant opportunity to hurl defiance at the united navies and opinions of the rest of the world. But to speak more accurately, we do not become exactly owners of what we thus rescue in the name of humanity; we only hold it as salvors, until the debt of gratitude which humanity owes us is paid. As human nature is pretty much bankrupt, this obligation will never be discharged, and we shall continue to hold. It is obvious, therefore, that Spain, as a foreign state, has no right to hold Cuba, an island interjacent to the two American Conti- nents, and that we have a perfect right, in the great names of civilization and humanity in general, and our own peculiar interests in parti- cular, to take' possession of Cuba by any means in our power. For one, I am in favor of buying Cuba, at a price far beyond its value. If Spain should refuse to sell, we should then call upon Brown- not the Sexton of Grace Church-but Brown of Mississippi-and he will attend the further pro- secution of our just claims. Sincerely, W. ; 7 THE FOURTEENTH EPISTLE. The Rear Admiral notices Mount Vernon. Beloved Abel Ben Hassan. How sweet is charity! lovely as the lilies of Egoypt, radiant as the roses of Persia, tender as the eye of a Circassian virgin, glorious as the tail of a bird of Paradise. The Americans are a very charitable race of men and women, and I will do their intellects the credit to say that they are very ingenious in their methods of exercising the divine virtue- When I was informed that a superb banquet would be eaten at the Gastronomic Hotel, in Broadway, for the, benefit of the Widows and Orphans of Superannuated Peanut Vendors, I begged my intelligent acquaintance, Tompkins Effendi, to explain to me the philosophy of the enterprise. "Precious Pasha," said he, " our Professor of Greek used to call the attention of sophomores to that curious scriptural phrase commonly 229 page: 230-231[View Page 230-231] 230 THE PASHA PAPERS. translated 'bowels of compassion'--he con- sidered it expressive. The people who dine at the Gastronomic propose to prove that they pos- sess those virtuous viscera. They will eat and drink and get decidedly merry, and the net profits of the feast will be devoted to charity. They will feel good and do good, contempor- aneously. They will mingle the joys of helping themselves to viands, and at the same time help- ing others. Appetite and conscience will kiss each other rapturously. There will be salmon and succor, beef and beneficence, partridges and pity, oysters eaten and orphans fed, woodcock dressed and widows clothed, and all without any of that troublesome, stupid, self-denial and sacri- fice which have been by some supposed to be involved in the work of dispensing charity." I am told that in a like skillful manner the Americans have charity fairs, whereat the ladies --sweet seductive creatures-sell many articles of apparently trifling value for large sums, to purchasers who are likewise sold, the proceeds - of the double vendue being appropriated to do good, with a decided emphasis on the word do. The youthful Twaddler is allowed the privilege of paying into the lily hands of Miss Coupon the sum of ten dollars, and is gratified to receive in exchange a pincushion and two smiles. He returns to his lodgings, hangs his pincushion over the mantel, and retires with the sweet conscious- L ..... ..J BUNKER HLL. 231 ness of having done a good deed in a pleasant way. He has discharged his duty to the poor, who are always with society, supplied himself with a pincushion, and secured the honor of dancing the tenth/ redowa with Miss Coupon at the great charity ball on the following evening. He goes to the ball in the most humble and unselfish spirit, and dances with vigor and vir- tue, knowing that each effort of his toes will heal the sorrows of some unfortunate wretch, and feeling, each time he wipes the perspiration from his fine face, that his delightful saltation, while it moistens his own brow, will dry the tears of some weeper. The Americans are also charitable in a public and patriotic way. They delight to contribute I towards commemorating the important events of their national life, and doing homage to their great men. Well read as you are in the history of the present century, you cannot have forgot- ten how eagerly they responded to the call upon them for funds to build the Bunker Hill Monu- ment; how unnecessary and redundant cash streamed into Boston from all parts of the country, and with what just disdain the Building Committee rejected the offer of aid from a for- eign danseuse-the elastic Ellsler. The benevolence and beneficence of the nation are at present concentrated on the subject of Mount Vernon. The Americans of course revere page: 232-233[View Page 232-233] 232 THE PASHA PAPERS. the memory of Washington, their greatest and best man. They admire his prudent valor and laud his goodness, even if they do not always take his advice. He is cherished in their hearts, even if he does -not reign supreme in their heads. To illustrate the depth and tenderness of this feeling, I need only cite to you the example of a wealthy gentleman in New York, who, on being asked to contribute towards the erection of the bronze statue of Washington in Union square, replied: "I think I won't subscribe. I have no need of a statue in front of my house to remind me of the Father of my Country; I have the Father of my Country here in my own bosom." And although the disappointed solicitor of contributions rejoined with more acrimony than elegance: "All I've got to say is that you've got the Father of your Country in an awful tight place," yet I am inclined to think that the wealthy gentleman in question was perfectly consistent and truly American in his reply. It is cheaper, and therefore better and pleasanter, to have a great man in one's bosom than to pay for the privilege of seeing his image moulded in monumental brass. This deep-seated subjective regard for the memory of a hero has prompted the important but puzzling question-how shall his home be THE GOTHS. 233 kept sacred? That home is each day overrun and desecrated by hordes of a migratory and pre- datory race-the Tourists. The Tourists imitate the great Caesar-they come, they see, they con- quer. The Tourists are not content to have the Father of their country in their own bosoms. He must be represented to their eyes by symbols stolen from his grave, or from his nephew's grounds. The Tourists covet mementoes, and so they carry off pickets from the fences of Mount Vernon, bricks from the walls, hinges from the gates, locks from the doors, tulip bulbs from the gardens, geraniums from the hot-house, harness from the carriage-house, books fromn the library, vases from the drawing-rooms. The Tourists carry these things in reverential triumph to their homes, exhibit them with tears of sacred joy to their children, and so, by pious larceny, incite the young to love the Pater Patrise, and emulate his honor and truthfulness. It is evident, O golden calf of my heart's idolatry, that if the tribe of Tourists are longer permitted thus to express their hero-worship, they will soon distribute the whole Mount Ver- non estate over the North American continent, and it will be lost by diffusion. Therefore, Mount Vernon must be taken in hand, fenced in, guarded like some precious diamond in a strong case, that it may be looked at but not touched. It must be purchased from its present proprietor- r-^ . ' ' ' ^ * ' * ----- ^ page: 234-235[View Page 234-235] 234 THE PASHA PAPERS. and two hundred thousand dollars will do the business. Whence is the money to come? It clearly will not do to pay it out of the national treasury. The wise and pure-minded men who administer the federal government are too frugal to think for a moment of disbursing such a sum. Neither can it be expected that the, people, as individuals, will contribute sAch an amount from their limited private stores. They are not in the habit, as we have seen, of expending money without an equivalent. They must have a quid pro quo. They will eat and drink for charity, buy pincushions for charity, dance for charity; but we should not ask them to pay out money coolly and abstractly for such a vague and unremunerative object as the pur- chase of Mount Vernon. What shall be done? My dear Abel, after consultation with my experienced friend before mentioned, I think we Ilave arranged a plan by which the needful cash may be secured. The national cow must be amused before she will permit herself to be milked. The people will pay for diversion. Let the people be diverted. Let an entertainment of decidedly novel character be provided. Per- haps there is nothing more attractive than the appearance of a famous man in a curious and unexpected position or employment. Who would not like to hear Socrates play a kettle-drumn t- - - BY ALL MEANS. 235 What would we not give to see Martin Luther dance a Polonaise? Would not thousands rush to hear Heriogabalus deliver a temperance lec- ture? Would not many millions subscribe for the New York Weekly Driveller, if Pope Pius Ninth should consent to write for its columns a serial story of love, despair, and suicide? Would not the whole of Christendom wax excited at the prospect of a "nmill" between Tom Sayers and the Archbishop of Canterbury? Of course. Suppose, then, we apply this princi- ple to the collection of a Mount Vernon fund. Let a performance be advertised to take place at the Academy of Music, New York, for which the great men of the land will rejoice to volun- teer their services. Let the programme be an agreeable and attractive mblange, arranged, if you please, as follows: GREAT FESTIVAL IN AID OF THE MOUNT VERNON FUND, At the academy of Music, Feb. 22d, 185--. PART I. The exultations of the evening will be introduced by a GRAND OVERTURE, "Hail Columbia," to be followed by 1. Sheridan's Five Act Comedy of the SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL, the character of "Joseph Surface" being sustained for this time-, only by The President of the United States. page: 236-237[View Page 236-237] 236 THE PASHA PAPERS. 2. Lecture on FINANCE, with the celebrated song of "I see a Bank," by The Secretary of the Treasury. 3. Fascinating and picturesque PAS SEUL, the Cachucha, in character, by The Secretary of State. 4. An intensely interesting RECITATION of an original poem entitled. "The Angel's Smile, or the Sip of Nectar," written and repeated by A leading journalist of New York. 5. Thrilling spectacular Melodrama entitled, THE POISONED POTATOE; OR THE RAGPICKER'S REVENGE! The role of Rinaldo being kindly assumed by An eminent orator of Boston. [Intermission of twenty minutes, during which the contribu- tion-box will circulate.] PART II. 1. GAMES OF THE CURRICULUM, Introducing the largest and most accomplished corps of Gym- nasts, Acrobats, and Tumblers in the world, to wit: The New York Legislature! 2. EssAY ON OYSTERS, With illustrations and experiments by The Governor of Virginia. 3. The highly amusing Comedy, in two acts, entitled SUMMARY JUSTICE, The leading roles of which will be assumed by the Judges of the Supreme Court for the First Judicial District, assisted by a delegation of your Honors from the Court of Appeals. [BI Five years and upwards are supposed to elapse between the first and second acts of this irresistibly funny Drama.] THE PROGRAMME. 237 4. Gorgeous Pantomime- THE MAGIC PEN, Harlequin . . . . By a Fearless and Independent Editor of Washington. 5. Daring feats on the CORDE ELASTIQUE, by the federal office-holders of Massachusetts, who have, in the most generous manner, volunteered their services for this occa- sion. It is to be hoped that their fearless poses plastiques, and tremendous tours deforce will be properly appreciated. eff- Particular attention is invited to the final tableau, in which the funambulists will portray their unaffected veneration for the memory of Webster, whom, living, they loved so well. 6. A Series of Splendid Exploits, representing a TOURNAMENT IN TIHE DAYS OF CHVALRY, by a Special Committee of the House of Representatives, ter- minating. in an exciting SINGLE COMBAT between the Champions of Pennsylvania and South Carolina. 7. The Side-splitting Farce of CONSISTENCY : composed by a Prominent Member of the Columbian Order, and enacted by the Sachems of Tammany. It is believed that this will be decidedly the most humorous afterpiece ever pre- sented to the American Public. Tickets of admission $1 each; to be had everywhere. The curtain will rise at 7 o'clock precisely. "( Exitus Acta Probat." No MONEY RETURNED. The above Programme will be repeated every evening until Mount Vernon shall be purchased, and the deed of the premises duly recorded. I am not vain, my charming son of Hassan; yet, I flatter myself that my plan is strikingly ,L - page: 238-239[View Page 238-239] 238 THE PASHA PAPERS. original, as well as entirely practicable; and that if it should be prosecuted energetically, but few weeks could elapse before the honored dust of the Father of his Country would be the property of those who should buy it. Thine, charitably, MOHAMMED. I [FROM MR. H. U. M.] CHATHAM STREET, NEW YORK, 22 February, 1859. Translator of Mohammed Pasha's Letters. SIR: On this day, so dear to every free- man's heart, I cannot refrain from telling you how much I am gratified by the plan proposed by the Rear Admiral for raising a fund to pur- chase the Mount Vernon-property. The scheme is excellent, so far as it goes. It does not, however, permit me to say, go far enough. Advertising, sir, is the life-blood of business- nay, more, it is the -- but I canot find words to describe its power. I verily believe that if one were to fill two pages of a widely-circulated newspaper with repetitions of this sentence- "Nero owas a Christian Gentleman" and con- tinue the process once a week for six weeks, the judgment of history would be reversed; and some millions of intelligent readers would peti 289 page: 240-241[View Page 240-241] 240 THE PASHA PAPERS. tion the Pope to canonize that injured Roman, individual. I would therefore respectfully suggest that your philosophic friends, the Pasha and Tomp- kins Effendi, should combine the business of ad- vertisers with that of showmen, in their plausible plan. All they have to do is to intimate to the great advertising community that their money is desired forthwith, and that their contributions will be acknowledged in genuine business style- by publishing the facts of the gifts, together with the business of the givers. Nothing could be more feasible and profitable. For example, I am the inventor, patentee, manufacturer, and vendor of the justly cele- brated Electro-Chemical and Anti-Spasmodic Bunion Eradicator. If this precious ointment can be properly advertised, I can at once make a large fortune for myself, and confer a priceless boon upon the toe-joints of humanity at large. I am therefore ready, in the most patriotic spirit, to send to the Committee my check (certified) for $10,000, with the understanding that when the new tumulus shall be erected over the grave of the great Washington, the south side of that tumulus shall be inscribed with a brief poetical tribute to the virtues of my Eradicator, and a statement (in prose) of the prices at wholesale and retail. Then the people, " who pay their pious pilgrimages to the shades of Vernon," f , , FIGURES NEVER LIE. 241 feeling footsore after their toilsome tramp, will gladly read the advertisement, and forthwith buy the Eradicator in large quantities. It requires no Zerah Colburn to perceive that if the tumulus should be built in an octagonal form, at least $80,000 might be immediately realized in this way. And, sir, if the Committee would arrange the walls of the mansion and the fences about the grounds with advertising panels, like those in our city railroad cars, who could count the cash that would be gladly paid for their occupation t I remain, sir, Your disinterested servant, H. U. M. " [1 . page: 242-243[View Page 242-243] THE FIFTEENTH EPISTLE. The Rear Admiral looks out on Broadway. Beloved Abel Ben Hassan. I HAVE been since early morning looking out on the most busy and splendid thoroughfare of New York-Broadway. The crowd of human- ity has been streaming past my eye like a great panorama. The canvas began to unroll just as the sun gilded the marble tops of the handsome stores over the way, opposite my apartments at the St. Nicholas. So I took my seat as a specta- tor, while the exhibition proceeded. The first figures that appeared on the scene were the milkmen. I happened to learn this fact from the signs painted on their carts, the language they used in proclaiming their pres- ence being totally unintelligible, a mere melan- choly howl. I am told that their entire ignorance of the English Language is the reason of their employment, for if they should exclaim "Milk," they would tell a falsehood in the most public manner, and the virtuous men who manufacture 242 THE DRIVER. 243 the milk do not wish to tempt them to tell lies. The drivers, therefore, do not shout "Milk," but make a sound like this,- Moo-oo-oo-eaugh! the last syllable ending with a yell like that of a crazy camel. Soon the omnibuses began to run down town, almost empty at first, but filling up as the morn- ing advanced. The driver of a Broadway stage is a marvel of the power of attention. I know that history delights to gossip about Julius Caesar, how he used to converse fluently, write one letter, and dictate two others, contempor- aneously; I have heard of a Turkish sage who could smoke 'his chibouque, eat his pilau, read his Alcoran, drink his coffee, scold two wives and compliment a third, all at the same moment; and I have seen a young woman at a ball who could entertain six young gentlemen, and at the same time watch with anxiety the movements of a seventh in the opposite corner of the room:- but these achievements are nothing compared with the mental exploits of the driver of a Broad- way omnibus. He guides his horses over a pavement that is slippery as ice, picks them up when they fall, watches both sides of the street for customers, and the carriage-way for obstacles, lets passengers in and out, receives their money and gives change, cuts behind at the boys who attempt to steal a ride, exchanges greetings with the other drivers of his line and hurls defiance at page: 244-245[View Page 244-245] 244 TEE PASHA PAPERS. the opposition, shouts a word of warning to old women who are running across the highway, bandies sarcasms with a tipsy passenger who wishes to be left at the corner of Fourteenth street and Bowling Green and advises him that if he don't know where he lives he'd better move, talks politics with the policeman who shares his seat, and sings a variety of popular airs. This he does from 6 A M. till midnight,-- and all for nine dollars a week. I may remark that the Russ Pavement seems to be admirably adapted to effect what has long been a desideratum in this city-the Relief of Broadway. It is so ingeniously constructed that when rain or snow falls it is quite impossible for any quadruped to stand on it, much less to travel over it. All vehicles are thus obliged to turn out into the parallel streets, and Broadway is effectually " relieved." The multitude of people who rise early and work hard soon begin to hurry along beneath my window. There is the porter striding down to open the warehouse; the druggist's clerk with slim figure and wonderfully curly hair; the mason with his tools and luncheon; the comely young girls hastening to their toil in the bindery, the paper box factory, and the milliner's shop. I have a profound respect for these bright-eyed, industrious girls. They may not have the best fitting wardrobe or the most cultivated brains of I ' ' J SOMETHG TO DO. 245 all women-kind; but they have something to Do, they are busy in a world where the Devil en- courages much idleness, they have a career of their own-it may be that they will marry for love instead of livelihood-and so with mental hand I lift my mind's fez-cap to them and pray that they may be delivered from evil and remain true to their honest independence. The crowd thickens and the wayfarers jostle one another on the pavement. There are sharp faces of lawyers with knitted brows and keen eyes; brokers with trowsers cut in the latest j style, and beards of elegant development; mer- chants with speculation in their eyes, and the lines of the ledger graven on their faces. They all incline forward as they walk, seeming to be grasping after something of which they are in pursuit. They are in a terrible hurry, and will probably get rich by the time that dyspepsia and disease of the heart have rendered them incapable of enjoying wealth. Some pretty girls are tripping to school over the way, and with them are walking some ingen- uous youths who carry the young ladies' books in a proud and devoted manner, giving evidence that here, even as in Turkey, the gentle flame of youthful passion is ever renewed. Ah! rosy cheeks and laughing lips-innocent dreams of early love-memory and hope-the blue and gold of life! L. '* page: 246-247[View Page 246-247] 246 THE PASHA PAPERS. The day wears on and whatever elements of luxury the New Yorkers possess begin to appear. My valued acquaintance, Mrs. Coupon, drives past in her handsome carriage, with coachmen and footmen dressed in strange attire. I cannot imagine why they should be disguised so gro- tesquely. Probably Madam believes that her coachman and footman do not belong to the same race with herself; perhaps she thinks that if they are bedizened like apes, she will look more human and rational by contrast-perhaps ! she does not philosophize at all about the matter, but only knows that Mrs. Jute, and Mrs. Pre- ferred Stock, and Mrs. Ipecac dress up their coachmen and footmen in the same way. A number of ladies are strolling past dressed in that magnificent walking costume which is so common in this country, but which I have never seen in any other civilized land. I will not allude to the value of this style as a means of sweeping the pavements, as the idea has been suggested before. The fair ladies stop and look with admiration at the fine dresses displayed in a shop window. Tompkins Effendi, who has just entered the room, heaves a doleful sigh. "Why are you sorrowful, O melody of my thorax a." "To see those splendid garments. I see them every day. I cannot take a walk but they flash before my eyes. They are signals of danger. or'i H FOG BELLES. 247 They point out the. hidden rocks, the jagged reefs, the deceitful quick-sands, of matrimony. I am a bachelor, a peaceful, but somewhat lonely man. I have my reveries, as every man has, and dream of the joys of wedded sympathy. Then I go out upon the street, and ask myself whether I shall take the risk of having to devote all my energies to the dressing of a young woman, in a style that would astound the Queen of Sheba. Perhaps this is selfishness and cowardice on my part, but the feeling is sin- cere." "But to waive this melancholy subject, who, my beloved Tompkins, is the portly gentleman wlio walks along with so miuch benevolence beaming from his face 2" "That's my friend Preferred Stock. Nice old party. Retired from business years ago. Nothing to do but walk Broadway, nod at the Union Club, and attend to charity. He is a director of a dozen hospitals, dispensaries, and asylums. Fine institutions-ornaments of the city--we exhibit them to strangers-you ought to visit them. Mr. Preferred Stock takes great interest and pride in them, though I am afraid that he forgets that they have been providen- tially provided to keep him from dying of ennui. And observe, my gallant Admiral, the illogical conduct of P. S. and those who are like him. They think it an excellent thing to employ the page: 248-249[View Page 248-249] 248 THE PASHA PAPERS. time which would otherwise hang heavily on their hands, in managing the institutions which are filled with the results of- misery and crime, and yet they think it a very disgraceful thing to take part in the government of the city, by which, if properly administered, much misery and crime might be prevented. They will establish great public institutions, and yet neglect that greater one, the polls in their own ward. They say that politics are dirty, and so they are, but only because they have been left in dirty hands. They will subscribe to lunatic and inebriate asylums, and yet neglect to vote for legislators and executive officers who will sup- press rum-selling. They will work energetically as managers of a Magdalen Hospital, yet forbid you ever to mention the existence of the gilded palaces of shame so near us, and will not lift a hand to pull them down. They will groan and groan about frauds in the city Government, and yet consider themselves insulted if you ask them to be candidates for Aldermen or Councilmen, and bored if you beg them to go and vote for some decent man. But they are delighted by an opportunity to spend some hours weekly in working for some vast incorporated Association for Shutting the Stable Door after the Steed is Stolen, and almost fancy that thereby they get the debit on Heaven's side in the ledger of life." THE TIGER1. 249 "And who is this elaborately handsome man with a slender youth by his side--some wise Mentor with his confiding Telemachus?" "Well, yes--you may call them by those names. Mentor is wise, with a certain sort of wisdom. He is the most eminent gambler in the town; and Telemachus, who walks with him, is confiding to the last degree. Telemachus is at present one of the richest young men and ' most desirable matches' in America. His grand- father was an honest butcher in the Bowery, who purchased a large farm in that quarter. It so increased in value that his grandson is very wealthy. Telemachus spends his mornings in bed, his afternoons in Broadway, his evenings anywhere, and his nights at the splendid estab- lishment of Mentor. He -is engaged in the old battle with the ' Tiger,' and it requires no very keen perception to predict that the agile animal will come off conqueror. Charming Tiger--with great, green, glittering eyes, and sleek striped coat, and gracefully waving tail-Telemachus fondly imagines he can thrash you-you who have crunched the bones of so many stronger men!" The tide begins to ebb. The people who went down late return early, and those who went down early return late. Mr. Smash, who is m the dry goods jobbing business, is very late--he is so busy. He has a family of small children IIL page: 250-251[View Page 250-251] 250 THE PASHA PAPERS. whom he has hardly ever seen. They are asleep when he leaves them in the morning, and they have been put to bed by the time he gets through his late dinner. So he does not know them by sight. Mrs. Smash, who has a fine sense of humor, had the baby left at his door one Christ- mas morning, nicely wrapped in a basket with a letter directed to Smash, stating that he was the father of the child, and must provide for it. Smash looked at the innocent, denied his pater- nity in rather emphatic language, and, calling a policeman, directed him to carry the found- ling to the station-house. So says Tompkins Effendi. The gas is lighted, and the crowd still rushes on beneath its glare. Pleasure-seekers are abroad going to the theatre, or the opera, or elsewhere. Among them, O Abel Ben Hassan, I see a wreck of womanhood-bright, defiant eyes; hollow, painted cheeks; a smile about her lips; woe unutterable graving sharp lines in her brow. Just Allah! Is there any pity too pro- found for her fate? any curse too awful for the man or men who led her to this hideous life-in- death? And so the evening passes, with the crowd still surging beneath my window. Will it never cease to roar and rush? Yes, the noise grows fainter now. Past midnight. The last stage is going up. "This way, right away, all the way i I . - A GOOD NIGHT. 251 up Broadway," says the driver; but, declining his kind invitation, I turn my back on the panorama, and bid you, my son of Hassan, a very Good Night, MOHAMMED. 1Voau. cur page: 252-253[View Page 252-253] [FROM A GRuMBLER.**] NEW YORK, A pril 12, 1859. Translator of Mohammed Pasha's Letters. SIlR: The gloom of my highly respectable lodgings was irradiated last week by the receipt of the following pleasant invitation: MR. D. E. F-- The Council of the National Academy of Design request the pleasure of your Company at the PRIVATE VIEW of the Thirty-fourth Annual Exhibition, on Monday Evening, April 11, at 7 o'clock. Tenth street, near Broadway. I gave a trifling gratuity to the bearer of this note, and exultantly threw my heels on the near- est chair, and my eyes up towards the ceiling. I revelled in anticipation of the pleasure which I * This letter is published under protest. It is ill-natured and ungrateful. Mr. D. E. F. is a highly ridiculous person, and his remarks have nothing to do with the Fifteenth Epistle.-TRANS. 252 ANTICIPATIONS. 253 was to enjoy ini return for bestowing on the Council the requested pleasure of my Company. Delightful Council! Exquisite Private View! Think of it-Mr. Translator-the six rooms of the Academy pleasantly lighted and comfortably warmed-a number of precious pictures hung on the walls-some painted wood notes wild by Kensett-a delicately faithful, study by -Durand -some reflections of picturesque reality by the Harts-birds by Tait and animals by Hays-heads by Lawrence and Huntington-sketches by Dar- ley and Ehninger-tropical glories of Church and Mignot-who would not gladly confer the favor of his Company -upon the Council, for a Private View of -such delectable sights a? Observe, too, the delicate flattery of the card. I was selected from among the vast shoals of New York humanity, to make one of a small but appreciative assembly, who in charming seclu- sion should take a Private View. I fell into a state of blissful vanity. Why-said Ham I chosen from the many millions who have eyes 2 By what good fairy was my name thrust upon the benignant Council? ---- Let me see-there will be about one hun- dred and fifty people, picked by a critical eclec- ticism, whose Company will be requested by the Council-the most tasteful people in the town (of whom I am one), and in a cosy, quiet way we will look through the windows which the i L-- .1 page: 254-255[View Page 254-255] I- - 254 THE PASHA PAPERS. artists have prepared for us, afid see Nature in all her loveliness, as the rapt, breathless Actseon gazed on divine Diana-but without any danger of being devoured by hounds, or disgusted with puppies. With such feelings I went to the Academy on Monday Evening, April 11. When I arrived at the building I was surprised to find a crushing crowd about the entrance. I filled my sleeves with little chuckles of selfish satisfaction. These, thought I, are unfortunate people who have received no cards from the Council. How they must envy me 1 As I proceeded up the stairway, I saw another crowd, swarming in the lobby and hanging like bees on the balustrade-the most unpleasant sort of a crowd, young snobs with very Ameri- can figures in excessively English clothes, and green girls with no more than an idea and a half in each of their silly little heads. They stared at me, as I passed up, with what seemed to be a mixture of envy and impertinence. These, thought I, are unfortunate youths who have not received cards from the Council. The Council knew that our jeunesse doree have neither brains nor culture. The Council have not re- quested the pleasure of their Company, and so they are mollifying their grief by flirting around the entrance, and staring decent people out of countenance. 1 SELECT. 255 So, with some hope, I entered the first room, and lo! another crowd of young, old, tall, short, fat, lean, pale, florid, men, women and children; -fuming, pushing, and gabbling. Do you ask if there were pictures on the walls? I think not. At least, I did not get near enough to the walls to see any. I began to get bewildered. Was this a ball, or an auction, or a mere mob? Yet I tried not to despair. This, said I, is the Court of the Gentiles. The fortunate select, whose Company has been requested at a Private View, have been, admitted into the sacred penetralia of the other rooms. I entered the second room. Another crowd more stifling and noisy than any I had yet encountered. -- Mrs. Coupon was there glowing and drip- ping with the heat. "Oh! I didn't want to come, a bit. Don't know much about pictures-but my daughter Josy would come, and there was nobody but me to shampoon her." Josy, who would come, was discussing the latest style of spring bonnets with young Poplin, who is better posted on millinery than any other male adult in the city. --- The Hon. Mr. Rigmarole was there, very red in the face and husky in the voice, discussing the Paraguay Question, and lauding the episto- lary eloquence of our Commissioner. page: 256-257[View Page 256-257] THE PASHA PAPERS. --Other people, too numerus to specify, were crushing each others' corns and crinoline, and cackling about cotton, stocks, pork, politics, real estate and the weather--about everything, in fact, except what is Aesthetic; and their min- gled voices made a clatter that would have been maddening, if it had not been now and then drowned by the roar of a brass band. I did not see any paintings in this room, though I was prompted to believe that there were some on the walls, by a little conversation, which I overheard, between the great Mr. Cara- mel and a young artist. i--The great Mr. Caramel is a connoisseur and patron of art; that is to say, he is quite rich, and when an artist's fame is fully estab- lished so that he is far beyond the reach of starv- ation, the great Mr. Caramel buys his pictures, and values them in the inventory of his property at their cost. The artist was pointing out a landscape, and Caramel was looking at it and the catalogue alternately: CARAMEL. "Aw-hum-yes-I see-a view on the coast of China-bamboos very good." ARTIST (slightly vexed). "It is a scene on the northern coast of France." But I was not yet totally discouraged. I thought that there might be some corner of the Academy where I could find peace, seclusion, YOUNG COUPON. 257 opportunity for contemplation,-and so I forced my way through the third, fourth, fifth and sixth rooms, successively. In vain. Everywhere the crowd swarmed and sprawled like the frogs of Egypt. There were squeezing, panting, giggling, groaning, chattering, perspiring-and music by the band. That was the Private View at which the plea- sure of my Company was requested in such a select manner. When I left the crowd, it was refreshing to hear the juvenile Coupon (male)-whose soul had doubtless been purified by this Private View of the Beautiful-cry out to an equally elegant companion: "I say, Fred, let's dry up on Art, and go and poke the balls at Phelan's. My dear Translator, I will give you a piece of advice, gratis:-Never flatter yourself that you are one of the favored few. With respect, Your Obt. Servant D. E. F. page: 258-259[View Page 258-259] THE SIXTEENTH EPISTLE. Which is not from the Rear Admiral, but, parenthetically, from Tompkins Effendi, who writes to the Translator, on the subject of Conversational Depravity. To the Chief Justice of Glenwood. SUBLIME SIR: IN some collection of Modern Poetry, I remember to have met with these elegant lines: "When punsters stoop to verbal folly, And find at last it doesn't pay- That puns are not so very jolly, And rather grim and grave than gay;- "' What can the wretched beings do, In our esteem to set them high up, But straight renounce their verbal lusts, And most considerately-dry up?" I think that there is more truth in those stanzas than is to be found in every scrap of Modern Poetry. What can be more destructive of the higher forms of conversation than a pun? 258 THE FIEND. 259 What right has any one to explode a petard in the midst of sweet sociality, and blow every- thing like sequence and sentiment sky-high? And therefore, since you, as Translator of the Pasha's Letters,'have taken pains to publish his observations -on many social subjects, I think it eminently proper that you should ventilate the ideas of his friend Tompkins upon a not less important theme. Happily, I have been saved the trouble of original composition, by a discovery made by my landlady while I was boarding a year ago on St. John's Park. Mr. Green. our attic boarder, went off suddenly one day to see a friend in the country, as he said. Of course our landlady searched his room, with a view of reading his letters; and in a brown hair-trunk, with a boot- jack, a razor-strop, a box of Seidlitz pow- ders, and an odd volume of Young's Night Thoughts, she found the following manuscript. The females of the house were satisfied with reading such letters as were left by Mr. Green in his apartment, and so this paper was handed over to me. I may say that it was marked with ( pencil, "Declined with Thanks." THE PUN-FIEND. BY C, GREEN. "I used to be corpulent, rosy-cheeked, and * page: 260-261[View Page 260-261] 260 THE PASHA PAPERS. cheerful. I am gaunt, pale, and morose now. I used to sleep sweetly; but now I toss about upon my bed, terrified by hideous visions, and feelings as of a clammy hand or wet cloth laid on my face. I was wont to walk about our streets after business hours and on Sundays, with a genuine smile of enjoyment lighting up my face; but now I hurry along with my eyes cast down, and I seek by-ways and dark lanes for my rambles. My friends think I am in love; persons who know me but slightly, suppose me a victim to remorse-imagine that I wear a hair-shirt, and macerate my flesh. They are all wrong. An old bachelor like myself has long ago buried the light of love in a tonmb, and set a seal upon the great stone at the door; and as for remorse, I owe no tailor anything, and do not at present blame myself for any great fault, except haviing once subscribed for six months to the New York Morning Cretan. Nevertheless, my face grows haggard, my step weary, and even our Thurs- day's beef a la mode. fails to tempt my enfeebled appetite. "I am haunted, haunted by a foul fiend. He meets me at six, P M., in our festive dining-room, and the fork or spoon drops from my nerveless grasp. He follows me up to the parlor, where I sometimes talk of an evening to Miss Pipkin (Miss P. is our fourth story, front) and I become silent in his presence, and Pipkin votes me a ! . HAUNTED. 261 bore. 'He sits by my side when I am playing at whist, and I trump my partner's trick, and the dear old game becomes disgusting. He even dared once to follow me into church, but I cried ' Avaunt,' in a tone so peremptory, that he fled for a moment. He joined me, however, as soon as service was over, and walked from Tenth street to Madison Square, with his grisly arm thrust through mine, and his diabolical jeers drumming on my tympana, In dreams he perches on my breast, and clutches me by the throat. "Like the arch fiend, he assumes many shapes. He is now a tall man, and again a short man; sometimes young and audacious, sometimes old and leering. He only once took a feminine guise: that blessed form was irksome to him. He prefers the freedom of masculinity and inef- fables. He was once a book-keeper, like myself; then a young attorney; then a medical student; then a bald-headed, old gentleman, who seemed to blow a flageolet for a living; and lastly, he has taken the shape of a well-to-do President of 'The Arkansas and Arizona Sky Rocket Trans- portation Company.' But through all these shifting shapes, I recognize him and shudder. "He is known as the Funny Fellow. "Very glorious are wit and humor. I have heard many eminent lecturers discourse on the distinctions, definitions and value of these airy page: 262-263[View Page 262-263] 262 THE PASHA PAPERS. good gifts. I remember being especially edified by the skill with which Spout, the eloquent, dis- sected the philosophy of mirth in the same style and with the same effect that the boy in the story dissected his grandmamma's bellows to see how the wind was raised. I agree with Spout that wit and humor are glorious; that satire, pricking the balloons of conceit, vain- glory, and hypocrisy, is invaluable; that a good laugh can come only from a warm heart; that the man in motley is often wiser than the judge in ermine or the priest in lawn. These qualities are goodly in literature. We all love the kindly humorist from Chaucer to Holmes, inclusive. How genial and gentle they are, as they sit with us around the fire-side, chucking us under the chins, and slily poking us in the ribs; and in the field how nobly they have charged upon hum- bugs and shams. They have been true knights, chivalrous, kind-hearted, brave, religious; their spears are slender, perhaps, yet sharp and elastic as the blades of Toledo; and as they have gal- loped up and down in the lists, gaily caparisoned and cheery, it has done our hearts good to see how they have hurled into the dust the pompous, sleepy champions of error and hypocrisy. "So too, consider how pleasant a thing is mirth on the stage. Who does not thank Wil- liam the Great for Falstaff, and Hackett for his personation of the fat knight.? Who does not THE OLD TIMES. 263 chuckle over the humors of Autolycus, rogue and peddler. Who has not felt his eye glisten, as his lip smiled, when Jesse Rural has spoken, and who will not say to Ollapod, 'Thank you, good Sir, I owe you one?' "Ah! me--how I used to read those jolly, unctuous authors when I was young, in the old 'sitting-room' at home! The great fire-place glows before me now; its light'dances on the wall; my mother's hand is on my head; my sis- ter's eyes are beaming on her lover over in the darker corner; there is a murmur of pleasant voices; there are quiet mirth and deep joy. I lose myself in reverie when I think of these pleasures, and almost forget the Funny Fellow. "He is pestiferous. If I were in the habit of profanity, I would let loose upon him an octa- gonal oath. If I were a man of muscle, it would be pleasant to get his head in chancery, and bruise it. It would be a relief to serve him with subpoenas, or present him long bills and demand immediate payment. Was my name providentially ordered to be Green, that he might cast verbal contumely upon it . Does he sup- pose that a man can live thirty-five years in this state of probation, without becoming slightly callous to a pun on his own name? Yet he con- tinues to pun on mine as if the process were highly amusing. Then again he interrupts any little- attempts at pleasing conversation with his page: 264-265[View Page 264-265] 264 THE PASHA PAPERS. infernal absurdities. I was speaking one day at the dinner table of a well known orator who had been entertaining the town, and I flatter myself that my remarks were critically just as well as deeply interesting. The wretched being inter- posed-- "'Mr. Green, when you say there was too much American Eagle in the speaker's discourse, do you mean that it was a talon-ted production -and to what claws of the speech do you espe- cially refer?' "Miss Pipkin, who had been deeply intent on my observations commenced to titter; what could I do but hang my head and swallow the rest of the meal in silence. If I had been pos- sessed of a quick tongue, I would have lashed him with sarcasms, and Pipkin should have rejoiced with me in his groans. But no--I am slow of speech--and so I was bound to submit. After that he was more tyrannical than ever. He would come stealthily into my room and garrotte me in a conversational way. He would seem to take me by the throat saying--' why don't you laugh-why don't you burst with mer- riment?'-and then I would force a dismal grin, just to get rid of him. ) "I said to myself, I will leave this selfish Sahara called the city and county of New York. I will leave its dust, dirt, carts, confusion, bulls bears, Peter Funks, Jeremy Diddlers, and, best TO YONKERS. 265 of all, the Funny Fellow. I will take board in some rural, as well as accessible place; the mos- quitoes and ague of Flushing shall refresh my frame; the cottages of Astoria, with their pleas- ing view of the Penitentiary, shall receive my wounded spirit: I will exile myself from my native land to the shores of Jersey; I will sit beneath the shadow of the Quarantine on Staten Island. NSo-I won't-I will go to Yonkers- Yonkers that looks as though it had been built on a gentle slope, and then had suffered a violent attack of earthquake; daily boats shall convey me from my ledger to my bed and board, at con- venient hours, so that while I post books in New York by day, I may revel in breezes, moon- beams, sweet milk and gentle influences, by night. There, said I, in a burst of excusable enthusiasm, I will recline beneath wide-spread- ing beeches, and pipe upon an oaten reed. There will I listen to the soft bleating of lambs, and scent the fresh breath of cows; nature shall touch and thrill me with her gentle hand; I will see the dear flowers turn their faces up to receive the kiss of the rising sun, or the benedic- tion of the summer shower. There, too, I will meet the members of the mystic P. B., so that 'I shall talk of books other than day-books' and blotters: we will discourse reverently of authors and their creations. I will not meet the Funny Fellow, for such a wretch pan be 12 ' , . . . L page: 266-267[View Page 266-267] 266 THE PASHA PAPERS. produced only in the corrupt social hot-bed of Gotham. "So to Yonkers I went. I chose a room look- ing out upon the Hudson and the noble Palisades. I took with me a flute, a copy of the Bucolics of Virgil, and numerous linen garments. A great calm came over me. I was no longer haunted, goaded, oppressed. With peace nestling in my bosom, I went down to my first supper in the new boarding-house. A goodly, meal smoked on the table, and the savor of baked shad, sweet- est of smells, went up. While I sat choking myself with the bones of this delicious fish, I heard a voice on the opposite side of the table that sent the blood to my heart. It I had been feminine, there would have been a scene. "He was there: his eyes gloated over the board, a malicious quirk sat astride his fat lips. The Funny Fellow spoke to Miss Grasscloth: "'Why are the fishermen who catch these shad like wigmakers ' "' I don't know.' "' Because they make their living from bare poles.' "I ate no more supper. A nausea supervened. I left the table, rushed into the cool evening air, and let the fresh breeze visit my faded cheek. I strolled up the main street of Yonkers, and as I crushed my toes against the stones which then adorned that highway, I resolved to call on my [ - FUNNY FELLOW AT YONKERS. 267 sweet friend Julia - . Her gentle smile, said I, will console me. She is not a Funny Fellow. We will talk together calmly, earnestly, in the moonlight, close by the great river. I will sit as near to her as her fashionable garments will per- mit, and forget my foe. "We walked together--Julia and I. We talked of things good and true. We spoke of the beauty of the nocturnal scene. Alas! a fear- ful, a demoniac change came over the girl's face. She said- "'Yes, my friend, we ought to enjoy this scene-for we are fine-night beings.' * I bid a hasty farewell to the large eyes and gentle smile. She was not much offended at my abrupt .and angry departure, for my salary is small, my hair is turning grey, and I do not dance. But I was not entirely discouraged. I resolved to give Yonkers a fair trial, and a true verdict to render according to the evi- dence. So I frequented the tea-parties and sociables sc common in that wretched town, and'strove to shake off the melancholy that clung to me like the Old Man of the Sea. To my horror, the Funny Fellow became multiplied like the reflections in a shivered mirror. Men and women, and even young innocent children, became Funny, And danced about me in a h1r- * Mr. Green certainly has been in Yonkers, and formed the acquaintance of "The Colonel."--TRANS. page: 268-269[View Page 268-269] 268 THE PASHA PAPERS. rible maze, and squeaked and gibbered, and tossed their jokes in my face. In one week I made five mortal enemies, by refusing to smile when their tormenting squibs were exploded in my eyes. I felt like a rustic pony, who comes in his simple way into town on the Fourth of July, and has Chinese crackers and fiery serpents cast under his heels. One - evening, in particular, they asked me to play the game of Comparisons (a proverbially odious game, that could exist only in an effete and degenerate civilization), in which the entire company tried to see how Funny they could be; and because I made stupid answers, I was laughed at by the young ladies. ' I became disgusted with Yonkers, and returned to my intramural boarding-house in St. John's Park. The sidewalk near the house was in a dilapidated state, through the carelessness of the contractor, who had stipulated to pave it properly, but had not paved it at all, except with good intentions. And therefore as I came along, I first besmeared my boots with mud, then tripped my toes against a pile of bricks, and finally fell headlong into the gutter. As I rose up and denounced, in somewhat loud language, the idleness and inefficiency of the contractor who had the work in charge, the Funny Fellow stood before me, hia eyes glaring with triumph. lIe spoke in reply o my denunciations: rRETRET 269 A iETREAT. 269 "' My dear Green, do not call the contractor lazy and inefficient. I am sure that his is an energy that never FLAGS!' "I rushed to the room where I am now seated. There is but one hope left me. "In the Territory of Nebraska, far to the west thereof, lies a tract of land which the early French trappers, with shrewd fitness, called the 'Mauvaises tTerres.' It is a region of rocks, petrifactions, and other pre-Adamite peculiari- ties. In a paper writted by Dr. Leidy of Phila- delphia, and published by the Smithsonian Insti- tute, we are assured that there once lived in these bad lands, turtles six feet square, and alligators, compared with which the present squatter sovereigns of the Territory are lovely and refined. The fossil remains of these ancient inhabitants still incumber the earth of that region, and make it unpleasant to view with an agricultural eye; but here and there the general desolation is relieved by a fertile valley, with a running brook and green slopes. White men, whisky, and Funny Fellows have not yet pene- trated there. I will go to this sanctuary. A snug cabin will contain my necessary household gods-to wit-twelve shirts and a Bible. I will plant my corn, and tobacco, and vines on the fertile slope that looks to the south; my cattle and sheep shall browse the rest of the valley, while a few agile goats shall stand in picturesque t . page: 270-271[View Page 270-271] 270 THE PASHA PAPERS. positions upon the rocky monsters described by Dr. Leidy. My guests shall be the grave and wise red men who never try to make bad jokes. I do not think they ever try to be Funny; but to make assurance doubly sure, I shall not learn their language, so that any melancholy attempts they may possibly make, will fall upon unappre- ciative ears. By day I will cultivate my crops and tend my flocks and herds; and, in the long evenings smoke the calumet with the worthy aborigines. If I should find there some dusky maiden, like Palmer's Indian girl, who has no idea of puns, polkas, crinoline, or eligible mnatches, I will woo her in savage hyperbole, and she shall light my pipe with her slender fingers, and beat for me the tom-tom when I am sad. I will live in a calm and conscien- tious way; the Funny Fellow shall become like the dim recollection of some horrible dream, andAf , Mr. Green seems not to have finished his inte- resting reflections, and I shall not attempt to complete them. As well might I try to finish the Cathedral of Cologne. But I heartily sym- pathize with the feelings he has expressed, and trust that his new home in the West will never be invaded by conversational garroters. Sincerely your friend, TOMPKINS. [IN REPLY.] GLENWOOD, April 1, 1859. O Eminent Tompkins. YOUR letter just received was but a new proof of the theory that all great minds do sweetly sympathize. If there is anything lovely in the eyes of this Translator, it is simple and direct speech; if there is anything odious, it is that mental tortuosity which manifests itself in puns. Cheerfully did this translator accept the office of Most Worshipful Grand Punster of Glenwood, conferred upon him by an enthusiastic constitu- ency. With his earnest affection for Anglo- American undefiled, and his holy horror of those tricks of speech which sacrifice the sense of words to their sound, he entered upon the dis- charge of the duties of the office in question with feelings that made those duties a delight. Crime rejoices in concealment. It is per- 271 page: 272-273[View Page 272-273] 272 THE PASHA PAPERS. fected, like celery, in the dark. It hates the light-and runs away therefrom, as you may have seen roaches scamper when you have suddenly opened a closet in your boarding-house. You therefore find that punsters are fond of secrecy. They shun the open sunlight of sociality. They whisper their wickedness seduc- tively in tempted ears. They mutter their mad- ness in low tones; or when they speak aloud they meanly lay the blame of their verbal iniquity at the door of an absent friend; as thus- "Smith said a vile thing the other day. Speaking of tomatoes he observed , etc., etc. ;" or- ' By the way that reminds me of a joke of Jones' ,etc." It was clearly the duty of the M. W. G. P. to bear away these cloaks of concealment-to open those closet doors of secrecy, to put the offenders in a public pillory, as an example to evil-doers. He therefore, with infinite trouble, proceeded to investigate the history, and collect the statistics of verbal vice in Glenwood. This was in many respects a tiresome and loathsome task, but his indomitable energy triumphed over every form of opposition. The fruit of his industry is to be found in a Report presented by him to the Chief Executive officer of the Republic in the words and figures following, to wit: OFFICIALLY. 273 IS CC, ;^REPORT. "To the Deacon of Glenwood and Sage of Cattaraugus. "MIGHTY MAN! "THE undersigned, Most Worshipful Grand Punster of our free and enlightened Republic (a Republic before whose grandeur the greatness of the United States and Paraguay, as described by Messrs. Urquiza and Bowlin, dwindles into littleness), begs leave to present his first semi-weekly report. "Without fear, favor, or affection, I have undertaken the business assigned to me; and without further or other preliminary observa- tions, I shall hold up to public execration a few of the most glaring verbal crimes which have been committed in our community during the last three days. "Against the wretched men whom I am com- polled thus to accuse, as individuals, I cannot have the slightest prejudice. I would not do them the smallest injury or injustice. On the j}Y contrary, they have my profoundest commisera- tion. But a conscientious regard for my official duties constrains me to convict them before an enlightened world. "The total number of puns spoken in Glen- i J 12' page: 274-275[View Page 274-275] 274 TTHE PASHA PAPERS. wood during the time embraced in this report is, . . . . 5,362 From this deduct ancient jokes, 5,200 Jokes without points, . . 148 - --- 5,348 Total, . . . . 14 "These fourteen novelties in vice may be cir- cumstantially stated as follows: "1. I was lately describing to 'The Bishop' a wedding I had witnessed in New York, and was eulogizing the beauty of the bride, on whom had shone the light of only eighteen summers. The hardened offender merely replied: "'You would express her age more satisfac- torily, according to the present style of skirts, by saying that eighteen springs had passed over her head. See advertisement of Douglas & Sher- wood.' "2. When I asked that same venerable party, why so much larger liberty was allowed to widows than to maidens, in society, he disap- pointed me thus: "'Did not the Scriptures say, "the widows might."' "3. And when I wished to know why he lived in so small a house, he said: "'Small house! Do you see (that portico across the gable? It is certainly a stoop-endous mansion.' DREADFUL. 75 4. The Deacon of Glenwood, of whom I had some hopes, has been among the deeply guilty. When a gentleman who resides in Fourth Ave- nue, New York, was complaining that for several years he had been obliged to vote in a Livey Stable at the corner of Eighteenth street, the Deacon comforted him in this wise: W' Vhat you regard as unsavory, I consider a good omen for your country. It shows that the elective franchise is exercised in a stable manner. The laugh comes in in the word "manger,' sir!' "The Commodore of the Glenwood Navy is perhaps, one of the vilest sinners of whom I have to report. He- rolls his wickednesses like sweet morsels under his tongue. He has a habit of making suggestions of the most depraved character--like the following, which I quote: "5. 'Whether the spring in the side-hill near the railroad station of his town might be called a run on the Bank of Yonkers.' "6. 'Whether one of the new-fangled meer- schaum. cigar-tubes, which draws easily, might be called a free-holder.' "7. 'Whether a man who resides in a very miserable shanty should not be called a pen- holder, rather than a house-holder. - "8. 'Whether, in the event that fresh eggs should become scarce at Yonkers, we might not of page: 276-277[View Page 276-277] 2 6 THE PASHA PAPERS. hire the sloop Ben Franklin to lay two at the dock every morning.' "9. The Vice-Admiral is no less guilty. I hap- pened to be walking down to the Chambers street Depot with him one evening, when we met a newsboy. Colloquy: "V. A.--' Have you got the Post ' "BOY.-' No, sir-but won't you take the Ew- press, sir?-here, sir-take the Empress, sir.' "V. A. 'I must take a way-train, precious youth-the Express does not stop at Yonkers.' "10. Nor is the Solicitor-General less repre- hensible. He was lately breakfasting enfamnille with a young married couple, whose blessed baby had arrived at the period of dentition. After the meal was finished, and the young -mother with her graceful industry was about to dispose of the breakfast china, the youngster up-stairs set up a terrific howl. Conflict in the maternal bosom. Should she attend to the coffee-cups first, or to the child? The Solicitor gravely advised her: "' You should take care of the breakfast-things first, as the baby is a tea-thing-a play on the term bi-cuspid, Madam.' "But the vocabulary of vituperation appears too limited, when I come to speak of the verbal depravity of that unfortunate young man, who is somewhat widely known, among us, as the 'Colonel.' He is not content to maltreat tile , . ..... -' CLASSIC. 2" English and Anglo-American languages, but he must also attack the tongue of the noble Romans -surveying the possibilities of punning, as it were, from a Latting Observatory. A few of his attempts read as follows: Inscription for a gambler's purse- "E Pluribus Unum-won from many." 12. Motto for a resurrectionist: " )e -Mortzds nil, nisi Bonum. Nothing to do with the Dead, except to Bone 'em." "'13. Sentiment for the supporters of the ' Metropolitan Police Bill: "Interest Rei2ubliece sit fins litium--It is for the Interest of Repub- lican Lawyers that there should be a Fine Litiga- tion." "'14. Apothegm concerning a pickpocket who left a Broadway stage without paying his' fare : "Ealsus in uno, falsus in Omnibus." - I will say nothing in regard to these crimes of the Colonel. I can only imitate the example of the man celebrated for profanity upon whom some' mischievous boys played a scurvy trick, for the express purpose of being entertained by his expected imprecations. The boys were dis- appointed, for the skillful swearer turned to them with a look of melancholy and only said: "It's no use--I can't do justice to the subject." "Without further words, therefore, the Report is respectfully submitted. "THE M. W. G. PUNSTER." 4, page: 278-279[View Page 278-279] 278 THE PASHA PAPERS. Marvellous, my gentle Tompkins, was the effect of that brief Report. The unfortunate criminals, who were thereby exposed, repented in dust and ashes, and resolved thenceforth to live cleanly. And now throughout Glenwood, even from the Quarry at Hastings to the Nun- nery at Riverdale, naught is heard but sweet and serious converse:-and when on the Steamer I. P. Smith, or in the smoking cars of the Hud- son River Railroad, the depraved natives of Nyack, Haverstraw, or Tarrytown attempt to maltreat their mother tongue, the Men of Glen- wood exhibit such sincerely deep disgust, that the offenders slink away in utter confusion. Faithfully your friend, THE TRANSLATOR. THE SEVENTEENTH EPISTLE. The Rear Admiral has been to Washington. His theory of our Government. To the Erudite Abel Ben Hassan. I HAVE been to Washington, and, ALLAH be praised, I have returned in safety to New York. On reaching my temporary home at the St. Nicholas, yesterday, that experienced youth, Tompkins Effendi, rushed to meet me, and saluted me as one might salute a friend who had been lately rescued from a watery grave. '"My precious Pasha, have you really re- -'R turned " . '- i;"Yea, verily." "Alive and well?" . .s ." Yea, verily." "And your skull is not fractured?"' i; "Not that I am aware of." "And your carotid arteries are not cut asun- der a" "I think not." 279 2T9 . .. page: 280-281[View Page 280-281] 280 THE PASHA PAPERS. "But your pocket was picked, surely '-- C No." "At least your emerald ring was stolen?" No." "Then should you be a grateful Turk." I do not exactly know what my lively acquaintance meant by these curious questions and this strange conclusion. Any one would suppose that I had been visiting the grim cave of the Forty Thieves, instead of the Federal Capital of this great and free country. But when I requested him to explain his meaning more fully, he only continued- "You ought to be the most grateful of Otto- mans. You ought to appoint for yourself a special day of Thanksgiving, order a private Turkey, a personal mince pie, and a strictly indi- vidual mug of flip, and celebrate your deliver- ance in the good old New England style." And that was all the explanation I could get. I ought perhaps to give you a full description of the Capital of the United States of America, but, really, I am at a loss for something to describe. It has no topography-no com- merce-no art-no manufactures--no physical characteristics of a city. Perhaps it may be best described by saying that it is a large lodging-house for the executive, legislative, and judicial representatives of the A THEORY. 281 sovereign people. While these representatives remain in their lodging-house, it flourishes; when they depart, it is like the ruins of Palmyra, and the wild beast and the serpent might wander safely through its desolate halls. But what you chiefly wish to know, O learned friend, is the manner in which the business of governing is done in Washington. Let me briefly unfold this to your oriental mind. The representatives of the Sovereign People of the United States are original in their theory, and aboriginal in their practice, of legislation. The theory is that the Best Government is that which Governs Least. The Members of Congress convene, pledged to support this glorious doctrine. From all parts of the land they assemble, prepared to do as little as possible in the way of governing. They have been carefully selected from the numbers of those who know nothing about the business of govern- ing. They have studiously avoided any prepara- tion for the task of Governing. They carefully shun any associations, affiliations, affinities, that might by possibility furnish them with any knowledge of the subject of Governing. Having assembled in solemn conclave, fully imbued with this original theory, they commence its abori- ginal practice. Like the North American Indians, of whom you have read in history-they have a Big Talk. page: 282-283[View Page 282-283] 282 THE PASHA PAPERS. Before the session has commenced, however, it is well known that EKIcKPoo is to be the subject to be talked about, and every senator and repre- sentative is fully prepared to talk about Kickapoo. As to the material and moral welfare of Kick- apoo, they know nothing and care nothing; but as a subject for a Big Talk, they understand it thoroughly, and soon the talk begins. Mr. Spreadeagle, of the House, gives notice of a Bill to Extend the Area of Freedom by Organ- izing the Territory of Kickapoo. The bill goes to the Committee on Territories, whose chairman is hostile to the measure. He combats it from motives of the purest patriotism. Is he not a Big-Endian, and will not the Territory of Kick- apoo send to Congress -a Little-Endian delegate, and when she becomes a state, Little-Endian senators and representatives? The chairman puts the bill in his pocket, and employs his time in driving out with the lovely wife of the gentle- man from Arkansas. Mr. Spreadeagle grows impatient, and moves that the Committee be instructed to bring in the Bill:-but just as the motion is about to be put-- f The MeYber from Pennsylvania rises to a question of privilege. ----His remarks, made in his own district during an exciting canvass for Justice of the Peace, have been distorted and misinterpreted A DEBATE. ' 283 by the Metropolitan Tomahawk--the most igno- rant, contemptible, dirty The Member from New York, second cousin of the Editor of the Tomahawk, expresses the opinion that the Gentleman from Pennsylvania is a villain. Mr. Spreadeagle gives utterance to his convic- tion that the Gentleman "from New York' is a drunken liar. Sensation. Flashing of bowie knives. A rush from different quarters of the chamber. A lull. The Member from Pennsylvania explains his language by saying that he intended no personal allusion to the Gentleman from New York. The Gentleman from New York avers that the Mem- ber from Pennsylvania is the -most upright and honorable man on the floor, and that as his remark to the :contrary was made under the excitement of sudden exasperation, he withdraws the same. The question returns to the motion to instruct the Committee on Territories to report on Kicka- poo. The motion is debated by twenty-five members on each side, each speaking not less than three hours. The Gentleman from Alabama moves as an amendment, that the word " not " be inserted in the resolution under discussion, so that it shall read that the Committee on Territories be instructed not to report on Kickapoo. page: 284-285[View Page 284-285] x - ^. - -. . ^1 284 THE PASHA PAPERS. The debate is renewed and continued for a fortnight; during which time the Gentleman from Missouri distinguishes himself by talking three days and a half-the longest speech ever made by any man from the beginning of the world to the day of the date of this letter. At the expiration of this fortnight the Gentle- man from Vermont moves an amendment to the amendment-that the words "Fejee Islands" be inserted in the resolution, in place and stead of the word "Kickapoo." The Speaker rules that the amendment is out of order; an appeal is taken from his decision; the Speaker holds that the question of appeal cannot be discussed; another appeal is taken, and decided against the Speaker. The question of the first appeal is thereupon discussed for one week-during which period the Gentleman from Connecticut favors the House with an eloquent review of English Parlia- mentary Law and Jefferson's Manual. At length the decision of the Speaker is sus- tained-when a motion is made to strike out from the Resolution everything after the word Resolved. More talk. The Gentleman from Wisconsin delivers a speech which fills ten columns of the Great Western Prairie iHen, and "which," says the Editor of that journal, "for profound research, and classic elegance, is unequalled in the annals of debate." MORE DEBATE. 285 As he concludes, and the vote on the last amendment is about to be taken, the Gentleman from Michigan moves that the House adjourn; and as that motion is always in order, the vote is taken, and the House adjourns. The friends of the Bill are in despair. The Senate has just passed a Bill to Organize the Territory of Kickapoo, with the proviso that no native of Congo or Switzerlaiid shall ever be allowed to set foot upon its soil; and that no one shall vote who cannot with his revolver bring down six men in six seconds at the distance of sixty feet. Sensation. The Senate produces the sensation. The measure is known as the Six Sixty Bill. It goes to the House, and, after an interesting dis- cussion of four weeks, is referred to a Special Committee;--and, with singular swiftness, the Committee report it in -six minutes, without amendment. Greater sensation. The Lobby-mighty mystery-is too busy for the Special Committee, and when the Report comes in it is ordered to lie on the table. It lies there for one month, and is nearly forgotten; when Mr. Spreadeagle gives notice that he shall call up the Bill-the Senate Bill-next week. The Bill is called up. The Gentleman from Maine offers an amendment to the effect that all natives of Congo who are whitewashed once a month may enter the Territory, and that the E page: 286-287[View Page 286-287] 286 THE PASHA PAPERS. Six Sixty Revolvers shall be of the Pipkin patent. The debate on this amendment exceeds in length any previous one, occupying six weeks, including the evening sessions. Six of the more prominent members speak two days each. The Gentleman from Maryland denounces the Pip- kin patent, and asserts that Pipkin, the patentee, spends all his winters in Washington, dining wining and winning iA e representatives of the People. The Gentleman from Florida reviews the Scriptural and Ethnological arguments in favor of refusing any residence to natives of Congo, whitewashed or unwhitewashed, and proves clearly that they have no business to be natives of Congo. Fifteen other gentlemen obtain permission to print speeches, which they have never had a chance to deliver, and so the country is supplied with waste paper at a postal expense of $250,000. At last the previous question is moved and carried, and the Bill, as amended by the House, is passed. It returns to the Senate, and, by way of instructive variety, is there debated. The Senate orders a Committee of Conference. The House does the same. The Committee of Conference convene. After due deliberation they report in favor of the House amendments, provided the House will vote an appropriation of $50,000,000 for the A COMPROMSE. 287 purpose of establishing a line of Ferry Boats from San Francisco to the Navigator Islands. A majority of the House are in favor of this simple compromise-their system of legislation being, confessedly, a congeries of compromises-- but unfortunately only six days of the session remain. Twenty members of the opposition speak against tine, relieving each other like sentinels, and instructing the country with regard to the prospects of everybody in the next Presidential campaign. The momentous hour of adjournment arrives. The clock strikes. The Speaker's hammer falls. Congress has ad- journed. - THE BILL IS KILLED. At the hour of adjournment thirty members of the House are on the floor, in a technical sense, and twenty-five in a literal sense; and spiteful observers say that the supine posture of the latter is to be attributed to the effect of stimulating drink. But the sublime theory, of which I have spoken, has been realized in practice; and the Legislature has disbanded without Governing at all. Do you ask what they have done? Well- they have worn a large number of well-cut gar- ments-driven a large number of elegant horses -aided the cause of temperance by destroying a large quantity of alcoholic beverages-played in- numerable games of billiards-argued some causes in the Supreme Court-combated, with more or less success, the great Washington "tiger"- \ . . ....j page: 288-289[View Page 288-289] 288 THE PASHA PAPERS. aided a deserving Lobby in the prosecution of its shrewd designs-flooded the country with printed documents, which are useful for various purposes-and drawn their pay and mileage. When I asked the youthful Tompkins How the Country was Governed, he replied: -- "It kind o' grows." And with this luminous response, I suppose that you and I must be content. In wonder, Thine, MOHAMMED. [FROM THE SOLICITOR-GENERAL OF GLENWOOD.] GLENWOOD, April, 1869. Translator of Mohammed Pasha's litters. SIR: It appears, by the Seventeenth Epistle of the Rear Admiral, that neither he, nor his acute friend Tompkins, have discovered the secret of the manner in which our Government is managed. I deem it my duty to enlighten their minds in regard to this interesting topic. When I visited our Federal Capital some winters ago--no matter how many-I had the honor and pleasure to attend a Levee of the President at the Executive Mansion. On 'the evening in question, the crowd was immense ;- composed, as you know, of all who chose to come and look at the great man whom they had helped to make the most important personage in the country-(or, as some people will have it, in the world)-and fully possessed with that athletic selfishness peculiar to American assem- 13 289 page: 290-291[View Page 290-291] 290 THE PASHA PAPERS. blies. Of course there was a jam-nobody having the slightest regard for the toilet or toes of anybody else. The struggle commenced in the Crimson Room. Just as I was resigning myself to be reduced to the shape and consistency of a warm muffin-I was relieved by the sight of a familiar face seething in the caldron of countenances. I say I was relieved, for I was glad to see the owner of this face, though he was nothing but a clerk in the Treasury Department, and under other circumstances would probably have been as uninteresting a person as you could meet. We were floated along together into the Blue Room, where we paid our very brief respects to the Chief Magistrate, and passed on to the Green Room to recover from the damage inflicted by the patriotic mob. While we were wiping our brows and arrang- ing our shirt-collar, we fell into conversation in the usual way-first, the weather-second, the ladies-third, politics; and then my young com- panion confided to me what I believe to be the real method by which our Federal Affairs are controlled. He said: "Did you ever see a book entitled, I think, the ' Republic of the United States as Traced in the Writings of Alexander Hamilton?'-No? Well, sir, you should read it. It is an interest- ing exemplification of filial piety. It will appeal tr MY FATHER. 291 directly to yo'ur faith and your feelings. The worthy gentleman who wrote that volume, proves very clearly that his Father controlled the earlier affairs of our Government in a way that ordinary readers of history have never dreamed of. "Curiously enough, my Father in like manner controls the present affairs of our Government in a way that few persons suspect. There he is, now-leaning against the wall in the blue room- venerable party with a bald head. You would not think that he is in reality the President of this Republic-would you? But he is. I do not wish to detract from the well-earned fame of our venerable Chief Magistrate, for energy, candor, and perspicuity; but a regard for truth compels me to say that my Father is the great Power in this land. I will tell you why. "The direction of affairs at Washington is in the hands of the reporters for the New press; my Father is the chief among tse reporters, and has for several years controlled the policy and action of the Government. Of course he has never accepted a seat in the cabinet for that would defeat his plans. He has declined all official position, so that he might be untrammelled. The way he manages is this: "When an important measure is introduced to the notice of the Government in any manner, upon which action of some sort will have to be i, . . page: 292-293[View Page 292-293] 292 THE PASHA PAPERS. taken at some future day, my Father immedi- ately telegraphs to the Metropolitan Braggadocio the decision of the Administration on the sub- ject. Of course you understand that no such decision is at that time made, indeed the announcement appears before the President has obtained the information he requires from the Departments. But, if my Father determines that the course of the Government shall be in one direction, he reports that the drecision is in the opposite direction. He represents the Presi- dent as having determined the question, with great dispatch, in favor of the very view which my Father opposes. "One who does not understand the manage- ment of my Father, would naturally suppose that the President, being thus openly commit- ted, would be influenced in favor of the views he is represented to have espoused. By no means--as you will presently see. Let us illus- trate. "When my Father telegraphed to the Brag- gadocio that the Administration would certainly carry through the proposed Tax on Frying Palls -the excitement in New York was great. The journals of the Opposition denounced the scheme as a despotic invasion of the hearthside, and a violation of the Lares-and predicted that if the President should persist in his wicked course, he would not only involve the country in a terrible i . . . A BROIL. 293 broil, but would himself fall from the frying pan into the fire. "As the great city papers snarled, the little country papers yelled with frenzy. A Tax on Frying Pans?--the scheme was too atrocious for patient consideration. "Public opinion began to be roused. Country gentlemen wrote letters to country members in Congress--some expressing the hope that the Representatives of the People would not eat, sleep, or shave, until the abominations of the Administration were exposed, and visited with the indignation of all good men. "Other country gentlemen agreed in the main with the Administration, but expressed the fear that the country at large might regard the proposed action as hasty. "Others suggested that a slight modification of the view taken by the Administration might, with entire safety, be conceded to the Oppo- sition. "A few country gentlemen in the South wrote to express their entire satisfaction with the measure. They did not use frying pans--they balied their hoe-cakes in the ashes-and they should be pleased to see the doughnut-devouring Yankees roundly taxed for the use of their fanatical and atheistic pans. "Thereupon all the country members who had received letters from their constituents, ran L I page: 294-295[View Page 294-295] 294 THE PASHA PAPERS. to the White House, and squirmed nervously until admitted to the President, and permitted to discuss the subject with him. "The President was astonished to learn that the report in question had been set afloat. [He had read it a week ago, in the Braggadocio]. He would take measures to prevent the currency of such misstatements in the future. It would give him immense satisfaction to know the name of the malicious person who put forth the story. [' He knew perfectly well that it was my Father, for he often jokes with him now about the Tax on ]rying Pans.] "The country members went away chap- fallen. They had not helped the President, nor had he asked or required their assistance. He knew perfectly well how the land of Public Opinion lay. He did not flatter anybody by asking information on the subject; but actually quenched those who brought the information with an overwhelming sense of his own supe- riority. "Iiy Father telegraphed again, announcing a new and quite inconsistent plan of action for the Administration. This movement brought about the President's ears a new swarm of hornets. His political enemies were, of course, united in abuse, but his friends were disconcerted : and divided by the conflicting announcements. Quar- relling among themselves, their efforts only i , MY FATHER. 295 tended to embarrass the President still more. He was still uncommitted, yet he hardly knew how to decide. "In this way my Father pulled the wires tele- graphic, announcing all sorts of decisions except the one he wished to see adopted. Every fresh announcement produced fresh dissatisfaction. The President was hedged in on all sides, but one, and on that side there was only a single path of escape-leading directly into my Father's trap. "The President was obliged to take this path, and it was at last announced officially, and, this time, correctly, that the Administration did not entertain, and never had entertained, for a moment, the idea of laying a Tax on Frying Pans-that the genius of our Government for- bade such a measure--that the parties who had asserted the contrary were calumniators and villains--as black and loathsome as the Adminis- tration was immaculate and noble. "So the opposition press was utterly con- founded, and the President gained great re- nown. "And my Father?--why he never for a moment wished that a Tax should be laid on Frying Pans. Was he not employed by a large number of manufacturers to prevent its imposi- tion? Of course he was, and you see how skill- fully he did it-how he united the opposition, page: 296-297[View Page 296-297] 296 THE PASHA PAPERS. divided the councils of those whom he had represented tobe in favor of the measure, and at last sounded the praises of the President be- cause he determined to strangle the scheme. My Father, sir, is the sire of the great and glorious Anti-Tax-on-Frying-Pans principle, so firmly laid in the platform of the present Administra- tion, and of many other equally glorious princi- -ples of our Party." ---- I left the Clerk of the Treasury Depart- ment, wandered into the East Room (which a Wall street friend of mine, with great disre- spect, describes as "a huge grog-shop, sir "-) passed into the hall, and took French leave of the Executive. I am inclined to think that the theory of my acquaintance is correct-and that his Father, in reality, rules our great and glorious country. Sincerely, W. THE EIGHTEENTH EPISTLE. The Rear Admiral considers the Code of Honor: and Other Things. Beloved Abel. , IT is a melancholy fact that men will quarrel. It is a refreshing fact that there is at least one creed on earth which is adapted to the peaceful settlement of quarrels. This creed is professed in the city of Washing- ton. Washington is a Christian community. It has several large churches, over which several learned and eloquent divines preside. The people are governed by the doctrines of the Christian religion-the chief of which doctrines is that we should forgive our enemies. Do you wish to know how this noble maxim is exemplified in Washington life? In the most ingenious and instructive manner. You can readily see, my charming friend, that if you were to forgive your enemy quietly and privately, the moral effect of your magnanimity i 13* 297 ! . . - A page: 298-299[View Page 298-299] 298 THE PASHA PAPERS. would be in a great measure lost. Forgiveness of injuries should therefore be exercised in the most notorious manner, so that everybody may witness the edifying spectacle, and be profited thereby. Suppose we briefly consider the several steps of this public Christian clemency. The Honorable Peter Funk, during the pro- gress of the famous debate upon the Bill for the Improvement of Barnacle Beach, proves himself an undiluted enemy of the, Hon. Benjamin Bunkum. In the course of a lengthy harangue, (" than which," said the Funktown Fr'e Trader, "nothing in all oratory is more thrilling and i tremendous") he asserts that the grandfather of Bunkum was a tory and a toady; that Bunkum himself is a delusive demagogue; that Bunkum has doubtless been paid roundly for advocating the reckless expenditure of the People's money upon the desolate shores of Barnacle;-that whether he has been so bribed or not is a matter of little consequence, when it is well known that the constituents of Bunkum are scaly fishermen; and their representative a jelly-fish;-- At this point the Honorable Benjamin Bunkum hurls his inkstand at the Honorable Peter Funk's head. Funk gracefully dodges the inkstand, and returns a volume of the Congres- sional Globe--decidedly the heaviest missile that could be thrown. IERIENDLY EPISTLES. 299 Bunkum avoids the volume, rushes to the seat of Funk, and takes that gentleman by the throat. Funk grasps Bunkumn by the hair. Tableau. The friends of the parties separate them, and the debate proceeds. On the following morning the Honorable Peter Funk receives a letter, couched in this language- "SIR : "The insults offered to my honor, yesterday, demand either an instant apology, or the satisfaction due to a gentle- man. "My friend, General Slash, has kindly consented to represent me in the settlement of the affair. "Your obedient servant, B. BUNKUM." To which the Honorable Peter Funk replies- t SIR: "I have no apologies to offer. "I leave the matter entirely in the hands of my esteemed friend Colonel Dash, "Your obedient servant, P. FUNK." And thereupon General Slash and Colonel Dash meet to arrange the preliminaries of a duel -for you must know, O friend, that the meaning of the mysterious missives above set forth is, briefly, this: "You have insulted me, and I therefore request as a particular favor that, with- out further delay, you will shoot ime, if you can." page: 300-301[View Page 300-301] 300 THE PASHA PAPERS. The first thing to be done is to ihake the mat- ter as public as possible. The correspondents of the press are therefore set to work. They circu- late a number of stories that do not entirely agree; That Funk has challenged Bunkum- that Bunkum has challenged Funk-that Bunkum has accepted the challenge-that Funk has accepted the challenge-that Bunkumn has not accepted the challenge-that Funk has not accepted the challenge-that Bunkum has chosen broadswords for his weapons-that Funk has chosen Kentucky rifles for his-that the parties will fight in a dark room with bowie knives- that the weapons have not been chosen at all- that the duellists will fight at Niagara Falls- that the encounter will take place at Harper's Ferry--that the belligerents will meet at ; Hoboken-that it is uncertain where they will meet-that the wife of Funk is crazy with terror -that the Father of Bunkum is cool and col- lected-that Funk has no wife-that Bunkum's father is in Australia-that the parties have been bound over to keep the peace--that they have not been bound over to keep the peace-that they will not keep the peace whether they are bound over or not. Then General Slash and Colonel Dash dispute about the rights of their principals. Bunkum had no right to challenge Funk, for Funk was the insulted party. MORE RUMORS. 301 Funk has perhaps a right to choose the weapons, but Bunkum has a right to choose the ground. If General Slash insists upon his construction of the Code, he will be held personally responsi- ble by Dash. ----If Dash insists upon his. construction of the Code, he will be held personally responsible by Slash. The correspondents of the press renew their exertions: ----- There is a prospect of a diffi-ulty between the seconds-the report of a prospec of difficulty between the seconds is incorrect--f: neral Slash will certainly challenge Colonel Da -there is no truth in the rumor that General Slash will challenge Colonel Dash-General Slash has challenged Colonel Dash-Colonel Dash has challenged General Slash-Colonel Dash has not challenged General Slash-the widowed aunt of General Slash is distracted-the alleged widowed amut is a second cousin whose second husband is still living-the aged mother of Colonel Dash has had an affecting interview with her son, in which she displayed a heart-rending maternal agony, only equalled by the manly, yet tenderly filial, firmness of the latter-Colonel Dash has no mother, that venerable lady having been killed by being thrown from a buggy some twenty years ago. page: 302-303[View Page 302-303] 302 THE PASHA PAPERS. The excitement increases. The illustrated newspapers teem with pictorial intelligence.* l Among other woodcuts we have- ----A portrait of the Honorable Mr. Funk from a photograph. -- A portrait of the Honorable Mr. Bunkum from the same source. -----A portrait of General Slash from a minia- ture by Staigg. - A portrait of Colonel Dash from a draw- ing by Elliott. A portrait of Mr. Funk's wife, represent- ing her as she would have appeared if she had ever existed. --A lively representation of the battle in the House during the debate upon the Barnacle Bill. A view of Barnacle Beach as it now looks. -:- A view of the same interesting locality as it will probably look when the Bill shall have been passed and the improvements made. -- The inkstand that was hurled at the head of Funk. ---- The Congressional Globe that was returned. * The word "intelligence" is applied somewhat freely in reference to the contents of newspapers; certainly not in the sense in which it is used when we speak of " a person of intelli- gence." -TRANS. FULL PARTICULARS. ,303 ---The pen with which the challenge was written. ---- A fac-simile of the challenge itself. ----View of the broadswords which Bunkum was said to have chosen. -- -View of the Kentucky rifles which it is generally conceded that Funk did not choose. --- View of the dark room and bowie-knives which, it was alleged, would be selected. -1- View of the grave of Dash's mother, with the poetical inscription giving an account of her death. ----Portrait of a greyhound once owned by the first husband of Slash's second cousin. -----The belligerents as they appeared after they were bound over to keep the peace; I including a profile of the magistrate who bound them over. -- -General Slash as he appeared shaving himself on Tuesday morning, showing the ex- pression of the General's face as he, reaped his upper lip. ----The second husband of the General's second cousin, digging gold, in Australia:- and -- General view of the harbor of Melbourne. The country begins to be convulsed. The telegraph wires thrill with conflicting messages. The newsboys proclaim extra editions with the latest particulars. Expectation is not content ...................... .. .,. ....... ... , page: 304-305[View Page 304-305] 304 THE PASHA PAPERS. with standing on tip-toe-she climbs to the tops of the highest trees. Then comes the ddnouement which is to prove that Funk and Bunkum and Slash and Dash, instead of being cut-throats and heathen, are magnanimous philanthropists and element Christians. A card appears in the Washington newspapers: TO THE PUBLIC. "It gives us pleasure to state that the painful personal difficulty between the Honorable Peter Funk and the Hon. Benjamin Bunkum, has been satisfactorily adjusted without prejudice to the honor of either party. "The insinuations, inkstand, and Congressional Globe have been withdrawn in the order in which they were thrown out. (Signed) "A. SAVAGE SLASH. O. RUSH DASH." And thus you see the great fundamental doc- trine with which we set out is obeyed in the most open and impressive way-a way far more exemplary than any private obedience could be. The whole worl a- es, and is glad to see, and is profited by seeing, how the Honorable Members forgive their respective injuries, love their res- pective enemies, and ,respectively bless those who curse them;-and moreover, the virtue of the Honorable Members, has its own reward, for thenceforth, in politics and society, they are o . o . , . . . .. . . . , , s . . ANOTHER WAsY. 805 considered greater and better men than ever before. Have I not often told you, O delight of my diaphragm, that the Americans are the most ingenious people under -the sun . I regret to say, however, that there are some of the great men of this country who are not so exemplary in their display of the self-denying virtue of forgiveness. When the Hon. Mr. Blab accused the Hon. Mr. Slab of all sorts of iniquities, S. went immedi- ately to the room of B. at one of the Washing- ton hotels, and a private fight there took place, resulting in great damage to the countenances and clothes of both parties. As there were no spectators present at this important combat, the Public Mind was prodigiously vexed by the con- flicting accounts. which were circulated by enter- prising' reporters. To quiet the Public Mind, and at the same time relieve the future historians of the United States from a host of embarrass- ments, Mr. S. wrote a veracious statement of the entire affair and sent it to one of the morning journals for publication. Curiously enough, Mr. B., on. the same day, wrote a veracious statement of the entire affair, sent it to the same journal, and the two descriptions were published on the same morning. I will copy th6m for you, in order -that you may note their coincidences: ,L .... , page: 306-307[View Page 306-307] "A CARD. "In consequence of the many false and absurd stories which I have been circulated in regard to the rencontre between my- self and Mr. Slab, I deem it proper to publish this personal statement. "On the morning of the 23d instant, I was awakened by a knock at my door, to which I immediately replied-"Who's there?"No answer was re- turned, but the door was burst open, and Mr. Slab entered and closed it behind him. See- ing that he held a cowhide in his hand, and was advancing in a threatening manner, I sprang from my bed, seized him by the neck, and, snatch- ing the whip from his grasp, administered to him a severe thrashing. Though physically a stronger man than myself, his courage forsook him, and in accents of humble entreaty he begged me to let him go. I then took him by the ears and led him out of the room. "The above is a concise and truthful statement of the cir- cumstances of this case. In regard to the charges brought by me against Mr. S., I have only to say that I am prepared ( A CARD. "In consequence of the many 'alse and absurd stories which have been circulated in regard to the rencontre between my- self and Mr. Blab, I deem it proper to publish this personal statement. "On the morning of the 23d instant, I knocked at the door of Mr. Blab's room, and imme- diately received the reply of "Who's there?" I gave my name, but no answer being re- turned I opened the door and entered, closing it behind me. Mr. B., seeing that I held a cowhide in my hand, and was advancing toward him, sprang from his bed. I seized him by the neck, and holding him firm- ly in my grasp, administered to him a severe thrashing. Though physically a stronger man than myself, his courage forsook him, and in accents of humble entreaty he begged me to let him go. I then took him by the ears, led him to the washstand, left him, and re- tired from the room. "The above is a concise and truthful statement of the cir- cumstances of this case. In regard to the charges brought against me by Mr. B., I am to prove the truth of them by the most explicit and reliable evidence. "JOHN BLAB." prepared to prove the falsity of them, by the most explicit and reliable evidence. "JOHN SLAB." Thus the country is left in a state of painful uncertainty with regard to the merits of this controversy. And I think it would puzzle even the most acute Yankee to get at the real history of the case. Vaguely Thine, OHAMMED. page: 308-309[View Page 308-309] THE NINETEENTH EPISTLE. The Rear Admiral weighs Anchor, and writes a few Valedic tory Remarks. To my Learned, Experienced, and Delightful Young Friend, Tompkins jffendi. THE Blue Peter, delicious youth, is flying at the fore. The good ship lies in the stream, " hove short" to the anchor. The topsails are brailed up ready to be shaken out. The boatswain is piping all hands to the windlass. 'Tis flood tide and a snoring breeze blows from the nor'- west. In less nautical, though perhaps more intelli- gible terms, I am about to leave the city of New York, and the Occidental World. Already I scud in fancy over the waves of the rough Atlantic, and the blue billows of the Mediterranean:-already the fair waters of the Golden Horn, the white walls and dark ver- dure of Stamboul and the skyish head of blue Olympus, rise before my delighted eyes. We have spoken many words to each other, my Tompkins, in a free and easy way, concern- ing the things seen by me in this large city; and 808 RETEROSPEOTIVE, 309 many epistles have I written on the same sub- jects to my well beloved Abel, the Son of Hassan (whom may ALLAH love!)-and now that I am homeward bound, I have taken pen in hand to tell you some thoughts that have crossed my mind about the people and prospects of your country at large. What shall I say? I am neither a seer nor a sage--simply a sailor, interested mostly in the latest improvements in steam-frigates. But I should be more or less than a man, if I could turn my back upon this New World without some serious thoughts. Do not think, O honey- tongued bulbul, that I have seen nothing here except the social follies, political corruption, mad speculation, many-colored falsities, which I noticed in my letters to Hassan's son. I have seen in yonr country many elements of progress in what is beneficent and beautiful. You have a sea-coast large enough for the most energetic commercial enterprise: rivers, canals, and railways, weaving a net-work of arteries through which the material wealth of the land circulates; a soil fertile enough to satisfy the most ambitious farmer; historical associations impressive enough to prompt the most devoted patriotism; scenery lovely and grand enough to inspire the purest and most varied imaginings of art. You have a clear, brisk climate, peculiarly adapted to nurture an elastic, sensitive physical page: 310-311[View Page 310-311] 310 THE PASHA PAPERS. organism in the people-large brains, bright eyes, quick-thrilling nerves, muscles somewhat slender, but lithe and swift as those of the leopard--an organism that is ready to do all sorts of material and mental work in a rapid and dex- terous manner. The blood of your people is good. Its chief component, I suppose, is the Anglo-Saxon cur- rent, which has streamed down from the healthy blue-eyed Germans-holding in solution such characteristic ideas as those Qf personal inde- pendence, spirituality of faith, and home ;--the first insuring the superb freedom of the indi- vidual-the second a severe and sublimated religious culture-and the last combining the two former in a dear vital reality-as the statue of the ancient artist was warmed into life for domestic joy. And with these fine Saxon traits are mingled the nobility of the Normans and the Ivivacity of the Celts. With such .a heritage of country and charac- ter, I can foresee nothing but the highest success for the United States of America--unless they squander their portion. ALLAH--who alone is truly wise and great- has decreed that the sceptre of power should pass from the East to the West. We of the Orient have reached our grand climacteric, and can only sit quietly with folded hands in the peaceful reveries of old age, and watch while the i 1 * ' '- *-- HOPE. 3" younger nations wrestle for the wreaths of re- nown, or fight the battles of duty. We had our day and opportunity some centuries ago-and now your time has come. --- And such an age-in which the gait of progress is so august, the aspect of events so dig- nified and dense with meaning, the life of man so rife withl responsibility! *-- If I do not greatly err, the world looks to America with longing eyes, hoping to see a nobler national life than has ever yet been wit- nessed on the earth ;-a life in which the widest personal liberty shall be reconciled with a gov- ernment of truest power--the widest scope of thought with the greatest reverence for Him who gave us faculties of thought-a life in which shall be garnered the richest fruits of the earth's experience of-what is lovely, and good, and great. For such a national life as this, the thoughtful men of all time have yearned with desire unutterable--and died without the sight -for the ways of Providence 'are inscrutable, and no mortal can retard or accelerate his chariot wheels. But so far as we may judge, the time has come for America, under His guid- ance, to achieve great things. You will not dis- appoint us? ----What virtue and vigilance should you exercise! The movement of your nation is like that of one of your own railway trains, swift, splendid, powerful-and, if rightly controlled, page: 312-313[View Page 312-313] 312 THE PASHA PAPERS, t effective and safe. No dromedary can do the work of this fiery, steel-sinewed steed. But what intelligent skill is essential inr the engineer -what care in the conductor-what unanimity in the brakemen--what watchfulness in those who have charge of the track! Suppose the managers of the railway should select an engi- neer merely because he had black eyes, and a conductor merely because he had curly hair, and no brakemen but those who disbelieved the Atomic Theory, and no flagmen but those who' were in favor of a United States Bank--without regard to their real qualifications for duty ;-and suppose that while these appointed agents were neglecting their business, an embankment should be washed away, and the whole train hurled into the abyss and dashed to pieces:-would not the employers be justly held responsible for the wreck? Oh that the people of the United States would remember two most notable facts-that each one of them is a trustee of a great fund of civilization, skill, knowledge, freedom, justice, and love, for the benefit of all the world;-and that each will have to give some account of his trust. Farewell, my beloved Tompkins. May your beard grow like the lion's-as your courage and magnanimity resemble his! Faithfully, MOHAMMED. i . O i f r r P
