"And now to tell the story of 'The Babes in the Wood'—But we will not, for the hall was not half large enough to accommodate those who came, consequently Mr. Ward will tell it over again at the Metropolitan Theatre next Tuesday evening. The subject will again be 'The Babes in the Wood.'"
Having travelled over the Union with "The Babes in the Wood" lecture, and left his audiences everywhere fully "in the wood" as regarded the subject announced in the title, Artemus Ward became desirous of going over the same ground again. There were not wanting dreary and timid prophets who told him that having "sold" his audiences once, he would not succeed in gaining large houses a second time. But the faith of Artemus in the unsuspecting nature of the public was very large, so with fearless intrepidity he conceived the happy thought of inventing a new title, but keeping to the same old lecture, interspersing it here and there with a few fresh jokes, incidental to new topics of the times. Just at this period General McClellan was advancing on Richmond, and the celebrated fight at Bull's Run had become matter of history. The forcible abolition of slavery had obtained a place among the debates of the day, Hinton Rowan Helper's book on "The Inevitable Crisis" had been sold at every bookstall, and the future of the negro had risen into the position of being the great point of discussion throughout the land. Artemus required a very slender thread to string his jokes upon, and what better one could be found than that which he chose? He advertised the title of his next lecture as "Sixty Minutes in Africa." I need scarcely say that he had never been in Africa, and in all probability had never read a book on African travel. He knew nothing about it, and that was the very reason he should choose Africa for his subject. I believe that he carried out the joke so far as to have a map made of the African continent, and that on a few occasions, but not on all, he had it suspended in the lecture-room. It was in Philadelphia and at the Musical Fund Hall in Locust Street that I first heard him deliver what he jocularly phrased to me as "My African Revelation." The hall was very thronged, the audience must have exceeded two thousand in number, and the evening was unusually warm. Artemus came on the rostrum with a roll of paper in his hands, and used it to play with throughout the lecture, just as recently at the Egyptian Hall, while lecturing on the Mormons, he invariably made use of a lady's riding- whip for the same purpose. He commenced his lecture thus, speaking very gravely and with long pauses between his sentences, allowing his audience to laugh if they pleased, but seeming to utterly disregard their laughter:
"I have invited you to listen to a discourse upon Africa. Africa is my subject. It is a very large subject. It has the Atlantic Ocean on its left side, the Indian Ocean on its right, and more water than you could measure out at its smaller end.
Africa produces blacks—ivory blacks—they get ivory. It also produces deserts, and that is the reason it is so much deserted by travellers. Africa is famed for its roses. It has the red rose, the white rose, and the neg-rose. Apropos of negroes, let me tell you a little story."
Then he at once diverged from the subject of Africa to retail to his audience his amusing story of the Conversion of a Negro, which he subsequently worked up into an article in the Savage Club Papers, and entitled "Converting the Nigger." Never once again in the course of the lecture did he refer to Africa, until the time having arrived for him to conclude, and the people being fairly worn out with laughter, he finished up by saying, "Africa, ladies and gentlemen, is my subject. You wish me to tell you something about Africa. Africa is on the map—it is on all the maps of Africa that I have ever seen. You may buy a good map for a dollar, and if you study it well, you will know more about Africa than I do. It is a comprehensive subject, too vast, I assure you, for me to enter upon to-night. You would not wish me to, I feel that—I feel it deeply, and I am very sensitive. If you go home and go to bed it will be better for you than to go with me to Africa."
The joke about the "neg-rose" has since run the gauntlet of nearly all the minstrel bands throughout England and America. All the "bones," every "middle-man," and all "end-men" of the burnt-cork profession have used Artemus Ward as a mine wherein to dig for the ore which provokes laughter. He has been the "cause of wit in others," and the bread-winner for many dozens of black-face songsters—"singists" as he used to term them. He was just as fond of visiting their entertainments as they were of appropriating his jokes; and among his best friends in New York were the brothers Messrs Neil and Dan Bryant, who have made a fortune by what has been facetiously termed "the burnt-cork opera."
It was in his "Sixty Minutes in Africa" lecture that Artemus Ward first introduced his celebrated satire on the negro, which he subsequently put into print. "The African," said he, "may be our brother. Several highly respectable gentlemen and some talented females tell me that he is, and for argument's sake I might be induced to grant it, though I don't believe it myself. But the African isn't our sister, and wife, and uncle. He isn't several of our brothers and first wife's relations. He isn't our grandfather and great grandfather, and our aunt in the country. Scarcely."
It may easily be imagined how popular this joke became when it is remembered that it was first perpetrated at a time when the negro question was so much debated as to have become an absolute nuisance. Nothing else was talked of; nobody would talk of anything but the negro. The saying arose that all Americans had "nigger-on the-brain." The topic had become nauseous, especially to the Democratic party; and Artemus always had more friends among them than among the Republicans. If he had any politics at all he was certainly a Democrat.
War had arisen, the South was closed, and the lecturing arena considerably lessened. Artemus Ward determined to go to California. Before starting for that side of the American continent, he wished to appear in the city of New York. He engaged, through his friend Mr. De Walden, the large hall then known as Niblo's, in front of the Niblo's Garden Theatre, and now used, I believe, as the dining-room of the Metropolitan Hotel. At that period Pepper's Ghost chanced to be the great novelty of New York City, and Artemus Ward was casting about for a novel title to his old lecture. Whether he or Mr. De Walden selected that of "Artemus Ward's Struggle with a Ghost" I do not know; but I think that it was Mr. De Walden's choice. The title was seasonable, and the lecture successful. Then came the tour to California, whither I proceeded in advance to warn the miners on the Yuba, the travellers on the Rio Sacramento, and the citizens of the Chrysopolis of the Pacific that "A. Ward" would be there shortly. In California the lecture was advertised under its old name of "The Babes in the Wood." Platt's Hall was selected for the scene of operation, and, so popular was the lecturer, that on the first night we took at the doors more than sixteen hundred dollars in gold. The crowd proved too great to take money in the ordinary manner, and hats were used for people to throw their dollars in. One hat broke through at the crown. I doubt if we ever knew to a dollar how many dollars it once contained.
California was duly travelled over, and "The Babes in the Wood" listened to with laughter in its flourishing cities, its mining-camps among the mountains, and its "new placers beside gold-bedded rivers. While journeying through that strangely- beautiful land, the serious question arose—What was to be done next? After California—where?