This odd character has lately favored the west with a visit, and during two successive evenings he edified audiences, numbering about a thousand persons, in the rotunda of the St. Louis court-house. Some took him for the Wandering Jew, and as he inveighed against the evils of these modern days, they looked at him with a feeling of awe. One day opposite the Planter's house, during a military parade, George was engaged selling his edition of the “Advocate of Truth,” when a tall hoosier, who had been gazing at him with astonishment for some time, roared out in an immoderate fit of laughter.
“What do you see so funny in me, to laugh at?” inquired George.
“Why, hoss,” said the hoosier, “I wur jest a thinkin' ef I'd seed you out in the woods, with all that har on, they would a been the d—dest runnin' done by this coon ever seen in them diggins—you're ekill to the elephant! and a leetle the har-yest small man I've seen scart up lately.”
A sight at George, on his western tour, has brought to my recollection an anecdote, which entitles him to a place in our collection of odd characters;—it occurred several years since, in Philadelphia, and the writer was an eye witness of the occurrence.
George's favorite neighborhood for “holding forth,” was in and about the famous old “State House,” where, bare-headed—with unshorn beard, and adorned with a simple wooden cross, he, in a few moments, would collect a crowd. At length the police arrested him, for obstructing the passage, and George was sent to the Alms-House. In a few days, he escaped from the institution, and, boiling with indignation, hastened back to his old haunt, to lay his grievances before the people. Having provided himself with a couple of gimlets, he entered the building, raised the large window above the back entrance, and, placing himself on the old-fashioned entablature over the door-way, (the same spot where the Declaration of Independence was read from,) he shut down the window behind him, securing himself from interruption by boring his gimlets through the sash, into the frame. Then, with much solemnity, he proceeded to paraphrase the “Declaration,” applying it to his own particular case. The scene was truly ludicrous. Below, was one of the high constables and an assistant policeman, together with a numerous crowd of curious hearers.
“When, in the course of human events”—began George.
“Will you come down from there?” demanded the constable.
“A long train of abuses and takings up without authority,—”
“Aint you a comin'; now?—if you don't I'll bring you,” threatened authority.
“Our mayor, like the kings of old, set upon us swarms of corrupt and drunken officers to put the prophets of truth into pestilential abodes.”