Were it not for the satirists of America—of whom Josh Billings is one as well as a humorist—it is difficult to imagine to what ludicrous eccentricities the people would lend themselves. Too self-sufficient to listen to argument, they are keenly sensitive to ridicule, and a little of Josh Billings is more effective in doing good than the best sermon a foreign friend could preach them. Burlesque their salient, amiable weaknesses—that is, let them be burlesqued by one of their own people, not by a foreigner—and they at once see the point of the joke. In illustration of this, there was a paper in Cincinnati which was very much given to use the phrase, “this great country,” and carried the use of it to an unwarrantable extent. It ceased to do so when the following appeared in a neighboring journal:—
“This is a glorious country! It has longer rivers xxxi and more of them, and they are muddier and deeper, and run faster, and rise higher, and make more noise, and fall lower, and do more damage than anybody else’s rivers. It has more lakes, and they are bigger and deeper, and clearer, and wetter than those of any other country. Our rail-cars are bigger, and run faster, and pitch off the track oftener, and kill more people than all other rail-cars in this and every other country. Our steamboats carry bigger loads, are longer and broader, burst their boilers oftener, and send up their passengers higher, and the captains swear harder than steamboat captains in any other country. Our men are bigger, and longer, and thicker, can fight harder and faster, drink more mean whiskey, chew more bad tobacco, and spit more, and spit further than in any other country. Our ladies are richer, prettier, dress finer, spend more money, break more hearts, wear bigger hoops, shorter dresses, and kick up the devil generally to a greater extent than all other ladies in all other countries. Our children squall louder, grow faster, get too expansive for their pantaloons, and become twenty years old sooner by some months than any other children of any other country on the earth.”
Burlesques, such as the above, whether written by Artemus Ward or Josh Billings, have not been without their good effect in the United States. The genius of “hifaluten” as the Americans call it—the word is derived, I believe, from “hyphen-looping”—has received many mortal wounds lately from the hands of the satirists and good results have ensued.
The writings of Josh Billings cannot be read with out exciting mirth, without sometimes hitting home, nor without the reader becoming satisfied that America has added to her humorous authors one in every way well qualified to take foremost rank.
For real side-shaking fun, the reader may turn to many pages of this volume and find a copious supply; but, if he is desirous of humor and pathos allied, let him turn to the chapter on “The Fust Baby,” page 383. He will there find that, underlying the caustic wit of Josh Billings, and a stratum or two deeper than his quaint fun, is a quiet layer of genuine feeling capable of comprehending and of originating the power to express the very poetry of pathos. The “fust baby” born “on the wrong side of the garden ov Eden” is invested in this humorous essay with all the interest which babyhood is susceptible of acquiring.
There is little that remains to be said relative to Mr. Shaw, except to express the opinion that he has taken a very worthy position among the authors of his own country, and is likely to become a general favorite in England in his character of “Josh Billings.” Some of his latest papers were contributed to the New York Saturday Press, under the head of “Cooings and Billings,” with a commendatory notice by the editor of that paper, Henry Clapp, jun., whose name is not altogether unknown to the literary men of London and of Paris.
[*] “Artemus Ward, His Book,” p. 316.
{ESSAYS.}
KONTENTMENT.
Kontentment is the gift ov God, as it kan be cultivated a little, but it is hard tew acquire. Kontentment is sed to be the same az happiness, this ackounts for the small amount ov happiness laying around loose, without enny owner. I don’t beleave that man was made tew be kontented, nor happy in this world, for if he had bin, he wouldn’t hav hankered enuff for the other world.