The mercantile business appeared to agree with his constitution until 1865, when he bethought himself that he had been sent into this wicked world for the express purpose of becoming a journalist. He subsequently began his editorial career on the Philadelphia Enquirer during that same year. Clark made rapid advancement in journalism, and in 1867 became one of the editors of the Evening Bulletin, of which paper he is at present one of the proprietors.
It was soon after Clark entered upon his editorial duties at the Bulletin office that the droll humor of his pen began to attract general attention. His most amusing articles were written in the intervals of his private life, and the more serious daily newspaper work to which he devoted himself. He is not, and never was, a paragrapher, but has thrown out to the world his droll and grotesque humor in the form of narratives. His fun is of the most rollicking kind, and ranks him along with Mark Twain and Artemus Ward. Three volumes of humor have appeared from his pen.
His best known books are Out of the Hurly Burly, and Elbow Room. These works appeared several years ago simultaneously in this country and in England. The sales were large, and over five thousand copies of Elbow Room were sold in London within a month after its publication. Both books have been issued in Canada, where the piratical publishers sold them by the thousand.
His latest work, issued quite early in 1882, entitled The Fortunate Island and Other Stories, is meeting with a wide sale. It is destined to become very popular. Mr. Clark is fond of his home and family. His residence is located in a remote but beautiful suburb of Philadelphia, where he hopes to live to a ripe old age. Mr. Clark is an excellent musician, and for a number of years he acted in the capacity of organist for one of the Quaker City churches.
Besides his book-making Mr. Clark still retains a firm hold on journalism. He takes a leading interest in his paper, the Bulletin, and writes the dramatic criticisms and a portion of the editorials. He also edits the humorous department of Our Continent, a well-known literary weekly, published in Philadelphia.
As a writer and composer of obituary verse Max Adeler has probably no equal, unless it be another, older, and more prominent Philadelphia journalist—Childs, of the Ledger. The following rare exotics are selected from Out of the Hurly Burly:
“Four doctors tackled Johnny Smith—
They blistered and they bled him;
With squills and anti-bilious pills
And ipecac they fed him.