“Then your advice is that people should come to Florida, but beware of the alligator?”
“Dat’s hit! I ain’t got no use for ’er allygator hits to much like er pollytishun—got mo’ mouf dan vittals an’ mo’ hide dan honisty!”
And with this epigram the old man bowed himself out of the sanctum.
CHARLES HOYT.
Frederick Hudson, in his History of Journalism in America, credits the Boston Post with having originated the column of funny paragraphs which are now seen in nearly all the leading newspapers of the United States. The All Sorts column of the Post was started when that paper first appeared, over half a century ago. It was in this department that Mrs. Partington and her son Ike were first introduced to the humor-loving public, and scores of writers have sent forth their wit, during the fifty years past, through this same medium.
George F. Babbit began writing the All Sorts for the Post seven or eight years ago, but relinquished the position a few years later. Babbitt was a graduate of Harvard college, and his witticisms in the Post were of a very brilliant character. The present “funny man” of the Post is Charles Hoyt, better known to his Boston friends as Charley Hoyt.
A well-known Boston journalist in a recent article says of him: “He is a well-proportioned man, lithe, active, and nervy in physique, a broad forehead, an open face on which candor is written in every feature, bright, restless eyes, firm mouth and chin, a clear, ruddy complexion, and a voice not loud or strident but clear as a bell in its enunciation. His column of All Sorts in the Post is a fine example of conscientious paragraphing, where neither time nor diverse labor interfere to distract or hurry the writer. It is enjoyed by thousands every day, who laugh at his quaint conceits and genuine wit.”
Hoyt is a native of Vermont, and comes of good, old Puritan stock. In early youth he held a public office, being page in the State Senate. In this school his intellect was sharpened, and his naturally retentive memory gathered together and carried away much which has been useful in later years. His knowledge of, and acquaintance with, public men, is wide and varied. In his personal address he is both pleasing and attractive. These are both admirable points in his favor, considering that he is a bachelor, and young at that.
Hoyt’s Ragbag stories are very entertaining: