The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, part 5 | Page 4

like "La Belle Helene at the
Adelphi Theatre, he "has been some time in preparation."
JOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN, Piccadilly, W. Jan. 30, 1865.
5.1. ARRIVAL IN LONDON.
MR. PUNCH: My dear Sir,--You prob'ly didn't meet my uncle Wilyim
when he was on these shores. I jedge so from the fack that his pursoots
wasn't litrary. Commerce, which it has been trooly observed by a
statesman, or somebody, is the foundation stone onto which a nation's
greatness rests, glorious Commerce was Uncle Wilyim's fort. He sold
soap. It smelt pretty, and redily commanded two pents a cake. I'm the
only litrary man in our fam'ly. It is troo, I once had a dear cuzzun who
wrote 22 verses onto "A Child who nearly Died of the Measles, O!" but
as he injoodiciously introjudiced a chorious at the end of each stansy,
the parrents didn't like it at all. The father in particler wept afresh,
assaulted my cuzzun, and said he never felt so ridicklus in his intire life.
The onhappy result was that my cuzzun abandined poetry forever, and
went back to shoemakin, a shattered man.
My Uncle Wilyim disposed of his soap, and returned to his nativ land
with a very exolted opinyon of the British public. "It is a edycated
community," said he; "they're a intellectooal peple. In one small village
alone I sold 50 cakes of soap, incloodin barronial halls, where they
offered me a ducal coronet, but I said no--give it to the poor." This was

the way Uncle Wilyim went on. He told us, however, some stories that
was rather too much to be easily swallerd. In fack, my Uncle Wilyim
was not a emblem of trooth. He retired some years ago on a hansum
comptency derived from the insurance-money he received on a rather
shaky skooner he owned, and which turned up while lyin at a wharf one
night, the cargo havin fortnitly been removed the day afore the
disastriss calamty occurd. Uncle Wilyim said it was one of the most
sing'ler things he ever heard of; and, after collectin the insurance
money, he bust into a flood of tears, and retired to his farm in
Pennsylvany. He was my uncle by marriage only. I do not say that he
wasn't a honest man. I simply say that if you have a uncle, and bitter
experunce tells you it is more profitable in a pecoonery pint of view to
put pewter spoons instid of silver ones onto the table when that uncle
dines with you in a frenly way--I simply say, there is sumthun wrong in
our social sistim, which calls loudly for reform.
I 'rived on these shores at Liverpool, and proceeded at once to London.
I stopt at the Washington Hotel in Liverpool, because it was named
after a countryman of mine who didn't get his living by makin' mistakes,
and whose mem'ry is dear to civilized peple all over the world, because
he was gentle and good as well as trooly great. We read in Histry of
any number of great individooals, but how few of 'em, alars! should we
want to take home to supper with us! Among others, I would call your
attention to Alexander the Great, who conkerd the world, and wept
because he couldn't do it sum more, and then took to gin-and-seltzer,
gettin' tight every day afore dinner with the most disgustin' reg'larity,
causin' his parunts to regret they hadn't 'prenticed him in his early youth
to a biskit-baker, or some other occupation of a peaceful and quiet
character. I say, therefore, to the great men now livin; (you could put
'em all into Hyde Park, by the way, and still leave room for a large and
respectable concourse of rioters)--be good. I say to that gifted but
bald-heded Prooshun, Bismarck, be good and gentle in your hour of
triump. I always am. I admit that our lines is different, Bismarck's and
mine; but the same glo'rus principle is involved, I am a exhibiter of
startlin' curiositys, wax works, snaix, etsetry ("either of whom," as a
American statesman whose name I ain't at liberty to mention for
perlitical resins, as he expecks to be a candidate for a prom'nent offiss,
and hence doesn't wish to excite the rage and jelisy of other

showmen--"either of whom is wuth dubble the price of admission"); I
say I am an exhibiter of startlin curiositys, and I also have my hours of
triump, but I try to be good in 'em. If you say, "Ah, yes, but also your
hours of grief and misfortin;" I answer, it is troo, and you prob'ly refer
to the circumstans of my hirin' a young man of dissypated habits to fix
hisself up as A real Cannibal from New Zeelan, and when I was simply
tellin the