Comic History of the United States

The same year the Civil Service Bill became a law. It provides that competitive examinations shall be made of certain applicants for office, whereby mail-carriers must prove that they know how to teach school, and guards in United States penitentiaries are required to describe how to navigate a ship.

Possibly recent improvements have been made by which the curriculum is more fitted to the crime, but in the early operations of the law the janitor of a jail had to know what length shadow would be cast by a pole 18 feet 6¼ inches high on the third day of July at 11 o'clock 30 min. and 20 sec. standing on a knoll 35 feet 8⅛ inches high, provided 8 men in 9 days can erect such a pole working 8 hours per day.

In 1883 letter postage was reduced from three cents to two cents per half-ounce, and in 1885 to two cents per ounce.

In 1884 Alaska was organized as a Territory, and after digging the snow out of Sitka, so that the governor should not take cold in his system, it was made the seat of government.

Chinese immigration in 1882 was forbidden for ten years, and in 1884 a treaty with Mexico was made, a copy of which is on file in the State Department, but not allowed to be loaned to the author for use in this work.

Grover Cleveland and Thomas A. Hendricks were nominated and elected at the end of President Arthur's term, running against James G. Blaine and John A. Logan, the Republican candidates, also Benjamin F. Butler and A. M. West, of Mississippi, on the People's ticket, and John P. St. John and William Daniel on the Prohibition ticket. St. John went home and kept bees, so that he could have honey to eat on his Kansas locusts, and Daniel swore he would never enter the performing cage of immoral political wild beasts again while reason remained on her throne.

In 1886 a Presidential succession law was passed, whereby on the death of the President and the Vice-President the order of succession shall be the Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of War, the Attorney-General, the Postmaster-General, and the Secretaries of the Navy and of the Interior. This gives the Secretary of Agriculture an extremely remote and rarefied chance at the Presidency. Still, he should be just as faithful to his trust as he would be if he were nearer the throne.

May 4, 1886, occurred a terrible outbreak of Chicago Anarchists, whereby seven policemen sent to preserve order were killed by the bursting of an Anarchist's bomb. The Anarchists were tried and executed, with the exception of Ling, who ate a dynamite capsule and passed into rest having had his features, and especially his nose, blown in a swift and earnest manner. Death resulted, and whiskers and beer-blossoms are still found embedded in the stone walls of his cell. Those who attended the funeral say that Ling from a scenic point of view was not a success.

Governor Altgeld, of Illinois, an amateur American, in the summer of 1893 pardoned two of the Anarchists who had escaped death by imprisonment.

August 31, 1886, in Charleston, occurred several terrible earthquake shocks, which seriously damaged the city and shocked and impaired the nerves and health of hundreds of people.

The noted heroism and pluck of the people of Charleston were never shown to greater advantage than on this occasion.

Mr. Cleveland was again nominated, but was defeated by General Benjamin Harrison. Hon. James G. Blaine, of Maine, was made Secretary of State, and Wm. Windom, a veteran financier, Secretary of the Treasury. Secretary Windom's tragic death just as he had finished a most brilliant address to the great capitalists of New York after their annual dinner and discussion at Delmonico's is, and will ever remain, while life lasts, a most dramatic picture in the author's memory.

Personally, the administration of President Harrison will be long remembered for the number of deaths among the families of the Executive and those of his Cabinet and friends.

Nebraska, the thirty-seventh State, was admitted March 1, 1867. The name signifies "Water Valley." Colorado, the Centennial State, was the thirty-eighth. She was admitted July 1, 1876. Six other States have been since admitted when the political sign was right. Still, they have not always stuck by the party admitting them to the Union. This is the kind of ingratitude which sometimes leads to the reformation of politicians supposed to have been dead in sin.

President Harrison's administration was a thoroughly upright and honest one, so far as it was possible for it to be after his party had drifted into the musty catacombs of security in office and the ship of state had become covered with large and expensive barnacles.

As we go to press, his successor, Grover Cleveland, in the first year of his second administration, is paying a high price for fleeting fame, with the serious question of what to do with the relative coinage of gold and silver, and the Democrats in Congress, for the first time in the history of the world, are referring each other with hot breath and flashing eye to the platform they adopted at the National Convention.

Heretofore among the politicians a platform, like that on the railway cars, "is made for the purpose of helping the party to get aboard, but not to ride on."

The Columbian Exposition and World's Fair at Chicago in the summer of 1893 eclipsed all former Exhibitions, costing more and showing greater artistic taste, especially in its buildings, than anything preceding it. Some gentle warfare resulted from a struggle over the question of opening the "White City" on Sunday, and a great deal of bitterness was shown by those who opposed the opening and who had for years favored the Sunday closing of Niagara. A doubtful victory was obtained by the Sunday openers, for so many of the exhibitors closed their departments that visitors did not attend on Sunday in paying quantities.

Against a thousand odds and over a thousand obstacles, especially the apprehension of Asiatic cholera and the actual sudden appearance of a gigantic money panic, Chicago, heroic and victorious, carried out her mighty plans and gave to the world an exhibition that won golden opinions from her friends and stilled in dumb wonder the jealousy of her enemies.

In the mean time, the author begs leave to thank his readers for the rapt attention shown in perusing these earnest pages, and to apologize for the tears of sympathy thoughtlessly wrung from eyes unused to weep, by the graphic word-painting and fine education shown by the author.

It was not the intention of the writer to touch the fountain of tears and create wash-outs everywhere, but sometimes tears do one good.

In closing, would it be out of place to say that the stringency of the money market is most noticeable and most painful, and for that reason would it be too much trouble for the owner of this book to refuse to loan it, thereby encouraging its sale and contributing to the comfort of a deserving young man?

THE END

APPENDIX

The idea of an appendix to this work was suggested by a relative, who promised to prepare it, but who has been detained now for over a year in one of the public buildings of Colorado on the trumped-up charge of horse-stealing. The very fact that he was not at once hanged shows that the charge was not fully sustained, and that the horse was very likely of little value.

The Author.

1

The author acknowledges especially the courtesy of San Diego Colon Columbus, a son of the great navigator, whose book "Historiadores Primitivos" was so generously loaned the author by relatives of young Columbus.

I have refrained from announcing in the foregoing chapter the death of Columbus, which occurred May 20, 1506, at Valladolid, the funeral taking place from his late residence, because I dislike to give needless pain.

B. N

2

See Dr. Dunn's Family Physician and Horse Doctor.

3

This is a stanza from the works of Dempster Winterbottom Woodworth, M.D., of Ellsworth, Pierce County, Wisconsin, author of the "Diary of Judge Pierce," and "Life and Times of Melancthon Klingensmith." The thanks of the author are also due to Baldy Sowers for a loaned copy of "How to Keep up a Pleasing Correspondence without Conveying Information," 8vo, bevelled boards, published by Public Printer.

4

The authority given for this statement, I admit, is meagre, but it is as accurate as many of the figures by means of which people prove things.—B. N.

5

While the Union forces did not succeed in beating Stonewall Jackson back, in returning to Washington they succeeded in beating everybody else back. (See Appendix.)

6

The odium to be cast on the person upon whom it should fall for the sickening defeat at Bull Run was found to be in such wretched condition at the time these lines were written that it was decided to go on without casting it. The writer points with pride to the fact that in writing this history fifteen cents' worth of odium will cover the entire amount used.