George Niblo - Atchoo! Sneezes from a Hilarious Vaudevillian

Fellow citizens! – I beg pardon, I mean ladies and gentlemen! You see I've just come from a political meeting, and that sort of thing gets on your nerves. I went to hear my friend Isaacstein talk. His subject was "Why should the Jew have to work?"

They did a lot of whitewashing at that meeting. I suppose it's all right. Of course you can't make a new fence with a pail of whitewash, but you can cover up the mothholes.

But we mustn't be too hard on the politicians. If it wasn't for politics a good many fellows that are too lazy to earn a living with their hands would be paupers. But some of 'em are all right. There's Isaacstein for instance. As good a man as ever sauntered down Hester Street. He joined the noble army of grafters two years ago and worked so hard at his profession that he got appendicitis.

A friend of Isaacstein's met another acquaintance of his in Hester Street and asked:

"Haf you heard aboudt Isaacstein?"

"No. Vat iss it?"

"He vas sick. They take him by der hospital, and vat you tink they do to him?"

"Vell. Vell. Vat iss it?"

"They put him in a room all by himself und take his appendix away from him."

"Na! Na! Na! Vat a pity, ain't it, he didn't have it in his wife's name?"

Why, I was taken sick myself lately – such thing will happen even in the best regulated families, you know.

While I was on my way here there was a fire down in one of those thickly populated streets where twenty families and more live, like sardines, in a tenement. The fire engine came booming along, and as usual created tremendous excitement.

I noticed a small chap on a bicycle riding zigzag in front of the machine, evidently anxious to keep up with it and get to the fire in time to watch it begin work.

Half a dozen times the driver had to pull up suddenly to avoid running over the nervy little Hebrew, and this of course made the firemen riding with the machine furious.

Just in front of where I was standing one of the gallant life savers jumped down from the engine, caught hold of the boy and pulled him off to one side, at the same time saying:

"You miserable little Sheeney, you ought to be arrested for getting in the way! I've a good mind to spank you."

The boy looked at the fireman in surprise and whimpered:

"If it wasn't for the Jews you wouldn't have anything to do."

I often squander an hour or two down in Hester Street, where I have some rare acquaintances among the second-hand dealers.

Of course you understand that I only go there to study human nature, and I remember some months ago being delightfully entertained at a Jewish wedding, where my esteemed friend Moses Schaumburg gave his cherished Rebecca into the keeping of young Silverstein, a progressive Broadway salesman.

This fact was brought to my mind when, only the other day I saw the bridegroom rush into his father-in-law's establishment bearing a look of excitement, and also a few very positive scratches upon his olive face, and exclaiming dramatically:

"Mister Schaumburg, I vants you to dake back your daughter Rebecca."

The old man threw up his hands.

"I dakes not dot Repecca back. Ven a man comes to my house, picks out himself a piece of goots, and dot goots vas received by him in goot order, I vould be a fool to dake pack dot goods. No, sir, you schoost keep dot Repecca."

My brother Tom was hit on the head some time ago, and at the hospital they said they would have to amputate half his brain. I didn't want them to, because he is absent-minded anyway.

"We'll have to give him something to make him sleep," said one of the surgeons.

"That won't be necessary," said another; "he's a policeman."

That made Tom sore, and he snapped: "I've got half a mind to cave in your ribs for you."

"You won't feel that way in a minute," said the surgeon, "because that's the half of your mind we're going to cut out."

It was a great operation. When I told my wife of the surgeon's little joke and how Tom came back at him she said she never knew a time when Tom wasn't ready to give anybody a piece of his mind.

Tom was a confirmed dyspeptic, too, and when the operator was taking an X-ray photograph of the seat of his troubles, this waggish brother of mine, with a ghastly attempt to be facetious, said:

"This, I suppose, is what might be called taking light exercise on an empty stomach."

Perhaps it may surprise you to hear me say that some years ago I was connected with the newspaper business.

I don't tell this to everybody, you know, but there are some little things connected with my experience that drive away the blues in these times when the ghost refuses to walk regularly on pay day.

It was out in old Kaintuck, the Blue Grass country famous for its fast horses, fair women and old Bourbon.

Say, have you ever been in the land of Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett, the original Tennessee Congressmen?

You don't know what you've missed then – grand scenery, splendid cooking, and the most original people in the mountains, where they make that moonshine whiskey you've heard about.

I used to hustle right lively looking for news, and during the course of my journeyings I ran across a grizzled old farmer from the back settlements, who looked like he might be a good judge of double distilled mountain dew that had paid no revenue to Uncle Sam.

Of course I tackled him right away, and first lining him up in the tap-room of the tavern, asked what news there might be up in his section, for it was a warm corner of the State, and could usually be depended on for some lively incidents during the week.

His answer rather disappointed me at first.

"They ain't nothin' doin' up our way," he said, "'cause we're all too busy with our crops to bother about anything else. All quiet in our neighborhood for sartin."

"Pretty good crops this year?" I inquired.

"Bully," says he. "I ought to be in my field this minute, an' I would be if I hadn't come to town to see the coroner."

"The coroner?" I began to feel interested, because you know there's only one kind of harvest that needs a coroner.

"Yep. Want him to hold an inquest on a couple of fellers down in our neighborhood."

"Inquest? Was it an accident?"

"Nope. Zeke Burke did it a-puppus. Plugged George Rambo and his boy Bill with a pistol. Got to have an inquest."

"What caused the fight?"

"There wasn't no fight. Zeke never give the other fellers a show. Guess he was right, too, 'cause the Rambos didn't give Zeke's father an' brother any chance. Just hid behind a tree and fired at 'em as they came along the road. That was yistiday mornin', an' in an hour Zeke had squared accounts."

"Has Zeke been arrested?"

"Nope. What's the use? Some of old man Rambo's relatives came along last night, burned down Zeke's house, shot him an' his wife, an' set fire to his barn. Nope, Zeke hasn't been arrested. But I ain't got time to talk to you. Have to git back to my harvestin'. But there ain't no news down our way. If anythin' happens I'll let ye know."

One of my best friends down there was an old judge who knew more about whiskey than he did about law. One day a young lawyer came to town and hung up his shingle.

Up to that day the judge had been the only member of the legal fraternity there.

Old Si Corntassle, a close-fisted farmer, sizing up the situation, thought it a good chance to corner some legal advice without cost, so he hastened to call upon the young man, told him he was very glad he had come into the town, as the old judge was getting superannuated, and then contrived in a sort of neighborly talk to get some legal questions answered.