Raftsman's journal. [volume] (Clearfield, Pa.) 1854-1948, 1855-06-27
THE AMERICAN ALADDIN.

THE AMERICAN ALADDIN.
We take the following extract from a recent
lecture delivered by G. W. CURTIS, at Boston.
The reader viii find it a familiar and life-likc
picture = 49,.
When VIC go out on Sunday afternoon to
moralize, and see the new houses, we usually
take the young ones by the Aladdin's palace.
Aladdin was Yankee. [Laughter.l He
started in life by swapping jack knives, then
putting the halves of broken marbles together,
and passing them off as whole ones. When he
had gather ed some brass he went TO school all
the summer to learn the golden rule of arith-
metic-Addition for himself and Subtraction
for his neighbor. [Laughter.l
At an early age Aladdin was considered TO
be good at bargain, which meant that he
could always succeed in changing worse for
better, always keeping the blind eye of
horse to the wall when he had to sell IT. and
looking right at it when he wanted to buy it
and the village said that certainly Aladdin
would succeed. When he left, 90 he will be
rich,'' said the village, with moro approval
than it would say, &c he viii be generous and
true.'' To Aladdin, the whole world was but
a market in which to buy cheap and sell dear.
For him there was no beauty, no history, no
piety, no heroism. Vainly the stars shonc
over him-vainIy the South wind blew. In
the wake of the great ship Argo, in which
Jason and his companions sailed for the Golden
Fleece, over the Mediterranean, where the
ships of Tyre, Rome, and of the Crusades, had
been before hiTn-through the pillars of Her
cules, through which sailed Columbus to find
fame in the New World-now sailed Aladdin
to find fortune. To him all lands are alike
No Homer sung for him in the 4Fgean; he
only curses the wind that will not blow him to
Odessa. No syrens sing for him, but he loves
the huge oath of the lively boatswain. With
Bible in his hand, and quid Of tobacco in
his mouth, he goes about the holy places of
Jerusalem, and {: calculates their exact site.
He sees the land of Ramesis and the Ptolemys
and the reverend record of the Lybian desert,
whose echoes have slumbered since they were
trampled over by Alexander's army, are now
awakened by the shrin whistle of Old Dan
Tucker. Laughter He insults the Grand
Lama hobnobs with the Great Mogul, turns
his back upon emperors, snd takes pinch out
of the Pope's snuff box. He chews with the
rides for a bride with the Calmuck Tartars.
Aladdin comes home again, and the admir-
ing village points him ont to the rising gene
ration as successful man. sc Ny son, look at
him he began with nothing, and now see ~
SO Ny SOM does see, and beholds him owning |
a million of dollars-of all societies of which |
he is not president, director. His name is |
good as gold he has bought pictures and |
statues-he has also bought Mrs. Aladdin, |
ILaughter,J and housed her in luxury; but |
he pricks his mouth with a silver fork. He |
has home fora poet, and he makes it his |
boast that he reads nothing but the newspa- |
per. He goes to church twice on Sundays, |
and only wakes up when the preacher denoun- |
ces the sinners of Sodom and Gomorrah, and /
those tough old Jews of Jerusalem. His |
head is bald and shiny with al the sermons |
which have hit it, and glanced off, Loud |
laughter and applause.l He clasps his hands |
in prayer, but forgets to open them when the
poor-box is passed round, and he goes homo |
like successful man, thanking God that he |
was not as other men are, and after dinner he
sits before the fire in his easy chair, lights
large cigar, and looks languidly at Mrs. Alad-
din through the thick black smoke. Laugh
ter and applause.]
By-and- bye, old Aladdin dies. The conven-
tional virtues are told over, as the mourning
carriages are called out. Tho papers regret
they are called upon to deplore the loss of
revered parent, generous friend, public-spirit-
ed citizen, and pious man; and then the pre-
cocious snapper of jack-knives and model set
up to the young generation, is laid in the dust.
Above the grave, the stars he never saw, now
burn with soft lustre, which no lamps about
kings tomb can emulate; his hot brow was
never grateful, strews his bed with anemonics
and violets that his heel crushed in living: and
we, who are to be formed upon that model,
carelessly remark, as we stir our toddies, $50
Aladdin is gone at last, and by-the-bye, how
much did he leave7" Loud Laughter.l
s-Y"Byron's partiality toward America is well
known, but perhaps never more stre. expressed
than in letter to Tom Moore rba-e 10 observes:
Il would rather have !. nod A,,erican