The Georgetown news., 1856-02-28
Vhe American Aladdin.

When we go out on Saturday afternoons
to moralize and see new houses. we usually
take our young ones by Aladdins palace.
Aladdin was Yankee. He started life by
swapping jack-knives, then putting the
halves of broken marbles together and pass
ing them off as whole ones. When he had
gathered some brass, he went to school all
the summer to learn the golden rule of
STANDARDIZATION for himself and sub
traction for his neighbor.
At an early age Aladdin was considered
to be good at a bargain-whch meant that
he could always succeed in changing
worse for better-always keeping the
blind side of horse to the wall when he
had to sell it; and the village said that GER
tainly Aladdin would succeed. When he
left, "he will be rich" TO Aladdin the
world was but market in which to buy
cheap and sell dear. For him there was no
beauty, no history, no piety, no heroism.-
Vainly the stars shone over him-vainly
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 cleaning Mediterranean-whe
the ships Of Tyre, Rome, and of the Crusa-
ders had been before him through the Pill
lars of Hercules, through which Columbus
sailed to find fame in the discovery off new
world-now sails Aladdin to find fortune.
To him all lands are alike. No Homer
sang for him in the Kgean; he only curses
the wind that will not blow him into Odes-
sa. No syrens sing for him, but he loves
the huge oath of the lively boatswain.-
With the Bible in his hand, and quid of
tobacco in his mouth, he goes into the holy
places in Jerusalem, and calculates" their
exact site. He sees the land of the Rame-
ses and the Ptolemies; and the reverend re-
cords of the Lybian desert, whose echoes
have slumbered since they were tramped
over by Alexander's army, are now ava
kened by the shrill whistle of Old Dan
Tucker. He insults the Grand Llama, hob
nobS with the Grand MOgul, turns his back
upon emperOrs, and takes pinch of snuff
out of the Popes snuffbox. He chews to-
bacco with the Arabs, smokes opium with
the Turks, and rides for bride with the
Calmuck Tartars.
Aladdin comes home again. and the ad-
miring village points him out to the young
er generation as a successful man. "My
son, look at him; he began with nothing,
now see." my son" does see, and beholds
him owning million of dollars-of all So
cieties of which he is not president, di-
rector. His name is as good as gold-he
has bought pictures and statues-he has
also bought Mrs. Aladdin, and housed
her luxuriously; but he picks his teeth with
a silver fork. He has home for a poet,
but he makes it his boast that he reads no
thing but the newspaper. He goes to
church twice on Sundays, and only wakes
up when the preacher denounces the sinners
of Sodom and Gomorrah, and those "tough
old Jews of Jerusalem. His head is bald
and shinyswith the sermons which have hit
and glanced off He clasps his hands in
prayer, but forgets to open them when the
poor-box is passed around and he goes
home like successful man, thanking God
| that he is not as other men are. And after
dinner he sits before the fire in his easy
chair, lights large cigar, and looks Ian
guidly at Mrs. Aladdin through the thick
smoke
By-and-by old Aladdin dies. The con-
ventional virtues are told over as the mourn
ing carriages are called out. The papers
regret they are called upon to deplore the
loss of revered parent, generous friend,
public-spirited citizen and pious man; and
the precocious snapper of jack-knives, and
the model set up to the young generation
is laid in the dust. Above his grave the
stars he never saw now burn with a soft
lustre which no lamps round a kings tomb
can emulate and the south wind, for whose
breath upon his brow he was never CRATE
ful, strews his lonely bed with enemones
and violets that his heel crushed when liv-
ing; and we who are to be formed upon that
model, carelessly remark, as we stir our
toddles, $50 old Aladdin is gone at last
and, by the way, how much did he leave?'
G. w. Curtis.