The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-04-25
THE MAN WHO LIVED BY HIS WITS,
BY CHARLES CLARKE,
AUTHOR OF "cHARIIE THoRNHIII," (WHICH IS
WINNER % RTo.

dinary expression and considering the
amount of wits, and the many necessities of
life to be got by them, requires close and
careful analysis. Whether a man may be
said to live by his own wits, rather than by
the absence of them in other people, admits
Of doubt; though, to be sure, as a one-eyed
man is king among blind ones, so some
credit must be given to the man who lives at
all amongst his fellow-creatures. Neither is
it an easy matter, after all, to come by more
than ones own in such a iostling, pushing,
unscrupulous world as this has become since
the Reform bill of '32, a period when this
much admired Constitution was supposed to
have reached the very zenith of perfection,
and to have been secured from any further
tinkering, until the Greek Calends at least.
Perhaps that celebrated movement did really
sharpen mems intellec Is; for since that time
here has been a struggle, and a pace, wholly
unprecedented. Bubble railways and cOmpa-
nies, limited liabilities of unlimited assurance
mines, aqueducts, tunnels, building and
drainage societies, reclamation of common land
and common sewage, and hundreds of other
things aloat, besides the British navy, which
REQUIRE certain amount of activity and brains
George w was king. What have become of
the idlers, the dandies of that period Do they
exist, or hide themselves in rocks and caves
BE well assured they would now be trodden
down and killed if they ventured to show
themselves in the crowd of hungry Greeks
whose subtle and accommodating intellects
pervade society west as well as east of Temple
Bar What would Brummell have looked like
as the chairman of gigantic hotel company,
iii r. tp11 tO nl,
man. or brother officer of the Tenth Hussars
How would they have bartered their scrip, and
appOrtiOned the shares, and put first an eighth,
and then an additional sixteenth into their
pockets, as the price of their honorable names
and services l tell you, if those men had
lived now, they would have had no more
chance of living by their wits, than the old
Exeter Tally-ho would have of beating the ex-
press train with its team.
There's so much difference between great
ness and goodness, that hardly know whether
to live by ones wits is a complimentary ex-
PLANTATION of ones career. | rather think not;
and yet it ought to be. What more honorable
occupation can a man find for his intelligence
than that of providing bread and butter for
himself? There are so many ways of doing
it-nOt all equally proper. But as all are
seized upon by somebody, it behoves the
starveling to take that which comes to hand
and some have talent for one thing, some
for another; but don't think much of a talent
for starving in a land where everybody is
helping himself.
Men who live by their wits are not such as
have great turn for legitimate business. l
do not know that implies even honesty; GER
tainly not perseverance and respectability. 1t
Is not consistent with Exeter Hall, at first
sight, though some of those gentlemen do
pretty well in that way; nor drab shorts,
except as far as mullins and a cold shoulder
are concerned. The man who sweeps cross
ing has nothing to do with it, nor our bishops,
colonial or otherwise. A policeman and
parish beadle are equally removed from 1t,
and all who have a certain or limited income
from Government or COnsols. The censure,
if any be conveyed, includes all who have no
ostensible means of livelihood at all, and
many men who have half-a-dozen methods of
making both ends meet. 1t eminently en-
braces the waits and strays of the turf, the
only book analogous to such a wit being
a betting-boo Hangers-on of great
houses are indebted for the luxuries of
life to their brains; and it is a mutual cOmpG-
ment to believe that they are appreciated.
Some men pass through life very comfortably
upon the only inheritance of which their
parents have been unable to deprive them;
and not unfrequently finish by landing them
selves in a haven which, at the outset of their
career, must have been but remote chance.
My old acquaintance, Dick Whistler, was
one of these. Of all the slippery dogs it was
my luck to meet upon the ice this winter,
Dick was the most so. There was nothing
downright bad about him. but he was one OF
those mysterious beings that nobody knows
anything about but whom everybody knows
He had been so ever since my first acuuaint
ance with him, and as that was in our school
boy days, it's needless to say that it is som,
time ago. The way renewed my aeauaint
ance with him, after some little absence. wa
curious in itself. / was skating along in
plain straightforward way, thinking of some
thing, or nothing, ct totus in Ills, when l cam
suddenly in contact with a gentleman doin
the spread eagle to an admiring crowd
ladies. Down he went, and as l stopped t
apologize and assist the man in rising,
saw il was my old friend, Mr.. Whistle
The place in which it happened was sem
private, and l verify believe Dick kne
not a soul ON the spot excepting mysel
notwithstanding which he had evidentl
skated himself into the good graces of I'll
women, and, as a matter of popularity, We
already well ahead of the oldest inhabtan
1t was quite his way.
''What in the world brought you here, m
dear fellow ?'' said l. raising him from IL
ground, and assisting him to brush off IL
snow 'yOu are not staying in the house, a
your
"Staying in the house oh dear no
there a house l came down for half 6
hours skating, because Herbert Beauchan
told me what good ice it was. And so it
capital" And here the speaker commence
some more evolutions, with certain air
self-possession, and the possession OF ever
thing else within his survey.
nd l,o4