The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-04-24
Horace Greeley as a Hen.

UANO0 NEeeAey as Aens
From ne World
1t is rash to infer from the ease with which
a man can walk the tight-rope on his toes
that he is competent to edit the works of
Lactantius. General Sheridan snatched vic
tory from the jaws of defeat in the Valley
the Shenandoah, but it does not therefore fol-
low that he could write threnody on the
death of the late lamented Lincoln fully equal
in poetic merit to the ode of Dryden on Alex
ander's Feast. 1t used to be said of the Bos-
tonians that their belief in the capacity of
Daniel Webster would have made them acuui-
esce in his election to supersede Fanny Ellsler
as the leader of a ballet: and il is GER
tain that, since the death of the great
expounder of the Constitution, the
same intelligent citizens have reached
the point of thinking that Charles Sumner
could have made better speech than he in
reply to the Grafton of Colonel Hayne. When
we see the Republicans of New York nominat-
ing the author of the "Potiphar Papersn to
post which would have called out the best
powers of Chancellor Kent, and proposing to
pair Mr.. A. J. H. Duganne with William M.
Evarts in the revision of the Fundamental
law of Commonwealth inhabited by four
millions of the busiest and most prosperous
of the Anglo-American race we are forcibly
reminded of the Importance of recalling men
to the simple pomological fact that
apples do not grow on willow trees nor
pears ON pumpkin vines. That "some
things can be done as well as others" is an
ancient and fsh-like, but perfectly respect
able axiom; yet it is an axiom Just as
ancient and just as respectable, that it is
perilous to call upon the cobbler for work
unfamiliar to his last. Here, for example, is
Mr.. Horace Greeley, whose success as an editor
cannot be properly questioned, and whose
turnipS, we believe, are, in the average very
fair specimens of the results of genius concen-
trated upon rmd-bdga. But, no longer ago
than the 18th of October, 1866, Mr.. Horace
Greeley dropped his pen and threw away his
hoe, and, pluming himself upon some pre-
sumed faculty of incubation, made his bow to
| the public in the character of a hen. The
nominations of the Republican party for the
| State Legislature of New York having, at
that date, been made Mr.. Horace Greeley
| came out in the Tribune and declared them a
| great improvement upon the nominations of
\ previous years. "Some excellent members of
/ the last House." said Horace Greeley ''have
4 declined a re-election but many good men
! have been nominated in their stead while
| most of the bad eggs in the last House
| have been set aside by their constituents" !"
! We then took the liberty of doubling whether
the new-laid eggs over which II. g. thus
| cackled might not in the end prove to be
added, and if not understandable, at least
unwholesome for consumption by the body
polite. Six months have scarcely passed
away, and we now behold the same H. g.,
with erected feathers and clucks of mex
pressible indignation, driving into the horse
pond of infamy the chickens Matched at
Albany out of these identical eggs, over
which so much maternal pride was then pre-
maturely displayed. OF course, nobody is
surprised by this save H. G. himself; but it
may be of some use, even to Republican
voters, to consider whether it is wise to
accept, in a case of so much lasting import
ance the ovarian droppings of hen whose
legislative ducklings and goslings have so dis
mally disappointed the expectations of their
fond but sligtly fatuous parent.