The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-03-22
Il" DEAR OLD SUSAN" "

DHdh OLD OOOdH.
Miss SUSAN b. ANTHONY has not yet finished
the celebration of her semi-centennial birth
day. But then a semi-centennial birthday is
an event which as general thing happens
but once in the career of man or woman, and
is doubtless, on account of its rarity, deserv-
ing of prolonged celebration. Susan's most
bitter enemy would scarcely wish that she
might live to celebrate her second semi-cen-
tennial, and we are not disposed to find fault
with her for rounding off her first half century
of single-mindedness and single-blessedness
with as much of flourish as possible. The
latest event in connection with the semi-cen-
tennial was the receipt of Testimonial
from Anna Z. Dickinson. This ingenious
young lady, while wandering over certain
western spaces, pauses long enough to in
vest in bundle of silk and draft for two
hundred dollars, which, together with a char
acteristic note, she has despatched to "dear
old Susan" Yes, this pert and impertinent
young spinster has the audacity to address
the champion woman's rights champion as
''my dear old Susan" and seeks to salve over
the wound thus made by presenting her with
a silk dress, a paltry two hundred dollar draft,
and string of commonplace palaver about
''the faithful, unselfsh, earnest, single
minded, courageous" reader will not
fail to observe how cautiously Anna ap-
proaches her climax of adjectives-''years
which my dear old Susan has given to the
service of humanity"
But the wanderer over the 'Western
spaces" is not content with this unwomanly
slur upon ''dear old Susans" age. She first
puts an affront upon Susan, and then in
cold-blooded, compacent way goes about an
attempt at rubbing it in, by an affectation of
the very extremity of gushing youthfulness
on her own part Here is specimen of the
charming infantile prattle with which the in
situations about Susan's extreme age and the
gift of a silk gown and 5000 draft are
accom- panied '.-
"Whdt do you mean by it? as little Jennie Wren
says Everybody who knows you and who don't
say TO utter their good wishes and friendly regards
aud poor me, wandering across these Western
spaces, quite left out in the cold! Please maam,
why didn't know nothing OF your reception till it
was all over:"
AS fair and unaffected specimen of child
ishness, the last sentence above quoted equals
anything to be found in the celebrated epistle
which Mark Twain concocted and then endea-
vored to palm off upon the public as the unin-
spired production of his nephew three months
after he had been relieved of his swaddling
clothes.
Susan has shown herself to be spunky
heretofore. In fact, she has thrown her
spunk around in such reckless way that the
world has come to regard her as one of the
very spunkiest women extant. She has now
an opportunity to exhibit little of this
amiable womanly weakness to some purpose.
Let her get the 5000 draft cashed and deduct
from the amount sufficient to pay all the ex-
penses involved. The surplus, together with
the silk gown and the infantile epistle, should
then be bundled up and expressed to ''Miss
Anna e. Dickinson, Western Spaces, Illinois, y
Such display of spunk on the part of ''dear
old Susan" will secure for her such a round
of applause that she will be in measure
compensated for the infrmities and inconve-
niences of her extreme old age.