The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-03-06
DOLLIE AND THE TWO SMITHS

NV father was an lrishman and q writer OF
articles for magazines. ! have never written
in magazine or anything else myself. My
mother 1 don't remember. She died shortly
after my birth. One of my earliest arith-
metical efforts consisted in the discovery that
had nine brothers and sisters, concerning
whom, as they are oil alive and are some of
them Fenians, desire tv speak on'J in COM
plimentary terms.
L believe publishers did not pay so literally
in those days as / have reason to hope they
do now, or possibly my father may have ac-
ouired dissolute habits through his contact
with literary men; but from some cause or
other / was so slenderly provided with food,
clothing, and education, and my home was
so inconveniently crowded and uncomfortable,
that left it at the age of fifteen with an out
fit consisting of one extra shirt, one ditto
pair of socks, a comb, and thirteen-aud-six-
pence that borrowed, without aluding to it
at the time, from my eldest sister, who was
keeping house and acted as treasurer gene
rally, and whose balance in hand con-
sisted of that amount. 1 have since
paid ii her back, with interest at seven
per cent. As. however, my present purpose
in writing is not to dwell upon the varied and
striking incidents in my own fortunes through
life, SO much as to portray certain scenes into
which its destiny has led me, l will skip over
the first twenty years after leaving home, and
land myself in a neat white clapboarded
house, with green venetians, and verandah
half round it, situated on wooded hillside,
and commanding lovely view of a secluded
lake about ten miles long and three wide, on
the shores of which a few scattered
clearings indicate that we are across the
Atlantic, and in part of thu country
not yet very thickly settled. Nevertheless we
are in one of the Eastern States of America,
at no very great distance from city of fifty
thousand inhabitants, and can hear the shrek
of the engine as the cars stop at the little
village at the head of the lake. AS to whether
that lovely creature with fair hair and blue
eyes, and hands so small and white that it is
a marvel how she can do so much housework
and preserve them as she does, and plea
sure to look forward to eating the bread
they are now kneading-I say, as to
whether this young lady is my wife, or the
''chattel," to take the legal English view of
her, of that handsome broad-shouldered man
unyoking team at the door of the barn, is
matter in which we three alone are concerned
1t does not signify, either, who the farm or
the two little chubby children belong to; the
point to which / wish to call my readers at
tention is this. Here am I, an Irishman by
descent, an Englishman by birth, a citizen of
the United States by naturalization, and of
the world by an extended knowledge of it.
COn1eSS 10 only one luVeteraGe pre- Juulce, dc-
quired doubtless from q long residence
among pure and simple Asiatics, and this is
an intense abomination of, and contempt for,
all society calling itself civilized, and espe-
cially for that mongrel race of money-grub-
bers, whether they are located on one side of
the Atlantic or the other, which calls itself
Anglo-Saxon, and which, to an inordinate
conceit, adds an almost inspired faculty for
''peddling." If, therefore, the extremely
o,ti ON Anna a1ar
are hurt by the record of my experiences of
village life in their country, 1 only request
them to wait until / publish few observa-
tions upon which L am engaged in
regard to the commercial morality
of London as compared with that of New
York, when they will have an opportunity of
Judging for themselves of my extreme impair
tiality, and of venting their spleen against
England, by republishing my very original
and uncomplimentary criticisms on that
country, and pocketing the entire proceeds
of the labor of my brains. 1 give them fair
notice that for every dollar Of which am
thus robbed l shall stick pin into them
somewhere; and people with such thin skins
had better make friends with me in time
1 am to be bought. 1 have not purchased
and paid for SO many of my fellow
citizens without knowing to cent
what my own price is. My stock in trade
consists of certain faculty have for wash
ing the dirty (''soiled" we call it on this side
-''dirty" is considered coarse) linen of the
Anglo Saxon race in public. So much as re-
CARDS myself.
The name of my broad ad-shouldered compan-
ion and fellow-laborer is Orange u. Smith. AS
there are two other Orange Smiths in the
neighborhood, we have TO be very particular
about the Y, pronounced zee, not zed, in
America, and so taught throughout the
schools and colleges of the country.
In the case of Orange, it does not
stand for the first letter of any
name but is simply distinctive middle ini-
tial; hence it follows that he is popularly
known as Orange Zee. When our first little
cherub was born, we called him Zuyder Zee,
out of compliment to Dutch ancestor on
my name is also Smith. 1 dropped my Celtic
patronymic and appropriated the English one
upon the occasion of my taking thirteen and
sixpence from my sister above mentioned.
The name of Zuyder Zee's mother is Mary,
but she is called "Dollie." All the pet
diminutiyes of female names in the States
end in ie, and not in q as in England,
perhaps because there is more
refined flavor about dc than about n; and all
Dollie's correspondents address their letters to
her, not by the Christian name of her hus-
band, or even by her own Christian name,
but tenderly and affectioRately as ''Mrs.
Dollie Van Shook Smith" thus as ii were
inviting the affectionate sympathy and inte-
rest of the clerks in the post Office. So when
was SO unfortunate the other day as to up
set her out of the buggy and she broke hei
leg, the editor of theVan Snookville Democrat
touchingly alluded to s'the limb of Mrs Dollie
Smith, one OF the most beautiful and highly