The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1875-03-03
Poker and Hasty Pudding.

If the PRESS has misled Gen. Schenck, it
begs his pardon. 1t was entirely unin-
territorial. When year ago it spoke in terms
of appreciation of those who would have
made Emerson or Whittier senator from
Massachusetts and dwelt on the atmosphere
impenetrable by fraud, venality and greed in
which devotion to literary pursuits seems to
envelope public men, it did not mean to in
spire him or any other ambitious gentleman
to write book on draw poker. Perhaps the
Generals mistake was natural, but he has
bitterly paid the penalty of it, for wits in two
hemispheres are still harassing him about his
supplement to Hoyle. He may indeed have
obtained by his little book place in what is
somewhat pretentiously called the "Panthe-
on of American Authors" but it is in that
underground apartment of the structure
where the Mortified spectator is treated to
sight of Tom Paine, of the authors OF the
True Story of Lord Byron, the Life of Victo-
ria Woodruff, of Morgan's Masonry and
thousand nameless publications which are in
the index expurgatorius of all good people.
IF our minister at the court of st. James
felt the need of fortifying his moral nature
and saving hims elf from the corroding inau-
ences of political life by bathing his soul in
the pure sweet light of letters, why did he
not select safe neutral theme, like that other
famous soldier diplomatist, who, in the last
century. startled Europe already thrilling
with revolutionary passions by lofty strain
in praise of-Hasty Pudding? Hail to thee,
Joel Barlow-tuneful bard, democratic agita-
tor, astute diplomatist! Connecticut may
well turn back to thee and to thy simple age
from amid the noise of its busy wheels and
the rustic of its tobacco leaves, as one who
in life of hurry and dissipation looks back
to the home of innocent childhood. He who
reads "Hasty Pudding may then eat the
his imagination is heated by the perusal,
think the gods had sent down to him an al
lotment of golden ambrosia, with white nee
tar to drown it in. The pudding must be
eaten with milk, so says the United States
Minister of the court of Versailles; and he
regards the suggestion of molasses as simply
sacrilegious. Read, with watering mouth,
the glowing words of our poetic plenipoten-
tiary on this point:
Milk then with pudding would always choose;
To this in future confne my muse,
Till she in haste some further hints unfold,
Well for the young, nor useless to the old.
First in your bowl the milk abundant take,
Then drop with care along the silver lake
Your flakes of pudding; these at first will hide
Their little bulk beneath the swelling tide;
But when their growing mass no more can sink,
When the soft island looms above the brink,
Then check your hand you've got the portion due;
So taught our sres, and what they taught is true.
'Fear not to slaver," says the liberal bard,
by which we understand him to indicate the
noise-of course never heard now, but wholly
tradit:onal-once made by hasty but not over
nice eaters when partaking of liquid food.
We must, however, leave this part of the
theme lest we offend the sensibilities of a
non-slavering generation. But happy had it
been for Scherck had he made Barlow his
model. Hasty pudding is now vulgar, and
no parsonage, ministerial or not, who was
Visiting the country seat of a noble English
family" would venture so much as to mem
tion it. But Schenck had the whole range of
the national cuisine to choose from-he
might have sung of bear steaks, fried CLAIMS
or baked beans and brown bread. But he
chose draw poker. Pike county may hear and
applaud. s'Lttle Breeches," now grown to
manhood, and the surviving members Of the
Bludsoe family, will doubtless give it critical
perusal and make it pocket companion.
But it makes the judicious grieve and will in
no wise proraote Gen. Schenck's political en-
terprises. No public man can be laughed at
o,od 1.-Two