Morning appeal. [volume] (Carson City, Nev.) 1877-1906, 1877-09-23
NOTES AND QUERIES.

less owe their origin to the sinful side of our
first parent This warmth of feeling is not
anger, although it is like to find expression in
immoderate and impatient utterance; for it
is to be explained that it is his critical aud
analytical sensibilities which this Querist
thus admits to be subject to occasional irrita-
tons We find going the rounds of the press
a quotation from an article in Appleton s
Journal written by Mr.. William H. Rideing
of the Wheeler Expedition. He attempted a
description of "Yank", the celebrity of Tai
lac Point We find this writer quoted as fol-
lows: "There are settlements at the Springs
(Gilmore Soda Springs and at the steamboat
landing, including at the latter place the hos
telry of ';Yank' Clements, a celebrity in the
neighborhood, who is the original of Clarence
Kings clever sketch of ''The Newty's of
Pike" Now it is to be objected to the fore
going, in the interest of the strictly truthful,
that there is not any sort of settlements at
Gilmore Springs"-not even as much as
log cabin or brush-shanty within mile of
them, and if Mr.. Clarence King took Yank
for pattern Or subject for Pike County
picture he made as wide miss of his mark as
if he had painted sketch Of telegraph pole
and dubbed it Cedar of Lebanon. Glenn
ents is man of sixty who came west when
he was more than forty years of age, from
New Hampshire, and so pronounced is his
character of specimen rustical New Eng
lander that he got his nickname of "Yank"
as by common consent We find Mr. Ride
ing expressing himself as follows: "Yank EN-
igrated from the Green Mountains to Nevada
when Lake Tahoe was scarcely more familiar
to geographers than the Victoria N'yanza, and
delights in recounting to visitors his early ex-
perience, which he does with many amusing |
peculiarities of phrase and gesture. 81 civil |
lized the Indians, sir; yes, sir; and taught |
them Christianity! When l came here, sir,
mans life wasn't worth shucks, sir when
they didn't kill, they stole, the dog gorned
cusses taught them to be honest, sir; the
first sen of gun l found stealing, sir, l tied
up to tree and whipped like! Yes, sir ~
With tremendous volubility he delivers each
sentence, and then draws back with arched
eyebrows to observe the effect on the hearer.
He is a man of great foresight and prodigious
plans. He took me by the arm one day, and
pointed mysteriously to giant pine tree in
front of the house. See that, sirl I'm 60
ing to build a grotto in them highest branches;
outlook on the lake, sir ! A fsh-pond with
little Coopid jerkin' water down here;
billiard table and a pe-an-er in the
house. l don't fancy pe-an-ers much;
there's too much tum-tum about EN-. Give
me a fiddle; but we're going to have one
YES, sir incest place on the lake, sir = He
invariably winds up with this declaration,
and no one can go far astray in acquiescing' q
This might be good deal worse, but it has I
blemishes which no observant writer can be I
excused for being guilty Of The effort land V
it is that, as much as anything of which we V
complain), is to dish up Westerner and his P
eccentricities for the entertainment of the Il
Eastern reader. Now ''Yank" is no more A
Westerner than Massachusetts, carpetbag-
ger who happens to find himself transplanted t.
from his native village into the center of u
South Carolina is a''Southron." Here we find a
a mature Yankee employing class of words u
and explosives which are as foreign to his small u
as Hindostanee or pure Italian. Il
f'Shucks" is of the lingo of the West and "
Southwest; and Yank is no more capable of
saying 'dog- goned" than he is of compre- u
bending Carlyle's Sartor Resartus or Andrew 81
Jackson Davis's Great Harmonica. Adults K
If the class of men to which Yank belongs q
ire unimpressible and never assimilate their u
oatois to any near surroundings. A Yankee p
lwells forever on the opposite side of faith
unless gulf from native of the Pike County
,egion They are different of breed, different
n temperament and as widely unlike in their
employment of provincialisms as an 1rishman 81
and Cockney. 1t is in the observance of B
he delicate but deciding shades of difference W
n speech between natives of different parts at
If ireland that Dion Boucicault succeeds so W,
in depicting the diverse types of of
IRISH character. Before his time there was H
he stereotyped Stage Paddy, just as there NJ
vas Stage Yankee before GO Scion Shingles" pi
ay. We will not assert that both da
hese were impossible characters, ev
Though it has always seemed to wi
s that the traditional stage Yankee was mt
amentably inartistic and melancholy carica- tn