Semi-weekly south Kentuckian. [volume] (Hopkinsville, Ky.) 1883-1889, 1885-01-30
Pat Donan's Nightmare.
philadelphia News.l

Everybody who is anybody, from
Manitoba to Bar Harbor, knows Pat.
Donan. lie is the man who wrote
for Proctor Knott, the Kentucky
congressman, his famous Duluth
speech, since the delivery Of which
Mr.. Knott has done nothing to make
him worth speaking about. Donan
several years ago delivered Fourth
of July oration in the land Of "The
Unsalted seas" that even now makes
part and pracel of every well-regnlat-
ed guild book of the great northwest.
He was delegate to the Episcopal
convention that assembled in Phila-
delphia two years ago, he having
temporarily hedged himself about
with ecclesiastical propriety, that he
might gain bishop and a bishopric
for the territory of Dakota. He was
successful, of course, and since then
he has been known among his
familiars as the "bishop-maker."
Some of Proctor Knots friends
have been foolish enough to contra
dict the assertion that his incompara-
bly, funny Duluth speech was written
by any one other than himself, and
even Pat. Donan will deny it. Here
after, however, even the latter
gentleman's reputation for veracity
will, In this respect at least need a
greater support than can ever be de-
rived from the land Of the setting
sun, where exaggeration is unknown.
Mr.. p. Donan has been invited to the
annual dinner of the Clover Club.
His reply is conveyed in personal
letter to an officer of the club, an
excerpt from which is here given.
After reading it Mr.. Proctor Knott
will surely not have the presump-
tion TO claim the parenage OF his
own literary infant. Pat. Donan
writes from Fargo, Dakota, under
date of December %. as follows:
For any real delay and seeming
neglect in the matter of acknowledge
ing and replying to your very kind
letter | have good and sufficient
reasons plenty as the "blackberries.
Falstaff gathered for Prince Hal
from the sOld fields" Of Virginia or
somewhere else. Even now l show
my high appreciation of your COM
munication by propping myself up
to try and write you, when, according
to all the rules of physiology and
hygiene, as expounded by orthodox
pill-peddlers, | ought TO be IN bed,
with one ignoramus Of country
doctor timing my pulse by an ancient
bulls-eye watch with a big brass fob
chain, another poking pewter
spoon several feet down my throat to
examine my overcoated tongue,
and a half-dozen good old ladies in
wrinkles and ruflled caps boiling my
feet in mustard broth, and tying up
my head in vinegared napkins. l
have for some time past been cutting
along the ragged edge OF spell oi
pneumonia, with a double dose OF
catarrh and neuralgia thrown IN to
fill The measure OF my woes. am
roasting with feverishness now-so
hot that cold water poured on me
would sizz-so hot that the steam
from my seething bleed makes my
hat dance on my head like an
infuriated teakettle lid. My yhead is
roaring like baby Niagara with the
collie, aud aching as if 1t were deter
mined to bust into thousand film
ders, every one of them with an ache
in it big enough to send sacred
white circus elephant to bed under
banyan tree, with his skull done up
in camphored rag and his trunk
packed and checked over the Trans
Jordan and New Jerusalem railroad
for auother and perhaps no better
world. Ny eyes, blazing with blood
shotten fire, look like two drunken
locomotive headlights or a pair of
touchedoif "CatI erine-wheels" of
Judas day" and seem bent on turn
ing a double somerset out of their fry
ing-pan sockets. My hands, as you
can see from my cacogrsphy, are
shaky 90 ON average American
"patriot statesman's" principles
or as palsied old woman's tongue.
And the climax of my miseries is
capped with what a profane
young man would-(but /, of course,
being devout Dakota bishop-maker
and writing to a pink-tinted paragon
ofall the journalistic virtues, graces
and proprieties, would not and could