Alpena weekly argus. [volume] (Alpena, Mich.) 1871-1893, 1886-01-06
Josh BILLINGS"
Various Tributes to His Genial,
Quaint Worth.

"a more sweet and delightful nature
than Josh Billings (Henry Shaw never
lived" says d. r. Locke. of the Toledo
Blade, in his editorial tribute to tho
dead humorist. HE was singular
compound of simplicity and shrewdncss.
He was more philosopher than humor-
list. His sayings will outlive those of
Poor Richard and they ought to, for
his was a pleasant philosophy that had
nothing of meanness in it.
HE did not write as profession.
Writing adopted him. He originally
wrote his sayings because he had to.
The public got taste for them and
compelled him to write them. He was
not monev-maker, and yet he was in
n small way. When he found goodness
he made the public pay. He was very
shrewd in his investments, so that he
left his family competency.
'He captivated on the platform be-
cause his manner exactly fitted his mat
ter. His lectures were nothing but
collection of sayings carefully and
art stically arranged so as to appear
without form. He was always popular
because his talk was like his writings
intended to discourage meanncss and
TO be helpful to those who needed help.
There was not mean or selfish thing
in him, and his work was merely a re-
flex Of himself. He was an originator
and a compressor. His great merit was
in taking column and boiling it down
so as to get it into two lines. His work
was converting ashes into potash.
He was all in all delightful man,
and was in private life what he was on
the platform and in print. He never did
a mean thing, and never had an enemy
among good men"
'He was a man no one could know
WELL said Milward Adams, of Central
Music Hall. Toledo. II asked him once
why he did not stand up and talk to his
audience. and he replied: We'll. sir,
old as am, and rs long as have been
before the public, l never go on the
stage but am so nervous and fright
ened that / don't know who am for
the next twenty minutes DO Won
know he used to conduct most all of hie
business correspondence by postal card,
with. his communication on it mostly
printed; and the characteristic thing
about this was that in the corner of the
card was good picture of Josh in chair
while beside him, with cheek against
his, was q donkey around whose neck
Josh had an arm. He announced his
terms in this fashion: Il will lecture
for fun and one hundred dollars thrown
in And that's what he got, unless
visiting some small place where they
couldn't pay rs much. He picked up
his wisdom as he went. He told me
once, when l asked him where he got
his ideas for all his sayings, that he got
them everywhere, looking at this thing
and ut that rs he Travelled from place to
place. He never seemed conscious that
he was humorist."
Some years ago there was published,
for advertising purposes, letter which
Josh Billings wrote to a gentleman in
the way Of autobiography. 1t was in
part as follows:
was born in Berkshire County, Mass,
during the nineteenth century, of highly re-
spectacle parents and owe what little sue
cess have attained to tho wisdom of my
father,and the plety OF my mother. At the
fragrant age of fifteen set my face west
ward and followed 1t until stood upon the
plans for life, and but little better in feelings
than n cheerful vagrant. For twenty-five
years the various wanderlngs of a border
life made me acquainted with scenes and OK
per'ences better calculated to cut tho char
acter sharp, than to refine IL, and IL I escaped
without scars, It was simply because tho
susceptibility OF my nature looked upon
most things In this life as simply n joke.
In common with most Americans who have
to push early to test their own wingsI en-
m NJ mt
tersman, having been at times n land hunter,
farmer, drover, steamboat captain and even
prise as early as 1895 to cross the Rocky
Mountains. This last-namcd enterprise wns
q profound failure, but its inception and
preliminary arrangements Afforded mo one
o. the choicest relics of my early adveu-
lures and that is three letters, now in my
possession, written to mo personally by
Van Buren,, recommending me and tho
undertaking to the kind care and patronage
of all people and ell nations.
"lfslmay be said TO ever have commenced
q literary career, IL certainly was muck
later in life than most men commit the folly,
for had passed forty-flve years before L
ever wrote line for the public eye. What
little reputation may have made, has been
accomplished within the last nine years aud
consider that hat owe al of this little to tho
they have discovered but little wit, or oven
humor, in what have written, have done
me the credit to acknowledge that my pro-
ductions have been free from malice. Ipln
all my faith, hope and charity upon this one
impulse of my nature and that Is, IL could
have my way, there would be q smile contin-
ually on the face OF every human being on
Gods footstool, and this smile should ever
and anon widen into n broad grin.
II have not the inclination to go Into an
extended account of the trials and failures
that have met with since first put on the
cap and bells, but / can assure you that
would not contend with them again for
what little glory aud stamps they have won
for mo-"
The bad spelling under which Josh
Billings pregnant savings so profitably
thrived was purposely taken on, partly
through fear of his ability to spell cor
rcctly, and partly from cccentrcity. So
Billings quasi-phonetic method became
all his own. and no man lives who can
fix law thereto. His was horse sense
expressed in the plain Saxon Of homely
people. He turned out aphorisms grin
ming with truth. II his lectures were
nondescript it is because they lacked
unity and cohcrency. not matter. He
was neither Artemus Ward nor the droll
and brilliant Phoenix. nor Bob Burdettc,
nor Mark Twain-that everybody
knows; he was Josh Billings. kind OF
Old Man of the Mountain, who talked
wisdom to the people with his books
and came to amusc them with the
same, exponnded in his dry but humor-
Gus way from their Dialforms