Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-11-09

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old days when the lecture courss was the
fashion, fashion which, with modern
trimmings, the local Lecture As.ocis, Ion
has attempted with some success to Intro
duce during the last two seasons.
Some remarkable figures arise out Of
those old days, and come forward again on
the platforms of the past to greet our
memory. Beecher! His name in the
morning paper or on Q handful aoded 9
fresh beat to the pulse of the town, sent
thousands of feet hurrying away Tor seats
before they should be gone, and LETT sun
hundreds of sturdy, belated legs to sup
port their owners during the evening ~ u,
| the aisles There were radiant planets IN
the platform system of those days, but
| Beecher was the solar center.
| Among these planets were the brilliant
| and elittering Observation-Disclosures Parker
| and Theodore Tilton = always sure OF
houses Just nicely full, q seat for every
body, but none to spare. In their audi
ences ladies' bonnets were unimpeachsble,
and gentlemen's gloves and linen were inn
| maculate. Here the intellectual and social
aristocrat predominated and felt at home.
Filling up the ranks of the men whose
names at that time shone out from lecture
programmes, we find also Wendell Philips,
whom Virginia Journalist called IAN in
fernal machine set to music" Schuyler
Colfax, spontaneous, swift-moving, per-
suasive, and Charles Sumner, cold. schol-
arly, unique, commanding, holding an au-
dience breathless with expectation.
Among the rest appears that tall, gaunt,
awkward form, with shrewd and kindly
face, a thoughtful and hesitating speech,
sermons Lacked in sentences-a figure that
no respectable lecture course could be with
out, but a figure which many lecture-goers
were content to know had not been forgot
ten, for the credit of the town, but who. on
Emerson nights, staid at home or went to
the play. Emerson had two constituents
one that raved over him and lived in him,
and another whose members did not dare
to say they had not heard him. Out OF the
two he had fair audiences, but there was
usually plenty of room, and ventilation
was easy.
Amid ell this wealth of eloquence, learn
ing and philosophy the humorists were not
forgotten. Man must laugh. Artemus
Ward and Josh Billings stepped regularly
each season into their assigned places in
the procession. Their audiences, always
generous in numbers, went with their
laughing muscles adjusted to essy responses
and retired leaving their cares behind
them. .-
Then there was Greeley. A circus,
He not only drew the town but the country
for twenty miles around Men and women
wanted to see Greeley. 1t was understood
that he was not an orator, but he was a
man to be seen. For this sight Of him
many hundreds of people nightly endured
his droning voice, in which the pith and
vigor of his words were almost lost.
But few who occupied the same horizon
with these men have come Onward into the
horizon of the present. Among these rep
resentatives of two generations the most
conspicuous figure is Joseph Cook. He is
to Beecher as the rising to the setting sun.
Stars of equal magnitude, one advances as
the other recedes. As one star differeth
from another in glory, so likewise do these
platform giants differ. Beecher was, as he
chose, deep-howing river or majestic
torrent. Cook is laundering avalanche.
Everything goes down before the resistless
sweep OF his keen, incisive, relentless logic
and unmatchable energy Of utterance.
Hundreds everywhere stand to hear him,
and hundreds more turn their reluctant
feet away from his temple.
Bearing much the same relation to Cook
that Parker and Tilton did to Beecher,
come Ingersoll and Vending; superb,
both. In the prime Of life, of fine pres
ence, polished, eager, convincing, they
swords against each others breasts. Only
in George r. Vending has Ingersoll ever
been matched before popular assembly.
OF late Ipgersoll has withdrawn from
public notice, but Weddings blade still
CLEANS in the faces Of his vast and de-
lighted audiences.
Nor is the new generation without its
humorists. Replacing Artemvs and
Joshua, William Nye and the Fat Con.
tributor go forth upon their mission of
peace and good will. In bis tour around
the world, Griswold, the Te1ds SJtings
man, alias the Fat Contributor, goes with
Us in search of the gold buried by great
pirate when he was Kidd; to Stirling
Castle, built by pounds. sterling; calls
with us upon the Egyptian King, who had
the sand to build his own monument on
the desert; accompanies Us to Versailles
and st. Cloud, if the weather is not too
cloudy, and to various other points of in
terest keeping us, like troop of giddy
children, laughing at his heels.
The old lecture days are full of pleasant
"reminiscences. Why may not the old
DAYS come again this winter, bringing
with them the intellectual stores of these
modern Kings of speech-Cook, Wend-
IT, G-;a-1II apl otharo0 Will enp, q ono