The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1892-02-05
WHAT "AMEKIGANiZED" MEANS
"A NEW VERB.

There is tradit that when the Caliph
omar doomed the great Alex ndrlan library to
Instruction he was waited upon by deputation
scholars, who beSoughf him o spare that vast
and spl mid collection Of books. But tn Com
mandpr of the Faithful WAS not 10 he moved from
his purpose. IT, said he, 'thrse books contain
anything more than is written in The Koran they
are pernicous, aud If they contsin no more than
g written in the X ran they are superfuous. In
'iiher case let them be destroyed"
1t must have been in similar spirit Of grim
humor that the Turv-yors OF the fricasseed
'Ency clopedia britannica" devoted Themselves
to the task of chopping up the twenty FIVE big
quor'o volumes of-which the famous 9th Edin-
hurgh edition CONSISTED, and serving up the
pie es in Hybrid literary gravy OF their cwn
decoction in ten shabby little volumes Like the
Caliph Omar, they were evidently determined
upon destroying it
AS an exquistely comic Al conceit one cannot
but admire the highly facetious announcement
th"t by cutting out IS OF every 100 pages of a
great standard work and throwing them swsy,
the 25 per cent fit that has e.caped in the dis.
enrbowelling process is superb "Ame icauized
edition " q
To keep the title Encyclopedia Britannica" on
the covers that enclo;e these sacrificed remains
of the greatest literary work of the age was Ger
tainl, master stroke of humor. But the ioks
does not stop here. The publishers even point
tn pride to the ten pigmy volumes containing
the fragments ofthe famous Britannica that were
spared by the but hers whom they employed 10
edit it with meat axes, and declare with so or
fares. that for the practical purposes Of every
day use, this Ame' icanzed edition is superior
than the original Edinburgh edi .ion."
That's TO say. 20 small vo umes are better thap
rs large ones; quarter OF loaf is better than a
whole one; dividend of IS cents on the dollar,
paid in copper pennies at that is better tina pay
ment IN fall in gold coin o. standard weight and
fnenes'; all of which propositions are emincntly
amu,ng The lauebahe audacties of adyerti,
ing have been many, but We think his appropria
tion the lite Encyclopedia Britannica" for
the purpose of selling to the unwary a little
bean Of debris rakcd from the ruins of that IN Atch.
less work beats nc record
Labelling the diSectd men,brd of the Britannica
| as the "Amrrcanlz edition was CROW ming
bit Of comedy. The verb "to Americanize',
hereby gains a new and lasting m Gaming Here
aft"r anything that is smashed into smithereens,
ground into mince meat, disfgnred beyond rec
IGNITION, or pu,vprzed into title bits may bO
spoken Of as "Americsnizei," Mr., Russell Sage,
for example, had narrow escape from he NJ
! "Amercanized" the other day. As only his head
and few of his bones remained to identif, Nor
cross, that d-ment.d youth may be said to have
been al successfully AN eica' nd" az the 10
volume cake Britannica itself Mr. Cyrus
Fiel IS large fortune, having been reduced TO the
vanishing point, NAV properly be referred to as
"Americanzed " The grain crops OF Europe,
which shrunk this year about one. fourth of their
usual size. furnish another example of what il
me ms to be- "Amer'canized' on the ten small for
twenty five large-vnlumes plan.
It cannot be de, led that viewed as a work OF
excision and reduction, the Encyclop. dia Bli-
taonca" has been very eff'c ually "American-
| izcd," II IS he literally torn limb from limb.
and nothin; left oft to identify it except its title
page and here and there the splintcrs and shay
ings of some of its !, aiding articles It'll the mos.
unique bit Of literary bomb throwing ever exc
cured. The explosion has carried away all the
marginal references and subtopics of the origi
nal work, annhila'ed The Index blown out hun
dreds of illustrations. maps, Plates, woodcuts.
and diagrams, and played havoc with all the i'm.
| ortant a"tr es, alike on America and foreign
'uhje' is Especially complete is the wreck made
Of The American census of ST istics Of 1890. The
correct figures of the population of our States,
cities and towns missing in almost every in
! stance
To take a stai dard work Of this peerless char.
acter which is conceded to lie without u rival in
the world Edit it with nitro.gycerine in this ruth
less way, tearing it, head from its body. and then
presrn ing its torn and lscrrated remains as a
superior Americanzed editon"ls about the most
ghastly practical joke t. at has ever been played
on the reading public OF this country.
The Reader WHO is b-guiled into buying copy
Of hese 'remains" Of the grand Britannica WILL
after he has pati.u and painfully searched it
through for points OF resemb to its great or
ignal be able to enjoy the point Of the story Mr..
| Sam Weller told Mr. P,ckwick about the myster-
ious Disappearance Of the proprietor of "thc cee
hrated sa~sage factory" lie was the inventor Of
"a patent neve -leaving-oG sassage steam-engine
as nd swaller up PAWN stone and grind it into
sassages easy AS if it was a tender young
bsbby." One day he disappeared and never more
was seen, His fate was never suspected, until
patron of the "sassage factory" walked in and
complained of finding twenty or thirty halves of
ruuser-bultOns in his ''sassages.' His widow,
said MIR. Weller examined these substitutes for
sausage carefully, and then exclaimed: II
see il al; fit of temporary insanity he rAshly
converted his self into sassagrs."
The unhappy person upon whom = copy of the
"Americanizrd" Britannica is unoadsd will, after
YEARLY wading through its pages o. enough