The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-03-25
NEWSPAPER FUNNY MEN.
Notable Cases Recalled by the Dan
bury News Mans Death.

from the New } ork Mall ana Express.
A man died the other dav who did more
than any man now living to stimulate the
study Of the geography of the State Of
Connecticut in the middle and far west.
It was twenty or more years ago that
items began 10 appear in the western
newspapers, credited TO the Danbury
News. There was something so unusual
about these items that the public not only
read and treasured them, but repeated
them to their friends. Then they took
out their school books and found that
Danbury was a tlourishing little city in
the Nutmeg state, situated in Fairfield
county; that 1t had mills and factories,
stores and schools, and people to work
and buy and study. This is what the
Biographies told them. They learned far
more than the News extracts. They
learned that in Danbury stove pipes were
never put up without trouble, that NOV
ing time was period OF tribulation sec
ond only to the days of house cleaning;
that small boys played sad pranks on
their elders and that goats ate all kinds
of things, bringing all sorts Of pain upon
every creature except themselves. They
learned that there is humor as well as
sadness in everyday life as well as in
story books and that it is a dullard indeed
who cannot see something CHEEKY in his
surroundings.
This was the lesson taught by James
Montgomery Bailey the editor of the
News, who died last Sunday. Mr.. Bailey
was the first American humorist who be-
came widely known by the name OF his
journal. He wasn't known as Bailey,
the funny man" but as the 'Danbury
News man" The Bailey came after
ward, years afterward.
1t was not long before Mr.. Bailey had
many followers. There was the Detroit
Free Press man, the Burlington Hawk
eye man, the Brooklyn Eagle man, the
Rochester Chronicle man, the Laramie
Boomerang man and others. These were
the impersonal days of the newspaper
humorist, and they were great days, too.
From 1870 to 1880 a half dozen humorists
sprung into fame which in several cases
has since ripened into fortune.
THE DETROIT FREE PRESS MAN.
While the News man was depicting the
mishaps Of the Danburyites on moving
day, the Detroit Free Press began ex-
plotting ''Bijah" and His Honor" and
the doings of the Lime Kiln Club became
part of the history of the day. There
also appeared in this newspaper
touching stories of men from way
back towns who lost themselves in
Woodward avenue, Detroit, and would
have come TO grief untold save for the
kindly offices of the Free Press police
man. People began TO inquire who wrote
these truthful sketches, who was the
Free Press MANI Some one said that it
was a ''little red haired man named Lewis
who wrote in room which no one else was
permitted to enter, who did as he pleased
and was growing rich at it" Thus the
ImperSOnallty OF another humoriSt was
destroyed andthe Free Press man became
m Quad or Charles w. Lewis, still
funny, still independent and prosperous.
He lives in Brooklyn now and the most
popular policeman Detl oft ever had has
forever lost his Job
BOB BURDETTE's START.
It was about this time that the Bur
lington Hawkeye man made himself
heard. Then for the first time the gem
eral public learned that there were two
Burlingtons in the country, one in YER
mont a staid prosaic old town, and the
other in Iowa, as funny a town as grass
ever grew in. IL was in this Iowa town
that the Hawkeye was published, by a
young man named Frank Hatton, who
afterward besame Postmaster General,
and now is one Of the owners of the
Washington Post. The prosperity of the
paper and its owner dates from the
Hawkeye mans beginning. For years the
humorist wrote poems and ingles,
sketches and paragraphs which made the
town famous and in time brought him
fame, too. Soon there came requests for
the Hawkeye man to lecture, and from
these grew the "Tale of a Mustache,"
and Robert J. Burdette became a national
character. He left the Hawkeye many
years ago, about the same time that Mr.
Hatton forsook Iowa for the United
States.
1t was a loss not only to the Hawkeye,
but the town as well. Thereafter the
only appreciable difference between the
two Burlingtons was the one denoted ON
the maps. Mr. Burdette is still leeturing
and telling little stories which leave the
reader in doubt whether to laugh or to
cry. He still describes the fat passenger,
who is good natured, the thin passenger
who sets on the wood box, the brazen
train boy and the youth who drinks the
water cooler so dry that il warps But
he doesn't do il every week. He has no
need to so long as he can lecture four
nights In the week at 300 a night and ex-
penses.
EDITOR GREGORY's WIT.
The Rochester Chronicle man was a
contemporary of these impersonal funny
men. 1t was early in the seventies that
this staid Flour City journal began to
sparkle as it had never had before and
has never done since. 1t was years be-
fore the reading public knew that the
Chronicle man was Isaac M. Gregory.
the present editor of Judge This dis
coyery was made by an estimable gentle
man named lie Due. who filled the post of
commissioner of agriculture before that
Office became a cabinet secretaryship
Commissioner lie Due, who was occurring
in the western part of this state in the
interest of his tea raising hobby, met
with some newspaper condemnation and
a great deal of good-humored 'ridicule.
This incensed the good farmer, who was
unused to the ways Of politicians and he
retorted He was interviewed by a
Rochester reporter, who innocently asked
him why ne didn't attack the news
paper men who had ridiculed him
ATTACK themW repeated the farmer.
mo, sir. have no desire to wear Jack
ass's scalp in my belt"
mo, indeed" retorted Mr.. Gregory in
the Chronicle. mo, indeed old fellow,
you'1l wear it where it grew"
As Mr.. Gregory was fully the equal Of
MIR. lie Due. physically, nothing came of
the thrust, but the commissioner could
never be induced to enter into another
newspaper controversy. After several
years service in Rochester Mr. Gregory
became the Buffalo Express man, then
the Elmira Free Press man, the editor of
n C,.,,