The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1894-06-06
A VISIT TO SALTWATER.


tiary, on Decorations Day. 1 agreed to
DO SO, without compensation; partly
out of good feeling towards the War
den, for his fair treatment of the
farmers in the twine-making business;
and partly out of sympathy for the
poor fellows shut up in the prison. 1
know so many prominent citizens of
Minnesota, who ought to be in the
penitentiary, and who are bigger ras-
calls than any in the Warden's choice
collection Of wallfowers, that have
kind of pity for the poor fools who
could not plunder their fellow men
without violating the letter of the
la W and getting into Limbo. And so
last Wednesday, / went over to Still
water and made them speech. After
talking awhile about the civil war,
and our dead soldiers, Il didn't say
anything about the living ones, who
are being reduced to pauperism by
mis-government), then proceeded to
deliver to them my lecture on "Wit and
Humor." felt that poor fellows in
their condition would not need so
much to be lectured as to be enter
tained; and so the 500 before me made
the old walls.-greatly unused to such
sounds,-ring with bursts of hearty
laughter and applause. It did them a
world of good. Not long since one
poor wretch,-a ''lifer"-sprang over
the high railing of a corridor and
SIN a cba0 hi inns o1f to Joofb ov, thu CT fopo
floor below, to escape the awful, hope
less, grinding monotony of such life.
And here were 500, In somewhat the
same frame of mind, made to laugh
until the tears came. Poor old Meiggs,
one of the men who grabbed and ran
off with $1,000 from St. Paul bank,
came up to me in the yard, after
wards, and courteously said, "Permit
me to thank you, Mr.. Donnelly, for
the first hearty laugh have enjoyed
in a long time" Nodoubt oft. The
state prison is not a congenial place
for laughter. One would as soon look
for ice-cream in the internal regions.
And SO, brethren, when the old party
hacks tell you what bad man DON
nelly is, say to them that he made 500
poor wretches supremely happy for an
hour or more. And ask them if any of
their leaders ever made anybody hap
py fer five minutes, in all their lives;
unless it was when they were lying to
them about the good times that were
to follow the repeal of the Sherman
act last year!
was surprised to note the quick
ness of apprehensiofs nd the sense Of
humor of the conflicts. 1t was as
great as in any audience I ever spoke
to. The criminal isqnot by any means
necessarily an imbecile; he may be
very bright. Lord Bacon called cum
ming "a crooked WISDOM and there is
crook in the minds of these people;
whence, very properly, they are called
"crooks." Their intellects lack SIM
plicity and directness; they are like
the fellows gun that shot around a
corner, but was of no use for aiming
staight ahead. But then no one ever
made himself. or the thousandth part
of himself; and no man, as the Bible
says, 'by taking thought can add a
cubit to- his sta re, mental or
physical. And so we ought to have
great charity for these poor wretches,
who, as Richard III, says, were "sent
into this breathing world but half
made up" AS Whittier. says, no. one
can tell.
Through what ancestral courses ran
The trouble with the woman born.''
And man might just as well try to
lift himself over fence by his
boot-straps as to be anything more
than nature made him. But some
Mortified friend will exclaim: "What!
Cannot one improve himself?" Ger
tainly: but he must have the impulse
so to do; and who can, by willing it,
create an impulse Or thought? Try
it. Say to yourself, ,-"Now l will think
2 bright and original thought" And
if nature has not equipped you with
them, from the hidden laboratories,
you will resolve in vain. A rooster
might just as we'll say,-'now 1 will
lay an egg" Poor cock-a-doodle.do
would not understand that the pedi-
gree of an egg reaches back for ten
thousand years; and thoughts are no
more de noro than eggs. 'But" says
one "that ends all progress" Not at
all. Let each do lis level best, and he
will reach, mot perfection Perhaps
but the utmost limitations with
which nature has surrounded him.
But the great = sermon, all this
breaches, is,-modesty and charity.
Let no man exult over his good gifts,
for he did not make them. Neither
let us fail of kindlsness to those who
have drawn blanks In the great lot
terry of creation, for it is not their
fault. If a man had the right, before
he was born, to pick out his ancestors.
how few would come into this world?
From such an one we inherit
asthma, from another consump-
tion; from an other neuralgia;
from another base Instincts
drunkness, lying, stealing, perhaps.
There are two great demands that
should pervade all life:-a demand for
charity for all belew us; and demand
for justice from all above us:-pity for
the weak and resistance to the strong;
-kindliness and courage. AS Bayard
Taylor, says:
THE bravest are the tenderest:
The loving are the daring"
wound up my lecture on Wit and