The Indianapolis journal., 1894-04-08
BEN KING FOUND DEAD
Heart Disease Takes the Brilliant
Musician and Poet.
Gave Performance at Bowling Green,
Ky., with 0pie Read, the Author. the
Night Before His Demise.


King. the Michigan poet and humorist,
who appeared at the opera house here last
found dead in bed at his room in the More
head House this morning. When the clerk
went TO his room to wake him TO go 10
c King could not ' be @ aroused. % Repeated knock.
ing at the door brought no response ana
an entrance to the room was effected
In bed dead. He had evidently died from
hsart disease. The remains will be sent 10
his home at St. Joseph, Mich, where ne
has a wife and two children.
Ben King was a versatile Western genius
whose star was in the ascendant He was
blessed with so many natural gifts that 1t
is difficult which to mention first as being
most distinctive of his talents. He was
thirty-fve years old, and in his native
town. "old st. joe as he christened 1t in one
of his original lyrics, he was looked up TO and
honored with the same feeling that Indian
apolis has for Whitcomb Riley. In fact,
he was much the same sort of a man as
Riley, and might some day have become
equally as popular as a platform enter
tainer He had been writing dialect, mostly
negro, since a boy under the nom de plume
of Bow Hackley." 1t was under this name
that he first gained an entrance to the Cent
ury Magazine. Bow Hackley" had been
for years without his real name
being known. His little pathetic poems,
sometimes brought tears and then again
laughter They were copied over the country,
and the EDITORS mail contained letters of
inquiry almost daily from people who Who
time Ben King was travelling over the coun-
try selling pianos for Kimballs. He was
wonderfully clever performer, being great
imitator and a perfect comedian with the
piano-forte. One day five years ago the
Chicago Press Club made an excursion %
highly entertained by Ben King. He sang,
played ayd and and recited his poems. He was
once, being carried back to Chicago almost
the shoulders of the brightest newspaper
writer's in Chicago. He was placed in the
tss st pres b When at Max s5as party fb rod9 IN
shall p. Wilder, the humorist; Edwin
celebrated dramatic lights were also pres
ent. For the time being Ben King was the
star performer of them all. He was made
pianos and devoted himself from that time
TO literary and musical pursuits. 1t was no
unusual thing for King to give twenty
words and ALL on the day Of the entertain
ment. He was retiring young man, very
droil, and did most of his writing between
Chicago he dropped his nom de plume and
wrote over his own name. He had the fac
ulty of composing striking original bits,
variable favorites with exchange editors. His
poetry was stolen right and left, from
Maine to California, and sent to magazines
by the shameless would-be wits who un-
blushngly palmed them off as original.
Nothing was so extensively treated in this
manner as his little poem, Nothing but"
which he dashed off one night in the Chi
cago Press Club three years ago. and which
runs as follows:
Nothing to Go but work;
Nothing to eat but food;
Nothing to wear but clothes
To keep one from being nude>
Nothing to breathe but air
Quick a flash tits gone
Nowhere to fall but off,
Nowhere to stand but
Nothing to comb but hair,
Nowhere to sleep but bed,
Nothing to weep but tears;
No one to bury but dead
Nothing to sing but songs;
All, well,s alas and alackl
No where to go but out;
Nowhere to come but back
Nothing to see but sights;
Nothing TO quench but thirst;
Nothing to have but what we've got,
Thus through our lives we're cursed.
Nothing to strike but a gait
Everything moves that goes.
Nothing at all but common sense
Can ever Withstand these woes"