Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1895-06-27
SOME HISTORICAL REMARKS.
In Not Few Instances They Are Credited
to the Wrong Persons.


In Not Few Instances They Are Credited
to the Wrong Persons
Although the newspapers often print
paragraphs about familiar phrases and
their misplaced authorship, the mis-
takes, as general rule, continue to be
made. There Is that story of Yelling
ton at Waterloo, which originated with
Allison, the historian. The French
having at last broken, so the tale goes,
the Iron Duke cried to his reserves:
"Up, guards, and at themr' In the
face of frequent denia1s, by Yelling
ton himself. that he ever gave such a
command, it is repeated to this day as
an historical fact. An artist once went
to the duke and begged to be allowed
to paint him in the very attitude he
took when he uttered those stirring
words go to the DEVIL said the
duke. Again, dowager asked him if
he really did say, up. guards, and at
them?' To this the duke replied: -
couldn't have said it, madam; it would
have been absurd. What I probably
did say to my staff officers was some
thing like this: Gentlemen, you will
now move upon the enemy's rightr
Only short while ago a New York
paper repeated as authentic the story
that Marshal Butcher, while visiting
London, and looking down on the city
from the dome of st. Paurs, exclaimed:
WAS fuer plunder!'' This expression
would convey to the mind unacquaint-
ed with the German idiom the idea of.
What a place to loot The fact is,
however, that in German the word
'plunder" is used in a sense wholly
! different from that of plumber in
English. The German word plumber
means trash worthless fnery,"
''tinsel," and the phrase ''was fuer
plumber signifies what trash, :" what
rubbish" But the use of ''plunder"
even in this sense is restricted, so that
Butcher would not have used it in a
contemptuous way, as signifying that
the city spread out beneath him was
rubbish. He would have used another
| word. So, a German who hears this
remark attributed to Butcher is 10th to
believe it, knowing that in similar cir
cumstances he would never utter it
himself. Almost everybody believes
that it was Napoleon who said: God
always favOrs the heaviest battalions.' -
AS matter of fact, Tacitus was the
first who is known to have used the
phrase, and Voltaire and Mime. Sevigne
uttered it in exactly the manner cred
tied to Napoleon. That other familiar
one, The guard dies, but never surren-
derS, was attributed to Cambronne,
who was made a prisoner at Waterloo
1t was actually invented by Rouge
mont, an author of witty sayings, Two
days after the fight.
These instances of miscredited quo
tations are by no means confined tc
times in the remote past. During the
campaign of 1880 the reporter of q
newspaper in Patterson, n. J., put int
the mouth of Gen. Hancock the state
ment that "the tariff is a local issue
1t was instantly seized upon by the re
publicans, and although it was imme
diately contradicted, the presidential
candidate was SO generally credited
with it that many democrats ever
came to believe that the phrase wa.
uttered by him. There is a phrase al
most universally attributed to Grove
Cleveland, which he did not originate
: namely, Public office is a publ,
trust" The author of this terse trutl
was Daniel S. Lamont, and it was frs
used by him in a campaign sketch O
MIR. Cleveland's public career. Blu
while this fact might be tie,
: every day from now to the crack O
doom, it is likely that the presiden
will have the credit for the saying
+ partly because it sounds like him,
: and partly because it is known to epit
= omize his views regarding the occu
5 pancy of political ofice.ZRuffaio Coul
! ieE.