The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-03-17
REV Reeks RENEWED


instance. Among the San Francisco news
paper offices he was regarded as an able
Especial writer but his purely artistic
work, published in the Argonaut IN the
form of stories, gave him no particular
eminence here. And yet 1t was ex-
quisitely fine and if published in New
York or London would have made MN
famous 1t was only when he went to the
New York Sun and began the publication
of the 'Major Max" and "Chimmie Fad
den" sketches that his genius found due
recognition.
The rollicking, ignorant offspring OF
the Bowery, "Chimmle Fadden," a lad
into whose mouth Mr.. Townsend has
placed the richest and choicest slang OF
the slums, is one of the most interesting
types of metropolitan humanity. He tells
his own adventures in his own way, with
that good-hearted and devil-may
swing peculiar to his species. The series
of events which lifted him from the hard,
low life of the gutter to the position OF
footman for charming young lady in a
rich and fashionable family; the excrucl-
ating plumbers which he committed in this
strange and dazzling environment; his de-
voted loyalty to his beautiful young mis-
tress, who in the pursuit OF her enterprls-
ing benevolence in the slums had first come
across him, crippled, and who had nursed
him back to health; his readiness to
trash everybody who was unklnd to her;
his awe of CHS WhiskerS, the young
LADY, father, who once gave him much
needed whipping; his confused ideas OF
right and wrong and his brave desire to be
a square man; his total inability to cher
ish reverence for anything; his de licious
love-making to the Duchess" who was
his mistress French maid-these and
many other features OF the sketches give SO
many charming pictures of life and char
acter, and are told so simply and with so
honest desire to be true to life, that none
can resist their charm or fail to laugh over
their strange humor or shed tears over
their pathos.
The stMajor Max" sketches are half
satirical, half humorous pictures of social
and domestic life far above the plane to
which supplemented Chimmie belonged.
The satire is never too sharp nor the hu-
NOR too broad; and both are curiously
mixed together. In point of art and taste
they stand vastly above the Spoopendyke
papers, which had so great a run several
years ago. Major Max is a typical gen
tIeman rounder, full of good humor, phil
osophy and genial cynicism, and his wife
is an admirable foil, and handles him with
a certain kindness that nevertheless
smacks delicately of the shrew.
The remaining stories of the book, with
one exception, were published mostly IN
the Argonaut. Some of them give the ex-
periences of newspaper reporters IN run
ming down peculiar cases, and apart from
their literary finish and the force with
which they appeal to sympathy, they give
an insight into matter of which the pub
lie is ignorant but which is familiar to all
newspaper workers-that the personal ex
periences of the bright and indefatigable
young man in the pursuit OF news are
often far more interesting than the news
itself AS the canons of journalistic de
pertinent do not permit of the publication
of these experiences as matters of news,
Mr.. Townsend has adopted the only form
in which their character and variety may
even be suggested. 1t is not likely that he
published them with that end in view; but
that does not alter the fact that the dis
closures which he incidentally makes
throw fine, strong and instructive light
on peculiar and fascinating employ ment.
New York: Lowell, Coryell & Co. For
sale by Cooper