The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-08-30
------------------------- --------->------------------- DON'T BE I CHI LIMP.

We have noticed with interest the discussion that has been aroused by the hint in some of the street cars of New Haven that there may be chumps here, and that they may be in need of warning against the dangers of chufnp- ishness. And we have also noticed with interest that, as is usual in such discussions, facts are somewhat obscur- ed by feeling. For instance, it is as- stunned, and hot argument is based on the assumption, that the railroad com pany has come pretty near calling the good and the wise people of New Haven chumps. It has not It has simply warned them in a rather severely direct manner against being chumps. All the insult we can see in this warning is the hint that there might, could, would or should be any chumps in New Haven. AS there is none and never will be any perhaps the railroad company has gone a little too far in even fearing that there may be. But of course the rail- road company's reply to this will be that it is too optimistic, that a fair view of things warrants it in fearing that chump may occasionally ride on it's cars, and that the warning is in tended for the occasional chump and not for the general run of good and wise New Haveners. It will also assert that | 1t is better for a cfump to be somewhat startlingly notified by printed letters that he is chump than to receive the notification by an amputated leg Or arm or broken neck.
 As to the literary part of the affair. we find that we cannot quite agree with some of the purists who are talk 1 ing part in the discussion. Of course chump is slang, this is a university city and there ought to be due regard for the fitness of things. But chump is not bad slang or low slang. It has a good pedigree, having legitimately descend ed from the Icelandic word "Kumbr," | meaning a block. To call man a | chump is to call him wooden, stupid. thick, etc., etc. We do not find 1 "chump' in the Bible, and it may not | be in Shakespeare, though we should not be surprised if 1t were. But Dick ems speaks of the "chump end of some thing" and Sir Philip Sidney speaks of l ''chumpish looks" Moreover (and to this we call special attention), the may l or of this university city has used the | word "chump'' in one of his oratorical | gems. When the question of increased
 representation for New Haven was
 alive and he was chosen a delegate to the State convention he said that if he
 didn't go to that convention and advo- cate increased representation his ad-
 mirers were at liberty to call him "a
 chump.' If we remember right he
 didn't do what he intended to, and of | course nobody heE taken advantage Of | the permission to call him a chump.
 But his use of the word gives it a cer- | tain standing which some of the New
 Haven purists whom he now rules don't
 seem to consider.
 | So. as the admonition in the cars is
 only for those who are or are likely to
 be chumps it doesn't seem necessary or | shrewd for those who are not and are
 not likely to be chumps to betray undue sensitiveness about it. It was not in.
 tended as an insult even to the chump- ish, but as a protection. It is literary ienough, with the example of our head
 man to support it. And that it does
 the work whereto it was sent is showr by the attention it has attracted. We
 do not see any harm in allowing it tC
 stand as it is, but as a concession tC
 those who feel that it is too uneompro
 misingly direct, it might possibly bt
 made to read, Please don't be 6 | chump'' without destroying it's effipien