Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1899-10-06
FACTS ABOUT PETER DUNE
The Famous Irish Wit Who Writes
for the Register.
sDOOLEY. WAS SUGGESTED BY A
CHARACTER IN REAL LIFE
INSTANCES OF DUNES WIT
ON MANY OCCASION.


line dock in New York last summer.
II am surprised; l expected to find the
author of the Dooley papers wore red
galway sluggers.'
And expected to find you in a
shirt waist and sailor hat" retorted
MIR. Dunno.
A clever bit of repartee. wasn't it?
But perhaps you have heard it before.
"A lot of newspaper men were pres
ent when it was said, and they thought
it so good that they published it far
and wide. Still it is good enough to
tell again.
But, at that, | don't think it half so
funny as the remark Peter Dunno made
to an Illinois State Senator at one of
the famous old Whitechapel club din
ners. The Senator was newly made
statesman. Nobody knew exactly how
he had broken into politics. but he had
done it some way, and in the same
mysterious manner he got himself
elected to the State Senate.
He was a lawyer, noted chiefly for
his poses, his willingness to crate any,
where, at any place, and upon any sub
ject, his transparent straining for
theatrical effect, and a mass of long,
heavy jet black hair, which he combed
back from his forehead and with
studied carelessness allowed to fall
over his coat collar
The statesman was late for the
Whitechapel dinner. When he arrived
he made an entrance" as the actor
says, which was spectacular A speech
was in progress when he strobe across
the floor and tossed his overcoat to
Tom Bolding, the Whitechapel clubs
mulatto steward. Then he stepped
forward and paused as If waiting for a
welcome cheer.
He was in full evening costume, a
thing which the Whitechapeiers were
not partial to, any way, and the white
ness of his shirt and waistcoat made
his great mass of hair look all the
blacker.
President Dunno arose from his seat
at the head of the coffin shaped table
and pounded for order with a thigh
bone which had been given the club
by a medical member. The statesman
smiled at the compliment and struck
another attitude.
Twill the Senator kindly remove his
furs?" asked Mr. Dunno. The crowd
yelled and the Senator sank into a
vacant chair, and, except to put some
thing in it, didn't open his mouth all
evening.
That's the kind of fellow Pete Dunno
is. The man who attempted to cross
the sabers of retort with him soon
found that he was dueling with a fenc-
ing master. With him it is as much
the way he says thing as the thing
itself. | heard him spike the guns of
the late Moses P. Handy, the head of
the famous Glover club, of Philadel-
phia, and noted as a wit and after din
ner speaker.
1t also was at a Whitechapel dinner.
The late Gov. Russell, of Massachusetts,,
was there, and SO were Buffalo Bill and
Dr. Edward Bedloe, who is back in
this country to answer charges brought
against him Of aiding the Filipinos
while he was United States consul at
Canton, China. Major Handy had fired
good shot at Peter and when Pete
laetr referred to him as Major Handy,
the president Of the 'jute trust" it
finished the encounter. The Major had
heard many comments upon his flow
ing, carroty side whiskers, but he had
never heard them called 'jute" before.
Pete always was funny. He was The
pioneer Of base ball slang. Many
words which we could not get along
without in discussing base ball were
coined by Pete Dunno. 1t was as a
base ball reporter on the Chicago Tri-
bune, back in the early sos, that Mr.
Dunno first showed the stuff in him.
Don't think him an old man because
he was writing for newspaper twenty
years ago. He began young. He was
about seventeen years old, fresh from
school, when he got his first repor-
torial position. The city editor of the
Tribune decided Pete was too good to
write about ball games, and trans
ferred him from the sporting depart
ment to do general reporting.
1t wasn't long before Pete was
known as the Tribune's best mantle
star reporter. He remained with the
Tribune until the old Times, then at
the heighth of its great influence, sent
for him. He was in the city editors
chair when he left the Times TO 81
to the Herald.
This was in 81 or 'SS, l am not sure
which. At that time a favorite meet
Ing place for the Chicago newspaper
men was old Jim McGarry's saloon
In Dearborn street, near the corner Of
Madison. 1t was but a stones throw
from the Tribune Office and directly
across the street from the Inter Ocear
office. You could always find Grove
of reporters there. When the city ed
itor of q paper was in need of some
man who didn't happen to be in he
called the Office boy and said:
run over to McGarrys and tel
Smith to come here"
McGarry himself was the attraction
of the place. He was-and is yet, fol
he's alive, though the old Dearborn
street place is closed-one of the
quaintest characters you could meet il
a search over the globe Big, broad
and brawny, sandy haired, his re.
face showing his redder arteries streak
ing like railroad map, and far
down brogue; that was Jim McGarry
Jim had ideas of promptaess ant
honor that were as rigid as they wer,
unique. He never broke his word with
a man and he demanded that every