The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-01-27
|cAPT.CRAWfORD'STALK
ENJOYABLE ENTERTAINMENT
 FOR CHARITY,
Rost-Scout of Western Country In- ' troduced to Audience at Mont
 gomery Theatre by Judge
 Thomas O. Jones.


 Captain Jack Crawford, the poet-scout was the center of unique and pleasing
 entertainment at the Montgomery thea
 ter last night under the auspices of and
 for the benefit of the Organized Chari- tiec. s
 The knowledge that Captain Jack had siven almost free of charge, his services to the cause of charity in Montgomery
 on the part of the audience for the unique
 and entertaining lecturer. The merit and
 charm of the lecturer would have won
 It's way Into the good graces of his hear CTS. even if the first feeling of cordial
 friendship was lacking.
 Captain Jack Is different from any other lecturer whoever adressed Mont
 gomery audience. He brings vital. at
 tractive personality and the songs he sings and the stories he tells have the same interest of vitality and novelty.
 Captain Jack tells his audience that he
 was reared without entering a school
 house and that he grew to manhood with out an education. He tells this without
 boasting and without apology. but to says his hard lot in life and his early
 ignorance came as the inheritance of an
 lntemperate father. It is his firm opin- lon that his endurance of hardships and dangers, the recognition that he has won promise of abstinence that he made his mother when wild lad of 15 years-a promise which he has not broken to this good hour.
 His information and his learning, he said, same from the scraps thrown away by educated people. Captain Jack shows that he has slept close to natures heart and and. that he % has thought much in ,onsii, poetic fancy, an understanding of the
 beauties of nature and a knowledge and confidence in his kind. A vein of true
 pathos, neither maudiin nor cheap. runs
 man has seen life in all its phases. He
 has known suffering and has known ad-
 venture by flood and field.
 He talks naturally and in an effective. of the artificialities of the trained eiocu-
 tionist nor any of the peroeptible strain
 ing for effect of some platform speakers.
 He has, a plain tale to tell, simple song to sing, but he does 1t in a way that sends it home to his audience.
 There is in his monologue a fund of humor. He tells his audience, T will now
 rectte little poem of my own. The req
 don't know of anybody else who does"
 And again in describing an early love af- fair, he said: T never could tell a girls age after she got beyond sixteen and I never knew a girl who could tell her own age after she got beyond sixteen" There is but one criticism to offer on the lectures Captain Crawford's modesty prevented his lecture from being as a5- sorbingiy interesting as 1t would have been if he had told the part he had play ed on scout, in Indian fight and in from tier trouble when he was associated with General Crook, General Hayes, General | names have been written in history. He never ignored this interesting part of his | life. He touched it only here and there | and pictured 1t only in outline. fearing.
 perhaps. that his audience would think
 that he was boosting if he recounted his Western adventures of thirty and forty years ago.
 Thomas M. Owen acted as master of
 ceremonies on behalf of the organized Charities, Mir. Owen explained, was not | done in pride or vainglory. but in the
 earnest wish to open the door of hope to | the hopeless.
 MT. Owen presented Judge Thomas G.
 Jones to the audience as the introducer
 of the speaker of the evening. Judge | Jones then and Captain Jack later touch 1 in which both of them figured.
 Captain Crawford and Judge Jones were
 both in the battle of Spottsylyania, the former a Federal private and the latter
 a Confederate officer, Both were shot | down in that battle.
 | Why" said Captain Jack. "I may have fired the shot that hit him and he
 may have fired the gun that shot me down. | Judge Jones spoke of the impulse which caused Captain Crawford to volunteer his | services as the noblest impulse which | could move the heart The occasion, he
 said, gave Captain Jack an opportunity
 to give work to his hands which they
 speaker of the evening as fine exam
 pie of chivalry, manhood and honor. Captain Crawford described his mono logue as a ''kaleidiscopic entertainment. . h0A 6A httf taa would present thoughts. poems and in- cidents as they came into his memory. He made a feeling reference to the union and fraternity of our common country which had healed the wounds that War had, left and in this connection ne told of the first incident that had bearing upon 1 the reunion of the North and South. It
 grew out of his reading: notice that General Hood had died in New Orleans, leaving in his will his children "To the | care of. his comrades in arms" Captain Crawford on reading this notice twenty seven years ago called the attention Of a | Federal Post of the Grand Army of the Republic at San Francisco to it and Gn- der the auspices of this Post the sum of | $l.0OO was raised to send the orphans: .If a man has convictions so strong ' said Captain Crawford that he is willing | to lay down his life for those convictions, I have no use for the man who would
 uestion the sincerity of those convic- tions,
 He recounted with feeling and effect a chain of pathetic and humorous incidents
 interrupted here and there with one of
 his own fine poems.
 A specimen poem of Captain Jacks muse Is here given and from it is seen that the scouts claims as poet are we'll founded. It is called
 Sanctimonious Ike.
 His quiet ways and honest look Won all the diggings at the start. His blue eyes seemed an open book In which We read his guileless book He firSS showed up at Placer Mound Just after that big 80 strike, An unobtrusive loafed around All unconearned and quiet like. Some said he was a millionaire From Frisco lookin' up a snap, While others said he had the air Of some revival gospel chap.
 The boys soon tied him to the name Of Reverend Sanctimonious Ike, Because he played the parson game All unconsarned and quiet like. He nursed the sick, spoke words of cheer To them as rassled with despair, An at the bed of pain you'd hear His low sad voice in earnest prayer. No matter where distress was found You'd find that Sanctimonious Ike Jes' like a angel movin' round All unconsarned and quiet like. ! At,~