Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1912-04-14
BY WILLIAM SHEPARD WALSH

asked by one Of that body to translate the
said it meant Mine Tailors Make a Man. !"
Lundy Foot, the tobacconist, applied to
John Curran for motto when he first
established his carriage my dear Curran, "
said he, give me one of serious cast, be-
cause am afraid the people will laugh at the
idea Of tobacconist setting up carriage,
and, for the scholarships sake, let it be in
Latin. 81 have just hit on it, said Cur
ran. ut is only two words, and it will at
once explain your profession, your elevation,
and your contempt for their ndicule. It has
the further advantage of being in two Ian
guages, Latin or English; just as the reader
carriage" AS English the words speak for
themselves, and Gould" for the tobacco
dealer is pat and clever; read as Latin, the
two words put this interrogation, why do
you laugh?"
James Smith, one of the authors of RE
jected Addresses, was as ready with sug
gestions as his namesake Sydney. He called
one day on Mr.. Jesse, who was engaged in
putting to press compilation entitled
~Geanngs in Natural ta History" se WAS was
Smith,, he said, "you come just in time.
I've been cudgeling my brains for motto
III NY CLdpCcI Ou NIOWS dIu NOOAS, anu
can't think of one. Can your" Ger
tainly," said Smith, there is one from
Shakespeare: 1t is the caws, it is the caws,
my soul!'"
Colonel Colt, of revolver fame, is common
Grated in Hartford, Connecticut, by church
still known to some of the profane as the
Church of the Holy Revolver. It must have
been the ancestor of some of these scoffers
who, when the church was building, sug-
gested two mottos from the Scripture, one to
be emblazoned on the right of the preachers
desk, the other on the left, to wit: "Then
Elisha said, Shoot. And he shot," "Thou
shouldest have smitten five or six times. "
The point of the joke in the first motto is
emphasized by the fact that Colt had an
uncle named Elisha.
On the weathercock of this church there
was, or there used to be until lately, the
efhgy of white colt, saltant; that is, leaping.
This was the punning or, in heraldic Ian
guage, the 'canting, crest of the Colonel
A debate once arose in the neighborhood as
to the meaning of this device. One man
suggested the pale horse in Revelation. An
other, an Irishman, laughing, interpreted it
as an allusion to the facilities of the revolver
for peppering foe. "'Tis the White Horse
of the Peppers, he said.
Twisss " Life of Lord Erskine" has per
pcIudIcu IIlc SIOIy VI IIc lInlucIlCS OVcI Ills
mind of motto accidently encountered on
the panels of stagecoach. When plain
John Scott, he started out for London in
coach that bore the legend, He Gives Twice
Who Gives Quickly" on whose meaning he
ruminated ali the length of long journey.
He applied it to everything that occurred,
whether serious or comic. It remained fixed
in his mind through life. When, full of
years and honors, he came to tell the story
to his biographer, he added that his only
regret was that he had not more frequently
made the motto the rule of his own conduct.
The English never seem to have cultivated
the art of motto making. Their great fami-
lies bear for the most part French mottos,
many of which came to them from the Nor
mans. On the other hand, not one French
family bears an English motto. Nor do
more than few French families bear Ger
man motto; though for two centuries the
fundamentally German province Of Alsace
was French possession. Possibly many
German families of noble origin left the
Alsatian territory when it passed under the
dominion of the French or, on becoming
thoroughly French in sentiment and spirit,
as the Alsatians eventually did become, they
may have discarded their German mottos
for French ones. or simply translated them
into French.