The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg and Other Stories
Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) Genre: LiteratureThe Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg and Other Stories
on a long voyage in a sailing-ship. T
t fish; at 1 P.M., luncheon: cold tongue, cold ham, cold corned beef, soggy cold rolls, crackers; 5 P.M., dinner: thick pea soup, salt fish, hot corned beef and sour kraut, boiled po
r in their meals. They were tired of the coarse and monotonous fare, and took no interest in it, had no appetite for it. All day and every day they roamed the ship half hungry, plagued by their gnawing stomachs, moody,
ppetites were perfect. At the end of fifteen days the dyspeptics, the invalid, and the most delicate ladies in the party were chewing sailor-boots in ecstasy, and only complaining because the supply of them was limited. Yet these were the sa
amage by their adventur
u note
es
note i
think
the importance of it. I will say it again-with
ee. Yes, it was i
o reason why they should suffer damage. They were undergoin
ere you got
where I
se people a va
es you th
You seem to think
to the point. I
Were the
re human
the sam
their function is to make him an ass. He can't add up three or four new circumstances together and perceive what they mean; it is beyond him. He is not capable of observ
ers learned no
ain-nibbling, appetiteless, disgusted with the food, moody, miserable, half hungry, their outraged stomachs cu
derstand it, y
e good, fails to satisfy you, rejoice you, comfort you, don't eat again
erve no regulari
rm, so long as the appetite remains good. As soon as the appetite wavers, apply the co
I suppose-I mean
taste good and it will nourish if a watch be kept upon the appetite and a little starvation introduced every time it weakens. Nansen was used to fine fare, but when his meals were
fully considered and deli
nherited superstitions and won't starve himse
eaken him,
them, but it didn't hurt them. It put them in fine shape to eat heartily of hearty food and build themselves up to a condition of robust health. But they did not
t is
ass of filtered sewage that smells like a buzzard's breath. Promenades another two hours, but alone; if you speak to him he says anxiously, "My water!-I am walking off my water!-please don't interrupt," and goes stumping along again. Eats a candied roseleaf. Lies at rest in the silence and solitude of his room for hours; mustn't read, mustn't smoke. The doctor comes and feels of his heart, now, and his pulse, and thumps his breast and his back and his stomach, and listens for results throu
ake to put a person
ct it takes from one to six weeks, according
is
indeed they suffered a good deal. They complained of nausea, headache, and so on. It was good to see them eat when the time was up. They could not remember when the devouring of a meal had afforded them such rapture-that was their word. Now, then, that ought to have ended their cure, but it didn't. They were free to go to any meals in the house, and they chose their accustomed four. Within a day or two I had to interfere. Their appetites were weakening. I made them knock ou
ses are d
Learns to regulate his appetite and keep it in perfect orde
ntire meal out? Why
n eat more meals than others, and still thrive. There are all sorts of people, and all sorts of appetites. I will show you a man presently who was accustomed to nibble at eight me
uring the past two years, two and a half: coffee an
coffee and a roll at 9, dinner in the
es
you add
They were uneasy. They th
lf per day enough, all thr
ent
to eat oftener than your stomach demands. You don't gain, you lose. You eat less fo
in those olds days my dinner
lf permanently, and don't listen to the family any more. When you have any ordinary ailment, particularly of a feverish sort, eat nothing at all during twent
have proved i
NING T
icult letters to answer, for they were not very definite. But at last I have received a definite one. It is from a lawyer, and he really asks the questions which the other writers probably believed they were aski
g Times in Austria."
not a few thousand peo
ich I have often wante
person. The show of
, which precipitate
No Jew was a member o
ed in the Ausgleich
as insulting anybody.
ward anybody whatsoev
the nineteen different
they are absolute non
hat in the rioting whi
us only on one thing,
ou kindly tell me why
been, and are even n
, the butt of baseles
centuries there ha
-behaving citizen, as
that ignorance and f
horrible and unj
rom your vantage point
. Can American Jews do
abroad? Will it ever
ve honestly, decently,
What has become o
st him. It may even be that I lean a little his way, on account of his not having a fair show. All religions issue Bibles against him, and say the most injurious things about him, but we never hear his side. We have none but the evidence for the prosecution, and yet we have rendered the verdict. To my mind, this is irregular. It is un-English; it is un-American; it is French. Without this precedent Dreyfus could not have been condemned. Of course Satan has some kind of a case, it goes without saying. It may be a poor one, but that is nothing; that can be said about any of us. As soon as I can get at the facts I will undertake his rehabilitation myself, if I can find an unpolitic publisher. It is a thing which we ought to be willing to do for any
etter one note
s a well-beh
naticism alone account
nything to impro
no party; they ar
rsecution ever
become of th
is knitted together by the strongest affections; its members show each other every due respect; and reverence for the elders is an inviolate law of the house. The Jew is not a burden on the charities of the state nor of the city; these could cease from their functions without affecting him. When he is well enough, he works; when he is incapacitated, his own people take care of him. And not in a poor and stingy way, but with a fine and large benevolence. His race is entitled to be called the most benevolent of all the races of men. A Jewish beggar is not impossible, perhaps; such a thing may exist, but there are few men that can say they have seen that spe
n benevolence he is above the reach of competition. These are the very quintessentials of good citizenship. If you can add that he is as honest as the average of his neighbours-But I think that question is affirmatively answered by the fact that he is a successful business man. The basis of successful business is honesty; a business
; and by-and-by, when the wars engendered by the French Revolution made his throne too warm for him, he was obliged to fly the country. He was in a hurry, and had to leave his earnings behind-$9,000,000. He had to risk the money with some one without security. He did not select a Christi
ers connected with commerce. He has a reputation for various small forms of cheating, and for practising oppressive usury, and for burning himself out to get the insurance, and for arranging cunning contracts which leave him an exit but lock the other man in, and for smart evasions which find him safe and co
hese facts are all on the credit side,' and strike a balance, what must the verdict be? This, I think: that, the merits and demerits b
ory, the Jew has been persistently and impl
fanaticism alone
it, but latterly I have come to think that this was an error. Indeed
I call to mind Gene
nation's live stock all away, to the last hoof; took a nation's land away, to the last acre; then took the nation itself, buying it for bread, man by man, woman by woman, child by child, till all were slaves; a corner which took everything, left nothing; a corner so stupendous that, by comparison with it, the most gig
t. Was Joseph establishing a character for his race which would survive long in Egypt? and in time would his name come to be familiarly u
with force. It was alluding to a time when people were still living who could have seen the Saviour in the flesh. Christianity was so new that the people of Rome had hardly hear
eason or other they hated a Jew before they even knew what a Christian was. May I not assume, then, that the persecution of J
e New England States) was hated with a splendid energy. But religion had nothing to do with it. In a trade, the Yankee was held to be about five times the match of the Westerner. H
, set up shop on the plantation, supplied all the negro's wants on credit, and at the end of the season was proprietor of the negro's share of
r stood no chance against his commercial abilities. He was always ready to lend money on a crop, and sell vodka and other necessities of life
; he was the king of commerce; he was ready to be helpful in all profitable ways; he even financed crusades for the rescue of the Sepulc
sh him four hundred years ago, and Aus
left. He was forbidden to engage in agriculture; he was forbidden to practise law; he was forbidden to practise medicine, except among Jews; he was forbidden the handicrafts. Even the seats of learning and the schools of science had to be closed against this tremendous antagonist. Still, almost bereft of employments, he found ways to make money, even ways to get rich. Also ways to invest his takings well, for usury was not denied him. In the hard conditions suggested, the Jew without brains could not survive, and the Jew
ted the Protestants with bloody and awful bitterness, but they never closed agriculture and the handicrafts against them.
yet survive. Scotland offers them an unembarrassed field too, but there are not many takers. There are a few Jews in Glasgow, and on
ng persecuted an unknown quantity called a Christian, under the mistaken impression that she was merely persecuting a Jew. Merely a Jew-a skinned eel who was used to it, presumably. I am persuaded that in Russia, A
businesses of all sorts in Germany were in the hands of the Jewish race! Isn't it an amazing confession? It was but another way of saying that in a population of 48,000,000, of whom only 500,000 were registered as Jews, eighty-five per cent of the brains and honesty of the whole was lodged in the Jews. I mu
He said the Jew was pushing the Christian to the wall all along the line; that it was all a Christian could do to scrape together a living; and that the Jew must be banished, and soon-there was no other way of saving the Christian. Here in Vienna, last autumn, an agitator said that all these disastr
is in peril. To human beings this is a much more hate-inspiring thing than is any detail connected with religion. With most people, of a necessity, b
unite-but that they all worship money; so he made it the end and aim of his life to get it. He was at it in Egypt thirty-six centuries ago; he was at it in Rome when that Christian got persecuted by mistake for him; he has been at it ever since. The cost to him has been heavy; his success has made the whole human race his enemy-but it has paid, for it has brought him envy, and that is the only thing which men will sell both soul an
have no party; they
ed to make serious use of them. When the Revolution set him free in France it was an act of grace-the grace of other people; he does not appear in it as a helper. I do not know that he helped when England set him free. Among the Twelve Sane Men of France who have stepped forward with great Zola at their head to fight (and win, I hope and believe(3)) the battle for the most infamously misused Jew of modern times, do you find a great or rich or illustrious Jew helping? In the United States he was created free in the beginning-he did not need to help, of course. In Austria and Germany and France he has a vote, but of what considerable use is i
unts. How deeply have you concerned yourselves about this in Austria, France, and Germany? Or even in America, for that matter? You remark that the Jews were not to blame for the riots in this Reichsrath here, and you add with satisfaction that there wasn't one in that body. That is not strictly correct; if it were, would it not be i
emory; I read them in the 'Encyclopaedia Brittannica' ten or twelve years ago. Still, I am entirely sure of them. If those statistics are correct, my argument is not as strong as it ought to be as concerns America, but it s
eason to suspect that for business reasons many Jews whose dealings were mainly with the Christians did not report themselves as Jews in the census. It looked plausible; it looks plausible yet. Look at the city of New York; and look at Boston, and Philadelphia, and New Orleans, and Chicago, and Cincinnati, and San Francisco-how your race swarms in those places!-and everywhere else in America, down to the least little village. Read the signs on the marts of commerce and on the shops; Goldstein (gold stone), Edelstein (precious stone), Blumenthal (flower-vale), Rosenthal (rose-vale), Veilchenduft (violent odour), Singvogel (so
ce, and so on; and that finally the idea was hit upon of furnishing all the inmates of a house with one and the same surname, and then holding the house responsible right along for
refrain from registered themselves as Jews to fend off the damaging prejudices of the Christian customer. I have no way of knowing whether this notion is well founded or not. There may be other and better way
s do anything to imp
e weakness of individual sticks, and the strength of the concentrated faggot. Suppose you try a scheme like this, for instance. In England and America put every Jew on the census-book as a Jew (in case you have not been doing that). Get up volunteer regiments composed of Jews solely, and when the drum beats, fall in and go to the front, so as to remove the reproach that you have few Massenas among you, and that you feed on a country but don't like to fight for it. Next, in politic
despoiled of everything he had. He said his vote was of no value to him, and he wished he could be excused from casting it, for indeed, casting it was a sure damage to him, since, no matter which party he voted for, the other party would come straight and ta
s is a very large error, that the Jews are exceedingly active in politics all over the empire, but that they scatter their work and their votes among the n
Sultan, I suppose. At the Convention of Berne, last year, there were delegates from everywhere, and the proposal was received with decided favour. I am not the Sultan, and I am not objecting; but if that concentration of the cunninge
persecution of the Je
e more than his proportionate share of the prosperities going. It has that look in Vienna. I suppose the race prejudice cannot be removed; but he can stand that; it is no particular matter. By his make and ways he is substantially a foreigner wherever he may be, and even the angels dislike a foreigner. I am using this world foreigner in the German sense-stranger. Nearly all of us have an antipathy to a stranger, even of our own nationality. We pile grip
e official figures, 621 window-panes were broken; more than 900 singing-birds were killed; five great trees and many small ones were torn to shreds and the shreds scattered far and wide by the wind; the ornamental plants and other decorations of the graces were ruined, and more than a hundred tomb-lanterns shattered; and it took the cemetery's whole
at has become of
u are not permitted to try to smuggle it into this discussion, where it is irrelevant and would not feel at home. It is strictly religious furniture, like an acolyt
re, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse learning are also away out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. He has made a marvellous fight in this world, in all the ages; and has done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself, and be excused for it. The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendour, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast no
t-THE JEW
than it seems to mean; for it means that the Jew's patriotism was not merely level with the Christian's, but overpassed it. When the Christian volunteer arrived in camp he got a welcome and applause, but as a rule the Jew got a snub. His company was not desired, and he was made to feel it. That he nevertheless conquered his wounded pride and sacrificed both that and his blood for his flag raises the average and quality of his patriotism above the Christian's. His record for capacity, for fidelity, and for gallant soldiership in the field is as good as any one'
between them, fifty-one soldiers to the war. Among these,
was neither able to end
willing to feed upon a
t know whether it was tr
not allowable to endor
n one is trying to mak
up its head in presence
its work, and done it
ought to be pensioned o
e ser
Times in Austria
it reminds us that shabbiness and dishonesty are not t
ter at Knob Lick to write the letter for him, and while Moses intended that his bid should be $400, his scribe carelessly made it $4. Moses got the contract, and did not find out about the mistake until the end of the first quarter, when he got his first pay. When he found at what rate he was working he was sorely cast down, and opened communication with the Post Office Department. The department informed his that he must either carry out his contract or throw it up, and that if h
ere introduced in three or four Congresses for Moses' rel
cheat a fellow Christian out of about $13 on his honestly executed contract, and out of nearly $300 due him on its enlarged terms. And they succeeded. During the same time they paid out $1,000,000,000 in pensions-a third of it unearned and und
was written in t
which, and was likely to lose his reason over the matter. The renaming was put into the hands of the War Department, and a charming mess the graceless young lieutenants made of it. To them a Jew was of n
LONDON TIM
e 'London Times' Chi
ck in the morning, March 31, 1898. I had spent the evening at a social entertainment. About midnight I went away, in company with the military attaches of the British, Italian, and American embassies, to finish with a late smoke. This function had been appointed to take place in the house of Lieutenant Hillyer, the third attache mentioned in the above list. When we arrived there we found several visitors in the room; young Szczepanik;(1) Mr. K., his financial backer; Mr. W., the latter's secr
usly by any one except its inventor. Even his financial supporter regarded it merely as a curious and interesting toy. Indeed, he was so convinced of this that he had actually postponed its use by the general world to the end of the dying century by granting a two y
anyway!' and he brought his fist
d the young inventor, with provo
ned to Mr.
n my opinion, the day will never come when it will do
myself, that it is only a toy; but Szczepanik claims more for it, and I know him well enough
emphasised his conviction that the invention would never do any man a farthing's worth of real service.
es any man an actual service-mind, a real service-please mail it to me
. K. put the coi
reach a finish; Szczepanik interrupted it with a hardy retort, and followed this with a
ic use, and was soon connected with the telephonic systems of the whole world. The improved 'limitless-distance' telephone was presently introdu
s. Then came an interval of two months, during which time Szczepanik was not seen by any of his friends, and it was at first supposed that he had gone off on a sight seeing tour and would soon be heard from. But no; no word came from him. The
had died by violence. Clayton was arrested, indicted, and brought to trial, charged with this murder. The evidence against him was perfect in every detail, and absolutely unassailable. Clayton admitted this himself. He said that a re
did what little I could to help, for I had long since become a close friend of his, and thought I knew that it was not in his character to inveigle an enemy into a corner and assassinat
not last for ever-for in America politics has a hand in everything-and by-and-by the governor's political opponents began to call attention to his delay in allowing the law to take its course. These hints have grown more and more frequent of late, and more and more pronounced. As a natural result, his own party grew nervous. Its leaders began to visit Springfield and hold long private conferences with him.
you. You love him, and you love me, and we know that if you could honourable save him, you would do it. I will go to him now, and be what help I can to him, and get what comfo
self, poor child, and I wi
ke to have the telelectroscope and divert his mind with it. He had his wish. The connection was made with the international telephone-station, and day by day, and night by night, he called up one corner of the globe after another, and looked upon its life, and studied its strange sights, and spoke with its people, and realised that by grace of this marvellous instrument he was almost as free as the birds of the air, although a prisoner under locks and bars. He seldom spoke, and I never interrupted him when he was absorbed
ife and child remained until a quarter-past eleven at night, and the scenes I witnessed were pitiful to see. The execution was to take place at four in the morning. A little after eleven a sound of hammering broke out upon the still night, and there was a gla
that all outside sounds seemed exaggerated by contrast with it. These sounds were fitting ones: they harmonised with the situation and the conditions: the boom and thunder of sudden storm-gusts among the roofs and chimneys, then the dying down into moanings and wailings about the eaves and angles; now and then a gnashing and lashing rush of sleet along the window-panes; and always the muffled and uncan
nd the piping wind; then he said: 'That a dying man's last of earth should be-this!' After a little he said: '
inable miracle-turns winter into summer, night into day, storm into calm, gives the freedom of the great
list
lliancy! what radianc
es
e t
after
and masses of rich colour and barbaric magnificence! And how they flash a
of our new emp
t that was to take
yesterday
, these days: there are reasons for it...
egan to move
h more of it
of it. Why
hould like t
hy can
to go-pr
e an eng
After another pause: 'Who are
ting royalties from here and t
he adjoining pavilions
s and suites to the right; uno
ill be so
d not bear it. I went into the bedchamber, and closed the door. I sat there waiting-waiting-waiting, and listening to the rattling sashes and the blustering of the storm. After what seemed a long, long time, I heard a rustle and movement in the parlour, and knew that the clergyman
n that had no spirit, no courage. I stepped into the room, and said I would be a man
ard. By the garish light of the electric lamps I saw the little group of privileged witnesses, the wife crying on her uncle's breast, the condemned man standing on the scaffold with the halter a
surrection a
ge instrument, and there was Peking and the Czar's procession! The next moment I was leaning out of the window, gasping, suffocating, trying to speak, but dumb
ack cap, and laid his hand u
n is innocent. Come here and
the governor had my place a
is bonds and
The reader will imagine the scene; I have no need
the tale. Then he came to his end of the line, and talked with Clayton and the governor and the others; and the wife poured out h
f many realms (with here and there a reporter) talked with Szczepanik, and praised him; and the few
d been forced to break away from the lionising that was robbing him of all privacy and repose. So he grew a beard, put on coloure
nsequential quarrel in Vienna in the spring of 1898, a
k T