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Famous funny fellows

Chapter 14: IRWIN RUSSELL.
By William Montgomery Clemens
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American LiteratureBiographiesHumour

About This Book

A collection of concise biographical sketches presenting the lives, personalities, pen names, and notable works of prominent American newspaper humorists. It begins with an introduction on the rise of modern newspaper wit, then offers short profiles that highlight background, career turns, pseudonyms, signature styles, and memorable pieces for dozens of writers. Entries summarize each humorist's public reputation and contributions to comic writing while noting recurring genres and popular personae. The volume serves as a compact reference to the practitioners of journalistic humor and the varieties of humorous expression they produced.

IRWIN RUSSELL.

The night before Christmas, 1879, witnessed the death of one of the brightest young humorists the United States has ever called her own. Of bright intellect and finished education, Irwin Russell was rapidly winning a name in American literature, when taken ill, as the result of overwork; he lingered a few days, and died Christmas Eve.

Little is known of the early days of Irwin Russell. He was born in Fort Gibson, and at an early age was left an orphan, relying on his own exertions for a livelihood. He studied law and began the practice of it in his native city, but, becoming enamored with the life of a Bohemian, he started for New Orleans in search of fame and fortune. He obtained employment at local writing in various newspaper offices, and finally found regular employment in the editorial rooms of the New Orleans Times. Then he left the South and turned up in New York city, where he struggled with fate for a time. His existence was a battle with necessity from the first. It seemed that he was born unlucky. Although his prospects were always fine, he never lived to establish himself permanently anywhere. Few men ever received so many buffets from the hand of fate.

Alone and friendless in New York, young and ambitious, yet weak and moneyless, success and he were strangers. The health of the poor boy failed him, and he would have died had he remained in New York. He shipped on board of a steamer bound for the gulf, and worked his way home—not home, for he had none, but to New Orleans, where he had, at least, a few friends among the journalists of that city. He returned to work upon the Times, and published some of the daintiest bits of dialect humor ever given to the public.

By a strange coincidence his last published lines were written upon the subject of his own grave. They appeared in the New Orleans Times, December 14th, just ten days before the author gave up the struggle with fate and died.

THE CEMETERY.

“I stand within this solemn place,
And think of days gone by—
I think of many an old-time face,
Here’s where those faces lie,
“I think of when, what time God please,
The hour shall came to me,
That covered with the clay, like these,
My face shall masked be.
“No marble monument shall rise
Above that grave of mine—
No loving friends will wipe their eyes
When life I shall resign.
“But when I leave my life—have left
My every present care—
I’ll find a home of care bereft;
My friends are living there.

The New Orleans Times, in speaking of Irwin Russell, after his death, said of him: “He was employed occasionally on this paper, and while so, wrote many a pretty little poem, and many a little catch which reveal an inner life, which hard lines hid from the view of the world. His fund of humor showed itself best in dialect writing, and some things he has written have already found permanent resting places in the compiled editions of American humorous verse.”

For several years Irwin Russell was an interesting and valued contributor to Scribner’s Monthly, and some of his poems have appeared since his death, in The Century. The productions were mostly of the negro dialect order, and occasionally they consisted of Irish sketches in verse. About the last thing published was an Irish dialect poem, entitled Larry’s on the Force, which appeared in The Century. The poem tells in the fourth verse of Larry’s appearance as a policeman:

“He shtips that proud and shtately-loike, you’d think he owned the town,
And houlds his shtick convenient to be tappin’ some wan down—
Aich blissed day, I watch to see him comin’ up the sthrate,
For by the greatest bit of luck, our house is on his bate.”

Russell’s crowning effort was a piece of dialect verse entitled The First Banjo. It appeared in Scribner’s, and is worthy of reprint here:

THE FIRST BANJO.

Go ’way fiddle!—folks is tired o’ hearin’ you a-squawkin’.
Keep silence fur yo’ betters—don’t you heah de banjo talkin’?
About de ’possum’s tail she’s gwine to lecter—ladies, listen!—
About de ha’r what isn’t dar, an’ why de ha’r is missin’.
“Dar’s gwine to be an oberflow,” said Noah, lookin’ solemn—
For Noah tuk the Herald, an’ he read de ribber column—
An’ so he sot his hands to work a-cl’arin’ timber-patches,
An’ ’lowed he’s gwine to build a boat to beat de steamah “Natchez.”
Ol’ Noah kep’ a-nailin’, an’ a-chippin’, an’ a-sawin’;
An’ all de wicked neighboirs kep’ a-laughin’ an’ a-pshawin’;
But Noah didn’t min’ ’em—knowin’ what wuz gwine to happen;
An’ forty days and forty nights de rain it kept a-drappin’.
Now, Noah had done cotched a lot ob ebery sort o’ beas’es—
Ob all de shows a-trabbelin’ it beat ’em all to pieces!
He had a Morgan colt, an’ sebral head o’ Jarsey cattle—
An’ drew ’em ’board de ark as soon’s he heared de thunder rattle.
Den sech anoder fall ob rain!—it come so awful hebby
De ribber riz immegitly, an’ bursted troo de lebbee;
De people all wuz drownded out—’cept Noah an’ de critters,
An’ men he’d hired to work de boat—an’ one to mix de bitters.
De ark she kep’ a-sailin’, an’ a-sailin’, an’ a-sailin’;
De lion got his dander up, an’ like to bruk de palin’—
De sarpints hissed—de painters yelled—tell—what wid all de fussin’,
You c’u’d’n’t hardly heah de mate a-bossin’ roun’ an’ cussin’.
Now, Ham, de only niggar what wuz runnin’ on de packet,
Got lonesome in de barber-shop, and c’u’dn’t stan’ de racket;
An’ so, for to amuse he-self, he steamed some wood an’ bent it,
An’ soon he had a banjo made—de fust dat wuz invented.
He wet de ledder, stretched it on; made bridge, an’ screws, an’ apron;
An’ fitted in a proper neck—’twas bery long and tap’rin’;
He tuk some tin and twisted him a thimble for to ring it;
An’ den de mighty question riz: how wuz he gwine to string it?
De ’possum had as fine a tail as dis dat I’s a singin’;
De ha’r’s so long, an’ thick, an’ strong—jes’ fit for banjo stringin’—
Dat niggar shaved ’em off as short as washday dinner graces;
An’ sorted ob ’em by de size, from little E’s to basses.
He strung her, tuned her, struck a jig—’twas Nebber Min’ de Wedder—
She soun’ like forty-lebben bands a-playin’ all togedder;
Some went to pattin’, some to dancin’; Noah called de figgers—
An’ Ham he sot an’ knocked de tune, de happiest ob niggars!
Now, sence dat time—it’s mighty strange—dere’s not de slightest showin’.
Ob any ha’r upon de cunnin’ ’possum’s tail a-growin’;
An’ curi’s too—dat nigger’s ways; his people nebber los’ ’em—
For, whar you finds de niggar, dar’s de banjo an’ de possum!