The Punster's Victims.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXI, Issue 8835, 15 July 1905, Page 2 (Supplement)

The Punster's Victims.

(By William Mathews.)

Que of the most interesting studies to wiu.jii a man can devote himself is that oi words, especially proper names, it was the belief 01 the ancient Orientalists that language was divinely inspired, and that hence words have an absolute, intrinsic significance. The Jews held that the name was an integral part of the object itself. It was no conventional sign, but Li;; essential attribute. "Our own name," says a French writer, "is ourself." A man's name instantly recalls him to recollection, with his physical and moral qualities, and the remarkable events, ii any, of his career. What would history or biography be without names? Or what stimulus would men have, rousing them to the performance of great or heroic deeds, if they could not live a second life in their names ?

The name of a man is not a mere label, which may be detached, as one detaches a label from a piece of lifeless furniture. | As Goethe onco feelingly said, it is not like a cloak, which only hangs about a man, and at which one may at any rate ue allowed to pull and twitch; but it is a close-fitting garment, which has grown over and over him, like his ski,!. :md which one cannot scrape and Hay without injuring himself. 2\'ames not only represent certain facts or thoughts winch they repesent. Men have borne names which they have felt to be stigmas, an active cause of discouragement and failure to their dying day; and other men have borne names, inherited from their ancestors, which have lilted them above themselves, by bringing them into fellowship with a past of high ciiort or generous.sacrifice.

One. of the direst misfortunes t'n;>t can befall a man is to have a name that tempts every witling to pun upon it. Sheiistoue, the quaintly playful author o! "The Schoolmistress." thanked God that his name was not one of that sort. When, manv years ago, the Unitarian minister in Burlington, Vermont, said to Mr llaswell, one of his parishioners, that his name would be as well without the H the latter was amused; but judge of his weariness and disgust when the joke having got abroad, everybody in the town, and many, doubtless, from out of town, repealed the pun in his ear with monotonous i; ..-ration, until the unlucky Mr llaswell wished the whoie tribe of punsters "in the deep sea sunk."

A similar persecution was that, cmturies earlier, of Alexander Xequam, i'-i' hop of Gloucester, in England, "the It-:-medest man of his age," whose surname was a perpetual hone lor the jesters oi ius time to sharpen their wits upon. We;iry of the endless puns upon his name, he ■.•hanged it to Neckam. Wishing at one tin.;: to become a monk in the Abbey of St. .ilbanfi. he applied for admission, to wl ich tho abbot pithily replied : "Si bon sis, venias; si Nequam, nequaqua::<" ("If good, you may come; if bad, by no means"). Jeremiah Jones Colbaitii, of Natick, Massachusetts, who was the vicepresident of the United States during the years 1873-5, had his name changed when young to Henry Wilson, because his neighbors tormented him with puns u;>on his cold bath. It is remarkable that the nickname, Ciesar, has given the title (o the heads of two great nations, Germany and Russia —Kaiser and Czar. Punning upon names has always been a favorite amusement with those "Who think it legitimate fun to be blazing away at every o"c With a regular double-loaded pun."'

When the defender of a certain extortioner in Home, whom Lutatius Catulus accused, attempted by a sarcasm to disconcert his vehement adversary, saying: "Why do you bnrk, little dog?" "("Quid latras. Cat tile 7") "T-ecauso I saw a thief," retorted Catulus. Shakespeare makes Falstaff play upon his swaggering ancient's name, telling Pistol he will double charge him with sack, or dismissing him with : "No more, Pistol; I would not have you go off here ; discharge yourself of our company, Pistol." There was a time when Marshal Ney was unpopular with all parties in Paris. After Napoleon's return from Elba a pun on the marshal's name was in every mouth: "II fallait etre ne (Ney) pour cela" ("One must be born for that"). A gentleman by the name of Gould, having married a very j-oung woman, wrote to a friend concerning his good fortune, concluding with "So you see, my good sir, though I'm eighty \-ears old, a girl of eighteen is in love with old Gould." This elicited the reply :

A girl of eighteen may love, it is true, But, believe me, dear sir, it is Gold without IT. When one Bishop Goodenough was appointed to his office, a rival candidate, who was ns'u'd the secret of his failure, replied : "J'ecause I was not Goodenough." Oddities, eccentricities, and happy accidents of names are common to all languages, and open a wide field of playful speculation and research. What (|v.eer yet felicitous conjunctions are Preserved Fish, Virginia Weed, Dunn Browne, Mahogany Coffin, and Return Swift! Kspecially remarkable is the extent to which the occupations of men harmonise with their surnames. In London, Gin and Ginman, and Alehouse, are publicans. Portwiue and Negus are licensed victuallers, one in Westminster, the other in Bishopsgate street. Seaman is the host of the Ship Hotel, and A. King keeps the Grown and Sceptre. Pye is a pastry cook, and Fitall and Treadaway are shoemakers. Mr Weittmann sells sherries and madeiras in Chicago, and Mr Silverman is a noted hanker. It is a striking fact that Mr Loud and Mr Thunder were, some years ago, both organists in the same American town; and we must acknowledge that few names could harmonise better, or accord more happily with the double diapason and the swell to which their professional duties accustomed them. What name could be more picturesque for a pot-boy than Corker, for a dentist than Tugwell, or for an editor of "Punch" than Mark Lemon? What happier appellation for the owner of a line of stage-coaches than Jehu Golightly, the name of a Southern proprietor, which the incredulous passenger refused to believe accidental ?

Sometinifs 'he name harmonises ill with, or is po.-ilivdv antagonistic to, the occupation or character. The amiable and witty banker-poet, JTorace Smith, even declares that "surnames ever go by contraries," s":d, as proof, rays: Mr Banker's ns mute as a fish in the sea, Mr Miles never moves on a journey, Mr Go-to-bed sits up till half-past three, Mr Makepeace was bred an attorney. Mr Gardener can't tell a flower from a root, Mr Wild with timidity draws back; Mr Rider performs all his travels on foot, Mr Foote all his journeys on horseback.

Guez, "a beggar," was the name of a French writer distinguished for the pomp of hir; style. The contrast between the swelling diction and the low name was so great that ho dropped the latter and assumed the name of his estate—Balzac. Ward and Lock, who should sell bank safes, are book publishers. Neal and Pray was the title of a house in New England that was by no means given to devotion Butcher, Death, Slaughter, Churchyard and Coffin were the names of so many London surgeons and apothecaries. Partnerships often show a curious conjunction of names; as Lamb and Hare; Holland and Sherry Carpenter and Wood; Spinage and Lamb • Flint and Steel; Foote and Stocking hosiers; Rumfit and Cutwell, tailors; Robb and Steel, and, above all, I. Ketchum and U. Cheatham, the immortal names of_ two New York brokers. Not only business but hymeneal partnerships reveal some singular combination: as when George Virtue is united to Susan Vice, and when Benjamin Bird, aged sixty, is wedded to Julia Chaff, aged twenty, show- ' mg that, in spite of the old saw, "an old bird" may be "caught by chaff."

It is a singular fact that, where the punning propensity exists, no occasion however solemn, or name however great or illustrious, will prevent its finding expression. Thus John Huss, the Bohemian martyr, burning at the stake, fixed his eyes steadily upon the spectators, and said with great solemnity: "They burn a goose, but in a hundred years a swan will arise out of the ashes"—words which long afterward were regarded as a prophecy Huss signifying "a goose," and Luther "a swan." Even Dr Samuel Johnson, a professed hater of puns, could not resist the temptation, when introduced to the admirable authoress, Mrs Barbauld, of growling out: "Bare-bald! Why, that's the very pleonasm 01 baldness!"