The Lime-Kiln Club.

Observer, Volume 7, Issue 333, 25 April 1885, Page 16

The Lime-Kiln Club.

{ I hold heah in. my band,' said BrotherGardner, as he slowly rose up . at the opening of the meeting, ' a letter from a cull'd pusson 1 in Texas informin 1 us dat he has named his baby Brudder Gardner Holdback. I presume it am a boy baby, thought it may be a gal.. De writer flatter.? hisself dat he has done a smart thing, an' dat the fucher of that chilewill be plain sailin'. If anybody wants to name his offspring arter me or Sir Isaac Walpole, or Giveadain Jones, or Judge Cadaver, we can't hinder, but so fur as I ar* personally consarned I want to indulge in a. few remarks in regard to dis habit. ' I verily believe dat the foolishness of sartin parents in tyin' names to deir offspring's has beclouded and wrecked many lives. De ole man who was shovellin' snow nex" doah to me de odder day was named* Henry Clay. It was on de ideah dat ha would make a mighty smart man, but deminit he got old 'nuff to realize who an* what Clay was he pulled right back. He couldn't nebber git dar', an' he knowed it.* Instead of bein' addressed as Henry Clay, eberybody calls him "Hank Dirt," "an' he'& gwine to be called that till de clay kivers his coffin. ' Some y'ars ago a naybur o' minenamed his baby " Washington Lincoln Grant Smith." He war' bound to fill dat boy chock full o' military genius an' statesmanship, but de ohile wasn't fo' y'ars ole befo' he realized dat it was too steep. He hadn't reached ten befo' he was a thief an' a liar, an' de odder day he went to prison for burglary. Dename was too long fur de public to grapple wid, an' so he was called "Wash Grant."" Later on it got to be " Washboard," an' byde name of Washboard Smith he am registered on de prison books. ' I has seen Prime Minister Jones drawin' &. swill cart around, while clus behind him, leading a yaller dog by a piece of old clothesline, came Montmorenci Stubbins. I has seen Queen Catherine Bivens at de wash tub, while the Princess Blenville was a' hangin* out de clothes fur her. I has whitewashed on the same job wid Czar Jackson, an' I has blacked stoves alonside of George de Fo'th Bones. 'De white folks am jist as bad, an' it really does me good to see by de papers dat " Hortense Victoria Clark " has skipped out wid " De Lisle Fitzhue Brown," who was a purfeshional roller skater loafer on a salary of odols per week. Ebery day de PoliceJudge am sendin, Zachariah Chandlers, Roscoe Conklings, Thomas Jeffersons and Henry W. Longfellows to ole jug, an' ebery day degood old names of Jane an' Betsey an' Sarah an' Emma an' Lucy am growin'. in contempt ■' wid de female sect. ' Speakin' fur de. cull'd race alone, I say dat de f adder who rises above Moses or Samuel or William when huntin' fur a namefur his boy baby am coaxin' biles andJ bunions to grow whar' dey doan' need to. De mudder who can't make a selection from Chloe, Catherine, Violet an' Sarah Jane neeedn't feel riled if her gals runs off wid a bowlegged stove-blacker an' ends up her days in a garret. Let us now attack the reg'lar paoceedin's.' .