| Show BILL MS S BUMPS I I Nyc Consults a Phrenologist and Is Exposed t HE DID IT ONCE BEFORE And Was Induced tot Become a Lawyer With Disastrous Results to Himself and Bclatives t FOR THE SUNDAY HEIHU By special arrangement with the author 1 I In order to note the advancement macto fcy 1 the great science of phrenology in the past thirty years I went yesterday to visit the leading phrenologist of the United States and no doubt of tho world Frankly I must confess that it was a case of going quiet to scoff and remaining to pray for Idont believe that Inspector Byrnes is on to me i with more fidelity or accuracy than the venerable bump manipulator of Broadway Broad-way who has been at it for fortyfive years and who turned me over yesterday yester-day There is one thing about me which arouses my admiration and that is that when I am detected and overtaken and discovered in the delictn business and handcuffed to a large cook stove I know enough to surrender I am not hidebound hide-bound but always open to conviction rind sentence Thirty years or so ago I took my mother moth-er to a phrenologist to shave her head looked over feeling that as a parent she vas not proving the success that I had hoped for und after I had counted outs out-s ix dozen eggs for hits which I had brought to pay him for the work he offered to examine my head and give moa mo-a written schedule of it for two pounds of butter which I still had left overlie over-lie wanted to please iny mother and eo he spoke highly of my talents higher high-er than they deserved I think He was a plain man with a stern and rocky air like that of one who has been playing the first act of The Prodigal Son all his life and waiting for the letter that never came asking him home to spend the holidays lie said I had a high forward which reminded him of that of Daniel Webster Web-ster whom he once examined I said that we were often mistaken for one another an-other This phrenologist had a very hairy and Castle Garden air and when his paper collar peeped out from his jungle of common plastering hair you could GCC that when he liked a collar he stuck to it itPhrenology Phrenology where I lived in those days had hardly risen to the position of a science It was merely a job This man whom will call Professor Biltong had to combine other things with his phrenology such as chiropody and the sale of fruit trees Phrenology at that time was found often combined with astrology phlebotomy Iri these days men had not learned to add physiognomy a general knowledge knowl-edge of human nature to the science of phrenology and thus read man as we would read a hotel register It was for that reason perhaps that Professor Biltong erred in reading me with a far away look and marking out for mea future occupation to which I was best adapted Possibly it may interest the reader especially the boy or young man who reads this if I tell him briefly how Professor Pro-fessor Biltong erred in my case and how he caused me thereby much annoyance and would have cost me a great deal of money if I had had it at the time If anyone any-one can be led to profit by iny errors and thus dodge them at my expense I am only too glad to aid him Professor Biltong said that I would make a powerful and eloquent lawyer He aid that alimentiveness ideality and secretiveness were just the right size to make a good lawyer and that with tho Websterian dashboard which I had coupled cou-pled with great inhabitiveness could not fail to jar the entire structure of the bar together with the crackers and cheese standing on the end thereof He rambled around over tho site where my hair was waving long farewell to friends and kindred and he said as 1 looked up boylike into his mas = ivc and somewhat self made whiskers You would make a good United States senator sena-tor if you had the means but you would make a better lawyer It is better to be a good lawyer than a poor senator Besides Be-sides it will taka a good many egg at the present price to get you to the senate sen-ate and long before you received your I credentials your poor overworked hens would curl up in their inlaid nest and quitSo So lot us not think of going to the senate Possibly we can find some one rTfl1 I k I 7 rAT r-AT TIlE PHRENOLOGISTS else to go Yon had better be a lawyer Your caution and love of approbation would keep you out of the penitentiary aid at the same time win the approval of your clients and the jury Your voice is magnetic and your physique of that peculiar flexible mobile and reversible order which would look well stuffed Do not despair but go in to win You would male a very good piano tuner of course having wealth of ear though lacking in quality but you have the proper integument of skull the sinuosi ties of cerebral convolutions the phi loprogenitivencss the awe the self esteem es-teem and the combativeness necessary to make you a good lawyer and ono who will make himself felt and known from the tough and rocky shores of your New England birthplace to the dimpled feet of the snow capped Sierras With that ho ceased and saying that it was his hour for dinner he took from his pocket a copy of The Boston Whig inclosing a cheese sandwich and large warty cucumber pickle cut in and began be-gan to stow it away among his beard I at once proceeded to prepare myself for the law First I had to brush up a little in long division and spelling This I did by taking a preparatory course at the Tidd school This was called the Tidd school because it was endowed by him during the plum season without his knowledge however and we carried water from his well to quench the never dying thirst of the school Closing my term there with high honors and a baritone voice which I cannot can-not account for to this day I got place to study law and tidy up the cuspidors for a country lawyer whose name and memory are green and beautiful jet in the warmest corner of my heart while 1 lid not make a lawyer of my Eelf it was not his fault It was my own And Biltong should have told me so on the start Thats what I paid him for But in those days every boy who wore a big hat and got tired easily with manual toil was set aside for the ministry minis-try or the law Thats why so many sleeping cars are attached to the gospel trains today and so many lawyers hang i by the gills to politics and eat rump 1 steak with thankful hearts I tAW r lnsmt c L i BEFORE THE COMMITTEE I Listening to the siren song of Professor Pro-fessor Biltong I read Blackstone all one Eiiiiiiner and his thrilling remarks about I the right of piscary and the fee simple and fee tail and seisin which marred the history of the common law of England I tried oh so hard to cuddle up to Tustin Tus-tin an and to get intimate with Coke and to enjoy commons of EstoreiS and commons of Tmbary Meantime I swept out the office ran of errands got my board bill and trousers trou-sers receipted and looked forward to the time when I should shake the resolution of the most stubborn and strong hearted juror that ever drew his little old 2 a dayDays Days grew into weeks weeks epanded into ycars I was still reading one day what I easily forgot the next thus storing stor-ing my youthful mind with largo quantities quan-tities of echoing space which have since been very useful to me for other nur I poses I Now came the time after two years of this sort of work when people thought I II I ought to be admitted They talked as if it would purely a matter of form that I ought not to wait for every moment mo-ment I staid outside of the profession I I was a loss to the American people The committee did not seem to think so went away by stage to a desolate I I and threadbare county teat somewhere and laid out my littlo stock of unripe knowledge before that committee and I they sampled it one after another and gently took me one side and instead of telling me as they might most truthfully I truthful-ly to go home and never fool with tho law any more they hated to burt my i feelings and so they told me to study some more on this point and brush upon up-on that and so on So I returned sold a pet heifer and buying a set of Kents Commentaries and a nice warm pair of kip l boots read another sis months and did general janitor jan-itor work around the office also drawing draw-ing deeds mortgages and portraits of the senior member of the firm At the end of that time I began to think I ought to get examined again Every spring and fall term I would go through this ordeal and then get bound over for examination the following term Finally it got to be a part of the calendar calen-dar When the court was waiting for a witness or a juror it would put in the time by examining me This ran on so for some time till I got tired of it and fled In a new field where the officials were being appointed by the president and some of them knew less even than I did I felt at home right away and finally one glad day in summer with a joyful heart though with many scars on the places where previous committees had knocked the bark off my soul 1 signed the book and became a lawyer One of the old committee has kindly told me since that it made his heart bleed to refuse me and that if hed known how little damage I would do asa as-a lawyer and how quiet Pd have been about it blamed if ho wouldnt have suspended sus-pended the rules in my case and moved i r my admission I Now I do not blame phrenology for this but Professor Biltong who should have seen that while I had some of the prerequisites for a lawyer I lacked one great essential and that was the ability to repeat a law ruling or a definition defi-nition in the exact language of anybody elseThat That ignorance on his part cost mo many a reluctant evasive and finally tear dimmed dollar and camo very near landing me in the lap of an overworked and overburdened public one of tho most pitiful objects known to the entomologist ento-mologist > viz a pettifogger If this letter were not already too personal per-sonal I would add the stenographic and geological report made on my head yesterday yes-terday It is so accurate that it reminds me almost of the old days of necromancy I necro-mancy whatever that is BILL NYE I |
