Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 November 1891 — Mr. Gigadab. [ARTICLE]

Mr. Gigadab.

“Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith,” said Doctor Holmes of one of his well-known classmates. Fate made one man too conspicuous, it seems, by such a name, and the owner had to invent a Worse one to protect himself. There is a quaint old man in Manchester, England, who goes by the name of Gagadig Gigadab. His original name, so the story goes, was John Smith, but many years ago he began to brood over the possibilities of mistaken identity involved in such a common name. The name figured frequently in the criminal records, and he became abnormally apprehensive lest he might be confused with some of these bad John Smiths. At last what ho feared so much actually happened. One morning the papers recorded the capture of an accountant in a bank for embezzlement, and through some blunder of the reporter the identity of the e nbezzier was confused with the subject of this paragraph, who was also a bank accountant. Then and there he determined to assume a name like unto no other ever borne by mortal man. And in Gagadig Gigadab most people will agree that he has done so.