Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 May 1889 — FOND OF THE WEED. [ARTICLE]

FOND OF THE WEED.

Three Celebrated Chewers—Their Methods and Manners. Globe-Democrat. > - One of the most successful pieces of work that po’onel Robert G. Ingersoll Qiu niß Kerr, the gentleman who was recently acquitted bribing some of our city fathers. Crowds daily attended this otherwise dull trial to watch “Bob.” Never had the popular belief in his ability been more clearly shown. Yet it must be admitted that never did a man behave more atrociously in public tian this same apostle of infidelity.

In the morning it was his habit to come into court about ten o’clock. Then he would sit down and stretch himself while-one ot his associates went on with the routine work. His oig body, with its bread shoulders, would be*huddled up so that it looked very much smaller than it really was. After about thirty minutes of quiet the colonel would crack a joke, which invariably convu'sed his hearers, and then he would begin fishing around in bis pockets for his tobacco. His quid was always very email, and almost anybody else could have chewed it without attracting any attention. But the colonel made no attempt at concealment. Five minutes after the quid disappeared into his mouth his jaws were wagging at an awful rate. _ The floor was carpeted and there were cuspidors at convenient distances, but the colonel didn’t bother about them. He expectorated all around, while the high toned and fastidious John Bird, bis-ftseoeiftte,strove vainly to conceal his disgust. The colonel’s own person did not escape the shower of tobacco juice, and once I saw him inadvertently land upon Judge Noah Davis, who sat in front of him. Usually when the colonel got up to address Judge Daniels he would first remove the tobbacco, but occasionally he forgot this, and it somewhat affected the clearness of his remarks.

Whep the colonel threw away his quid he usually did it in installments. Then it was that he convulsed the spectators by drawing an immense jack knife from his pocket and using the blade as a toothpick. The colonel dug away at his teeth with great industry and vigor, and-.it certainly looked as though he would scare some of them if he did not cut his tongue in two. As the colonel usually took between three and four chews a day it may be imagined that he was a detestable object to look at during a large portion of each session. There is another great lawyer, now dead and gone, who was expert in his manipulation of a “chaw.” I refer to Roscoe Conkling. In iemember his appearance in the Hoyt will case when Mary Irene Hoyt was contesting her father’s will. This was one of the most famous cases that ever came into the surrogate’s court, and the daily attendance was always very large. I have seen the ex senator lean against the railing before Surrogate Rollins and make a long argument on some abstruse legal point, punctuating his remarks by streams of tobacco j nice, which he let fly around him with the wildest indifference as to consequences. His "full form, blonde beard and haughty face gave him a striking and refined appearance which made his manners the more startling. Conkling used larger quids and chewed more constantly than Colonel Ingersoll. He appeared, also, to take a keener enjoyment in the habit. The most curious of all chewers is Ben Butler. Nobody,bo far as I have heard, ever saw Ben put any tobacco in his mouth, or take any from it. Neither could I learn that he was ever seen to expectorate. But everybody who saw him was convinced that he did chew tobacco. I saw him argue in a case in the United States Circuit Court in this city about two years ago. He appeared to be blind, his eyes were sunken so far into his fat cheeks. His jaws were constantly in motion and mine grew tired watching them. Up and down went his chops with the regularity of a machine. It was the nearest approach to perpetual motion I ever saw. His face looked for all the world like that of an old German woman who had lost her teeth and chewed snuff. It is curious that none of those three gentlemen were known to chew except when at work. Is it because the habit is conducive to activity of mind? That is a theory I never heard advanced before.