Rensselaer Union, Volume 2, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 September 1870 — A Royal Compliment. [ARTICLE]

A Royal Compliment.

The New York Tribune, in noticing the difficulty attending the disposal of the Spanish crown, suggested that the Spaniards take an American sovereign. The Tribune says: “We are unwilling to mention names though we have a man in our eye whom we wish they had in theirs.” With his characteristic ingenuousness Mark Twain, in the September Galaxy, thus “accepts the situation”: “It would be but an ostentation of modesty to permit such a pointed reference to myself to pass unnoticed. This is the second time that the Tribune (no doubt sincerely looking to the best interests of Spain and the world at large) has done me the great and unusual honor to propose me as a fit person to fill the Spanish throne. Why the Tribune should single me out in this way from the midst of a dozen Americans of higher political prominence, is a problem which I cannot solve. Beyond a somewhat intimate knowledge of Spanish history and a profound veneration for its great names and illustrious deeds, I feel that I possess no merit that should peculiarly recommend me to this royal distinction. I cannot deny that Spanish history has always been mother’s milk to me. lam proud of every Spanish .achievement, from Hernando Cortes’ victory at Thermopylae down to Vasco Nunez de Balboa’s discovery of the Atlantic ocean; and every splendid Spanish name, from Don Quixote and the Duke of Wellington down to Don Crezar de Bszan. However, these little graces of erudition are of small consequence, being more showy than serviceable. f “In case the Spanish scepter is pressed upon mo—and the indications unquestionably aro that it will be—l shall feel it necessary to have'certain things set down and distinctly understood beforehand. For instance: My salary must be paid quarterly in advance. In these unsettled times it will not do to trust. If Isabella had adopted this plan, she would be sitting on her ancestral throne to day, for the simple reason that her subjects never could have rair d three months of a royal salary in advance, and of course they could not have discharged her until they had squared up with her. My salary must be paid in gold; when greenbacks are fresh| in a "country, they are too fluctuating, jMy salary has got to be put at the ruling market rate; I am not. 1 going to cut under on the trade, and they are not going to trail me a long way from home and then practice on my ignorance and play me for a royal North Adams Chinaman, by any means. As I understand it, imported kings generally get five millions a year and houserent free. Young George of Greece gets that. As the revenues only yield two millions, he has to take the national note for considerable; but even with things in that sort of shape he is better fixed than he was in Denmark, where he had to eternally stand up because he had no throne to sit on, and had to give bail for his board, because a royal apprentice gets no salary there while he is learning his trade. England is the place for that Fifty thousand dollars a year Great Britain pays on each royal child that is born, and this is increased from year to year as the chilffbecomes more aha more indispensable to his country. Look at Prince Arthur. At first be only got the usual birthbounty ; but now that ho has got so that he can dance, there is simply no telling what wages he gets. “I should have to stipulate that the Spanish people wash more and endeavor to get along with less quarantine. Do you know. Spain keeps her ports fast locked against foreign traffic three-fourths of each year, because one day she is scared about the cholera, and the next about the plague, next 4he measles, next the whooping-cough, the hives, and the rash ? but she does not mind leonine leprosy and elephantiasis any more than a great and enlightened civilization minds freckles. Soap would soon remove her anxious dis tress about foreign distempers. The reason arable land is so scarce in Spain is because the people squander so much of it on their persons, and then when they die it is improvidently buried with them. “I should feel obliged to stipulate that Marshal Serrano be reduced to the rank of constable, or even roundsman. He is no longer fit to be City Marshal. A man who reftises to be King because he was too old and feeble, is ill qualified to help sick people to the station house when they are armed, and their form of delirium tremens ia of the extiberent and demonstrative kind. “I should also require that “I am at this moment authoritatively informed that the Tribune did not mean me, after all. Very well, I do not care two cents.” ■ *-A London writer estimates the death rate from chloroform in England at one for every 8,000 patients.