JOHNSON JONES HOOPER

[1815-1862]

"LIVI

C. ALPHONSO SMITH

IVING or dead," says Professor W. P. Trent,* "our humorists have been the benefactors of their people. It may suggest a coarse taste, it may even be uncritical, as superfine criticism now goes, to maintain that their work is an integral and not the least valuable part of American literature; but, however this may be, it seems safe to prophesy that whenever America ceases to produce good humorists, and men and women ready to smile and laugh with them, the country will cease to be the great nation that now engages our love and pride.”

That America owes a debt to her humorists no thoughtful student of our history can question. From Benjamin Franklin to Mark Twain they have been the foes of pretension, duplicity, ignorance, moroseness, and braggadocio. They have laughed out of existence many a vice and pricked the bubble of many a foible that the logician and moralist either ignored or found too elusive to cope with.

But to analyze American humor is far more difficult than to appreciate it. Colonel Watterson divides it into "that which relates to fighting and that which relates to money." Professor Trent finds its source in incongruity, and incongruity that reappears in varied forms at each new turn of our history. He places Johnson Jones Hooper among the "provincial group" of humorists, whose specialty it is to depict local oddities. "It is hard," he says, "to assign the palm among these Southwestern humorists. 'Sut Lovingood,' 'Captain Simon Suggs,' 'Major Jones,' and 'Ned Brace' are all worthies whom it is well to have known at one time or another, provided one is not squeamish or puritanical. Captain Suggs, the creation of Johnson J. Hooper, was a blackleg such as only the new Cotton States of those turbulent times could have furnished, and is fairly worthy of comparison with Jonathan Wild himself, although he would have certainly worsted Fielding's hero at sevenup or in a 'horse-swap.'"

It will hardly be denied that incongruity in some of its protean shapes lies at the basis of American humor. It lies at the basis

In 'A Retrospect of American Humor' (The Century Magazine, November, 1901).

of all humor, if humor be not too sharply differentiated from wit. But the "Southwestern humorists" whom Professor Trent groups as provincial are united by a still closer bond. Their humor is distinctly the humor of discomfiture. It is an ancient, primitive, anti-social kind of merry-making, but in the evolution of universal humor deserves the attention of the student. It counts among its trophies Chaucer's "Miller's Tales," Cervantes's "Don Quixote," Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" and "Merry Wives," Burns's "Tam 'Shanter," Cowper's "John Gilpin's Ride," and a hundred other masterpieces widely divergent in style but sounding equally and unmistakably the note of humorous discomfiture.

Hooper was born in Wilmington, North Carolina, in June, 1815, and died in Richmond, Virginia, June 7, 1862. His father was a journalist of good standing and his mother traced her lineage directly to the great Jeremy Taylor. At the age of fifteen young Hooper was writing for publication. Moving early to Alabama, he began the practice of law, and was at different times editor of the Chambers County Times, the Alabama Journal, and the Montgomery Mail. In 1846 the Appletons published his greatest work, 'Some Adventures of Captain Simon Suggs, late of the Tallapoosa Volunteers, together with Taking the Census and other Alabama Sketches.' It was signed "By a Country Editor." Five years later appeared 'Widow Rugby's Husband and other tales of Alabama.' It was John G. Saxe who said, or sang,

"O, what a serious thing it is
To be a funny man!"

and Hooper was to feel the truth of the lines in more ways than one. He was sometimes hailed in large dignified assemblies as "Mr. Suggs" and called upon for a side-splitting speech, a kind of speech which he could not deliver and would not if he could. In fact he became at such times an example of the personal discomfiture which, on a lower plane, he knew so well how to portray in others.

"It is probably too late," he once remarked after a disastrous experience of this sort in Montgomery, "to rectify the blunder, and I must continue to suffer the consequences."

In February, 1861, he was elected secretary of the Provisional Confederate Congress in session at Montgomery and held office until the Congress was formally organized in Richmond. He ran for permanent Secretary of State under the new Confederate government, but was defeated. His reputation was national; but unfortunately it was that chiefly of a jocular entertainer, and the

times were too serious for the framers of the new régime to take any chances. He did not return to Alabama, but died in Richmond a few months later, in the prime of his life.

"Mr. Hooper," says Colonel Watterson, "was a most genial and entertaining person, and the central figure of a brilliant coterie of writers and speakers. Of these S. S. Prentiss and George D. Prentice were the most conspicuous, and they always regarded him and spoke of him as their peer." His reputation as a storyteller or rather as a portrait painter rests chiefly on his 'Adventures of Captain Simon Suggs.' Thackeray praised the book, and selections from it have been republished, a new edition appearing in As a swashbuckler, card-sharp, and professional dead-beat, Suggs is as clear cut a figure as is to be found in the whole field of American humor.*

C. Alphonsa Sinith.

THE CAPTAIN IS ARRAIGNED BEFORE A JURY From 'Captain Simon Suggs's Adventures'.

For a year or two after the Captain's conversion at the camp-meeting, the memoranda at our command furnish no information concerning him. We next find him at the spring term of 1838 arraigned in the circuit court for the county of Tallapoosa, charged in a bill of indictment with gambling— "playing at a certain game of cards commonly called Poker, for money, contrary to the form of the statute, and against the peace and dignity of the State of Alabama."

"Humph!" said the Captain to himself, as Mr. Solicitor Belcher read the bill, "that's as derned a lie as ever Jim Belcher writ! Thar never were a peaceabler or more gentlemanlier game o' short cards played in Datesville-which thar's a dozen men here is knowin' to it!"

Captain Suggs had no particular defence with which to meet the prosecution. It was pretty generally understood that

*For other sketches of Hooper the reader is referred to Colonel Watterson's 'Oddities in Southern Life and Character' (1883), pp. 39-40, Link's 'Pioneers of Southern Literature' (1896), No. 9, pp. 505-524, Garrett's 'Public Men in Alabama,' and all the larger histories of Southern literature. Selections from his works are given by Colonel Watterson, and by William E. Burton in his 'Cyclopaedia of Wit and Humor' (1858).

the State would make out a pretty clear case against him: and a considerable fine-or imprisonment in default of its payment-was the certainly expected result. Yet Simon had employed-though he had not actually feed-counsel, and had some slight hope that Luck, the goddess of his especial adoration, would not desert him at the pinch. He instructed his lawyer, therefore, to stave off the case if possible; or at any rate to protract it.

"The State against Simon Suggs and Andrew, alias Andy Owens. Card-playing. Hadenskeldt for the defense. Are the defendants in court?" said the judge.

Simon's counsel intimated that he was.

"Take an alias writ as to Owens-ready for trial as to Suggs;" said the solicitor.

The Captain whispered to his lawyer, and urged him to put him on the stand, and make a showing for a continuance; but being advised by that gentleman that it would be useless, got him to obtain leave for him to go out of court for five minutes. Permission obtained, he went out and soon after returned.

"Is Wat Craddock in court?” asked the solicitor.

"Here!" said Wat.

"Take the stand, Mr. Craddock!" and Wat obeyed and

was sworn.

"Proceed, Mr. Craddock, and tell the court and jury all you know about Captain Suggs's playing cards," said Mr. Belcher. "Stop!" interposed Simon's counsel; "do you believe in the revelations of Scripture, Mr. Craddock?"

"No!" said the witness.

"I object then to his testifying," said Mr. Hadenskeldt. "He doesn't understand the question," said the solicitor; "you believe the Bible to be true, don't you?" addressing the witness.

"If the court please-stop! stop! Mr. Craddock—I'll ask him another question before he answers that" said Mr. Hadenskeldt hastily-"did you ever read the Bible, Mr. Craddock?"

"No," said Craddock; "not's I know on."

"Then I object to his testifying, of course; he can't believe what he knows nothing about."

"He has heard it read, I presume," said Mr. Belcher; "have you not, Mr. Craddock?"

"I mought," said Wat, "but I don't know."

"Don't know! Why don't you hear it every Sunday at

church?"

"Ah, but you see," replied Mr. Craddock, with the air of a man about to solve a difficulty to everybody's satisfaction— "You see I don't never go to meetin'."

"Your honor will perceive-" began Mr. Hadenskeldt. "Why-what-how do you spend your time on Sunday, Mr. Craddock?" asked the solicitor.

"Sometimes I goes a-fishin on the krick, and sometimes I plays marvels,” replied Wat, gaping extensively as he spoke. "Anything else?"

'Sometimes I lays in the sun, back o' Andy Owenses gro

cery."

"Mr. Belcher," said the court, "is this the only witness for the state?"

We have a half-dozen more who can prove all the facts." "Well, then, discharge this man—he's drunk.”

Mr. Craddock was accordingly discharged, and William Sentell was put up on the stand. Just as he had kissed the book, a man, looking hot and worried, was seen leaning over the railing which shuts out the spectators from the business part of the court-room, beckoning to the Captain.

Simon having obtained leave to see this person, went to him and took a note which the other held in his hand; and after a few words of conversation, turned off to read it. As he slowly deciphered the words, his countenance changed and he began to weep. The solicitor, who knew a thing or two about the Captain, laughed; and so did Mr. Hadenskeldt, although he tried to suppress it.

"My boys is a-dyin!" said Suggs; and he threw himself upon the steps leading to the judge's seat, and sobbed bitterly. "Come, come, Captain," said the solicitor; "you are a great tactician, but permit me to say that I know you. Come, no shamming; let's proceed with the trial."

"It don't make no odds to me now, what you do about itJohn and Ben will be in their graves before I git home;" and the poor fellow groaned heart-breakingly.