February 14, 2006
In Other News Posted by Frederic D. Schwarz at 11:00 AM EST 1. I can’t come up with another example of an incumbent Vice President shooting someone, though if Hannibal Hamlin had done so he would have been justified. Hamlin was Vice President during Abraham Lincoln’s first term, and he spent part of the summer of 1864 serving with a Coast Guard regiment in Maine. During most of his hitch he was a cook, but for his first few days on active duty he was a guard. So if any Rebels had decided to invade Maine (and the prospect is not completely far-fetched, since there was a Confederate raid on Vermont that same year), Hamlin could have shot them and been called a hero. 2. During the 12 hours or so Sunday when the snow was a moderate inconvenience, most sidewalks were reduced to a narrow path on which pedestrians trod, with high walls of snow on either side. I was reminded of the situation that prevailed into the nineteenth century in most cities, and probably still exists in some places, where most streets amounted to unpaved alleys. Muck and mud and refuse accumulated in the middle, so people stuck close to the wall as they walked, but when two people approached from opposite directions, one had to descend into the yucky part while the other slid by along the wall. Yesterday it was just the opposite, because the center of the path was the more desirable part, and when you took the “wall” (which in this case was really a pile of snow a couple of feet high), you risked getting wet shoes or a bootful of snow. The situation reminded me of a quotation from Samuel Johnson (via Boswell), which I’ll confess I had to look up: “In the last age, when my mother lived in London, there were two sets of people, those who gave the wall, and those who took it; the peaceable and the quarrelsome. When I returned to Lichfield, after having been in London, my mother asked me, whether I was one of those who gave the wall, or those who took it. Now it is fixed that every man keeps to the right; or, if one is taking the wall, another yields it; and it is never a dispute.” While looking that up, I came across this anecdote about Lord Chesterfield, which my source attributes to the British journalist A. G. Gardiner: “In his time, the London streets were without the pavements of today, and the man who ‘took the wall’ had driest footing. ‘I never give the wall to a scoundrel,’ said a man who met Chesterfield, one day in the street. ‘I always do,’ said Chesterfield, stepping with a bow into the road.” For what it’s worth, my experience yesterday was that both people tended to step aside. 3. Who would have thought a month ago that the greatest controversy on the world stage would be started by a bunch of cartoonists? Danish ones, yet. The only situation I can recall (after 30 seconds thought, admittedly) where cartoons caused so much commotion was when Thomas Nast was making fun of Boss Tweed in New York City in the 1860s and 1870s. Tweed supposedly complained that newspaper attacks were no problem, since his constituents couldn’t read, but Nast’s cartoons were killing him. His response was to offer Nast large sums of money to take up a different profession, or perhaps spend several years in Europe studying art at Tweed’s expense. Nast turned him down, and Tweed was eventually brought to justice. There’s no question that Tweed was a crook, but you have to admit that he was a mild-mannered one; a lesser man would have threatened or killed the cartoonist. If only all disputes could be settled according to our robust American traditions—open discourse, unfettered debate, and the judicious use of bribery—the world would be a much more peaceful place.
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