e it unanimous. Let all
hands come and rig the ship on old Simp. Tell him your troubles and ask
him to help you out. He ain't got nothing better to do. Pitch into him;
give him hell; he likes it. Come one, come all--all you moth-eaten,
lousy stiffs from Stiffville. Come, tell Simp there's a reporter
rubberin' around and you're scared to death. He'll sympathise with
you--you sweet-scented skates."

It is not an elegant method of speech, but such as it is, it bears as
close a resemblance to the dialect of Chicago as can be transferred from
the ear to the eye.

If we compare the present with the past, we cannot but acknowledge that
American Slang has grown marvellously in colour and variety. The jargon
of Artemus Ward and Josh Billings possessed as little fire as character.
These two humourists obtained their effect by the simple method, lately
advocated by Messrs Roosevelt and Carnegie, of spelling as they pleased.
The modern professors of Slang have invented a new style. Their pages
sparkle with wit and allusion. They interpret their shrewd sense
in words and phrases which have never before enjoyed the freedom of
printer's ink. George Ade, the best of them all, has shown us how the
wise ones of Chicago think and speak. His 'Fables in Slang' is a little
masterpiece of humour in substance and wit in expression. To quote from
it would be to destroy its effect. But it will discover the processes of
Slang, as it is understood in the West, more clearly than any argument,
and having amused the present generation, it will remain an historical
document of enduring value.

Slang is the only language known to many thousands of citizens. The
newly arrived immigrant delights to prove his familiarity with the land
of his adoption by accepting its idioms and by speaking the American,
not of books but of the market-place. And yet this same Slang,
universally heard and understood, knocks in vain for admission into
American literature. It expatiates in journals, in novels of dialect,
and in works, like George Ade's, which are designed for its exposition.
But it has no part in the fabric of the gravely written language. Men
of letters have disdained its use with a scrupulousness worthy our own
eighteenth century. The best of them have written an English as pure as
a devout respect for tradition can make it. Though they have travelled
far in space and thought, they have anchored their craft securely in the
past. No writer that has handle