Hall's Rensselaer Dye Works (1866)

        LADIES, ATTENTION.—

                Ladies attend, and up to Hall's

                Now quickly send your Brocha Shawls,

                For he will pledge to clean them right,

                And will restore their colors bright.

                Your Crepe Shawls he will also do,

                And make them look as good as new;

                Carpets and spreads will clean for you,

                And warrant satisfaction, too.

                Hall's Rensselaer Dye Works, 403 River st.

Troy Daily Times. July 25, 1866: 3 col 2.

The oldest of the three dye-houses in the city, that of Mrs. S. W. Hall, at No. 403 River Street, was founded by Aaron Hall, in 1827.

Weise, Arthur James. Troy's One Hundred Years, 1789-1889. Troy, NY: William H Young, 1891. 416.

Authors Hip

"There was an old man with a beard":

Not Ogden Nash'd but Edward Lear'd.

"T-R-R-B-D-A" (1892)

She hunts his little primer up,

And helps him every day,

But all the letters he has learned

Are T-R-R-B-D-A.

Troy Daily Times. October 17, 1892: 2 col 4.

Buffalo Courier-Record. November 14, 1897: 2.

"A Fragment" (1793)

                A FRAGMENT.

BEFORE Coquettes the Fop may strut;

But I--not I--I'll never do't:

'Tis but to stand before a glass,

To show one's self the silliest ASS!

American Spy [Lansingburgh, NY]. October 29, 1793

More colorful language in print for the 1790s than one might have expected?

"On Liberty" (1793)

From the AMERICAN MUSEUM.

On Liberty.

CURST be the wretch that's bought and sold,

And barters liberty for gold!

For when elections are not free,

In vain we boast our liberty.

And he who sells his single right,

Would sell his country, if he might.

When liberty is put to sale,

For wine, for money, or for ale,

The sellers must be abject slaves,

The buyers vile, designing knaves.

This maxim, in the statesman's school,

Is always taught, "divide and rule"--

All parties are to him a joke;

While zealots foam, he fits the yoke:

When men their reason once resume,

He in his turn begins to fume,

Hence, learn, Columbians, to unite:

Leave off the old, exploded bite.

Henceforth let feuds and discords cease,

And turn all party rage to peace.

American Spy [Lansingburgh, NY]. March 22, 1793

Though about the buying of individual votes en masse, it might as well be about today's billionaires, left and right, buying elections left and right.

"A Sermon on Cranks" from The Fool-Killer (1921)

A SERMON ON CRANKS. —

        Well, honey, it seems to be about time for a “Sermon on Cranks.” So I will crank up my mouth and utter a few timely remarks.

        The world is full of cranks.

        You are one.

        I am another.

        You can hardly find a man or woman living who isn’t a crank about something. If it ain’t one thing it’s sure to be something else.

        Maybe I have some particular hobby that I ride to such an extent that others call me “cranky” about it.

        And the people that call me cranky about one thing seem to me just as cranky about something else.

        And so it goes.

        But what is a crank, after all?

        There ought to be some way of describing the critter so he could be identified.

        Here is how I describe him:

        A crank is anybody that rides a different hobby from the one I ride. Also anybody that opposes my hobby or talks slighty about it.

        For instance, if I am a medical doctor, my hobby is pouring various kinds of dope into peoples bellies to cure what don’t ail them. Or it may be squirting maggot-juice under their skins to make them “immune” from maggot-bites. And anybody that comes along preaching against drug-doping and vaccination is a “crank.” See?

        Again, if I happen to be an army officer, with a life-time’s training in the art of killing people, anybody who opposes war and militarism is a crank.

        Or if I happen to be a reactionary politician, getting a fat salary from a reactionary government, of course any man who dares to criticise me and my kind is a crank. No matter how bad we need criticising, it mustn’t be done. Simply because the majority of people are reactionaries, and we happen to be in the majority, we take refuge behind the collective will of that majority and think ourselves immune from criticism. Hence all people who see things different from us are cranks.

        But it never occurs to us other people have rights, and that our conduct looks just as cranky and foolish to them as theirs looks to us.

        Jesus Christ was a crank.

        All his followers were cranks.

        Every man who has blazed a new trail for civilization has been a crank, and has been cussed and abused by fifty-seven varieties of other cranks.

        A crank is only a crank so long as he is in the minority—so long as his cause is weak and unpopular. Just let his cause accumulate adherents enough to give it some show of strength and popularity, and then watch how quick he ceases to be a crank in the eyes of the world.

        Yes, honey, I am a crank.

        And you are, too.

        So what’s the use to fuss about it?

        Huh?

The Fool-Killer [Boomer, NC]. December 1, 1921: 4 cols 1-2.

The masthead is a version from 1910, cropped from newspapers.com.

"A Winter Piece" from the Woodstock Northern Memento (1805)

[The following production is copied from the "Northern Memento,"published at Woodstock, (Vermont) in which it is published as original. It is no ordinary specimen of blank versification; and happily combines the sublime morality of Cowperwith the life-giving fancy ofThomson.]

A WINTER PIECE.

—

"Dread WINTER comes at last to close the scene."

—YES, Winter comes!

'Tis but a moment since the smiling Spring

On Zephyr's downy wing rejoicing came,

And op'd, and kiss'd the coyly-blushing rose.

Then Nature from her sleep awoke serene,

And dress'd herself anew.—At his approach,

Tall hills of snow ran down with gratitude;

The lofty mountains rais'd their melting heads,

And, in the face of heaven, wept for joy;

The little riv'lets ran to find the sea,

And join to swell the thankful song of praise.

But, ah! their joy was short! their songs have ceas'd,

All nature sleeps again:—dread Winter's here.

The Lapland Giant comes with pendant ice,

Chill horror shooting from his gelid chin;

Nor lakes, nor seas, can stop his rough career:—

He builds his bridge across old ocean's breast.

Affrighted, Sol retires with hasty strides,

And dares not but obliquely downward look,

On his once conquer'd, now his conquering foe.

The earth is all in weeds of mourning clad,

To wail the loss of her departed friend;

Th' unconquer'd evergreen is left alone,

And nods defiance to the northern blasts.

    This mirror paints the fate of changing man.

This moment youth, with all its op'ning charms,

In playful mood, sits laughing in his face:

His swelling heart now beats with sanguine hope

Of satisfying bliss, and full blown joy:

He hugs himself in this fantastic dream,

And thinks that nought can blast the vernal flow'r,

But, while anticipation gilds the wing of hope,

The frigid hand of Time with furrows deep,

His forehead ploughs; and blights the pleasing view.

"Then let fair virtue's seed in youth be sown;

"'Twill prove an evergreen in hoary age

"And flourish in the Winter of our years:—

"'Twill waft us to the realms of peace and love,

"To taste th' ecstatic bliss of saints on high;

"There happiness will spring without alloy,

"And seraphs chaunt their neverending strains."

Northern Budget. December 31, 1805: 4 col 1.

I'd helped deliver Revolutionary War veteran Abial Bugbee's new granite veteran's marker from Lansingburgh to Pomfret, Vermont earlier this year, which took us through Woodstock, a nice-looking place.

The poem was reprinted a couple times without attribution to the short-lived Northern Memento (it lasted from May 1805 to February 1806 http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84023397/ ).

The Spirit of the Public Journals; Or, Beauties of the American Newspapers For 1805. Baltimore, MD: Geo. Dobbin & Murphy, 1806. 298-299. https://books.google.com/books?id=1foqAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA298&lpg=PA298

The Churchman's Magazine 4(1). January 1807. 35-36. https://books.google.com/books?id=TFMQAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA35