Wood County Reporter

PERKINS ON BACKUS.

Some Personal Reminiscences of the Late Hon. Charles Backus.

The death of the Hon. Charles Backus, ex-member of the California Legislature, is peculiarly sad. The genial minstrel had everything to live for. He had professional prosperity and a beautiful wife, whom he worshipped beyond everything else on earth. Nothing could have been more counter to the truth than the minstrel's answer to the nightly interlocution of the end-man:

"Well, Mr. Backus, how do you feel?"

"Oh, I feel very happy; I'm a married man, you know."

"Then your wife is with you, is she?"

"Oh, no; she is spending the summer in Europe."

[Laughter.]

Then Backus would look up into the box and bow to his wife, whom he loved so well, and all the time the audience thought he was flirting with a young lady in the audience.

The newspapers have said that Mr. Backus never liked personal jokes. This is a mistake, for the minstrel was continually indulging in them. The best personal joke Backus ever perpetrated occurred eight years ago. It was also another instance where a joke kicked back.

One day the minstrel rode up through Stamford, Connecticut, with Mr. Lem Read, the bosom friend of the lamented minstrel, Dan Bryant. As the train stopped before the Stamford station for water Mr. Backus saw a good, old, red-faced Connecticut farmer sitting in the station reading the Brooklyn scandal.

"Do you want to see me get a good joke on that old duffer, Lem?" asked Mr. Backus, pointing to the old farmer.

"Yes," said Lem, "let's see you."

"Well, you wait till jes' before the train starts, Lem, and I'll show you fun—fun till you can't rest. Yes, you wait," said Charley, laughing and pounding the palm of his left hand with his ponderous right.

"All right, I'll wait," said Lem.

When the train came to a full stop Mr. Backus jumped off, telling his friend Lem to save his seat; "for," said he, "as soon as the bell rings I want to bound back on the train."

Then Mr. Backus rushed up to the innocent farmer, snatched the paper from his hands, stamped on it with a tragic stamp, and, shaking his clinched fist in the poor man's face, exclaimed:

"You old rascal! I've found you at last, you miserable old scapegrace; now I'm goin' to lick the life out of you—you contemptible old scoundrel, you—you"

Ding-a-ding! ding-a-dong! ding-a-ding! went the bell, drowning Charley's voice, and the train began moving out.

"Yes, I'll lick you," said Charley. "I'll get an ox-whip and"

And then he jumped back from the astonished farmer and got on the last car of the train moving out.

The old farmer was astonished. He stood up bewildered. His knees quaked, and his German-silver glasses fell to the floor. Then gathering himself together, he picked up his newspaper and glasses and started for the train.

"Whar's the man who wanted to lick me?" he shouted. "Whar's the man who called me a scoundrel? Whar's"

"Here he is," said Charley from the rear platform of the moving car, as he held his thumb derisively to his nose amid the laughter of the passengers.

"Here I am, sir—I'm your Roman—take me"

Just then the bell went ding-a-ding again, and what do you think? Why, the train backed down! It backed poor Charley right into the hands of the infuriated farmer, who took off his coat and went for that poor fun-loving minstrel.

"You want to lick me, do you?" said the farmer, jumping on to the platform, while Charley ran through the car. "You miserable dandy! You want to"

And then he chased that poor minstrel through the cars with his cane in the air, while his big fist came down on his back like a trip-hammer. "You've found me, have you? Yes, I guess you have!" said the old farmer, as Charley left his hat and one coat-sleeve in his infuriated grasp. "Evidently you have."

Mr. Backus is said to have remarked, as he washed off the blood and went in to interview a tailor in New Haven two hours afterwards:

"I guess the next time I want to make Lem Read laugh I won't try to scare a Connecticut farmer. O no! I'll get some pugilist to fan me with an Indian club or go to sleep under a pile-driver. You hear me!"