If any other excuse be needed for thus presenting the British
public with A. Ward's "last," in addition to the pertinency of
the article and its real merit, that excuse may be found in the
fact that it is thoroughly new to readers on this side of the
Atlantic.

The general public will undoubtedly receive "Artemus Ward among
the Fenians" with approving laughter. Should it fall into the
hands of a philo-Fenian the effect may be different. To him it
would probably have the wrong action of the Yankee bone-picking
machine.

"I've got a new machine," said a Yankee pedlar, "for picking
bones out of fish. Now, I tell you, it's a leetle bit the
darndest thing you ever did see. All you have to do is to set it
on a table and turn a crank, and the fish flies right down your
throat and the bones right under the grate. Well, there was a
country greenhorn got hold of it the other day, and he turned the
crank the wrong way; and, I tell you, the way the bones flew down
his throat was awful. Why, it stuck that fellow so full of
bones, that he could not get his shirt off for a whole week!"

In addition to the paper on the Fenians, two other articles by
Artemus Ward are reprinted in the present work. One relates to
the city of Washington, and the other to the author's imaginary
town of Baldinsville. Both are highly characteristic of the
writer and of his quaint spellings--a heterography not more odd
than that of the postmaster of Shawnee County, Missouri, who,
returning his account to the General Office, wrote, "I hearby