44 John. By Pritchard, Edward R.

This is a good picture of “John,“ who is at once a unique and interesting character. I have often thought that John, as we know him, is a fair type of man in his finished state. He stands as a living representation of a civilization so old that its origin is lost in the mazes of antiquity. We can imagine him starting as a primordial germ or a protoplasm, and, after ages of existence, developing into the highest state of civilization, and then, having satiated himself along theline of human achievement, settled back into that simple yet truly philosophical being that we now find him. We may sneer at John’s clothes and his manner of wearing them; we may ridicule his art, with its utter lack of perspective; we may deride customs that to him are centuries old; we may deplore his lack of progress; but to all this John only smiles grimly, and with his characteristic philosophy, briefly, but pointedly exclaims:

“Melican man dam fool.”