The Wit of Ainsworth

The Hobart Gazette sometimes ran a column of Ainsworth news, usually called "Ainsworth Pick-Ups." It appeared fitfully, unreliably; running every week for a year or more, then disappearing for several years, then reappearing for a few months, and so on. As I've mentioned before, I don't know how those tidbits of news reached the editor. But in late 1904 through early 1905, the "Ainsworth Pick-Ups" took on a tone of jocularity, distinctive from the Hobart and Deepriver social news columns. It seems that there was someone here who thought he was pretty funny and sent in news items to prove it, someone whom I've dubbed the Wit of Ainsworth.

How funny was he? See for yourself:

A bad one on Chicago. On the Grand Trunk milk train last Friday were two men who were angry at each other when one got up and declared that the other one ought to have died in Chicago as he considered it a worse place than h—.

OK, maybe that one really did happen. But what about these? —

A man was arrested here Tuesday evening [December 27] at Raschka's corner, while the wind blew at a rate of 82 miles an hour and the thermometer below zero, for whistling the tune "In the Good Old Summer Time."

Morgan Blachly has got hold of a powder which will facilitate digestion of a square meal in 15 minutes. We sympathize with his wife.

Dan Maybaum is anxiously awaiting the opening of the circus season to show what his donkey can do and won't do.

[From January 27] Just out — the latest song — "Snow, Snow, Beautiful Snow."

I wonder who the culprit was. I notice that the jocularity ceased around the time that Hugh Dotzer left Ainsworth. But I've formed this picture in my mind of Hugh as a man of some culture and taste; it jars me to think him capable of making such jokes. Ed Sauter seems a more likely candidate; but then, why did he stop being funny? — he was still in Ainsworth, and not yet in financial trouble.

We'll probably never know. The Wit of Ainsworth has taken his secret to the grave.

Now I'm the Wit of Ainsworth. Poor Ainsworth!

Sources: "Ainsworth Pick-Ups." Hobart Gazette 7 Oct. 1904; 30 Dec. 1904; 13 Jan. 1905; 27 Jan. 1905.