Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 7, 2025
Seven years later he was condemned to death at Edinburgh, and to earn a little money for his mother he dictated an account of his life to the prison chaplain before he died. It was published in 1821 with the title: "The Life of David Haggart, alias John Wilson, alias John Morison, alias Barney M'Coul, alias John M'Colgan, alias David O'Brien, alias the Switcher.
'You are the Switcher, he exclaimed; 'some take all, but you leave nothing. And it is as the Switcher that Haggart keeps his memory green. 'DAMN ye both! stop, or I will blow your brains out! Thus it was that Harry Simms greeted his victims, proving in a phrase that the heroic age of the rumpad was no more. Forgotten the debonair courtesy of Claude Duval!
Three days ago it blew up black an' frothy a nor'east switcher, with a rippin' wind an' a sea o' mountains. 'Twas no place for a short-handed schooner. Believe me, sir, 'twas no place at all! 'Twas time t' run for harbour, come what might; so we asked the cook t' take charge.
"Paint my bell sky-blue!" said Poney, the switcher. "Make me a surface-railroad loco with a hard-wood skirtin'-board round my wheels. Break me up and cast me into five-cent sidewalk-fakirs' mechanical toys! Here's an eight-wheel coupled 'American' don't know what a hot-box is! Never heard of an emergency-stop either, did ye? Don't know what ye carry jack-screws for?
They set forth their depredation, as a victorious general might record his triumphs, and they excel the nimblest Ordinary that ever penned a dying speech in all the gifts of the historian. But when you leave the study for the field, the Switcher instantly declares his superiority. He had the happiness to practise his craft in its heyday, while Simms knew but the fag-end of a noble tradition.
Each has assured his immortality by an experiment in literature; and if epic simplicity and rapid narrative are the virtues of biography, it is difficult to award the prize. The Switcher preferred to write in the rough lingo, wherein he best expressed himself. He packs his pages with ill-spelt slang, telling his story of thievery in the true language of thieves.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking