Allow me to recommend an excellent [aitch] bone. The English cockney’s practice of rejecting this letter from its proper place and inserting it where it does not belong is a source of no small amount of ridicule, particularly with Americans. We who has not laughed until his sides ached over the H-aitches of Binney [sic] in the American Cousin? Ridiculous as we make such blunders appear, the English are themselves in advance of us in efforts to correct the errors.
In a quite profusely illustrated work published by Ackerman, London, entitled “The Alphabet Annotated,” a page has an ornamental border of rare ingenuity. At first sight it appears only an aggregation of figures and objects with a profuse sprinkling of this unlucky letter; but on a closer inspection one half the design is devoted to driving it out of its place and the other half forcing it where it does not belong. Commencing at the top, a troop of angels are expelling it from ‘eaven, and another class of spirits are thrusting it out of ‘ell. It is falling out of ‘ailstorm, driven from the ‘ippodrome, dragged out of an ‘op-field, worried from a ‘unt by dogs and riders, removed from a bee-‘ive, an ‘aystack and an ‘ouse, and ‘eraldry. An undertaker is dragging it out of a ‘earse, while a butcher sticks a ‘og. A [rabid] animal drives it off his ‘orns, one with a stick pokes it off a ‘ippopotamus, another leaves it off an ’en, a groom brushes it from ‘orse, while a pack of ‘ounds vainly attempt to run away from it; a lady removes it from her ‘arp, while another assisted by a gentleman, beats it out of a ‘andkerchief, and four ladies armed with a scrubbing brush, parasol, poker, and fire shovel, knock it off a ‘eart; a middy cuts it from a ‘awser, while one sailor shakes it from the end of a ‘arpoon, and his companion, with clenched fists, beats it out of his’ammock; an ‘ibernian kicks it from his ‘od, it is cut from a ‘am, driven from an ‘ammer, ‘atchet, and an ‘ull of a ship; it is dragged from a ‘amper, a ‘ermit drives it from his cell; a ‘yena is bereft of it, while two [pantomime] characters hold an ‘arlequine, and Columbine drags it from his back, a soldier cuts it from his ‘elmet and throws it from his ’and.
On the opposite side of the page the fugitive takes refuge in the Hark on Mount Hararat, slide on the Hice, and plants itself before the great Hexhibition of 1851. A Hindian shoots it on Harrow at a flying Heagle. A hunter pursues a Hostrich with it at the Hend of a spear. It appears on the stage in grand Hopera, and the Harmy. It is being put on the Horgan and the Hamazon. A young lady holds a Halligator by the tail, while a young man pokes an H at him. A painter is drawing it on a Heasel, to decorate a Hidol. It is mounted on a Helephant, a Hox and a Hass. The infant ‘Ercules has taken it off himself and shakes it at a Hadder. It is mounted on a Harch and thrown into the water of a Hinlet, thrust into a Homnibus and among the Happles; taken away from the ‘en and put into a basket of Heggs. An old woman puts it into a Humbrella: others place it on a [statue] of Prince Halbert. It is being forced into Hale, at which it makes a very wry face. As a finale, three priests are forcing it up to a Haltar.
In the body of the work is another device touching this point. A Romish prelate kneels in worship, while another dangles from a gibbet. The lettering below is “The priest is at the (H) altar,” and the lines of text explain it.
“No difference to us in the sin
Of leaving out or putting an H in.”
Boston Transcript.
– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, May 10, 1862, p. 2
