Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 9.djvu/598

 492 NOTES AND QUERIES. t a nc. DEC. 17.19*1. when stationed at Fort Yuma, the War De- partment having announced that it was " not averse to receiving suggestions from army officers " regarding improvements in the uniforms of United States soldiers, Capt. Derby submitted, without fear in his heart, several burlesque sketches to Secretary of j War Davis. Only one or two of these have | been preserved. In California Capt. Derby wrote ' Phce- nixiana ; or, Sketches and Burlesques,' illus- trated. (Published by D. Appleton and Co., New York, 1855. ) This work met with great success ; no fewer than 35 editions having been issued prior to 1900. A privately printed edition of 165 copies in two volumes (for members only) was issued by the Caxton Club of Chicago in 1897. This edition in- cluded several sketches belonging to his widow, who permitted the Club to use them. These include a sketch submitted to Jefferson Davis, previously referred to. In 1865 appeared ' The Squibob Papers.' The frontispiece is not a caricature of Washington (as implied by X. T. R). It is stated that it is a caricature-portrait of the author by himself. It will be noted that Capt. Derby was not a contemporary of Charles Farrar Browne ("Artemus Ward"), 1834-1867. Browne's effusions first appeared in Vanity Fair, a comic weekly, in 1861, and in book form in 1862. S. L. Clemens ("Mark Twain"), in his ' Library of Humor,' says " John Phoenix (Derby's nom de plume) is the first of the great modern humorists." The jmost prominent contemporary of Artemus Ward was Robert Henry Newell, 1836-1901, whose " Orpheus C. Kerr " (office- seeker) letters afforded great amusement to readers of that period. ' The Orpheus C. Kerr Papers ' were published in three volumes (New York, 1862-1865). GEO. MERRYWEATHER, Highland Park, Illinois, U.S.A. George Horatio Derby, soldier and humorist, was born in Dedham, Mass., April 3, 1823. He was the son of John Barton Derby, an eccentric character of Boston. The son was educated in the public schools of his native town, and being enamoured of military life, he secured a cadetship at West Point, from Which he graduated in 1846 as Brevet Second Lieutenant of Ordnance. Later he entered the Corps of Topographical Engineers, and assisted in surveys in various sections of the country. He served in the Mexican war at the siege of Vera Cruz, and received a severe wound in the battle of Cerro Gordo r which incapacitated him for further service. He was given charge of the government survey in 1847-48, and conducted the explorations in Minnesota in the following year ; and, in 1849, had charge of the surveys on the Pacific coast. The survey of the harbour of San Diego, Cal., was under his superintendence, as well as that of the military roads of the department of the Pacific. In 1856 he became coast surveyor and lighthouse engineer. While employed in erecting a lighthouse on the Gulf of Mexico, he received a sunstroke which affected his sight and eventually caused softening of the brain, and ultimately his death. During his military career he was a continual Writer of humorous squibs under the name of " Squibob " and " John Phoenix," which were collected in book form and published in New York under the names of ' The Squibob Papers ' and ' Phoenixiana.' His local humour was good- natured and brilliant, and his Works had a wide sale. He died in New York, May 15, 1861. See 'The National Cyclopaedia of Ameri- can Biography,' vol. v. (1907), p. 241. C. M. K. George Horatio Derby was born in 1823, and graduated at the United States Military Academy (West Point) in 1846, presumably high in his class as he was commissioned in the Engineer Corps. He served in the Mexican War, but being wounded in such manner as to incapacitate him for military service, he was engaged during the re- mainder of his life in engineer work, mostly in the far west, especially in the territory acquired from Mexico by the war. He wrote a good deal of humorous literature, and his writings have been collected in a volume published by Macmillan in 1903. Information in regard to him will be found in this volume, in the Introduction lay John Kendrick Bangs. He used the pseudonyms " Squibob " and " John Phoenix." HENRY LEFFMANN. Extract from Appleton's * Cyclopaedia of American Biography ' (New York, 1887) r vol. ii., p. 148 : John Barton (Derby), author, b. in Salem, Mass., Nov. 13, 1792 ; d. in Boston in 1807, was graduated at Bowdoin in 1811, studied law in Northampton, Mass., and began practice in