"HIGH-HANDED OUTRAGE AT UTICA" 
By Artemus Ward
Bishop Fowler and other lecturers and authors have drawn for us beautiful pictures of Lincoln reading to his Cabinet a chapter in the Bible before submitting his draft of the Emancipation Proclamation. The true story of that incident is related in the foregoing pages. It may be that some readers who are unfamiliar with the now little-read writings of "Artemus Ward" will be glad to know precisely what it was that the President read on that day; and as the chapter is very short, it will be given herewith.
No form of literature is more evanescent than humor. The fun-loving public of one generation labors hard to discover the reasons why other generations laughed over the old-time jokes. But there are elements in Artemus Ward that still provoke a smile. The chapter which amused Lincoln on that day related to the virtue of a community which would not permit the exhibition of Artemus Ward's famous Wax Works because the reproduction of the Last Supper contained the figure of Judas. Some reader may need to be told that there was no such show. The author of this and the other burlesques that bore the name of Artemus Ward (Charles F. Browne), presented himself in these sketches as a good-natured humbug, running a "highly moral show" with "Wax-figgers" and other attractions. He was never so delightful as when disclosing his own shams, as when the mob pulled the hay out of the fat man.
Browne's book had a chapter in which he assisted Lincoln to form his Cabinet. His first assistance was to tu............