1929 The Bon Vivant's Companion or How to Mix Drinks by Jerry Thomas

THE BON VIVANT's COMPANION

his researches in the field of the cocktail,Jerry Thomas's host of admirers invested him with the honorable, if honorary, title of Professor, by which he was thereafter known, and which he carried with becoming dignity through the re mainder of his earthly pilgrimage. Thus he fulfilled one of the ambitions which his father had expressed for him as he lay,a helpless little one,in the cradle of the New Haven cot tage. But the church, ever an obstacle to human progress, failed to recognize his genius. It was not only as a scientist and beverage dispenser that Professor Thomas deserves a monument and the plaudits which are now wasted upon generals, bishops, movie actors, channel swimmers and aviators',for his interests were numer ous and his fame in other lines was great; in many different ways,indeed, he lent force and direction to the cultural ad vance of the nation. He was a pioneer minstrel showman of the Pacific Coast,and later owned a music hall in New York whereinLew Dockstader began the career which was to make him the most celebrated minstrel man of his time; and he sponsored the first public exhibition of Thomas Nast's car toons, and did much to popularize the work of that famous artist. And he also achieved renown as a collector; he owned more than three hundred gourds,of every conceivable shape and size, the finest and mostimportant group of these natu ral curiosities in the United States, if not in the world. In deed, the collection may well have been unique. Moreover, Professor Thomas was an author whose works have been sadly neglected by the critics, even by the high-powered, super-intellectuals among them who possess the occult power of finding things in a book that the writer never heard of. These giants customarily sing the praises of realism, yet they have persistently ignored the product of one of the few men who were ever able to make the real even more so, and who at the same time could take a frightened,trembling wretch and bythe skillful application of a cocktail,a cobbler,

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