No traces of Slang may be found among mollusks, crustaceans or the lower
invertebrates. Slang is not common to vertebrate fishes or to whales,
seals, reptiles or anthropoid apes - in a word, slang-speaking is
nowhere prevalent among lower animals. It may, then, be definitely and
clearly asserted that Slang is the natural, logical expression of the
Human Race. If Man, then, is the highest of created mammals, is not his
natural speech (Slang) the highest of created languages? It is generally
conceded that Literature is the most exalted expression of Language.
Would not the Literature, then, which employs the highest of created
languages (Slang) be the supreme Literature of the world?
By such logical, irrefutable, inductive steps have I proven not only the
Status of Slang, but the literary importance of these Sonnets which it
is at once my scientific duty and my esthetic pleasure to introduce.
The twenty-six exquisite Sonnets which form this Cycle were written,
probably, during the years 1906 and 1907. Their author was William Henry
Smith, a car conductor, who penned his passion, from time to time, on
the back of transfer-slips which he treasured carefully in his hat[1].
We have it from no less an authority than Professor Sznuysko that the
Car Conductor usually performed these literary feats in public, writing
between fares on the rear platform of a Sixth Avenue car.
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