March 16, 2008


The Shit Canal (A Saint Patrick’s Day Reverie)

Of Chicago’s Sanitary and Ship Canal, the Encyclopedia of Chicago entry reads:

This channel runs 28 miles between Damen Avenue and Lockport, linking the South Branch of the Chicago River to the Des Plaines River. With the construction of a series of locks, the Sanitary and Ship Canal permanently reversed the flow of the Chicago River in 1900. The canal was designed both as a transportation route and a means to improve water quality by sending Chicago’s sewage south into the Illinois River instead of into Lake Michigan.

shit_canal_consruction_1895.jpg
Sanitary and Ship Canal construction. 1895.

But that great poet of Chicago’s transplanted Irish, Finley Peter Dunne, cast a melancholy gaze on this marvel of engineering. Here is Dunne, speaking in the voice of his fictional barkeep Martin Dooley, addressing his regular listener Hennessey, bidding farewell to a river.

“ ‘Twas the prettiest river f’r to look at that ye’ll iver see. Ye niver was annything iv a pote, Hinnissy, but if ye cud get down on th’ Miller dock some night when ye and the likes iv ye was makin’ fireworks in th’ blast, an’ see th’ flames blazin’ on th’ warther and th’ lights’ dancin’, green at th’ sausage facthry, blue at th’ soap facthry, yellow at th’ tannery, ye’d not thrade it f’r annything but th’ Liffey, that’s thinner but more powerfuller.”

*****
“Gran’ ol’ river! Onhealthy, says ye? Onhealthy! Th’ river niver was onhealthy. ‘Twas the lake. Th’ river wint sthrollin’ out visitin’ its frinds, an’, though I niver liked the comp’ny it kept on thim sprees, I’ll say that it always come back.”

*****
“Now that it’s goin’ out I’ll niver go to the bridge again. Niver. I feel as though I’d lost an ol’ frind an’ a sthrong wan. It wasn’t so much that I see it ivery day, but I always know it was there. Night an’ day me frind was there!”

“Ah, go on,” said Mr. Hennessey. “What diff’rence does it make wan way or th’ other?”

“Ye have no pothry,” said Mr. Dooley.

Excerpts from a newspaper column by Finley Peter Dunne, a portion of which is quoted on pp. 473 ff. of Mr. Dooley and the Chicago Irish: An Anthology (Ayer Publishing).

posted by Sheila Ryan in environment, health, history, journalism, literature, memory, nature 

comments

3 Responses to “The Shit Canal (A Saint Patrick’s Day Reverie)”

  1. Sheila Ryan on March 16th, 2008 at 10:03 pm

    I’ve heard tell, though I can’t swear that it’s so, that the fellow who wrote that book that started out with riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay — well, that he had read this bit of ephemera by Finley Peter Dunne.

  2. Deron Bauman on March 16th, 2008 at 10:27 pm

    I think that guy read everything. he wrote everything anyway.

  3. Sheila Ryan on March 17th, 2008 at 10:18 am

    If you don’t already know him, it’s worth trying to wrap your mind’s tongue around the conventions of ‘dialect humor’ for the sake of discovering Finley Peter Dunne. A very good starting place would be Mr. Dooley in Peace and War (1898). Half of the pieces collected in this volume — those in which Mr. Dooley holds forth on “War” — treat specifically of the Spanish-American War.

    Another sample, wherein once again Martin Dooley addresses Hennessey:

    Wan iv the worst things about this here war is th’ way it’s makin’ puzzles f’r our poor, tired heads. Whin I wint into it, I thought all I’d have to do was to set up here behind th’ bar with a good tin-cint see-gar in me teeth, an’ toss dinnymite bombs into th’ hated city iv Havana. But look at me now. Th’ war is still goin’ on; an’ ivry night, whin I’m countin’ up the cash, I’m askin’ mesilf will I annex Cubia or lave it to the Cubians? Will I take Porther Ricky or put it by? An’ what shud I do with the Ph’lippeens? Oh, what shud I do with thim? I can’t annex thim because I don’t know where they ar-re. I can’t let go iv thim because some wan else’ll take thim if I do. They are eight thousan’ iv thim islands, with a popylation iv wan hundherd millyon naked savages; an’ me bedroom’s crowded now with me an’ th’ bed. How can I take thim in, an’ how on earth am I goin’ to cover th’ nakedness iv thim savages with me wan shoot iv clothes? An’ yet ‘twud break me heart to think iv givin’ people I niver see or heerd tell iv back to other people I don’t know. An’, if I don’t take thim, Schwartzmeister down th’ sthreet, that has half me thrade already, will grab thim sure.

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