Surgeon General's Office
Washington City, June 6th, 1868
Dear Doctor,
I have met with very few "Flatheads" in my excursions through Oregon, and those few seemed to be as intelligent as any other Indians.
I know nothing about their qualifications for membership in a "smelling committee", but hope for their own sake, that they may be deficient in this "special sense", as they live in an atmosphere of "stinks", to which the far famed "City of Cologne", cannot "hold a candle".
Yours very truly,
C.H. Crane
Dr. Geo. A. Otis
U.S. Army
P.S.
The Surgeon General knows no more about them than myself.
2 comments:
Ouch. I hadn't read this letter before, but ethnic humor has long been a part of American society and it seems our curators weren't any different.
And it's absolutely for sure that we'd consider Assistant Surgeon General Crane's Washington to be a city of 'stinks' by modern standards.
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