So old and enthusiastic a chess player as Bird, and one who
has travelled about so much professionally, and on chess, has
naturally been the object of many pleasantries, and bon mots,
although he escaped the Fortnightly Review writers, being
regarded, at least by one of them as a very serious person,
L'Anglais comme il faut of the Vienna Neue Frie Presse. The
despised Britisher of custom house officers (who always chalk
him away, hardly deigning to examine his luggage even). He
has figured as the sea captain of the New York Sun, the farmer
of the Rochester Press, the ladies chess professor of the Albany
Argus, and the veteran of the Montreal Press, his vicissitudes
have led him into strange places, among others to a wigwam of the
Indians at Sarnia in 1860, and a representation of one in the
Vienna Exhibition of 1873, when much to the amusement of
Professor Anderssen and Baron Kolisch he received such a cordial
reception from a lady who recognized him as an old friend and
customer at Niagara falls, the lady in question being commonly
termed a squaw (not a disrespectful word for a lady it is hoped).
Bird has been in the Nest at Amsterdam, in the Bowery at New
York, and in the accident ward at Vienna, and has witnessed
many strange things and distressing circumstances, and has
endured interviewers and Irish Home Rulers in America without
a shudder, and has perhaps been asked more questions about
chess than any man living, because he good naturedly always
answers them, and has furnished matter enough in ten minutes
for a two-column article.
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