Thomas Robert Dewar? Grafton Grabb? A Ragged Tramp? Anonymous?
Question for Quote Investigator: Everyone faces trials, i.e., adversity. A humorous remark uses wordplay to tie together these hardships with the legal system:
Life is full of trials with an occasional conviction.
This quip has been attributed to Scottish whisky distiller Thomas Robert Dewar, but I have not seen a solid citation. Would you please explore this saying?
Reply from Quote Investigator: An anecdote published in the January 22, 1887 issue of the New York humor magazine “Judge” employed the same wordplay. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:1
NOT USED TO SYMPATHY.
“Come in, my poor man,” said a benevolent lady to a ragged tramp, “and I will get you something to eat.”
“Thanky, mum; don’t care if I do.”
“I suppose,” continued the lady, setting a square meal before him,“your life has been full of trials?”
“Yis, mum; an’ the wust of it wuz I allus got convicted.”
The final line used eye dialect to render the following phrase “Yes, mam; and the worst of it was I always got convicted”.
This joke evolved over time and was streamlined. In 1915 “Puck” magazine printed an instance without attribution which precisely matched the expression under examination. In 1926 Lord Dewar (Thomas Robert Dewar) used the line while delivering a speech, but the quip was already in circulation.
Below are details for selected citations in chronological order.
Also, in 1887 the anecdote in “Judge” was reprinted in the “Boston Evening Transcript”2 of Massachusetts and in the New York humor magazine “Life”.3
In 1892 the magazine “Golden Days for Boys and Girls” of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania printed the following shorter version of the joke:4
“Life is full of trials, you know,” said the missionary to the man in jail.
“Yes,” was the doleful reply, “an’ most of ’em convictions.”
In 1893 the joke above was reprinted in the “North-Eastern Daily Gazette” of Middlesbrough, Cleveland, England.5
In 1904 the New York humor magazine “Puck” printed the following instance with an acknowledgement to a newspaper:6
THE WORST OF IT
“Life is full of trials,” said the melancholy citizen.
“Yes,” answered Mr. Grafton Grabb; “and the worst of it is that a whole lot of the trials are resulting in convictions.” —Washington Star.
In March 1912 “The Bookman: A Magazine of Literature and Life” in New York referred to the joke and presented an anonymous attribution:7
Somebody has remarked that life is full of trials and not enough convictions: with Johnson it was his convictions that led to his trials.
In January 1915 “Puck” printed a concise instance which exactly matched the statement under examination. No ascription was given:8
Life is full of trials with an occasional conviction.
In April 1915 “The Medical Herald” Kansas City, Missouri printed another version:9
Life is full of trials—but few convictions. — Puck.
In March 1926 “The Sunday Times” of London reported on a speech delivered by Thomas Robert Dewar during which he presented several sayings:10
Lord Dewar, who has become facile princeps among our post-prandial epigrammatists, was in great form at the festival of the National Advertising Benevolent Society on Friday night, and fired off a quick succession of pithy dicta, among which were :—
When an opinion becomes general it is generally correct.
It is not always necessary to be tossed into prominence on the horns of a prosecution to get headlines.
Hope is the undergarment of optimism.
Patience is the great shock-absorber in our daily lives.
Life is full of trials with an occasional conviction.
We want less artillery rattle and more baby rattles.
In August 1926 “The New York Times” published a profile of Thomas Robert Dewar which included several sayings ascribed to him:11
“Talk is cheap until it gets into love letters.”
“A Scotsman is never at home unless he is abroad.”
“Life is made up of trials with an occasional conviction.”
“It has been said that man is the noblest work of God, but nobody has ever said so but man.”
In 1932 the collection “Sir Toby’s Lampoons and Laments” contained this instance:12
“Life is made up of trials,
With an occasional conviction.”
—Lord Dewar
In 1990 a newspaper columnist in Bogalusa, Louisiana printed the following item:13
A politician’s life is full of trials, with occasional convictions.
In conclusion, jokes based on this wordplay evolved over time. An early instance appeared in “Judge” magazine in 1887. The concise version using the word “occasional” appeared in “Puck” magazine in 1915. The creator remains anonymous. Thomas Robert Dewar used the saying in 1926 after it was already in circulation.
Image Notes: Illustration of a wooden gavel from Tingey Injury Law Firm at Unsplash. The image has been cropped and resized.
Acknowledgement: Great thanks to Doug Truitt whose inquiry led QI to formulate this question and perform this exploration.
- 1887 January 22, Judge, Volume 11, Number 275, Not Used To Sympathy, Quote Page 3, Column 3, The Judge Publishing Company, New York. (Internet Archive; Verified with scans) link ↩︎
- 1887 January 20, Boston Evening Transcript, Facts and Fancies, Quote Page 3, Column 1 and 2, Boston, Massachusetts. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
- 1887 March 3, Life, Volume 9, Number 218, Aut Scissors Aut Nullus, (Item with Acknowledgment to Judge), Quote Page 127, Column 2, Published at the Life Office, New York. (Google Books Full View) link ↩︎
- 1892 May 14, Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Merriment for May, Quote Page 400, Column 2, James Elverson, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Google Books Full View) link ↩︎
- 1893 October 18, North-Eastern Daily Gazette, Quips & Cranks, Quote Page 4, Column 2, Middlesbrough, Cleveland, England. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
- 1904 May 4, Puck, Volume 55, Number 1418, The Worst of It, Unnumbered Page, Column 1, Keppler and Schwarzmann, New York. (Google Books Full View) link ↩︎
- 1912 March, The Bookman: A Magazine of Literature and Life, Volume 35, Number 1, Four Books of the Month, (Review of Tom L. Johnson’s “My Story” by George Middleton), Quote Page 89, Column 2, Dodd, Mead and Company, New York. (Google Books Full View) link ↩︎
- 1915 January 23, Puck, Untitled short item, Quote Page 19, Puck Publishing Corporation, New York. (Google Books Full View) link ↩︎
- 1915 April, The Medical Herald, Volume 34, Number 4, Notes on Reliable Remedies, Start Page 145, Quote Page 150, Official Proceedings of the Missouri Valley Medical Society, Kansas City, Missouri. (Google Books Full View) link ↩︎
- 1926 March 14, The Sunday Times, “The Town”: Men and Intimacies by Autolycus, Quote Page 15, Column 3, London, England. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1926 August 22, The New York Times, Section: The New York Times Magazine, Lord Dewar Makes Sober London Laugh by Clair Price, Quote Page 10, Column 1, New York. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1932, Sir Toby’s Lampoons and Laments by John M. Copeland, Quote Page 41, The Sovereign Press Limited, Toronto, Canada. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
- 1990 February 13, The Daily News, Potpourri: Where is the border? by Bob Landry, Quote Page 4, Column 5, Bogalusa, Louisiana. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎