Veiled Prophet

Ellie Kemper, sitcom comedian and writer, who at age 19 was a “Queen of Love and Beauty.”
A streetcar driver who in 1877 might work a dozen hours per day.
Irish author Thomas Moore (1779-1852).
Alonzo Slayback (1838-1882), Confederate colonel, versifier, irritated politician, racist.

Erastus Wells (1823-1893), U.S. Congressman, the target of Alonzo’s ire.
Charles Slayback (1840-1924), Alonzo’s draft-dodging brother and Mississippi River merchant.
German-language editor-publisher Henry Boernstein (1805-1892), writing in English about the early French settlers of St. Louis.
An infant drummer, who during a street parade whacked away on a drum almost as big as he was.
Women and girls casting petals upon this child drummer from their balconies.
A headline writer who is whisked by a mysterious visitor through a solid wall to end up in a tavern, where he leaves a lemon peel at the bottom of his drained glass of hot Scotch whisky.
Thomas Garrett, an erudite literary editor, departing a burning building like someone going to a funeral.

Joseph A. Dacus (1838-1885), grocer, cotton broker, farmer, school teacher, poet, political stump orator, book salesman, chief engineer of a flatboat, superintendent of a sawmill, reporter, photographer, and maybe a Ph.D.
Journalist Cyrus S. Oberly (around 1840–1888), who, with Dacus, reported on the wounded and arrested members of the Ku-Klux Klan in that part of Illinois called Egypt.
Aaron Neal (1832-1897), a Klan organizer and lawyer who worked from a saloon in a settlement named Sneakout.
An annoyed reporter, creator of what he thinks is an artful joke about the mysterious Veiled Prophet.
An aproned woman serving two cups of what could be Baker’s hot chocolate.
Real-estate speculator John G. Priest, accused of having drilled “the reserve army of capital” (wrong!) and who was “about the oldest man ever sued for divorce in St. Louis,” just short of age eighty (right!).
Sooty blacksmith William Jacobs, forced to “dance” by a gang of Klansmen, but who got even with them later.

And Finally, the Big Parade

Aeolus, Phoebus, Helios, Sisyphus, Ceres, and other such gods atop extravagantly decorated wagons pulled by mules or horses through colorfully illuminated city streets.
Men dressed up as women, complaining in coarse tones about delay.
A dove that looked like a rooster with its comb shaved off.
Masqueraders, cheered by thousands and descending awkwardly from their floats but taking everything in a spirit of good humor.

The Failed Joke of the Veiled Prophet