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Compiled and edited for The Scrap Book.

Stephen A. Knight, an Aged Cotton Manufacturer,
Tells of Work and Wages
Seventy Years Ago.

The more deeply one looks into the conditions of life in the "good old times" the more likely is he to find reason for exclaiming, "Thank Heaven, I live in the Now!" Life held out comparatively little for the American working man three-quarters of a century ago. Wages were very small, education was exceedingly hard to obtain, and the comforts of life were few in comparison with the present time.

At the recent meeting of the National Association of Cotton Manufacturers, in Boston, Stephen A. Knight, of Providence, a former president of the association, gave his reminiscences of old-time mill work. Mr. Knight began as a bobbin boy in a mill at Coventry, Rhode Island, in 1835. After the lapse of seventy years he says:

Such a comparison as Mr. Knight draws from his actual experience does the work of volumes of argument. That the span of one man's life could bridge extremes so widely separated is evidence enough that our country has made remarkable progress.

A Paper by the Late Lewis Carroll, in
Which the Desirability of Feeding the
Intellect Is Dwelt Upon.

The late Lewis Carroll was, first of all, professionally a mathematician, though few readers of "the Alice books" knew it. And his name, of course, was Charles L. Dodgson, and he wrote mathematical treatises. To the time of his death—he was born in 1832 and died in 1898—his readers hoped for more volumes like "Alice in Wonderland" or "The Hunting of the Snark," but Mr. Dodgson's literary output was small. The May Harper's reprints a hitherto unpublished paper from his pen, on "Feeding the Mind," in which he says:

The Masterless Man With the Magic of
the Necessary Words, and the
Record of the Tribe.

At the anniversary banquet of the Royal Academy, in London, May 5, Rudyard Kipling responded to the toast of "Literature." In that lean English of his, with all its evidence of fine condition, he made plain, as he understands it, the meaning of literature and its relation to life. It is the story of the tribe, told, not by the men of action, who are dumb, but by the masterless men who possess the magic of the necessary words.

We quote the address from the London Times:

The Man as an Actor and the Actor as
a Man—an Interchangeable Definition
and a Defense of Simulation.

Richard Mansfield's paper in the May Atlantic, "Man and the Actor," is a defense of the stage on the ground that all mankind are actors. He takes as his text the lines of Shakespeare:

Great men, says Mr. Mansfield, owe their preeminence largely to their histrionic ability. In other words, theatrical behavior is, in man, not a weakness, but a sign of strength—not something to be avoided, but something to be cultivated.

Mr. Mansfield goes on to say that inspiration is a kind of hypnotism: a good actor, playing the part of Hamlet, is for the time being Hamlet. An old argument is reopened by this assertion. But where some of the great actors have lost themselves in their characters, others have studied their rôles as apart from themselves, and have given, with complete control, the results of their study. Doubtless the question which method is the better art will never be settled to the entire satisfaction of every one.

Professor Calvin Thomas Says We Revere
Usage Too Greatly—Old Dog Story
Bears Out the Facts of Charge.

The movement for simplified spelling has been attracting many men of mark in literature and the professions. Notions of the strict sanctity of fixed forms of spelling disappear in the light of the historical evidence which the reformers are presenting.

Thus, it is pointed out that from the beginning our spelling has been subject to changes so great that the young schoolboy of to-day cannot read Chaucer without a vocabulary, even with the obsolete words eliminated. Obsolete spellings are too much for him.

The Simplified Spelling Board has reprinted an address delivered before the Modern Language Association by Professor Calvin Thomas, of Columbia University. Describing the difficulty of teaching children our present spelling, he says:

As to the too common belief that spellings should never be changed, Professor Thomas says:

To gain an idea of the extent to which usage has changed in three hundred years, it is necessary only to read the following dog story, which was first recorded in 1587, and was reprinted lately by the London Chronicle:

This story takes on significance from the comment of the New York Times:

"Chivalry Is a Fiction," Says a Southern
Woman, and Several Southern Journals
Support Her Statement.

A Southern woman said not long ago: "You know, one hears so much about 'Southern gentlemen and Southern chivalry,' when, as a matter of fact, gentlemen are exceptions and chivalry is fiction. Of course, I allow a few exceptions." Such a remark, coming from a Southern woman, has naturally created discussion at the South. We will give the opinions of two journals. Says the Columbia (South Carolina) State:

The Macon Telegraph finds a reason for the conditions thus described.

Recent Abolishment of Tribal Rule in Indian
Territory Will Have Powerful
Effect for Good or Ill.

Are we all to be Indians? There are ethnologists who say that in successive generations the features of Americans are gradually succumbing to the persistent influence of their climatic environment; that a few centuries will see us a race, high-cheek-boned, Roman-nosed.

Frederick R. Burton touches the question in the London Sphere. He says:

The Indian, indeed, is rapidly being absorbed. On the 4th of last March tribal government was abolished in the Indian Territory. The so-called Five Civilized Tribes, numbering, all told, one hundred and two thousand souls, and claiming to have enjoyed continuous independent civil government since long before Columbus discovered America, are now just plain citizens of the United States. The tribal land has been divided among them, to be owned by individuals in fee simple; the right to vote has been extended to them; their separate, independent constitutions, legislatures, and judiciaries have entirely disappeared.

The Rev. W.B. Humphrey, of New York, is president of the National Indian Association. Speaking of the changed position of the Indians, he said recently, as quoted by the New York Tribune:

Dr. Charles A. Eastman, a full-blooded Sioux, who has shown in his own development what the Indian may become with education, is quoted by the Tribune as saying:

Dr. Eastman is at present engaged in a unique task. Under the auspices of the government, he is renaming the Indians—going to the various Sioux reservations and giving to each person a practical name. When the old names are not too unwieldy he retains them; otherwise he at least tries to perpetuate in the new name some trace of the old.

Expressions of Devotion to the Revolutionary
Cause Compared With Czar's
Address to the Duma.

Gorky, Narodny, Maxime, and other Russian revolutionists who have lately visited the United States to further their propaganda are men who are living for an idea.

Read Narodny's rhapsody on Russian freedom, as written for the May American Magazine by Leroy Scott:

"I have come from below," Maxim Gorky has written, "from the very depths of life." And again: "Slowly have I climbed from the bottom of life to its surface, and on my way I have watched everything with the greedy eyes of a scout going to the promised land." This is the man who said at a dinner in New York:

By ignoring social conventions Gorky has unwittingly injured his cause. It may be said of him, however, that he is to-day one of the foremost literary figures of the world, and is so regarded in Europe. He has abandoned literary ambition and the easy life of a fêted idol to serve an idea—the idea of full Russian freedom.

With these words of men whose passion is liberty for their country may be compared the speech of the Czar at the opening of the new Russian Duma. The occasion and the utterance are already historical.

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Students the world over are now recalling dubiously the fateful French States-General of 1789.

A Pathetic Picture of the Sadness of
Being Blind, Drawn for Us by
One Who Has Never Seen.

Helen Keller, the marvelous deaf and blind girl, whose life would be pathetic, were it not so great a triumph over the limitations of silence and darkness, keeps close to her fellows through the sense of touch. One would think that, knowing others to have so much which she can never have, her outlook would be sorrowful. But she is no pessimist. We who can see are more depressed by our apparent inability to solve the mysteries of a future life, or to prevent injustice in this, than is she by the physical helplessness of blindness.

That the lot of the blind is sad, she nevertheless admits. A meeting was held in New York a few weeks ago in the interests of the blind. The principal speakers were Joseph H. Choate and Mark Twain. From a sick bed Miss Keller had written a letter, which Mark Twain read to the assembled audience, prefacing it with the statement that it deserved a place among the classics of literature. Her picture of the sadness of being blind was as follows:

Richard Watson Gilder wrote for this occasion a poem, which was printed on the programs.

The Man Who Taps the Common Treasury
for His Own Pocket Is a Judas,
Says Dr. Parkhurst.

Many expressions of socialistic or quasi-socialistic opinion have lately been written and spoken by men and women whose opinions are worth reading and hearing. From among these expressions the following letter by the Rev. Dr. Charles H. Parkhurst may be selected as typical of American socialistic idealism. It accepts a principle; it proposes no method. It was written to Charles Sprague Smith, director of the People's Institute, at Cooper Union, New York, to be read before the institute in lieu of an address.

Waves of Progress Are Now Sweeping
Over the Long Somnolent Flowery
Kingdom, Says Kang Yu Wan.

That there is in China a growing reform movement directed by leaders of the younger and more progressive generation is coming to be quite generally known. Kang Yu Wan, the president of the reform association, has been traveling through the United States on his way from Mexico to Europe. In his flowered silk jacket and blue-and-pink cap he looks like a veritable teacup politician. But it will not do to judge the Chinese by their apparel. Mr. Kang is an active reformer, and he is leading an active movement. In a New York interview he talked freely of the new spirit in China, saying, in part:

When Mr. Kang was asked about the dreaded outbreaks against foreigners he replied with apparent conviction that there would be no more Boxer rebellions. In his view, education is rapidly conquering the form of ignorance in which anti-foreign movements have their root.[Pg 389]

By ADAH ISAACS MENKEN.

Adah Isaacs Menken was one of those restless spirits who suffer from their own unsatisfying versatility. Daughter of a Spanish Jew and a Frenchwoman, she was born, Dolores Adios Fuertes, near New Orleans, June 15, 1835. At the age of seven years she made a successful stage appearance as a dancer. She became very popular, especially at Havana, where she was known as "Queen of the Plaza." At twenty she was married to Alexander Isaacs Menken, at Galveston, Texas, retired from the stage, and published a volume of poems, "Memories." Divorced from her husband, she returned to the stage in 1858, but soon abandoned it to study sculpture.

In 1859 she was married to John C. Heenan, the pugilist, from whom she was divorced three years later. Twice again she was married before her death, at Paris, August 10, 1868. In the tragedy of misdirected genius she filled a pathetic rôle.

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At the last banquet of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, in New York, President Roosevelt, the guest of the evening, asked Joseph I.C. Clarke, the president of the "Friendly Sons," to recite "The Fighting Race."

Mr. Clarke wrote this poem at the time of the blowing-up of the Maine. Looking over the list of dead and wounded, he remarked to his wife: "They are all there, as usual—the Irish. Yes, here we've Kelly and Burke and Shea——"

Within two hours he had finished the verses which are now recognized as a lasting tribute to the fighting qualities of the Irishman. The poem makes a point; it also expresses the conviction and the wistful pride of the old veteran.

Mr. Clarke was born in Kingstown, Ireland, July 31, 1846, and came to the United States in 1868. The greater part of his life has been spent in newspaper offices—on the New York Herald, 1870-1883; magazine editor of the New York Journal, 1883-1895; editor of the Criterion, 1898-1900; Sunday editor New York Herald, 1903-1905. He is now engaged in writing plays, work which has taken intervals of his time for a number of years.

BY JOSEPH I.C. CLARKE.

The "Most Remarkable Child in the World," Which Belongs to Your Friend, Has Had
Many Distinguished Predecessors—Mozart Played the Piano at Three,
and Grotius Was a Poet at Eight.

There are few men and women in the United States who do not at least once a year suddenly find themselves confronted by what fond fathers and doting mothers describe as the most remarkable child in the world.

But there have been others.

Several years ago the newspapers of Europe were heralding the marvelous achievements of a boy in Berlin, who, though only two years old, was said to read in a most surprising manner.

The "learned child of Lübeck" was another of these precocious infants, but he is credited with having such extraordinary talents that one can almost be forgiven for doubting the veracity of the chronicler.

Tasso was another smart child, for he spoke plainly, it is said, when only six months old. When seven years old he understood Latin and Greek, and even composed verses, and before he was twelve, when studying law, he had completed his course of rhetoric, poetry, logic, and ethics.

Lope de Vega was also fortunate when a boy. At five he could read Latin and Spanish fluently, and at twelve he was master of the Latin tongue and of rhetoric, while at fifteen he had written several pastorals and a comedy. He is stated to have produced about eighteen hundred comedies during his life, so perhaps it was necessary to begin when very young.

Grotius was another good poet at the age of eight; at fifteen, accomplished in philosophy, mathematics, and jurisprudence, and at twenty-four he was appointed advocate-general of Rotterdam.

Barrétier, at the age of nine, was master of five languages, while in his eleventh year he made a translation from the Hebrew to the French and added notes such as would be expected from a man of considerable erudition.

Gustavus Vasa was another boy of excellent brain-power, for at the age of twelve he was able to speak and write Latin, French, German, Italian, Dutch, and Swedish, and he also understood Polish and Russian.

Pascal, at twelve, had completely mastered Euclid's Elements without any assistance, and at sixteen he published a work on conic sections, which Descartes was reluctant to believe had been produced by a boy.

The "Great Condé" was a boy with brains, and he made good use of them. At eight he understood Latin, and at eleven he wrote a treatise on rhetoric. Three years later he was thoroughly conversant with all military exercises.

In the world of music, too, both in our own times and in the past, we find many instances of boys giving an early indication of a remarkable career.

Handel and Mozart each showed a liking for music when young in years, and soon made their mark.

Handel began composing a church service for voices and instruments when only nine years old, and before he was fifteen he had composed three operas.

Mozart began to play the piano when he was three years old, and at seven he had taught himself the violin. At nine years of age he visited England, and when departing gave a farewell concert at which all the symphonies were composed by himself.

Several years ago attention was drawn to a little Polish boy who at eight years of age could play from memory some of the most intricate compositions of such composers as Mozart, Bach, Chopin, Rubinstein, and others. This precocious youth, Ignace Jan Paderewski, is now the most famous of all living pianists.

Some remarkable preachers have also started very early.

The Abbé de Rancé, founder of the monastic order of the Trappists, was a splendid Greek scholar at twelve, and shortly afterward was appointed to an important benefice.

Bossuet preached before a brilliant Parisian assembly at the age of fifteen; and Fénelon, who afterward became an archbishop, also preached an extraordinary sermon at the same age.[Pg 393]

The Famous Speech Which, Delivered by the American Hampden in the
Virginia Convention, Kindled the Fire of Revolution in
the Thirteen Colonies in 1775.

Mr. President: It is natural for man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty?

Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the worst, and to provide for it.

I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided; and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past. And, judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of the British ministry for the last ten years to justify those hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and the House?

Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately received? Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with those warlike preparations which cover our waters and darken our land.[Pg 394]

Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled that force must be called in to win back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation—the last arguments to which kings resort.

I ask, gentlemen, sir, what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to submission? Can gentlemen assign any other possible motive for it? Has Great Britain any enemy in this quarter of the world, to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies? No, sir, she has none. They are meant for us; they can be meant for no other.

They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British ministry have been so long forging. And what have we to oppose to them? Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer upon the subject? Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light of which it is capable; but it has been all in vain.

Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we find, which have not been already exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves longer. Sir, we have done everything that could be done, to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned, we have remonstrated, we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament.

Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned with contempt from the foot of the throne. In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope.

If we wish to be free; if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending; if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained—we must fight!—I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms, and to the God of hosts, is all that is left us.

They tell us, sir, that we are weak—unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house?

Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive fantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot?

Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of Liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us.

Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God, who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest.

There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged. Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable—and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come! It is vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace! peace, but there is no peace. The war has actually begun.

The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that the gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God. I know not what course others may take, but, as for me, give me liberty, or give me death![Pg 395]

Confidential Chats Which Show That if Nature Would Permit Things to Happen in
the Way Some Narrators Have Described Them, the World Would Be a
Much More Interesting Place in Which to Live.

Two commercial travelers, one from London and one from New York, were discussing the weather in their respective countries.

The Englishman said that English weather had one great fault—its sudden changes.

"A person may take a walk one day," he said, "attired in a light summer suit, and still feel quite warm. Next day he needs an overcoat."

"That's nothing," said the American. "My two friends, Johnston and Jones, were once having an argument. There were eight or nine inches of snow on the ground.

"The argument got heated, and Johnston picked up a snowball and threw it at Jones from a distance of not more than five yards. During the transit of that snowball, believe me or not, as you like, the weather suddenly changed and became hot and summerlike, and Jones, instead of being hit with a snowball, was scalded with hot water!"—Tit-Bits.

"Talk of opening oysters," said old Hurricane, "why, nothing's easier, if you only know how."

"And how's how?" inquired Starlight.

"Scotch snuff," answered old Hurricane very sententiously. "Scotch snuff. Bring a little of it ever so near their noses and they'll sneeze their lids off."

"I know a genius," observed Meister Karl, "who has a better plan. He spreads the bivalves in a circle, seats himself in the center, and begins spinning a yarn. Sometimes it's an adventure in Mexico—sometimes a legend of his loves—sometimes a marvelous stock operation in Wall Street.

"As he proceeds, the 'natives' get interested—one by one they gape with astonishment at the tremendous and direful whoppers which are poured forth, and as they gape my friend whips them out, peppers 'em, and swallows them."

"That'll do," said Starlight, with a long sigh. "I wish we had a bushel of the bivalves here now, they'd open easy."—Philadelphia Post.

By Neal Dow.

In the Congregationalist is a curious story about rats, which seems to indicate that they will not remain where their company is not desired, if politely invited to change their quarters, though everybody knows that they are driven out with difficulty. Here is a perfectly true story which corroborates that one.

My house is supposed to be rat-proof, and was so when quite new, but at one time, more than twenty years ago, we had a large colony of the rodents, greatly to our annoyance, and it was with us a matter of daily wonder where they found a weak spot in our defenses among them. One evening a young lady from a friend's family, living in a large, fine house nearly a mile away, was with us, and the talk turned on rats, as we heard ours scampering up and down the walls.

The young lady said that none had ever been in their house, and she did not think there was any point at which they could enter. My eldest daughter, a great wit, said: "I've heard that, if politely invited to do so in writing, rats will leave any house and go to any other to which they may be directed, and I will tell ours that at your house they will find spacious quarters and an excellent commissariat."

At the moment, before us all, she wrote the most grandiloquent letter to the large family of rats that had so favored us with their presence, pointing out to them that at No. 65 Pearl Street was a large, fine house which had never been favored with the residence of any of their family, where they would find ample quarters and a fat larder. When finished, she read the missive to the company, and we had a great laugh over it. As an old superstition, she then put lard upon it, and carried it into the attic, where it would probably be found by those to whom it was directed.[Pg 396]

A few days later the young lady was at our house again, and burst into a laugh, exclaiming: "Our house is overrun with rats!" That recalled to us the fact that we had heard none in our walls. My daughter went to the attic, and the letter was gone. While they were talking and laughing over the curious affair, a friend came in, and, hearing the talk, said that two evenings before, in the bright moonlight, he saw several rats running down Congress Street, which was the straight road to Pearl Street. We have never been troubled with them since, but I have not heard how it has been with the house to which our beneficiaries were directed.

The following story is told by the Chinese minister at Washington:

"There was a Chinaman who had three dogs. When he came home one evening he found them asleep on his couch of teakwood and marble. He whipped them and drove them forth.

"The next night, when he came home, the dogs were lying on the floor. But he placed his hand on the couch and found it warm from their bodies. Therefore, he gave them another whipping.

"The third night, returning earlier than usual, he found the dogs sitting before the couch, blowing on it to cool it."—Philadelphia North American.

A man out West says he moved so often during one year that whenever covered wagons stopped at the gate his chickens would fall on their backs and hold up their feet in order to be tied and thrown in.—Boston Journal.

The cold weather of yesterday morning found its way into Alonzo Murphy's kitchen, at Mount Freedom, New Jersey, and killed a specimen of the vegetable kingdom that for months had been the pride of Mr. Murphy's heart, and with which he expected to revolutionize dairying and strawberry culture.

It has long been a cherished idea of Mr. Murphy's that by a judicious crossing of the milkweed and strawberry it would be possible to produce strawberries and cream from the same plant.

Last fall he grafted several strawberry plants on plants of the milkweed. One grew sturdily, close by Mr. Murphy's kitchen range, and was in full fruitage when it succumbed to the cold that entered the room when the fire in the range by accident went out.

That the experiment was entirely successful is shown by the fact that each strawberry when examined was found to contain a quantity of ice-cream varying from a few drops to a teaspoonful, depending on the size of the berry.

Mr. Murphy is not discouraged by his ill luck, and promises to repeat the experiment next summer.—New York Tribune.

During the great famine in Rome and southern Italy in Nero's time, when the country was filled with the victorious Roman legions who had returned from foreign parts, the people observed countless numbers of wild geese flying about at very high elevations, but they could not be caught until one of the Roman generals, suspecting that the geese, like the people, must be hungry, experimented by shooting arrows baited with worms up among them.

The geese swallowed the bait, arrows and all, with great avidity, thus showing that they would swallow anything; but how to catch them was the question, until one of the wise men of the emperor's household, remembering the stories told by Tacitus of geese being cooked by heat from Mount Vesuvius, consulted Nero's head cook, the great chef Claudius Flavius, and he devised a practical means of having them drawn before cooking by scattering a large quantity of teazels and chestnut burrs on the sides of Vesuvius.

The geese in countless numbers at once gulped these down, and in the course of twenty-four hours their whole internal economy, including crop and gizzard, being absolutely clean, he then had an enormous quantity of Roman chestnuts (same as the Italian nuts of the present time) scattered around the crater of the volcano; and the birds feeding on them and then flying about in the hot air were beautifully roasted while well stuffed with the finest chestnut dressing, so that they could be fed to the famine-stricken people.

And what is still more remarkable, it was found that the livers of the geese were encysted in a sack of fat, producing substantially pâté de foie gras, and when the Gauls who captured Rome in the sixth century returned home they took some of this toothsome food along, and from that day till this it has been prepared in Strassburg and vicinity in large quantities.—Rome Correspondence of New York Sun.[Pg 397]

By HONORÉ DE BALZAC.

The clock of the little town of Menda had just struck midnight. At this moment a young French officer was leaning on the parapet of a long terrace which bounded the gardens of the castle. He seemed plunged in the deepest thought—a circumstance unusual amid the thoughtlessness of military life; but it must be owned that never were the hour, the night, and the place more propitious for meditation.

The beautiful Spanish sky stretched out its azure dome above his head. The glittering stars and the soft moonlight lit up a charming valley that unfolded all its beauties at his feet. Leaning against a blossoming orange-tree he could see, a hundred feet below him, the town of Menda, which seemed to have been placed for shelter from the north winds at the foot of the rock on which the castle was built.

As he turned his head he could see the sea, framing the landscape with a broad silver sheet of glistening water. The castle was a blaze of light. The mirth and movement of a ball, the music of the orchestra, the laughter of the officers and their partners in the dance, were borne to him mingled with the distant murmur of the waves. The freshness of the night imparted a sort of energy to his limbs, weary with the heat of the day.

Above all, the gardens were planted with trees so aromatic, and flowers so fragrant, that the young man stood plunged, as it were, in a bath of perfumes.

The castle of Menda belonged to a Spanish grandee, then living there with his family. During the whole of the evening his eldest daughter had looked at the officer with an interest so tinged with sadness that the sentiment of compassion thus expressed by the Spaniard might well call up a reverie in the Frenchman's mind.

Clara was beautiful, and although she had three brothers and a sister, the[Pg 398] wealth of the Marquis de Leganes seemed great enough for Victor Marchand to believe that the young lady would have a rich dowry. But how dare he hope that the most bigoted old hidalgo in all Spain would ever give his daughter to the son of a Parisian grocer?

Besides, the French were hated. The Marquis was suspected by General Gautier, who governed the province, of planning a revolt in favor of Ferdinand VII. For this reason the battalion commanded by Victor Marchand had been cantonned in the little town of Menda, to hold the neighboring hamlets, which were dependent on the Marquis, in check.

Recent despatches from Marshal Ney had given ground for fear that the English would shortly land on the coast, and had indicated the Marquis as a man who carried on communication with the cabinet of London.

In spite, therefore, of the welcome which the Spaniard had given him and his soldiers, the young officer, Victor Marchand, remained constantly on his guard. As he was directing his steps toward the terrace, whither he had come to examine the state of the town and the country districts entrusted to his care, he debated how he ought to interpret the friendliness which the Marquis had unceasingly shown him, and how the tranquillity of the country could be reconciled with his general's uneasiness. But in one moment these thoughts were driven from his mind by a feeling of caution and well-grounded curiosity.

He had just perceived a considerable number of lights in the town. In spite of the day being the Feast of St. James, he had given orders, that very morning, that all lights should be extinguished at the hour prescribed by his regulations; the castle alone being excepted from this order.

He could plainly see, here and there, the gleam of his soldiers' bayonets at their accustomed posts; but there was a solemnity in the silence, and nothing to suggest that the Spaniards were a prey to the excitement of a festival.

After having sought to explain the offense of which the inhabitants were guilty, the mystery appeared all the more unaccountable to him, because he had left officers in charge of the night police and the rounds. With all the impetuosity of youth, he was just about to leap through a breach and descend the rocks in haste, and thus arrive more quickly than by the ordinary road at a small outpost placed at the entrance of the town nearest to the castle, when a faint sound stopped him.

He thought he heard the light footfall of a woman upon the gravel walk. He turned his head and saw nothing; but his gaze was arrested by the extraordinary brightness of the sea. All of a sudden he beheld a sight so portentous that he stood dumfounded; he thought that his senses deceived him. In the far distance he could distinguish sails gleaming white in the moonlight.

He trembled and tried to convince himself that this vision was an optical illusion, merely the fantastic effect of the moon on the waves.

At this moment a hoarse voice pronounced his name.

He looked toward the breach, and saw slowly rising above it the head of the soldier whom he had ordered to accompany him to the castle.

"Is that you, commandant?"

"Yes; what do you want?" replied the young man in a low voice. A sort of presentiment warned him to be cautious.

"Those rascals down there are stirring like worms. I have hurried, with your leave, to tell you of my own little observations."

"Go on," said Victor Marchand.

"I have just followed a man from the castle who came in this direction with a lantern in his hand. A lantern's a frightfully suspicious thing. I don't fancy it was tapers my fine Catholic was going to light at this time of night. 'They want to eat us body and bones!' says I to myself; so I went on his track to reconnoiter. There, on a ledge of rock, not three paces from here, I discovered a great heap of fagots."

Suddenly a terrible shriek rang through the town and cut the soldier short. At the same instant a gleam of light flashed before the commandant. The poor grenadier received a ball in the head and fell. A fire of straw and dry wood burst into flame like a house on fire, not ten paces from the young man.

The sound of the instruments and the[Pg 399] laughter ceased in the ballroom. The silence of death, broken only by groans, had suddenly succeeded to the noises and music of the feast. The fire of a cannon roared over the surface of the sea.

Cold sweat trickled down the young officer's forehead; he had no sword. He understood that his men had been slaughtered, and the English were about to disembark.

If he lived he saw himself dishonored, summoned before a council of war. Then he measured with his eyes the depth of the valley. He sprang forward, when just at that moment his hand was seized by the hand of Clara.

"Fly!" said she; "my brothers are following to kill you. Down yonder at the foot of the rock you will find Juanito's horse. Quick!"

The young man looked at her for a moment, stupefied. She pushed him on; then, obeying the instinct of self-preservation, which never forsakes even the bravest man, he rushed down the park in the direction she had indicated. He leapt from rock to rock, where only the goats had ever trod before; he heard Clara crying out to her brothers to pursue him; he heard the footsteps of the assassins; he heard the balls of several discharges whistle about his ears; but he reached the valley, he found the horse, mounted, and disappeared swift as lightning.

In a few hours he arrived at the quarters occupied by General Gautier. He found him at dinner with his staff.

"I bring you my life in my hand!" cried the commandant, his face pale and haggard.

He sat down and related the horrible disaster. A dreadful silence greeted his story.

"You appear to me to be more unfortunate than criminal," said the terrible general at last. "You are not accountable for the crime of the Spaniards, and unless the marshal decides otherwise, I acquit you."

These words could give the unfortunate officer but slight consolation.

"But when the Emperor hears of it!" he exclaimed.

"He will want to have you shot," said the general. "However——But we will talk no more about it," he added severely, "except how we are to take such a revenge as will strike wholesome fear upon this country, where they carry on war like savages."

One hour afterward, a whole regiment, a detachment of cavalry, and a convoy of artillery were on the road. The general and Victor marched at the head of the column. The soldiers, informed of the massacre of their comrades, were filled with extraordinary fury.

The distance which separated the town of Menda from the general quarters was passed with marvelous rapidity. On the road the general found whole villages under arms. Each of these wretched townships was surrounded and their inhabitants decimated.

By some inexplicable fatality, the English ships stood off instead of advancing. It was known afterward that these vessels had outstripped the rest of the transports and only carried artillery. Thus the town of Menda, deprived of the defenders she was expecting, and which the sight of the English vessels had seemed to assure, was surrounded by the French troops almost without striking a blow. The inhabitants, seized with terror, offered to surrender at discretion.

Then followed one of those instances of devotion not rare in the Peninsula. The assassins of the French, foreseeing, from the cruelty of the general, that Menda would probably be given over to the flames and the whole population put to the sword, offered to denounce themselves. The general accepted this offer, inserting as a condition that the inhabitants of the castle, from the lowest valet to the Marquis himself, should be placed in his hands.

This capitulation agreed upon, the general promised to pardon the rest of the population and to prevent his soldiers from pillaging or setting fire to the town. An enormous contribution was exacted, and the richest inhabitants gave themselves up as hostages to guarantee the payment, which was to be accomplished within twenty-four hours.

The general took all precautions necessary for the safety of his troops, provided for the defense of the country, and refused to lodge his men in the houses. After having formed a camp,[Pg 400] he went up and took military possession of the castle. The members of the family of Leganes and the servants were gagged, and shut up in the great hall where the ball had taken place, and closely watched.

The windows of the apartment afforded a full view of the terrace which commanded the town. The staff was established in a neighboring gallery, and the general proceeded at once to hold a council of war on the measures to be taken for opposing the debarkation.

After having despatched an aide-de-camp to Marshal Ney, with orders to plant batteries along the coast, the general and his staff turned their attention to the prisoners. Two hundred Spaniards, whom the inhabitants had surrendered, were shot down upon the terrace.

After this military execution, the general ordered as many gallows to be erected on the terrace as there were prisoners in the hall of the castle, and the town executioner to be brought. Victor Marchand made use of the time from then until dinner to go and visit the prisoners. He soon returned to the general.

"I have come," said he, in a voice broken with emotion, "to ask you a favor."

"You?" said the general, in a tone of bitter irony.

"Alas!" replied Victor, "it is but a melancholy errand that I am come on. The Marquis has seen the gallows being erected, and expresses a hope that you will change the mode of execution for his family; he entreats you to have the nobles beheaded."

"So be it!" said the general.

"They further ask you to allow them the last consolations of religion, and to take off their bonds; they promise not to attempt to escape."

"I consent," said the general; "but you must be answerable for them."

"The old man also offers you the whole of his fortune if you will pardon his young son."

"Really!" said the general. "His goods already belong to King Joseph; he is under arrest." His brow contracted scornfully, then he added: "I will go beyond what they ask. I understand now the importance of the last request. Well, let him buy the eternity of his name, but Spain shall remember forever his treachery and its punishment. I give up the fortune and his life to whichever of his sons will fulfil the office of executioner. Go, and do not speak to me of it again."

Dinner was ready, and the officers sat down to table to satisfy appetites sharpened by fatigue.

One of them only, Victor Marchand, was not present at the banquet. He hesitated for a long time before he entered the room. The haughty family of Leganes were in their agony.

He glanced sadly at the scene before him; in this very room, only the night before, he had watched the fair heads of those two young girls and those three youths as they circled in the excitement of the dance. He shuddered when he thought how soon they must fall, struck off by the sword of the headsman. Fastened to their gilded chairs, the father and mother, their three sons and their two young daughters, sat absolutely motionless.

Eight serving-men stood upright before them, their hands bound behind their backs. These fifteen persons looked at one another gravely, their eyes scarcely betraying the thoughts that surged within them. Only profound resignation and regret for the failure of their enterprise left any mark upon the features of some of them.

The soldiers stood likewise motionless, looking at them, and respecting the affliction of their cruel enemies. An expression of curiosity lit up their faces when Victor appeared. He gave the order to unbind the condemned, and went himself to loose the cords which fastened Clara to her chair. She smiled sadly. He could not refrain from touching her arm, and looking with admiring eyes at her black locks and graceful figure. She was a true Spaniard; she had the Spanish complexion and the Spanish eyes, with their long curled lashes and pupils blacker than the raven's wing.

"Have you been successful?" she said, smiling upon him mournfully.

Victor could not suppress a groan. He looked, one after the other, at Clara and her three brothers. One, the eldest, was aged thirty; he was small, even[Pg 401] somewhat ill made, with a proud, disdainful look, but there was a certain nobleness in his bearing; he seemed no stranger to that delicacy of feeling which elsewhere has rendered the chivalry of Spain so famous. His name was Juanito. The second, Felipe, aged about twenty; he was like Clara. The youngest was eight, Manuel; a painter would have found in his features a trace of that Roman steadfastness which David has given to children's faces in his episodes of the republic. The old Marquis, his head still covered with white locks, seemed to have come forth from a picture of Murillo.

The young officer shook his head. When he looked at them, he was hopeless that he would ever see the bargain proposed by the general accepted by any of the four; nevertheless, he ventured to impart it to Clara.

At first she shuddered, Spaniard though she was; then, immediately recovering her calm demeanor, she went and knelt down before her father.

"Father," she said, "make Juanito swear to obey faithfully any orders that you give him, and we shall be content."

The Marquise trembled with hope; but when she leant toward her husband, and heard—she who was a mother—the horrible confidence whispered by Clara, she swooned away. Juanito understood all; he leapt up like a lion in its cage. After obtaining an assurance of perfect submission from the Marquis, Victor took upon himself to send away the soldiers. The servants were led out, handed over to the executioner, and hanged. When the family had no guard but Victor to watch them, the old father rose, and said, "Juanito."

Juanito made no answer except by a movement of the head, equivalent to a refusal; then he fell back in his seat, and stared at his parents with eyes dry and terrible to look upon. Clara went and sat on his knee, put her arm round his neck, and kissed his eyelids.

"My dear Juanito," she said gaily, "if thou didst only know how sweet death would be to me if it were given by thee, I should not have to endure the odious touch of the headsman's hands. Thou wilt cure me of the woes that were in store for me—and, dear Juanito, thou couldst not bear to see me belong to another, well——" Her soft eyes cast one look of fire at Victor, as if to awaken in Juanito's heart his horror of the French.

"Have courage," said his brother Felipe, "or our race, that has almost given kings to Spain, will be extinct."

Suddenly Clara rose, the group which had formed round Juanito separated, and this son, dutiful in his disobedience, saw his aged father standing before him, and heard him cry, in a solemn voice, "Juanito, I command thee."

The young count remained motionless. His father fell on his knees before him; Clara, Manuel, and Felipe did the same instinctively. They all stretched out their hands to him as to one who was to save their family from oblivion; they seemed to repeat their father's words—"My son, hast thou lost the energy, the true chivalry of Spain? How long wilt thou leave thy father on his knees? What right hast thou to think of thine own life and its suffering? Madame, is this a son of mine?" continued the old man, turning to his wife.

"He consents," cried she in despair. She saw a movement in Juanito's eyelids, and she alone understood its meaning.

Mariquita, the second daughter, still knelt on her knees, and clasped her mother in her fragile arms; her little brother Manuel, seeing her weeping hot tears, began to chide her. At this moment the almoner of the castle came in; he was immediately surrounded by the rest of the family and brought to Juanito.

Victor could bear this scene no longer; he made a sign to Clara, and hastened away to make one last effort with the general. He found him in high good humor in the middle of the banquet drinking with his officers; they were beginning to make merry.

An hour later a hundred of the principal inhabitants of Menda came up to the terrace, in obedience to the general's orders, to witness the execution of the family of Leganes. A detachment of soldiers was drawn up to keep back these Spanish burghers who were ranged under the gallows on which the servants of the Marquis still hung. The feet of these martyrs almost touched their heads. Thirty yards from them a block had been[Pg 402] set up, and by it gleamed a scimitar. The headsman also was present, in case of Juanito's refusal.

Presently, in the midst of the profoundest silence, the Spaniards heard the footsteps of several persons approaching, the measured tread of a company of soldiers, and the faint clinking of their muskets. These diverse sounds were mingled with the merriment of the officers' banquet; just as before it was the music of the dance which had concealed preparations for a treacherous massacre.

All eyes were turned toward the castle; the noble family was seen advancing with incredible dignity. Every face was calm and serene; one man only leant, pale and haggard, on the arm of the priest. Upon this man he lavished all the consolations of religion—upon the only one of them doomed to live. The executioner understood, as did all the rest, that for that day Juanito had undertaken the office himself.

The aged Marquis and his wife, Clara, Mariquita, and their two brothers, came and knelt down a few steps from the fatal spot. Juanito was led thither by the priest. As he approached the block the executioner touched him by the sleeve and drew him aside, probably to give him certain instructions.

The confessor placed the victims in such a position that they could not see the executioner; but like true Spaniards, they knelt erect with no sign of emotion.

Clara was the first to spring forward to her brother. "Juanito," she said, "have pity on my faint-heartedness; begin with me."

At that moment they heard the footsteps of a man running at full speed, and Victor arrived on the tragic scene. Clara was already on her knees, already her white neck seemed to invite the edge of the scimitar. A deadly pallor fell upon the officer, but he still found strength to run on.

"The general grants thee thy life if thou wilt marry me," he said to her in a low voice.

The Spaniard cast a look of proud disdain on the officer.

"Strike, Juanito," she said, in a voice of profound meaning.

Her head rolled at Victor's feet. When the Marquise heard the sound, a convulsive start escaped her; this was the only sign of her affliction.

"Ah, thou weepest, Mariquita!" said Juanito to his sister.

"Yes," answered the girl; "I was thinking of thee, my poor Juanito; thou wilt be so unhappy without us."

At length the noble figure of the Marquis appeared. He looked at the blood of his children; then he turned to the spectators, who stood mute and motionless before him. He stretched out his hands to Juanito and said, in a firm voice:

"Spaniards, I give my son a father's blessing. Now, Marquis, strike without fear, as thou art without fault."

But when Juanito saw his mother approach, supported by the confessor, he groaned aloud, "She fed me at her own breast." His cry seemed to tear a shout of horror from the lips of the crowd. At this terrible sound the noise of the banquet and the laughter and the merrymaking of the officers died away.

The Marquise comprehended that Juanito's courage was exhausted. With one leap she had thrown herself over the balustrade, and her head was dashed to pieces against the rocks below. A shout of admiration burst forth. Juanito fell to the ground in a swoon.

"Marchand has been telling me about this execution," said a half-drunken officer. "I'll warrant, gentlemen, it wasn't by our orders that——"

"Have you forgotten, Messieurs," cried General Gautier, "that during the next month there will be five hundred French families in tears—that we are in Spain? Do you wish to leave your bones here?"

After this speech there was not a man, not even a sub-lieutenant, who dared to empty his glass.

In spite of the respect with which he is surrounded—in spite of the title of El Verdugo (the executioner), bestowed upon him as a title of nobility by the King of Spain—the Marquis de Leganes is a prey to melancholy. He lives in solitude, and is rarely seen.

Overwhelmed with the load of his glorious crime, he seems only to await the birth of a second son, impatient to seek again the company of those Shades who are about his path continually.[Pg 403]

Immured in an Asylum, a True Son of Nature Who Had Won Distinction
at the Bar Wrote a Will, Which Only the Divine Surrogate Can Set
Aside, Bequeathing Priceless Possessions to Mankind.

I, Charles Lounsberry, being of sound and disposing mind and memory, do hereby make and publish this, my last will and testament, in order, as justly as may be, to distribute my interest in the world among succeeding men.

That part of my interest, which is known in law and recognized in the sheep-bound volumes as my property, being inconsiderable and of none account, I make no disposition of in this, my will. My right to live, being but a life estate, is not at my disposal, but these things excepted, all else in the world I now proceed to devise and bequeath.

Item: I give to good fathers and mothers in trust for their children, all good little words of praise and encouragement, and all quaint pet names and endearments, and I charge said parents to use them justly, but generously, as the needs of their children shall require.

Item: I leave to children inclusively, but only for the term of their childhood, all and every, the flowers of the fields, and the blossoms of the woods, with the right to play among them freely according to the customs of children, warning them at the same time against thistles and thorns. And I devise to children the[Pg 404] banks of the brooks and the golden sands beneath the waters thereof, and the odors of the willows that dip therein and the white clouds that float high over the giant trees. And I leave to children the long, long days to be merry in, in a thousand ways, and the night, and the moon, and the train of the Milky Way to wonder at, but subject, nevertheless, to the rights hereinafter given to lovers.

Item: I devise to boys jointly, all the useful, idle fields and commons where ball may be played; all pleasant waters where one may swim; all snow-clad hills where one may coast; and all streams and ponds where one may fish, or where, when grim winter comes, one may skate, to have and to hold these same for the period of their boyhood. And all meadows, with the clover blossoms and butterflies thereof; the woods with their appurtenances, the squirrels and the birds and echoes and strange noises, and all distant places which may be visited, together with the adventures there found. And I give to said boys each his own place at the fireside at night, with all the pictures that may be seen in the burning wood, to enjoy without let or hindrance, and without any encumbrance of care.

Item: To lovers, I devise their imaginary world with whatever they may need, as the stars of the sky, the red roses by the wall, the bloom of the hawthorn, the sweet strains of music, and aught else they may desire to figure to each other the lastingness and beauty of their love.

Item: To young men, jointly, I devise and bequeath all boisterous, inspiring sports of rivalry, and I give to them the disdain of weakness and undaunted confidence in their own strength. Though they are rude, I leave to them the power to make lasting friendships, and of possessing companions, and to them exclusively, I give all merry songs and brave choruses to sing with lusty voices.

Item: And to those who are no longer children, or youths, or lovers, I leave memory, and I bequeath to them the volumes of the poems of Burns and Shakespeare and of other poems, if there be others, to the end that they may live the old days over again, freely and fully without title or diminution.

Item: To our loved ones with snowy crowns, I bequeath the happiness of old age, the love and gratitude of their children until they fall asleep.

Robert G. Ingersoll.

[Pg 405]

Sightless but Courageous Men and Women Who Became Distinguished
Professors, Authors, Inventors, Soldiers and Athletes—One
Served as Postmaster-General of Great Britain.

Miss Helen Keller's attainments, her emergence from a life in which there was neither light nor sound to a communicative relationship with others, are a marvel of the present day. The best things have all become hers through the single medium of touch. The compound obstacles which she has had to overcome make her case, perhaps, the most remarkable on record.

There have been, however, many famous blind persons in history. Stengel mentions a young cabinet-maker of Ingolstadt, who, having lost his sight, amused himself by carving wooden pepper-mills, using a common knife. His want of sight seemed to be no impediment to his manual dexterity.

Sir Kenelm Digby has given particulars about a gifted blind tutor. He surpassed the ablest players at chess; at long distances he shot arrows with such precision as almost never to miss his mark; he constantly went abroad without a guide; he regularly took his place at table, and ate with such dexterity that it was impossible to perceive that he was blind; when any one spoke to him for the first time he was able to tell with certainty his stature and the form of his body; and when his pupils recited in his presence he knew in what situation and attitude they were.

Uldaric Schomberg, born in Germany toward the beginning of the seventeenth century, lost his sight at the age of three years; but as he grew up he applied himself to the study of belles-lettres, which he afterward professed with credit at Altorf, at Leipsic, and at Hamburg.

Bourcheau de Valbonais, born at Grenoble in 1651, became blind when very young—soon after the naval combat at Solbaye, where he had been present. But this accident did not prevent him from publishing the "History of Dauphiny," in two volumes, folio. He had made profound researches into the history of his province.

Dr. Nicholas Sanderson, Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in the University of Cambridge, was one of the most[Pg 406] remarkable men of his time. Born in 1682, at a small town in the County of York, he died at Cambridge in 1739, at the age of fifty-six years. He invented a table for teaching arithmetic palpably to the blind.

Dr. Henry Moyes professed the Newtonian philosophy, which he taught with considerable success as an itinerant lecturer. He was also a good chemist, a respectable mathematician, and a tolerable musician.

Herr Phefel, of Colmar, who lost his sight when very young, composed a great deal of poetry, consisting chiefly of fables, some of which were translated into French. Among the pupils of this learned blind man were Prince Schwartzenberg and Prince Eisemberg. He died at Colmar, 1809.

Weissemburgh, of Mannheim, became blind at the age of seven years. He wrote perfectly, and read with characters which he had imagined for his own use. He was an excellent geographer, and composed maps and globes, which he employed both in studying and teaching this science. He was the inventor of an arithmetical table differing but little from that of Sanderson.

The blind man of Puiseaux must be known to all who read Diderot's celebrated "Lettres sur les Aveugles." He was the son of a professor of philosophy in the University of Paris, and had attended with advantage courses of chemistry and botany at the Jardin du Roi. After having dissipated a part of his fortune, he retired to Puiseaux, where he established a distillery, the products of which he came regularly once a year to dispose of.

There was an originality in everything that he did. His custom was to sleep during the day, and to rise in the evening; he worked all night, "because," as he himself said, "he was not then disturbed by anybody." His wife, when she arose in the morning, used to find everything perfectly arranged.

To Diderot, who visited him at Puiseaux, he put some very singular questions as to the transparency of glass, and as to colors, and other facts and conditions which could be recognized only through sight. He asked if naturalists were the only persons who saw with the microscope, and if astronomers were the only persons who saw with the telescope; if the machine that magnified objects was greater than that which diminished them; if that which brought them near were shorter than that which removed them to a distance. He believed that astronomers had eyes of different conformation from those of other men, and that a man could not devote himself to the study of a particular science without having eyes specially adapted for that purpose.

"The eye," said he, "is an organ upon which the air ought to produce the same effect as my cane does upon my hand." He possessed the memory of sounds to a surprising degree, and recognized by the voice those whom he had only heard speak once.

He could tell if he was in a thoroughfare or in a cul-de-sac, in a large or in a small place. He estimated the proximity of fire by the degree of heat; the comparative fulness of vessels by the sound of the liquor in falling; and the neighborhood of bodies by the action of the air on his face. He employed characters in relief, in order to teach his son to read, and the latter never had any other master than his father.

M. Huber, of Geneva, an excellent naturalist, and author of a treatise on bees and ants, was blind from infancy. In executing his great work he had no other assistance than what he derived from his domestic, who mentioned to him the color of the insects, and then he ascertained their size and form by touch, with the same facility he would have recognized them by their humming in the air. This laborious writer also published a valuable work on education.

Francis Lesueur, born of very poor parents at Lyons, in 1766, lost his sight when six weeks old. He went to Paris in 1778, and was begging at the gate of a church when M. Hauy, discovering in the young mendicant some inclination to study, received him, and undertook the task of instructing him, at the same time promising him a sum equal to that which he had collected in alms.[Pg 407]

Lesueur began to study in October, 1784. Six months later he was able to read, to compose with characters in relief, to print, and in less than two years he had learned the French language, geography, and music, which he understood very well. It is painful to add that he proved ungrateful to his benefactor to whom he owed everything.

Avisse, born in Paris, embarked when very young on board a vessel fitted out for the slave trade, in the capacity of secretary or clerk to the captain; but on the coast of Africa he lost his sight from a violent inflammation. On his return his parents procured his admission into the institution for the blind, where, in a few years, he became professor of grammar and logic.

He produced a comedy in verse, in one act, entitled "La Ruse d'Aveugle," which was performed; and several other pieces, which were all printed in one volume, in 1803. He died before he had completed his thirty-first year, at the very time when the high hopes entertained of him were being realized.

Although blind from birth Robert Wauchope became not only a priest but the Archbishop of Armagh. It was he who, in 1541, introduced Jesuits into Ireland. In 1543 he was appointed Archbishop by Paul III; he attended the Council of Trent in 1547.

Richard Lucas, D.D., called the blind prebendary of Westminster, was another prominent blind churchman. He was the author of several well-known books on religious subjects. He lived from 1648 to 1715.

A more recent case was that of the Rev. William Henry Milburn, who died in 1903 after many years' service as chaplain of the United States Senate.

John Ziska, the famous Hussite general, was born near Budweis, Bohemia, in 1360. From childhood he was blind in one eye, and later he lost the other in battle, but that did not interfere with his aggressive and determined spirit, for after gaining several victories over the Emperor Sigismund, that monarch early in 1424 proposed a meeting at which Ziska was granted full religious liberty for his followers, and was appointed governor of Bohemia and its dependencies. Unfortunately, the old warrior did not live long enough to enjoy his well-earned peace, for he died of the plague October 11, 1424.

There were several blind poets, of whom Milton is, of course, the most famous; he became totally blind in May, 1652, being then forty-one years of age. A large number of his works, "Paradise Lost" among others, were written after his misfortune. He lived in darkness for twenty-two years, dying November 8, 1674.

Homer was known as "the blind bard of Chio's rocky isle," but he did not become blind until late in life—if indeed he was a real person at all.

Another blind poet of note was Luigi Grotto, an Italian, known as "Il Cieco d'Adria." He lived from 1541 to 1585.

Giovanni Gonelli (1610-1664) was a noted Tuscan sculptor, and much of his work may be seen to-day. Though totally blind, he made admirable likenesses, and his portrait bust of Pope Urban VIII is very celebrated.

In more modern times we have the late Henry Fawcett, of Salisbury, England. Born in 1833, he was graduated from Cambridge in 1856. In 1858 he became totally blind, through an accident while hunting. This terrible misfortune at the outset of a promising career would have been enough to daunt most men, but in spite of it Fawcett soon became an authority on economic and political subjects, and in 1863 he was made a professor of political economy at the University of Cambridge. He was elected to the British House of Commons, and in 1880 he entered the cabinet as postmaster-general of England, in which position he proved himself an active and efficient minister. He died in 1884.

Another notable modern example is the great yacht designer, John B. Herreshoff. Although he became blind at fifteen, he has built up and managed the successful business that bears his name—the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company, builders of several defenders of the America Cup. In spite of his blindness, he is perfectly at home in his shops or on board ship.[Pg 408]

By EDWARD EVERETT.

The man who stands upon his own soil, who feels that, by the law of the land in which he lives, he is the rightful and exclusive owner of the land which he tills, feels more strongly than another the character of a man as the lord of an inanimate world. Of this great and wonderful sphere, which, fashioned by the hand of God, and upheld by His power, is rolling through the heavens, a part is his—his from the center to the sky! It is the space on which the generation before moved in its round of duties, and he feels himself connected by a visible link with those who follow him, and to whom he is to transmit a home.

Perhaps his farm has come down to him from his fathers. They have gone to their last home; but he can trace their footsteps over the scenes of his daily labors. The roof which shelters him was reared by those to whom he owes his being. Some interesting domestic tradition is connected with every enclosure. The favorite fruit-tree was planted by his father's hand. He sported in boyhood beside the brook which still winds through the meadow. Through the field lies the path to the village school of earlier days. He still hears from the window the voice of the Sabbath-bell, which called his fathers to the house of God; and near at hand is the spot where his parents lay down to rest, and where, when his time has come, he shall be laid by his children.

These are the feelings of the owners of the soil. Words cannot paint them—gold cannot buy them; they flow out of the deepest fountains of the heart; they are the very life-springs of a fresh, healthy, and generous national character.

Edward Everett was an American of culture, of elegance, of scholarship, at a time when culture and elegance and scholarship were not commonly met with in America. He was clergyman, professor, public lecturer, diplomat, statesman; he held positions as eminent yet as separated as president of Harvard College and Secretary of State, and at other times between his birth, in 1794, and his death, in 1865, he was editor of the North American Review, member of Congress and of the Senate, Governor of Massachusetts, minister to Great Britain. This is the man who pronounced so moving a panegyric on the life of the farmer.[Pg 409]

Brief Biographies of Successful Men Who Have Passed Through
the Crucible of Small Beginnings and Won Out.

Compiled and edited for The Scrap Book.

Farmer's Son Organized the First Japanese
National Bank and Aided in Establishing
His Country's Industries.

"Baron Shibuzawa," says Jihei Hashiguchi, "is called the J.P. Morgan of Japan. But he is more important to Japan's industry than Mr. Morgan is to that of the United States, for the industry of the United States can in a sense get along without J.P. Morgan. The industry of Japan cannot do without Baron Shibuzawa."

The man who has been the industrial and financial savior of Japan was born near Tokyo in 1840. His father was a farmer of slender resources, and supplemented the small earnings of the farm by the cultivation of silkworms and the manufacture of indigo. The boy was lazy—the laziest boy in the empire, he was called—and he spent most of his time in reading fiction, studying the history of his country and China, and familiarizing himself with the Japanese and Chinese classics. Fencing also was one of his diversions, and when he was fourteen years old he swore allegiance to one of the feudal lords at Kioto, the ancient capital of Japan.

In 1853 Commodore Matthew C. Perry visited Japan, and his visit paved the way for the opening up of the country to foreigners as well as for a revolution in the social and industrial conditions of the island empire.

Three years after Perry's visit, the Shogun, hereditary commander-in-chief of the Japanese armies and head of the powerful clan of Minamoto, assumed the title of Tycoon. At one time the Shogun rivaled and even surpassed the Mikado in power. But his influence was rapidly declining. Shibuzawa knew this, yet he entered the service of the Tycoon, and in 1867 he accompanied the brother of the latter on a political mission to France.

Up to that time Shibuzawa had been nothing more than an ordinary member of the Samurai. The contrast between conditions in Europe and in Japan affected him deeply.

The first thing he did was to have his topknot cut off, discard the Japanese dress and two swords, clothe himself in ordinary European costume and have his picture taken. He sent copies of the photographs home, and his family, friends, and official superiors were shocked at his apostasy. He knew that would be the effect, and to prepare himself for the storm that would greet him on returning he put in all his time studying European institutions, and in acquiring the rudiments of French and English.

When he arrived home in 1868 the revolution that ended forever the power of the Shogun, abolished the Samurai, and vastly curtailed the privileges of the nobility had begun. He remained true to the Shogun, but after the utter defeat of the latter before the walls of Kioto he entered the service of the Mikado, and his knowledge was of vast importance in the reorganization and rebuilding that came after the revolution had done its work.

In 1870 he was appointed assistant vice-minister of finance, and in that position he undertook to place the currency[Pg 410] of the country on a firm basis. Japan was flooded with depreciated paper money, with a face value of so much rice. This was steadily called in and more stable money issued.

This same year the first railroad in Japan—the Tokyo-Yokohama, twenty miles long—was constructed, and Shibuzawa aided in the work to the full extent of his power. Higher political offices were open to him, but he decided he could be of more use to his country as a business man than as an official, so in 1873 he resigned office.

"I realized," he said, "that the real force of progress lay in actual business, not in politics, and that the business element was really the most influential for the advancement of the country. I soon came to the conclusion that the capital of an individual was not enough to accomplish very much, and I then became the means of introducing the company system into Japan. The idea was successful, and the government approved it. Since then, I may say, every industry in the country has increased—some twenty times, some ten times, and none less than five times."

His first act was to establish a national bank, modeled on the national banks of the United States, and two years later he organized the Tokyo Chamber of Commerce, modeled also on American chambers of commerce, and of this became president. The extension of railroads, the establishment of gas companies, pulp-mills, cotton-mills, iron-foundries, shipyards, and steamship lines next occupied his attention, and he was successful in all of them. The amount of money he made personally was not great, but he placed Japan on a sound, modern commercial basis.

The results of his work were seen first in the Chinese-Japanese War of 1894 and 1895, and later in the war between Japan and Russia. Japan was ready, financially, for these conflicts. It was possible for the Japanese mills and factories to furnish much of the equipment for the Japanese armies.

The advice of Shibuzawa constantly had been:

"Get in line with progress. Be as modern in all things as the rest of the world."

He had to go against ancient prejudices, shatter ancient customs, and shock conservative people, as he did when he cut off his topknot and replaced his Japanese garb with modern European clothing. But his advice was good, and, it having been heeded, Japan profited not a little.

Massachusetts Senator, Though Neither
an Orator Nor an Author, Is a
Highly Successful Statesman.

Winthrop Murray Crane, who succeeded George Frisbie Hoar as United States Senator from Massachusetts, is not an author, orator, or scholar, but Massachusetts is as proud of him as of the other distinguished Senators she has furnished. Senator Crane was born in Dalton, Massachusetts, in 1853. His grandfather had started a small paper-mill in a valley among the Berkshire hills, more than fifty years before that date, and Crane's father, in turn, had taken up the business and continued it. Still, while it gave a fair living, it did little more, and was of no greater consequence than hundreds of other little industries in the State.

Young Crane was educated at Williston Academy, Easthampton. He showed no fondness for books and study, and made no attempt to get a college education. At seventeen he left school, put on overalls and started in to learn the paper-making business in his father's mill. Methods were still crude and the production of the mill was small.

When Crane had learned all the mill could teach him he began to look beyond it for improved methods, for a greater outlet for the product, and for increased capacity. He speedily found ways to reach all three, and the little mill began to take on importance.

In 1879 he learned of a new method of running silk threads through paper, and he was convinced that this was an important advantage in the making of paper for currency, as it would render counterfeiting more difficult. He made[Pg 411] up some samples of the new paper and took them to Washington. Those whom he saw were not at first impressed, and he was referred from one official to another, back and around the whole line, spending several weeks in fruitless endeavor.

The case of the red-threaded paper seemed hopeless, but he stuck persistently to the task, and brought the paper so often to the notice of the authorities that at last they consented to look at it. Then its advantages were evident, and the Crane Brothers' paper-mills got a contract to furnish a lot of bond-paper for the printing of government notes. They have held the contract ever since, and all the paper on which United States money is printed comes from the paper-mills in Dalton.

Crane made his first appearance in politics in 1892 as a delegate to the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis, when Harrison was renominated, and later, in 1896, he was a delegate to the St. Louis convention where McKinley was nominated. It was in 1896, too, that he ran for office for the first time and was elected Lieutenant-Governor of his State. He made no speeches and issued no political documents during this time, nor did he when he ran on two subsequent occasions for Lieutenant-Governor, nor in 1899 when he ran for Governor.

The earliest document to bear his signature was his first message as Governor of Massachusetts. It was the shortest ever submitted at the opening of the Great and General Court, but its terse, straightforward, businesslike statements, utterly devoid of rhetoric, fully acquainted the members with the views of the Governor and outlined the work necessary to be done.

The messages he subsequently sent were of the same nature, and, besides being simple, they were short and to the point. They were unique also in the fact that each recommendation they contained was afterward enacted into law. The great work of his administration was the freeing of the State from the expense and inefficiency of a multitude of boards and committees. Such action was businesslike and pleased the people, but it made the politicians shudder.

Besides the paper-making business, Crane is interested in various other big enterprises. Crane Brothers hold the largest block of stock in the American Bell Telephone Company, for they were among the first to recognize the importance of the new invention, and they went in at a time when the company was struggling for life.

Senator Hoar died in 1904, and former Governor Crane was the only man suggested as his successor. Governor Bates made the appointment and Mr. Crane reluctantly left business again and took up his duties at the national capital. There is little probability of his making any speeches, or of writing any literature while he is a member, but his work will be felt in legislation as forcefully as it was while he was Governor of Massachusetts.

Son of a Washerwoman Determinedly
Trod Thorny Paths Until He Became
a British Cabinet Minister.

John Burns, president of the Local Government Board in the Liberal Cabinet of Premier Campbell-Bannerman, has been for many years the principal representative of labor unionism in the British House of Commons. In that capacity he received no compensation from the government. His salary now amounts to ten thousand dollars a year, and the administration expenses of the department of which he is the head amounts to one million two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year.

Many years ago, one bitterly cold winter night, or morning, for it was then nearly one o'clock, a puny boy of eight was helping his mother carry a big basket full of washing. At the bottom of the basket there was a lot of broken food that had been given to her by persons who knew the cruel struggle she had to support not only the little boy with her, but his several brothers.

The thought of the food and the feast he would have strengthened him to the heavy task for a while, but at last it proved too much for him and he stag[Pg 412]gered so that the basket had to be put down on the sidewalk, and he sat on it to rest. They were then near the houses of Parliament, and the boy choked back a sob as he shivered, looking up at the building.

"Mother," he said at last, "if ever I have the health and strength, no mother will have to work as you do; and no child shall do what I have to do."

The boy was John Burns.

Between the time he helped carry home the washing and his elevation to the cabinet there intervened years of the hardest kind of work, and his mother did not live to see his triumph in the end. Almost as soon as he could walk young Burns began to help with such work as could be done at home. At the age of ten he went to work in a candle-factory and received seventy-five cents a week for his labor. That was followed by a short term as pot-boy in an inn and as a "boy in buttons."

Such work did not suit him, and he went as rivet-boy in the Vauxhall Ironworks, and when he was fourteen he became apprentice to an engineer. He had had little schooling, and before he began his apprenticeship he had begun to educate himself.

While he was an apprentice he taught himself French, and laid the foundation of a good reading knowledge of German. He also began public speaking at out-of-door meetings, and it was at these meetings, with their constantly shifting crowds, with innumerable interruptions, and almost continual opposition, that he developed readiness in debate and coolness while under a hot fire of questions.

At nineteen his apprenticeship was finished and he went to South Africa as foreman-engineer on some work being done at the delta of the Niger. Burns, alone of all the white men there, passed through the year the work lasted without a day of serious sickness.

"That's because I don't smoke and don't drink," he said. "I found I couldn't do such things and continue work."

It was while employed in South Africa that Burns unearthed a copy of Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations," from beneath a pile of sand and rubbish where it had been thrown by some predecessor on the work. This was the only book he had for several weeks of his stay, and he read it and studied it until he practically committed it to memory.

The battered old copy of "The Wealth of Nations" found there in South Africa forms one of the treasures of Burns's library, and there are in England few private libraries that can equal his in the department of economics and sociology.

The courage Burns subsequently displayed in political fights was shown in a physical way during his South African period. On one occasion a sick man fell into a river swarming with water-snakes and crocodiles. Burns, without an instant's hesitation, jumped in and rescued him.

On another occasion the propeller blades of the steam-launch which the men were using worked loose and sunk to the muddy bottom of the river. The water was thick and filthy with rank, decaying vegetable matter, and there was an added source of danger in the venomous creatures that might be lurking there.

The skipper of the launch was preparing to dive for the blades when Burns stopped him:

"Don't try it," he said. "You're married and I'm not, so there won't be so much at stake if I do it."

He dived in the reeking water for an hour and in the end fished up the blades.

He returned to Europe with a few pounds, and he used all of this in taking a six months' tour of the Continent, devoting his whole attention to the study of social conditions. Burns's real work as an agitator began on his return to England. He had settled down to work as an engineer, but he gave all his spare time to organizing the working people, both into trade-unions and into a new political party. The result was that he lost his job, and for seven weeks he tramped through the country looking for another one.

Shortly after this he was arrested for[Pg 413] the part he took in the unemployed agitation, but he conducted his case with such skill that he went free.

The following year, 1887, he was arrested again because of his work during the demonstration of the unemployed, and was sentenced, together with Cunninghame Graham, to six weeks' imprisonment for rioting in Trafalgar Square.

In 1889 the great dock strike occurred, and the part Burns took in it made him known on both sides of the Atlantic. During January of that year he was elected to the London County Council, and two years later he entered Parliament.

Burns's whole work in Parliament was devoted to those subjects with which he was thoroughly acquainted, and his readiness in debate and his willingness to force the issue jarred the dignity of some of the older members.

"The honorable member is not in the London County Council now," suggested a well-known horse-owner and racing enthusiast who had been worsted in argument. "Nor is the right honorable gentleman on Newmarket Heath," replied Burns.

After that the right honorable race-track patron let him alone.

At the last election the Liberal and Labor parties swept everything before them, and Burns was selected from among the Laborites for a place in the cabinet. He had said on one occasion, while a member of the London County Council:

"No man is worth more than five hundred pounds a year." His salary as president of the Local Government Board is two thousand pounds.

"What about that 'ere salary of two thousand pounds?" one of his Battersea constituents asked.

"That is the recognized trade-union rate for the job," Burns answered. "If I took less I would be a blackleg."

"What are you going to do with the fifteen hundred too much?" persisted the questioner.

"Well," answered Burns, "for details about that you'll have to ask the missus."

The coming of Burns into office shook things up considerably. The Local Government Board has to deal with the Poor Law administration, public health, and the general control of the authorities established by the Local Government Act. There were several purely ornamental posts, at good salaries, on the board, and there were plenty of inefficients holding office. The first day of Burns's tenure he called his private secretary, a man holding office from the previous administration, and started to dictate letters.

"You're going much too fast," the man protested, "I really can't keep up with you."

"How many words do you write a minute?" Burns asked.

"Words a minute?" echoed the man in a puzzled voice. "Really, I never counted."

"You don't mean to say you're not a stenographer!"

The man was shocked to think that he should be looked upon as a stenographer. He was private secretary to the president of the Local Government Board, and nothing else.

"See here," said Burns, "this office has work to do, and you won't be of much use to me unless you know shorthand. I'll give you every afternoon off to learn it. I expect that it will take you three months. Till then I suppose I'll have to put up with slower methods."

Scottish-American Inventor Had Hard
Work to Convince Them the Telephone
Was Anything More than a Toy.

Alexander Graham Bell, whose discoveries contributed largely to the commercial success of the telephone, had been known only as a teacher of deaf-mutes previous to the time he took out his telephone patents. He had been a teacher in Scotland, his native country, and when he emigrated to America it was with the intention of continuing to teach here. The system he used was one of his own, and from the first he got good results from the most difficult cases.

Important as this work was, he could earn nothing more than a scanty living.[Pg 414] Soon even this income was threatened, for he began to devote more and more time to the study of sound-transmission, and in order to make a living at all by teaching it was necessary to devote his entire time to it.

At the Centennial Exhibition, in Philadelphia, he showed a crude model of a telephone, but it attracted only passing notice from capitalists, though eminent scientists predicted a future for it. The results were not what Bell looked for, but he took up the work again, made some improvements, and took out patents covering the principal features of the telephone as it is to-day.

Three hours after he filed his application Elisha Gray filed a caveat for his telephone.

On February 1, 1877, Bell went to Salem, Massachusetts, and gave his first public exhibition and lecture. It aroused some curiosity, but drew no financial backing. On May 10 he lectured before the Boston Academy, and there, apparently, the results were little more encouraging than they had been at Salem.

The general opinion expressed was that the telephone was a remarkably clever toy, but that it was nothing more. Investors took this view of it, and Bell, who had been reduced to poverty by the expenses of his experiments, went from one financier to another offering stock in the company he had formed, but everywhere he met with rebuffs. Financiers did not care to have anything to do with a machine designed to accomplish the impossible feat of making audible the voice of a person many miles away.

The reception he met with did not in the least shake Bell's faith in his work, but he was sorely in need of money. He resolved on a desperate move, and he went to Chauncey M. Depew and offered him a one-sixth interest in the company if he would loan ten thousand dollars to put the company on its feet. Depew took a week to consider the proposition. At the end of the week he wrote back that the incident might be considered closed. The telephone was a clever idea, but it was utterly lacking in commercial possibilities, and ten thousand dollars was far too big a sum to risk in marketing an instrument that at best could never be more than a plaything.

Thus Depew let slip an opportunity to acquire for ten thousand dollars an interest that to-day could not be bought for less than twenty-five millions.

Bell was being hard pushed, and he determined to make a last offer. Don Cameron, of Pennsylvania, was then one of the leading figures in the United States Senate, and his influence throughout the country was very great. Bell went to him and offered him, for nothing, one-half interest in the invention if he would endeavor to have it introduced to the public.

Cameron would not even consider the proposition, and gave orders "that Bell and his fool talking-machine be thrown out" if he again attempted to get an interview.

While Bell was ineffectually struggling in this direction, a few men in Boston, who had been interested by the exhibition before the Boston Academy, determined to give the telephone a thorough test. A line three miles long was built from Boston to Somerville, and this proved so unequivocally the utility of the telephone that there could no longer be any question of its success.

The pioneer line, three miles long, cost a few hundred dollars. In less than thirty years the number of miles of wire has increased to nearly four million, and thirty thousand persons are regularly employed by the telephone companies.

Soon after the Somerville demonstration, the tide turned in Bell's favor. Capital, which had previously fought shy of the talking-machine, rushed boldly in, and the inventor who had been turned away from office-doors and denied access to the presence of politicians was offered fabulous prices for part interest in his company.

Small investors clamored to get their money down, and big capitalists fought for control of the invention that promised such great things. Within a few weeks Bell, who couldn't give a half interest in his invention to Don Cameron, and who couldn't raise a ten-thousand-dollar loan from Depew, was in a position to turn millions of money away, and there was no more begging for a few dollars to give the telephone a try-out.[Pg 415]

By Horace Seymour Keller.

"Your honor," said a lawyer to the judge, "every man who knows me, knows that I am incapable of lending my aid to a mean cause."

"That's so," said his opponent, "the gentleman never lends himself to a mean cause; he always gets cash down."

A thousand men can go to work at seven o'clock in the morning without the ringing of a bell, and why is it that three hundred people cannot assemble in a church without a previous ding-donging lasting half an hour?—Detroit Free Press.

Why, man, it's because they go out at seven o'clock to get money. Put a twenty-dollar gold piece in each pew every Sunday and you may sell your bell for old metal.—Louisville Courier-Journal.

Senator Elsberg of New York was talking in Albany about a notoriously untruthful man.

"Like all great liars," said Senator Elsberg, "he is careless. He fails to keep accurate note of all the lies he tells. Hence innumerable contradictions, innumerable stories that won't hold together."

Senator Elsberg smiled.

"The average chronic liar," he said, "has the luck of a boy I know who en[Pg 416]listed and went to the Philippines. This boy, whenever he wanted money, would write home from Manila something like this:

"'Dear Father—I have lost another leg in a stiff engagement, and am in hospital without means. Kindly send two hundred dollars at once.'

"To the last letter of this sort that the boy wrote home, he received the following answer:

"'Dear Son—As, according to your letters, this is the fourth leg you have lost, you ought to be accustomed to it by this time. Try and hobble along on any others you may have left.'"—Boston Herald.

Mrs. Ascum—I hear the men talking about a "temporary business slump." I wonder what that means.

Mrs. Wise—I think it simply means that they're cooking up an excuse to give their wives less money.—Philadelphia Press.

A famous statesman prided himself on his success in campaigning, when called upon to reach a man's vote through his family pride.

On one of his tours he passed through a country town when he came suddenly upon a charming group—a comely woman with a bevy of little ones about her—in a garden. He stopped short, then advanced and leaned over the front gate.

"Madam," he said in his most ingratiating way, "may I kiss these beautiful children?"

"Certainly, sir," the lady answered demurely.

"They are lovely darlings," said the campaigner after he had finished the eleventh. "I have seldom seen more beautiful babies. Are they all yours, marm?"

The lady blushed deeply.

"Of course they are—the sweetest little treasures," he went on. "From whom else, marm, could they have inherited these limpid eyes, these rosy cheeks, these profuse curls, these comely figures and these musical voices?"

The lady continued blushing.

"By the way, marm," said the statesman, "may I bother you to tell your estimable husband that ——, Republican candidate for Governor, called upon him this evening?"

"I beg your pardon," said the lady, "I have no husband."

"But these children, madam—you surely are not a widow?"

"I fear you were mistaken, sir, when you first came up. These are not my children. This is an orphan asylum!"

Exchange.

"Johnny," said his mother severely, "some one has taken a big piece of ginger-cake out of the pantry."

Johnny blushed guiltily.

"Oh, Johnny!" she exclaimed. "I didn't think it was in you."

"It ain't, all," replied Johnny. "Part of it's in Elsie."—Philadelphia Press.

By PROSPER MÉRIMÉE.

Translated from the French for "The Scrap Book" by S. Ten Eyck Bourke.

Visions and supernatural apparitions commonly inspire ridicule; some there are, however, so fully attested that to refuse them credence one must, to be consistent, reject the entire fabric of accumulated historical data.

An affidavit, drawn in due legal form, subscribed to by, and endorsed with the signatures of four witnesses worthy of belief—that is my guaranty for the authenticity of the occurrence which I purpose to narrate. I desire to add that the prophecy set forth in the affidavit was therein incorporated and cited before those events which, happening in our times, would seem subsequently to have wrought its fulfilment.

Charles XI, father of the famous Charles XII, was one of the most despotic, yet, withal, one of the wisest, monarchs who have reigned in Sweden.

He restricted the monstrous privileges of the nobility, abolished the power of the senate, and enacted laws in virtue of his own sole authority; in a word, he altered the constitution of the country, which before him had been oligarchic, and compelled the governing bodies—composed of the nobility, the clergy, the middle classes, and the peasants—known as the Estates, to invest him with the supreme power. He was, moreover, an enlightened man, brave, strongly attached to the Lutheran faith, inflexible in character, cold, assertive, and wholly devoid of imagination.

He had but recently lost his wife, Eleanor Ulrica. Although it was rumored that his severity toward her had hastened her end, her death had seemingly moved him more deeply than might have been expected of one so hard of heart. His humor grew more somber and taciturn than ever, and he devoted himself to his labors in behalf of his subjects with an assiduity which bespoke an imperative need of dispelling painful thoughts.

He was seated, late one autumn evening, in dressing-gown and slippers, before a huge fire, burning upon the hearth in his study. With him were his chamberlain, Count Brahe, whom he honored with his good will, and his doctor, Baumgarten, who, be it said in passing, was a man of advanced views, something of being a free-thinker and inclined to compel the world at large to doubt every[Pg 418]thing save the science of medicine. The king had summoned Baumgarten that evening to consult with him upon some indisposition of I know not what nature.

The hour waxed late, yet the king, contrary to custom, gave them no hint, by bidding them good night, that they might withdraw. With bowed head and eyes bent upon the embers, he remained buried in a profound silence, weary of his guests, yet dreading, he knew not why, to be alone.

Count Brahe, keenly aware that his presence was not sovereignly welcome, had several times expressed the fear that his majesty might stand in need of repose. A gesture from the king held him to his place.

The physician, in turn, discoursed upon the evils wrought by late hours on the constitution. Charles answered him between his teeth:

"Stay. I am not ready to sleep yet."

They strove to converse of divers matters, but each topic was exhausted with the second sentence, or, at most, the third. His majesty, it was apparent, was in one of his blackest moods, and in like circumstance a courtier's position is of the most delicate.

Count Brahe, surmising that the king's grief emanated from the regrets to which his consort's loss had given rise in his mind, gazed for a time at a portrait of the queen which hung upon the study walls, finally exclaiming, with a huge sigh:

"What a resemblance! The portrait has her very expression, so majestic, and, withal, so sweet——"

"Bah!" bruskly interrupted the king, who saw a reproach in every mention made of the queen in his presence, "the portrait flattered her. The queen was ugly."

Then, secretly ashamed of his own harshness, he rose and wandered about the room to conceal an emotion for which he blushed. He paused before a window looking upon the court. The night was dark, and the moon in her first quarter.

The palace where the Swedish sovereigns reside to-day was not then completed, and Charles XI, who began it, dwelt at the time in the old palace, situated at the head of the Ritterholm, which overlooks Lake Moeler. It is a huge structure in the shape of a horseshoe. The king's study was located in one extremity of the horseshoe, while almost opposite was the great hall in which the Estates were convoked to receive the communications of the Crown.

The windows of this room now appeared to be brilliantly lighted.

This seemed strange to the king. He at first attributed it to a reflection from some lackey's torch. But what could he be doing at this hour in an apartment which had not been opened for a long time past?

Moreover, the glow was too vivid to proceed from a single torch. It might well be occasioned by a conflagration, but the king could see no smoke, the window-panes were intact, and not a sound disturbed the stillness of the night; every indication pointed rather to an illumination.

Charles watched the windows for a time in silence. Count Brahe reached for the bell-rope, purposing to summon a page to investigate this unaccountable brilliancy, but the king checked him.

"I will go myself to the state hall," he said.

As he finished speaking these words his companions noted the sudden pallor and the expression of religious awe which overspread his features. But his step was none the less firm as he strode from the study, the chamberlain and the doctor following, each provided with a lighted taper.

The custodian of the keys, who likewise fulfilled the duties of caretaker, had already retired. Baumgarten roused him, bidding him, in the king's name, make ready to open the state apartments.

Amazed at the unexpected summons, the man dressed hastily, and taking his keys, joined his royal master. He first unlocked the door of the long corridor leading to the main apartment, which served as an antechamber or withdrawal room. The king entered, and marveled to find the walls draped with black.

"By whose order has this been done?" Charles demanded angrily.

"Sire, no such order has come to my notice," replied the custodian, much troubled. "The last time I swept the corridor the walls were paneled with oak as usual. Those hangings certainly do[Pg 419] not belong to your majesty's equipment."

The king, with his rapid stride, had already traversed more than two-thirds of the corridor. The count and the custodian followed closely in his wake, the doctor lagging somewhat in the rear, divided between his fear of being left alone and his dread of the unknown dangers he might incur in pursuing an adventure which began so inauspiciously.

"Go no farther, sire," implored the custodian. "On my soul, there is witchcraft within. At this hour, since the death of your gracious consort, the queen, it is said she haunts this corridor. God grant us protection!"

"Pause, sire," exclaimed the count, in turn. "Hear the disturbances in the state hall! Who knows to what peril your majesty may be exposing yourself?"

"Sire," urged Baumgarten, whose taper had been extinguished by a puff of wind, "permit me at least to summon twenty of your guards."

"We enter now," responded the king with determination. And stopping before the lofty portal he said to the custodian: "Open this door without delay."

As he spoke he kicked the paneled oak, and the sound, reverberating among the echoes of the vaulted ceiling, thundered down the corridor like the noise of a cannon-shot.

The key rattled against the lock as the custodian, who was trembling violently, sought vainly to insert it in its groove.

"An old soldier trembling!" scoffed Charles. "Come, count, let us see you open the door."

"Sire," answered the count, falling back a step, "let your majesty command me to face the cannon of the Germans or the Danes, and I will obey unflinchingly. But here you are asking me to defy all hell!"

The king wrenched the key from the custodian's shaking hand.

"I see clearly," he observed contemptuously, "that this concerns myself alone."

And before any of his attendants could prevent him he flung the heavy oaken door wide, and crossed the threshold, repeating the customary "With God's help!"

His three attendants, impelled by a curiosity stronger than their fear, and ashamed, perhaps, to abandon their sovereign, followed him.

The great hall blazed with the light of myriad torches. Heavy draperies replaced the ancient tapestries on the walls with their woven figures.

Ranged along both sides of the apartment in the same order as of yore hung the flags of Denmark, Germany, and the country of the Muscovite—trophies taken in war by the soldiers of Gustavus Adolphus. But the Swedish flags intermingled with the long array were swathed in funereal crape.

An immense concourse swarmed upon the serried rows of benches opposite the throne. The members of the four Estates, garbed in black, were there, each in his allotted place. And this multitude of gleaming visages against the somber background so dazzled the eye that not one of the four beholders could distinguish a familiar face among the throng. So is it with the actor who fails to single out, in the confused mass of the crowded audience, one person he knows.

On the raised dais of the throne, from which the king was wont to harangue the assembly, they saw a bleeding corpse invested with the royal insignia.

At the right of this gruesome specter, crown on head, scepter in hand, stood a child. At the left, an aged man, or fantom shade, leaned for support against the throne. From his shoulders trailed the ceremonial mantle worn by the ancient administrators of Sweden before Wasa made of the government a monarchy.

Grave-visaged, austere men in flowing robes of black, evidently holding the office of judges, were gathered near the throne around a table littered with folios and parchments. Between the dais and the assembled Estates the four spectators beheld an executioner's block, funereally draped, and by its side the ax.

Of all that vast concourse of specters no single shade gave sign that the presence of Charles and the three persons who accompanied him had been observed. A confused murmur, in which the ear failed to detect any articulate sound, greeted their entrance.

Presently the oldest of the black-gowned judges—he who seemed to fulfil[Pg 420] the functions of president of the tribunal—rose and struck thrice with his palm upon the open folio that lay before him.

A profound hush fell instantly upon the hall. Then, through the doorway facing that which Charles had just opened, came a band of young men of prepossessing appearance, with their arms bound behind their backs. They bore themselves well, their heads raised high, their mien unabashed. Behind them stalked a robust figure, clad in a brown leather jerkin, holding the ends of the ropes which confined their hands.

The foremost of the youths, who seemed to be their leader, halted before the funereal block, and surveyed it with superb disdain. A convulsive shudder swept over the crowned cadaver at sight of the youth, and from the gaping wound the crimson blood welled afresh.

The prisoner knelt beside the block, and bent his head above it; the ax flashed aloft, and descended with a resounding crash. A sanguine river gushed from the headless trunk, losing itself in that other bloody stream; the head bounded forward, rolling across the reddened floor to the living monarch's feet, and drenched them with its uncontrolled flow.

Up to that moment surprise had held Charles mute, but this horrible spectacle restored his power of speech. Striding forward to the dais, he boldly addressed the aged administrator, repeating the prescribed formula:

"If thou art of God, speak; if thou be of that Other, leave us in peace."

In solemn tones, slowly, the fantom spoke:

"Charles! King! Not in thy reign shall his blood flow [here the voice grew less distinct] but in the reign of thy fifth successor. Wo, wo, wo to the blood of Wasa!"

As he ceased speaking the spectral forms who had participated in this astounding vision faded. In a moment they were less than painted shadows; soon they were gone; the fantastic flaming torches flickered and died, and only the light from the tapers which his attendants carried remained to illuminate the ancient mural tapestries, still faintly agitated by some ghostly breeze.

For a space there lingered in the air a murmur, melodious withal, which one of the four witnesses has compared to the rustling of the wind among the leaves, and another to the breaking of harp-strings when the harp is being tuned. But all were agreed as to the duration of the vision.

The black draperies, the severed head, the blood-stains on the flooring, all vanished as had the specters; only upon the king's slipper a crimson stain endured, which must have served him as a reminder of the night's strange happenings, had they not been too indelibly impressed upon his memory ever to be effaced.

Regaining his study, the king ordered the foregoing narrative set forth in a written statement, which he signed, as did also the three attendants who had witnessed the apparition with him.

Every precaution was taken to prevent the contents of the document from becoming public, but the marvel was none the less divulged in some unknown manner, and that during the lifetime of Charles XI. The document is still in existence, and its authenticity has remained undisputed. Its closing sentences are remarkable.

"And if that which I have narrated," says the king, "be not the exact truth, I renounce all hope of that better life which I have perchance merited by some good deeds, and above all by my zeal for the welfare of my people and the defense of the religion of my ancestors."

If one recalls the circumstances attendant upon the death of Gustavus III, and the manner of judgment passed upon his assassin, Ankerstroem, one cannot fail to note the analogy between these and the occurrences detailed in the singular prophecy.

Ankerstroem figures as the youth beheaded in the presence of the assembled Estates, the crowned and bleeding cadaver represents his victim Gustavus III, the child, his son and successor Gustavus Adolphus IV. And finally, in the aged administrator, one recognizes the Duke of Sudermania, the uncle of Gustavus Adolphus IV, who was first appointed regent, and ultimately attained to the kingship, after the dethronement of his nephew.[Pg 421]

The Story of How Its Author Received His Inspiration, Where
He Wrote the Famous Poem, and How Various
Editors Have Altered Its Phraseology.

Francis Scott Key wrote only one poem that entitled him to a lasting reputation, but so firmly has that one poem gripped the patriotic consciousness of the American people that its fame is assured as long as the nation continues.

Key was born in Maryland, August 9, 1780. He practised law at Frederick, Maryland, in 1801, but he subsequently removed to Washington, where he became district attorney for the District of Columbia.

When the British ascended Chesapeake Bay, in 1814, and captured Washington, General Ross and Admiral Cockburn set up headquarters in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, at the home of Dr. William Beanes, one of Key's friends. Later, Dr. Beanes was made prisoner by the British. Interesting himself in securing the release of his friend, Key planned to exchange for him a British prisoner in the hands of the Americans. President Madison approved the exchange, and directed John S. Skinner, agent for the exchange of prisoners, to accompany Key to the British commander.

General Ross consented to the exchange. He ordered, however, that Key and Skinner be detained until after the approaching attack on Baltimore. They had gone from Baltimore out to the British fleet in a vessel provided for them by order of President Madison. Now they were transferred to the British frigate Surprise, commanded by Admiral Cockburn's son, but soon afterward they were permitted to return, under guard, to their own vessel, whence they witnessed the bombardment of Fort McHenry.

By the glare of guns they could see the flag flying over the fort during the night, but before morning the firing ceased, and the two men passed a period of suspense, waiting for dawn, to see whether or not the attack had failed.

When Key discovered that the flag was still there his feelings found vent in verse. On the back of a letter he jotted down in the rough "The Star-Spangled Banner."

On his return to Baltimore, Key revised the poem and gave it to Captain Benjamin Eades, of the Twenty-Seventh Baltimore Regiment, who had it printed. Taking a copy from the press, Eades went to[Pg 422] the tavern next to the Holiday Street Theater—a gathering-place for actors and their congenial acquaintances. Mr. Key had directed that the words be sung to the air, "Anacreon in Heaven," composed in England by John Stafford Smith, between 1770 and 1775. The verses were first read aloud to the assembled crowd, and then Ferdinand Durang stepped upon a chair and sang them.

Key died in Baltimore, January 11, 1843. James Lick bequeathed sixty thousand dollars for a monument to his memory. This noble memorial, the work of W.W. Story, stands in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco. It is fifty-one feet high. Under a double arch is a seated figure of Key in bronze, while above all is a bronze figure of America, with an unfolded flag.

As Key wrote it, the poem varies in several lines from the versions that are sung to-day. We reprint verbatim a copy written out by Key himself for James Maher, gardener of the White House. It may be worth while to preface it with certain explanations of his phraseology:

He was describing an actual situation, and he appears to have addressed the lines directly to his companion, Mr. Skinner. The smoke of battle explains "the clouds of the fight." The line, "This blood has washed out his foul footstep's pollution," modified by later editors, was his answer to the boasts of a British officer, who declared before the bombardment that the fort would quickly be reduced.

The change of "on" to "o'er" in the common versions of the phrase "now shines on the stream" is the result of bungling editing. Key was picturing the reflection of the flag on the water.

In the author's version, here given, the words that have been changed by compilers are italicized. The references by numerals indicate the variations of other editions.

By FRANCIS SCOTT KEY.

For Mr. Jas. Maher, of Washington City, from F.S. Key. Washington, June 7, 1842.

Samples of the Journalistic Fodder Which Is Handed Out for Daily Consumption
Among the Children of Nature Who Inhabit Some of the
Quiet Places in the Tall Timbers.

'Lige Goudy, a well-known and popular passenger engineer, who lives at Seymour, is raising some corn this year. A few days ago a gentleman called at Mr. Goudy's house to see him, and was informed that he had gone out to look at his corn.

The gentleman went down to the field, which he found grown over with weeds of a gigantic growth, with a sickly looking stalk of corn peeping forth here and there. The gentleman looked across the field, but could not see the proprietor thereof.

Finally the man climbed upon the fence and shouted:

"Oh, 'Lige!"

To his surprise, a reply came from among the weeds near by, in the familiar voice of Mr. Goudy.

The gentleman took a second look, but could not quite locate 'Lige, and after a moment's hesitation said:

"Shake a weed, so I can tell where you are!"—Exchange.

The Bulletin is in receipt of a copy of the Fay Observer. Notwithstanding the fact that it has the appearance of being printed on a cider-mill with three-penny nails for type, it is a credit to the town.—Geary (Oklahoma) Bulletin.

A correspondent of the Evening Post says that the codfish frequents "the table-lands of the sea." The codfish no doubt does this to secure as nearly as possible a dry, bracing atmosphere. This pure air of the submarine table-lands gives to the codfish that breadth of chest and depth of lungs which we have always noticed. The glad, free smile so characteristic of the codfish is largely attributed to the exhilaration of this oceanic altitoodleum.

The correspondent further says that "the cod subsists largely on the sea cherry." Those who have not had the pleasure of seeing the codfish climb the sea cherry tree in search of food, or clubbing the fruit from the heavily laden branches with chunks of coral, have missed a very fine sight.

The codfish, when at home rambling through the submarine forests, does not wear his vest unbuttoned, as he does while loafing around the grocery stores of the United States.—Laramie (Wyoming) Boomerang.

G.B. Boswell, while trying to ride his young mule after plowing him all day, was thrown to the ground. In the accident Mr. Boswell caught his leg over the hamestick and tore his new overalls, which he paid forty-two cents for. We are glad to know that Mr. Boswell was not hurt except that he struck the funny bone of his elbow and his mule got away, which worried him, and had it not been for his Christian disposition he would probably have been a sinner in the sight of God.—Wilson (North Carolina) Times.

Ibsen's Norwegian play of "Ghosts," with one setting of scenery, no music, and three knocks with a club on the floor to raise the curtain, was presented last evening.

The play is certainly a moral hair-raiser, and the stuffing is knocked out of the decalogue at every turn.

Mrs. Alving, the leading lady, who keeps her chin high in the air, has married a moral monstrosity in the shape of a spavined rake, and hides it from the world. She wears a pleasant smile and gives society the glad hand, and finally lets go all holds when her husband gets gay with the hired girl, and gives an old tar three hundred plunks to marry her and stand the responsibility for the expected population.

Oswald, the mother's only boy, is sent to Paris to paint views for marines, and[Pg 425] takes kindly to the gay life of the capital, where the joy of living is the rage and families are reared in a section where a printer running a job office solely on marriage certificates would hit the poor-house with a dull thud.

Regena, the result of Mr. Alving's attentions to the hired girl, also works in the family, and falls in love with the painter-boy on his return from Paris. They vote country life too slow, and plan to go to Paris and start a family. The doting mother gives her consent, and Pastor Menders, who is throwing fits all through the play, has a spasm.

The boy, on being informed that the girl of his choice is his half-sister, throws another, his mama having also thrown a few in the other act.

Engstrand, who runs a sort of sailors' and soldiers' canteen, sets fire to an orphanage, and the boy, who has inherited a sort of mayonnaise-dressing brain from his awful dad, tears about the stage a spell, breaks some furniture, and upsets the wine. He finally takes rough-on-rats, and dies a gibbering idiot, with his mother slobbering over him and trying to figure out in her own mind that he was merely drunk and disorderly.

As a sermon on the law of heredity the play is great, but after seeing it we are glad to announce that Haverly's Minstrels will relieve the Ibsen gloom on November 6—next Monday night.—Carson (Nevada) Appeal.

When an editor dies in Kansas, this is the way they write the obituary: "The pen is silent; the scissors have been laid away to rust; the stillness of death pervades the very atmosphere where once the hoarse voice of the devil yelling 'copy' or 'what the hell's this word?' was wont to resound. The paste-pot has soured on the what-not; the cockroach is eating the composition off the roller, and the bluebottle fly is dying in the rich folds of the printer's towel."—Exchange.

A newly made widow of Geary County sent this card of thanks to the Republic for publication:

"I desire to thank my friends and neighbors most heartily in this manner for the united aid and cooperation during the illness and death of my late husband, who escaped from me by the hand of death on Friday last while eating breakfast. To the friends and all who contributed so willingly toward making the last moments and funeral of my husband a success I desire to remember most kindly, hoping these few lines will find them enjoying the same blessing. I have a good milch cow and roan gelding horse, five years old, which I will sell cheap. 'God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform; He plants His footsteps on the sea, and rides upon the storm'; also a black-and-white shote, very low."—Junction City (Kansas) Republic.

A Card from Miss Sallie McCants.—To Whom it May Concern: The engagement which existed between Miss Sallie McCants and R.N. Jordan, of Cottageville, has been mutually dissolved, it being their aim to disappoint those who reported the news of their marriage. This will allow anxious mothers with marriageable daughters the chance of opening their doors again to this esteemed young man. Respectfully, S. McCants.—Walterboro (South Carolina) Press and Standard.

The following letter was received recently:

"Dear Sir: I hereby offer my resignashun as a subscribber to your papier, it being a pamphlet of such small konsequenc as not to benefit my family by takin it. What you need in your shete is branes & some one to russel up news and rite edytorials on live topics. No menshun has bin made in your shete of me butcherin a polen china pig weighin 369 pounds or the gapes in the chickens out this way. You ignor the fact that i bot a bran new bob sled and that I traded my blind mule and say nothin about Hi Simpkins jersey calf breaking his two front legs fallin in a well. 2 important chiverees have bin utterly ignored by your shete & a 3 column obitchury notice writ by me on the death of grandpa Henery was left out of your shete to say nothin of the alfabetical poem beginning 'A is for And and also for Ark,' writ by me darter. This is the reason why your paper is so unpopular here. If you don't want edytorials from this place and ain't goin to put up no news in your shete we don't want said shete.

"P.S.—If you print obitchury in your next i may sine again fur yure shete."—Holdenville (Indian Territory) Tribune.[Pg 426]

The Term Which Is Now Used to Describe Persons Who Are Lacking in Mental Capacity
Once Was the Acknowledged Title of Men of Extraordinary
Wit and Understanding.

Every man "in his time plays many parts," and it often has happened that the wise man's fate has required him to play the fool. In our day, the word "fool" is used to describe a person who is wanting in judgment or general mental capacity, and when we see a representation of an old-time fool, wearing his fool's cap and bells, we are likely to regard the original as having had the characteristics of a modern circus clown.

The fact, however, is that the professional fool of two centuries ago was an altogether different sort of person. He held his position by reason of his ready wit, which, in truth, was often wisdom in disguise. Until the end of the seventeenth century, jesters, or fools, as they were usually called, were in the retinue of every king and princeling.

That the private fool existed even as late as the eighteenth century is proved by Swift's epitaph on Dicky Pearce, but the last licensed fool of England was Armstrong, court jester to James I and Charles I, who died in 1672. He lost his office and was banished from court for a too free play of wit against Archbishop Laud.

L'Angèly, his contemporary, and the last titled fool in France, was court fool to Louis XIII, and died in 1679. He was a man of gentle birth, but very poor. His biting, caustic wit, however, was so dreaded by the courtiers that he grew rich from the sums which they paid him to purchase immunity from his satire.

Ancient Greece had a class of professed fools similar to those of the Middle Ages. The Romans went a step farther and made human monstrosities of their slaves—hideous things to amuse by grotesque forms and antics their cruel masters.

The fool's business, primarily, was to amuse, but owing to the fact that he dared to tell the truth, much of an instructive nature was gathered from him by his master.

His dress varied considerably in different periods; and on his shaven head was a covering that resembled a monk's cowl, and crested with a cock's comb or with asses' ears. He wore motley, and little bells hung from various parts of his attire. He carried always a bauble, or short staff, bearing a grotesque head, sometimes the counterpart of his own.

In England, the names and sallies of many of the court jesters have been recorded, while literature makes frequent reference to them.

Prominent in the list is Will Sommers, who was court jester to Henry VIII. His effigy is at Hampton Court, and a tavern in Old Fish Street, London, once bore his name. He died in 1560.

John Heywood, who was jester to Queen Mary, was the author of numerous dramatic works and poems, and was a highly educated man.

Tarleton, famous as a clown, cannot well be omitted from the list, although he was not a licensed jester. He lived during Elizabeth's reign, but was not attached to the court nor to any nobleman. A book of his jests was published in 1611, twenty-three years after his death.

The identity of "Will," referred to as "my lord of Leicester's jesting player," never has been satisfactorily explained. Some authorities are inclined to believe that he was Will Shakespeare himself.

In France, the fantastic figure in motley lights up many dark and tragic pages of history. Triboulet, who was jester to Louis XII and Francis I, was the hero of Hugo's "Le Roi S'amuse," of Verdi's opera "Rigoletto," and appears in Rabelais' romance. His portrait was painted by Licinio, the rival of Titian.

Chicot, who was the friend as well as the jester of Henri III, has been clearly delineated by Dumas, père, in his "Dame de Monsoreau."

Finally, there is Yorick. "Alas! poor Yorick"—who was jester at the Court of Denmark, and immortalized by Shakespeare as "a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy."

The word "fool" ceases to be a term of reproach when this array of cheery fun-makers is considered, all of them bearing the title proudly and as an honor.[Pg 427]

Remarkable Speech Delivered in 1842 by Colonel Cobb, Head Mingo of the
Choctaws East of the Mississippi, When the Federal Government
Was Forcing the Tribe Westward.

Brother—We have heard you talk as from the lips of our father, the great white chief at Washington, and my people have called upon me to speak to you. The red man has no books, and when he wishes to make known his views, like his fathers before him, he speaks from his mouth. He is afraid of writing. When he speaks he knows what he says; the Great Spirit hears him. Writing is the invention of the pale faces; it gives birth to error and to feuds. The Great Spirit talks—we hear him in the thunder—in the rushing winds and the mighty waters—but he never writes.

Brother—When you were young we were strong; we fought by your side;[Pg 428] but our arms are now broken. You have grown large. My people have become small.

Brother—My voice is weak, you can scarcely hear me; it is not the shout of a warrior, but the wail of an infant. I have lost it in mourning over the misfortunes of my people. These are their graves, and in those aged pines you hear the ghosts of the departed. Their ashes are here, and we have been left to protect them. Our warriors are nearly all gone to the far country West; but here are the resting-places of our dead. Shall we go, too, and give their bones to the wolves?

Brother—Two sleeps have passed since we heard you talk. We have thought upon it. You ask us to leave our country, and tell us it is our father's wish. We would not desire to displease our father. We respect him, and you his child. But the Choctaw always thinks. We want time to answer.

Brother—Our hearts are full. Twelve winters ago our chiefs sold our country. Every warrior that you see here was opposed to the treaty. If the dead could have been counted, it could never have been made; but alas, though they stood around, they could not be seen or heard. Their tears came in the rain-drops and their voices in the wailing wind, but the pale faces knew it not, and our land was taken away.

Brother—We do not now complain. The Choctaw suffers, but he never weeps. You have the strong arm and we cannot resist. But the pale face worships the Great Spirit. So does the red man. The Great Spirit loves truth. When you took our country, you promised us land. There is your promise in the book. Twelve times have the trees dropped their leaves, and yet we have received no land. Our houses have been taken from us. The white man's plow turns up the bones of our fathers. We dare not kindle our fires; and yet you said we might remain, and you would give us land.

Brother—Is this truth? But we believe now our great father knows our condition; he will listen to us. We are as mourning orphans in our country; but our father will take us by the hand. When he fulfils his promise, we will answer his talk. He means well. We know it. But we cannot think now. Grief has made children of us. When our business is settled we shall be men again, and talk to our great father about what he has proposed.

Brother—You stand in the moccasins of the great chief, you speak the words of a mighty nation, and your talk is long. My people are small; their shadow scarcely reaches to your knee; they are scattered and gone; when I shout I hear my voice in the depths of the woods, but no answering shout comes back. My words, therefore, are few. I have nothing more to say, but I ask you to tell what I have said to the tall chief of the pale faces, whose brother stands by your side.

Various Nations Have Different Methods of Propounding This Time-Honored Query, But
All Mean Pretty Much the Same Thing.

"How do you do?" That's English and American.

"How do you carry yourself?" That's French.

"How do you stand?" That's Italian.

"How goes it with you?" That's German.

"How do you fare?" That's Dutch.

"How can you?" That's Swedish.

"How do you perspire?" That's the Egyptian version.

"How is your stomach? Have you eaten your rice?" That's the rather medical way in which the Chinese people express their morning salutation.

"How do you have yourself?" That's Polish.

"How do you live on?" That's Russian.

"May thy shadow never be less." That's Persian.

And all mean much the same thing—the natural expression of sympathy and friendly curiosity when one human being meets another.[Pg 429]

The Great Events in the History of the Last One Hundred Years, Assembled
so as to Present a Nutshell Record.

[Continued from page 340.]

William Henry Harrison died April 4, one month after his inauguration as President of the United States, and John Tyler, the Vice-President, succeeded him. Harrison's Cabinet, excepting Daniel Webster, resigned soon after Tyler assumed office, owing to his veto of measures by which the Whigs tried to revive the National Bank. Seminole War, the most protracted and costly of all Indian wars, ended after an expenditure of ten million dollars. University of Michigan founded. Brook Farm communistic experiment begun.

The "opium war" between Great Britain and China continued during intervals separated by periods of negotiation. The British took Hong-Kong, silenced the Bogue forts, destroyed a Chinese flotilla at Canton, took that city, exacted six million dollars' indemnity from local authorities, and forced the reopening of trade there. British fleet, convoying troops and moving northward, captured successively Amoy, Chusan, Chinhai, and Wingpo. In Afghanistan (November 2), British residents and followers at Kabul were massacred, and British troops outside the city were driven off and forced to retreat toward Jelalabad.

Richard Cobden came into prominence in the British Parliament as a free trader, and the struggle over the Corn Laws began. Lord Melbourne's ministry resigned after an unsuccessful appeal to the country, and Sir Robert Peel formed a new cabinet. Punch, the humorous weekly, founded. Sir David Wilkie, English artist; Sir Astley Cooper, English surgeon; and Theodore Hook, English humorist, died.

POPULATION—Washington, D.C., 23,364; New York (including boroughs now forming Greater New York), 391,114; New York (Manhattan), 312,710; London (Metropolitan District, census 1841), 1,873,676; London (old city), 125,009; United States, 17,017,723; Great Britain and Ireland (census 1841), 27,019,558.

RULERS—The same as in the previous year, except that William Henry Harrison became President of the United States, and was succeeded in April by John Tyler.

Maine boundary question settled by a treaty negotiated by Daniel Webster for the United States and Lord Ashburton for Great Britain. Congress resisted a threatened invasion by the French of the Hawaiian Islands. Dorr's "rebellion" in Rhode Island, by which T.W. Dorr, "free suffragist," tried to get governorship, to which S.W. King had been elected under the old charter.

War between Great Britain and China ended, Great Britain winning at all points, and reopening the opium trade. In the retreat from Kabul, Afghanistan, a British detachment and its followers were slaughtered in Khyber Pass, Dr. Brydon alone of fifteen thousand who started reaching Jelalabad, though a few who were captured were later freed. British envoys to Bokhara beheaded. Jelalabad, besieged by the Afghans, was relieved by the British, Kabul was recaptured, and Akbar Khan, leader of the insurgents, fled.

In Great Britain, Parliament rejected a Chartist petition for universal suffrage, etc., containing over three million signatures. A general strike was conducted by the Chartists; Feargus O'Connor, the leader, convicted of inciting to riot, but escaped sentence. Two attempts to assassinate Queen Victoria. Law passed by Parliament restricting the employment of women and children in coal mines. The bore of the Thames Tunnel was finished. In Algeria, the war went on, with several serious reverses for the French. The Illustrated London News, first publication of its kind, started. Luigi Cherubini, Italian musician; Marie Henri Beyle (better known as "Stendhal"), French novelist;[Pg 430] Thomas Arnold, the famous head master of Rugby; and Allan Cunningham, Scottish poet, died.

RULERS—The same as in the previous year.

Extradition treaty negotiated between the United States and Great Britain. Bunker Hill monument was dedicated. Annexation of Texas by United States was mooted, and Mexico, foreseeing war, proclaimed new constitution, and Santa Anna made himself virtually dictator. Charles Thurber, Worcester, Massachusetts, built the first practical typewriter; too slow to be generally adopted.

Scinde, Northwest India, annexed by Great Britain after a brilliant campaign by Sir Charles Napier, with victories at Meanee and Hyderabad. A revival of Mahratta resistance was crushed in December by Sir Hugh Gough in the battle of Maharajpore. Natal proclaimed a British settlement, after war with the Boers, who had set up a republic there. Some Boers submitted; others migrated beyond the Drakensberg mountains. Daniel O'Connell, Irish patriot, continuing his agitation for the repeal of the Act of Union, held mammoth meetings, and was arrested on a charge of seditious conspiracy. Free-trade movement grew in Great Britain, with Cobden and Bright leading. "Rebecca" riots in Wales against toll-gates. Active demands in Hungary for electoral and other changes favoring national interests of the Magyars. Carlist struggle in Spain, after years of sporadic outbreaks, ended with the assumption of power, by the young Queen Isabella, who swore to observe constitutional rule.

Robert Southey, English poet; Dr. Hahnemann, founder of homeopathy; Washington Allston, American artist; Francis Scott Key, author of "The Star-Spangled Banner"; and Noah Webster, American lexicographer, died.

RULERS—The same as in the previous year.

In the United States, the annexation of Texas was the chief political topic. Tyler was a strong annexationist, but he failed during the year to get a treaty through the Senate. The slavery question and questions of keeping good faith with other countries were involved in the problem. Henry Clay's political aspirations went to wreck because of his vacillation concerning Texas. Anti-Mormon riots at Nauvoo, Illinois, resulted in the death of Prophet Joseph Smith; Brigham Young became leader. Samuel F.B. Morse, assisted by a Congressional grant of thirty thousand dollars, constructed a successful telegraph line from Baltimore to Washington. Copper and iron deposits discovered in Lake Superior country. Dr. Horace Wells, of Hartford, Connecticut, discovered "laughing gas." James Knox Polk elected President.

In Great Britain, Daniel O'Connell was sentenced to a heavy fine and to imprisonment, but the judgment was reversed by the House of Lords. The Repeal movement, which he had led, languished thereafter. The tractarian agitation raised at Oxford. Gold discovered in South Australia. The Y.M.C.A. founded by George Williams, in London.

Premature insurrection in Calabria, Italy, suppressed, and twenty leaders executed. As a result of the Algerian campaigns, France became involved in war with Moroccan rebels. France, which had been annexing islands in the South Seas, made amends for indignities visited on British residents in Tahiti by her naval representatives. China revoked edicts against Christianity.

Among persons of prominence who died were Albert Thorwaldsen, Danish sculptor; Bernadotte, in his later life King Charles XIV of Sweden; Joseph Bonaparte, brother of the great Napoleon; John Dalton, English chemist; and Etienne St. Hilaire, French zoologist.

RULERS—The same as in the previous year, except that Oscar I became King of Sweden and Norway, at the death of Charles XIV.

Congress passed a resolution for the annexation of Texas to the United States (January 25), and March 1 President Tyler signed it. Slavery was to be permitted in Texas. Preparations begun for war with Mexico. The Mormons decided to migrate westward from Illinois. Florida and Texas admitted to Statehood. United States Naval Academy founded at Annapolis.

In Ireland, the potato crop failed, and a terrible famine set in. Sir John Franklin set out on his ill-fated Arctic expedition, never to return. Sikh War in the Punjab begun. Peel's cabinet resigned, but as Lord John Russell failed to form a new one, Peel was recalled. Jesuits expelled from France. Indignation against France because French soldiers smothered five hundred Kabyles in the caves of Dahra, Algeria. The city of Quebec nearly de[Pg 431]stroyed by fire. Spain reluctantly recognized the independence of Venezuela. Seven Catholic cantons of Switzerland signed an act of secession from the confederacy, and agreed to support one another against all attacks; this union is called the Sonderbund.

Andrew Jackson, ex-President of the United States; Thomas Hood, English poet and humorist; Sydney Smith, English politician, clergyman, and wit; and Elizabeth Fry, English prison reformer, died.

RULERS—The same as in the previous year, except that James Knox Polk became President of the United States.

The dispute concerning the northwestern boundary between Canada and the United States was settled by the Oregon treaty, negotiated after a period of excitement in which war seemed near. Immigration into the United States passed the one hundred and fifty thousand mark this year, owing principally to the Irish famine and the beginning of revolutionary disturbances in Europe; it exceeded two hundred thousand the following year, and did not fall below that figure again until 1856. Iowa admitted to the Union.

Actual hostilities began between the United States and Mexico; General Taylor successful at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma, Texas, and then invaded Mexico. A force under Colonel Philip Kearney took Santa Fé and declared New Mexico annexed to the United States; in California Captain Frémont took command of insurgents and set up a provisional American government. The American Congress declared war April 26; Mexico declared war May 23. Monterey captured by a force under General Taylor. General Winfield Scott took command of the American army. Santa Anna, Mexico's popular idol, put in command of the Mexicans.

Ether used for the first time in surgery. The Smithsonian Institute, Washington, founded. Elias Howe improved the sewing machine and patented his lock-stitch machine.

The Sikhs were defeated by the British in India, and much new territory came under British rule. British Parliament voted fifty million dollars to relieve distress in Ireland, and heavy contributions poured into the country from England and America. English government repealed the Corn Laws, Richard Cobden triumphing; Peel resigned as prime minister and was succeeded by Lord Russell. Carbolic acid obtained by Laurent, French chemist. Guncotton invented by Christian Schönbein, German chemist. Planet Neptune discovered by Leverrier in France and Adams in England. Two attempts made on the life of Louis Philippe. Insurrections in Poland, Italy, Austria, Hungary, Portugal; general opposition to the policy of Metternich, which had governed Europe since the Fall of Napoleon. The people of Schleswig and Holstein prepared to resist the attempt of the King of Denmark to set aside the Salic law. Pope Gregory XVI died, and Pius IX, new Pope, promised many reforms and more liberal laws. Louis Napoleon made his sensational escape from the fortress of Ham.

Louis Bonaparte, brother of Napoleon I, and former King of Holland; Thomas Clarkson, English anti-slavery advocate; and Otto von Kotzebue, Russian explorer, died.

RULERS—The same as in the previous year, except that Pius IX became Pope.

In the war between the United States and Mexico, General Taylor defeated the Mexicans under Santa Anna at Buena Vista; General Scott captured Vera Cruz, and defeated Santa Anna at Cerro Gordo; Colonel Doniphan captured Chihuahua. Scott, after various successes, stormed Chapultepec, took the City of Mexico, and thus practically ended the war.

British subjects in China attacked; after several Chinese strongholds had been captured more liberty was granted foreign residents. Maltreatment of British subjects in Greece led Great Britain to send fleet to Piraeus, seizing shipping to enforce claims. The Argentine Republic granted free navigation of the La Plata River, and England and France withdrew their blockading squadrons. In Algeria, Abd-el-Kadr surrendered to French general, thus ending French war for the time. The Swiss Federal Diet ordered Jesuits expelled from all cantons, and called upon the Sonderbund ("Separate League"), composed of four Catholic cantons, to dissolve; the seceding cantons refused, civil war broke out, and after a brief campaign and the capture of Freiburg by the Federalists the seceding cantons came to terms; Jesuits expelled, monastic lands secularized, and Sonderbund dissolved.

Prussia, Bavaria—where the ruler had alienated his people by his liaison with Lola Montez—most of the other German states, France—where the socialists, led by Louis Blanc, were active—Italy, Austria, and[Pg 432] Hungary demanded constitutional reforms. Prussian Landtag convened at Berlin and began to consider the question of the separation of Schleswig and Holstein from Denmark. Process of electro-silver plating was discovered by Rogers Brothers, of Hartford, Connecticut.

Among persons of prominence who died were Daniel O'Connell, Irish leader; Thomas Chalmers, Scotch theologian; Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, German musician; Marshals Oudinot and Grouchy, of Napoleon's army; Marie Louise of Austria, Napoleon's second wife.

RULERS—The same as in the previous year.

Peace treaty between the United States and Mexico. The war cost the United States many million dollars and about thirteen thousand lives, and had increased the bitterness between the anti-slavery and the pro-slavery forces. The United States gained five hundred and twenty-three thousand square miles of territory. James W. Marshall discovered gold about sixty miles from what is now Sacramento, California, and a rush to the gold fields began. Within two years more than one hundred thousand persons went to California. Spiritualism made its appearance in the United States. Wisconsin admitted to the Union.

Rebellion in Ireland, headed by John Mitchell and Smith O'Brien, quelled, and leaders transported. British at Multan, India, massacred, and a combined uprising of the Sikhs and Afghans occured; hurried preparations made to meet them. Another monster Chartist petition rejected by Parliament; failure of a projected meeting on Kennington Common practically ended Chartist agitation. The Orange River district in South Africa taken by the British. (Held till 1854.)

Revolution and counter-revolution in most of the continental European countries. The nations seething. Schleswig and Holstein met with reverses in attempting to transfer their allegiance from Denmark to Prussia. Polish uprising summarily crushed. Revolt in Sicily began at Palermo and spread throughout the island and to Naples. King Ferdinand II of Naples granted a liberal constitution. The Grand Duke of Tuscany granted a constitution. Revolt against Austrian rule in Italy; Charles Albert, King of Sardinia, placed himself on the side of Italian freedom, won temporary success against the Austrians, but was defeated and forced to ask for an armistice; Venice, which had joined Sardinia, proclaimed itself a free city, and placed Daniel Manin at the head of the government. The Swiss Guards checked an uprising in Naples, and King Ferdinand, encouraged thereby, revoked all the advantages he had granted. Pope Pius IX disavowed intention of fighting against Austria, though a Papal force was in the field; uprising in Rome against him; a free constitution was granted, and the Pope fled in disguise to Gaeta; a provisional government for the Papal States set up; aid sent the Pope by France.

Insurrection in Vienna; Metternich fled to England. Rebellion in Hungary; Austrian military governor murdered; provisional government established, with Kossuth and Count Louis Batthyanyi at the head. Decree that Magyar must be the sole language of the country aroused Serbs, Croats, and Slavs to a counter-rebellion, which was speedily checked. Renewed revolt in Vienna; Emperor Ferdinand abdicated in favor of his son, Francis Joseph.

Frederick William IV of Prussia had granted some liberal concessions, but riots in Berlin followed, barricades were thrown up, and in suppressing the trouble Prince William, future Kaiser, was accused of unnecessary cruelty. A preliminary Prussian Parliament was convoked, but accomplished nothing. Georg Herwegh and Frederick Hecker led an armed uprising, but were defeated. Uprisings in other parts of Germany put down, and the parliament dissolved. A new Swiss constitution adopted, along the lines of the United States constitution.

Revolution started in Paris, February 22; Guizot's ministry went out of power; Thiers placed at head of affairs; soldiers joined in the rebellion; Louis Philippe abdicated; provisional government reformed. Republic proclaimed, February 27; blundering experiments in giving state help to all who requested it led to serious disorder in Paris; Louis Napoleon elected to the Assembly; new constitution November 12; Louis Napoleon elected president of the republic, December 20.

Caroline Herschel, astronomer; Isaac d'Israeli, compiler; Captain Frederick Marryat, English novelist; Gaetano Donizetti, Italian composer; John Quincy Adams, American statesman and ex-President; Lord Ashburton, British statesman; François René de Chateaubriand, French poet; Frederick Chopin, Polish musician; George Stephenson, English inventor and railroad-builder; Jöns Berzelius, Swedish chemist, died.

RULERS—The same as in the previous year, except that France became a Republic, with Louis Napoleon as President;[Pg 433] and Francis Joseph succeeded Ferdinand as Emperor of Austria.

General Zachary Taylor became President of the United States, saying, in his inaugural: "We are at peace with all the world and the rest of mankind." Department of the Interior created, and its secretary given a place in the president's cabinet. Filibustering expeditions from the United States against the Spaniards in Cuba forbidden by the President. The name of the California town Yerba Buena changed to San Francisco; California and other Western States rapidly opened to settlement by the great rush of gold-seekers; California's first constitutional convention declared against slavery.

Cholera epidemic in England. Lord Gough, in the war against the Sikhs, in India, fought bloody and indecisive battle at Chillianwalla, in the Punjab, and later at Guzerat broke the Sikh power after a prolonged engagement; the Punjab annexed by England. Borneo pirates suppressed by Sir James Brooke.

An attempt to form a republic in Rome and strip Pope of temporal power frustrated by a French force, and Pius IX restored after a year in exile. Continuance of war in Austria and Hungary; Hungary declared itself a free state; Russia allied itself to Austria; Hungarians disastrously defeated at Temesvar; Hungarian army under Görgey surrendered; Kossuth, Bem, and other Hungarian leaders fled to Turkey; Louis Batthyanyi captured and executed by the Austrians; war ended; Hungary subdued.

Sardinians completely defeated by the Austrians at Novara; King Charles Albert of Sardinia abdicated in favor of his son, Victor Emmanuel, dying soon afterward. Renewal of war between Denmark and Schleswig and Holstein and the Prussian allies of the two latter; various bloody battles fought, victory, for the most part, resting with the Danes; armistice declared July 10. Many of the minor German states urged King of Prussia to accept imperial German crown; offer refused.

Intense industrial depression in Canada, and considerable sentiment for annexation to United States. Parliamentary debates on an indemnity bill for those who suffered property loss in rebellion of 1837-1838 caused riots, and when the bill passed a mob burned the Parliament buildings at Montreal; capital removed from Montreal.

Edgar Allan Poe, American poet, critic, and writer of stories; Maria Edgeworth, Irish novelist; and James Knox Polk, former President of the United States, died.

RULERS—The same as in the previous year, except that Zachary Taylor became President of the United States, March 4; and Victor Emmanuel became King of Sardinia.

Slavery question acute in Congress, and the year marked by passage of Clay's compromise measures, including Fugitive Slave bill. Bulwer-Clayton treaty for the joint control by Great Britain and the United States of a canal across Panama. California admitted to the Union as a free State after stirring debates in Congress. Increased Chinese immigration to California because of the failure of crops in China and the beginning of the Taiping rebellion. "Uncle Tom's Cabin" published. Jenny Lind made her first American appearance. Call is issued by South Carolina to other Southern States to consider question of State rights.

About fifty thousand persons died of cholera in England; epidemic checked late in the year. Submarine telegraph between England and France completed, but had to be relaid. The Koh-i-noor, magnificent diamond once owned by Dhuleep Singh, last native ruler of the Punjab, presented to Queen Victoria. Fifth Kafir War in South Africa begun.

Schleswig and Holstein, without aid from Prussia, made another futile attempt to throw off Danish rule. Louis Napoleon began systematic operations to make himself Emperor of France; the liberty of the French press was interfered with, and general suffrage was replaced by severely limited suffrage. Frederick William IV of Prussia granted constitutional reforms; Austria began preparations for war against Prussia, because of the latter's attempts to make the King of Prussia Emperor of Germany.

Taou-Kwang, the Chinese Emperor who ineffectually fought against the opium traffic; William Wordsworth, English poet; Sir Robert Peel, English statesman; John C. Calhoun, American statesman; and former Vice-President of the United States; Honoré de Balzac, French novelist; Gay-Lussac, French chemist; and Jane Porter, English novelist, died.

RULERS—United States, Zachary Taylor, President, died July 9, succeeded by Millard Fillmore; Great Britain, Queen Victoria; France, Louis Napoleon, President; Austria, Francis Joseph; Prussia, Frederick William IV; Spain, Isabella II; Pius IX, Pope.[Pg 434]

Guy Humphreys McMaster (1829-1887) is little known as an author, because his life was spent mainly among law books and in the atmosphere of the courts. After being graduated from Hamilton College, and while a law student, he composed the "Carmen Bellicosum." It has become a sort of classic, with its rumble and grumble which suggest the roll of drums and the mutter of distant cannon. It was contributed by McMaster to the Knickerbocker Magazine when he was only twenty years of age (1849), and it is this alone by which he will be remembered. Later in life he became a county judge and surrogate, and lost his youthful inspiration.

By GUY HUMPHREYS McMASTER.

Dr. John Witherspoon's Stirring Words, Which Brought the Continental Congress
to the Point of Decision on the Eventful Fourth of July, 1776.

On the morning of the Fourth of July, 1776, the members of the Continental Congress, in session at Philadelphia, were deliberating on the proposed Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston, composing the committee appointed for the purpose, had reported several days before the document that is now familiar to every American schoolboy, but action had been delayed, and on this eventful morning, when the Congress began its final consideration, the vital character of the Declaration was recognized with the growing hesitancy of an awed responsibility.

The patriots now saw that they were at the edge of an action by which all chance of retreat would be cut off; that they were preparing to expose themselves, their families, and their estates to harsh reprisals if their revolution failed. At this crisis of painful silence a patriot arose—a man not very old in years, but showing signs of approaching age in his frosted locks. In vehement tones he said:

The speaker ceased. Confidence and determination returned to that assembly, and forthwith the Declaration of Independence was adopted. It was signed that day by John Hancock, President of the Congress. On August 2d, the engrossed copy was signed by the fifty-three members then present, and subsequently three others affixed their names.

The man whose words brought the Continental Congress to action was John Witherspoon, of New Jersey, the President of Princeton College. He was born in Gifford, Haddingtonshire, Scotland, February 5, 1722, and died near Princeton, N.J., September 15, 1794. A graduate of Edinburgh University, he became a prominent Calvinistic pastor, essayist, and educator. He declined the presidency of Princeton in 1766, but accepted a second invitation, and was inaugurated in 1768.

Dr. Witherspoon was a most devoted patriot. Throughout the War of Independence his energies were given freely to the service of the Colonies.[Pg 437]

By GEORGE V. TUOHEY.[A]

An original article written for The Scrap Book.

Whether baseball, our great national game, is a development of "rounders" or of "town ball" will ever be a question. Its genesis, however, is to be found in a pastime that dates beyond the Christian era, for the Greeks practised playing with a ball as tending to give grace and elasticity to the figure, and they erected a statue to Aristonicus for his proficiency in it.

"Rounders," from which modern baseball is generally believed to have derived its origin, was a very simple game—so simple, in fact, that girls could play it. It was played with a ball and bats and was practised in this country as early as 1825. An English work on outdoor sports describes "rounders" as follows:

"A hole is first made about a foot across and half a foot deep. Four other stations are marked with pegs stuck into the ground, topped with a piece of paper, so as to be readily seen. Sides are then chosen, one of which goes in. There may be five or more players on each side. Suppose that there are five.

"One player on the side that is out stands in the middle of the five-sided space, and pitches the ball toward the middle of the hole. He is called the feeder. The batsman hits it off, if he can; in which case he drops the stick and runs to the nearest station, thence to the third and all around if the hit has been a far one.

"The other side are scouting and trying to put him out, either by hitting the batsman as he is running, or by sending the ball into the hole, which is called 'grounding.'

"The player at the hole may decline to strike the ball, but if he hits at it and misses twice running he is out. When a player makes the round of the stations back to the hole, his side counts one toward the game. When all the players are out, either by hitting or the ball being grounded, the other side gets their innings.

"When there are only two players left, a chance is given of prolonging the innings by one of them getting three balls from the feeder; and if he can give such a hit as to enable him to run the whole round, all his side come in again, and the counting is resumed. The feeder is generally the best player on his side, much depending on his skill and art. The scouts should seldom aim at the runners from a distance, but throw the ball up to the feeder or some one near, who will try to hit or to ground, as seems the most advisable. A caught ball also puts the striker out."

Rounders was popular between 1825 and 1840, but meantime there had been many other forms of ball playing, one called "town ball," which was played as early as 1833 by the Olympic Club of Philadelphia, the first organization of its kind in America.

In New England a game called the "New England," in contrast with the "New York" game, was played. The "New England" was played with a small and light ball, thrown overhand to the bat, while in the "New York" a large and elastic ball was used.

Before baseball, as recognized as the game of to-day, came into vogue, the rules allowed a man to be declared out if he were struck by a thrown ball. This schoolboy rule was soon abolished, and it was required that a runner had to be touched to be ruled out. This was the first departure from the primitive rules.

At this period, too, the game was won by the club making the largest number of "aces" or runs in a given time. Then was substituted the idea of team innings, the club scoring the largest number of runs in nine innings was pronounced the winner in a match.

The rudimentary character of the game in its infancy can, moreover, be seen from the fact that under the first code of rules the pitcher could deliver the ball as wildly as he chose, for there was no penalty for poor pitching. The batsman, on the other hand, could offer at the ball when he felt so disposed.

In 1845 baseball had become a recognized sport. It had passed the period when it was looked upon merely as a schoolboy's game, for in September of that year the Knickerbocker Club, of New York, was formed. At the same time a code of rules was adopted, and these form the basis of the elaborate laws of the game to-day.

This first code was as follows:

"Section 1—The bases from 'home' to second base, forty-two paces; from first to third base, forty-two paces, equidistant.

"Sec. 2—The game to consist of twenty-one counts or aces, but at the conclusion an equal number of hands must be played.

"Sec. 3—The ball must be pitched and thrown for the bat.

"Sec. 4—A ball knocked outside the range of the first or the third base is a foul.

"Sec. 5—Three balls being struck at and being missed, and the last one caught, is a hand out; if not caught is considered fair, and the striker is bound to run.

"Sec. 6—A ball being struck or tipped and caught either flying or on the first bound, is a hand out.

"Sec. 7—A player running the bases shall be out—if the ball is in the hands of an adversary on the base, as the runner is touched by it before he makes his base; it being understood, however, that in no instance is a ball to be thrown at him.

"Sec. 8—A player running who shall prevent an adversary from catching or getting the ball before making his base is a hand out.

"Sec. 9—If two hands are already out, a player running home at the time the ball is struck cannot make an ace if the striker is caught out.

"Sec. 10—Three hands out, all out.

"Sec. 11—Players must take their strike in regular turn.

"Sec. 12—No ace or base can be made on a foul strike.

"Sec. 13—A runner cannot be put out in making one base when a balk is made by the pitcher.

"Sec. 14—But one base allowed when the ball bounds out of the field when struck."

The pioneer club to play under the rules was the Knickerbockers. On June 19, 1846, the first match game ever[Pg 439] played took place at Hoboken, New Jersey. It consisted of four innings, the rule being that the club that first made twenty-one runs should be awarded the game.

The sport prospered and the organization of the Knickerbockers was followed by the Gothams in 1850, and then by such familiar names to oldtimers as the Eckfords, of Greenpoint, and Unions, of Morrisania, in 1855.

The club idea spread eastward. In 1854 the Olympic Club was formed in Boston, and for a year this was the only one in the field in New England. The coming of 1855, however, found the Elm Trees ready to dispute the Olympics' claims of superiority, and the first match game of baseball ever played in New England was that in which these teams met. In 1856 the Green Mountain Club was formed, and several exciting games were played between that club and the Olympics on Boston Common.

The "New York" game had become so popular that clubs were formed in every locality. It was seen then, that in order to give solidity to it, a controlling body was necessary. This was done in May, 1857, in New York City, when a convention of players was held and rules for the season adopted. That year the Trimountains of Boston was organized and was the first of the New England clubs to play the New York game.

In 1858 another convention was held in New York, and here the National Association of Baseball Players came into existence. The first annual meeting was held in Cooper Institute, March 9, 1859, when many practical suggestions and a revision of the rules were effected.

In New England there was the "Massachusetts Association of Baseball Players," which met at Dedham, Massachusetts, May 13, 1858, when a set of rules was adopted differing somewhat from those in vogue in the "New York" game.

The rules required that the ball was not to weigh less than two nor more than two and three-quarter ounces, nor measure less than six and one-half nor more than eight and one-half inches in circumference. It was composed of woolen yarn and strips of rubber wound tightly and covered with buck or calf skin. The bat was round—not more than two and one-half inches in diameter—and could be of any length to suit the striker.

There was no diamond marked out. The infield was a square, each side being sixty feet long. The thrower, as the pitcher was called, stood in the center of the square, facing the batsman, who stood in a space four feet in diameter, equidistant from the first to the fourth corners of the square.

The players on the outside were stationed as follows: One at each base, a catcher, one or two to assist the latter, and several fielders according to the number of players, from ten to fourteen, that participated in a match.

The bases were wooden stakes projecting from the ground four inches. The batsman was out if the third strike aimed at and missed by him was caught; or if he ticked the ball and it was caught; if he was caught out on a fly ball.

As early as this date, the referees or umpires had the power, after warning a batsman, to call strikes on good balls if he refused to "offer" at them. If the player, while running between the bases, was hit by a ball thrown by one of the opposing side, he was out.

In match games, seventy tallies constituted the game and one out disposed of the side.

There were three referees, one from each club and one from a neutral club. A peculiar rule was that which compelled the catcher to remain on his feet in all cases when catching the ball. Another was that when two players occupied a base, the one was entitled to it who arrived last.

From these rules it can be seen that the game resembled baseball much less than it did the game of "rounders."

The first code which led to the adoption of the above was framed by the Olympic Club, of Boston, and these rules were amended at a meeting of the association held in Boston on April 7, 1860, when the name was changed to that of "The New England Association of Baseball Players" with the following officers: President, E. Nelson, Excel[Pg 440]sior Club, Upton; vice-president, M.P. Berry, Warren Club, Roxbury; secretary, C.H. Bingham, Bay State Club, Boston; treasurer, A.D. Nutting, Haverhill.

Clubs from Ashland, South Dedham, East Douglas, Mansfield, Boston, Charlestown, Westboro, Upton, East Cambridge, South Walpole, North Weymouth, Marlboro, Medway, Bolton, Roxbury, Randolph, Natick, Holliston, and Milford constituted the members of the association. The fee for admission was one dollar. The Boston clubs represented were the Olympics, Bay States, and Pythians.

The "New England" game passed quickly out of existence, and was supplanted by the "New York" game, so-called, the introduction of which marked the beginning of modern baseball. The diamond supplanted the square; canvas bags supplanted stakes, a pitched ball took the place of the thrown ball; nine innings, and not a certain number of runs, constituted a game; three men, and not one man, put out the side; nine players constituted a side; the base runner could not be put out on a thrown ball. These facts are gleaned from a copy of rules adopted in New York, March 1, 1860.

At this time, however, a catch of a fair bound or a foul bound disposed of the batsman. Otherwise, as to-day, the base runner could not run three feet out of the line of base; he could not score from third after two men were out, if the batter had not reached first base safely; in case of rain, at least five innings constituted a game, and the distances between bases were ninety feet.

The following were the officers of the National Association in 1860: President, Dr. Jones, Excelsior Club, Brooklyn, New York; vice-president, Thomas Dakin, Putnam Club, Brooklyn, New York; N. Shrever, Excelsior Club, Brooklyn; recording secretary, J.R. Portley, Manhattan Club, New York; coresponding secretary, J.F. Jackson, Putnam Club, Brooklyn; treasurer, E. H. Brown, Metropolitan Club, New York.

The association then numbered sixty clubs, of which twenty-three belonged in New York City, and sixteen to Brooklyn. Boston, Albany, Detroit, Baltimore, Newark, Newburgh, Jersey City, Poughkeepsie, Washington, New Haven, and Troy were also represented.

The first series of games for what might be termed a championship took place in the years 1857-1859. At that time the Elysian Fields, in Hoboken, New Jersey, were the great center of ball playing, and here the Knickerbocker, Eagle, Gotham, and Empire clubs showed their superiority.

The Atlantics, of Brooklyn, soon became worthy rivals, though it took many exciting and hard-fought battles before their supremacy was assured. Their success led to a series of three games between picked teams of the New York and Brooklyn clubs in 1858, known as the "Fashion Course" games.

New York won two games out of the three, by the scores of 22 to 13, and 29 to 18, while Brooklyn won, 29 to 8.

The New York nine in the first game consisted of DeBost, catcher; Van Cott, pitcher; Wadsworth, Pinkney, Bixby, basemen; Gelston, short-stop; Hoyt, Benson, and Harry Wright, fielders. Brooklyn played Leggett, catcher; M. O'Brien, pitcher; Price, Holder, Masten, basemen; Pidgeon, short-stop; P. O'Brien, Greene, Burr, fielders. Players were changed in each game.

In 1860 there was a noteworthy series arranged between the Excelsiors and Atlantics, the former being determined to win from the latter, which, though not holding any official championship, was regarded as the crack team of that time.

The clubs met for the first game at the foot of Court Street, South Brooklyn, in the summer of 1860. The Excelsiors, which had been victorious in all their games, won by a score of 23 to 4. The second game, at Bedford, was won by the Atlantics, 15 to 4.

The decisive game took place on the grounds of the Putnam Club, and was declared a draw, the Excelsiors refusing to continue playing owing to the partisan actions of the crowd. The score stood 8 to 6 in favor of the Excelsiors in five innings. The clubs never met again.[Pg 441]

That year the Excelsiors played throughout New York State, as well as in Philadelphia and Baltimore, and greatly popularized the game. It would have spread much faster had it not been for the outbreak of the Rebellion, which caused a lull in the sport for several years.

At Hoboken, October 21, 1861, representative nines of New York and Brooklyn played before 15,000 people. The New York team, on which Harry Wright played third base, was composed of the crack players of the Knickerbocker, Eagle, Gotham, Empire, and Mutual clubs, while Brooklyn had the strongest players of the Excelsiors, Atlantics, and Eckfords.

At this period the Athletics, of Philadelphia, showed themselves to be very strong, and gave promise of great things in the future.

Amendments to the rules now began to have an important effect upon the game and to make it more modern. The rules for base running did not permit the runner to leave his base after a fly until the ball had been in the pitcher's hands and had been once pitched to the bat. This rule prevailed until 1859, when the present rule was adopted.

Efforts were made in 1860 at two conventions to abolish the "out" on a fair fly, but it was twice defeated. Fly games were allowed, however, by mutual consent.

In 1861 an attempt was made, similar to the one in 1858, to give the game to the club having the most runs in an uncompleted inning, thus not compelling the leading club to go to the bat in the last half of the ninth inning.

At the convention in 1863 the committee on rules again reported in favor of the fly game, and it was again voted down. An important move, however, was made in regard to the pitcher. This compelled him to stand perfectly still while delivering the ball, without taking a step forward, in a space twelve by three feet. For the first time, call balls were introduced to punish the pitcher for wildness, just as the striker had been penalized, previously, for not striking at good balls. Base runners, heretofore permitted to go around or near bases in a circuit, had to touch them.

In the convention of 1864 the catch of a fair ball on the ground no longer put a man out, as the fly game was adopted by a vote of 32 to 19. In 1865 the rule dividing professionals from amateurs was adopted by a nearly unanimous vote of the representatives of almost two hundred clubs.

In 1867 the batter was prevented from taking a forward or backward step in striking at the ball upon the penalty of "no strike." This was a very confusing feature of the play of the previous season, it being attempted to help base running. The pitcher now stood in a space six feet square. The batter could take two steps forward, provided he had one foot back of the line of his position when he struck at the ball.

The rule relating to compensation described as professionals all who were paid for their services either by "money, place, or emolument."

Arthur Pue Gorman, afterward United States Senator from Maryland, was elected president of the National Association at a meeting held in Clinton Hall, New York, December 12, 1866, when there were more than two hundred clubs represented.

Meanwhile, baseball had made its way West as far back as 1857. Chicago had a crack team called the Excelsiors, which went to Rockford, Illinois, in 1864, and won glory by defeating the Forest Citys of that place. The Atlantics was another Chicago club that played on the North Side, but did not have the prestige of the Excelsiors. Baseball got a great boom in that region from the tournaments held there. The Excelsiors were victorious in those held in Bloomington, Illinois, in 1866, and in Rockford, in 1867.

To return to the East. In 1862 the Eckfords, of Brooklyn, won the supremacy from the Atlantics, and held it through the season of 1863, during which they did not lose a single game—a feat since duplicated only by Harry Wright's Cincinnati Reds in 1869. The Atlantics regained their lost honors, however, in 1864, and held them for three years. Their chief competitors[Pg 442] were the Athletics, of Philadelphia, and the Mutuals, of New York. The Atlantics did not lose a game in 1864 and 1865—a feat that has never been equaled.

The Athletics, of Philadelphia, gained renown by going through the season of 1866 with only two defeats—those at the hands of the Atlantics, of Brooklyn, and the Unions, of Morrisania, then a suburb of New York City.

The feeling between the Brooklyn and the Philadelphia boys ran so high that when they met in Philadelphia, October 1, 1866, it was estimated that the contest was witnessed by more than forty thousand persons, the largest crowd ever known to have gathered to see a ball contest. The crush was so great that after one inning had been played it was found impossible to continue, and the game was postponed until October 22.

To prevent a repetition of the crowding, an admission of one dollar was charged, the largest up to that time asked for a ball game, yet more than two thousand persons passed through the gates, while several thousand remained outside. The Athletics rolled up 31 runs to 12 of their opponents in seven innings, when the umpire called the game on account of darkness. A dispute about the gate money prevented the clubs from playing any more that season.

Baltimore became a great center of baseball in the very early days of the game. The Excelsiors were in the field in 1857, the Waverlys in 1858, and the Baltimores in 1859. Another club disputed the latter's right to the title, and in a game played for the name the first formed club won. As early as 1861 the Pastimes, of Baltimore, defeated the Nationals, of Washington.

Massachusetts had become a hotbed of baseball, but the feeling had not grown so intense and so partisan as in New York. There was no professional baseball at all in Massachusetts, until a professional association was started, as previously stated. This was not so elsewhere toward the close of the sixties.

A good example of baseball of the old days is a game at Medway played under the old Massachusetts rules. This lasted two days, occupying eleven hours. Eighty innings were played, there being only one out to an inning, and the final score was 100 to 56 in favor of the Excelsiors. It was thought wonderful because sixteen consecutive innings were played without a run on the second day.

The Trimountains, the crack club of the day, was organized in Boston in 1858. It played one match game that year, defeating the Portlands on September 8, the score being 47 to 42. The Atwaters, of Westfield, were in the field that season, with Reuben Noble as one of the players.

In 1859 the Trimountains beat the Portlands two games, and were beaten by the Bowdoins, a new club of Boston, 32 to 26. The famous Lowells, of Boston, named after John A. Lowell, were organized as a junior club, March 18, 1861. Their only match game that year was with the Medfords, whom they beat, 17 to 10. Among the players were "Foxy" Wilder, catcher, and Jimmy Lovett, short-stop.

Games in those days were mostly scrub affairs between the members of the same club or by such players as were found on the Common, where the games were usually played. The youngsters had the ground early in the afternoon, and the young men afterward. The catcher stood near the Beacon Street mall.

The contests were watched by large and interesting crowds. In 1862 the Excelsiors, of Brooklyn, visited Boston and defeated the Bowdoins, 41 to 15, and the Trimountain-Lowell nine, consolidated for the occasion, 39 to 13.

The Lowells gained a signal victory in 1863 in their first match game with the Trimountains, winning 37-1. The famous silver ball series was inaugurated in 1864. On July 9 of that year the Lowells beat the Harvard College nine, 55-25. The Lowells made their first trip this season, and in Brooklyn were defeated, July 19, by the Resolutes, 33-14; July 20, by the Atlantics, 45-17, and July 21 by the Excelsiors, 39-31. This was considered a very good showing for the New Englanders.

In the fall the Atlantics, of Brooklyn,[Pg 443] visited Boston and defeated the Lowells, September 25, 30-10; September 26, the Trimountains, 107-16; September 27, the Harvards, 58-22.

In the silver ball series, in 1865, the Trimountains beat the Osceolas, 33-18; the Lowells beat the Trimountains, 33-18, and the Hampshires, of Northampton, 84 to 10.

Tremendous excitement was caused in 1865 by the games between the Lowells and the Harvards. These clubs always had attracted immense crowds, and the games were well contested and exciting. Harvard won two games out of three in this year, 28-17 and 73-37, while the Lowells won 40 to 37.

In 1866 the Lowells defeated Harvard, 37-27; King Philips, 75-17, and the Granites, 47-11. In 1867 the excitement was greater than ever, and over twenty-five thousand people witnessed the three games with Harvard. Lowell won the first at Boston, 37-28; lost the second at Jarvis Field, 26-32, and lost the third at Medford, 28-39. E. Hicks Hayburst was summoned from Philadelphia to umpire those games.

During vacation a quarrel over the disposal of the silver ball won by Harvard led to its return to the Lowells.

In the fall the Trimountains beat the Lowells, losing the first game, 16-20, but winning the next two, 40-35 and 42-22. The silver ball series then came to an end on account of the trophy being melted down. There were fifteen games for its possession. Lowell won eight, lost six; Harvard won four, lost three; Trimountains won three, lost two.

The Harvard University nine was famous at a very early date as one of the strongest nines in the country. The games were played in Cambridge, on the Delta, where Memorial Hall now stands. As early as 1866 the Harvards played the Atlantics, Eurekas, Excelsiors, and Actives, in New York, and were beaten, 37-15, 42-39, 46-28, 54-15—a plucky showing, considering that Catcher Flagg's hands were in bad condition.

On the Fourth of July the Charter Oak nine, which had thrice beaten the Yales, was vanquished, 16-14. The Beacons were beaten, 77-11 and 56-20. The Williams nine won the championship from Harvard, 39-37. Flagg, Abercrombie, and Hunnewell were regarded as the great men of the Harvard team. Hunnewell made twelve runs in one game.

The Harvards were beaten 14-9 by the Forest Citys, of Cleveland, 18-7 by the Olympics, of Washington, 22-15 by the Mutuals, 27-9 by the Athletics, 13-4 by the Atlantics, and 20-17 by the Cincinnati Red Stockings. In the latter game Harvard had the game well in hand when Cincinnati made eight runs in the last inning, blanked Harvard, and won.

Harvard beat Niagara at Lockport, New York, 62-4 in five innings, making thirty-six runs in the third inning. In the Harvard nine were Bush, catcher; Goodwin, pitcher; Perrin, White, and Reynolds, basemen; Austin, short-stop; Thorpe, Wells, and Eustis, fielders.

In 1871 Harvard beat Tufts, 32-9; Brown, 42-10, 34-15; Yale, 22-19; Haymakers, of Troy, a strong professional club, 15-8; Lowell, 14-9; was beaten by Boston, 13-4; Athletics, of Philadelphia, 14-6; Olympic, of Washington, 17-5; Chicago, 12-2; Eckfords, of Williamsburg, 15-9. This shows what the caliber and mettle of the college teams were in those days.

During the season of 1867 the National club, of Washington, made the most extensive trip ever taken by a club up to that time. The team, which was composed of government clerks, left Washington on July 11, and won its first game in Columbus, Ohio, defeating the Capitol club 90-10. At Cincinnati they defeated Harry Wright's Cincinnati Reds, 53-10. They next whipped the Buckeyes, rivals of the Cincinnatis, 88-12. At Louisville the Nationals won, 82-21; at Indianapolis the score was 106-21; at St. Louis, with the thermometer 104 degrees in the shade, they beat the Union club, the score being 113-26. The Empires, of St. Louis, were next beaten, 53-26.

The eventful games of the trip were those at Chicago and Rockford, Illinois. Previous to the arrival of the Nationals, the Excelsiors, of Chicago, had beaten the Forest Citys, of Rockford, 45-41, in Chicago, and 28-25 in Rockford. The Nationals were, therefore, awaited with[Pg 444] intense interest. The result made the Chicagoans groan. The Forest Citys had given the Nationals the only defeat of the tour, winning 29-23. This made the Excelsiors confident of victory, but they were beaten 49-4, this being a death-blow to them. They never got over it.

Up to 1868 the laws of the game forbade remuneration for players, but so great had become the rivalry that professionalism worked its way in, and the rule became a dead letter. At the convention of 1868 the district classes were made, and in 1869 the first regular professional nine, the famous Cincinnati Red Stockings, was organized, and signalized their appearance by playing clubs from Maine and California without a defeat. They won fifty-six games, tied one, and scored 2,389 runs to 574.

The personnel of the team was as follows: Douglas Allison, catcher; Asa Brainard, pitcher; Gould, first base; Sweazy, second base; Waterman, third base; George Wright, short-stop; Andy Leonard, left field; Harry Wright, center field; McVey, right field. First defeating the prominent Western clubs, they whipped the Forest Citys, of Cleveland, 25-6; the Haymakers, of Troy, one of the first Eastern professional clubs, 38-31; the Harvard College nine, 30-11; Mutuals, of New York, 4-2, a phenomenal game for this period; Atlantics, of Brooklyn, 32-10; Eckfords, of Brooklyn, 24-5; Irvingtons, 20-4; Athletics, of Philadelphia, 27-18; Nationals, of Washington, 24-8; Forest Citys, of Rockford, 34-13.

These were the strongest clubs of the country, and it will be noticed that they held their strong opponents down remarkably well for the days of large scores. The Cincinnatis went to St. Louis and then to San Francisco, and upon their return defeated the Athletics again, 17-12, and Mutuals 17-8. In this season the Cincinnatis defeated the famous Forest Citys, of Rockford, 15-14, making three runs in the ninth inning.

In 1870 the Atlantics, of Brooklyn, were the first to shatter the prestige of the Cincinnati Reds, defeating them June 14, on the Capitoline grounds, Brooklyn, 8-7; losing, September 2, at Cincinnati, 14-3; and winning the decisive game, October 26, in Philadelphia, 11-7.

During the summer of 1870 the Harvard College nine visited Cincinnati, and nearly scored a victory. They led the professionals 17-11 in seven innings, the Cincinnatis having their strongest nine in the field. In the ninth inning Pitcher Goodwin was hit by a hot liner and was injured. This resulted in the scoring of eight runs by the professionals, who won the game 20-17, the Cincinnatis making seven runs after two men were out.

The success of the Cincinnatis placed professional ball on a sure footing.

Among the clubs in the field in 1870 were the Cincinnatis, Athletics, Atlantics, with such well-known players as Ferguson, Zettlein, Start, Pike, Pearce, Chapman, and George Hall; Chicago, with Wood, Meyerle, Tracey, Cuthbert; Forest Citys, of Rockford; A.G. Spaulding, Anson, and Barnes; Forest Citys, of Cleveland, with James White, catcher; Pratt, pitcher; Sutton, third base, and Allinson, center field; the Haymakers, of Troy, with McGeary, catcher; McMullen, pitcher; Fisher, first base, and York, center field; the Mutuals, with Charles Mills, catcher; E. Mills, pitcher; Jack Nelson, third base; John Hatfield, short-stop; Eggler, center field; Marylands, with Bobby Matthews, pitcher, and Carey, short-stop; Nationals, with Hicks, catcher; Glenn, left field; Hollingshead, second base; Olympics, with Davy Force, short-stop, and Harry Berthrong, right field; Unions, with Birdsall, catcher; Pabor, pitcher; Hingham, second base; Holdsworth, third base, and Gedney, left field. The Athletics, Cincinnatis, Chicagos, Clevelands, Haymakers, Mutuals, and Marylands were paid regular salaries; the others were cooperative nines, who played for gate money.

On March 17, 1871, the first convention of delegates from representative professional clubs was held in Collier's saloon, corner of Broadway and Thirteenth Street, New York, when the National Association was formed. A series of the best three out of five games was[Pg 445] arranged. The contesting nines were the Athletics, of Philadelphia; Chicago; Boston; Mutuals, of New York; Olympics, of Washington; Haymakers, of Troy; Kekionigas, of Fort Wayne, Ind.; Cleveland, and Rockford.

The championship was won by the Athletics, which won twenty-two games and lost seven; Boston was second, with twenty-two victories and ten defeats. Two victories of the Rockfords over the Athletics were adjudged forfeited for the reason that a Rockford player was ineligible; yet a game won by the Olympics from the Bostons was adjudged legal, though the same point was raised.

In 1872 eleven clubs entered the lists. These were Boston, Baltimore, Mutual, Athletics, Troy, Atlantic, Cleveland, Mansfield, Connecticut; Eckfords, of Brooklyn; Olympic, and National, of Washington. The series now consisted of five games. Boston had McVey, catcher; Spalding, pitcher; Gould, Barnes, Shafer, basemen; George Wright, short-stop; Leonard H. Wright, Rogers, fielders; Birdsall, substitute.

The Bostons, with thirty-nine victories and eight defeats, won easily in this campaign, as indeed they did in every season up to the forming of the National League in 1876.

In August, 1872, the Bostons took a Michigan and Canadian trip, defeating the Ypsilantis, Empires, of Detroit; Athletics, of London; Maple Leafs, of Guelph; Dauntless, of Toronto; Independents, of Dundas; Ottawas, Montreals, and Pastimes at Ogdensburg, New York.

One of the most important amendments to the rules in 1872 was that doing away with the prohibition of delivering the ball to the bat by an underhand throw, which had long been a dead letter. Creighton, one of the Excelsiors, of Brooklyn, introduced this kind of delivery.

The Bostons again won the championship in 1873, with a record of forty-three victories and sixteen defeats. The contesting clubs were the Bostons, Philadelphias, Baltimores, Mutuals, Athletics, Atlantics, Washingtons, Resolutes, and Marylands. They finished the season in that order. Each club had to play nine games for a full series, and four had to be played with every club before they could be counted.

The season was one of surprises in the many sharply and extra-inning contests. On May 14 it took thirteen innings for the Philadelphias to beat the Athletics, 5-4. June 3, Boston beat the Mutuals at Brooklyn, 6-5 in twelve innings. July 21, the Baltimores beat the Athletics, 12-11, in a thirteen-inning game. But the best and longest professional game up to that time was played at Brooklyn, September 12, when the Philadelphias beat the Athletics 3-2 in fourteen innings. Zettlein pitched for Philadelphia and Brett for the Atlantics.

In 1874 the Bostons again won the pennant, their success being due to team work. They won fifty-two games, lost eighteen, and played one tie. The Mutuals were second, with forty-two victories and twenty-three defeats. The other clubs participating were the Athletics, Philadelphias, Chicagos, Atlantics, Hartfords, and Baltimores. The series of games was increased to ten, with five in a quota necessary to count. The Hartfords made their first appearance, and did well, but lacked in organization.

The year was memorable in baseball by the trip of the Boston and Athletic clubs to England. The clubs left Philadelphia on the steamship Ohio, July 16. In the Athletic party were thirty-eight persons, including the following players: McBride, Clapp, Anson, McGeary, Sutton, Battin, Gedney, McMullen, and Murnane, Fisler, and Sensendorfer. Al Reach was unable to go on account of business engagements.

Boston sent Harry Wright, George Wright, Al Spalding, Roscoe Barnes, Ira Shafer, Cal McVey, Andy Leonard, Jim O'Rourke, Hall, Beals, Kent, and Sam Wright. Kent, first baseman of the Harvards, replaced James White.

The tourists arrived in Liverpool on July 27. Fourteen games were played at Liverpool, Manchester, London, Sheffield, and Dublin, the Bostons winning eight and the Athletics six. The Englishmen were not a little astonished at the wonderful celerity displayed by the baseballists in fielding. The scores in most of the games were large, owing to[Pg 446] the speedy grounds upon which the contestants played.

In cricket, the Americans met with success, defeating the Marylebone, Prince's and Surrey clubs, in London, the Sheffield club, Manchester club, and the All-Irelands in Dublin. The Richmond game was drawn on account of rain. It was not exactly as if green cricketers had visited the old country, for Harry, George, and Sam Wright were first-class players. The first two were excellent bowlers, while McBride also showed up well as a bowler.

George Wright bore the palm for the largest score in a match, rolling up fifty runs at Manchester. The trip was a financial failure, yet both clubs were successful enough in the games at home to show a balance in the treasury at the close of the season. The ball-tossers left the other side on August 27 on the steamship Abbotsford, and arrived in Philadelphia, September 9.

Thirteen clubs fought for the championship in 1875—Boston, Athletics, Hartford, St. Louis, Philadelphia, Chicago, Mutual, New Haven, Red Stockings, of St. Louis; Washington, Centennial, of Philadelphia; Atlantic, and Western, of Keokuk, Iowa. The Westerns, Centennials, and New Havens did not live long. Ten games constituted a series, with six as a quota. At the close of the season only seven clubs had played the quota.

The Bostons won with greater ease than ever, and made a record unequaled in any championship season, with seventy-one victories and eight defeats. The most noteworthy contest up to that time was played June 19 at Chicago, when Chicago defeated the Mutuals 1-0 in ten innings. This was the first time that club had failed to score in nine innings.

This was the closing year of the National Association, and brings us up to that point in the history of the national game where the solid foundation was laid for the present splendid superstructure. The work of the founders of this league was no small task. They were confronted with many obstacles, principally the gambling element, but all were successfully surmounted.

The National League was formed in New York City February 2, with M.H. Bulkeley, since governor of Connecticut, as president, and N.E. Young, secretary. The league consisted of Chicago, Hartford, St. Louis, Boston, Louisville, Mutual, Athletic, of Philadelphia, and Cincinnati clubs, which finished in the order named. Boston this year lost four of its best players—Barnes McVey, Spalding, and White—who joined the Chicagos. The Athletics and Mutuals were expelled that fall for failure to keep their agreement.

The league was reduced to five clubs in 1877, Cincinnati dropping out. Hartford and Boston were the Eastern clubs, with St. Louis, Chicago, and Louisville in the West. The Hartfords were transferred to Brooklyn and played its games on the old Union grounds in the Williamsburg district. Boston won the pennant.

On February 20 the International Association was formed at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with the following clubs: Alleghanys, of Pittsburgh; Buckeyes, Columbus, Ohio; Live Oak, Lynn, Massachusetts; Rochester, New York; Manchester, New Hampshire; Tecumsehs, London, Ontario; Maple Leafs, Guelph, Ontario. Tecumseh won the championship. The league alliance was also formed with many clubs in different parts of the country.

In 1878 the National League was increased to six clubs. Hartford, Louisville, and St. Louis retired. Providence replaced Hartford, and Cincinnati returned after a year's absence. Indianapolis and Milwaukee were added. Boston again captured the championship. The International Association consisted of twelve clubs. The Maple Leafs, Buckeyes, and Live Oaks retired. Buffalo, Binghamton, Hornellsville, Syracuse, and Utica, New York; Springfield and Lowell, Massachusetts, and Hartford, Connecticut, were added. Buffalo was awarded the championship.

Eight clubs—four in the East and a like number in the West—formed the National League circuit in 1879. The Eastern teams were Boston, Providence, Syracuse, and Troy. The West was represented by Buffalo, Chicago, Cleveland, and Cincinnati. Indianapolis and Mil[Pg 447]waukee dropped out. Providence won the championship.

The National Association, formed at a meeting on February 19, 1879, succeeded the International, and had a circuit consisting of Albany, Utica, Holyoke, Manchester, New Bedford, Springfield, Worcester, and Washington, the teams finishing in the order named. The Northwestern League was organized January 2, 1879, at Rockville and Dubuque, Iowa; Omaha, Nebraska, and Rockford, Illinois. Dubuque won the premiership with a roster of players which included Ted Sullivan, Tom Loftus, Charley Comiskey, then a pitcher, and Charley Radbourne, that marvel of twirling skill.

By 1880 the National League had earned its place as the premier baseball organization in the country. Its policy had become settled, and changes in its circuit were less frequent. In that year Worcester replaced Syracuse. The pennant went to Chicago. In the National Association Washington finished first.

Cincinnati retired from the league in 1881, Detroit being admitted. Chicago again won the championship. This year marked the advent of modern professional baseball in New York City. The Eastern Association was formed April 11, with the Metropolitan, New Yorks, Athletics, of Philadelphia; Quick Steps, Atlantics, of Brooklyn, and Nationals, of Washington. The American Association, a formidable rival of the National League, was organized at a meeting held in Cincinnati on November 2, and started the following season with the Athletics, of Philadelphia, and Baltimore in the East; Alleghany, of Pittsburgh; Cincinnati, Eclipse, of Louisville, and St. Louis in the West.

There were no changes in the make-up of the National League in 1882, but in 1883 Troy and Worcester dropped out, and New York and Philadelphia were admitted. With the advent of the National League in New York, the Metropolitans joined the American Association. Brooklyn signalized its first year in the Interstate League by winning the championship of the organization.

The season of 1884 proved a memorable one in the history of the National game, inasmuch as the Union Association was organized in opposition to the National Agreement. The league's rival placed clubs in Altoona, Baltimore, Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington in the East; and Chicago, Cincinnati, and St. Louis in the West. Only five of the original clubs finished the season. Altoona disbanded, and was replaced by Kansas City. Later Milwaukee and St. Paul helped finish the schedule.

The season, which had opened so bright, was one of the most disastrous, financially, in the game's history. Club after club and league after league suspended. Players became panic-stricken at the outlook, and for a time the popularity of the game was threatened. It weathered the storm, however, and then followed a period of unexampled prosperity that lasted until the outbreak of the Brotherhood trouble, which resulted in the war of 1890, the hardest fight the National League ever had.

The reserve clause in contracts was the direct cause of that struggle. A majority of the players who had been reserved by the clubs of the National League for the season of 1890 held meetings during the winter and with a number of capitalists formed the Players' League, with clubs paralleling the National circuit.

Then followed a bitter and relentless war, in which the National League was not the only sufferer, but several American Association and minor league clubs as well. The National, to strengthen itself, admitted Brooklyn and Cincinnati to replace Washington and Indianapolis. The majority of the latter team was transferred to New York, among them being Amos Rusie, the wonderful pitcher.

The fight was carried on at a tremendous financial sacrifice, but that winter the differences between the National and Players' Leagues was satisfactorily adjusted by the consolidation of a number of clubs. In the distribution of players, however, the claims of the American Association were ignored and that organization continued the war another year, invading the National League territory at Boston and Cincinnati. The latter club disbanded in midseason, Milwaukee taking its place.[Pg 448]

The differences were finally adjusted on December 17, when the Athletics, Boston, Chicago, Columbus, and Milwaukee clubs resigned from the American Association, and the four remaining teams were admitted to the National League, which became a twelve-club body, with a circuit consisting of Boston, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Washington, Chicago, St. Louis, New York, Louisville, and Baltimore. This arrangement continued in effect until 1899, when Baltimore, Cleveland, Washington, and Louisville were dropped. Baltimore was consolidated with Brooklyn, while Cleveland was transferred to St. Louis.

The players of the other clubs were either released or distributed throughout the circuit. The Western League, under the able management of Ban Johnson, at a meeting held in Chicago in 1899, changed its name to the American League. It entered Chicago that spring with a team under the management of Charles Comiskey, thus inserting the wedge that enabled it to become a major league in the fullest sense of the term.

The American League's circuit in 1900 was Chicago, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, Detroit, Kansas City, Cleveland, Buffalo, and Minneapolis, the teams finishing in that order.

At the end of the season of 1900 the American League announced that it would no longer be a party to the National Agreement, and that it would place clubs in Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, and Cleveland, with a twenty-five-cent tariff. Then began an effort that brought to the American League many of the star players of the country. Contract-jumping was frequent, and the players were practically able to dictate their own terms.

The liberal policy of the Americans enabled them thus to secure seventy-seven of the National's best and most popular players, and the success of the young organization was assured.

At the beginning of the playing season of 1902 the Milwaukee team was transferred to St. Louis, many of the National League team of the latter city swinging over to the American. New York was added to the circuit at the beginning of 1903, replacing Baltimore.

The seasons of 1904 and 1905 were the most prosperous in the entire history of the national game. The attendance figures surpassed those of any previous year by more than 1,000,000.

The official figures of the American and National Leagues for 1905 give a total paid attendance of 5,855,062, as against 5,769,260 in 1904. It is difficult to even estimate the attendance at minor league, semi-professional, and other games; but it can easily be set at 15,000,000 more.

This fact alone establishes the strong hold the game has on the American people. It has gained a foothold in our Far Eastern possessions, and in the Philippines there are several leagues playing regularly scheduled games.

The same is true of Hawaii and Cuba. Even in Japan the game has advanced to a point where a splendid organization has been formed on the lines of our parent bodies. The visit of the Japanese team to the Pacific coast a year ago showed the progress baseball has made among the "Yankees of the East." In Australia there are various leagues, while in England there is an eight-club organization playing regularly for an annual championship trophy.

Just how much money is invested in baseball it is impossible to estimate, even approximately. The major leagues alone have playing plants valued at millions of dollars. So have the minor bodies, the amateurs, and the independent teams in the country towns.

In the matter of salaries paid to the players of the larger leagues, it is estimated that they amounted last year to $2,577,000. Besides this item, $2,500,000 is spent on other salaries and the maintenance of grounds. Railroad fares cost another $800,000, training expenses $125,000, and there is required possibly $500,000 additional for incidentals.

When it is remembered that there are upward of thirty-five other leagues working under the National Agreement, as well as many independent organizations, and that the figures given are for the major leagues alone, it will be seen that baseball in America is a tremendous institution.[Pg 449]

Compiled and edited for The Scrap Book.

Method Employed in Washington to Discover
Effects of Air Friction on
Flying Models.

Scientific study of flight has been conducted with gratifying success at the Catholic University, Washington, District of Columbia. Dr. Albert F. Zahm has for two years been experimenting with a tunnel six feet square and forty feet long, through which air can be forced by a five-foot fan at one end. Models placed in this air-current encounter the same conditions as if they were flying in the free air, and they can be advantageously observed at leisure. The air resistance of different models is accurately determined.

B.R. Winslow tells in the Technical World of a revolutionary discovery made in this tunnel:

Curious Virginia Act Prescribed Ducking
for Loquacious Females, But Modern
Jurist Gives Up the Fight.

Are men less chivalrous to-day than they were two hundred years ago?

This is a question that is often asked nowadays, but the mass of evidence submitted is so conflicting that it is not likely to be answered until long after the present generation has passed away.

One thing is certain, however. In the present day man-made laws vouchsafe unto women far better opportunities for the speaking of their minds than they[Pg 450] enjoyed two centuries ago. Here are two cases in point:

In No Other Part of the World Is the
Game Taken So Seriously as It
Is in Strohbeck.

The German town of Ströhbeck is ruled by two kings—one red and one white. Each has his queen and his attendant knights and bishops, his castles, and his—pawns. In other words, the game of chess is master in Ströhbeck.

It appears that in the year 1011 a.d. a certain Count Gunnelin was shut up in the tower prison at Ströhbeck, and, as there was nothing else to do, he chalked out a chess-board on the floor and made some rough pieces.

In time the jailer became interested in the count's maneuvers on the checkered field, and the two played together. The jailer ultimately taught the game to others, and it won a popularity which it has never lost in Ströhbeck. To quote the Penny Magazine:

Chess enthusiasts in the United States have urged that the game be introduced into the public schools. Certainly it does afford an excellent mental discipline, though whether useful languages and sciences should be discarded in its favor may well be questioned.

Washington Himself No Small Man, but
Several of His Officers Outweighed
Him by Scores of Pounds.

Great men were the officers who led the colonial forces during the War of the Revolution—great in patriotism, great in courage, great in patience, and great in size.

General Washington would pass in these days as a large man, but many of his officers outweighed him. Read, for example, the following statement, showing the weight of a number of American officers, as recorded at West Point on August 10, 1778:

One might think that the scales used were the property of a dishonest grocer were it not for the proportion between Colonel Swift, say, and General Greaton. Or, perhaps, these officers were weighed in heavy accouterments. Certainly it is hard to think of most of them as traveling on horseback about country at the head of small forces whose chief resource was mobility.

Steamboats Racing on the Mississippi
Before the Civil War Provided Strenuous
Experiences for All on Board.

Joe Vann, Cherokee Indian, who lived many years ago near Fort Gibson, Indian Territory, possessed five hundred slaves and thousands of acres of land. Some of his horses were fine racing stock, and he owned the Lucy Walker, the fastest steamboat on the Arkansas River. Vann was good to his slaves—open-hearted, generous; but he was an inveterate gambler. He lost and won large sums at horse-racing, and, indeed, he would not take a dare. The Fort Gibson Post recalls as follows the tragic circumstances of this remarkable Cherokee's end:

Story of His Affection for Miss Downing
and the Sudden and Unexplained
Break in Their Relations.

The article on "World-Famous Bachelors," in the April Scrap Book, has led a New Jersey reader to call our attention to the early romance of John G. Whittier's life. Why Whittier remained a bachelor was not generally known until the death, at the age of eighty-five, of the only sweetheart he ever had—Elizabeth Bray Downing, of West Newbury, Massachusetts.

For Many Generations the Inhabitants of
St. Ulrich Have Fashioned Playthings
for the Children of All Nations.

Tourists, wandering out of the beaten tracks of their kind, occasionally come to a little village in Austria which presents the aspect of a corner of toyland.

It Is So Tremendous a Sum That a Conception
of It Can Hardly Be Formed
by the Human Mind.

When Americans talk about "a billion dollars" or a "billionaire" they think of a "billion" as one thousand millions. The word "billion" was originally used in France to denote a million of millions—or one million raised to the second power. At that time figures were pointed off in series of six by the French, and when the custom of pointing off by threes came into existence the French transferred the meaning of billion to one thousand millions.

Ordinarily, to-day, the French do not use the word "billion" at all, but refer to the sum of one thousand millions as a "milliard." In England "billion" means a million of millions—the more consistent meaning, in view of the origin of the word.

In the following attempt to make the meaning of a billion more vivid, the English billion, of course, is referred to.

These statistics are quoted from an old article by Professor Law, in Jameson's Journal.

Those That Feed on Flesh Live Longer
Than Those Which Subsist Only on
Grains and Insects.

The doctrines of vegetarianism appear to be slightly shaken by the result of an investigation that an English authority has made into the subject of the longevity of birds. With one notable exception—the swan—the meat-feeding birds are the longest-lived.

The average age of the boarding-house variety of chicken is still undetermined.[Pg 454]

Words of the Poets Explain Why Hats Go Off While Flags Are Passing, Why the
Eagle Screams on "The Fourth," and How Young America Became
Identified With Sky-Rockets and Fire-Crackers.

By Lord Tennyson.

[Signing of the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776.]

By H.H. Bennett.

Anonymous.

This poem, which has long been a favorite in school readers, describes the emotions of the people of Philadelphia on that memorable day in July, 1776, when the Declaration of Independence was signed. It was resolved by Congress that the signing should be announced to the people by the ringing of the old Philadelphia State-house bell, now the most venerated relic of those stirring days. By a strange coincidence, the bell, cast years before the Declaration was dreamed of, bears the following inscription, from the Bible: "Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof."

By Henry W. Longfellow.

By JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE.[B]

By MATTHEW WHITE, Jr.

A Series of Papers That Will Be Continued From Month to Month
and Include All the Most Prominent Players

Irritated by the Complaints of a Comedian,
Her Thespian Mother Offered Her as
a Substitute for a Property Baby.

The man who is responsible for Maude Adams's first appearance on the stage is now the prosperous proprietor of a wholesale liquor store in Salt Lake City. A jolly Englishman, his name is Phil Margetts, and at that time he was an actor, the popular comedian of the Salt Lake Theater, the biggest playhouse west of the Rockies, under the favored patronage of Brigham Young.

It was back in 1873, and Annie Adams was leading woman in the stock company maintained there. The daughter of one of the Utah pioneers, she had gone on the stage some eight years previous, and had not allowed her marriage to a business man, one James Kiskadden, to interfere with her career.

Maude was born on November 11, 1872, and as the family lived very close to the theater the child was practically brought up in the very odor of Thespianism.

On one occasion, according to John S. Lindsay in "The Mormons and the Theater," the regular bill of the evening was followed by the usual farce intended to send the people home in good humor. It was called "The Lost Child," and in it Margetts was cast for the father of the strayed or stolen infant. At the eleventh hour the comedian discovered to his disgust that he was expected to carry on the stage and fondle a rag doll instead of the real thing.

"But I thought you were going to provide me with a flesh-and-blood baby," he indignantly demanded of Millard, the property man.

"I tried to, Phil," replied this long-suffering individual, "but, honest, I couldn't get one. Nobody wanted to let her baby out of her arms, even for a minute."

"Ye gods!" exclaimed Margetts. "Not a baby to be had in the Mormon capital!"

Time was pressing, and he appealed to Mr. Caine, the stage manager. The two were still wrangling over the matter when Mrs. Kiskadden almost literally threw nine-months-old Maude into the breach.

It was in San Francisco, some five years later, that the little girl "walked" on for the first time. This was with J.K. Emmet, in the old Bush Street Theater, as Little Schneider in one of his "Fritz" plays. Her mother was a member of the company, but her father did not altogether approve of Maude's histrionic attempts. They were speaking of the matter at the dinner-table one day, and Mr. Kiskadden remarked to his wife:

"I won't have the child making a fool of herself."

Whereupon Maude, whom they had both supposed to be too busy with her knife and fork to be paying any attention to the talk, broke in with:

"I'll not make a fool of myself, papa."

She had her way, and continued to act at intervals in companies where her mother was employed, until she was sent to school, which she left to take up her career again around 1888, when she was in her middle 'teens.

One of her child engagements in San Francisco found her in a play called "Chums," at the Baldwin. This was the work of David Belasco, who had risen at the theater from call-boy to stage manager and dramatist. The piece, which afterward became famous under the name "Hearts of Oak," had in its cast at the time James O'Neill, Lewis Morrison, and James A. Herne. Belasco called the heroine Chrystal (a name used later by Herne for his own daughter, now leading woman with Arnold Daly), and Maude Adams was little Chrystal.

Miss Adams passed from schoolgirl to school mistress in a play, Hoyt's "A Midnight Bell," which was a great success at[Pg 458] the Bijou Theater in New York. Here Charles Frohman saw her work, and liked it so much that he engaged her for the ingénue in his first stock company, then lodged at Proctor's Twenty-Third Street Theater.

This was in the autumn of 1890, and Miss Adams's first appearance under the Frohman régime was made in William Gillette's comedy-farce, "All the Comforts of Home," in which she was cast as Evangeline Bender, daughter of a retired produce dealer. Henry Miller led the list of players, which was facetiously headed "Who's In It?"

The same jocose spirit prompted the further elucidations of the details in the evening's entertainment on the house bill in this wise:

WHERE IS IT?

Drawing-room of a private house in London.

WHEN IS IT?

Now.

WHAT TIME IS IT?

Act 1. A morning.
Act 2. A few mornings later.
Act 3. Another morning.
Act 4. The same morning.
(Good morning.)

In the same year, 1890, Miss Adams appeared at the same theater, in what was styled its regular season, opening on October 21 as Dora Prescott, another ingénue rôle, in De Mille and Belasco's "Men and Women." This was followed in the fall of 1891, also at Proctor's, by De Mille's play from the German, "The Lost Paradise," in which Miss Adams was cast for the lame mill-girl, Nell.

This Henry C. De Mille, it may be remarked in passing, was the father of the W.C. De Mille who wrote "Strongheart" for Robert Edeson, and who is an instructor in the Empire School of Acting, sometimes known as the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.

In the spring of 1892 John Drew left Daly's, whereupon Charles Frohman decided to make him his first star, and he chose Maude Adams to be his leading woman. It is now an old story—the hit she instantly made as the wife who assumes intoxication in a crisis of the Clyde Fitch comedy from the French, "The Masked Ball."

That it was the actress and not the part that triumphed was proved by the falling down of the piece when it was tried some few years since, under supposedly favorable auspices in London.

Miss Adams was at once established as a metropolitan favorite of the first water. The play ran as long as time could be secured for it at Wallack's (then known as Palmer's), and was removed to the Manhattan (then the Standard), where it finished out the season.

She continued with Drew for five years, and became a star in "The Little Minister" in the fall of 1897, with Robert Edeson for her first leading man.

It Came True When He Saw His
Name in Letters of Fire in Front
of a Broadway Theater.

The line now appearing on the programs at Fields's Theater, "Mr. Hackett, Sole Lessee and Manager," practically inaugurates in New York the policy that has so long been current in London—that of actor-managership. To be sure, it is not James K. Hackett's present intention to appear himself on the stage at Fields's, but it is not unlikely that before snow flies again he may have another house nearer the Broadway line and which will bear his name, as it is his plan to reserve Fields's for farces like "Mr. Hopkinson" and light musical offerings.

Speaking of his name over a theater recalls a remark he made to me something like half a score of years ago. We had been dining together at the Players and were riding up-town on a Broadway car in the direction of the Broadway Theater, where Hackett was then doing De Neipperg with Kathryn Kidder in "Madame Sans Gêne." The electric sign had recently come into existence, and as we were passing what is now the Princess's, but was then known as "Herrman's," the car was flooded with a glow from the brilliant lettering proclaiming that So-and-So (some star whose name now slips my memory) was appearing there.

Hackett clutched my arm.

"See that!" he exclaimed. "One day you will read my name in similar letters of fire!"

Then he aspired only to stardom, little recking that he was to become a manager as well. But he has a foundation, broad and deep, behind him. His father was the J.H. Hackett whose Falstaff was so inimitable that it came to be associated with him almost in the guise of a Christian name. His mother—and a more devoted parent never lived—was also once on the boards.

James K. was born amid the swirling[Pg 459] waters of the St. Lawrence, on Wolfe Island, Ontario, his father being almost seventy at the time.

The late Recorder Hackett, of New York, was a half-brother of the present actor-manager. James has no recollection of his father, as he was scarcely two years old when he died. His mother has been his guardian angel since birth. She brought him up in New York City, with the idea that law should be his life vocation; but from the age of seven, when he recited Shakespeare's "Seven Ages of Man" in public, amateur theatricals played a big part in his aspirations. He was in the class of '91 of the College of the City of New York, and when he was about nineteen I remember seeing him at the Berkeley Lyceum, in a representation by the college dramatic club, as "Joseph Pickle, inclined to mischief," in "The Pink Mask."

It was his experience in performances like this that helped him to make his start when he finally decided—as such a throng have done before him—to abandon law in favor of the footlights. He began on March 28, 1892, in Philadelphia, with A.M. Palmer's company, then presenting "The Broken Seal." He had only six lines to speak, but the very next week J.H. Stoddart gave him an opening for something better, as he once gave Mansfield, though under altogether different circumstances.

Mrs. Stoddart died suddenly, and during his absence from the company his part of Jean Torquerie was entrusted to young Hackett, who acquitted himself so well therein that he was enabled to obtain a post with Lotta as her leading man. Lotta's retirement threw him on the market, from which he was removed by no less distinguished a manager than Augustin Daly.

At Daly's then he appeared as Master Wilford in "The Hunchback," with Ada Rehan as Julia, Isabel Irving (whom Hackett has since starred in "The Crisis") as Helen, and Arthur Bourchier (now a leading actor-manager of London, and who created the part Hackett played here in "The Walls of Jericho") as Sir Thomas Clifford.

From Daly's he passed to the road under the management of Arthur Rehan as leading man in successes from Daly's, which led to his becoming a star in the same modest orbit in a repertoire of old-timers such as "Mixed Pickles" (on which his amateur venture, "The Pink Mask," had been based), "The Arabian Nights," and "The Private Secretary."

He was lifted into the prominence imparted by a Broadway run through the agency of "Madame Sans Gêne," in which Dan Frohman saw him, with the result that in November, 1895, he appeared with the old Lyceum stock company as a character next in importance to Herbert Kelcey, then leading man of the troupe. The play was a serious one, "The Home Secretary," by R.C. Carton, who had not then taken such wild farcical flights as "Mr. Hopkinson."

It was just at this time that Mr. Frohman decided to try rather an odd experiment. As had been his custom, E.H. Sothern had opened the autumn season at the Lyceum, and this year with even more than his wonted success, for he had appeared in the first transfer to the stage of "The Prisoner of Zenda." Previous bookings compelled his relegation to the road in the very height of the New York hit, and in mid-winter, after sizing up his new acquisition to the stock forces, Mr. Frohman decided to duplicate the outfittings of "The Prisoner of Zenda" and put it on at the Lyceum with Hackett in the dual part of Rassendyll and the king.

What Kelcey thought of this arrangement has never been made public. But he was temperamentally unsuited to romantic rôles, and did admirable work in the heavier part of Black Michael, with the explanatory line "by special arrangement" beneath his name on the program.

This was Hackett's opportunity, and he availed himself of it to the full, winning the Lyceum clientage for his firm adherents, so that when Kelcey went starring the next autumn with Effie Shannon he stepped into the shoes of the leading man of the house. In the opening bill, "The Courtship of Leonie," he met for the first time the new leading woman, Mary Mannering, who in due course became his wife.

It was two years later that Mr. Frohman launched Hackett as a star in the "Prisoner of Zenda's" sequel, "Rupert of Hentzau," which had no Broadway showing. Its successor, "The Pride of Jennico," made up for this by setting Hackett on a pedestal so firmly rooted in public favor that in a year or so he became his own manager, and his youthful dream was fulfilled.

After Becoming Stage-Struck, Marguerite
Clark Began Her Professional Career
as a Singer in a Baltimore Park.

"Stage-struck" is the cause that sent to the boards Marguerite Clark, the little leading woman of the big comedian, De Wolf Hopper. A native of Boston, she studied at the New England Conserva[Pg 460]tory of Music, but had no stage acquaintances and no means of securing an opening.

One evening, however, she was singing at a friend's house, when there chanced to be among the guests the manager of an open-air resort in the neighborhood of Baltimore. It was, in brief, one of those parks at the end of a trolley line, which the street railway company promotes in order to boom traffic. Struck by Miss Clark's capabilities, and learning of her histrionic ambitions, he offered her an engagement for the summer, which she was only too glad to accept. In this rather humble way, then, she made her start, singing before such heterogeneous crowds as the trolley emptied into the park from all quarters of the Monumental City.

When frost set in there was, of course, an end to the engagement, but little Miss Clark had no thought of quitting the game. She came on to New York, and began a systematic tour of the agencies and the managers' offices, and finally she landed an engagement with the chorus of Sousa's opera, "The Bride-Elect." From this she passed to the Casino, when Irene Bentley was appearing there in "The Belle of Bohemia." She was now entrusted with her first part, which secured her an opening with Hopper in "Mr. Pickwick." In this she was Sam Weller's sweetheart Polly. One of the critics said of her:

"Marguerite Clark is a most cunning and comely little girl—pretty enough to rave about—and many amusing miles away from the Dickens picture."

"Mr. Pickwick," by the way, will probably turn out to be the last musical play that Charles Klein will write. Since the abounding success of "The Music Master" and "The Lion and the Mouse," the so-called legitimate field will doubtless claim all his time.

To return to Miss Clark, when Hopper revived "Wang," she was cast for Mataya on account of her size, but was so afraid to come into New York with it that for that period she went to Boston and appeared in "The Babes in the Wood."

The Prosy Addresses of Fourth-of-July
Speakers Goaded Him On to the
Study of Declamation.

"It was not because I happened to have long legs that I decided to put myself as Abraham Lincoln into a play."

So said Benjamin Chapin when I approached him with a request to talk a bit for the benefit of The Scrap Book readers.

And when I saw the man out of character I could not blame him for being a little ruffled at the persistent press talk about his doing the Lincoln play because he looked like the famous President. I had gone so far into this belief myself that I was distinctly amazed when the door opened to admit a young man, one not much more than thirty, I should say. The face is long, to be sure, and the frame loose-jointed, but Mr. Chapin's features blend into rather an attractive composite, and Mr. Lincoln, as everybody knows, never laid any claims to good looks.

"Why did I elect to do Lincoln, then?" Mr. Chapin went on. "Because it was the hardest thing of any to do. Any man with the proper amount of ambition in him likes to tackle and overcome difficulties, and in placing our first martyred President on the stage I realized to the full how carefully I must work to keep from falling into pits that would open up on every side of me. But you want to know how I came to go into this line of work at the very beginning, don't you?

"Let me see! I should say the foundations were laid when I was a small boy of ten—out in my native State of Ohio. I used to listen to the Fourth-of-July orators talk on in their prosy way, in a dull monotone, and on Sundays the preachers would speak in the same dismal manner.

"'Why don't they convince the people that they are in earnest?' I would say to myself"—and Mr. Chapin let out his voice in a fashion that made the rafters of the small room ring. "That's the way I felt about the power of the voice even at that early era.

"One summer we were having a picnic—I think it was a Sunday-school affair. Anyhow, there were to be speeches by the boys and girls out in the woods. I wouldn't rehearse mine. You see, I had made up my mine[** mind] to surprise folks. Nobody had ever heard me speak before, and here was the chance to live up to my own theories.

"What my selection was I cannot just recall. I think it was one of Will Carleton's descriptive ballads. Anyway, I let myself out on it in a fashion that made everybody gasp with wonder. And so the thing began. I knew then that my life-work must be something in which I could appeal to the public through the medium of the voice.

"I thought of law for a while, then had a hankering after politics. Finally I drifted into the line of impersonations through monologues.

"I have been working on the drama of 'Lincoln' for years. The version I am[Pg 461] doing is by no means the only one I have written around the war-time President, but it seemed to be the one, all things considered, best adapted for the stage."

For the past half-dozen years Mr. Chapin has been all over the country on the lecture platform, but he has by no means confined himself to Lincoln. He has impersonated, among others, Rip Van Winkle and Cyrano de Bergerac. He has great ambitions in the direction of playwriting.

"I have discovered," he told me in this connection, "that if a play does not elicit from its audience over two hundred distinct expressions of approval, in the shape either of laughs, applause, or that almost imperceptible stir of expectancy, it is a failure."

If the English Actor Had Been Less
Careless as a Law Clerk, He Would
Not Have Been "Mr. Hopkinson."

When the year 1906 began, American playgoers had never heard of an actor by the name of Dallas Welford. Before Easter all New York was applauding his work as the unconscionable little bounder in the title rôle of R.C. Carton's English farce, "Mr. Hopkinson."

In order to obtain for The Scrap Book some facts, at first hand, concerning his early life, I interviewed him in his dressing-room one afternoon after a matinée. And dressing, with him, is a very simple process, as he uses no make-up at all, and consequently does not have to give his face a bath of cold cream after the play in order to take the grease-paint off.

In fact, so simple are his preparations for the street that he once went out to dinner with a friend forgetting to remove the tiny false mustache which is all the concession to the mummer's mask he makes in fitting himself to the character of the Cockney tradesman who has come into money.

"How did I start?" he said, in answer to my query. "Well, you see, in one sense I did not need an introduction to the stage, or what you call 'pull,' because my mother was an actress, and as a kid I went on in the inevitable way as the Duke of York in 'Richard III,' besides being the perennial Little Willie in 'East Lynne.'

"I remember, too, that I was the child in your 'Danites' when it was done over on our side. But my mother did not want me to stick to the boards. She thought I wasn't adapted to make a success of it, and when I had had my bit of schooling she put me in a solicitor's office, or 'lawyer's,' as you call 'em over here.

"Well"—and he laughed at the recollection called up—"I lasted there just a week. You see, when I was sent out with writs to deliver, I used to serve the originals and keep the copies. You can believe there was some lively goings-on in that office when the boss found this out.

"He didn't enter any objections at all to my taking up a stage career—oh, no, not in the least! But my mother did, so I just went out and hunted up a job—any old thing, as a starter, so long as I once got my foot inside the stage door again.

"Where I landed finally was in a melodrama of 'The Glazier's Bride' type. I believe I was a luggage carrier, or some such modest adjunct to the proceedings. You see, it's easier to get your start in melodrama, because there are more people in a play like that, and there are sure to be parts for 'freshies' such as I was then. In comedy, the line I wanted, the least you can be is a butler or footman, and you know in some farces the butler comes pretty near being as important as the leading man.

"So while I was learning the ropes I stayed in the 'penny dreadful' kind of play, gradually working my way up. This lasted for about five years [Mr. Welford has been on the stage seventeen, being in the neighborhood of thirty], when finally I got my chance in comedy in a play from your side, 'My Friend the Prince,' done over here—some of the time by Willie Collier—as 'My Friend from India.' Yes, I was the chap disguised as the East Indian who does the trick with the mirror. I have stayed in comedy ever since."

In London, James Welch, the creator of Mr. Hopkinson, has been in quite hard luck since the long run ceased, two new ventures having turned out failures.

[Pg 462]

A Curious Poetic Creation That Has Puzzled Many Readers, and a
Solution of the Mystery.

In the earlier history of man the riddle was an important intellectual test. To be able to guess hard riddles was supposed to indicate wisdom, and often a great deal was made to depend upon the issue of a guessing contest. The most famous riddle of antiquity was the one which the Sphinx is said to have proposed to Oedipus: "What is that which has four feet in the morning, two at noon, and three at night?" And it has been asserted that Homer died of vexation because he could not find an answer to the riddle: "What we caught we threw away, what we could not catch we kept."

The riddle is the result of the perception of analogies. Note your analogy and put it in the form of a question, and you have your riddle. The conundrum, which has largely replaced the riddle, is a pun concerning which a question is asked. The conundrum may be witty; the riddle may be broadly humorous—and, indeed, it is probably the earliest form of humor.

Among modern riddles, this of Lord Byron's once puzzled many people. The appended "solution" appeared years ago in the Essex (Massachusetts) Register.

From the Essex (Massachusetts) "Register."

The Famous Air Had a Checkered Career and Hobnobbed With Some
Queer Lyrics Before a British Surgeon Unwittingly Gave to
the American Patriots a Battle Song.

An original article written for The Scrap Book.

Our oldest national nickname is "Yankee." In the early Colonial days, the Indians stumbling over the pronunciation of the language of the pale-face, called the English "Yenghies." By corruption, "Yenghies" became "Yanghies" and "Yankees." The settlers took the word "Yankees" back again from their copper-skinned neighbors, and they seem to have used it in a slangy way.

As early as 1713 Jonathan Hastings, a farmer of Cambridge, in New England, used the word as a synonym for excellence, saying of anything which he especially admired:

"It is Yankee good"—that is, probably: "It is as good as if English made."

However, it is worthy of note that Jamieson's "Scottish Dictionary" gives a Scottish word, "Yankie," with the definition: "A sharp, clever woman, at the same time including an idea of forwardness."

The modern notion of Yankee shrewdness might seem to justify the derivation from the Scottish, but, as it happens, the Yankee was not generally considered shrewd and clever until a much later period than the pre-Revolutionary days.

Perhaps, as the occasional explanation has it, the people of the other colonies got to calling New Englanders "Jonathan Yankees," after Jonathan Hastings. Also it may be true that the word has more than one derivation—a possibility which will become apparent when we consider the origin of the song "Yankee Doodle."

Everybody knows the tune of "Yankee Doodle," but few people know the words. The air has been ascribed to several different countries. Kossuth, during his visit to the United States, recognized it as Hungarian, and it has also been identified with an ancient Biscayan sword-dance. In the Netherlands there is, or used to be, a harvesting song, sung by laborers, who were paid with a tenth of the grain and all the buttermilk they could drink:

In other words, "buttermilk and a tenth." Old Hollanders in the United States may recall the stanza.

In the days of Cromwell, one of the nicknames which the Cavaliers bestowed upon the Puritans was "Nankee Doodle." When Cromwell entered Oxford this stanza was written:

Another and more common version was as follows:

In the reign of Charles II we first hear beyond any doubt the air to which "Yankee Doodle" is now sung. To it were set the following lines, which remain as a nursery rhyme:

The air came to be known as "Kitty Fisher," or "Kitty Fisher's Jig."

In 1755, when the Colonial troops were joining the British regulars in the invasion of Canada, by way of Albany, Dr. Schuckburgh, a surgeon attached to Lord Amherst's forces, is said to have derisively adopted the tune for the use of the Colonials, who apparently accepted it in good faith as an established martial air.

To attribute to Dr. Schuckburgh the words which were afterward sung to the air is to disregard the internal evidence of the words themselves—unless, as is possible, though not probable, the stanzas referring to Washington were added later.

The full set of stanzas, entitled "The Yankee's Return from Camp," appear to date from the latter part of 1775, after the battle of Bunker Hill, when the Continental army, under General Washington's command, was encamped in the vicinity of Boston.

The Tories were then singing to the old tune of "Kitty Fisher" these lines:

The original Tory quatrain referred to the smuggling of muskets into the country by the patriots. The stanzas substituted by some unknown Colonial rimester run as follows:

Joseph Rodman Drake (1795-1820) wrote "The American Flag" as a mere fugitive contribution to the Evening Post when he was little more than twenty-one. It belonged to a series of hastily written verses to which the author attached no value. Long afterward a friend of his—a Dr. DeKay—carefully gathered together these stray poems, and showed them to Drake, who said:

"Oh, burn them up! They are worthless."

Fortunately, his friend refused to burn them; and thus one of the finest gems of our national poetry was rescued. Tradition tells us that the last eight lines of "The American Flag" were added to the original draft by Drake's friend and fellow poet, Fitz-Greene Halleck.

By JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE.