THE SCRAP BOOK

VOLUME I

MARCH to AUGUST, 1906

[Pg i]

INDEX TO VOLUME I.

FICTION.

Box Tunnel, The, by Charles Reade, 74.

Captain Obstinate (anonymous), 360.

Chops the Dwarf, by Charles Dickens, 543.

Con Cregan's Legacy, by Charles Lever, 137.

Course from Trimalchio's Dinner, A, by Gaius Petronius, 527.

Descent into the Maelstrom, A, by Edgar A. Poe, 17.

Devil and Tom Walker, The, by Washington Irving, 57.

Doomed to Live, by Honoré de Balzac, 397.

Fight with a Cannon, A, by Victor Hugo, 491.

First Piano in Camp, The, by Sam Davis, 509.

Gridiron, The, by Samuel Lover, 33.

Mr. Caudle Lends Five Pounds, by Douglas Jerrold, 143.

Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, An, by Ambrose Bierce, 111.

Rivals, The, by Benson J. Lossing, 127.

Stolen Letter, The, by Wilkie Collins, 272.

Tapestried Chamber, The, by Sir Walter Scott, 212.

Tournament Scene from "Ivanhoe," by Sir Walter Scott, 351.

POETRY.

Abide With Me, 269.

Abou Ben Adhem, 94.

Ahkoond of Swat, The, 141.

American Flag, The, 466.

America's First Great Poem, 172.

Angler's Chant, The, 242.

Annabel Lee, 164.

Anthology of the Links, An, 552.

"Auto" Idyl, An, 303.


Baseball Bards "On Deck," 178.

Battle of the "Yatches," The, 557.

Better Luck Another Year, 48.

Bivouac of the Dead, The, 254.

Boss, The, 221.

Boy Who Keeps the Bats, The, 178.

Brahma, 508.

Byron on Woman, 31.


Carmen Bellicosum, 434.

Casey at the Bat, 179.

Casey's Revenge, 526.

Castle Yesterday, 69.

Changes, 221.

Church Porch, The, 155.

Cold-Water Man, The, 242.

Compensation, 221.

Correction, A, 222.


Dying Shoemaker, The, 141.


Easter Gossip, 221.

England and America, 454.

Equality, 31.

Evolution, 184.

Exile, An, 389.


Famous Love Poems, 318.

Fantom of the Links, The, 552.

Fate, 87.

Feast of Auto Song, A, 302.

Feminine Arithmetic, 153.

Field's Appreciation, 235.

Fighting Race, The, 390.

Fishin'? 415.

Fish Lines, 243.

Flag Goes By, The, 454.

Fragment, A, 222.

Friend of My Heart, The, 47.

Friends, 47.

Furtheruptown, 233.


Gather Ye Rosebuds, 262.

Glory of Failure, The, 416.

Golf in Cactus Center, 552.

Good-by, Bret Harte, 357.

Greeley on Journalism, 305.


He Bided His Time, 302.

He's None the Worse for That, 48.

Household Gods in Transit, 233.

How Punsters Smite the Lyre, 141.

"Hullo!" 48.


Independence Bell, 454.

Independence Day Rhymes, 454.

Isle of the Long Ago, The, 362.

Ivy Green, The, 154.
[Pg ii]
I Want to Go to Morrow, 141.


Kelly and Burke and Shea, 390.

Kipling's Lyric to Lies, 484.


Last Leaf, The, 32.

Last Word, The—Poet to Poet, 357.

Lead, Kindly Light, 268.

Light, 305.

Lines on a Skeleton, 522.

Little Church 'Round the Corner, The, 358.

Little Gems from Tennyson, 132.

Long Ago, 69.

Lord Byron's Riddle, 462.

Lost Ball, The, 552.

Lost Grip, The, 553.

Love, a Sonnet from the Portuguese, 542.

Love, the Illusion, 304.

Lyric to Lies (Rudyard Kipling), 484.


Moving Ballad, A, 233.

My Aunt, 313.

My Lady on Parade, 312.


Night and Death, 456.


Oh, Breathe Not His Name, 125.

Oh, Why Should the Spirit of Mortal Be Proud? 27.

Old Enthusiast, The, 178.

Omar for Ladies, An, 312.

On His Blindness (Milton), 405.

Opportunity, 26.

Original Grafter, The, 56.

Ostrich Punching of Arroyo Al, The, 84.


Passionate Shepherd to His Love, The, 318.

Paying the Piper, 30.

Pity the Blind! 387.

Poems by Dickens and Thackeray, 154.

Poems of Good-Fellowship, 47.

Pre-Easter Philosophy, 174.

Prejudice, A, 455.


Recessional, 482.

Regrets, 313.

Republic, The, 455.

Rescued Poem, A, 184.

Resignation (Paul Laurence Dunbar), 305.

Rhymes by the Bards of Graft, 56.


Scott on Woman, 416.

Seven Ages of Graft, 56.

Shakespeare on Woman, 31.

She Felt of Her Belt, 312.

Shelley on Children, 63.

Short Story of Speed, 303.

Song of the Automobile, 303.

Star-Spangled Banner, The, 422.


Thanatopsis, 172.

Things to Forget, 47.

Three Fishers, 243.

Tips for Authors, 152.

To Althea from Prison, 319.

Two Immortal Hymns, 268.

Two Zuzim, The, 519.


Uncle Henry on the Passing of the Horse, 302.


Via Solitaria, 165.

Village Smithy, The, 415.


Washerwoman's Song, The, 142.

What He Got Out of It, 416.

What the Choir Sang, 312.

Whatchy Goin' t' Gimme? 56.

What They Call It, 303.

When Adam Was a Boy, 69.

When Maclaren Foozled Out, 553.

When Paw Was a Boy, 415.

When the Muse Cuts Bait, 242.

When We Old Boys Were Young, 69.

Whittier's Tribute, 235.

Wordsworth on Woman, 416.


Yankee's Return from Camp, The ("Yankee Doodle"), 465.

GENERAL INDEX.

A
Acting, Richard Mansfield on, 381.

Actors, careers of, 64, 166, 263, 371, 457, 537;
superstitions of, 28.

Actual Height of Sea Waves, The, 177.

Adams, John, death of, 259; last words of, 295;
grave of, 486.

Adams, John Quincy, and his mother, 308;
elected President, 258;
death of, 432;
last words of, 295;
grave of, 487.

Adams, Maude, career of, 457;
story told by, 304.

Adeler, Max, 89.

Aden, annexation of, 340.

Advertisement, curious, of 1875, 296.

Afternoon dress, 71.

Age, how to tell, 133.

Age of the Earth, The, 551.

Air-Ship, development of the, 107.

Alamo, the, massacre of, 339.

Aleppo destroyed by earthquake, 257.

Alfieri, Vittorio, death of, 43.

Algiers captured by the French, 260.

Allen, Viola, career of, 266.

Allin, L.C., invents friction matches, 525.

All Kinds of Things, 120, 227, 323, 449, 513.

Allston, Washington, death of, 430.

Aluminum, discovery of, 259.

Ambergris, value of, 519.

America's Cup, the, first race for, 531, 557.

Amiens, peace of, 42.

Ampère, André, death of, 339.

Anachronisms in art and literature, 325.

Anecdotes of Authors, 241.

Anglin, Margaret, career of, 66.

Animals, longevity of, 521;
remarkable endurance of, 123.

Annapolis, see United States Naval Academy.

Anthracite coal, first use of, 45.

April, traditions of, 188.

Aries, zodiacal sign of, 187.

Ariosto, Ludovico, 174.

Arithmetical signs, origin of, 232.

Arnold, Sir Edwin, 363.

Arnold, Thomas, death of, 430.

Arthur, Chester A., grave of, 490.

Ashburton, Lord, death of, 432.

Ashburton Treaty, negotiation of, 429.

Aspden, Joseph, invents Portland cement, 1824.

Asphalt, introduction of, as a pavement, 246.

Astor, John Jacob, and his mother, 311.

Astor Library, opening of, 533.

Astrology, traditions of, 85.

Athens, captured by Turks, 259.

Audubon, J.J., death of, 531.

Auerstadt, battle of, 44.

August, traditions of, 560.
[Pg iii]
Aungerville, Richard (Richard de Bury), on Books, 281.

Austerlitz, battle of, 44.

Australia: discovery of Gold, 531.
Status of women, 55.

Austria: Ferdinand I, accession of, 339;
abdication of, 432.
Francis I, death of, 339.
Francis Joseph, accession of, 432.
Hungary, rebellion of (1848-1849), 432, 433.
Vienna captured by the French (1805), 44.
War with France (1800), 41.
War with France (1805), 44.
War with France (1809), 46.
War with France (1859), 535.

Authors, poor conversationalists, 317.

Avebury, Lord, on militarism, 5.

Average Ages of Animals, The, 521.

Ayacucho, battle of, 257.


B

Bacheller, Irving, anecdote of, 241.

Bachelors, famous, 156.

Badajos, stormed by British under Wellington, 159.

Balliet, T.M., on technical training, 98.

Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, opening of, 260.

Balzac, Honoré de, 397;
on women, 346;
death of, 433.

Banquet, Roman, description of, 527.

Bantry Bay, mutiny in, 43.

Baroda, Gaekwar of, visits the United States, 551.

Barr, Matthias, 31.

Barrett, Lawrence, and Wilton Lackaye, 263.

Barrows, Samuel J., on the indeterminate sentence, 195.

Bates, Blanche, career of, 166.

Battles fought in June, 330.

Bear-hunting, Theodore Roosevelt on, 341.

Beaumont and Fletcher, 174.

Beaux and Gallants of Former Days, 525.

Beethoven, Ludwig van, 259;
celibacy of, 158;
last words of, 295.

Beginnings of Stage Careers, The, 64, 166, 263, 371, 457, 537.

Beginnings of Things, The, 183, 524.

Behavior Book, The, 497.

Belasco, David, and Mrs. Carter, 67.

Belgium: Curious English from, 121.
Leopold I called to Belgian throne, 337.
Separation from Holland, 260.

Bell, Alexander Graham, career of, 413.

Bellew, Kyrle, career of, 169.

Bennett, H.H., 454.

Bennett, James Gordon, career of, 208.

Béranger, Pierre Jean de, death of, 534.

Berlin captured by Napoleon (1806), 44.

Bernadotte, Jean Baptiste, see Sweden, Charles XIV of.

Berry, Duc de, assassination of, 163.

Berzelius, Jons, death of, 432.

Bewick, Thomas, death of, 260.

Beyle, M.H. ("Stendhal"), death of, 429.

Bible, parallels between Shakespeare and, 134;
various editions of, 134.

Bierce, Ambrose, 111.

Billion, time needed to count a, 453.

Birds, ages of, 453.

Bismarck, Prince Otto von, love-letter of, 110.

Björnson, Björnstjerne, foible of, 180.

Bladensburg, battle of, 161.

Blaine, James G., early career of, 331.

Blake, William, death of, 259.

Blindness, Helen Keller on, 387;
R.W. Gilder on, 387.

Blind People Who Won Fame, 405.

Blood, circulation of, 122.

Blücher, Gebhard L. von, invades France, 160;
defeated at Ligny, 161;
death of, 163.

Blue Laws in Old New England, 251.

Boardman, George Dana, anecdote of, 222.

Bolivar, Simon, death of, 260.

Bonaparte, Charles Lucien, career of, 550.

Bonaparte, Jerome, visits America, 549;
marries Elizabeth Patterson, 44;
becomes King of Westphalia, 44;
is dethroned, 160.

Bonaparte, Joseph, King of Naples, 44;
King of Spain, 45;
residence in America, 549;
death of, 430.

Bonaparte, Letizia, death of, 340.

Bonaparte, Louis, King of Holland, 44;
death of, 431.

Bonaparte, Lucien, death of, 340.

Books, earliest printed, 524;
eaten by their authors, 500;
John Morley on, 102;
Richard de Bury on, 281;
smallest and largest, 116;
rejected books that proved successful, 136.

Borodino, battle of, 159.

Boston, railroad stations in, 182.

Bourdillon, Francis W., 305.

Bozzaris, Markos, gallantry of, 258;
last words of, 295.

Brady, William A., and Wilton Lackaye, 264.

Brazil, foundation of the empire of, 45;
separation from Portugal, 257;
first railroad in, 533.

Breeches Bible, The, 134.

Breese, Edmund, career of, 371.

Britt, J.E., as an actor, 38.

Brooks, Phillips, last words of, 295.

Brotherhood of man, the, Dr. Parkhurst on, 387.

Brothers, eulogies on, 170.

Brothers to Sisters, 234.

Brown, Henry B., justice of United States Supreme Court, retirement of, 470.

Brown, John, execution of, 535.

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 542.

Browning, Robert, foible of, 180.

Brummel, Beau (George Bryan), death of, 340.

Brunel, Isambard K., death of, 536.

Bryant, William Cullen, 172.

Buchanan, James, inauguration of, 535;
grave of, 489.

Buckingham, Duke of (1592-1628), gorgeous costumes of, 525.

Buckwheat, origin of, 183.

Buena Vista, battle of, 431.

Bug Bible, The, 134.

Bulls in Parliament, 244.

Bulwer-Clayton treaty, negotiation of, 433.

Bunker Hill, Webster's speech on, 283.

Bunner, Marion Y., 85, 187, 282, 376, 468, 560.

Bunsen, Baron von, death of, 536.

Burnand, Sir Francis C., editor of "Punch," 101.

Burns, John, career of, 411.

Burr, Aaron, trial and acquittal of, 45;
death of, 339.
[Pg iv]
Burritt, Elihu, career of, 518.

Burroughs, John, story told by, 88.

Burton, Frederick R., on the American Indians, 384.

Burton, Robert, 174.

Butler, Nicholas Murray, on the value of a college career, 98.

Butler, Samuel, 174.

Byron, Lord, 462;
death of, 258;
last words of, 295;
on woman, 31.


C

Calhoun, John C., death of, 433.

California, occupied by Fremont, 431;
gold discovered in, 432;
pioneer journalism in, 327.

Camera-obscura, invention of, 183.

Campbell-Bannerman, Sir Henry, on the tariff question, 5.

Canada: Development of, 285.
Railroad, first, opening of, 339.
Rebellion of 1837, 339.
Relations with the United States, 286.
Status of women in, 55.

Cancer, zodiacal sign of, 468.

Canning, George, death of, 259.

Cannon, Joseph G., on public life, 474.

Canova, Antonio, death of, 257.

Cape of Good Hope ceded to the British, 160.

Cards, symbolism of, 556.

Carlyle, Thomas, sketch of, 175.

Carnegie, Andrew, and spelling reform, 194.

Carroll, Charles, death of, 338.

Carroll, Lewis, see Dodgson, Charles L.

Carter, Mrs. Leslie, career of, 67.

Cassatt, Alexander J., career of, 150.

Castelmary, Signor, death of, 200.

Castle, Henry A., on the humors of the postal service, 227.

Castlereagh, Viscount, suicide of, 257.

Cat, the, mysterious characteristics of, 480.

Catholic Emancipation Act, 260.

Cato, Marcus Porcius, 368.

Caxton Memorial Bible, the, 134.

Chalmers, Thomas, death of, 432.

Chamfort, Sebastien R.N., on happiness, 119.

Chance as a factor in inventions, 245.

Chapin, Benjamin, career of, 460.

Chapter on Puns, A, 315.

Chartist movement, 338;
petitions rejected, 429, 432.

Chateaubriand, François René de, death of, 432.

Check written on pine shingle, 124.

Cherubini, Luigi, death of, 429.

Chesapeake, United States frigate, encounter with the Leopard, 45;
captured by the Shannon, 160.

Chess, popularity of, at Strohbeck, 450.

Chesterfield, Lord, last words of, 295.

Chevrial, Baron, Richard Mansfield as, 65.

Chicago organized as a town (1831), 337.

Chicago, University of, development under President Harper, 10.

Chile, independence declared by, 163.

Chillianwalla, battle of, 433.

China: Awakening of, 6, 388.
America's opportunity in China, 294.
Chinese Commissioners in the United States, 108.
Taiping rebellion, 433.

China: Taou-Kwang, Emperor, death of, 433.

Chivalry, Southern, decay of, 384.

Choate, Joseph H., tribute to Franklin, 81.

Choate, Rufus, death of, 535.

Chopin, Frederick, anecdote of, 79;
death of, 432.

Churchill, Charles, 174.

Churchill, Winston, on tariff question, 5.

Cibber, Colley, 174.

City and Country Life, 105.

Clark, J.S., anecdote of, 152.

Clark, Marguerite, career of, 459.

Clarke, Joseph I.C., 390.

Clarkson, Thomas, death of, 431.

Classics from Carlyle, 175.

Clay, Henry, death of, 532.

Clemens, Samuel L., see Twain, Mark.

Cleveland, Grover, on doctors and patients, 106.

Clinton, Sir Henry, letter to Sir John Burgoyne, 516.

Cloud, Virginia Woodward, 30.

Cobb, Colonel, speech of, 427.

Cobbett, William, death of, 339.

Coeducation: G. Stanley Hall on disadvantages of, 9;
David Starr Jordan on benefits of, 196.
Foundation of first coeducational college, 532.

Coincidence in a Paris court, 120.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, death of, 339.

College career, value of a, 98.

Collingwood, Admiral, 43.

Collins, Wilkie, 272.

Cologne, first use of, 183.

Colt, Samuel, career of, 503.

Columbus, Christopher, misled by birds, 326;
last words of, 295.

Commander, Lydia Kingsmill, 51.

Comte, Auguste, death of, 534.

Conde, Prince of, precocity of, 392.

Coné, Joe, 303.

Congress first meets in Washington, 42.

Connaught, Duke of, visits America, 550.

Conscience Fund of the United States Treasury, 223.

Constitution, United States frigate, sinks the Guerrière, 159.

Cooper, Sir Astley, death of, 429.

Cooper, James Fenimore, death of, 531.

Copenhagen, battle of, 42.

Corbett, James J., as an actor, 38.

Corelli, Marie, anecdote of, 241.

Cork, first use of, 183.

Corn, R.J. Oglesby's speech on, 369.

Corn Laws, controversy over, 429;
repeal of, 431.

Corn-mills, first records of, 183.

Cotton-mills, work and wages in, 378.

"Counsels and Ideals," by Dr. William Osler, 8.

Cowper, William, 174;
death of, 42;
last words of, 295.

Crabbe, George, death of, 338.

Craigie, Mrs. (John Oliver Hobbes), on coeducation, 9.

Crane, Winthrop M., career of, 410.

Crawford, F. Marion, anecdote of, 80;
foible of, 180.

Creating Wealth from Waste, 201.

Crimean War, 532, 533.
[Pg v]
Cromwell, Oliver, love-letter of, 110;
last words of, 295.

Cunningham, Allan, death of, 430.

Cuvier, Georges, death of, 338.


D

Daguerre, Louis J.M., perfects the daguerreotype process, 183;
death of, 531.

Dalton, John, death of, 430.

Daly, Augustin, and Wilton Lackaye, 264.

Damascus, antiquity of, 301.

Dantzig captured by the French, 45.

Darling, Grace, heroism of, 340.

Darrow, Clarence S., on public ownership, 11.

Darwin, Charles, foibles of, 180.

Daskam, Josephine D., 312.

David, Jacques Louis, death of, 258.

Davies, Acton, criticism of Margaret Anglin, 66.

Davis, Sam, 509.

Davy, Sir Humphry, inventions of, 43;
death of, 260.

De Bury, Richard, on books, 281.

Decatur, Stephen, exploit in harbor of Tripoli, 43;
captures the Macedonian, 159;
captured by the British, 161.

Decoration Day, 1868-1906, 250.

Definitions of "A Friend," 70.

Definitions of "Home," 481.

De Kay, Charles, on industrial arts, 100.

Delaroche, Paul, death of, 534.

De Quincy, Thomas, death of, 536.

Descartes, René, celibacy of, 156.

Detroit surrendered to the British, 159.

Diary of an Old Maid, The, 220.

Dickens, Charles, 154, 543; foible of, 180;
relations to Wilkie Collins, 272.

Diet, Dr. Woods Hutchinson on, 289.

Dillon, E.J., on Nicholas II of Russia, 237.

Dingaan's Day, 339.

Dinners That Consisted of Books, 500.

Discovery of Niagara, the, 364.

Disraeli, Benjamin (Lord Beaconsfield), becomes chancellor of the exchequer, 532;
foibles of, 180;
anecdote of, 559.

D'Israeli, Isaac, death of, 432.

Diving-bell, first record of, 183.

Doctors and patients, relation of, 106.

Dodgson, Charles L. (Lewis Carroll), on feeding the mind, 379.

Dog, Senator Vest's eulogy on the, 93.

Donizetti, Gaetano, death of, 432.

Dow, Neal, 395.

Doyle, Sir A. Conan, peculiarities of, 180.

Drake, Sir Francis, celibacy of, 158.

Drake, Joseph Rodman, 466.

Drama, Otis Skinner on the, 293.

Dred Scott decision, 534.

Dresden, battle of, 160.

Dress for All Occasions, 71.

Dress, gorgeous, of old-time courtiers, 525.

Dudley, Bide, 178.

Duluth, Proctor Knott's speech on, 320.

Dumas, Alexandre, the younger, foible of, 180.

Dunbar, Paul Laurence, 305.

Dust, explosions caused by, 323.


E

Earth, age of, 551.

East, William, manufactures first tinted paper, 245.

Eastman, Dr. Charles A., on the American Indians, 385.

Eaton, General, defeats Barbary pirates, 44.

Ector, Sir, to Sir Launcelot, 170.

Edeson, Robert, career of, 373.

Edgeworth, Maria, death of, 433.

Edison, Thomas A., anecdotes of, 79, 270.

Edwards, Elisha J., 13.

Edwards, Henry Sutherland, recollections of, 121.

Eggs, nourishment contained in, 124.

Egypt: End of French campaign in (1801), 42.
Mamelukes, massacre of, 159.
Mehemet Ali, campaign against Turkey, 338.
Ptolemy Philadelphus erects the first lighthouse, 524.

Electricity, studied by Franklin, 82.

Electro-magnet, discovery of, 183.

Elephant, the longevity of, 521.

Elinora, the encounter with natives of Tahiti, 247.

Eliot, Charles W., on William R. Harper, 11;
on the penalties of wealth, 97.

Ellenborough, Lord, anecdote of, 304.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 508.

Emmet, Robert, career of, 43, 125;
speech of vindication, 125.

Empire State Express, the, 181.

England, see Great Britain.

Erie Canal, construction of, 162;
opening of, 258.

Essen, steel industry of, 146.

Etiquette, manual of (1853), 497;
proper dress for various occasions, 71.

Eulogy on the Dog, 93.

Europe, small republics of, 122.

Evening dress, 71.

Everett, Edward, 408.

Express company, first, founded by W.F. Harnden, 505.

Eylau, battle of, 44.

Eytinge, Rose, and Annie Russell, 167.


F

Fagnani, Charles P., on the character of Joseph, 192.

Faraday, Michael, discovers magneto-electric induction, 337.

Fawcett, Henry, career of, 407.

Field, Eugene, 69;
anecdotes of, 80, 304;
tribute to his sister, 235.

Fillmore, Millard, becomes President, 433;
grave of, 489.

Finland ceded to Russia, 46.

Fish, Stuyvesant, on national economy, 190.

Flashes of Royal Repartee, 306.

Flaxman, John, death of, 259.

Flint, Charles R., on Nicholas II of Russia, 237.

Foibles of Literary Men, 180.

Folk, Joseph W., on enforcement of law, 7.

Food as a factor of character, John Spargo on, 106.

Foss, S.W., 48.

Foster, John W., on Chinese civilization, 108.

Fourier, François, death of, 339.

Fowler, Sir Henry, on tariff question, 5.

Fox, Charles James, death of, 44.

France: Algiers, seizure of, 260.
[Pg vi]
France:
Charles X, accession of, 259;
deposition of, 260.
Commerce, destruction of (1803), 43.
Crimean War, 532, 533.
Henry IV, anecdote of, 306.
Josephine, Empress, coronation of, 43;
divorced by Napoleon, 46; death of, 161.
Louis XIII, last words of, 295.
Louis XIV, last words of, 295.
Louis XVIII, coronation of, 160;
death of, 258;
last words of, 296.
Louis Philippe visits America, 549;
accession of, 260;
abdication of, 432.
Marie Louise, death of, 432.
Napoleon I wins battle of Marengo, 41;
executes the Duc d'Enghien, 43;
crowned Emperor of France, 43;
crowned King of Italy, 43;
wins battle of Austerlitz, 44;
wins battle of Jena, 44;
excommunication of, 46;
wins battle of Wagram, 46;
marries Marie Louise, 46;
invades Russia, 159;
arranges Concordat, 160;
loses battle of Leipzig, 160;
abdicates, 160;
returns from Elba, 161;
progress from Elba to Paris, 246;
loses battle of Waterloo, 161;
sent to St. Helena, 161;
death of, 257;
last words of, 296;
body removed to Paris, 340;
anecdote of, 558;
prophecies of, 135;
letter to Josephine, 110;
as an actor, 382;
Ingersoll on, 469.
Napoleon III visits the United States, 550;
imprisoned at Ham, 340;
escapes, 431;
elected president of France, 432;
becomes emperor, 532;
marries Eugénie de Montijo, 532;
last words of, 296;
praised by Eugene Vivier, 121.
Revenues of French kings, 323.
Second Republic, 432.
Trains, speed of, 182.
War with Austria (1859), 535.

Franklin, Benjamin, and his mother, 310;
career of, 81;
philosophy of, 83;
last words of, 295.

Franklin, Sir John, arctic expedition of, 430.

Fresnel, Augustine, death of, 258.

Friedland, battle of, 45.

Friend, definitions of a, 70.

From the Country Press, 261, 424.

From the Lips of Ananias, 88, 270, 328, 395, 484.

Fry, Elizabeth, death of, 431.

Fuller, Thomas, 174.

Fulton, Robert, and his mother, 310;
and Napoleon, 42;
experiments on the Seine, 43;
success with the Clermont, 45;
death of, 161.


G

Galt, John, 363, 364;
death of, 340.

Galveston, commerce of, 119.

Garfield, James A., and his mother, 308;
early life of, 149;
grave of, 490.

Garibaldi, Giuseppe, achievements of, 536.

Gay-Lussac, Joseph Louis, death of, 433.

Gemini, zodiacal sign of, 376.

Genealogy, genuine and fictitious, 471.

General Armstrong, American privateer, at Fayal, 161.

Genoa, siege of, 41;
annexed by France, 43.

Germany:
Berlin captured by Napoleon (1806), 44.
Confederation of the Rhine, formation of, 44.
Holy Roman Empire, dissolution of, 44.
Rebellion of 1848, 432.
Status of women in, 53.
William II, friendship for America, 471;
instructions for care of horses, 198.

Gettysburg, Abraham Lincoln's speech at, 250.

Giant and Pygmy of Bookland, The, 116.

Gibbon, Edward, celibacy of, 158.

Gibbons, James (Cardinal), anecdotes of, 221.

Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, last words of, 295.

Gilbert, W.S., and Richard Mansfield, 64;
anecdote of, 153.

Gilder, Richard Watson, on blindness, 387.

Gillette, William, career of, 168.

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins, as a champion of women, 103.

Gladiators, Spartacus's address to, 520.

Gladstone, William E., maiden speech of, 338;
last words of, 295; anecdote of, 241.

Glass, colored, origin of, 183.

Glory of the Corn, The, 369.

Glycerin, manufacture of, 202.

Godfrey, Thomas, career of, 230.

Goethe, J.W. von, death of, 338;
last words of, 295.

Gold, discovery of, in California, 432;
in Australia, 531;
in Colorado, 535.

Good Manners Fifty Years Ago, 497.

Goodwin, N.C., anecdote of, 153.

Gorky, Maxim, and the Russian revolutionary movement, 386.

Gorman, Arthur Pue, president of National Baseball Association, 441.

Gould, Jay, and Frank J. Sprague, 147.

Goust, republic of, 122.

Grace, William R., career of, 506.

Grant, Ulysses S., grave of, 490.

Grattan, Henry, death of, 163.

Grave, Gay, and Epigrammatic, 30, 152, 221, 304, 415.

Graves of Our Presidents, The, 486.

Great Britain:
Albert, Prince Consort, love-letter of, 109.
Caroline, Queen, death of, 257.
Charles I, love-letter of, 109;
last words of, 295.
Charles II, last words of, 295.
Crimean War, 532, 533.
Edward VII visits America, 550.
Foreign trade of, 5.
George III, insanity of, 42;
death of, 163;
proclamation of, 140;
anecdotes of, 306.
George III Sought Heaven's Aid, 140.
George IV, regency of, 46;
accession of, 163;
death of, 260.
Industrial conditions in, 4.
Military expenses of, 5.
Regency of Prince of Wales (George IV), 46.
Status of women in, 53.
Trafalgar, battle of, 44.
Trains, speed of, 181.
Victoria, birth of, 163;
accession of, 339;
betrothal of, 340;
marriage of, 340;
romance of, 109;
Diamond Jubilee of, 482.
William IV visits the United States, 549;
accession of, 260;
death of, 340.

Great Southwest, The, 117.
[Pg vii]
Great Writers Often Poor Talkers, 317.

Greece:
Capo d'Istria, Giovanni, president, 259;
assassination of, 337.
Culture of the ancient Greeks, 99.
Independence established, 259.
Otto, King of, 337.
Philip of Macedon, anecdotes of, 350
Rebellion against Turkey, 257.
Wit of the ancient Greeks, 350.

Greeley, Horace, 305; last words of, 295.

Gregory XVI, Pope, accession of, 337;
death of, 431.

Grey, Earl, on Canada and the United States, 286.

Grotius, Hugo, precocity of, 392.

Grouchy, Emmanuel de, death of, 432.

Grubauer, Albert, visits Malacca Negritos, 120.

Guillotine, derivation of the word, 514.

Gunter, Archibald C, anecdote of, 241.

Gurney, Sir Charles, builds steam omnibus, 260.

Gutenberg Bible, The, 134.


H

Hackett, James K., career of, 458.

Hadley, Arthur T., on William R. Harper, 11.

Hadley, Herbert S., on corporations and the law, 293.

Hahnemann, Christian S.F., founder of homeopathy, 46;
death of, 430.

Hale, Edward Everett, anecdote of, 79;
estimate of Franklin, 84.

Hale, Nathan, last words of, 295.

Hall, G. Stanley, on coeducation, 9.

Hallam, Henry, death of, 536.

Hamilton, Alexander, death of, 43.

Hamilton, Sir William (British diplomat), death of, 43.

Hamilton, Sir William (Scottish philosopher), death of, 534.

Hammond, Harriette, 312.

Hancock, John, dress of, 513.

Handel, G.F., precocity of, 392.

Hanover, Ernest Augustus, King of, 339.

Hapgood, Norman, on magazine exposures, 292;
on yellow journalism, 101.

Happiness, Chamfort on, 119.

Harnden, William F., career of, 504.

Harper, William R., appreciations of, 10.

Harrison, Benjamin, grave of, 490.

Harrison, William Henry, wins battle of Tippecanoe, 159;
elected President, 340;
death of, 429;
grave of, 488.

Hart, Albert B., on William R. Harper, 10.

Harte, Bret, peculiarities of, 180;
death of, 357.

Harvard University, baseball at, 443.

Harvey, Charles M., 117.

Harvey, G. Upton, on college athletics, 197.

Hastings, Warren, death of, 163.

Hate for Napoleon Turned to Love, 246.

Havelock, Henry, last words of, 295.

Havemeyer, Henry O., and his mother, 310.

Hawaii:
King Kalakaua visits the United States, 551.
Queen Liliuokalani visits the United States, 551.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, foible of, 180.

Haydn, Joseph, unhappy married life of, 314;
death of, 46.

Hayes, Rutherford B., grave of, 490.

Hayti, French driven out of, 43.

Hearn, Lafcadio, letters to H.E. Krehbiel, 289.

Heber, Reginald, death of, 259.

Heenan, John C, marriage to Adah Isaacs Menken, 389.

Hegel, Georg W.F., death of, 337.

Heine, Heinrich, death of, 534.

Hemans, Felicia, death of, 339.

Hemenway, James A., career of, 501.

Henry, Patrick, 393; last words of, 295.

Herbert, Hilary A., on the status of the Confederates, 473.

Herreshoff, John B., success of, 407.

Herrick, Robert, 174, 262.

Herschel, Caroline, death of, 432.

Herschel, Sir William, death of, 257.

Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, foible of, 180.

Hill, James J., on American resources, 3.

Hirsch, Emil G., on the trials of the rich, 193.

Hitchcock, Raymond, career of, 373.

Hoar, George F., anecdote of, 30.

Hobbes, John Oliver, see Craigie.

Hoch, Edward Wallis, career of, 226.

Hodgetts, Brayley, on Nicholas II of Russia, 237.

Hofer, Andreas, execution of, 46.

Hogg, James, death of, 339.

Hohenlinden, battle of, 41.

Holland, separation of, from Belgium, 260.

Holland, George, funeral of, 358.

Holland, John P., on the flight of birds, 107.

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 313;
peculiarities of, 180;
on old age, 32;
last words of, 295.

Holy Roman Empire, dissolution of, 44.

Home, definitions of, 481.

Homeopathy founded by Hahnemann, 46.

Hong-Kong, annexation of, 429.

Hood, Thomas, death of, 431.

Hook, Theodore, 315;
death of, 429.

Hopper, De Wolf, career of, 265.

Horoscope of the Months, A, 85, 187, 282, 376, 468, 560.

Horse-cars, introduction of, 525.

Horses, the German emperor's rules for the care of, 198.

Hough, Emerson, anecdote of, 241.

Houghton, Rev. George H., 358.

House That Jack Built, The, origin of, 519.

How They Got On in the World, 145, 207, 331, 409, 501.

How to Tell a Woman's Age, 133.

How "Yankee Doodle Came to Town," 464.

Hudson River, tunnel under the, 332.

Hugo, Victor, 491;
on woman, 63.

Hull, General William, surrenders Detroit to the British, 159.

Humboldt, Friedrich Alexander von, death of, 536;
last words of, 295.

Humboldt, Wilhelm Karl von, death of, 339.

Humorists, American, 103.

Humphrey, W.B., on the American Indians, 385.

Hungary, rebellion of (1848-1849), 432, 433.

Hunt, Leigh, 94;
love-letter of, 109;
death of, 536.
[Pg viii]
Hunter, Robert, on socialism, 287.

Hunting the Grizzly, 341.

Hutchinson, Dr. Woods, on rational diet, 290.


I

Ibsen, Henrik, reviewed by a Nevada critic, 424.

Ideals, Theodore Parker on, 131.

India:
Burmese Wars, 258.
Hastings, Lord, victories of, 162.
Mahratta War, 43.
Red tape in, 490.
Scinde, annexation of, 430.

Indians, American, civilizing of, 384.

Industrial Arts, American neglect of, 100.

Ingalls, John J., 26.

Ingalls, Rufus, anecdote of, 221.

Ingersoll, E.C., eulogy on, 171.

Ingersoll, Robert G., 404;
eulogy on his brother, 170;
on Napoleon, 469.

In Nature's Wilds, 176.

Insects, sounds made by, 515.

Insurance policies sold by machines, 232.

Interest, increment of various rates of, 50.

Iodin, discovery of, 160.

Ireland:
Famine in (1845), 430.
Irish Parliament, last meeting of, 42.

Irving, Sir Henry, death of, 200.

Irving, Washington, 57;
foible of, 180;
death of, 535.

Italy:
Charles Albert of Sardinia, abdication of, 433.
Victor Emmanuel II, accession of, 433.


J

Jackson, Andrew, and his mother, 307;
takes Pensacola, 161;
wins battle of New Orleans, 161;
inauguration of, 260;
opposes the United States Bank, 338;
death of, 431;
grave of, 488.

Jacobs, Charles M., career of, 331.

Jacquard, Joseph, death of, 339.

Jail cut from solid rock, 327.

James, Edmund J., on China and the United States, 294.

Japan:
Baseball in, 448.
First railroad in, 410.
Optimism of, 6.
Perry's mission to, 532.

Jefferson, Joseph, story told by, 79.

Jefferson, Thomas, and his mother, 307;
inauguration of, 42;
death of, 259;
last words of, 295;
grave of, 487.

Jeffrey, Lord, letter of, 507.

Jeffries, J.J., as an actor, 39.

Jena, battle of, 44.

Jenner, Dr. Richard, death of, 258.

Jerome, Jerome K., on American humorists, 103.

Jerome, William T., on criticisms of the United States Senate, 292.

Jerrold, Douglas, 143;
death of, 534.

Jews, prejudices against, 288.

Johnson, Andrew, grave of, 489.

Johnson, Samuel, and spelling reform, 195.

Joinville, Prince de, visits to the United States, 550.

Jordan, David Starr, career of, 145;
debt to his mother, 310;
on coeducation, 196.

Julian, Emperor, last words of, 295.

July, traditions of, 468.

June, the Month of Battles, 330.

June, traditions of, 376.

Junto Club, founded by Franklin, 82.


K

Kane, Elisha K., arctic expedition of, 532, 533.

Kang Yu Wan on the new spirit in China, 388.

Kant, Immanuel, celibacy of, 157;
death of, 43.

Kean, Edmund, death of, 200, 338.

Keats, John, foible of, 180;
last words of, 295;
death of, 257.

Keene, James R., career of, 210.

Keller, Helen, on the life of the blind, 387;
attainments of, 405.

Keller, Horace Seymour, 415.

Kellogg, Elijah, 520.

Kent, Duke of, in America, 549.

Key, Francis Scott, 421;
death of, 430.

Kinnosuke, Adachi, on Chinese students, 7.

Kipling, Rudyard, 482;
on literature, 380.

Kiser, S.E., 178.

Kitty Fisher's Jig, 465.

Kléber, General, assassination of, 41.

Kleist, Heinrich B.W. von, suicide of, 159.

Knight, Stephen A., on old-time industrial conditions, 378.

Knott, James Proctor, 320.

Knox, William, 27.

Kosciusko, Thaddeus, death of, 162.

Kossuth, Louis, imprisonment of, 339;
leads insurrection in Hungary, 432;
flight of, 433;
visits England and the United States, 531.

Koszta, Martin, controversy in case of, 532.

Kotzebue, August von, assassination of, 163.

Kotzebue, Otto von, death of, 431.

Krehbiel, H.E., correspondence with Lafcadio Hearn, 289.

Krupp, Alfred, career of, 146.

Krupp, Friedrich, career of, 146.


L

Lackaye, Wilton, career of, 263.

Lafayette, Marquis de, visits the United States, 258;
death of, 339.

Laibach, Congress of, 257.

Lake Erie, battle of, 160.

Lamarck, J.B. de, death of, 260.

Lamb, Lady Caroline, death of, 260.

Lamb, Charles, anecdote of, 558;
death of, 339.

Lancaster, A.E., 358.

Landor, Walter Savage, foible of, 180.

Languages, number of, 324.

Lanigan, George T., 141.

Laplace, Pierre Simon de, death of, 259.

Last Words of Famous Men, 295.

Latest Viewpoints of Men Worth While, The, 3, 97, 190, 284, 378, 470.

Latimer, Hugh, last words of, 295.

Laughter of Childhood, The, 404.

Launcelot, Sir, eulogy on, 170.

Lavater, Johann C., death of, 42.

Lawrence, James, last words of, 295;
death of, 160.

Lawrence, Sir Thomas, death of, 260.

Lawson, Thomas W., anecdote of, 559.
[Pg ix]
Lee, Robert E., rebukes sectionalism, 473.

Legendre, Adrien M., death of, 338.

Legion of Honor, founded by Napoleon, 42.

Leigh, Henry S., 174.

Leo, zodiacal sign of, 560.

Leo XII, Pope, death of, 260.

Leopardi, Alessandro, death of, 339.

Leslie, Eliza, 497.

Letters Famous for Brevity, 507.

Lever, Charles, 137.

Lewis and Clark expedition, 43.

Liang Cheng, Sir Chentung, on Chinese awakening, 108.

Light Brigade, the, charge of, 533.

Lighthouse, first, 524.

Lightning, statistics relating to, 324.

Lincoln, Abraham, and his mother, 308;
elected President, 536;
speech at Gettysburg, 250;
grave of, 489;
favorite poem of, 26.

Linguists, famous, 324.

Lion's Gratitude, A, 88.

Liquor dealers' approval of temperance, 476.

Literature, Rudyard Kipling on, 380.

Lithography, origin of, 245.

Little Gems from Webster, 90.

Little Glimpses of the Nineteenth Century, 41, 159, 257, 337, 429, 531.

Little Stories of Big People, 79.

Locke, John, 530.

Locomotive, invention of, 258;
first American, 260;
Elihu Burritt's description of, 518.

Lodge, Henry Cabot, on journalistic exposures, 292.

Lodge, Sir Oliver, on science and the occult, 479.

Longevity of animals, 521;
of birds, 453;
of men in various occupations, 231;
of toads, 124.

Longfellow, Henry W., 165, 455, 485;
foible of, 180;
death of wife of, 164.

Lossing, Benson J., 127.

Louisiana, cession of, 43.

Lounsberry, Charles, 403.

Lovelace, Richard, 319.

Love-Letters of the Great, 109.

Lover, Samuel, 33.

Lowell, James Russell, memorial of, in Westminster Abbey, 370.

Lowell, Jessica H., 243.

Lucy Walker, the, destruction of, 451.

Luncheons and breakfasts, dress for, 73.

Lundy's Lane, battle of, 161.

Luneville, Peace of, 42.

Luxembourg, claimed by Holland and Belgium, 337.

Lynch law, origin of, 228.

Lyte, Henry F., 269.


M

Macadamize, derivation of the word, 514.

Macaulay, Lord, foible of, 180;
death of, 536;
on the future of the United States, 477.

MacCracken, Henry M., on teaching as a profession, 472.

Macdonald, Etienne J.J., death of, 340.

McDonald, John B., career of, 148.

McGovern, Terence, as an actor, 38.

Machinery, increasing use of, 232.

McKinley, William, and his mother, 308;
last words of, 296;
grave of, 490.

Mackintosh, derivation of the word, 514.

Mackintosh, Sir James, death of, 338.

McLellan, Isaac, 242.

McMaster, Guy Humphreys, 434.

Madison, James, elected President, 45;
death of, 339;
grave of, 487.

Maeterlinck, Maurice, criticism of New York, 100.

Magenta, battle of, 535.

Maida, battle of, 44.

Maiook, Indian chief, 367.

Malibran, Marie, death of, 339.

Malory, Sir Thomas, 170.

Malta captured by the English, 42.

Malthus, Thomas R., death of, 339;
"Essay on Population," 43.

Mamelukes, massacre of, 159.

Mammoth Cave, discovery of, 46.

Manin, Daniel, heads insurrection at Venice, 432.

Mann, Horace, death of, 535.

Mansfield, Richard, career of, 64;
on acting, 381.

Mantell, Robert B., career of, 168.

March, traditions of, 86.

Markham, Edwin, and his mother, 310.

Marlowe, Christopher, 318.

Marlowe, Ethel, death of, 200.

Marlowe, Owen, death of, 200.

Marlowe, Virginia, death of, 200.

Marriage, discussion of, 289;
unhappy marriages, 314;
proper age for, 375.

Marryat, Captain Frederick, death of, 432.

Marshall, James W., discovers gold in California, 432.

Marshall, John, death of, 339.

Martin, Edward S., on city life, 105.

Martin, W.A.P., on the awakening of China, 6.

Marvels of Precocity, 392.

Masham, Lord, career of, 207.

Masséna, Marshal, besieged in Genoa, 41;
driven from Portugal by Wellington, 159.

Matches, invention of, 525.

Mathematics, curiosities of, 91.

Mathew, Theobald, temperance crusade of, 340.

May, traditions of, 282.

May-Day, customs of, 205.

Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Felix, death of, 432.

Menken, Adah Isaacs, 389.

Mérimée, Prosper, 417.

Metternich, Prince, death of, 536.

Mexico:
Comonfort, Ignacio, becomes president, 534;
retires, 535.
Iturbide proclaims himself emperor, 257;
death of, 258.
Miramon, Miguel, becomes president, 536.
Santa Anna, Antonio de, establishes republic, 258;
loses battle of San Jacinto, 339;
becomes president, 532;
deposed and exiled, 533.
War with United States (1846-1848), 431, 432.

Mezzofanti, Giuseppe C., linguistic abilities of, 324.

Miles, Nelson A., anecdotes of, 304, 559.

Military Red Tape in India, 490.

Miller, Henry, career of, 167.

Miller, Hugh, death of, 534.

Miller, Joaquin, 357, 416.

Millionaires, richest, list of, 348.
[Pg x]
Milton, John, 405.

Mismated Men of Genius, 314.

Missolonghi, siege of, 258;
captured by Turks, 259.

Mitchell, John, and President Roosevelt, 15, 16.

Money, John D. Rockefeller on, 105;
hidden in strange places, 516.

Monroe, James, becomes President, 162;
re-election of, 163;
death of, 337;
grave of, 487.

Monroe Doctrine, enunciation of, 258.

Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley, 174.

Moody, Dwight L., last words of, 296.

Moore, Sir John, death of, 45.

Moore, Thomas, verses on Robert Emmet and Miss Curran, 125;
death of, 531.

More, Hannah, death of, 338.

Moreau, General Jean V., wins battle of Hohenlinden, 41;
conspires against Napoleon, 43;
death of, 160.

Morgan, Walter V., on blessings of poverty, 97.

Morley, John, on books, 102.

Mormons, migration of, to Utah, 340;
rebellion of (1857), 534.

Morning dress, 71.

Morris, Gouverneur, death of, 162.

Mortality, Voltaire on, 126.

Morton, Levi P., and his mother, 309.

Moscow, burning of, 160.

Mount Vernon, Washington's farm at, 513.

Mourning dress, 73.

Mozart, W.A., precocity of, 392.

Munsey, Frank A., 1, 95.

Murat, Joachim, crowned King of Naples, 45;
two of his sons visit the United States, 550.

Murderers' Bible, The, 134.

Murray, Lindley, death of, 259.

Musicales, dress for, 73.

Musicians, longevity of, 231.


N

Napier, Sir William, death of, 536.

Naples:
Ferdinand II, death of, 536.
Francis II, accession of, 536;
expulsion of, 536.
Murat, Joachim, crowned king of, 45.

Napoleon, see France.

Narodny, on Russian freedom, 386.

Natal proclaimed a British settlement, 430.

National Guard, practical training for, 8.

National Liquor Dealers' Association, address issued by, 476.

Nation's Conscience Fund, The, 223.

Nation's Debt to Mothers, The, 307.

Nature's Wilderness Compasses, 322.

Navarino, battle of, 259.

Negritos of Malacca and Siam, 120.

Negro, future of, 9.

Nelson, Lord, aided by a pin-scratch, 325;
wins battle of Copenhagen, 42;
death of, 44;
last words of, 296.

Neptune, planet, discovery of, 431.

New England, Blue Laws in, 251.

Newman, John Henry, 268.

New Orleans, battle of, 161.

Newton, Sir Isaac, celibacy of, 156.

New York:
City Hall, foundation of, 43.
Maeterlinck's criticism of, 100.

New York Herald, founded by J.G. Bennett, 208.

New York Sun, on pugilists on the stage, 38;
"Yellow Journal" glossary, 151.

New Zealand, Status of women in, 55.

Niagara, discovery of, 364.

Niagara, the June Bride's Paradise, 363.

Nicknames of Our States and Towns, 356.

Niebuhr, Barthold, death of, 337.

Night View of a City, 175.

Nineteenth Century, events of, 41, 159, 257, 337, 429, 531.

Nixon, Lewis, on Nicholas II of Russia, 238;
on future of Russia, 7.

North, Lord, anecdote of, 80.

Northcote, James, death of, 337.

Norway, see Sweden.

Noses as signs of character, 228.

Novara, battle of, 433.

Nutritive value of foods, 326.


O

Ocean travel, humors of, 206.

O'Connell, Daniel, excluded from Parliament, 259;
agitates against the Act of Union, 430;
death of, 432.

Oddities of Biblical Literature, 134.

Oersted, Hans C., death of, 531.

Oglesby, Richard J., 369.

O'Hara, Theodore, 254.

Ohio admitted to the Union, 43.

Oklahoma, population of, 119.

Old age, Oliver Wendell Holmes on, 32.

Old American newspapers, extracts from, 229.

Olden Time Publicity, 296.

Oldest City in the World, The, 301.

Old Maid, Diary of an, 220.

Old May-Day Customs, 205.

Osceola, capture and death of, 340.

Osler, William, philosophy of, 8;
story told by, 80.

Ostwald, Wilhelm, on American colleges, 197.

Other Ways of Saying "Howdy Do?" 428.

Oudinot, Nicholas C., death of, 432.

Our Interest in Westminster Abbey, 370.

Our National Anthem, 421.

Owen, Robert, founds New Harmony, Indiana, 258;
death of, 535.

Owners of the Soil, The, 408.


P

Paderewski, Ignace Jan, precocity of, 392.

Paganini, Nicolo, death of, 340.

Paine, Thomas, 461; death of, 46.

Paley, William, death of, 44.

Palm, Johann, execution of, 44.

Palmer, A.M., and Richard Mansfield, 65.

Palmer, John, death of, 200; last words of, 296.

Palmer, Joseph C., California banker, 124.

Palmerston, Lord, becomes prime minister, 533.

Paradox Proverbs, 199.

Park, Mungo, death of, 44.

Parker, Theodore, on ideals, 131; death of, 536.

Parkhurst, Charles H., and his mother, 310;
on the brotherhood of man, 387.

Parliament, mixed metaphors in, 244.

Part of Chance in Progress, The, 245.

Pascal, Blaise, precocity of, 392.
[Pg xi]
Patrick Henry's Call to Arms, 393.

Patriotism, 377.

Patterson, Elizabeth, marries Jerome Bonaparte, 44, 549.

Patterson, Joseph M., on socialism, 192.

Peabody, Francis G., and the German Kaiser, 471.

Peck, Harry Thurston, 527.

Peel, Sir Robert, death of, 433.

Pellisier, Georges, on women in literature, 104.

Penfield, W.L., on the prevention of war, 475.

Penny postage, introduction of, 340.

Pension system, beginning of, 162.

Percy, Thomas, death of, 159.

Perry, Matthew C., makes treaty with Japan, 532.

Perry, Oliver H., wins battle of Lake Erie, 160.

Personal Character of the Czar, The, 236.

Petronius, Gaius, 527.

Phillips, Wendell, leader of Abolitionist movement, 338.

Philosophy of Trouble-Seeking, The, 253.

Photography, in winter, 49;
origin of, 183.

Piano, evolution of the, 524.

Pierce, Franklin, inauguration of, 532;
grave of, 489.

Pisces, zodiacal sign of, 85.

Pitkin, Albert J., career of, 335.

Pitt, William, last words of, 296;
death of, 44.

Pius VIII, Pope, accession of, 260;
death of, 260.

Pius IX, elected Pope, 431;
flees from Rome, 432;
restored, 433.

Place-Makers' Bible, The, 134.

Pliny, the Younger, 297.

Plutarch, witticisms of, 350.

Plympton, Eben, and Wilton Lackaye, 263.

Poe, Edgar Allan, 17, 164;
career of, 17;
foibles of, 180;
love-letter of, 110;
death of wife of, 164;
on his lost love, 164;
death of, 433;
Poe and R.H. Stoddard, 333.

Poland, rebellion in (1830), 260;
suppressed by Russians, 337.

Polk, James K., death of, 433;
grave of, 488.

Pompeii, destruction of, narrated by Pliny, 297.

Pope, Jessie, 552.

Porter, Jane, death of, 433.

Portugal, regency of Dom Miguel, 338.

Postmasters, curious letters from, 227.

Poverty, advantages of, 253.

Prescott, William H., death of, 535.

President and Little Belt, encounter of, 159.

Presidents of the United States, previous careers of, 517;
graves of, 486.

Price, Joseph, discovers Niagara, 364.

Printers' Bible, The, 134.

Printing-rollers, invention of, 245.

Profession of the Fool, The, 426.

Progress of Women, The, 51.

Prophecies of Bonaparte, The, 135.

Proverbs, inconsistencies of, 199.

Prussia: see also Germany.
Frederick the Great, last words of, 295.
Louise, Queen, death of, 46.

Public life, Joseph G. Cannon on, 474.

Public ownership, C.S. Darrow on, 11.

Pugilism's Invasion of the Drama, 38.

Pullman, George M., career of, 502.

"Punch," a Canadian opinion of, 261;
editors and artists of, 101.

Puns, Theodore Hook on, 315.

Puritans, intolerance of, 251.

Pushkin, Alexander, death of, 339.


Q

Quarantine, first record of, 183.

Quiller-Couch, A.T., anecdote of, 241.


R

Race Suicide, a defense of, 104.

Railroad:
first, in England, 258;
in the United States, 259;
in Canada, 339;
in Japan, 410;
in Brazil, 533.
Empire State Express, the, 181.
Fastest trains of various countries, 181.
Locomotive, invention of, 258;
first American, 260;
Elihu Burritt's description of, 518.
Panama Railroad, opening of, 533.
Sleeping-car, invention of, 502.

Rainsford, Rev. W.S., 107.

Raleigh, Sir Walter, gorgeous costumes of, 525;
last words of, 296.

Randolph, John, of Roanoke, death of, 338.

Reade, Charles, 74.

Red Man Eloquent, The, 427.

Reed, Charles A.L., on "The American Family," 104.

Reed, Thomas B., anecdote of, 222.

Reform Bill, passage of (1832), 338.

Rehan, Ada, in "The Kiss of Blood," 167.

Reich, Dr. Emil, on American women, 284.

Reichstadt, Duke of, death of, 338.

Rejected Books That Won Fame, 136.

Reminiscence, A, 88.

Renan, Ernest, foible of, 180;
dedication of "The Life of Jesus," 234.

Republics, small, in Europe, 122.

Revolver, invented by Samuel Colt, 504.

Ricardo, David, death of, 258.

Richest men, list of one hundred, 348.

Richman, Charles, career of, 67.

Richter, Jean Paul, death of, 258.

Riddle, Byron's, 462; solution of, 463.

Rienzi, Wagner's opera of, 554.

Riley, James Whitcomb, anecdote of, 152.

Roberts, Lord, anecdote of, 558.

Roche, Sir Boyle, "bulls" perpetrated by, 244.

Rockefeller, John D., and his mother, 309;
on making money, 105.

Rockefeller, John D., Jr., on Joseph's corner in corn, 192.

Rogers, H.H., and his mother, 309;
career of, 150.

Rome, ancient, great fortunes of, 231.

Roosevelt, Theodore, 555;
favorite poem of, 26;
anecdote of, 222;
on hunting the grizzly bear, 341;
on military training, 8;
on the United States Supreme Court, 470.

Roosevelt and the Labor-Unions, 13.

Root, Elihu, on Canada and the United States, 286.

Rosin Bible, The, 134.

Rostopchin, Prince, death of, 259.

Rothschild, Mayer Amschel, career of, 335.

Rowland, Helen, 304.

Roxane, Margaret Anglin as, 66.

Royal Visitors in America, 549.

Royle, Edwin Milton, career of, 264.

Rumford, Count (Benjamin Thompson), death of, 161.
[Pg xii]
Russell, Annie, career of, 167.

Russia:
Alexander I, accession of, 42;
death of, 259.
Alexander II, accession of, 533.
Alexis, Grand Duke, visits the United States, 551.
Boris, Grand Duke, visits the United States, 551.
Crimean War, 532, 533.
Duma, proclamation at opening of, 386.
Finland, cession of, 46.
Future of, 7.
Invasion by Napoleon, 159.
Nicholas I, accession of, 258;
death of, 533.
Nicholas II, character of, 236;
proclamation of, 386.
Paul I, murder of, 42.
Polish rebellion suppressed (1831), 337.
Revolutionary movement in, 386.
Serfs, liberation of, in Baltic Provinces, 44.
War with France (1805), 44.
War with France (1807), 44, 45.
War with France (1812), 159.

Ryan, Thomas F., on great fortunes, 194.


S

Sackville, Lord, anecdote of, 559.

Sage, Russell, philosophy of, 11.

St. George's Church, New York, 107.

St. Helena, Napoleon's arrival at, 161.

St. Hilaire, Etienne, death of, 430.

St. Ulrich, toy-making in, 452.

San Jacinto, battle of, 339.

Santa Anna, Antonio de, see Mexico.

Saragossa taken by the French, 46.

Sardou, Victorien, foible of, 180.

"Sartor Resartus," extracts from, 175.

Saxe, John G., 242.

Sayings in Every-Day Use, 78.

Schelling, Joseph, death of, 340.

Schiller, J.C.F., death of, 44.

Schlegel, Karl von, death of, 260.

Schleiermacher, F.E.D., death of, 339.

Schopenhauer, Arthur, death of, 536.

Schubert, Franz, death of, 260.

Schulman, S., on prejudices against the Jews, 288.

Schumann, Robert, death of, 534.

Schurman, Jacob G., on ancient and modern culture, 99;
on William R. Harper, 11.

Schwarzenberg, Prince, death of, 532.

Scinde, annexation of, 430.

Scott, Leroy, 386.

Scott, Sir Walter, 212, 351, 377, 416;
last words of, 296;
death of, 338.

Scott, Winfield, wins victories in Mexico, 431;
last words of, 296.

Scrap Book, The, announcement of, 1;
reception of, 95.

Scudder, John L., on business women, 293.

Sealing-wax, origin of, 183.

Seaman, Owen, editor of "Punch," 101.

Sebastopol, siege of, 533.

Selwyn, Edgar, career of, 539.

Sewing-machine, introduced by Thimonnier, 260.

Shakespeare, William, familiar maxims from, 78;
Bible sentences in plays of, 134;
on woman, 31;
on clothes, 174.

Shaw, George Bernard, on amateur actors, 198.

Shelley, Percy B., death of, 257.

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, death of, 162.

Shibuzawa, Baron, career of, 409;
on conditions in Japan, 6.

Siddons, Sarah, death of, 337.

Sidney, Sir Philip, last words of, 296.

Silver-plating, discovery of, 432.

Simms, W. Gilmore, 48.

Sioux, renaming of the, 386.

Skinner, Otis, on dramatic art, 293.

Sleeping-car, invention of, 502.

Smith, Joseph, founder of Mormonism, 259;
death of, 430.

Smith, Langdon, 184.

Smith, Sydney, death of, 431.

Smithsonian Institution, foundation of, 339, 431.

Smoking, prevalence of, among European monarchs, 230.

Snake stories, 484.

Socialism, William J. Bryan on, 286;
Robert Hunter on, 287.

Solferino, battle of, 535.

Some Deep-Sea Humor, 206.

Some of the Chances of Marriage, 375.

Something New in Magazine Making, 1.

Sonderbund, the, formation and dissolution of, 431.

Southey, Robert, death of, 430.

Southwestern States, growth of, 117.

Spain:
Charles IV, abdication of, 45.
Espartero, regency of, 340.
Eulalia, Princess, visits the United States, 551.
Ferdinand VII held prisoner by Napoleon, 45;
restoration of, 160;
death of, 338.
Isabella II, accession of, 338.
Maria Cristina, expulsion of, 340.
Rebellion of South American colonies, 162.

Spalding, Susan Marr, 87.

Spargo, John, on food as a factor of character, 106.

Sparta, ruined by its women, 285.

Spartacus to the Gladiators at Capua, 520.

Speech on Duluth (Proctor Knott), 320.

Spelling reform, movement for, 195;
Calvin Thomas on, 382.

Spinoza, Baruch de, celibacy of, 156.

Splendor of Niagara, The, 363.

Spohr, Ludwig, death of, 536.

Sprague, Frank J., career of, 147.

Spy who swallowed a bullet, 515.

Staël, Madame de, exiled from France, 43;
death of, 162.

Stanhope, Lady Hester, death of, 340.

Stead, William T., on Nicholas II of Russia, 236.

Steinmetz, Charles P., career of, 333.

Stephenson, George, builds his first locomotive, 160;
death of, 432.

Stephenson, Robert, death of, 536.

Stevens, John, death of, 340.

Stevenson, Robert Louis, anecdote of, 305;
foible of, 180.

Stewart, Dugald, 260.

Stoddard, Richard Henry, career of, 333.

Stoddart, James H., and Richard Mansfield, 65.

Story of Baseball, The, 437.

Story of the Snow Elinora, The, 247.

Stothard, Thomas, death of, 339.
[Pg xiii]
Strenuous life, phrase used by Theodore Roosevelt, 555.

Ströhbeck, chess-playing in, 450.

Sue, Eugene, death of, 534.

Sullivan, John L., as an actor, 38.

Sulu, Sultan of, anecdote of, 221.

Superstitions of the Theater, 28.

Swat, death of Ahkoond of, 141.

Sweden:
Gustavus IV, deposition of, 46.
Gustavus Vasa, precocity of, 392.
Charles XI, vision of, 417.
Charles XIII, accession of, 46.
Charles XIV (Jean Baptiste Bernadotte) becomes crown prince, 46;
accession of, 163;
death of, 430.
Oscar I, accession of, 430.

Swedenborg, Emanuel, celibacy of, 157.

Symbolism of Playing-Cards, The, 556.


T

Tahiti, natives of, slaughtered by crew of the American ship Elinora, 247.

Taiping rebellion in China, 433.

Talavera, battle of, 46.

Talleyrand, Charles M. de, letters of, 507;
death of, 340.

Tasso, Torquato, precocity of, 392.

Taurus, zodiacal sign of, 282.

Tavolara, republic of, 122.

Taylor, Benjamin F., 362.

Taylor, Zachary, becomes President, 433;
grave of, 488.

Teaching, growing popularity of, as a profession, 472.

Telegraph, beginnings of, 183;
Wheatstone's experiments with, 339;
Morse constructs line between Baltimore and Washington, 430;
laying of submarine cable between France and England, 531.

Telephone, invention of, 414.

Temperance approved by National Liquor Dealers' Association, 476.

Templeton, Fay, career of, 68.

Tennyson, Lord, 48, 454;
quotations from, 132.

Texas, independence of, 339;
annexation of, 430;
rapid development of, 118.

Thacher, John, second marriage of, 517.

Thackeray, William M., poem by, 155;
foible of, 180;
anecdote of, 241;
letter to James Fraser, 311.

Thayer, Phineas, 179.

Theater and opera, dress for, 72.

Thierry, Amédée S.D., death of, 534.

Thiers, Louis A., banishment of, 531.

Thomas, Calvin, on simplified spelling, 382.

Thornton, Abraham, trial of, 162.

Thorwaldsen, Albert, death of, 430.

Thumb Bible, The, 134.

Thurlow, Lord, last words of, 296.

Tilden, Samuel Jones, celibacy of, 158.

Time in Which Money Will Double at Several Rates of Interest, 50.

Tippecanoe, battle of, 159.

Toads, longevity of, 124.

To "Fool" His Cows, 88.

Tolstoy, Count Lyof, peculiarities of, 180;
on Nicholas II of Russia, 238.

Tomb of Napoleon, The, 469.

Tombs of the Presidents of the United States, 486.

Toussaint L'Ouverture, revolt of, 42;
death of, 43.

Townsend, Marquis of, anecdote of, 305.

Trade Schools, value of, 98.

Trafalgar, battle of, 44.

Trains, the world's fastest, 181.

Traveling, etiquette of, in 1853, 498.

Treacle Bible, The, 134.

Tributes to Dead Brothers, 170.

Tricks That Words May Be Made to Play, 27.

Trimalchio, banquet of, 527.

Triplicities, the four, 86.

Trolley-car, invention of, 147.

Trombetti, Alfredo, linguistic gifts of, 209.

Tuan Fang, on China and America, 108.

Tuohey, George V., 437.

Turkey:
Loss of Danubian provinces, 260.
Unkiar Skelessi, treaty of, 338.
War with Egypt, 338.
War with Greece, 257, 258, 259.
War with Russia (1828), 259.
War with Russia (1853-1855), 532, 533.

Turkey, discovery of the, 183.

Twain, Mark (Samuel L. Clemens), anecdote of, 30;
definition of a gentleman, 189;
J.K. Jerome's estimate of, 103;
Twain and William Gillette, 168.

Two Sicilies, the, see Naples.

Two Views of Old Age, 32.

Tyler, John, becomes President, 429;
grave of, 488.

Typewriter, the, origin of, 524.

Typewriting, expenditure of force in, 326.


U

Ulm, capture of, by Napoleon, 44.

United States:
Canada, relations with, 286.
Cities, nicknames of, 356.
Embargo on British Goods, 45.
Era of Good Feeling, 162.
Florida ceded to United States by Spain, 163.
Future of, as predicted by Macaulay, 477.
Gadsden Purchase, 532.
Louisiana, acquisition of, 43.
Monroe Doctrine, enunciation of, 258.
Presidents, graves of, 486;
previous careers of, 517.
Revolutionary War, incident of, 515.
Royalties who have visited the United States, 549.
Southwestern States, growth of, 117.
States, nicknames of, 356.
Supreme Court, Theodore Roosevelt on, 470.
Texas, annexation of, 430.
War of 1812, 159, 160, 161.
War with Mexico, 431.

United States Military Academy, foundation of, 43.

United States Naval Academy, foundation of, 430.

University of Wisconsin, foundation of, 531.


V

Vagaries of Mathematics, 91.

Van Buren, Martin, inauguration of, 340;
grave of, 488.

Vane, Henry, last words of, 296.

Vann, Joe, death of, 452.

Vega, Lope de, precocity of, 392.
[Pg xiv]
Venezuela, independence of, recognized by Spain, 431.

Vest, George G., 93.

Vesuvius, eruption of, described by Pliny, 285.

Vignaud, Henry, anecdote of, 152.

Vinegar Bible, The, 134.

Virginia, severe old-time laws of, 252.

Vision of Charles XI, The, 417.

Vivier, Eugene, practical jokes of, 121.

Volta, Alessandro, death of, 259.

Voltaire, François M.A., celibacy of, 157;
peculiarities of, 180;
on mortality, 126.


W

Wagner, Charles, impressions of America, 191.

Wagner, Richard, career of, 554.

Wagram, battle of, 46.

Walcheren, British expedition to, 46.

Walker, William, in Nicaragua, 533, 534.

Wall paper, origin of, 183.

Walpole, Horace, celibacy of, 157;
epigram on Franklin, 83.

Walsh, William, on curiosities of mathematics, 91.

Wanamaker, John, and his mother, 310;
career of, 149.

Ward, Artemus, anecdote of, 152.

Washington, Booker T., on future of the negro, 9.

Washington, George, and his mother, 307;
love-letter of, 110;
weight of, 451;
farm at Mount Vernon, 513;
last words of, 296;
grave of, 486.

Washington, The Real, 89.

Waterloo, battle of, 161.

Waterman, Nixon, 69.

Watt, James, death of, 163.

Waves, height of, 177.

Wealth, Russell Sage on, 12.

Webster, Daniel, speech in reply to Hayne, 260;
speech on Bunker Hill, 283;
gems from speeches of, 90;
last words of, 296;
death of, 532.

Webster, Noah, death of, 430.

Weddings, dress for, 72.

Weights, average at different ages, 123.

Welford, Dallas, career of, 461.

Wellington, Duke of, wins distinction in India, 43;
takes command in Portugal, 45;
wins battle of Talavera, 46;
drives Masséna from Portugal, 159;
captures Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajos, 159;
wins battle of Salamanca, 160;
wins battle of Vittoria, 160;
wins battle of Waterloo, 161;
last words of, 296;
curt letter of, 507;
death of, 532.

Wells, Carolyn, 313.

Wemyss, Earl of, anecdote of, 80.

Wesley, John, last words of, 296.

West, Benjamin, death of, 163.

West, Mrs. George Cornwallis, anecdote of, 559.

Westminster Abbey, American memorials in, 370.

West Point, see United States Military Academy.

When Thackeray Went on Strike, 311.

When the Last Curtain Fell, 200.

When the Patriots Wavered, 436.

When Vesuvius Destroyed Pompeii, 297.

White, Andrew D., on crime in the United States, 287;
on Nicholas II of Russia, 238.

White, Frank Marshall, 236.

White, Joseph Blanco, 456.

White, Matthew, Jr., 64, 166, 263, 371, 457, 537.

White, Stephen V., and his mother, 309.

Whittier, John Greenleaf, celibacy of, 158;
early romance of, 452;
tribute to his sister, 235.

Wilberforce, William, death of, 338.

Wilkie, Sir David, death of, 429.

Will, curious, of Charles Lounsberry, 403.

Willets, Gilson, 307.

Williams, Hattie, career of, 537.

Wilson, Francis, career of, 267.

Wilson, Woodrow, on William R. Harper, 10.

Winslow, B.R., 449.

Winter Photography for Amateurs, 49.

Wire, invention of, 183.

Wit and Cruelty as Allies, 558.

Witherspoon, John, in the Continental Congress, 436.

Wit of the Ancient Greeks, 350.

Woffington, Peg, death of, 200.

Wolcott, Edward O., career of, 148.

Woman, Byron on, 31; Hugo on, 63;
Scott on, 416;
Shakespeare on, 31;
Wordsworth on, 416.

Women in business, 293;
occupations of, 52;
place of, in literature, 103;
time spent before mirror by, 123;
Balzac on women, 346;
Emil Reich on American women, 284.

Wood, Eugene, 201.

Woodruff, Henry, career of, 538.

Wordsworth, William, 416; death of, 433.

World-Famous Bachelors, 156.

World's Fastest Trains, The, 181.

World's Great Operas, The, 554.

World's Richest Hundred, The, 348.

World's Richest Legacy, The, 403.


Y

Yankee, origin of the term, 464.

"Yellow Journal" Glossary, A, 151.

Yellow Journalism, Norman Hapgood on, 101.

Young, Arthur, death of, 163.

Young, Brigham, leader of the Mormons, 430.

Young, Thomas, death of, 260.

Young Men's Christian Association, foundation of, 430.


Z

Zahm, Albert F., experiments in flight, 449.

"Zaza," Mrs. Leslie Carter in, 67.

Ziem, Felix, and Chopin, 79.

Ziska, John, career of, 407.

Zodiacal Signs, The, 86.

Zola, Emile, peculiarities of, 180.

[Pg 1]

THE SCRAP BOOK.

Something New in Magazine Making.

THE SCRAP BOOK will be the most elastic thing that ever happened, in the way of a magazine—elastic enough to carry anything from a tin whistle to a battle-ship. This elasticity is just what we should have in magazine-making, but it is precisely what we do not have and cannot have in the conventional magazine, such, for example, as The Century, Harper's, Munsey's, and McClure's.

A certain standard has grown up for these magazines that gives the editor comparatively little latitude. Custom has decreed that they shall carry nothing but original matter, and that it shall be dignified and tremendously magaziny—so magaziny, in fact, that often it is as juiceless as a dried lemon.

To republish, in successive issues of a magazine of this type, a considerable proportion of the gems of the past, or the best things printed in current publications, or to swing away recklessly from convention in the illustrations and make-up, would be to switch the magazine out of its class and into some other which the public would not accept as standard.

In THE SCRAP BOOK we shall be bounded by no such restrictions, no restrictions of any kind that come within the scope of good journalism. With our average of two hundred pages of reading matter, we shall carry the biggest cargo of real, human-interest reading matter that has ever been carried by any magazine in the wide world.

In size alone it will be from forty to eighty pages larger than the standard magazines, and by reason of the fact that its space is not taken [Pg 2]up by illustrations, and that we use a smaller, though perfectly distinct type, the number of words in THE SCRAP BOOK will be a good deal more than double that contained in these other magazines.

With such a vast amount and such a wide variety of reading, there is something in THE SCRAP BOOK for every human being who knows how to read and cares at all to read. Everything that appeals to the human brain and human heart will come within the compass of THE SCRAP BOOK—fiction, which is the backbone of periodical circulation; biography, review, philosophy, science, art, poetry, wit, humor, pathos, satire, the weird, the mystical—everything that can be classified and everything that cannot be classified. A paragraph, a little bit, a saying, an editorial, a joke, a maxim, an epigram—all these will be comprised in the monthly budget of THE SCRAP BOOK. We are starting off with four good serial stories, and next month another will be added, and then another, so that we can maintain an average of six.

There isn't anything in the world just like THE SCRAP BOOK—nothing, in fact, that compares with it at all. There are review magazines, and small weekly reviews, and there are, or have been, eclectic magazines; but never before has anything been attempted on the scale and magnitude of this magazine. It is an idea on which we have been working for several years, and for which we have been gathering materials. We have bought hundreds and hundreds of scrap books from all over the country, some of them a century old, and are still buying them. From these books we are gathering and classifying an enormous number of gems, and facts and figures, and historical and personal bits that are of rare value.

Furthermore, we have a corps of people ransacking libraries, reading all the current publications, the leading daily papers, and digging out curious and quaint facts and useful facts and figures from reference books, cyclopedias, etc., etc.

This first number is but the beginning of what we have in mind for THE SCRAP BOOK. It is so voluminous in the number of its words, and so varied in its subjects, that in arrangement and matter it necessarily falls short of the perfected magazine at which we are aiming. Our purpose, in a word, is to give more first-rate reading, on a wide variety of subjects, for our great big eighty millions of people than has ever before been presented in any single periodical, and to give this magazine at the people's price—the nimble dime.

FRANK A. MUNSEY.

[Pg 3]

The Latest Viewpoints of Men Worth While

Compiled and edited for The Scrap Book.

THE COMING TEST OF AMERICAN RESOURCES.

James J. Hill, Seeing Trouble Ahead,
Warns His Fellow Countrymen That
There Are Dangers to Be Met.

At last James J. Hill—the silent railroad king of the Northwest, has given us his full and free opinion on the business policy of the United States. Throughout his long career it has been his plan to "say nothing and saw wood." He has been too busy to talk. The man who plunges into a dense wilderness, as he did, and transforms it into four or five prosperous States, has no time to run a public opinion factory.

But recently, while at a gathering of his friends in St. Paul, Mr. Hill unlocked his tongue and spoke out. It was a remarkable address, made by a remarkable man, and the meat of it was as follows:

FREE TRADE IS VITAL TO GREAT BRITAIN.

Sir Henry Fowler Says that an Import
Tax Upon Food Would Be Ruinous
to the English People.

Free Trade, which has been the policy of England for sixty years, is again on trial, and the battle waxes fierce. There is a growing effort to work in the thin wedge of "a moderate tariff, not protective but defensive," but the opposition are fighting it with every weapon in their armory of protest. England to-day is not self-supporting, her rural industries have been declining for years, and the country receives from abroad the far larger quantity of its food and raw material.

Thirty per cent of the people are underfed and on the verge of hunger. Thirty per cent of forty-one millions comes to over twelve millions.[Pg 5]

This significant statement comes from the lips of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, the new English premier, in a speech against the proposal for preferential tariffs with the colonies, at Perth, on June 5, 1903. Three years has not changed the situation for the better.

Winston Churchill, M.P., puts the situation thus:

In 1904, the amount of merchandise brought into the United Kingdom was nearly $2,740,000,000. For thirty years England's imports have been rapidly increasing, while her exports, comparatively speaking, have remained stationary. The situation can be put in a way readily appreciated by Americans if we realize that the entire British Isles are smaller than New Mexico, and yet contain about half as many people as are in the United States.

It is the foreign trade of Great Britain that is claimed to be the salvation of the nation. In 1904 this amounted to over $4,600,000,000, and last year, the figures for which have not yet been published, was the greatest in oversea trade in the history of the nation.

Sir Henry Fowler, a leader of the Liberals, said, in a recent speech:

Dealing with the question of exports and imports, he pointed out:

ENGLAND'S DEFENSES, AND WHAT THEY COST.

It Is Not Military Strength That Makes a
Country Great, Says Lord Avebury,
but the Right Use of Power.

That the burden of armament lies heavy on Europe is well understood. It is not so commonly known that in the last ten years the cost of army and navy has increased much more rapidly in Great Britain than in any country of the Continent. The fact is brought out in the Nineteenth Century by Lord Avebury, who is better known to Americans as Sir John Lubbock. He says:

Lord Avebury's political opponents would argue that the British military expenditures have been exceptional because[Pg 6] the Boer War proved the country unprepared for any great military undertaking, and necessitated elaborate efforts. However, the figures are startling, and give point to Lord Avebury's conclusion:

THE CHEERY OPTIMISM OF LITTLE JAPAN.

A Nippon Statesman Tells How the
Britain of the East Looks Hopefully
to New Horizons.

The Japanese are winning fresh admiration for the cheerful optimism with which they face the perplexing financial conditions following the war. In the Forum for January, Baron Shibuzawa expresses a sentiment general among Japanese statesmen:

THE GREAT AWAKENING OF THE CHINESE GIANT.

Are China's Four Hundred Millions Preparing
Themselves to Turn Against
the Western Nations?

Dr. W.A.P. Martin, who has been identified with China since 1850, and whose least statement about that country is authoritative, gives some interesting and important facts in the World's Work with reference to how the sleeping Chinese giant is awakening. Referring to the work of Chang, Viceroy of central China, Dr. Martin says:

In view of the fact that China's educational system was established more than twenty-five hundred years before Christ, and that up to only a few months ago the official examinations were restricted exclusively to subjects relating to China's literature and history, what Dr. Martin tells us of the rapid growth of schoolhouses is surprising and significant.

Teachers for these Chinese schools are being largely provided by the normal colleges in Japan, which contain over four thousand Chinese students, including both sexes. Such, at least, is the claim of another recent writer upon the Chinese awakening; this time a Japanese, Adachi Kinnosuke.

WE MUST HAVE EQUAL LAWS FOR ALL.

But Every Law Looks Blue to the Man
Who Wants to Break It, Says
Governor Folk, of Missouri.

Governor Joseph W. Folk, who became the most popular man in Missouri because he dared to enforce the laws without fear or favor, until lately has been too busy putting grafters in jail to talk about his work. But in a speech which he made the other day in Boston, he told pretty clearly what he is aiming at. He said:

Governor Folk thinks that King Graft has just about come to the end of his reign:

RUSSIA WILL ADVANCE, SAYS LEWIS NIXON.

With the Birth of Democracy and Industrialism,
a New Day Will Dawn
For the Great Slavonic People.

Lewis Nixon, who has been suggesting plans for the reconstruction of the Russian navy, believes that democracy is the proper medicine for the Czar's distracted country. The people have been dwarfed by despotism, he says, but they are now making wonderful progress in manufacturing and opening up their enormous country. In a recent interview, Mr. Nixon says:

DR. OSLER IN HIS MORE CHEERFUL PHASE.

Some Pet Philosophies of the Famous
Physician Whose View on the Age-Limit
Is Not His Only Idea.

When Dr. William Osler admitted his belief that man is fit for creative intellectual work only up to his fortieth year he gained an undeserved reputation for grimness. The age-limit theory is but one of many that he has formed on various subjects. In his book, "Counsels and Ideals," are many genial expressions of a ripe observation. Here is his advice as to "work":

To counteract "the murmurings and whimperings of men and women over the non-essentials" he advises each of us to "consume his own smoke."

Of the end of life, speaking both as a physician and as a philosopher, he says:

With what strife and pains we come into the world we know not, but it is commonly no easy matter to get out of it, Sir Thomas Browne says; and, having regard to the uncertainties of the last stage of all, the average man will be of Cæsar's opinion, who, when questioned at his last dinner-party as to the most preferable mode of death, replied, "That which is the most sudden."

I have careful records of about five hundred death-beds, studied particularly with reference to the modes of death and the sensations of the dying. The latter alone concern us here. Ninety suffered bodily pain and distress of one sort or another, eleven showed mental apprehension, two positive terror, one expressed spiritual exaltation, one bitter remorse. The great majority gave no sign one way or the other; like their birth, their death was "a sleep and a forgetting." The preacher was right: in this matter man hath no preeminence over the beast—as the one dieth, so dieth the other.

PRACTICAL TRAINING FOR NATIONAL GUARD.

Good Soldiers Must Know How to Shoot
Straight and How to Handle Themselves
in the Field.

A large delegation of members of the Interstate National Guard Association was received by the President on January 22d. He strongly impressed certain practical recommendations in regard to the training of both militia and regular army. Parade-ground marching and tactical maneuvers are, he said, nowhere near as important as training which will make men good soldiers in time of war, and he continued:

THE NEGRO'S CHANCE IN THE SOUTH.

Booker T. Washington, the Negro
Educator, of Tuskegee, Pleads the
Right of His Race to Work.

Speaking of the future of the people of his race, President Booker T. Washington says in the American Illustrated Magazine:

THE DISADVANTAGES OF COEDUCATION.

Mrs. Craigie Declares It Makes Girls
Overbearing and Converts Boys
Into Dandies or Weaklings.

Mrs. Craigie, better known to the literary world as John Oliver Hobbes, is an American woman who has spent many years in England. On her recent visit to her native land she gave her impressions of English life. Her keen observation, deepened and intensified by her life on two continents, and her wide and close association with great thinkers, lend weight to any subject upon which she expresses her opinions. She finds but two objections to coeducation: one is its effect on the boys, and the other on the girls.

Mrs. Craigie's view seems to harmonize with that of Dr. G. Stanley Hall, president of Clark University, and one of America's greatest educators. In discussing higher education in this country, he says it reduces the rate of both marriage and offspring, so that barely three-fourths of our male graduates and only about half of our female graduates marry, and those who do so, marry late and have few children. In an article contributed to Munsey's Magazine, he says:

THE LATE PRESIDENT HARPER AND HIS WORK.

Appreciations of the Man Who Built Up
Out of a Fresh-Water College the
Great University of Chicago.

The proposed monument to the late President William Rainey Harper of the University of Chicago is to take the form of a library building. Thus will be fittingly suggested the practical trend of his life, in which scholarship was joined with utilitarianism. So businesslike were this educator's methods in building up a great university upon the foundation of a provincial college that he was severely criticized for the seeming incongruity between his aims and the means he used. And yet, as the New York Evening Post has said:

President Harper was a man who did things. It is doubtful whether he himself placed the highest importance upon his executive work; it is not unlikely that he would prefer to be remembered as a Hebrew scholar and the author of abstruse commentaries. But a man is not always himself the best judge of the relative values of his own work. Professor Albert Bushnell Hart, writing in the Boston Transcript, thus estimates President Harper's career:

The presidents of several colleges have spoken of him as follows:

THE MEANING OF PUBLIC OWNERSHIP.

A Radical View of a Radical Policy, as
Expressed by a Well-Known
Radical of Chicago.

Publicists are generally agreed as to the meaning of the great changes now progressing in American political sentiment. The country, we are informed, after wrestling successfully with the problems of the accumulation of wealth, is ready to concern itself with the equitable distribution of what has been accumulated. We are growing rich almost too fast. We produce such vast quantities of everything needed by mankind that we hear of "production outrunning consumption."

In this new condition Clarence S. Darrow, the well-known Chicago lawyer and student of economics, sees the explanation of the growth of sentiment favoring public ownership. Writing in the International Quarterly, he takes advanced Radical ground as follows:

GOOD ADVICE, GRATIS, FROM A RICH MAN.

The Characteristic Philosophy of Russell
Sage, the Most Contented Multi-Millionaire
in New York.

Nearly ninety years of age and weighted with scores of millions, Russell Sage is to-day one of the most completely satisfied rich men in the world. This is true, for "he himself has said it, and 'tis greatly to his credit."

Russell Sage is now the oldest of the money-kings of New York. He was born seventeen years before Andrew Carnegie, who threw off the harness of business five years ago. The original John Jacob Astor died at eighty-four, and Commodore Vanderbilt at eighty-two. But Russell Sage still is standing at the tiller of his gold-ballasted craft, as keen and sharp-eyed as he ever was. Of all the famous figures of Wall Street, only Daniel Drew lived to greater years; and Drew lost all his millions before he ended his long career as a speculator.

Mr. Sage is as saving in his opinions[Pg 12] as in his money, and it is seldom that he can be persuaded to make his mind an open book for the general public. But recently he consented to give the New York World the full story of life as he sees it. It is the most complete description of the Sage philosophy that he has ever given to the public. Whatever this advice may be worth to you, it has been worth about a hundred millions to Russell Sage:

[Pg 13]

Roosevelt and the Labor-Unions.

By ELISHA JAY EDWARDS.

An Authoritative Statement of the President's Views Upon the Greatest
Industrial Question of the Day.

An original article written for The Scrap Book.

In the unseasonable heat of Labor Day, 1898, a committee, small in numbers, but somewhat self-conscious and of impressive dignity, ventured to Montauk Point that it might discuss with Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, of the First United States Volunteer Cavalry, the expediency of nominating him on an independent ticket for Governor of New York.

As these perspiring committeemen, who were followed by other politicians, mounted the sand-dunes beyond which lay the camp of the Rough Riders, they saw, silhouetted against a sky whose horizon is the sea, the commander of that historic regiment.

A Commander of Men.

Roosevelt stood before his tent, not heeding the approach of these friends and politicians. With eager eyes, and through a strangely unfamiliar pair of spectacles, of polished steel or nickeled frame, he was watching the movement of his troopers, who were moving over the sandy plain not more than a quarter of a mile distant.

There came from Colonel Roosevelt quick and hearty ejaculations, as if he was so rejoiced at the steady, disciplined marching of his regiment that he could find no better way to express his joy than by fervent expressions of "Good!" or, again, "Well done!"

The hot sun of that unusually heated September week caused a sort of mirage—a quivering, visible movement of the atmosphere arising by reflection from the sand, so that the Rough Riders seemed to be observed as through a glass.

After a few moments of enthusiastic inspection of the distant regiment, Colonel Roosevelt received his visitors cordially, and motioned them to the open tent, which was furnished with the rigorous simplicity of a true campaigner, yet offered abundant hospitality. As his friends were entering the tent, he stopped for a moment, and, turning toward his regiment, said:

"There is perfect order, perfect discipline, and yet every man of that regiment thinks!"

The Golden Rule Paraphrased.

In this comment there is to be discovered President Roosevelt's view of what the wise and beneficial combination of men into labor organizations may ultimately become. Years before, he had reasoned out what he believed to be the true philosophy of the labor-unions. He did not fully accept the familiar motto, "One for all and all for one." Instead, he formulated for himself another, which was after all merely a paraphrase of the golden rule:

"All for all, and every one for the best of which he is capable—the best morally, mentally, and physically."

Roosevelt came into active life at a time when the labor-unions, under sincerely well-meant leadership, were emerging from a period of struggle and disorder. Their dominant idea, as it seemed to many observers, was to use the weapon that is called the strike, and to intensify the power of that weapon by acts of violence. He had just entered Harvard when the anarchy and devastation that accompanied the railroad strikes of the summer of 1877 spread terror throughout the country. He was deeply interested in the progress of that fierce industrial conflict. He felt even[Pg 14] then that men who labored could not be brought to such a condition of desperation that they were willing to use the torch unless they had some sense of unjust treatment. On the other hand, the torch and the shooting and the roll of drums and march of troops most gravely impressed the college student, and led him to give much thought to the question of the labor organizations.

Roosevelt and the Railway Men.

His attention was specially fixed upon the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. He was persistent and insistent in his inquiries of all who could give him information as to the philosophy upon which this body based its organization. He was greatly interested in the personality of Mr. Arthur, and of others who assisted Arthur in the creation of the brotherhood.

Later, when he had become a member of the New York Legislature, he was present at a State convention held in Utica. He was one of a considerable number of delegates and politicians who went from Albany to Utica on a cold and stormy winter afternoon. The train made its way against the winter tempest with some difficulty. When it rolled into the station at Utica, Roosevelt parted for a moment from his associates, and they saw him making his way, with characteristic quick and decisive steps, to the engine. Reaching up, he grasped the hands of the engineer and the fireman, and gave them a hearty word of thanks, in which he conveyed his sense of what they were as men and skilled artisans, and of what they had done that afternoon.

Many have thought that President Roosevelt's custom of shaking hands with the locomotive engineer and the fireman at the end of a journey was of recent adoption, but he began it as long ago as the time when he entered public life. Possibly, and it may be unconsciously to himself, in this kindly courtesy he reflected his sense of the intellectual and economic triumph which characterizes the perfecting of the organization of the Locomotive Engineers.

His Interest In Labor's Battles.

A year before Roosevelt was candidate for mayor of New York, he being then in his twenty-eighth year, there broke out the dangerous agitation that has passed into history as the Missouri Pacific strike. The details of this affair were eagerly sought by Roosevelt. He would stop whatever work he had in hand in order to gather from any one who was well informed not merely the incidents of the strike, but the characteristics of the leader of the strikers, Martin Irons, and of his associates.

At that time, Roosevelt spoke with emphasis in deploring the acts of violence which the greatly inflamed employees committed. He looked upon the destruction of life and of property as not merely criminal in itself, but as sure, if persisted in, to do harm to all labor organizations. But he seemed to be attracted by the skill and energy, the personal force, the power of discipline and of leadership, which had enabled a railway mechanic like Irons to obtain supreme leadership and mastery over many thousands of intelligent American working men.

When Roosevelt was president of the Police Board of New York he was almost as greatly concerned about a strike involving the tailors, garment-cutters, and others whose employment was with the needle, sewing-machine, or shears, as if he himself was of their vocation. The poverty of the strikers had been extreme, their wages being barely sufficient to pay for a loaf of bread and a bit of meat once a week, and for the narrowest and most squalid kind of tenement in which to sleep. He learned that these conditions had been somewhat improved through the formation of the garment-workers into a labor-union. He was greatly interested in one Barondess, a man of crude and yet real force, who had skilfully perfected their organization.

So it was at all times when there were important strikes or agitations that Roosevelt displayed the keenest interest in the individual. The creation of one or another labor-union by some man of original native force of mind was sure to inspire him with a desire to know something of the new leader. He has always seemed to be far more interested in the personality, the temperament, and the intellectual gifts of those who have[Pg 15] emerged from the ranks of working men, and have taken leadership among their fellows, than in the achievements of those who have built railroads, concentrated industrial organizations of vast capital, or mastered the secrets of nature by means of inventive apparatus.

His Belief in Individualism.

In nothing that President Roosevelt has said or done since he entered public life has he so firmly and impressively illustrated his faith in individualism, so to call it, as in his relations to the labor organizations. He looks upon them as no more than a means to an individual end. He has scant patience with those who dream of a grand socialism of labor, with every man standing upon an equality.

The President is in entire sympathy with the efforts of the labor-unions to secure agreement with all employers that eight hours shall constitute a day's work. But he is fearful that any restriction of the amount of labor that a man is permitted to do in one day is an economic blunder. He holds that it runs counter to individuality, and will ultimately prove to impair the fine opportunities for advancement and benefit which wisely managed labor-unions will always have.

President Roosevelt's philosophy of life, of its obligations and its opportunities, is that each individual should develop as perfectly as is possible whatever his native talent may be. To do that, in his view, involves struggle, and struggle always entails leadership. And it has seemed to him that in this process of high development of native gifts the man who is obliged to work for wages, whether he be a skilled artisan or a humble mechanic, must look to his fellows for help. Therefore, inevitably, there have sprung up associations of those who are engaged in the production of like articles.

Roosevelt and the Mine-Workers.

Of all the addresses and writings in which the President has expounded his philosophy of labor, he probably best epitomized his opinions when he delivered his speech to the miners at Wilkes-Barre, last October.

"I strongly believe," he said, "in trade-unions wisely and justly handled, in which the rightful purpose to benefit those connected with them is not accompanied by a desire to do injustice or wrong to others. I believe in the duty of capitalists and wage-workers to try to seek one another out, to understand one another's point of view, and to endeavor to show broad and kindly human sympathy one with the other."

That philosophy is entirely consistent with the President's strong faith in what may be called individualism. In his view, the labor-union serves its chief purpose when it makes possible the highest development of the gifts bestowed upon each individual by his Creator.

With this understanding it is easy to explain the personal interest President Roosevelt has in all of those who are leaders in labor organizations. The energy, the far-reaching understanding, the tact, and the frequent use of somewhat imperious power, all of which were necessary to bring the army of mine-workers into one compact organization, and all of which have been exemplified by John Mitchell, were sure to appeal very strongly to Theodore Roosevelt.

Twice since he became President he has had executive opportunity for showing, not merely by word but in deed, exactly what is his understanding of labor organizations and of their rights and limitations. To this day the world does not accurately measure Roosevelt's action at the time of the portentous struggle between the anthracite coal-miners and their employers. At that crisis, when there was danger of something like civil war, or at least of industrial anarchy and suffering, he seemed to be impelled by precisely the same motives as those that actuated him in bringing about the conference for peace between Russia and Japan. After confidential communication with ex-President Cleveland, who warmly approved his proposed plan, he offered to open the door for a settlement of the desperate struggle between the miners and the mine-owners. As his correspondence with ex-President Cleveland shows, he did not consider, except incidentally, the rights and limitations of the labor organizations on the one hand, or, upon the other, the legal position of those who control capital,[Pg 16] credit, transportation, and mines. He spoke for the much-suffering public. He realized that no other than he could with any prospect of success offer to serve as mediator.

No Respecter of Persons.

When the representatives of capital first met the President, they were under the delusion that he had invited them to meet him because he fully sympathized with the miners' labor organization. But at that first meeting these kings of finance and of transportation and of the mining industry perceived that Roosevelt gloried in his sense of manhood, and that his courtesy to John Mitchell, and his recognition of John Mitchell's leadership, were in no way diminished by the presence of men possessed of immense capital and consequently of great power.

Capital was mistaken, however, in its presumption that Roosevelt was its enemy. It was learned in the course of the several interviews with the President that he had as firm a conviction of the necessity of combinations of capital and credit as he had in the imperative need that those who work with the hand should also combine for common benefit.

In private, President Roosevelt has expressed his unbounded admiration for the courage of that business statesmanship which, within a generation, has so mastered the West as to make its prairies rich in harvests and its population continuous and thriving between the Atlantic and the Pacific. But he has quite as much admiration for the native qualities, and for the stern training and disciplining of those qualities, whereby a coal-miner succeeded in organizing for a common purpose a vast army of men whose toil is hidden from the sunlight, and whose faces are blackened as they come, with lanterns on their caps, from the dismal caverns where they delve.

Mr. George W. Perkins has spoken to his friends of the impression made by the President upon the capitalists whom he met at these interviews in which the way was prepared for a settlement of the anthracite coal strike. Mr. Roosevelt made it clear that he was no respecter of persons by reason of the incidental power any one might possess, but was only a respecter and admirer of manhood.

The second of the executive opportunities came when a demand was made that none but a member of the labor organization should be employed in one of the government departments. The President's reply was emphatic. The government as a government could not, he said, recognize either labor organizations as against an individual or an individual as against a labor organization. At one meeting between Mr. Roosevelt and some of those who were of the labor world, he declared that no combination, whether of capital, or of credit, or any wherein the bond of union is a common kind of labor, can in the long run prosper if it forgets the rights of the individual. He has over and over again inculcated the doctrine of individual right of judgment, deeming that to contain the very spirit of American institutions.

The Enjoyment in Labor.

The President is quoted by his friends as having recently expressed his confident belief that the labor organizations are coming to see the wisdom of the view that the right to exercise individual judgment must not be forgotten or ignored. He has no doubt that ultimately, if wisely and justly handled, they will give the fullest opportunity for the perfection of the individual morally, intellectually, and physically.

The time, he thinks, is not far distant when the sense of individuality may be sufficient to teach the lesson that in every kind of labor the laborer may find enjoyment—the florist and the harvester in the mystery of the growth and coloring of the products of the field, the granite-worker in the tracings of geology, the carpenter in the beauty of geometry and in the fine penciling which nature has left in the native wood. Work undertaken in this spirit is no longer mere mercenary drudgery, but partakes of the inspiration that follows high appeal to the intellectual and moral faculty of the worker.

To give a final summing up of President Roosevelt's view of trade-unions and labor organizations, it may be said that he believes in them because he sees in such combinations the greater opportunity for each individual to develop the best that is in him.[Pg 17]

A Descent Into the Maelström.

BY EDGAR ALLAN POE.

We had now reached the summit of the loftiest crag. For some minutes the old man seemed too much exhausted to speak.

"Not long ago," said he at length, "and I could have guided you on this route as well as the youngest of my sons; but about three years past there happened to me an event such as never happened before to mortal man—or at least such as no man ever survived to tell of—and the six hours of deadly terror which I then endured have broken me up body and soul.

"You suppose me a very old man, but I am not. It took less than a single day to change these hairs from a jetty black to white, to weaken my limbs, and to un-string my nerves so that I tremble at the least exertion and am frightened at a shadow. Do you know I can scarcely look over this little cliff without getting giddy?"

The "little cliff," upon whose edge he had so carelessly thrown himself to rest that the weightier portion of his body hung over it, while he was only kept from falling by the tenure of his elbow on its extreme and slippery edge—this "little cliff" arose, a sheer unobstructed precipice of black shining rock, some fifteen or sixteen hundred feet from the world of crags beneath us.

Nothing would have tempted me to within half a dozen yards of its brink. In truth, so deeply was I excited by the perilous position of my companion that I fell at full length upon the ground, clung to the shrubs around me, and dared not even glance upward at the sky—while I struggled in vain to divest[Pg 18] myself of the idea that the very foundations of the mountain were in danger from the fury of the winds.

It was long before I could reason myself into sufficient courage to sit up and look out into the distance.

"You must get over these fancies," said the guide; "for I have brought you here that you might have the best possible view of the scene of that event I mentioned, and to tell you the whole story with the spot just under your eye.

"We are now," he continued in that particularizing manner which distinguished him—"we are now close upon the Norwegian coast—in the sixty-eighth degree of latitude—in the great province of Nordland—and in the dreary district of Lofoden. The mountain upon whose top we sit is Helseggen, the Cloudy. Now raise yourself up a little higher—hold on to the grass if you feel giddy—so—and look out, beyond the belt of vapor beneath us, into the sea."

I looked dizzily, and beheld a wide expanse of ocean whose waters wore so inky a hue as to bring at once to my mind the Nubian geographer's account of the Mare Tenebrarum. A panorama more deplorably desolate no human imagination can conceive.

To the right and left, as far as the eye could reach, there lay outstretched, like ramparts of the world, lines of horribly black and beetling cliff, whose character of gloom was but the more forcibly illustrated by the surf which reared high up against it its white and ghastly crest, howling and shrieking forever.

Just opposite the promontory upon whose apex we were placed, and at a distance of some five or six miles out at sea, there was visible a small bleak-looking island; or more properly, its position was discernible through the wilderness of surge in which it was enveloped.

About two miles nearer the land arose another of smaller size, hideously craggy and barren, and encompassed at various intervals by a cluster of dark rocks.

The appearance of the ocean in the space between the more distant island and the shore had something very unusual about it. Although at the time so strong a gale was blowing landward that a brig in the remote offing lay to under a double-reefed trysail, and constantly plunged her whole hull out of sight, still there was here nothing like a regular swell, but only a short, quick angry cross-dashing of water in every direction—as well in the teeth of the wind as otherwise. Of foam there was little except in the immediate vicinity of the rocks.

"The island in the distance," resumed the old man, "is called by the Norwegians Vurrgh. The one midway is Moskoe. That a mile to the northward is Ambaaren. Yonder are Islesen, Hotholm, Keildhelm, Suarven, and Buckholm. Farther off—between Moskoe and Vurrgh—are Otterholm, Flimen, Sandflesen, and Stockholm. These are the true names of the places; but why it has been thought necessary to name them at all is more than either you or I can understand. Do you hear anything? Do you see any change in the water?"

We had now been about ten minutes upon the top of Helseggen—to which we had ascended from the interior of Lofoden, so that we had caught no glimpse of the sea until it had burst upon us from the summit. As the old man spoke I became aware of a loud and gradually increasing sound, like the moaning of a vast herd of buffaloes upon an American prairie; and at the same moment I perceived that what seamen term the chopping character of the ocean beneath us was rapidly changing into a current which set to the eastward.

Even while I gazed, this current acquired a monstrous velocity. Each moment added to its speed—to its headlong impetuosity. In five minutes the whole sea, as far as Vurrgh, was lashed into ungovernable fury, but it was between Moskoe and the coast that the main uproar held its sway.

Here the vast bed of the waters, seamed and scarred into a thousand conflicting channels, burst suddenly into frenzied convulsion: heaving, boiling, hissing, gyrating in gigantic and innumerable vortices, and all whirling and plunging on to the eastward with a rapidity which water never elsewhere assumes, except in precipitous descents.

In a few minutes more there came over the scene another radical alteration. The general surface grew somewhat more[Pg 19] smooth, and the whirlpools one by one disappeared, while prodigious streaks of foam became apparent where none had been seen before.

These streaks, at length, spreading out to a great distance and entering into combination, took unto themselves the gyratory motion of the subsided vortices, and seemed to form the germ of another more vast. Suddenly—very suddenly—this assumed a distinct and definite existence, in a circle of more than a mile in diameter.

The edge of the whirl was represented by a broad belt of gleaming spray; but no particle of this slipped into the mouth of the terrific funnel, whose interior, as far as the eye could fathom it, was a smooth, shining, and jet-black wall of water, inclined to the horizon at an angle of some forty-five degrees, speeding dizzily round and round with a swaying and sweltering motion, and sending forth to the winds an appalling voice, half shriek, half roar, such as not even the mighty cataract of Niagara ever lifts up in its agony to heaven.

"This," said I at length to the old man—"this can be nothing else than the great whirlpool of the Maelström."

"So it is sometimes termed," said he. "We Norwegians call it the Moskoe-ström, from the island of Moskoe in the midway."

The ordinary accounts of this vortex had by no means prepared me for what I saw. That of Jonas Ramus, which is perhaps the most circumstantial of any, cannot impart the faintest conception either of the magnificence or of the horror of the scene, or of the wild bewildering sense of the novel which confounds the beholder.

I am not sure from what point of view the writer in question surveyed it, nor at what time; but it could neither have been from the summit of Helseggen, nor during a storm. There are some passages of his description, nevertheless, which may be quoted for their details, although their effect is exceedingly feeble in conveying an impression of the spectacle.

"Between Lofoden and Moskoe," he says, "the depth of the water is between thirty-six and forty fathoms; but on the other side, toward Ver, this depth decreases so as not to afford a convenient passage for a vessel, without the risk of splitting on the rocks, which happens even in the calmest weather.

"When it is flood, the stream runs up the country between Lofoden and Moskoe with a boisterous rapidity; but the roar of its impetuous ebb to the sea is scarce equaled by the loudest and most dreadful cataracts—the noise being heard several leagues off; and the vortices or pits are of such an extent and depth that if a ship comes within its attraction it is inevitably absorbed and carried down to the bottom, and there beat to pieces against the rocks; and when the water relaxes the fragments thereof are thrown up again.

"But these intervals of tranquillity are only at the turn of the ebb and flood, and in calm weather, and last but a quarter of an hour, its violence gradually returning. When the stream is most boisterous, and its fury heightened by a storm, it is dangerous to come within a Norway mile of it.

"Boats, yachts, and ships have been carried away by not guarding against it before they were within its reach. It likewise happens frequently that whales come too near the stream and are overpowered by its violence; and then it is impossible to describe their howlings and bellowings in their fruitless struggles to disengage themselves.

"A bear once, attempting to swim from Lofoden to Moskoe, was caught by the stream and borne down, while he roared terribly, so as to be heard on shore. Large stocks of firs and pine-trees, after being absorbed by the current, rise again broken and torn to such a degree as if bristles grew upon them. This plainly shows the bottom to consist of craggy rocks, among which they are whirled to and fro."

In regard to the depth of the water, I could not see how this could have been ascertained at all in the immediate vicinity of the vortex. The "forty fathoms" must have reference only to portions of the channel close upon the shore either of Moskoe or Lofoden.

The depth in the center of the Moskoe-ström must be unmeasurably greater.... Looking down from this pinnacle upon the howling Phlegethon[Pg 20] below, I could not help smiling at the simplicity with which the honest Jonas Ramus records, as a matter difficult of belief, the anecdotes of the whales and the bears; for it appeared to me a self-evident thing that the largest ships of the line in existence, coming within the influence of that deadly attraction, could resist it as little as a feather the hurricane, and must disappear bodily and at once.

"You have had a good look at the whirl now," said the guide; "and if you will creep round this crag, so as to get in its lee, and deaden the roar of the water, I will tell you a story that will convince you I ought to know something of the Moskoe-ström."

I placed myself as he desired, and he proceeded:

"Myself and my two brothers once owned a schooner-rigged smack of about seventy tons' burden, with which we were in the habit of fishing among the islands beyond Moskoe, nearly to Vurrgh. In all violent eddies at sea there is good fishing, at proper opportunities, if one has only the courage to attempt it; but among the whole of the Lofoden coast-men we three were the only ones who made a regular business of going out to the islands, as I tell you.

"The usual grounds are a great way lower down to the southward. There fish can be got at all hours, without much risk, and therefore these places are preferred. The choice spots over here among the rocks, however, not only yield the finest variety, but in far greater abundance; so that we often got in a single day what the more timid of the craft could not scrape together in a week. In fact, we made it a matter of desperate speculation: the risk of life standing instead of labor, and courage answering for capital.

"We kept the smack in a cove about five miles higher up the coast than this; and it was our practise, in fine weather, to take advantage of the fifteen minutes' slack to push across the main channel of the Moskoe-ström, far above the pool, and then drop down upon anchorage somewhere near Otterholm, or Sandflesen, where the eddies are not so violent as elsewhere. Here we used to remain until nearly time for slack water again, when we weighed and made for home.

"We never set out upon this expedition without a steady side wind for going and coming—one that we felt sure would not fail us before our return; and we seldom made a miscalculation upon this point. Twice, during six years, we were forced to stay all night at anchor, on account of a dead calm, which is a rare thing indeed just about here; and once we had to remain on the grounds nearly a week, starving to death, owing to a gale which blew up shortly after our arrival, and made the channel too boisterous to be thought of.

"Upon this occasion we should have been driven out to sea in spite of everything (for the whirlpools threw us round and round so violently that at length we fouled our anchor and dragged it), if it had not been that we drifted into one of the innumerable cross-currents—here to-day and gone to-morrow—which drove us under the lee of Flimen, where by good luck we brought up.

"I could not tell you the twentieth part of the difficulties we encountered 'on the ground'—it is a bad spot to be in, even in good weather; but we made shift always to run the gantlet of the Moskoe-ström itself without accident, although at times my heart has been in my mouth when we happened to be a minute or so behind or before the slack.

"It is now within a few days of three years since what I am going to tell you occurred. It was on the 10th of July, 18—; a day which the people of this part of the world will never forget, for it was one in which blew the most terrible hurricane that ever came out of the heavens.

"And yet all the morning, and indeed until late in the afternoon, there was a gentle and steady breeze from the southwest, while the sun shone brightly, so that the oldest seaman among us could not have foreseen what was to follow.

"The three of us—my two brothers and myself—had crossed over to the islands about two o'clock p.m., and soon nearly loaded the smack with fine fish; which, we all remarked, were more plenty that day than we had ever known them. It was just seven, by my watch, when we weighed and started for home,[Pg 21] so as to make the worst of the Ström at slack water, which we knew would be at eight.

"We set out with a fresh wind at our starboard quarter, and for some time spanked along at a great rate, never dreaming of danger; for indeed we saw not the slightest reason to apprehend it. All at once we were taken aback by a breeze from over Helseggen. This was most unusual; something that had never happened to us, and I began to feel a little uneasy, without exactly knowing why. We put the boat on the wind, but could make no headway at all for the eddies; and I was upon the point of proposing to return to the anchorage, when, looking astern, we saw the whole horizon covered with a singular copper-colored cloud that rose with the most amazing velocity.

"In the meantime, the breeze that had headed us off fell away; and we were dead becalmed, drifting about in every direction. This state of things, however, did not last long enough to give us time to think about it.

"In less than a minute the storm was upon us; in less than two the sky was entirely overcast; and what with this and the driving spray, it became suddenly so dark that we could not see each other in the smack.

"Such a hurricane as then blew it is folly to attempt to describe. The oldest seaman in Norway never experienced anything like it. We had let our sails go by the run before it cleverly took us; but at the first puff both our masts went by the board as if they had been sawed off—the mainmast taking with it my youngest brother, who had lashed himself to it for safety.

"Our boat was the lightest feather of a thing that ever sat upon water. It had a complete flush deck, with only a small hatch near the bow; and this hatch it had always been our custom to batten down when about to cross the Ström, by way of precaution against chopping seas. But for this circumstance we should have foundered at once; for we lay entirely buried for some moments. How my elder brother escaped destruction I cannot say, for I never had an opportunity of ascertaining. For my part, as soon as I had let the foresail run, I threw myself flat on deck, with my feet against the narrow gunwale of the bow, and with my hands grasping a ring-bolt near the foot of the foremast.

"It was mere instinct that prompted me to do this, which was undoubtedly the very best thing I could have done; for I was too much flurried to think.

"For some moments I was completely deluged, I say; and all this time I held my breath and clung to the bolt. When I could stand it no longer I raised myself upon my knees, still keeping hold with my hands, and thus got my head clear. Presently our little boat gave herself a shake, just as a dog does in coming out of the water, and thus rid herself in some measure of the seas.

"I was now trying to get the better of the stupor that had come over me, and to collect my senses so as to see what was to be done, when I felt somebody grasp my arm. It was my elder brother—and my heart leaped for joy, for I had made sure that he was overboard; but the next moment all this joy was turned into horror—for he put his mouth close to my ear and screamed out the word 'Moskoe-ström!'

"No one will ever know what my feelings were at that moment. I shook from head to foot as if I had the most violent fit of the ague. I knew what he meant by that one word well enough—I knew what he wished to make me understand. With the wind that now drove us on, we were bound for the whirl of the Ström, and nothing could save us!

"You perceive that in crossing the Ström channel we always went a long way up above the whirl, even in the calmest weather, and then had to wait and watch carefully for the slack; but now we were driving right upon the pool itself, and in such a hurricane as this!

"'To be sure,' I thought, 'we shall get there just about the slack—there is some little hope in that'; but in the moment I cursed myself for being so great a fool as to dream of hope at all. I knew very well that we were doomed, had we been ten times a ninety-gun ship.

"By this time the first fury of the tempest had spent itself, or perhaps we did not feel it much as we scudded before it; but at all events the seas, which at first had been kept down by the wind,[Pg 22] and lay flat and frothing, now got up into absolute mountains.

"A singular change, too, had come over the heavens. Around in every direction it was still as black as pitch; but nearly overhead there burst out, all at once, a circular rift of clear sky—as clear as I ever saw, and of a deep bright blue—and through it there blazed forth the full moon with a luster that I never before knew her to wear. She lit up everything about us with the greatest distinctness—but, O God, what a scene it was to light up!

"I now made one or two attempts to speak to my brother; but in some manner which I could not understand, the din had so increased that I could not make him hear a single word, although I screamed at the top of my voice in his ear. Presently he shook his head, looking as pale as death, and held up one of his fingers, as if to say, 'Listen!'

"At first I could not make out what he meant; but soon a hideous thought flashed upon me. I dragged my watch from its fob. It was not going. I glanced at its face by the moonlight, and then burst into tears as I flung it far away into the ocean. It had run down at seven o'clock! We were behind the time of the slack, and the whirl of the Ström was in full fury!

"When a boat is well built, properly trimmed, and not deep laden, the waves in a strong gale, when she is going large, seem always to slip from beneath her—which appears very strange to a landsman; and this is what is called riding, in sea phrase.

"Well, so far we had ridden the swells very cleverly; but presently a gigantic sea happened to take us right under the counter, and bore us with it as it rose—up—up—as if into the sky. I would not have believed that any wave could rise so high.

"And then down we came with a sweep, a slide, and a plunge, that made me feel sick and dizzy, as if I was falling from some lofty mountain-top in a dream. But while we were up I had thrown a quick glance around, and that one glance was all-sufficient. I saw our exact position in an instant. The Moskoe-ström whirlpool was about a quarter of a mile dead ahead, but no more like the every-day Moskoe-ström than the whirl as you now see it is like a mill-race.

"If I had not known where we were, and what we had to expect, I should not have recognized the place at all. As it was, I involuntarily closed my eyes in horror. The lids clenched themselves together as if in a spasm.

"It could not have been more than two minutes afterward until we suddenly felt the waves subside, and were enveloped in foam. The boat made a sharp half-turn to larboard, and then shot off in its new direction like a thunderbolt. At the same moment the roaring noise of the water was completely drowned in a kind of shrill shriek; such a sound as you might imagine given out by the water-pipes of many thousand steam-vessels, letting off their steam all together.

"We were now in the belt of surf that always surrounds the whirl; and I thought, of course, that another moment would plunge us into the abyss—down which we could only see indistinctly on account of the amazing velocity with which we were borne along. The boat did not seem to sink into the water at all, but to skim like an air-bubble upon the surface of the surge.

"Her starboard side was next the whirl, and on the larboard arose the world of ocean we had left. It stood like a huge writhing wall between us and the horizon.

"It may appear strange—but now, when we were in the very jaws of the gulf, I felt more composed than when we were only approaching it. Having made up my mind to hope no more, I got rid of a great deal of that terror which unmanned me at first. I suppose it was despair that strung my nerves.

"It may look like boasting, but what I tell you is the truth: I began to reflect how magnificent a thing it was to die in such a manner, and how foolish it was in me to think of so paltry a consideration as my own individual life, in view of so wonderful a manifestation of God's power.

"I do believe that I blushed with shame when this idea crossed my mind. After a little while I became possessed with the keenest curiosity about the whirl itself. I positively felt a wish to explore[Pg 23] its depths, even at the sacrifice I was going to make; and my principal grief was that I should never be able to tell my old companions on shore about the mysteries I should see.

"These, no doubt, were singular fancies to occupy a man's mind in such extremity—and I have often thought since that the revolutions of the boat around the pool might have rendered me a little light-headed.

"There was another circumstance which tended to restore my self-possession, and this was the cessation of the wind, which could not reach us in our present situation—for as you saw yourself, the belt of surf is considerably lower than the general bed of the ocean, and this latter now towered above us, a high, black, mountainous ridge.

"If you have never been at sea in a heavy gale, you can form no idea of the confusion of mind occasioned by the wind and spray together. They blind, deafen, and strangle you, and take away all power of action or reflection. But we were now, in a great measure, rid of these annoyances; just as death-condemned felons in prison are allowed petty indulgences, forbidden them while their doom is yet uncertain.

"How often we made the circuit of the belt it is impossible to say. We careered round and round for perhaps an hour, flying rather than floating, getting gradually more and more into the middle of the surge, and then nearer and nearer to its horrible inner edge.

"All this time I had never let go of the ring-bolt. My brother was at the stern, holding on to a small empty water cask which had been securely lashed under the coop of the counter, and was the only thing on deck that had not been swept overboard when the gale first took us.

"As we approached the brink of the pit, he let go his hold upon this and made for the ring, from which in the agony of his terror he endeavored to force my hands, as it was not large enough to afford us both a secure grasp. I never felt deeper grief than when I saw him attempt this act, although I knew he was a madman when he did it—a raving maniac through sheer fright.

"I did not care, however, to contest the point with him. I knew it could make no difference whether either of us held on at all; so I let him have the bolt, and went astern to the cask.

"This there was no great difficulty in doing, for the smack flew round steadily enough, and upon an even keel—only swaying to and fro with the immense sweeps and swelters of the whirl. Scarcely had I secured myself in my new position when we gave a wild lurch to starboard and rushed headlong into the abyss. I muttered a hurried prayer to God, and thought all was over.

"As I felt the sickening sweep of the descent, I had instinctively tightened my hold upon the barrel and closed my eyes. For some seconds I dared not open them; while I expected instant destruction and wondered that I was not already in my death-struggles.

"But moment after moment elapsed. I still lived. The sense of falling had ceased; and the motion of the vessel seemed much as it had been before while in the belt of foam, with the exception that she now lay more along. I took courage, and looked once again upon the scene.

"Never shall I forget the sensation of awe, horror, and admiration with which I gazed about me. The boat appeared to be hanging, as if by magic, midway down upon the interior surface of a funnel vast in circumference, prodigious in depth, and whose perfectly smooth sides might have been mistaken for ebony but for the bewildering rapidity with which they spun around, and for the gleaming and ghastly radiance they shot forth as the rays of the full moon, from that circular rift amid the clouds which I have already described, streamed in a flood of golden glory along the black walls and far away down into the inmost recesses of the abyss.

"At first I was too much confused to observe anything accurately. The general burst of terrific grandeur was all that I beheld. When I recovered myself a little, however, my gaze fell instinctively downward. In this direction I was able to obtain an unobstructed view, from the manner in which the smack hung on the inclined surface of the pool.

"She was quite upon an even keel—that[Pg 24] is to say, her deck lay in a plane parallel with that of the water; but this latter sloped at an angle of more than forty-five degrees, so that we seemed to be lying upon our beam ends.

"I could not help observing, nevertheless, that I had scarcely more difficulty in maintaining my hold and footing in this situation than if we had been upon a dead level; and this, I suppose, was owing to the speed at which we revolved.

"The rays of the moon seemed to search the very bottom of the profound gulf; but still I could make out nothing distinctly, on account of a thick mist in which everything there was enveloped, and over which there hung a magnificent rainbow, like that narrow and tottering bridge which Mussulmans say is the only pathway between Time and Eternity.

"This mist, or spray, was no doubt occasioned by the clashing of the great walls of the funnel, as they all met together at the bottom, but the yell that went up to the heavens from out of that mist I dare not attempt to describe.

"Our first slide into the abyss itself, from the belt of foam above, had carried us to a great distance down the slope; but our further descent was by no means proportionate. Round and round we swept; not with any uniform movement, but in dizzying swings and jerks that sent us sometimes only a few hundred yards, sometimes nearly the complete circuit of the whirl. Our progress downward, at each revolution, was slow but very perceptible.

"Looking about me upon the wide waste of liquid ebony on which we were thus borne, I perceived that our boat was not the only object in the embrace of the whirl. Both above and below us were visible fragments of vessels, large masses of building timber and trunks of trees, with many smaller articles, such as pieces of house furniture, broken boxes, barrels, and staves.

"I have already described the unnatural curiosity which had taken the place of my original terrors. It appeared to grow upon me as I drew nearer and nearer to my dreadful doom. I now began to watch, with a strange interest, the numerous things that floated in our company.

"I must have been delirious, for I even sought amusement in speculating upon the relative velocities of their several descents toward the foam below. 'This fir-tree,' I found myself at one time saying, 'will certainly be the next thing that takes the awful plunge and disappears'; and then I was disappointed to find that the wreck of a Dutch merchant ship overtook it and went down before.

"At length, after making several guesses of this nature, and being deceived in all—this fact, the fact of my invariable miscalculation, set me upon a train of reflection that made my limbs again tremble, and my heart beat heavily once more.

"It was not a new terror that thus affected me, but the dawn of a more exciting hope. This hope arose partly from memory, and partly from present observation. I called to mind the great variety of buoyant matter that strewed the coast of Lofoden, having been absorbed and then thrown forth by the Moskoe-ström.

"By far the greater number of the articles were shattered in the most extraordinary way—so chafed and roughened as to have the appearance of being stuck full of splinters; but then I distinctly recollected that there were some of them which were not disfigured at all. Now, I could not account for this difference except by supposing that the roughened fragments were the only ones which had been completely absorbed; that the others had entered the whirl at so late a period of the tide, or from some reason had descended so slowly after entering, that they did not reach the bottom before the turn of the flood came—or of the ebb, as the case might be.

"I conceived it possible, in either instance, that they might be thus whirled up again to the level of the ocean without undergoing the fate of those which had been drawn in more early or absorbed more rapidly. I made also three important observations. The first was, that as a general rule, the larger the bodies were, the more rapid their descent; the second, that between the two masses of equal extent, the one spherical and the other of any other shape, the superiority in speed of descent[Pg 25] was with the sphere; the third, that between two masses of equal size, the one cylindrical, and the other of any other shape, the cylinder was absorbed the more slowly.

"Since my escape I have had several conversations on this subject with an old schoolmaster of the district; and it was from him that I learned the use of the words 'cylinder' and 'sphere.' He explained to me—although I have forgotten the explanation—how what I had observed was in fact the natural consequence of the forms of the floating fragments; and showed me how it happened that a cylinder, swimming in a vortex, offered more resistance to its suction, and was drawn in with greater difficulty, than an equally bulky body of any form whatever.

"There was one startling circumstance which went a great way in enforcing these observations, and rendering me anxious to turn them to account, and this was that at every revolution we passed something like a barrel, or else the yard or the mast of the vessel; while many of those things which had been on our level when I first opened my eyes upon the wonders of the whirlpool, were now high up above us, and seemed to have moved but little from their original station.

"I no longer hesitated what to do. I resolved to lash myself securely to the water cask upon which I now held, to cut it loose from the counter, and to throw myself with it into the water. I attracted my brother's attention by signs, pointed to the floating barrels that came near us, and did everything in my power to make him understand what I was about to do.

"I thought at length that he comprehended my design, but, whether this was the case or not, he shook his head despairingly, and refused to move from his station by the ring-bolt. It was impossible to reach him; the emergency admitted of no delay; and so with a bitter struggle I resigned him to his fate, fastened myself to the cask by means of the lashings which secured it to the counter, and precipitated myself with it into the sea, without another moment's hesitation.

"The result was precisely what I had hoped it might be. As it is myself who now tell you this tale—as you see that I did escape, and as you are already in possession of the mode in which this escape was effected, and must therefore anticipate all that I have further to say, I will bring my story quickly to conclusion.

"It might have been an hour or thereabout after my quitting the smack, when, having descended to a vast distance beneath me, it made three or four wild gyrations in rapid succession, and bearing my loved brother with it, plunged headlong, at once and forever, into the chaos of foam below. The barrel to which I was attached sunk very little farther than half the distance between the bottom of the gulf and the spot at which I leaped overboard, before a great change took place in the character of the whirlpool.

"The slope of the sides of the vast funnel became momently less and less steep. The gyrations of the whirl grew gradually less and less violent. By degrees the froth and the rainbow disappeared, and the bottom of the gulf seemed slowly to uprise. The sky was clear, the winds had gone down, and the full moon was setting radiantly in the west, when I found myself on the surface of the ocean, in full view of the shores of Lofoden, and above the spot where the pool of the Moskoe-ström had been.

"It was the hour of the slack, but the sea still heaved in mountainous waves from the effects of the hurricane. I was borne violently into the channel of the Ström, and in a few minutes was hurried down the coast into the 'grounds' of the fishermen. A boat picked me up—exhausted from fatigue, and (now that the danger was removed) speechless from the memory of its horror.

"Those who drew me on board were my old mates and daily companions, but they knew me no more than they would have known a traveler from the spirit-land. My hair, which had been raven-black the day before, was as white as you see it now. They say too that the whole expression of my countenance had changed. I told them my story; they did not believe it. I now tell it to you; and I can scarcely expect you to put more faith in it than did the merry fishermen of Lofoden."[Pg 26]

FAVORITE POEMS

OF

ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

However practical a man may be—however deeply he may be engrossed in pursuits that would seem to be almost as barren of poetry as a city pavement is of verdure—there is some chord in his heart that the right poet may strike and fill his soul with melody. There is scarcely a man in any walk of life who has not at some time in his life come upon a poem which seemed to voice his own ideals.

In the private office of President Roosevelt, in the White House, hangs, in the handwriting of its author, a poem by the late Senator John J. Ingalls, of Kansas. The title of the poem is "Opportunity." This framed manuscript and a portrait of President Lincoln are the only objects on the walls of the apartment.

In singular contrast with the favorite poem of Theodore Roosevelt is that of Abraham Lincoln—"Oh, Why Should the Spirit of Mortal Be Proud?" by William Knox. Lincoln cut the poem from a newspaper and committed it to memory. Several years later he said to a friend: "I would give a great deal to know who wrote it, but I have never been able to ascertain." Subsequently he learned that the author was Knox, a Scottish poet, who died in 1825.

OPPORTUNITY.

By the late Senator John J. Ingalls.

Oh, Why Should the Spirit of Mortal Be Proud?

BY WILLIAM KNOX.

Superstitions of the Theater.

Nearly Everything That Occurs in the Actor's World Has Some Promise
of Good or Threat of Evil for "the Show" or the Individual.

Compiled and edited for The Scrap Book.

Besides believing in many of the prevailing superstitions the people of the theater have a number which are distinctly their own. In fact, there is hardly anything that occurs in the actor's world that has not some superstitious meaning attached to it, and accidents of the most trivial character are construed by him into good or evil omens.

To the actor, such simple things as the lodging of a drop-curtain or the upsetting of his make-up box, are sure forerunners of bad luck, as likewise is the breaking of a stick of black grease-paint in the performer's hand. If he stubs his toe on making a stage entry, he considers himself irretrievably "hoodooed" for the rest of the evening.

Yellow is an Unlucky Color.

There are certain shades of yellow that are supposed to exert an evil influence when worn in a play. This superstition does not apply to the general dressing of the chorus or stage, but only to an individual costume or part of a garment, such as a tie, vest, or hat.

There is hardly an orchestra leader who would allow a musician to play a yellow clarinet under his direction, believing that if such a thing were to happen the entire orchestra would go wrong.

Nor are yellow costumes the only kind that are supposed to cast an evil spell over their wearer. If, for example, an accident happens to an actor while wearing a certain costume, or if he forget his lines three or four times while he has it on, the misfortune is invariably blamed on the costume.

Certain wigs are considered harbingers of good luck, and actors will often wear one when the part doesn't really require it. Moss hair, which is used by the actors to make beards, mustaches, etc., plays its part in superstition. A certain amount must be used at each performance if the actor would keep in the good graces of the fates.

To use another's liquid glue (a glue used to stick moss hair to the face) is a very good way to invite misfortune. If an actor's shoes squeak while he is making his first entrance, it is a sure sign that he will be well received by the audience.

To kick off his shoes and have them alight on their soles and remain standing upright means good luck to him, but if they fall over, bad luck is to be expected. They will also bring him all kinds of misfortune if placed on a chair in the dressing-room.

If, when an acrobat throws his cuffs on the stage, preparatory to doing his turn, they remain fastened together, all will go well, but if on the other hand they separate, he must look out for squalls.

Cats have always been considered the very best fortune-producing acquisitions a theater can possess, and are welcomed and protected by actor and stage-hand alike. But if a cat runs across the stage during the action of the play, misfortune is sure to follow. Bad luck will also come to those who kick a cat.

Mirrors and Peep-Holes.

The actor goes the layman one better in mirror superstitions. He believes it will bring him bad luck to have another person look into the mirror over his shoulder while he is making up before it.

As much care must be taken by the actor on making his entrances as in the repeating of the lines. Not for their importance as an effect on the audience, but to avoid the "hoodoo" attached to certain entries. For example: To[Pg 29] stumble over anything on making an entrance, the actor firmly believes, will cause him to miss a cue or forget his lines.

If his costume catches on a piece of scenery as he goes on, he must immediately retrace his steps and make a new entrance, or else suffer misfortunes of all sorts during the rest of the performance.

Even the drop-curtain contributes its share of stage superstitions, as nearly every actor and manager believes it is bad luck to look out at the audience from the wrong side of it when it is down. Some say it is the prompt side that casts the evil spell, while others contend that it is the opposite side. The management, not being sure of which side the bad luck is likely to accrue, places a peep-hole directly in the center.

There is another superstition which passed away with the advent of the frame curtain. In those days the curtain was rolled up like a window-shade instead of running up and down in a groove as the modern ones do. In those days for one to sit on the curtain-roller was a sure method of bringing the boss carpenter or property man with a stage brace for the prompt removal of the sitter. To them it was an infallible sign that salaries were not going to be paid.

Vaudeville performers believe it is bad luck to change the costumes in which they first achieved success, and many of them cling to these costumes until they literally fall apart.

The Witches' Song is Side-Stepped.

The older members of the profession have always considered the witches' song in Macbeth to possess the uncanny power of casting evil spells, and the majority of them have strong dislikes to play in the piece. If you but hum this tune in the hearing of an old actor, the chances are that you will lose his friendship.

An actor who has been on the stage long enough to acquaint himself with its superstitions, will not repeat the last lines of a play at rehearsals, nor will he go on the stage where there is a picture of an ostrich displayed if he can help it.

Some actors believe that if they accidentally try the wrong door of an agent's or manager's office when looking for an engagement, their mission will be a failure. It is also considered bad luck to change the position of any piece of furniture or "props" of any description whatever, after the stage has once been set, and before the rise of the curtain.

Whistling is Tabooed.

It is considered by all theatrical people to be the worst luck in the world for any one to whistle in the theater, and there is no offense for which the manager will scold an employee more quickly.

The players are not the only ones in the theater having superstitions. The "front of the house" have their pet ones as well.

In the box-office, if the first purchaser of seats for a new production is an old man or woman, it means to the ticket-seller that the play will have a long run. A young person means the reverse. A torn bank-note means a change of position for the man in the box-office, while a gold certificate, strange to say, is a sign of bad luck.

The usher seating the first patron of the evening fondly imagines that he will be lucky until the end of the performance, but if the first coupon he handles calls for one of the many thirteen seats, he is quite sure that it will bring him bad luck for the rest of the night.

To the usher, a tip from a woman for a program also spells misfortune, and few of the old-timers will accept it. A woman fainting in the theater is sure to bring bad luck to the usher in whose section she is seated. Not to hear the first lines of the play is to invite misfortune, so he believes.

An usher feels sure that if he makes a mistake in seating the first person in his section, it is sure to be quickly followed by two more. The first tip of the season is always briskly rubbed on the trousers-leg and kept in the pocket of the recipient for the rest of the season as a "coaxer." To receive a smile over the footlights from one of the company also brings luck.

[Pg 30]

GRAVE, GAY, AND EPIGRAMMATIC.

PAYING THE PIPER.

By Virginia Woodward Cloud.

The Bookman.

MARK TWAIN'S RESPONSE.

A friend wrote to Mark Twain, asking his opinion on a certain matter, and received no reply. He waited a few days, and wrote again.

His second letter was also ignored. Then he sent a third note, enclosing a sheet of paper and a two-cent stamp.

By return mail he received a postal card, on which was the following: "Paper and stamp received. Please send envelope."—Boston Herald.

WHAT THE AILMENT WAS.

A New England statesman was referring to the dry humor of the late Senator Hoar, when he was reminded of the following:

One day Hoar learned that a friend in Worcester who had been thought to have appendicitis was in reality suffering from acute indigestion.

Whereupon the senator smiled genially. "Really," said he, "that's good news. I rejoice for my friend that the trouble lies in the table of contents rather than in the appendix."—New York Tribune.

THE FARMER'S SYMPATHY.

A large touring automobile containing a man and his wife in a narrow road met a hay wagon fully loaded. The woman declared that the farmer must back out, but her husband contended that she was unreasonable.

"But you can't back the automobile so far," she said, "and I don't intend to move for anybody. He should have seen us."

The husband pointed out that this was impossible, owing to an abrupt turn in the road.

"I don't care," she insisted, "I won't move if we have to stay here all night!"[Pg 31]

The man in the automobile was starting to argue the matter when the farmer, who had been sitting quietly on the hay, interrupted.

"Never mind, sir," he exclaimed, "I'll try to back out. I've got one just like her at home!"—Philadelphia Ledger.

PROVED.

"Your son is a philosophical student, I hear?"

"Yes, I believe he is. I can't understand what he's talking about."—Detroit Free Press.

EQUALITY.

By Matthias Barr.

A FISH STORY.

Brown had returned from a fishing expedition, and, after partaking of a most welcome dinner, was relating some of his fishing experiences.

"Last year," said he, "while fishing for pike, I dropped half a sovereign. I went to the same place this year, and after my line had been cast a few minutes I felt a terrific pull. Eventually I landed a line pike, which had swallowed the hook, and, on cutting it open to release the hook, to my amazement——"

"Ah," said his friends, "you found your half-sovereign?"

"Oh, no," replied Brown, "I found nine shillings and sixpence in silver and threepence in copper."

"Well, what became of the other threepence?" queried his friends.

"I suppose the pike paid to go through the lock with it," answered Brown.—Pearson's Weekly.

BYRON ON WOMAN.

WOMAN'S RETORT.

The mild business man was calmly reading his paper in the crowded trolley-car. In front of him stood a little woman hanging by a strap. Her arm was being slowly torn out of her body, her eyes were flashing at him, but she constrained herself to silence.

Finally, after he had endured it for twenty minutes, he touched her arm, and said:

"Madam, you are standing on my foot."

"Oh, am I?" she savagely retorted. "I thought it was a valise."—Kansas City Independent.

SHAKESPEARE ON WOMAN.

A MAIDEN SPEECH.

Very few persons acquit themselves nobly in their maiden speech. At a wedding feast recently the bridegroom was called upon, as usual, to respond to the given toast.

Blushing to the roots of his hair, he rose to his feet. He intended to imply that he was unprepared for speechmaking, but, unfortunately, placed his hand upon the bride's shoulder, and looked down at her as he stammered out his opening (and concluding) words: "This—er—thing has been thrust upon me."—Tit-Bits.[Pg 32]

TWO VIEWS OF OLD AGE.

By OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

At Twenty He Smiled at the Picture Presented by a Patriarch—At
Three Score and Ten He Told of an Old Man's Dreams.

THE LAST LEAF.

AS SEEN AT SEVENTY.

I was a little over twenty years old when I wrote "The Last Leaf." The world was a garden to me then; it is a churchyard now. And yet those are not bitter or scalding tears that fall from my eyes upon "mossy marbles."

The young who left my side early in my life's journey are still with me in the unchanged freshness and beauty of youth. Those who have long kept company with me live on after their seeming departure, were it only by the mere force of habit; their images are all around me, as if every surface had been a sensitive film that photographed them; their voices echo about me as if they had been recorded on those unforgotten cylinders which bring back to us the tones and accents that have imprinted them as the extinct animals left their tracks on the hardened sand.

The melancholy of old age has a divine tenderness in it, which only the sad experience of life can lend a sad soul.[Pg 33]

The Gridiron.

BY SAMUEL LOVER.

A certain old gentleman in the west of Ireland, whose love of the ridiculous quite equaled his taste for claret and fox-hunting, was wont, upon certain festive occasions, when opportunity offered, to amuse his friends by drawing out one of his servants who was exceedingly fond of what he termed his "thravels," and in whom a good deal of whim, some queer stories, and, perhaps more than all, long and faithful services, had established a right of loquacity.

He was one of those few trusty and privileged domestics, who, if his master unheedingly uttered a rash thing in a fit of passion, would venture to set him right.

If the squire said, "I'll turn that rascal off," my friend Pat would say, "throth you won't, sir"; and Pat was always right, for if any altercation arose upon the subject-matter in hand, he was sure to throw in some good reason, either from former service—general good conduct—or the delinquent's "wife and childher," that always turned the scale.

But I am digressing. On such merry meetings as I have alluded to, the master, after making certain "approaches," as a military man would say, as the preparatory steps in laying siege to some extravaganza of his servant, might, perchance, assail Pat thus:

"By the by, Sir John" (addressing a distinguished guest), "Pat has a very curious story, which something you told me to-day reminds me of. You remember, Pat" (turning to the man, evidently pleased at the notice paid to himself)—"you remember that queer adventure you had in France?"

"Throth I do, sir," grins forth Pat.

"What!" exclaims Sir John, in feigned surprise. "Was Pat ever in France?"

"Indeed he was," cries mine host; and Pat adds, "Ay, and farther, plase your honor."

"I assure you, Sir John," continues mine host, "Pat told me a story once[Pg 34] that surprised me very much, respecting the ignorance of the French."

"Indeed!" said the baronet. "Really, I always supposed the French to be a most accomplished people."

"Throth, then, they're not, sir," interrupts Pat.

"Oh, by no means," adds mine host, shaking his head emphatically.

"I believe, Pat, 'twas when you were crossing the Atlantic?" says the master, turning to Pat with a seductive air, and leading into the "full and true account"—(for Pat had thought fit to visit North Amerikay, for "a raison he had," in the autumn of the year ninety-eight).

"Yes, sir," says Pat, "the broad Atlantic," a favorite phrase of his, which he gave with a brogue as broad almost as the Atlantic itself.

"It was the time I was lost in crassin' the broad Atlantic, comin' home," began Pat, decoyed into the recital; "whin the winds began to blow, and the sae to rowl, that you'd think the Colleen Dhas (that was her name) would not have a mast left.

"Well, sure enough, the masts went by the board, at last, and the pumps was choaked (divil choak them for that same), and av coorse the wather gained an us, and throth, to be filled with water is neither good for man nor baste; and she was sinkin' fast, settlin' down, as the sailors calls it, and faith I never was good at settlin' down in my life, and I liked it then less nor ever. Accordingly we prepared for the worst, and put out the boat, and got a sack o' bishkits, and a cashk o' pork, and a kag o' wather, and a thrifle o' rum aboord, and any other little mathers we could think iv in the mortal hurry we wor in—and, faith, there was no time to be lost, for my darlint, the Colleen Dhas, went down like a lump o' lead, afore we wor many sthrokes o' the oar away from her.

"Well, we dhrifted away all that night, and next mornin' we put up a blanket an the ind av a pole as well as we could, and thin we sailed illigant, for we dar'n't show a stitch o' canvas the night before, bekase it was blowin' like bloody murther, savin' your presence, and sure it's the wondher of the world we worn't swallyed alive by the ragin' sae.

"Well, away we wint for more nor a week, and nothin' before our two good-looking eyes but the canophy iv heaven, and the wide ocean—the broad Atlantic—not a thing was to be seen but the sae and the sky; and though the sae and the sky is mighty purty things in themselves, throth they're no great things whin you've nothin' else to look at for a week together—and the barest rock in the world, so it was land, would be more welkim.

"And then, sure enough, throth, our provisions began to run low, the bishkits, and the wather, and the rum—throth that was gone first of all—God help uz!—and oh! it was thin that starvation began to stare us in the face. 'Oh, murther, murther, captain, darlint,' says I, 'I wish we could see land anywhere,' says I.

"'More power to your elbow, Paddy, my boy,' says he, 'for sitch a good wish, and, throth, it's myself wishes the same.'

"'Oh,' says I, 'that it may plaze you, sweet queen in heaven—supposing it was ony a dissolute island,' says I, 'inhabited wid Turks, sure they wouldn't be such bad Christhans as to refuse uz a bit and a sup.'

"'Whisht, whisht, Paddy,' says the captain; 'don't be talkin' bad of any one,' says he; 'you don't know how soon you may want a good word put in for yourself, if you should be called to quarthers in th' other world all of a suddent,' says he.

"'Thrue for you, captain, darlint,' says I—I called him darlint, and made free wid him, you see, bekase disthress makes uz all equal—'thrue for you, captain, jewel—God betune uz and harm, I owe no man any spite'—and, throth, that was only thruth.

"Well, the last bishkit was sarved out, and, by gor, the wather itself was all gone at last, and we passed the night mighty cowld. Well, at the brake o' day the sun riz most beautiful out o' the waves, that was as bright as silver and as clear as cryshtal.

"But it was only the more crule upon uz, for we wor beginnin' to feel terrible hungry; when all at wanst I thought I spied the land—by gor, I thought I felt my heart up in my throat in a minnit,[Pg 35] and 'Thundher and turf, captain,' says I, 'look to leeward,' says I.

"'What for?' says he.

"'I think I see the land,' says I. So he ups with his bring-'um-near—(that's what the sailors call a spy-glass, sir), and looks out, and, sure enough, it was.

"'Hurrah!' says he, 'we're all right now; pull away, my boys,' says he.

"'Take care you're not mistaken,' says I; 'maybe it's only a fog-bank, captain, darlint,' says I.

"'Oh, no,' says he, 'it's the land in airnest.'

"'Oh, then, whereabouts in the wide world are we, captain?' says I; 'maybe it id be in Roosia or Proosia, or the Garman Oceant,' says I.

"'Tut, you fool,' says he—for he had that consaited way wid him—thinkin' himself cleverer nor any one else—'tut, you fool,' says he; 'that's France,' says he.

"'Tare an ouns,' says I, 'do you tell me so? And how do you know it's France it is, captain, dear,' says I.

"'Bekase this is the Bay o' Bishky we're in now,' says he.

"'Throth, I was thinkin' so myself,' says I, 'by the rowl it has; for I often heerd av it in regard o' that same;' and, throth, the likes av it I never seen before nor since, and, with the help o' God, never will.

"Well, with that my heart begun to grow light, and when I seen my life was safe, I began to grow twice hungrier nor ever—so says I, 'Captain, jewel, I wish we had a gridiron.'

"'Why, then,' says he, 'thundher and turf,' says he, 'what put a gridiron into your head?'

"'Bekase I'm starvin' with the hunger,' says I.

"'And sure, bad luck to you,' says he, 'you couldn't ate a gridiron,' says he, 'barrin' you wor a pelican o' the wildherness,' says he.

"'Ate a gridiron!' says I. 'Och, in throth, I'm not such a gommoch all out as that, anyhow. But sure if we had a gridiron we could dress a beefsteak,' says I.

"'Arrah! but where's the beefsteak?' says he.

"'Sure, couldn't we cut a slice aff the pork?' says I.

"'By gor, I never thought o' that,' says the captain. 'You're a clever fellow, Paddy,' says he, laughin'.

"'Oh, there's many a thrue word said in joke,' says I.

"'Thrue for you, Paddy,' says he.

"'Well, then,' says I, 'if you put me ashore there beyant' (for we were nearin' the land all the time), 'and sure I can ask thim for to lind me the loan of a gridiron,' says I.

"'Oh, by gor, the butther's comin' out o' the stirabout in airnest, now,' says he. 'You gommoch,' says he, 'sure I towld you before that's France—and sure they're all furriners there,' says the captain.

"'Well,' says I, 'and how do you know but I'm as good a furriner myself as any o' thim?'

"'What do you mane?' says he.

"'I mane,' says I, 'what I towld you, that I'm as good a furriner myself as any o' thim.'

"'Make me sinsible,' says he.

"'By dad, maybe that's more nor me, or greater nor me, could do,' says I; and we all began to laugh at him, for I thought I'd pay him off for his bit o' consait about the Garman Oceant.

"'Lave aff your humbuggin',' says he, 'I bid you, and tell me what it is you mane at all at all.'

"'Parly-voo frongsay?' says I.

"'Oh, your humble sarvant,' says he. 'Why, by gor, you're a scholar, Paddy.'

"'Throth, you may say that,' says I.

"'Why, you're a clever fellow, Paddy,' says the captain, jeerin' like.

"'You're not the first that said that,' says I, 'whether you joke or no.'

"'Oh, but I'm in airnest,' says the captain. 'And do you tell me, Paddy,' says he, 'that you spake Frinch?'

"'Parly-voo frongsay?' says I.

"'By gor, that bangs Banagher, and all the world knows Banagher bangs the devil. I never met the likes o' you, Paddy,' says he. 'Pull away, boys, and put Paddy ashore, and maybe we won't get a good bellyfull before long.'

"So with that, it was no sooner said nor done—they pulled away and got close into shore in less than no time, and run the boat up in a little creek; and a beautiful creek it was, with a lovely white sthrand, an illigant place for ladies[Pg 36] to bathe in the summer; and out I got, and it's stiff enough in my limbs I was afther bein' cramped up in the boat, and perished with the cowld and hunger; but I conthrived to scramble an, one way or the other, towards a little bit iv a wood that was close to the shore, and the smoke curlin' out of it, quite timpting like.

"'By the powdhers o' war, I'm all right,' says I; 'there's a house there'—and sure enough there was, and a parcel of men, women, and childher, ating their dinner round a table quite convainent. And so I wint up to the dure, and I thought I'd be very civil to thim, as I heerd the Frinch was always mighty p'lite intirely—and I thought I'd show them I knew what good manners was.

"So I took off my hat, and making a low bow, says I, 'God save all here,' says I.

"Well, to be sure, they all stopt ating at wanst, and begun to stare at me, and faith they almost looked me out of countenance—and I thought to myself it was not good manners at all—more be token from furriners, which they call so mighty p'lite; but I never minded that, in regard of wantin' the gridiron; and so says I, 'I beg your pardon,' says I, 'for the liberty I take, but it's only bein' in disthress in regard of ating,' says I, 'that I make bowld to throuble yez, and if you could lind me the loan of a gridiron,' says I, 'I'd be intirely obleeged to ye.'

"By gor, they all stared at me twice worse nor before, and with that, says I (knowing what was in their minds), 'Indeed it's thrue for you,' says I; 'I'm tathered to pieces, and God knows I look quare enough, but it's by raison of the storm,' says I, 'which dhruv us ashore here below, and we're all starvin',' says I.

"So then they began to look at each other agin, and myself, seeing at wanst dirty thoughts was in their heads, and that they tuk me for a poor beggar comin' to crave charity—with that, says I, 'Oh! not at all,' says I, 'by no manes; we have plenty o' mate ourselves, there below, and we'll dhress it,' says I, 'if you would be plased to lind us the loan of a gridiron,' says I, makin' a low bow.

"Well, sir, with that, throth, they stared at me twice worse nor ever, and faith I began to think that maybe the captain was wrong, and that it was not France at all at all—and so says I—'I beg pardon, sir,' says I, to a fine ould man, with a head of hair as white as silver—'maybe I'm undher a mistake,' says I, 'but I thought I was in France, sir; aren't you furriners?' says I—'Parly-voo frongsay?'

"'We, munseer,' says he.

"'Then would you lind me the loan of a gridiron,' says I, 'if you plase?'

"Oh, it was thin that they stared at me as if I had siven heads; and faith myself began to feel flusthered like, and onaisy—and so, says I, making a bow and scrape agin, 'I know it's a liberty I take, sir,' says I, 'but it's only in the regard of bein' cast away, and if you plase, sir,' says I, 'Parly-voo frongsay?'

"'We, munseer,' says he, mighty sharp.

"'Then would you lind me the loan of a gridiron?' says I, 'and you'll obleege me.'

"Well, sir, the old chap begun to munseer me, but the divil a bit of a gridiron he'd gie me; and so I began to think they were all neygars, for all their fine manners; and, throth, my blood began to rise, and says I, 'By my sowl, if it was you was in disthress,' says I, 'and if it was to ould Ireland you kem, it's not only the gridiron they'd give you if you ax'd it, but something to put an it too, and a dhrop of dhrink into the bargain, and cead mille failte.'

"Well, the word cead mille failte seemed to stchreck his heart, and the ould chap cocked his ear, and so I thought I'd give him another offer, and make him sinsible at last; and so says I, wanst more, quite slow, that he might undherstand—'Parly—voo—frongsay, munseer?'

"'We, munseer,' says he.

"'Then lind me the loan of a gridiron,' says I, 'and bad scran to you.'

"Well, bad win' to the bit of it he'd gi' me, and the ould chap begins bowin' and scrapin', and said something or other about a long tongs.

"'Phoo!—the devil sweep yourself and tongs,' says I, 'I don't want a tongs at all at all; but can't you listen to raison,' says I—'Parly-voo frongsay?'

"We, munseer.'[Pg 37]

"'Then lind me the loan of a gridiron,' says I, 'and howld your prate.'

"Well, what would you think but he shook his owld noddle, as much as to say he wouldn't; and so says I, 'Bad cess to the likes o' that I ever seen—throth if you were in my country, it's not that-a-way they'd use you; the curse o' the crows on you, you ould sinner,' says I; 'the divil a longer I'll darken your dure.'

"So he seen I was vexed, and I thought, as I was turnin' away, I seen him begin to relint, and that his conscience throubled him; and says I, turnin' back, 'Well, I'll give you one chance more—you owld thief—are you a Chrishthan at all at all?—are you a furriner,' says I, 'that all the world calls so p'lite? Bad luck to you, do you undherstand your own language?—Parly-voo frongsay?' says I.

"'We, munseer,' says he.

"'Then, thundher and turf,' says I, 'will you lind me the loan of a gridiron?'

"Well, sir, the divil resave the bit of it he'd gi' me—and so with that, 'The curse o' the hungry on you, you owld negardly villain,' says I; 'the back o' my hand and the sowl o' my foot to you; that you may want a gridiron yourself yet,' says I; 'and wherever I go, high and low, rich and poor, shall hear o' you,' says I; and with that I lift them there, sir, and kem away—and in throth it's often since that I thought that it was remarkable."

TRICKS THAT WORDS MAY BE MADE TO PLAY.

Odd Jobs for Unemployed Minds in the Arrangement of Freak Sentences.

When Polonius, addressing Hamlet, asked, "What do you read, my lord?" and Hamlet answered, "Words, words, words," Polonius didn't pursue that particular line of inquiry any farther. If he had, Hamlet might have given him a vast deal of interesting information.

Words sometimes have a trick of expressing more than is intended by those who write or utter them. They have strange customs, too, and of these the man who interrupted Hamlet doubtless had much to learn.

For instance, Polonius might have asked:

And Hamlet might have replied:

This reminds us of the following "says" and "saids":

The following is an example of that form of humor which is known as "word-twisting":

Idle minds which conscientiously seek employment are willing to take almost any odd job that comes along. Some have devoted a few hours to the formation of sentences in which each word begins and ends with the same letter. Here are a couple of samples:

Pugilism's Invasion of the Drama.

A Characteristic Article from the New York "Sun" Affords a Striking
Example of the Sort of "Higher Criticism" That Is Now In Order.

The appearance of a former pugilist as a star in a Broadway theater, which for many years was the greatest temple of the Shakespearean drama in the United States, has given a serious jolt to a large number of playgoers who are loath to free themselves from the influences of old traditions.

The relations of ring and stage have been becoming more and more close in recent years, and have constituted a favorite theme for newspaper discussion. It is doubtful, however, whether it would be possible to find a better review of the situation than the following characteristic essay in dramatic criticism which appeared in the New York Sun:

Sacrificed Ring to the Drama.

Since the time when, in "The Naval Cadet," Mr. Corbett took the American Theater by storm, his art has broadened and deepened. It is an older, a more mature, dare it be said a shiftier, Corbett who returns to us. So often of late has the assertion been made that Mr. Corbett is the best actor in the pugilist division of the stage that it is time for a comparison between his art and that of those other eminent gentlemen who have left the ring for the everlasting good of the drama, Messrs. John Lawrence Sullivan, Terence McGovern, James E. Britt, and J. John Jeffries.

It is true that any comparison between the art of these five eminent artists must be superficial, and to a certain extent banal, owing to the diversity of the dramas by which they have seen fit to show forth their talents.

The stanch art, honest and straightforward as a right swing, of "Honest Hearts and Willing Hands," is not to be compared to the romantic yet often superficial "Bowery After Dark," which Mr. Terence McGovern has so ably interpreted, and neither can be compared exactly with the jarring right-cross force of Mr. Jeffries's "Davy Crockett."

As those who observe Mr. Corbett practising his now abandoned profession of pugilism have remarked, he is characteristically lacking in repose of manner. In this, he is distinctly inferior to Mr. J. Lawrence Sullivan. John L.—on the stage—was all repose. Alas for that word was! How those lines, so simply yet so earnestly spoken, ring yet in the ears of old playgoers:

"To hell with the man that strikes a woman!" [Biff!]

In the more delicate and lightsome passages, Corbett's admirers declare he shines supreme; yet, after all, is he as funny as Terry McGovern? Take his delivery of these lines when he is rebuked by the sub-heroine for using too much slang:

"Oh, I'm onto the slang all right, and I'm going to cut it out!"

When the "Blocks" Went Off.

Mr. Corbett's delivery of these lines is certainly humorous, more humorous than he knows; yet has it the genuine comic force of the acting of James Edward[Pg 39] Britt, an artist little known to the stage of the Atlantic coast, when, in his drama, "Jimmie Britt the Frisco Boy," he conquers the comic Chinaman in a burlesque boxing bout by slapping him with the end of his pig-tail?

There is considerable dramatic force in Mr. Corbett's delivery of the lines:

"There's my hand, Ned. If you can take it honestly, here goes—if not, you are no pal of mine!"

Yet, after all, would it not be better if, instead of standing on guard when he delivered them, he accompanied them with a side step and a right shift on the solar plexus, as does Terence McGovern when he delivers that famous climax:

"Unhand her, or I'll knock your block off—see?" [Bing!]

Or by a clinch followed by a short-arm jolt and an uppercut, as does Mr. J. John Jeffries in that most intense of all climaxes in the pugilistic drama:

"Carry the woman away? Not while Davy Crockett has a punch up his sleeve!" [Slap! Thud!]

Conscientious and Two-Handed.

To summarize, therefore, Mr. Sullivan was a conscientious, two-handed actor with a great punch; Mr. Terence McGovern and Mr. J. Edward Britt have a clear delivery and a great straight left; Mr. Robert Fitzsimmons—an artist for whose peculiar intensity there has been no room in this brief and necessarily superficial summary—an awkward stage presence, but a fine short-arm jab that has been known to put the villain to sleep six times in one act; Mr. Jeffries, a left hook to the body which always brings home the money, and Mr. Corbett, a comic intensity and great foot work.

A word about the drama which Mr. Corbett had chosen last season. The author of "Pals" violated all conventionalities by failing to have the hero meet the unknown in the last act. He has, however, done one great service to the drama and to an eminent university. Never before has the atmosphere of Harvard been caught for the stage. The first act of "Pals" takes place at Harvard, and presents a haunting picture of college life. From it we learn that the following are characteristic features of life in the great center of learning at Cambridge:

Solar Plexus for College Etiquette.

The 'varsity football captain and the champion hammer-thrower, who are described as the most popular men in college, and so rich that they can't count it, live in a boarding-house, in which the landlady's daughter dusts off the champagne bottles which they keep on the sideboard and is sought as wife by the star boarders.

When the "lady friends" of the inmates come to visit the rooms they go in to dinner arm in arm with the landlady's daughter.

After the 'varsity game with Yale, in which Harvard has scored a great victory, the 'varsity football captain comes back to the boarding-house for dinner, remarking mildly that he is tired, and, after dusting off the sleeves of his jersey, goes in to dinner with the ladies in his football suit.

The freshmen sports wear silk hats and sack suits to the annual Yale-Harvard game.

These shadowings of dear old college scenes brought tears to the eyes of the many Harvard alumni who made part of the brilliant first night assemblage.

Jeffries's Dramatic Recitals.

For weeks Jersey City had looked forward with a pleasurable thrill to the appearance of that eminent artist, J. John Jeffries, in his series of dramatic recitals. The pleasure had not been without a tinge of jealous triumph totally unbefitting the social season; for Jersey City, that modest home of the arts, was the first community on the Atlantic coast to extend to Mr. Jeffries in "Davy Crockett" the welcome which must have been as new wine to the true artist he is.

To what end will not managers go in their sordid and squalid zeal for advertising? Evidences of this tendency flamed on every hoarding in Jersey City; flaunted themselves on every fence. For the managers and press representatives had been attempting to create a false and fatuous interest in this eminent artist by advertising him as champion pugilist of the world.[Pg 40]

What does it matter to their art that Forbes Robertson loves canaries, that Edwin Booth was fond of waffles? What does it matter how Mr. Jeffries amuses himself in his leisure hours? Yet in the large and fashionable audience which assembled at the Bijou Theater there were evidently many persons who were drawn by no other motive than a curiosity to see the champion pugilist of the world.

These made their presence felt by ejaculating in Mr. Jeffries's tender yet stalwart love passages:

"Uppercut her, Jim!" Or by crying out at that supreme moment when Mr. Jeffries defied the villain:

"Soak him, kid! Soak him!"

It may be said in defense of Jersey City that not all of this was due to the blindness of her citizens toward great art. Some of it may be laid to the incompetence of the Bijou bouncer.

"Davy Crockett," which this robust and sterling young artist had chosen as the medium of introduction to the stage of New York, is a drama which has not been seen of late on the American boards. Mr. Jeffries brings to it a freshness and a style all his own.

The Heroine is Nifty.

Right here is where the gent who has being doing falsetto pulls off his wig, shows the genuine whiskers, and strikes low G on the bass clef to show that he can do it.

You see, the villain is after the bunch of calico. She's certainly nifty. The villain has staked out his nephew to be her steady company, but the minute she trims her luscious lamps on Crockett, any dub can see that he's her candy kid.

The orchestra rips off a few yards of the "Flower Song," while Jim sinks his voice down to the solar plexus and puts her wise that she's his'n and he's her'n, only it can never be.

But in the next act Davy rescues her from the wolves by putting his biceps against the door while the property man wiggles three stuffed wolf heads through the chinks in the cabin and the gallery helps out on the howls.

But the villain drops in with the deeds that he's forged on her uncle, and Davy is foiled. And the girl has put him wise to young Lochinvar, so in the next act Davy drops in just when they're going to marry the girl.

Jim rolls up his sleeve and holds out his right and the girl hops up on it like a canary on a perch, and it's all over but the foiling of the villain and the marriage in the last act.

The Lady Takes the Count.

The girl was pretty nearly down and out in the second act, and took the count of nine, but by clinching with Davy she managed to stay the act out. Jim's love-making was great. He never bored in so hard that there wasn't room for a breakaway, and any one could see that he was all ready to break the clinch the minute the girl loosed an uppercut.

When Jim crinkled up his forehead and looked on her with a love smile that reached the remotest boundary of his face, he looked just the way he looked at Ruhlin in the third round. But the girl didn't seem to mind. She knew he was only funning, and she cuddled right up to his solar plexus and said:

"I am your Nell, the same saucy Nell that sported among the daisies when we were a little boy and girl together." That statement made Jim look sincere.

It must be confessed that the epilogue was the most successful part of the piece. The epilogue was a more or less rapid three-round go. Mr. Yank Kennedy, an eminent pugilistic artist from California, was advertised as Mr. Jeffries's support in this scene. But the cordial welcome of New Jersey society had proved too much for the artistic temperament of Mr. Kennedy.

Mr. Hennesy of Princeton University was announced by that eminent impresario Mr. Billy Delany as Mr. Kennedy's understudy. Mr. Hennesy's acting was finished in leading and countering, but sadly deficient in guarding and side-stepping. He was entirely overshadowed by the great artist who played opposite him.

At one period of the performance the shadows grew so thick that Mr. Hennesy went down for the count of nine. It was plain, however, from the cordial, if somewhat unsteady, handshake he gave Mr. Jeffries as the curtain fell that Mr. Hennesy harbored no artistic jealousy.[Pg 41]

Little Glimpses of the 19th Century

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

Compiled and edited for The Scrap Book.

1800

Napoleon, then the dominating figure of the world, continued the work of reorganizing the government, centralizing power in his own hands; subdued the last of the French loyalists, and took the Tuileries as his residence. Only Paul, the imbecile Czar of Russia, returned a favorable answer to the request for friendly relations sent by Napoleon to the powers the previous December.

In Egypt, General Kléber, commander of the French forces, agreed with the English admiral, Sir Sydney Smith, to evacuate the country; treaty rejected by the English Parliament; Kléber drove the grand vizier into Syria; restored French rule in Egypt; assassinated by an Arab; succeeded by General Menou.

War resumed between France and Austria; General Moreau defeated the Germans and Austrians under Kray at Engen and Moeskirch in Baden and at Biberach in Würtemberg; in Bavaria Lecourbe and Ney took Memmingen; Ney defeated General Mack at Ulm; and at Hochstädt Moreau again defeated the Austrians. Finally, at Hohenlinden, the Austrians suffered a crushing defeat, and sued for an armistice.

Meanwhile the French under Masséna were hemmed in in Genoa by an English fleet and an Austrian army. Napoleon started from France with a force of thirty-six thousand men, in four days crossed the Alps into Piedmont, and attacked the Austrians under Melas at Marengo; Napoleon saved from defeat by General Desaix's division, which arrived in time to make a brilliant charge when[Pg 42] Napoleon's army was retreating; Desaix killed; Melas sued for an armistice; French masters of Italy. Genoa surrendered, fifteen thousand men having died of starvation, but was returned to the French. England reduced Malta. Russia joined with Denmark and Sweden in an armed neutrality against England. The English stood firm against Napoleon. The English navy grew stronger, and maritime trade increased. The French navy dwindled, and trade was at a standstill. The Irish Parliament met for the last time, one hundred members from Ireland being admitted to the next session of the English Parliament. Bread riots in England.

The United States Congress met for the first time at Washington. Voltaic pile discovered by Volta. Mary Kres, for a straw-weaving device, obtained the first patent granted a woman in America. William Cowper, English poet, died.

POPULATION—Washington, D.C., 3,210; New York City (with boroughs now forming Greater New York), 79,216; New York (Manhattan), 60,515; London (including Metropolitan District, census 1801), 864,484; London (old city, census 1801), 158,859; United States, 5,308,433; Great Britain (census 1801), 10,942,646.

RULERS—United States, John Adams; Great Britain, George III; France, Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul; Spain, Charles IV; Prussia, Frederick William III; Russia, Paul; Germany, including Austria, Francis II; Sweden, Gustavus IV; Portugal, Maria Francesca—eldest son, John, regent; Pope, Pius VII.

1801

Peace of Lunéville between France and Germany; the Rhine as far as the Dutch frontier made the boundary of France, the Helvetian (Swiss), Cisalpine, and Ligurian republics to be recognized, and the treaty of Campo Formio confirmed. Spain ceded Louisiana to France. Peace between France and Naples closed the ports of Naples to England, and began a continental embargo. Pitt resigned as English prime minister. King George III suffered a recurring attack of insanity; recovered. English defeated the French at Aboukir and Alexandria and captured Cairo. French evacuated Egypt; Turkish rule restored.

Paul, Czar of Russia, struck down by Prince Zubov and strangled by the prince's followers. Alexander I, his successor, favorable to the English; Denmark and Sweden continued armed neutrality, and on Denmark's refusing terms offered by England, a fleet under Parker, Nelson second in command, prepared to attack Copenhagen. Nelson commanded the attack; seemed to fail; was signaled to retreat; put his blind eye to the telescope and said, "I really do not see the signal," and then "Damn the signal! Keep mine for closer action flying." Continued the attack, took or destroyed eighteen vessels out of the Danish fleet of twenty-three, and summarily ended the dispute.

In San Domingo, Toussaint L'Ouverture led an unsuccessful revolt against the French. Exhausted resources necessitated a cessation of hostilities between France and England, October 1. Catholic Church, under state supervision, restored in France. Robert Fulton offered to build steam vessels for Napoleon, who rejected the idea as visionary.

In the United States, Congress decided the tie vote of the previous year between Jefferson and Burr in Jefferson's favor; Burr Vice-President; Jefferson inaugurated March 4, first President to be inaugurated in Washington; wore long trousers and aroused a storm of protest, many considering them a dangerous innovation. Open conflict between America and the Barbary pirates. Jacquard weaving-loom invented. Lavater, physiognomist, died.

RULERS—The same as in the previous year, except that Thomas Jefferson became President of the United States March 4, and Alexander I succeeded Paul as Czar of Russia.

1802

General destitution prevailed in England; governmental expenses reduced. The Italian Republic succeeded the Cisalpine Republic, and Napoleon was elected President. The Peace of Amiens between England and France, Holland and Spain; France, Spain, and Holland received back all colonies except Trinidad and Ceylon, retained by England, and England to have an open port at the Cape of Good Hope; Malta to be restored by England to the Knights of St. John; France to leave Elba, Rome, and Naples; integrity of the Turkish Empire to be maintained. Napoleon permitted all but one thousand French loyalists to return; a portion of their lands was restored, but all hereditary privileges were denied.

Napoleon reformed the French educational system, established the Legion of Honor, and restored slavery in the West Indies. Toussaint, after a short and horrible war, was treacherously captured in[Pg 43] Hayti, taken to France, and died in a French dungeon the year following. Turkey allowed France access to the Black Sea. English embassy reestablished in Paris. Switzerland invaded by the French, and Napoleon's course in Italy caused friction with the English; in reply to protests, Napoleon declared Italy, Switzerland, and Holland were at the absolute disposal of France. In carrying out the terms of the Peace of Lunéville France began a systematic encroachment on German territory. British naval mutiny in Bantry Bay, Ireland, quelled and six leaders hanged. Hortense, daughter of Josephine, married Louis, brother of Napoleon.

Humphry Davy produced light by using two carbon points and an electric current—the forerunner of the arc light, and entered on studies that led to photography. One thousand persons drowned in Lorca, Spain, by a bursting reservoir. West Point Military Academy founded. Ohio admitted to the Union.

RULERS—The same as in the previous year.

1803

April 30, the American commissioners, Monroe and Livingston, signed the transfer treaty whereby France ceded Louisiana for sum of fifteen million dollars. The United States ship Philadelphia captured by pirates in the harbor of Tripoli, and three hundred American sailors sold into slavery; Stephen Decatur entered the harbor, blew up the Philadelphia, and escaped. Emmet rebellion in Ireland suppressed; Emmet hanged. Active work on the Code Napoléon begun, and part of the civil code promulgated. English travelers in France declared prisoners; Napoleon announced that England, alone, was powerless against him; a feint made of invading England; war declared by England May 13; French commerce almost destroyed. French driven out of Hayti, having suffered from disease, and lost heavily in a war in which atrocities were practised by both sides.

Mahratta War in India; natives in some cases incited and led by French officers; Sir Arthur Wellesley, afterward Duke of Wellington, distinguished himself; much of northern India came under British rule. English troops massacred in Colombo, Ceylon. Treaty between France and America; Bank of France founded; censorship of the press in France, English papers excluded from the country. Robert Fulton failed in his steamboat experiments on the Seine. Mme. de Staël again exiled from France.

United States made grants of land to colleges. September 30, corner-stone of New York City Hall laid. Malthus published his "Essay on Population." The first printing press in New South Wales set up. Alfieri, Italian poet, and Sir William Hamilton, British diplomat, died.

RULERS—The same as in the previous year.

1804

England recalled Pitt to power. Napoleon made costly and futile preparations to invade England. Moreau and Pichegru conspiracy against Napoleon; Pichegru found strangled in prison; Moreau exiled; Duc d'Enghien captured and shot; twenty persons guillotined. France ordered German states to expel French loyalists and English subjects. French Senate urged Napoleon to found a hereditary monarchy, succession to be in the male line, or, in default of issue, the crown to go to Joseph, and, if he died, to Louis Bonaparte. May 18, Napoleon accepted, and December 2 he and Josephine were crowned; when Pius VII went to place the crown on Napoleon's head, the latter snatched it and crowned himself. Napoleon created a new nobility and eight marshals. Prussia and Austria recognized him as Emperor of France. Dessalines, a Haytian negro, followed Bonaparte's example, and created himself Emperor Jean Jacques I.

Lewis and Clark set out on their trip across the American continent. Burr killed Hamilton in a duel. America continued a running fight with the Barbary pirates. Shaft sunk for a Thames tunnel; work later abandoned. England captured Spanish ships bearing ten million dollars' tribute to Napoleon; Spain declared war. English Bible Society founded. Immanuel Kant, German philosopher, died.

RULERS—The same as in the previous year, except that Napoleon Bonaparte became Emperor of France, and Francis II of Germany assumed the title of Emperor Francis I of Austria.

1805

Russia and Sweden joined in the coalition against Napoleon. Active war preparations in France; grand review of the French army on the field of Marengo; Genoa annexed by France; Napoleon crowned King of Italy. France, Spain, and South German states pitted against England, Russia, Austria, and Sweden. Admiral Villeneuve moved against the British fleet; bottled up in Cadiz by Admiral Collingwood; threats of disgrace caused Villeneuve to make a desperate rush; met near Cape Trafalgar by Nel[Pg 44]son and Collingwood, October 21; in the ensuing battle the French and Spanish fleet was practically destroyed. Nelson was fatally shot in the hour of victory; Villeneuve was captured, and later committed suicide.

Abandoning his plan to invade England, Napoleon marched into Germany, threw the badly battered Austrian forces under General Mack into Ulm, and captured the city with twenty-three thousand men. In Italy, Masséna, French commander, inflicted heavy losses on Archduke Charles, and forced him to sue for an armistice. Vienna captured by Murat. Prussian prime minister demanded reparation for French violation of Prussian territory, but was temporized with in negotiations by Talleyrand while Napoleon prepared to move against the Russians and Austrians. On December 2 he inflicted a crushing defeat on the allies at Austerlitz, and the Russian army withdrew. Austria forced to grant all demands. Dalmatia and Venice taken from Austria and given to Italy; alliance against France temporarily broken; England left to fight alone.

Jefferson began his second term as President of the United States. The Barbary pirates beaten by an American force under General Eaton and forced to relinquish their claims to tribute. Agitation in the United States strong for a war with Spain and for the annexation of Texas and part of Mexico; the agitation subsided when the French ambassador declared France would side with Spain. Aaron Burr went West, and began planning for the invasion of Texas. Jerome Bonaparte married Miss Eliza Patterson, an American.

Five thousand persons killed by an earthquake near Naples. Schiller, German poet, historian, and dramatist; Paley, English theologian; and Mungo Park, Scottish traveler, died.

RULERS—The same as in the previous year.

1806

Napoleon dethroned the Bourbons in Naples, and made Joseph Bonaparte King of Naples and Sicily; Louis Bonaparte made King of Holland, and Jerome Bonaparte was commanded to leave his American wife and child, marry Catherine of Würtemberg, and rule Westphalia; Lucien Bonaparte exiled for refusing to leave his wife and become a king. Napoleon parceled out acquired territory among his followers and members of his family; obliged neighboring countries to harbor and support the French army, and ordered the completion of the Louvre.

The English admirals Strachan, Duckworth, Warren, and Hood destroyed almost all of the few remaining French war-ships. England and France mutually laid embargoes. English interference with the commerce of all nations; President Jefferson protested without avail; anger in America because of the killing of an American sailor by a stray shot from the British cruiser Leander.

At Maida, Calabria, four thousand English under Sir John Stuart killed or captured four thousand out of seven thousand French, and lost but forty-five men killed. France, however, suppressed the revolt in Calabria at great loss of lives.

The Holy Roman Empire dissolved, and the Confederation of the Rhine formed. Denmark annexed Holstein. Palm, a Nuremberg publisher, shot for circulating an anti-Napoleonic book. Queen Louise led the Prussian opposition to Napoleon, and Prussia joined the war against him. Germany invaded, and at Auerstadt, Davoust defeated Charles William of Brunswick, while at Jena Napoleon defeated Prince Hohenlohe; in both battles, fought August 14, the Prussians lost nearly fifty thousand killed, wounded, and captured, while the French lost about sixteen thousand. The French entered Berlin, and Napoleon despoiled Frederick the Great's tomb with his sword. Napoleon constructed the kingdom of Westphalia from a part of Prussia, Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, and upper Saxony; exacted an indemnity of thirty million dollars from Prussia; forbade trade with Great Britain, and stirred the Poles to revolt against Russia, then at war with Turkey. He advanced through Poland against Russia, won hard-fought battles at Moehrungen, Golymin, and Pultusk. The French army wintered around Warsaw. Here Napoleon met Countess Walewski, who later became the mother of his son Alexander.

Lewis and Clark returned from their trip across America. William Pitt and Charles Fox, English statesmen, died. Public funeral of Nelson.

RULERS—The same as in the previous year.

1807

The winter quarters of Napoleon's army in Warsaw were unendurable, and in attempting to move on Königsberg the French were attacked by the Russians at Eylau, where both sides lost sixty thousand men in a desperate but indecisive battle. The Russian Czar Alexander freed the serfs of the Baltic Provinces. England declared war against Turkey in order to assist Russia. Continuation of the fight of the Russians and Prussians against the French in Poland. The Prussian for[Pg 45]tress of Dantzig captured by the French. Sweden was forced to a truce with Russia. At Heilsburg the Russians and Prussians inflicted a loss of ten thousand on the French. June 14, anniversary of Marengo, Napoleon won a superb victory at Friedland, Ney saving the day by a splendid charge. Russia and Prussia forced to ask for an armistice.

Napoleon met Alexander on a richly carpeted raft on the Niemen, and peace was arranged; Russia to break with England and annex Finland; Prussia to be left out of the Federation of the Rhine; the Ionian Isles and Montenegro to be taken from Turkey, and war to be begun against Sweden, Denmark, and Portugal, unless they join in the blockade against England. The British evacuated Egypt. Napoleon began internal reforms at home and aided manufacturers.

Encounter between the American frigate Chesapeake and the British ship Leopard; three Americans killed and eight wounded; Commodore Barron, of the Chesapeake, disgraced; three of the sailors taken from the Chesapeake received five hundred lashes each, and one was hanged. America threatened war, but English authorities approved. England seized the Danish fleet to prevent Napoleon from turning it against her. The slave-trade abolished by the English Parliament. England forbade American vessels to trade between any but its own or British ports. The Sultan Selim was deposed by his followers. Sweden lost Stralsund to the French. Prussia abolished serfdom and feudal social distinctions. French troops occupied Portugal, driving the Portuguese court and royal family to Brazil. America laid an embargo on British goods. The trial of Aaron Burr for treason, and his acquittal, the growing discussion of slavery in the American Congress, and the trouble with England harassed Jefferson and made his position almost unendurable.

In August, Robert Fulton at last succeeded in his experiments on the Hudson, and his steamship, the Clermont, on September 14, began a trip from New York to Albany, one hundred and ten miles, taking twenty-four hours. A great Sanhedrim, or convention, of Jewish rabbis, in Paris passed upon and modified the interpretation of the Mosaic dispensation. Artificial aeration of waters discovered. First capitol built at Albany. Davy separated potassium and sodium. Illuminating-gas first used in London.

RULERS—The same as in the previous year.

1808

France seized strongholds in northern Spain; Murat took command of the French forces. Spanish Minister Godoy, possessor of immense wealth looted from the government, resigned power. King Charles of Spain abdicated in favor of his son Ferdinand. Murat entered Madrid; riots there against the French. Ferdinand of Spain, decoyed to meet Napoleon, forced to abdicate and held prisoner. Rome invaded by Napoleon, who, threatened with excommunication, seized part of the Papal States. Joseph Bonaparte made King of Spain. England sent troops and money to aid Spain against France. Murat crowned King of Naples. Spanish guerrillas harried the French troops, but Napoleon neglected to take command of his forces. A French force looted Cordova, was captured at Baylen, and sent to the galleys. The French repulsed at Saragossa and Gerona. King Joseph, after nine days in Madrid, fled with the Spanish royal treasure. Wellington landed in Portugal. Spanish soldiers in the French army deserted with their leader, Marquis Romana.

Austria, Prussia, and Turkey—where the Janizaries had deposed Mustapha and made Mahmoud Sultan—prepared to follow up advantages won by Spain. Napoleon attempted to enlist the United States against England, but Jefferson kept away from the conflict. The Spanish colonies in America expelled French settlers. Napoleon oppressed Prussia and extorted money. Goethe decorated by Napoleon with the cross of the Legion of Honor. Russia and France formed an alliance and unavailingly submitted peace proposals to England. Napoleon took command in Spain, routed the Spaniards at Espinoza, Burgos, and Tudela, and forced his way to Madrid. China suspended trade with England.

Trade in America ruined by the embargo, and great suffering resulted. Madison elected President; George Clinton, Vice-President. Importation of slaves to the United States prohibited. Anthracite coal first used as a fuel in the United States. First printing press in Brazil set up. First American temperance society founded, Saratoga County, New York.

RULERS—The same as in the previous year, except that Charles IV of Spain abdicated in favor of his son Ferdinand VII, who, in turn, was forced by Napoleon to abdicate in favor of Joseph Bonaparte.

1809

In the retreat to Corunna the British lost heavily, made a stand there, repulsed the French, and successfully embarked; Sir John Moore was killed; many British transports were wrecked, and the troops returned in a de[Pg 46]plorable condition. The Duke of York, commander-in-chief of the British forces, compelled to resign for malfeasance in office. Mrs. Clark was his agent in selling military commissions. The Earl of Chatham resigned as master-general of the ordnance, after having allowed ten thousand British troops to die in the swamps of Walcheren, Holland.

Napoleon returned to Paris, at one stage covering eighty-five miles on horseback in five hours, quarreled with Talleyrand and Fouché, reproved Louis Bonaparte, and openly insulted Josephine. Saragossa taken by the French, after a marvelous resistance. War between France and Austria. The Austrians defeated at Abendsberg, Eckmühl, and Regensburg, and forced to retreat. The French occupied Vienna. The remaining Papal States annexed to Italy. Napoleon excommunicated; seized Pius VII and imprisoned him at Savona. The French armies in Spain and Portugal suffered reverses. At Aspern and Esslingen, Austria, Napoleon was defeated; but he retrieved this disaster in the great battle of Wagram, in which sixty thousand men fell on both sides, and Austria sought an armistice, Napoleon exacting an indemnity of forty-seven million dollars. The British destroyed a French fleet at Aix. At Talavera, Wellington defeated the French, but was forced later to retreat. The Spaniards were defeated at Ocana, and the French captured Cordova, Seville, and Gerona. Andreas Hofer, leader of the Tyrolese, was betrayed, and executed by the French the following February. Peace signed at Vienna, October 14. Napoleon leveled the fortifications of Vienna, and took fifty thousand square miles of Austrian territory. He also ordered all American merchandise confiscated, and issued a decree divorcing Josephine.

Madison inaugurated as President of the United States. The embargo against England removed. American trade ruined. Jefferson went out of office, generally condemned. New British ministry repudiated the agreement with the United States, and friction between the two countries increased.

Staaps, a German student, executed for attempt on Napoleon's life. General destitution and bread riots throughout England; the whole continent plunged in want and misery. Gustavus IV of Sweden deposed, and his uncle became Charles XIII. Russia turned against France. Finland formally ceded to Russia.

Thomas Paine, publicist, and Joseph Haydn, musician, died. Mammoth Cave, Kentucky, discovered.

RULERS—The same as in the previous year, except that James Madison became President of the United States, March 4, and Charles XIII succeeded Gustavus IV of Sweden.

1810

Anti-Ministerial riots in London. French successful in Spain, winning at Beylen, Cordova, Seville, Granada, and Malaga. At Valencia they were defeated, but slaughtered the garrison at Hostalrich. Napoleon married Archduchess Marie Louise at Vienna, by proxy, the ceremony being repeated later in Paris. Ordered all American ships in French ports seized. Louis Bonaparte objecting, a French force marched into Holland, and Louis abdicated. Holland annexed by France. Lucien Bonaparte went into voluntary exile. The Crown Prince of Sweden having died, Marshal Bernadotte, once a common soldier in the French marines, became crown prince.

Wellington repulsed the French in Portugal from his position at Torres Vedras. Cadiz bravely resisted the French. War between Turkey and Russia stopped by Russia's approaching conflict with France. Napoleon ordered all goods of English manufacture burned. Spanish provinces throughout America revolted. The British seized French Guadeloupe and Ile de Bourbon. Fouché sent into exile. Queen Louise of Prussia died.

Daniel O'Connell began agitation for a repeal of the Irish union with England. Trade throughout the world ruined, and many merchants committed suicide. Prince of Wales became regent; George III absolutely demented. Sweden declared war against England. Henry Cavendish, scientist, died. Astoria, Oregon, founded. Dr. Hahnemann, Leipsic, announced the theory that is the foundation of homeopathic medicine.

POPULATION—Washington, D.C., 8,208; New York (with boroughs now forming Greater New York), 119,734; New York (Manhattan), 96,373; London (including Metropolitan District, census 1811), 1,009,546; London (old city), 120,909; United States, 7,239,881; Great Britain and Ireland (census 1811), 15,547,720.

RULERS—United States, James Madison; Great Britain, George III; France, Napoleon Bonaparte, emperor; Spain, Joseph Bonaparte; Prussia, Frederick William III; Russia, Alexander I; Austria, Francis I; Sweden, Charles XIII; Portugal, Maria Francesca—eldest son, John, regent; Pope, Pius VII.[Pg 47]

POEMS OF GOOD-FELLOWSHIP.

Some Verses That May Serve as Guides to Good Samaritans When They Come Upon
Pilgrims Who are Down on Their Luck and Unable to See
June Sunshine Through February Skies.

THE FRIEND OF MY HEART.

THINGS TO FORGET.

FRIENDS.

BETTER LUCK ANOTHER YEAR.

By W. Gilmore Simms.

"HULLO!"

By S.W. Foss.

HE'S NONE THE WORSE FOR THAT.

FROM LORD TENNYSON.

[Pg 49]

Winter Photography for Amateurs.

Valuable Hints to the Disciples of the Camera Who Wish to Get the Best
Results When the Earth is Snow-Carpeted.

Compiled and edited for The Scrap Book.

Many amateurs do not realize the fact that very beautiful pictures may be taken in the wintertime, and in all too many cases when the summer vacation is over the camera is laid aside.

Snow scenes, when properly handled, will be found among the most interesting and effective bits in the artist's collection, and are well worth the trouble expended upon them. So keep your camera ready at hand; when you go for a walk, if you are lucky enough to live in the country, take it with you. If you are a dweller in the city, watch for a good old-fashioned snowstorm; go out in the thick of it, and you will be surprised at the many charming scenes you can secure.

Atmospheric conditions, the sharp contrasts of black objects against a background of glaring snow, the effect of shadow and sunlight on an expanse of unbroken white, the fall of heavy, cottony flakes in a silent, white-shrouded street, under the foggy glow of electric lights—all these necessitate a course of treatment different from that of ordinary photographic work; and all, by these very contrasts, can be made strikingly effective.

Watch Man Who "Does the Rest."

Owing to the cold of winter and the difficulty of handling the apparatus with stiff fingers or heavy gloves, it is well to have as simple an outfit as possible. An ordinary fixed focus camera is good for this kind of work. The lens on this style of camera usually works at F-16 and the shutter at about 1-20 of a second. If the sun is bright, the next smaller stop will do.

In taking snow pictures, the amateur who presses the button and lets the dealer do the rest should advise the latter to develop the film with less contrast than usual. The average dealer usually develops with as much contrast as possible, and this method would produce a print with blank white for the snow and hard blocks for the trees.

For more serious workers, a stand camera should be used. The camera should be provided with a reversible back and a long bellows. An expensive lens is not necessary. A medium angle lens will be found most useful.

Shutters are apt to work badly when out in the cold, owing to contraction of the metal parts. This must be allowed for in making the exposure, by setting it at greater speed.

The focusing cloth should be fastened to the camera. The Eureka focusing hood is convenient to use. It is made to fit the camera exactly, and has little elastic loops which slip over the ears and hold the eyepiece in place while focusing.

A steady tripod and a stay to keep it from slipping are desirable additions to the outfit. The camera should be protected as much as possible from dampness and falling snow.

For best results a non-halation plate is necessary. Backed plates will give better results than plates unbacked. The reason that the light effects come out so extremely white and hard in many landscapes is because the strong light from the snow penetrates the sensitive film and is reflected into it again from the back of the plate, thus making undue contrasts, and practically giving double exposure. This is known as halation.

Other Necessary Precautions.

A corrected plate is essential in snow photography, in order that the effects of light and shadow may not be too glaringly contrasted. The isochromatic and orthochromatic plates on the mar[Pg 50]ket are corrected, and are the best to use.

The early morning and the late afternoon are the times best suited for taking snow pictures. The long shadows give interest and character to what would otherwise be a meaningless expanse of white. The foreground is often of the greatest interest in snow pictures. The shadows and gradations on the surface often form the motif for fine compositions.

Never try to crowd too much on one plate. Much may be done with just a few bushes projecting above the snow. Newly fallen snow should sometimes be broken up for pictorial effect; and walking once or twice over the foreground will also aid matters. In doing this, be careful to notice just how the tracks should run to give the best lines to your picture.

Three Classes of Snow Pictures.

There are practically three classes of snow pictures, of which each demands its own appropriate development and treatment.

Class 1—Where an expanse of snow is relieved only by delicate shadows, or where the picture is taken during a snowstorm, when all objects are rendered more or less indistinct and of a light tone by intervening particles of snow. For these, the exposure should be short, the rule being that short exposures increase contrasts, and in scenes of this description, contrast is what is needed. On a bright day, 1-100 of a second would be time enough. Very early in the morning or very late in the afternoon 1-25 of a second will give ample time.

The development for plates in this class may safely be rather vigorous—that is, with a normal developer and the plate carried to a fairly good printing destiny. This method gives character to the high lights, and a pleasing richness to the slight shadows that are present on the surface of the snow. A pyro developer is good.

Rodinal is a good developer for contrasts when used in these proportions: Rodinal, one-quarter ounce; water, five ounces; bromide potash; ten per cent solution, five drops. The temperature of the developer should be kept from sixty-five to seventy degrees Fahrenheit.

Class 2—When dark masses are in the foreground, with the middle distance fairly open, and snow broken up—also, when strong contrasts appear in the view between the snow and other objects—then a longer exposure is needed—from one-tenth to a full second, according to the light. Use No. 8 stop.

This class of pictures should be developed in a weak solution. A suitable metal hydroquinone developer is made as follows: Metal, thirty grains; hydroquinone, thirty grains; twenty ounces of water. Then add sulphide of soda (crystals) one ounce, and carbonate of soda (crystals) three-quarter ounce.

Take two ounces of this, and add four ounces of water when there are no very heavy masses of dark in the foreground, and eight ounces of water when there are such masses. Before using, add one drop of ten per cent solution of potassium bromide to each ounce of the solution.

Class 3 embraces snow pictures with figures, street scenes, skating and sleighing scenes, etc. Short exposure is required here because of the motion of the figures. The correction must be made in development.

The development of plates of this kind where there are dark objects and brightly lighted snow or ice in the view is practically the same as in No. 2.

TIME IN WHICH MONEY WILL DOUBLE AT SEVERAL RATES OF INTEREST.

[Pg 51]

THE PROGRESS OF WOMEN.

BY LYDIA KINGSMILL COMMANDER.

An original article written for The Scrap Book.

Nothing is more wonderful, in this age of wonders, than the progress of women in all the civilized countries of the world. Never before were the doors of opportunity so widely opened; never before were the barriers of sex so low.

The modern young woman does not face the one choice of her grandmother—marriage or the fate of the "old maid." Before her so many paths open that her only trouble is to choose.

Her grandmother's girlhood was spent at home. She was told that "the happy woman is the woman with no history"; and "a woman's name should be in the newspapers just three times—when she is born, when she marries, and when she dies."

This is dead doctrine to the girl who goes whirling across the continent or around the world, unchaperoned and alone, and returns to meet the admiration of her friends and the interest of the public.

As she sits on the deck of the incoming steamer, giving opinions on kings and countries, chatting of the book she is about to write and handing out her photographs to a group of reporters, she bears slight resemblance to the fainting Amandas and Clarissas who "raised their weeping eyes to heaven," or fell swooning every time a mysterious sound was heard or when even a stray cow crossed their path.

HOW TRAVEL IS MADE TO PAY.

If our traveler is practical and depends upon her own pocketbook instead of papa's she adopts a specialty and makes her trips pay for themselves. She may be attached to some paper or magazine; for the blue-stocking is as fashionable to-day as once she was disgraced. Some women make capital of their travels in extraordinary ways. One breaks records climbing mountain peaks at the risk of her life and then lectures to thousands upon the perils and pleasures of her feats.

Another is with her husband on the Congo searching for traces of ancient African civilizations for the British Museum. In Mexico and South America several women archeologists are at work digging out relics of the Aztecs, Peruvians, and the original tribes of the Amazon River. A recent book on Egyptian hieroglyphics was partly the work of a woman.

Then there are the women who take parties abroad, arranging for steamers, trains, boats and hotels; buying tickets; looking after baggage, and keeping everybody interested, instructed, and satisfied.

Such women—and there are many of them—must know half a dozen languages, be familiar with the history, customs, and attractions of the countries visited, be quick in an emergency, full of tact so as to keep the party harmonious, and clever enough business women to give every one bargain rates and come out with handsome profits at the end of each trip.

But traveling for business takes other forms. In the United States there are nearly a thousand feminine commercial travelers, selling everything from perfumery to men's shoes and babies' soothing syrup. There are women factory inspectors who travel constantly from place to place. The United States government employs a woman as Superintendent of Indian schools. She covers thousands of miles every year and wields absolute power over the institutions under her care.

The woman who does not travel no longer need stay at home in the old sense. Indeed she has little to keep her there. The spinning, weaving, sewing, and knitting which formerly were the[Pg 52] home industries have been swept off into great factories. In consequence the woman who does not want to be idle follows the work outside of the home and down-town.

IN AMERICA SEVENTY YEARS AGO.

In 1834, when Harriet Martineau visited this country, she found only seven occupations open to women—housekeeping, keeping boarders, needlework, teaching, working in cotton factories, bookbinding, and typesetting.

Only the last four could really be counted as out-of-home occupations, for keeping boarders and sewing called for no new knowledge or skill apart from the training in housekeeping which all girls received.

It is safe to say that of those seven occupations, six at least were not overcrowded. The work of the world was done in the homes and housekeeping was the occupation of women. There were few spinning-mills, but the old-fashioned wheel was in every house. It was not kept in a drawing-room alcove to prove its long ancestry, but steadily, busily hummed all day long as the soft rolls of wool changed into skeins and balls of yarn or thread.

After the work of the spinning-wheel came the loom and the knitting-needles. Cloth and stockings, blankets, mittens, and mufflers were fashioned by the hands of the housewife and her daughters.

There were no factories for canned fruits, pickles, or preserves. All these had to be made and stored up for winter use.

Now the stores furnish everything from a handkerchief to a ball-gown, and from bread to canned roast beef. The washing and ironing can go to the laundry and the family supplies can be bought.

THE RUSH INTO BUSINESS LIFE.

Since women had been working since work began, they could not consent to remain at home idle. The result is seen in the rush of the modern woman into business life.

The last census shows that in the United States women are following every trade and profession except the army and the navy. Even the army has a woman physician, Dr. Anita McGee, who wears a uniform. In Europe, the uniformed woman is by no means a rarity. Almost every royal woman wears military honors.

It will be remembered that Queen Victoria was carried to her grave on a gun-carriage like an officer, because as Queen of England and Empress of India she was head of the British army and of the greatest navy in the world.

To have an occupation is almost as natural to the American girl of to-day as to her brother. For a woman to go into business used to be like climbing a mountain; now it is almost like going down a toboggan slide. When she leaves school she expects to work.

Sometimes she finishes her education in a public school and goes into a shop, factory, or mill. She may become one of the 75,000 milliners, the 100,000 saleswomen, the 120,000 cotton workers, the 275,000 laundresses, or the 340,000 dressmakers.

If she can stay longer in school, she may become one of the 320,000 school teachers. Or she may go to a college, which sternly closed its doors in the face of her grandmother, and carry off the prizes and the honors from the men. She can enter a university, come out B.A., M.A., or Ph.D., and join the thousand women who are already college professors.

IN THE LAST STRONGHOLDS OF MAN.

If she fancies law, medicine, or the church, her way is clear. All three professions number their women members by the thousand, though a generation ago the pioneers in each line were struggling against ridicule and opposition.

Painting and sculpture were once considered masculine accomplishments, but to-day 15,000 women have studios. The musicians are three times as numerous.

Even the more unusual occupations are well represented. There are 261 wholesale merchants, 1,271 officials in banks, 1,932 stock raisers, 378 butchers, and 193 blacksmiths. There are 200 women to mix cocktails or serve gin-fizzes behind the bar. If they sell after hours or to minors, there are 879 policemen and detectives to watch them.

The traveling public depends for its[Pg 53] safety and its accidents principally upon men. But women already claim 2 motor-men, 13 conductors, 4 station-agents, 2 pilots, 1 lighthouse keeper, 127 engineers, and 153 boatmen among their number.

Almost every paper one picks up tells of women's successes in some line of work. A dozen women in Chicago, and probably three times as many in New York, are making ten thousand dollars a year or more, either as salaries or profits from business.

The property owned by actresses and singers must pay a handsome sum in taxes. It is said that Hetty Green, the shrewdest business woman in the world, can stand in City Hall Square, New York, and see five million dollars' worth of her own property; and every one knows she owes her millions to her own cleverness, not to either husband or father.

A Woman's Building has been a feature of many of our great national expositions. They have been filled with the products of women's labor; but so far the structures, though designed by women, have been erected by men. This can be remedied at any time it is necessary.

There are women builders of every sort: 167 are masons, 545 carpenters, 45 plasterers, 126 plumbers, 1,750 painters and glaziers, and 241 paper-hangers. It is true the roofing would be a long job, for only two feminine roofers and slaters are to be found in the whole country. But the 1,775 tin-workers might help out. If a steel frame were called for, 3,370 iron and steel workers would stand ready; and the eight steam-boiler makers would put in the heating and power plant.

CALLINGS PECULIAR TO THE SEX.

Not only have women conquered all the established callings, but they have invented some of their own. Professional shoppers were never heard of in the old days, though since the idea was started some men have adopted the business. The welfare secretary, who is "guide, philosopher, and friend" to the girls in factories or department stores, has recently come into existence. Then there is the shopping adviser, who pilots the uncertain Mrs. Newbride over one store or through many, helping her to furnish the new home harmoniously, fashionably, and for a given sum.

One woman owes her prosperity to her creation of the profession of "dramatists' agent." A Western woman raises animals for menageries and zoos. Another clears three thousand dollars a year by growing violets, while a third is getting rich out of the proceeds of her ostrich farm.

Altogether five and a quarter million American women—or one-fifth of all the workers in the country—are making their own money.

WOMAN'S STATUS IN EUROPE.

The women of the United States lead in this rush for education and for labor, but in other countries the same advance is being made, if more slowly.

Great Britain has thirty-five hundred university graduates. Fifteen hundred of these are from Girton, Newnham, and the Oxford Halls for Women, annexes of the historic universities, but with examinations just as stiff. It is a dozen years since Miss Fawcett carried off the highest mathematical honors an English university can bestow.

Germany looks askance at any education for woman that gives to her interests outside of the home. The Kaiser's four K's, which become C's in translation—Clothes, Cooking, Church, and Children—are popularly supposed to define the world of the German hausfrau. The American's joke about "woman's sphere" has long been obsolete; but that sphere is very real and very limited in most of the European countries.

Yet even in the more conservative lands women are progressing. The older dentists in Germany and Austria had to come to America for their diplomas. To-day professional schools, universities, and colleges can be found where a woman can follow any line of study and fit herself for the professions.

In Russia, although the struggle for democracy is barely begun, and representative government is as yet only a demand, the higher education of women has been an accomplished fact for a number of years. Russian women doc[Pg 54]tors, lawyers, and professors are not uncommon.

Norway and Sweden have experienced a feminine revolution in the last quarter-century. The laws have been overhauled and revised; the schools and colleges thrown open; the trades and professions have flung down their barriers; and work, once a disgrace, has become an honor to women. Sweden led in this movement, but Norway was quick to follow, and it is now a question as to which will first reach the goal of full equality between women and men.

In political rights English and Scandinavian women stand about on a level. Neither can vote for members of Parliament, but both have municipal and local suffrage, which gives them power to exercise their gifts for housekeeping and economical management in civic as well as home affairs.

A WOMAN'S LEGAL RIGHTS.

This growing liberty of women has affected her position as wife and mother. In the days when she had no sphere but the home and no career but marriage, she was a very insignificant creature even within those limits.

She could not own her home, could not choose its location, or have anything at all to say about it. The home, the children, and she herself belonged to the husband, who was "lord and master" in the sense of owner and dictator.

Now, in those countries where women have gained financial, industrial, and political standing, they hold a more dignified position in the home. Formerly a widow could be left penniless and her children willed away from her.

The present English law gives to the widow one-third of the property, and half the guardianship of the children. In case of divorce, the children under sixteen belong to the mother, unless she is notoriously unfit to have them.

Very similar to these are the laws in the British colonies, the United States, and Scandinavia. In these countries, too, with the exception of certain of our States, a married woman can own property, earn money, and collect her own wages, sue or be sued, make a contract with others, and in some places with her own husband.

She is also entitled to support for herself and her children, and to a divorce for various causes, including infidelity, brutality, intoxication, desertion, failure to provide, and felony.

In Germany the wife is legally entitled to a certain proportion of her husband's income, a right which women have in no other country. Everywhere else the vague term "support" is used, and even that is not granted in seven of our States.

In Holland, Austria-Hungary, Belgium, and Denmark the woman's movement is recent and slow. The Dutch Queen is the only woman there who is not ruled; and the Dutchman wanted her called "king," so as to lessen their dislike of being subject to a woman's commands.

Switzerland, though it boasts of its democracy, excludes its women from influence and political power. It does not deny them work, but like the German, French, and Russian peasants, the Swiss women carry the heavy burdens of field work and street-cleaning without any reason to believe that there is dignity in labor.

In Italy, Spain, and Portugal the upward movement of women has come mainly from the masses, not, as in Russia, from the aristocrats, or, as among the English-speaking races, from the middle class.

IN GREECE AND THE ORIENT.

In Greece the educated women are leading the crusade. The principal of a girls' college in Athens said recently: "It is true and beyond dispute that the Greece of to-day owes its rapid progress to its women."

While Greek women cannot vote, they take an active part in political life. During campaigns they make speeches for their husbands and brothers, and at other times traverse the country expounding the doctrines of the party they espouse. They resemble the English political woman of the style of Mrs. Humphrey Ward's "Marcella," a type scarcely to be found in any other country.

Even into slumbering Turkey, land of harems, Greek women are carrying modern ideas of education. There is a[Pg 55] Greek girls' school in Constantinople; and, principally through Greek influence, Turkish women are studying European languages, reading foreign books, and looking toward the great world where women can be the comrades, friends, and equals of men, instead of their playthings and slaves.

All through the Orient the conditions of Turkey are practically reproduced. In spite of the abolition of the suttee, the poor widows of India have a mournful lot. It is only the most daring of Chinese mothers who would leave her little daughter's feet unbound. A few Japanese women rebel at giving up home and children simply because milord has tired of his wife; but to most the thought of opposing the customs of centuries is still remote.

Even Asiatic women, nevertheless, are progressing. Some come to America for the education their own continent cannot furnish. A Chinese woman doctor recently lectured on her country all through the United States; and Japanese women are found in our colleges.

THE LANDS OF EMANCIPATION.

In the Pacific Ocean, far beyond China and Japan, lie the only two countries in the world which fully acknowledge the equality of men and women by giving political rights to all citizens of twenty-one, regardless of sex. They are New Zealand and Australia.

New Zealand was the first by a dozen years to put her daughters on an equality with her sons. It was in 1867 that the cry was raised. "Shall our mothers, wives, and sisters be our equals or our subjects?"

The answer was given in 1893 by the full enfranchisement of women. In Australia the change came more gradually, province by province. But a few months ago the final concession was made and now Australian women, like their sisters of New Zealand, are the equals and not the subjects of their husbands, brothers, and sons.

More conservative than England's colonies of the Southern Seas is her great Northern possession, Canada. There widows and spinsters are held in high favor, for full municipal suffrage belongs to them. But the married woman is barred out. This is probably a survival of the subordination of the wife; but the Canadian woman is asking whether the acceptance of a husband should be considered unfailing proof of her inferior judgment.

PROGRESS IN THE UNITED STATES.

There are four States in the Union—Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah—where women have full political rights. They vote on every election from school trustee to President. They are eligible for every office from pound-keeper to Governor. They have sat in the different Legislatures and have filled many executive offices.

These four States do not, however, hold a monopoly of the women voters. Four more have some form of local suffrage, and in twenty-five women can vote on school elections. In New York, for instance, women taxpayers may vote on all propositions for the expenditure of public money. In addition, they have school suffrage and are eligible as trustees.

There are clubs and societies which enroll in this country about four million women. There are associations of different nations to forward the interests of all women regardless of country. Such is the International Council of Women, representing twenty lands. Its great congresses, meeting every five years, are the event of the year in the land where they convene.

There is the International Woman's Suffrage Alliance and the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, with its branches in every country. Indeed the boundaries of countries are disappearing before this new sisterhood of woman.

Of famous women it would be folly to attempt to speak. America is justly proud of her many clever daughters, but every nation has its brilliant women. Mme. Curie, who was awarded the Nobel prize for science, was born and reared in Poland and lives in France. This year the Nobel peace prize fell to the Austrian Baroness von Suttner.

Considering the progress of the past half-century, one can but wonder what the next one hundred years will bring.[Pg 56]

RHYMES BY THE BARDS OF GRAFT.

SEVEN AGES OF GRAFT.

WHATCHY GOIN' T' GIMME?

THE ORIGINAL GRAFTER.

The Devil and Tom Walker.

BY WASHINGTON IRVING.

A few miles from Boston, in Massachusetts, there is a deep inlet winding several miles into the interior of the country from Charles Bay, and terminating in a thickly wooded swamp, or morass. On one side of this inlet is a beautiful dark grove; on the opposite side the land rises abruptly from the water's edge, into a high ridge on which grow a few scattered oaks of great age and immense size.

It was under one of these gigantic trees, according to old stories, that Kidd the pirate buried his treasure. The inlet allowed a facility to bring the money in a boat secretly and at night to the very foot of the hill. The elevation of the place permitted a good lookout to be kept that no one was at hand, while the remarkable trees formed good landmarks by which the place might easily be found again.

The old stories add, moreover, that the devil presided at the hiding of the money, and took it under his guardianship; but this, it is well known, he always does with buried treasure, particularly when it has been ill gotten. Be that as it may, Kidd never returned to recover his wealth, being shortly after seized at Boston, sent out to England, and there hanged for a pirate.

About the year 1727, just at the time when earthquakes were prevalent in New England, and shook many tall sinners down upon their knees, there lived near this place a meager, miserly fellow of the name of Tom Walker. He had a wife as miserly as himself; they were so miserly that they even conspired to cheat each other. Whatever the woman could lay hands on she hid away; a hen could not cackle but she was on the alert to secure the new-laid egg. Her husband was continually prying about to detect her secret hoards, and many and fierce were the conflicts that took place about what ought to have been common property.

They lived in a forlorn-looking house that stood alone and had an air of[Pg 58] starvation. A few straggling savin-trees, emblems of sterility, grew near it; no smoke ever curled from its chimney; no traveler stopped at its door. A miserable horse, whose ribs were as articulate as the bars of a gridiron, stalked about a field where a thin carpet of moss, scarcely covering the ragged beds of pudding-stone, tantalized and balked his hunger, and sometimes he would lean his head over the fence, look piteously at the passer-by, and seem to petition deliverance from this land of famine.

The house and its inmates had altogether a bad name. Tom's wife was a tall termagant, fierce of temper, loud of tongue, and strong of arm. Her voice was often heard in wordy warfare with her husband, and his face sometimes showed signs that their conflicts were not confined to words. No one ventured, however, to interfere between them; the lonely wayfarer shrunk within himself at the horrid clamor and clapper-clawing; eyed the den of discord askance, and hurried on his way, rejoicing, if a bachelor, in his celibacy.

One day that Tom Walker had been to a distant part of the neighborhood, he took what he considered a short cut homeward through the swamp. Like most short cuts, it was an ill-chosen route. The swamp was thickly grown with great gloomy pines and hemlocks, some of them ninety feet high, which made it dark at noonday, and a retreat for all the owls of the neighborhood. It was full of pits and quagmires, partly covered with weeds and mosses, where the green surface often betrayed the traveler into a gulf of black smothering mud; there were also dark and stagnant pools, the abodes of the tadpole, the bullfrog, and the water-snake, and where trunks of pines and hemlocks lay half-drowned, half-rotting, looking like alligators, sleeping in the mire.

Tom had long been picking his way cautiously through this treacherous forest; stepping from tuft to tuft of rushes and roots which afforded precarious footholds among the deep sloughs; or pacing carefully, like a cat, among the prostrate trunks of trees; startled now and then by the sudden screaming of the bittern, or the quacking of a wild duck, rising on the wing from some solitary pool.

At length he arrived at a piece of firm ground which ran out like a peninsula into the deep bosom of the swamp. It had been one of the strongholds of the Indians during their wars with the first colonists. Here they had thrown up a kind of fort which they had looked upon as almost impregnable, and had used as a place of refuge for their squaws and children. Nothing remained of the Indian fort but a few embankments gradually sinking to the level of the surrounding earth, and already overgrown in part by oaks and other forest trees, the foliage of which formed a contrast to the dark pines and hemlocks of the swamp.

It was late in the dusk of evening that Tom Walker reached the old fort, and he paused there for a while to rest himself. Any one but he would have felt unwilling to linger in this lonely, melancholy place, for the common people had a bad opinion of it from the stories handed down from the time of the Indian wars, when it was asserted that the savages held incantations here and made sacrifices to the evil spirit. Tom Walker, however, was not a man to be troubled with any fears of the kind.

He reposed himself for some time on the trunk of a fallen hemlock, listening to the boding cry of the tree-toad, and delving with his walking-staff into a mound of black mold at his feet. As he turned up the soil unconsciously, his staff struck against something hard. He raked it out of the vegetable mold, and lo! a cloven skull, with an Indian tomahawk buried deep in it, lay before him. The rust on the weapon showed the time that had elapsed since this death-blow had been given. It was a dreary memento of the fierce struggle that had taken place in this last foothold of the Indian warriors.

"Humph!" said Tom Walker, as he gave the skull a kick to shake the dirt from it.

"Let that skull alone!" said a gruff voice.

Tom lifted up his eyes and beheld a great black man, seated directly opposite him on the stump of a tree.

He was exceedingly surprised, having neither seen nor heard any one approach, and he was still more perplexed[Pg 59] on observing, as well as the gathering gloom would permit, that the stranger was neither negro nor Indian.

It is true, he was dressed in a rude, half Indian garb, and had a red belt or sash swathed round his body, but his face was neither black nor copper color, but swarthy and dingy and begrimed with soot, as if he had been accustomed to toil among fires and forges. He had a shock of coarse black hair that stood out from his head in all directions, and bore an ax on his shoulder.

He scowled for a moment at Tom with a pair of great red eyes.

"What are you doing in my grounds?" said the black man, with a hoarse growling voice.

"Your grounds?" said Tom, with a sneer; "no more your grounds than mine: they belong to Deacon Peabody."

"Deacon Peabody be d——d," said the stranger, "as I flatter myself he will be, if he does not look more to his own sins and less to his neighbors'. Look yonder, and see how Deacon Peabody is faring."

Tom looked in the direction that the stranger pointed, and beheld one of the great trees, fair and flourishing without, but rotten at the core, and saw that it had been nearly hewn through, so that the first high wind was likely to blow it down. On the bark of the tree was scored the name of Deacon Peabody.

He now looked round and found most of the tall trees marked with the names of some great men of the colony, and all more or less scored by the ax. The one on which he had been seated, and which had evidently just been hewn down, bore the name of Crowninshield; and he recollected a mighty rich man of that name, who had made a vulgar display of wealth, which it was whispered he had acquired by buccaneering.

"He's just ready for burning!" said the black man, with a growl of triumph. "You see I am likely to have a good stock of firewood for winter."

"But what right have you," said Tom, "to cut down Deacon Peabody's timber?"

"The right of prior claim," said the other. "This woodland belonged to me long before one of your white-faced race put foot upon the soil."

"And pray, who are you, if I may be so bold?" said Tom.

"Oh, I go by various names. I am the Wild Huntsman in some countries; the Black Miner in others. In this neighborhood I am known by the name of the Black Woodsman. I am he to whom the red men devoted this spot, and now and then roasted a white man by way of sweet-smelling sacrifice. Since the red men have been exterminated by you white savages, I amuse myself by presiding at the persecutions of Quakers and Anabaptists; I am the great patron and prompter of slave dealers, and the grand master of the Salem witches."

"The upshot of all which is, that, if I mistake not," said Tom sturdily, "you are he commonly called 'Old Scratch.'"

"The same at your service!" replied the black man, with a half civil nod.

Such was the opening of this interview, according to the old story, though it has almost too familiar an air to be credited. One would think that to meet with such a singular personage in this wild, lonely place would have shaken any man's nerves; but Tom was a hard-minded fellow, not easily daunted, and he had lived so long with a termagant wife that he did not even fear the devil.

It is said that after this commencement they had a long and earnest conversation together as Tom returned homeward. The black man told him of great sums of money which had been buried by Kidd the pirate, under the oak-trees on the high ridge not far from the morass. All these were under his command and protected by his power, so that none could find them but such as propitiated his favor. These he offered to place within Tom Walker's reach, having conceived an especial kindness for him, but they were to be had only on certain conditions.

What these conditions were may easily be surmised, though Tom never disclosed them publicly. They must have been very hard, for he required time to think of them, and he was not a man to stick at trifles where money was in view. When they had reached the edge of the swamp the stranger paused.

"What proof have I that all you have been telling me is true?" said Tom.

"There is my signature," said the[Pg 60] black man, pressing his finger on Tom's forehead. So saying, he turned off among the thickets of the swamp, and seemed, as Tom said, to go down, down, down, into the earth, until he totally disappeared.

When Tom reached home he found the black print of a finger burnt, as it were, into his forehead, which nothing could obliterate.

The first news his wife had to tell him was the sudden death of Absalom Crowninshield, the rich buccaneer. It was announced in the papers with the usual flourish that "a great man had fallen in Israel."

Tom recollected the tree which his black friend had just hewn down, and which was ready for burning. "Let the freebooter roast," said Tom; "who cares!" He now felt convinced that all he had heard and seen was no illusion.

He was not prone to let his wife into his confidence, but as this was an uneasy secret he willingly shared it with her. All her avarice was awakened at the mention of hidden gold, and she urged her husband to comply with the black man's terms and secure what would make them wealthy for life. However Tom might have felt disposed to sell himself to the devil, he was determined not to do so to oblige his wife; so he flatly refused out of the mere spirit of contradiction. Many and bitter were the quarrels they had on the subject, but the more she talked the more resolute was Tom not to be damned to please her. At length she determined to drive the bargain on her own account, and, if she succeeded, to keep all the gain to herself.

Being of the same fearless temper as her husband, she set off for the old Indian fort toward the close of a summer's day. She was many hours absent. When she came back she was reserved and sullen in her replies. She spoke something of a black man whom she had met about twilight, hewing at the root of a tall tree. He was sulky, however, and would not come to terms; she was to go again with a propitiatory offering, but what it was she forbore to say.

The next evening she set off again for the swamp, with her apron heavily laden. Tom waited and waited for her, but in vain: midnight came, but she did not make her appearance; morning, noon, night returned, but still she did not come. Tom now grew uneasy for her safety, especially as he found she had carried off in her apron the silver teapot and spoons, and every portable article of value. Another night elapsed, another morning came; but no wife. In a word, she was never heard of more.

What was her real fate nobody knows, in consequence of so many pretending to know. It is one of those facts that have become confounded by a variety of historians. Some asserted that she lost her way among the tangled mazes of the swamp and sunk into some pit or slough; others, more uncharitable, hinted that she had eloped with the household booty, and made off to some other province; while others assert that the tempter had decoyed her into a dismal quagmire, on top of which her hat was found lying. In confirmation of this it was said a great black man with an ax on his shoulder was seen late that very evening coming out of the swamp, carrying a bundle tied in a check apron, with an air of surly triumph.

The most current and probable story, however, observes that Tom Walker grew so anxious about the fate of his wife and his property that he set out at length to seek them both at the Indian fort. During a long summer's afternoon he searched about the gloomy place, but no wife was to be seen. He called her name repeatedly, but she was nowhere to be heard. The bittern alone responded to his voice, as he flew screaming by; or the bullfrog croaked dolefully from a neighborly pool.

At length, it is said, just in the brown hour of twilight, when the owls began to hoot and the bats to flit about, his attention was attracted by the clamor of carrion crows that were hovering about a cypress-tree. He looked and beheld a bundle tied in a check apron and hanging in the branches of a tree; with a great vulture perched hard by, as if keeping watch upon it. He leaped with joy, for he recognized his wife's apron, and supposed it to contain the household valuables.

"Let us get hold of the property," said he consolingly to himself, "and we will endeavor to do without the woman."[Pg 61]

As he scrambled up the tree the vulture spread its wide wings, and sailed off screaming into the deep shadows of the forest. Tom seized the check apron, but, woful sight! found nothing but a heart and liver tied up in it.

Such, according to the most authentic old story, was all that was to be found of Tom's wife. She had probably attempted to deal with the black man as she had been accustomed to deal with her husband; but though a female scold is generally considered a match for the devil, yet in this instance she appears to have had the worst of it.

She must have died game, however: from the part that remained unconquered. Indeed, it is said, Tom noticed many prints of cloven feet deeply stamped about the tree, and several handfuls of hair that looked as if they had been plucked from the coarse black shock of the woodsman. Tom knew his wife's prowess by experience. He shrugged his shoulders as he looked at the signs of a fierce clapper-clawing. "Egad," said he to himself, "Old Scratch must have had a tough time of it!"

Tom consoled himself for the loss of his property by the loss of his wife; for he was a little of a philosopher. He even felt something like gratitude toward the black woodsman, who he considered had done him a kindness. He sought, therefore, to cultivate a further acquaintance with him, but for some time without success; the old black legs played shy, for whatever people may think, he is not always to be had for calling for; he knows how to play his cards when pretty sure of his game.

At length, it is said, when delay had whetted Tom's eagerness to the quick, and prepared him to agree to anything rather than not gain the promised treasure, he met the black man one evening in his usual woodsman dress, with his ax on his shoulder, sauntering along the edge of the swamp, and humming a tune. He affected to receive Tom's advance with great indifference, made brief replies, and went on humming his tune.

By degrees, however, Tom brought him to business, and they began to haggle about the terms on which the former was to have the pirate's treasure. There was one condition which need not be mentioned, being generally understood in all cases where the devil grants favors; but there were others about which, though of less importance, he was inflexibly obstinate. He insisted that the money found through his means should be employed in his service. He proposed, therefore, that Tom should employ it in the black traffic—that is to say, that he should fit out a slave ship. This, however, Tom resolutely refused; he was bad enough, in all conscience, but the devil himself could not tempt him to turn slave-dealer.

Finding Tom so squeamish on this point, he did not insist upon it, but proposed instead that he should turn usurer; the devil being extremely anxious for the increase of usurers, looking upon them as his peculiar people.

To this no objections were made, for it was just to Tom's taste.

"You shall open a broker's shop in Boston next month," said the black man.

"I'll do it to-morrow if you wish," said Tom Walker.

"You shall lend money at two per cent a month."

"Egad, I'll charge four!" replied Tom Walker.

"You shall extort bonds, foreclose mortgages, drive the merchant to bankruptcy——"

"I'll drive him to the d——l!" cried Tom Walker eagerly.

"You are the usurer for my money!" said the black legs, with delight.

"When will you want the rhino?"

"This very night."

"Done!" said the devil.

"Done!" said Tom Walker.

So they shook hands and struck a bargain.

A few days' time saw Tom Walker seated behind his desk in a counting-house in Boston. His reputation for a ready-moneyed man, who would lend money out for a good consideration, soon spread abroad. Everybody remembers the days of Governor Belcher, when money was particularly scarce. It was a time of paper credit.

The country had been deluged with government bills; the famous Land Bank had been established; there had been a rage for speculating; the people[Pg 62] had run mad with schemes for new settlements, for building cities in the wilderness; land jobbers went about with maps of grants and townships and Eldorados, lying nobody knew where, but which everybody was ready to purchase. In a word, the great speculating fever which breaks out every now and then in the country had raged to an alarming degree, and everybody was dreaming of making sudden fortunes from nothing. As usual, the fever had subsided; the dream had gone off, and the imaginary fortunes with it; the patients were left in doleful plight, and the whole country resounded with the consequent cry of "hard times."

At this propitious time of public distress did Tom Walker set up as a usurer in Boston. His door was soon thronged by customers. The needy and the adventurous; the gambling speculator; the dreaming land-jobber; the thriftless tradesman; the merchant with cracked credit; in short, every one driven to raise money by desperate means and desperate sacrifices hurried to Tom Walker.

Thus Tom was the universal friend of the needy, and he acted like a "friend in need"—that is to say, he always exacted good pay and good security. In proportion to the distress of the applicant was the hardness of his terms. He accumulated bonds and mortgages; gradually squeezed his customers closer and closer, and sent them at length, dry as a sponge, from his door.

In this way he made money hand over hand; became a rich and mighty man, and exalted his cocked hat upon 'change. He built himself, as usual, a vast house, out of ostentation; but left the greater part of it unfinished and unfurnished out of parsimony. He even set up a carriage in the fulness of his vainglory, though he nearly starved the horses which drew it; and as the ungreased wheels groaned and screeched on the axletrees, you would have thought you heard the souls of the poor debtors he was squeezing.

As Tom waxed old, however, he grew thoughtful. Having secured the good things of this world, he began to feel anxious about those of the next. He thought with regret on the bargain he had made with his black friend, and set his wits to work to cheat him out of the conditions. He became, therefore, all of a sudden, a violent churchgoer. He prayed loudly and strenuously, as if heaven were to be taken by force of lungs. Indeed, one might always tell when he had sinned most during the week, by the clamor of his Sunday devotion.

The quiet Christians who had been modestly and steadfastly traveling Zion-ward were struck with self-reproach at seeing themselves so suddenly outstripped in their career by this new-made convert. Tom was as rigid in religious as in money matters; he was a stern supervisor and censurer of his neighbors, and seemed to think every sin entered up to their account became a credit on his own side of the page. He even talked of the expediency of reviving the persecution of Quakers and Anabaptists. In a word, Tom's zeal became as notorious as his riches.

Still, in spite of all this strenuous attention to forms, Tom had a lurking dread that the devil, after all, would have his due. That he might not be taken unawares, therefore, it is said he always carried a small Bible in his coat-pocket. He had also a great folio Bible on his counting-house desk, and would frequently be found reading it when people called on business; on such occasions he would lay his green spectacles on the book, to mark the place, while he turned round to drive some usurious bargain.

Some say that Tom grew a little crack-brained in his old days, and that, fancying his end approaching, he had his horse new shod, saddled, and bridled, and buried with his feet uppermost, because he supposed that at the last day the world would be turned upside down; in which case he should find his horse standing ready for mounting, and he was determined at the worst to give his old friend a run for it. This, however, is probably a mere old wives' fable. If he really did take such a precaution it was totally superfluous; at least, so says the authentic old legend, which closes his story in the following manner:

On one hot afternoon in the dog days, just as a terrible black thunder-gust was coming up, Tom sat in his counting[Pg 63]-house in his white linen cap and India silk morning-gown. He was on the point of foreclosing a mortgage by which he would complete the ruin of an unlucky land speculator, for whom he had professed the greatest friendship. The poor land-jobber begged him to grant a few months' indulgence. Tom had grown testy and irritated, and refused another day.

"My family will be ruined and brought upon the parish," said the land-jobber.

"Charity begins at home," replied Tom. "I must take care of myself in these hard times."

"You have made so much money out of me," said the speculator.

Tom lost his patience and his piety. "The devil take me," said he, "if I have made a farthing!"

Just then there were three loud knocks at the street-door. He stepped out to see who was there.

A black man was holding a black horse which neighed and stamped with impatience.

"Tom, you're come for!" said the black fellow gruffly.

Tom shrunk back, but too late. He had left his little Bible at the bottom of his coat pocket, and his big Bible on the desk buried under the mortgage he was about to foreclose. Never was sinner taken more unawares. The black man whisked him like a child astride the horse and away he galloped in the midst of a thunder-storm.

The clerks stuck their pens behind their ears and stared after him from the windows. Away went Tom Walker, dashing down the street, his white cap bobbing up and down, his morning-gown fluttering in the wind, and his steed striking fire out of the pavement. When the clerks turned to look for the black man he had disappeared.

Tom Walker never returned to foreclose the mortgage. A countryman who lived on the borders of the swamp reported that in the height of the thunder-gust he had heard a great clattering of hoofs and a howling along the road, and that when he ran to the window he just caught sight of a figure such as I have described on a horse that galloped like mad across the fields, over the hills and down into the black hemlock swamp toward the old Indian fort, and that shortly after a thunderbolt fell in that direction which seemed to set the whole forest in a blaze.

The good people of Boston shook their heads and shrugged their shoulders, but had been so much accustomed to witches and goblins and tricks of the devil in all kinds of shapes from the first settlement of the colony, that they were not so much horror-struck as might have been expected.

Trustees were appointed to take charge of Tom's effects. There was nothing, however, to administer upon. On searching his coffers, all his bonds and mortgages were found reduced to cinders. In place of gold and silver, his iron chest was filled with worthless chips and shavings; two skeletons lay in his stable instead of his half-starved horses, and the very next day his great house took fire and was burnt to the ground.

Such was the end of Tom Walker and his ill-gotten wealth. Let all griping money-brokers lay this story to heart. The truth of it is not to be doubted. The very hole under the oak-trees, from whence he dug Kidd's money, is to be seen to this day, and the neighboring swamp and old Indian fort are often haunted on stormy nights by a figure on horseback, in a morning-gown and white cap, which is doubtless the troubled spirit of the usurer.

In fact, the story has resolved itself into a proverb, and is the origin of that saying prevalent throughout New England of "The Devil and Tom Walker."

SHELLEY ON CHILDREN.

They were earth's purest children, young and fair,
With eyes the shrines of unawaken'd thought,
And brows as bright as spring or morning.

VICTOR HUGO ON WOMAN.

Les Misérables.[Pg 64]

The Beginnings of Stage Careers.

By MATTHEW WHITE, Jr.

A Series of Papers That Will Be Continued From Month to Month
and Include All Players of Note.

How did he start? How did she manage to get the chance to show what she could do? Was it "pull," persistence, or the fact of being born in the profession?

These are the things playgoers—and who is not a playgoer these days?—want to know about the players who have "arrived." There is a good deal of variety in the answers herewith set down. In some cases it is rather difficult to state just when the real start was made; in others, baby-day débuts can scarcely be considered to "count."

But of one thing the reader may be certain: in no instance has permanent success been won without work, be the actor a recruit from the business world, the society drawing-room, or the ranks of the Thespians themselves.

MANSFIELD'S OPPORTUNITY.

He Failed to Earn a Livelihood as a
Painter, and Was Graduated from
Comic Opera to the Drama.

Although Richard Mansfield's mother was Mme. Rudersdorf, the prima donna, he was in no sense cradled in the theater. His infant eyes first looked on the light in Heligoland, an island in the North Sea that then belonged to England. This was in the year 1857, and he was brought up with the idea that one day he should become a painter. It was while he was a schoolboy at Derby, England, that he received the first lift toward the career which has placed him at the head of his fellows on the American boards.

The boys arranged to act "The Merchant of Venice" on a certain grand occasion known as "Speech Day," and young Mansfield was cast for Shylock. So well did he acquit himself then that no less exalted a personage than a bishop shook him by the hand with the words that must still ring in the now mighty Richard's ears: "Heaven forbid that I should encourage you to become an actor; but should you, if I mistake not, you will be a great one."

Preparatory schooling over, his art studies at South Kensington were broken in upon by failing family fortunes, and the necessity of earning money in the present rather than waiting to gather in perhaps greater amounts in the future. So, through the agency of friends of his father, he set sail for Boston, where an opening had been made for him in the big dry-goods house of Jordan, Marsh & Co.

But business was not his forte. He spent all his leisure time in painting pictures, which he found, moreover, he could sell very readily. He burned for the more artistic atmosphere of the city by the Thames, and, encouraged by his success in disposing of his paintings, he threw up his mercantile job and departed for London.

And now began for him seven memorable years—years of keen disappointment, of deep bitterness, of hope deferred, of actual suffering in body as well as mind. The kind of pictures he had been able to sell with ease in Boston found no buyers in England, and matters went speedily with him from bad to worse.

The incident he had used in his play "Monsieur," of his hero's engagement to play the piano and toppling from the stool through weakness induced by hunger, is drawn from his own experience. The episode occurred at a concert-hall, when he was possessed of only one suit of clothes and no home.

Mansfield Meets W.S. Gilbert.

It was his ability to play and sing that really kept his body and soul together in these awful days and nights, for once in a while, by a clutch at the fringe of friendships left him from the old days, he could obtain an engagement to entertain a company of literary or stage folk. He fell in with W.S. Gilbert on one of these occasions. "Pinafore" had just taken the public by storm, and the makers thereof were hastening to[Pg 65] utilize the wave of popular favor by thrusting all of their available wares to a ride upon its crest.

"I think that young man will do for Wellington Wells in 'The Sorcerer,'" Gilbert remarked to his manager, R. D'Oyly Carte.

It was to be a company for the provinces, and as Mr. Carte thought that the rather shabbily attired young person who officiated at the piano would not be exorbitant in his demands for salary, he decided that he would do, and offered Mansfield three pounds, or fifteen dollars, a week.

To the out-at-elbows, fate-buffeted artist, this seemed a princely sum, and he accepted the position with an eagerness he hoped was not as apparent as his necessities demanded it should be. But his spine stiffened a little later on when, having made good with Wellington Wells and one or two other impersonations in the Gilbert and Sullivan repertoire, he asked for a raise of salary amounting to two dollars a week. Mr. Carte declined to grant it, and Mansfield quit.

But, on the strength of his first engagement, it was not a heaven and earth raising matter to secure a second, and, like all the rest of his ambitious British brother actors, he steered his course across the Atlantic. He found a chance to appear as Dromez in the comic opera "Les Manteaux Noirs," which was done in New York at the Standard Theater, now known as the Manhattan.

This was in the early eighties. His next venture was Nick Vedder in a musical setting of "Rip Van Winkle," after which he returned to the Gilbert and Sullivan line and appeared as the Lord Chancellor in "Iolanthe."

A Lucky Misfortune.

And right here steps in one of the luckiest misfortunes that ever befell a man. For had Mansfield not turned his ankle while dancing as the Chancellor in Baltimore he might have remained in comic opera until he disputed twentieth century honors in the field with De Wolf Hopper and Jeff De Angelis.

The accident put him out of the cast and sent him back to New York, right in the path of A.M. Palmer, who happened to be looking for somebody to do Tirandel in "A Parisian Romance." This was a small part, but, being in straight drama rather than comic opera, was regarded by Mansfield as a step upward, and he did not hesitate about accepting the engagement.

What followed has been told so often from the Mansfield side that the reader may be glad to get the story in the words of the man who made it possible for a fellow actor to lift himself in a night from obscurity to fame. I quote from "Recollections of a Player," by James H. Stoddart, whose last creation on the boards was Lachlan, in "The Bonnie Brier Bush," and who is now living in retirement at his home in Sewaren, New Jersey.

From the Memoirs of James H. Stoddart.

"After the reading of the play the company were unanimous in their opinion that 'A Parisian Romance' was a one-part piece, and that part the Baron, and all the principals had their eye on him. After some delay and much expectancy, the rôle was given to me. Miss Minnie Conway, who was a member of the company and had seen the play in Paris, said that she thought the Baron a strange part to give me.

"'It's a Lester Wallack part,' she said.

"This information rather disconcerted me, but I rehearsed the part for about a week, and then, being convinced that it did not suit me, I went to Mr. Palmer and told him I felt very doubtful as to whether I could do him or myself justice in it.

"He would not hear of my giving it up, saying that he knew me better than I did myself; that I was always doubtful; but that he was willing to take the risk. He also read a letter which he had received from some one in Paris giving advice regarding the production, in which, among other things, it was said that Baron Chevrial was the principal part, that everything depended on him, and that 'if you can get Stoddart to look well in full dress he is the man you must have to play it.'

"I left Mr. Palmer, resolved to try again, and do my best. Mr. Mansfield was in the play for a small part, and, I discovered, was watching me like a cat during rehearsals.

"A lot of fashion-plates were sent to my dressing-room, with instructions to select my costume. As I had hitherto been, for some time, associated with vagabonds, villains, etc., I think these fashion-plates had a tendency to unnerve me more than anything else. So I again went to Mr. Palmer and told him I could not play the Baron.

Young Mansfield's Triumph.

"'You must,' said Mr. Palmer. 'I rather think Mr. Mansfield must have suspected something of the sort, for he has been to me, asking, in the event of your not playing it, that I give it to him. I have never seen Mr. Mansfield act; he has not had much experience, and might ruin the production.'

"At Mr. Palmer's earnest solicitation I promised to try it again. I had by this time worked myself into such a state of nervousness that my wife interfered.

"'All the theaters in the world,' said she, 'are not worth what you are suffering. Go and tell Mr. Palmer you positively cannot play the part.'[Pg 66]

"Fearing the outcome, I did not risk another interview with my manager, but sought out Mr. Cazauran, and returned the part to him with a message to Mr. Palmer that I positively declined to play it.

"The result was that Mr. Mansfield was put in my place. The result is well known.

"Mr. Palmer was delighted, and I consoled myself with the thought that my refusal of the part had proved not only far better for the interests of the production, but was also the immediate cause of giving an early opportunity to one who has since done much for the stage."

Back To Comic Opera.

Oddly enough, in spite of his sensational success as the senile Baron, Mansfield's next engagement after "A Parisian Romance" had run its course at the Union Square Theater, was as Koko in Gilbert and Sullivan's "Mikado." But the halt of this company in Boston brought the young actor a chance to connect himself with the famous Museum stock there, and he bade good-by to comic opera for good when he first trod the Museum boards as Chevrial, following this up with the title rôle in "Prince Karl."